PoliticsWashington ExaminerHot mic: Biden suggests Maxine Waters run for Senate and encourages Nancy Pelosi to 'keep it up'
President Joe Biden encouraged California Rep. Maxine Waters to run for Senate during a bill signing event at the White House, which produced a series of hot microphone moments for the president. Biden signed three bills during the Wednesday ceremony also attended by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, another favorite target of the Right. After brief remarks describing the soon-to-be laws, Biden welcomed Pelosi to the stage after the pair publicly clashed over how to pass the $1.2 trillion bipartisan "hard" infrastructure deal and a possible $6 trillion "soft" infrastructure reconciliation framework.
U.S.The StateDeadly shootout after motorcycle club members go to punish imposter, Indiana cops say
Angry that a non-member bore the tattoos and wore the patches of their two motorcycle clubs, six bikers armed themselves and headed to the perceived imposter's Indiana home to punish him. One of the group, 35-year-old Dustin Lindner, of Georgetown, Kentucky was hit during the shootout, investigators said. Indiana State Police soon took on the investigation.
WorldAssociated PressBrazil's Bolsonaro fires health official after graft claims
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has fired a Health Ministry official after a newspaper reported his alleged participation in a graft scheme to secure COVID-19 vaccines, further straining the government's defense of its pandemic response. The order firing Roberto Dias, head of the Health Ministry's logistics department, was signed on Tuesday night by Bolsonaro's chief of staff, Luiz Eduardo Ramos, and published in Wednesday's official gazette. Newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported shortly before the decision that Dias allegedly asked a vaccine provider to inflate the prices of its doses by $1 each in order for the mark-up to be siphoned off.
WorldReutersAfrican Union wants Covishield approved for EU COVID-19 certificate
The African Union has criticised an EU decision not to include Covishield, a version of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine used by the global COVAX facility, on a list of approved vaccines for a digital certificate meant to ease travel in the bloc. Covishield is produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII) and has been distributed to African nations as part of the COVAX initiative to give poor and developing countries access to COVID-19 vaccines. But Covishield is not one of four vaccines approved by the European Union for its planned digital vaccination certificate, which is intended to allow people to travel freely within the EU.
WorldWashington ExaminerJapanese official warns US of potential surprise attack on Hawaii — from Russia and China
Russia and China are coordinating military exercises to threaten not only Taiwan but also Hawaii, according to a senior Japanese defense official who warned the United States to beware of a Pearl Harbor-style surprise attack. “We have to show the deterrence towards China, and not just China but also the Russians, because, as I told you, that they are doing their exercises together,” Japanese deputy Yasuhide Nakayama told the Hudson Institute this week. Taiwan's vulnerability to an invasion from mainland China has become a preoccupation of Indo-Pacific strategists in recent months, as Chinese Communist forces escalate their military drills around the island.
- NewsYahoo News Video
Putin says U.S. aircraft involved in Black Sea incident
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was operating in sync with a British destroyer during an incident last week in the Black Sea that he described as a “provocation to test Moscow's response.
U.S.Associated PressWitness: Dad didn't seem interested in missing son search
A man charged in the death of his 13-year-old son in Colorado nearly a decade ago seemed uninterested in the search for the boy after he disappeared, a witness testified Monday. Mark Redwine, 59, is on trial on charges of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in the death of Dylan Redwine, who was reported missing on Nov. 19, 2012 while on a court-ordered Thanksgiving visit to his home outside the small city of Durango. The boy's body was found in 2013 a few miles from his father's home.
WorldReutersInaugurating embassy in UAE, Israel tells region: 'We're here to stay'
DUBAI (Reuters) -Israel's new foreign minister inaugurated its embassy in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday and offered an olive branch to other former adversaries, saying: "We're here to stay." Yair Lapid's two-day visit, in which he will open an Israeli consulate in Dubai on Wednesday, is the first to the Gulf state by an Israeli cabinet minister since the countries established ties last year. The trip is also an opportunity for the two-week-old Israeli government of Naftali Bennett, a nationalist who heads an improbable cross-partisan coalition, to make diplomatic inroads despite long-stymied talks with the Palestinians.
