U.S.Associated PressDeSantis signs Florida's anti-riot bill, cites Chauvin trial
Florida's top Republicans cited events in cities around the country — but not the Jan. 6 riots in Washington — as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Monday to create tougher penalties for people who participate in violent protests. The so-called anti-riot bill was a response to protests around the country because of police violence against African-Americans. After the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, Republicans pushing the legislation used it as an example to support the effort.
U.S.NextSharkAsian Woman in SF Followed, Robbed of $16,000 Rolex at Gunpoint
An Asian woman in her 50s was held at gunpoint and robbed of her jewelry -- including a $16,000 Rolex watch -- at San Francisco's Sunset District last October, new surveillance footage shows. The surveillance footage, now under investigation by the San Francisco police, shows two suspects emerging from a white SUV. Lee told ABC7 News anchor Dion Lim that one of her attackers was arrested in Georgia last week.
U.S.CBS NewsColorado judge resigns after using N-word
A Colorado judge who was censured by the state's Supreme Court after being accused of using racist language with a coworker has resigned. The Colorado Supreme Court said Arapahoe County District Court Judge Natalie T. Chase used the N-word multiple times with a coworker and was racially insensitive on many occasions, according to court documents recommending discipline for Chase and public censure from the Court. The documents detail a 2020 incident in which Chase, a former law clerk and a Family Court Facilitator were driving back to work after attending an event in Pueblo, Colorado.
WorldAxiosNew evidence leads judge to revoke bail for Proud Boy leaders involved in Capitol riot
A federal judge will revoke bail for two leaders of the Proud Boys, a paramilitary right-wing extremist group, after they were released while awaiting trial for their involvement in the Capitol insurrection, Politico reports. Why it matters: The judge said he was swayed by new evidence from prosecutors showing encrypted messages and profanity-laden social media posts from the defendants that vowed violence against lawmakers who planned to certify the election. What they're saying: "The defendants stand charged with seeking to steal one of the crown jewels of our country, in a sense, by interfering with the peaceful transfer of power," Judge Timothy Kelly said about his decision.
WorldReutersPakistan opens talks with outlawed Islamists behind violent anti-France protests
Pakistan on Monday opened negotiations with radical Islamist after they freed 11 police abducted during week-long anti-blasphemy protests against France in which four officers were killed, the interior minister said. Most main businesses, markets, shopping malls and public transport services were closed in major cities in response to a strike call by the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) and its affiliated groups. Pakistan's PSX 100 stock exchange opened 500 points down in the morning though recovered later in the day.
U.S.National ReviewPelosi: Waters Should Not Apologize for Urging Protesters to ‘Get More Confrontational’
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday said she does not believe Representative Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) should apologize for her recent suggestion that protesters should “get more confrontational” if former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is acquitted. On Saturday, Waters traveled to Brooklyn Center, Minn., to join protests in response to the police shooting of Daunte Wright last week. Speaking just a few miles from where George Floyd died last year after Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes during his arrest, Waters said she was “going to fight with all of the people who stand for justice,” and called on others to join her.
- U.S.Associated Press
Protesters detained at Raleigh police brutality march
Several protesters were taken into custody Sunday night after authorities in North Carolina declared a police brutality demonstration an “unlawful assembly. For a third night in a row, demonstrators marched through downtown Raleigh protesting the police killings of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Minnesota and 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago. The evening started as a vigil for Wright, Toledo and others killed by police.
PoliticsAxiosRep. Steve Stivers, former chair of top Republican committee, to leave Congress early
Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), former chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, announced Monday that he will be retiring from Congress on May 16 to become president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. Why it matters: Stivers' resignation will add breathing room to the Democrats' razor-thin majority in the House and create a special election in Ohio's Republican-leaning 15th congressional district. Between the lines: Stivers raised $1.3 million in the first quarter of 2021 and was reportedly considering a run for U.S. Senate in Ohio.
WorldReutersSome progress in nuclear talks, interim deal possible -Iran officials
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran and world powers have made some progress on how to revive the 2015 nuclear accord later abandoned by the United States, and an interim deal could be a way to gain time for a lasting settlement, Iranian officials said on Monday. Tehran and the powers have been meeting in Vienna since early April to work on steps that must be taken, touching on U.S. sanctions and Iran's recent breaches of the deal, to bring back Tehran and Washington into full compliance with the accord. "We are on the right track and some progress has been made, but this does not mean that the talks in Vienna have reached the final stage," Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told a weekly news conference in Tehran.
