The Biden administration says it had no role in the explosion on Sunday at an Iranian uranium enrichment facility. Iran has blamed Israel and vowed to take revenge. Why it matters: The administration is attempting to negotiate a return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, with a second round of indirect talks set to start on Wednesday.
The judge in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis policeman charged with George Floyd's deadly arrest last May, denied a defense request on Monday to sequester the jurors after police in a neighboring city fatally shot a Black man. Testimony resumed in the murder trial as the prosecution called an expert in cardiology, Dr. Jonathan Rich, to testify that Floyd died as a result of the restraint used on him by police rather than a drug overdose, as suggested by the defense. Rich also said Chauvin had multiple opportunities to save Floyd's life.
The town of Windsor, Virginia, said Sunday that one officer has been fired and another disciplined over an arrest in December that went viral on social media over the weekend. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) said earlier Sunday that video of the traffic stop, in which Army Lt. Caron Nazario was pepper-sprayed at gunpoint by two officers, "is disturbing and angered me," and he said he has directed the Virginia State Police to investigate the incident. Nazario, who is Black and Latino, is also suing the officers, Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker, in federal court.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a longtime advocate of democracy in Myanmar, told Politico Monday the Biden administration is "trying to do the right thing" in responding to the Myanmar military coup. What he's saying: "On the domestic front, I have not yet witnessed something that I've been happy about," McConnell said. Between the lines: President Biden has consulted McConnell on the U.S.' response to the takeover in Myanmar, which has led police and military to kill over 700 people since February, Politico reports.
La Soufriere volcano fired an enormous amount of ash and hot gas early Monday in the biggest explosive eruption yet since volcanic activity began on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent late last week, with officials worried about the lives of those who have refused to evacuate. Experts called it a โhuge explosionโ that generated pyroclastic flows down the volcano's south and southwest flanks. โIt's destroying everything in its path,โ Erouscilla Joseph, director of the University of the West Indies' Seismic Research Center, told The Associated Press.
You don't have to commit to full-on maximalism to make a statement Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun arrived in Iran on Sunday to help try to restore a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and free up $7 billion in Iranian funds trapped in South Korea, Seoul officials said. Chung is the first South Korean prime minister to visit Iran in 44 years amid icy relations between the two countries due to Iran's military cooperation with North Korea. Tension rose after Iran seized a South Korean ship and its sailors in the Strait of Hormuz in January, accusing them of polluting the waters, and demanded South Korea release $7 billion in assets frozen in South Korean banks under U.S. sanctions.
Top CEOs plan to get dramatically tougher on state legislators over proposed new restrictions on voting. Driving the news: After a weekend Zoom summit, the CEOs are threatening to withhold campaign contributions โ and to punish states by yanking investments in factories, stadiums and other lucrative projects. The call included a long list of business luminaries, including James Murdoch, Ken Chenault, Ken Frazier, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, and executives of Delta, United and American Airlines.
The head of the Anti-Defamation League has called for Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson, after the primetime host said immigration would โdilute the political powerโ of Americans. Carlson was referring to โwhite replacementโ, a racist theory that has been cited as a motivation in deadly attacks. I think we've really crossed a new threshold when a major news network dismisses this or pretends like it isn't important,โ Greenblatt said.
Insider spoke with a former Minneapolis police officer who quit days before Derek Chauvin's trial. Chauvin's trial over George Floyd's death began March 29, and witnesses have been testifying. A former Minneapolis police officer who quit the department days before the start of Derek Chauvin's trial said he did so fearing there would be riots in the city no matter the outcome.
Vietnam, a one-party Communist state, has one of south-east Asia's fastest-growing economies and has set its sights on becoming a developed nation by 2020. It became a unified country once more in 1975 when the armed forces of the Communist north seized the south. This followed three decades of bitter wars, in which the Communists fought first against the colonial power France, then against South Vietnam and its US backers.
The head of New York City's Black Lives Matter chapter is calling for an investigation into BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors over a series of million-dollar real estate purchases she's made. Cullors, 37, has reportedly purchased four high-end homes for $3.2 million in the U.S. alone, per New York Post, including property in a mostly white area of Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles County for $1.4 million. BLM reportedly brought in $90 million in donations last year, and now inquiring minds want to know if or how Cullors is paid by the organization and how much she has contributed to charity, per Daily Mail.
2nd Lt. Caron Nazario sued Virginia police officers over a traffic stop he says violated his rights. The officer who pepper-sprayed Nazario after holding him at gunpoint was fired, officials said. The governor of Virginia has also ordered an independent investigation into the incident.
It is inevitable that some people who have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus will still get a "breakthrough" infection because no vaccine is 100 percent effective, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Monday.
