The former head of the American Nazi Party ran for the Republican nomination of Congress in Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District. No Republican stepped up to oppose him.
On Tuesday, despite his vocal Holocaust denial, his anti-Semitic rhetoric, and his white supremacist views, 20,339 Illinois Republicans, according to preliminary totals, cast their ballots for Arthur Jones.
Jones’ Nazi-sympathies were not a secret going into election day. His campaign website features a slideshow of pictures of him speaking at white nationalist events. He is a perennial candidate who has previously run for U.S. House, Chicago alderman, and mayor of Chicago, and even mayor of Milwaukee. Chicagomediaextensivelycovered the race. The Anti-Defamation League warned voters of his record. The chairman of Illinois Republican Party even disavowed him, saying “The Illinois Republican Party and our country have no place for Nazis like Arthur Jones. We strongly oppose his racist views and his candidacy for any public office, including the 3rd Congressional District.”
Still, a stunning portion of the GOP primary electorate opted to cast their ballot for Jones rather than nobody. This includes, according to unofficial totals as of Wednesday morning, 13,158 voters in suburban Cook County (more than 70 percent of 18,595 GOP primary ballots cast), 4,093 voters in Will County, 3,023voters in the City of Chicago, and 65 voters in DuPage County.
While the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of the House GOP, dismissed Jones last month as “a fringe candidate who has been doing this for over a decade with with no real connection to the GOP,” his campaign platform mirrors President Trump’s agenda. Jones’ campaign website promises to “put America first” with border protections, the elimination of “Sanctuary Cities”, no “amnesty for illegal aliens,” gun rights, and a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Jones will face incumbent Democratic Congressman Daniel Lipinski, a social conservative, who narrowly won renomination on Tuesday.
Two teenagers were shot and injured at a high school in Great Mills, Maryland this morning, allegedly by a classmate who may have had a prior relationship with one of them, authorities said.
"I'm kind of traumatized," one student told ABC News. "I could have died."
Suspect Austin Rollins’ two alleged victims -- a 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl -- were shot in a Great Mills High School hallway just before classes began, authorities said, adding that Rollins, 17, died after exchanging gunfire with a school resource officer.
"There is an indication that a prior relationship existed between the shooter and the female victim," St. Mary’s County Sheriff Tim Cameron said at a news conference today.
The extent of any relationship between them was unclear and the motive remains under investigation.
The sole school resource officer, Deputy Blaine Gaskill, engaged the suspect and fired a round, authorities said. The shooter fired almost simultaneously, using a Glock semi-automatic, authorities said. The suspect was injured and has since died at a hospital, police said. It was not immediately clear if the officer or the suspect fired the fatal shot.
The injured girl was hospitalized in critical condition and the injured boy was hospitalized in stable condition, authorities said.
Student Nadyia Olsen told ABC News she heard what sounded like firecrackers
"Everybody started freaking out and running around," while at first, "I was perfectly calm," she said.
Olsen and her boyfriend put a metal bookcase in front of a door to barricade themselves in a classroom with their peers.
Once the reality of the situation hit her, she said, "I was scared. I was ready to just, like, break down and cry. But I wanted to protect everybody first because my school means the world to me."
"I'm kind of traumatized," Olsen said. "I could have died."
Video shows police officers checking on students sheltering in darkened classroom amid this morning's shooting at a Maryland high school. http://abcn.ws/2FPaEaN
Another student, Jenna Lane, told ABC News she didn't see anything but she knew something was wrong when she heard the principal's voice over the speaker system because he sounded panicked and upset. She said she stayed in lockdown until officers came to her classroom, after which they were brought to the cafeteria, which was full of sobbing students.
Authorities evacuated students from the school and bused them to a reunification center at nearby Leonardtown High School, St. Mary's County Public Schools said. Students have since been reunited with their parents at Leonardtown or sent home by bus, the district said this afternoon.
Great Mills is located about 60 miles southeast of Washington, D.C.
FBI and ATF agents have responded.
As the sheriff's office investigates, Cameron said no "pre-incident signs" have been found on social media accounts connected to the suspect at this time.
Police have responded to the suspect's home, Cameron added.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said it appears the shooting was handled "exactly the way it should have been handled."
"Had a very capable school resource officer that also happened to be a SWAT team member," he said at a news conference. "This is a tough guy who apparently closed in very quickly and took the right kind of action. And I think while it's still tragic, he may have saved other people's lives."
Hogan said in an earlier statement, "I want to express my deepest gratitude to the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office and all of the first responders who swiftly and bravely took action to secure the school. The first lady and I are praying for those who were injured, their families and loved ones, and for the entire Great Mills community as they come together to heal in the wake of this horrific situation."
“But prayers are not enough," Hogan continued. "Although our pain remains fresh and the facts remain uncertain, today’s horrible events should not be an excuse to pause our conversation about school safety. Instead, it must serve as a call to action.”
