My precise view

https://ift.tt/3dONRvv LOS ANGELES — Lady Gaga’s two French bulldogs, which were stolen by thieves who shot and wounded their walker, were recovered unharmed Friday, Los Angeles police said. A woman brought the dogs to the LAPD’s Olympic Community Police Station, just northwest of downtown, around 6 p.m, said Capt. Jonathan Tippet, commanding officer of the department’s elite Robbery-Homicide Division. Lady Gaga’s representative and detectives went to the station and confirmed that they were the dogs, Tippet said. The singer is currently in Rome to film a movie. The woman who dropped off the dogs appears to be “uninvolved and unassociated” with Wednesday night’s attack, Tippet said. In a tweet Friday night, the LAPD said the woman had found the dogs “and reached out to Lady Gaga’s staff to return them.” Her identity and the location where the dogs were found won’t be disclosed for her safety and because of the ongoing investigation, the LAPD said. The dog walker, Ry...

https://ift.tt/2ZZbrNM NEW HAVEN, Conn. — An arrest warrant has been issued for a suspect in the slaying of a Yale graduate student, authorities said Friday. Qinxuan Pan is wanted in the Feb. 6 killing of Kevin Jiang, who was found lying outside his car on a New Haven street with multiple gunshot wounds. Pan, 29, is believed to be staying in the Atlanta area and should be considered armed and dangerous, Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Matthew Duffy said. He was seen in the Georgia capital suburbs of Duluth or Brookhaven, driving with family members, carrying a black backpack and acting strange days after the killing, Duffy said. Pan, an MIT graduate, is accused of stealing an SUV from a Massachusetts dealership the day of the killing before driving to Connecticut. Jiang, 26, had recently gotten engaged to be married. The Seattle native earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies at the University of Washington and was an Army veteran and Army National Guard member...

https://ift.tt/2ZVMCSX WASHINGTON — The House approved a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill in a win for President Joe Biden, even as top Democrats tried assuring agitated progressives that they’d revive their derailed drive to boost the minimum wage. The new president’s vision for flushing cash to individuals, businesses, states and cities battered by COVID-19 passed on a near party-line 219-212 vote early Saturday. That ships the massive measure to the Senate, where Democrats seem bent on resuscitating their minimum wage push and fights could erupt over state aid and other issues. Democrats said the still-faltering economy and the half-million American lives lost demanded quick, decisive action. GOP lawmakers, they said, were out of step with a public that polling shows largely views the bill favorably. “I am a happy camper tonight,” Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said Friday. “This is what America needs. Republicans, you ought to be a part of this. But if you’re not,...

https://ift.tt/3pZf3dk The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) vaccine advisory committee earlier today (Feb. 26) voted unanimously to recommend Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use authorization. While the FDA isn’t obligated to follow the committee’s advice, it generally does. At the end of a full day of review and discussion of the company’s shot, all 22 voting members of the committee agreed that the vaccine was safe and effective enough to be used by the public. It’s the third vaccine that the group of independent experts has recommended, following Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna . Unlike the two previous vaccines, J&J’s is a single shot , and can be shipped and stored under refrigerated, not frozen conditions, as the other two require. The single dosing played a part in the committee’s decision. Logistically, vaccinating people one time is much easier than asking them to return for a second dose. “This was a relatively easy call,” Dr. E...

https://ift.tt/2MsQkjO Republican speakers at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday downplayed the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the United States Capitol by a pro-Trump mob that disrupted the peaceful transfer of power, sidestepping former President Donald Trump’s culpability in the violence. On Friday, multiple speakers minimized the attack or cast blame outside their party. A marquee event in Republican politics, the CPAC conference is one of the first post-Trump gatherings of prominent conservative voices and will host the former President as a keynote speaker on Sunday. The Capitol riot hung over the day’s speeches. Less than two months ago, a mob of extreme Trump supporters stormed the Capitol as Congress certified the Electoral College results, after months of Trump spreading conspiracy theories that the election had been stolen from him. He was then impeached and acquitted for his role in inciting the insurrection. As the GOP wrestles with how—o...

https://ift.tt/2ZSLv6H If you’re one of the estimated 4.7 million Americans who shifted to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, you may have noticed an unexpected spike in your energy costs as you spend more time consuming power at home, rather than at the office. Prior to the pandemic, U.S. residential energy use was pretty predictable: electricity usage spiked as people woke up, decreased during working hours, and then rose again in the evening. Now, with many working remotely, residential energy usage rises later in the morning, but remains more consistent throughout the day. In a June 2020 report , the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a government statistics organization, estimated that residential energy use would rise by 20% over the second half of 2020, while industrial use would drop by 12%. The result? “There have been some really significant increases in residential bills,” says Steve Cicala, an assistant professor of economics at Tufts University and...

https://ift.tt/2P58EQX President Joe Biden arrived in Texas Friday on a trip designed to highlight the region’s recovery after a deadly winter storm knocked out power in most of the state. But while t he winter storm crisis may be fading into the rearview mirror , the battle to define its political meaning is just beginning. The Biden Administration has signaled that once its COVID relief legislation passes Congress, it plans to push for a massive stimulus package that would put people to work rebuilding American infrastructure designed to combat climate change. The Texas disaster has quickly become a focal point of the debate over that plan. For the past 10 days, dueling interests have duked it out over the significance of the Texas blackouts, with Democrats saying they underscored the need to adapt our infrastructure to climate change and many Republicans claiming—falsely—that the disaster shows the pitfalls of renewable energy. It’s a familiar exchange that has been ...