May 2024

Unbiased headline news for Monday May 20, 2024 – At least 11 casualties were documented in assaults across Ukraine’s conflict-ravaged northeastern regions as Russia advanced its renewed offensive operations. Within Kharkiv oblast, the focal point of the offensive thrust, the regional prosecutor’s office reported six fatalities and twenty-seven injuries from a Russian strike targeting the outskirts of Kharkiv city itself. Russia initiated an offensive drive in Kharkiv oblast late last week. — An Israeli airstrike aimed at a residential structure in a central Gaza refugee camp claimed at least 27 lives, predominantly women and children, according to a local hospital’s account, the Associated Press conveyed. Sunday’s bombing unfolded as clashes intensified across northern Gaza while Israel’s leadership voiced disunity over governance of the Palestinian territory after the war’s eight-month duration. It also coincided with a U.S. envoy’s regional visit, meeting various leaders through midweek. — An exhaustive law enforcement probe has ascertained that Boeing whistleblower John Barnett’s demise was a suicide, per documents released by the Charleston Police Department. Barnett had been in Charleston, South Carolina, testifying in his whistleblower lawsuit against the embattled aerospace corporation when on March 9 he was discovered deceased from a gunshot wound inside his vehicle in the hotel parking lot where he was staying. He was 62 years old. Police documents indicate officials have accepted suicide as Barnett’s cause of death. — Law enforcement in Savannah, Georgia, is investigating a shooting incident that injured 11 individuals in the city’s downtown district on Saturday night. The shooting erupted shortly before midnight in Ellis Square, a prominent landmark of Savannah’s historic quarter and a popular tourist draw. Multiple precincts responded at 11:55 p.m. to reports of gunfire in the area, the Savannah Police Department stated in a news release. — Six fatalities resulted from a two-vehicle collision in Idaho on Saturday that involved a large passenger van, authorities stated. Ten others sustained injuries in the crash on U.S. Highway 20 in Idaho Falls and were transported to local hospitals, Idaho State Police said in a statement. An eastbound pickup truck crossed the centerline around 5:30 a.m. and struck a westbound passenger van head-on, police reported. The van’s driver and five passengers succumbed to their injuries at the scene. — A child was among the three victims killed when an Amtrak passenger train collided with a pickup truck, officials confirmed. The deceased included a 6-year-old boy, a 66-year-old woman, and a 69-year-old man, North Tonawanda Police Department Captain Daryl Truty stated. None of the Amtrak crew members or its 21 passengers sustained injuries in the crash. — The individual charged with assaulting actor Steve Buscemi on a Midtown Manhattan street has been held in jail on bond in New York, prosecutors revealed. Police stated the 66-year-old actor, renowned for roles in “Boardwalk Empire,” “Fargo,” and other performances, was walking in Manhattan on May 8 when an unknown assailant punched him in the face. Police arrested a 50-year-old man Friday in connection with the assault, three days after releasing a photo of the suspect. — The host of a news conference about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition battle dryly welcomed journalists last week to the quote “millionth” press briefing on his court case. Deborah Bonetti, director of the Foreign Press Association, was only half-joking. Assange’s legal saga has dragged on for well over a decade, but it could conclude in the U.K. as soon as Monday. Julian Assange faces a hearing in London’s High Court that could result in his extradition to the U.S. to face espionage charges.

