President Donald Trump said Wednesday the US is sending armed soldiers to the southern border after Mexican soldiers recently "pulled guns" on US troops, escalating his war of words with Mexico on immigration. Trump was apparently referring to an April 13 incident in which Mexican troops reportedly questioned and pointed their weapons at two US troops conducting surveillance on the border.

Two teenage neo-Nazis, linked to a group that called Prince Harry a "race traitor"  for marrying Mehgan Markle, are facing jail after admitting terror charges. Polish national, Michal Szewczuk, 19, admitted two counts of encouraging terrorism and five of possessing documents that could be useful to a terrorist, when he appeared at the Old Bailey. His co-defendant, Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski, 18, had previously pleaded guilty to encouraging terrorism. The charges relate to a neo-Nazi group called the Sonnenkrieg Division, which posted extreme racist material on the GAB social media platform. In one post, a picture of the Duke of Sussex was set against a swastika with a gun pointing at his head and the slogan: "See ya later, race traitor!" The group is an off shoot of the American Atomwaffen Division, which encourages terrorism and worships Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson. Szewczuk, who used an online pseudonym, posted comments that called for the "systematic slaughter" of women.  He also pleaded guilty to five charges relating to the possession of bomb making documents and other extremist terrorist material. At an earlier hearing, prosecutor Jessica Hart described how Szewczuk and Dunn-Koczorowski had shared the Sonnenkrieg Gab account, with both posting from the same account at different times. Judge Rebecca Poulet QC warned both teenagers they could face custody when they return to court for sentencing on 17 June.

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyIn their CNN town halls Monday night, Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders and Mayor Pete Buttigieg disagreed on whether current prisoners should be able to vote. Sen. Kamala Harris refused to endorse a plan for expanding the franchise to incarcerated people, but supported voting rights for former prisoners.Sanders was specifically asked about Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and “those convicted of sexual assault.” What sane person would want them to vote? Our political system is already run by crooks. Do we want to add murderers and rapists too?In European history dating to Roman times, criminals could be stripped of their legal personality after committing a crime. They could not sign contracts or own property. They were outlaws, banished from the city walls. John Locke and other political theorists argued that criminals broke an implicit social contract: a rule-breaker should lose the right to make rules for others. But Locke lived in a time when only white, male, wealthy landowners could vote. Today, the right to vote is enshrined in democratic constitutions and international treaties. In American history, many states’ exclusions of those with a criminal record from voting date to the post-Civil War period and were clearly aimed at denying the franchise to African Americans. Criminal justice reform advocates argue that suffering a Medieval-style “civil death” dehumanizes prisoners, prevents their reintegration into society, and perpetuates inequalities in our political system. We should not assume that prisoners are less knowledgeable about politics than those outside of prison—that’s a pretty low bar, after all. Encouraging prisoners to feel involved in the political process can have real benefits too. Isolating prisoners from the political process during and after their incarceration further stigmatizes and isolates them, and that can encourage reoffending.Prisoners lose many of their rights when they go to prison. They can’t serve on a jury from a prison cell, or own guns; both of those are probably reasonable proscriptions. They probably should not own guns. But prisoners do not lose all their rights in prison. They are entitled to practice their religion and can challenge the conditions of their confinement. Taking away prisoners’ liberty is already a heavy punishment. Allowing them to cast an absentee ballot is not an unreasonable privilege.The most important consequence of allowing prisoners to vote is that it would remove the incentives for “prison gerrymandering.” In most U.S. states, prisoners are counted by the census based on where they are incarcerated, not where they are registered to vote. Because most large prisons are in sparsely populated rural areas, prison complexes have an important effect on gerrymandering. Many prisoners are racial minorities or people who live in urban areas, which means these places lose voting population, while more conservative areas gain nonvoting population. This advantages Republican congressmen in places like upstate New York, who benefit from inflated populations for redistricting purposes, but have nothing to fear at election time. Prisoner disenfranchisement therefore contributes to a structural disparity that causes Congress and state legislatures to be more conservative than the public at large.While many states are in the process of revising their laws to allow ex-prisoners to vote, voting by current prisoners only exists in Maine, Puerto Rico, and Vermont—the latter represented by Sanders in the U.S. Senate. In addition, the trend across the developed world is to allow at least some prisoners to vote. The supreme courts of South Africa, Canada, and Israel have legalized voting for at least some prisoners. The European Court of Human Rights has also rejected blanket prohibitions on prisoner voting, though it has allowed exceptions.The policy options are far broader than a single audience question would suggest. In Germany, prisoners can vote unless they were convicted of terrorism or political violence, an exception that would encompass Tsarnaev’s marathon attack. Other European countries prevent violent criminals, those serving lengthy or life sentences, or war criminals from voting. Exceptions for crimes of dishonesty or fraud might be reasonable as well. In a few countries, only those convicted of misdemeanors can vote, rather than felonies.These are policy debates we should be willing to have. Even if we allowed only persons serving misdemeanor sentences in local jails to vote, this alone might add nearly 300,000 voters to the rolls. Prisoner voting is already underway in some states and developed countries, so it is hardly a revolutionary position. Overbroad restrictions on voting help ensure that politicians select their own voters, rather than voters electing their own politicians.Andrew Novak is Assistant Professor of Criminology Law and Society at George Mason University.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Of all the holidays on the U.S. calendar, Easter is definitely one of the most low-key. Families gather, eat some ham, and maybe the kids hunt for colored eggs or eat a bunch of candy, but it's generally pretty chill. That is, unless you're in Florida, where being in the holiday spirit and donning an Easter Bunny costume doesn't stop anyone from getting into a heated street brawl in Orlando.A video, which was first posted by Instagram user Workfth but subsequently removed due to a perceived "community guidelines" violation, shows a friendly Easter Bunny getting right in the middle of a physical altercation between two men on a busy street. Curses are yelled, punches are thrown, and our furry friend is right there in the thick of it all.Posted again by a different user, the video can be seen below (until Instagram inevitably removes it yet again).https://www.instagram.com/p/BwkQt1SA_jw/It's difficult to parse what exactly is happening here but it's clear that the two men fighting at the beginning of the clip have a very big problem with one another. The bunny arrives late to the brawl but manages to get a few jabs and hooks in anyway, landing repeated blows on one of the men before police arrive and break things up.Once tempers die down a bit the bunny becomes an instant celebrity and proceeds to shadowbox to the amusement of the gathered spectators. Hilariously, despite throwing repeated punches with a police officer standing just feet away, the bunny sidesteps any reprimand while the cop sorts things out between the two original combatants.It's a lovely little video and further proof that Florida is a treasure that should be cherished and appreciated for the entertainment it gives us all.

U.S. stocks hovered below their all-time highs on Wednesday, as investors digested a mixed batch of earnings reports and losses in energy stocks limited gains on the indexes. The S&P 500 is 0.3% below its record high of 2,940.91 hit in late September.