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FBI arrests Massachusetts airman Jack Teixeira in leaked documents probe
CBS News
Federal law enforcement officials arrested a 21-year-old Massachusetts man allegedly connected to the disclosure of dozens of secret documents that revealed sensitive U.S. defense and intelligence information, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday.
In brief remarks at Department of Justice headquarters, Garland identified the suspect as Jack Teixeira, an airman in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, and said he was arrested "in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified national defense information." The New York Times, which first revealed his name Thursday, reported that Teixeira is a member of the guard's 102nd Intelligence Wing. […]
Teixeira's arrest came hours after a story in The Washington Post detailed a small online community on the platform Discord where the documents appeared to have first been shared by the group's leader over the course of several months. Earlier reporting by Bellingcat traced the documents' supposed path from that server, known as "Thug Shaker Central," to a larger Discord community, where they appeared in early March. They then migrated to 4chan, Twitter and Russian Telegram channels just last week, when they first came to the attention of U.S. officials.
US, Ukraine say many war secrets safe from intel leaks
AP News
Ukraine’s leaders say they don’t see a major U.S. intelligence leak as gravely damaging future offensives. A key reason: They have long held back on sharing their most sensitive operational information, doubting Washington’s ability to keep their secrets safe.
Ukrainian and U.S. officials said this week that only Ukrainians know some battle plans and other operational information, not the Americans, their most important ally. That means the leak of secret military documents, including some assessing Ukraine’s battlefield strengths and weaknesses against Russia, may not have been enough — so far — to change the course of the war.
“If military operations are planned, then only a very narrow circle of people know about the planning of the special operation,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Wednesday on Ukrainian television. “The risk of leaks is very minimal” for the most important war matters.
Ukraine's spy chief says 'Russia is the only beneficiary' of US intelligence leak
ABC News
Ukraine's most senior military intelligence official said Russia has the most to gain from the massive leak of U.S. government secrets that has dominated headlines in recent days.
In his first interview since classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defense were leaked online last week, Ukrainian Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told ABC News in Kyiv on Wednesday evening that information warfare of this kind is nothing new.
"Russia is the only beneficiary of this," Budanov said.
Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.
ProPublica
In 2014, one of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow’s companies purchased a string of properties on a quiet residential street in Savannah, Georgia. It wasn’t a marquee acquisition for the real estate magnate, just an old single-story home and two vacant lots down the road. What made it noteworthy were the people on the other side of the deal: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.
The transaction marks the first known instance of money flowing from the Republican megadonor to the Supreme Court justice. The Crow company bought the properties for $133,363 from three co-owners — Thomas, his mother and the family of Thomas’ late brother, according to a state tax document and a deed dated Oct. 15, 2014, filed at the Chatham County courthouse.
The purchase put Crow in an unusual position: He now owned the house where the justice’s elderly mother was living. Soon after the sale was completed, contractors began work on tens of thousands of dollars of improvements on the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which looks out onto a patch of orange trees. The renovations included a carport, a repaired roof and a new fence and gates, according to city permit records and blueprints.
Jury selection begins in the Dominion defamation case against Fox News
NBC News
Jury selection in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case is set to begin Thursday morning, as the Delaware court works to identify 12 jurors and six alternates to hear the arguments against Fox News and Fox Corp.
Potential jurors will be interviewed about their ability to render an impartial opinion by Judge Eric Davis on Thursday and Friday, as he and the attorneys narrow down the jury pool.
The potential jurors are expected to be asked questions such as whether they watch Fox News or whether they have ever volunteered as poll workers.
Ex-producer escalates lawsuit, claiming Fox News lawyers deleted messages from her phone
CNN
A former Fox News producer who claims the right-wing network pressured her to give false testimony escalated her own lawsuit against the company, adding CEO Suzanne Scott as defendant and accusing Fox’s lawyers of deleting messages from her phone.
In explosive lawsuits filed last month, Abby Grossberg claimed Fox lawyers bullied her into protecting the network and its on-air personalities in her deposition for the Dominion Voting Systems’ case.
Grossberg now accuses Scott of being complicit in the alleged coercion, according to her amended lawsuit.
The New York Times
Donald J. Trump was questioned under oath on Thursday in a civil fraud lawsuit brought by Attorney General Letitia James of New York…
Ms. James’s civil case, which was filed in September and is expected to go to trial later this year, accuses Mr. Trump, his family business and three of his children of a “staggering” fraud for overvaluing the former president’s assets by billions of dollars. The lawsuit seeks $250 million that Ms. James contends the Trumps reaped through those deceptions, and asks a judge to essentially run [Trump] out of business in the state if he is found liable at trial.
