Wake sheriff opens homicide case after body found near Neuse River

The Wake County Sheriff said authorities are working to confirm the person's identity and said the incident is "no accident."

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  • President Biden urges Congress to expedite stimulus payments: ‘We don’t have a second to waste’

    For those who have been waiting for their next stimulus checks, It appears President Joe Biden is now urging Congress to expedite them. Immediately following his inauguration, Biden proposed his $1.9T stimulus proposal and has been pushing to gather support for it ever since. “I’m calling on Congress to act quickly and pass the American Rescue Plan.”

  • New York can't prosecute Paul Manafort after Trump pardon, court rules

    Former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign chair Paul Manafort won't face a second round of prosecution in New York state after a court affirmed the state and federal charges against him constituted double jeopardy. Manafort was sentenced to more than seven years in prison in early 2019 after being charged with financial crimes, as well as witness tampering and unregistered lobbying, as a result of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance charged Manafort with pretty much the same financial crimes shortly after his second sentence in what was seemingly an insurance policy against Trump's likely pardon of Manafort. After all, a president cannot pardon someone charged with state crimes. But the overlap turned out to work against Vance. In December 2019, New York state Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley threw out the state's charges, saying that "the law of double jeopardy in New York State provides a very narrow window for prosecution." Vance took the case to the New York Court of Appeals — the state's highest court — but it said last week that it had declined to review the case. As a result, Wiley's ruling will stand. Trump did end up pardoning Manafort in December, though he was already serving his sentence at home due to COVID-19 concerns. Manafort had pleaded not guilty to the New York charges, and his lawyer told The New York Times he is pleased with the result. Manafort could still be charged with other federal or state crimes. More stories from theweek.comWhat's the point of Trump's second impeachment trial?One of Sarah Huckabee Sanders' main Arkansas gubernatorial rivals just dropped out of the race5 brutally funny cartoons about America's bungled vaccine rollout

  • Woman Gets 10 Years in Prison for Kil‌l‌ing Nail Salon Manager After Skipping on Bill in Las Vegas

    A woman who killed a Vietnamese nail salon manager in Las Vegas in 2018 has been sentenced to a prison term of 10 to 25 years. The verdict: On Friday, Clark County District Court Judge Tierra Jones sentenced Krystal Whipple to prison for the death of 51-year-old Nhu "Annie" Ngoc Nguyen, the Associated Press reports. With the plea, she effectively avoided trials of felony murder, burglary, robbery and stolen vehicle charges, which she initially faced.

  • Iowa governor auctioned off access for pork barons' charity

    Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds auctioned off an afternoon of her time to raise money for the namesake charity of a couple who own one of the nation's largest pork producers and have contributed nearly $300,000 to her campaign. The 2019 auction to benefit the Deb and Jeff Hansen Foundation provides a striking example of the Republican governor's close relationship with the state's pork industry and particularly Iowa Select Farms, owned by the West Des Moines couple. Details of the auction surfaced recently in public records the governor's office released to Direct Action Everywhere, an animal rights group that has accused Iowa Select of mistreating hogs.

  • 'No, no.': Mexican president rejects mask-wearing after COVID-19 recovery

    Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday said he would not wear a face mask after his recovery from COVID-19, in spite of widespread support from top officials and the public for the measure. In his first news conference since testing positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 24, Lopez Obrador brushed aside repeated questions from reporters about whether he would wear a mask to help contain the spread of the coronavirus. Unlike many of his top officials, Lopez Obrador has shunned face masks throughout the pandemic.

  • Most Americans to qualify for stimulus payments, as Democrats reject calls to limit eligibility

    Those who earned up to $75,000 in annual income would be eligible for $1,400 stimulus payments in proposed plan, in a rejection of calls for more 'targeted' cheques

  • Democrats' coronavirus relief plan would raise minimum wage to $9.50 this year

    House Democrats are working on details of their graduated plan to raise the U.S. federal minimum wage to $15/hour. Democrats are looking to include the first hike to the federal minimum wage since 2009 in President Biden's coronavirus relief bill. They plan to revise the proposal Tuesday, but it so far includes a quick increase from the current minimum wage of $7.25 to $9.50 within the year. It will then grow annually until hitting $15 in 2025. Meanwhile the tipped minimum wage of $2.50 will rise to $4.95 this year, and again increase until it matches the federal wage. The youth subminimum wage paid to people under 20 will also end up matching the regular minimum wage by 2027, and permits to pay subminimum wage will no longer be distributed. Here's the details on the federal min wage increase Democrats are going to try to include in their covid relief bill: Raised to $9.50 w/in 3 months; $15 by 2025, indexed thereafter. Tipped wage disappears by 2027.Via House @EdLaborCmte, which is marking up tomorrow: pic.twitter.com/aNMnTdgJf0 — Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) February 8, 2021 A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released Monday found that raising the minimum wage to $15/hour by 2024 would increase paychecks for 17 million Americans, or 10 percent of the workforce. It would also lift 900,000 people out of poverty, but cost 1.4 million jobs, particularly for "younger, less educated people." Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a top proponent of the $15 minimum wage, quickly disputed some of the report's findings. The CBO has demonstrated that increasing the minimum wage would have a direct and substantial impact on the federal budget. What that means is that we can clearly raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour under the rules of budget reconciliation. pic.twitter.com/YyTEYkOugX — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 8, 2021 More stories from theweek.comWhat's the point of Trump's second impeachment trial?One of Sarah Huckabee Sanders' main Arkansas gubernatorial rivals just dropped out of the race5 brutally funny cartoons about America's bungled vaccine rollout

