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State senators respond to fentanyl, retail theft with legislation

Published

2 months ago

February 27, 2024

SACRAMENTO —

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the California senate on Monday announced a package of legislation to address the growing fentanyl crisis and untamed outbreak of organized retail thefts.

Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), who was sworn in as president pro tempore last month, recited sobering statistics to reporters as he introduced proposals he said will remedy the issues through a more rehabilitative approach.

“There are more than 12,000 drug overdose deaths a year in California. More than half of those deaths are fentanyl-related,” McGuire said. “Black and Latino communities have seen a 200% increase in overdose deaths since 2017. Native Americans had a 150% increase in overdose deaths in the same period. The Hoopa Valley tribe faces a fentanyl death rate eight times greater than the state average.”

The senate’s action comes after Assembly leaders this month presented their plans to remedy the issues, an indication that the drug and theft crises will be priorities this legislative session — and in California’s 2024 election.

The set of 14 bills announced by McGuire and other Democrat and Republican Senate leaders takes a sweeping approach. The legislation, if passed and signed by the governor, would increase access to treatment, enhance addiction services for those in the criminal justice system and penalize criminal trafficking of xylazine, or “tranq,” a horse tranquilizer laced in fentanyl.

Among those bills is SB 1144, authored by Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), which will tighten regulations to help prevent stolen goods from being sold online.

Tinisch Hollins, executive director of the nonprofit Californians for Safety and Justice, called the package a “thoughtful approach to nuanced challenges.”

Hollins said the package is needed “in an environment where special interests are gaslighting Californians with destructive and ineffective rollbacks.”

She was referring to law enforcement agencies that have lobbied for changes to Proposition 47, a contentious ballot measure that reduced certain retail theft and drug offense charges to misdemeanors.

Contra Costa County Dist. Atty. Diana Becton called for a strategic approach that strays from a one-size-fits-all approach to public safety.

“I have seen firsthand the need to reimagine our approach to criminal justice,” she said. “To reexamine and reproach it through a lens of racial and socioeconomic disparity, with an eye to restorative justice programs and rehabilitation programs for nonviolent offenses.”

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Eleven injured as Boeing jet skids off runway

Published

1 hour ago

May 9, 2024

Our Foreign Staff

A Boeing 737 plane with 78 passengers skidded off a runway before takeoff at Senegal’s main airport on Tuesday, injuring 11 people and bringing flights to a halt.

The Blaise Diagne airport said an investigation was under way to determine the cause of the accident, which occurred at around 0100 GMT as the Transair-owned Boeing 737-300 chartered by Air Senegal was preparing to fly to Mali.

The plan crashed before takeoff and has closed the airport

A night-time video shared on social media showed a plane with the logo of Senegal-based airline Transair standing in grass with a wing covered in fire-suppressing foam.

The airport statement said it activated emergency protocols to evacuate passengers.

“For now, the airport is closed … The reopening of the airport is expected within the next few hours,” it added.

This is a breaking story, more to follow

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Gutfeld: Team Biden is lying to the American people to imprison its chief rival

Published

8 hours ago

May 9, 2024

Greg Gutfeld

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Trump notches a win as libs sit and spin. A federal judge has postponed Trump’s classified records trial indefinitely. It was supposed to start later this month, but like my vacation plans with Kristi Noem, that ain’t happening.

You remember that case: the sham trial stemming from the classified records investigation cooked up by Jack Smith. The trial should have started May 20, but due to the myriad and interconnected pretrial issues, Judge Aileen Cannon put the whole damn thing on hold. Translation: That case is imploding faster than when my butt implants went scuba diving.

And our instincts as to why are correct. The judge’s decision to postpone the trial comes just days after Jack Smith’s own prosecutors admitted that evidence was rearranged after the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago back in August 2022.

FEDERAL JUDGE POSTPONES TRUMP’S CLASSIFIED RECORDS TRIAL WITH NO NEW DATE

Said the feds: “There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans… The government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what government counsel previously understood and represented to the court.”

That’s a lot of words for saying, “We f***** up.” Even former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder admits the whole process has simply not been on the up-and-up. And that’s coming from a Democrat who looks like Howard Sprague.

And here’s a revelation: The infamous crime scene photo of the raid may be more doctored than Jill Biden’s education. Think about it. They admitted as much in a recent court filing.

This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Remember, it’s the picture the liberal media shoved down our throats. All the classified papers laid out neatly on the beautiful, expensive Trump carpeting. Documents labeled “Top Secret” with distinct classification levels showing just how evil and conniving the big orange Godzilla really was to hoard such top secret materials.

The only thing is those papers labeled top secret were cover sheets they simply slapped on there for the photo op. Yeah, top secret cover sheets. What is this, “Get Smart”? Hey, guys, we don’t want people to read this, better put “top secret” on it. Yeah, while we’re at it, be sure to put, “Don’t peek, awesome toy inside” on your kids’ Christmas gifts.

JUDGE UNSEALS FBI FILES IN TRUMP CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CASE, INCLUDING DETAILED TIMELINE OF MAR-A-LAGO RAID

As Julie Kelly with Declassified was first to report, the court filings “conclusively demonstrate that the government used the cover sheets to deceive the public as well as the court. The photo was a stunt, and one that adds more fuel to this dumpster-fire case.” True, it was more staged than a Kilmeade book signing.

So once again, it’s Team Biden lying to the American people to imprison his chief rival, because if you can’t beat him, put him behind bars. But of course, there’s no fooling the New York Times, they published this piece just days after the raid, “How the Picture of Top Secret Folders at Mar-a-Lago Came About.”

Yeah, it was just one of the dozens of left-wing headlines touting the authenticity of a photo that was about as legitimate as those pills I ordered from Canada. I actually got shorter.

