Santa Barbara surf school owner arrested on suspicion of killing his two toddlers in Mexico
ROSARITO, Mexico — U.S. border authorities arrested the founder of a Santa Barbara, California, surfing school on suspicion of killing his two young children in Mexico, the Baja California state attorney general announced Tuesday.
Border agents arrested 40-year-old Matthew Taylor, a U.S. citizen, as he tried to cross from Tijuana into the U.S. at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, according to Baja California officials.
Baja California prosecutor Hiram Sánchez Zamora said Taylor traveled to Rosarito, which is about a 30-minute drive south of Tijuana, and checked into a City Express hotel on Saturday with his 1-year-old son and his 3-year-old daughter.
Sánchez said investigators found that Taylor left the hotel on Monday morning at 2:54 a.m. with both children. A few hours later, Taylor returned to the City Express at 6:33 a.m., but without his children, according to Sánchez, who gave details at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
At 7:27 a.m., Baja California police received a 911 call about the shocking discovery of the bodies of two babies in diapers who had been repeatedly stabbed with a wooden stake.
—The San Diego Union-Tribune
Twitter suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene for saying COVID vaccine is 'failing'
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene defiantly lashed out at Twitter on Tuesday after being suspended for a week for posting comments about COVID-19 the site labeled "misleading."
The Georgia Republican says she won’t stop repeating what the social media company says are lies spread by anti-vaxxers about the lifesaving shots.
“I refuse to be silenced about these important life changing issues,” Greene said in a statement to reporters. “Twitter won’tallow any discussion of the truth.”
Greene doubled down on her earlier post attacking vaccines and masks to limit the spread of the deadly pandemic.
“These vaccines are failing & do not reduce the spread of the virus & neither do masks,” Greene wrote on Twitter.
Twitter slapped a “MISLEADING” tag on the message and limited users from retweeting or interacting with it. Greene was later suspended from posting messages for a week, CNN first reported.
“The account will be in read-only mode for a week due to repeated violations of the Twitter Rules,” Twitter said.
—New York Daily News
Prosecutors detail slaying of Chicago police officer as brothers charged in case are ordered held without bond
CHICAGO — It started routinely enough Saturday night, prosecutors said: a typical traffic stop for expired license plates,near a nondescript West Englewood viaduct.
It ended in chaos and tragedy: a Chicago police officer dead, one of her partners critically wounded and two brothers facing felony charges for their alleged roles in the fatal encounter.
Officer Ella French and her partner had their service weapons holstered when Emonte Morgan shot them both at close range during a struggle, exchanged fire with a third officer, then ran and gave the gun to his brother Eric before collapsing with two gunshot wounds, Cook County prosecutors said Tuesday. Both men were ordered held without bond in separate hearings.
Body-worn camera footage — some of it recorded by the wounded officers’ cameras after they fell to the ground — captured much of the confrontation, prosecutors said, and both brothers gave videotaped statements to police about their actions that night.
French died of a single gunshot wound to the head. Her wounded partner was still in critical condition Tuesday, with a bullet lodged in his brain as well as gunshot wounds to the eye and shoulder, prosecutors said.
Both Morgan brothers, Chicago residents in their early 20s, have little serious criminal history. Emonte, 21, is charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges. Eric, 22, faces weapons charges as well as a count of obstruction of justice.
—Chicago Tribune
Taliban overruns 2nd Afghan provincial capital within hours
KABUL — Afghan security forces retreated from the center of another provincial capital without fighting, three local officials said Tuesday, making it the eighth to fall in a matter of days.
The main government facilities and the center of Pul-e Khumeri city in Afghanistan’s northern Baghlan province were taken by the Taliban fighters, three provincial councillors Firuzuddin Aimaq, Bismillah Atash and Zarif Zarif told dpa.
The government forces retreated to Kilagay area in Doshi district where an army brigade is located, the councillors said.
Aimaq said a number of officials, including the provincial police chief, had abandoned the city about two weeks ago in order to attack the Taliban from another area, but that this move had damaged the morale of the forces remaining in the city.
Heavy fighting was ongoing in Pul-e Khumeri for the past three months, Atash said.
With an estimated population of nearly 250,000, the strategically important city of Pul-e Khumeri lies along the highway linking Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif, which also connects the Kabul with the country's northern provinces.
The capital of Baghlan fell just hours after Taliban took control of the capital of Farah province in the west.
Earlier on Tuesday, Taliban militants were closing in on the city of Mazar-e Sharif, the provincial capital of Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province, on the heels of their capture of another provincial capital in the country's west, local officials reported.
—dpa
