🌸 Spring break shootings: Miami Beach emergency brings curfew

Officials with the city of Miami Beach declared a state of emergency on Monday and an upcoming curfew, bidding to curb violent spring break incidents that have seen five people wounded in two separate shootings.

The Miami Beach mayor, Dan Gelber, and the city manager, Alina Hudak, announced the emergency order at an afternoon news conference. It includes a curfew for the South Beach area that starts early Thursday after midnight and runs through the weekend.

The mayor said about 100 guns had been seized over the past four weeks, and several police officers had been injured while controlling crowds. Gelber noted that the five people were shot over the weekend despite 371 police officers being deployed.

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🧬 Scientists worry virus variant may push up COVID cases in US

With coronavirus cases rising in parts of Europe and Asia, the medical community is again worrying that the extra-contagious version of the omicron variant may soon push cases up in the United States. Epidemiologists are also keeping their eye on another mutant: a rare delta-omicron hybrid that they say doesn’t pose much of a threat right now, but shows how wily the coronavirus can be.

The US will likely see an uptick in cases caused by omicron descendant BA.2 starting in the next few weeks, according to Dr. Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. One reason the variant has gained ground, researchers say, is that it’s about 30% more contagious than the original omicron.

There’s no evidence yet that it causes more severe symptoms, and it doesn’t look like it is currently infecting many people. Nonetheless, the unvaccinated are most at risk of harm in the ongoing pandemic, say medical professionals.

👨‍⚖️ US lawmaker guilty of illegally entering Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021

A federal judge on Tuesday convicted an elected official from New Mexico of illegally entering restricted US Capitol grounds, but acquitted him of engaging in disorderly conduct, during the riot of Trump supporters that disrupted Congress as they were certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.

US District Court Judge Trevor McFadden heard one day of testimony without a jury on Monday before handing down a verdict in the misdemeanor case against former Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin, 48, a Republican and former rodeo rider who assisted in the creation of a group he called Cowboys for Trump.

Griffin was charged with two misdemeanors, both of which carry maximum sentences of one year in prison, and his sentencing is scheduled for June 17. He was jailed for over two weeks after his Jan. 19, 2021 arrest.

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💾 Microsoft confirms Lapsus$ hackers stole source code via ‘limited’ access

The hacking group Lapsus$, known for claiming to have hacked Nvidia, Samsung, and more, this week claimed it hacked Microsoft. The group posted a file that it claims contains partial source code for Bing and Cortana in an archive holding nearly 37GB of data.

On Tuesday evening, after investigating, Microsoft confirmed the group that it calls DEV-0537 compromised “a single account” and stole parts of source code for some of its products.

Microsoft investigators have been tracking the Lapsus$ group for weeks, and has detailed some of the methods they’ve used to compromise the systems of its victims. Lapsus$ also claims that it only got around 45 percent of the code for Bing and Cortana, and around 90 percent of the code for Bing Maps.

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⚡️ Gas pipeline, school, three houses damaged during Ukrainian shelling of LPR, LPR representative office in JCCC says

🇷🇺🇺🇸🇮🇶🇱🇾Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said the Pentagon has already forgotten how US and NATO planes bombed the cities of Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya.

⚡️Ukrainian troops shelled Donetsk and the village of Mikhailovka in the DPR, firing 6 shells and 8 missiles, the DPR representative in the JCCC has said

⚡️ Romanian fighters escort Moscow-Istanbul flight over bomb threat, Defence Ministry says

The Russian Ministry of Defence has published footage of the destruction of a Ukrainian hangar armed with army aviation helicopters using guided missiles

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The Ukrainian military is trying to depart encircled Mariupol dressed in women's clothing, the commander of the battalion of the DPR forces told Sputnik

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⚡️ Russian emergencies ministry delivers almost 18 tonnes of humanitarian cargo to DPR

⚡️ Medvedev: Russia Wants to See US as Strong, Smart Country Rather Than Last Resort for Seniles

⚡️ Almost 20 soldiers of the 54th and 36th Ukrainian brigades voluntarily laid down their arms in a day, People's Militia of the DPR says

⚡️ Ukrainian forces fire 67 'Uragan' shells and 122mm mortars at LPR territories

A DPR battalion commander tells Sputnik how his fighters are catching Ukrainian soldiers trying to escape disguised as civilians.

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⚡️ The Polish portal ONET, citing sources, writes that Warsaw is expelling about 40 Russian diplomats, accusing them of espionage

The Russian Ministry of Defense has published footage of a "Bastion" coastal missile system strike on the military infrastructure of the Ukrainian army

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Russia's Ministry of Defence has published footage of a Russian Navy ship striking Ukrainian military facilities with eight "Kalibr" missiles

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❗️ Lavrov: The сurrent russophobia in the West is a verdict on western сivilisation

Russia's Ministry of Defence has published footage of the destruction of a Ukrainian S-300 launcher in an industrial building on the northern outskirts of Kiev

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