Mr. Trump was questioned for much of the day on Thursday — arriving at Ms. James’s office in Lower Manhattan shortly before 10 a.m. and departing just after 6 p.m. — as part of the discovery phase of the case, in preparation for the trial.
A week after expulsion, Justin Pearson of Memphis returns to Tennessee House
The Tennessean
Rep. Justin Pearson is again a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives after the Memphis Democrat took the oath of office on Thursday, just steps away from the state Capitol building he was expelled from last week in an historic, controversial process that has roiled political waters and elevated the freshman lawmaker to a national platform.
Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, were expelled by Tennessee Republicans last week for interrupting House business amid gun reform protests at the Capitol on March 30, just days after the deadly Covenant school shooting rocked Nashville and the nation. Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, survived an expulsion effort by a single vote.
Pearson on Thursday read off the names of the Covenant shooting victims before criticizing the Republican supermajority for taking up expulsion proceedings amid historic public protests at the Capitol calling for gun reform.
Whitmer signs gun control bills passed in response to deadly MSU shooting
The Detroit News
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed bills to combat gun violence Thursday, two months after a mass shooting on the campus of Michigan State University left three students dead and five injured.
Whitmer, a Democrat, approved the measures that have been sought by members of her party for years during a crowded event inside MSU's Spartan Stadium. The legislation marked the most significant firearm restrictions Michigan has enacted in decades.
Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist said the gathering represented a change in Michigan politics, after Democrats took full control of state government in January. And Sen. Rosemary Bayer, D-West Bloomfield, said lawmakers were "finally" taking action to prevent mass shootings.
Record heat followed by wildfire warning — then chance of snow
Minneapolis Star Tribune
The Twin Cities broke a record Wednesday for the hottest April 12, continuing an unexpected stretch of summerlike warmth after Minnesota received snow less than two weeks earlier.
The thermometer reached 88 degrees by 5:15 p.m. at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, breaking the record of 83 degrees set in 1931, according to the National Weather Service. […]
The dry heat and high winds have led the Weather Service to declare a "red flag warning" for the Twin Cities metro area, south-central and southeastern Minnesota from noon until 8 p.m. Thursday. A red flag warning means strong winds, low humidity and warm temperatures are expected to create dangerous fire conditions.
Dwindling sea ice may speed melting of Antarctic glaciers
Science
In February, on an icebreaker off the coast of West Antarctica, Robert Larter, a marine geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), came on deck to a startling sight: open gray water as far as the eye could see. There was no ice at all for the ship to break. The next day, satellite surveys would find sea ice around the continent hitting a record low.
Unlike fast-shrinking Arctic sea ice, the sea ice ringing Antarctica seemed more resistant to climate change—until recently. But now a long-term decline may have set in, and it could have unexpected and ominous domino effects, according to several recent studies. Dwindling sea ice could strengthen a whirling current called the Ross Gyre, bringing warm waters closer to land and hastening the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which locks up enough water to raise global sea levels by 3.3 meters. The warmer water and glacial melt expected from a stronger gyre already show hints of slowing part of the global ocean’s overturning circulation, a critical “conveyor belt” of currents that distributes heat and removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. “These are pretty grim predictions,” Larter says. “There are a lot of bad consequences if we really are on a downward sea ice trend.”
Although climate models predict an eventual decline in Antarctic sea ice, the ice cover was actually expanding slightly until a decade ago. Then from 2014 to 2017, the ice began to vanish rapidly, losing more in 3 years than the Arctic had lost in 3 decades, says Claire Parkinson, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “It was just astonishing.” The ice rebounded for a few years, then resumed its downward march, reaching record lows last year and again this year.
Cheap solar is a policy success story
Vox
Since 2009, the price of solar energy has come down by 90 percent. That’s no accident. It’s the result of policy interventions from the US to Germany to China.
He put solar panels on his roof. Now his HOA wants them removed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When Alex Betancourt and his family moved from Buford to nearby Suwanee in 2021, the house they purchased checked all of their boxes. Good schools, a desirable neighborhood and plenty of space for his wife and five kids.
And the roof of the home — unobstructed by trees and facing south — was ideal for solar panels.
Betancourt’s homeowners association, however, shot down his plan to install panels on the back roof of his home facing away from the street, saying the array did not conform to “community standards.” Betancourt moved forward anyway, and at an appeal hearing held months after his panels were installed, his request was denied again.
