Mcgrath Senate campaign says she raised $2.5 million in 24 hours
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The U.S. Senate campaign for Amy Mcgrath says she raised over $2.5 million within 24 hours of announcing her run against Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell of Kentucky. According to a Wednesday news release, donations to the Marine combat aviator came in the form of 69,188 individual contributions. The campaign says all of the money was donated online, and the average donation was $36. Mcgrath, a Democrat, narrowly lost a House race in 2018 to incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Barr.
SALT LAKE CITY – A tech worker was charged Wednesday with murder and kidnapping in the death of a Utah college student whose body was found in a park. Prosecutors said Ayoola A. Ajayi, 31, was the last person Mackenzie Lueck communicated with on June 17 before she disappeared. District Attorney Sim Gill said Lueck’s cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. He did not discuss a motive or possible connection between Lueck and Ajayi. Cellphone data put Ajayi in the park at the same time as Lueck, authorities say.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Puerto Rico’s former secretary of education and five others were arrested Wednesday on charges of steering $15.5 million in federal money to unqualified, politically connected contractors. Former Education Secretary Julia Keleher; former Health Insurance Administration head Ángela Ávila-marrero; businessmen Fernando Scherrer-caillet and Alberto Velázquez-piñol; and education contractors Glenda E. Ponce-mendoza and Mayra Ponce-mendoza face 32 counts of fraud and related charges.
LONDON – Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney accused world leaders Wednesday of failing to protect journalists and responding with “a collective shrug” over the slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. Clooney, the British government’s envoy on media freedom, said at a conference on press freedom that “journalists are under attack like never before,” not just while covering wars but for exposing crime and corruption, and most killers go unpunished. A U.N. agency says 99 media workers were killed worldwide in 2018.