WorldBBCTwitter India boss in police case over Kashmir map
Police have registered a case against Twitter India boss after the website allegedly showed an incorrect map of the country. The map, which has now been removed, did not include Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh as part of India in the "Tweep Life" section of Twitter on Sunday. This is the second case against Twitter officials in less than a month.
- WorldAssociated Press
Taiwan boy dies after being repeatedly slammed in judo class
A 7-year-old Taiwanese boy has died after being repeatedly slammed by his coach and others at a judo class. The boy, identified only by his surname, Huang, was taken off life support on Tuesday night after being in a coma since the April 21 incident. The coach, identified in reports by his surname, Ho, has been indicted on charges of causing bodily injury and using children to commit a crime.
U.S.Kansas City StarParents stored child’s body in freezer for at least two years, Virginia police say
The parents of a boy in Virginia were arrested after officers discovered his body in their home freezer, according to police and local media reports. Kassceen Weaver, 49, and Dina D. Weaver, 48, are charged with conspiracy to conceal a body and failing to render aid to a child, WWBT reported, citing the Chesterfield County Police Department. Chesterfield is just outside of Richmond, Virginia, about 60 miles from the North Carolina border.
WorldReutersIn one year, Hong Kong arrests 117 people under new security law
Hong Kong authorities have arrested 117 people under a national security law imposed one year ago, charging more than 60, mostly democratic politicians, activists, journalists and students. On June 30, 2020, Beijing imposed the security law in Hong Kong following months of often-violent pro-democracy protests, effectively ending the unrest. The law punishes acts which China considers as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.
U.S.Miami HeraldTropical Storm Elsa could form soon. Watches issued for eastern Caribbean islands
The Lesser Antilles are under tropical storm watches as a disturbance with a high probability of strengthening into the fifth named storm of the season, Elsa, heads their way. It's far too soon to tell if the disturbance poses a threat to Florida, but authorities are already working to split resources away from the search-and-rescue effort at the Surfside condo collapse to prepare for a future storm. The National Hurricane Center began issuing advisories for potential tropical cyclone five Wednesday evening.
WorldAssociated PressJapan's SoftBank says Pepper robot remains 'alive' and well
Japanese technology company SoftBank denies it's pulling the plug on its friendly, talking, bubble-headed Pepper robot. “There is absolutely no change to our Pepper business,” SoftBank Robotics Corp. spokesperson Ai Kitamura said Wednesday. The company acknowledged the contracts of 330 workers at the Paris division of SoftBank Robotics were being reviewed, but the move was routine and did not spell a death knell for Pepper.
LifestyleArchitectural Digest15 Best Tiny House Rentals on Airbnb and Beyond (2021)
Make major memories with a tiny house vacation Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
U.S.CBS NewsBodies of 2 children pulled from Florida condo collapse rubble
Nearly a week after the collapse of a condo building in Surfside, Florida, rescuers found the bodies of two young children, bringing the death toll to 18. The children were ages 4 and 10, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Wednesday evening. As the search continues for the 145 people who remain unaccounted for, residents who escaped the collapse are sharing chilling stories.
PoliticsBBCDonald Rumsfeld: Ex-US defence secretary dies aged 88
Donald Rumsfeld, the two-time US defence secretary who was one of the main architects of the Iraq war, has died at the age of 88. Serving under President George W Bush, he was a key proponent of the so-called "war on terror" after the 9/11 attacks. US forces invaded Iraq in 2003 after claiming the country had weapons of mass destruction, but no such weapons were found.
WorldReutersEU agrees three-month ceasefire with UK in "sausage war"
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union agreed on Wednesday to a ceasefire with the United Kingdom in a post-Brexit dispute dubbed the "sausage war" by extending a grace period for shipments of certain meat products from Britain to Northern Ireland. The bloc will also make it easier for medicines and guide dogs to cross the Irish Sea and allow Northern Irish drivers to travel to Ireland with existing insurance documents, moves designed to ease tensions following Britain's exit from the EU.
