The U.S. government is settling a $30 million lawsuit filed over a Capitol police officer’s fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt, a supporter of President Donald Trump, at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 
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| “Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.” |
— Aristotle, "Nicomachean Ethics" |
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The U.S. government is settling a $30 million lawsuit filed over a Capitol police officer’s fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt, a supporter of President Donald Trump, at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
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The United States created a second military zone along its southern border with Mexico, further expanding the military’s presence in the area.
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President Donald Trump will host a military parade on June 14 in Washington to honor U.S. military veterans and active-duty servicemembers, and commemorate the 250th birthday of the United States Army.
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Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has officially classified the right-wing party Alternative for Germany as extremist, which allows the agency to surveil the party.
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🍵 Health: Five easy office exercises to undo the harm of sitting all day.
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☀️ It’s Saturday. Thank you for reading the Morning Brief, an exclusive newsletter for subscribers of The Epoch Times. |
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| Ivan Pentchoukov
National Editor |
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Ashli and Aaron Babbitt were married on June 25, 2019. Courtesy Aaron Babbitt |
The U.S. government is settling a lawsuit filed over a Capitol police officer’s fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt, a supporter of President Donald Trump, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
Judicial Watch, an advocacy group, filed the $30 million wrongful-death suit in 2024 on behalf of Babbitt’s estate and her husband, Aaron Babbitt.
“I can confirm ... that a settlement has been agreed to in principle.“ Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said in a post on social media on Friday. “The settlement should be finalized within a few weeks, and we will have more details for you soon. God bless America!”
A federal judge held a hearing in the case in a Washington courtroom earlier the same day. After the hearing, Judge Ana C. Reyes ordered both sides to submit a status report by May 6, the court’s docket shows.
Babbitt, 35, an Air Force veteran who lived in the San Diego area, came to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, to support Trump, who was still serving his first term in office. At the time, the president and many of his supporters were alleging that his loss in 2020 may have been a result of a “rigged” election.
Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd fatally shot Babbitt as she attempted to climb through a broken window inside the Capitol. The lawsuit stated that Babbitt was unarmed and “posed no threat” to anyone’s safety. Byrd was cleared of wrongdoing in Babbitt’s death following multiple investigations. (More) More Politics: |
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President Donald Trump unveiled on Friday a budget blueprint that calls for slashing federal spending on key nondefense programs by $163 billion, targeting renewable energy, education, and foreign aid.
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The Department of Justice will pursue terrorism charges against those who traffic guns to Mexican cartels in line with an executive order which designated the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
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U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order on revoking government contracts of law firm Perkins Coie. The order also forbids the Trump administration from canceling the federal security clearances of that firm’s attorneys.
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The European Union’s top negotiator said he believes the 27-member bloc could close the trade gap with the United States by agreeing to buy more liquid natural gas and agricultural products.
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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the termination of seven federally funded university research grants totaling $54 million, saying the programs are wasteful and ideologically divisive projects that fall outside the scope of the Department of Transportation’s core mission.
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The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow the Department of Government Efficiency to gain access to Social Security data, coming after courts blocked the Elon Musk-led task force from accessing those records on privacy grounds.
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking to revoke a Biden-era rule that would prohibit medical debt from appearing on consumer credit reports.
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The United States created a second military zone along its southern border with Mexico, further expanding the military’s presence in the area.
Dubbed the “Texas National Defense Area,” and announced late on May 1, it is a 63-mile stretch that runs east from the Texas-New Mexico state line in El Paso. The zone’s creation follows the creation in April of a first military zone along a 60-foot-wide corridor called the Roosevelt Reservation. The corridor runs along the border lands of New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
Nearly 110,000 acres of federal land along the border were transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Army on April 15, granting military control in the zone for three years.
According to court documents filed on April 28, the United States has initiated criminal prosecutions for 28 illegal immigrants for allegedly crossing into the new military zone, charging them with “violations of security regulations,” and entering a “restricted and controlled” New Mexico national defense area on top of illegal entry.
“Any illegal attempting to enter that zone is entering a military base—a federal, protected area,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in a video message on April 25 during a visit to the area. “You will be detained. You will be interdicted by U.S. troops and Border Patrol working together.” (More) More U.S. News |
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Low-cost online retailer Temu is ceasing shipments to the United States from China, the company announced on Friday. The United States began collecting a duty the same day on packages valued at over $800, closing a trade loophole long exploited by Chinese manufacturers.
