Gavin Newsom responds after Judge Roger Benitez compares AR-15s to Swiss army knives ‘good for both home and battle’
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, slammed a federal judge’s decision to overturn his state’s three-decade-old ban on assault rifles as “a direct threat to public safety and the lives of innocent Californians”.
Related: America’s gun obsession is rooted in slavery | Carol Anderson
Continue reading...Attempt to hold a worker criminally liable for the spread of Covid resulted in Josefina Brito-Fernandez losing her license to work, fearing deportation
Prosecutors in Camden, New Jersey, charged a home health aide accused of inadvertently exposing an elderly patient to Covid-19 early in the pandemic in what appears to be the only case of its kind. The patient, an 80-year-old woman, died of the illness in May last year.
The attempt to hold an essential worker criminally liable for the spread of Covid-19 resulted in the worker, 51-year-old Josefina Brito-Fernandez, permanently losing her license to work and entering a probation program for fear she would be deported.
Continue reading...If the grand jury goes against him, Trump would be the first former US president charged with a crime
Standing in court, the former president pleaded not guilty to -harges of financial crimes that he insists are part of a politically motivated witch hunt. Jacob Zuma, once the populist leader of South Africa, cut a humbled figure on Wednesday – and offered a potential glimpse of America’s future.
A similar fate for Donald Trump became significantly more likely with reports that New York prosecutors have convened a grand jury to decide whether to indict him on criminal charges.
Continue reading...Investigation includes matters such as hush-money payments to women on Trump’s behalf, property valuations and employee pay
New York prosecutors have convened a special grand jury to consider evidence in a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s business dealings, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press on Tuesday.
The development signals that the Manhattan district attorney’s office was moving toward seeking charges as a result of its two-year investigation, which included a lengthy legal battle to obtain Trump’s tax records.
Continue reading...A case that could undermine the landmark Roe v Wade ruling and a punitive Texas law are the culmination of a decades-long push
The anti-abortion movement in the US is emboldened and optimistic after the supreme court announced it would hear a direct challenge to laws underpinning the right to abortion in the US, and Texas enacted a law intended to ban abortion after six weeks.
The high court decision to take up the case and the Texas move come during the most hostile year for reproductive rights in the nearly half-century since pregnant people won the constitutional right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy in the landmark 1973 case Roe v Wade.
Continue reading...Loopholes surrounding these weapons make them untraceable – and a hot commodity in many vulnerable communities
When Brian Muhammad, a program manager at a gun violence prevention group in California, asked a 16-year-old boy in 2018 how young people were getting guns, he assumed the answer would be Nevada, the neighboring state with looser gun laws.
“Who would waste time going to Nevada when you can just get them in the mail and put it together?” the Stockton teen nonchalantly replied.
Continue reading...Court will take up Mississippi’s bid to enforce a 15-week ban on abortion, setting up a showdown
The US supreme court agreed on Monday to consider a major challenge to reproductive rights, saying it will take up Mississippi’s bid to enforce a ban on almost all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.
Related: ‘It would be glorious’: hopes high for Biden to nominate first Black woman to supreme court
Continue reading...Former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein appears in blue scrubs in court in Manhattan, and pleads not guilty to sex-trafficking charges
When Ghislaine Maxwell appeared in Manhattan federal court on Friday, her appearance was a far cry from that of the jet-setter who once socialised with the rich and powerful.
Related: Judge rejects Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to dismiss charges that she recruited girls
Continue reading...After a dramatic final week, all that is left is closing statements and jury decisions
The prosecution took 10 days to lay out its case against Derek Chauvin. The former Minneapolis police officer’s defense to the charges of murdering George Floyd barely lasted two.
The relative brevity of Chauvin’s case might reflect a confidence on the part of the defense that the evidence against him is easily picked apart or at least shaky enough to raise reasonable doubt with the jury.
Continue reading...Jon Ryan Schaffer gave a guilty plea in hopes of getting a lighter sentence and will be considered for a witness security program
A member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group and heavy metal guitarist has become the first defendant to plead guilty to federal charges in connection with the insurrection at the US Capitol.
Jon Ryan Schaffer, the frontman of the band Iced Earth, has agreed on Friday to cooperate with investigators in hopes of getting a lighter sentence, and the Justice Department will consider putting Schaffer in the federal witness security program, a US district judge said.
