PoliticsYahoo NewsRepublican operator founds organization to fight the left's 'cancel culture'
Some may find the nation's relentless culture wars exhausting, but self-described “right-wing ideologue” Mike Davis does not count himself among the battle-weary. The energetic conservative operative announced on Monday the creation of a new group, Unsilenced Majority, that seeks to “oppose cancel culture and fight back against the woke mob and their enablers,” as a press release put it. “Our goal is to organize a grassroots army of everyday American activists all over the country,” Davis told Yahoo News.
U.S.Raleigh News and ObserverOn-duty police officer sexually assaulted by gas station manager, Georgia cops say
The manager of a Georgia gas station is accused of sexually assaulting a police officer who was on duty and in uniform. According to the Hogansville Police Department, Prilesh Navinchandra Thakkar “attempted to forcefully commit an indecent act on an on duty female police officer.” The officer was conducting a business check on May 11 at the Hop In service station along state Highway 54 when the 300-pound manager grabbed her and pulled her behind the counter, WAGA reported.
WorldThe WeekBiden, harboring low expectations, wants Israel and Gaza to give 'calm' a chance
President Biden is trying to tackle a number of big problems, and he pretty clearly was hoping Mideast peace wasn't going to be one of them. But the long-simmering conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted again last week, more than 200 Palestinians and 10 Israelis are dead, and the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and Hamas rockets for Israel show no sign of letting up. Biden said Monday that he had voiced support for a ceasefire in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but he isn't publicly pressuring Israel to accept a pause in fighting and Netanyahu has made clear he's not currently interested.
U.S.Associated PressFormer jailer seeks clemency for one death row inmate
If Richard Moore is executed, he will have some say in how he goes — the electric chair or the firing squad. Moore is one of three prisoners on South Carolina's death row who have run out of appeals in the past six months and could be among the first to face the grim choice under a new state law. The state Supreme Court set and then stayed the prisoners' executions after the Corrections Department said it didn't have the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections.
WorldBBCAustralian businessman trapped in India dies from Covid
An Australian man has died of Covid in Delhi, after getting infected around the time Australia banned citizens in India from returning home. Govind Kant, a Sydney businessman, died on Sunday, his company said. Mr Kant is believed to be the second Australian to have died in India amid a temporary travel ban imposed after a devastating second wave.
PoliticsThe WeekBiden is reportedly moving quickly to start issuing pardons
President Biden may begin issuing pardons before the 2022 midterms, The New York Times reports. Per the Times, administration officials have begun evaluating clemency requests, and activists have said they feel they're getting the sense pardons and commutations may be signed by the president within the next year or two. "We asked them not to wait to the end of a term to execute pardon and commutation power for photo ops, and they definitely assured us that is not this administration's plans," DeAnna Hoskins, the president of the criminal justice group JustLeadershipUSA, told the Times.
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Woman accused of killing her 2 kids with meat cleaver after argument with husband
A woman threatened to stab her husband over an argument about money to move to Japan before she allegedly killed their two children with a meat cleaver in a suburban Phoenix apartment, police said Sunday.
U.S.Associated PressLawyer: US approves release of oldest Guantanamo prisoner
A 73-year-old from Pakistan who is the oldest prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention center was notified on Monday that he has been approved for release after more than 16 years in custody at the U.S. base in Cuba, his lawyer said. Saifullah Paracha, who has been held on suspicion of ties to al-Qaida but never charged with a crime, was cleared by the prisoner review board along with two other men, said Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, who represented him at his hearing in November. As is customary, the notification did not provide detailed reasoning for the decision and concluded only that Paracha is “not a continuing threat” to the U.S., Sullivan-Bennis said.
WorldReutersTaiwan president says to scrutinise electricity management after outages
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen pledged on Tuesday to look into the tech powerhouse's electricity management after two major blackouts hit homes and businesses in less than a week, triggering criticism of the government's power policy. Taiwan, which hosts major chip makers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, imposed power cuts on Monday evening following a spike in demand amid a heatwave and drought and failure at a power plant, in the second such outage in a week. In a live broadcast online, Tsai offered her apology for the two outages and promised to reexamine the island's power management amid heated debate over the her electricity policy.
