Palm Desert

Federal judge rules Obamacare unconstitutional

A federal judge in Texas on Friday ruled the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, was unconstitutional based on its mandate requiring that people buy health insurance, a decision in a case that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth agreed with a coalition of 20 states that a change in tax law last year eliminating a penalty for not having health insurance invalidated the entire Obamacare law. The coalition of states challenging the law was led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, both Republicans.

Challenging judges' orders, Trump aims to enlist Supreme Court

The Supreme Court traditionally has been viewed as the court of last resort in the United States, but Trump's Justice Department increasingly has tried to enlist it in paring back or halting unfavorable rulings by lower courts on signature Trump policies, often at early stages of litigation. In another tactic, the administration has asked the justices to review disputes even before lower appeals courts have acted. Trump has appointed conservatives Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to lifetime jobs on the Supreme Court since taking office last year, cementing its 5-4 conservative majority.

Police probe hoax bitcoin bomb threats across U.S., Canada

U.S. law enforcement officials on Friday were investigating a wave of hoax emailed bomb threats demanding bitcoin payment that caused worry but no damage in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The threats led to scattered evacuations of schools and transit stations before the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies dismissed them as lacking credibility. Hoax threats were received in cities including Washington, New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Grand Rapids, Iowa, Denver, Ottawa and Calgary, Alberta.

Big Washington clean-up bill leads House Democrats' list

When the Democrats take over the U.S. House of Representatives in three weeks, their first order of business is expected to be a wide-ranging bill about political corruption, voter disenfranchisement and cleaning up campaign finance. Aimed at sending a message, the legislation is unlikely to become law with Republicans still in control of the Senate and the White House. An outline of the bill, titled H.R. 1, shows it would require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, which Trump has refused to do despite decades of precedent.

California to phase in electric, fuel-cell transit buses: regulators

California air quality regulators voted on Friday to require that transit buses have zero emissions beginning in 2029, another step by the liberal-leaning state that sets it apart from the environmental policies of the Trump administration. The California Air Resources Board voted unanimously on the proposal to ramp up the use of battery electric or fuel-cell buses until 2029, at which point all new transit buses will have to be zero-emission vehicles. The move away from diesel buses will be a boon to companies such as Chinese automaker BYD , backed by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc and Silicon Valley startup Proterra Inc, which have bet that zero-emissions buses will eventually catch on.

ICE arrests of immigrants in U.S. illegally highest since 2014: agency

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested more immigrants who were in the United States illegally in the fiscal year through Sept. 30, 2018, than in any year since 2014, the agency said on Friday. The 158,851 people arrested in the 2018 fiscal year by ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations division, the branch that carries out immigration arrests and deportations, represented an 11 percent increase over 2017, according to agency data. ICE arrests of immigrants with no criminal history but who are in the country illegally increased by nearly one-third compared to 2017, to reach 20,464.

Connecticut school evacuated for bomb threat on sixth anniversary of massacre

Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where 26 children and educators were killed in 2012, received a threatening phone call around 9 a.m. EST, said police Lieutenant Aaron Bahamonde. "It was a bomb threat over the phone," Bahamonde said. Bahamonde said the threat was unrelated to a Thursday incident in which hundreds of schools, businesses and buildings across the United States and Canada receive email bomb threats demanding payment in cryptocurrency.

Number of U.S. inmates on death row at 25-year low: report

The number of U.S. inmates executed this year has reached a 25-year low as fewer death sentences are handed down and death row inmates clear their names or die of natural causes, the Death Penalty Information Center reported on Friday. Fewer than 2,500 inmates are awaiting execution as 2018 draws to an end after 25 executions, making this the third consecutive year with fewer than 30 executions, the DPIC, a non-profit organization that collects data on the death penalty in the United States, said in its annual report. "Public appetite for the death penalty has declined dramatically since the 1990s," Robert Dunham, executive director of the DPIC, said in a phone interview.

Girl dies after being detained by U.S. Border Patrol-Washington Post

A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died of dehydration and shock hours after she was taken into U.S. Border Patrol custody, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. Early on Dec. 7, the girl started having seizures, and emergency responders measured her body temperature at 105.7 degrees, the Post said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.

No foul play suspected in deaths of two workers at U.S. research station in Antarctica

The two fire-safety technicians died in unexplained circumstances on Wednesday while performing preventive maintenance on a building that houses a generator for a radio transmitter outside the NSF-managed McMurdo Station, the agency said. While the science foundation, a U.S. government agency, said an official inquiry into the deaths was just getting under way, spokesman Peter West told Reuters that investigators had turned up no evidence of foul play. NSF also declined to disclose any personal information about the two workers, except to say they were employed by a Virginia-based company, PAE, which in turn was hired by the U.S. Antarctica Program's logistics contractor, Leidos, headquartered in Colorado.

