NEWS OF THE DAY
School shooting: A comment on an Iowa congressman’s campaign Facebook page about one of the survivors of a Florida school shooting has prompted hundreds of comments, many met by mocking replies from the campaign. U.S. Rep. Steve King’s campaign Facebook page on Sunday featured a picture of Emma Gonzalez as she gave a speech at Saturday’s “March for Our Lives” rally in Washington. Alongside a photo of Gonzalez, who wore a Cuban flag patch, the page noted Gonzalez’s Cuban heritage and stated her “ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp, after removing all weapons from its citizens.” Hundreds responded with outrage and blasted King.
Official in limbo: With his job status in danger, embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin sought to lower his public profile Monday as a White House spokesman insisted that President Trump still had confidence in his leadership “at this point in time.” Shulkin, the lone Obama administration official in Trump’s Cabinet, abruptly backed out of a media availability Monday morning that had been scheduled at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Elsmere, Del. Three administration officials said that Trump is planning to oust the Shulkin within the next week or two amid an extraordinary rebellion at the agency and damaging government investigations into his alleged spending abuses.
Police beating: A judge in Asheville, N.C., has ruled all video in the case of a white police officer accused of using excessive force against a black man accused of jaywalking should be released. Local news outlets report Buncombe County Superior Court Judge Mark Powell said Monday it was in the public interest for footage captured by police body cameras to be made public. Powell set an April 2 release date. District Attorney Todd Williams said the release would threaten his ability to prosecute the case. Video footage captures former Asheville Police Officer Christopher Hickman ordering Johnnie Jermaine Rush to put his hands behind his back. It shows Hickman punching Rush’s head and using a stun gun while holding him to the ground last Aug. 25. Hickman was later charged with felony assault.
Endangered whales: The winter calving season for critically endangered right whales is ending without a single newborn being spotted off the southeast U.S. coast, a reproductive drought unseen for three decades that experts say brings the rare species a perilous step closer to extinction. “It’s a pivotal moment for right whales,” said Barb Zoodsma, who oversees the right whale recovery program in the U.S. Southeast for the National Marine Fisheries Service. Researchers have been looking since December for newborn right whales off the coasts of Georgia and Florida, where pregnant whales typically migrate each winter to give birth in warmer Atlantic waters. Trained spotters in airplanes who spend the season scouting the coastal waters for motherand-calf pairs found nothing this season.
Chronicle News Services