Police believe an infant was fatally shot on Friday by his three-year-old brother after the older boy got a hold of a gun inside a Houston apartment.
The infant was shot in his abdomen on Friday morning, said Houston assistant police chief Wendy Baimbridge.
Continue reading...Ray Lambert, a US army medic who survived multiple wounds on D-Day and was saluted by a president on the 75th anniversary of the battle, died on Friday. He was 100.
Lambert died at home in Seven Lakes, North Carolina, with his wife and daughter by his side, said neighbor and friend Dr Darrell Simpkins. The physician, who accompanied Lambert to France in June 2019, said the veteran succumbed to an aggressive form of facial cancer and congestive heart failure.
Continue reading...The Florida congressman Matt Gaetz insisted on Friday “the truth will prevail” over allegations of sex trafficking and illegal drug use which have pitched him into the centre of a congressional scandal.
Related: Republican Matt Gaetz faces calls to resign from member of his own party
Continue reading...Trump and his allies foresaw a ticking timebomb centred on the president’s son – but it has not turned out that way
Where’s Hunter?
The rhetorical question about Joe Biden’s troubled son was posed time and again by Donald Trump during last year’s US presidential election but never caught fire in the way “Lock her up!” did against Hillary Clinton.
Continue reading...Senate parliamentarian’s decision widens path for Democrats to enact Joe Biden’s sprawling infrastructure plan
A novel interpretation of an arcane parliamentary procedure has presented congressional Democrats with an unexpected – and tantalizing – new opportunity to advance some of their most ambitious legislative goals despite their slim majorities and fierce Republican opposition.
This week, the Senate parliamentarian determined that Democrats can employ a fast-track process known as budget reconciliation more times than previously understood, potentially allowing them to pass multiple legislative packages without any Republican support before next year’s midterm elections – if they can keep their own members in line.
Continue reading...Revealed: groups banned from other sites fundraising on GiveSendGo as data breach identifies high-dollar donors
A data breach from Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo has revealed that millions of dollars have been raised on the site for far-right causes and groups, many of whom are banned from raising funds on other platforms.
Related: How the far-right group ‘Oath Enforcers’ plans to harass political enemies
Continue reading...A round-up of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to China
Continue reading...Historic queer institutions across southern California that have been safe spaces for LGBTQ+ crowds for decades are in danger of closing permanently
Four iconic Los Angeles gay bars, touting a combined history of 130 years, have permanently closed during the pandemic and many more have warned that they are on the brink of shutdown.
Related: An order of queer and trans 'nuns' in San Francisco take on an unholy year
Continue reading...Deaths discovered over a course of nine days are ‘just the tip of the iceberg’ for the species, says expert
Four dead gray whales have washed ashore on San Francisco Bay Area beaches in the last nine days, with experts saying on Friday one had been struck by a ship. They were trying to determine how the other three had died.
“It’s alarming to respond to four dead gray whales in just over a week because it really puts into perspective the current challenges faced by this species,” says Dr Padraig Duignan, the director of pathology at the Marine Mammal Center.
Continue reading...
The FBI has arrested a man involved in the Jan.6 attack on the US Capitol, who allegedly had plans to detonate a bomb to take down the FBI, CIA, and other agencies, the Washington Post reports.
Seth Aaron Pendley was arrested Thursday, Justice Department officials said, after he allegedly sought materials for explosives from an undercover FBI agent. His plans, according to a criminal complaint, hinged on bombing the Amazon Web Services building in Ashburn, Va, in an attempt to disable Internet access in key government agencies, hinder operations, and upset “the oligarchy”.
Feds just charged Seth Aaron Pendley, 28, of Wichita Falls, with trying to blow up a data center in Virginia. Allege he tried to buy an explosive device from an undercover FBI employee in Ft. Worth, bragged to friends on Facebook he was at Jan. 6 Capitol attack @CourthouseNews pic.twitter.com/EHMk5z3QFH
The case highlights a growing concern among law enforcement and terrorism experts that the insurrection could inspire further domestic terrorist attacks, and officials praised the unidentified person who first alerted them to Pendley’s online posts.
‘We are indebted to the concerned citizen who came forward to report the defendant’s alarming online rhetoric, said Prerak Shah, the acting U.S. attorney in Dallas. “In flagging his posts to the FBI, this individual may have saved the lives of a number of tech workers’”.
As the Biden Administration scrambles to make space for the growing number of people crossing the US-Mexico border, officials announced that migrant families will now be held at hotels in Arizona, the Associated Press reports.
According to a statement from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement will takeover several hotels in the Phoenix area along the southwest border.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — which places unaccompanied children with “sponsors,” most often parents and close relatives — has found space in convention centers, military bases and other large venues. Los Angeles County officials said Friday that its fairgrounds will be used to temporarily house up to 2,500 unaccompanied children.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican and frequent Biden critic, asked the administration to close a holding facility for unaccompanied children at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, citing allegations that they aren’t getting enough to eat and boys are unsupervised in showers.