WorldBBCClimate change: Ban all gas boilers from 2025 to reach net-zero
The International Energy Agency (IEA) says that no new fossil fuel boilers should be sold from 2025 if the world is to achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of this century. The IEA says that from now, there is no place for new coal, oil or gas exploration or supplies. The energy sector, according to the IEA, is the source of around 75% of the emissions of greenhouse gases that are driving up global temperatures.
U.S.The WeekBill Gates admits affair with Microsoft employee, denies being forced off Microsoft's board over it
Melinda French Gates started talking with divorce lawyers in late 2019, not long after The New York Times reported that Bill Gates had more interactions with pedophile and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein that she had known about, the Times and The Wall Street Journal report. Microsoft board members hired a law firm to investigate the woman's allegations and deemed the relationship inappropriate, and by early 2020 "some board members decided it was no longer suitable for Mr. Gates to sit as a director at the software company he started and led for decades," the Journal reports.
WorldAssociated PressIsrael, Hamas trade fire in Gaza as war rages on
Israel carried out a wave of airstrikes on what it said were militant targets in Gaza, leveling a six-story building, and militants fired dozens of rockets into Israel on Tuesday. Palestinians across the region observed a general strike as the war, now in its second week, showed no signs of abating. Heavy fighting broke out May 10 when Gaza's militant Hamas rulers fired long-range rockets toward Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests there against Israel's heavy-handed policing of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a flashpoint holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims, and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers.
WorldReutersExclusive-India unlikely to resume sizable COVID-19 vaccine exports until October -sources
The World Health Organization, which co-leads COVAX, on Monday called on vaccine makers outside India to advance supplies to the programme given the shortfall from the South Asian country. The sources, who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to talk to media on the subject, said India's vaccination drive will now take priority as its tally of coronavirus infections crosses 25 million and daily death toll hits a record high. "We don't have to officially convey to all countries as we are not obligated to do," one of the sources said about the decision to hold back exports.
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Pakistan police foil mob attempt to lynch blasphemy suspect
Pakistani police said Tuesday they foiled an attempt by a mob to lynch a blasphemy suspect recently arrested on charges of insulting Islam. The mob stormed the Golra police station on the outskirts of Islamabad on Monday night, after police refused to hand over the suspect to the crowd outside for punishment, local police chief Asim Ghaffar said. The suspect, Shaukat Ali, was unharmed while six police officials were slightly injured in the attack, Ghaffar said.
WorldBBCJust 20 firms behind more than half of single-use plastic waste - study
The research - carried out by a consortium including the London School of Economics - looked at which companies are at the base of the plastic supply chain and make polymers, the building blocks of all plastics. It names 20 petrochemical companies which it says are the source of 55 per cent of the world's single-use plastic waste. The companies include ExxonMobil, Dow and Sinopec.
WorldThe Telegraph'This is our land': Russia warns West against staking claims in Arctic
Russia has warned the West against staking claims in the Arctic ahead of an international meeting on the future of the region, where strategic competition has reached levels not seen since the end of the Cold War. Moscow has recently increased its military presence in the area while also seeking to exploit mineral resources and new shipping routes that have opened up as the ice melts. The US, several Nordic countries, and China have also made moves to protect their own interests in the High North.
WorldReutersSouth Korea's Moon seeks urgency on N.Korea, vaccine deal at Biden summit
South Korean President Moon Jae-in is hoping to use his first summit with U.S. President Joe Biden this week to revive long-stalled talks with North Korea and urge the White House to embrace the issue with more urgency. South Korean officials say they were heartened by the new administration's recent policy review, which called for a focus on practical diplomatic steps to reduce tensions while maintaining the final goal of removing North Korea's nuclear weapons. But amid the global coronavirus pandemic, domestic economic and political challenges, and foreign policy crises elsewhere, the Biden administration has not signalled North Korea is a top priority, potentially complicating Moon's hopes of cementing his legacy.
