Colonel Eric Lee Redifer https://digitalalabamanews.com/colonel-eric-lee-redifer/
Colonel Eric Lee Redifer (US Air Force, Retired), 78, husband of Judith Anne Emerson “Judy” Redifer and a resident of Atlantic, VA, passed away at his home Monday, September 12, 2022, surrounded by his loving family. Born June 13, 1944, in Baltimore, MD and raised in Ravenswood, WV, he was the son of the late Lee Westwood Redifer and Betty Miller Redifer.
Eric graduated from Ravenswood High School, class of 1962, and received his Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from West Virginia University, Morgantown, in 1966. Upon graduation, Eric was commissioned through the U.S. Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, entering active duty on June 30, 1966. Following technical training school, he was assigned to Forbes Air Force Base, Topeka, KS. While at Forbes, he was transferred to temporary duty in South Vietnam and in September of 1969 reported to Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, until July 1970. Upon returning stateside, he reported to Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, serving as an airlift staff officer, and later Chief, Airlift Branch, Directorate of Maintenance Engineering, Deputy Chief of Staff, Logistics. During this time, he also completed additional training to include Squadron Officer School. He spent the next three years in Germany, and in 1977, completed training at Maxwell Air Force Base prior being named Commander, 363rd Equipment Maintenance Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. In February 1981, he returned to Langley as Assistant, and later Chief, Aircraft Maintenance Inspection Division, Directorate of Inspection, Office of the Inspector General. In July 1983, he returned to Maxwell AFB where he attended Air War College and simultaneously obtained a master’s degree in public administration from Auburn University. Upon graduation, Eric reported as assistant Deputy Commander for Maintenance at Bergstrom Air Force Base, Texas, and in 1986, he was assigned as the Deputy Commander for Maintenance at the George Air Force Base, California. On October 1, 1986, he was promoted to colonel and reported to Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, in May 1988, where he served as deputy chief, and later, as Alaskan Air Command J4. Colonel Redifer retired from active duty on June 30, 1994, following 28 years of dedicated service to his country.
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Grinch Melania Trump Suddenly Loves Christmas Because She
Grinch Melania Trump Suddenly Loves Christmas Because She https://digitalalabamanews.com/grinch-melania-trump-suddenly-loves-christmas-because-she/
Melania Trump wants the public to know that Christmas is an “important” time for her and that she is “devoted” to the holiday, despite what the nasty mainstream news media — and the former first lady herself — have said in the past. Why, you ask? Perhaps because she’s hawking Christmas ornaments and NFTs, just in time for the holiday season.
News of Trump’s Christmas ornament and NFT collection dropped last week, sparking incredulity across the internet as well as references to a recorded conversation from 2018 in which the then-first lady said, “Who gives a fuck about Christmas stuff and decorations?”
In a statement to Breitbart News on Tuesday, the former first lady said that her “untrustworthy” former aide Stephanie Winston Wolfkoff, who was fired by Trump in 2018 and has since written a tell-all book titled Melania and Me, “spitefully edited and released our conversation to create the perception that Christmas is not significant to me.”
“I will personally set the record straight because the mainstream media has failed to provide context for these misleading exchanges,” Trump said. “Christmas is an important time for me, my family, and the American people, and my devotion to the holiday is personal and profoundly serious.”
Trump claims she was expressing her frustration over the situation at the border at that time. It was the same year she visited detained migrant children in a Texas border town and made waves with a Zara jacket emblazoned with “I really don’t care. Do U?” on the back.
“Most people will agree that reuniting migrant children with their parents is more important than discussing Christmas decorations during summertime,” Trump told Breitbart. “The fact that Wolkoff deleted this part of our conversation, where I expressed hope to reunite families split apart at the southern border, exposes her malicious intent.”
Trump said in Wolkoff’s recording, “I say that I’m working on Christmas planning for the Christmas, and they said, ‘Oh, what about the children?’ That they were separated. Give me a fucking break. Were they were saying anything when Obama did that?”
Wolkoff, meanwhile, slammed Trump for her comments to Breitbart on Twitter and called the former first lady “pathetic.”
“Melania Trump needs to attack ME to sell Christmas ornament NFT’s. What is Melania worried about? She can’t sell ornaments on her own?” Wolkoff tweeted on Tuesday.
The “American Christmas Collection” is made up of six ugly brass ornaments that cost a whopping $US35 ($49) each, all engraved with Trump’s signature. In addition, she’s also selling a brass ornament she personally designed called “The Christmas Star” for $US45 ($62) on MelaniaTrump.com.
A purchase of the physical ornament is required in order to redeem the corresponding 3D animated NFT. According to Trump’s website and USA Memorabilia, the site selling them, the NFTs will be minted on the Solana blockchain and be available in limited quantities. A portion of the sales will go to Trump’s “Fostering the Future” initiative, which aims to provide scholarships for foster kids. How much of the sales will go to this initiative is unclear.
As for the design of the ornaments themselves, they sure are… something. Besides the Christmas Star, they resemble the generic designs you might see on gift tags. I would have preferred something akin to Trump’s creepy Christmas forest decorations in 2017. At least something like that would be unique, albeit creepy.
The Christmas Wreath Ornament
The Christmas Tree Ornament
The Christmas Bells Ornament
Merry Christmas Ornament
2023 Ornament
Be Best Ornament
Anyway, as you were.
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Trump's Legal Woes Mount Without Protection Of Presidency KESQ
Trump's Legal Woes Mount Without Protection Of Presidency – KESQ https://digitalalabamanews.com/trumps-legal-woes-mount-without-protection-of-presidency-kesq/
By ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Stark repudiation by federal judges he appointed. Far-reaching fraud allegations by New York’s attorney general. It’s been a week of widening legal troubles for Donald Trump, laying bare the challenges piling up as the former president operates without the protections afforded by the White House.
The bravado that served him well in the political arena is less handy in a legal realm dominated by verifiable evidence, where judges this week have looked askance at his claims and where a fraud investigation that took root when Trump was still president burst into public view in an allegation-filled 222-page state lawsuit.
In politics, “you can say what you want and if people like it, it works. In a legal realm, it’s different,” said Chris Edelson, a presidential powers scholar and American University government professor. “It’s an arena where there are tangible consequences for missteps, misdeeds, false statements in a way that doesn’t apply in politics.”
That distinction between politics and law was evident in a single 30-hour period this week.
Trump insisted on Fox News in an interview that aired Wednesday that the highly classified government records he had at Mar-a-Lago actually had been declassified, that a president has the power to declassify information “even by thinking about it.”
A day earlier, however, an independent arbiter his own lawyers had recommended appeared perplexed when the Trump team declined to present any information to support his claims that the documents had been declassified. The special master, Raymond Dearie, a veteran federal judge, said Trump’s team was trying to “have its cake and eat it” too, and that, absent information to back up the claims, he was inclined to regard the records the way the government does: Classified.
On Wednesday morning, Letitia James, the New York State attorney general, accused Trump in a lawsuit of padding his net worth by billions of dollars and habitually misleading banks about the value of prized assets. The lawsuit, the culmination of a three-year investigation that began when he was president, also names as defendants three of his adult children and seeks to bar them from ever again running a company in the state. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
Hours later, three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit — two of them Trump appointees — handed him a startling loss in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
The court overwhelmingly rejected arguments that he was entitled to have the special master do an independent review of the roughly 100 classified documents taken during last month’s FBI search, and said it was not clear why Trump should have an “interest in or need for” those records.
That ruling opened the way for the Justice Department to resume its use of the classified records in its probe. It lifted a hold placed by a lower court judge, Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee whose rulings in the Mar-a-Lago matter had to date been the sole bright spot for the former president. On Thursday, she responded by striking the parts of her order that had required the Justice Department to give Dearie, and Trump’s lawyers, access to the classified records.
Dearie followed up with his own order, giving the Justice Department until Sept. 26 to submit an affidavit asserting that the FBI’s detailed inventory of items taken in the search is accurate. Trump’s team will have until Sept. 30 to identity errors or mistakes in the inventory.
