Online competition measure again draws industry opposition

WASHINGTON — A bill that would stop large online platforms from discriminating against outside services has been revived in the Senate after versions in recent years died amid strong opposition from the technology industry.

Judiciary Chair Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced the legislation on Wednesday in what they say is an effort to bolster competition in online retail and between app providers.

Even before the bill’s official announcement, technology groups declared their continued opposition to the effort, which they said would hurt consumers and single out successful businesses.

In a statement announcing the bill, dubbed the “American Innovation and Choice Online Act,” Grassley said the legislation would “expand consumer choice” on the internet.

—CQ-Roll Call

Mexican volunteers search for Nancy Guthrie remains after anonymous tip

An anonymous tip pertaining to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie sent a Mexican volunteer group looking for the missing Arizona woman‘s remains just south of the U.S. border.

The nonprofit organization Buscando Corazones de Nogales Sonora told local media that it received a call on Mother’s Day, pointing volunteers to an unmarked grave near the Mexican border town of Nogales.

“It was a man and he said to go look in that area, and said that’s where the missing woman from Tucson was,” a representative from the group told Arizona’s Family newsgroup.

Up to 15 volunteers searched the area on May 16, but had no luck. After receiving more specific information, they tried again in vain on Wednesday. They believe they were close and plan to search again next week roughly four miles south of the Arizona border.

—New York Daily News

Lawyer for pro-Palestinian activist faults feds in University of Michigan threats case

DETROIT — Defense lawyers launched a fight Friday to have their clients released on bond, two days after prosecutors unsealed a sweeping federal indictment accusing eight pro-Palestinian activists of waging a campaign of threats and vandalism targeting University of Michigan leaders and others.

The fight emerged ahead of a 1 p.m. detention hearing in federal court in Detroit during which prosecutors are expected to push to indefinitely jail five members of the group in a high-profile case involving threats to public officials amid a flurry of such cases locally and nationwide.

The government has faced criticism, however, that the case is a government attempt to punish pro-Palestinian protesters for their viewpoints amid Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza.

Group members are accused of carrying out violent activity to force the university to sever ties with Israel amid the war with Hamas in Gaza and targeted several officials, including former President Santa Ono and Regent Jordan Acker. That activity includes spray painting threats, breaking windows, and throwing glass jars filled with noxious chemicals into family homes, the indictment alleged.

—The Detroit News

'Stop and repent,’ Pope Leo XIV urges human traffickers as he visits Tenerife

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Spain — Pope Leo XIV on Friday issued an impassioned appeal to smugglers and others who take advantage of migrants and human suffering to repent, during a visit to Spain's Canary Islands.

At a meeting with migrants and integration workers at the Plaza del Cristo de La Laguna in Tenerife, the head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics addressed those who profit from the hardship and despair of migrants, saying: "Stop it. Repent."

"The money wrested from the vulnerability of the poor will bring neither peace, nor honor, nor a future," he added.

Leo said he wanted to send a clear message to those who "exploit the desperation of others; to those who organize death routes, engage in human trafficking, withhold documents, exploit workers, threaten women, deceive families, and turn the suffering of others into a business."

—dpa