Antoinette Frank, the only woman on Louisiana’s death row, was convicted in the 1995 death of a fellow officer and two others
A New Orleans ex-police officer awaiting execution for the murders of a fellow officer and two other people during a 1995 restaurant robbery lost a chance at clemency Friday during a meeting of Louisiana’s pardon board.
Antoinette Frank’s bid for a clemency hearing failed on a 2-2 vote after emotional testimony.
Continue reading...Paul-Henri Nargeolet was onboard the ill-fated submersible that was likely crushed by the ocean earlier this year, killing all five crew
The company that owns the salvage rights to the Titanic shipwreck has cancelled plans to retrieve more artefacts from the site because the leader of the upcoming expedition died in the Titan submersible implosion, according to documents filed in a US district court this week.
The decision could affect a looming court battle between the company and the US government, which has been trying to stop the 2024 mission. US attorneys have said the firm’s original plans to enter the ship’s hull would violate a federal law that treats the wreck as a gravesite.
Continue reading...Top US diplomat tours Arab states in effort to avoid wider war over expected Israeli invasion of Gaza Strip
The US’s most senior diplomat has urged Israel to take every possible precaution to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza as he called for the establishment in the territory of safe zones where shelter, food, water and medical supplies can be provided.
“We have urged the Israelis to use every possible precaution to avoid harm to civilians,” the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said. “We recognise many Palestinian families in Gaza are suffering through no fault of their own and that Palestinian civilians have lost their lives.”
Continue reading...Knox had been found guilty of defamation for wrongly accusing Patrick Lumumba of murdering Meredith Kercher
Italy’s top court has ordered a retrial after Amanda Knox appealed for the dropping of the slander conviction she received for wrongly accusing a bar owner of murdering the British student Meredith Kercher.
Knox, an American who, along with her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, spent four years in prison after initially being convicted of the murder, made the request on the basis of a ruling by the European court of human rights in 2019 that found that her defence rights had been violated during police questioning in 2007.
Continue reading...House unable to govern, with next steps uncertain, after Louisiana senator fails to secure his party’s support
The Republican congressman Steve Scalise is ending his bid to become the US House speaker after failing to secure enough votes to win the gavel.
“I just shared with my colleagues that I’m withdrawing my name as a candidate for speaker-designee,” Scalise said as he emerged from the closed-door meeting at the Capitol, where he first informed fellow Republican colleagues of his decision.
Continue reading...Congressional business at a standstill as House majority leader drops out of speaker race on Thursday
The House of Representatives remained without a speaker on Thursday, as the fractious Republican majority refused to unite behind their party’s chosen nominee, congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
A day after narrowly becoming House Republicans’ candidate for speaker in a secret ballot vote, Scalise moved no closer to overcoming the entrenched divisions on Thursday.
Continue reading...System intended to rectify disproportionate number of abducted and sex-trafficked Black children overlooked as ‘runaways’
California has become the first state to create an alert system specifically geared towards finding missing Black women and girls. Senate bill 673 was signed by Gavin Newsom earlier this week amid a wave of bills that have come across the governor’s desk and were either approved or vetoed.
Ebony alerts would allow the California highway patrol to trigger emergency notifications on phones and road signs – similar to Amber and Feather alerts – to let people know that a Black person between the ages of 12 and 25 is missing in the area.
Continue reading...Frustrated US district judge Aileen Cannon shuts down conflict-of-interest hearing after lawyers make surprise request
The federal judge in the criminal case about Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents rebuked prosecutors for “wasting the court’s time” on Thursday with their sudden request to partly restrict the lawyer for one of Trump’s co-defendants.
US district judge Aileen Cannon abruptly postponed the hearing after getting the request – which came after prosecutors had first said they would not seek disqualification.
Continue reading...The 23-year-old Black man was stopped as he was walking home from a store, placed in a neck hold and injected with ketamine
A jury has convicted one Colorado police officer and acquitted another for the 2019 homicide of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old whose death at the hands of law enforcement while on a walk home sparked international outrage and years of protests.
A jury found Randy Roedema, an Aurora police department (APD) officer, guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault on Thursday. A second officer, Jason Rosenblatt, was found not guilty of manslaughter and assault. Both had held him on the ground and ignored his cries saying he couldn’t breathe. A third officer, who was the first to approach McClain, is also facing charges and has an upcoming trial.
Continue reading...Ground forces are gathering near the border, as UN says that Gaza is dangerously close to running out of food and water
The US pledged to send more arms to Israel on Thursday ahead of an expected ground assault in Gaza against Hamas, as the UN warned food and water supplies were running dangerously low in the blockaded enclave.
As America’s top diplomat flew into Israel following Saturday’s surprise cross-border assault by Hamas, the UK announced it would send two navy ships and would begin surveillance flights in its own show of support.
