Emmanuel Macron will win France's presidential election, pollsters project, fending off a historic challenge from far-right candidate Marine Le Pen during Sunday's runoff vote.

“The problems at Parchman are severe, systemic, and exacerbated by serious deficiencies in staffing and supervision,” the report said.

A man set himself on fire in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday night, a court spokesperson said, while emphasizing that there was no threat to public safety. The Metropolitan Police Department identified the man as Wynn Bruce, of Boulder, Colorado. On Saturday, police said he died from his injuries.

Melissa Lucio is scheduled to be executed next week for a crime she says she didn't commit — one that may not have even occurred. She was convicted 14 years ago of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah, and a Texas jury sentenced her to death. The state says Lucio beat her daughter to death. But as new details have emerged about her case, a growing chorus of lawmakers, faith leaders, anti-domestic violence organizations and celebrities has called for clemency. At least one juror from the trial says the jury wasn't given the full picture — and that if he had known more, he would have never voted for the death penalty. "No court has ever considered the new evidence of Melissa Lucio's innocence," says Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation at the Innocence Project and one of Lucio's attorneys. "So first and foremost, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals could issue a stay so that the evidence of Melissa Lucio's innocence can be fully litigated in the court. And that's what we're hoping for."

Mexico's president said on Thursday that an elite unit which worked on narcotics investigations with the United States was closed last year, confirming a Reuters report, and alleging the group had been infiltrated by criminals. On Tuesday, Reuters reported Mexico had disbanded the group that for a quarter of a century worked hand-in-hand with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to tackle organized crime. read more The closure complicates U.S. efforts to help combat organized crime inside Mexico, one of the epicenters of the multi-billion dollar global narcotics trade, and makes it harder to catch and prosecute cartel leaders, security experts say. Speaking at a regular news conference, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the unit was shut down "over a year ago" and that cooperation with international security bodies was continuing, provided Mexico's sovereignty was respected. "That group, which was supposedly a high-level strategic group, was infiltrated (by criminals)," he said. The president said he had "put in order" Mexico's relations with the United States. Past administrations had allowed those ties to infringe on Mexico's sovereignty, he argued.

Toronto tenants are celebrating after a three-month effort that saw their landlords rescind eviction notices issued to their entire west-end apartment building. Parkdale Organize, a local tenant advocacy group, announced Tuesday landlords Neil Spiegel and Evan Johnsen had rescinded their eviction notices. Cordelia Huxtable, who has lived in her unit for seven years, said she didn't know the building was up for sale when it changed ownership in 2020. But when the new owners took over, she said she began to notice red flags. First, she said tenants were offered money to leave their units. The offer raised eyebrows amongst residents and, although they eventually collectively declined the offer, they “decided to keep an eye on the situation,” she said. In the two years since, Huxtable said building residents continued to strengthen their relationships – helping one another through the pandemic, caring for those who were sick and offering support and assistance when repairs or maintenance was needed within the building. It wasn’t until January of this year that tenants were forced to put their collective power into play again, when they said they received paperwork informing them Spiegel and Johnsen intended to terminate their leases. The tenants held demonstrations, displayed banners, communicated collectively and, in the end, were successful in their refusal to leave their homes.

VILNIUS, April 22 (Reuters) - In April 2021, Russia's financial intelligence unit met in Moscow with the regional head of Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange. The Russians wanted Binance to agree to hand over client data, including names and addresses, to help them fight crime, according to text messages the company official sent to a business associate. At the time, the agency, known as Rosfinmonitoring or Rosfin, was seeking to trace millions of dollars in bitcoin raised by jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a person familiar with the matter said. Navalny, whose network Rosfinmonitoring added that month to a list of terrorist organisations, said the donations were used to finance efforts to expose corruption inside President Vladimir Putin's government. Binance's head of Eastern Europe and Russia, Gleb Kostarev, consented to Rosfin's request to agree to share client data, the messages showed. He told the business associate that he didn't have "much of a choice" in the matter.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — It’s unknown how long a stay will hold off the execution of Richard Bernard Moore — South Carolina's first-ever inmate to be put to death by a firing squad — as his attorneys pursue legal challenges.

"I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla," Musk told Gates, per the texts.

