Justice Department Finds Pattern of Discriminatory Policing in Louisville

The police department in Louisville, Kentucky, engaged in a pattern of discriminatory and abusive law enforcement practices, the Justice Department said Wednesday after conducting an investigation prompted by the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by police in 2020. Investigators detailed a variety of serious misconduct, including the use of excessive force; searches based on invalid and so-called no-knock warrants; unlawful car stops, detentions and harassment of people during street sweeps; and broad patterns of discrimination against Black people and those with behavioral health problems. The investigation is likely to lead to a consent decree, a court-approved deal that establishes and enforces a road map for training and operational changes.

Memphis Delays Release of More Findings From Tyre Nichols Investigation

Two months after Tyre Nichols was beaten by police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, city officials are preparing to release about 20 hours of additional video and audio that could provide more details about what happened on that night in January. The release of the footage had been expected as early as Wednesday. Five officers have been charged with second-degree murder, official misconduct, official oppression and kidnapping. A judge on Wednesday granted a request from a lawyer for one of the officers to delay the release until prosecutors and defense lawyers could review the materials.

Opioids Are Leading Cause of Child Poisoning Deaths, Study Finds

Opioids were the leading cause of fatal poisonings among children 5 years old and younger in recent years, a study has found, underscoring how the opioid epidemic has not spared children. The study, published Wednesday, analyzed 731 poisoning-related deaths that occurred from 2005 to 2018 across 40 states. The authors found that opioids, a class of synthetic drugs that includes prescribed pain relievers but also illegal narcotics such as heroin and fentanyl, contributed to nearly half, or 47%, of those deaths. About 41% of these poisoning deaths resulted from accidental overdoses, according to the study, which described 18% as “deliberate” poisonings.

House GOP Prepares to Slash Federal Programs in Coming Budget Showdown

Hard-right House Republicans are readying a plan to gut the nation’s foreign aid budget and make deep cuts to health care, food assistance and housing programs for poor Americans in their drive to balance the federal budget, as the party toils to coalesce around a blueprint that will deliver on their promise to slash spending. Republicans are ready this week to condemn President Joe Biden’s forthcoming budget as bloated and misguided, and have said they will propose their own later this spring, a timetable that has slipped as they continue to debate what should be in their plan.

U.S. Spy Agencies Warn of China’s Efforts to Expand Its Power

China’s government is increasingly convinced it can only make itself the preeminent power in Asia, and a major power globally, by diminishing American influence, the top U.S. intelligence official said Wednesday. The goal of weakening U.S. power and influence is one reason China has continued to pursue a deepening partnership with Russia, according to an annual intelligence threat assessment that was also released Wednesday. National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, who appeared before a Senate committee, said China believes it can achieve its goals of dominating its region and expanding its global reach “only at the expense of U.S. power and influence.”

Biden to Visit California and Call for Tougher Gun Control Measures

President Joe Biden plans to travel next week to Monterey Park, California, where a gunman killed 11 people at a dance studio in January, to call for tougher gun control measures amid a spate of mass shootings throughout the United States. Biden will visit the Southern California city Tuesday, according to a White House official. This week, the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group, said the United States had surpassed 100 mass shootings, defined as one in which at least four people were killed or injured, since the beginning of the year.

Russia Lacks Firepower to Keep Advancing, U.S. Intelligence Chief Says

Even as Ukrainian and Russian leaders predicted that the fall of Bakhmut could open the way for a broader Russian offensive, the U.S. intelligence chief said Wednesday that the Kremlin’s forces were too depleted by a year of war to wage such a campaign. The chief of the Wagner mercenary group, which has spearheaded the Russian assault on Bakhmut, said Wednesday that his forces had taken the eastern part of the city. But testifying in Washington before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, argued that Russia, having suffered staggering losses in Ukraine, lacked the troops and the ammunition to make major advances this year.

Mexicans Question Government’s Swift Response to Lethal Attack on Americans

After the nationality of the people who were attacked and abducted by gunmen Friday in Matamoros, Mexico, became widely known, the Mexican president promised to put the force of his government behind the desperate effort to find them. It also secured the assistance of U.S. law enforcement officials. By Tuesday morning, Mexican authorities had recovered the American victims, two dead and two alive, and had detained a suspect. The speed of the rescue elicited anger among many Mexicans, who were shocked to see their leaders spring into action after years of doing little to locate the more than 100,000 people who remain missing in a country where most crimes go unsolved.

By wire souces