Between Dearie’s position, and the appeals court ruling, “I think that basically there may be a developing consensus, if not an already developed consensus, that the government has the stronger position in a lot of these issues and a lot of these controversies,” said Richard Serafini, a Florida criminal defense lawyer and former Justice Department prosecutor.
To be sure, Trump is hardly a stranger to courtroom dramas, having been deposed in numerous lawsuits throughout his decades-long business career, and he has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to survive situations that seemed dire.
His lawyers did not immediately respond Thursday to a request seeking comment.
In the White House, Trump faced a perilous investigation into whether he had obstructed a Justice Department probe of possible collusion between Russia and his 2016 campaign. Ultimately, he was protected at least in part by the power of the presidency, with special counsel Robert Mueller citing longstanding department policy prohibiting the indictment of a sitting president.
He was twice impeached by a Democratic-led House of Representatives — once over a phone call with Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the second time over the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol — but was acquitted by the Senate on both occasions thanks to political support from fellow Republicans.
It remains unclear if any of the current investigations — the Mar-a-Lago one or probes related to Jan. 6 or Georgia election interference — will produce criminal charges. And the New York lawsuit is a civil matter.
But there’s no question Trump no longer enjoys the legal shield of the presidency, even though he has repeatedly leaned on an expansive view of executive power to defend his retention of records the government says are not his, no matter their classification.
Notably, the Justice Department and the federal appeals court have paid little heed to his assertions that the records had been declassified. For all his claims on TV and social media, both have noted that Trump has presented no information to support the idea that he took any steps to declassify the records.
The appeals court called the declassification question a “red herring” because even declassifying a record would not change its content or transform it from a government document into a personal one. And the statutes the Justice Department cites as the basis of its investigation do not explicitly mention classified information.
Trump’s lawyers also have stopped short of saying in court, or in legal briefs, that the records were declassified. They told Dearie they shouldn’t be forced to disclose their stance on that issue now because it could be part of their defense in the event of an indictment.
Even some legal experts who have otherwise sided with Trump in his legal fights are dubious of his assertions.
Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who testified as a Republican witness in the first impeachment proceedings in 2019, said he was struck by the “lack of a coherent and consistent position from the former president on the classified documents.”
“It’s not clear,” he added, “what Jedi-like lawyers said that you could declassify things with a thought, but the courts are unlikely to embrace that claim.”
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More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump
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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
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McCarthy Unveils House GOP's Big Ideas But Challenges Ahead KESQ
McCarthy Unveils House GOP's Big Ideas, But Challenges Ahead – KESQ https://digitalalabamanews.com/mccarthy-unveils-house-gops-big-ideas-but-challenges-ahead-kesq/
By LISA MASCARO
AP Congressional Correspondent
MONONGAHELA, Pa. (AP) — Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is heading to Pennsylvania on Friday to directly confront President Joe Biden and the party in power, unveiling a midterm election agenda with sweeping Trump-like promises despite the House GOP’s sometimes spotty record of delivering and governing in Congress.
McCarthy, who is poised to seize the speaker’s gavel if Republicans win control of the House in the fall, hopes to replicate the strategy former Speaker Newt Gingrich used to spark voter enthusiasm and sweep House control in a 1994 landslide.
The House GOP’s “Commitment to America” gives a nod to that earlier era but updates it for Trump, with economic, border security and social policies to rouse the former president’s deep well of supporters in often-forgotten regions like this rusty landscape outside Pittsburgh.
“We have a plan for a new direction for America,” McCarthy told The Associated Press.
On Friday, the House Republican leader will stand with other lawmakers to roll out the GOP agenda, offering a portrait of party unity despite the uneasy coalition that makes up the House minority — and the Republican Party itself. The GOP has shifted from its focus on small government, low taxes and individual freedoms to a more populist, nationalist and, at times, far-right party, essentially still led by Donald Trump, who remains popular despite the deepening state and federal investigations against him.
Propelled by Trump’s “Make America Great Again” voters, the Republicans need to pick up just a few seats to win back control of the narrowly-split House, and replace Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But even so, McCarthy’s ability to lead the House is far from guaranteed.
While Republicans and Trump did pass tax cuts into law, the GOP’s last big campaign promise, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, collapsed in failure. A long line of Republican speakers, including Gingrich, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, have been forced from office or chose early retirement, often ground down by party infighting.
“House Republicans are really good at running people out of town,” said Matt Schlapp, chairman of the Conservative Political Action Coalition, or CPAC.
McCarthy, first elected to office in 2006, is among the remaining political survivors of those House Republican battles, and he’s a new style of leader who has shown more ability to communicate than to legislate.
A key architect of the Republican “tea party” takeover in 2010, the California Republican personally recruited the newcomers to Congress — many who had never served in public office and are long gone. McCarthy was an early Trump endorser, and has remained close to the former president, relying on his high-profile endorsements to propel GOP candidates for Congress. He abandoned an earlier bid to become speaker when support from his colleagues drifted.
The “Commitment to America” reflects the strength of McCarthy’s abilities, but also his weaknesses. He spent more than a year pulling together the House GOP’s often warring factions — from the far-right MAGA to what’s left of the more centrist ranks — to produce a mostly agreed upon agenda.
But the one-page “commitment” preamble is succinct, essentially a pocket card, though it is expected to be filled in with the kind of detail that is needed to make laws.
“They talk about a lot of problems,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. “They don’t have a lot of solutions.”
In traveling to battleground Pennsylvania, a state where Biden holds emotional ties from his early childhood, McCarthy intends to counter the president’s fiery Labor Day weekend speech, in which he warned of rising GOP extremism after the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, with a more upbeat message.
The event is billed as more of a conversation with the GOP leader and lawmakers rather than stirring address in a uniquely contested state.
Along with many as five House seats Republicans believe they can pick up in Pennsylvania in November, the state has one of the most watched Senate races, between Democrat John Fetterman and Trump-backed Mehmet Oz, that will help determine control of Congress. Top of the ticket is the seismic governor’s matchup between the GOP’s Doug Mastriano, who was seen outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, and Democrat Josh Shapiro.
“If you are a hardline, populist, and you really want anger, Kevin’s a little frustrating because he’s not going to be angry enough for you,” Gingrich said. “On the other hand, if what you want is to have your values implemented and passed in the legislation, he is a really good leader and organizer.”
Gingrich has been working with McCarthy and his team to craft the style and substance of the proposal. The former speaker, who has been asked by the Jan. 6 committee investigating the Capitol attack for an interview, was on hand Thursday in Washington, joining McCarthy as he unveiled the plans privately to House Republicans, who have been mixed on the approach.
Mostly, the GOP pocket card hits broad strokes — energy independence, security and an end to liberal social policies, particularly in schooling.
Conservative Republicans complain privately that McCarthy isn’t leaning hard enough into their priorities, as he tries to appeal to a broader swath of voters and hold the party together.
Many are eager to launch investigations into the Biden administration and the president’s family, with some calling for impeachment. Legislatively, some House Republicans want to fulfill the party’s commitment to banning abortion, supporting Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill prohibiting the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
In a sign of the pressures ahead for McCarthy, dozens of House GOP lawmakers signed on to plans from Trump-aligned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to prevent many gender reassignment procedures for minors, celebrating the Georgian as courageous for taking such a hardline approach.
She and others were invited to join Friday’s event, as McCarthy seeks their backing.
Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, has advocated for withholding federal funds as leverage for policy priorities, the tactic that engineered past government shutdowns.
“Putting out like, you know, principles about, ‘Well, we’ll secure the border.’ I mean, okay, but what are we gonna do about it?” Roy said. “The end of the day, I want specific actionable items that’s going to show that we’re going to fight for the American people.”
It’s notable that McCarthy alone has proposed a plan if Republicans win control of the House chamber. In the Senate, Republican leader Mitch McConnell has declined to put forward an agenda, preferring to simply run against Biden and Democrats in the midterm election.
“Kevin’s done a very good job of being in position to become the speaker. And then the question is, what do you do with that? Schlapp said. “This helps as a road map.”
__ Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
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U.S. Aircraft Carrier Arrives In South Korea As Warning To North
U.S. Aircraft Carrier Arrives In South Korea As Warning To North https://digitalalabamanews.com/u-s-aircraft-carrier-arrives-in-south-korea-as-warning-to-north/
U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan is anchored at a port in Busan, South Korea, September 23, 2022. REUTERS/Daewoung Kim
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BUSAN, South Korea, Sept 23 (Reuters) – A U.S. aircraft carrier arrived in South Korea on Friday for the first time in about four years, set to join other military vessels in a show of force intended to send a message to North Korea.
USS Ronald Reagan and ships from its accompanying strike group docked at a naval base in the southern port city of Busan.
Its arrival marks the most significant deployment yet under a new push to have more U.S. “strategic assets” operate in the area to deter North Korea.
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Strike group commander Rear Admiral Michael Donnelly told reporters aboard the ship that the visit had been long planned and was designed to build relations with South Korean allies and boost interoperability between the navies.
“We are leaving messaging to diplomats,” he said, when asked about any signal to North Korea, but added that joint drills were designed to ensure the allies were able to respond to threats anywhere at any time.
“It’s an opportunity for us to practice tactics and operations,” Donnelly said.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has pushed for more joint exercises and other displays of military power as a warning to North Korea, which this year conducted a record number of missile tests after talks failed to persuade it to end its nuclear weapons and missile development.
Observers say Pyongyang also appears to be preparing to resume nuclear testing for the first time since 2017.
North Korea has denounced previous U.S. military deployments and joint drills as rehearsals for war and proof of hostile policies by Washington and Seoul.
Last week the United States vowed to “continue to deploy and exercise strategic assets in the region in a timely and effective manner to deter and respond to (North Korea) and enhance regional security,” and pointed to the carrier’s visit as “as a clear demonstration of such U.S. commitment.”
In announcing the visit, however, the U.S. Navy made no mention of North Korea, referring only to a “regularly scheduled port visit” and emphasising crew members visiting Busan to volunteer at orphanages and explore the K-pop music scene.
Officials declined to provide details of the upcoming joint drills, but said the carrier would be in port for “several days” while its crew visited Busan. Just hours after the ship docked, long lines of crewmembers formed as they took COVID-19 tests before being bused into the city.
One crew member, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said that they were looking forward to a break but that the geopolitical tensions were a constant presence.
“You can’t ever really forget what we’re all here for,” the crew member told Reuters.
The visit is the first to South Korea by an American aircraft carrier since 2018. That year, the allies scaled back many of their joint military activities amid diplomatic efforts to engage with North Korea, but those talks have since stalled, and Pyongyang this month unveiled an updated law codifying its right to conduct first-use nuclear strikes to protect itself.
Questions have risen over the role the roughly 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea might play if conflict erupts over Taiwan.
Donnelly said such questions are for policymakers above him, but said that operating with like-minded allies such as South Korea is a key part of the U.S. Navy’s efforts to maintain the regional security and stability that has existed for more than seven decades.
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Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Gerry Doyle
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Alabama Execution Called Off For Time And Medical Concerns
Alabama Execution Called Off For Time And Medical Concerns https://digitalalabamanews.com/alabama-execution-called-off-for-time-and-medical-concerns/
ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — Alabama officials called off the Thursday lethal injection of a man convicted in a 1999 workplace shooting because of time concerns and trouble accessing the inmate’s veins.
Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said prison officials called off the execution after they determined inmate Arthur Miller’s “veins could not be accessed in accordance with our protocol” before a midnight deadline to get the execution underway. Miller has been returned to his cell at the south Alabama prison, Hamm said.
The halt to the execution came three hours after a divided U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to begin. The 5-4 decision lifted an injunction granted after Miller’s attorneys said the state lost his paperwork requesting his execution be carried out using nitrogen hypoxia, a method legally available to him but one never used before in the U.S.
Miller, 57, was convicted of killing three people in a 1999 workplace rampage, drawing the death sentence.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — A divided U.S. Supreme Court said Alabama can proceed Thursday night with the lethal injection of an inmate convicted in a 1999 workplace shooting, vacating two lower court rulings that sided with the condemned man and his request for a different method of execution.
The 5-4 decision reversed rulings by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a federal judge that the lethal injection could not go forward after Alan Miller’s attorneys said the state lost his paperwork requesting his execution be carried out using nitrogen hypoxia, a method legally available to him but one never used before in the U.S.
Miller, 57, was convicted of killing three people in a 1999 workplace rampage, drawing the death sentence. A judge blocked the state’s execution plan earlier this week.
Miller testified that he had turned in paperwork four years ago selecting nitrogen hypoxia as his execution method, putting it in a slot in his cell door at the Holman Correctional Facility for a prison worker to collect.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker Jr. issued a preliminary injunction blocking the state from killing Miller by any means other than nitrogen hypoxia, after finding it was “substantially likely” that Miller “submitted a timely election form even though the State says that it does not have any physical record of a form.”
Thursday night’s Supreme Court ruling vacated that injunction at the request of the state. Justices lifted the stay at about 9 p.m. giving the state a three hour window to get the execution underway before the death warrant expires at midnight. The July execution of Joe Nathan James took more than three hours to get underway after the state had difficulties establishing an intravenous line.
Although Alabama has authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, it has never executed anyone with that method and the state’s prison system has not finalized procedures for using it to carry out a death sentence.
Nitrogen hypoxia is a proposed execution method in which death would be caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, thereby depriving him or her of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions. It is authorized as an execution method in three states but no state has attempted to put an inmate to death by the untested method. Alabama officials told the judge they are working to finalize the protocol.
Many states have struggled to buy execution drugs in recent years after U.S. and European pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products in lethal injections. That has led some to seek alternate methods.
When Alabama approved nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method in 2018, state law gave inmates a brief window to designate it as their execution method. Miller testified that he opted for nitrogen when the form was distributed on death row because he disliked needles.
“That the state is not yet prepared to execute anyone by nitrogen hypoxia does not mean it will harm the state or the public to honor Miller’s timely election of nitrogen hypoxia. By contrast, if an injunction does not issue, Miller will be irrevocably deprived of his choice in how he will die — a choice the Alabama Legislature bestowed upon him,” Huffaker wrote.
Miller had visits from family members and an attorney on Thursday as he waited to see if his execution would go forward. He was given a food tray that included meatloaf, chuckwagon steak, macaroni and french fries, the prison system said.
Prosecutors said Miller, a delivery truck driver, killed co-workers Lee Holdbrooks and Scott Yancy at a business in suburban Birmingham and then drove off to shoot former supervisor Terry Jarvis at a business where Miller had previously worked. Each man was shot multiple times and Miller was captured after a highway chase.
Trial testimony indicated Miller believed the men were spreading rumors about him, including that he was gay. A psychiatrist hired by the defense found that Miller suffered from severe mental illness but also said Miller’s condition wasn’t bad enough to use as a basis for an insanity defense under state law.
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This story has been corrected to show Alabama’s last execution was in July.
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Report: Americans Spend More Than One-Quarter Of Their Income On Rent
Report: Americans Spend More Than One-Quarter Of Their Income On Rent https://digitalalabamanews.com/report-americans-spend-more-than-one-quarter-of-their-income-on-rent/
Americans spend 26.4% of their monthly budgets on rent, an increase from the 25.7% from 2021, according to the August Monthly Rental Report from realtor.com®.
The report found that the U.S. median rental price declined for the first time since November 2021, $1,781 in July to $1,771 in August. Additionally, rent growth continued moderating on a year-over-year basis, down to a single-digit increase, plus 9.8%, after 13 straight months at a double-digit pace.
Key highlights:
National rents remained more than 20% higher than in August 2020 overall and across all unit sizes, with studios at a median of $1,489 (+21.2%), one-beds at a median of $1,653 (22.6%), and two-beds at a median of $1,964 (+23.2%).
Among the 50 largest U.S. metros, nine had a rent-to-income share that was higher than 30%.
