Top 8 today

Top eight stories for today including a federal judge declared a mistrial in a criminal case involving funding for the border wall; Dutch prosecutors asked for a life sentence for two men charged with killing a famed crime journalist; The Supreme Court’s rulings are no longer in line with the preferences of most Americans, and more.

National

We Build the Wall fraud case ends in mistrial, jurors ‘hopelessly deadlocked’

A federal judge declared a mistrial Tuesday in the criminal case against a Colorado businessman accused of laundering money from a bogus charity that milked about $25 million from private donors who thought they were funding the construction of former President Donald Trump’s border wall.

A pair of asylum-seeking families from Brazil passes through a gap in a border wall to reach the United States after crossing into Yuma, Ariz., from Mexico in June 2021. (AP Photo/Eugene Garcia)

Getting past the brainstorming phase of ending school violence

The recent massacre in Uvalde, Texas, like any school shooting before it, left the American public horror struck and grasping at ways to change. Research suggests that a lot of what’s now being done is unproductive.

Scott Robertson, the chief of police in New Washington, Ohio, talks with fourth-grade students as they huddle in closet a during a lockdown drill at the St. Bernard School on Jan. 14, 2013. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Son of woman slain in Buffalo pleads for Senate to move on frozen domestic terror bill

A man whose 86-year-old mother was killed during the mass shooting last month at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, delivered an impassioned speech to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, telling its members they should resign if they cannot get domestic terrorism legislation over the finish line.

Garnell Whitfield, Jr., of Buffalo, N.Y., whose mother, Ruth Whitfield, was killed in the Buffalo Tops supermarket mass shooting, testifies at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on domestic terrorism, Tuesday, June 7, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Appeal in Depp-Heard case could center on retweet

In the coming days, a final order will formalize last week’s verdict that Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard defamed one another. And that will be the end of that. Or maybe not.

Actor Amber Heard waits before the verdict is read at the Fairfax County Courthouse in Fairfax, Va., on June 1, 2022. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via AP)

Study finds Supreme Court on far right of American public

Ten years ago, the Supreme Court’s rulings were generally in line with the preferences of most Americans. That’s no longer the case, however, according to a decade-long study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A demonstrator places a sign on the anti-scaling fence outside of the U.S. Supreme Court on May 5, 2022, in Washington. A draft opinion suggests the U.S. Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Regional

Wisconsin justices OK release of employer coronavirus data to newspaper

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled the state’s largest business group cannot block the state from releasing records a newspaper requested showing how many employees at some businesses tested positive for Covid-19 or had contact with someone who tested positive.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court room at the state Capitol building in Madison. (Royalbroil/Wikipedia Commons via Courthouse News)

Ohio foster parents argue for benefit payments at Sixth Circuit

Foster parents approved to care for relatives under Ohio’s state-funded foster family program are not properly licensed for benefit payments under the federal-state program funded by the Social Security Act, the state argued on Tuesday before a Sixth Circuit panel.

(Image by Joshua Choate from Pixabay via Courthouse News)

International

Prosecutors seek life sentence for suspects in killing of Dutch journalist

Dutch prosecutors on Tuesday asked for a life sentence for two men charged with the 2021 murder of journalist Peter R. de Vries.

Camera crews wait outside the court where the trial of suspects accused of killing Dutch investigative journalist Peter R. de Vries started in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Tuesday, June 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

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