Two pedestrians at a Pride parade near Miami on Saturday were hit by a truck, leaving one dead and the other injured, according to police.”
Both males were taken to Broward Health Medical Center, where one was pronounced deceased,” said Fort Lauderdale Police Department detective Ali Adamson at a Saturday night press conference. The second victim is expected to survive.
Adamson said the FBI is assisting with the investigation but declined to say whether investigators believed the incident was intentional.
In response to a motion filed by NPR and other media organizations, the Justice Department released new videos which prosecutors say show the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
The Justice Department has released a trove of videos, including police body-worn camera footage, allegedly showing assaults against police officers defending the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
The videos, made available after NPR and other media organizations filed a legal motion for their release, are cited as evidence in the assault cases against Thomas Webster and Scott Fairlamb.
A group of senior American politicians have warned that UFOs pose “national security concerns” after getting a confidential briefing on a highly anticipated report on unidentified aerial phenomena that is set to be released later this month.
Some members of Congress were given advanced details about the contents of the Pentagon report, which is scheduled to be released before 25 June, and several said they are deeply worried about the findings.
“Clearly, something’s going on that we can’t handle,” Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, told TMZ.
Former White House physician explains why the president needs a cognitive test on ‘Hannity’
Dr. Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician, called on President Biden to immediately undergo a cognitive test so the commander-in-chief can prove to the American public sound mental capabilities.
“We can’t sit on this any longer,” Jackson told “Hannity” Thursday night, citing Biden’s “embarrassing” performance overseas this week with world leaders.
“He’s not physically or cognitively fit to be our president right now,” Jackson added.
The freshman Texas congressman and 13 of his GOP colleagues sent a letter to Biden Thursday expressing “concern” with his cognitive state and cited several examples of potential memory lapses, including apparently forgetting the name of his Defense Secretary, telling an Amtrak story with a timeline that didn’t add up and seemingly blanking on the often-quoted first line of the Declaration of Independence.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency on Thursday ahead of a potential tropical cyclone that will likely hit his state and parts of Mississippi and Alabama on Friday.
The storm was about 450 miles south of Louisiana as of Thursday evening, with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph. A tropical storm warning is in effect, ranging from Intracoastal City, Louisiana, to the Alabama-Florida border, according to the National Weather Service.
A flash flood watch will also be in effect starting Friday afternoon. Rainfall totals of 4-10 inches are expected in New Orleans, with higher amounts in isolated areas.
(CNN)The visuals, the body language and the setting all converged to help President Joe Biden achieve what he wanted — not only from his much-hyped summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin — but from a week of pivotal meetings with US allies.
Frida Ghitis
From the start of the Geneva summit, Biden looked confident and relaxed. In contrast, Putin, who has made an art of appearing smug and almost bored, looked tense and on his guard. Then Biden took the initiative, extending his hand first to Putin, who walked over to grasp it.
The summit mattered, of course, but it was in the dueling press conferences where Putin helped Biden achieve his objectives. That’s because Biden’s meeting with Putin had two goals. One was about managing US relations with Russia. The other was the overarching theme of his European trip and, in fact, of Biden’s presidency: strengthening democracy by drawing a sharp distinction between it and authoritarianism, all the while persuading the world that democracy is the superior model.
After bonding with his well-mannered counterparts at the G7 Summit, President Biden is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland, a man he called a “killer.” Biden’s aim at the G7 was to smooth over international relations that had become frosty under Donald Trump, a goal his European allies shared. They emerged chanting gauzy slogans, seeking to “Build Back Better” after the ruination wrought by the pandemic.
Biden will similarly try to improve the relationship with his Russian counterpart. But unlike the Europeans, Putin has something very different in mind. He, too, has goals for the meeting but they involve self-aggrandizement and using the masquerade of cooperation to allow him to continue to harm America, as the Soviets before him did under détente.