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From Florida and Texas to New Hampshire, New Jersey, and beyond, lawmakers are working to shake up the monetary system in creative ways. Some states have already made significant moves. Dubbed “transactional gold bills,” the most far-reaching proposals would create state-backed systems to facilitate commerce in precious metals.
- The number of foreign-born workers in the U.S. tumbled by 410,000 from March to April while the number of employed Americans surged by 1.04 million, according to the April jobs report. Here are the takeaways.
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The U.S. Navy said it had achieved a significant milestone in its hypersonic weapons program with the first successful test of a sea-based launch system.
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Most iPhones and other Apple products bound for the American market will no longer be made in China, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
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Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has officially classified the right-wing party Alternative for Germany as extremist. This means that intelligence services now have the right to keep it under surveillance.
Having regarded Alternative for Germany as a suspected extremist movement since 2021, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, on May 2 designated the populist party as “right-wing extremist,” following an “intensive and comprehensive expert examination.”
The federal office said in a statement that Alternative for Germany’s approach to ethnicity is “not compatible with the free democratic basic order.” The right-wing party does not consider German nationals with a migration background from Muslim-origin countries as equal members of the German people, the statement said. Certain factions of the Alternative for Germany such as its youth wing had already been classified as extremist.
In the party’s first response to the report, the leader of a regional parliamentary group, Anton Baron, said: “It is sad to see the state of democracy in our country when the established parties now resort to the most politically questionable means to act against the strongest opposition party.”
“This is solely about maintaining the power of the old parties,” he said separately in a post on X. “We won’t be intimidated!” Alternative for Germany Deputy Federal Spokesman Stephan Brandner told The Epoch Times that the classification was “absurd.”
Brandner said that this has “nothing to do with law and order, and is a purely political in the fight of the cartel parties against the AfD.” (More) More World News: |
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China’s recent engagements with Southeast Asian countries—including a trip by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia—resulted in exchanges and commitments to deepen economic cooperation. Meanwhile, efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to find common cause with those nations against the United States’ toughening trade policies have been less successful.
- Italy became the first EU state in April to successfully send rejected asylum seekers beyond the bloc’s borders, after its first three attempts were blocked by national and European courts. The breakthrough came as the EU is also starting to enact broader plans to shift asylum processing offshore.
- Russia is offering to help Kabul’s de facto Taliban government fight ISIS, as Moscow weighs its opportunities to grow its economic interests in Afghanistan.
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TikTok has been fined $600 million by the Republic of Ireland’s privacy regulator for breaching the European Union’s data protection rules.
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(L–R) Greg Naughton, Rich Price, and Brian Chartrand, in “The Independents.” (GJW+) |
Writer and director Greg Naughton’s “The Independents” takes a familiar story, the formation of a soft rock band, and infuses it with a good deal of authenticity and a deep appreciation for the creative process. Beneath all of the catchy tunes, the film is a fictionalized origin story of The Sweet Remains, the real-life folk-rock trio consisting of Naughton, Rich Price, and Brian Chartrand.
But rather than falling into the clichés of the typical “struggling musician” fare, this film feels refreshingly naturalistic, full of small, well-observed moments that capture the highs and lows of people chasing their dreams.
The story follows Rich (Price), a New York graduate student. Rich should be focused on finishing his dissertation but finds himself drawn to songwriting, much to the chagrin of his bossy mother. A chance encounter introduces him to Greg (Naughton), a tree trimmer with a similar passion for music. The two quickly discover a natural harmony between their voices.
Rich and Greg begin to toy with the idea of playing music together in a more official capacity. They soon cross paths with Brian (Chartrand), a hitchhiker whose scrappy, unpredictable energy adds a new dimension to their dynamic.
Together, they form a folk-rock trio and set off for a music festival that may—or may not—be their big break. Along the way, they encounter Granny (Richard Kind), a slick, fast-talking Los Angeles music promoter. Granny promises them opportunities that seem almost too good to be true. (More)
“The Independents” is now available on Gan Jing World. As an exclusive to our subscribers, the film will be available to watch for free until Sun, May 4. |
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