PoliticsReutersCivil War: Trump attacks Republican strategist Rove, who fires back
Former President Donald Trump intensified his war with the Republican establishment on Thursday by attacking Karl Rove, a longtime Republican strategist who criticized Trump's first speech since leaving office for being long on grievances but short on vision. "He's a pompous fool with bad advice and always has an agenda," Trump complained in a statement issued by his office in Palm Beach, Florida. Rove, the architect of Republican George W. Bush's presidential victories in 2000 and 2004, wrote in an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday that Trump's speech last Sunday to the Conservative Political Action Conference was wanting.
U.S.Associated PressVirginia man accused of shooting federal facility guard dies
A man who officials said was equipped with hundreds of rounds of ammunition when he exchanged gunfire with a security guard at a Virginia social security building died Wednesday at a local hospital, officials said. Federal prosecutors said Thursday they were dropping the charges against William Rankin, 44, after learning of his death, news outlets reported. He was charged with attempted murder and assault in connection with the shooting at the Norfolk's Social Security Administration building.
PoliticsThe WeekCapitol riot's 'QAnon Shaman' defends himself by claiming he 'stopped somebody from stealing muffins'
A suspect charged in the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building is speaking from jail in a new interview — and offering a unique defense positioning himself as simply a savior of baked goods. Jacob Chansley, the Capitol riot suspect who refers to himself as the "QAnon Shaman" and was photographed during the insurrection wearing fur and horns, spoke with 60 Minutes in an interview broadcast Thursday, in which he claimed his "actions were not an attack on this country" as he faces up to 20 years in prison for them. Chansley neglected to mention the fact that, during the deadly insurrection, he allegedly left a threatening note for former Vice President Mike Pence warning, "It's only a matter of time, justice is coming."
PoliticsAxiosHours-long reading of 628-page COVID relief bill delays Senate debate
The Senate on Thursday voted 51-50 — with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie — to proceed to debate on President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package, likely setting up a final vote this weekend. The state of play: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) forced Senate clerks to read the entire 628-page bill on the floor, which took nearly 11 hours and lasted until 2:04 a.m. on Friday. The Senate is set to return at 9 a.m. to debate the bill before considering amendments, which could drag into the weekend.
U.S.Fort Worth Star-TelegramWoman likely sneaked gun into jail by hiding it inside her body, Missouri sheriff says
A Missouri woman likely sneaked a gun into jail by hiding it inside her body, authorities say. The Boone County Sheriff's Office says the woman underwent three searches on her way into jail and the firearm was never detected. Amy Natasha Wilhite, 39, was arrested on Valentine's Day and searched by law enforcement after she was taken into custody, authorities say.
U.S.Raleigh News and ObserverKentucky man — and a motorcycle — found after 465-foot Grand Canyon fall, officials say
A missing Kentucky man was found dead after a 465-foot fall from the Grand Canyon, according to the National Park Service. A motorcycle was also found beside the body of John Pennington, a 40-year-old man from Walton, officials say. He was believed to have entered the Grand Canyon around Feb. 23 and abandoned his vehicle at Yaki Point, a scenic overlook, officials say.
WorldReutersHong Kong democracy campaigners kept in custody after marathon bail hearing
A Hong Kong judge kept 47 pro-democracy activists in custody on Thursday after four days of bail hearings in a case that has drawn global concern that Beijing is using a national security law to crush dissent. Thirty-two defendants were denied bail by chief magistrate Victor So, while 15 were granted bail but still kept in custody after government prosecutors said they would appeal against that decision. The case is the most sweeping use yet of the city's new national security law, which imposes punishments of up to life in prison for serious charges including subversion.
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Barrett authors first Supreme Court ruling, a loss for environmentalists
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Thursday authored her first ruling since joining the Supreme Court in October as the court handed a defeat to an environmental group looking for access to government documents.
PoliticsAssociated PressBy slimmest of margins, Senate takes up $1.9T relief bill
The Senate is beginning debate on a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, after Democrats made eleventh-hour changes aimed at ensuring they could pull President Joe Biden's top legislative priority through the precariously divided chamber. Democrats were hoping for Senate approval of the package before next week, in time for the House to sign off and get the measure to Biden quickly. After the Senate voted by the slimmest of margins Thursday to begin the debate, Democrats were encountering opposition from Republicans arguing that the measure's massive price tag ignored promising signs that the pandemic and wounded economy were turning around.
