Author: chicagoinquirer

by Doug Ferguson AUGUSTA, Ga.  — The notion that players who joined LIV Golf would risk being sharp and properly prepared for the majors doesn’t apply to Brooks Koepka. It never really mattered how much or how well Koepka was playing. The majors always seemed to bring out his best. Based on two rounds at the Masters, they still do. Gaining confidence and a bit of swagger in his step, Koepka breezed around Augusta National without a bogey on Friday for a 5-under 67, giving him the lead over U.S. Amateur champion Sam Bennett and allowing him to take shelter…

by Paul Wiseman WASHINGTON  — America’s employers added a solid 236,000 jobs in March, suggesting that the economy remains on solid footing despite the nine interest rate hikes the Federal Reserve has imposed over the past year in its drive to tame inflation. The unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, just above the 53-year low of 3.4% set in January. At the same time, some of the details of Friday’s report from the Labor Department raised the possibility that inflationary pressures might be easing and that the Fed might soon decide to pause its rate hikes. Average hourly wages were up…

NASHVILLE, Tenn.  — Tennessee Republicans have expelled two Democratic lawmakers from the state Legislaturefor their role in a protest calling for more gun control. Here’s a look at what could happen next: WHAT HAPPENED? Republicans voted Thursday to expel two Black lawmakers who last week approached the front of the House chamber with a bullhorn and participated in a chant after joining protesters calling for passage of gun-control measures. The protests followed the March 27 shooting at the Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville. Six people were killed, including three 9-year-old children. GOP leaders argued that the move…

by Mark Sherman WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Friday he was not required to disclose the many trips he and his wife took that were paid for by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. Describing Crow and his wife, Kathy, as “among our dearest friends,” Thomas said in a statement that he was advised by colleagues on the nation’s highest court and others in the federal judiciary that “this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.” Thomas did not name the other justices or those in the…

SAN PEDRO CUTUD, Philippines (AP) — Eight Filipinos were nailed to crosses to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a gory Good Friday tradition that draws thousands of devotees and tourists to the Philippines despite being rejected by the Catholic church. The real-life crucifixions in the farming village of San Pedro Cutud in Pampanga province north of Manila resumed after a three-year pause due to the coronavirus pandemic. About a dozen villagers registered but only eight men participated, including 62-year-old sign painter Ruben Enaje, who was nailed to a wooden cross for the 34th time in San Pedro Cutud. In a…

by Kimberlee Kruesi and Jonathan Mattise NASHVILLE, Tenn.  — Tennessee’s GOP-dominated House has expelled two of three Democratic members for their roles in a demonstration in favor of gun control following the Nashville school shooting. The vote to oust Rep. Justin Pearson on Thursday came after fellow Democratic Rep. Justin Jones was expelled but a vote to oust Rep. Gloria Johnson failed. The expulsions are extraordinary moves the chamber has used only a handful times since the Civil War. They came a week after the trio chanted back and forth from the chamber floor with gun control supporters who packed…

by Zeke Miller and Normaan Merchant WASHINGTON  — President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday laid the blame on his predecessor, President Donald Trump, for the deadly and chaotic 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that brought about some of the darkest moments of Biden’s presidency. The White House publicly released a 12-page summary of the results of the so-called “ hotwash ” of U.S. policies around the ending of the nation’s longest war, taking little responsibility for its own actions and asserting that Biden was “severely constrained” by Trump’s decisions. It does acknowledge that the evacuation of Americans and…

STAMFORD, Conn.  — Former NBA guard Ben Gordon was arrested on weapons and threatening charges after he began behaving erratically in a Connecticut juice shop, police said. The episode started just before 10 a.m. Tuesday when several 911 callers reported “a male acting aggressively and in a bizarre manner” inside a juice shop in Stamford, the city’s assistant police chief, Richard Conklin, said Thursday. The man, identified as Gordon, continued to act erratically when officers arrived and tried to take him into custody, Conklin said. The officers eventually subdued Gordon and placed him under arrest. They found a folding knife…

by Agency reports WASHINGTON  — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has for more than two decades accepted luxury trips nearly every year from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms, ProPublica reports. In a lengthy story published Thursday the nonprofit investigative journalism organization catalogs various trips Thomas has taken aboard Crow’s yacht and private jet as well as to Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks. A 2019 trip to Indonesia the story detailed could have cost more than $500,000 had Thomas chartered the plane and yacht himself, ProPublica reported. Supreme Court justices, like other federal judges,…

by Kareem Chehayeb BAGHDAD  — Nawal Sweidan quietly folded her son’s clothes and straightened the bedsheets in his room as she always used to do when he was out at work or at university. She still does it regularly, even though he hasn’t been home for almost 10 years since he was taken away by militiamen. Her son Safaa vanished in late July 2014. At around 1:30 a.m., just days before the holy month of Ramadan was to end and holiday celebrations were to begin, a group of men showed up at the family’s doorstep and asked for Safaa, a…