PoliticsYahoo NewsPelosi announces select committee to probe Jan. 6 attack on Capitol
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced plans to convene a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. “The gleeful desecration of the Capitol resulted in multiple deaths, physical harm of over 140 members of law enforcement, and terror and trauma among staff, workers and members,” Pelosi told reporters at a press conference Thursday. Pelosi said she was announcing the decision to form a select committee “with great solemnity and sadness,” as she believes a bipartisan commission, similar to the one formed in the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, would be better positioned to investigate the events of Jan. 6 and all the circumstances surrounding it.
PoliticsWashington ExaminerTrump says Giuliani suspension from practicing law in NY is part of 'Witch Hunt'
Former President Donald Trump rallied to the defense of his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was suspended from practicing law in New York after a court determined he made false statements in challenging the results of the 2020 election. A tweemail sent Thursday afternoon described the decision, which leaves Giuliani facing the possibility of disbarment, as being part of a partisan campaign to attack Trump and people in his orbit. "Can you believe that New York wants to strip Rudy Giuliani, a great American Patriot, of his law license because he has been fighting what has already been proven to be a Fraudulent Election?” Trump said.
U.S.The WeekAnthony Fauci was hosed down, naked, 'in what looked like a kiddy pool' after being mailed mysterious white powder
Last summer, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief Anthony Fauci was reportedly sent mail containing white powder that "literally blew up in his face," Politico writes, per a preview of the new book Nightmare Scenario by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta. Luckily, chemical testing came back negative for both anthrax and ricin, but not before Fauci was hosed "down to his skivvies in a chemical lab," standing "naked in what looked like a kiddy pool" while his team awaited results, per Politico. Previously reported excerpts of Nightmare Scenario revealed Trump once joked he hoped COVID-19 would "take out" former National Security Adviser John Bolton, and had even proposed the U.S. house COVID-19 patients at Guantanamo Bay.
WorldThe TelegraphChina's first Covid case could have been in October 2019, says UK study
The virus that causes Covid-19 could have started spreading in China as early as October 2019, two months before the first case was identified in the central city of Wuhan, a new study showed on Friday. Researchers from Britain's University of Kent used methods from conservation science to estimate that SARS-CoV-2 first appeared from October to mid-November 2019, according to a paper published in the PLOS Pathogens journal. The most likely date for the virus's emergence was November 17, 2019, and it had probably already spread globally by January 2020, they estimated.
U.S.Kansas City StarKansas City police officer ‘violently’ threw man to ground in wrongful arrest, lawsuit says
A man has filed a lawsuit against the Kansas City Police Department alleging he was “violently” thrown to the ground during a wrongful arrest last year. Murray Anderson, Jr., 47, claims Officer Jose Romero Jr. placed a knee on his neck after he was handcuffed and taken to the ground following a nearby assault. The assault Romero and other officers responded to occurred on the afternoon of May 24, 2020, outside reStart Inc., a shelter for the homeless community at 918 E. 9th St., according to the lawsuit filed in Jackson County Circuit Court in May.
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Bipartisan senators reach tentative infrastructure deal ahead of Biden meeting
A bipartisan group of senators reached a tentative framework on a $953 billion infrastructure deal Wednesday ahead of a crucial meeting with President Biden at the White House.
U.S.Fort Worth Star-Telegram911 operator didn’t send Fort Worth officer on call and 3 people died, news report says
An overworked 911 call-taker didn't send a Fort Worth police officer on a June 1 domestic call that ended in a double-murder and suicide, according to a news report. Ex-911 operator Kate Colley told KXAS-TV that the stressed 911 dispatcher received a call from Holly Beverly, who reported that her estranged husband was on his way to her apartment in west Fort Worth to harm her. The operator didn't send an officer because the suspect wasn't actually on the scene yet, Colley told the TV station.
U.S.Lexington Herald-LeaderFlorida condo disaster: A look at other major US building collapses in recent history
In the wake of the collapse of a condo near Miami on June 24, here is a look at major building collapses in the U.S. throughout recent history caused by structural failures. The 12-story oceanfront condo in Surfside, Florida, northeast of Miami, partially collapsed, sending rescuers sifting through the rubble, the Miami Herald reported. The five-story condominium called Harbour Cay in Cocoa Beach collapsed March 27, 1981, due to multiple construction and design problems just as workers were pouring concrete for the roof slab, according to Florida Today.