U.S.NextShark'Mortal Kombat' Video of SJ Sergeant Performing Baton Tricks Investigated by Internal Affairs
A police sergeant who showed off his baton handling skills in a video set to music from the film "Mortal Kombat," is now under investigation by the San Jose Police Department's internal affairs office. Sgt. Eddie Chan can be seen performing martial arts moves with two police batons.
PoliticsAssociated PressSupreme Court rejects lingering 2020 election challenge case
The Supreme Court on Monday said it will not hear a case out of Pennsylvania related to the 2020 election, a dispute that had lingered while similar election challenges had already been rejected by the justices. The justices in February, after President Joe Biden's inauguration, had rejected a handful of cases related to the 2020 election. In the case the court rejected Monday, however, the court had called for additional briefing that was not complete until the end of March. The case involved a federal court challenge to a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision requiring election officials to receive and count mailed-in ballots that arrived up to three days after the election.
WorldReutersEnd of the Castro era: Diaz-Canel becomes Cuban Communist Party chief
HAVANA (Reuters) -Cuba's ruling Communist Party elected President Miguel Diaz-Canel to succeed Raul Castro as party first secretary, the most powerful position in the country, on the final day of its congress on Monday. The succession marks the end of six decades of rule by brothers Fidel and Raul Castro, who led Cuba's leftist 1959 revolution. The mantle now passes to a younger generation that worked its way up the party ranks rather than forging itself through guerrilla warfare.
- WorldWPVI – Philadelphia
7 teens arrested in connection with carjackings, assaults in Delaware
Delaware State Police have announced that seven teenagers have been arrested in connection with several carjackings and violent attacks in the First State.
U.S.The StateMassive gasoline spill near Huntersville even worse than company thought, state says
Colonial Pipeline Co. could face more penalties after new data revealed even more gasoline may have spilled near Huntersville than the company's most recent estimate, state officials said. The company's previous 1.2-million gallon estimate ranked the spill as one of the worst in North Carolina's history. “It is unacceptable that for eight months Colonial Pipeline has been unable to provide a reliable accounting of the amount of gasoline released into this community,” Dionne Delli-Gatti, secretary of the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, said in a statement.
U.S.Chicago TribuneJaslyn Adams shooting: First grader shot 6 times, Chicago police investigating if father was target
The 7-year-old girl killed Sunday afternoon while with her father in a McDonald's drive-thru was a first grade student who attended a Chicago public school in Humboldt Park and Chicago detectives are investigating her fatal shooting as possibly targeting her father, according to police. Jaslyn Adams, 7, was shot six times Sunday as she and her father waited in a drive-thru line at the McDonald's, 3200 W. Roosevelt Road in the Homan Square neighborhood on the West Side, a preliminary police report states. A responding police officer took the gravely injured child in a squad car and rushed her to Stroger Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 4:39 p.m. Her father, 29, with whom she had been in an Infiniti sedan in the drive-thru lane at the time of the shooting, was shot once in the lower back, the report states.
WorldMiami HeraldLast Castro steps down. Unfortunately, too many Cuban exiles didn’t live to see it | Editorial
For the first time in six decades, no Castro will hold an official position of power in Cuba's government — at least that's what the Cuban government wants us to believe. On Friday, Raúl Castro, the late Fidel's younger brother, stepped down as head of Cuba's Communist Party, the moral center of the regime that reshaped Cuba — and Miami. Sadly, Miami-Dade's cemeteries are filled with the graves of Cuban exiles, those who fled in the '50s, '60s and '70s, and whose lives were so brutally interrupted by the Castro brothers' deceitful revolution.
PoliticsThe IndependentBiden news: White House warns Russia of consequences if Navalny dies as John Kerry apologises for Trump
The White House has warned Russia that “there will be consequences” if Alexei Navalny, a Putin critic, dies in prison, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday. This comes after President Joe Biden gave a speech on Thursday about Russia where he failed to mention the imprisoned Russian opposition leader, which angered critics. John Kerry has also apologised for former President Donald Trump's “non-leadership” on the effort to address the climate crisis during his four years as US leader.
