- U.S.Yahoo News
Pentagon intelligence employees raise concerns about supporting domestic surveillance amid protests
The government's increasingly militarized response to nationwide protests has sparked concern among employees of a Pentagon intelligence agency, who fear they might be compelled to help conduct surveillance on Americans participating in demonstrations, sources tell Yahoo News. The May 25 killing of George Floyd, an African-American man, in Minneapolis police custody set off a series of nationwide protests, including in Washington, D.C. In response, the Trump administration has sent a wide range of law enforcement and military personnel to the nation's capital to help police the demonstrations. The use of military personnel has prompted questions about overreach, including now at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
- U.S.NBC News
Man accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery allegedly used racial slur after shooting
Special agent Richard Dial with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said during the hearing that Bryan said during a May 13 interview that he heard Travis McMichael say, "f---ing n-word" after Arbery had been shot. The defense noted that Bryan had been interviewed before May 13 and had not mentioned that Travis McMichael used a racial slur. Dial went on to say that Travis McMichael had also previously used the n-word on social media in January, allegedly responding to an unspecified Instagram post that it would have been better if someone had "blown the f---ing n-word's head off."
- U.S.Yahoo News
A group of D.C. protesters now has a list of demands
As protests continue to erupt around the country, a group of three young African-American activists is attempting to link the demonstrations to a list of demands. The group, Concerned Citizens, has emerged from the nation's capital, a hotbed of the protests that began following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after he was taken into police custody in Minneapolis on May 25. The group's three leading organizers, Aalayah Eastmond, 19, Seun Babalola, 22, and Ty Hobson-Powell, 24, plan to unveil their demands, which they shared exclusively with Yahoo News, at a protest in Washington on Wednesday afternoon.
- U.S.The Daily Beast
NYPD Says Looters Are Stashing Bricks. Brooklyn Locals Say Otherwise
On Wednesday morning, New York Police Department Commissioner Dermot F. Shea tweeted a low-resolution video of an unidentified officer picking up blue plastic crates on a city street corner. The crates, which appeared to be filled with chunks of masonry, had apparently been left next to a garbage can near Avenue X and West 3rd Street in Gravesend, a neighborhood by the water on Brooklyn's south end that's been largely untouched by the protests elsewhere in the borough and the city. "This is what our cops are up against: Organized looters, strategically placing caches of bricks & rocks at locations throughout NYC," Shea wrote.
BusinessYahoo News VideoAirlines to drop service to 75 domestic airports
Fifteen U.S. airlines were granted final government approval on Wednesday to temporarily halt service to 75 domestic airports as travel demand has been crushed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
- WorldAssociated Press
At least 39 injured in knife attack at China kindergarten
A school security guard injured at least 39 people in a knife attack at a kindergarten in southern China on Thursday morning, state media reported. The motive remains unknown. The attack was an eerie throwback to deadly attacks at schools in China over past years that prompted security upgrades and that authorities have blamed largely on people bearing grudges or who had unidentified mental illnesses.
- U.S.CBS News
Tropical Storm Cristobal takes aim at U.S. Gulf Coast
The third named system of the very young 2020 hurricane season is forecast to make landfall along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast, likely around Louisiana, this weekend. This is the earliest in the season that a third named system has ever formed in the Atlantic. Cristobal is churning in the southern Gulf of Mexico, straddling land between Mexico and the Bay of Campeche.
- WorldNational Review
Welcome Home, Hong Kong
London doesn't have the power to push the corrupt little junta in Beijing into being halfway decent to the people of Hong Kong, but Boris Johnson has a bold solution for almost half of those people: Come to the United Kingdom. Hong Kong is a former British territory, and about 3 million of its 7.5 million residents hold or are eligible for a limited kind of British passport (the “British national overseas” passport issued to those born in Hong Kong before the territory was relinquished to China in 1997) that entitles them to travel to the United Kingdom but not to permanently reside or work there. As Beijing prepares to implement in Hong Kong a robust version of the totalitarianism it practices everywhere else in China — in contravention of its agreement with the British requiring the Chinese government to honor Hong Kong's liberty and democracy — Johnson says that his government, bound by “our profound ties of history and friendship with the people of Hong Kong,” will allow all of those 3 million Hong Kongers the option of coming to the United Kingdom with the British version of a green card (renewable legal residency and permission to work) and a path to full citizenship for those who desire it.