WorldLA TimesPhotos: Miami condo tower collapses; almost 100 people missing
A wing of a 12-story beachfront condo building collapsed in a town outside Miami Thursday, killing at least one person while trapping residents in rubble and twisted metal. Rescuers pulled dozens of survivors from the tower and continued to look for more. Nearly 100 people were still unaccounted for at midday, authorities said, raising fears that the death toll could climb sharply.
U.S.The StateVandals deface George Floyd statue with black paint and graffiti, NYPD says
A statue honoring George Floyd that was unveiled during a Juneteenth rally in Brooklyn last week was found vandalized early Thursday, multiple outlets report. The graffiti was discovered just before 7:20 a.m., according to PIX 11. Photos and video show the 6-foot sculpture, which features Floyd's likeness, scrawled with black spray paint while the pedestal was defaced with a web address reportedly affiliated with a white supremacist group, the station reported.
WorldBBCCathay Pacific crew told to get vaccine or risk losing job
Cathay Pacific has told its aircrew that they must get a Covid vaccination by 31 August or risk losing their jobs. The airline said staff rostering has become "difficult and complicated" because of a need to segregate vaccinated and non-vaccinated crew. Cathay Pacific said it could, in the "short-term", accommodate those employees not able to take the vaccine.
U.S.Kansas City StarNew research: Kansas counties with mask mandates avoided 500 COVID-19 deaths
Counties in Kansas that instituted mask mandates experienced significantly lower rates of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths compared with counties declining to take that precaution, researchers reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The study published Wednesday examined outcomes in 15 counties that adopted face-covering orders from mid-July to December and results in 68 counties that chose not to require residents to put on a mask during that period. Donna Ginther, the study's co-author and distinguished professor of economics and director of the Institute for Policy and Social Research at the University of Kansas, said counties that adopted masking during that portion of the pandemic reduced cases of infection by 35,000, hospitalizations by 1,500 and deaths by 500.
PoliticsBusiness InsiderAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams the lack of diversity in an all-white group of lawmakers who drafted a bipartisan infrastructure deal
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the bipartisan group of lawmakers who negotiated an infrastructure deal. President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that the group reached a deal. The New York lawmaker called out the group for its lack of diversity.
U.S.USA TODAYMom of biracial teen seen on video being shocked with Taser by state trooper plans to sue
Kris Rodeman finally got to see her son Wednesday. The mother of the 16-year-old was beside herself with worry, angry and concerned that her son, currently in the Southwest Florida Juvenile Justice Center, is in pain. At issue is the shocking a week ago of her son with a Taser stun gun in the San Carlos Park neighborhood where his girlfriend lives.
U.S.Kansas City StarMissouri Gov. Mike Parson says he is not convinced Kevin Strickland is innocent
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Wednesday said he is not convinced that Kevin Strickland is innocent, making him the first official to publicly doubt prosecutors' assertions that the Kansas City man was wrongly convicted four decades ago. In an interview with 41 Action News, Parson said he does not know if Strickland, 62, is “innocent or not” in a 1978 triple murder in Kansas City that the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office now says he did not commit. Parson's comments came more than 40 days after Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced her office had concluded Strickland, who was 18 when he was arrested, is “factually innocent” in the April 25, 1978, shooting at 6934 S. Benton Ave.
U.S.Business InsiderA judge expressed skepticism about arguments from Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani, who want Dominion's defamation lawsuits against them dismissed
A federal judge on Thursday weighed whether to dismiss Dominion's defamation lawsuits. Dominion is suing all three Trump allies over election conspiracy theories. A federal judge heard arguments Thursday over whether to allow multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuits from Dominion Voting Systems to proceed against Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
PoliticsThe Daily BeastLiberals Agree Not to Crush Biden’s Infrastructure Dreams
Just after noon on Thursday, President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of 10 senators emerged from the White House and announced they'd reached a deal on a sweeping infrastructure package. "We can use bipartisanship to solve these challenges," said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). The tentative agreement struck by Biden and the senators calls for just shy of $600 billion in new spending on roads, public transportation, water systems, broadband, and more, paid for not by tax hikes but by the Beltway equivalent of coins in the couch—unspent federal funds, sell-offs of oil, and the like.
