The Biden administration is considering requiring tobacco companies to lower the nicotine in all cigarettes sold in the U.S. to levels at which they are no longer addictive, according to people familiar with the matter.
Administration officials are considering the policy as they approach a deadline for declaring the administration’s intentions on another tobacco question: whether or not to ban menthol cigarettes.
The Food and Drug Administration must respond in court by April 29 to a citizens’ petition to ban menthols by disclosing whether the agency intends to pursue such a policy. The Biden administration is weighing whether to move forward on a menthol ban or a nicotine reduction in all cigarettes—or both, the people familiar with the matter said.
The White House and the FDA didn’t immediately comment Monday.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Walter Mondale passed away in Minneapolis Monday at the age of 93, his family says.
The Minnesotan’s long career in politics was highlighted by serving as Jimmy Carter’s Vice President. He also served as Minnesota’s Attorney General, U.S. Senator and the U.S. Ambassador to Japan.
Gov. Tom Wolf has activated more than 1,000 Pennsylvania National Guard members at the request of Philadelphia officials to respond to any protests and potential unrest following the verdict in the trial of former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, who’s charged in the death of George Floyd.
Closing arguments in Chauvin’s trial are scheduled for Monday.
National Guard duties may include area security, manning traffic control points and providing security at critical infrastructure sites.
Philadelphia police and city officials outlined their plans Friday to respond to possible protests and the governor activated the Guard the same day.
A 17-year-old boy who state police said was hurt this month in a shooting at a Hempfield apartment building on or near West Hills Drive was arrested Friday on robbery charges stemming from the same incident. Thomas Henderson of Carmichaels is charged as an adult with robbery, theft and weapons violations.
Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) is resigning from Congress next month to lead the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, deciding against running for Senate and creating a special election in his safe red seat.
Stivers, who was first elected in 2010, served as chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee during the 2018 midterm cycle, and had been a close ally of House leadership.
“Throughout my career, I’ve worked to promote policies that drive our economy forward, get folks to work, and put our fiscal house in order,” Stivers said in a tweet, announcing the decision. “I’m excited to announce that I will be taking on a new opportunity that allows me to continue to do that. Effective May 16, I will be leaving Congress in order to accept the position of President and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.”
The drone, called Ingenuity, was airborne for less than a minute, but Nasa is celebrating what represents the first powered, controlled flight by an aircraft on another world.
Confirmation came via a satellite at Mars which relayed the chopper’s data back to Earth.
The space agency is promising more adventurous flights in the days ahead.
A passenger train derailed north of Cairo, killing at least 11 people, Egyptian authorities have said, in the latest in a string of rail accidents to hit the country in recent years.
Four train wagons ran off the railway track by the city of Banha in Qalyubia province, just outside Cairo, the railway authority said in a statement on Sunday. Videos on social media showed wagons overturned and passengers escaping to safety along the railway.
About 450 unaccompanied migrant girls, ages 13 to 17, were abruptly moved out of a U.S. housing facility in Houston on Saturday — less than three weeks after it opened.
Authorities have been mostly tight-lipped about the closure, reports say — but an advocate for immigrants claims it was because of some type of incident there Friday night.
Ambulances and law enforcement vehicles were seen Friday night outside the facility, which is located near Bush Intercontinental Airport, the advocate told The Associated Press, citing information he said he received from an employee of the group he leads.
Then Saturday morning, buses arrived to transport the girls, other reports said.
“There seemed to be a lot of confusion as to what was happening,” Cesar Espinosa, director of advicacy group FIEL Houston, told the AP, relaying the information from the employee about Friday night. “The people that were there looked like they were in a sad stance, kind of with their head down and seemed like they were wiping tears away.”
The third man was able to take himself to the hospital.
According to Pittsburgh Police’s Public Information Officer, police have taken notice of an uptick in shootings.
“We’ve noticed an increase in shootings and right now, we don’t know specifically what’s going on,” he said. “Police do take this matter seriously and we’re trying to stop this.”