Almost two months after President Biden promised to make lifesaving drugs against Covid widely available to Americans, the medications remain hard to get for many, despite supplies, leaving large numbers of Americans to face increased risks of avoidable death and serious illness. That’s largely because, once again, a dysfunctional health care system that costs more and often delivers less than that of any other developed country has hindered our pandemic response. As was the case with vaccines, the United States quickly snapped up these therapeutics and accumulated vastly more supply than any other country. These drugs do not replace vaccines but provide crucial extra protections for vulnerable people who number in the millions and who face increased risks as the few remaining public health protections are rolled back. Paxlovid, an antiviral treatment developed by Pfizer, an American pharmaceutical company, is highly effective for reducing hospitalizations and deaths in high-risk patients, as long as it is started early. This is especially important for elderly or immunocompromised people, since their immune systems are not as robust as others’ against viruses, even when vaccinated. In his State of the Union address, Biden announced a “test to treat” initiative to provide such pills on the spot in pharmacies when someone tests positive. Reality is much less rosy.

The affidavit states that when Cady later realized she had consumed marijuana, she confronted Glenny on the dance floor at the wedding. She alleges that she asked the bride if marijuana had been put in the olive oil served to guests and that Glenny allegedly "shook her head yes and acted excited." .. One guest told the authorities he "felt tingly, his heart started to race, and [he] was having crazy thoughts," while a female guest recalled feeling "numb" and "helpless" and that "her mind was playing strange things in her head." Another suffered paranoia and became convinced her son-in-law had passed away and that her family was withholding this information from her. She was later taken to hospital where, according to the affidavit, she became "loud and unruly and had to be given something to calm down." .. Glenny is a chief marketing technologist and the founder of Fervorworks, a company which, according to its Instagram page specializes in "research-led, empathy-based frameworks to r(e)humanize business."

On February 22nd, Texas governor Greg Abbott sent a now-infamous directive to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS). The directive states that, per Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s assertion that “‘sex-change’ procedures” constitute child abuse, DFPS is ordered to start formally investigating it as such. The banned procedures listed in the directive include surgeries and hormone blockers. Paxton also said that Texas law requires mandated reporters, like doctors, teachers, nurses, and other professionals to report signs of this child abuse (e.g., any teenager who is undergoing gender-affirming treatment) to the authorities—or face criminal prosecution. Chase Strangio, the deputy director for transgender justice with the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project, responded that, in issuing this directive, Texas Republicans have “acted far beyond the scope of their legal authority in an effort to transform Texas law to punish transgender people and their families and to deputize the general public to assist them in that unauthorized endeavor.” Texas Republicans chose that moment—just before the Texas primaries—for a reason. Both Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton were facing viable primary challenges, with Ken Paxton’s seat under particular threat from Bush dynasty scion George P. Bush. Paxton’s office is immensely corrupt; caught in a tangled web of bribery and other abuses of power, he has been dodging federal charges his entire time in office. It’s hard to imagine how he’d fare without the self-protective advantage that the Attorney General’s office confers. In this context, it’s obvious that Abbott and Paxton’s instrumentalization of transphobia is not only bigotry but also naked self-interest: it’s a survival move. Threatened, Abbott and Paxton felt around for a weapon—and a wedge issue was close at hand. The initial groundwork of this maneuver was laid by fringe narratives from “trans-exclusionary radical feminists” (TERFs) and the far right. But in their campaign to mainstream the ideology that backs trans hatred, those bigots have not been entirely alone. They have been able to count on the help, conscious or not, of popular, liberal-minded writers—among them a cisgender, self-appointed expert on all things trans: Jesse Singal. Behind a veneer of empathy and concern, Singal has supplied anti-trans narratives that the right has found appealing. Singal would insist that he is not personally transphobic. Nevertheless, his writing on the subject has contributed to the wave of transphobia that is already beginning to have concrete ramifications for policy, endangering the well-being and the lives of trans people.

Officers in an exclusive Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD) unit who share gang-like skull tattoos have been the subject to complaints of alleged misconduct both off and on duty but faced no discipline, according to police records and a source within the department. Five officers in the Major Enforcement Team (MET), which operates much like a police SWAT unit, were accused of verbally harassing two teenage girls and groping one of them on the buttocks in 2020 at a Culichi Town restaurant according to police records, police bodycam footage, and a source. In a 2021 incident, Santa Ana City Councilmember Johnathan Hernandez reported seeing an off-duty MET officer and another man holding a struggling woman in a parking lot in downtown Santa Ana, groping her breasts and telling her, “chill,” and “shut up,” according to police reports. Other witnesses said they only saw the off-duty MET officer holding his wife back from an intoxicated woman who was trying to fight her outside the Copper Door restaurant. In a separate instance, earlier this year, a Santa Ana police officer sent an email to City of Santa Ana human resources manager Jason Motsik, City Manager Kristine Ridge, and City Attorney Sonia Carvalho, alleging he had been harassed. He claimed Chief David Valentin, who set up the MET unit, and a founding member of the MET unit had targeted him for criticizing the chief. In all three cases, SAPD concluded no wrongdoing had occurred, and no officers were disciplined, according to police records and the source.

