A Florida man will soon learn whether he will be sentenced to death or life in prison for fatally shooting five women in a bank in 2019. Jury selection starts Monday in the penalty trial of 27-year-old Zephen Xaver, who pleaded guilty last year to murder. The trial only will determine his sentence. Security video from Sebring's SunTrust bank shows Xaver shot the four bank employees and a customer in their heads after making them lie on the floor. Prosecutors are expected to argue the killings were planned and cruel, deserving of death. Xaver’s attorneys are expected to cite his years-long mental health problems as they seek leniency.
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US national security adviser, Saudi Arabia's crown prince meet to discuss 'semi-final' security deal
President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan has met with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss what the kingdom described as the “semi-final” version of a wide-ranging security agreement between the countries. The announcement early Sunday by the state-run Saudi Press Agency comes as the strategic deal had been upended after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage back to the Gaza Strip. In the time since, a punishing Israeli airstrike campaign and ground offensive there has killed over 35,000 Palestinians, endangering the security deal that had included Saudi Arabia diplomatically recognizing Israel for the first time since its founding in 1948.
Voters in the Dominican Republic will take to the polls Sunday in general elections likely to reinforce the government’s crackdown on its shared border with crisis-stricken Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the violence stricken nation. President Luis Abinader has build a Trump-like wall along his country's border with Haiti and has carried out mass deportations of Haitians. Such policies have fueled accusations of human rights abuses but have also been highly popular among voters.
President Joe Biden is delivering the commencement address at Morehouse College, the historically Black, male-only institution in Atlanta. The speech on Sunday offers Biden an election-year appearance before a Black audience, a key voting bloc for Democrats. It also could directly expose Biden to the anger that some Morehouse and other college students around the country have been expressing over his support for Israel in its war against Hamas militants in Gaza. Morehouse’s announcement of Biden as the commencement speaker sparked a backlash among the school’s faculty and supporters who oppose Biden’s handling of the war. After the ceremony, Biden was flying to Detroit to speak at an NAACP dinner.
Georgia Republicans have elected to the Republican National Committee a conservative activist who helped organize the pro-Donald Trump rally on Jan. 6, 2021. A mob stormed the U.S. Capitol after the event. Delegates to the Georgia Republican Party State Convention elected Amy Kremer to one of two RNC positions Saturday, unseating incumbent Ginger Howard. Delegates kept the second RNC member, Jason Howard. Challengers had attacked his relatives' work for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Kremer's win shows the continued desire of party activists for confrontation, even as many in leadership tried to preach unity and ease divisions that have left Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp estranged from the party organization.
Six people were killed and 10 others injured early Saturday morning when a pickup crashed into a passenger van in Idaho. State police say the accident happened early Saturday morning when a pickup crossed the centerline on U.S. Highway 20 and hit a passenger van. The van's driver and five passengers were declared dead at the scene of the accident in Idaho Falls. Nine van passengers and the pickup's driver were taken to the hospital. Idaho State Police didn't immediately respond to requests for more information.
Authorities say three people died and three others were wounded in an early morning shooting in Ohio’s capital over the weekend. Columbus police said the shooting was reported shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday in the Italian Village neighborhood north of downtown, with what may have been semi-automatic or automatic gunfire and cars “taking off.” Deputy Chief Gregory Bodker says six people were shot and three died. They were identified later Saturday as 27-year-old Malachi Pee, 26-year-old Garcia Dixon Jr. and 18-year-old Da’ondre Bullock. Three other people were taken to hospitals, one in critical condition and two others stable. Police said no suspects were immediately identified.
Arizona’s attorney general says former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been served an indictment in the state’s fake elector case alongside 17 other defendants for his role in an attempt to overturn former President Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes posted the news regarding the Trump-aligned lawyer on her X account late Friday. She said Giuliani is the final defendant to be served an indictment in the case and added that “nobody is above the law.” Giuliani’s political adviser, Ted Goodman, confirmed Giuliani was served Friday night after his 80th birthday celebration as he was walking to the car. Goodman said they “look forward to full vindication soon.”
As ethnic armed group claims to have captured a town in western Myanmar, Muslim Rohingyas flee again
A powerful ethnic armed group fighting Myanmar’s military government in the country’s western state of Rakhine is claiming to have seized a town near the Bangladesh border, marking the latest victory for foes of the country’s military government. The state’s Muslim Rohingyas, targets of deadly army-directed violence in 2017, appear to have been the main victims of fighting in the town of Buthidaung, where the Arakan Army claims to have chased out forces of the military government. Information about the situation could not be verified independently, with access to the internet and mobile phone services in the area mostly cut off. The Arakan Army is the military wing of the Rakhine ethnic movement, which seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under mounting pressure from his own War Cabinet and his country’s closest ally over postwar plans for Gaza. That's even as the war with Hamas shows no sign of ending anytime soon. On Saturday, Benny Gantz, a member of the War Cabinet and Netanyahu’s main political rival, said he would leave the government on June 8 if it did not formulate a new war plan including an international, Arab and Palestinian administration to handle civilian affairs in Gaza. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said he would not agree to Israel governing Gaza itself. The United States wants a broader plan including a path to Palestinian statehood.
