Youngkin grants clemency to a fired police sergeant who killed an unarmed man and more headlines
The state Capitol. (Photo by Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)
• 'Youngkin grants clemency to a fired Virginia police sergeant who shot and killed an unarmed man.' — The Associated Press
• 'Immigrant advocates decry order for Virginia State Police, local jails to assist ICE.' — FFXnow
• 'Virginia Tech-led team expands hunt for critical minerals.' — Cardinal News
• 'Powerful storm system expected in Virginia on Wednesday.' — WTVR
• 'Virginia promoting teen driving safety with 'Arrive Alive' program.' – WFXR
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Red Cross chief declares Gaza ‘worse than hell on earth'
The situation in Gaza has become 'worse than hell on earth,' the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross has said. 'Humanity is failing in Gaza,' Mirjana Spoljaric told the BBC in an interview broadcast on Wednesday. 'We cannot continue to watch what is happening.' The ICRC, a global organization assisting people affected by conflict, has about 300 staff in Gaza. It runs a field hospital in Rafah that was swamped with casualties in recent days after witnesses described Israeli troops opening fire on crowds trying to access food aid. Spoljaric said that the situation in the territory was 'surpassing any acceptable legal, moral and humane standard.' 'The fact that we are watching a people being entirely stripped of its human dignity should really shock our collective conscience.' She called on world leaders to do more to bring the conflict to an end because the consequences would haunt them and 'reach their doorsteps.' Israel's devastating military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 54,000 people since October 2023, mostly women and children. The offensive was launched after a Hamas-led attack on Israel killed 1,200 people and seized dozens of hostages. Spoljaric said that while every state had a right to defend itself, there could be 'no excuse for depriving children from their access to food, health and security.' She added: 'There are rules in the conduct of hostilities that every party to every conflict has to respect.' International condemnation of Israel has increased in recent weeks after its military pushed to take full control of Gaza after severing all food and aid supplies to the territory's population. Late last month, some aid deliveries resumed after Israel set up a new aid system that bypassed the UN and is now run by a newly formed US organization. Operations at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's three aid delivery sites were paused on Wednesday after dozens of Palestinians were killed by gunfire near one of the sites. ___ © 2025 the Arab News Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Newsweek
3 hours ago
- Newsweek
LA Protests: Trump and Newsom Clash as National Guard Deployed
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. California Governor Gavin Newsom has condemned President Donald Trump's decision to activate the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell anti-immigration enforcement protests in the city as "purposefully inflammatory," calling on protesters not to give the administration a reason to justify the measure. "The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles—not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday. "Don't give them one." Why It Matters While it is not the first time that the Trump administration has activated the National Guard to quell protests across the country, the U.S. president is doing so now despite Newsom's explicit opposition. Normally, governors would be allowed to retain control and command of their state's National Guard—but that is not what is happening this time in California. The National Guard's announced deployment in California is turning the Democratic-led state into a stage for the Trump administration's escalating crackdown on immigration, showing how far the president is willing to go to keep his promise to deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants during his second term in office. What To Know Protests against the White House's workplace raids broke out across Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday, when federal security agents clashed with demonstrators. While there have been no reported arrests, the Trump administration said that the situation in the city was out of control and required federal intervention. On Saturday, the president announced the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, justifying his decision as necessary to "address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester," as the White House wrote in a presidential memorandum. President Donald Trump, left, on June 5, 2025, in Washington D.C.; California Governor Gavin Newsom, right, on April 16, 2025, in Ceres, California. President Donald Trump, left, on June 5, 2025, in Washington D.C.; California Governor Gavin Newsom, right, on April 16, 2025, in Ceres, California. Getty Images On Saturday, the president also wrote on his Truth Social profile: "If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can't do their jobs, which everyone knows they can't, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!" But both Newsom and Bass have rejected claims that protests in Los Angeles were out of control, with the governor calling the Trump administration's decision "purposefully inflammatory" and the mayor saying the National Guard's presence would "not be helpful" in quelling demonstrations. The situation could escalate even further if protests in Los Angeles continue. On Saturday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the Pentagon is considering sending active-duty troops to Los Angeles "if violence continues," an idea that Newsom has condemned as "deranged." What They Are Saying President Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that the National Guard troops deployed in Los Angeles were doing a "great job" at bringing order back into the city "after two days of violence, clashes and unrest." He added: "These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT BE TOLERATED. Also, from now on, MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why??? Again, thank you to the National Guard for a job well done!" He called Newsom "incompetent," accusing him and the Los Angeles mayor of being "unable to handle the task" of quelling protests in the city. In response to Trump's announcement and accusations, Governor Gavin Newsom wrote on X that the federal takeover of the California National Guard was "not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle." He then urged protesters not to give them one, calling for peaceful demonstrations. He later added in another post: "The secretary of defense is now threatening to deploy active-duty Marines on American soil against its own citizens. This is deranged behavior." Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote on X: "This is a difficult time for our city. As we recover from an unprecedented natural disaster, many in our community are feeling fear following recent federal immigration enforcement actions across Los Angeles County. Reports of unrest outside the city, including in Paramount, are deeply concerning. We've been in direct contact with officials in Washington D.C., and are working closely with law enforcement to find the best path forward." She added: "Everyone has the right to peacefully protest, but let me be clear: violence and destruction are unacceptable, and those responsible will be held accountable." What Happens Next The latest update from Bass on social media informed Los Angeles citizens that National Guard troops had not yet arrived in the city. "Just to be clear, the National Guard has not been deployed in the City of Los Angeles," she wrote on X. The Trump administration said that the troops will arrive in the city within the next 24 hours.