CelebrityBBCIndia's opinionated feminist and her viral wedding ad
Using the email address posted on the ad, the BBC managed to track down the "opinionated feminist" - Sakshi - and her brother Srijan and her best friend Damyanti, who came up with the idea. All the names are pseudonyms - they don't want their identities revealed since, as Sakshi said, "we are all professionals with steady careers, and (hopefully) promising lives ahead of us" and don't want to attract "bloodthirsty" social media trolls. The ad, Srijan said, was "a small prank we played for Sakshi's 30th birthday".
U.S.Raleigh News and ObserverLive updates Thursday: Murdaugh family to offer reward; Vehicle towed from crime scene
The Murdaugh family will soon be offering a $100,000 reward for information that will lead to an arrest and conviction in Paul and Maggie's murders, a Columbia lawyer told The State Media Co. and The Island Packet on Thursday. A local towing company owner also confirmed with The Island Packet that it towed a Chevrolet Suburban from the Murdaugh property to the Colleton County Sheriff's Office the morning after the killings. These are the latest developments as the June 7 double homicide investigation of Paul Murdaugh and his mother Maggie outside their home in Colleton County approaches its third week.
U.S.Idaho StatesmanHumane Society removes 28 dogs from ‘deplorable conditions’ at Idaho breeder’s home
The Idaho Humane Society and Elmore County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday morning removed 28 dogs from a breeder's home after finding the animals in “deplorable conditions,” according to a Humane Society news release. Officials said all 28 of the dogs were Yorkshire terriers being bred and sold out of a home in Oasis, a small town north of Mountain Home. The breeder sold the dogs under the business name Diane's Yorkies of Oasis.
U.S.Business InsiderMatt Gaetz tweeted that the FBI should be defunded, then deleted it. He's still being probed by the bureau.
Florida congressman Matt Gaetz tweeted that the FBI should be defunded, then deleted it after one minute. A Gaetz spokesperson told Vice that the congressman had made and deleted a "jocular tweet." The FBI is currently investigating Gaetz to find out if he participated in sex trafficking.
PoliticsUSA TODAY21 senators clinched infrastructure for Biden. Who's in the deal's bipartisan coalition?
After months of negotiations, President Joe Biden has reached a deal with a bipartisan group of senators on a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. In the East Room of the White House on Thursday, Biden declared “we have a deal" after a 30-minute meeting with the group of senators earlier in the day.. An initial round of negotiations with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., the lead GOP negotiator who is seen as closely aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., fell through early June over disagreements about how to finance the package and what counted as infrastructure.
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Socialist candidate India Walton upsets incumbent Democratic mayor of Buffalo
India Walton, a nurse and progressive activist, upset four-term incumbent mayor Byron Brown in Tuesday's Democratic primary in Buffalo, N.Y., in a bid to become the first socialist mayor of a major American city since 1960.
U.S.The StateLottery player settles for different NC ticket after favorite sold out. It paid off
A North Carolina woman won a top lottery price after settling for a different ticket. Joanne Pacheco bought the winning “7” scratch-off lottery ticket from the Lakeland St. Mini Mart in Durham over the weekend after the one she wanted to buy was sold out, according to the North Carolina Education Lottery. “They didn't have my tickets,” she told lottery officials.
CelebrityThe Daily BeastJohn McAfee Found Dead in Spanish Prison Cell
John McAfee, the 90s software magnate-turned-globe-trotting fugitive, was found dead on Wednesday afternoon in a Spanish prison cell just hours after a court authorized his extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges. McAfee was 75. “Confirmation has come from our legal team in Spain that John was found dead in his jail cell,” McAfee's lawyer, Nishay K. Sanan, told The Daily Beast.
“The pandemic has unequivocally proven the public health value of masks. And they should stick around in certain situations.”
“With the steady thrum of anti-mask sentiment in the U.S., it’s highly unlikely that they will continue to be a ubiquitous sight.”
“Wearing masks on airplanes or other modes of transit ... can help keep everyone safe.”
“Just because masks are common in many other nations ... is hardly a reason to emulate the practice.”
“The fact that the flu all but vanished ... is not evidence alone that masks were responsible.”