President Biden will likely have to trim his infrastructure-spending plans, Goldman Sachs said. It said Congress could approve a $3.3 trillion measure, down from the $4 trillion Biden's pursuing. Goldman thinks the corporate tax rate will rise to 25% instead of the 28% Biden is seeking.
Prince Philip devised a special heating system to protect the paintings at Balmoral Castle, it has emerged as the Royal family paid tribute to his conservation work on its estates. The Palace revealed on Sunday that the Duke of Edinburgh was behind an initiative to install a heating system that responded to humidity rather than the outside temperature to create a less damaging atmosphere for the castle's many antiques. The Duke's fervent passion for horticulture and agriculture also led him to re-landscape many the Queen's estates and even get behind the wheel of a bulldozer to realise his vision.
The Florida county tax collector was five days away from a federal indictment for sex trafficking involving a 17-year-old โ the same one Gaetz is now being investigated over โ so Greenberg reached out to mutual friends on Aug. 14 last year and tried to enlist them in his defense, according to a WhatsApp chat shared with federal investigators and obtained by POLITICO. Greenberg also said he was paying the legal fees for the woman, who is now 20 years old. The WhatsApp messages shed light on key aspects of the scandal consuming the Florida Republican congressman and close ally of President Donald Trump โ and on the state of mind of the man Gaetz once called his โwingmanโ as he sought to manage the fallout.
People on the island of St. Vincent are hoping to be evacuated by cruise ship. Cruise ships have been dispatched to the island that is being partially evacuated after the 4,000-foot high volcano La Soufriรจre erupted on Friday. "The chief medical officer would be identifying the persons already vaccinated so that we can get them on the ship," Gonsalves said.
A Los Angeles woman who is suspected of killing her three children in their Southern Californiaย apartment and then leading police on a long-distance chase to Central California on Saturday was embroiled in a custody dispute over them, according to the Los Angeles Times. Police have identified their mother, Liliana Carrillo, 30,ย as a suspect in the case. Just after 2 p.m., the LAPD reported that Carrillo was captured near Ponderosa, California, about 160 miles north of Los Angeles.
Insider spoke with an officer who recently left the Minneapolis Police Department. A former Minneapolis police officer told Insider that Derek Chauvin violated protocol while kneeling on George Floyd's neck for several minutes last year but that he didn't think the officer's actions led to Floyd's death.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended Biden's communication style on Monday. Biden "does not spend his time tweeting conspiracy theories," Psaki said. The comments came after a Republican senator criticized Biden's social media usage.
Several colleges nationwide have added the COVID-19 jab to its required list of vaccinations for students returning for the fall semester. Students who attend Cornell University, Rutgers University, Fort Lewis College, Nova Southeastern University and St. Edward's University will have to be fully vaccinated before returning to campus in the fall, with limited exemptions for underlying medical conditions and religious beliefs. University President Christine Paxton made the announcement in a press release announcing a โmore traditional academic year than the three-semester de-densified campus model the University employed this year to protect community health and safety during the peak of the pandemic.โ
A Louisiana woman who worked as a dispatcher in a sheriff's office was fired and arrested last week. The company Charles Schwab is suing her and blamed the mistake on a "software enhancement." A woman who worked for more than four years as a sheriff's dispatcher in Louisiana was fired and arrested after authorities say she refused to return more than $1.2 million that was accidentally deposited into her account.
As the Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Sussex released very different tributes to their grandfather within 30 minutes of each other on Monday, it was impossible to resist reading between the lines. William's 173-word missive was the first to drop on the Kensington Palace website at 2pm, paying tribute to "a century of life defined by service". Praising his grandfather as an "extraordinary man and part of an extraordinary generation", the seemly eulogy gave a nod to the Duke of Edinburgh's "infectious sense of adventure as well as his mischievous sense of humour".
Former GOP House Speaker John Boehner doubled down on his criticism of Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday. Boehner said he "zeroed in" on Cruz because the senator was "stirring up some of the crazies in my own caucus." The former speaker even added in the audiobook of his memoir: "PS, Ted Cruz, go f--- yourself."
โThereโs no โboth sides of the debateโ when it comes to active voter suppression.โ
โCompanies that do this ooze contempt for their own customers and employees who are not in the leftmost quarter of opinion.โ
โThe truth is that Fortune 500 companies were never taking moral stances from the goodness of their corporate hearts.โ
โThe truth is, the companies hold the cardsโฆIf companies stick to their guns, Georgia is likely to back down as well.โ
โWhen a company folds to the unfounded outrage of a few misinformed nuts, they are forever at the mobโs beck-and-call.โ