Continue reading...The Midway Market & Liquor in Frazier Park will get a cut for selling the winning ticket of the second-largest Powerball drawing ever
Janea Herrera, a clerk at a southern California convenience store, first thought it was a joke when she was told that a winning lottery ticket was sold at the store. And it wasn’t just any ticket. It was the winning ticket for the $1.765bn Powerball, which someone had bought at the Midway Market & Liquor in Frazier Park, a small town north of Los Angeles.
“After 30 years of selling those tickets, we need a winner. I’m just happy for my customers,” Nidal Khalil, the store’s co-owner told the LA Times on Thursday. Khalil, 54, co-owns the shop with his brother and said they received congratulatory calls from across the state as well as from Syria, where they are from.
Continue reading...New Jersey Democratic senator has resisted calls for his resignation in the middle of a corruption scandal
Federal prosecutors on Thursday filed a superseding indictment against the Democratic senator Bob Menendez, charging him with being an unregistered agent of the Egyptian government, a court filing showed.
The New Jersey senator has thus far resisted calls for his resignation. His trial on corruption charges will begin next May.
Continue reading...Steve Scalise doesn’t yet have the support he needs from his own party to become speaker
Here’s a little more from South Carolina’s Republican representative Nancy Mace’s interview on CNN during which she said she would not vote for Steve Scalise as House speaker.
Mace, who has thrown her support behind far-right Ohio representative Jim Jordan, said that she “actually talked to Democrats who trust him at his word.”
Continue reading...President says university student, 21, who died days after being tied to a fence and beaten, was murdered ‘simply for being himself’
Joe Biden has marked the 25th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay 21-year-old University of Wyoming student who died six days after he was beaten by two young men, tied to a fence, burned and abandoned in a remote part of the state.
Shepard’s death has long been memorialized as a hate crime that helped fuel the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Lamenting “a brutal act of hate and violence that shocked our nation and the world”, Biden, in a statement on Thursday, said Shepard was murdered “simply for being himself”.
Continue reading...2024 Republican frontrunner called Hezbollah militant group ‘very smart’, prompting a stern reaction from the White House
Joe Biden and Donald Trump continued to clash over the Israel-Hamas war on Thursday as a White House spokesman rebuked the former US president for what he called “dangerous and unhinged” comments about the conflict.
Hamas, an Iran-backed militant group based in Gaza, launched attacks on Israel on Saturday, killing more than 1,000 people and taking more than 100 hostage. Israeli air strikes have subsequently killed more than 1,000 people and significantly worsened the humanitarian situation in Gaza. A ground invasion is thought likely.
Reuters contributed reporting
Continue reading...Adam Aron duped into sending explicit photos to ‘Mia’, fake ballet dancer created by US woman who pleaded guilty to cyberstalking
The boss of the world’s largest movie theatre chain sent sexually explicit messages and photos to a woman who then tried to blackmail him for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Adam Aron, the chief executive of AMC Entertainment, which also owns the Odeon chain in Europe, exchanged messages for weeks last spring with an individual he believed was a ballet dancer with whom he had previously been in a romantic relationship.
Continue reading...At press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, US secretary of state says America will always be by Israel’s side
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said the attacks by Hamas on Israel on Saturday had “harrowing echoes” of Nazi massacres, as he stood alongside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem in an act of public solidarity.
Blinken, who is Jewish, vowed that the US would stand for ever alongside Israel, and said he would use his tour of the region to urge all parties, especially Hezbollah, not to broaden the conflict or open a second front.
Continue reading...Having no US ambassador to Israel in place and Republicans holding up military promotions is a threat to democracy, experts say
Political turmoil in Washington has left the US without key diplomats across the Middle East and raised concerns that years of congressional dysfunction are taking their toll on US leadership.
A devastating weekend attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen shook the region and came at a moment when there is no US ambassador in place in Israel, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon or Oman.
Continue reading...Several chief executives called for names to be made public so that they, and others, could know not to hire the students
A group of US business leaders has demanded that Harvard University release the names of students who were part of organizations that signed a letter blaming Israel for deadly attacks by Hamas that triggered a severe escalation of violence across Israel and Gaza.
Several chief executives called for the names to be made public so that they, and others, could know not to hire the students once they leave Harvard.
Continue reading...Investigation raises questions about transparency and governance of $1bn citizenship by investment scheme
The Caribbean island of Dominica may have sold thousands more “golden passports” than its government has publicly disclosed, according to analysis that raises questions about the transparency and governance of its $1bn (£822m) citizenship by investment scheme.
An investigation by the Guardian and 14 other international news organisations, in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, has conducted the first detailed examination of the identities and numbers of individuals who paid for Dominican citizenship.
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