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  • Indiana and Idaho enact bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth | CNN Politics

    Indiana and Idaho enact bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Indiana Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a bill Wednesday to ban gender affirming care for minors in the state, following a growing trend of GOP-led states restricting transgender youth’s access to such treatments after Idaho enacted similar legislation earlier in the week.

    “Permanent gender-changing surgeries with lifelong impacts and medically prescribed preparation for such a transition should occur as an adult, not as a minor,” Holcomb said in a statement upon signing Senate Bill 480 into law.

    The legislation, which takes effect July 1, states that physicians or practitioners who provide minors with such care, including puberty blocking medication, hormone therapy and surgery intended to help transition genders, will be subject to discipline by their regulatory board.

    Transgender youths’ access to gender-affirming care – medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from the gender they were designated at birth to the gender by which they want to be known – has become a flashpoint in red states across the country.

    Some Republicans have expressed concern over long-term outcomes and whether children should be able to make such consequential decisions, even with parental consent. But major medical associations say that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria – a psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

    Indiana’s new legislation was met with immediate backlash by LGBTQ advocates.

    The American Civil Liberties Union and local ACLU of Indiana sued the state Wednesday on behalf of four transgender youth and their families, as well as a doctor and healthcare clinic, alleging the new law violates their constitutional rights.

    “Gender-affirming care is life-saving care for our clients,” Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, said in a statement. “No child should be cut off from the medical care they need or denied their fundamental right to be themselves — but this law would do both.”

    Holcomb’s signing of SB 480 came a day after Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little enacted similar legislation.

    Under the Idaho law, which takes effect on January 1, 2024, physicians or practitioners who provide gender affirming care, including puberty blocking medications as well as surgeries, could face a $5,000 fine and a felony charge.

    “In signing this bill, I recognize our society plays a role in protecting minors from surgeries or treatments that can irreversibly damage their healthy bodies. However, as policymakers we should take great caution whenever we consider allowing the government to interfere with loving parents and their decisions about what is best for their children,” Little said in a statement to lawmakers.

    Following Little’s signing of the bill, the ACLU of Idaho said it planned to challenge the law.

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  • Despite high profile killing, San Francisco has far fewer homicides than other similarly-sized cities | CNN

    Despite high profile killing, San Francisco has far fewer homicides than other similarly-sized cities | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The stabbing death of CashApp founder Bob Lee has prompted comments perpetuating the notion that San Francisco is dangerous and crime-riddled, but data shows violent crime – especially homicides – are well below that of many other cities of a similar size.

    George Tita, a criminal justice professor at the University of California, Irvine, believes the perception has more to do with the profile of those involved in certain crimes than the actual data.

    “When a very high profile tech person is murdered, it is just going to get more publicity than if it was an impoverished person in a neighborhood of color,” Tita said. “It’s just low-hanging fruit. Nobody wants to look at actual statistics. Most of the states and counties with the highest level of crime statistics are in red states versus blue states.”

    Lee died after a stabbing attack in the Rincon Hill area of the city. Police officers responded to the report of a stabbing early Tuesday morning, according to a statement from the San Francisco Police Department. They found “a 43-year-old adult male victim suffering from apparent stab wounds.”

    “Officers rendered aid and summoned medics to the scene,” the police statement said. “The victim was transported to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries. Despite efforts by first responders and medical personnel, the victim succumbed to his injuries.”

    San Francisco recorded 56 homicides each in 2022 and 2021, up over 36% from 2019, when there were 41 homicides, according to police department data. Despite the increase, the number of homicides in San Francisco is well below that of other cities of a similar size, data from the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association shows.

    Indianapolis, for example, witnessed 271 homicides in 2021 and 226 in 2022. Jacksonville, Florida, meanwhile, saw 129 homicides in 2021 and 154 in 2022, while 204 homicides took place in Columbus, Ohio, in 2021 and 140 in 2022.

    Violent crimes in San Francisco, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, reached a high in 2013 with 7,164 violent crimes, according to California Department of Justice data. But they have tapered off significantly in the past couple of years. San Francisco now falls in the lower middle of the pack when compared with several cities of a similar population, according to data from the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association.

    Property crimes in San Francisco, however, tell a different story, as seen in several attention-grabbing videos. Though still well below levels seen in 2017, the city saw a 23% increase in property crimes between 2020 and 2022, with spikes in burglary and larceny theft headlining the surge, according to San Francisco PD data.

    “People who believe that housing is bad, that crime is always up, they believe that based on their world view and dogma and not on facts,” Tita said. “All we can do is provide unbiased, carefully-constructed data. At the end of the day, there are some people who don’t care about the facts.”

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  • He was free for 2 years. Now Crosley Green faces a life sentence again for a crime he says he didn’t commit | CNN

    He was free for 2 years. Now Crosley Green faces a life sentence again for a crime he says he didn’t commit | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A Florida man was freed from prison in 2021 after serving three decades for a murder he says he didn’t commit. But the conviction was reinstated in 2022, and now a judge has ruled he has to return to prison this month.

    US District Judge Roy Dalton ruled this week that Crosley Green must turn himself in to the authorities by April 17 to continue serving life in prison.

    Green, 65, has been fighting to clear his name and for his freedom for more than three decades. He may soon have to again do it from behind bars.

    Green was allowed to leave prison on conditional release in 2021, about three years after his conviction was overturned by a federal court in Orlando. The state of Florida appealed that decision and won last year, and Green’s conviction was reinstated. Judge Dalton allowed Green to remain free while he exhausted his legal options. Green’s legal team petitioned the US Supreme Court, but in late February the court declined to hear his case.

    Green’s only options for remaining out of prison now are clemency or parole, according to his legal team.

    “We are in strategy mode right now, with respect to parole and clemency,” Green’s attorney Jeane Thomas told CNN Thursday. “There is a commission within the state of Florida that considers both options. In the case of parole, they make a decision. In the case of clemency, they make a recommendation to the governor.”

    Thomas was quick to point out that clemency is not the same as exoneration. She says it is just a mechanism through which the state decides someone has served enough time behind bars to be released.

    For the past two years, Green has held a job at a machine grafting facility, attended church and spent time with his grandchildren. He has worn an ankle monitor and been “a model citizen,” according to Thomas.

    “For 15 years now, we have believed wholeheartedly, 100 percent in the innocence of our client,” Thomas said. “As lawyers, we have to believe that the justice system will get it right. We’re going to keep fighting. This is a grave injustice. And we just believe that eventually we will get it right.”

    Green was convicted in the 1989 shooting death of 21-year-old Charles Flynn. Green, who is Black, was sentenced to death by an all-White jury, then resentenced to life in prison in 2009 due to a technicality related to the sentencing phase of his trial.

    In 2018, Judge Dalton ruled prosecutors had improperly withheld evidence that police at one point suspected someone else was the shooter. But late last year, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and reinstated Green’s conviction, saying the withheld evidence was not material to the case.

    Despite the latest ruling, Green remains optimistic in his fight to prove his innocence. In a statement shared by his lawyers with CNN, he said, “To me, it’s just another part of what I’m going through now to get my freedom. That’s all it is.”

    He attributed his perseverance to his faith.

    “If it wasn’t for the Lord, I’d be down and out right now,” he said in the statement from his lawyers. “I have so much faith and trust and belief, it’s hard for me to let my guard down.”

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  • Tennessee House expels 1 lawmaker, falls short of ousting another while 3rd awaits vote | CNN

    Tennessee House expels 1 lawmaker, falls short of ousting another while 3rd awaits vote | CNN


    Nashville
    CNN
     — 

    A vote to expel Democratic Rep. Gloria Johnson from Tennessee’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives has failed, a week after she and two other Democrats led a gun reform protest on the House floor. The House earlier expelled Rep. Justin Jones over that protest, which followed a deadly mass shooting at a Nashville school.

    The third Democrat involved, Justin Pearson, also faces a possible vote on his removal from office Thursday.

    The vote over rules violations for Johnson was 65-30. Expulsion from the House requires a two-thirds majority of the total membership. The vote for Jones split along party lines, 72-25.

    Protesters flooded the state Capitol on Thursday as the legislators were set to take up three resolutions filed by GOP lawmakers Monday seeking to expel Jones, of Nashville, Johnson of Knoxville and Pearson of Memphis, a step the state House has taken only twice since the 1860s.

    “There comes a time where people get sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Jones said in a speech prior to a vote on his expulsion. “And so my colleagues, I say that what we did was act in our responsibility as legislators to serve and give voice to the grievances of people who have been silenced.”

    “We called for you all to ban assault weapons,” he said, “and you respond with an assault on democracy.”

    Jones added: “How can you bring dishonor to an already dishonorable house?”

    Jones’ vote took place after two hours of debate that included Jones answering questions regarding his actions during a protest last Thursday over calls for gun violence legislation. Johnson’s vote followed about an hour and a half of discussion.

    Throughout the day, crowds have gathered outside and inside the building. Following the vote to expel Jones, those inside the Capitol gallery raised their fists and erupted in boos.

    After a Democratic motion to adjourn until Monday was voted down, Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton admonished the people in the balcony for yelling, saying if their “disruptive behavior” continued they would clear the area of everyone but the media.

    “That’s the one warning,” he said.

    Cheers filled the Capitol following the failed vote to expel Johnson.

    “We did what we needed to do,” Johnson said to reporters outside the chamber.

    Johnson thanked the crowd that was gathered around the building and encouraged them to vote. “Keep showing up, standing up and speaking out and we will be with you,” she added.

    Johnson, who is White, was asked why there was a difference in the outcome for her and Jones, who is Black-Filipino.

    “I will answer your question. It might have to do with the color of our skin,” she said.

    President Joe Biden criticized the proceedings in Nashville in a tweet.

    “Three kids and three officials gunned down in yet another mass shooting. And what are GOP officials focused on? Punishing lawmakers who joined thousands of peaceful protesters calling for action. It’s shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent,” he wrote.

    The three lawmakers led a protest on the House floor last Thursday without being recognized, CNN affiliate WSMV reported, using a bullhorn as demonstrators at the state Capitol called on lawmakers to take action to prevent further gun violence after a mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville left three 9-year-olds and three adults dead. Each lawmaker was removed from their committee assignments following last week’s demonstrations.

    Discussion Thursday began with Republicans playing footage of the protest last week, showing Jones, Johnson and Pearson standing in the well of the House and using the bullhorn to address their colleagues and protesters in the gallery.

    Democrats were opposed to having the footage played, arguing it was unfair because they had not seen the video themselves and did not know the extent to which it had been edited.

    Democratic Whip Jason Powell, who represents Nashville, said he was “outraged” and “expelling Justin Jones is not the answer.”

    He angrily said the House was spending too much time on the expulsion issue.

    “I had to leave here Monday night after this resolution was introduced and go to my son’s Little League field and see red ribbons surrounding the outfield in memory of William Kinney who was murdered and I am outraged, and we should all be outraged,” he said, his voice rising. “We need to do something and expelling Justin Jones is not the answer. It is a threat to democracy.”

    More about the three representatives:

    Rep. Justin Pearson:District: 86
    Age: 28
    In office: 2023-
    Issues: Environmental, racial and economic justice
    Of note: Successfully blocked oil pipeline from being built in south Memphis
    Recent awards: The Root’s 100 Most Influential Black Americans (2022)Rep. Gloria Johnson:District: 90
    Age: 60
    In office: 2013-2015, 2019-
    Issues: Education, jobs, health care
    Of note: Successfully organized in favor of Insure Tennessee, the state’s version of Medicaid expansion
    Recent awards: National Foundation of Women Legislators Women of Excellence (2022)Rep. Justin Jones:District: 52
    Age: 27
    In office: 2023-
    Issues: Health care, environmental justice
    Of note: Wrote “The People’s Plaza: 62 Days of Nonviolent Resistance” after helping to organize a 2022 sit-in
    Recent awards: Ubuntu Award for outstanding service, Vanderbilt Organization of Black Graduate and Professional Students (2019)

    “This is not just about losing my job,” Jones told “CNN This Morning” on Wednesday, saying constituents of the three representatives “are being taken and silenced by a party that is acting like authoritarians.”

    As he left the Capitol on Thursday, Jones said he is not sure what his next steps are following his expulsion.

    “I will continue to show up to this Capitol with these young people whether I’m in that chamber or outside,” Jones told reporters.

    In the last 157 years, the House has expelled only two lawmakers, which requires a two-thirds vote: In 1980, after a representative was found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office, and in 2016, when another was expelled over allegations of sexual harassment.

    This week, Sexton said the three Democrats’ actions “are and always will be unacceptable” and broke “several rules of decorum and procedure on the House floor.”

    Sexton said peaceful protesters have always been welcomed to the capitol to have their voices heard on any issue, but that the actions of the Democratic lawmakers had detracted from that process.

    “In effect, those actions took away the voices of the protestors, the focus on the six victims who lost their lives, and the families who lost their loved ones,” Sexton said in a series of tweets Monday.

    “We cannot allow the actions of the three members to distract us from protecting our children. We will get through this together, and it will require talking about all solutions,” Sexton said.

    During the discussion Thursday, Democratic Rep. Joe Towns called the move to expel the “nuclear option.”

    “You never use a sledgehammer to kill a gnat,” Towns said. “We should not go to the extreme of expelling our members for fighting for what many of the citizens want to happen, whether you agree with it or not.”

    The move to expel the trio drew protesters to the Capitol Thursday morning, with many wanting to express both their opposition to the lawmakers’ removal from office – chants of “We stand with the Tennessee three,” were heard outside – as well as support for gun reform legislation.

    To some, the vote to expel Johnson, Jones and Pearson was a distraction from the real issue: Keeping children safe.

    “I want people to know this is not a political issue, it’s a child issue,” Deborah Castellano, a first-grade teacher in Nashville, told CNN. “If you wash away Democrat, Republican, it’s about kids and do we want them to be safe or not. I will stand in front of children and protect as many as I can with my body … but we shouldn’t have to, and those kids shouldn’t be afraid.”

    Paul Slentz, a retired United Methodist pastor, knows two of the lawmakers personally, he said, adding it was wrong for them to face a vote for their expulsion.

    “They’re good people,” Slentz told CNN affiliate WSMV in an interview outside the Capitol. “They have strong moral convictions. They are people of faith.”

    Each of the resolutions says the lawmakers “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives,” saying they “began shouting without recognition” and “proceeded to disrupt the proceedings of the House Representatives” for just under an hour Thursday morning.

    The resolutions seek to remove the lawmakers from office under Article II, Section 12 of the Tennessee Constitution, which says, in part, the House can set its own rules and “punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”

    Republicans control the Tennessee House of Representatives by a wide margin, with 75 members to Democrats’ 23. One seat is vacant.

    The code allows for the appointment of interim members of the House until the seats of the expelled are filled by an election.

    Pearson has acknowledged he and his two colleagues may have broken House rules, both in a letter sent to House members this week and in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, acknowledging they “spoke out of order” when they walked to the well of the House.

    “We broke a House rule,” he said, “but it does not meet the threshold for actually expelling members of the House who were duly elected by their district, who sent us here to serve, and now they’re being disenfranchised by the Republican party of the state of Tennessee.”

    House Democrats expressed solidarity with Johnson, Jones and Pearson in a statement, while Rep. Sam McKenzie, of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators, called the move “political retribution.”

    “We fundamentally object to any effort to expel members for making their voices heard to end gun violence,” McKenzie said.

    The move to expel the lawmakers also drew condemnation from the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, whose executive director, Kathy Sinback, called expulsion “an extreme measure” infrequently used, “because its strips voters of representation by the people they elected.”

    “Instead of rushing to expel members for expressing their ethical convictions about crucial social issues,” Sinback said, “House leadership should turn to solving the real challenges facing our state.”

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  • Death row inmate Richard Glossip’s murder conviction could be vacated after he avoided execution 3 times | CNN

    Death row inmate Richard Glossip’s murder conviction could be vacated after he avoided execution 3 times | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Oklahoma’s attorney general is asking for a new trial in the case of death row inmate Richard Glossip, who has spent a quarter of a century in prison for the death of his boss in 1997.

    “While the State has previously opposed relief for Glossip, it has changed its position based on a careful review of the new information that has come to light,” Attorney General Gentner F. Drummond wrote in a motion filed Thursday in an Oklahoma appeals court.

    The request was made after a special counsel report released Thursday recommended Glossip’s capital murder conviction be vacated and that he be granted a new trial.

    Glossip, 60, has insisted he was not involved in the killing of his boss, Barry Van Treese. He has narrowly avoided death three times, as previous execution dates ended with reprieves or stays of execution.

    It’s now up to the Oklahoma Court of Appeals to decide whether to grant or deny the request for a new trial. Glossip is currently scheduled to be executed on May 18.

    Glossip, a former motel manager, has been behind bars for 26 years. He was convicted of capital murder for ordering the killing of Van Treese.

    Another employee, then-19-year-old Justin Sneed, admitted to killing Van Treese with a baseball bat in Oklahoma City. But prosecutors told jurors Sneed killed Van Treese in a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Glossip.

    Sneed received a life sentence in exchange for his testimony against Glossip.

    But recently revealed evidence proves Glossip’s innocence, his defense team says.

    “It is now clear that it would be unconscionable for the State to move forward with Mr. Glossip’s execution when there is so much doubt surrounding his conviction,” Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, said in a statement Thursday.

