BREAKING OVERNIGHT:
CNN: 10 killed in Alaska air taxi fire
All 10 people aboard an air taxi were killed Sunday when it burst into flames at an Alaska airport, authorities said. Officials do not know what caused the de Havilland DHC-3 Otter to catch fire at the Soldotna Airport on Sunday morning. But by the time fire fighters and medics arrived, the aircraft was fully engulfed, said Soldotna police.
NATIONAL STORIES:
CNN: Pilot in deadly plane crash had no experience landing 777 in San Francisco
The pilot of the Asiana Airlines plane that crashed in San Francisco on Saturday was making his first landing with a Boeing 777 at San Francisco International Airport, the airline said. But it wasn't his first time flying to San Francisco. The pilot, Lee Kang-gook, had flown from Seoul to the city several times between 1999 and 2004, the airline said. He has also clocked 43 hours flying a Boeing 777.
SEE ALSO: CNN: 'Oh, Lord have mercy': Witness captures fatal jet crash
CNN: Six key moments in George Zimmerman trial
The trial of George Zimmerman is already two weeks old and has seen its share of memorable moments. The prosecution rested its case on July 5 after nine days, presenting 38 witnesses and dozens of pieces of evidence. The defense has already begun presenting its case. Let's look back at some of the key moments of the trial so far.
SEE ALSO: USA Today: Zimmerman defense witnesses to testify this week
CNNMoney: 650,000 defense employees start furloughs Monday
As part of the sequester, or federal spending cuts, that are currently underway, civilian defense workers will be forced to take one unpaid day off each week, leading to a 20% reduction in their pay through Sept. 21. Some people have made light of the sequester because its effect has gone relatively unnoticed by the public so far. However, the Pentagon is the largest federal employer, with a budget of $680 billion.
CNN: John Kerry's wife hospitalized in Massachusetts
Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Secretary of State John Kerry, became ill Sunday and was taken by ambulance to a Massachusetts hospital. Heinz Kerry, 74, was in Nantucket, where the family has a home. Accompanied by her husband, she was taken to Nantucket Cottage Hospital, said Glen Johnson, the secretary's spokesman. Once her condition was stabilized, she was transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
WHITE HOUSE:
The Hill: Obama administration preparing host of new environmental regs
The Obama administration is looking forward to a host of new environmental regulations that go far beyond the president's plans to issue new standards for greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants. The new regulations, previewed in the administration's spring regulatory roadmap released this week, cover everything from pollution runoff from military ships to landfill methane emissions, and in some cases will be issued long after called for under the law.
CNN: Obama discusses 'fluid' Egyptian situation with national security team
With developments in Egypt looming over his weekend trip to Camp David, President Barack Obama held a conference call with his national security team Saturday as the administration deals with what it calls "the very fluid situation." The meeting came on a day of growing leadership questions in Egypt, as Mohamed ElBaredei for hours was reported to be on the brink of becoming Egypt's interim prime minister, but those reports were later denied.
SEE ALSO: The Hill: White House under fire for Egypt policy
WX Post: Obama’s summertime push: Immigration and the economy
With several controversies fading and a period of intense foreign travel over, President Obama is narrowing his focus this summer to two issues, immigration and the economy, that could help determine the success or failure of his second term.
USA Today: Race, class emerge as issues in Obama library battle
President Obama probably won't make a final decision on where his presidential library and museum will be located until near the end of his second term in the White House. But here In his adopted hometown — particularly the neighborhoods where Obama made a name for himself as a community organizer before entering politics — the issues of race and class play a central role in the debate over where in the city the shrine to the first African-American president's legacy belongs.
CAPITOL HILL:
Politico: Agriculture at crossroads in Congress
After two seasons of failure, American agriculture is at a genuine crossroads in Congress. Embarrassed by last month’s collapse, House Republican leaders have raised the stakes greatly with their proposal to split the five-year package and require separate votes on the nutrition title and food stamps. Commodity and conservation groups are almost uniformly opposed. But as lawmakers return this week, agriculture is under pressure to stretch itself and embrace new ideas. Nothing illustrates this better, perhaps, than the on-again, off-again debate over updating the $2,000 asset test for food stamps, set first in the 1985 farm bill.
