Runoff in Ga. House race could test Trump, opposition

Runoff in Ga. House race could test Trump, opposition

DUNWOODY, Ga.

A narrow miss by a Democratic newcomer in a conservative Georgia House district has triggered a high-stakes runoff that could test President Donald Trump’s influence and the limits of the backlash against him.

Democrat Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old former congressional aide fueled by a colossal fundraising haul from out-of-state donors, came within two percentage points of an outright majority win Tuesday in an 18-candidate field in Georgia’s traditionally Republican 6th Congressional District.

In second place in the special election, but lagging far behind with just under 20 percent of the vote, was Republican Karen Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state well known to voters. Handel had treated Trump gingerly in a district the president barely carried, but declared Wednesday she’d like to see him campaign for her ahead of the June 20 runoff.

Ex-NFL star Aaron Hernandez hangs self in prison cell

BOSTON

Hours before his former New England Patriots teammates were due to visit the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl victory, prison officials say, Aaron Hernandez tied one end of his bedsheet to a window and the other around his neck and hanged himself.

In a maximum-security prison outside Boston, about an hour from the stadium where he played alongside stars like Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowsi, Hernandez jammed the door to his one-man cell lest guards try to stop him and put an early end to the life-without-parole sentence he received for a 2013 murder.

He was 27.

It was the last act in the downfall of an athlete who once seemed to have everything – including a five-year $40 million contract extension – and threw it all away.

Police: Fresno killer showed no remorse

FRESNO, Calif.

The gunman suspected of killing three white men in a racially charged attack in Fresno was proud of what he had accomplished and laughed many times as he explained his actions in interviews with police, authorities said Wednesday.

After Kori Ali Muhammad learned that he was wanted for the death of a security guard last week, he wanted to take out as many other white men as possible, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said.

“He was going to kill as many white males as possible and that’s what he set out to do that day. He said he did not like white men and said white people were responsible for keeping black people down,” Dyer said.

Feds to provide $485M to combat opioid epidemic

ATLANTA

The federal government will provide states nearly half a billion dollars for prevention and treatment programs aimed at confronting the opioid epidemic, which Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price described Wednesday as a “crisis.”

Price made the announcement at a drug-prevention summit in Atlanta. The $485 million in grant money was contained in bipartisan legislation approved by Congress last year and signed by former President Barack Obama.

Price said another half-billion dollars in state grants will follow next year. He said states “know best what their communities need” and “have already been at the forefront of supporting prevention, treatment and recovery.”

Associated Press