N.C. Democrat back in race for House
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Democrat Dan McCready said Friday that he's running, again, for the country's last vacant congressional seat now that North Carolina has ordered a new election.
McCready told supporters Friday at a brewery in Waxhaw, near Charlotte: "I am running in the special election to represent the people of the 9th District."
McCready trailed Republican Mark Harris by a slim margin in the November general election. But on Thursday the state ordered a new election for the district after reviewing evidence of absentee ballot fraud by operatives working for Harris.
"Folks, there's a lot of people that have had their confidence shaken in recent weeks because of the fraud conducted by Mark Harris' campaign," McCready told a gathering of several dozen supporters. "There's a lot of people right now in North Carolina that are disillusioned in our electoral process."
McCready has been assembling a new campaign staff and raising money to run again in the district that stretches from Charlotte through several counties to the east. His campaign-finance report showed McCready raised $487,000 during the final five weeks of 2018.
The state elections board Thursday ordered a new election after Harris, in a surprising reversal, gave up his fight to be declared the winner. He said a new election was warranted after testimony during the week revealed serious public doubts about the contest's fairness.
EL Chapo's team says jurors disobeyed
NEW YORK -- The defense team for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman said Friday that it will seek a new trial for the notorious drug lord in light of "misconduct" on the part of several jurors who are accused of following media accounts of the case against the instructions of a federal judge.
Defense attorney Eduardo Balarezo said in a court filing that he intends to ask U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan to conduct an evidentiary hearing "to determine the extent of the misconduct."
The U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn declined to comment.
Guzman was convicted last week of murder-conspiracy and drug-trafficking charges. He faces life in prison at his June sentencing.
The filing came two days after Vice News reported that at least five jurors followed media reports and Twitter feeds during the three-month trial and were aware of potentially prejudicial material that had been excluded from the proceedings.
Cogan regularly warned jurors to avoid reading about the case, one of the most highly publicized trials in recent memory.
California city's teachers out for 2nd day
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Teachers in Oakland, Calif., walked picket lines for a second day Friday as negotiations resumed and union leaders vowed to keep pressing demands for higher pay, smaller class sizes and more school resources.
The strike has won resounding community support in the San Francisco Bay Area city that has become unaffordable for many of its residents.
Parents and students joined picket lines outside Oakland's 86 schools and passing cars honked in support.
Bay Area celebrities such as rapper MC Hammer, basketball star Stephen Curry and Oscar winner Mahershala Ali posted an Instagram video to say they stand with Oakland teachers.
Oakland's 3,000 teachers went on strike Thursday, the latest in a wave of teacher activism that has included walkouts in West Virginia, Denver and Los Angeles.
Union officials from the Oakland Education Association met quietly Thursday with district officials but failed to reach a deal and returned to the negotiating table Friday.
The teachers want a 12 percent retroactive raise covering 2017 to 2020 to compensate for what they say are some of the lowest salaries for public school teachers in the expensive San Francisco Bay Area.
Teachers also want smaller classes and say the district needs to hire more full-time nurses and school counselors.
U.S.' Canada envoy is Trump's U.N. pick
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump has picked Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, as his nominee to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Trump said in a pair of tweets Friday evening that Craft "has done an outstanding job representing our Nation" and he has "no doubt that, under her leadership, our Country will be represented at the highest level."
Two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters had said Trump had been advised that Craft's confirmation would be the smoothest of the three candidates he had been considering to fill the job last held by Nikki Haley.
A Section on 02/23/2019