BEIJING (AP) — China on Wednesday criticized a U.S. law to encourage processor chip production in the United States and reduce reliance on Asian suppliers as a threat to trade and an attack on Chinese business.

The law signed this week by President Joe Biden promises $52 billion in grants and other aid to investors in U.S. chip factories. It responds in part to warnings that supplies might be disrupted if China attacks Taiwan, which produces up to 90% of high-end chips. China's ruling Communist Party claims the self-ruled island as part of its territory.

The measure will “disrupt international trade and distort global semiconductor supply chains,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin. “China firmly opposes that.”

Parts of the law “restrict companies’ normal investment and economic and trade activities in China,” Wang said, without giving details.

A Chicago teenager died days after he and a group attempted to rob an armed 32-year-old woman on the city's South Side.

The incident occurred July 29 in the Woodlawn area around 8:00 p.m., according to a report.

At least four males attempted to break into the woman's parked car when she confronted the would-be robbers

One of the males whipped out a weapon and pointed it at the woman, the report noted.

Tina Peters, Colorado’s indicted Mesa County clerk and Big Lie acolyte, has had to dig deep into her pockets to drag out the GOP primary for Colorado secretary of state where she got eaten alive last month.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s (D) office announced on Thursday that it had received the required payments from Peters and Lynda Zamora Wilson, a Republican candidate in a state Senate race, to hold discretionary statewide recounts in their respective primaries.

“The recounts will be conducted in accordance with the law, and will be finished by Aug. 4,” Griswold said.

Peters forked over a hefty sum of $255,912.33, the secretary of state’s office confirmed in an email to TPM.

Newly released emails are shedding light on the frantic effort by aides to then-President Donald Trump trying to reverse the results of the 2020 election in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

The emails show people connected to Trump working to assemble lists of people who could falsely claim to be Electoral College electors on his behalf in battleground states that he lost.

"Previously undisclosed emails provide an inside look at the increasingly desperate and often slapdash efforts by advisers to President Donald J. Trump to reverse his election defeat in the weeks before the Jan. 6 attack, including acknowledgments that a key element of their plan was of dubious legality and lived up to its billing as 'fake," the newspaper reported.

"In emails reviewed by The New York Times and authenticated by people who had worked with the Trump campaign at the time, one lawyer involved in the detailed discussions repeatedly used the word 'fake' to refer to the so-called electors, who were intended to provide Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Trump’s allies in Congress a rationale for derailing the congressional process of certifying the outcome," The Times reported. "And lawyers working on the proposal made clear they knew that the pro-Trump electors they were putting forward might not hold up to legal scrutiny."

DENVER (AP) — Colorado's secretary of state's office on Wednesday said it has told two candidates who lost their Republican primary races last month that it will not conduct a recount of those races because they failed to pay the required amount by the deadline.

The office informed Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who lost her race for the GOP nomination for secretary of state, and state Rep. Ron Hanks, who fell short in his bid for the party's U.S. Senate nomination, that it was moving forward finalizing the results of the primary. Neither candidate paid the $236,000 that was due by July 15 for the recount.

Both Peters and Hanks have promoted the false claim that President Joe Biden did not actually win his election against former President Donald Trump in 2020, and they also claimed widespread fraud led to their losses in the GOP primary. They are part of a growing number of deniers of the outcome of the 2020 election also questioning their own primary losses.

In letters sent Tuesday to the secretary of state, the two candidates said they would not pay for the recount because it would not be done by hand.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday reiterated that "no person," not even a former president, was above the law amid calls from some congressional Democrats to charge Donald Trump after last year's Capitol riot.

During a press conference, a visibly animated Garland twice said that "no person" was above the law when pressed specifically about Trump, whom Democrats say incited the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection over his unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in 2020. Democrats also cite Trump's larger, months-long campaign to try and reverse his election loss. (Trump insists he did nothing wrong.)

The Department of Justice has been prosecuting various cases related to the rioting last January.

"There is a lot of speculation about what the Justice Department is doing, what's it not doing, what our theories are and what our theories aren't, and there will continue to be that speculation," the attorney general said Wednesday. "That's because a central tenant of the way in which the Justice Department investigates and a central tenant of the rule of law is that we do not do our investigations in the public."

GLAMIS, Calif. — One of the five U.S. Marines killed when their Osprey aircraft crashed during a training flight near Glamis in Imperial County was identified on Friday as, Capt. John J. Sax, 33, of Placer, California, an MV-22B Pilot. Sax is also the the son of Steve Sax, 5x All Star, former Major League Baseball player for the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox and Oakland A’s.

Steve Sax said in statement,

“It is with complete devastation that I announce that my precious son, Johnny was one of the five (5) US Marines that perished on Wednesday, June 8 in the Osprey Military crash near San Diego” said Sax. “For those of you that knew Johnny, you saw his huge smile, bright light, his love for his family, the Marines, the joy of flying airplanes and defending our country! He was my hero and the best man I know, there was no better person to defend our country.” said Sax.

“Johnny Sax knew he wanted to be a pilot since his young years and would tell his Dad what types of planes were flying overhead while playing little league baseball in the outfield. “There was never any doubt from a young age that Johnny would be a pilot and his passion was to fly! I am so proud of the man he became and so proud to call him my son!” said Sax. “This loss will change my life forever and is a loss to not only the Marines but this world!”

April 5, 2022, 7:06 PM PDT / Source: Associated Press
By Associated Press
PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court declined Tuesday to consider a request by the Arizona Republican Party to eliminate the early voting system used by 90 percent of the state’s voters and require nearly all voters to cast ballots in person on Election Day.

The court ruled that the case did not meet the limited criteria for a lawsuit filed directly to the state’s high court but said the GOP could take its case to Superior Court.

The lawsuit filed in February argued absentee voting is unconstitutional and asked the justices to get rid of it or at least eliminate the no-excuse absentee balloting system Arizona adopted in 1991 and has steadily expanded ever since.

The lawsuit comes amid GOP efforts on many fronts to remake the system for casting and counting votes as former President Donald Trump repeats the lie that he lost the 2020 election because of fraud in Arizona and other battleground states. It was blasted by Democrats and voting rights advocates who said the argument was deeply flawed and aimed at undermining elections.

The U.S. has uncovered "credible information" that Russian forces "are creating lists of identified Ukrainians to be killed or sent to camps," and that Russian troops will "likely use lethal measures to disperse peaceful protests," according to a recent letter to a U.N. high commissioner, sent by a U.S. ambassador.

The undated letter—published by The Washington Post on Sunday and written by Ambassador Bathsheba Nell Crocker, U.S. representative to the Office of the United Nations, and addressed to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet—warns of a potential "human rights catastrophe" in the coming days.

"I would like to bring to your attention disturbing information recently obtained by the United States that indicates that human rights violations and abuses in the aftermath of a further invasion are being planned," Crocker wrote. "These acts ... would likely target those who oppose Russian actions, including Russian and Belarusian dissidents in exile in Ukraine, journalists and anti-corruption activists, and vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons