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Tag: southwestern united states

  • Severe storms to strike the South again as millions in Texas could see damaging winds and hail | CNN

    Severe storms to strike the South again as millions in Texas could see damaging winds and hail | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Parts of the South are yet again at risk of facing severe storms Friday that could bring damaging winds, large hail and the possibility of tornadoes to millions in north-central Texas.

    More than 12 million people in Texas, including across the Dallas-Fort Worth area, are under a significant risk for severe thunderstorms, according to the Storm Prediction Center.

    The storm’s most extreme impacts – which include damaging winds and hail at least 2 inches wide– are expected to hit north-central Texas between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. CT, forecasters at the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said.

    The looming conditions led the Storm Prediction Center to issue what it calls an enhanced risk of severe thunderstorms alert, a severity designation at Level 3 of 5, for those in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

    “Large hail will be the primary threat with supercells, with a couple of instances of 3+ inch stones possible,” the prediction center warned.

    Elsewhere, there is a slight risk, Level 2 of 5, for severe storms extending from southern Texas to the Texas-Oklahoma and Texas-Arkansas borders, where large hail, high winds and a couple of isolated tornadoes are possible, according to the prediction center. Cities in that risk area include Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Corpus Christi.

    The severe weather threat comes as another storm system triggered tornado reports, gusty winds and dangerously large hail in Texas and Florida this week.

    On Thursday evening, the storm whipped up a tornado near Hosford, Florida, after which a dozen homes were destroyed and about 20 others were damaged, according to Rhonda Lewis, the head of Liberty County Emergency Management.

    Six of the seven tornado reports recorded Thursday were across the Florida Panhandle, while one was in southwestern Georgia.

    In addition to the tennis ball sized-hail that bombarded parts of Texas and Florida on Wednesday, hail 1.75 inches wide was also reported Thursday in multiple Florida cities, and thousands in northern Florida were left without power.

    The two storm systems hitting the US on Friday have put about 56 million people in the South and Mid-Atlantic under thunderstorm risks.

    The various levels of threats extend across the entire eastern half of Texas.

    As for the Southeast, there’s a marginal risk for thunderstorms stretching from South Florida northward to Virginia. The warned area includes Miami, Jacksonville and Tampa in Florida; Savannah, Georgia; Charleston and Raleigh in the Carolinas; and Roanoke, Virginia.

    “More rounds of heavy rain and severe weather expected to impact the southern tier states today and into early Friday, followed by portions of Texas by early Saturday,” the Weather Prediction Center said.

    By Saturday, most of the severe weather will be winding down. While there’s still some uncertainty in the forecast, New Orleans, Montgomery and Mobile, Alabama, and Orlando and Tampa, Florida, could see damaging winds, hail and even an isolated tornado.

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  • A Texas family fought for weeks to regain custody of their newborn. Experts say the case shows how Black parents are criminalized. | CNN

    A Texas family fought for weeks to regain custody of their newborn. Experts say the case shows how Black parents are criminalized. | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Black Texas couple has been reunited with their newborn daughter after authorities removed the baby and placed her in foster care last month citing a doctor’s concerns about how they were treating a jaundice diagnosis.

    Rodney and Temecia Jackson of DeSoto, Texas, regained custody of their daughter, Mila, on April 20 following a nearly month-long battle with the state’s Child Protective Services, according to The Afiya Center, a reproductive justice advocacy group.

    A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Family Protective Services, which includes CPS, confirmed to CNN that the office had recommended a dismissal of the case to an assistant district attorney. Mila’s release was granted on Thursday, according to a court filing.

    The Jacksons had been pleading for Mila’s return in videos posted to social media, and news conferences as reproductive justice activists protested and rallied behind the family.

    The removal, the Jacksons say, was sparked by their decision to let their midwife treat Mila’s jaundice instead of taking her to the hospital for care as their doctor had recommended. Temecia Jackson said during a news conference earlier this month that she gave birth to Mila at home on March 21 with the help of a midwife and wanted that same trusted midwife to provide medical care for her baby. But Mila’s pediatrician disagreed with this decision and ultimately contacted CPS, Temecia Jackson said.

    “We’ve been treated like criminals,” Rodney Jackson said during the news conference. “This is a nightmare that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

    Reproductive justice advocates say Mila’s removal is just the latest example of the criminalization of Black parents, who lose their children to the child welfare system at disproportionate rates. In the US in 2018, Black children made up 23% of youth in foster care, but only 14% of the nation’s child population, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Additionally, one study found that between 2003-2014, 53% of Black children were the subjects of child welfare investigations by the time they reached age 18.

    Marsha Jones, executive director of The Afiya Center – a Dallas, Texas, based non-profit that advocates for Black women and girls – said there is a systemic problem with the child welfare system that unfairly targets Black parents. In many cases, Black families have their first experiences with the criminal justice system in family court, Jones said.

    “It’s almost unspoken and unseen because there is just this thought that Black women are not good parents and that we are criminalized because of poverty,” Jones told CNN. “This is not new.”

    Jones said the center stepped in last month to support the Jackson family and put pressure on public officials to return Mila home. She believes this played a role in reuniting the family last week.

    “There’s no reason this baby should have been removed from her home,” Jones told CNN. “This family was not being heard. The Black midwife wasn’t being heard.”

    Rodney and Temecia Jackson could not be reached for comment.

    In a letter to CPS obtained by CNN affiliate WFAA, the family’s pediatrician, Dr. Anand Bhatt, who is with the Baylor Scott & White healthcare system, wrote that while the Jacksons “are very loving and they care dearly” about Mila, “their distrust for medical care and guidance has led them to make a decision for the baby to refuse a simple treatment that can prevent brain damage.”

    “I authorized the support of CPS to help get this baby the care that was medically necessary and needed,” the letter continued.

    CBS News, which obtained a copy of the affidavit filed by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, reported that Bhatt reached out to a DFPS investigator on March 25 and indicated that Mila’s bililrubin test showed levels of 21.7 milligrams.

    A bilirubin test can screen for jaundice and other conditions. That level was “cause for a lot of concern,” Bhatt told the investigator, according to CBS News, and could lead to brain damage, he said, “because the bilirubin can cross the blood brain barrier.”

    Bhatt said he reserved a bed for Mila at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas and asked the Jacksons to take her there or he would call police for a welfare check, according to court documents obtained by CBS News. WFAA reported that Bhatt wanted Mila to receive phototherapy – a common treatment for jaundice.

    But court documents, according to CBS News, say Rodney Jackson told Bhatt he and Temecia Jackson planned to treat their baby “naturally” and didn’t believe in “modern medicine.”

    The midwife, Cheryl Edinbyrd, told CBS News the family had ordered a blanket and goggles to provide light therapy to treat Mila’s jaundice.

    When the Jacksons didn’t show up at the hospital, a CPS investigator and police went to the Jackson’s home at 4 a.m. on March 25 but Rodney Jackson declined to speak with them, according to court documents obtained by CBS News. An hour later, authorities returned with an ambulance and fire truck and Rodney Jackson still denied them entry.

    Authorities returned to the home on March 30 with a warrant and arrested Rodney Jackson on charges of preventing the execution of a civil process, according to CBS News. Police entered the home and took Mila from Temecia Jackson. According to CBS News, the Jacksons’ other two children were not removed.

    Temecia Jackson said in a press conference that when she asked to see the affidavit, she noticed it had the name of a different mother on it.

    “Instantly I felt like they had stolen my baby as I had had a home birth and they were trying to say that my baby belonged to this other woman,” Temecia Jackson.

    Marissa Gonzales, a spokesperson from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said in an email to CNN that her department was given an incorrect name for the initial affidavit. The mistake, she said, was corrected in the case filings.

    Gonzales declined an interview with CNN to discuss the case further, citing “state confidentiality restrictions.”

    “It is always the goal of DFPS to safely reunite children with their parents,” Gonzales also said. “The decision about when that happens rests with the judge who ordered the removal.”

    CNN’s request to interview Bhatt was also denied by Baylor Scott & White.

    “In respect of patient privacy, it is inappropriate to provide comment on this matter,” the health system said in an emailed statement. “We do abide by reporting requirements set forth in the Texas Family Code and any other applicable laws.”

    Advocates say the racial bias of professionals such as teachers, doctors and social workers has created inequity in the child welfare system.

    Dorothy Roberts, a law professor and sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, said decisions to report neglect and abuse are largely shaped by racist stereotypes of Black families.

    The child welfare system, she said, needs to consider the trauma inflicted on children when they are separated from their families.

    “We have to ask whether there is a better way of addressing children’s medical needs instead of the system we have now where doctors are reporting suspicions, which we know is highly biased, and investigating families, which we know is very traumatic,” said Roberts, author of “Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families – and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World.” “Hospitals should not be places of fear for parents.”

    Roberts said there is also a longstanding cultural conflict between the healthcare system and midwives who are often devalued. Black midwives provided care for mothers for hundreds of years, delivering the babies of enslaved women and even slave owners’ wives. But as medicine became more professionalized in the late 1800s, male doctors wanted to take control of childbirth, with some suggesting midwives were unfit, according to a report by Vox.

    Monica Simpson, executive director of Sistersong, a reproductive justice organization advocating for women of color, said many Black women are choosing midwives because they have lost trust in doctors and hospitals.

    Much of that is driven by the harrowing statistics: Black women are 2.6 times likelier to die of pregnancy-related complications than White women, according to the most recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

    Black infants also die at more than twice the rate of White infants, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Simpson said the child welfare system is broken. She said racism has played a part in the continued criminalization and separation of Black families.

    “There’s been this narrative that Black women can’t parent their children properly,” Simpson said. “We have been battling these narratives for decades. The way that Black women are criminalized around their motherhood, it’s horrible.”

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  • Two Utah homes slide off cliff, prompting evacuation | CNN

    Two Utah homes slide off cliff, prompting evacuation | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Two empty homes overlooking a canyon slid off their foundations Saturday in Draper, Utah, prompting the evacuations of two adjacent residences, officials said Saturday.

    In October, city building officials declared two clifftop homes “unfit for human habitation” due to “earth shifting that resulted in sliding and breaks in the homes’ foundations,” city officials said in a Facebook post.

    The city had been following up with the developer for months on engineering studies regarding the stability of the area, officials said.

    “With the snow pack melting and creating changes in conditions, other homes in the neighborhood will be evaluated for safety concerns,” said the Facebook post. “At this time, only the two adjacent homes are being evacuated.”

    Draper officials closed two public trails following the slide.

    “Everyone needs to avoid the area. Do not go to the neighborhood where the homes slid. Only residents allowed,” said city officials. “We are grateful that everyone is safe.”

    Draper is about 20 miles south of Salt Lake City.

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  • 2 cheerleaders were shot in a Texas supermarket parking lot after one opened the door to the wrong vehicle. A suspect is under arrest | CNN

    2 cheerleaders were shot in a Texas supermarket parking lot after one opened the door to the wrong vehicle. A suspect is under arrest | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Two teenage cheerleaders were shot after one said she mistook the suspect’s vehicle for her own in a supermarket parking lot near Texas’ capital – making this at least the third incident this week in which young people who’d made an apparent mistake were met with gunfire.

    Authorities arrested Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, the man they say shot the two teens. He was taken into custody early Tuesday, the Elgin Police Department said in a news release later that morning.

    According to a probable cause document, Tello is accused of deadly conduct with a firearm, a third-degree felony. He is being held on a $500,000 bond. It was not immediately clear whether he has an attorney.

    Officers responding just after midnight Tuesday to an H-E-B supermarket parking lot found two people in a vehicle who’d been struck by bullets, police said, citing preliminary reports. One with serious injuries was rushed by helicopter to a hospital and was in critical condition, while the other was treated at the scene, the release said.

    The latter girl had gotten out of a friend’s car and opened the door to a vehicle she thought was hers, only to find a man sitting in the passenger seat, she said during a livestreamed prayer vigil Tuesday night at her cheer team’s gym, CNN affiliate KTRK reported.

    Heather Roth said she was trying to apologize to the man when he got out of the passenger door.

    “He just threw his hands up, and then he pulled out a gun and he just started shooting at all of us,” Roth said, fighting tears.

    Lynne Shearer, managing partner of the Woodlands Elite Cheer Company, told CNN the Roth and fellow cheerleader Payton Washington fled immediately in their car.

    “As soon as they saw the gun, they said go and they drove and they went about two miles down the road,” Shearer told CNN. “And that’s when they realized that Payton was seriously hurt and they pulled over once they realized that guy wasn’t following them because Payton was … throwing up blood at that point. So they, that’s when they called 911.”

    Washington was shot twice and badly injured, according to a GoFundMe spearheaded by her cheerleading team, the Woodlands Elite Generals. Washington is stable and recovering in the ICU, according to the team.

    Roth was struck by a bullet but was treated and released at the scene, Shearer said.

    Washington is “doing well today” after suffering from a ruptured spleen, which was removed, and she has damage to her pancreas and diaphragm, Shearer said Wednesday.

    “Her stomach is not closed up yet and they are keeping her on heavy antibiotics for at least 48 hours to hopefully fight off infection,” she said. “Once they are sure there is no infection, they will go back in and finish up any issues and close her up.”

    In another interview with CNN, Shearer said Washington should make a full recovery and has been FaceTiming with her friends.

    Roth and Washington are from the Austin and Round Rock area and were commuting in a carpool to a cheerleading gym in Oak Ridge North, a Houston suburb, three times a week.

    The commute is about 300 miles round trip – a commute Washington has been doing for eight years, Shearer said.

    Roth is in college, while the other three girls in the vehicle, including Washington, are in high school.

    Washington, a senior who had committed to Baylor University’s Acrobatics and Tumbling team, was born with only one lung and “has surpassed many obstacles to rise to the very top of her sport,” Shearer said.

    “Payton is a strong young lady; if you know her, you know that about her,” Baylor head acrobatics and tumbling coach Felecia Mulkey told CNN. “I have no doubt she’s going to get through this.”

    After visiting Roth on Tuesday, Mulkey said all things considered, she looked great and is making good progress – but acknowledged there’s still a long way to go on her path to recovery.

    Mulkey described Roth as an “amazing athlete but a better human.”

    “I know mental wounds also leave scars,” she said. “We want to lift up the athletes and their families during this difficult time. We love Payton and we wish her well as she recovers.”

    Shearer said her team is busy still trying to prepare for the World Championships this weekend in Orlando, which Roth still plans to compete in.

    Tuesday’s shooting was yet another case this week in which young people were shot after apparently going to the wrong place, including a 16-year-old struck in the head after ringing the wrong doorbell in Kansas City and a 20-year-old killed by the owner of a home whose driveway she’d inadvertently turned into.

    The United States is the only nation with more civilian guns than people, with about 120 guns for every 100 Americans, according to the Small Arms Survey. Elgin is a city of some 10,000 people about a half-hour drive east of Austin.

    Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr arrested after two Texas cheerleaders were shot after one of them said they had mistakenly got into the wrong vehicle in a parking lot early Tuesday morning.

    A supermarket manager witnessed the incident, and police have surveillance footage from the parking lot that shows the license plate on the suspect’s car, police said, according to the probable cause affidavit.

    “Elgin Detectives contacted Pedro Tello at the residence. Pedro Tello was still wearing the clothing that was observed by Elgin Detectives in the surveillance footage,” the affidavit states.

    Four Woodland Elite Cheer athletes were “involved in a horrific incident” on their way home from practice Monday night, the cheerleading and tumbling company said in a Facebook post.

    “We are asking for your prayers,” it said.

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  • Supreme Court clears way for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed to try to use DNA to prove innocence | CNN Politics

    Supreme Court clears way for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed to try to use DNA to prove innocence | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Supreme Court cleared the way on Wednesday for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed to seek post-conviction DNA evidence to try to prove his innocence.

    Reed claims an all-White jury wrongly convicted him of killing of Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old White woman, in Texas in 1998.

    Texas had argued that he had waited too long to bring his challenge to the state’s DNA procedures in federal court, but the Supreme Court disagreed. Now, he can go to a federal court to make his claim.

    The ruling was 6-3. Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the court and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

    Since Reed’s conviction, Texas courts had rejected his various appeals. Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Rihanna have expressed support, signing a petition asking the state to halt his eventual execution.

    The case puts a new focus on the testing of DNA crime-scene evidence and when an inmate can make a claim to access the technology in a plea of innocence. To date, 375 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 21 who served time on death row, according to the Innocence Project, a group that represents Reed and other clients seeking post-conviction DNA testing to prove their innocence.

    Kavanaugh, in his opinion Wednesday, said that the court agreed to hear the case because federal appeals courts have disagreed about when inmates can make such claims without running afoul of the statute of limitations. Kavanaugh said Reed could make the claim after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately denied his request for rehearing, rejecting an earlier date set out by the appeals court.

    “Significant systemic benefits ensue from starting the statute of limitations clock when the state litigation in DNA testing cases like Reed’s has concluded,” Kavanaugh said.

    He noted that if any problems with a defendant’s right to due process “lurk in the DNA testing law” the case can proceed through the appellate process, which could ultimately render a federal lawsuit unnecessary.

    Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

    Alito, joined by Gorsuch in his dissent, said Reed should have acted more quickly to bring his appeal. “Instead,” Alito wrote, “he waited until an execution date was set.”

    Alito charged Reed with making the “basic mistake of missing a statute of limitations.”

    Reed has been on death row for the murder of Stites.

    A passerby found Stites’ body near a shirt and a torn piece of belt. Investigators targeted Reed because his sperm was found inside her. Reed acknowledged the two were having an affair, but says that her fiancé, a local police officer named Jimmy Fennell, was the last to see her alive.

    Reed claims that over the last two decades he has discovered a “considerable body of evidence” demonstrating his innocence. Reed claims that the DNA testing would point to Fennell as the murder suspect. Fennell was later jailed for sexually assaulting a woman in his custody and Reed claims that numerous witnesses said he had threatened to strangle Stites with a belt if he ever caught her cheating on him. Reed seeks to test the belt found at the scene that was used to strangle Stites.

    The Texas law at issue allows a convicted person to obtain post-conviction DNA testing of biological material if the court finds that certain conditions are met. Reed was denied. He came to the Supreme Court in 2018 and was denied again. Now he is challenging the constitutionality of the Texas law arguing that the denial of the DNA testing violates his due process rights. 

    But the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals held that he waited too long to bring the claim. “An injury accrues when a plaintiff first becomes aware, or should have become aware, that his right had been violated.” The court said that he became aware of that in 2014 and that his current claim is “time barred.” 

    Reed’s lawyers argued that he could only bring the claim once the state appeals court had ruled, at the end of state court litigation. In court, Parker Rider-Longmaid said that the “clock doesn’t start ticking” until state court proceedings come to an end. He said Texas’ reading of the law would mean that other procedures in the appellate process are “irrelevant.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • High speed trains are racing across the world. But not in America | CNN

    High speed trains are racing across the world. But not in America | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    High speed trains have proved their worth across the world over the past 50 years.

    It’s not just in reducing journey times, but more importantly, it’s in driving economic growth, creating jobs and bringing communities closer together. China, Japan and Europe lead the way.

    So why doesn’t the United States have a high-speed rail network like those?

    For the richest and most economically successful nation on the planet, with an increasingly urbanized population of more than 300 million, it’s a position that is becoming more difficult to justify.

    Although Japan started the trend with its Shinkansen “Bullet Trains” in 1964, it was the advent of France’s TGV in the early 1980s that really kick-started a global high-speed train revolution that continues to gather pace.

    But it’s a revolution that has so far bypassed the United States. Americans are still almost entirely reliant on congested highways or the headache-inducing stress of an airport and airline network prone to meltdowns.

    China has built around 26,000 miles (42,000 kilometers) of dedicated high-speed railways since 2008 and plans to top 43,000 miles (70,000 kilometers) by 2035.

    Meanwhile, the United States has just 375 route-miles of track cleared for operation at more than 100 mph.

    “Many Americans have no concept of high-speed rail and fail to see its value. They are hopelessly stuck with a highway and airline mindset,” says William C. Vantuono, editor-in-chief of Railway Age, North America’s oldest railroad industry publication.

    Cars and airliners have dominated long-distance travel in the United States since the 1950s, rapidly usurping a network of luxurious passenger trains with evocative names such as “The Empire Builder,” “Super Chief” and “Silver Comet.”

    Deserted by Hollywood movie stars and business travelers, famous railroads such as the New York Central were largely bankrupt by the early 1970s, handing over their loss-making trains to Amtrak, the national passenger train operator founded in 1971.

    In the decades since that traumatic retrenchment, US freight railroads have largely flourished. Passenger rail seems to have been a very low priority for US lawmakers.

    Powerful airline, oil and auto industry lobbies in Washington have spent millions maintaining that superiority, but their position is weakening in the face of environmental concerns and worsening congestion.

    US President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill includes an unprecedented $170 billion for improving railroads.

    Some of this will be invested in repairing Amtrak’s crumbling Northeast Corridor (NEC) linking Boston, New York and Washington.

    There are also big plans to bring passenger trains back to many more cities across the nation – providing fast, sustainable travel to cities and regions that have not seen a passenger train for decades.

    Add to this the success of the privately funded Brightline operation in Florida, which has been given the green light to build a $10 billion high-speed rail link between Los Angeles and Las Vegas by 2027, plus schemes in California, Texas and the proposed Cascadia route linking Portland, Oregon, with Seattle and Vancouver, and the United States at last appears to be on the cusp of a passenger rail revolution.

    Amtrak plans to introduce its new generation Avelia Liberty trains to replace the Acelas, pictured, on the NEC later this year.

    “Every president since Ronald Reagan has talked about the pressing need to improve infrastructure across the USA, but they’ve always had other, bigger priorities to deal with,” says Scott Sherin, chief commercial officer of train builder Alstom’s US division.

    “But now there’s a huge impetus to get things moving – it’s a time of optimism. If we build it, they will come. As an industry, we’re maturing, and we’re ready to take the next step. It’s time to focus on passenger rail.”

    Sherin points out that other public services such as highways and airports are “massively subsidized,” so there shouldn’t be an issue with doing the same for rail.

    “We need to do a better job of articulating the benefits of high-speed rail – high-quality jobs, economic stimulus, better connectivity than airlines – and that will help us to build bipartisan support,” he adds. “High-speed rail is not the solution for everything, but it has its place.”

    Only Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor has trains that can travel at speeds approaching those of the 300 kilometers per hour (186 mph) TGV and Shinkansen.

    Even here, Amtrak Acela trains currently max out at 150 mph – and only in short bursts. Maximum speeds elsewhere are closer to 100 mph on congested tracks shared with commuter and freight trains.

    This year, Amtrak plans to introduce its new generation Avelia Liberty trains to replace the life-expired Acelas on the NEC.

    Capable of reaching 220 mph (although they’ll be limited to 160 mph on the NEC), the trains will bring Alstom’s latest high-speed rail technology to North America.

    The locomotives at each end – known as power cars – are close relatives of the next generation TGV-M trains, scheduled to debut in France in 2024.

    Sitting between the power cars are the passenger vehicles, which use Alstom’s Tiltronix technology to run faster through curves by tilting their bodies, much like a MotoGP rider does. And it’s not just travelers who will benefit.

    “When Amtrak awarded the contract to Alstom in 2015 to 2016, the company had around 200 employees in Hornell,” says Shawn D. Hogan, former mayor of the city of Hornell in New York state.

    “That figure is now nearer 900, with hiring continuing at a fast pace. I calculate that there has been a total public/private investment of more than $269 million in our city since 2016, including a new hotel, a state-of-the-art hospital and housing developments.

    “It is a transformative economic development project that is basically unheard of in rural America and if it can happen here, it can happen throughout the United States.”

    Alstom has spent almost $600 million on building a US supply chain for its high-speed trains – more than 80% of the train is made in the United States, with 170 suppliers across 27 states.

    “High-speed rail is already here. Avelia Liberty was designed jointly with our European colleagues, so we have what we need for ‘TGV-USA’,” adds Sherin.

    “It’s all proven tech from existing trains. We’re ready to go when the infrastructure arrives.”

    And those new lines could arrive sooner than you might think.

    In March, Brightline confirmed plans to begin construction on a 218-mile (351-kilometer) high-speed line between Rancho Cucamonga, near Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, carving a path through the San Bernardino Mountains and across the desert, following the Interstate 15 corridor.

    The 200 mph line will slash times to little more than one hour – a massive advantage over the four-hour average by car or five to seven hours by bus – when it opens in 2027.

    Mike Reininger, CEO of Brightline Holdings, says: “As the most shovel-ready high-speed rail project in the United States, we are one step closer to leveling the playing field against transit and infrastructure projects around the world, and we are proud to be using America’s most skilled workers to get there.”

    Brightline West expects to inject around $10 billion worth of benefits into the region’s economy, creating about 35,000 construction jobs, as well as 1,000 permanent jobs in maintenance, operations and customer service in Southern California and Nevada.

    It will also mark the return of passenger trains to Las Vegas after a 30-year hiatus – Amtrak canceled its “Desert Wind” route in 1997.

    Brightline hopes to attract around 12 million of the 50 million one-way trips taken annually between Las Vegas and LA, 85% of which are taken by bus or car.

    Contruction is underway on California High Speed Rail (CHSR,) a high-speed system between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

    Meanwhile, construction is progressing on another high-speed line through the San Joaquin Valley.

    Set to open around 2030, California High Speed Rail (CHSR) will run from Merced to Bakersfield (171 miles) at speeds of up to 220 mph.

    Coupled with proposed upgrades to commuter rail lines at either end, this project could eventually allow high-speed trains to run the 350 miles (560 kilometers) between Los Angeles to San Francisco metropolitan areas in just two hours and 40 minutes.

    CHSR has been on the table as far back as 1996, but its implementation has been controversial.

    Disagreements over the route, management issues, delays in land acquisition and construction, cost over-runs and inadequate funding for completing the entire system have plagued the project – despite the economic benefits it will deliver as well as reducing pollution and congestion. Around 10,000 people are already employed on the project.

    Costing $63 billion to $98 billion, depending on the final extent of the scheme, CHSR is to connect six of the 10 largest cities in the state and provide the same capacity as 4,200 miles of new highway lanes, 91 additional airport gates and two new airport runways costing between $122 billion and $199 billion.

    With California’s population expected to grow to more than 45 million by 2050, high-speed rail offers the best value solution to keep the state from grinding to a smoggy halt.

    Brightline West and CHSR offer templates for the future expansion of high-speed rail in North America.

    By focusing on pairs of cities or regions that are too close for air travel and too far apart for car drivers, transportation planners can predict which corridors offer the greatest potential.

    “It’s logical that the US hasn’t yet developed a nationwide high-speed network,” says Sherin. “For decades, traveling by car wasn’t a hardship, but as highway congestion gets worse, we’ve reached a stage where we should start looking more seriously at the alternatives.

    “The magic numbers are centers of population with around three million people that are 200 to 500 miles apart, giving a trip time of less than three hours – preferably two hours.

    “Where those conditions apply in Europe and Asia, high-speed rail reduces air’s share of the market from 100% to near zero. The model would work just as well in the USA as it does globally.”

    French high-speed train the TGV Duplex, built in the 1990s, has a maximum speed of 186 miles per hour.

    Sherin points to the success of the original generation of Acela trains as evidence of this.

    “When the first generation Acela trains started running between New York City and Washington in 2000, Amtrak attracted so many travelers that the airlines stopped running their frequent ‘shuttles’ between the two cities,” he adds.

    However, industry observer Vantuono is more pessimistic.

    “A US high-speed rail network is a pipe dream,” he says. “A lack of political support and federal financial support combined with the kind of fierce landowner opposition that CHSR has faced in California means that the challenges for new high-speed projects are enormous.”

    According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), urban and high-speed rail hold “major promise to unlock substantial benefits” in reducing global transport emissions.

    Dr. Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, argues that rail transport is “often neglected” in public debates about future transport systems – and this is especially true in North America.

    “Despite the advent of cars and airplanes, rail of all types has continued to evolve and thrive,” adds Birol.

    Globally, around three-quarters of rail passenger movements are made on electric-powered vehicles, putting the mode in a unique position to take advantage of the rise in renewable energy over the coming decades.

    Here, too, the United States lags far behind the rest of the world, with electrification almost unheard of away from the NEC.

    Rail networks in South Korea, Japan, Europe, China and Russia are more than 60% electrified, according to IEA figures, the highest share of track electrification being South Korea at around 85%.

    In North America, on the other hand, less than 5% of rail routes are electrified.

    The enormous size of the United States and its widely dispersed population mitigates against the creation of a single, unified network of the type being built in China and proposed for Europe.

    Air travel is likely to remain the preferred option for transcontinental journeys that can be more than 3,000 miles (around 4,828 kilometers).

    But there are many shorter inter-city travel corridors where high-speed rail, or a combination of new infrastructure and upgraded railroad tracks or tilting trains, could eventually provide an unbeatable alternative to air travel and highways.

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  • GOP blocks Democratic effort to replace Feinstein on Judiciary panel | CNN Politics

    GOP blocks Democratic effort to replace Feinstein on Judiciary panel | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republicans on Tuesday formally blocked a request from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to temporarily replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee, something Democrats hoped to do in order to advance stalled judicial nominations.

    Senate Democrats are seeking to temporarily replace Feinstein on the powerful panel that processes judicial nominees as the California Democrat remains absent, recovering from shingles.

    Senate Republicans, however, have made clear that they have been prepared to block Democratic efforts to replace Feinstein on the committee, ratcheting up pressure on the 89-year-old California Democrat to resign or return quickly.

    Feinstein’s return date is still unclear and she asked just last week to be “temporarily” replaced on the committee as she recovers.

    Schumer introduced his motion on Tuesday by talking about his friendship with Feinstein, and highlighting her accomplishments.

    “Today, I am acting not just as Leader but as Dianne’s friend, in honoring her wishes, until she returns to the Senate,” Schumer said.

    GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, objected to Schumer’s request, though he also praised the California Democrat. He argued that Schumer’s move is to get more judges confirmed.

    “She’s a dear friend and we hope for her speedy recovery and return back to the Senate. With all due respect, my colleague, Senator Schumer, this is about a handful of judges that you can’t get the votes for,” Graham said.

    Democrats could still force a vote to replace the Feinstein, but that would require the support of 10 Republicans and it’s unlikely they would use a lot of valuable floor time for something with little chance of success.

    Feinstein, who has already announced she’s not seeking reelection, initially said she expected to return to Washington “by the end of the March work period,” but that her return got “delayed due to continued complications related to my diagnosis.”

    She recently said she plans to return “as soon as possible once my medical team advises that it’s safe for me to travel.”

    Cardin told CNN Tuesday he had discussed with Schumer being the temporary replacement on the committee but that he had not discussed the decision with Feinstein.

    The Maryland Democrat said he and Feinstein have not spoken since she’s been out of the Senate and that it is his understanding that this is only a temporary move until she returns.

    “I recognize the importance of the numbers on the committee, and this way we can be able to conduct business. I look at this as a way of dealing with a current situation,” Cardin said.

    Democrats would need 60 votes to replace Feinstein on the panel, but senior Republicans in leadership and on the committee made clear Monday that they would not give them the votes to do that. If Feinstein does not return soon, at least 12 nominees, or possibly even more, could be stalled.

    If Democrats are unable to replace Feinstein or if she does not return to Washington soon, they could see key agenda items thwarted – both on the committee and on the Senate floor.

    Asked if the California Democrat should consider resigning if she can’t return by May, Schumer responded that he’s “hopeful” she will return “very soon.”

    “Look, I spoke to Senator Feinstein just a few days ago and she and I are both very hopeful that she will return very soon,” Schumer said at his weekly policy press conference in the US Capitol.

    Feinstein announced in February that she would not run for reelection, and a number of Democrats have already launched campaigns for her seat in 2024 in what is shaping up to be a competitive primary.

    Many congressional Democrats have remained largely supportive of her decision to remain in office while absent from the Capitol as she recovers from shingles.

    But Feinstein has faced calls to resign from two House Democrats – and if Democrats are not able to replace her on the committee, that number could start to grow.

    Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin recently acknowledged to CNN that Feinstein’s absence had slowed down the party’s push to confirm nominees. But Durbin has stopped short of calling on Feinstein to resign, saying he hopes that Republicans will help to temporarily replace her on the committee and recognize that “the rain can fall on both sides of the road.”

    Asked if her absence has longer ramifications for the Democrats’ ability to confirm nominees, the Illinois Democrat said, “Yes, of course it does,” pointing to the long process of getting nominees scheduled for votes during precious floor time.

    Republican Sen. John Cornyn, a senior member on the Judiciary Committee and close adviser to McConnell, told CNN that he opposes the effort to replace Feinstein on the panel.

    “I don’t think Republicans can or should help President Biden’s most controversial nominees,” the Texas Republican said. “I support having Sen. Feinstein come back as soon as she can. But this effort to confirm controversial and in many instances largely unqualified nominees, I don’t think you can expect any Republican cooperation.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Oklahoma governor calls on officials to resign over recording of racist and threatening remarks | CNN

    Oklahoma governor calls on officials to resign over recording of racist and threatening remarks | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The governor of Oklahoma is calling on four McCurtain County officials to resign after they allegedly participated in a secretly recorded conversation that included racist remarks about lynching Black people and talking about killing journalists.

    The McCurtain Gazette-News over the weekend published the audio it said was recorded following a Board of Commissioners meeting on March 6.

    The paper said the audio of the meeting was legally obtained, but the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that it was illegally recorded and is investigating. The sheriff’s office also said it believes the recording had been altered.

    “I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a statement Sunday. “There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office. I will not stand idly by while this takes place,” the statement said.

    The governor called for the immediate resignations of McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff’s investigator Alicia Manning and jail administrator Larry Hendrix. He also said he would ask the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to look into the case.

    McCurtain County is in southeastern Oklahoma, about 200 miles from Oklahoma City.

    The recording was made hours after Gazette-News reporter Chris Willingham filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office, Manning and the Board of County Commissioners, alleging they had defamed him and violated his civil rights, the newspaper reported.

    In the recording, Manning spoke of needing to go near the newspaper’s office and expressed concern about what would happen if she ran into Willingham, the Oklahoman reported, citing additional reporting from the Gazette-News.

    According to the Oklahoman report, Jennings said, “Oh, you’re talking about you can’t control yourself?” and Manning replied: “Yeah, I ain’t worried about what he’s gonna do to me. I’m worried about what I might do to him. My papaw would have whipped his a**, would have wiped him and used him for toilet paper … if my daddy hadn’t been run over by a vehicle, he would have been down there.”

    Jennings replied that his father was once upset by something the newspaper published and “started to go down there and just kill him,” according to the Gazette-News.

    “I know where two big, deep holes are here if you ever need them,” Jennings allegedly said. Clardy, the sheriff, allegedly said he had the equipment.

    “I’ve got an excavator,” Clardy is accused of saying during the discussion. “Well, these are already pre-dug,” Jennings allegedly said.

    In other parts of the recording, officials expressed disappointment that Black people could no longer be lynched, according to the paper.

    CNN has not been able to verify the authenticity of the recording or confirm who said what. CNN has reached out to all four county officials for comment.

    The Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association voted Tuesday to suspend the membership of Clardy, Manning and Hendrix, the group’s executive director told CNN.

    Willingham and his father, Bruce Willingham, the paper’s publisher, have been advised to temporarily leave town, CNN affiliate KJRH reported.

    “For nearly a year, they have suffered intimidation, ridicule and harassment based solely on their efforts to report the news for McCurtain County,” Kilpatrick Townsend, the law firm representing the Willingham family, told CNN in a statement.

    The McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Monday that there is an “ongoing investigation into multiple significant violations” of the Oklahoma Security of Communications Act, which makes it “illegal to secretly record a conversation in which you are not involved and do not have the consent of at least one of the involved parties.” It also said the recording has yet to be “duly authenticated or validated.”

    “Our preliminary information indicates that the media released audio recording has, in fact, been altered. The motivation for doing so remains unclear at this point. That matter is actively being investigated,” the statement said.

    The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office has received an audio recording and is investigating, Communications Director Phil Bacharach said.

    The FBI wouldn’t confirm or deny whether it was involved in the investigation, with spokesperson Kayla McCleery saying it is agency policy not to comment.

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  • Opinion: Top secrets come spilling out | CNN

    Opinion: Top secrets come spilling out | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.



    CNN
     — 

    In 1917, British analysts deciphered a coded message the German foreign minister sent to one of his country’s diplomats vowing to begin “unrestricted submarine warfare” and seeking to win over Mexico with a promise to “reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona” if the US entered the world war. When it became public, the Zimmerman Telegram caused a sensation, helping propel the US into the conflict against Germany.

    “Never before or since has so much turned upon the solution of a secret message,” wrote David Kahn in his classic 1967 history of secret communications, “The Codebreakers.” The Germans had taken great pains to keep their intentions confidential, and the codebreakers in London’s “Room 40” had to do a lot of work to decipher the telegram.

    Their efforts stand in stark contrast to the ease with which secrets came tumbling out of a Pentagon intelligence network when 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard cyber specialist Jack Teixeira allegedly posted hundreds of documents on a Discord chatroom known as “Thug Shaker Central.” The disclosures likely won’t start a war, but they could prove extremely damaging to the US and several of its allies, including Ukraine.

    Teixeira is one of more than one million people who have Top Secret clearance. “The Pentagon has already started taking steps to limit the number of people who have access to such sensitive information,” wrote Brett Bruen, a former US diplomat and Obama administration official. “But much more can be done. … Why do so many people, especially those working short stints in government, have access to information that can shape the fate of nations and their leaders?”

    Writing in the Financial Times, Kori Schake saw “some good news.”

    “While specific details will be incredibly valuable to Russia and other adversaries, these are not bombshell revelations: journalists had already reported Ukrainian ammunition running low; peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv were never likely; allies have long been aware that the US eavesdrops on them; and the disparaging assessment of Ukraine’s forthcoming offensive may prove no more accurate than previous predictions were.” These will not prove as damaging as the Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning disclosures.

    But, she warned, “Technology making data ever more portable, distribution more global and communications more bespoke will make it easier to amass information and distribute it — either privately or publicly.”

    04 opinion cartoons 041523

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    In less than a week, the two Democrats expelled from the Tennessee House for their participation in a gun control protest were sent back to office by local officials.

    Writing for CNN Opinion, Rep. Justin Pearson noted, “This should be a chastening moment for revanchist forces in Tennessee’s legislature and across the country. Over the long haul, the undemocratic machinations employed to oust us from office are destined to fail. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once famously said that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. Events this week demonstrated, more than ever, that this is indeed the case…”

    “Over two-thirds of Americans — including four out of 10 Republicans — support the kind of common sense gun safety laws that Rep. Jones, Rep. Johnson and I were protesting in favor of, in the wake of the senseless March 27 Covenant School massacre.”

    “And yet, calls for common sense gun reform measures fall on deaf ears in our legislature where a Republican supermajority is wildly out of step with most people’s values.”

    The politics of gun control have shifted, argued Democratic strategist Max Burns. The NRA’s internal struggles have weakened its influence while Democrats in office, who once feared touching the issue of guns, are increasingly speaking out. And they are making some progress in enacting new state laws, Burns noted.

    “The American people decisively support Democratic proposals for addressing the scourge of gun violence. Political watchers who criticized Democrats for talking too much about abortion during the 2022 midterm elections later ate crow after that once-dreaded culture war topic topped the list of voter concerns nationally…

    “Biden and the Democrats have the rare opportunity to build yet another winning coalition out of an issue once viewed as political poison.”

    01 opinion cartoons 041523

    On Friday, the Supreme Court issued an order that temporarily ensured access to a key drug used in many medication abortions. The move gave the justices more time to consider the issue after a Texas federal judge suspended the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill 23 years ago.

    “If abortion opponents are successful, access to the pill — reportedly used in more than half of abortions in the United States — will be severely undercut,” wrote Michele Goodwin and Mary Ziegler.

    “Beyond the dangerous precedent this sets for challenges to other important FDA-approved drugs that some political factions don’t like, the case is an alarming expression of the way right-wing activists are using junk science to bypass the will of the American public and restrict abortion…”

    “There are no grounds for challenging mifepristone’s approval, especially 23 years after the fact. The drug received extensive review — more than four years — before FDA approval. Moreover, claims that mifepristone threatens the health of those who take it are unfounded. The drug has a better safety record for use than Viagra and penicillin. Notably, it was available and used for years without incident in Europe.”

    In 1986, Nicholas Daniloff, the Moscow bureau chief for US News & World Report, was seized by Soviet authorities and locked up in Lefortovo prison. He was the last American journalist to be arrested in Russia before last month’s detention of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, who like Daniloff, speaks Russian fluently. Gershkovich has been charged with espionage but US officials have concluded that he was “wrongfully detained.”

    As David A. Andelman noted, Daniloff’s detention in prison lasted for 13 days before he was put under house arrest and then eventually swapped for an accused Soviet spy. In a conversation with Andelman, Daniloff recalled his reaction when he was imprisoned. “I felt claustrophobic, and I felt like I wanted to get out of there immediately. Of course, there was no chance of that. The door slams, and you have all these thoughts and feelings that run through you, and then you settle down and you realize you’re going to be hanging around that cell for some time.”

    Gershkovich’s family in Philadelphia received a letter, handwritten in Russian, from the reporter Friday.

    “I want to say that I am not losing hope,” he noted. “I read. I exercise. And I am trying to write. Maybe, finally, I am going to write something good.”

    The Amazon series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” returns this month for its fifth and final season — and David Perry is here for it. The series brings back memories of visiting his grandparents Irma and Mordy in their “tiny rent-controlled Greenwich Village apartment,” an experience that helped shape his Jewish identity.

    “As a Jewish historian,” Perry wrote, “I worry about the tension between preserving the memory of past hardships while not locking our entire history into a tale of oppression. The moments of peace and joy are as vital as the moments of violence. In fact, it’s the periods of peace, of success, of interfaith community, that reveal the terrible truth about the violence: it wasn’t inevitable. People could have made different choices…”

    “A show like ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ lets me revel in my personal New York Jewish heritage while also getting a little break from all the worry. It’s a warm, funny, sexy, extremely Jewish …. comedy that hits me straight in my glossy childhood memories. That isn’t to say the show isn’t also problematic — it most certainly is.”

    In the latest installment of CNN Opinion’s “Little Kids, Big Questions” series, 10-year-old Ronan wonders if animals are capable of being smarter than humans. With the help of the John Templeton Foundation, which is partnering on the project, the answer came from Jane Goodall, world renowned for her work with chimpanzees.

    “One of the attributes of intelligence is the ability to think and solve problems. In the early 1960s, I was told that this was unique to humans, and only we could use and make tools, only we had language and culture,” Goodall said. “But more and more research has proved that many animals are excellent at solving problems. Many use tools, and many show cultural differences. Some scientists believe that whales and dolphins are communicating with what may be a real language.”

    “Although the difference between humans and other animals is simply one of degree, our intellect really is amazing. …bees can count and do math, and that just shows how much we still have to learn about animal intelligence. But humans can calculate the distance to the stars.”

    05 opinion cartoons 041523

    Earlier this month, a Texas jury convicted Daniel Perry of murder for fatally shooting a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020. The jury deliberated for 17 hours and decided Perry’s action couldn’t be excused under the state’s “stand your ground” law. Prosecutors argued Perry had instigated the incident and they introduced into evidence messages that suggested the shooting was not a spur-of-the-moment act but a premeditated one.

    On the evening of the jury verdict, Fox News host Tucker Carlson criticized the decision and told viewers he had invited Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on the show to ask if he would consider pardoning Perry. Others on the right called for Abbott to issue a pardon, and the governor soon responded with an announcement that he would do just that, as long as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended that Perry should be granted one.

    “Trial verdicts are determined by judges and juries,” wrote Dean Obeidallah. “What Abbott is doing is not just wrong, it’s dangerous. His pardon, when it comes, is not what the rule of law looks like.”

    02 opinion cartoons 041523

    Two of the likeliest candidates for president in 2024 haven’t officially committed yet.

    President Joe Biden says he intends to run again but has delayed making a formal announcement. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is making all the moves a presidential contender usually makes, including hawking his new book and visiting New Hampshire, but he hasn’t joined fellow Republicans including former President Donald Trump, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson in declaring.

    “DeSantis, who was neck and neck with the former president just a few months ago, may have lost a step or two in more recent polling. But his track record of successful governance in Florida should force GOP voters to think long and hard about what version of their party they want to put forward,” observed Patrick T. Brown.

    “A third Trump presidential nomination would indicate that Republican primary voters may prefer style over substance. But if they are serious about not just making liberals mad but advancing actual policy, GOP voters should consider other names, starting with the Florida governor.”

    Even without an official announcement by the president, wrote Julian Zelizer, the Biden-Harris campaign is very much under way. “By choosing to lie low while Republicans are gearing up for 2024, Biden is employing his version of what has become known as the ‘Rose Garden Strategy,’ whereby the incumbent campaigns by focusing on the business of being president and showing voters that he is the responsible figure in the race.”

    “The president’s understated strategy makes room for Republicans to stoke chaos, tear each other apart and make unforced errors while he remains above the fray for as long as possible. This strategy makes the GOP the focus of the election, allowing Biden to reinforce his message from 2020: do voters want someone who will govern and act in a serious manner or do they want a circus?”

    Gene Seymour: I am betting on Cousin Greg. But I am not a serious person (Spoiler alert)

    Frida Ghitis: Amid fallout of Macron-Xi meeting, another world leader tries his luck

    Michael Bociurkiw: How the battle for Bakhmut exposed Russia’s ‘meat-grinder’

    Peggy Drexler: Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s dilemma is a reminder of this universal question

    Christopher Howard: The overlooked problem with raising the retirement age for Social Security

    Elliot Williams: The justice system Trump and other white-collar defendants see is different than what most accused criminals get

    Phoebe Gavin: The hard lessons I learned the first time I was laid off

    Meg Jacobs: ‘Air’ celebrates those who do the hard work and get rewarded

    AND…

    Jill Filipovic recently took a domestic flight in South Africa. “Passengers and airport staff alike were friendly and polite. The airplane seat offered enough room for both of my legs and both of my arms. We took off on time and landed early. My shoes stayed on the whole time I was at the airport.”

    It was a vivid reminder of what’s possible in air travel — and of what’s usually lacking.

    Take the security system: “More than 20 years after Sept. 11, 2001, only passengers who pay for the privilege can avoid removing their shoes and laptops from their bags by submitting their personal information ahead of time and undergoing background checks.”

    Filipovic added, “Admittedly, I do pay — I don’t want to wait in a long security line, walk my stocking feet through a metal detector and have to un- and re-pack the MacBook I’ve carefully crammed into my carry-on. But the existence of pay-to-play shorter-line security options like Clear and TSA Pre-Check make clear that it is indeed possible to pre-screen a critical mass of passengers to avoid the morass of cranky people trying to pull on their shoes while re-packing their electronics.”

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  • Colorado governor signs bills further enshrining rights to abortion and gender-affirming care | CNN Politics

    Colorado governor signs bills further enshrining rights to abortion and gender-affirming care | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democratic Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado signed a trio of bills Friday that further protect the rights to abortion and gender-affirming services in the state, as access to the so-called abortion pill across the country remains in limbo and some neighboring conservative states have moved to restrict such procedures.

    Polis’ signature comes a year after he signed a measure to codify the right to abortion into Colorado law, months before the US Supreme Court eliminated federal protections for abortion rights by overturning Roe v. Wade. At the same time, conservative neighboring states Oklahoma and Wyoming have passed strict abortion bans, while in Utah, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill earlier this year banning hormone treatment and surgical procedures for minors seeking gender-affirming care.

    One of the bills Polis signed, SB23-188, sets Colorado up to be a haven for people from states with more restrictive laws who are seeking access to abortion and gender-affirming treatment.

    The new law bars Colorado courts or judicial officers from issuing subpoenas in connection with a proceeding in another state that involves a person who receives or “performs, assists, or aids” an abortion or gender-affirming treatment in Colorado, both of which are legally protected in the state.

    Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Colorado’s blue neighbor to the south, also signed legislation last month that prohibits local municipalities and other public bodies from interfering with a person’s ability to access reproductive or gender-affirming health care services in the state.

    “I’m proud to sign these pro-freedom laws to further uphold Colorado’s value of protecting access to reproductive health care,” Polis told CNN in a statement. “[Here] in Colorado, we value individual freedoms and we stand up to protect them.”

    Another bill Polis signed into law directs large employers to provide coverage for the total cost of abortion care starting next year.

    The third law will make it a “deceptive trade practice” for an entity to advertise that it “provides abortions, emergency contraceptives, or referrals for abortions or emergency contraceptives” when it does not, according to a bill summary. A health care provider would also be subject to disciplinary measures if it “provides, prescribes, administers, or attempts medication abortion reversal” in violation of any related rules by state authorities.

    The three bills passed the state’s Democratic-controlled state legislature earlier this month.

    Republicans have criticized the new laws, with state House Minority Leader Mike Lynch saying they deny a woman the right to choose “alternative options other than to end her pregnancy.”

    As Polis signed the bills into law Friday, the fate of access to the abortion drug mifepristone continued to play out in the courts after a US district judge in Texas said last week that he would suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill.

    US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday extended a hold on that lower-court ruling in an effort to give justices more time to consider the issue.

    Parts of the Texas ruling had been set to go into effect Saturday at 1 a.m. ET, but Alito’s hold puts off that deadline in the fast-moving dispute until 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

    The case centers on the scope of the FDA’s authority to regulate a drug that is used in the majority of abortions today in states that still allow the procedure.

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  • US, Mexican officials search for 3 American sailors last heard from 11 days ago | CNN

    US, Mexican officials search for 3 American sailors last heard from 11 days ago | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The US Coast Guard is assisting Mexican navy crews in the search for three American sailors, last heard from on April 4 near Mazatlán, Mexico, according to a Coast Guard news release.  

    Kerry O’Brien, Frank O’Brien and William Gross are all “experienced sailors,” according to a joint statement from their families. They were aboard the Ocean Bound, a 44-foot La Fitte sailing vessel, when they left the Mexican city of Mazatlán en route to San Diego, the Coast Guard said.  

    “The sailors planned to stop in Cabo San Lucas on April 6 for provisions and to report in before continuing on to San Diego,” the news release said. 

    “However, there was no record of them arriving in Cabo San Lucas or a report in of their location.”   

    Rescue coordinators have contacted marinas throughout Baja, Mexico, but there have been no sightings of the vessel, the news release said.  

    “Urgent marine information broadcasts have been issued over VHF radio requesting all mariners to keep a lookout for the missing persons and vessel,” the Coast Guard said. 

    Coast Guard officials urge anyone with information on the sailors or the sailing vessel to call the Coast Guard search and rescue coordination center at 510-437-3701.

    Cmdr. Greg Higgins, search mission coordinator for the US Coast Guard, said the weather was less than ideal when the trio set out.

    “When they began their voyage we know that the conditions were not optimal for that type of trip, though certainly, there were sailing vessels out there during that time. Winds potentially over 30 knots and seas 15 to 20, maybe more, feet at the time of their voyage,” Higgins told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield Saturday.

    “It’s a long trip for even in good conditions, from Mazatlán to Cabo. That’s two days, and certainly on to San Diego, which was their eventual destination. And since then it has improved marginally,” he added.

    Higgins said he hopes to gather information from witnesses who might have seen the sailors who went missing.

    “The Mexican Navy, now based in La Paz, Mexico, has the lead for search efforts, so there are numerous Mexican naval search and rescue assets that are working the case,” Higgins said. “For our portion, to support the excellent partnership that we have with Mexico and the Mexican Navy.

    “We’ve conducted search planning, so we’re using computer search tools to identify where the vessel may be based on environmental conditions, winds, and currents, where it may have drifted if they became distressed, as well as Coast Guard aircraft, searching with the permission of Mexico, and Coast Guard cutters searching as well,” Higgins said.

    The three Americans “are all experienced sailors,” according to a joint statement from their families.

    “Bill has over 50 years of sailing experience and is an extremely talented coastal cruiser. Kerry and Frank have 20 years sailing together and both hold captains licenses with the US Coast Guard,” according to the statement.

    Ocean Bound, described as “a sturdy older vessel,” departed Mazatlán on April 4 at about 9:30 a.m. local time. It headed “across the Sea of Cortez, a short stop had been planned in Cabo San Lucas and then to sail up the coast of Baja to San Diego,” the statement said. When they didn’t check in by the weekend, the Coast Guard was notified.

    “Cell phone pings on 4/4/2023 show off the coast of Mazatlan as calls to marinas in Cabo San Lucas,” according to the families.

    Their families presume they were trying to make slip reservations at the marina. But, because all the calls made were so short, it’s believed the attempts to reach someone were unsuccessful, said the statement. That calls are the last known contact with the Ocean Bound.

    According to family, the Coast Guard “has a current ‘travel projection’ if Ocean Bound simply lost radio contact and continued her journey to San Diego at just North or South of Turtle Bay (Bahia Tortugas) on the Baja Peninsula and is focused on searching there, in addition to long aircraft sweeps along the Baja Peninsula.”

    The parameters are reassessed each night to redefine the search the next day, according to the statement.

    “The sailing community has hundreds of additional vessels looking for our family members,” said the joint statement.

    The families thanked the Mexican Navy and US Coast Guard for their search and rescue operations.

    “They have communicated all of their efforts with kindness and compassion more than once a day,” said the statement.

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  • Whole Foods closes San Francisco flagship store after one year, citing crime | CNN Business

    Whole Foods closes San Francisco flagship store after one year, citing crime | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    An enormous Whole Foods in downtown San Francisco that opened just last year is temporarily closing. The company said rampant crime in the area forced it to shut down.

    The nearly 65,000-square foot location at Trinity Place in the city’s Mid-Market neighborhood shut its doors Monday to “ensure the safety” of its employees, a Whole Foods spokesperson said. Although Whole Foods did not share any additional information on the conditions that led to the store closing, the spokesperson added that it was a “difficult decision to close the Trinity store for the time being.” Affected employees will be transferred to nearby stores.

    The store at 8th and Market streets will not open Tuesday, the spokesperson said. The store’s website has also disappeared.

    Heralded as a “flagship store” following its March 2022 opening, the Whole Foods was one of the largest supermarkets in downtown San Francisco. The store sold 3,700 local products and was designed with “nods to classic San Francisco,” according to a news release.

    The San Francisco Standard, an independent news website, reported that this Whole Foods location had previously reduced operating hours last year because of theft and changed its bathrooms after employees found syringes and pipes.

    San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Matt Dorsey said on Twitter that he was “incredibly disappointed” by the closure.

    “Our neighborhood waited a long time for this supermarket, but we’re also well aware of problems they’ve experienced with drug-related retail theft, adjacent drug markets, and the many safety issues related to them,” Dorsey wrote.

    Property crimes in San Francisco have garnered national attention because of several attention-grabbing videos of thieves in action. Though still well below 2017 levels, the city saw a 23% increase in property crimes between 2020 and 2022, with spikes in burglary and theft headlining the surge, according to San Francisco Police Department data.

    Meanwhile, violent crime statistics in San Francisco have remained relatively steady in recent years. Preliminary police data reports 12 homicides in San Francisco this year, an uptick of 20% compared to the same period in the previous year. In total, there were 56 homicides in San Francisco in 2022, which is the same number of homicides the city saw in 2021.

    In recent months, national retailers have been complaining about thefts affecting locations. Chains took action by locking up everyday products such as deodorant and toothpaste and added extra security guards. However, a Walgreens executive recently admitted that the impact of the thefts may have been overblown.

    A San Francisco Cotopaxi store temporarily closed in October 2022, citing theft and employee safety, reopening in mid-November.

    Cotopaxi CEO Davis Smith, in a LinkedIn post, said at the time that the “large-scale theft and raiding” put the store’s employees at risk. But he also said he regretted that the store’s closure became the subject of a political debate about crime in San Francisco and other cities.

    “We had many jumping to our support, some who felt offended by my post, and a few who politicized our store’s closure (because these are the times we live in, unfortunately),” Smith wrote. “To be clear, I never anticipated that our decision to close our Hayes Valley store would become entangled in political discourse.”

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  • Senate Republicans confront 2024 primary challenges and Trump’s influence | CNN Politics

    Senate Republicans confront 2024 primary challenges and Trump’s influence | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Kari Lake – the unapologetic supporter of former President Donald Trump and vanquished candidate for Arizona governor – privately made a trip to National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters in February where she discussed the prospects of shaking up the map and running for Senate.

    But Lake, who has faced blowback over pushing baseless accusations of election fraud, was given this suggestion from NRSC officials: Shift to more effective messaging and away from claims about a stolen election, according to sources familiar with the matter.

    The meeting, which was described as a positive one, focused on how Senate bids often turn on issues that are different than governor’s races, multiple sources said. Top Republicans quietly acknowledge Lake could become a frontrunner if she runs in the primary, hoping to steer her towards a viable campaign if she mounts one, even as Arizona’s Pinal County sheriff is expected to soon jump into the race while independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema actively prepares a reelection bid herself.

    And that’s just one state.

    The Arizona race is one of several landmines that Republican leaders are navigating as they work behind the scenes to avoid a repeat of the 2022 debacle that saw weaker candidates emerge from contested primaries – only to peter out and collapse in the general election and hand Democrats a 51-49 Senate majority. Several of those candidates were backed by Trump as the NRSC – run at the time by Florida Sen. Rick Scott – opted to stay away from Republican primaries.

    Now, the NRSC – run by Sen. Steve Daines of Montana – has taken a much more hands-on approach to primaries, actively working on candidate recruitment and vetting. And the committee is weighing whether to spend big bucks in primaries to help root out weaker candidates, a move that risks setting up a clash with hard-right candidates aligning themselves with Trump.

    “You need to learn from your past mistakes,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, told CNN. “If you don’t make adjustments, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, it’s insanity.”

    Privately, Daines has spoken multiple times with Trump and has been in touch with his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., while national Republicans point to the NRSC’s early endorsement and fundraising for Rep. Jim Banks in the Indiana Senate race as an example of how the party’s warring wings can try to avoid messy primaries.

    The goal, GOP sources say, is to keep Trump aligned with Republican leadership – even as the former president has furiously attacked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the aftermath of the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, and as the Senate GOP leader has stayed silent amid the former president’s indictment on 34 felony charges in New York. Daines, however, has been vocal in his defense of Trump.

    “I have a very good relationship with the president. We talk, and it’s no secret we’ve been friends for a long time,” Daines told CNN when asked about the Senate races. “And he provides great insights. And I also provide my thoughts as well. And we have open lines of communication.”

    Daines added: “Wherever we can find common ground is a good thing.”

    That relationship could be put to the test in key battleground states. In West Virginia, Republican leaders are preparing to close ranks behind Gov. Jim Justice, who is seriously weighing a run for the seat occupied by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. A Justice bid would put him against Rep. Alex Mooney, who had won Trump’s backing in a competitive House race in the last cycle but now has the support of the conservative Club for Growth’s political arm.

    In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano – the controversial candidate who lost a bid for governor last fall but had the support of Trump in the primary – says he’s “still praying” on whether to mount a bid for the Senate, something Republicans in Washington fear. The NRSC plans to put its muscle behind the potential candidacy of David McCormick, the hedge fund executive who narrowly lost the Pennsylvania Senate GOP primary in 2022, according to Republican sources who view him as their best bet at picking up the seat next year.

    “I haven’t decided yet on 2024. I’m thinking about it,” McCormick told CNN. “You run for office … because you think you have something to contribute. You think it’s a moment where you might be able to serve, and if you lose, that motivation doesn’t necessarily go away.”

    And in Montana, Rep. Matt Rosendale, a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, is weighing a run in a race that could put him up against two other potential candidates viewed by senior Republicans as more electable – Montana attorney general Austin Knudsen and businessman Tim Sheehy – against Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. Rosendale attended an event last Tuesday in Mar-a-Lago following Trump’s arraignment in New York, a sign one Trump adviser saw as an effort to secure an endorsement ahead of a potential bid.

    Rosendale told CNN he’s in no rush to make a decision.

    “We’re just taking a nice slow time to let the people in Montana decide who they want to replace him with,” Rosendale said of Tester. “I feel very sure he will be replaced.” He added that Daines “is my senator” and that “I see him regularly.”

    Tester contended that the Republican nominee makes little difference to him.

    “I think the person who runs against me is the person McConnell chooses,” Tester said. “Whoever that is, I don’t think it matters much: Same election.”

    Top Republicans say they will have to make key strategic decisions on how to engage in some of these races – or whether to stay out altogether, as they might in Ohio as party leaders view the emerging field as full of electable candidates against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

    If they come in too aggressively, it could prompt blowback and rally the right behind a potentially weaker candidate. But if they disengage, they could see their favored candidate struggle to gain traction.

    In Wisconsin, Republican officials are urging Rep. Mike Gallagher to run, though he could face a potential primary there as well, as former Senate candidate Eric Hovde and others weigh a run. Gallagher, who is chairing a House panel focused on China, said of a potential run against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin: “I’m not thinking about it at present,” citing his legislative work and family commitments. But he left the door open.

    “I’d never conceived of this as a long-term thing; I don’t think Congress should be a career,” Gallagher said, adding: “I’m going to weigh all those factors and see where I can make the best impact.”

    In interviews with roughly a dozen top senators, nearly all of them agreed they need to be hyper-focused this cycle on helping candidates who can win not only a primary election, but a general election — repeatedly referencing “candidate quality” as their 2024 motto.

    Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of Senate GOP leadership and former NRSC chairman, has long had to contend with primary fights between the party establishment and activist base – battles that had effectively cost them the chance at the Senate majority in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, in addition to 2022.

    “It never goes away,” Cornyn said of the primary complications. “Republicans need to make up their mind. Do we want to win, or do we want to lose? And I think that it’s that simple, and I think people are tired of losing.”

    Yet some on the right are warning against party leaders picking and choosing their candidates – including Scott, who defends his hands-off approach in the last cycle.

    “I believe the citizens of the state ought to pick,” Scott said, adding: “A lot of these weaker candidates often are the ones who actually win. I was not the establishment candidate.”

    Scott’s fellow Florida Republican, Marco Rubio, was not backed by the NRSC in the 2010 election cycle. But he galvanized the GOP base and defeated Charlie Crist, who later became a Democrat.

    “I’m not a big believer that you can determine who the weaker candidate is. A lot of people up here then would not have been their choice,” Rubio told CNN. “Obviously there might be some exceptions here or there, but generally the NRSC should be engaged in helping whoever the Republican nominee is to win the general election.”

    Unlike the last cycle — when the McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund and the Rick Scott-run NRSC clashed publicly over the approach to expanding the Senate map — this time, the two committees are largely aligned. Republicans are betting that their preferred chances will vastly improve with the help of big donors and nationwide fundraising – and potentially an aggressive ad campaign in the primary to derail weaker opponents.

    “As we look across the country and look at different traces, it’s pretty straightforward,” Daines said. “We want to see candidates who can win a primary election and also win a general.”

    The map heavily favors the GOP – with 23 Democratic and independent seats in cycle compared to just 11 Republicans facing re-election. But Republicans, burnt by their past failures, are well aware that defeating an incumbent is a difficult task and could grow more challenging in a presidential election year, especially in swing states if Trump is the nominee. Behind the scenes, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is trying to limit Democratic retirements.

    And Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was skeptical that a more aggressive GOP intervention from Washington would solve Republican woes.

    “I’m not sure who the Republicans will put forward as their nominees, but normally the folks who get to determine who the nominee is are the voters in those individual states in the primaries,” Peters said in an interview. “If we look at what happened last cycle, those primary voters tended to pick highly flawed candidates, and I expect that will happen again.”

    The fight for the seat occupied by Sinema has quickly emerged as the messiest affair – for both parties.

    Sinema’s recent change in party identification — switching from a Democrat to an independent — poses a fresh challenge that party leaders will have to navigate, as it could set up an unpredictable three-way race. Sinema has not yet said if she will run again, but she has been raising enormous sums in preparation for a potential bid and has been meeting with strategists and advisers to map out plans for a possible campaign.

    And Democratic leaders are worried that backing a fellow Democrat in the primary could end up alienating Sinema and potentially lead her to caucus with the GOP, forcing them to stay neutral for now.

    “She’s a very effective legislator,” Schumer, who so far is neutral in the race, said when asked about Sinema recently.

    On the GOP side, several candidates who tried — and failed — to win statewide races last cycle are also complicating that strategy, making it a key source of anxiety among many top Republicans and the Senate committees, according to Republican sources.

    Those candidates include Lake and the 2020 Senate GOP nominee, Blake Masters, two of the most Trumpian candidates who lost last year. Both Lake and Masters garnered enormous support among the GOP base for leaning into 2020 election denials and the populist ideals that Trump touted throughout his presidency. Masters has discussed a potential 2024 Senate bid with several Republicans, though it’s unclear whether he will run, GOP sources say.

    Lake met with the NRSC for roughly an hour in February and is expected to meet with them again in the coming weeks, sources familiar with the meeting told CNN. The issue of focusing on claims of a stolen election was one point discussed at the meeting, the sources said.

    “The point that has been brought up, which Kari knows, is that the issue sets are different from a governor’s race. She knows you can’t run on that because it’s not something, as a senator, that you can fix,” a source close to Lake said, referencing her rhetoric around stolen elections. “The conversation was more about how the issues are different between a governor’s race and a Senate race.”

    Senior Republicans acknowledge that her ultimate decision on whether to enter the race could freeze out other candidates, particularly those wanting to run in the same lane, with the source close to Lake saying establishment-minded Republicans have been reaching out to her about a potential run. The source said Lake has a 200,000-plus donor list she could pull support from and believes she would have “widespread support” if she decides to run.

    But many in the top ranks are skeptical about her chances.

    “If you take a look at the race, where Sen. Sinema is probably going to take some of the right, left and center, it’s going to make for a difficult path for a Republican in that state in any scenario,” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis told CNN. “The party there is, I think, set on Lake if she decides to run with it, but, I mean, we just have to see how well she performs.”

    Tillis added that, given the “three-way race dynamic,” Lake “is not going to be able to make a lot of headway there.”

    Cornyn said of Lake: “Her recent track record doesn’t indicate that she would be successful. We need candidates who can broaden their appeal beyond the base and win a general.”

    Masters, meanwhile, has quietly reached out to some advisers about what another Senate run would look like and has spoken with some senior GOP officials about a 2024 run.

    Other potential GOP candidates include Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, who is expected to announce a Senate run as soon as this week and is viewed favorably by some top Republicans, according to GOP sources. Abe Hamadeh, formerly the Republican nominee for Arizona attorney general, is also weighing a run. And both Lamb and Hamadeh met recently with NRSC officials, but they have not met directly with Daines, according to a source familiar with the meetings.

    Two other Republicans, Jim Lamon and Karrin Taylor Robson, are also considering jumping into the race, sources familiar with the matter say. Lamon and Robson, who ran in 2022 for Senate and governor respectively, did not receive Trump’s support.

    Robson recently met with the NRSC, and many within the GOP committee “like her and see her as a quality candidate,” a source familiar with the meeting said. Lamon has not yet met with the NRSC, but is expected to set up a meeting in the coming months.

    Arizona’s Senate primary is not until August 6, 2024, and the filing deadline to enter is April 8, 2024 — giving them a long runway to decide whether or not to run — further complicating GOP leadership’s calculus on how to navigate the race dynamics.

    “I just think we’re, we’re more likely to get people elected if they’re focused on the future, as opposed to focusing on what happened in 2020,” Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican of Utah, said when asked about a potential Lake candidacy. “I think the American people have made their judgment about the election and want to move on. So, let’s talk about the future and where we’re headed, and if we’ve got a candidate that is consumed with his or her past, it’s most likely a losing candidate.”

    Caroline Wren, a senior adviser to Lake, told CNN, “There’s no doubt Kari Lake is a formidable force in the Republican party right now, but she’s still focused on her lawsuit in Arizona,” referring to her efforts to dispute her loss in the governor’s race.

    Rubio said that Lake could be a strong Senate candidate, despite her shortfall last year.

    “She was a very competitive candidate. I think I trust the Republican voters in Arizona to pick the nominee,” Rubio said. “I don’t think Washington should be stepping in to do it.”

    But Democrats believe that a Lake candidacy will only bolster their chances, even if Sinema decides to run.

    Rep. Ruben Gallego, the Arizona Democrat running for his party’s nomination in the Senate race, suggested to CNN he was praying for a Lake candidacy.

    “I’m a practicing Catholic – so I have these votive candles for different things,” Gallego said. “I have a special candle for Kari Lake to jump in.”

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  • 13-year-old leads California police on chase in stolen car and crashes, leaving 1 person dead and nearly a dozen injured | CNN

    13-year-old leads California police on chase in stolen car and crashes, leaving 1 person dead and nearly a dozen injured | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    One person has died and nearly a dozen more were injured after a 13-year-old crashed into two other vehicles while leading police on a chase in a stolen vehicle in California, authorities said.

    A Woodland Police Department officer spotted a vehicle being driven erratically on Saturday afternoon, according to a news release from the agency. Woodland is located about 15 miles northwest of Sacramento.

    The officer attempted to pull the vehicle over and a pursuit followed, Woodland police said. The car then collided with two other vehicles, causing two cars to catch fire.

    Four ambulances were requested to the scene – one person died and “nearly a dozen” people were injured, according to the release. The extent of their injuries was still being assessed Saturday evening.

    Police later determined that the driver of the vehicle involved in the pursuit was a 13-year-old boy driving a stolen car.

    California Highway Patrol is now investigating the cause of the crash, police said.

    CNN has reached out to Woodland police for additional information.

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  • Rival rulings on medication abortion hypercharge the post-Roe legal war | CNN Politics

    Rival rulings on medication abortion hypercharge the post-Roe legal war | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A pair of conflicting federal court rulings on Friday created arguably the most contentious and chaotic legal flashpoint over abortion access since the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer that overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the right to an abortion nationwide.

    Within less than an hour, two major rulings came down in separate, closely watched cases concerning medication abortion – in lawsuits that are completely at odds with each other.

    In one case, filed by anti-abortion activists in Texas, a judge said the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone – one of the drugs used to terminate a pregnancy – should be halted. But the court paused its ruling for a week so that it can be appealed, and that appeal is already under way.

    In the second case, where Democratic-led states had sued in Washington to expand access to abortion pills, a judge ordered the federal government to keep the drug available in the 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, that brought the lawsuit.

    On their face, both cases deal with the administrative law that controls how the US Food and Drug Administration goes about regulating mifepristone. The disputes did not rely directly on the question of whether there is a right to an abortion – the question that was at the center of the Supreme Court’s ruling last June. But tucked in the Texas ruling, by US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, was the idea that embryos could have individual rights that courts can consider in their rulings.

    Both cases emerge from a political environment that was unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade reversal and a willingness to push the legal envelope that the Supreme Court ruling created. The abortion issue is now on a path back to the Supreme Court, as higher courts are asked to sort out the contradictory commands of Friday night’s decisions.

    Because the Texas judge has paused his ruling, it has no immediate impact on the availability of medication abortion drugs. But the next several days stand to be a dramatic and combustible legal fight over the order – a fight ratcheted up by the rival ruling in Washington.

    Besides pausing his ruling for one week, Kacsmaryk – an appointee of former President Donald Trump who sits in Amarillo, Texas – seemed to hold nothing back as he ripped apart the FDA’s approval of mifepristone and embraced wholeheartedly the challengers’ arguments the drug’s risks weren’t adequately considered.

    Kacsmaryk, whose anti-abortion advocacy before joining the federal bench was documented by a recent Washington Post profile, showed a striking hostility to medication abortion, which is the method used in a majority of the abortions in the United States.

    Leading medical organizations have already condemned his opinion and pushed back at the judge’s analysis of the safety of medication abortion.

    The judge said that the FDA failed to consider “the intense psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress women often experience from chemical abortion,” in what was a repeated invocation of “chemical abortion,” the term preferred by abortion opponents. Kacsmaryk suggested that the FDA’s data was downplaying the frequency with which the drug being mistakenly administered to someone who had an ectopic pregnancy, i.e. a pregnancy outside the cavity of the uterus. He repeated the challengers’ accusations that the FDA’s approval process had been the subject of improper political pressure.

    He said the FDA’s refusal to impose certain restrictions on the drug’s use “resulted in many deaths and many more severe or life-threatening adverse reactions.”

    “Whatever the numbers are, they likely would be considerably lower had FDA not acquiesced to the pressure to increase access to chemical abortion at the expense of women’s safety,” he said.

    Jack Resneck Jr., the president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement that Kacsmaryk’s ruling “flies in the face of science and evidence and threatens to upend access to a safe and effective drug.”

    “The court’s disregard for well-established scientific facts in favor of speculative allegations and ideological assertions will cause harm to our patients and undermines the health of the nation,” the AMA president said.

    Kacsmaryk’s opinion paid no heed to the argument made by the FDA’s defenders that cutting off access to medication abortion would put the health of pregnant people at risk and that it would force abortion seekers to terminate their pregnancies through a surgical procedure instead.

    Instead, the judge wrote that a ruling in the challengers’ favor would ensure “that women and girls are protected from unnecessary harm and that Defendants do not disregard federal law.”

    As he explained why the preliminary injunction – which was being handed down before the case could proceed to a trial – was justified, he said that embryos had their own rights that could be part of the analysis. That assertion goes farther than what the Supreme Court said in its June ruling, known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.

    “Parenthetically, said ‘individual justice’ and ‘irreparable injury’ analysis also arguably applies to the unborn humans extinguished by mifepristone — especially in the post-Dobbs era,” Kacsmaryk said Friday.

    Whereas Kacsmaryk had been asked by the challengers in Texas to block medication abortion, US District Judge Thomas Owen Rice, who sits in Spokane, Washington, was considering whether abortion pills should be easier to obtain.

    Rice, an Obama appointee, granted the Democratic attorneys general who brought the lawsuit a partial win.

    They had asked Rice to remove certain restrictions – known as REMS or Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy – the FDA has imposed on mifepristone, with the blue states arguing the drug was safe and effective enough to make those restrictions unnecessary.

    While Rice is rejecting that bid for now, he granted a request the states also made that the FDA be ordered to keep the drugs on the market. But Rice’s ruling only applies in the 17 plaintiff states and the District of Columbia.

    His decision maintains the status quo for the availability of abortion pills in those places and he specifically is blocking the agency from “altering the status quo and rights as it relates to the availability of Mifepristone under the current operative January 2023 Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy.”

    Rice’s opinion was a striking split screen to Kacmsaryk’s. While the Texas judge said the FDA did not adequately take into account the drug risks, Rice showed sympathy to the arguments that the rules for mifepristone’s use were too strict and that the agency should be taking a more lenient approach to how the abortion pill is regulated.

    Ultimately, he said he would not grant the Democratic states’ request that he remove some of the drug restrictions at this preliminary stage in the proceedings, because that would go well beyond maintaining the status quo while the case advances. He noted that if he had granted that request, it would also undo a new FDA rule that allows pharmacies to dispense abortion pills. That would reduce its availability and would run “directly counter to Plaintiffs’ request.”

    If Kacsmaryk’s ruling halting mifepristone’s approval is allowed to go into effect, it will run headlong into Rice’s order that mifepristone remain available in several states. Kacsmaryk’s ruling is a nationwide injunction.

    The Justice Department and Danco, a mifepristone manufacturer that intervened in the case to defend the approval, both filed notices of appeal. Both Attorney General Merrick Garland and Danco said in statements that in addition to the appeals, they will seek “stays” of the ruling, meaning emergency requests that the decision is frozen while the appeal moves forward.

    They’re appealing to the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is sometimes said to be the country’s most conservative appeals court. Yet some legal scholars were skeptical that the 5th Circuit, as conservative as it is, would let Kacmsaryk’s order take effect.

    Washington, where the blue states’ lawsuit was filed, is covered under the 9th Circuit, a liberal appellate court. But it’s unclear if the ruling from Rice will be appealed. Garland said the Justice Department was still reviewing the decision out of Washington. A so-called circuit split would increase the odds that the Supreme Court would intervene. But given how the practical impact of the two district court rulings contradict each other, the Supreme Court may have no choice but to get involved.

    The lawyer for the challengers in the Texas case, anti-abortion medication associations and doctors, said Friday evening that he had not reviewed the Washington decision, so he could not weigh in on how it impacted Kacsmaryk’s order that the drug’s approval be halted.

    “I’m not sure whether there’s a direct conflict yet and with the Washington state decision just because I haven’t read it yet, but there may not be a direct conflict,” Erik Baptist, who is an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, said. “But if there is a direct conflict then there may be – it may be inevitably going to the Supreme Court, but I’m not convinced that it’s necessary at this point to make that conclusion.”

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  • Before Las Vegas mass shooting, a friend of the gunman implored him not to ‘shoot or kill innocent people,’ newspaper reports | CNN

    Before Las Vegas mass shooting, a friend of the gunman implored him not to ‘shoot or kill innocent people,’ newspaper reports | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A friend of Stephen Paddock, who carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history in Las Vegas in 2017, said in letters that he was concerned about Paddock committing a shooting and asked him not to “shoot or kill innocent people,” according to writings obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

    Ten letters, which were obtained through a public records request, were “found in late November 2017 by the new owners of an abandoned office building in Mesquite, Texas,” according to FBI records, the newspaper reported. CNN has requested the records.

    “I can get someone for you who can help you,” Jim Nixon, Paddock’s friend, wrote in a letter dated May 27, 2017, according to the newspaper. “Please don’t go out shooting or hurting people who did nothing to you. I am concern [sic] about the way you are talking and believe you are going to do something very bad. Steve please please don’t do what I think you are going to do.”

    In October 2017, Paddock opened fire on a massive crowd of concertgoers from a window of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, killing 58 people in the initial shooting and injuring about 500 others. In the years after the massacre, two more victims have /died of shooting-related injuries.

    Paddock sent nine of the letters to Nixon between 2013 and June 2017, according to the report.None were shared in their entirety by the Review-Journal.

    Nixon told CNN he exchanged letters with Paddock about two or three times a year.

    They first met “around 2010 or 2011” in Virginia and developed a “good relationship,” he said. Nixon said after they became acquainted, he invited Paddock to Nevada to go fishing at Lake Mead and off-road biking in the desert.

    Nixon said there were never any problems with their relationship, but later Paddock became “bitter at the system” and started “talking a lot about death.” Paddock mentioned “going postal,” which made Nixon concerned about Paddock’s well-being, Nixon told CNN.

    Nixon asked in a letter from August 2014 about a statement Paddock allegedly made about executing an upcoming plan, the Review-Journal said.

    “You said in (3) years you would be ready and that your plan would show up in Nevada, California, Illinois, Texas, New York and other cities,” the Review-Journal reported one letter said. “What do you mean?”

    In another letter dated March 2, 2017, Nixon wrote: “You must going [sic] on a hunting trip with all those guns you are stockpiling,” according to the newspaper.

    “You are a good person and I want you to know that I am concern [sic] about you and your wellbeing,” Nixon wrote in the letter dated May 27, 2017, the Review-Journal reported. “I believe you are lying to me and you are going to hurt someone or kill someone. You sound like a real mad man on the phone tonight.”

    Nixon told CNN that he never conveyed his concerns about Paddock to authorities because “he didn’t know [Paddock] was going to do anything” and “couldn’t read [Paddock’s] mind.”

    Nixon said he didn’t believe Paddock did it when the first reports identifying the suspect surfaced. But when authorities was confirmed it was Paddock, he said he thought, “Damn, that fool.”

    About 22,000 people were attending a country music festival across the street from the Mandalay Bay on October 1, 2017, when Paddock opened fire. Witnesses said the gunfire last 10 to 15 minutes. Paddock, 64, took his own life before law enforcement officers knocked down his door, officials said.

    Authorities at the time said they found 23 guns in the room, and 24 more at his two homes.

    Investigators have for years searched for a motive. Recently, the FBI released a trove of documents that indicate he may have harbored resentment over how casinos treated him and other high rollers.

    The heavily redacted documents – which include hundreds of pages of investigation records, evidence inventories and interviews with people who knew Paddock – also provide a fuller picture of the gunman’s obsessive gambling habits.

    Still, the investigative documents never arrive at a definitive motive.

    The FBI opened its investigation the day after the massacre at the Route 91 Harvest music festival and closed it more than a year later, announcing it had found no clear motive for Paddock’s attack.

    Though the FBI said in 2019 that Paddock’s actions were not driven by a grievance against any particular casino or hotel, one fellow gambler interviewed by investigators after the attack said Paddock had become angry about how casinos generally dealt with VIP players.

    The gambler, whose name is redacted, told the FBI that Paddock was “upset at the way casinos were treating him and other high rollers” and that he believed the frustration could have caused the gunman to “snap,” according to the documents.

    The gambler said that while casinos typically treated high rollers to perks like free cruises and flights, he believed the venues’ approach to such players had changed in the years leading up to the shooting, including banning them from some hotels or casinos, the documents said.

    Paddock had been banned from three casinos he frequented in Reno, Nevada, the gambler said.

    The gambler also believed the Mandalay Bay “was not treating Paddock well because a player of his status should have been in a higher floor in a penthouse suite.”

    Due to the redactions, it is unclear how the gambler knew Paddock.

    In order to become the priority player he believed he was, Paddock had spent – and lost – exorbitant amounts of money at casinos, according to people interviewed by the FBI.

    The fellow gambler told investigators that Paddock had a bankroll of about $2 million to $3 million, the documents said.

    He would regularly play for six to eight hours a day at casinos, and sometimes as many as 18 hours a day, the gambler said.

    Investigators also spoke with a woman who worked at the Tropicana Las Vegas casino and resort – just down the Strip from the Mandalay Bay – who said Paddock would visit about every three months, according to the documents.

    She described Paddock as a “prolific video poker player” who would only want to discuss gambling when they talked, the documents said.

    During a three-day stay at the casino in September 2017, Paddock lost $38,000, she told the FBI.

    Real estate agents told CNN in 2017 that Paddock said his income came from gambling and that he gambled about $1 million a year. He paid $369,022 in cash for the home they sold him in 2014, the agents said.

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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

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    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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  • 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

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    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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  • 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

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    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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  • Connecticut routs San Diego State to win its fifth NCAA men’s basketball title after dominating tournament | CNN

    Connecticut routs San Diego State to win its fifth NCAA men’s basketball title after dominating tournament | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The University of Connecticut won its fifth men’s basketball national title with a 76-59 victory over San Diego State University on Monday night at NRG Stadium in Houston.

    Senior guard Tristen Newton led UConn (31-8) with 19 points and 10 rebounds while Final Four Most Outstanding Player Adama Sanogo, a junior forward, chipped in with 17 points and 10 rebounds.

    “We weren’t ranked going into the year so we had the chip on our shoulder,” UConn head coach Dan Hurley told game broadcaster CBS. “We knew the level that we could play at, even through those dark times,” he added, referencing the team’s six losses in eight games during the regular season.

    He said going into the tournament his group had confidence garnered during the season.

    “And when you have the type of leaders like Andre Jackson (game-high six assists Monday) and Adama Sanogo, they kept this team together, got us back on track and we knew we were the best team in the tournament going in and we just had to play to our level,” he added.

    San Diego State (32-7) was topped by Keshad Johnson who had 14 points.

    UConn trailed very early but San Diego State was undone by an 11-minute, eight-second stretch in which they scored just five free throws and missed 12 consecutive shots from the field. The Huskies went from down 10-6 to up 36-24 at halftime.

    The Aztecs made a run midway through the second half and narrowed the deficit to five at 60-55 with 5:19 to play but the Huskies scored the next nine to take a comfortable lead into the final two minutes.

    “We battled. Battled back to five in the second half, but gave them too much separation,” San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher said. “We had to be at our best. We weren’t at our best. A lot had to do with UConn.”

    Senior guard Adam Seiko told reporters they gave themselves a chance with their second half comeback but UConn “just made a little bit more plays” at the end.

    “They have a lot of weapons. They were pretty good,” said Matt Bradley, also a senior guard. “To beat them, we had to make shots. I shot poorly. And you had to have a really good game to beat those dudes on the offensive end.”

    UConn won each of its six tournament games by at least 10 points, with its closest game being a 13-point win over the University of Miami in the national semifinals.

    “I just want to thank my teammates, my coaches who believed in me. If it were not for them I would not be here right now,” Sanogo told CBS.

    Jordan Hawkins, who scored 16 points for UConn, talked about winning the crown one day after his cousin, Angel Reese of Louisiana State University, won the women’s title.

    “I mean it’s absolutely amazing that we both get this opportunity and I mean the family reunion is going to be great so that’s all I know,” he said.

    UConn enters rarefied air as only the sixth team to win five NCAA men’s basketball championships, joining UCLA (11), Kentucky (eight), North Carolina (six), Duke (five) and Indiana (five). All of UConn’s titles have come since 1999 with the most recent before Monday occurring in 2014.

    UConn’s women’s teams have won 11 basketball national titles.

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