- WorldReuters
Putin declines British invitation to take part in coronavirus summit: Kremlin
Russian President Vladimir Putin does not plan to take part in an online summit on a possible coronavirus vaccine being organised by the British government this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. Putin received an invitation to take part in the summit from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week, the Kremlin had said. Scheduled to take place on June 4, the Global Vaccine Summit 2020 is designed to mobilise resources needed to ensure universal availability of the vaccine against the novel coronavirus.
- PoliticsYahoo News
As protests rock cities, Rand Paul holds up passage of anti-lynching bill
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is holding up the passage of an anti-lynching bill with broad bipartisan support — the latest delay in an effort to pass a federal law against lynching that goes back over a century. When the Emmett Till Antilynching Act passed the House 410-4 on Feb. 26, lawmakers expected it to pass in the Senate and head to President Trump's desk within days. A Senate version, the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act, had already passed by unanimous consent in December 2018 and again in February 2019, but the House version needed to pass separately.
- U.S.INSIDER
The trucker who drove through a crowd of protesters in Minneapolis was once arrested for domestic assault
Bogdan Vechirko, 35, was arrested on suspicion of assault after driving a semi-truck through a George Floyd march in Minneapolis on Sunday. Public records show that Vechirko has was convicted for disorderly conduct in late 2012. Donation records also show three contributions of around $100 since 2018: one to President Donald Trump's re-election campaign, and two more to the Republican Party.
- U.S.Yahoo News
Counties in Florida, Iowa worry CDC as emerging coronavirus 'areas of concern'
Federal authorities are worried about new coronavirus outbreaks in a number of counties, including in states that have eased lockdown restrictions, like Florida and Alabama, according to a document reviewed by Yahoo News. A list of “areas of concern” also includes persistent hot spots in Midwestern states — including three in Iowa and one each in South Dakota and Nebraska — that are home to major meat processing plants. The list, which has not otherwise been made public, comes from a document created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and disseminated to other federal agencies.
- SciencePopular Mechanics
10 Years Ago Today, SpaceX's Falcon 9 Blasted Off for the First Time
The rocket flew its first test flight on June 4, 2010. It's been a decade of spaceflight innovation ever since. From Popular Mechanics
- WorldBusiness Insider
The architect of Sweden's no-lockdown plan suggested the strategy was a mistake based on what we now know about the coronavirus
JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images The scientist behind Sweden's no-lockdown coronavirus strategy has suggested for the first time that the approach may have been a mistake. Anders Tegnell told Swedish radio if the country had more knowledge about the coronavirus earlier in its outbreak, its reponse would likely have been "somewhere in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done." Sweden has repeatedly defended its plan while saying it was constantly monitoring to see if it needed to change its strategy.
- U.S.Associated Press
'Enough is enough' Atlanta suburb protest brings large crowd
Around 1,500 protesters gathered outside a Confederate monument in Decatur, Georgia, Wednesday as demonstrations continued throughout the state against racism, police brutality and the killing of George Floyd. The march started Wednesday afternoon in Decatur Square, home to a Confederate monument built in 1908 and a “contextualized” marker explaining the racist history of the monument and the Civil War. The marker reads, “This monument and similar ones ...
- BusinessConsumer Reports
Cars Most Likely to Need a Transmission Replacement
To understand how often such problems occur, we analyzed data on older models from our Annual Auto Surveys to see which major systems can lead to expensive repairs and identify the models that have a significant risk. Three problems areas stood out: Engines, head gaskets, and transmissions. With some models, these problems occur with surprising frequency at a certain age and mileage.
- WorldNBC News
U.K. PM tells China that Britain will admit 3 Million from Hong Kong
The United Kingdom will not walk away from the people of Hong Kong if China imposes a national security law which conflicts with Beijing's international obligations under a 1984 accord, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday. "Hong Kong succeeds because its people are free," Johnson wrote in The Times of London. "If China proceeds, this would be in direct conflict with its obligations under the joint declaration, a legally binding treaty registered with the United Nations."
- U.S.Reuters
Virginia governor banishes statue of Civil War General Lee
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, responding to widespread protests decrying racism after the death of a black man in police custody in Minneapolis, ordered on Thursday the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in the state's capital city of Richmond. Saying the statue should be detached from its pedestal "as soon as possible" by the Department of General Services, the Democratic governor acknowledged the move could stir anger from admirers of the commander, who led troops in a slave-owning state during the American Civil War. "Yes, that statue has been there for a long time.
- U.S.Yahoo News
Cities remove racist monuments before protesters can topple them
Early Wednesday morning, crews removed the statue of former Philadelphia mayor and police commissioner Frank Rizzo from its base near City Hall, a long-standing demand by activists and a step promised by the city in 2017. Over the weekend, demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd had attempted to take down the statue on their own, vandalizing it in the process. Rizzo remains a polarizing figure in the city, a tough-on-crime police commissioner in the 1960s and a tougher-on-crime mayor who campaigned by urging citizens to "vote white."
- U.S.USA TODAY
Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore apologizes after saying George Floyd's death is on the 'hands' of looters
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Tuesday faced calls to fire Police Chief Michel Moore after Moore said the death of George Floyd was on the "hands" of those inciting criminal acts at protests as much as the officers involved in Minneapolis. While providing an update on Monday, alongside Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Ralph Terrazas, Moore reported the LAPD had made 700 arrests on Sunday night — 70 of those arrests, he said, were people "who were either burglarizing or looting, victimizing, businesses further." "We didn't have protests last night.
- PoliticsPolitico
'The president has clearly forgotten how it actually happened': John Kelly defends Mattis
Former White House chief of staff John Kelly said Thursday that President Donald Trump "has clearly forgotten" the circumstances of former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis's departure from the administration, breaking with his former boss to side with a fellow retired Marine Corps general. In an interview with The Washington Post, Kelly contradicted Trump's claim that he had fired Mattis. Kelly called Mattis “an honorable man” and described Trump's Twitter attack on the former Defense secretary as “nasty.”
- WorldThe Telegraph
Brazil, Mexico suffer record daily rise in coronavirus deaths
Brazil and Mexico suffered a record rise in daily coronavirus deaths amid fears Latin America is reopening too soon. On Wednesday, Mexico reported a daily death toll that exceeded 1,000 for the first time since the outbreak began, while Brazil announced 1,349 deaths for the day, a record for the country. Both nations now rank in the top ten countries that have suffered the highest number of fatalities, but there is grave concern that, unlike their European counterparts, Latin nations have yet to reach the peak of the epidemic.
- U.S.Business Insider
Fox News host alludes to baseless conspiracy theory and calls George Floyd death 'a premeditated hit' that 'was executed extremely poorly'
Fox News Live on air Wednesday, Fox News opinion host Jesse Watters floated a baseless conspiracy theory circulating through QAnon forums on the death of George Floyd. Watters, co-host of "The Five," speculated through a series of items on the co-working relationship between former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and Floyd, alluding to a potential investigation into the nightclub where they reportedly overlapped — though they may not have known each other. "Yes, maybe [Chauvin] is some insane racist that just wanted to kill an innocent black man — it's possible," Watters said.
- U.S.Associated Press
Lawsuit aims to hold nebulous 'antifa' to blame for injuries
A conservative writer from Portland, Oregon, filed a lawsuit Thursday against purported elements of the nebulous, far-left militant groups collectively known as antifa, days after President Donald Trump blamed those groups for inciting violence at protests over police killings of black people. The suit was filed on behalf of Andy Ngo, a writer at the online publication Quillette who is known for aggressively covering and video-recording demonstrators. Ngo has drawn attention to antifa for years and said he was targeted and suffered brain injuries when he was assaulted while covering protests in Portland a year ago.
U.S.WPVI – PhiladelphiaPeaceful protest as calls for resignation grow for Montgomery County commissioner
A peaceful protest was held in Montgomery County on Wednesday as calls grow for the resignation of Commissioner Joseph Gale.