Rental affordability worsens nationwide and especially in coastal metros, with rents accounting for the highest shares of household incomes in Miami at 46.5%, Los Angeles at 40.7%, and San Diego at 37.1%.
Eight out of the 10 most affordable markets were located in Middle-America, ranging from a high of 21.7% rent-to-income share in Indianapolis and a low of 17.5% in Oklahoma City.
The largest overall median rent was $3,040 in the metro area of Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH, and the largest overall year-over-year increase was 24.9% in the metro area of Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-ID-WI.
The lowest overall median rent was $1,194 in the metro area of Birmingham-Hoover, AL, and the lowest overall year-over-year increase was 4.2% in the metro area of Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA.
Major takeaway:
“Our analysis underscores the very real rental affordability challenges that many Americans face today. Rents are significantly higher than in previous years and are taking up a substantial portion of incomes, which are growing at a slower pace than inflation,” said Realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale. “Still, there are some bright spots for renters as of late. Based on the general rule of thumb that you should keep housing costs to under 30% of your paycheck, renters were able to follow best practice in the majority of large metros in August. Plus, as rent growth continued to cool, national rents didn’t hit a new record-high for the first time in nine months. If these trends and typical seasonal cooling persist, renters may be better able to keep housing costs to a relatively manageable portion of their budgets in the months ahead.”
For the full report, visit www.realtor.com/research/august-2022-rent.
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Away Crowd Motivates Nittany Lions https://digitalalabamanews.com/away-crowd-motivates-nittany-lions-2/
AUBURN, AL (WTAJ) — At the Corner of Magnolia Street and College Avenue stands one of the south’s greatest football traditions, Toomer’s Oaks. After wins Auburn fans “roll the trees” with toilet paper. It’s a tradition that dates back 50-years.
“It’s always fun to come and get the different vibe of the schools, you know?” said Chuck Toth, a Penn State fan from New Jersey.
Toth is one of many Penn State fans in Alabama for the Auburn game. Some came from as far as Alaska to experience this rare SEC roadtrip.
“Oh, man, this has been on the calendar for years here since they scheduled it,” said Shawn Pecora.
“I think this is also a school deep in history and tradition, and you can see even the way that the town and campus is around the stadium,” said Toth. “So the fan bases seem to be great and that I think is always fun.”
Penn State fans filled downtown Friday. On Saturday Penn State flags waived in the tailgate lots. It was easy to find Nittany Lion fans, and good thing too because getting to the game became a problem for some.
“We knew we were going to end up at the game, we just didn’t know how,” said Mick Knott.
Knott and his friend Scott Charnoff flew into Atlanta Friday. But with rental cars out of stock at the airport, they needed a Uber to travel to Auburn, and needed a little more help to get to the stadium.
“I heard them talking early this morning of breakfast, I said, ‘We Are.’ And the said, ‘Penn State!’
Penn State fan Rob Crane came to the rescue giving the two a lift the stadium. A long time fan, he hopes he was paying it forward.
“I was at the Miami Penn State national championship game in Tempe, and people took care of me when I was there as a young guy,” he said.
Inside Jordan-Hare stadium the Nittany Lions awaited the Tigers. In a sea of orange, white shirts stood out in the crowd. It’s a common site away from Happy Valley, one that players say they don’t tire of. It’s the kind of site that makes you want to beat Auburn 41-12.
“Any time we’re at an away game, one of the first things we say on the sideline is, wow, there’s a lot of Penn State people here. And, you know, sometimes it’s a little repetitive because we travel so well” said junior offensive linemen, Bryce Effner. “It’s a huge motivator to see, you know, just that trickle away in whatever stadium we’re in. So it’s it’s awesome.”
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McCarthy Unveils House GOP https://digitalalabamanews.com/mccarthy-unveils-house-gop/
LISA MASCARO, AP Congressional Correspondent
Sep. 23, 2022Updated: Sep. 23, 2022 12:55 a.m.
FILE – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to a South Carolina GOP fundraising dinner on July 29, 2022, in Columbia, S.C. McCarthy is rolling out his party’s Trump-like midterm election agenda. The GOP leader is traveling to Pennsylvania on Friday, Sept. 23, a once Democratic stronghold, to challenge President Joe Biden and the party in power.Meg Kinnard/AP
MONONGAHELA, Pa. (AP) — Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is heading to Pennsylvania on Friday to directly confront President Joe Biden and the party in power, unveiling a midterm election agenda with sweeping Trump-like promises despite the House GOP’s sometimes spotty record of delivering and governing in Congress.
McCarthy, who is poised to seize the speaker’s gavel if Republicans win control of the House in the fall, hopes to replicate the strategy former Speaker Newt Gingrich used to spark voter enthusiasm and sweep House control in a 1994 landslide.
The House GOP’s “Commitment to America” gives a nod to that earlier era but updates it for Trump, with economic, border security and social policies to rouse the former president’s deep well of supporters in often-forgotten regions like this rusty landscape outside Pittsburgh.
“We have a plan for a new direction for America,” McCarthy told The Associated Press.
On Friday, the House Republican leader will stand with other lawmakers to roll out the GOP agenda, offering a portrait of party unity despite the uneasy coalition that makes up the House minority — and the Republican Party itself. The GOP has shifted from its focus on small government, low taxes and individual freedoms to a more populist, nationalist and, at times, far-right party, essentially still led by Donald Trump, who remains popular despite the deepening state and federal investigations against him.
Propelled by Trump’s “Make America Great Again” voters, the Republicans need to pick up just a few seats to win back control of the narrowly-split House, and replace Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But even so, McCarthy’s ability to lead the House is far from guaranteed.
While Republicans and Trump did pass tax cuts into law, the GOP’s last big campaign promise, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, collapsed in failure. A long line of Republican speakers, including Gingrich, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, have been forced from office or chose early retirement, often ground down by party infighting.
“House Republicans are really good at running people out of town,” said Matt Schlapp, chairman of the Conservative Political Action Coalition, or CPAC.
McCarthy, first elected to office in 2006, is among the remaining political survivors of those House Republican battles, and he’s a new style of leader who has shown more ability to communicate than to legislate.
A key architect of the Republican “tea party” takeover in 2010, the California Republican personally recruited the newcomers to Congress — many who had never served in public office and are long gone. McCarthy was an early Trump endorser, and has remained close to the former president, relying on his high-profile endorsements to propel GOP candidates for Congress. He abandoned an earlier bid to become speaker when support from his colleagues drifted.
The “Commitment to America” reflects the strength of McCarthy’s abilities, but also his weaknesses. He spent more than a year pulling together the House GOP’s often warring factions — from the far-right MAGA to what’s left of the more centrist ranks — to produce a mostly agreed upon agenda.
But the one-page “commitment” preamble is succinct, essentially a pocket card, though it is expected to be filled in with the kind of detail that is needed to make laws.
“They talk about a lot of problems,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. “They don’t have a lot of solutions.”
In traveling to battleground Pennsylvania, a state where Biden holds emotional ties from his early childhood, McCarthy intends to counter the president’s fiery Labor Day weekend speech, in which he warned of rising GOP extremism after the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, with a more upbeat message.
The event is billed as more of a conversation with the GOP leader and lawmakers rather than stirring address in a uniquely contested state.
Along with many as five House seats Republicans believe they can pick up in Pennsylvania in November, the state has one of the most watched Senate races, between Democrat John Fetterman and Trump-backed Mehmet Oz, that will help determine control of Congress. Top of the ticket is the seismic governor’s matchup between the GOP’s Doug Mastriano, who was seen outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, and Democrat Josh Shapiro.
“If you are a hardline, populist, and you really want anger, Kevin’s a little frustrating because he’s not going to be angry enough for you,” Gingrich said. “On the other hand, if what you want is to have your values implemented and passed in the legislation, he is a really good leader and organizer.”
Gingrich has been working with McCarthy and his team to craft the style and substance of the proposal. The former speaker, who has been asked by the Jan. 6 committee investigating the Capitol attack for an interview, was on hand Thursday in Washington, joining McCarthy as he unveiled the plans privately to House Republicans, who have been mixed on the approach.