NYT: In Congress, Gridlock and Harsh Consequences
Congress returns on Monday with a major overhaul of immigration pending in the House, the farm bill lying in a heap and new fiscal deadlines looming when the government runs out of spending authority on Sept. 30 and reaches its borrowing limit shortly thereafter. The Postal Service, meanwhile, continues to lose millions of dollars every day as a measure to rescue the agency founders in the House. There is no guarantee that any of these issues will be dealt with.
Politico: John Boehner raises big bucks for GOP
House Speaker John Boehner has spent the past six months struggling to corral an unruly group of conservatives who have given him headaches on everything from the fiscal cliff to immigration reform. For all his woes, though, the Ohio Republican is still on the top of his game in one area that matters a lot on Capitol Hill: fundraising.
HuffPost: Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul Forge Mutually Beneficial Alliance
To cover his political flank, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has forged an alliance with tea party darling Rand Paul, picked up support from other national tea party leaders and brought in a campaign manager from the upper echelons of the tea party movement. The GOP's fiscally conservative wing has proven particularly powerful in Kentucky, and elsewhere it has felled incumbents including McConnell's longtime Republican colleague U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar of Indiana. But McConnell's efforts to make inroads with the tea party movement have clearly paid off, virtually ensuring that no would-be challenger can get the kind of infusion of cash from tea party channels that allowed Paul to win here in 2010.
POLITICAL:
CNN: Eliot Spitzer to toss hat back in the political ring
Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as governor of New York in the wake of a prostitution scandal, is looking at a return - this time as comptroller of New York City. He said he hoped that voters would be able to see beyond his past.
CNN: Giffords, Kelly have lunch with former President Bush 41
Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and husband Mark Kelly, on their nationwide gun control tour, met former President George H.W. Bush this weekend. Giffords and Kelly met Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush for lunch on Saturday at the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. The get-together happened while Giffords and Kelly were in Maine for an Americans for Responsible Solutions event in Portland.
NYT: In Wyoming, a Cheney Run Worries G.O.P.
Liz Cheney, 46, is showing up everywhere in the state, from chicken dinners to cattle growers’ meetings, sometimes with her parents in tow. She has made it clear that she wants to run for the Senate seat now held by Michael B. Enzi, a soft-spoken Republican and onetime fly-fishing partner of her father. But Ms. Cheney’s move threatens to start a civil war within the state’s Republican establishment, despite the reverence many hold for her family.
CNN: Conservative group takes aim at Obamacare in ad campaign
The conservative group Americans for Prosperity will launch a major ad campaign this week hitting Obamacare, a spokesman has confirmed to CNN. The campaign is expected to eventually total $1 million and run nationally, with an initial rollout of $700,000 worth of television and online ads that will air in Virginia and Ohio beginning Tuesday.
Politico: Want to take back Senate? Pay up, GOP
Republican Senate leaders, sensing an opportunity to pick up several seats and possibly win the majority, have a blunt message for their GOP colleagues: Open your wallets. For years, GOP senators have been stingy with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, refusing to make large transfers of money out of their personal campaign accounts that could help their party compete in neck-and-neck races across the country. For 2012, Democratic senators transferred nearly five times more to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee than Republicans gave to the NRSC.
NATIONAL SECURITY:
CNN: Where to go and how to get there: Snowden weighs asylum offers
Still a man without a country and stuck in a Moscow airport, U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has two, maybe three, options available to him as he seeks asylum. Snowden remains in limbo more than two weeks after arriving at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport from Hong Kong.
SEE ALSO: ABC: Cuba Backs Snowden Asylum Offers From Allies
Der Spiegel: Snowden Claims: NSA Ties Put German Intelligence in Tight Spot
The German foreign intelligence service knew more about the activities of the NSA in Germany than previously known. "They're in bed together," Edward Snowden claims in an interview in SPIEGEL. The whistleblower also lodges fresh allegations against the British.
WSJ: Secret Court Ruling Expanded Spy Powers
The National Security Agency's ability to gather phone data on millions of Americans hinges on a secret court ruling that redefined a single word: "relevant." This change—which specifically enabled the surveillance recently revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden—was made by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a group of judges responsible for making decisions about government surveillance in national-security cases. In classified orders starting in the mid-2000s, the court accepted that "relevant" could be broadened to permit an entire database of records on millions of people, in contrast to a more conservative interpretation widely applied in criminal cases, in which only some of those records would likely be allowed, according to people familiar with the ruling.