BusinessAssociated PressAmazon asks for FTC head to step aside from antitrust probes
Amazon is asking that the new head of the Federal Trade Commission step aside from antitrust investigations into the e-commerce giant, contending that her past public criticism of the company's market power makes it impossible for her to be impartial. Amazon petitioned the agency Wednesday to remove Chair Lina Khan from taking part in current probes of the company's market conduct. Khan has been a fierce critic of tech giants Facebook, Google and Apple, as well as Amazon.
PoliticsBusiness InsiderBill Cosby was set free because of a deal he'd made with a district attorney who later represented Trump in his 2nd impeachment trial
Pennsylvania's top court overturned Bill Cosby's conviction because of a 2005 deal he made with a prosecutor. A Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice suggested Castor's deal with Cosby was ethically questionable. Bill Cosby's 2018 sexual-assault conviction was thrown out by Pennsylvania's highest court on Wednesday, and Cosby was released from prison shortly after.
BusinessBBCUnited Airlines bets on travel boom with big plane order
United Airlines has placed its biggest aircraft order to date in a bet on travel returning post-pandemic. The US airline confirmed it had ordered 270 Boeing and Airbus planes worth more than $30bn (£21.6bn) on Tuesday. Its chief executive Scott Kirby said the purchases would "accelerate our business to meet a resurgence in air travel".
BusinessReutersSanofi to invest in mRNA vaccines development
PARIS (Reuters) -Sanofi will invest about 400 million euros ($476 million) annually in research and development of next-generation vaccines using mRNA technologies, which proved their efficiency in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 jabs. Sanofi added on Tuesday that its "mRNA Center of Excellence" will bring together around 400 employees based at existing sites close to Lyon in southern France and in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "During the COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA technologies demonstrated potential to deliver new vaccines faster than ever before", said Jean-Francois Toussaint, global head of R&D at Sanofi Pasteur, the company's vaccines division.
WorldThe Daily BeastDonald Rumsfeld, Killer of 400,000 People, Dies Peacefully
The only thing tragic about the death of Donald Rumsfeld is that it didn't occur in an Iraqi prison. An actuarial table of the deaths for which Donald Rumsfeld is responsible is difficult to assemble. According to Neda C. Crawford, Brown's political-science department chair, the Afghanistan war to that point claimed about 147,000 lives, to include 38,480 civilians; 58,596 Afghan soldiers and police (about as many American troops as died in Vietnam); and 2,401 U.S. servicemembers.
- U.S.Miami Herald
Most Florida counties don’t require condo inspections. After Surfside, how sick is that? | Editorial
Who's making sure their associations and local governments are doing what it takes to keep them safe after the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South Condo in Surfside? This is where the state Legislature needs to step in. Lawmakers will have a better idea of what reforms are needed once an investigation into the causes of the collapse is done, but that could take months.
U.S.The IndependentAnniversaries of white supremacist attacks and lifting of Covid restrictions could inspire violence, DHS warns
A pair of intelligence bulletins from the US Department of Homeland Security have pointed to the upcoming anniversaries of two domestic attacks – the killing of 23 people in El Paso, Texas in 2019 and the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 – as well as the nation's emergence from Covid-19-related restrictions as potential flashpoints for violence. Federal authorities did not list any specific threats but warned that “violent extremists might seek to exploit” the easing of pandemic restrictions as well as “increased access to mass gatherings” and possible spikes in violence during the summer months “to conduct attacks against a range of potential targets with little or no warning,” according to ABC News. Another bulletin said that law enforcement “continues to review publicly available social media for explicit threats of violence” as the anniversaries of large-scale domestic violence attacks near, according to Politico.
“Obamacare is getting stronger every time the Republicans try to kill it.”
“It is far from certain the Supreme Court will safeguard the Affordable Care Act the next time the law reaches the court’s chambers.”
“Although ACA cost Obama an enormous amount, it’s become clear that he will have the last laugh.”
“Even the feistiest Republicans have given up talking seriously about repeal.”
“Current and future cases will largely concern the administration and enforcement of the ACA, not its underlying architecture.”