Month: October 2021

President Joe Biden traveled to Michigan on Tuesday, warning that the United States risks losing its edge in the global economy if Congress doesn’t pass his twin economic packages. Biden hit the road again to stump for the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan, which has been stalled in the House by Democratic progressives who want to see a separate $3.5 trillion spending plan approved in Congress.

Biden said during remarks in Howell, Mich., after touring the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 324 training facility: “These bills are about competitiveness versus complacency. We risk losing our edge as a nation. Our infrastructure used to be the best in the world, literally, not figuratively. Today, according to the world economic forum, we rank 13th. … All those investments that fueled a strong economy, we’ve taken our foot off the gas. The world has taken notice, by the way, including our adversaries and now they’re closing the gap in a big way.”

The Senate has already passed the infrastructure bill, but the legislation has been slowed in the House by progressives who are using it as leverage for the larger spending package, which is part of Biden’s social and economic agenda. Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate have voiced support for the infrastructure bill, but moderate Democrats such as Rep. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have balked at the $3.5 trillion cost of the spending blueprint, which calls for the money to be spent on healthcare, education, climate change measures and other social programs.

Editorial credit: YASAMIN JAFARI TEHRANI / Shutterstock.com

One DEA agent was killed and two other law enforcement officers were injured in a shooting on an Amtrak train at a station Monday morning in Tucson, Arizona. , Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus said Monday that members of a regional narcotics “alliance” of local and federal authorities were conducting a routine check on a stationary train when a man opened fire. Authorities were detaining another man on the train’s upper deck when the shooter pulled out a handgun. Magnus said: “The suspect, after exchanging rounds with the officers, barricaded himself in the bathroom, which is on the lower level. … Ultimately it was determined that the suspect in the bathroom was, in fact, deceased.” The man who was detained remains in custody; authorities have identified no other suspects.

Cheri Oz, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Phoenix division, confirmed that one Drug Enforcement Administration agent was killed in the exchange, said another agent was in critical condition. A Tucson police officer who rushed to help after hearing shots was stable.

Amtrak said in a statement that the “shooting incident” on the train from Los Angeles occurred at about 7:40 a.m. local time. None of the 137 passengers and 11 crew members, who all evacuated into the station, were reported to have been injured.

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Facebook said its platform, along with Instagram and WhatsApp, were coming back online after a massive outage on Monday knocked out service to all three social media giants and took the sites offline for users across the world. All three platforms — owned and operated by Facebook Inc. based in Menlo Park, California — went out of service at 11:39 a.m. ET.  At approcimately 6 p.m. ET, all three platforms reported that some service had been restored, but full functionality may remain erratic well into Monday evening. Facebook issued a statement at around 6:30 p.m. ET apologizing for the outage and said that its apps and services were being restored.  Facebook said on Twitter: “To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.”

Earlier on Monday, Mike Schroepfer, chief technology officer at Facebook, went on Twitter just before 4 p.m. ET to offer his “sincere apologies to everyone impacted by outages of Facebook powered services right now. We are experiencing networking issues and teams are working as fast as possible to debug and restore as fast as possible.” WhatsApp tweeted: “We’re working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience!” And Instagram took to Twitter and posted the hashtag #instagramdown with the message: “Instagram and friends are having a little bit of a hard time right now, and you may be having issues using them. Bear with us, we’re on it! “

The company has not fully explained what caused the over six hour outage, only blaming “networking issues.” The outage comes a day after Facebook faced allegations from a whistleblower that it had turned a blind eye to disinformation that led to the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

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Police announced on Sunday that a 22-year-old man was arrested that morning in connection with the shooting death of Utah football player Aaron Lowe. The Salt Lake City Police Department confirmed the arrest of Buk M. Buk in Draper, Utah, early Sunday. Buk has been charged with aggravated murder, attempted murder and felony discharge of a firearm. Lowe, 21, was shot and killed at a house party in Salt Lake City just after midnight on Sept. 26, just hours after the Utes beat Washington State. Buk is also accused of shooting a 20-year-old woman who has not been identified by police and remains in the hospital in critical condition.

Salt Lake City police chief Mike Brown said in a statement: “In a time of need, we turned to our community. We asked people to come forward and to share the information they had. Because of those tips and the unrelenting pursuit of justice from our homicide detectives, we have arrested the person accused of murdering Aaron Lowe. So many lives have been impacted from this senseless shooting.”

Lowe was a sophomore at the university and was the recipient of Utah’s ‘Ty Jordan Memorial Scholarship’ in August. The scholarship honors running back Ty Jordan, who died in an accidental shooting in December 2020. Jordan and Lowe were also high school teammates in Mesquite, Texas.

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A massive 126,000 gallon oil spill has dumped post-production crude off the coast of Southern California. The City of Huntington Beach said the spill measures approximately 5.8 nautical miles stretching from the Huntington Beach Pier to Newport Beach, forcing a closure of the ocean from the Pier to the Santa Ana River jetty. The U.S. Coast Guard said an oil sheen off the coast was first reported at 9:10 a.m. on Saturday morning.

The city of Huntington Beach said: “The spill has significantly affected Huntington Beach, with substantial ecological impacts occurring at the beach and at the Huntington Beach Wetlands. In response, Huntington Beach Fire and Marine Safety personnel have been deployed throughout the day to implement environmental containment efforts.” As of early Sunday morning, city officials said the leak had not yet been stopped but preliminary patching to repair the oil spill site has been completed as the U.S. Coast Guard will continue to respond to the incident. The city also urged individuals to avoid the beach due to the “toxicity created by the spill” and city leadership canceled the Pacific Airshow, which was scheduled for Sunday to facilitate clean-up efforts. Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley tweeted that oil had washed up onto the Huntington Beach beachfront and that dead birds and fish have been seen washing up on the shore.

The pipeline is owned by Houston-based oil and gas company Amplify Energy, President and CEO Martyn Willsher said in a news conference Sunday. “We are fully committed to being out here until this incident is fully concluded,” Willsher said. No exact cause for the spill has been determined and the Coast Guard is conducting an investigation.