6 hours ago
South Dakota is on track to spend $2 billion on prisons in the next decade
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- Two years after approving a tough-on-crime sentencing law, South Dakota is scrambling to deal with the price tag for that legislation: Housing thousands of additional inmates could require up to $2 billion to build new prisons in the next decade. That's a lot of money for a state with one of the lowest populations in the U.S., but a consultant said it's needed to keep pace with an anticipated 34% surge of new inmates in the next decade as a result of South Dakota's tough criminal justice laws. And while officials are grumbling about the cost, they don't seem concerned with the laws that are driving the need even as national crime rates are dropping. 'Crime has been falling everywhere in the country, with historic drops in crime in the last year or two,' said Bob Libal, senior campaign strategist at the criminal justice nonprofit The Sentencing Project. 'It's a particularly unusual time to be investing $2 billion in prisons.' Some Democratic-led states have worked to close prisons and enact changes to lower inmate populations, but that's a tough sell in Republican-majority states such as South Dakota that believe in a tough-on-crime approach, even if that leads to more inmates. For now, state lawmakers have set aside a $600 million fund to replace the overcrowded 144-year-old South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls, making it one of the most expensive taxpayer-funded projects in South Dakota history. But South Dakota will likely need more prisons. Phoenix-based Arrington Watkins Architects, which the state hired as a consultant, has said South Dakota will need 3,300 additional beds in coming years, bringing the cost to $2 billion. Driving up costs is the need for facilities with different security levels to accommodate the inmate population. Concerns about South Dakota's prisons first arose four years ago, when the state was flush with COVID-19 relief funds. Lawmakers wanted to replace the penitentiary, but they couldn't agree on where to put the prison and how big it should be. A task force of state lawmakers assembled by Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden is expected to decide that in a plan for prison facilities this July. Many lawmakers have questioned the proposed cost, but few have called for criminal justice changes that would make such a large prison unnecessary. 'One thing I'm trying to do as the chairman of this task force is keep us very focused on our mission,' said Lieutenant Gov. Tony Venhuizen. 'There are people who want to talk about policies in the prisons or the administration or the criminal justice system more broadly, and that would be a much larger project than the fairly narrow scope that we have.' South Dakota's incarceration rate of 370 per 100,000 people is an outlier in the Upper Midwest. Neighbors Minnesota and North Dakota have rates of under 250 per 100,000 people, according to the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice advocacy nonprofit. Nearly half of South Dakota's projected inmate population growth can be attributed to a law approved in 2023 that requires some violent offenders to serve the full-length of their sentences before parole, according to a report by Arrington Watkins. When South Dakota inmates are paroled, about 40% are ordered to return to prison, the majority of those due to technical violations such as failing a drug test or missing a meeting with a parole officer. Those returning inmates made up nearly half of prison admissions in 2024. Sioux Falls criminal justice attorney Ryan Kolbeck blamed the high number of parolees returning in part on the lack of services in prison for people with drug addictions. 'People are being sent to the penitentiary but there's no programs there for them. There's no way it's going to help them become better people,' he said. 'Essentially we're going to put them out there and house them for a little bit, leave them on parole and expect them to do well.' South Dakota also has the second-greatest disparity of Native Americans in its prisons. While Native Americans make up one-tenth of South Dakota's population, they make up 35% of those in state prisons, according to Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit public policy group. Though legislators in the state capital, Pierre, have been talking about prison overcrowding for years, they're reluctant to dial back on tough-on-crime laws. For example, it took repeated efforts over six years before South Dakota reduced a controlled substance ingestion law to a misdemeanor from a felony for the first offense, aligning with all other states. 'It was a huge, Herculean task to get ingestion to be a misdemeanor,' Kolbeck said. Former penitentiary warden Darin Young said the state needs to upgrade its prisons, but he also thinks it should spend up to $300 million on addiction and mental illness treatment. 'Until we fix the reasons why people come to prison and address that issue, the numbers are not going to stop,' he said. Without policy changes, the new prisons are sure to fill up, criminal justice experts agreed. 'We might be good for a few years, now that we've got more capacity, but in a couple years it'll be full again,' Kolbeck said. 'Under our policies, you're going to reach capacity again soon.'