WorldAssociated PressLam defends freezing of publisher's assets as safety measure
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Tuesday defended the freezing of pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai's assets as a necessary move under the city's new national security law to protect the safety of all Chinese people. Lam told reporters the move was authorized under the sweeping law that was imposed on the city by Beijing last year and empowered authorities to “freeze suspicious assets involved that would undermine national security. It means the Hong Kong government is very serious and rigorous when dealing with national security matters, because it involves something that endangers national security, not just the safety of Hong Kong society, but also the safety of 1.4 billion Chinese people,”...
PoliticsThe IndependentRudy Giuliani complains he’s being treated like drug cartel head amid reports Trump has abandoned him
Rudy Giuliani has complained he is being treated like the head of a drug cartel head amid reports that Donald Trump has abandoned him. Lawyers for Mr Giuliani have condemned prosecutors for the 28 April raid by FBI agents on his New York home and criticised them for gaining electronic access to his accounts. “Unfortunately for Giuliani, and even more unfortunately for the attorney-client privilege and executive deliberation privilege, and the public's perception that those privileges are real, the SDNY simply chose to treat a distinguished lawyer as if he was the head of a drug cartel or a terrorist, in order to create maximum prejudicial coverage of both Giuliani, and his most well-known client – the former President of the United States,” it stated.
WorldAssociated PressIndia reports record day of virus deaths as cases level off
India's total virus cases since the pandemic began swept past 25 million on Tuesday as the country registered more than 260,000 new cases and a record 4,329 fatalities in the past 24 hours. The numbers continue a trend of falling cases after infections dipped below 300,000 for the first time in weeks on Monday. Active cases in the country also decreased by more than 165,000 on Tuesday — the biggest dip in weeks.
WorldReutersLebanon minister's remarks on Gulf draw criticism of PM-designate
Lebanon's caretaker foreign minister, Charbel Wehbe, made scathing remarks about Gulf countries in an interview late on Monday, blaming them for the spread of Islamic State, comments that could add strain to an already tense relationship. "Those countries of love, friendship and fraternity, they got us Islamic State and planted it in the plains of Nineveh and Anbar and Palmyra," Wehbe said in an interview with regional network Al Hurra, referring to parts of neighbouring Syria and Iraq that Islamic State seized in 2014. When asked if by "those countries" he meant Gulf states, Wehbe said he did not want to name names.
BusinessAssociated PressAsia shares gain despite worsening pandemic, inflation fears
The S&P 500 dipped 0.3% to 4,163.29, with tech stocks and other former market darlings once again taking the brunt of the losses. The benchmark index is coming off a 1.4% weekly drop from its record high, which would have been even worse if not for a late rebound. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2% to 34,327.79, while the Nasdaq composite lost 0.4% to 13,379.05.
U.S.Associated PressMan cuts own throat, dies after verdict in federal courtroom
Federal authorities say a man on trial in Fargo, North Dakota, slashed his own throat in the courtroom Monday and died. North Dakota U.S. Marshal Dallas Carlson said the incident happened after a jury returned a partial guilty verdict against the man, who had faced terrorizing-related charges. Carlson said the man had a sharp instrument that might have been made of plastic.
PoliticsThe IndependentBiden approves $735m sale of precision-guided missiles to Israel, drawing criticism from Democrats
The Biden administration has approved the sale of $735m of precision-guided weapons to Israel, raising the ire of some Democrats who question support for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The Washington Post reports that Congress was officially notified of the proposed sale on 5 May, citing three people familiar with the notification — a week before the current conflict with Hamas began. Rockets fired from Gaza into Israel have led to the deaths of 10 Israelis.
PoliticsBusiness InsiderWhite House issue subtle dig at Trump over unreleased tax returns, saying Biden and Harris releasing their 2020 tax returns is an 'almost uninterrupted' tradition
The first and second families released their 2020 tax returns on Monday. The press release accompanying the returns included a dig at former President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris released their 2020 tax returns on Monday.
“We are a nation bobbing in multiple crises. Not one of them involves people taking COVID-19 too seriously.”
“The threat is increasingly concentrated among people who are vulnerable by choice.”
“This announcement would be very welcome if not for one big problem: There is no requirement for proof of vaccination.”
“Joining the protected vaccinated minority, which we hope will rapidly become the majority, is simple.”
“Instead of taking giant steps. I think we should be taking small steps toward the same goal.”