Unbiased headline news for Saturday May 18, 2024 – Thousands of demonstrators gathered for a protest in the nation’s capital on Saturday, voicing their support for Palestinian rights and demanding an immediate cessation of Israeli military operations in Gaza. The event commemorated the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, the Arabic term for “catastrophe,” which refers to the exodus of around 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from what is now Israel during the state’s establishment in 1948. In an unusual move, the rally organizers did not apply for any permits from the National Park Service. — The State Department is issuing a warning to American citizens traveling abroad about “the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations, or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests.” The worldwide alert cautions Americans about the potential for violence targeting LGBTQ+ individuals. It urges travelers to remain vigilant in locations frequented by tourists, “including Pride celebrations and venues frequented by LGBTQI+ persons.” The alert is reportedly in response to threats made by ISIS militants against Pride events. — Three lives were lost in western New York after their vehicle was struck by a northbound Amtrak train, fire officials confirmed on Saturday. Amtrak Train 281, traveling from New York to Niagara Falls, collided with a vehicle obstructing the track, an Amtrak spokesperson confirmed. “There have been no reported injuries to the 21 passengers or crew onboard.” — The man convicted of breaking into former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and attacking her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer, has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. “The Pelosi family couldn’t be prouder of their pop and his tremendous courage in saving his own life on the night of the attack and in testifying in the case,” the Pelosi family said in a statement on Friday. — Heavy seasonal rains have caused flash floods in Afghanistan, resulting in the loss of at least 68 lives, according to Taliban officials on Saturday, who noted that the death toll was based on preliminary reports. Afghanistan has been experiencing unusually heavy seasonal rainfall. In the severely affected western province of Ghor, 50 casualties were reported, said Abdul Wahid Hamas, the spokesman for the provincial governor. He added that the province has suffered significant financial losses due to the damage inflicted on thousands of homes and properties. — At least five lives were lost when a powerful wind storm swept through Houston, officials confirmed. The National Weather Service in Houston determined this to be a derecho event, based on the intensity and path length of the storm. A derecho is a powerful wind storm that produces straight-line winds capable of causing substantial damage. — A Washington state trooper fatally shot a man wielding a hammer who had attacked state Department of Transportation workers along Interstate 5 north of Seattle, according to law enforcement officials. State patrol troopers responded to a report of a road rage incident on the shoulder of northbound I-5 in Everett, the Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team said in a news release. The team investigates police use of force incidents. One of the Department of Transportation contract workers was injured and is expected to survive. — Dabney Coleman, the character actor renowned for portraying villains like the chauvinistic boss in “9 to 5” and the nasty TV director in “Tootsie,” has passed away at the age of 92. Coleman breathed his last on Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, as confirmed by his daughter, Quincy Coleman, in a statement to The Associated Press. She said he “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely.” —

Unbiased headline news for Thursday May 16, 2024 – The Supreme Court will permit Louisiana to utilize a congressional map comprising a second district where Black voters make up the majority for the 2024 elections. This Supreme Court ruling represents a triumph for Democrats, who are poised to secure an additional seat in Louisiana under the redrawn congressional boundaries. It further marks the latest development in a protracted legal battle over the state’s House district lines, which commenced following the 2020 Census. — The U.S. military has commenced the positioning of components for a temporary pier, which will facilitate the transportation of humanitarian aid into Gaza from the Mediterranean Sea. Last week witnessed the completion of the two components, the floating platform and the causeway, though inclement weather had delayed their final placement. With the components now being situated, the temporary pier could become operational in the imminent days, potentially as early as Thursday, according to a defense official. — The parliament of Georgia has ratified a law that critics perceive as a threat to media freedom and the country’s aspirations to join the European Union. Tens of thousands of protesters brought a major intersection in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to a standstill. The law would mandate media outlets, non-governmental organizations, and other non-profits to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad. — President Biden and former President Donald Trump will engage in presidential debates on June 27th and September 10th. Plans for the debates materialized swiftly after the president’s campaign expressed in a letter his willingness to debate his Republican opponent twice before the November election. This prompted a series of competing proposals and