Mostly, the GOP pocket card hits broad strokes — energy independence, security and an end to liberal social policies, particularly in schooling.
Conservative Republicans complain privately that McCarthy isn’t leaning hard enough into their priorities, as he tries to appeal to a broader swath of voters and hold the party together.
Many are eager to launch investigations into the Biden administration and the president’s family, with some calling for impeachment. Legislatively, some House Republicans want to fulfill the party’s commitment to banning abortion, supporting Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill prohibiting the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
In a sign of the pressures ahead for McCarthy, dozens of House GOP lawmakers signed on to plans from Trump-aligned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to prevent many gender reassignment procedures for minors, celebrating the Georgian as courageous for taking such a hardline approach.
She and others were invited to join Friday’s event, as McCarthy seeks their backing.
Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, has advocated for withholding federal funds as leverage for policy priorities, the tactic that engineered past government shutdowns.
“Putting out like, you know, principles about, ‘Well, we’ll secure the border.’ I mean, okay, but what are we gonna do about it?” Roy said. “The end of the day, I want specific actionable items that’s going to show that we’re going to fight for the American people.”
It’s notable that McCarthy alone has proposed a plan if Republicans win control of the House chamber. In the Senate, Republican leader Mitch McConnell has declined to put forward an agenda, preferring to simply run against Biden and Democrats in the midterm election.
“Kevin’s done a very good job of being in position to become the speaker. And then the question is, what do you do with that? Schlapp said. “This helps as a road map.”
__ Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
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Trump News Live: Special Master Calls Ex-Presidents Bluff Over Allegedly Planted Papers
Trump News – Live: Special Master Calls Ex-President’s Bluff Over Allegedly Planted Papers https://digitalalabamanews.com/trump-news-live-special-master-calls-ex-presidents-bluff-over-allegedly-planted-papers/
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NY probe found potential crimes. Why isn’t Trump in cuffs?
New York’s attorney general says her three-year investigation of former President Donald Trump uncovered potential crimes in the way he ran his real estate empire, including allegations of bank and insurance fraud. So why isn’t Trump being prosecuted?
The state’s law is complicated. Letitia James, the attorney general, is bound by restrictions on what criminal investigations she can actually launch herself without partnering with local prosecutors. And those investigations have yet to bear fruit against Mr Trump himself, though his CFO Allen Weisselberg last month plead guilty to felony charges.
Read more about the intricacies of the New York investigations in The Independent:
John Bowden23 September 2022 05:15
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Trump flinging paper towels at Puerto Rico residents resurfaces as Biden pledges full support after hurricane
Videos of Donald Trump tossing paper towels into a crowd of Puerto Rico residents in October 2017 have resurfaced on social media, as president Joe Biden pledged full support for the island, which has once again been struck by a natural disaster.
Read the full story by Gustaf Kilander here:
Maroosha Muzaffar23 September 2022 04:45
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Three key questions Ginni Thomas must answer in January 6 panel interview
Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is set to give unprecedented testimony to the Jan 6 panel regarding her role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Her involvement in the pro-Trump scheme has cast a massive shadow on the work of the Supreme Court, which already faced historic concerns about its legitimacy from the American public.
There are several questions that Ms Thomas is in a unique position to answer, both regarding her own activities as well as those of White House staff in the weeks leading up to the attack as well as the day of January 6 itself.
Read more from John Bowden:
John Bowden23 September 2022 04:15
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Trump’s legal woes mount without protection of presidency
Donald Trump’s growing storm of legal battles illustrates just how much protection he was being afforded as president — and how that all has come to an end.
Mr Trump’s own attorneys have illustrated that fact as they have refused to support their own client’s argument that any of the documents seized by FBI agents were declassified (so far).
Read more in The Independent about the evolving nature of Donald Trump’s post-presidential legal defences:
Trump’s legal woes mount without protection of presidency
Donald Trump’s latest legal troubles – sweeping fraud allegations by New York’s attorney general and a stark repudiation by federal judges he appointed – have laid bare the challenges piling up as the former president operates without the protections afforded by the White House
John Bowden23 September 2022 03:15
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How Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez inadvertently sparked the New York attorney general’s Trump lawsuit
As New York’s attorney general announces a massive civil lawsuit aimed at holding Donald Trump accountable for allegedly fraudulent business practices, the spotlight is returning to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her questioning of a former Trump ally that led to this week’s news.
In 2019, Mr Cohen testified against his former boss before the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee. At the time, Ms Ocasio-Cortez asked questions about whether Mr Trump ever provided inflated assets to an insurance company.
Letitia James acknowledged Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s role this week, declaring: “I will remind everyone that this investigation only started after Michael Cohen, the former lawyer, his former lawyer, testified before Congress and shed light on this misconduct.”
Read more in The Independent:
John Bowden23 September 2022 02:15
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Pro-Trump host Alex Jones shouts ‘I’m done apologising’ at Sandy Hook parents crying in court
The second defamation trial of Alex Jones got off to a rocky start this week as the beleaguered Infowars host continues to face comeuppance for abetting years’ worth of right-wing harassment at the families of slain elementary schoolers.
The courtroom in Connecticut descended into chaos on Thursday as the far-right conspiracy theorist took the stand in his defamation case and refused to acknowledge any responsibility for causing a decade of harassment to the victims’ families.
“I’ve already said I’m sorry hundreds of times. And I’m done saying sorry,” he shouted across the courtroom.
Read more from Rachel Sharp:
John Bowden23 September 2022 01:15
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Trump fires off torrent of Truth Social posts about 2024 run: ‘History is calling Donald Trump’
Amid a torrent of criminal investigations and lawsuits blaming him for fraudulent business practices, Donald Trump is trying to gin up support for a 2024 run.
That’s how the ex-president spent his day on Thursday, as he turned to his Truth Social platform to get the word out among his closest fans.
In one pair of posts, Mr Trump linked to a text on the website American Thinker with the headline “Donald Trump Must Be The 2024 Republican Nominee” before linking to a CNN report stating that “Trump fields calls from Republican allies to speed up 2024 bid after FBI raid”.
Read more from Gustaf Kilander:
John Bowden23 September 2022 00:15
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Mike Lindell under investigation over identity theft and damage to computer connected to voting machine
Mike Lindell’s efforts to aid Donald Trump and the campaign to overturn the 2020 election may have finally gotten him into trouble.
NBC News reported on Wednesday that the hybrid pillow vendor and political operative is under federal investigation for a number of serious crimes related to his efforts to prove that widespread voter fraud or other election-related shenanigans cost Donald Trump the election in 2020.
Read more from John Bowden:
John Bowden22 September 2022 23:45
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Trump lawyers ordered to say whether they believe FBI planted evidence
The Brooklyn federal judge in charge of reviewing the 11,000 documents which the FBI seized from former president Donald Trump’s home during an 8 August search has ordered the ex-president’s legal team to declare one way or the other whether they believe agents planted evidence to incriminate the former president.
The baseless accusations have floated for weeks, shared by the president himself and his closest allies. They’ve sparked conspiracies among his fans of a FBI-led political campaign to destroy Mr Trump, and led to an increase in violent threats targeting the agency.
In an order released on Thursday, the special master called for by Mr Trump’s team gave those attorneys until 30 September to say whether any of the items on the 11-page inventory provided by the department are described incorrectly.
Read more in The Independent:
John Bowden22 September 2022 23:15
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Trump to host fundraiser for right-wing GOP candidate
Donald Trump will host a fundraiser next month for Dan Cox, the Republican nominee for governor in Maryland, at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Mr Cox has bought in to the former president’s falsehoods about the 2020 election and was not endorsed for the nomination (or, so far, for the office at all) by Maryland’s incumbent retiring GOP governor, Larry Hogan. His victory in the GOP primary was one instance in which Democrats successfully boosted, through tactical campaign spending, an election denier against a more moderate opponent in a Republican-on-Republican matchup.
Read more at The Hill from Julia Manchester.
