News From Around the Web
#10 Prominent Comedian Says COVID Fees and Credit Card Surcharges Are No Joke - Aislinn Murphy for Fox Business and Kimberly Rae 45 on X
The stand-up comedian took to social media, saying a restaurant he dined at should get rid of the "COVID fee" he said it charged him. The fee was $3, according to Maniscalco. "I went to a restaurant last night, and I got the bill, and they charged me a COVID fee," he said. "I asked the guy. I go, ‘What’s the COVID fee?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, well, we gotta wipe down the menus.’ Wipe down the menus? You're charging $3 to wipe down your own menus? Before COVID, what, you just brought out the menu with spaghetti sauce on it?" Tens of thousands of children and adults living with type 1 diabetes across England are set to receive an ‘artificial pancreas’ in a world-first initiative being rolled out by the NHS. The groundbreaking device continually monitors a person’s blood glucose and then automatically adjusts the amount of insulin given to them through a pump. Local NHS systems will start identifying eligible people living with type 1 diabetes who health chiefs believe could benefit from the Hybrid Closed Loop system- sometimes called an artificial pancreas – from today. There are currently 269,095 people living in England with type 1 diabetes... A Massachusetts federal judge last week dismissed Gov. Ron DeSantis from a lawsuit over the flights of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in 2022, but left the door open for the case to continue against the company that arranged the flights. U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs Friday dismissed Governor DeSantis and other state officials involved in the case, which was brought by several of the approximately 50 asylum seekers who say they were tricked onto the trips. In her 77-page decision, Judge Burroughs ruled there was not sufficient evidence in the lawsuit to tie Governor DeSantis and others to illegal activity in Massachusetts... Former President Donald Trump has sued the co-founders of Truth Social, alleging they mismanaged the social media platform early on and should therefore lose their stock in the company, which recently went public. In papers filed last week in Florida state court, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. argued that executives Wes Moss and Andy Litinsky made a series of costly mistakes that resulted in a long delay in the company’s going public and urged a judge to strip them of their shares in the company. The pair, who were contestants on Trump's NBC show "The Apprentice," had pitched him on the idea of Truth Social after he was banned from what was then known as Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. "This was a phenomenal opportunity for Moss and Litinsky," the suit says, adding that they were both "riding President Trump's coattails." The prime minister has said people should not be criminalized "for stating simple facts on biology" in response to JK Rowling's criticism of Scotland's new hate crime law. The author took to social media to hit out at the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, which came into effect on Monday. The law creates a new crime of "stirring up hatred" relating to protected characteristics. Rishi Sunak said the UK had a proud tradition of free speech... More than 53,000 people have fled Haiti’s capital in less than three weeks, the vast majority to escape unrelenting gang violence, according to a United Nations report released Tuesday. More than 60% are headed to Haiti’s rural southern region, which worries U.N. officials. “Our humanitarian colleagues emphasized that these departments do not have sufficient infrastructure, and host communities do not have sufficient resources, to cope with the large number of people fleeing Port-au-Prince,” said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. The southern region already hosts more than 116,000 Haitians who previously left Port-au-Prince, according to the report by the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration... New Mexico election officials violated public disclosure provisions of the National Voter Registration Act by refusing to provide voter rolls to a conservative group and its public online database, a federal judge has ruled. The opinion and order Friday from Albuquerque-based U.S. District Court Judge James Browning mostly sided with the Voter Reference Foundation and its efforts to expand a free database of registered voters so that groups and individuals can take it upon themselves to try to find potential irregularities or fraud... Last year, a Massachusetts resident and his family were going through the personal effects of a deceased grandfather and happened to come across a very large collection of very valuable Asian art. The FBI Art Crimes Unit from the Boston Field Office received a complaint in January 2023 from the family, saying that the grandfather was a World War II veteran but never served in the Pacific Theater. “There were some scrolls, there were some pottery pieces, there was an ancient map,” said Special Agent Geoffrey J. Kelly, the art coordinator for the Boston Office, who added that the family did their own research and determined that at least the scrolls had been entered about 20 years ago in the FBI’s National Stolen Art File...
#9 NHS Rolls Out Artificial Pancreas in World First Move - NHS England and Good Morning Britain
#8 Judge Dismisses Case Against DeSantis; Charter Flight Charges Continue - Ethan Genter for The Vineyard Gazette
#7 Trump Sues Truth Social Co-founders, Says They’re Not Entitled to Stock Shares - Dareh Gregorian for NBC News and Unfiltered Boss and Simon Ateba on X
#6 PM Backs JK Rowling’s Views on New Hate Crime Law - Megan Bonar for BBC News and Sky News on X
#5 Georgia Assembly Passes Impressive Set of Election Security Bills - Wendi Strauch Mahoney on UncoverDC
#4 Haiti’s Surge in Gang Violence Has Led More Than 53,000 to Flee the Capital in Less Than Three Weeks - Evens Sanon for AP News
#3 The West Virginia Problem - Dave Mohel for UncoverDC
Last week, Governor Jim Justice (R-WV) vetoed legislation that will allow exemptions for vaccine mandates for school children, including homeschooled students, children who attend private schools, or those parents with religious exemptions. West Virginia families hurt by the governor's veto of a bill that passed in the state house by nearly a 3-1 vote and the state senate by a 2-1 majority have already spoken out. But while it would seem out of place to many Republicans, Justice has a long track record of government overreach regarding vaccinations and COVID, particularly imposing stricter regulations and keeping them in place long after most other states.
#2 FCC to Vote to Restore Net Neutrality Rules, Reversing Trump - David Shepardson for Reuters and Jeffrey Westling on X
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will vote to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules and assume new regulatory oversight of broadband internet that was rescinded under former President Donald Trump, the agency's chair said. The FCC told advocates on Tuesday of the plan to vote on the final rule at its April 25 meeting. The commission voted 3-2 in October on the proposal to reinstate open internet rules adopted in 2015 and re-establish the commission's authority over broadband internet.
#1 Judge Sides With Conservative Group in Its Push to Access, Publish Voter Rolls Online - Morgan Lee for AP News and Kris Kleyn on X
And Now for Something Special
Man Discovers Attic Filled With Looted Art From Battle of Okinawa–Works With FBI to Repatriate It All to Preserve History - Andy Corbley for Good News Network