  • Dog mauls 3-year-old at restaurant, Texas police say. Now the pet owner is charged

    The child received 14 stitches after she was transported to a hospital, authorities say.

  • Catholic schools in US hit by unprecedented enrollment drop

    Enrollment in Roman Catholic schools in the United States dropped 6.4% from the previous academic year amid the pandemic and economic stresses — the largest single-year decline in at least five decades, Catholic education officials reported Monday. Among the factors were the closure or consolidation of more than 200 schools and the difficulty for many parents of paying tuition fees that average more than $5,000 for grades K-8 and more than $10,000 for secondary schools, according to the National Catholic Educational Association. John Reyes, the NCEA’s executive director for operational vitality, said the pandemic has been an "accelerant” for longstanding challenges facing Catholic education.

  • UK calls for reset with EU and 'refinement' of Brexit deal

    Britain called on Monday for a reset in relations with the European Union and a refinement of a Brexit deal covering trade with Northern Ireland, saying trust was eroded when Brussels attempted to restrict COVID-19 vaccine supplies. Relations between Brussels and London strained by years of bruising Brexit talks took a turn for the worse last month when the EU threatened to use emergency measures to stop coronavirus vaccines going from the bloc into Northern Ireland. To avoid creating a hard border on the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland remained within the EU's single market for goods under the Brexit deal, effectively creating a frontier within the United Kingdom.

  • Liz Cheney Responds to Wyoming Republicans’ Censure, Says GOP ‘Should Not be Embracing’ Trump

    Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, on Sunday defended her vote to impeach President Trump and responded to the Wyoming Republican party’s decision to censure her, saying the GOP should not embrace the former president. “The oath that I took to the Constitution compelled me to vote for impeachment. And it doesn’t bend to partisanship, it doesn’t bend to political pressure. It’s the most important oath that we take,” Cheney told host Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. “I will stand by that and I will continue to fight for all of the issues that matter so much to us all across Wyoming,” she added. The Wyoming GOP on Saturday voted to censure Cheney, the third-ranking member of House Republican leadership, over her decision to join Democrats in voting for impeachment last month. “I think people all across Wyoming understand and recognize that our duty is to the Constitution,” Cheney remarked on her state party’s censure. On Wednesday, House Republicans voted to keep Cheney in GOP leadership as House Republican Conference chair in a 145–61 vote after she fended off attacks from fellow Republicans over her impeachment vote. During a closed-door GOP conference meeting, she defended her impeachment vote as a vote of conscience. Wallace asked Cheney whether Trump should remain a standard-bearer for the Republican party, to which she responded, “We should not be embracing the former president.” She also called out members of her party for failing to address conspiracies and misinformation about the 2020 presidential election, emphasizing that acknowledging the truth is essential for winning future elections. “We need to make sure that we as Republicans are the party of truth, that we are being honest about what really did happen in 2020 so we actually have a chance to win in 2022 and win the White House back in 2024,” Cheney said.

  • Dominion spokesman: 'Mike Lindell is begging to be sued, and at some point, we may well oblige him'

    "In just a few weeks, lawsuits and legal threats from a pair of obscure election technology companies have achieved what years of advertising boycotts, public pressure campaigns, and liberal outrage could not: curbing the flow of misinformation in right-wing media," Michael Grynbaum writes at The New York Times. Dominion Voting Systems has sued Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell for defamation, seeking $1.3 billion in damages, and has threatened to sue Fox News and other conservative media outlets. Rival voting technology firm Smartmatic sued Fox News for $2.7 billion. CNN's Brian Stelter asked Dominion spokesman Michael Steel about the lawsuits on Sunday, including if any new ones are imminent. "I'm not here to make news on that front, but let me say this: Mike Lindell is begging to be sued, and at some point, we may well oblige him," Steel said. Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, paid for three hours of airtime Friday on One America News Network to broadcast a show he produced about his voting conspiracy theories. OANN kicked it off with an extraordinary disclaimer. Lindell tweeted Saturday night that he might sue Dominion, a threat Steel laughed off on CNN. Steel, a former spokesman for House Speakers Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and John Boehner (R-Ohio), also said Dominion suing Fox News is "definitely a possibility." A media law professor, Lynn Oberlander, told Stelter that the disclaimers Fox News, Newsmax, OANN, and other outlets have been showing about vote fraud claims might actually protect them from the defamation lawsuits. They are "not the typical playbook for right-wing media, which prides itself on pugilism and delights in ignoring the liberals who have long complained about its content," Grynbaum writes. But like it or not, "litigation represents a new front in the war against misinformation, a scourge that has reshaped American politics, deprived citizens of common facts, and paved the way for the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol." Defamation lawsuits "shouldn't be the way to govern speech in our country," attorney Roberta Kaplan told the Times. "It's not an efficient or productive way to promote truth-telling or quality journalistic standards through litigating in court. But I think it's gotten to the point where the problem is so bad right now there's virtually no other way to do it." Fox News said in a statement it's "proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend" itself against Smartmatic's "meritless lawsuit." More stories from theweek.comWhat's the point of Trump's second impeachment trial?One of Sarah Huckabee Sanders' main Arkansas gubernatorial rivals just dropped out of the race5 brutally funny cartoons about America's bungled vaccine rollout