U.S.Fort Worth Star-TelegramTexas didn’t see a COVID surge after opening and ending its mask mandate. Here’s why
It's been over a month since Gov. Greg Abbott lifted the state's mask mandate and ended business restrictions, but at least for now, Texas has not become the epicenter of a coronavirus surge as some predicted. After Abbott announced COVID-19 restrictions would end on March 10, President Joe Biden called the decision a “big mistake” and that it reflected “Neanderthal thinking. A slew of other political figures thought the decision was premature and a way to distract people from the February winter storm and power outage that killed at least 111 Texans.
U.S.Business InsiderMarjorie Taylor Greene says she'll introduce a resolution to expel Rep. Maxine Waters for her 'continual incitement of violence'
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she'd introduce a resolution to expel Rep. Maxine Waters. Greene said Waters incited violence when she spoke with protesters in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Protests in the city have gone on for a week following the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright.
LifestyleTODAYNo more fingerprints! How to easily clean stainless steel appliances at home
Cleaning stainless steel can also be tricky. Luckily, TODAY Home found the magic solution: olive oil. It turns out that the versatile oil is an effective cleaner for stainless steel and protector for all your stainless steel woes.
BusinessCBS NewsAmazon buying Atlas 5 rockets to launch its internet satellites
Amazon plans to buy nine powerful Atlas 5 rockets from United Launch Alliance to boost an initial wave of the company's planned Kuiper internet satellites into orbit. The satellites will be part of a planned constellation of 3,236 relay stations that will compete with OneWeb and SpaceX's fast-growing Starlink system. "We're determined to make affordable broadband a reality for customers and communities around the world," Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in a statement.
WorldBusiness InsiderThe war against Russia's spies just cost Putin billions from a cancelled nuclear contract
Russia announced on Monday the expulsion of at least 20 Czech diplomats in a furious response to the gutting of Moscow's most critical intelligence station in central Europe over the weekend, when Czech authorities accused Russian intelligence of being behind two blasts at an ammunition storage facility in 2014. Czechia has accused a notorious Russian intelligence unit implicated in multiple operations across Europe and the UK of conducting two operations in 2014 that led to explosions at a munitions factory in 2014. At the time, the ammunition was said to be headed for Russia's rivals in Ukraine.
U.S.USA TODAY'Person of interest' arrested after 3 killed in shooting at Kenosha, Wisconsin, bar
Authorities say they arrested a "person of interest" in connection with the shooting that left three men dead at a busy tavern in southeastern Wisconsin early Sunday. According to the Kenosha County Sheriff's Department, the person in custody will be criminally charged with one count of first-degree intentional homicide with additional criminal charges to follow pending further investigation. At least two people were seriously injured, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth said, later adding that about 100 officers were looking for suspects.
TechnologyBBCPriti Patel: Facebook encryption plan ‘must not hamper child protection’
Facebook's plans to roll out encryption across its messaging services could jeopardise ongoing work to combat child abuse, the Home Secretary has warned. "We cannot allow a situation where law enforcement's ability to tackle abhorrent criminal acts and protect victims is severely hampered," Priti Patel told a charity-hosted event. Facebook says its plans for wider encryption protects users' privacy.
WorldBusiness InsiderThe bosses of the Suez Canal say the excavator operator who helped free the Ever Given is getting his overtime pay, plus a bonus
The excavator driver who helped free the Ever Given ought to have been paid, Suez Canal bosses said. Abdullah Abdul-Gawad, a subcontractor, earlier told Insider he was still waiting for overtime money. The Suez Canal Authority said it paid, though Insider couldn't reach Abdul-Gawad's direct employer.
“High-speed rail is bold and attention-grabbing, but the scale of the project makes it near impossible.”
“While a long, slow train ride across the country can be a great thing, the US needs real high-speed rail too.”
“Liberals are right that America has a car problem — but it's commutes, not road trips, that suck.”
“Investments into a high-speed rail system wouldn’t just improve the railroads — automobile traffic could also see some relief.”
“Big cities that are reasonably close together is pretty much a prerequisite for high-speed rail.”