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Suit says administration is impinging on rights to life and liberty by worsening planet-warming and toxic pollution

Eighteen American youth are demanding that a court immediately halt the Trump administration’s repeal of the scientific finding underpinning virtually all US climate regulations.

The plaintiffs sued the Trump administration in February days after officials revoked the 2009 endangerment finding, which found that greenhouse gas pollution threatens public health and welfare. Filed in the Washington DC circuit court of appeals Venner v EPA alleges that the move infringes upon rights guaranteed by the US constitution, including to religious freedom, life and liberty.

“My faith has taught me to protect and nurture all children, all life, all creation,” said Elena Venner, the 21-year-old named plaintiff in the case. “With these repeals, the conditions for life are not being protected.”

Chinese and Russian leaders boast of close ties and warn ‘of a drift back to the law of the jungle’

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin issued a joint condemnation of “irresponsible” US foreign policy on Wednesday, warning of “a drift back to the law of the jungle”.

The statement came after the Chinese and Russian leaders held a summit in Beijing that followed a visit to the capital by Donald Trump.

The exchanges between Xi and Putin were notably warm and Wednesday’s summit appeared to be more substantive than Xi’s meetings with the US president.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.radio/post/13395003

Colorado Police last Thursday arrested Hunter Rivera, the 24-year-old now-former chairman of the Weld County Republican Party, for allegedly trying to arrange a sexual encounter with a child. Rivera resigned immediately following his arrest.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/51068

Tennessee officials will pay $835,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a man who was jailed for more than a month over a Facebook post he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

While many people across the U.S. lost their jobs over social media comments about Kirk’s death, Larry Bushart’s case stood out as a rare instance in which such online speech led to criminal prosecution. The 61-year-old retired police officer spent 37 days behind bars before authorities dropped the felony charge against him in October.

During his time in jail, Bushart lost his postretirement job and missed his wedding anniversary and the birth of his granddaughter, according to a federal lawsuit Bushart filed in December against Perry County, its sheriff and the investigator who obtained the arrest warrant.

“I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated,” Bushart said in a statement announcing the settlement Wednesday. “The people’s freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy. I am looking forward to moving on and spending time with my family.”

Perry County Mayor John Carroll did not immediately respond to a Wednesday message left with his office seeking an interview.

Bushart was arrested in September after he refused to take down Facebook memes that joked about Kirk’s killing, which had prompted an outpouring of grief among conservatives, including in Perry County, which is near Bushart’s home and which held a candlelight vigil.

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But the fight over Geese missed the larger point. The issue wasn’t really whether one rock band had been fraudulently foisted on unsuspecting listeners. It was that the same techniques that Coren and Spelman bragged about onstage are now being used to fool people on every app they go to in order to find out what other people think, not just in music but across entertainment, politics, consumer products, and celebrity gossip. Shady marketing and propaganda aren’t new, of course, but what is new is that the entire infrastructure of public conversation has been quietly captured by both. On social media, popular opinion is being formed, measured, and manipulated all at once, and every signal the platforms produce — a trending song, a backlash, a talking point, the feeling that “everybody” is suddenly talking about the same thing — can now be fabricated by unseen actors with hidden agendas. We’ve locked ourselves in the stupidest possible version of Plato’s cave, where what looks like the spontaneous consensus of the hive mind is often just shadows on the wall, put there by marketers, political operatives, foreign-influence campaigns, or anyone else with a few hundred bucks and something to sell. “Everybody is doing this now,” Lim says. “And if you’re not, you’re behind.”

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/47115670

Gov. Jared Polis made the remarks at The Colorado Sun’s annual legislative recap event at the University of Denver, only to be drowned out by a small group of protesters

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday said he doesn’t regret his decision to commute the prison sentence of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, despite widespread condemnation from Democrats and some Republicans, who said it will embolden election conspiracy theorists ahead of the 2026 midterms.

“I think this will be remembered fondly,” Polis said at The Colorado Sun’s annual legislative recap event at the University of Denver. “The nation needs to have a reconciliation and healing.

“People know I’m a man of action,” he added. “I’m a bold person, I’m going to do things that I think are right, and that’s why people put me here. They want me to do things that I think are right.”

Peters, an ally of President Donald Trump who has touted election conspiracy theories, was convicted in August 2024 of orchestrating a security breach of her county’s election system in a failed 2021 attempt to uncover voter fraud. Polis on Friday cut Peters’ nine-year prison sentence in half and ordered her to be released on parole June 1, saying she was being unfairly punished for her political views.

Often voted the “brainiest,” “funniest” and “most eloquent” member of the House, he was also the first to come out voluntarily and helped normalize being openly gay in public office.

Note: he retired in January 2013

Addendum quietly slipped into widely criticized agreement creating a $1.7bn fund to compensate president’s allies

The justice department quietly added a provision barring the IRS from auditing Donald Trump’s tax returns on Tuesday, amending a widely criticized agreement that creates a secretive and loosely controlled $1.776bn fund to compensate allies of the president.

The addendum, signed by Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, says the government is “forever barred” and “precluded” from examining the tax returns of Trump, his family, company and “related companies”. The agreement applies to anything filed before the agreement was reached. It was posted on the justice department website on Tuesday morning, a day after the department announced creation of the fund.