social media posts from the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees. — Three individuals have lost their lives after a small plane crashed in Tennessee on Wednesday, according to authorities. Around noon on Wednesday, a 911 caller reported an explosion in Williamson County, believed to have been a potential plane crash, authorities stated. The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed that a Beech V35 aircraft had crashed near Franklin. While the cause of the crash remains unclear, “it does appear that the plane did break up in the air,” Chief Deputy Mark Elrod said. — A barge collided with a bridge pillar in Galveston, Texas, resulting in an oil spill in waters near busy shipping channels. The impact dislodged sections of the bridge, which connects Galveston to Pelican Island, causing them to tumble onto the barge and necessitating the closure of a stretch of waterway to facilitate cleanup operations. The accident knocked one man off the vessel and into the water, but he was swiftly recovered and unharmed. — The iconic Mirage hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip will cease operations this summer. The closure on July 17 will pave the way for major renovations and construction on the 80-acre property, which is scheduled to reopen in 2027 as the Hard Rock Las Vegas, featuring a hotel tower resembling a guitar soaring nearly 700 feet (about 210 meters) above the heart of the Strip. — Walgreens Boots Alliance has announced plans to sell its own generic version of the overdose reversal drug Narcan. Narcan is administered as a nasal spray, and its active ingredient — naloxone — can rapidly restore breathing if someone is experiencing an opioid overdose, provided it is administered promptly. The nasal spray became available in fall 2023 at pharmacies, drugstores, and grocery stores. —

Unbiased headline news for Wednesday May 15, 2024 – The Federal Reserve Chairman said “it may take longer than expected” for inflation to be brought under control as he gave no indication of an imminent interest rate reduction. “We did not anticipate this path to be a smooth one,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell remarked at an annual Foreign Bankers’ Association meeting held in Amsterdam. Powell acknowledged that the United States’ inflation figures “were higher than I believe anybody expected” as he maintained that future steps should involve “being patient and allowing restrictive policy to take effect.” — European Union member nations adopted groundbreaking reform of the bloc’s migration and asylum system with new regulations designed to process arrivals in an orderly and efficient manner, standardize procedures, and alleviate pressure on front-line countries. The 10 new laws adopted by a European Council meeting in Brussels include triaging of arrivals at the border, enhanced data collection to inform policy and gain control over migration, a standard asylum procedure for quick initial assessments, and a new mandatory border procedure for well-defined cases. — The Justice Department stated that it is evaluating whether to prosecute aircraft manufacturer Boeing after federal investigators accused the corporation of violating the terms of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement. Federal prosecutors wrote that Boeing “breached its obligations” under the deferred prosecution agreement, in part by allegedly failing to “design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations.” — A group of prominent TikTok users filed a lawsuit against the federal government over a new law that would force the sale of the widely popular video-sharing app. The eight users, who collectively have millions of followers on TikTok, argued that the law signed by President Biden last month violates their First Amendment rights by threatening to shut down a communication medium that has become a prevalent part of American life. — Multiple individuals lost their lives, including a woman who was nine months pregnant, after severe storms swept through the South, according to officials. Three people were killed in Louisiana — including the pregnant woman and her unborn child — due to severe weather on Monday, officials said. The pregnant woman was killed when a tree fell on her mobile home in Port Allen in West Baton Rouge Parish, the Louisiana Department of Health stated. — Eight individuals were killed when a bus carrying approximately 53 farmworkers was struck by a truck and overturned on West Highway 40 in central Florida, according to state officials. The truck driver, Bryan Maclean Howard, was arrested on eight counts of driving under the influence-manslaughter, the Florida Highway Patrol said. Thirty-eight people were injured, eight of whom are in critical condition and 30 who have non-life-threatening injuries, according to Marion County Fire Rescue. — A Maryland woman accused of plotting to carry out attacks on multiple energy substations surrounding Baltimore pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and firearms charges, court records show. Sarah Beth Clendaniel, of Catonsville, was charged last year with conspiring with a Florida-based founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen to carry out the attacks, in what prosecutors described as a racism-fueled plot to spark mass chaos in the majority-Black city. — Dozens of Red Lobster locations across the U.S. are facing closure. Restaurant liquidator TAGeX Brands announced this week that it would be auctioning off the equipment of over 50 Red Lobster locations that were recently closed as part of the seafood chain’s “footprint rationalization.” The locations span across more than 20 states.

