Daily Briefing: Homeowner charged with shooting Missouri teen who went to the wrong house

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An 85-year-old white man who shot a Black teen at his front door in Kansas City, Missouri, has been charged with armed assault. Also in the news: The trial between Fox News and a voting machine company begins today and Republicans have yet to release a counterplan to the Biden administration's budget proposal.

🙋🏼‍♀️ I'm Nicole Fallert, Daily Briefing author. Today is the deadline to file your taxes, but what happens if you don't?

These are Tuesday's headlines.

Attorneys, community demand justice in Kansas City shooting

An 85-year-old white man has been charged with armed assault after he shot and injured a Black teen who showed up at the wrong address. But charging documents neglect a “racial component” to the incident in which Andrew Lester twice shot 16-year-old Ralph Yarl at his front door in Kansas City, prosecutors said

Police did not initially confirm the shooter's race, but Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said "I do recognize the racial components of this case.”

  • The Black teen was going to pick up his younger brothers Thursday when he went to the wrong address and rang the doorbell. The homeowner shot Yarl in the head and then shot him again after the teenager fell to the ground. Yarl then went to three different houses in search of help. Yarl was released from the hospital Monday and is now recovering at home.

  • The homeowner was taken into custody and a firearm was found, authorities said. But then the homeowner was placed on a 24-hour investigative hold and released pending further investigation.

  • "There can be no excuse for the release of this armed and dangerous suspect after admitting to shooting an unarmed, non-threatening and defenseless teenager that rang his door," attorneys Ben Crump and S. Lee Merritt, who have been retained by Yarl's family, said in a statement Sunday.

More news: A New York woman driven to wrong address was fatally shot by a homeowner.

Ralph Yarl, 16, was shot after the teenager approached the wrong house while going to pick up his brothers.
Ralph Yarl, 16, was shot after the teenager approached the wrong house while going to pick up his brothers.

Trump calls on Murdoch to back false 2020 election fraud claims ahead of Dominion trial

Former President Donald Trump on Monday called on media mogul Rupert Murdoch to back false information about the 2020 presidential election ahead of the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems has pursued against Fox News and its parent company set to begin trial Tuesday. Trump on his Truth Social network alleged that Fox News is "in big trouble if they do not expose the truth on cheating in the 2020 election." Top executives and hosts at Fox News have privately shared that they didn’t believe Trump’s allegations of election fraud in the 2020 race, according to a court filing in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the network. Read more

More news to know now

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Alabama shooting victims were in their late teens and early 20s

A small community was grieving the loss of four young people in a shooting at a Sweet 16 birthday party over the weekend. The victims, all Alabama natives in their late teens or early 20s, died after gunfire erupted at Mahogany Masterpiece dance studio Saturday night. On Monday, authorities said the number of injured in the shooting had increased from 28 to 32. Several questions remained unanswered by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the identity of the shooter and a possible motive. Read more

Two teens embrace at a prayer vigil on Sunday, April 16, 2023, outside First Baptist Church in Dadeville, Alabama.
Two teens embrace at a prayer vigil on Sunday, April 16, 2023, outside First Baptist Church in Dadeville, Alabama.

House to soon vote on bill to raise debt ceiling

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., announced the House will soon vote on a bill to raise the debt ceiling through 2023 as negotiations with the White House have stalled. The standstill comes after the speaker had asked the president to restart negotiations on raising the country’s borrowing limit in a March 28 letter. In response, the White House has stressed it will not negotiate the debt ceiling until the GOP releases its counterproposal to the administration’s budget plan, which was released in March. Republicans have yet to release their federal budget proposal and have not indicated when it could be made public. Read more

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Putin critic Kara-Murza sentenced to 25 years in prison

Russia's campaign of quashing dissent against the war in Ukraine took another harsh turn Monday when prominent opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza was convicted of treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison. This was a particularly severe penalty for the crime of denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin's "special military operation'' in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Kremlin said Putin made his second visit to Ukraine in the last two months on Tuesday to the areas Russia occupies. Read more

One more thing

Photo of the day: Moments of Coachella 2023's first weekend

There was plenty to love about the first weekend of the 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and festival team from The Palm Springs Desert Sun – part of the USA TODAY Network – is here to tell the tale. Read more about our most memorable moments from the past weekend and check out some of our favorite photos from the hot music festival.

BLACKPINK is the first K-pop group to ever headline one of the world's biggest music festivals.
BLACKPINK is the first K-pop group to ever headline one of the world's biggest music festivals.

Nicole Fallert is a newsletter writer at USA TODAY, sign up for the email here. Want to send Nicole a note? Shoot her an email at NFallert@usatoday.com or follow along with her musings on Twitter. Support journalism like this – subscribe to USA TODAY here.

Associated Press contributed reporting.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Missouri homeowner charged, Dominion trial, Alabama shooting, debt ceiling, Tax Day, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Coachella: Daily Briefing