U.S.NBC NewsTexas workers should be worried about more than Covid after gov's mask repeal, experts say
Working the door at a business in Texas that still requires masks against Covid-19 could be hazardous to your health — and not just because of the virus, top security experts said Thursday. Gov. Greg Abbott's sudden decision this week to lift the mask mandate and other coronavirus restrictions has undermined the ability of these companies to enforce their own rules for protecting staffers and customers, they said. “This ripping off the Band-Aid approach is not good,” said Brian Higgins, a security consultant who also teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
U.S.Fort Worth Star-Telegram‘Impossible to trace.’ Tech savvy dad may be holding daughter captive in WA, cops say
A father accused of kidnapping his teenage daughter 17 months ago could be holding her captive in Washington, but his technology skills are making it hard for authorities to find him, officials say. Authorities say John Oliver Westbrook kidnapped his daughter, Daphne Westbrook, 17, in October 2019 from Chattanooga, Tennessee, according to a news release posted on Facebook by the Hamilton County District Attorney's Office in Tennessee. Investigators say Westbrook is holding Daphne against her will and they're struggling to locate them because he is “an IT expert specializing in security, block chain technology and bitcoin.”
U.S.The IndependentUS intelligence investigating links between Capitol rioters and members of Congress
Federal investigators are reviewing records of communications between members of Congress and the rioters who attacked the US Capitol, reports say. Their probe will look at whether lawmakers knowingly or unknowingly helped the pro-Trump mob who tried to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's election win, officials told CNN. Phone data has indicated both communications between riot suspects and lawmakers on and around 6 January, as well as communications between rioters discussing their connections with members of Congress, the official said.
U.S.Fort Worth Star-TelegramMissing Texas 3-year-old, mother found in Oklahoma after Amber Alert, police say
The Texas Department of Public Safety has issued a statewide Amber Alert for a missing 3-year-old College Station girl whose last known possible location was in the Dallas-Fort Worth area early Thursday morning. The child, Adeline Paige Welch, was last seen in College Station about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, College Station police said on social media. Adeline was abducted from Treehouse Trail in College Station, police said.
PoliticsThe IndependentBiden secretly limits drone strikes, amid congressional scrutiny over war powers
The Biden administration secretly put temporary limits on the use of drone strikes and commando raids outside of traditional battlefield settings like Afghanistan or Syria, part of a larger national security review of whether to alter use of force rules from the Trump administration. The changes, which the administration put in place on Mr Biden's first day in office, were first reported on Wednesday by the New York Times, and come as the Biden administration recalibrates the sprawling US footprint across the Middle East, and Congress pushes to rein in the president's war-fighting powers and scrutinises a recent strike in Syria.
WorldCBS NewsIndian man accused of beheading daughter in apparent "honor killing"
Indian police have arrested a man and accused him of decapitating his own teenage daughter in a rage over her relationship with another man he didn't like, BBC News reported on Thursday, in what appears to be the latest gruesome case of so-called "honor killing" in the Asian nation. Police in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh said Sarvesh Kumar was arrested as he walked toward the local police station carrying his daughter's head. BBC News said the local police released a video of Kumar confessing to the crime, in which he explains that he was enraged to learn of his daughter's relationship, came home to find her alone, locker her in a room and decapitated her with a sharp object.
WorldArchitectural Digest9 of the Best Outdoor Rugs That Literally Ground Any Space
High-traffic areas are about to meet their match Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
PoliticsBusiness InsiderRudy Giuliani, who helped lead Trump's bogus election-fraud conspiracy theory, is being mocked after warning of the dangers of misinformation
Rudy Giuliani warned of "the dire consequences of misinformation on social media." Giuliani has long promoted right-wing misinformation on social media. Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's former personal attorney, was pilloried on Wednesday after he warned in a podcast of the dangers of online misinformation.
WorldThe IndependentNetanyahu says SNL joke about Israel vaccine discrimination is ‘so outrageous’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the latest person to criticize Saturday Night Live, after Weekend Update host Michael Che joked in February that the country was only vaccinating the “Jewish half” of its population. In late February, the comedian accused Israel of discriminating with its world-leading vaccine program, which has vaccinated half of its population, the most per capita anywhere on the globe. “Israel is reporting that they vaccinated half of their population,” Mr Che joked, “and I'm going to guess it's the Jewish half.”
