America’s foremost political scholar Jon Stewart has announced his official endorsement for the 2016 presidential election. Is it Hillary? Jeb? Taylor Swift? Nope, it’s Senator Melvin Dickpictweet. Hey, I think he DMed me once.
D.A. says sheriff’s deputies were “justified” in fatally shooting Andrew Brown Jr. during an attempted arrest last month
District Attorney Andrew Womble said Tuesday that the deputies who fatally shot Andrew Brown Jr. last month were justified in using deadly force, citing a North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation probe.
Womble said the shooting, “while tragic, was justified because Mr. Brown’s actions caused three deputies to reasonably believe it was necessary to use deadly force to protect themselves and others.”
Brown, a 42-year-old Black man, was fatally shot by Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies in Elizabeth City on April 21 when they attempted to serve him with an arrest warrant, according to the sheriff’s office.
… Womble … has said Brown’s moving vehicle made contact with law enforcement officers twice before the deputies opened fire. But the Brown family and their attorneys, who have watched body-camera and dash-cam videos of the shooting, say Brown was not a threat to the officers.
“It was absolutely, unequivocally unjustified,” attorney Chance Lynch said last week. “Our legal team is more committed now to pursue justice … because what we saw today was unconstitutional and it was unjustifiable.”
Andrew Giuliani bets that New Yorkers are hungry for more political scandal
The son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will announce Tuesday that he’s officially running for the Republican primary in 2022 — and is confident he can not only knock out veteran GOP competition but then go on to take out scandal-ridden Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“I’m a politician out of the womb. It’s in my DNA,” Giuliani, 35, told The Post, referring to his childhood as the son of a larger than life Big Apple mayor.
“Giuliani vs. Cuomo. Holy smokes. Its Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier. We can sell tickets at Madison Square Garden,” he said, referring to the famous 1971 heavyweight title prizefight.
Giuliani, 35, who served for four years as a White House aide to former President Donald Trump, insisted he is qualified to run — despite having never before run for a public office — and that he has the best chance to topple embattled three-term incumbent Cuomo.
The Supreme Court has taken up a case that could lead to a rollback of abortion rights
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up a major abortion case next term concerning a controversial Mississippi law that banned most abortions after 15 weeks, rekindling a potentially major challenge to Roe v. Wade at the majority conservative court.
Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, which then-Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican, signed into law in 2018, made exceptions only for medical emergencies or cases in which there is a “severe fetal abnormality,” but not for instances of rape or incest. A federal judge in Mississippi struck down the law in November 2018, and the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in December 2019.
After being rescheduled for the court’s consideration in conference over a dozen times, the case could present a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide prior to viability, which can occur at around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
It will be a blockbuster case, with the justices revisiting an issue that still deeply divides the country some fifty years after the landmark opinion, and with a ruling potentially coming in the middle of the 2022 midterm elections.
Most American parents will start receiving monthly payments from the government in July
The Biden administration announced Monday that roughly 39 million American families will begin receiving direct cash payments in July under a new child benefit created by Democrats’ coronavirus relief bill.
The Internal Revenue Service will on July 15 start delivering a monthly payment of $300 per child under 6 and $250 per child older than 6 for those who qualify. The monthly benefits will be deposited directly in most families’ bank accounts on the 15th of every month – or the closest day to that date, if the 15th falls on a holiday or weekend – for the rest of the year, without any action required.
… Biden administration officials estimate that households representing more than 65 million children – or 88 percent of all U.S. kids nationwide – will begin receiving the benefit through direct deposit, paper checks, or debit cards. Of that population, roughly 80 percent of that population will be sent the cash directly via direct deposit, administration officials told reporters on a call Sunday. High-income parents will receive a smaller benefit or none at all, depending on how much they make. The credit diminishes for individuals with adjusted gross income of more than $75,000, as well as couples earning more than $150,000.
Building housing multiple media offices leveled in Gaza
An Israeli airstrike targeted and destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed offices of The Associated Press and other media outlets hours after another Israeli air raid on a densely populated refugee camp killed at least 10 Palestinians from an extended family, mostly children, on Saturday. The strike on the high-rise came nearly an hour after the military ordered people to evacuate the 12-story building, which also housed Al-Jazeera, other offices and residential apartments. The strike brought down the entire structure, which collapsed in a gigantic cloud of dust. There was no immediate explanation for why it was attacked.
The earlier Israeli airstrike on the Gaza City refugee camp was the deadliest single strike of the current conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas. Both sides are pressing for an advantage as cease-fire efforts gather strength. The latest outburst of violence started in Jerusalem and spread across the region over the past week, with Jewish-Arab clashes and rioting in mixed cities of Israel. There were also widespread Palestinian protests Friday in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces shot and killed 11 people.
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