Source: The Oregonian

Officers who serve on the Portland Police Bureau’s specialized crowd control unit, known as the Rapid Response Team, voted to resign from the team during a meeting Wednesday night then alerted the chief’s office, a police lieutenant and the mayor’s office have confirmed.

The unprecedented move by officers and sergeants to disband their own team came a day after a team member, Officer Cody Budworth, was indicted, accused of fourth-degree assault stemming from a baton strike against a protester last summer. A year ago, about 70 members comprised the team.

A team lieutenant called Chief Chuck Lovell to inform him the members of the team, who serve voluntarily in the assignments, voted to resign due to perceived lack of support from City Hall and from the district attorney over the past year during more than 100 consecutive nights of protest coverage, according to the mayor’s office and officers.

...

“Our RRT members do not volunteer to have Molotov cocktails, fireworks, explosives, rocks, bottles, urine, feces and other dangerous objects thrown at them,” wrote Daryl Turner, then president of the union. He noted that the team members volunteer for the work without any specialty pay.



Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2021/06/officers-sergeants-with-portlands-rapid-response-team-resign-from-the-specialized-crowd-control-unit.html

Source: Washington Post

A bipartisan group of senators sketching out an infrastructure proposal expanded their base of support on Wednesday, even as they continue to haggle over how to pay for billions of dollars in new spending in line with President Biden’s vision for a massive overhaul of the nation’s public works system.

The initial framework, written by the likes of Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and seven other senators, falls far short of the sweeping infrastructure proposal that Biden has pitched yet aims to try to satisfy the president’s hunger for bipartisanship.

But their efforts received a big boost on Wednesday when 10 more senators joined the original 10 and said they supported the still-unreleased blueprint of a deal. The group includes 10 Republicans, nine Democrats, and one independent who caucuses with the Democrats. All told, they account for one-fifth of the entire U.S. Senate.

That, senators say, marked an attempt to prove publicly that this is a proposal that can win broad approval on Capitol Hill, even as an increasingly agitated progressive coalition is urging Biden to ditch his bipartisanship efforts and move onto Democratic-only efforts that would likely be much more expansive.


Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/16/congress-infrastructure-white-house/

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So, 10 Repubs are onboard.

Source: CNBC

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday sharply raised its expectations for inflation this year and brought forward the time frame on when it will next raise interest rates.

However, the central bank gave no indication as to when it will begin cutting back on its aggressive bond-buying program, leaving investors to watch for Chairman Jerome Powell’s press conference on clues about when tapering will begin.

As expected, the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee left its benchmark short-term borrowing rate anchored near zero. But officials indicated that rate hikes could come as soon as 2023, after indicating in March that it saw no increases until at least 2024. The so-called dot plot of individual member expectations pointed to two hikes in 2023.

Though the Fed raised its headline inflation expectation to 3.4%, a full percentage point higher than the March projection, the post-meeting statement continued to say that inflation pressures are “transitory.”

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/16/fed-holds-rates-steady-but-raises-inflation-expectations-sharply-and-makes-no-mention-of-taper.html

Source: Axios

A group of Jewish Democrats in the House is publicly feuding with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) after she tweeted about "unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban," in reference to investigations by the International Criminal Court.

Why it matters: The fight threatens to reopen a fault line within the party that could cost Omar her seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, writes Punchbowl News.

The House previously passed a resolution by Democrats condemning anti-Semitism in response to comments on Israel by Omar, and Republicans have long accused the Minnesota congresswoman of anti-Semitism — a charge she denies.

Unlike the 2019 resolution, a statement issued by Democrats late Wednesday called out Omar by name.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/ilhan-omar-israel-hamas-democrats-7e778e8d-ba62-4d41-a17e-01235cc9709d.html

Source: Reuters

The head of Russia's space agency on Monday suggested Moscow would withdraw from the International Space Station in 2025 unless Washington lifted sanctions on the space sector that were hampering Russian satellite launches.

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, was addressing parliamentarians ahead of a summit in Geneva later this month between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden.

Rogozin said Moscow was struggling to launch some of its satellites because of U.S. sanctions which meant Russia could not import certain microchip sets needed for its space programme.