As usual, the Americans are offering Russia a reset button. And as usual, Russia will contemptuously cast it aside.
Both presidents have acknowledged that U.S.-Russia relations are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War. Putin has threatened that the global security system is degrading and “the potential for conflict is growing.” TASS, the official Russian government “news” agency, compared the upcoming meeting between Biden and Putin to the June 4, 1961, meeting in Vienna between John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, who was known for banging shoes on desks at the United Nations. Putin has laid the groundwork for doing so, inflicting what were undoubtedly state-sponsored cyber attacks on the United States — the employment of criminal groups to achieve the Russian state’s strategic goals is a common Kremlin tactic — and seeking to unbalance Biden by praising Donald Trump as an “extraordinary” and “talented individual,” while insulting Biden as a lifelong politician and “career man.”
The legislation has gained momentum since the massive Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd last year and the Democrats’ takeover of the White House and Congress.
But Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson blocked the bill in 2020, saying that the day off for federal employees would cost US taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Johnson dropped his objection this week despite his concerns, paving the way for the bill’s passage in the Senate.
“Although I strongly support celebrating Emancipation, I objected to the cost and lack of debate,” said Johnson in a statement. “While it still seems strange that having taxpayers provide federal employees paid time off is now required to celebrate the end of slavery, it is clear that there is no appetite in Congress to further discuss the matter.”
The measure needs to pass the House and be signed by President Joe Biden to become law.
On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger announced in Galveston, Texas, the end of slavery in accordance with President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.
In 1980, Juneteenth became a Texas state holiday. In the decades since, every state but South Dakota came to officially commemorate Juneteenth, but only a handful of states observe it as a paid holiday.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee are among the members of Congress who led the effort to to make Juneteenth the 12th federal holiday.
Today, June 14, is Flag Day, a time set aside to honor the Stars and Stripes and the role the flag has played in American history.
The date of the commemoration is significant. June 14 is observed as Flag Day each year because, on June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes for the flag of the U.S. The first national observance of the day took place on June 14, 1877, 100 years after the original resolution.
In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation for the national observance of Flag Day on the 14th of June. President Harry Truman made the holiday permanent in 1949.Flag history
The Marine Committee of the Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia adopted a resolution on June 14, 1777, declaring:“
Resolved, that the flag of the United States be 13 stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation.”
The most well-known flag maker in Colonial America was Betsy Ross, though the federal history of the banner cites that it was made by others as well.
The American flag changed to add more stars as more states joined the union. The final stars added were the 49th with Alaska in 1959 and Hawaii as the 50th star in 1960. Ultimately, however, it was decided to leave 13 stripes to represent the 13 original colonies.
The owner of three coal-fired power plants in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio said Thursday that it will shut them down.
Houston-based GenOn Holdings LLC said it will shut down a generating unit at both Avon Lake station on Lake Erie near Cleveland and Cheswick station on the Allegheny River outside Pittsburgh by Sept. 15.
It said it will shut down two generating units at the much larger Morgantown station on Maryland’s Cobb Neck peninsula by next June 1.Combined, the four coal-fired units can provide up to 2,421 megawatts.
In a statement, GenOn blamed “unfavorable economic conditions, higher costs including those associated with environmental compliance, an inability to compete with other generation types and evolving market rules that promote subsidized resources.
”Coal power has fallen out of favor in the climate change era amid a push for cleaner power sources that produce less pollution and greenhouse gases. U.S. coal production has been in steady decline, down by about one-third over the past decade.
Coal also has been buffeted by a flood of cheaper natural gas from shale formations, including the vast Marcellus Shale reservoir underneath Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.
Shutdown of the units is subject to a 90-day reliability review period by the regional electric grid operator PJM, GenOn said.
Parents across the country are standing up and speaking out against critical race theory in schools. From Loudoun County, Virginia, to Carmel, New York, school board meetings have become must-see TV. But what happens when the cameras turn off? How can parents turn their outrage into meaningful change?