  • 200 missing and feared dead after glacier collapse in India

    “This looks very much like a climate change event as the glaciers are melting,” a leading scientist said.

  • Senate confirms former Obama chief of staff to oversee VA

    The Senate has overwhelmingly voted to confirm President Joe Biden’s pick to oversee the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Senate confirmed Denis McDonough as VA secretary by a vote of 87-7 on Monday. McDonough was President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.

  • Red dye water floods Indonesian village

    Some villagers were seen walking through the red water, while some complained about the inconvenience it had caused.Pekalongan is a city known for manufacturing batik, a traditional Indonesian method of using wax to resist water-based dyes to depict patterns and drawings, usually on fabric.It is not uncommon for rivers in Pekalongan to turn different colors. Bright green water covered another village north of the city during a flood last month.The section head for disaster mitigation and preparedness of the Pekalongan Disaster Mitigation Agency, Dimas Arga Yudha, confirmed that the photos being circulated were real.

  • Syria 'finds' body of famed archaeologist beheaded by Islamic State

    Syrian authorities believe they have found the remains of a famed archaeologist who was beheaded by Islamic State militants in Palmyra in 2015, reportedly after refusing to divulge the location of the site’s hidden treasures. One of three bodies recently recovered from an area outside the Palmyra was thought to be that of Khaled al-Asaad, the longtime director of antiquities in the ancient city, state news outlet Sana reported on Sunday. In August 2015 Asaad was publicly executed in a local square in Palmyra, months after IS militants overran the strategic oasis city in Syria’s eastern desert. The crime made global headlines as the urbane Asaad had served as the custodian of the Unesco world heritage site for over half a century, receiving numerous awards and accolades in Syria and abroad. The octogenarian antiquities scholar was born in Palmyra and had remained in the city after the IS takeover to attempt to preserve its heritage. IS militants detained Asaad for over a month before his murder, his family said. The group was earning millions from looting and smuggling artefacts at the time and Syria’s antiquities minister said they had killed him after trying to extract information about the whereabouts of the city’s hidden treasure. The fate of Asaad’s own mortal remains has been something of a mystery since then. Following his death, unverified images circulated online showing a dismembered corpse supposedly belonging to Asaad hanging from a traffic light, with a handwritten sign accusing him of being director of Palmyra’s “idols”. But other sources later suggested his body was found tied to one of an ancient pillar in the ruins of Palmyra’s central square. Syrian forces recaptured Palmyra until March 2016 with the help of Russian air strikes. But that December IS fighters managed to recapture the strategic oasis city in a surprise assault and it was not finally liberated until March 2017. The Sana report did not give further information about the recently recovered bodies but said their identity would be confirmed by DNA analysis.

  • AOC refuses to apologise to Ted Cruz for claiming he tried to have her killed

    House Republicans have called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to make Ms Ocasio-Cortez retract the comments

  • Yale Grad Student and U.S. Army Veteran Gunned Down in the Street Near University

    An Asian American graduate student from Yale University was killed in a shooting in New Haven, Connecticut over the weekend. The incident, which is under investigation as a homicide, occurred near the intersection of Nash and Lawrence Streets at around 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 6. BREAKING: Fatal shooting Nash & Lawrence Streets #NewHaven .@WTNH pic.twitter.com/k7qMkF6gtk — CTLaSalle Blanks (@CTLaSalleBlanks) February 7, 2021 Kevin Jiang, 26, was a graduate student at the Yale School of the Environment (YSE).

  • Family offers $10,000 reward for information on whereabouts of UC Berkeley student missing since September

    The 19-year-old UC Berkeley student has been missing since September 30, 2020.

  • South Dakota judge rejects amendment legalizing marijuana

    A South Dakota judge on Monday struck down a voter-approved constitutional amendment that legalized recreational marijuana after Gov. Kristi Noem's administration challenged it. Circuit Judge Christina Klinger ruled the measure approved by voters in November violated the state's requirement that constitutional amendments deal with just one subject and would have created broad changes to state government. “Amendment A is a revision as it has far-reaching effects on the basic nature of South Dakota’s governmental system,” she wrote in her ruling.