Amal Clooney is one of the legal experts who recommended that the chief prosecutor of the world's top war crimes court seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of the militant Hamas group. The human rights lawyer and wife of actor George Clooney announced her participation in a letter posted Monday on the website of the couple's Clooney Foundation for Justice. Clooney said she was part of a panel of international legal experts assisting International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan. Khan announced the decision to seek the arrests on Monday. Both Israel and Hamas denounced the effort. U.S. President Joe Biden condemned the request to arrest Israeli officials.
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The family of a Black teenager wrongly convicted and executed in Pennsylvania in 1931 is suing the county that prosecuted him. Sixteen-year-old Alexander McClay Williams remains the youngest person Pennsylvania has put to death. He was exonerated by Gov. Tom Wolf two years ago after researchers dug up new evidence. Williams was charged in the 1930 icepick murder of a white woman at his reform school. He was electrocuted five months after his conviction. His last surviving sibling is 94 years old now. Susie Williams Carter says the state murdered her brother.
Billionaire philanthropist Rob Hale has surprised the graduating class at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth by giving each of them $1,000. But there was a condition: They were to keep $500 and give away the rest. Students huddling under ponchos and umbrellas yelled and cheered as Hale made the announcement at their soggy commencement ceremony last week. Security guards then lugged duffel bags filled with the cash onto the stage. Hale said the greatest joy he and his wife Karen had experienced had come from the act of giving. It’s the fourth year in a row that Hale has given a similar gift to a group of graduating students.
AP
Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Austin Maddox has been arrested in Florida as part of an underage sex sting. Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters announced a total of 27 arrests Monday as part of a multi-agency operation that ran late last month. An arrest report says the 33-year-old Maddox began communicating with an undercover agent pretending to be an underage girl on April 28. Officials say he expressed his intent to have sex with the girl even after she told him that she was 14. His attorney didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment from The Associated Press.
Kosovo shuts 6 Serb bank branches over use of the dinar currency in a move that could raise tensions
Kosovo police have closed six branches of a Serbia-licensed bank in line with the decision on the ban of the use of the Serbian dinar currency in the country. It's a move that has raised tension with neighboring Serbia. A police statement said Monday that authorities closed the branches of the Postal Savings Bank following a request from financial institutions on their illegitimacy and based on an authorization from the prosecutor’s office. The government required areas dominated by the ethnic Serb minority in Kosovo to adopt the euro currency starting on Feb. 1 and abolished the use of the Serbian dinar. Pristina postponed the move for about three months following pressure from the European Union and the United States.
AP
A Kentucky court is postponing pro golfer Scottie Scheffler’s appearance on charges he injured a police officer and disobeyed commands during the PGA Championship. Scheffler was handcuffed and taken to jail outside the Valhalla Golf Club on Friday. He was due in court Tuesday, two days after finishing in the top ten. Now a judge is postponing the court date until June 3. Scheffler faces four charges, including felony assault over injuries a Louisville police officer suffered. Scheffler’s attorney, Steve Romines, says the situation is a misunderstanding and the golfer never disobeyed any officer’s orders.
The Environmental Protection Agency warns that cyberattacks against water utilities around the U.S. are becoming more frequent and more severe. The agency on Monday issued an alert urging water systems to take immediate actions to protection the nation's drinking water. The EPA said about 70% of utilities inspected by federal officials over the past year violated standards meant to protect cyberattacks. They cited basic errors such as failing to change default passwords or cut off system access to former employees. The EPA says nations including Russia, China and Iran are actively seeking the ability to disable critical U.S. infrastructure. Many water systems have modest staffing and resources to harden themselves against attacks.
A California congressman says tribes should be more involved in the decision-making process for the development of the first offshore wind farms along the West Coast. U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, who represents California's north coast, sent a letter to federal regulators requesting that they place a senior official in the state to specifically respond to tribal needs. The Bureau of Ocean Management says it has engaged with tribes in the region. But tribal communities in California and Oregon have expressed frustration with what they describe as a lack of consultation on proposals that impact culturally significant waters and land.
Haiti’s main international airport has reopened for the first time in nearly three months after relentless gang violence forced authorities to close it to all traffic in early March. Monday’s reopening of the Toussaint-Louverture airport in the capital of Port-au-Prince is expected to help ease a critical shortage of medications and other basic supplies since the country’s main seaport remains paralyzed. However, only Sunrise Airways, a local carrier, is flying in and out of Port-au-Prince for now. US-based airlines are not expected to start doing so until late May or early June.
An official in Kosovo says the Cabinet has renewed efforts with a new draft law on renting a prison in the south of the country to Denmark to help it cope with its overpopulated prison system. The first draft of the law failed to pass at the parliament last week. But a government official said Monday that the Cabinet on Sunday approved a draft law on 300 cells at a prison 50 kilometers or 30 miles south of the capital to be rented to Denmark. A government spokesman said that the leglislation is based on a a 10-year agreement the two governments signed in April and May 2022.