Bitcoin ransoms just are not what they used to be

(Reuters) - Give me bitcoin or your life. Seriously? The people behind a rash of bomb threats made across the United States and Canada on Thursday demanded a $20,000 ransom to be paid in bitcoin. Authorities said none of the threats - emailed to hundreds of businesses, public offices and schools - appeared credible. Frankly, the perpetrators would have been better off asking for Turkish lira. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have long been a favorite ransom tender for cyber criminals thanks to the currencies' anonymous nature. U.S. ...

New York sues Target, Walmart for sale of lead-contaminated toys

Underwood said her office conducted tests in New York City, Long Island, and the Syracuse and Buffalo areas on "Cra-Z-Jewelz" jewelry-making kits that were imported by LaRose and found levels up to 10 times higher than the federal limit. The kits were supplied by LaRose and sold at Walmart and Target stores.

Bomb threats demanding bitcoin sweep U.S., Canada, none found credible

One email targeting a St. Louis-area middle school was traced by local investigators to an internet protocol, or IP, address in Moscow, the sheriff's office in Lincoln County, Missouri said. Two weeks previously, a married couple inspired by Islamic State had killed 14 people at a California county office building in a shooting rampage.

Curry agrees to lunar lab visit: NASA

Allard Beutel, a spokesman for the agency who this week invited Curry to tour the Johnson Space Center in Houston, told science publication Inverse on Thursday the Golden State guard said he would be willing to make the trip. The controversy started on Monday when Curry said on a podcast that he did not believe humans had ever been to the Moon. NASA landed 12 American astronauts on the Moon from 1969-1972.

Butina admits being Russian agent, pleads guilty in U.S. to conspiracy

Maria Butina, a former graduate student at American University in Washington who publicly advocated for gun rights, entered the plea to a charge of conspiracy to act as a foreign agent at a hearing in Washington. Butina admitted to conspiring with a Russian official and two Americans from 2015 until her July arrest to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, a group closely aligned with U.S. conservatives and Republican politicians including President Donald Trump, and create unofficial lines of communication to try to make Washington's policy toward Moscow more friendly. Alexander Torshin, who was a deputy governor of Russia's central bank, has been identified by Butina's lawyers as the Russian official.

U.S. appeals court narrows Trump birth control ruling

Last year two federal judges, one in Philadelphia and one in Oakland, California, had blocked the government from enforcing rules allowing businesses or nonprofits to obtain exemptions from the contraception policy on moral or religious grounds. The Justice Department appealed both rulings. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said on Thursday the injunction issued in California should not apply nationwide, but only within the five states that sued over the policy.

Jury convicts ex-employees of pharmacy in U.S. meningitis outbreak

A co-owner and four ex-employees of a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy were convicted on Thursday of committing frauds and other illegal activities that helped boost its business before a deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak linked to drugs it made. The verdict by a federal jury in Boston came in the latest criminal trial involving former executives and employees of New England Compounding Center, which produced mold-tainted steroids that prosecutors said sickened hundreds of people and killed more than 100. Jurors found pharmacist Gene Svirskiy guilty of racketeering and pharmacist Christopher Leary guilty of mail fraud over what prosecutors said was their role in misleading NECC's hospital customers about the quality of the drugs it produced.

Florida set to execute man convicted of killing woman during burglary

Jose Jimenez, 55, is set to die by lethal injection at the Florida's execution chamber in Raiford at 6 p.m. EST (2300 GMT), the state's department of corrections said. Jimenez was convicted of first-degree murder and burglary and sentenced to die in 1994. Jimenez was accused of beating and stabbing to death Phyllis Minas, 63, after he broke into her North Miami apartment on Oct. 2, 1992.

More Americans view climate change as 'imminent' threat: Reuters/Ipsos Poll

A growing percentage of Americans see climate change as an “imminent” threat driven mainly by human activity, and more than two-thirds want Washington to work with other nations to combat it, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday. The public concern over global warming in the United States clashes with President Donald Trump’s policies aimed at maximizing fossil fuels production and dismantling climate protections he views as too onerous and costly for industry. Trump last year announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, an accord to curb global warming struck by nearly 200 nations in 2015 that he said would kill American jobs and have no tangible environmental benefit.

Insurance claims for latest California wildfires top $9 billion

Insurance claims from the recent spate of California wildfires, including one ranked as the most deadly and destructive in state history, have topped $9 billion and are expected to grow, the state insurance commissioner reported on Wednesday. The claims, so far, fall short of the record $12 billion in wildfire-related insured losses sustained in California in 2017, most of that from more than a dozen blazes that swept a large swath of wine country north of San Francisco Bay, killing 46 people. This year, the Camp Fire that erupted on Nov. 8 has accounted for the bulk of the claims, just over $7 billion of the total.