WorldBusiness InsiderBiden changed his plan for the strike on Iran-backed militias at the last minute to avoid killing a woman and children
The president changed his plans for an airstrike against Iran-backed militias at the last minute. Battlefield intelligence indicated the presence of a woman and children at one of two strike areas. With fighters in the air, Biden chose to strike only one target, bypassing the one with civilians.
U.S.INSIDERA New Orleans police officer groomed and raped a 14-year-old girl he was assigned to take to a rape kit exam, a lawsuit alleges
A new lawsuit accuses a New Orleans cop of grooming and raping a 14-year-old rape survivor. Officer Rodney Vicknair was arrested last year and fired from the police department in January. The lawsuit alleged the police department shouldn't have allowed Vicknair to assist the girl.
ScienceCBS NewsEarth's largest-ever mass extinction is a warning for humanity
Right now our planet is in the midst of what science says is an unprecedented rate of change, unlike anything seen in tens of millions of years. Overconsumption, unsustainable practices and the release of immense amounts of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels are altering our life-sustaining climate at a dangerous pace, oceans are acidifying and losing oxygen, and species are dying off. The worst came a little over 250 million years ago — before dinosaurs walked the earth — in an episode called the Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction, or the Great Dying, when 90% of life in the oceans and 70% of life on land vanished.
U.S.The IndependentHow police are warding off threats from QAnon and militias threatening violence on 4 March
As federal intelligence and national security officials testified before the Senate on Wednesday about the failures that allowed a pro-Trump mob to overrun police at the US Capitol two months ago, one exchange underscored how the 6 January insurrection has completely altered officials' handling of future threats. Melissa Smislova, the acting undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, told senators at Wednesday's public hearing that her agency and the FBI issued a joint intelligence bulletin about possible militia attacks on the Capitol planned for this Thursday and Saturday, 4 and 6 March. “Extremists,” Ms Smislova testified, have been “discussing” those two dates as possibilities to once again storm the Capitol and terrorise lawmakers.
PoliticsBusiness InsiderBiden supports making a temporary $3,000 payment to parents in the stimulus bill permanent going forward
Biden supports making a temporary boost to a tax credit for parents permanent, a Democratic aide said. Senate Democrats want to make this permanent and to give families the option of monthly checks. President Joe Biden told House Democrats on Wednesday that he supported making the temporary beefed-up child tax credit in his stimulus plan permanent, a Democratic aide briefed on the call told Insider.
PoliticsThe Independent‘Textbook voter suppression’: How Trump’s stolen election lies are shaping the future of democracy
On the floor of Georgia's House of Representatives on 1 March, state Democratic Rep Bee Nguyen warned her colleagues that the bill in front of them – a 66-page, Republican-backed proposal to drastically roll back voting access across the state – followed a months-long campaign from Donald Trump and his GOP allies to undermine millions of voters with baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and a “stolen” election. “Members of this body aided and abetted a deliberate misinformation campaign to sow seeds of doubt among Georgia voters with absolutely no facts or evidence.” The bill would, among other things, cut mail-in voting and early voting access, strip elections oversight from the state's Secretary of State, and limit voting access that would disproportionately target Black voters.
U.S.USA TODAYFive states are rolling back mask mandates. More could be on the way. Here's what it could mean for all of us.
Five states have announced rolling back mask mandates in major recalls of COVID-19 safety measures over the past month – leaving many to wonder whether other states will join the tide and alter how the country is dealing with COVID-19 at a crucial moment in the fight against the disease. Cities, businesses and families are often making their own choices of whether to wear masks or go to restaurants, despite governors in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Montana and Iowa declaring that state mandates would no longer be needed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Major American retail chains across the country such as Kroger, Best Buy Co., Kohl's and Ulta are sticking to their policies to require masks in stores.
“Taking humans to Mars would require an investment astronomically out of kilter with the possible benefits.”
“Can a Mars settlement be a freer society than we enjoy on Earth? Maybe.”
“What we learn...may spark the next revolution that will make life in 2071 beyond anything we can imagine right now.”
“Our presence on Mars could jeopardize one of our main reasons for being there — the search for life.”
“The future of geologic investigation of other worlds lies with highly improved versions of our Mars rovers.”