UNITED STATES
Democrats to push gun ban
Democratic lawmakers in Virginia yesterday planned to try to advance legislation to ban assault weapons, despite pushback from members of their own party. A state House of Representatives committee was to take up legislation, backed by Governor Ralph Northam, that would ban the sale of certain semi-automatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles. However, the bill would not require current owners of assault weapons to turn them in or register them with state police, as some earlier proposals required. “This is a compromise that takes into account folk’s concerns and is still a good bill that will help reduce mass murders in the commonwealth,” said Delegate Mark Levine, a Democrat sponsoring the legislation.
UNITED STATES
Sanders, Buttigieg tied
Democratic presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders were neck and neck on Thursday in the chaotic Iowa caucuses, with 100 percent of precincts reporting, but no winner declared following technical issues. The tally comes hours after Democratic Party Chairman Tom Perez ordered a review of the results following technology problems that prevented a complete vote count in the nation’s first nominating contest on Monday and some doubts were raised about the accuracy of the process. Sanders, the leftist senator from Vermont, and Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, are separated by a razor-thin margin in the final results, which come three days after the caucuses. Perez stepped in earlier on Thursday, demanding a review of the caucuses. With returns in from all of the 1,765 precincts in Iowa, Buttigieg was leading by 26.2 percent to Sanders’s 26.1 percent in the delegate totals. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren was next with 18 percent, followed by former vice president Joe Biden with 15.8 percent and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar with 12.3 percent.
UNITED STATES
Louisiana crash kills three
A small plane crash in Louisiana on Thursday afternoon has left three people dead, authorities said. Jackson Parish Sheriff Andy Brown told news outlets the plane was heading from Jackson to Shreveport and crashed north of Chatham on Louisiana 34. The Monroe Regional Airport tower lost contact with the plane at about 2:10pm. Brown said there were three people on the plane. He later confirmed that all three were killed. The plane was a Cessna. Further details regarding the crash were not immediately known.
UNITED STATES
Deputies detain man, puppy
A Florida man and his furry “accomplice” were taken into custody by authorities who said the man shoplifted from a store. Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said Logan Wilson was arrested on Wednesday, and charged with petit theft and possession of meth, WTSP-TV reported. Wilson admitted to stealing US$259 worth of items from Bass Pro Shops, deputies said. He was arrested during a traffic stop after he was seen leaving the store. Deputies also took Wilson’s four-legged friend into custody. A sheriff’s office Facebook post showing an officer holding a small puppy said deputies took care of the “cutest accomplice” before handing him over to Hillsborough County Animal Services. Animal services will care for the dog until his owner is released from jail. Animal services has listed the puppy as “pre-adopted.” Deputies said that if the owner does not claim the dog, it will go up for adoption.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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