Cameron said at the news conference today, "This is what we prepare for. And this is what we pray we never have to do. And on this day, we realize our worst nightmare. That our greatest asset, our children, were attacked in one of our places of ... safety and security, one of our schools."
Meanwhile, a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing this morning on how to prevent school violence and other violence in the country.
As the hearing began, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said of today’s school shooting, “We can only hope there are no fatalities. We simply cannot watch this happen time and time again and take no action."
This shooting comes four days before Saturday's March for Our Lives in nearby Washington, D.C. Thousands of students are expected to descend on the nation’s capital to rally for gun control and safer schools in the wake of the deadly Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
Less than one week ago, Great Mills High School students were among the thousands participating in the National School Walkout, according to local news outlet TheBayNet.com.
The walkout, which marked a month since the Parkland massacre, was organized as a call on Congress to tighten gun laws.
A Manhattan Supreme Court judge Tuesday denied President Trump’s attempt to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by a former reality show contestant who accused him of sexual misconduct.
The judge rejected the president’s motion to dismiss the claim brought by Summer Zervos, who appeared on "The Apprentice" in 2005.
Zervos claimed that Trump kissed her twice on the lips in 2007 in his New York office, "making her 'uncomfortable, nervous and embarrassed,'" when she sought him out for job opportunities and advice after appearing on the show, according to the documents. She also alleged Trump kissed her, groped her breast and pressed his genitals against her at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
“No one is above the law,” Judge Jennifer Schecter wrote in the decision. “It is settled that the President of the United States has no immunity and is 'subject to the laws' for purely private acts.”
Zervos filed her defamation suit at the start of 2017, three days before Donald Trump assumed the presidency, alleging that he made defamatory statements about her on the campaign trail where he repeatedly accused her and other women who made similar allegations of lying. He attempted unsuccessfully to dismiss Zervos' lawsuit.
“Nothing in the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution even suggests that the President cannot be called to account before a state court for wrongful conduct that bears no relationship to any federal executive responsibility,” Schecter wrote.
She also rejected an alternative the president sought to delay the case until after he leaves office.
“A lengthy and categorical stay is not justified based on the possibility that, at a moment’s notice, the President may have to attend to a governmental or international crisis,” the judge wrote.
Defense attorney Marc Kasowitz had argued Trump’s comments on the campaign trail amounted to heated political rhetoric and were not specifically about Zervos. The judge rejected that argument as well.
“[Trump] not only averred that plaintiff told ‘phony stories’ and issued statements that were ‘totally false’ and ‘fiction,’ he insisted that the events ‘never happened’ and that the allegations were ‘100% false,’” Schecter wrote.
“A reader or listener, cognizant that the defendant knows exactly what transpired, could reasonably believe what defendant’s statements convey: that plaintiff is contemptible because she ‘fabricated’ events for personal gain.”
Kasowitz said he would appeal.
"We disagree with this decision, which is wrong as a matter of Constitutional law," Kasowitz said in a statement. "We intend to immediately appeal and will seek a stay of the case until this issue is finally determined."
A 16-year-old Florida boy is suspected of beating his friend to death with a baseball bat, authorities said, alleging that the teen was jealous of his friend's relationship with a girl.
Police say the suspect persuaded friend Giovanni Diaz, 15, to go into a wooded area Monday afternoon, where the teen "viciously beat and killed Giovanni with a baseball bat," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference Monday. He hit Giovanni at least nine times, Judd added.
As the suspect emerged from the woods, authorities say he told a witness, "I hit my friend with a baseball bat," according to Sheriff Judd.
The witness told the teen to go home and call 911, Judd said. The suspect did so, allegedly confessing to hitting his friend with the bat, Judd said. After he dialed 911, police say the teen agave an "elaborate" defense about protecting himself, which Sheriff Judd called a lie.
The teen allegedly told a responding officer that he had "wailed" on his friend with a bat, Judd said, and the suspect was taken into custody.
At a news conference today, Judd called the beating premeditated; he said Giovanni had "relations" with a girl the suspect liked and "that made him mad."
Police say the suspect told someone several days ago, "I wonder what it's like to murder someone," Judd said today.
The sheriff has released the suspect’s name but ABC News is not naming him because he is a minor.
The suspect is home-schooled while Giovanni, an eighth-grader, attended a middle school, but both lived in the same community, Judd said. The "suspect referred to them as friends," Judd said, adding that they had known each other for a long time.
The alleged victim "has absolutely no previous run-ins with the law," Judd said, but the suspect was charged two years ago with two counts of battery for allegedly battering two people, including Giovanni.
The suspect also was charged with domestic battery last year for allegedly battering his father, Judd said.
The suspect has been charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of possession of marijuana. Police are requesting that he be tried as an adult; the State Attorney’s Office will make that decision at a later time, Judd said.
