School shooting that left three children and three adults dead brought condolences from conservatives who oppose gun control
Joe Biden has commented on his ability to get gun control passed following Monday’s massacre at a Nashville elementary school, noting that he can only “plead with Congress” for action.
Biden spoke to reporters while on his way to Durham, North Carolina.
Continue reading...Maryland court orders conviction reinstated and new hearing held but ruling suggests Syed, 41, will not remain convicted for long
A court in Maryland has reinstated the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, the Baltimore man whose alleged involvement in the 1999 murder of 17-year-old Hae Min Lee was the subject of the hit podcast Serial.
Syed, 41, was convicted of murdering Lee in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison, though he always maintained his innocence. In September last year, state prosecutors revealed they had uncovered new evidence they said undermined Syed’s conviction and pointed to two alternative suspects.
Continue reading...A federal judge ruled the former vice-president must appear in the inquiry into Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election
Former US vice-president Mike Pence must testify in front of a grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s election subversion and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress, a federal judge reportedly ruled on Tuesday.
Multiple news outlets reported the ruling, which remained under seal.
Continue reading...Tim Burchett says he doesn’t see a role for Congress in preventing tragedies ‘other than mess things up’ after Nashville shooting
After the latest massacre of schoolchildren in the United States, the Republican congressman Tim Burchett answered the question Americans have all but given up asking of their elected officials by telling reporters: “We’re not going to fix it.”
The three-term congressman from Tennessee, the state where an intruder fatally shot three nine-year-old students and three adults at a small Christian school on Monday, appeared to compare the expectation of safety for American schoolchildren with that of soldiers fighting Japanese suicide attackers during the second world war.
Continue reading...Charles and president likely to instead stage back-to-back visits to mark 25 years of Good Friday agreement
Hopes that Joe Biden’s landmark trip to Belfast next month will be rounded off by a meeting with King Charles are fading after the US president brought forward by a week his trip to celebrate 25 years of peace.
It now appears likely the king and the president will stage back-to-back visits in an echo of historic visits to Dublin by Barack Obama and the queen in 2011.
Continue reading...More than 78,000 Afghan refugees relocated to the US as part of Operation Allies Welcome, but few have gained permanent status
On the day he turned 24 earlier this month, Asmatullah checked the status of his asylum request online, hoping that an approval would be his birthday gift.
When he realized that his case was still pending, he took a deep breath and looked up at the California sky, more than 7,000 miles away from the city he grew up in but that he fears returning to.
Continue reading...Disabled voters push for better protection voting absentee and with assistance after temporary ban that disenfranchised some
As Wisconsin’s 4 April supreme court election approaches, disabled voters in the state are pushing elections officials to prioritize protecting the right to vote absentee and with assistance.
“I always, always vote absentee,” said Stacy Ellingen, a Wisconsin voter who has cerebral palsy and requires assistance in voting. “If absentee voting wasn’t an option, I honestly wouldn’t be able to vote in most elections.”
Continue reading...Excerpts from depositions of actor’s children also to be read in court during trial over 2016 collision
Gwyneth Paltrow’s attorneys are expected to call a series of experts and read depositions from her two teenage children in the first full day of the actor’s trial that they have to call witnesses to make their case.
Owing to the eight-day limit the judge imposed on the trial, Paltrow’s defence team is expected to face difficult time-management decisions, much like Terry Sanderson’s experienced last week as they attempted to juggle family members, ski instructors and experts in skiing and brain science.
Continue reading...Trump has resorted to ‘incendiary rhetoric’ to deter investigations and to rile up his base, experts say, and shows no sign of letting up
Donald Trump’s demagogic attacks on prosecutors investigating criminal charges against him are aimed at riling up his base and could spark violence, but show no signs of letting up as a potential indictment in at least one case looms, say legal experts.
At campaign rallies, speeches and on social media Trump has lambasted state and federal prosecutors as “thugs” and claimed that two of them – who are Black – are “racist”, language designed to inflame racial tension.
Continue reading...Ma Ying-jeou’s ‘we are all Chinese’ message starkly at odds with vision of Tsai Ing-wen, who seeks support from Washington
Taiwan’s former president Ma Ying-jeou stood in front of the Sun Yat-sen mausoleum in Nanjing on Tuesday and called for people on both sides of the Taiwan strait to work together for peace, because, he said: “We are all Chinese.”
The 73-year-old is in China on a historic visit, the first by a current or former Taiwanese president since 1949. In the decades since, tensions have increased as Beijing vows to annex Taiwan under what it calls “reunification”. Taiwan’s government and people have become increasingly opposed to the prospect of Chinese rule, and few identify themselves as Chinese.
Continue reading...A former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville on Monday, armed with two “assault-style” weapons and a handgun after elaborately planning the massacre by drawing a detailed map and conducting surveillance of the building, police said.