At this time, no suspects have been named and police are interviewing witnesses.
Nearly 20 bars and restaurants in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties received violations from the state police last month for violating pandemic-related mitigation measures, records show.
For more than a year, bars and restaurants have faced some degree of restriction – measures meant to slow the spread of covid-19.
Many of those restrictions were loosened early this month, with prohibitions on bar seating and alcohol sales sans food being lifted along with the 11 p.m. alcohol curfew. Establishments that complete an online self-certification process can operate at 75% capacity; otherwise, the limit is 50%.
“Marxist” Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors tearfully defended her $3.2 million real estate empire, insisting she didn’t use a penny of BLM donations on herself.
“I have never taken a salary from the Black Lives Matters Global Networks Foundation,” she also said Thursday.
“That’s important,” she told host told “Black News Tonight” host Marc Lamont Hill, “because what the right-wing media is trying to say is that the donations that people gave to Black Lives Matter went towards my spending.
“And that is categorically untrue and incredibly dangerous.”
But in insisting she did not take a salary from the organization’s non-profit foundation, Khan-Cullors left unsaid whether she was paid through BLM’s network of similarly named for-profit entities.
Khan-Cullor is in hot water since The Post first revealed on Sunday that she snapped up four high-end homes as donations poured into the movement, especially in the wake of horrific video of George Floyd’s death under the knee of a Minneapolis cop.
“I’ve not just been a target of the right and white supremacists at this moment,” she said Thursday of the backlash from both the left and the right after the New York Post exposé on her property spending spree.
Khan-Cullors was not specifically asked during Thursday’s interview if she took a salary from BLM’s closed-books for-profit arms.
The suspect is described as a thin, Black man standing at 5 foot 11 inches wearing a grey hoodie, black pants and shoes, a black baseball cap, brown face mask and black backpack.
In supporting the second impeachment of President Trump, California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters said he was “inciting” his followers, and was “trying to create a Civil War.”
By her own standards, Maxine Waters should be impeached and removed.
On Sunday in Minnesota, Waters, breaking the law by violating curfew (because “she didn’t agree with it”) said that if ex-police officer Derek Chauvin is not found guilty of murdering George Floyd, “We’ve got to get more confrontational.”
There’s been rioting, looting, graffiti — what did Waters mean by “more confrontational?” In Portland, they set fire to an Apple store. They’re trying to take over government buildings.
This isn’t the first time Waters has incited her supporters. In 2018, she told them to harass Trump administration officials. “Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” she said.
A Chicago dad was seriously injured, and his seven-year-old daughter was killed by gunshots while they were sitting in a drive-thru at a McDonald’s Sunday afternoon.
PRAGUE — The Czech Republic said on Sunday it had informed NATO and European Union allies about suspected Russian involvement in a 2014 ammunition depot explosion and the matter would be addressed at an E.U. foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday.
The central European country expelled 18 Russian embassy staff on Saturday over the issue and said investigations had linked Russian intelligence to the explosion, which killed two people.
Russia’s Interfax news agency cited Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy head of the Russian upper house’s international affairs committee, on Saturday as saying Prague’s assertions were absurd and Russia’s response should be proportionate.
Meanwhile, another high-profile official, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma’s international affairs committee, said Saturday the grounds for the Czech move “do not stand up to criticism,” adding that the Czech Republic follows “the Russophobic course of the United States” by expelling Russian diplomats, Russian state news agency Tass reported.
Three people were killed and two others injured with gunshot wounds in a shooting early Sunday morning at The Somers House Tavern in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Sgt. David Wright told CNN.
On Sunday, a police officer shot and killed Daunte Wright, an unarmed Black man, after pulling him over for hanging an air freshener from his rearview mirror. Wright’s death is just the latest instance of police assaulting and killing drivers—specifically, Black men who pose no danger—following a routine traffic stop. Philando Castile, Walter Scott, and Sam DuBose were all shot and killed by police after a traffic stop; none of them posed any danger to the officers who took their lives.