    “We thank (Attorney) General Drummond for his courageous decision to take a deeper look at this difficult case and urge the Court of Criminal Appeals to quickly grant the Attorney General’s request and remand Mr. Glossip’s case to the trial court for further proceedings,” Knight added.

    The international law firm Reed Smith spent more than 3,000 pro bono hours investigating Glossip’s case and published a 343-page report last year, commissioned by a bipartisan group of state lawmakers.

    The independent investigation “revealed the state’s intentional destruction of evidence before trial and an inadequate police investigation,” Reed Smith said.

    The law firm and Glossip’s attorney have since uncovered more evidence, including letters Sneed wrote in prison. The letters are part of an amendment to Reed Smith’s initial report.

    In one letter to his attorney, Sneed wrote in part, “There are a lot of things right now that are eating at me. Somethings I need to clean up.”

    In another letter, Sneed wrote, “Do I have the choice of recanting my testimony at any time during my life …”

    In a separate letter shown to CNN, Sneed’s public defender responded to one of his letters saying, “I can tell by the tone of your letter that some things are bothering you … Had you refused (to testify against Glossip) you would most likely be on death row right now.”

    The Oklahoma County public defender’s office, responsible for Sneed’s attorney at the time, has declined to comment.

    “We always suspected that Justin Sneed really wanted to, at some point, tell the truth,” said Knight, Glossip’s attorney. “But from those papers, we could tell that even though he was trying to, his lawyer at the time was telling him, ‘Don’t do it.’”

    Drummond, the attorney general, said in a Thursday news release he “cannot stand behind the murder conviction and death sentence” of Glossip.

    “This is not to say I believe he is innocent. However, it is critical that Oklahomans have absolute faith that the death penalty is administered fairly and with certainty,” Drummond said. “Considering everything I know about this case, I do not believe that justice is served by executing a man based on the testimony of a compromised witness.”

    Glossip has been on the verge of execution three times before, even being served three separate last meals, Knight told CNN earlier this year.

    Richard Glossip's attorney, Don Knight, hands over documents inside the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals in July 2022 as he files for a new hearing for his client.

    He was first convicted of capital murder and sentenced in 1998, but that was overturned in 2001 because of ineffective defense counsel.

    He was convicted again in 2004 and again sentenced to death. That year, Glossip was more than an hour past his execution time when the governor issued a stay based on the constitutionality of the state’s execution protocols.

    Glossip’s decades on death row have been punctuated by a spate of reprieves and stays of execution.

    In an interview with CNN earlier this year, Glossip said he’s still anxious as each execution date nears.

    “It’s still scary, it will always be scary until they finally open this door and let me go, or remove this from over my head completely, so I don’t have to worry about, ‘Are they going to kill me next month? Or the month after that? When does time finally run out?’”

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  • Video: A pause on AI development, why it’s the worst time to buy a car in decades on CNN Nightcap | CNN Business

    Video: A pause on AI development, why it’s the worst time to buy a car in decades on CNN Nightcap | CNN Business

    The dangers of AI, the worst time to buy a car in decades, and the next Elizabeth Holmes?

    NYU’s Gary Marcus tells “Nightcap’s” Jon Sarlin why he signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on AI development. Plus, CNN’s Peter Valdes-Dapena explains why car prices may never go back to where they were pre-Covid. And Forbes’ Alexandra Levine details the arrest of Charlie Javice, the 31-year-old fintech founder who sold her company to JPMorgan and now stands accused of fraud. To get the day’s business headlines sent directly to your inbox, sign up for the Nightcap newsletter.

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  • Dozens of rockets fired from Lebanon into Israel after raids on al-Aqsa mosque | CNN

    Dozens of rockets fired from Lebanon into Israel after raids on al-Aqsa mosque | CNN


    Jerusalem
    CNN
     — 

    Dozens of rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel on Thursday, the Israeli military said, in a major escalation that comes amid regional tensions over Israeli police raids at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

    Some 34 rockets were launched from Lebanese territory into Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, with the majority intercepted but six landing in Israel.

    It was the largest such attack since a 2006 war between the two countries left around 1,200 Lebanese people and 165 Israelis dead.

    Videos posted on social media showed rockets streaking through the skies over northern Israel, and the sounds of explosions in the distance.

    The country closed its northern airspace in the wake of the barrage. No deaths were reported, and it is not yet known which group in Lebanon launched the rockets.

    Israel said it would “decide on the place and time” of its response, an IDF defense official who asked not to be named told CNN. An Israeli military spokesman said they believed a Palestinian militant group was behind the attack, not the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

    The Lebanese army confirmed a number of a rockets were launched from the country’s south, but did not detail who had fired them. It said on Twitter that a unit had found “missile launchers and a number of rockets intended for launch” in the vicinity of the Lebanese towns of Zibqin and Qlaileh, and was “currently working to dismantle them.”

    Hezbollah has not yet commented on the incident. It comes a day after Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, arrived in Beirut for meetings with Hezbollah officials.

    Tensions are sky-high in the region after Israeli police stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on two separate occasions Wednesday, as Palestinian worshipers offered prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.

    Footage from inside the mosque showed Israeli officers beating people with their batons and rifle-butts, then arresting hundreds of Palestinians. Israeli police said they entered the mosque after “hundreds of rioters” tried to barricade themselves inside.

    The incident, which was met with widespread condemnation from the Arab and Muslim world, sparked retaliatory rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.

    Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told CNN “we are at a very dangerous moment.”

    “What we see unfolding on the Lebanese border is obviously a consequence, a reaction to what we saw happening in al-Aqsa [mosque].” Safadi said.

    Trails from rockets can be seen over the skies of northern Israel in this video screengrab, as authorities raised concerns over increased tensions between Israel and Lebanon.

    Lebanon and Israel are considered enemy states, but a truce between them has largely held since the 2006 war.

    There have been several small-scale rocket attacks from Lebanon in recent years that have prompted retaliatory strikes from Israel. Few casualties were reported in those incidents, with the largest death toll in an exchange of fire in 2015 that left two Israeli soldiers and a Spanish peacekeeper dead. Palestinian factions in Lebanon were believed to be behind those rocket attacks.

    The 2006 conflict was the biggest flare-up between Lebanon and Israel since 1982. Around 1,200 Lebanese people and 165 Israelis died in an exchange of fire that involved a nationwide Israeli aerial assault, and a naval and aerial blockade. Hezbollah fired many rounds of rockets reaching deep into Israeli territory during the conflict.

    The Israeli military pinned the blame for the rockets on either Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with international spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht saying the IDF assumed that “Hezbollah knew about it, and Lebanon also has responsibility.”

    But he emphasized several times that the IDF viewed the attack as having come from a Palestinian source, and that it did not represent a widening of the conflict to actors outside of the direct Israeli-Palestinian conflict, raising hopes that tensions could be ratcheted down after the incident.

    The Lebanese foreign ministry also said it was ready to cooperate with the United Nations and take steps to “restore calm and stability” in the south, while calling on “the international community to put pressure on Israel to stop escalation,” the state-owned National News Agency reported.

    The IDF has been concerned for some time about an escalation on the Lebanese border, and hosted a high-level seminar in the spring of 2022 to brief journalists and policy makers about it.

    The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said Thursday’s escalation of violence between Lebanon and Israel was “extremely serious.”

    UNIFIL also said it has directed its personnel stationed at the border between the two countries to move to air raid shelters, as a “common practice.”

    The White House said it was “extremely concerned by the continuing violence and we urge all sides to avoid further escalation.”

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  • Chloe Bailey on the blessing of ‘Praise This’ | CNN

    Chloe Bailey on the blessing of ‘Praise This’ | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    It will indeed be a Good Friday for Chloe Bailey.

    That’s because her new film, “Praise This,” debuts this Friday on Peacock.

    Bailey plays Sam, an aspiring, young singer who must join her cousin’s struggling, praise team in the lead-up to a national competition.

    The role feels tailor-made for Bailey, one half of the sibling singing duo Chlöe x Halle.

    “It’s my first movie I’ve stared in, so to be able to do it with my love of music and God all combined, it’s s been pretty cool and I’m so grateful,” Bailey told CNN.

    The “Grown-ish” star recently stirred conversation for her appearance the Prime drama “Swarm.” But her latest role finds Bailey in a film centered in a message of faith.

    Producer Will Packer told CNN he viewed this project similarly to his 2007 film, “Stomp The Yard.”

    “‘Stomp the Yard,’ while masquerading as a dance movie, was really about telling the story of Black colleges and fraternity and sororities at Black colleges, which was a world I knew well,” he said. “I have an affinity for the church and faith-based stories. Whether you’re somebody that doesn’t even know praise teams exist, I wanted to draw you into this world and then tell this story of a young girl who’s trying to find her voice, who’s trying to find her connection with her spirituality when she feels like she’s lost.”