Unbiased headline news for Tuesday May 14, 2024 – The United States urged Iran to cease its unprecedented transfer of weaponry to Yemen’s Houthi rebels, enabling their fighters to conduct reckless attacks on ships in the Red Sea and elsewhere. U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the U.N. Security Council that for progress toward ending Yemen’s civil war, it must collectively call out Iran for its destabilizing role and insist that it cannot hide behind the Houthis. — Humanitarian workers struggled to distribute dwindling food and other supplies to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by what Israel claims is a limited military operation in Rafah. The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees stated that 360,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah over the past week, out of 1.3 million who were sheltering there before the operation commenced. Most had already escaped fighting elsewhere during the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas. — North Korea, already one of the world’s most repressive regimes, is steadily adding a slate of digital surveillance tools to further control its citizens, according to a U.S.-based North Korea expert. From smartphones to streaming devices to traffic cameras, technology is becoming more prevalent in everyday North Korean life, Stimson Center senior fellow Marty Williams told reporters at a briefing in Seoul. And Kim Jong Un’s regime is utilizing these new digital tools to spy on its citizens more effectively than ever before. — U.S. airlines are suing to block the Biden administration from mandating greater transparency over fees that the carriers charge their passengers. The airlines argue that a new rule would confuse consumers by providing them with too much information during the ticket-buying process. The U.S. Transportation Department stated Monday it will vigorously defend the rule against what it termed “hidden junk fees.” American, Delta, United and three other carriers, along with their industry trade group, sued the Transportation Department in a federal appeals court. — President Joe Biden announced new tariffs Tuesday on Chinese EVs, semiconductors, batteries, solar cells, steel and aluminum. The tariffs on EVs will rise to 100%, quadrupling the current tariff of 25%, according to a source familiar with the tariffs. This is the latest move by the Biden administration to prevent China from undercutting U.S. companies and threatening U.S. manufacturing jobs. — A Missouri man has pleaded guilty to crashing a U-Haul into a White House security barrier in May 2023. Sai Kandula, 20, wearing an orange jail jumpsuit and speaking softly from the podium of a Washington, D.C., federal courtroom, acknowledged he had deliberately slammed into a security bollard in a failed attempt to seize power at the White House and install a dictatorship aligned with Nazi beliefs. — Melinda French Gates will step down as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “This is not a decision I came to lightly,” French Gates posted on the X platform on Monday. “I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I built together and of the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequities around the world.” She praised the foundation’s CEO, Mark Suzman, and the foundation’s board of trustees. — Grammy-winning saxophonist David Sanborn passed away Sunday, his representative confirmed in a statement. He was 78. “It is with sad and heavy hearts that we convey to you the loss of internationally renowned, 6 time Grammy Award-winning, saxophonist, David Sanborn,” read a post on Sanborn’s official Facebook page, announcing that he died “after an extended battle with prostate cancer with complications.”

Unbiased headline news for Monday May 13, 2024 – Russian President Vladimir Putin has reshuffled his national security team, with the Kremlin announcing the replacement of his defense minister. Andrei R. Belousov, an economist who has served as deputy prime minister and the economic development minister, is Putin’s choice to be the new defense chief. If approved, Belousov will take over from Sergei Shoigu, who will remain in the cabinet to head the country’s security council, as per the Kremlin’s statement. — Over the weekend, a 10-story residential building in Belgorod, Russia, was struck by a Ukrainian missile, according to a local governor. The death toll has risen to 13 people, as reported by the Emergency Situations Ministry. “The city of Belgorod and the Belgorod district came under a massive attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” said Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region, in a post on Telegram. — Israel has detained journalists whom authorities incorrectly believed were working for Al Jazeera. The news broadcaster banned from the country for its coverage of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war in Gaza. The arrests were revealed by The New Arab, an English-language news website covering Middle Eastern affairs and based in London. It is the sister publication of Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, an Arabic-language news outlet. — Flooding in northern Afghanistan’s Baghlan and Takhar provinces have forced hundreds of families from their homes and caused at least 150 deaths, according to Taliban and U.N. officials. Abdul Mateen Qani, a representative of the Interior Ministry, told the BBC that Baghlan province has seen the most deaths, with at least 131, while another 20 have died in Takhar. The Borka district in Baghlan was particularly hard hit in the weeks of heavy rainfall, trapping more than 200 people inside their homes. — A strong earthquake shook the border of Mexico and Guatemala early Sunday, driving frightened residents into the streets. The temblor struck just before 6 a.m. near the Mexican border town of Suchiate, where a river by the same name divides the two countries. The epicenter was just off the Pacific coast, 10 miles west-southwest of Brisas Barra de Suchiate, where the river empties into the sea. — The family of a Black man who was killed after he was hit by an unmarked police car in Michigan spoke out after body camera footage of the incident was released by investigators. Michigan State Police said it handed over its investigative report and all evidence to the state attorney general’s office concerning the April 17 death of Samuel Sterling, who was being pursued by officers in Kentwood for outstanding warrants. — Three Atlanta police officers were shot while responding to a call Saturday evening, officials said. The unidentified officers were called to Desoto Avenue SW shortly after 5 p.m., about a call of a man with a gun, Atlanta PD Chief Darin Schierbaum told reporters. The officers encountered the suspect, who was allegedly armed with a handgun and knife, when shots rang out, Schierbaum said. — Workers at the first Apple Store to unionize have now also authorized a first strike against the tech giant’s retail operations. Apple Store workers in Towson, Maryland, voted late Saturday to authorize a strike, according to a statement from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, which represents the workers. No date was set for the strike.