Continue reading...Adam Kinzinger tweeted that congressman ‘needs to resign’ and linked to article claiming Gaetz paid $900 to accused sex trafficker
The House ethics committee on Friday announced it will open an investigation into the Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, amid a widening scandal involving allegations related to sex trafficking.
In a statement the committee said it was aware of the public allegations that Gaetz may have engaged in “sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.”
Continue reading...Joe Biden has paid tribute to the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, and sent condolences to Queen Elizabeth II. 'He was a heck of a guy,' the US president told reporters at a photo opportunity in the Oval Office, '99-years-old and he never slowed down at all - which I admire the devil out of.'
Neuralink video appears to show monkey controlling game paddle simply by thinking
The billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup released footage on Friday appearing to show a monkey playing a simple video game after getting implants of the new technology.
The three-minute video by Neuralink shows Pager, a male macaque with chips embedded on each side of its brain, playing Mind Pong. Although he was trained to move a joystick, it is now unplugged. He appears to control the paddle simply by thinking about moving his hand up or down.
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...Multi-platinum rapper, celebrated for raw storytelling, was first artist to top US charts with first five albums
DMX, the New York rapper whose gruff tone electrified the US music scene in the late 1990s, has died aged 50.
The star, whose real name was Earl Simmons, was hospitalised after a heart attack on 2 April, and had been placed in a critical care unit at White Plains hospital, New York. His family had organised a prayer vigil outside, which took place on Monday.
Continue reading...Rap star and actor who embodied the edgy and lawless life depicted in his work
The first rapper to have his first five albums go straight to the top of the US chart, DMX, who has died aged 50 following a heart attack, established himself as the premier exponent of hardcore rap in the aftermath of the violent deaths of the Notorious BIG and Tupac Shakur. He announced himself with his multi-platinum-selling debut album It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot (1998), a stormy survey of greed, violence, crime and betrayal, which also displayed his gift for blending light and heavy textures behind an intense, menacing presence at the microphone.
Before the end of that year DMX had released his second blockbuster, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, another huge seller. He was suddenly the new king of Planet Rap, yet when the 1999 Grammy award nominations came around he was nowhere to be seen. This omission prompted the rap superstar Jay-Z (who would win the best rap album Grammy that year) to boycott the awards ceremony “because too many major rap artists continue to be overlooked”, as he put it. “Rappers deserve more attention from the Grammy committee and from the whole world.”
Continue reading...Amazon has won a victory in its hard-fought campaign to stop workers at an Alabama warehouse forming the company’s first union, in a tough blow for the US labor movement.
Workers at the Bessemer, Alabama, plant have voted 1,798 to 738 to reject the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Counting concluded on Friday morning, and attention will now focus on some 505 challenged ballots , but the margin of victory was too greatto change the outcome.
Continue reading...Activist claims 2014 breach led to aid worker being sentenced to 20 years over parody account
A Saudi court’s decision to sentence an aid worker to 20 years in prison for allegedly using a satirical Twitter account to mock the Riyadh government has been linked to the infiltration of Twitter by Saudi agents in 2014, in a case that has drawn the attention of senior US officials.
Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, a 37-year-old aid worker with the Red Crescent, was sentenced by Saudi Arabia’s specialised criminal court, and given an additional 20-year travel ban, following allegations that he used a popular parody account to mock the Saudi government.
Continue reading...When Coca-Cola and Delta backed bigoted lawmakers, we organized, rose up, used our voices to make change – and it worked
In the last general election, Georgians delivered our country from the hands of fascism by securing Democrats in the White House and the Senate. As payback for doing so, Republicans are waging an unholy war against voting rights in the state, pushing Jim Crow-style measures like SB 202 into law, which will make it harder for hundreds of thousands of Georgians to cast their ballots. This dangerous bill impacts specific communities the most: Black, brown, young, and new voters in Georgia.
Many voters don’t know that Republicans aren’t working alone to disenfranchise us. Their accomplices were some of the most powerful corporations in our state. In fact, Georgia-based companies like Delta, Coca-Cola and Home Depot previously bankrolled the backers of voter suppression bills to the tune of over $7.4m.
Continue reading...The parents and children of doctors and nurses who died from Covid tell of how grief has affected them
Dr Reza Chowdhury was a beloved internist with a private practice in the Bronx and a trusted voice in New York’s Bengali community. His daughter, Nikita Rahman, said despite underlying health issues that put him at higher risk of developing Covid complications, he saw patients through mid-March when he developed symptoms. He died on 9 April.
Nikita Rahman My therapist says grief is the final act of love. Every time I miss him, I think about how that is my love for him, showing up again. I like that framing of it. I think I only recently realized just how much I loved him.
Continue reading...