Yahoo News

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh City Council gave final approval Tuesday to gun restrictions proposed after last year’s synagogue massacre, inviting a legal challenge by gun-rights activists who have long tangled with the city over firearms.

After taking an initial vote last week, the all-Democratic council voted 6-3 to send the legislation to the desk of Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto, who is expected to sign the bills into law.  Continue reading “Pittsburgh approves gun restrictions; lawsuits expected”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

Joe Biden appears to have made a major tactical error last year when he bragged to an audience of foreign policy experts how he threatened to hurl Ukraine into bankruptcy if their top prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, wasn’t immediately fired, according to The Hill‘s John Solomon.

In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. –The Hill

Continue reading “Forget ‘Creepy’ – Biden Has A Major Ukraine Problem”

Reuters

HOUSTON (Reuters) – U.S. investigators hope this week for the first time to enter the site of a massive fuel fire and chemical spill outside Houston to begin the hunt for a cause and to determine whether the operator followed safety regulations.

The blaze, at Mitsui & Co’s Intercontinental Terminals Co (ITC) storage facility in Deer Park, Texas, began March 17 and released toxic chemicals into the air and nearby waterways. Shipping along the largest oil port in the United States remained disrupted on Monday, as did operations at two nearby refineries.  Continue reading “U.S. investigators to begin hunt for cause of Texas petrochemical disaster”

Yahoo News

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The country’s largest electric company was ordered Monday to excavate coal ash from all of its North Carolina power plant sites, slashing the risk of toxic chemicals leaking into water supplies but potentially adding billions of dollars to the costs consumers pay.

Duke Energy Corp. must remove the residue left after decades of burning coal to produce electricity, North Carolina’s environmental agency said. The company had proposed covering some storage pits with a waterproof cap, saying that would prevent rain from passing through and carrying chemicals through the unlined bottoms and would provide a quicker and cheaper option.  Continue reading “North Carolina orders Duke Energy to excavate all coal ash”

AM New York – by Vincent Barone

Congestion pricing is coming to New York City.

State politicians announced an agreement shortly after midnight on Sunday to approve the tolling policy for Manhattan as part of a broader package of funding and reforms to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority stuffed into the state’s $175 billion budget. The key details of the plan — including the price of the tolls — will be worked out on a future date. Continue reading “Congestion pricing is coming to NYC”

CNN

A federal judge in Alaska has ruled an executive order by President Donald Trump allowing offshore oil drilling of tens of millions of acres in the Arctic Ocean is “unlawful and invalid.”

The ruling on Friday from US District Court Judge Sharon Gleason means a drilling ban for much of the Arctic Ocean off of Alaska will go back into effect.  Continue reading “Judge rules Trump executive order allowing offshore drilling in Arctic Ocean unlawful”

AP News

WASHINGTON (AP) — Moving defiantly to kick-start the long-stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline, President Donald Trump on Friday issued a new presidential permit for the project — two years after he first approved it and more than a decade after it was first proposed.

Trump said the permit issued Friday replaces one granted in March 2017. The order is intended to speed up development of the controversial pipeline, which would ship crude oil from tar sands in western Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast.  Continue reading “Trump issues new permit for stalled Keystone XL pipeline”

Fox News

In a shocking announcement Tuesday morning, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office said it will not be prosecuting Jussie Smollett, who was previously accused of faking an anti-black, anti-gay hate crime in Chicago in order to drum up publicity for his role on the TV drama “Empire.”

Fox News has learned the judge granted a nolle pros, which essentially means that the case has been dropped and that he will no longer be prosecuted for the alleged crime.  Continue reading “Jussie Smollett charges dropped, actor won’t be prosecuted on charges he faked attack”

Yahoo News

A man from Freetown, Mass., was arrested on Monday night for keeping an 86-inch flat-screen TV that was mailed to his home by mistake, according to Boston 25 News.

Nick Memmo, 35, told the outlet what occurred at his home the night of his arrest: “They surrounded the house and knocked on the door with flashlights coming through all the windows. They told me to come outside then handcuffed me.”  Continue reading “Man arrested for keeping an 86-inch flat-screen TV that was mailed to his home by mistake”

Strategic Culture – by Philip M. Giraldi

There is a saying attributed to the French banker Nathan Rothschild that “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.” Conservative opinion in the United States has long suspected that Rothschild was right and there have been frequent calls to audit the Federal Reserve Bank based on the presumption that it has not always acted in support of the actual interests of the American people. That such an assessment is almost certainly correct might be presumed based on the 2008 economic crash in which the government bailed out the banks, which had through their malfeasance caused the disaster, and left individual Americans who had lost everything to face the consequences. Continue reading “Goodbye to the Internet: Interference by Governments Is Already Here”