Insurance claims for latest California wildfires top $9 billion

Insurance claims from the recent spate of California wildfires, including one ranked as the most deadly and destructive in state history, have topped $9 billion and are expected to grow, the state insurance commissioner reported on Wednesday. The Camp Fire, which erupted on Nov. 8 and quickly incinerated most of the Sierra foothills town of Paradise, about 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco, has accounted for the bulk of the claims, just over $7 billion of the total.

Opioid maker Insys paid kickbacks to physician assistant, jury hears

The testimony came at the start of the trial in federal court in Concord, New Hampshire, of Christopher Clough, a physician assistant who prosecutors say accepted nearly $50,000 from Insys in exchange for prescribing its powerful opioid pain drug, Subsys. The trial could provide a glimpse into some of the evidence prosecutors will use in next month's trial of six former Insys executives and managers, including John Kapoor, a onetime billionaire who was the company's founder and chairman. Prosecutors say they conspired to pay kickbacks to doctors and others like Clough by paying them fees to participate in "sham" speaker programs ostensibly meant to educate medical professionals about the drug.

U.S. probe cites 'ineffective' safeguard in Husky oil refinery blast

An "ineffective" safeguard failed to prevent an explosive mixing of air and fuel at a Husky Energy refinery in Superior, Wisconsin, leading to a blast and fire in the plant's gasoline-producing unit in April, a U.S. industrial safety group said on Wednesday. Air seeped through a hole in a valve within a fluidic catalytic cracking unit (FCCU), the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) said, causing an April 26 explosion that led to a massive fire and a 24-hour-long evacuation of residents living within miles of the plant. The board said 36 people sought medical treatment after the blast, including 11 working at the refinery.

Chicago mayor pushes bond sale, constitutional change to aid pensions

Mayor Rahm Emanuel laid out a multi-pronged plan on Wednesday to tackle Chicago's huge pension burden, urging the city council to approve the issuance of $10 billion of bonds to boost funding for the city's four retirement systems. Emanuel, who leaves office in May after declining to run for a third term as mayor, also called for changing the Illinois Constitution and earmarking new revenue from a possible casino and legalized marijuana for pensions. "Issuing these bonds and depositing the proceeds directly into our pension funds would immediately increase the health of our pension funds to levels not seen in at least a decade before asking more of Chicago's hard-pressed taxpayers," the mayor said in a speech to the city council.

United Airlines to add international routes from San Francisco

The airline also plans to start a second daily flight between San Francisco and Seoul as well as new year-round nonstop flights between the U.S. city and Auckland, Tahiti and Amsterdam in 2019. "This route expansion solidifies United's position at San Francisco as the gateway airline serving destinations across the Pacific, the continental United States, as well as to Europe and beyond," Chief Executive Officer Oscar Munoz said.

Ex-N.Y. state university official gets prison for bid rigging

The former president of the State University of New York's Polytechnic Institute was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on Tuesday for helping to rig the bidding process for a billion-dollar, state-funded development project. Alain Kaloyeros was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni in Manhattan, who also ordered him to pay a $100,000 fine, according to a spokesman for federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Kaloyeros had been found guilty of fraud and conspiracy by a jury in June following a three-week trial.

Trump administration asks top court to restore asylum order

The U.S. Justice Department asked the court to lift a temporary restraining order against the asylum rules issued by San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar. Trump has taken a hard line toward legal and illegal immigration since taking office last year. Citing what he called an overwhelmed immigration system, Trump issued a proclamation on Nov. 9 that authorities process asylum claims only for migrants crossing the southern U.S. border at an official port of entry.

Cosby's lawyers cite grounds for appealing sexual assault conviction

The 81-year-old performer, best known for his role as the lovable family man and physician on the hit television sitcom "The Cosby Show," was found guilty by a Pennsylvania jury in April of drugging and sexually assaulting a onetime friend in 2004. It marked the first such criminal conviction of a celebrity accused of sexual misconduct since the #MeToo movement that has brought down dozens of powerful, privileged men in American media, politics and business since the autumn of 2017. In September, the trial judge, Steven O'Neill, designated Cosby a "sexually violent predator" under Pennsylvania law, requiring the entertainer to register as a sex offender for life, and sentenced him to a term of three to 10 years in prison.

Texas executes man convicted of 1993 murder

Alvin Braziel, 43, was pronounced dead at 7:19 p.m. local time, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Asked by the warden if he had any last words before he was put to death, Braziel expressed thanks to "all those overseas, Italy and France, for their support for death row prisoners. Braziel was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 for attacking Douglas and Lora White at gunpoint while they were on a walk along a jogging trail at Eastfield College, a Dallas-area community college, on Sept. 21, 1993, according to court documents.