Nashville chief of police John Drake told NBC News the shooter had planned to attack several different places, saying a manifesto belonging to the suspect “indicates that there was going to be shootings at multiple locations, and the school was one of them”.
Continue reading...Steve Cozzi took a break and never returned – but blood and video pointed to Tomasz Kosowski, who was suing Cozzi’s clients
One day last week, Steve Cozzi, a south Florida attorney, got up from his desk to use the bathroom. He never came back to work and has not been seen since.
Police say he was apparently murdered during that bathroom break, by a plastic surgeon at the center of a lawsuit in which Cozzi represented the opposing side.
Continue reading...Officials call on Biden to take steps to stop Arab states from normalising relations with Syrian leader
Moves to re-engage Bashar al-Assad without him taking steps to stabilise Syria or commit to reforms should be met by more robust US leadership that holds the Syrian leader to account and addresses a litany of US policy failings, a group of prominent former officials say.
In an unprecedented letter to Joe Biden and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, the officials called for moves to stop a regional drift towards normalisation with Assad and impose a formalised ceasefire that facilitates a more impactful aid effort and helps ignite a political process.
Continue reading...Steven van Zandt, the musician and actor who starred as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos and plays guitar as Little Steven in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, called Jamie Raskin his “brother from another mother” today, in a message of support for the Maryland Democrat’s fight against cancer.
Raskin, 60, is undergoing chemotherapy for large B-cell lymphoma, a process which causes hair loss, and has taken to wearing bandannas. Van Zandt is known for wearing such headgear on stage.
Continue reading...Terry Sanderson, 76, suing actor for more than $300,000 over 2016 collision, claiming she skied recklessly into him from behind
The man suing Gwyneth Paltrow over a 2016 collision at one of the most upscale ski resorts in North America is expected to take the stand on Monday as the closely watched trial goes into its second week in Utah.
Attorneys said on Friday that retired optometrist Terry Sanderson, 76, would likely testify first on Monday, before his attorneys rest and hand the courtroom over to Paltrow’s defense team, who are countersuing, to make their case.
Continue reading...Galleria dell’Accademia director issues invitation in wake of incident that forced principal to resign after parents’ complaints
The Florence museum which houses Michelangelo’s David has invited the board of a Florida Christian charter school to visit, after the school’s principal was forced to resign following parent complaints that pupils were shown an image of the nude sculpture in a class.
Hope Carrasquilla resigned as principal of the Tallahassee Classical school last week, after the school board told her to quit or be fired. Carrasquilla’s exit came after three parents complained about a lesson on David, with one parent claiming the 16th century Renaissance masterpiece was pornographic.
Continue reading...Heather Rae has identified as Native American throughout her career but public family records don’t show any evidence of it
Questions about the Native American ancestry of film producer Heather Rae, known for being an activist for Native and Indigenous creators and projects in Hollywood, are being raised after a group published public family records that do not show evidence of Native ancestry.
The Tribal Alliance Against Frauds, an organization that examines claims of Native ancestry from individuals and businesses who publicly represent Native identity, told the New York Post that public family records do not show any ties to tribal heritage for Rae. Citing research published in a blogpost, the group said her family identified as white across multiple public records.
Continue reading...Residents show skepticism to officials insisting tap water is uncontaminated after chemical spill in the Delaware River
Residents in Philadelphia and nearby have been buying bottled water after a chemical spill upstream in the Delaware River in neighboring Bucks county, despite officials latest advisory insisting tap water was safe to drink at least up to midnight Monday.
The concerns came after a leak late Friday evening at the Trinseo Altuglas chemical facility in Bristol Township spilled between 8,100 and 12,000 gallons of a water-based latex finishing solution into the river, Bucks county health officials said Sunday.
Continue reading...Low-income residents face rough recovery after tornado walloped two counties with poverty rates of 35% and 33%
A giant tornado obliterated the modest one-story home that Kimberly Berry shared with her two daughters in the Mississippi Delta flatlands, leaving only a foundation and some random belongings: a toppled refrigerator, a dresser and matching nightstand, a bag of Christmas decorations, some clothing.
During the storm Friday, Berry and her 12-year-old daughter huddled and prayed at a nearby church that was barely damaged, while her 25-year-old daughter survived in the hard-hit town of Rolling Fork, about 15 miles (24km) away.
Continue reading...The Creed III actor’s ads were a key element in the army’s drive to revive struggling recruitment numbers
Ads for the US army featuring Jonathan Majors have been pulled after the actor’s arrest.
Majors, who authorities said was arrested on Saturday in New York on charges of assault and harassment, was the narrator of two ads at the heart of a broader media campaign that kicked off at the start of the NCAA’s March Madness college basketball tournament. Army leaders were hopeful that the popularity of the star of the recently released Creed III and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania would help them reach the youth audience.
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