Authorities say a Florida elementary school teacher left a 4-year-old child alone while she went to buy marijuana.
A Polk County Sheriff’s Office news release says 26-year old Marsha Dolce was arrested Saturday and charged with child neglect and marijuana possession.
Deputies responded to a Davenport apartment complex Saturday morning and found a 4-year-old child crying outside wearing only a T-shirt and underwear. Dolce, who teaches fourth grade at Laurel Elementary in Poinciana, eventually returned home and told deputies she had left to help a friend with car troubles.
Deputies reported finding marijuana in Dolce’s home, and text messages on her phone indicated that she had gone to nearby Winter Haven hours earlier to buy the drug.
Child welfare officials removed the child from Dolce’s home.
Pakistan slashed import tariffs on 6000 items. Now, there is no need for China to manufacture them in Pakistan, posing a threat to the SEZs set up along CPEC.
The way the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is progressing is certainly going to end up hurting Pakistan. This is not something we are saying, but the opinion of Pakistan's Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Pakistan media reports have said. The FBR believes CPEC could well end up destroying Pakistani industry, and take away any incentive for Chinese companies to manufacture in Pakistan.
This round of rising discord within the Pakistani government over the CPEC's negatives outweighing the positives comes as Islamabad removed import tariffs on about 6000 items from China. These 6000 items are part of list of about 7200 articles that are also manufactured in Pakistan.
The waiver on import duties came as part of the second phase of the Free Trade Agreement between China and Pakistan. Maintaining the opacity that has characterised CPEC so far, even governmental organisations like FBR and Pakistan's Board of Investment (BOI) were not informed of the contents of the FTA that has been put in place, major Pakistani dailies Dawn and The Express Tribune have reported.
Officials from the FBR and BOI anonymously expressed alarm to these newspapers, saying the removal of import tariffs would make it completely unnecessary for China to manufacture these items in Pakistan, and that Chinese companies would rather save on the cost of setting up factories and import them anyway. Chinese investments in special SEZ set up along the CPEC route have so far been advertised as a key component of the project, one that would provide employment for local Pakistanis.
Another major concern that the officials expressed was that the move could flood the market with cheap Chinese goods, driving Pakistani manufacturers who make those 6000 items out of businesses in no time. Even if some of them did survive, they just couldn't work up the cost advantage to export anything of significant value to China, the officials said.
After years of blindly praising CPEC as a mutually beneficial project that would raise Pakistan to great riches, there are now a rising number of voices questioning the whole deal. Concerns have focused on a whole range of issues with CPEC, from the opacity surrounding the terms of agreement between the two countries, to the use of Chinese workers instead of Pakistani ones, to the lopsided revenue-sharing from Gwadar Port, and the terms of control of infrastructure projects, among numerous others.
China has also done its fair bit of arm twisting to keep the Pakistanis from airing negative views in public. CPEC is presently the only fully functional part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and any discordant notes over it could lead to more troubles for China in other countries.
A mixture of cyanide and copper, when irradiated with ultraviolet (UV) light, may have produced simple sugars that formed a key ingredient responsible for the origin of life on Earth.
Researchers have come across a strange finding that may explain the origin of life on early Earth – cyanide.
The beginning and the consequent evolution of life on Earth has been under constant scrutiny in the field of science.
In November 2017, a team of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in the US hypothesized that a chemical reaction called phosphorylation may have been crucial for the assembly of three key ingredients in early life forms.
Now, the study has found that a mixture of cyanide and copper, when irradiated with ultraviolet (UV) light, may have produced simple sugars that formed a key ingredient responsible for the origin of life on Earth.
"One story for the origin of life is what we call the RNA world," said Zoe Todd from the Harvard University in the US.
"In order to make something like an RNA nucleotide, you need these sugars. This shows that process was plausible on the early Earth," said Todd, a researcher in the study published in the journal Royal Society of Chemistry.
When scientists in the UK demonstrated that the system could produce simple sugars such as glycolaldehyde and glyceraldehyde in 2012, it became a key step in showing that the hypothesis was plausible.
Those tests were performed under ideal conditions – with relatively high concentrations of both cyanide and copper, and powerful lamps that generated high-energy, 254-nanometer wavelength light.
However, previous research has shown that early Earth would have experienced a range of wavelengths shorter than typical on the planet's surface today.
Todd and Dimitar Sasselov, a professor at Harvard, set out to test the system under those conditions.
They combined small amounts of cyanide and copper in an airtight quartz container and then hit the solution with lower-intensity light from tunable xenon lamps.
Using prisms, Todd was able to separate the light into different wavelengths and target the system with a specific wavelength for hours at a time before running tests to confirm the reaction was actually taking place.
By adjusting the system based on specific conditions – which molecules are present in an atmosphere and intensity of the UV light produced by nearby stars – researchers could use the system to model whether the reaction could operate on other planets, Todd said.
