U.S.Associated PressMinneapolis mayor says police changes will increase safety
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey announced a sweeping set of public safety proposals Monday that he said would make all neighborhoods in the city safe, while increasing transparency and holding police officers accountable. The proposals are months in the making, Frey said, but were announced Monday after a particularly violent weekend during which a 9-year-old girl was shot in the head while jumping on a trampoline in a north Minneapolis neighborhood. The city has been under pressure to make changes to its police department since the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after then-Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck and pinned him to the ground as gasped for air and became unresponsive.
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.
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.
- WorldChristian Science Monitor
For Hamas, the war is in Gaza, but Jerusalem is the prize
When Hamas escalated a crisis in Jerusalem rooted in forced evictions and an Israeli raid of Al-Aqsa Mosque into a war of missiles, it tapped into Palestinian feelings of helplessness and frustration – and seized a political lifeline. Since then, the militant Islamist movement has appeared as the only Palestinian faction willing to stand up to Israel, and leapfrogged its rival Fatah, the dominant power in the Palestinian Authority (PA). Despite the high human cost and the physical destruction of Gaza, analysts say Hamas is building an image as the defender of Jerusalem and expanding its support base beyond the Gaza Strip.
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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.
- WorldAssociated Press
Erdogan: High-ranking PKK militant killed in Iraq operation
Turkish security forces have killed an alleged high-ranking Kurdish militant in an operation in northern Iraq, Turkey's president said Monday. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after a Cabinet meeting that the slain militant was allegedly responsible for the Syria operations of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. He identified him by his codename, Sofi Nurettin, and said he was a Syrian national.
WorldReutersPowerful storm weakens slightly after landfall in western India
A powerful cyclone that slammed into India's west coast was set to weaken on Tuesday, the weather office said, as tens of thousands of people were moved out of its path. Trees were uprooted and storm surges reported in coastal villages and towns of Gujarat state where cyclone Tauktae, the most powerful in more than two decades, made landfall late Monday packing gusts of up to 210 kph (130 mph). More than 200,000 people have been evacuated from their homes https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-gujarat-state-braces-most-severe-cyclone-over-two-decades-2021-05-17 in Gujarat as authorities shut ports and major airports.
U.S.Miami HeraldWounded man boards a Broward bus, collapses and later dies, police say. But who shot him?
After being shot while standing at a Lauderderhill bus stop Monday afternoon, a man boarded a Broward Transit bus and collapsed. Fearing there could be more gunfire — the bus driver took off and called 911. “There has to be someone who saw this,” said Lauderhill Lt. Michael Santiago, a spokesman for the department.
PoliticsAssociated PressGeorgia's Lt. Governor won't run again after taking on Trump
Georgia's lieutenant governor, one of the most prominent Republicans to openly contradict false claims about fraud in the November presidential election, confirmed Monday as expected that he won't seek reelection in 2022. Republican Geoff Duncan was among the most high-profile Republicans to openly oppose Trump's claims, angering many in his own party. In Georgia, many other Republican officials have doubled down on unproven claims that Trump was cheated out of Georgia's 16 electoral votes in November.
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.
PoliticsLA TimesTwitter fights Justice Department subpoena over Rep. Nunes parody account
Twitter is fighting a Justice Department subpoena seeking information about the user of an account that routinely parodies Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican who has spent recent years unsuccessfully seeking to unmask such users so he can sue them for defamation. In urging a federal judge in Washington, to quash a subpoena, the social media platform argued in court papers filed that it believed the Justice Department might be aiding Nunes' numerous efforts to expose such anonymous critics. The Justice Department subpoenaed Twitter in November seeking information on the user behind the parody account @NunesAlt.
WorldAssociated PressEmirates Air faced "tough year" as virus looms over travel
Passenger levels for the Middle East's largest airlines plummeted by 70% last year and it furloughed more than a quarter of its staff due to the coronavirus pandemic, Emirates' chairman and chief executive said Monday. Despite the turbulence of last year and the continued uncertainty around global travel, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said he expects passenger levels for Dubai's flagship carrier to climb back to nearly three-fourths of what they were before the COVID-19 outbreak by the end of the year. “It's been a very tough year,” Al Maktoum said.
PoliticsReutersTrump, House Democrats near agreement on Deutsche Bank subpoenas
Former President Donald Trump and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Monday they are near an agreement to resolve disputes concerning congressional subpoenas of his financial records from Deutsche Bank AG. In a filing in federal court in Manhattan, lawyers for Trump and the Democrats said they believed they were "close to an agreement" in talks concerning the scope of the subpoenas and a process for resolving privacy concerns. They asked a judge for another 30 days to continue talks. Deutsche Bank, Trump's main bank, said in the same filing that both sides would invite it to raise any concerns "at an appropriate time."