Fox News

A newly unearthed batch of heavily redacted, classified emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal email server revealed that the former secretary of state discussed establishing a “private, 100% off-the-record” back channel to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that one of her top aides warned her that she was in “danger” of being “savaged by Jewish organizations, in the Jewish press and among the phalanx of neoconservative media” as a result of political machinations by “Bibi and the Jewish leadership.”  Continue reading “Clinton, in newly revealed emails, discussed classified foreign policy matters, secretive ‘private’ comms channel with Israel”

Yahoo News

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — David Lunsford is an avid gun owner with a firing range on his Texas spread. With bump stocks about to be banned by the U.S. government, he grudgingly decided to sell off his and let someone else figure out what to do with them.

“If I get caught with one, I’m a felon, and it seems like to me that’s entrapment in the biggest way. I bought that thing legally with my hard-earned money,” said the 60-year-old Lunsford, who has at one time owned six AR-15 rifles that he built from kits, as well as a World War II German submachine gun.  Continue reading “The bump stock ban is just days away. What will owners do?”

Yahoo News

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A detective says a Salvadoran immigrant charged with four Nevada murders told police he robbed and killed his elderly victims during a 10-day rampage in January because he needed money to buy methamphetamine.

The detective told the grand jury, which indicted Wilber Ernesto Martinez-Guzman in Reno last week, the 20-year-old who is living in the U.S. illegally broke into tears and repeatedly called himself an “idiot” before confessing to the murders during an interrogation hours after his arrest in Carson City on Jan. 19.  Continue reading “Police say immigrant suspect killed for drugs”

Fox 8 News

KITTITAS COUNTY, Washington – A Kittitas County Sheriff’s Deputy was shot and killed and another officer was injured after a driver they were pursuing got out of the car and began shooting, the sheriff’s office said.

The deputy and Kittitas police officer attempted to stop a vehicle they had received a complaint about Tuesday night, the Kittitas County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. The vehicle failed to stop, which resulted in a pursuit, authorities said.  Continue reading “Washington state officer shot and killed while pursuing driver”

Yahoo News

WASHINGTON – Undocumented immigrants who use false Social Security numbers to get jobs would be easier to prosecute under a case the Supreme Court agreed to hear Monday.

The justices will hear Kansas’ appeal of a lower court’s decision that the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over such cases – a ruling the Trump administration agrees should be overturned.  Continue reading “Supreme Court to decide if states can prosecute undocumented immigrants for identity theft”

Bearing Arms – by Tom Knighton

An Oregon bill wanted to impose draconian restrictions on gun owners. For example, it would limit round capacity to just five rounds. That would have made most revolvers illegal.

As progressive as Oregon is, it sounded like something lawmakers would consider. Amazingly, better sense prevailed.  Continue reading “Oregon Lawmakers Effectively Kill Ridiculous Gun Control Bill”

WGME 13 News

AUGUSTA (WGME) — Gun control advocates along with law enforcement officials and medical professionals will hold a news conference Tuesday afternoon in Augusta to urge Maine lawmakers to pass a “red flag bill” this session.

The bill LD 1312 would create a new kind of court order known as an “Extreme Risk Protection Order,” which temporarily restricts a person’s access to firearms when they pose a danger to themselves or others.  Continue reading “Gun control advocates to urge Maine lawmakers to pass ‘red flag’bill”

Chron – by Julian Gill

A petrochemical fire at a Deer Park plant could burn for two more days, officials said Monday morning, one day after the fire broke out.

Emergency crews, including the Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office, have been trying to control the fire at the Intercontinental Terminals Company, which erupted about 10:30 a.m. Sunday.  Continue reading “Deer Park plant fire could last two more days; shelter-in-place lifted”

Yahoo News

NEW YORK (AP) — A man wanted in the 1999 shooting of an off-duty New York Police Department officer who later died from his injuries was arrested in Florida almost two decades after the incident, and the head of the NYPD on Sunday offered his thanks to fellow law enforcement for their perseverance.

Local television stations in Jacksonville, Florida, reported Lester Pearson, 43, was taken into custody Friday morning in connection to the death of officer Vincent Ling. Continue reading “Suspect in 1999 shooting of NYPD officer arrested in Florida”

Missoulian

One person was killed, a Montana Highway Patrol trooper was in critical condition and two others were hospitalized after a shooting spree in Missoula and Evaro that resulted in the arrest of one suspect.

Trooper Wade Palmer, who was flown Friday afternoon to Salt Lake City for treatment, was shot in his patrol car after he found the suspect’s car near the Evaro Bar and Casino early Friday morning.

Continue reading “1 killed, 3 shot in spree that critically wounds Montana trooper; suspect in custody”