In The NEWS

Earthquake of 4.8 magnitude shakes New Jersey, New York City area.
The earthquake's epicenter hit near Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, Friday morning, about 45 miles away from New York City (see map). Tremors were felt across the East Coast, including in Baltimore, Boston, and Philadelphia. There have been no reports of significant damage or life-threatening casualties as of this writing.



South Carolina Gamecocks, Iowa Hawkeyes reach NCAA title game.
No. 1 South Carolina and No. 1 Iowa will face off in the NCAA women's championship game tomorrow (3 pm ET, ABC) after defeating No. 3 NC State and No. 3 Connecticut, respectively, last night. On the men's side, No. 1 Purdue takes on No. 11 NC State tonight (6 pm ET, TBS), followed by a face-off between No. 1 Connecticut and No. 4 Alabama (8:50 pm ET, TBS).



US employers add 303,000 jobs in March, exceeding expectations.
The nonfarm payroll growth is up from February's downwardly revised growth of 270,000 jobs and beats economists' estimates of 200,000. The unemployment rate fell to 3.8% as expected, down from 3.9% in February. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% month-over-month and 4.1% year-over-year. See all data here.



USC's Bronny James, son of LeBron James, declares for NBA draft.
The 19-year-old freshman basketball star also announced Friday he plans to retain his college eligibility and will enter the NCAA transfer portal. His announcement comes after playing one season for the University of Southern California, during which he suffered a cardiac arrest in July. The 6-foot-4 guard was found to have a congenital heart defect and was cleared to return in November.



New York to pay $17.5M for forced removal of hijabs for mug shots.
New York City agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2018 by two Muslim American women who said their rights were violated after police forced them to remove their hijabs, or head coverings, before taking their arrest photos. The police department changed its policy in 2020 to allow people to wear head coverings for religious reasons as long as their faces were clearly visible.



Criminal networks are infiltrating legal businesses, EU says in report.
The European Union's law enforcement agency, Europol, released a first-of-its-kind report, identifying 821 criminal networks and detailing how they are organized, how they operate, and what kinds of activities they engage in. According to the report (see here), 86% of the identified criminal networks rely on the legal economy to conceal their activities and launder their profits.



Apple to lay off 614 workers after nixing self-driving car project.
The job cuts affect employees from Apple's offices in California and mark the first major round of layoffs for the tech giant postpandemic. It is unclear what projects the employees were working on. The news comes after Apple canceled a decadelong initiative in February to develop autonomous electric vehicles, seeking to instead pivot to working on artificial intelligence.

SOURCE:  1440 News