Now, I didn’t go to law school, but I know evidence tampering when I see it — it’s how I framed OJ. Of course, as predicted, the Trump-dependent media is melting down over the trial’s indefinite delay.

Donald Trump and Jack Smith (Getty Images/File) (Getty Images)

JUSTICE THOMAS RAISED CRUCIAL QUESTION ABOUT LEGITIMACY OF SPECIAL COUNSEL’S PROSECUTION OF TRUMP

MSNBC’S JOE SCARBOROUGH: It’s crazy. It’s crazy. A 12-year-old that went with her mother to “Take a Kid to Court Day,” like as a lawyer, or something, would have come up with a better ruling than she’s come up with. It’s bizarre… I guess she’s either ill-equipped — extraordinarily ill-equipped — or she just doesn’t care what the world thinks of her. She’s right now looking like, everything she’s doing, she’s doing to help Donald Trump.

No, God forbid there’s some honesty right there at the end. He’s not mad over the alleged tampering. He’s mad that the defendant may be helped by the ruling.

Now, a normal person would be outraged that the government may be framing an American citizen, but in Joe’s mind, the outrage is that this citizen might get justice.

Piece of advice, Joe: When you start rooting for the law to get away with bad things, you might be the bad guy. “Morning Joe” has now become the “Bonnie and Clyde” of insufferable dip*****.

So, while that Florida trial is put on ice, the hush money trial in New York took its scheduled weekly break today, so what are all the players up to? Well, Stormy Daniels took the day off to hit the beach.

A court sketch depicts former President Donald Trump appearance in federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida on Thursday, March 14, 2024. Trump’s lawyers are asking Judge Aileen Cannon to dismiss special counsel Jack Smith’s charges pertaining to Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. (Lothar Speer)

…

HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE INVESTIGATES ‘MANIPULATED’ EVIDENCE SEIZED BY FBI IN TRUMP CLASSIFIED RECORDS PROBE

See, it seems nothing can get orange Godzilla down. Every cockamamie crime, every faux felony, every trumped-up charge. Meanwhile, Biden’s being hidden in a crate by the Ark of the Covenant, but it’s all starting to unravel, just like the plot of a Stormy Daniels movie.

Why would there be four pizza delivery guys?

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So you notice a trend here?

They told us the laptop was fake, but this photo was real. They told us spying on the Trumps was fake, but Russian collusion was real. They told us inflation was fake, but those job numbers were real.

How come the lies only go one way to help one guy and hurt the other? And we’re supposed to be too dumb to notice? Well, maybe if you’re “Morning Joe.”

Greg Gutfeld currently serves as host of Gutfeld! (weeknights, 11PM-12AM/ET) and co-host of cable news’ highest-rated program The Five (weekdays, 5-6PM/ET).

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Biden Says the U.S. Will Not Supply Israel With Weapons to Attack Rafah

Published

10 hours ago

May 9, 2024

Erica L. Green

President Biden acknowledged on Wednesday that American bombs have been used to kill Palestinian civilians as he warned that the United States would withhold certain weapons if Israel launches a long-threatened assault in southern Gaza.

In some of his strongest language to date on the seven-month war, Mr. Biden said the United States would still ensure Israel’s security, including the Iron Dome missile defense system and Israel’s “ability to respond to attacks” like the one Iran launched in April.

But he said he would block the delivery of weapons that could be fired into densely populated areas of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering.

The president had already halted the shipment of 3,500 bombs last week out of concern that they might be used in a major assault on Rafah — the first time since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 that Mr. Biden has leveraged U.S. arms to try to influence how the war is waged.

On Wednesday, he said that he would also block the delivery of artillery shells.

“If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, that deal with that problem,” Mr. Biden said in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett.

He added: “But it’s just wrong. We’re not going to — we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used, that have been used.”

Asked whether 2,000-pound American bombs had been used to kill civilians in Gaza, Mr. Biden said: “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers.”

Mr. Biden’s remarks underscore the growing rift between the United States and its closest Middle East ally over the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 people and caused a humanitarian crisis. The United States is by far the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, and the Biden administration plans to deliver a report to Congress this week assessing whether it believes Israel’s assurances that it has used American weapons in accordance with U.S. and international law.

Mr. Biden had resisted earlier calls to condition aid to Israel Mr. Biden has remained unwavering in his support of Israel’s right to defend itself, even as he speaks out forcefully against the invasion of Rafah and grows frustrated with what he once described as Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing.”

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has rebuffed the U.S. warnings, saying that Israel would move forward with eradicating Hamas even if it has to do so alone.

This week, the Israeli war cabinet voted unanimously to move forward with a Rafah assault, and Israeli forces warned more than 100,000 civilians to evacuate as it started what it called “targeted strikes” against Hamas.

U.S. officials said this week that Israel had said its operation thus far in Rafah was “limited” and “designed to cut off Hamas’s ability to smuggle weapons into Gaza,” but continued to express their concern with an escalation.

Mr. Biden said he did not consider Israel’s operations in Rafah to date to qualify as a full-scale invasion because they have not struck “population centers.”

But he said he considered them to be “right on the border,” adding that they were causing problems with key allies such as Egypt, which has been integral to cease-fire negotiations and opening border crossings for humanitarian aid.

Mr. Biden said he had made it clear to Mr. Netanyahu and his war cabinet that they would not get support if they moved forward with an offensive in densely populated areas.

“We’re not walking away from Israel’s security,” he said, “we’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”

Mr. Biden was also asked about Gaza protests on college campuses — specifically chants calling him “Genocide Joe” — that have erupted in recent weeks.

Asked if he hears the message of those young Americans, Mr. Biden said:

“Absolutely, I hear the message.”

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