NEWS

The latest polls show that President Joe Biden is narrowing former President Donald Trump’s lead, and in some key states, Biden is even taking a slim lead. A variety of reputable polling organizations and media outlets have reported these same findings. Trump’s advantage is shrinking, and Biden has managed to overtake him in certain instances. However, it’s important to note that the election is still many months away, and these poll results are likely to change significantly by the time voters head to the polls. The fluctuating poll numbers have prompted a familiar response from Trump. As he did in the 2016 and 2020 elections, the former president is now ramping up his “election propaganda” rhetoric. When the polls showed Trump with a comfortable lead, he remained relatively quiet about the upcoming election, aside from his continued complaints about the 2020 contest. Now that the numbers are shifting in Biden’s favor, Trump has returned to making radical, unsubstantiated claims. Most notably, he has accused the Biden administration of allowing undocumented immigrants to cross the border so they can vote for the Democratic candidate. Trump even held a bizarre press conference with House Speaker Mike Johnson to spread these lies. This is yet another example of Trump’s tendency to escalate his rhetoric and spread disinformation as the electoral landscape changes. His own words encapsulate this pattern: “If I win, the election was the best ever. If I lose, the election was corrupt.” It remains to be seen how the poll numbers will evolve in the coming months and how Trump will continue to respond. Voters will need to be vigilant in separating fact from fiction and relying on authoritative sources as they make their decisions. Here are some links to polls results as of the time of this article (since MAGA doesn’t believe anything against Trump): https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-donald-trump-polls-presidential-election-2024-1888914 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/13/us/politics/trump-biden-times-siena-poll.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/13/politics/presidential-race-near-even-split-biden-trump/index.html https://turnto10.com/news/nation-world/2024-presidential-election-republican-party-shifting-voter-demographics-recent-poll-president-joe-biden-donald-trump-decline-black-and-hispanic-voters https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3895

Unbiased headline news for Tuesday April 16, 2024 – Russia and Ukraine traded blame before the United Nations Security Council for the attacks on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said have put the world “dangerously close to a nuclear accident.” Without attributing blame, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said his agency has been able to confirm three attacks against the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant since April 7. “These reckless attacks must cease immediately,” he told the Security Council. — The White House carefully avoided weighing in on any possible Israeli response to Iran’s attack over the weekend but also stressed the U.S. didn’t want to see further escalation in the region. “This is an Israeli decision to make — whether and how they’ll respond to what Iran did on Saturday,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at the daily press briefing. “And we’re going to leave it squarely with them.” — “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez was given the maximum sentence of 18 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Gutierrez’s attorneys asked for probation in a sentencing memorandum filed last week, citing her “complete lack of prior criminal history” and “relative youth.” Prosecutors meanwhile requested a sentence of 18 months with the designation of serious violent offender due to her “extreme recklessness” while working as an armorer on the “Rust” set in New Mexico. — Rudy Giuliani has lost his bid to dismiss the 148 million dollar defamation judgment against him from late last year. The judgment was won by former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss. The mother and daughter were accused by Giuliani of committing election fraud while the two were counting ballots in Georgia’s Fulton County on Election Day in 2020. — A divided Supreme Court allowed Idaho to proceed with broad enforcement of a new law aimed at prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors. The decision overrides two lower federal courts that had upheld an injunction against the law as litigation over its constitutionality continues. The decision was backed by all six of the high court’s conservative members. — A couple who owned a Colorado funeral home where authorities last year discovered 190 decaying bodies were indicted on federal charges that they misspent nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds on vacations, cosmetic surgery, jewelry and other personal expenses, according to court documents unsealed Monday. The indictment reaffirms accusations from state prosecutors that Jon and Carie Hallford gave families dry concrete instead of cremated ashes and alleges the couple buried the wrong body on two occasions. The couple also collected more than $130,000 from families for cremations and burial services they never provided, the indictment said. — NASA confirmed that a mystery object that crashed through the roof of a Florida home last month was a chunk of space junk from equipment discarded at the International Space Station. The cylindrical object that tore through the home in Naples on March 8 was subsequently taken to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for analysis. The space agency said it was a metal support used to mount old batteries on a cargo pallet for disposal. — Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban has revealed how much he owes in taxes to the IRS. Cuban has to pay a total of $275,900,000, according to a social media post from Monday. Cuban had shared a $288 million estimate on Sunday, after being asked by a writer if he or his “corporations pay more than the required taxes in order to pay your fair share.” Cuban replied that he pays what he owes. “This country has done so much for me, I’m proud to pay my taxes every single year,” Cuban said.

Unbiased headline news for Monday April 15, 2024 – The Israeli Defense Force has eased homefront command guidelines after closing schools and limiting gatherings ahead of Iran’s missile strike Saturday. “It was decided to restore educational activities across Israel,” the IDF said in a statement early Monday, local time. The changes went into effect at midnight, according to Israel’s Home Front Command. Communities near the northern border and the Gaza Strip can also resume educational activities “in subject with restrictions.” — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that during a Sunday call between President Joe Biden and congressional leaders there was “consensus” that Congress needs to act quickly to send aid to both Israel and Ukraine. Schumer said at a news conference in New York that “hopefully” something can be accomplished this coming week to aid both countries. Earlier Sunday, Biden spoke to Senate Majority Leader Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. — In the aftermath of the unprecedented airstrikes by Iran against Israel, President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S. will not participate in a reprisal strike on Iran. Mr. Biden, who spoke with Netanyahu on Saturday, condemned the Iranian assault while making clear that the U.S. had “helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles,” according to a White House House statement. Mr. Biden said he reaffirmed to Netanyahu the U.S.’s “ironclad commitment” to Israel’s security. — Four people are dead after the vehicle they were traveling in was struck by a train in rural Idaho Saturday, authorities said. Idaho State Police said the pickup was carrying a 38-year-old man, 36-year-old woman and two children, who were all from Nampa. The vehicle was traveling on a private road that intersected a railroad crossing, but the driver failed to yield and the pickup was struck by a train, state police said. — One child was killed, and ten other people, including three other children, were injured in a shooting in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood Saturday evening, police said. The shooting happened around 9:20 p.m. near West 52nd Street and South Damen Avenue, Chicago police said. The victims were at a family gathering when the shooting happened. Officers responded to a ShotSpotter alert of 18 rounds fired and found multiple people shot on the block, police said. — Four people were arrested and charged with murder and kidnapping over the weekend in connection with the disappearances of two Oklahoma women. Veronica Butler, 27; and Jilian Kelley, 39, of Hugoton, Kansas, went to pick up Butler’s children for a birthday party in Kansas but never showed up. On Saturday, Oklahoma authorities said they arrested and charged four people. They were charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree. — Authorities are searching for a missing crew member who went overboard Friday from a Holland America cruise ship. Deputies with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office Port Everglades District responded around 11:18 a.m. Saturday to a report of a missing crew member on the Rotterdam cruise ship. The ship was sailing eastward along the Florida Keys at the tail end of a six-night Caribbean cruise when the incident happened. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed two controversial bills that he says will buffer law enforcement from “anti-police activists.” SB 184 sets a 25-foot “no-go” zone around police and first responders who are “engaged in the lawful performance of a legal duty.” People in violation of the rule will receive a verbal warning. Failure to comply will result in a second-degree misdemeanor.

U.S. officials confirmed Israel’s announcement that Iran’s retaliatory strike has begun. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps earlier said that it launched extensive missile and drone operations against targets in Israel, according to Tasnim, the Iranian news-agency affiliated with the branch of Iran’s armed forces.

Unbiased headline news for Saturday April 13, 2024 – Ukraine’s military chief warned that the battlefield situation in the industrial east has “significantly worsened in recent days.” In an update on the Telegram messaging app, General Oleksandr Syrskyy said that Moscow had “significantly” ramped up its assaults since President Vladimir Putin extended his nearly quarter-century rule in a preordained election last month that saw anti-war candidates barred from the ballot. — A man stabbed six people to death at a busy Sydney shopping center Saturday before he was fatally shot, police said. Eight people, including a 9-month-old, were injured in the attack. The 40-year-old suspect began stabbing people at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction, which is in the city’s eastern suburbs, before a police inspector shot him after he turned and raised a knife, New South Wales Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke told reporters. — Israel’s army said Saturday the body of a missing Israeli teen was found in the West Bank after he was killed in a “terrorist attack.” The disappearance of 14-year-old Binyamin Achimair sparked attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages on Friday and Saturday. On Friday, one Palestinian was killed and 25 others were wounded in the attack on al-Mughayyir village, Palestinian health officials said. — The Democratic National Committee has been paying President Joe Biden’s legal fees incurred in connection with special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into his handling of classified documents. Since last year, the party committee has paid the law firm of Bob Bauer, the lead attorney representing Biden in Hur’s investigation more than $1 million, roughly $150,000 a month, from July 2023 through February 2024, the party committee’s most recent disclosures show. — A Texas mother has been arrested after allegedly leaving her two young children home alone for days to go on a cruise, court records show. Lakesha Williams, 29, of Houston, has been charged with abandoning a child with intent to return, a felony, according to a criminal complaint. Neighbors at her high-rise apartment building reportedly saw Williams leave with luggage on April 4 but “never saw her return,” according to the complaint. — One person was killed and more than a dozen injured after a man allegedly intentionally crashed a stolen semi-truck into a Texas Department of Public Safety office in Brenham on Friday, officials said. The suspect, identified by authorities as 42-year-old Clenard Parker had been informed by the office on Thursday that he was not eligible to renew his commercial driver’s license, Ruiz said. The suspect then “returned today with intent to harm,” Washington County Judge Mark Keough said in a statement on social media. — A Michigan man and his dog were rescued from the icy waters of an inland lake in the state’s Upper Peninsula, authorities said. Three first responders needed medical treatment. Thad Cooper, 56, of Michigamme Township, was searching for his dog Friday afternoon when he saw its head poking above the ice more than 100 yards from shore on Lake Michigamme, the Marquette County Sheriff’s Office said. Cooper kayaked onto the lake to try to rescue the dog but fell in himself and could not get out, the office said. — Drug shortages have reached an all-time high in the United States, pharmacists are warning. During the first three months of 2024, there were 323 active medication shortages, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) and Utah Drug Information Service. Previously, the record high was 320 shortages in 2014. This ASHP started tracking shortages in 2001.

For five years, a New Yorker named Mickey Barreto managed to live rent-free in the landmark New Yorker Hotel by exploiting a local housing law. However, prosecutors say Barreto went too far…