    Packer said he had Bailey in mind for the lead role from the start.

    “She reminds me of Beyoncé. And by that I mean, not in the ways that other people have compared and other people think about, you know, her and Beyoncé as singers and actresses,” he explained. “I mean in terms of her work ethic. Chloe works very hard. You’re not gonna outwork her.”

    That makes sense given that Bailey and her sister, who is set to star in the live-action “Little Mermaid” film being released in May,” are protégés of Beyoncé.

    Anjelika Washington, who costars in “Praise This” as Sam’s “sister cousin” Jess, told CNN she hopes the film will inspire audiences to be kind to one another.

    “I hope that people remember to just love people,” Washington said. “That’s the greatest command of all, so I hope that people have an open mind for everything.”

    Bailey agreed.

    “I truly believe that God accepts us in every shape and form, and we should come exactly as we are,” Bailey said. “(The movie) shows that in such a positive light with comedy, and I hope audiences love it.”

    Director Tina Gordon also has high hopes for “Praise This” and other projects like it.

    “I’m hoping that family-based projects, faith-based projects have a bigger and bigger home in Hollywood,” she said. “I actually think community is very important and entertainment that sort of fosters family, that multi-generations can watch together. We definitely learned that people want that over the last couple years.”

    “Praise This” also costars Druski, along with Grammy-nominated artists Quavo and Tristan Mack Wilds.

    “Praise This” debuts on April 7 streams on Peacock.

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  • FBI and Army members raided the wrong hotel room during a training exercise and detained a guest inside | CNN

    FBI and Army members raided the wrong hotel room during a training exercise and detained a guest inside | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Members of the FBI and the US Army Special Operations Command who were conducting a training exercise in downtown Boston raided the wrong hotel room and detained the person inside before realizing their mistake, the FBI said in a statement to CNN.

    The FBI said its Boston division was helping the military with a training exercise around 10 p.m. Tuesday “to simulate a situation their personnel might encounter in a deployed environment.”

    “Based on inaccurate information, they were mistakenly sent to the wrong room and detained an individual, not the intended role player,” the FBI said.

    “First and foremost, we’d like to extend our deepest apologies to the individual who was affected by the training exercise,” USASOC Lt. Col. Mike Burns told CNN.

    The exercise was meant to “enhance soldiers’ skills to operate in realistic and unfamiliar environments,” Burns said, adding the incident is under review.

    No one was injured, the FBI said.

    The incident took place at the Revere Hotel Boston Common, according to the Boston Police Department. CNN has reached out to the hotel for comment.

    A Boston police incident report said officers were called to the hotel around 12:20 a.m. Wednesday, and were met by law enforcement agents conducting a training exercise.

    Local news reports said the person who was in the hotel room and detained by federal law enforcement is a Delta Air Lines employee.

    The Atlanta-based airline told CNN it is looking into the “alleged incident in Boston that may involve Delta people.”

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  • ‘Shocked’ by the loss: Scientists sound the alarm on New Zealand’s melting glaciers | CNN

    ‘Shocked’ by the loss: Scientists sound the alarm on New Zealand’s melting glaciers | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Every year scientists in New Zealand fly over some of the country’s most iconic glaciers – ancient ice “rivers” that descend from the Southern Alps, a spine of mountains that extend along the South Island. And almost every year, they find them shrinking.

    This year was no different.

    At the end of March, the team of scientists spent eight hours flying over the peaks, taking thousands of photographs of glaciers for the annual snowline survey. Andrew Mackintosh, a professor at Monash University in Australia who was on the flight, said in a statement that he was “shocked” by what they saw.

    Some of the smaller elevation glaciers had largely disappeared, he said, while the famous Franz Josef and Fox glaciers showed marked signs of retreat.

    “The observations this year reinforce the view that we are continuing to see ice loss across the Southern Alps,” Andrew Lorrey, principal scientist at the research body National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and coordinator of the survey, told CNN.

    Glaciers are huge masses of ice that build up in and around mountains. They grow in cold, snowy winters and retreat when temperatures warm. Glaciers are fresh water sources for nearly 2 billion people globally, but their rapid melting poses a huge risk: not only is it increasing the risk for deadly flash flooding, the melting ice is driving sea level rise.

    Two years of severe, record-breaking heat have taken a toll on the glaciers – 2022 was New Zealand’s hottest year ever, beating a record that was set just a year earlier. But the trend of declining ice is long term.

    It’s difficult to witness, said Lorrey, who has been on these aerial surveys since 2009. “I’m seeing this beautiful part of our natural environment slipping through our fingers. And if you’ve experienced a glacier firsthand, they are absolutely breathtaking and mind-blowing and life-altering.”

    The snowline survey, organized by NIWA, has happened almost every year for nearly five decades and aims to capture a snapshot of a set of more than 50 glaciers – ranging in size and elevation – as close as possible to the end of snow and ice melt season.

    The scientists are looking specifically at the snow that coats them. By understanding where the snowline is “you capture something about the health of our glaciers,” Lorrey said.

    The snow, which provides a nourishing and protective layer for the glaciers, starts in the autumn and continues until spring.

    Lorrey has a financial analogy for the process: The snow is like a savings deposit for the glacier, a buffer against the warmer period ahead. When the melt season starts in the spring, it has to go through this “savings account” of new snow before it reaches the body of the glacier.

    In years when the snowline is lower on the mountain, the glacier can bulk up and is able to advance further down the slope – it has a healthy balance. But when the snowline is higher up, more of the glacier is exposed to melting – sending it into the red – and it will shrink.

    “Right now, we see rapid changes happening in the mountains, with indications that the snowline rise is accelerating along with ice loss,” Lorrey said.

    The results from this year’s flight will be fed into a report on longer term variability in the glaciers which will come out later in the year.

    Principal scientist Andrew Lorrey takes photos of Tasman Glacier during the flight.

    The climate crisis is having a huge impact. “It’s mostly temperature changes that drive what glaciers in New Zealand are doing,” Lauren Vargo, a glaciologist at the Victoria University of Wellington, who was part of the survey, told CNN.

    The extreme melting in 2018, one of the worst years on record for New Zealand’s glaciers, was made up to 10 times more likely by climate change, according to a 2020 study co-authored by Vargo and Lorrey.

    As a scientist, at first the dramatic change in the glaciers “was exciting” in some ways, said Vargo, who has been studying them since 2016. But the persistence of this trend is tough. “It also feels sad and scary when you think about what’s driving it,” she said.

    “As the current warming trend continues, we will keep losing more glaciers,” said Lorrey. And this is a global trend. Up to half the world’s glaciers could disappear by the end of the century, even if ambitious climate targets are met, according to research published in January.

    Brewster Glacier has seen a marked retreat over the last two decades.

    In addition to the impacts of climate change, natural climate variations have also played a role. The unusually long run of La Niña years, which have just ended, brought warmer-than-average sea and air temperatures, helping to drive glacier melting.

    Its counterpart, El Niño, which often brings cooler conditions to this part of New Zealand, is forecast for later in the year and may provide a temporary reprieve.

    “I always look forward to an El Niño and seeing a snow line that is where it normally should be,” Lorrey said. But, he cautioned, “it’s not going to save the bacon of the glaciers.” These years “occur too few and far between to counteract the ongoing warming trend that we’ve been experiencing.”

    Carrington Glacier

    The loss of ice is is keenly felt, Vargo said. “People in New Zealand have this connection to the glaciers.”

    Where once it was possible to park in the car park of a national park and walk a short distance to touch a glacier, now that’s much less common – people often need to go further into the mountain, even fly there on small planes.

    “It’s an experience that will be out of reach for many,” Lorrey said. “A loss of our glaciers will have a significant impact on our relationship with and experiences in the environment.”

    These “water towers,” as Lorrey calls them, also have an important role in supplying high Alpine streams, especially during years of drought.

    The shifts that are happening are a reminder that our mountains – and other places around the world – are changing quickly, he said. Glaciers are a “a highly visual element of environmental change that tells us there are other things that we are not seeing.”

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  • Defying China, US House leader and Taiwan president present a united front | CNN

    Defying China, US House leader and Taiwan president present a united front | CNN


    Taipei, Taiwan
    CNN
     — 

    Defying Beijing’s repeated threats, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy presented a carefully choreographed united front in California on Wednesday against an increasingly powerful and aggressive China.

    For Taiwan, the rare high-level, bipartisan meeting is a timely show of US support, as China ramps up diplomatic and military pressure on the self-ruling island it claims as part of its territory.

    But the encounter also carries great risks: the last time Tsai met with a US House Speaker – during Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei last August, Beijing retaliated by holding days of large-scale military drills and firing missiles over the island, pushing tensions to their highest in decades.

    This time around, Beijing’s initial reaction appears more restrained. Its Foreign Ministry has condemned the meeting and pledged to take “strong and resolute measures,” though so far that has not translated into any specific military response.

    To avoid provoking Beijing and triggering another military crisis, American and Taiwan officials have portrayed Tsai’s visit as nothing out of the ordinary, citing an abundance of precedents for a Taiwan leader to transit through the US.

    But the political significance of Tsai’s meeting with McCarthy is unavoidable. It is the highest-level audience a sitting Taiwan president has received on American soil, with an official second in line to the presidency after the vice president.

    Their meeting at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library highlighted the strengthening ties between Taipei and Washington, even though they remain unofficial in nature.

    “I believe our bond is stronger now than at any time or point in my lifetime,” McCarthy said at a press conference after the meeting. “America’s support for the people of Taiwan will remain resolute, unwavering and bipartisan.”

    Tsai reciprocated his pledge of solidarity, noting “we’re stronger when we are together.”

    “In our efforts to protect our way of life, Taiwan is grateful to have the United States by our side,” she said, standing alongside McCarthy with Reagan’s Air Force One as a backdrop. “The constant and unwavering support reassured the people of Taiwan that we are not isolated and we are not alone.”

    Under Washington’s longstanding “One China” policy, the US acknowledges China’s position that Taiwan is part of China, but has never officially recognized Beijing’s claim to the island of 23 million. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, it is also bound by law to provide the democratic island with the means to defend itself.

    Austin Wang, an assistant professor in political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the meeting illustrated the importance of the Taiwan issue in US politics.

    “Whether it’s worth the risk depends on what will happen next,” he said. “If the meeting is a cornerstone to speed up further economic and military cooperation…(then it) is worth the risk.”

    Following the meeting Wednesday, McCarthy tweeted the United States should continue to boost its support for Taiwan. “We must continue arms sales to Taiwan and make sure such sales reach Taiwan on time. We must also strengthen our economic cooperation, particularly with trade and technology,” he tweeted.

    Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen during her stopover in the United States.

    Beijing’s ruling Communist Party sees Taiwan as an inseparable part of its territory, despite having never controlled it – and has vowed to “reunite” the island with mainland China, by force if necessary.

    To undermine its legitimacy, Beijing has spent decades chipping away at Taipei’s dwindling diplomatic allies and blocking its participation in international organizations – including the World Health Organization.

    The US maintains an unofficial relationship with Taiwan after switching its diplomatic relations to Beijing decades ago.

    Last month, Honduras also switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, leaving the island democracy with only 13 remaining allies.

    But instead of becoming increasingly isolated from the global community, Taiwan has steadily built its international influence by expanding unofficial relationships with friendly Western nations – while also emphasizing shared values in maintaining its ties with official allies.

    Tsai’s high-profile meeting in California followed a trip to Central America, where she met with allies in Guatemala and Belize to promote “democracy and prosperity.”

    Tsai addressed parliaments in both countries and signed agreements to deepen their partnerships. While transiting in New York earlier in the trip, she also received a global leadership award from the Hudson Institute, a US think tank based in Washington DC.

    Analysts say since Tsai became president in 2016, her government has increasingly shifted the focus of Taiwanese diplomacy on developing unofficial ties with Western democracies to compensate for the loss of official recognition.

    Last month, Taiwan welcomed a 150-person Czech delegation, led by the speaker of the lower chamber of the Czech parliament, as a growing number of European countries raised concerns over the future of Taiwan following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    While President Tsai makes a high-profile trip to the Americas, her predecessor Ma Ying-jeou is also making a historic visit to mainland China – the first such trip by a current or former Taiwanese president since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

    At a time of mounting pressure from Beijing, their parallel visits have come to present different visions for the future of the self-governing democracy.

    Taiwan is set to elect a new president next year, when questions about the island’s political future are bound to arise. Having served two terms, Tsai is not eligible for re-election, but her vice president William Lai is expected to run.

    Having lost to Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party in two presidential elections, the Kuomintang, or KMT, is doing all it can to avoid another defeat.

    “We know that in Taiwan, that at every presidential election, China is the fundamental issue that matters most,” said Lev Nachman, an assistant professor in politics at National Chengchi University in Taipei.

    The 2024 elections will be no different, and it’s just a matter of how the China issue is framed, he said.

    “We already see, for example, the KMT trying to frame this as a case between war and peace, in which the KMT brings peace and the DPP brings war.”

    The KMT is widely seen as more Beijing-friendly than the DPP.

    When he was president between 2008 and 2016, Ma focused on establishing greater economic cooperation between Beijing and Taipei. The proposal sparked large-scale protests that saw demonstrators occupying Taiwan’s legislature for weeks.

    In 2015, Ma held an historic meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Singapore – the first such meeting between political leaders of both sides of the Taiwan Strait in decades.

    During his trip to China, Ma met with the director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, noting the importance of maintaining exchanges across the Taiwan Strait and “doing everything possible” to avoid conflict.

    “People on both sides of the strait belong to the same Chinese nation and are descendants of the Chinese people,” he said last week.

    In contrast to Ma, Tsai does not acknowledge that Taiwan and China belong to the same nation. Instead, she has repeatedly emphasized that the island’s future can only be decided by its own people.

    “We will continue to bolster our national defense and demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves in order to ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us,” she said at national day celebrations in 2021.

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  • Missouri communities face a long road to recovery after a storm leveled homes and left at least 5 people dead | CNN

    Missouri communities face a long road to recovery after a storm leveled homes and left at least 5 people dead | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    As a tornado-spawning storm system that walloped the Central US winds down, communities in southeastern Missouri are left sifting through the wreckage of what used to be homes and looking ahead to a long road to recovery.

    At least five people were killed when a possible tornado struck Bollinger County, Missouri in the dark overnight hours Wednesday, according to Sheriff Casey Graham.

    The storm tore a path of destruction across several communities in the county, reducing homes into piles of wood, scraping the roofs off buildings, splintering trees and littering roads with debris.

    “When you look at the devastation of this, it’s going to be weeks upon months to be able to recover,” Gov. Mike Parson said after touring Bollinger County. “It’s a long journey ahead for the people that live here.”

    At least 87 structures have been damaged, including 12 that were completely destroyed, said Missouri State Highway Patrol Colonel Eric Olson.

    “It was a very quick storm. It felt like it moved very quickly throughout the county,” Graham told CNN affiliate KFVS.

    The devastation in Bollinger County mirrors the destruction left behind in parts of the South and Midwest, where violent storms and tornadoes left 32 people dead just last week.

    On Tuesday and Wednesday, there were at least 12 tornadoes reported, including at least seven in Illinois, where several buildings were damaged in the town of Colona.

    The storm also battered communities with damaging winds and large hail. Davenport, Iowa, was pelted with 4-inch hail – larger than a softball.

    Now, as crews in different communities work to clear debris, a slight risk for severe weather is forecast for over 35 million people Thursday from parts of North Carolina to the Mid-Atlantic.

    Storms from Texas to the northeast could bring with them a slight flood threat on Thursday and Friday, according to the Weather Prediction Center.

    Around 7 million people are under flood watches from east Texas to Kentucky, spanning 750 miles in seven states. Cities in the watch include Shreveport, Nashville, and Memphis, according to the National Weather Service. Watches are in effect through Thursday and into late Friday.

    The flood threat includes Texas, southwest Arkansas, northern Louisiana, northern Mississippi, northern Alabama and western Tennessee.

    Heavy rain between 2-4 inches is possible in those areas, with the heaviest storms potentially dropping 5 inches of rain.

    After the suspected tornado ripped through Bollinger County, residents who lost their homes in the storm were trying to salvage what they could Wednesday as the sun came up.

    Resident Alisha Skaggs told KFVS the home her family has lived in for three years was wiped out by the storm.

    “From going to being homeowners to having nothing, having to start over, it’s a lot to comprehend,” Skaggs said.

    Her neighbor, Kim Sear, told the station she had lived in the area since 1997 and had never seen a tornado come through.

    “I never thought our house would ever get hit, our neighbors would ever get hit,” Sear said. “But we have such wonderful neighbors. Everybody was checking on everybody, and I have a wonderful church group and when they’re allowed to come in, they’re gonna help clean up for me.”

    Her daughter Ciara Sear described the frightening moment the storm began beating down on their home.

    “It sounded like a freight train,” Ciara Sear told KFVS. “There’s stuff breaking everywhere, I was scared for everybody else.”

    Glenallen, Missouri, resident Erica White said she and her family had to seek shelter in the bathroom as the roof of their rental home was damaged in the storm.

    “It was super scary, the closest tornado I have encountered,” White told CNN. “I had all four kids in the bathtub with a mattress over them.”

    The sheriff said hundreds of personnel from over 25 agencies converged on Bollinger County Wednesday in the storm’s aftermath. Crews were working Wednesday to search damaged homes and surrounding roadways, and to clear debris.

    “Even in difficult times, it certainly is humbling to see how in our rural communities here in Missouri, that we all come together to work through these very difficult times,” Olson said.

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  • Storm system that killed 5 people in Missouri threatens 50 million Americans with severe weather | CNN

    Storm system that killed 5 people in Missouri threatens 50 million Americans with severe weather | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A destructive storm system that spawned at least 11 tornado reports and killed five people in Missouri now threatens millions more from Texas to New York with damaging winds, large hail and more potential twisters.

    At least five people were killed when a possible tornado struck Bollinger County, Missouri, Sheriff Casey Graham said Wednesday.

    Another five people were reported injured, said Missouri State Highway Patrol Col. Eric Olson. At least 87 structures were damaged – 12 of which were totally destroyed, Olson said.

    Authorities were still involved in search and rescue efforts, a highway patrol official said.

    “When you look at the devastation of this, it’s going to be weeks among months to be able to recover,” Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said in a news conference Wednesday. “It’s a long journey ahead for the people that live here.”

    The damage in Bollinger County appears to be from a high-end EF-2 tornado, the National Weather Service said, adding details may change as they receive more information.

    The same storm system that battered parts of Missouri, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan continued to threaten more than 50 million people from Texas to New York Wednesday evening.

    A man surveys the wreckage and debris outside his destroyed home on April 5, 2023 in Glenallen, Missouri.

    At least nine tornadoes were reported Tuesday, including two in Iowa and seven in Illinois – where several buildings were damaged in the town of Colona and multiple semi-trucks were toppled over along the I-88.

    More than 170 hail reports also emerged from Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Michigan on Tuesday. Davenport, Iowa, was pummeled with 4-inch hail – larger than a softball – while in Oswego, Illinois, baseball-sized hail plummeted from the sky.

    Debris and wreckage is seen after a tornado in the Glenallen area, Missouri, on April 5, 2023.

    An enhanced risk – Level 3 out of 5 – of severe storms remained in place Wednesday evening from northwestern Tennessee to north Ohio, including Columbus, Nashville, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Louisville.

    A Level 3 enhanced risk means multiple persistent and widespread severe storms are possible.

    And while tornado watches were no longer active, at the peak of the storm earlier in the day, there were more than 20 million people under tornado watches that extended more than 800 miles, from eastern Arkansas to southeastern Michigan.

    This latest round of severe weather comes just days after parts of the South and Midwestt were ravaged by violent storms and tornadoes that left 32 people dead.

    A semi loaded with cattle tipped over in South Dakota.

    Meanwhile, winter storms plagued the Northern Plains Wednesday, a day after “blizzard conditions” led to the shutdown of more than 100 miles of Interstate 90.

    Widespread heavy snow has fallen across the Rockies and is expected to continue over the Northern Plains, which have been seeing snowfall for several hours.

    “Blizzard warnings are in effect for parts of the Dakotas where snow showers and strong winds will cause blowing snow and reduced visibility, which will make travel dangerous,” the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said Wednesday afternoon.

    Parts of eastern North Dakota and northern Minnesota will see several inches worth of snow Wednesday, the center added.

    The North Dakota Department of Transportation urged drivers to stay off the roads, warning conditions are too dangerous even for emergency crews.

    “If you don’t need to drive, stay off the roads. It’s dangerous for you and emergency crews. If you’re stranded, crews may not be able to reach you,” the transportation department tweeted.

    Meanwhile, sleet and freezing rain will impact parts of the Upper Great Lakes and New England, the prediction center said.

    “Winter Weather Advisories are in effect for parts of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont through early Thursday morning,” the center added, warning of possible power outages and difficult travel conditions.

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  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr. files paperwork to run for president as a Democrat | CNN Politics

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. files paperwork to run for president as a Democrat | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for president in 2024 as a Democrat.

    The filing was confirmed Wednesday by his campaign treasurer, John E. Sullivan.

    The 69-year-old is the son of former New York senator, US attorney general and assassinated 1968 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy.

    Kennedy Jr. is a longtime vaccine skeptic. He has promoted discredited claims linking vaccines and autism and founded the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense. He has also railed against the coronavirus vaccine and has criticized the federal government’s handling of the pandemic.

    In 2019, three members of his family – his sister Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, brother Joseph P. Kennedy II and niece Maeve Kennedy McKean – forcefully denounced his anti-vaccine views in a Politico Magazine op-ed, arguing that he was “part of a misinformation campaign that’s having heartbreaking – and deadly – consequences.”

    In 2022, Kennedy Jr. invoked Nazi Germany in an anti-vaccine speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. The previous year, Instagram took down his account “for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.”

    Kennedy had tweeted last month that he was considering a presidential run.

    “If it looks like I can raise the money and mobilize enough people to win, I’ll jump in the race,” he said.

    His tweet also pointed supporters to his website: “Let Bobby know you want to see his leadership in the White House,” the site says while asking for donations.

    As an environmental lawyer, Kennedy worked with a group that led the Hudson River cleanup. He also worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council and co-founded an environmental law firm.

    Should he go through with his presidential bid, Kennedy would be the latest in a long line of family members to enter politics.

    His sister Kathleen served as the lieutenant governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003. His brother Joseph was a congressman from Massachusetts from 1987 to 1999. And more recently, his brother Chris Kennedy was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Illinois in 2018.

    The last Kennedy to hold elected office was his nephew former Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III, who lost a Democratic Senate primary in 2020. (He is now the US special envoy for Northern Ireland.) Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of former President Kennedy, is currently the US ambassador to Australia.

    The 2024 Democratic presidential race is only beginning to take shape, with President Joe Biden expected to announce his bid for a second term. Author Marianne Williamson launched a second long-shot campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination last month.

    On the Republican side, former President Donald Trump jump-started the race for the party nomination, announcing his third bid for the White House last year. Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are also in the race, while other well-known contenders, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence, are weighing bids of their own.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Maryland AG report into Archdiocese of Baltimore alleges 156 Catholic clergy members and others abused more than 600 children | CNN

    Maryland AG report into Archdiocese of Baltimore alleges 156 Catholic clergy members and others abused more than 600 children | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A report from Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown released Wednesday alleges 156 Catholic clergy members and others abused at least 600 children over the course of more than six decades.

    “From the 1940s through 2002, over a hundred priests and other Archdiocese personnel engaged in horrific and repeated abuse of the most vulnerable children in their communities while Archdiocese leadership looked the other way,” the report reads. “Time and again, members of the Church’s hierarchy resolutely refused to acknowledge allegations of child sexual abuse for as long as possible.”

    The report lists descriptions of graphic sexual and physical abuse allegations: It includes stories of how some alleged abusers provided victims with alcohol and drugs and describes in vivid detail how they coerced and forced victims to perform sexual acts.

    The report’s list of abusers includes clergy members, seminarians, deacons, teachers and other employees of the Archdiocese.

    Forty-three priests who “served in some capacity or resided within the Archdiocese of Baltimore” committed sexual abuse in locations outside Maryland, the report alleged. Of these 43 priests, 40 of them allegedly committed sexual abuse in only one other location, while the other three allegedly committed sexual abuse in two other locations outside Maryland, the report says.

    The investigation began in 2018 and has since received “hundreds of thousands of documents,” including treatment reports, personnel records, transfer reports and policies and procedures.

    The Maryland Attorney General’s Office said more than 300 people contacted the office after it opened an email address and telephone hotline for people to report information about clergy abuse, and investigators interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses.

    “Today certainly in Maryland is a day of reckoning and a day of accounting,” Brown said during a news conference Wednesday.

    Brown said he met with survivors and advocates Wednesday morning to hear their stories.

    “While each of those stories is unique, together, they reveal themes and behaviors typical of adults who abuse children, and those who enable that abuse by concealing it,” Brown said. “What was consistent throughout the stories was the absolute authority and power these abusive priests and the church leadership held over survivors, their families and their communities.”

    Most of the abusers listed in the report are dead and no longer subject to prosecution, the attorney general said.

    “While it may be too late for the survivors to see criminal justice served, we hope that exposing the Archdiocese’s transgressions to the fullest extent possible will bring some measure of accountability and perhaps encourage others to come forward,” Brown said.

    Some victims waited to report their claims of abuse until later in life, according to the report. Because Maryland recognizes a statute of limitations defense in civil cases, “victims have no recourse if they are over the age of 38,” the report reads.

    Some victims did not come forward until their parents had died to “spare them the pain of knowing about the abuse,” the report reads, while others never intended to tell but were persuaded to come forward with the help of others. Others repressed their memories and recollections of abuse emerged only many years later, according to the report.

    The Archbishop of Baltimore apologized on behalf of the Archdiocese after allegations of abuse surfaced in the report.

