Witness testimony in Donald Trump’s criminal trial has advanced with the executive director of the C-SPAN archives and Keith Davidson, a lawyer who represented former Playboy model Karen McDougal and port actor Stormy Daniels in hush money negotiations, among those taking the stand. McDougal and Daniels have alleged extra-marital sexual encounters with Trump, which he denies. Charges in the case center on $130,000 in payments Trump’s company made to Michael Cohen. Prosecutors say Trump falsified the true nature of those payments in business... Читать дальше...
Dozens of Google workers who were fired after internal protests surrounding a lucrative contract that the internet company has with the Israeli government have filed a complaint with labor regulators in an attempt to get their jobs back. The complaint filed late Monday with the National Labor Relations Board alleges about 50 workers were unfairly fired or placed on administrative leave in the aftermath of employee sit-ins that occurred at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California.
Donald Trump has been held in contempt of court and fined $9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order.
The Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a ban on consumer uses of methylene chloride, a chemical widely used as a paint stripper but known to cause liver cancer and other health problems. The EPA said Tuesday its action will protect Americans from health risks while allowing certain commercial uses to continue with robust worker protections. Methylene chloride emits a toxic vapor the EPA says has killed 88 workers since 1980. Wendy Hartley's son Kevin died from methylene chloride poisoning... Читать дальше...
A Silicon Valley-backed campaign to build a new city in California for up to 400,000 people says it submitted enough signatures to qualify the initiative for the November election. If Solano County elections officials agree, voters in the San Francisco Bay Area county will decide whether to allow urban development on land currently zoned for agriculture. Voters would need to approve the change for the development to be built. Jan Sramek, who heads the company behind the campaign, submitted more than... Читать дальше...
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.
A Finnish court has sentenced a 26-year-old man to more than six years in prison for hacking thousands of patient records at a private psychotherapy center and seeking ransom from some patients over the sensitive data. The case has caused outrage in the Nordic nation, with a record number of people — about 24,000 — filing criminal complaints with police. The court calls the crimes “ruthless” and “very damaging” considering the state of people involved. The well-known hacker has denied all charges. Читать дальше...
Grammy-award winning pop star Dua Lipa's third album, “Radical Optimism,” releases Friday. UK rave culture and genre-averse alternative groups like Primal Scream and Massive Attack were key influences. She tells The Associated Press the album is the one she's always wanted to make, in more ways than one. Around her first album, Lipa wrote down that she’d like to work with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, who became a crucial collaborator on “Radical Optimism.” She says the creative process was more free-flowing. Читать дальше...
Illinois' governor and first lady have donated a key Civil War document signed by Abraham Lincoln to the presidential library and museum that bears his name. Gov. J.B. Pritzker and first lady M.K. Pritzker were scheduled to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum on Tuesday to announce their donation of the document in which Lincoln ordered a blockade of Southern ports along the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico in April 1861. The Union's naval power thereby put a chokehold on the... Читать дальше...
Police in North Carolina say a shootout that killed four law enforcement officers and wounded four others began as officers approached a home to serve a warrant for a felon wanted for possessing a firearm. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings says some of the officers who rushed to the Charlotte neighborhood Monday to rescue the first wave of downed officers were wounded as a second shooter began firing on them after they killed the wanted man. Armored vehicles smashed into the home, tearing down doors and shattering windows. Читать дальше...
The Federal Communications Commission has leveraged nearly $200 million in fines against wireless carriers AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon for illegally sharing customers’ location data without their consent. Officials first began investigating the carriers back in 2019 after they were found selling customers’ location data to third-party data aggregators. Fines were proposed in 2020, but carriers were given time to argue against the claims before the fines were imposed. T-Mobile faces the largest fine at $80 million. Читать дальше...
Walmart is launching its biggest store-label food brand in 20 years in terms of its breadth of items. It's an attempt to appeal to younger customers who are not brand loyal and want chef-inspired foods priced more affordably. The country's largest retail said Tuesday that the brand, called Bettergoods, is just starting to land in Walmart stores and online. By this fall, there will be 300 products, spanning frozen, dairy, snacks, beverages, pasta, soups, coffee, chocolate among others. The launch... Читать дальше...