An attorney for the Deer Valley Community Association sent a letter last month saying a $25 daily fine would be assessed against the couple until the panels are taken down. In the same letter, the attorney said the association reserved the right to enter Betancourt’s property and remove the panels.
State of emergency declared in Fort Lauderdale and Dania Beach amid rain and flooding
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Fort Lauderdale and Dania Beach have both declared a state of emergency after the record rainfall that turned roads into rivers and forced drivers to abandon their cars in search of higher ground.
Many roads in Fort Lauderdale remained impassable on Thursday morning, city officials said. Close to 26 inches of rain fell in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday, with most of that falling in just six hours, according to the National Weather Service. […]
In Fort Lauderdale, where cars floated down Las Olas like boats on a river, some were wondering if the city’s ongoing development boom made the flooding even worse.
But Fort Lauderdale’s mayor says one has nothing to do with the other.
“What we’re seeing here is a 1,000-year incident,” Trantalis said. “No city could have planned for this. Let’s face it, Fort Lauderdale is a flat city. Perhaps the highest area is 10 feet. We’re surrounded by water. We’re the Venice of America. Development and stormwater drainage are two entirely different issues.”
What to watch for: El Nino likely to develop this summer
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has issued an El Nino Watch this morning as part of its April ENSO outlook.
A watch is issued when conditions are favorable for the development of El Nino within the next six months. While we are still in an ENSO-neutral phase – when no El Nino or La Nina is present – there is a 62% chance El Nino will develop sometime between May and July. This comes after nearly two continuous years of a La Nina.
The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (or ENSO) is a climate pattern defined by sea surface temperature and precipitation departures from normal across the equatorial Pacific Ocean that can influence weather and climate patterns across the U.S. and around the world.
El País
Average sea surface temperature sets new high in 40 years of record-keeping
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States (NOAA) reported that the average temperature of the world’s sea surface reached 21.1 °C (70ºF) in April, a new high since official records began over four decades ago. “We are entering unknown climate and meteorological territory and crossing borders that have never been crossed before,” said Francisco Martín León, a meteorologist and science communicator.
The last time similar temperatures were reached, seven years ago, they were driven by the El Niño phenomenon, which cyclically warms the tropical areas of the Pacific Ocean. But right now the world is in a neutral climate period, and the cause points to global warming by greenhouse gas emissions.
Since 1981, NOAA has been observing the behavior of Earth’s open waters, using satellites, buoys and ships to measure and estimate the sea surface temperature (SST). Although this is a relatively brief period of time in terms of climate, it is the most reliable existing data on the subject. The agency’s preliminary measurements show that on April 5, the surface temperature of the seas located between 60 degrees north and 60 degrees south exceeded 21ºC, that is, everywhere save in the poles.
Nature
Researchers have discovered what they think is a new form of plastic pollution: thin films of plastic waste chemically bonded to rocks.
The finding adds to scientists’ growing recognition that plastics have become part of Earth’s geology. In 2020, geologists described sedimentary rocks in Brazil that had plastic-lined bottle caps, plastic earrings and other litter embedded in their layers. They dubbed the rocks anthropoquinas. Other scientists have turned up “plastiglomerates”, formed when melted plastic glues together rocks, sand and other natural and human-made materials.
“People in the twentieth and twenty-first century are creating new geological records,” says Deyi Hou, a soil and groundwater scientist at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Hou and his colleagues found the plastic-sheet-coated rocks near a creek in Hechi City, China.
More than 18,000 cattle killed in Texas dairy farm explosion
Dallas Morning News
A fiery explosion in the Texas Panhandle killed more than 18,000 cattle and critically injured one worker in what is being described as the deadliest barn fire for cattle on record.
Fire tore through the holding pens of Southfork Dairy Farm in Dimmitt on Monday night, as the cattle were waiting to be milked, authorities told local news outlets.
A dairy farm worker rescued from the building was taken to a hospital and was in critical but stable condition.
Investigators have not determined the cause of the fire, but Castro County Sheriff Sal Rivera told KCBD-TV that overheating electrical equipment used to suck waste from the holding pens may have ignited methane.
Viktor Orbán’s political allies in Hungary in sights of US sanctions
The Guardian
A bipartisan group in Congress is drafting US sanctions that would target leading Hungarian political figures tied to the Orbán government, as the relationship between the two countries continues to spiral downwards.
The sanctions bill would name former officials and government supporters, mostly affiliated with the Fidesz party of the prime minister, Viktor Orbán.