    “To all survivors, I offer my most earnest apology on behalf of the Archdiocese and pledge my continued solidarity and support for your healing. We hear you. We believe you and your courageous voices have made a difference,” Archbishop William E. Lori wrote in a statement Wednesday.

    “The report details a reprehensible time in the history of this Archdiocese,” Lori added, and wrote it “will not be covered up, ignored or forgotten.”

    The Archdiocese began making “radical changes” in the 1990s to “end this scourge,” Lori wrote. Instances of abuse have fallen every year and every decade since cases of abuse peaked during the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote, saying, “The Archdiocese is not the same organization it was.”

    “Make no mistake, however: today’s strong record of protection and transparency does not excuse past failings that have led to the lasting spiritual, psychological and emotional harm victim-survivors have endured,” the Archbishop’s statement reads.

    The Archdiocese of Baltimore has paid $13.2 million to 303 victims of abuse since the 1980s, according to the Archdiocese’s office.

    The payments include money for both counseling and settlements, the Archdiocese’s executive director of communications, Christian Kendzierski, said in an email to CNN.

    The report contains “a full accounting” of abuse in the Archdiocese and “details of repeated tortuous, terrorizing, depraved abuse.” It lists and details 156 abusers “determined to have been the subject of credible allegations of abuse.”

    More than 600 children are known to have been abused by those 156 people, the report reads, but “the number is likely far higher.”

    The report reveals the names of all but 10 of the 156 alleged abusers listed in the report.

    Brown said those 10 names were obtained through the grand jury process and could not be disclosed without permission or a court order.

    “I should emphasize that because they’re redacted today doesn’t mean they will always be redacted,” Brown said.

    The report does not constitute criminal indictment, according to the attorney general.

    The report recommends that Maryland amend the statute of limitations for civil actions involving child sex abuse.

    “Our judicial system should provide a means for victims who have suffered these harms to seek damages from the people and institutions responsible for them,” the report reads.

    Maryland’s Senate passed a bill in March that would repeal the state’s civil statute of limitations in certain civil actions relating to child sexual abuse. The bill is working its way through the House.

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  • Here’s why beef is still pricey | CNN Business

    Here’s why beef is still pricey | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    A slowing economy may lead to a decline in sales of pricey beef cuts, but don’t look for any bargains just yet.

    Market forces that have been building for a long time, including devastating droughts, will likely keep hamburger and steak prices steady — and relatively expensive.

    In part, that’s because there’s less beef. A contraction in beef supplies “has been coming for a while,” said David Anderson, a professor in Texas A&M University’s agricultural economics department. “We’re starting to see the effects that we knew were going to be coming for a couple of years.”

    When extreme drought hit the United States in recent years, farmers started to rapidly sell cattle because the dry conditions, along with higher feed costs, made it expensive or impossible to maintain their herds. That wave of sales, particularly of cows used to breed, has led to supply constraints this year.

    “Tightening cattle supplies are expected to cause a significant year-over-year decrease in beef production, the first decline since 2015,” a March market outlook from the US Department of Agriculture noted.

    “If we produce less beef, the pressure’s on for higher prices,” said Anderson. The “big unknown is going to be consumer demand.”

    The beef supply tends to grow and shrink in roughly 10-year cycles, said Lance Zimmerman, senior beef analyst for the North American market with Rabobank. When supply shrinks, consumer prices tend to go up. But with people nervous about the economy, this year’s more complicated.

    “The biggest thing that looms large, in all of our minds as market analysts right now, is do we have recession risk that we need to price into the market for next year,” Zimmerman said. “If that’s the case, beef prices may be steadier.”

    And with food inflation stubbornly high, consumers are already cutting back on certain items, including beef.

    Tyson

    (TSN)    , which processes about a fifth of the country’s beef, poultry and pork, noted a sales dip in beef in the three months ending December 31, 2022.

    With grocery inflation stubbornly high, some consumers trade down.

    Beef sales “were down 5.6% compared to record high sales in the prior year,” said CFO John Tyson during a February analyst call discussing the quarterly results, noting that prices were down in the quarter due to “softer domestic demand for beef.” The company said that it expects its beef margins to fall this year because of the smaller domestic supply.

    “Retailers through last year continued to push price on the consumer,” said Adam Speck, senior livestock analyst at Gro Intelligence. Now they have to answer a question as they plan for the year: Will demand be high enough to warrant raising prices even more?

    “The answer is probably no,” said Speck. That may not be a huge relief, as beef prices are still relatively high. In 2022, fresh choice beef retailed for $7.59 per pound, according to March data from the USDA. That’s up from $7.25 per pound the previous year.

    Stores may try to test the waters during barbecue season.

    In the spring, “we’re at the bottom of our traditional seasonal demand,” said Bernt Nelson, an economist with American Farm Bureau Federation. Demand for beef typically dips after the holidays, and picks up when people fire up their grills in the summer, he noted. If demand remains strong, “we may see some higher beef prices,” towards the fall and later, Bernt said.

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  • Florida Senate passes 6-week abortion ban | CNN Politics

    Florida Senate passes 6-week abortion ban | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Florida’s state Senate on Monday passed a bill that would ban most abortions in the state after the gestational age of six weeks, or about four weeks of pregnancy.

    The bill’s advance, which still needs to pass the state’s GOP-led House, comes one year after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a 15-week ban into law. The new legislation likely further burnishes the conservative credentials of DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, and it was met with outrage by state Democrats, two of whom were arrested during a protest near the state Capitol Monday night.

    The current bill would impose restrictions on telehealth abortions and medication. It would include exemptions for women facing life-threatening harm while pregnant and victims of rape, incest and human trafficking.

    The bill targets both physicians who perform abortions and those who “actively participate in” them, and should the bill become law, any person who violates it could be charged with a third-degree felony.

    The “Heartbeat Protection Act” passed the Florida Senate in a 26-13 vote.

    A protest over the bill near the state Capitol resulted in the arrests of 11 people who were charged with trespassing after a warning, Tallahassee police said. Florida Democrats said state party Chairwoman Nikki Fried and Florida Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book were among them.

    “As the Democratic leader in the Florida Senate, it’s my job to a lead this incredible group of 11 Democrats, other than myself, to fight against these extreme policies,” Book told CNN on Wednesday. ‘Women will die as a consequence of this piece of policy.”

    Other abortion rights advocates say the Florida bill unfairly seeks to ban abortions before many even know they are pregnant.

    “This bill will unfairly and disproportionately impact people who live in rural communities, people with low incomes, people with disabilities, and people of color,” Kara Gross, the legislative director and senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said in a statement.

    “Hundreds of thousands of pregnant people will be forced to travel out of state to seek the care they need. Many people will not even know they are pregnant by six weeks, and for those who do, it is unlikely they will be able to schedule the legally required two in-person doctor’s appointments before six weeks of pregnancy,” Gross said.

    The White House has also criticized the pending bill.

    “The President and Vice President believe women should be able to make health care decisions with their doctors and families – free from political interference. They are committed to protecting access to reproductive care, and continue to call on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement when the bill was first introduced.

    State Sen. Clay Yarborough, one of the bill’s Republican sponsors, said “unborn children deserve the strongest protections possible under our laws.”

    The legislation underscores the ongoing efforts across the country to restrict access to abortion in a post-Roe world. Other Republican-led states have also pursued six-week abortion bans that have been met with legal challenges.

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  • The Fed could easily drive Black unemployment much higher than the overall jobless rate | CNN Business

    The Fed could easily drive Black unemployment much higher than the overall jobless rate | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Millions of jobs could be on the chopping block this year, as the Federal Reserve continues its rate-hiking campaign to tame inflation. But the effects of that action likely won’t reverberate evenly across the economy.

    The Fed has seen some success: Inflation has cooled for eighth consecutive months, according to the February Consumer Price Index. The Producer Price Index shows a dramatic drop in wholesale prices in February. And the Fed’s favored inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, has also started to moderate.

    But the job market has proved to be a formidable force, humming steadily in the face of climbing rates meant to slow its growth. After adding more than half a million jobs in January, the US economy then added 311,000 jobs in February, with an unemployment rate of 3.6% — just above a half-century low — according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    However, the jobless rate isn’t expected to be that low for long.

    At its most recent policy-making meeting, the Fed released projections for the year ahead that showed unemployment could jump to 4.5%, representing another 1.5 million job losses, by the end of the year.

    While that’s a small improvement from the central bank’s previous 4.6% jobless rate estimate, economists say it’s possible the unemployment rate could rise above the Fed’s expectations. Moreover, they say that historically disadvantaged groups could be disproportionately affected by the central bank’s stringent monetary policy.

    While some groups often sidelined in the job market have seen benefits from this hot job market — women have seen a faster pace of job gains than men in recent months, for example — others, including Black women and Latino men, have seen slower recoveries in jobless rates since the onset of the Covid pandemic.