John Bowden22 September 2022 22:45
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City Of Hoover Working With FEMA To Help Residents Dealing With Long-Term Flood Damage
City Of Hoover Working With FEMA To Help Residents Dealing With Long-Term Flood Damage https://digitalalabamanews.com/city-of-hoover-working-with-fema-to-help-residents-dealing-with-long-term-flood-damage/
HOOVER, Ala. (WBRC) – Flood assistance is coming for some Hoover homeowners who are still dealing with the side effects of flood waters from the heavy flash flooding in October 2021.
399 homeowners reported flood damage to the city after those October flood waters, and while many of those properties are fixed now, some are still dealing with long-term damage.
City Manager Allan Rice said they are partnering with FEMA for a Flood Mitigation Assistance program.
It’s for Hoover residents who have extensive and repeat damage to their homes. Rice said the money from this program can go towards property mitigation efforts and some will even qualify for a complete property buy-out. Rice estimates around 15 homes will qualify for the program to buy out their property in full.
You have to apply with the city directly and they will submit the application to FEMA.
“It’ll be city employees here locally in Hoover working to represent their interest, helping with documentation, and completing their part of the application,” Rice said. “They will have us as their case managers helping them walk through the process and they aren’t having to deal with someone online or the phone.”
You have to apply with the city before October 7.
If you would like to be considered for participation in the FEMA program or would like more information on the process, please contact Justin Marlin at (205) 444-7633 or justin.marlin@hooveralabama.gov. Please refer to the following website for more information: https://www.fema.gov/grants/mitigation/floods
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Copyright 2022 WBRC. All rights reserved.
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Australia Stocks Slide 2%; Asian Markets Drop As Investors Weigh Fed Hike
Australia Stocks Slide 2%; Asian Markets Drop As Investors Weigh Fed Hike https://digitalalabamanews.com/australia-stocks-slide-2-asian-markets-drop-as-investors-weigh-fed-hike/
An electronic board displays stock information at the Australian Securities Exchange, operated by ASX Ltd., in Sydney, Australia, on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018.
Brendon Thorne | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Asia-Pacific shares fell on Friday as investors continue to weigh the Federal Reserve’s aggressive stance.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 2.28% on its return to trade after a holiday on Thursday. South Korea’s Kospi dipped 1.82% and the Kosdaq declined 2.49%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 0.85%. Mainland China stocks were also lower, with the Shanghai Composite shedding 1.08% and the Shenzhen Component losing 1.769%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 1.42%. Japan markets were closed for a holiday Friday.
Elsewhere in Asia, inflation in Malaysia came in at 4.7% for August, in line with expectations. Singapore is also slated to report August’s consumer price index data.
On Wall Street overnight, stocks fell for a third consecutive day over recession fears following the Fed’s latest 75-basis-point rate hike.
The S&P 500 was 0.8% lower at 3,757.99, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.4% to 11,066.81. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 107.10 points, or 0.3%, to 30,076.68.
— CNBC’s Samantha Subin and Sarah Min contributed to this report.
Singapore, Malaysia inflation for August expected to accelerate
Core inflation in Singapore is expected to rise to 5% in August from a year ago, up from 4.8% in July, according to a Reuters poll of economists.
Headline inflation is set to increase to 7.2%, compared with July’s 7% print.
In neighboring Malaysia, the consumer price index for August is predicted to rise to 4.7%, a faster pace than July’s 4.4%, another Reuters poll forecasts.
— Abigail Ng
Nomura downgrades China’s 2023 growth outlook
Nomura downgraded its forecast for China’s 2023 annual growth to 4.3% from 5.1%.
Analysts cited a potentially prolonged Covid-zero policy or a spike in the nation’s infections after a possible reopening in March.
The latest downgrade comes after Goldman Sachs lowered its outlook earlier this week to 4.5% from 5.3%.
William Ma of Grow Investment Group told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” he’s optimistic on policy changes he sees coming after the People’s Party Congress in mid-October.
—Jihye Lee
CNBC Pro: Is it time to buy Treasurys? Here’s how to allocate your portfolio, according to the pros
Australia’s S&P Global flash PMI shows growth in private sector
Australia’s flash manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose slightly to 53.9 in September from 53.8 in August, according to data from S&P Global.
The flash services PMI ticked higher to 50.4 in September, compared with 50.2 in August.
“The latest survey data indicated that the manufacturing sector was the primary driver of Australia’s private sector growth during September,” S&P Global wrote in a release.
“The service sector, though expanding more quickly than in August, saw activity rise only marginally with activity and new business growth rates remaining below the historical averages,” it said.
— Abigail Ng
Japanese yen hovers around 142 against the U.S dollar
The Japanese yen traded at 142.33 against the greenback in Asia’s morning the day after Japanese authorities said they intervened in the currency market for the first time since 1998.
The yen strengthened to 140-levels before heading back to 142-levels.
“In our view, the Ministry of Finance [in Japan] needs to convince the U.S. Treasury to join the intervention,” Joseph Capurso of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia wrote in a Friday note, adding solo intervention by Japan “fails within a few weeks.”
— Abigail Ng
CNBC Pro: Back hedge funds to outperform equities and bonds this year, UBS says
As both stocks and bond prices fall simultaneously, hedge funds have broadly outperformed and are “well placed to navigate current market volatility,” according to a new report by UBS.
As market volatility persists, the Swiss bank shared the types of hedge funds it prefers.
Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Ganesh Rao
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Huntsville City Council Passes Number Of Motions Including Pay Raise For City Employees
Huntsville City Council Passes Number Of Motions, Including Pay Raise For City Employees https://digitalalabamanews.com/huntsville-city-council-passes-number-of-motions-including-pay-raise-for-city-employees/
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) – Huntsville City leaders agree – if you are pulled over by police with a small amount of marijuana – instead of making an arrest, you will drive away with a ticket.
It’s a provision already allowed in other Alabama cities.
In a conversation between Council member Devyn Keith and an attorney regarding the possibility, they discussed disparities between Huntsville and other Alabama cities.
“In your findings of other cities, the only difference between us and the other cities who have this ability provision is the municipal judge?” said Keith.
“Correct, under the change to the law, every small city in Alabama that has part-time judges can continue to use this procedure. It’s only the larger cities with full time municipal judges that have to get the local law passed.”
In fewer words, Alabama lawmakers have to change the law so Huntsville officers can have the option to issue a citation.=
Another item on the agenda: discretionary improvement funds, called the Council Improvement Funds . It would allowing council members to use $75,000 to the benefit of their district to be used at their discretion. It was a point of contention among members and the mayor, with concern over transparency.
“Before we spend any money, we have at least 3, 4 sets of eyes on it and people look at it and say does this make sense, does this make the city of Huntsville a better place,” Mayor Tommy Battle started. “And when we get discretionary funding, we’re asking one set of eyes to look at it, but we’re not checking it the way that we check to make sure taxpayers money is spent wisely.”
Other council members were in support of the measure.
“The only thing that’s different in what you’re proposing is that we don’t have to go to mommy and daddy and ask for money and we ask each other,” said Frances Akridge, of District 2. “We don’t have to go ask the administration that we make some decisions based on what we know needs to be done and won’t have to cajole, convince, or plead anybody else.”
District 1 Council member Keith was also in support.
“I don’t know what I was use my Council Improvement Funds for because those projects have not been presented to me, thus I then echo, and it seems to be budgetary hypocrisy that there’s been a Twickenham festival that received funding because it Mayor said it was a good idea. We have made decisions inside the budgetary that were discretion improvement, whatever terminology you want to use. This is no different.”
It did pass with caveats, any money spent would have to be voted on by the full council and the mayor would have to sign off on it as well.
Finally, the cost of living adjustment at 5% for city employees was also approved tonight.
That pay raise will begin in October.
Copyright 2022 WAFF. All rights reserved.
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Thursday Scores Roundup: MGM Cruises Past Baldwin County
Thursday Scores, Roundup: MGM Cruises Past Baldwin County https://digitalalabamanews.com/thursday-scores-roundup-mgm-cruises-past-baldwin-county/
Keshun Johnson rushed for two touchdowns as Mary G. Montgomery cruised to a 34-7 win over Baldwin County on Thursday night in Semmes.