WX Post: Somali American caught up in a shadowy Pentagon counterpropaganda campaign
Two days after he became a U.S. citizen, Abdiwali Warsame embraced the First Amendment by creating a raucous Web site about his native Somalia. Packed with news and controversial opinions, it rapidly became a magnet for Somalis dispersed around the world, including tens of thousands in Minnesota.
TRANSPORTATION, REGULATION and JUSTICE:
CNN: Engine shutdown may have started Canadian train disaster, railway says
The company responsible for a runaway train that exploded in a small Canadian town Saturday said an engine shutdown may have released air brakes holding the train in place. At least five people are dead and around 40 are unaccounted for in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, after a 73-car train carrying crude oil derailed and crashed, local law enforcement officials said. Tankers exploded, sending thick plumes of smoke into the night sky, leveling dozens of homes and buildings and forcing nearly 2,000 people from their homes.
Watch: VIDEO A train carrying over 70 tankers of crude oil derailed and then exploded in a Canadian town. CNN's Jason Carroll reports
WX Post: Federal benefits won’t extend to domestic partners under DOMA ruling
The Obama administration will not extend federal-worker benefits to domestic partners under the Supreme Court ruling that overturned part of the Defense of Marriage Act, meaning the government will treat civil unions differently than legal same-sex marriages. The Office of Personnel Management made that announcement in a series of memos to federal benefits administrators and insurance carriers, saying couples who are not legally married “will remain ineligible for most federal benefits programs.” However, any existing benefits provided to domestic partners will remain intact, OPM said.
Breitbart: Congressman: IRS Scandal Will Widen to Leaks
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) said that the next stages of the IRS scandal will likely focus on the tax agency’s alleged abuse of power in areas like politically motivated audits and leaking of personal information.
WX Post: Schools Seeking to Arm Employees Hit Hurdle on Insurance
During legislative sessions this year, seven states enacted laws permitting teachers or administrators to carry guns in schools. Three of the measures — in Kansas, South Dakota and Tennessee — took effect last week. But already, EMC Insurance Companies, the liability insurance provider for about 90 percent of Kansas school districts, has sent a letter to its agents saying that schools permitting employees to carry concealed handguns would be declined coverage.
REGIONAL HEADLINES:
Boston Herald: Hernandez associates due in court
Two figures central to the Aaron Hernandez murder case are due in court this week, one for the first time and another for a hearing to determine if he will be detained for up to three months. Carlos Ortiz, a Connecticut man prosecutors say was in a car with Hernandez and Ernest Wallace the night Odin L. Lloyd was shot, will appear in court tomorrow for a dangerousness hearing. Ortiz, 27, has pleaded not guilty to a felony firearm charge.
Arizona Central: Yarnell residents going home Monday
Evacuees of Yarnell Hill Fire will begin to go home at 9 a.m. Monday. “I’ve got good news; you’re going home,” said Yarnell Fire Department Chief Jim Koile Sunday during a 4 p.m. community meeting at Wickenburg High School. That’s where the American Red Cross has been operating a shelter for evacuees. Koile said the residents would be allowed back to their homes Monday at 9 a.m.
The Detroit News: New Michigan prison sentencing guidelines under review
State lawmakers and Gov. Rick Snyder are considering the first comprehensive prison sentencing reforms since their predecessors got tough on crime 15 years ago. The idea is at least partly driven by a desire to reduce the Corrections Department budget, which exceeds $2 billion. Michigan leads the nation in average time served by inmates at 4.3 years, 48 percent higher than the U.S. average of 2.9 years, according to a 2012 national Pew Charitable Trusts study. The 2009 data was the most recent year for which nationwide statistics were available.
Boston Globe: UMass to rate its performance in simpler way
Despite widespread qualms on individual campuses, University of Massachusetts President Robert L. Caret has developed a list of goals on which he will essentially grade the system’s performance, an effort to show that public money is being well spent and to spur healthier graduation rates, more start-ups and inventions, and better financial planning.
Las Vegas Sun: Tiny Chinese enclave remakes gambling world, Las Vegas
Macau is in the midst of one of the greatest gambling booms the world has ever known. To rival it, Las Vegas would have to attract six times as many visitors; essentially every man, woman and child in America.