The legislation has been in preparation since last year and is expected to go before Congress as soon as next month where it is likely to draw broad support, according to officials familiar with the drafting process.
The sanctions bill, first reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, is being drafted at a time of steadily worsening relations between Washington and Budapest.
US court preserves access to abortion drug mifepristone for now
BBC News
A US appeals court has ruled that a widely used abortion pill could remain available, but imposed new restrictions that may impede access nationwide. The court's decision temporarily blocks an order by a Texas judge to halt federal approval of mifepristone.
The drug - one of two used for medication abortions - will remain available until the appellate court hears the Texas case on its merits. But under the new ruling, the pill can no longer be sent to patients by mail. […]
Mifepristone was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more than 20 years ago and abortion pills are now the most common method of ending a pregnancy - used in more than half of all US abortions.
Florida Legislature passes 6-week abortion ban after Republicans fast-track process
Tallahassee Democrat / USA Today
Florida House Republicans leveraged their supermajority to fast-track and pass the six-week abortion ban Thursday, hours after lawmakers rejected nearly 50 amendments proposed by state Democrats to alleviate what they fear will be severe and potentially deadly impacts on women across the state.
That means the so-called "Heartbeat Protection Act" will now head to Gov. Ron DeSantis' desk for what is sure to be a consequential moment for his widely expected presidential run. DeSantis has indicated he would sign more restrictive abortion legislation but has largely avoided the topic since lawmakers filed the six-week proposal on the first day of the Legislative Session last month. The bill passed 70-40, with seven Republicans joining Democrats in voting against the measure.
Feinstein asks to be temporarily replaced on Judiciary Committee amid calls to resign
NPR News
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is moving to temporarily replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on the powerful Judiciary Committee, after Feinstein acknowledged medical complications from shingles have kept her sidelined for longer than expected.
The move could help Senate Democrats advance federal judges for confirmation — a key goal in any administration, but one that both parties have put particular focus on in recent years, as partisan divides have grown wider in U.S. society.
Feinstein, 89, hasn't cast a vote since Feb. 16, missing nearly 60 of the Senate's 82 votes so far this session. She's the oldest member of Congress, and said in early March that she was hospitalized with shingles.
Democrats proclaim Chicago ‘ideal’ setting for DNC convention next year
Chicago Tribune
State and city leaders joined national Democrats Wednesday to hold a celebratory pat-themselves-on-the-back ceremony against the backdrop of the Chicago lakefront and skyline, cheering the awarding of the 2024 party presidential nominating convention to the city but still leaving plenty of questions about how they’ll pull it off.
Standing outside the Shedd Aquarium with Lake Michigan and skyscrapers behind him on a sunny April afternoon, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Chicago would provide an “ideal” setting for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to frame their reelection bid next year to serve four more years in the White House.
“A convention in Chicago, the center of the blue wall of key states like Wisconsin and Michigan and Minnesota, will show that Democrats don’t take this region for granted, that this is key to victory in 2024,” Pritzker said. “Illinois is home to a bustling metropolis, a strong rural tradition, thriving suburbs, not to mention a long-standing history rooted in civil rights and workers’ rights and reproductive rights.”
The Aug. 19-22, 2024, convention will be the first held in Chicago since 1996…
US to Push Back Against China Economic Coercion at G-7 Meeting
Bloomberg
The US is pressing the need for allies to coordinate against economic coercion, not just military threats, as Japan prepares to host top diplomats from the Group of Seven nations amid heightened tensions with China.
“That coercion piece is important,” US Ambassador to Tokyo Rahm Emanuel said in an interview days before the ministerial meeting begins in the mountain resort of Karuizawa on Sunday. “It keeps the United States in the center of gravity and helps our allies and alliance and our friends to know that we are in the game.” […]
Japan has put an emphasis on economic coercion and is aiming for outcomes by the leaders’ summit, people familiar with the deliberations said.
After decades of lurking, an elusive bacterium finally strikes in California
Ars Technica
A California man is the first person in the Western US to have a confirmed infection with a curious bacterium that has lurked in the region for over two decades—and researchers fear the pathogen may finally be emerging there.
The bacterium is Borrelia miyamotoi, a corkscrew-shaped spirochete that is spread by black-legged ticks and causes a rare disease called hard tick relapsing fever. The spiraled microbe is a relative of the more well-known Borrelia burgdorferi spirochete, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. But B. miyamotoi has many notable differences from its cousin, including its inconspicuous spread.