Racism surely plays a role here, but there is another reason so many appalling police shootings involve motorists: Law enforcement officers are taught that routine traffic stops pose extreme danger to their own lives. Courts have seized upon this idea to water down the constitutional rights of drivers, justifying police brutality on the grounds that officers must act quickly to protect themselves against the random violence that always lurks just around the corner.
The bitcoin price came within touching distance of $65,000 per bitcoin this week as Coinbase IPO mania sparked a surge of interest in cryptocurrencies. Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, has also soared, with the ethereum price climbing over $2,500 per ether token for the first time.
Pittsburgh Public Schools officials are still rushing to find solutions to a severe shortage of bus drivers and available seats for students.
“We are going to continue to work as much as possible to ensure we’re able to try to get our students back in,” said Minika Jenkins, the district’s chief academic officer. “We will continue to work until we have exhausted all options to get students back into the building.”
The district last week said it won’t have enough bus seats for everyone, as the number of students returning to buildings gradually increases this month. Officials had predicted a daily shortage of 1,200 seats come May 3, when Support Categories 1 and 2 are to return. Support Category 3 will return April 26, but the district does not expect the seat shortage will pose an issue at that time.
On Friday, district officials said the daily shortage had grown to about 1,300 seats, after more parent surveys were received. The gap in available seating could prevent the district from welcoming back all students for hybrid learning by the end of the academic year, unless some students are able to find alternative ways of getting to school.
Protests erupted in Chicago following the public release of a graphic and grainy bodycam video showing officer Eric Stillman shooting to death 13-year-old Adam Toledo. Footage appears to show the boy holding up empty hands.It was released with other materials two days after Adam’s family was shown the footage, and 17 days after the shooting, which occurred in the early hours of March 29. Adam had been carrying a gun, but dropped it before Stillman shot him.
It follows a lull in mass killings during the pandemic in 2020, which had the smallest number of such attacks in more than a decade, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. That database tracks mass killings defined as four or more dead, not including the shooter.
President Joe Biden last week announced a half-dozen executive actions to combat what he called an “epidemic and an international embarrassment” of gun violence in America. But he said much more is needed.
Raul Castro is stepping down as the head of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most powerful position on the island, with few expectations of significant change among Cubans.
It is however, a historic move — Castro and his late brother, Fidel Castro, have been in power since the 1959 revolution.
The Communist Party’s eighth congress will begin Friday when it will certify President Miguel Díaz-Canel as the next party secretary-general and set policy guidelines. Raul Castro had said in 2018 he expected Díaz-Canel to replace him after his retirement in 2021. Díaz-Canel, 60, represents a new generation and is serving the first of two five-year terms as president.
Many analysts believe Castro, who turns 90 in June, will continue to be the most influential figure on the island until his death.
In Cuba, major events are put together during historic celebrations and this year’s congress is no exception. It coincides with the 60th anniversary of the failed, CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion.
Castro’s retirement comes as Cuba, one of the last communist run-countries in the world, is facing multiple challenges. Its economy shrank 11 percent in 2020 due to the pandemic, and it’s been grappling with tightened U.S. sanctions and a decline in aid from its ally, Venezuela. The government lacks hard currency to import food and medicine, which means endless lines outside stores when food becomes available, and one meal a day for some families.
The country is also dealing with a spike in Covid-19 cases. Strict lockdowns and measures have kept the numbers of cases and deaths below those of most countries in the region, but they have also tested the patience of many Cubans. Cuba has developed five vaccine candidates and two are in late-stage trials
Several House Democrats are set to unveil legislation Thursday to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court.
Supporters of the proposal plan to hold a news conference on the steps of the Supreme Court building. They include U.S. Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and U.S. Reps. Jerry Nadler and Mondaire Jones, both of New York, and Hank Johnson of Georgia.
Given Democrats’ control of the White House and Senate, the legislation could allow the party to supersede the court’s current conservative majority by “packing” the Court with liberal justices.