“We are asking people to go into the arena in a situation where they are going to be called a racist,” said Russ Vought, president of the Center for Renewing America and former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Trump. “They’re not, they’ve got the moral high ground, but no one wants to be called that.”
In documents obtained exclusively by Fox News, Citizens for Renewing America (the advocacy arm of Vought’s conservative think tank) has created an “A to Z guide” for stopping critical race theory.
Vought said the 33-page handbook is a crash course in CRT, a “one-stop shopping” for parents trying to hold their school board members accountable.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Defund the police? City leaders in Portland tried it. A unit in the fire and rescue bureau, one of the first of its kind in a major city, began this year taking some 911 calls about people in crisis, especially those who are homeless.
Instead of police officers with flashing lights and guns, a paramedic and a social worker would drive up offering water, a high-protein snack and, always and especially, conversation, aiming to defuse a situation that could otherwise lead to confrontation and violence. No power to arrest. No coercion.
“Having someone show up and offer you goods rather than run you off is different, and people respond to it — it softens the mood,” said Tremaine Clayton, a burly, tattooed veteran of 20 years at the fire and rescue bureau who helps run the program.
But this spring, just as the project was preparing for a major rollout into more neighborhoods, there was another plot twist: The new policing alternative was itself mostly defunded. The city decided on a go-slow approach, and the promised $4.8 million expansion evaporated.
Violent crime, especially homicide, has spiked in most urban areas during the pandemic, and many police departments are facing new scrutiny about training and bias since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis a year ago.
Washington (CNN)US investigators have recovered millions in cryptocurrency they say was paid in ransom to hackers whose attack prompted the shutdown of the key East Coast pipeline last month, the Justice Department announced Monday.
The announcement confirms CNN’s earlier reporting about the FBI-led operation, which was carried out with cooperation from Colonial Pipeline, the company that fell victim to the ransomware attack in question.
Specifically, the Justice Department said it seized approximately $2.3 million in Bitcoins paid to individuals in a criminal hacking group known as DarkSide. The FBI said it has been investigating DarkSide, which is said to share its malware tools with other criminal hackers, for over a year.
The ransom recovery, which is the first seizure undertaken by the recently created DOJ digital extortion taskforce, is a rare outcome for a company that has fallen victim to a debilitating cyberattack in the booming criminal business of ransomware.
Colonial Pipeline Co. CEO Joseph Blount told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published last month that the company complied with the $4.4 million ransom demand because officials didn’t know the extent of the intrusion by hackers and how long it would take to restore operations.
A home in Albanyexploded Friday night and killed two occupants, while the cause remains unknown, authorities say.
Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple confirmed on Twitter Saturday that a home in Berne had exploded around 8:30 p.m. Friday. Some reports claimed that the explosion was felt miles away.
Firefighters arrived to find the home in flames. Rescue efforts lasted for hours as multiple departments worked to extinguish the fire.
One of the occupants, later identified as Victor Porlier, 83, was found dead some distance from the home, authorities said. First responders believed the explosion ejected Porlier.
The Department of Justice said it will not seek information identifying the readers of a USA TODAY story from earlier this year, according to a Friday court filing, but only after the FBI captured the alleged criminal it was seeking through other means.
Gannett, which publishes USA TODAY, filed a motion to quash the subpoena, initially issued in April, last week. It was resisting an effort by the FBI to obtain the IP addresses of people who read a story about a shooting of two FBI agents on Feb. 2. The subpoena sought only information on who read the story during a 30-minute time period later that night.
“A government demand for records that would identify specific individuals who read specific expressive materials … invades the First Amendment rights of both publisher and reader, and must be quashed accordingly,” Gannett’s lawyers wrote in a May 28 filing.
USA TODAY Publisher Maribel Perez Wadsworth also slammed the FBI for the effort.
LONDON (AP) — The Group of Seven wealthy democracies agreed Saturday to support a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15% in order to deter multinational companies from avoiding taxes by stashing profits in low-rate countries.
G-7 finance ministers meeting in London also endorsed proposals to make the world’s biggest companies — including U.S. based tech giants — pay tax in countries where they have lots of sales but no physical headquarters.
Britain’s Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, the meeting’s host, said the deal would “reform the global tax system to make it fit for the global digital age and crucially to make sure that it’s fair, so that the right companies pay the right tax in the right places.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who attended the London meetings, said the agreement “provides tremendous momentum” towards reaching a global deal that “would end the race-to-the-bottom in corporate taxation, and ensure fairness for the middle class and working people in the U.S. and around the world.”
The meeting of finance ministers came ahead of an annual summit of G-7 leaders scheduled for June 11-13 in Carbis Bay, Cornwall. The U.K. is hosting both sets of meetings because it holds the group’s rotating presidency.
“Under no level of heightened scrutiny can the law survive,” U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez said before issuing a permanent injunction that takes effect in 30 days. Benitez argued the state’s definition of illegal military-style rifles bans firearms allowed in other states, depriving California gun owners of their rights. He compared the AR-15 rifle to a Swiss Army knife, saying it’s “a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle.”
A highly anticipated government report sheds little light on the mystery, finding no evidence of extraterrestrial activity but not ruling it out either, according to two U.S. officials.
The report also does not rule out the possibility that the flying objects seen by U.S. military planes are highly advanced aircraft developed by other nations, the officials said. Further deepening the mystery, the report says the objects also do not appear to be evidence of secret U.S. technology but it doesn’t definitively rule that out either.
One of the officials said the report suggests the videos do not appear to show any known U.S. assets.
(CNN)At least one person has been shot at a fire station in Agua Dulce, California, Los Angeles County Deputy Michelle Sanchez told CNN Tuesday.
Sanchez said it is unclear, but there may be more victims.
“It is with heavy hearts that the LACoFD confirms that a tragic shooting occurred at approximately 10:55 a.m. today at FS 81 in Agua Dulce,” the Los Angeles County Fire Department tweeted Tuesday. ”
The Dept. is still in the process of gathering additional information & are cooperating with law enf. throughout this ongoing incident. We will provide updated information when available.”One person is being detained in a vehicle nearby, but it is not known whether that person is the shooting suspect.
Agua Dulce is in the Santa Clarita Valley, about 30 miles north of Downtown Los Angeles.
Former President Donald Trump blasted President Biden on his handling of China, the Middle East and the crisis at the southern border, saying his successor is “destroying our country.”
“All he had to do is nothing,” the former president said on Newsmax’s “Dick Morris Democracy” on Saturday. “We won’t have a country; they’re destroying our country.”
Trump said his administration’s work on the Mexican border was overturned by Biden and created the situation that exists there today.
“If he would have done nothing, we would have had right now the strongest border in history,” Trump told Dick Morris.
(CNN)President Joe Biden on Wednesday urged Congress to “take immediate action” on gun legislation in the wake of a shooting in San Jose, California, that killed eight people earlier in the day, noting that he was ordering the flag lowered to half-staff just weeks after other mass shootings around the country.
“Enough,” Biden said in a statement. “Once again, I urge Congress to take immediate action and heed the call of the American people, including the vast majority of gun owners, to help end this epidemic of gun violence in America.”
A gunman killed eight people when he opened fire at public transit rail yard. The investigation is ongoing and officials have not released a possible motive. The shooter, an employee of the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), is also dead.
Biden described the shooting as a “horrific tragedy” and said he and Vice President Kamala Harris, who also called on Congress to act, had been briefed on the situation.
“We are still awaiting many of the details of this latest mass shooting, but there are some things we know for sure. There are at least eight families who will never be whole again. There are children, parents, and spouses who are waiting to hear whether someone they love is ever going to come home. There are union brothers and sisters — good, honest, hardworking people — who are mourning their own,” Biden said.
