The FBI has admitted that it failed to properly investigate several warnings about Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old who has confessed to carrying out last month's mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. The bureau made the concession following a meeting with Congress.
Cruz has been charged with killing 17 people at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14. But multiple times before that day, Cruz had been flagged to the FBI for worrisome behavior on social media, reports the briefing document published by the House Judiciary Committee that summarizes Tuesday's meeting with the bureau. "FBI admits failures and will take corrective actions," reads the summary, published Wednesday.
The document highlights a laundry list of red flags that the FBI admits should have been more clearly communicated to state and local law enforcement, such as a comment on a YouTube video from user "nikolas cruz" that bragged "I am going to be a professional school shooter," and calls in to a tip hotline about Cruz's threatening behavior online. FBI agents investigated the claims but could not trace the comments back to Cruz, and "despite these connected dots," the agency didn't follow up on the matter. "Opportunities were missed," the FBI conceded. Read lawmakers' full briefing here. Summer Meza
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday pushed back on calls for a second referendum on Brexit, the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.
May particularly condemned remarks from former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said this week a new vote should be considered if "none of the other options work." May accused Blair of "seek[ing] to undermine our negotiations by advocating for a second referendum," arguing "Parliament has a democratic duty to deliver what the British people voted for."
May's proposed Brexit deal with the EU has stalled, lacking support to pass a House of Commons vote. Bonnie Kristian
The North Korean government on Sunday issued a typically dramatic statement condemning the United States' sanction regime and suggesting denuclearization plans are in jeopardy.
Pyongyang accused the U.S. State Department of being "bent on bringing [North Korea]-U.S. relations back to the status of last year which was marked by exchanges of fire," warning that additional U.S. sanctions would be America's "greatest miscalculation" and would "block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever."
This comes as Pyongyang observes the seventh anniversary of the death of former leader Kim Jong Il and the rise to power of his son, current leader Kim Jong Un. Bonnie Kristian
Negotiators representing nearly 200 nations in Katowice, Poland, on Saturday agreed to universal greenhouse gas emissions limits intended to mitigate global climate change.
"It is not easy to find agreement on a deal so specific and technical," said Polish economist Michal Kurtyka, who is leading the United Nations negotiations. "Through this package you have made a thousand little steps forward together," he told the assembled delegates. "You can feel proud."
U.S. negotiators sought to label coal a possible source of clean energy but also pushed for transparency and rules which apply equally to all participant nations. "Overall, the U.S. role here has been somewhat schizophrenic — pushing coal and dissing science on the one hand, but also working hard in the room for strong transparency rules," Elliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions told The Associated Press. "[T]he U.S. pushed harder than nearly anyone else for transparency rules that put all countries under the same system, and it's largely succeeded." Bonnie Kristian