It marks the second straight win for the Vikings (2-4).
Johnson scored on runs of 7 and 8 yards and finished with 57 yards on 10 carries. The Vikings defense held Baldwin County to 133 total yards and blocked two punts.
“I can’t say enough about our defense tonight,” MGM coach Zach Golson said. “Those guys pitched a shutout for us. Unfortunately, we gave up the late touchdown on a fumble return.”
Offensively, the Vikings maintained a balanced attack and punted just once. Mary G. Montgomery has scored 20 or more points in every game this season.
“I like where we are at offensively, staying balanced and moving the ball,” Golson said.
The Tigers’ lone score came on a 68-yard fumble return with under five minutes to go in the game. It’s been a struggle for Scott Rials and the Tigers in 2022 after making the playoffs a year ago.
Baldwin County is 0-5 and has been outscored 157-14 this year.
Star of the game: Vikings quarterback Jared Hollins passed for 101 yards and added 26 on yards on the ground. Hollins connected with James Bolton for an 8-yard TD and Zion Hunter for a 1-yard score. He didn’t turn the ball over.
Play of the game: The Viking defense blocked a slow developing punt with 3:10 left in the second quarter. John Robinson scooped up the loose ball, returning it to the Tiger 2. After a penalty, Johnson scored from 7 yards out, giving MGM a commanding 21-0 lead at halftime.
“We saw things some formations on special teams we could work on and tried that. It led to the block punts tonight. It turned out to be successful for us,” said Golson.
Stat sheet: Preston Kiper passed for 77 yards for the Tigers … Bolton led the Vikings with 91 yards receiving on 5 catches.
By the numbers: 2016 — The last time Mary Montgomery won back-to-back games. 29 — points per game by the Vikings this season. 14 — total points scored this season by Baldwin County.
Coachspeak: “This is a great win for our program and the community after some tough early season losses. Back-to-back wins are huge.” — Golson
They said it: “Zion (Hunter) has really improved as a receiver. His confidence is up, and it’s just big for us to have another weapon on the outside to throw to.” – Hollins.
What’s next? Both teams step back into region play next week. Mary G. Montgomery hosts Davidson, while Baldwin County (0-5) plays at McGill-Toolen.
THURSDAY’S SCORES
Anniston 30, Piedmont 28
Charles Henderson 26, St. James 14
Corner 44, Fultondale 6
Hewitt-Trussville 49, Huffman 8
Highland Home 28, Brantley 27
Mary Montgomery 34, Baldwin Co. 7
Millry 27, Clarke Co. 7
Winfield 52, Hamilton 0
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Peyton Floyds 5 Touchdown Passes Power Hewitt-Trussville Past Huffman
Peyton Floyd’s 5 Touchdown Passes Power Hewitt-Trussville Past Huffman https://digitalalabamanews.com/peyton-floyds-5-touchdown-passes-power-hewitt-trussville-past-huffman/
High School Sports
Updated: Sep. 22, 2022, 10:01 p.m.|
Published: Sep. 22, 2022, 9:55 p.m.
Hewitt-Trussville quarterback Peyton Floyd threw five touchdown passes in the first half as the Class 7A sixth-ranked Huskies cruised to a 49-8 victory over Huffman on Thursday at Viking Stadium.
Hewitt-Trussville (4-2) scored on all seven possessions in the first half and did not run a single play inside its own territory. The Huskies held Huffman to 127 yards of offense, 2-for-12 on third-down conversions and did not lose any yardage on negative plays.
After taking a 7-0 lead on a 13-yard touchdown run by Kennedy Mitchell, Floyd capped the next five Hewitt-Trussville possessions with touchdown passes of 21, 3, 10, 34 and 22 yards. Jadon Loving and Kadarius Barnes caught two touchdown passes each and tight end Donovan Price brought down the other scoring pass.
Mitchell and Jaqson Melton kept the Huffman defense honest with a strong rushing attack, combining for 127 yards in the first half and scoring on runs of 13 and 45, respectively. Melton capped the scoring for the Huskies with his 45-yard touchdown run with less than two minutes remaining in the opening half.
Huffman (0-6) recovered an onside kick to open the second half, but turned the ball over on downs on its fourth of five sacks in the game. The Vikings scored on their only other possession, due to a running clock in the second half, and avoided the shutout with a 36-yard touchdown pass from Mekail Alexander-Johnson to Joshua McAdory.
Star(s) of the game: Floyd. The junior quarterback was 13-of-14 passing for 186 yards and 5 touchdowns, all in the first half as the Huskies built a 49-0 lead to ignite a running clock.
“It was good to get a bounce-back win because I felt we need it. We didn’t play our best last week and it’s good to get our confidence back. We’ll be ready next week,” Floyd said.
By the numbers: 13, the number of negative plays produced by the Hewitt-Trussville defense. …6, the number of consecutive three-and-outs to start the game by the Huffman offense. …0, the number of plays ran by the Huskies in their own territory in the first half, as well as the number of plays Huffman ran inside Hewitt-Trussville territory in the first half.
Stat sheet: Hewitt-Trussville – Mitchell led the rushing attack with 6 carries for 70 yards and a touchdown and Melton had 2 attempts for 57 yards and a score. Loving had 4 receptions for 73 yards and 2 touchdowns, Barnes had 3 receptions for 51 yards and a touchdown and Price finished with 3 catches for 24 yards and a score. Brett Moseley added 2 catches for 29 yards, Michael Sanders had 2 receptions for 21 yards and Steven Fisher had 3 rushing attempts for 20 yards. Huffman – Alexander-Johnson was 8-of-19 passing for 102 yards and a touchdown and Jaylan Groce finished with 3 receptions for 28 yards. McAdory had 7 carries for 15 yards and added a 35-yard touchdown reception. Jakobe Hall had 5 rushing attempts for 27 yards and a 12-yard reception.
Coachspeak: “I’m proud we came out here and took care of business early on. Proud of the way they responded after a tough one last week. We have leaders on this team that want to be great and want the team to be great. Our defense really set the tone early tonight and offense executed really well.” — Hewitt-Trussville’s Josh Floyd
What’s next? The Huskies host Thompson while Huffman travels to Pinson Valley.
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Away Crowd Motivates Nittany Lions https://digitalalabamanews.com/away-crowd-motivates-nittany-lions/
AUBURN, AL (WTAJ) — At the Corner of Magnolia Street and College Avenue stands one of the south’s greatest football traditions, Toomer’s Oaks. After wins Auburn fans “roll the trees” with toilet paper. It’s a tradition that dates back 50-years.
“It’s always fun to come and get the different vibe of the schools, you know?” said Chuck Toth, a Penn State fan from New Jersey.
Toth is one of many Penn State fans in Alabama for the Auburn game. Some came from as far as Alaska to experience this rare SEC roadtrip.
“Oh, man, this has been on the calendar for years here since they scheduled it,” said Shawn Pecora.
“I think this is also a school deep in history and tradition, and you can see even the way that the town and campus is around the stadium,” said Toth. “So the fan bases seem to be great and that I think is always fun.”
Penn State fans filled downtown Friday. On Saturday Penn State flags waived in the tailgate lots. It was easy to find Nittany Lion fans, and good thing too because getting to the game became a problem for some.
“We knew we were going to end up at the game, we just didn’t know how,” said Mick Knott.
Knott and his friend Scott Charnoff flew into Atlanta Friday. But with rental cars out of stock at the airport, they needed a Uber to travel to Auburn, and needed a little more help to get to the stadium.
“I heard them talking early this morning of breakfast, I said, ‘We Are.’ And the said, ‘Penn State!’
Penn State fan Rob Crane came to the rescue giving the two a lift the stadium. A long time fan, he hopes he was paying it forward.
“I was at the Miami Penn State national championship game in Tempe, and people took care of me when I was there as a young guy,” he said.
Inside Jordan-Hare stadium the Nittany Lions awaited the Tigers. In a sea of orange, white shirts stood out in the crowd. It’s a common site away from Happy Valley, one that players say they don’t tire of. It’s the kind of site that makes you want to beat Auburn 41-12.