A California man will face charges after he allegedly made threats against Merriam-Webster, which has its headquarters in Springfield, for making anti-LGBTQ threats against the company. Jeremy David Hanson, 34, of Rossmoor, California, is alleged to have made the threats through the Contact Us page and in the comments section of particular word entries, including those for “girl” and “woman” in October 2021. “We believe Hanson sent a multitude of anonymous threatening and despicable messages related to the LGBTQ community that were intended to evoke fear and division,” said United States Attorney Rachael Rollins. Under the dictionary’s definition of “female,” the Department of Justice alleges, Hanson posted, “It is absolutely sickening that Merriam-Webster now tells blatant lies and promotes anti-science propaganda. There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot.” Other threats also referenced the LGBTQ community and threatened shootings and bombings of the company’s Springfield offices. As a result of the threats, Miriam-Webster closed its Springfield and New York offices as a result of the threat.

The government of El Salvador has arrested more than 14,000 people in three weeks, after it declared a “state of exception” in response to a spike in gang violence that grants the state sweeping powers and suspends some civil liberties. Human rights groups have raised alarm at the intensity of President Nayib Bukele’s mass arrests and intensifying criminalisation of critics, including journalists, saying it is the latest example of his push to rapidly consolidate power since he took office in 2019.

Anomaly Six, a secretive government contractor, claims to monitor the movements of billions of phones around the world and unmask spies with the press of a button. In the months leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, two obscure American startups met to discuss a potential surveillance partnership that would merge the ability to track the movements of billions of people via their phones with a constant stream of data purchased directly from Twitter. According to Brendon Clark of Anomaly Six — or “A6” — the combination of its cellphone location-tracking technology with the social media surveillance provided by Zignal Labs would permit the U.S. government to effortlessly spy on Russian forces as they amassed along the Ukrainian border, or similarly track Chinese nuclear submarines. To prove that the technology worked, Clark pointed A6’s powers inward, spying on the National Security Agency and CIA, using their own cellphones against them. Virginia-based Anomaly Six was founded in 2018 by two ex-military intelligence officers and maintains a public presence that is scant to the point of mysterious, its website disclosing nothing about what the firm actually does. But there’s a good chance that A6 knows an immense amount about you. The company is one of many that purchases vast reams of location data, tracking hundreds of millions of people around the world by exploiting a poorly understood fact: Countless common smartphone apps are constantly harvesting your location and relaying it to advertisers, typically without your knowledge or informed consent, relying on disclosures buried in the legalese of the sprawling terms of service that the companies involved count on you never reading. Once your location is beamed to an advertiser, there is currently no law in the United States prohibiting the further sale and resale of that information to firms like Anomaly Six, which are free to sell it to their private sector and governmental clientele. For anyone interested in tracking the daily lives of others, the digital advertising industry is taking care of the grunt work day in and day out — all a third party need do is buy access. According to audiovisual recordings of an A6 presentation reviewed by The Intercept and Tech Inquiry, the firm claims that it can track roughly 3 billion devices in real time, equivalent to a fifth of the world’s population. The staggering surveillance capacity was cited during a pitch to provide A6’s phone-tracking capabilities to Zignal Labs, a social media monitoring firm that leverages its access to Twitter’s rarely granted “firehose” data stream to sift through hundreds of millions of tweets per day without restriction. With their powers combined, A6 proposed, Zignal’s corporate and governmental clients could not only surveil global social media activity, but also determine who exactly sent certain tweets, where they sent them from, who they were with, where they’d been previously, and where they went next. This enormously augmented capability would be an obvious boon to both regimes keeping tabs on their global adversaries and companies keeping tabs on their employees.

Teams of volunteer security officers and martial artists will ride the CTA Red Line Friday to ward off crime.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s political identity is tightly intertwined with CrossFit. After a year of scandal at the gym, it’s finally distancing itself from Georgia’s bigoted conspiracy theorist representative.

The wholesome Youtube chef should be your go-to online cooking resource

Cynthia Albritton, a.k.a. Cynthia Plaster Caster, the legendary artist and “recovering groupie” renowned for the plaster casts she took of many top musicians’ erect penises and other body parts, ha…