The President added: “Every life that is taken by a bullet pierces the soul of our nation. We can, and we must, do more.”
Biden’s ordering of the flag to be lowered follows recent mass shootings in and around Atlanta, Indianapolis, Boulder, Colorado, and Rock Hill, South Carolina.
THE US Navy have detected unexplainable mysterious objects moving at hundreds of knots under the water as the Pentagon prepares to release its report on UFO sightings.The US Navy has picked up sonar data showing mysterious fast-moving objects underwater that cannot be explained by experts or current technology. Washington Examiner’s Tom Rogan said that US Navy “has the data” to prove the bizarre encounters. Some of these encounters could be included in the US Government task force which is preparing to brief Congress on its UFO findings next month.
CNN)The Biden administration on Saturday granted humanitarian protection for Haitians in the United States, allowing an estimated 100,000 people to apply to remain lawfully in the US, according to the Department of Homeland Security and an administration official.
The decision will allow Haitians in the US the opportunity to apply for Temporary Protected Status — a form of humanitarian relief that can be granted when it is deemed unsafe to return to one’s home country.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced a new 18-month designation for the humanitarian program. Eligible Haitian nationals currently residing in the US as of May 21 will be able to apply for the protections.
“Haiti is currently experiencing serious security concerns, social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses, crippling poverty, and lack of basic resources, which are exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Mayorkas said in a statement.
President Joe Biden tweeted a link to the announcement Saturday, writing, “Today my Administration announced a new 18 month designation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti.”
TPS can be granted by the Secretary of Homeland Security in instances in which individuals cannot be safely removed to their home country due to temporary conditions in the country, such as armed conflict, environmental disasters or other extreme circumstances.
DHS officials will soon file a notice in the Federal Register to allow for Haitians in the US currently to obtain the protections.
Among the many problems plaguing San Francisco in recent years, business leaders say one has become so commonplace that residents barely notice it: shoplifting.
Walgreens says petty theft in the city has gotten so out of control that it’s had to close 17 of its stores. CVS has told its employees not to intervene because the thieves so often attack them, calling San Francisco “one of the epicenters of organized retail crime.”
“We’ve had incidents where our security officers are assaulted on a pretty regular basis in San Francisco,” Brendan Dugan, head of CVS’ retail crime division, said at a 13 May hearing with city officials, according to a New York Times report.
Police agree that the stealing has become endemic.“
The one trend we are seeing is more violence and escalating – and much more bold,” Commander Raj Vaswani of the San Francisco Police Department said at the hearing. “We see a lot of repeat offenders.”
Federal agents have seized 68 lions, tigers and other big cats from the Oklahoma couple who took over an animal park featured in the Netflix documentary series Tiger King.
The Justice Department said Thursday that a jaguar and lion-tiger hybrids were also among the animals that authorities recovered from the Tiger King Park in Thackerville, Okla., over three days this month.
The park is owned by Jeffrey and Lauren Lowe, who appeared in the popular Tiger King documentary, which starred a big-cat collector and eccentric named Joe Exotic. Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is currently serving a 22-year federal prison sentence after being convicted in a murder-for-hire scheme and of federal wildlife violations.
Add another product to the list: pet food is the latest household staple has begun disappearing from shelves due to a sudden shortage.
There is currently a pet food shortage across the U.S. According to comments made during Global Pet Expo (GPE) Digital Access 2021 by Steve King, president and CEO of the American Pet Products Association (APPA), the pandemic has led to pet food and pet product supply issues and transportation issues, Supermarket News reports.
King noted that a 9.7 percent increase in pet food sales between 2019 and 2020 had put a strain on supply chains that are already struggling with a shortage of raw materials needed to make the products. Worker safety protocols at production facilities and labor shortages are also playing a factor in the supply chain hiccup.
Canned wet food for pets may be especially hard to come by, one CEO says.