Continue reading...Former police officer Kimberly Potter was charged with second-degree manslaughter on Wednesday after fatally shooting the 20-year-old Black motorist Daunte Wright, officials said.
The white former suburban Minneapolis police officer was arrested earlier in the day in relation to the shooting dead of Wright during a traffic stop on Sunday in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis.
Continue reading...George Floyd died of a lack of oxygen from the way he was held down by police, a retired forensic pathologist testified on Friday at former officer Derek Chauvin's murder trial. The testimony of Lindsey Thomas, who retired in 2017 from the Hennepin county medical examiner's office in Minneapolis, bolstered testimony by other experts on Thursday that rejected the defence theory that Floyd's drug use and underlying health problems killed him
Continue reading...Medaria Arradondo says on sixth day of trial that ex-officer’s treatment of George Floyd breached regulations
The Minneapolis police chief, Medaria Arradondo, told the Derek Chauvin murder trial on Monday that he “vehemently disagrees” that there was any justification for the former police officer to keep his knee on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes.
Arradondo said on the sixth day of the trial that Chauvin’s treatment of the 46-year-old Black man breached regulations and showed a disregard “for the sanctity of life”.
Continue reading...Conspiracy theorist was fighting Connecticut court sanction in defamation lawsuit brought by relatives of victims of the shooting
The US supreme court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by the Infowars host, Trump ally and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was fighting a Connecticut court sanction in a defamation lawsuit brought by relatives of some victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting.
Related: Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ordered to pay $100,000 in Sandy Hook case
Continue reading...Derek Chauvin’s police supervisor, Sgt David Pleoger, has said there was no justification for the officer keeping a knee on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes. Ploeger arrived at the scene shortly after Floyd was taken away by ambulance, said that Chauvin and other officers holding down the 46-year-old Black man should have stopped using force once Floyd stopped resisting. 'When Mr Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers they could have ended their restraint,' he said
Continue reading...Sgt David Pleoger tells trial that Chauvin and the other officers should have stopped using force once Floyd stopped resisting
Derek Chauvin’s police supervisor has told his murder trial that there was no justification for the officer to keep his knee on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes.
Sgt David Pleoger, who arrived at the scene shortly after Floyd was taken away by ambulance, said that Chauvin and other officers holding down the 46-year-old Black man should have stopped using force once Floyd stopped resisting.
Continue reading...Christopher Martin tells court ‘this could have been avoided’, on third day of testimony in former officer Derek Chauvin’s trial
The cashier who served George Floyd in a Minneapolis store immediately before his arrest and death last May told a court on Wednesday of the “disbelief and guilt” he felt for allowing Floyd to pay with a suspected fake $20 bill when he later saw the police kneeling on him.
Testimony on the third day of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial continued in an atmosphere of tense emotions and harrowing evidence about Floyd’s death.
Continue reading...Darnella Frazier said Derek Chauvin did not ease up as he pinned Floyd down and that she still loses sleep over the killing
The woman who recorded the shocking video of George Floyd’s death that prompted mass protests for racial justice around the world has told the Derek Chauvin murder trial of her feelings of guilt at being unable to intervene to save his life.
Darnella Frazier, who at times sobbed as she gave evidence on the second day of Chauvin’s trial in Minneapolis, said that she still loses sleep over the killing of the 46-year-old Black man.
Continue reading...Jerry Blackwell told jury that ex-officer used excessive and unreasonable force ‘without regard for Floyd’s life’
Prosecutors accused former police officer Derek Chauvin of killing a defenceless George Floyd by “grinding and crushing him until the very breath, the very life, was squeezed out of him”, at the opening on Monday of a murder trial regarded by millions as a litmus test of US police accountability.
Related: ‘It’s for the people’: how George Floyd Square became a symbol of resistance – and healing
Continue reading...George Floyd's family and attorneys gathered outside the heavily-barricaded court house before former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin went on trial Monday.
'They can't sweep this under the rug,' said Philonise Floyd, George Floyd's brother, to reporters. Philonise and other speakers spoke about the video that showed Chauvin's knee on Floyd's neck that would be brought as evidence during the trial
Continue reading...