INTERNATIONAL:
CNN: Dozens killed as Egyptian military opens fire on pro-Morsy demonstrators
The Egyptian military opened fired on supporters of the deposed president, Mohamed Morsy, and the Muslim Brotherhood, early Monday, killing 10 people and wounding 100 others, witnesses said. At least seven bullet-riddled bodies could be seen at a makeshift field hospital in the Egyptian capital. The crowd had been holding vigil outside Republican Guard headquarters, where Morsy was reportedly detained after his arrest Wednesday.
SEE ALSO: CNN: Egyptian interim president nominates two for leadership posts
CNN: Singapore inquest finds U.S. engineer committed suicide
A coroner in Singapore has reaffirmed that American engineer Shane Todd committed suicide - a ruling that caps a two-month investigation and is at odds with his family's contention that Todd was killed because of his work. Soon after Todd was found hanging from the bathroom door in his Singapore apartment on June 24, 2012, Singapore's medical examiner concluded he had killed himself. But Todd's parents disagreed and hired a pathologist in the United States who - based on Singapore's autopsy report and photographs of the body - suggested there was evidence that his death was a homicide.
AFP: Greece sees Monday deal on EU-IMF rescue funds
Greece and its international creditors hope to reach a deal by Monday on reforms including thousands of job cuts needed for the debt-laden nation to unlock further aid worth 8.1 billion euros ($10.4 billion). "We have made substantial progress," Poul Thomsen, the International Monetary Fund's representative, told reporters in Athens on Sunday.
BBC: China ex-rail minister given suspended death sentence
A Chinese court has given former Railways Minister Liu Zhijun a suspended death sentence for corruption and abuse of power, state media report. Liu was accused of accepting bribes totaling over 64m yuan ($10m; £6m) over 25 years. Prosecutors said he awarded government rail contracts in return for bribes.
CNN: Gunmen kill 20 students, teacher in Nigerian school shooting
Gunmen stormed a school in Nigeria killing 20 students and a teacher over the weekend, state news reported. Four more students suffered critical wounds, when the men opened fire early Saturday, Voice of Nigeria said. An investigation is underway to find the suspects.
BBC: New curriculum in England 'to match world’s best'
A revised national curriculum for schools in England is to be published later, with the aim of catching up with the world's best education systems. Prime Minister David Cameron says this "revolution in education" is vital for the country's economic prosperity. The changes will include fractions for five year olds and teaching evolution in primary schools.
BUSINESS:
CNNMoney: Chinese buyers flood U.S. housing market
"The Chinese came out really huge in the past year," said Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel, a New York-based appraiser. Chinese buyers accounted for 18% of the $68.2 billion that foreigners spent on homes during the 12 months ended March 31, according to the National Association of Realtors.
CNBC: One Eye on Earnings, the Other on Bonds
As earnings season kicks off in the coming week, traders will be keeping one eye on the bond market, wary that rising rates could sting stocks. Alcoa reports Monday, and JPMorgan and Wells Fargo report Friday, in the first trickle of second-quarter releases. There are also a number of economic reports, including inflation data and consumer sentiment.
Reuters: Weak professional job growth hurts U.S. office market: Reis
A lack of growth in white-collar jobs hurt the market for U.S. office space in the second quarter, with the vacancy rate stagnant at 17 percent, according to a report released on Monday by real estate research firm Reis Inc. The vacancy rate for U.S. office space has been slowly ticking downward for over a year but remains historically high.
Financial Times: Geithner joins top table of public speakers with lucrative appearances
Tim Geithner, the former US Treasury secretary, has been elevated to the highest rank of public speakers, alongside former world leaders Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, after receiving about $400,000 for three speaking engagements.
Business Week: An Entry-Level Maserati to Woo Drivers Bored With BMW
Maserati has long supplied exotic—and expensive—rides to the rich and super-rich. Now the 99-year-old sports car maker is shifting its focus to the merely wealthy. In September the Fiat subsidiary plans to introduce the Ghibli, a midsize sedan starting at $65,600 that it hopes will present a direct challenge to German models such as the BMW 5 Series, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, and Audi A6. Maserati is betting it can offer something the Germans can’t: Italian sex appeal backed by the power and cachet of engines from sister brand Ferrari.