The inclusion only adds to mounting scrutiny of the wider agreement reached on Tuesday. The arrangement was announced after Trump said he was dropping a $10bn lawsuit against the IRS and other specious claims against the government in exchange for creating the compensation fund. IRS officials recommended fighting Trump’s lawsuit, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, but the agency decided to settle it anyway, raising further questions about improper interference.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont and Attorney General William Tong on Friday over a new state law that prohibits federal agents from wearing masks and requires them to display identification when operating in the state.

The law, passed this spring by the Connecticut General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Ned Lamont, establishes “protected areas” — including schools, hospitals, social service agency facilities and houses of worship — where people cannot be arrested solely on the basis of a civil offense, such as an immigration violation. It prohibits law enforcement officers from wearing masks while on duty. It bans former federal law enforcement officers who were found to be guilty of misconduct or retired during an investigation from being hired by Connecticut state or local police, and it requires police officers to complete 480 hours of training before they can be hired by state agencies.

The federal government called the law “blatantly unconstitutional,” saying that the state has no authority to tell federal agents what they can and cannot do. The government argues that the law goes against the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says that when state and federal laws clash, federal laws override those of the states.

Attorney General Tong said in a statement Monday that the new law was “fully lawful and necessary to protect public safety.”

The mother was in shock that day in May 2018 as several law enforcement officers, some in tactical gear, stood outside the rural Winnemucca home to serve a search warrant.

“I had a miscarriage, OK? A miscarriage. Why are you guys here over a f**king miscarriage?” Rousseau responded to the deputy.

The single mother, who was already struggling to afford care for her two young boys, was dealing with complicated feelings of ambivalence and guilt about her unplanned pregnancy and stillbirth, her attorney said. Rousseau told the deputies she had been taking large quantities of cinnamon and lifting heavy things while pregnant “to have a miscarriage.”

Deputies walked to a cross that was painted red with Abel’s name written in black on a green plot behind the house, according to the police body camera footage and a police report. They dug up the remains and carried them to a law enforcement vehicle, the report said.

Two days later, Rousseau was arrested and charged with felony manslaughter before she was convicted in Nevada, where abortion is legal, under what legal experts say is a vague and broadly written statute that makes it a crime for any woman to take drugs with the intent to terminate a pregnancy. She was also charged with concealing birth, a misdemeanor, but was not convicted on that charge.

The bravery of a security guard who was shot dead along with two other worshippers at a San Diego mosque on Monday prevented the attack from being much worse, say police. The guard was Amin Abdullah, a father of eight, a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations-San Diego (Cair-SD), Tazheen Nizam, told the BBC. "It's fair to say his actions were heroic," San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl told a news conference. "Undoubtedly, he saved lives today." Abdullah and two others - whom Cair-SD named as Mansour Kaziha and Nader Awad - were killed by two yet-to-be-identified teenage attackers who then took their own lives, say police. People who knew Abdullah told US media he looked after the community. Others have taken to social media to describe him as "the nicest man you'll ever meet". The mosque called him "a courageous man who put himself on the line of the safety of others, who even in his last moments did not stop protecting our community".

The U.S. stock market is giving back more of its record-setting rally on Tuesday as bond markets rattled by high inflation keep cranking up the pressure.

The S&P 500 fell 0.5% and was on track for a third straight loss after setting its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 165 points, or 0.3%, as of 12:29 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.9% lower.

That followed mixed moves for stock markets abroad, while oil prices eased in their latest yo-yo move. Falling technology stocks in Asia dragged South Korea’s Kospi down 3.3%, but Germany’s DAX returned 0.4%.

Tech stocks are faltering following huge runs made because of excitement around artificial-intelligence technology, runs that critics said made them too expensive. The stumble comes as oil prices swing on uncertainty about how long the Iran war will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed for oil tankers. That in turn has pushed yields higher in bond markets, which is dragging on economies and all kinds of other financial markets.

The wait is on, meanwhile, for Nvidia to report its latest quarterly results. The chip company is due to report on Wednesday, and it’s routinely blown past analysts’ expectations each quarter. Not only that, it’s provided forecasts for future growth that have consistently topped Wall Street’s.

How it does could determine whether technology stocks and the larger U.S. stock market can maintain their rally. Nvidia slipped 0.2% Tuesday, but was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500 because of its immense size.

More than 17,000 people were under evacuation orders in Southern California on Tuesday as a wildfire threatened suburban homes.

The wind-driven Sandy Fire was reported Monday in the hills above Simi Valley, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles.

By Tuesday morning, it had consumed more than two square miles (five square kilometers) of dry brush and destroyed at least one home, according to the Ventura County Fire Department.

The flames were initially pushed by gusts that topped 30 mph (48 kph), but firefighters were aided by calmer winds overnight, said department spokesperson Andrew Dowd.

“We’ve made a lot of progress against this fire with those improved weather conditions,” Dowd said. Crews hoped to make further progress before winds increased again, he said.

There was zero containment. The cause is under investigation.

Evacuation orders and warnings were still in place for several neighborhoods in Simi Valley, a city of more than 125,000 people.

Trump has repeatedly made false claims that white Afrikaners facing genocide with costs of resettling them at $100m

The US government has said it will increase the number of white South Africans it admits as refugees this year from about 7,500 to 17,500, claiming that “unforeseen developments in South Africa created an emergency refugee situation.”

Since starting his second term in office last year, Donald Trump has repeatedly made false claims that white Afrikaners are racially targeted and face a “white genocide”, which South Africa’s government has furiously rebutted.

His administration also cut aid to South Africa, boycotted the G20 summit in Johannesburg last year and disinvited South Africa from this year’s G20, which will be held at one of Trump’s resorts in Miami.