Twenty years after Poland joined the European Union, its finance minister says the country is still not ready to adopt the euro currency. The finance minister in the pro-European Union government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that membership of the eurozone, the currency union of 20 EU members, was not justified at this time. He said he believed that having its own currency, the zloty, helped Poland avoid recession during the global financial crisis and weather other shocks. On Wednesday, Poland... Читать дальше...
Global shares are trading mostly higher as investors keep their eyes on potentially market-moving reports expected later this week. Shares fell in early Tuesday trading in France and Germany but rose in Britain. Benchmarks finished higher in Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney and Hong Kong, while declining in Shanghai. Amazon and Apple will report their earnings this week, along with roughly a third of the companies in the S&P 500. The Federal Reserve will announce its latest decision on interest rates, and... Читать дальше...
Mexico took control of its most precious natural resource by seizing the oil sector from U.S. companies in a move that’s taught to schoolchildren and celebrated as a great patriotic victory. The front-runner in the June 2 presidential election is an environmental engineer who helped produce the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Claudia Sheinbaum is also a protege of the current president, who led a 2008 fight against energy reform. An AP story from March 18... Читать дальше...
A growing number of cities are passing tax increases to expand access to child care. Last year, New Orleans added more than 1,000 child care seats for low-income families after voters approved a historic property tax increase. In Whatcom County, Washington, a property tax increase added $10 million for child care and children’s mental health to the annual budget. A marijuana sales tax approved last year by voters in Anchorage, Alaska, will generate more than $5 million for early childhood programs. Читать дальше...
Indonesia’s Mount Ruang volcano has erupted for a second time in two weeks, spewing ash more than a mile into the sky, closing an airport and peppering nearby villages with debris. The alert level of the volcano on Sulawesi Island was again raised to the highest level by the Indonesian geological service Tuesday. More than 11,000 people had evacuated after the April 17 eruption, and some remain in shelters. The international airport in the North Sulawesi provincial capital of Manado was closed again. Читать дальше...
A Taliban-run tourism and hotel management institute has opened its doors to students. What they lack in hospitality experience, they make up for in their enthusiasm to promote a positive side of Afghanistan. The Taliban are happy to help. Afghanistan’s rulers are pariahs on the global stage. The economy is struggling, infrastructure is poor, and poverty is rife. Yet foreigners are visiting the country, encouraged by the sharp drop in violence, increased flight connections with hubs like Dubai, and... Читать дальше...
An immigrant from Laos who has been battling cancer won an enormous $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot in Oregon earlier this month. But Cheng “Charlie” Saephan's luck hasn't just changed his life — it's also drawn attention to Iu Mien, a southeast Asian ethnic group with origins in China, many of whose members fled from Laos to Thailand and then settled in the U.S. following the Vietnam War. During a news conference Monday introducing him as one of the jackpot winners, Saephan wore a sash identifying himself as Iu Mien. Читать дальше...
Colleges around the U.S. are begging pro-Palestinian demonstrators to clear out tent encampments as commencement ceremonies approach. Demonstrators are sparring over the Israel-Hamas war and its mounting death toll, and the number of arrests at campuses nationwide is approaching 1,000 as the final days of class wrap up. The outcry is forcing colleges to reckon with their financial ties to Israel, as well as their support for free speech. Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism... Читать дальше...
Democrats believe young Florida voters will come to the polls in November because of the abortion and marijuana measures on the ballot. If they do, President Joe Biden will likely get their support even though many are lukewarm to a second term for him. Still his stance on the issues, especially abortion, is more in line with them than former President Donald Trump. The presumptive Republican nominee has tried to straddle the abortion issue by leaving it to the states. In Florida, that means a ban after six weeks.
One of the winners of a $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot this month is an immigrant from Laos who has had cancer for eight years and had his latest chemotherapy treatment last week. Cheng “Charlie” Saephan told a news conference held by the Oregon Lottery on Monday that he and his wife would take half the money, and the other half would go to a friend who chipped in $100 to buy a batch of tickets with them. Saephan said he'd buy a house and find a good doctor for himself. Saephan said he was born in Laos and moved to Thailand in 1987... Читать дальше...