    Recession fears gained traction last month when the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank sent markets wobbling, raising concerns about the economy’s ability to handle more stress. Goldman Sachs revised its estimate of the United States entering a recession over the next 12 months to a 35% chance, up from its estimate of a 25% chance before the banking sector turmoil.

    That’s of particular concern to certain demographic groups: Jobless rates for Black and Hispanic Americans often increase by more than those of their White counterparts during recessions, said Rakesh Kochhar, a senior researcher focusing on demographics and social trends at the Pew Research Center.

    History makes that discrepancy clear.

    A Pew Research Center report comparing two recessions in recent decades shows how Black and Hispanic Americans experience disproportionate effects on their jobless rates during periods of economic downturn. From the second quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2009, during the Great Recession, the unemployment rate rose 6.5 percentage points for Black Americans. The Hispanic unemployment rate climbed 6.3 percentage points. For White workers, it increased 4 percentage points.

    And from the first quarter of 1990 to the first quarter of 1991, the unemployment rate climbed 1.4 percentage points for Black Americans and 2.1 percentage points for Hispanic Americans. The White unemployment rate rose 1.3 percentage points.

    Economists say it’s hard to guess the trajectory of the unemployment rate this year, noting it could very well exceed the Fed’s estimate.

    “There’s just tons of momentum, and once you slow the economy enough to get the unemployment rate moving up, it’s very hard to sort of turn that cruise ship back around,” said Josh Bivens, research director and chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

    As such, the Fed’s tightening efforts could easily drive the Black unemployment rate much higher than the overall jobless rate, said William Spriggs, an economics professor at Howard University and chief economist to the AFL-CIO.

    “If the Fed continues to use unemployment as its measure of labor force slack, and thinks they want a 4.5% unemployment rate — to make that happen, the Fed would have to induce net job loss in the labor market,” Spriggs told CNN in an email. “If we go through two months of negative job growth, all bets are off. The Black unemployment rate will easily get to 9% in that scenario.”

    One other likely consequence of growing unemployment is slowing wage growth, Bivens said.

    Like rising unemployment, stunted wage growth tends to hit marginalized groups harder. A 2021 Economic Policy Institute report shows that a 1 percentage point increase in overall unemployment correlates with about 0.5% slower wage growth for White median hourly wages. Wage growth falls by roughly 0.8% for Black median hourly wages.

    “A lot of people have this idea that in a recession, if unemployment rises by a couple of percentage points, as long as you’re not one of those unlucky people to lose the job, you’ve dodged the bullet,” Bivens said. “And that’s not true at all.”

    Still, a robust labor market isn’t a permanent solution to bridging employment disparities, even if the Fed does keep rates lower, says Wendy Edelberg, director of the Hamilton Project and a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.

    The job market’s recent strength is unsustainable, she said. The US economy needs about 75,000 net job gains a month to keep stable and is currently adding about 350,000 net job gains a month on average, according to Edelberg.

    “[The Fed is] right to be confident that one of the things that’s going to have to happen to get inflation back down to a normal, stable level is to get job growth to a normal, sustainable level,” Edelberg said. “But if the Fed’s actions resulted in a slower labor market, then inflation stayed high — that would be a disaster.”

    The March jobs report from the Department of Labor, due to be released Friday at 8:30 a.m., is expected to show the US economy gained 240,000 positions last month. ADP’s private-sector payroll report, generally seen by investors as a proxy for the trajectory of Friday’s number, fell short of expectations, with just 145,000 jobs added. Economists had expected private hiring would rise by 200,000 positions last month.

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  • Israeli police storm al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan prayers, sparking rocket fire from Gaza | CNN

    Israeli police storm al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan prayers, sparking rocket fire from Gaza | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Israeli police stormed the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sites, during Ramadan prayers early Wednesday, arresting hundreds of Palestinians and sparking retaliatory rocket fire from militants in Gaza.

    Footage shared on social media showed Israeli officers striking screaming people with batons inside the darkened building. Eyewitnesses told CNN that police had smashed doors and windows to enter the mosque and deployed stun grenades and rubber bullets once inside. Video shared by Israeli police show forces holding riot shields up as fireworks were launched back at them, ricocheting off the walls.

    Israeli police said in a statement that its forces entered al-Aqsa after “hundreds of rioters and mosque desecrators (had) barricaded themselves” inside.

    “When the police entered, stones were thrown at them, and fireworks were fired from inside the mosque by a large group of agitators,” according to the statement.

    The Palestinian Red Crescent in Jerusalem said at least 12 people were injured during clashes in and around the mosque, and at least three of the injured were transferred to hospital, some with injuries from rubber bullets.

    The Red Crescent added that at one point its ambulances were targeted by police and were prevented from reaching the injured.

    The incident drew condemnation from across the Arab and Muslim world. Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the Israeli police actions “in the strongest terms,” and called on Israel to immediately remove its forces from the mosque. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry also condemned the “storming” of the mosque by police, saying it had caused “numerous injuries among worshipers and devotees” and was “in violation of all international laws and customs.”

    Police said they arrested and removed more than 350 people in the mosque, and that one Israeli police officer was wounded in the leg by stones.

    Images shared on social media showed dozens of detained people lying facedown on the floor of the mosque with their legs and arms bound behind their backs, and others with their hands tied being led into a vehicle.

    Al-Aqsa has seen hundreds of thousands of worshipers offer prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this year. Jews are set to celebrate Passover on Wednesday evening.

    Over the last two weeks, there have been calls by Jewish extremist groups to slaughter goats at the mosque compound as part of an ancient Passover holiday ritual that is no longer practiced by most Jews. A greater number of Muslim worshipers stayed in the mosque after calls came to prevent those attempts.

    Last week, a Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli police at the entrance of the compound. Palestinian and Israeli sources disputed the circumstances that led to the killing of 26-year-old Muhammad Al-Osaibi.

    The mosque compound, frequently a flashpoint in tensions, is home to one of Islam’s most revered sites but also the holiest site in Judaism, known as the Temple Mount.

    The compound reopened for prayers shortly after.

    In a statement Wednesday, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh condemned the actions of the Israeli police, saying: “What is happening in Jerusalem is a major crime against worshipers.”

    “Israel does not want to learn from history, that al-Aqsa is for the Palestinians and for all Arabs and Muslims, and that storming it sparked a revolution against the occupation,” Shtayyeh added.

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Wednesday that nine rockets were fired from Gaza Strip toward Israel after the incident in Jerusalem.

    “Following the previous report regarding the sirens which sounded in Sderot, five rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory,” said the IDF. “Four of them were intercepted by the aerial defense array.”

    The IDF also said four additional rockets launched from Gaza toward Israel but landed in open space.

    “Following the additional sirens that sounded in the surroundings of the Gaza Strip, four rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip that landed in open areas. No interceptors were launched according to protocol,” the IDF added.

    Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, the militant group that runs Gaza, said in a statement that “the current Israeli occupation’s crimes at the al-Aqsa mosque are unprecedented violations that will not pass.”

    Later on Wednesday, the Israeli military said its fighter jets had struck weapons manufacturing and storage sites in the Gaza Strip belonging to Hamas.

    “This strike was carried out in response to rockets fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israeli territory earlier,” it said in a statement.

    Last year was the deadliest for both Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and for Israelis in nearly two decades, CNN analysis of official statistics on both sides showed.

    And this year has seen a violent beginning, too. At least 90 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian Ministry of Health statistics. In addition to suspected militants being targeted by Israeli forces, the dead include Palestinians killing, wounding or attempting to kill Israeli civilians, people clashing with Israeli security and bystanders, CNN records show.

    In the same period, at least 15 Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank, CNN records show – 14 civilians and a police officer who was hit by friendly fire after being stabbed by a Palestinian teenager while inspecting bus passengers.

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  • DOJ reaches tentative $144.5 million settlement with victims of Sutherland Springs church mass shooting | CNN

    DOJ reaches tentative $144.5 million settlement with victims of Sutherland Springs church mass shooting | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The US Department of Justice on Wednesday announced it had reached an “agreement in principle” to settle claims from the November 2017 mass shooting at a Sutherland Springs, Texas, church for $144.5 million, according to a news release.

    A federal court in 2021 ruled the US government was liable for damages caused by the shooting, in which 26 people were killed and 22 others wounded. The Air Force, a judge concluded, failed to exercise reasonable care when it didn’t submit the shooter’s criminal history to the FBI’s background check system, which increased the risk of physical harm to the general public.

    A court must still approve some parts of the settlements, the DOJ release said.

    “No words or amount of money can diminish the immense tragedy of the mass shooting in Sutherland Springs,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said. “Today’s announcement brings the litigation to a close, ending a painful chapter for the victims of this unthinkable crime.”

    This story is breaking and will be updated.

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