Facebook board upholds Trump suspension
By BARBARA ORTUTAY, The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Former President Donald Trump won’t return to Facebook — for now.
The social network’s quasi-independent Oversight Board voted to uphold his ban from the platform after his account was suspended four months ago for inciting violence that led to the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
While uploading the suspension, the board faulted Facebook for the way it made the decision.
“It was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension,” it said.
The board says Facebook has six months to reexamine the “arbitrary penalty” it imposed on Jan. 7 and decide on another penalty that reflects the “gravity of the violation and the prospect of future harm.”
Newsmax Apologizes for False Claims of Vote-Rigging by a Dominion Employee
The right-wing news site said it had found “no evidence” for pro-Trump conspiracy theories about Eric Coomer, who was Dominion’s director of product strategy and security.
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Biden Admin To Resume Construction On Border Wall Amid Crisis
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) will resume construction on part of the border wall in the Rio Grande, according to Fox News.
Construction is set to resume on a 13.4 mile stretch of border wall after complaints from local residents and politicians, according to the report.
BREAKING: .@FoxNews has confirmed via the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that construction on a 13.4 mile stretch of border wall in the Rio Grande Valley will *RESUME* after pressure from local residents & politicians.
The Biden admin previously halted all wall construction in Jan.— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) May 12, 2021
USACE announced it has “resumed DHS-funded design & construction support on approx. 13.4 miles of levee in the Rio Grande Valley that were partially excavated or at various levels of construction when work on the wall was paused for review.”
The statement said USACE had started work to repair the Rio Grande Valley’s flood levee, but “this remediation work will not involve expanding border barrier.”
The Biden administration had previously halted the border wall construction in January, saying the wall was “not a serious policy solution.”
San Diego Sector Border Patrol has apprehended dozens of sex offenders so far in fiscal year 2021
San Diego Sector Border Patrol agents have arrested more than three dozen sex offenders so far during fiscal year 2021.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that authorities apprehended a man on Sunday and discovered via records checks that “the Mexican national had been previously convicted of Sexual Abuse in the 1st Degree by Forceable Compulsion.” The individual was a registered sex offender in the state of New York.
He was subsequently removed to Mexico, according to CBP.
“This year there has been an alarming uptrend in the apprehension of convicted sex offenders,” U.S. Border Patrol San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke said. “Thankfully, our agents are continually on the alert for bad actors who attempt to cross the border illegally.”
Santa Clara U. President Resigns After Inappropriate Behavior, Officials Say
A Jesuit priest who delivered the homily at a Mass for the inauguration of President Biden has resigned as the president of Santa Clara University after he engaged in inappropriate behavior, university officials said on Wednesday.
An investigation by the Jesuits West Province found that the priest, the Rev. Kevin O’Brien, “engaged in behaviors, consisting primarily of conversations, during a series of informal dinners with Jesuit graduate students that were inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries,” the chairman of the university’s board of trustees said in a statement to the university community.
“The Province also advised the Board that alcohol was involved and that no inappropriate behavior was found in any settings outside of these dinners,” the statement said.
The statement, which did not elaborate further on the behavior, said that Father O’Brien, who had been placed on leave in March, notified the board of trustees that he was resigning on Sunday, and that the board accepted his resignation on Monday.
“The Board of Trustees takes this situation very seriously and fully supports those who came forward to provide their accounts,” said the statement from the board chairman, John M. Sobrato.
Children could soon get a COVID vaccine after Maryland kids pave way in trial
Brothers Christian, 8, and Gerald Mugera, 11, volunteered for a clinical trial of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for children … (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun)
Eight-year-old Christian Mugera went first, extending his arm for a blood draw and then a needle stick for a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. His brother, 11-year-old Gerald, wanted to follow, but staff struggled to get a blood sample.
Their father, Dr. Charles Mugera, called them stoic in their potential contribution to science, as they were among the first scheduled to participate in a trial at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health. The study is assessing the safety and efficacy of the Moderna vaccine in young children.
“We did explain to them about the trial,” Mugera said. “But more importantly for them, they think getting the vaccine will bring life back to normal. That’s more convincing for them. They know they get to go to school and see their friends.” While Christian got a shot Tuesday, Gerald wasn’t able to because the staff never could obtain his blood sample. That’s needed to test participants for antibodies.
Scientists running the trial say it’s important both that individual kids and society are protected. Children are the last and potentially pivotal group in the vaccination effort to end the pandemic.
“Without children, we are unlikely to have enough people vaccinated to completely turn the epidemic,” said Dr. James Campbell, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in the medical school and the site’s principal investigator.
Cryptocurrency market tanks after Tesla suspends bitcoin transactions
The global cryptocurrency market lost hundreds of billions of dollars in value after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his company was suspending the use of bitcoin for vehicle purchases, a report said.
Musk made the announcement via tweet just after 6 p.m. Wednesday, at which point the entire cryptocurrency market was valued at about $2.43 trillion, CNBC reported, citing data from Coinmarketcap.com.
Arizona Adopts Election Reform Bill That Stops Some Voters from Automatically Receiving Absentee Ballots
by Andrew Trunsky
Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed an election reform bill Tuesday that could stop thousands of voters from automatically receiving an absentee ballot ahead of an upcoming election.
SB 1485 would remove voters who have not participated in Arizona’s last four elections from its permanent early voting list, which allows them to automatically receive absentee ballots ahead of elections. Partisan primaries are included as separate elections, meaning that a voter could be removed if they fail to vote back-to-back election cycles, but they must also first fail to respond to mail notices alerting them.
“Arizona is a national leader when it comes to election integrity and access to the ballot box, and today I signed #SB1485 to continue that legacy,” Ducey wrote on Twitter after signing the bill.
Voters are barred from removal until 2025, meaning that those on the roles will remain through the next two electoral cycles. The bill passed the state Senate earlier Tuesday on a 16-14 party-line vote.
Critics say that the bill could remove over 125,000 voters, a disproportionate share of whom are Latino.
The bill faced a rocky journey through Arizona’s Republican-controlled state legislature. After passing in the Senate and amended before passing the House, it temporarily stalled when the Senate was set to pass the amended version due to a controversial audit of the 2020 election that had begun in the state, but ultimately passed.
The GOP-backed audit of the state’s mail-in ballots follows multiple reviews that found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state, which President Joe Biden narrowly won.
The audit has alarmed both Arizona election officials and the Department of Justice, which has suggested that it may violate federal election laws.