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On the evening of 8 December 1980, English musician John Lennon, formerly of the Beatles, was shot dead in the archway of The Dakota, his residence in New York City. He was 40 years old. He was killed by Mark David Chapman, an American Beatles fan who had travelled from Hawaii. Chapman said he was angered by Lennon's lifestyle and public statements, especially his much-publicised remark about the Beatles being "more popular than Jesus" and the lyrics of his later songs "God" and "Imagine". Chapman also said he was inspired by the fictional character Holden Caulfield from J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye.

Chapman planned the killing over several months and waited for Lennon at the Dakota on the morning of 8 December. During the evening he met Lennon, who signed his copy of the album Double Fantasy. Lennon left with his wife, Yoko Ono, for a recording session at Record Plant Studio. Later that night, Lennon and Ono returned to the Dakota. As they walked towards the entrance of the building, Chapman fired five hollow-point bullets from a .38 special revolver, four of which hit Lennon in the back. Chapman remained at the scene reading The Catcher in the Rye until he was arrested. Lennon was rushed to hospital in a police car where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

A worldwide outpouring of grief ensued on an unprecedented scale. Crowds gathered at Roosevelt Hospital and in front of the Dakota. People in nearby buildings placed lit candles in their windows, and at least three Beatles fans killed themselves. Lennon was cremated at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York, on 10 December. The ashes were given to Ono, who requested 10 minutes of silence around the world instead of holding a funeral. Chapman pleaded guilty to murdering Lennon and was given a sentence of 20-years-to-life imprisonment in an Upstate New York prison. He has been denied parole 11 times since becoming eligible in 2000.

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Trump Criticizes WHO And Threatens To Pull U.S. Funding

April 7, 20207:43 PM ET

Laurel Wamsley at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C.,
November 7, 2018

In a White House press briefing on Tuesday, President Trump criticized the World Health Organization's coronavirus response and threatened to cut its funding.

President Trump assailed the World Health Organization on Tuesday, and indicated that he will consider putting a hold on funding it.

In a media briefing at the White House, Trump twice stated that the United States funds the majority of the organization's budget. According to the WHO, the United States provided 14.67% of its funding in 2018-2019.

The WHO has been the most prominent global organization leading the strategy to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.

But on Tuesday, Trump criticized the WHO as slow to respond to the crisis, and repeatedly said the organization has been "China-centric." He complained that the WHO "receives vast amounts of money from the United States" and that the organization "called it wrong."

"They could have called it months earlier," he said. "They would have known and they should have known and they probably did not. So we'll be looking into that very carefully."

Trump at one point said "we're gonna put a hold on money spent to the WHO," before backtracking later in the briefing and saying "we're going to take a look at it."

Trump was asked what he meant by calling the WHO "China-centric."

"I don't know, they seem to come down on the side of China," Trump replied. "'Don't close your borders to China,' they don't report what's really going on. They didn't see it, and yet they were there, they didn't see what was going on in Wuhan. They didn't see it. How do you not see it? They didn't report it. They must have seen it, but they didn't report it."

The WHO has opposed travel bans, mainly due to the economic damage they cause.

The U.S. is the single largest contributor to the WHO. Its assessed contribution is 22% of the total members' assessed contributions. The U.S. pays considerably more than the assessed contributions in additional voluntary contributions. That 22% assessed contribution has been stable for many years, but the voluntary contributions have fluctuated depending on health crises and U.S. political priorities.

The WHO is funded not only by nations, but also nonprofit organizations, foundations, companies, universities and governmental alliances. After the U.S., the next three largest WHO funders in 2018-2019 were the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the GAVI Alliance, and the United Kingdom.

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Trump Team Moves To Lift Ban On 'Extreme' Hunting Tactics In Alaska

HuffPost Chris D'Angelo,HuffPost Mon, May 21 6:28 PM EDT

The Trump administration on Monday proposed rolling back a 2015 rule that bans aggressive predator control tactics
in national preserves in Alaska, including shooting bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens, a move
immediately blasted by environmental groups.

The proposal, slated to be published Tuesday in the Federal Register, would amend the National Park Service’s current regulations
to again allow for controversial sport hunting and trapping techniques on roughly 20 million acres of federal lands in Alaska.
The park service, part of the Department of the Interior, said lifting the prohibitions would increase hunting opportunities
on national preserve land, as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke called for in a pair of secretarial orders last year.

The proposed rule would allow hunters to lure brown and black bears with bait, hunt black bears and their cubs using artificial lights,
shoot bear cubs and wolf and coyote pups in their dens, and use dogs to hunt black bears.
It would also allow hunters to shoot swimming caribou from motorboats.

Allowing the killing of bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens is barbaric and inhumane. Jamie Rappaport Clark,
Defenders of Wildlife president and CEO

Environmental groups voiced disgust at the attempt to strip away protections.

“I’m outraged that [President Donald] Trump and his trophy-hunting cronies are promoting the senseless slaughter
of Alaska’s most iconic wildlife,” said Collette Adkins, a lawyer and biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity.
“Cruel and harmful hunting methods like killing bear cubs and their mothers near dens have no place on our national preserves.”

Defenders of Wildlife said the 2015 park service rule prevented “extreme methods of killing predators.”

“The Trump administration has somehow reached a new low in protecting wildlife,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark,
the nonprofit’s president and CEO. “Allowing the killing of bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens is barbaric and inhumane.
The proposed regulations cast aside the very purpose of national parks to protect wildlife and wild places.”

The park service said in an emailed statement the proposed rule would “establish consistency” with state regulations.

“The conservation of wildlife and habitat for future generations is a goal we share with Alaska,” agency regional director Bert Frost said.

A 60-day public comment period begins Tuesday.

The proposal comes a little more than a year after Congress approved a measure to repeal an Obama-era rule
that largely banned hunting of Alaska’s most iconic predators in Alaska’s national wildlife refuges.
The Republican-sponsored legislation opened the door for the state to resume aggressive predator control tactics,
including shooting bears and wolves from airplanes, on more than 76 million acres of refuge land.

Trump signed that bill into law in April 2017.