WorldThe TelegraphPrincess Diana gave me information in faked bank statements, claims Martin Bashir
Martin Bashir told a BBC inquiry that information contained in faked bank statements came from Princess Diana, The Telegraph can disclose. The mocked-up bank statements are at the heart of an inquiry led by Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls, into the conduct of Bashir in securing his world exclusive interview with the princess in 1995. Lord Dyson has completed his detailed report, due to be published this week and expected to contain damning criticism of Bashir, 58, who resigned as the BBC's religion editor on grounds of ill-health ahead of its publication.
BusinessLexington Herald-LeaderWhy do lumber prices keep soaring? And when might they come back down?
Of course, we represent the loggers out there in the woods and also a lot of the secondary people that produce things like hardwood flooring and in the paper industry. Martin: Going into the pandemic last year, was there an expectation that COVID-19 would lead to an industry-wide slowdown instead of the industry-wide boom that has actually happened? Bauer: Yes, as far as the hardwood industry, actually there was a lot of anticipation that the markets were going to get better.
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.
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.
WorldThe TelegraphStop thinking like the EU, Lord Frost tells ‘indoctrinated’ UK officials
Lord Frost said: "Lots of our bureaucracy and our regulatory systems have had to operate within a prescriptive EU law framework." "We have internalised principles of EU law and EU ways of thinking about things for the last 50 years, which is harder to eradicate because it's quite subtle," the Cabinet minister and former Brexit negotiator said. Lord Frost said he was recruiting for a task force that would focus on how to diverge from EU rules to give Brexit Britain a global competitive edge over European businesses in areas such as financial services.
PoliticsThe Daily BeastRudy Giuliani: I Am Being Treated Like ‘Head of Drug Cartel’
Lawyers for Rudy Giuliani slammed prosecutors on Monday for secretly obtaining electronic access to the former New York City mayor's accounts—likening the operation that resulted in the April 28 FBI raid of his home and office to that of a drug cartel takedown. “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,” the letter filed Monday on behalf of Giuliani states. The letter is the first legal response from Giuliani's team since the April 28 raid on Donald Trump's former attorney's Manhattan home and office.
BusinessReutersChina's Clover says its COVID-19 vaccine candidate shows immune response in mice
Chinese biotechnology company Clover Biopharmaceuticals said on Tuesday the modified version of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate showed a strong immune response against the original strain of the virus and some variants during animal testing. Clover said in a statement its vaccine candidate demonstrated a "neutralisation" against the South African, Brazilian and UK variants among mice. The company is testing a COVID-19 vaccine candidate containing an adjuvant, typically designed to boost the efficacy of vaccines, from Dynavax Technologies Corp.
HealthThe TelegraphPost-menopausal women report periods coming back after having Covid vaccine
Researchers are investigating the reports to see if the disruption to the menstrual cycle is caused by the jabs. No proof has yet been found linking the inoculations to the unusual reproductive symptoms, but a growing body of anecdotal evidence has led scientists to begin probing the reports. Professor Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King's College London, said earlier this month that the symptom-tracker app ZOE was monitoring reports of period-related side-effects.
WorldBusiness InsiderPsaki says 'it's not our role to assess or analyze the politics' of the Israel-Gaza violence
Psaki said it's not the role of the US to "assess or analyze the politics on the ground in Israel." This came as Biden faces criticism from fellow Democrats over his unwavering support to Israel amid recent violence. White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday said it's not the role of the US to "assess or analyze the politics on the ground in Israel" with regard to the recent violence in the region.
U.S.Business InsiderThe Supreme Court ruled unanimously against police who seized a man's guns from his house without a warrant
The Supreme Court sided with a man whose guns were taken by police without a warrant. Edward Caniglia had agreed to a psychiatric evaluation, but police returned to his home and took his weapons. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said a "community caretaking" rule did not apply.
PoliticsThe IndependentBiden news - live: President says Covid fight ‘not done yet’ as Cheney warns GOP direction is ‘dangerous’
Joe Biden has said the US has made “incredible progress” in its battle against Covid-19 but warned, “we're not done yet”. The president's comments on Sunday night came after the CDC said over 157 million Americans had received at least one dose of a vaccine. With at least a third of the country still to get an injection, Mr Biden urged those eligible to “get vaccinated.
- LifestyleYahoo News Video
Kid reporter who interviewed Obama dies at 23
The student reporter who gained national attention when he interviewed then-President Barack Obama at the White House in 2009 has died of natural causes, his family says.
“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.”