"We have more than enough rockets but nothing to launch them with," Rogozin said, in a rare admission by a senior Russian official that Western sanctions are seriously impeding the development of a given industry.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-us-lift-sanctions-space-sector-or-well-exit-space-station-2021-06-07/

Source: The Hill

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he will vote against a sweeping election reform overhaul bill, dubbed the For The People Act, putting the fate of the legislation in jeopardy in the evenly split Senate.

In an op-ed published early Sunday morning in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Manchin, one of the Democratic caucus’s most conservative members, zeroed in on the partisan nature of the legislation, which has not attracted any Republican support.

“I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening blinds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For The People Act," Manchin wrote.

“The truth, I would argue, is that voting and election reform that is done in a partisan manner will all but ensure partisan divisions continue to deepen,” he added.

Manchin also said he “will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster,” which a number of leading Democrats have suggested in order to pass election reform.


Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/557033-manchin-to-vote-against-election-overhaul

Source: Huffington Post

A federal judge Friday overturned California’s three-decade-old ban on assault weapons, ruling that it violates the constitutional right to bear arms.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego ruled that the state’s definition of illegal military-style rifles unlawfully deprives law-abiding Californians of weapons commonly allowed in most other states and by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Under no level of heightened scrutiny can the law survive,” Benitez said. He issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of the law but stayed it for 30 days to give state Attorney General Rob Bonta time to appeal.

…

In his 94-page ruling, the judge spoke favorably of modern weapons, said they were overwhelmingly used for legal reasons. “Like the Swiss Army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle,” the judge said in his ruling’s introduction.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/california-assault-weapons-ban-overturned_n_60bb4949e4b0ea8a191ebeaf

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This judge is on Senior status, and was originally appointed by George W Bush.

Source: Law and Crime

The Supreme Court of the United States handed down two unanimous decisions Monday — making the total a whopping four 9-0 decisions in a week’s time.

The first opinion released by SCOTUS on this morning was United States v. Palomar-Santiago, an immigration decision authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in which the full court sided with the government and against the immigrant.

The unanimous court ruled against the Mexican national Refugio Palomar-Santiago, who was charged with criminal re-entry into the United States. Palomar-Santiago became a permanent U.S. resident in 1990, was deported in 1998, and was found living again in the U.S. in 2017. As a result of being found unlawfully on American soil, Palomar-Santiago was prosecuted for criminal re-entry.

...

Next, in Territory of Guam v. United States, the justices ruled in favor of Guam, allowing the island to pursue the collection of funding from the U.S. government to remediate environmental pollution on the island.

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/supreme-court/supreme-court-justices-again-unanimous-twice-in-the-same-day/

Source: AJC

Gov. Brian Kemp is scheduled to sign legislation before Monday’s veto deadline that would overhaul a Civil War-era state law that allows Georgians to arrest someone they believe has committed a crime.

The law was thrust back into the spotlight after it was cited by a prosecutor who said police should not charge three white men who followed Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black Brunswick-area man, before one shot and killed him. The three have since been charged with murder and pleaded not guilty, citing the citizen’s arrest statute.

Arbery’s mother is expected to attend Monday’s 2 p.m. bill signing ceremony.

House Bill 479 was a bipartisan priority after Arbery’s death this year and passed the General Assembly with broad support — only one lawmaker voted against the measure.

HB 479 would repeal citizen’s arrest from state law while still allowing employees at businesses, those conducting business on someone else’s property, security officers, private investigators and inspectors at truck scales to detain someone they believe has committed a crime. The bill also would allow law enforcement officers to make arrests outside their jurisdictions.



Read more: https://www.ajc.com/politics/kemp-to-sign-overhaul-of-georgias-citizens-arrest-law-today/L2M4VWMY4RAD3LQYEJUG26TGWU/

Source: ABC News

California’s population fell by more than 182,000 people in 2020, marking the first year-over-year loss ever recorded for the nation’s most populous state.

State officials announced Friday that California’s population dipped 0.46% to just under 39.5 million people from January 2020 to January 2021.

The news comes one week after the U.S. Census Bureau announced a paltry population growth for California, resulting in the state losing a congressional seat for the first time because it grew more slowly than other states over the past decade.

But the census numbers reflect the state’s population in April 2020. The new state numbers released Friday reflect the state’s population as of January 2021.

The state four most populated cities -- Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco -- lost a combined 88,000 people. LA dropped the most at nearly 52,000 and has now lost about 75,000 people in the last three years to fall to an overall population of just over 3.9 million.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/californias-population-fell-time-history-77558322