Politics

Reuters reports: The National Rifle Association sued Los Angeles on Wednesday over a new law requiring that contractors disclose their ties to the gun rights group as a condition of obtaining business from the second most-populous U.S. city. Los Angeles was accused of trying to “silence NRA’s voice, as well as the voices of all those who dare oppose the …

Seattle’s KOMO News reports: The Tumwater UPS says they received 667 packages of playing cards Tuesday addressed to state Senator Maureen Walsh (R-Walla Walla), who came under fire when she opposed a bill mandating uninterrupted lunch breaks and rest periods for hospital nurses. Walsh said last week, “I would submit to you those nurses probably do get breaks. They probably …

The Washington Post reports: Saudi Arabia said Tuesday it had executed 37 people convicted of terrorism-related offenses, bringing the number of executions there in the first four months of the year to 105, according to the Saudi interior ministry and Reprieve, a human rights group that tracks the use of the death penalty in the kingdom. It was the largest …

The Tampa Bay Times reports: Jane Castor is Tampa’s next mayor, making history as the first openly gay mayor to gain office in Tampa Bay. The retired police chief crushed opponent David Straz with 73 percent of the vote, stretching a near-win in the primary seven weeks ago into a full-on rout Tuesday night. It was over before the first …

The Washington Post reports: Voter turnout spiked to a 100-year high in last year’s midterm congressional elections. Census Bureau data released Tuesday finds turnout rates jumped across nearly all groups, but the shift was particularly notable among young adults who typically stay home in nonpresidential years. The findings illustrate an extraordinary breadth of engagement in the first congressional election since …

The Associated Press reports: Conservative Supreme Court justices were mostly silent Tuesday as a Trump administration lawyer defended the government’s plan to ask about citizenship on the 2020 census, an indication the court’s majority may be inclined to side with the administration. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s only Hispanic justice, told Solicitor General Noel Francisco that the result of adding …

Gothamist reports: New York City will get its own Green New Deal, Mayor and rumored 2020 candidate Bill de Blasio announced on Monday, in honor of Earth Day. With the city’s wildly inefficient waterfront glass and steel skyscrapers as a backdrop, de Blasio outlined what his office calls “a bold and audacious plan to attack global warming on all fronts,” …

Vox reports: Knock Down the House is the rare documentary about today’s American political landscape that might make you shed happy tears. And after a triumphant festival run — including winning the Audience Award for US Documentary and Festival Favorite Award at its Sundance premiere in January — it’s coming to Netflix and select theaters on May 1. For months …

Deutsche Welle reports: Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeared set to win the Ukrainian election by a substantial margin, exit polls showed on Sunday. Polls showed Zelenskiy winning 73% of the vote, beating incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in the run-off elections. “We have accomplished this together,” Zelenskiy said in a speech. “All citizens of the post-Soviet countries, look at us! Everything is …

Roll Call reports: The House chaplain scored a legal victory on Good Friday, when a federal appeals court ruled he could not be ordered to allow a self-described atheist to offer a secular prayer to the House of Representatives. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sided with Rev. Patrick J. Conroy, in his official capacity as the …

Deutsche Welle reports: A total of 60,000 police were deployed across France on Saturday as the country prepared for the latest protest by the “gilets jaunes” or Yellow Vest demonstrators. At least 5,000 police were being stationed in Paris alone, as authorities warned protesters to keep away from Notre Dame cathedral and the banks of the Seine. For many Yellow …

CBS News reports: Sixty-five percent of Americans now think marijuana should be legal — a record high in CBS News polling. Most view marijuana as less harmful than alcohol and believe it is less dangerous than other drugs. Many opponents of legalization, however, think it leads to a rise in crime and most favor the federal government taking action to …

CBS News reports: The Justice Department is planning to release the Mueller report this morning. Attorney General Bill Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein have scheduled a news conference at 9:30, Eastern time. Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team spent 22 months investigating Russian interference in 2016 presidential election. Barr has said the roughly 400 page report is …

CBS News reports: Ecuador revoked Julian Assange’s asylum status because he smeared his feces on the walls of the country’s embassy, Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno said. In an interview with CBS News’ partner BBC News, Moreno said Assange “even attacked some of the guards, something that definitely can’t be tolerated.” “He exhausted our patience and pushed our tolerance to the …

CNN reports: Bookseller Barnes & Noble will offer special counsel Robert Mueller’s report for free as an e-book. The redacted version of the special counsel’s report on Russian election interference and President Donald Trump’s campaign will be available on Nook devices and in the free Nook app sometime after its release Thursday. Customers with a Nook tablet can preorder the …

CNN reports: An Egyptian soccer hero and a sporting legend who just completed an improbable comeback. The first woman to be speaker of the house and the youngest woman elected to Congress. Special Counsel Robert Mueller and President Donald Trump. Those are just some of the individuals selected for this year’s edition of Time 100, the magazine’s annual list of …

Reuters reports: Peru’s former president Alan Garcia shot himself in the head early on Wednesday after police arrived at his home to arrest him in connection with a bribery investigation, the interior ministry said. Garcia, 69, underwent emergency surgery at the Casimiro Ulloa hospital and suffered three cardiac arrests, Health Minister Zulema Tomas said in broadcast comments. Garcia was one …

The New York Times reports: The American Museum of Natural History said Monday that it would no longer host an event at the museum by an outside organization that was to have honored President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, whose environmental policies have come under fire. The announcement followed days of criticism that a prominent institution dedicated to nature and science …

Agence France-Presse report: Ecuador said on Monday it has suffered 40 million cyber attacks on the webpages of public institutions since stripping Wikileaks founder Julian Assange of political asylum. Patricio Real, Ecuador’s deputy minister for information and communication technologies, said the attacks, which began on Thursday, had “principally come from the United States, Brazil, Holland, Germany, Romania, France, Austria and …

ABC News reports: The process of moving Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy started a year ago, on March 7, 2018, when the Ecuadorians made their first request to the U.K.: a letter asking for written assurances that the U.K. would not extradite Assange to a country where he could face the death penalty, according to the Ecuadorian Interior Minister …