“Any time we’re at an away game, one of the first things we say on the sideline is, wow, there’s a lot of Penn State people here. And, you know, sometimes it’s a little repetitive because we travel so well” said junior offensive linemen, Bryce Effner. “It’s a huge motivator to see, you know, just that trickle away in whatever stadium we’re in. So it’s it’s awesome.”
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AP News Summary At 10:38 P.m. EDT https://digitalalabamanews.com/ap-news-summary-at-1038-p-m-edt-2/
Trump’s legal woes mount without protection of presidency
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s latest legal troubles — sweeping fraud allegations by New York’s attorney general and a stark repudiation by federal judges he appointed — have laid bare the challenges piling up as the former president operates without the protections afforded by the White House. The bluster and bravado that served him well in the political arena are less handy in a legal realm dominated by verifiable evidence, where judges this week have looked askance at his positions. This week alone, he has been sued in New York and a federal appeals court has sharply rejected his legal team’s arguments about documents seized from his Florida home.
US urges world to tell Russia to stop its nuclear threats
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States is urging other nations to tell Russia to stop making nuclear threats and end “the horror” of its war in Ukraine. All three countries’ top diplomats spoke at a high-profile U.N. Security Council meeting. But they didn’t quite meet. Held alongside the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders, the session followed a striking development in the war this week. Russia called up a portion of its reserves for the first time since World War II. At the same time, President Vladimir Putin said his nuclear-armed country would “use all means available to us” to defend itself if its territory is threatened.
Tears and hugs for Russians called up to fight in Ukraine
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Russia is escalating its military and political campaign to take over Ukrainian territory. Russian army reservists were rounded up to fight while pro-Moscow authorities prepared for voter referendums starting Friday that could lead to the annexation of four Russian-held regions of Ukraine. A day after President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization to bolster his troops in Ukraine, dramatic scenes of tearful families bidding farewell to men departing from military mobilization centers in Russia appeared Thursday on social media. Germany’s interior minister offered concrete support to potential deserters. She said that anyone who “courageously opposes Putin’s regime and therefore puts himself in the greatest danger” can apply for asylum.
Biden vows US won’t walk away from storm-struck Puerto Rico
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IDB Board Recommends Removing Trump-Picked Chief Claver-Carone https://digitalalabamanews.com/idb-board-recommends-removing-trump-picked-chief-claver-carone/
The board of a top development bank focused on Latin America voted Thursday to recommend removing the lender’s president after a probe into an alleged romantic relationship with a top aide found he probably violated ethics rules.
The 14 executive directors of the Inter-American Development Bank unanimously recommended ousting Mauricio Claver-Carone, according to people familiar with the process, who asked not to be identified describing a closed-door meeting. The IDB press office wouldn’t immediately comment when asked to confirm the vote.
Ultimate responsibility for removing Claver-Carone rests with the IDB’s board of governors, mostly finance ministers from the 48 member countries and governments to which the executive directors report. They will have until Tuesday to vote online, although the process is expected to be a formality, the people said.
Then-US president Donald Trump’s 2020 nomination of Claver-Carone, a White House aide, to lead the development bank focused on Latin America opened a rift between the US and the region. He was the first US citizen to lead an institution traditionally presided over by a Latin American since its creation in 1959.
The US supports Claver-Carone’s dismissal, a Treasury spokesperson said. The United States is the biggest shareholder in the Washington-based IDB, with about triple the weight of second-largest Brazil and Argentina. The lender is key to US influence in Latin America.
The bank loaned US$23.5 billion last year, focusing on boosting economies and offering credit lines to buy Covid-19 vaccines for a region that was one of hardest hit globally by the pandemic. Nations experienced one of the worst economic contractions in their history in 2020, with millions losing jobs or fallen into poverty.
Claver-Carone – a 47-year-old former top US Treasury Department adviser, International Monetary Fund representative and foreign-policy satellite radio host from Miami – has mounted an aggressive defence to keep his job. In a statement posted Tuesday on the IDB’s website, Claver-Carone said he fully cooperated with the investigation and asserted that it “does not substantiate the false and anonymous allegations that were made against me or IDB staff in the press.”
But the Treasury spokesperson said Claver-Carone’s refusal to fully cooperate with the investigation, and his creation of a climate of fear of retaliation among staff and borrowing countries, has forfeited the confidence of the bank’s staff and shareholders and necessitates a change in leadership.
“It’s shameful the US commented to the press before notifying me and that it is not defending two Americans against what is clearly fabricated information,” Claver-Carone said in a statement. “It’s beyond satire that China found its way into the IDB during the Obama administration and now Biden officials are handing it back over on a silver platter, days after the initial anonymous malicious campaign was proven to be unsubstantiated.”
The investigation found evidence – backed by handwriting analysis, divorce records and interviewee statements – supporting the conclusion that the pair were in a romantic relationship prior to joining the Washington-based IDB in late 2020 “and that the relationship may have continued during their employment at the bank,” according to the September 19 report prepared by law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP at the direction of the IDB’s board.
Claver-Carone, in interviews with Davis Polk in recent weeks, denied ever having a romantic relationship with the aide, who declined to be interviewed for the investigation, according to the report. The person didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Salary raise
In comments to Bloomberg, Claver-Carone said he was interviewed by investigators for more than seven hours and responded to many of their requests for information.
The probe also found that Claver-Carone took employment action to benefit the aide, raising her salary twice in less than a year for a cumulative 46 percent increase to more than US$400,000.
The report hasn’t been made public but has been seen by Bloomberg.
The probe found “no direct evidence of an existing relationship” between Claver-Carone and the aide, the report said. “However, particularly in light of their failure to cooperate, it would be reasonable to conclude that the evidence of a prior relationship, and the additional circumstantial evidence of a current relationship while they were both at the bank, constitute a violation of the applicable bank policies.”
by Eric Martin, Bloomberg
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Alleged Nazi Sympathiser Imprisoned For Attacking US Capitol
Alleged Nazi Sympathiser Imprisoned For Attacking US Capitol https://digitalalabamanews.com/alleged-nazi-sympathiser-imprisoned-for-attacking-us-capitol/
A man accused of being a Nazi sympathiser has been sentenced to four years in prison for his involvement in the attack on the US Capitol in January 2021.
Key points:
Timothy Hale-Cusanelli has been sentenced on felony and misdemeanour charges from his actions during the US Capitol attack
Investigators were told he was a “white supremacist and Nazi sympathiser” and posted videos espousing extreme political opinions
His lawyer argued he lacked criminal intent because he did not realise Congress was counting votes on the day of the attack
Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, 32, was sentenced in the District of Columbia on Thursday on felony and misdemeanour charges stemming from his actions during the January 6 attack, the US Justice department said.
In May, the New Jersey man was found guilty by a federal jury of all five counts he faced, including obstruction of an official proceeding.
Hale-Cusanelli is a former member of the US Army Reserves who worked as a Navy contractor with a “secret” security clearance and access to weapons, prosecutors said.
An informant told investigators Hale-Cusanelli was “an avowed white supremacist and Nazi sympathiser” who had posted online videos espousing extreme political opinions, the Justice Department alleged in court filings.
Video footage from the riot showed Hale-Cusanelli yelling at police officers outside the Capitol and entering the building.
Donald Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.(AP: John Minchillo)
Thousands of supporters of former president Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
The attack followed months of false claims by Mr Trump that he had won the 2020 election.
Hale-Cusanelli’s lawyer argued his client did not realise Congress was counting electoral votes on the day of the attack, and therefore lacked a criminal intent.
The Justice Department said it had arrested more than 870 people for crimes related to the breach of the Capitol, including over 265 who were charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
Earlier this month, retired New York Police Department officer Thomas Webster was sentenced to a record 10 years in prison for using a metal flagpole to assault an officer during the attack.
In August, former police sergeant Thomas Robertson and Guy Reffitt, an associate of the far-right Three Percenters militia, were each sentenced to seven years and three months in prison.
Proud Boys associate Joshua Pruitt was sentenced to four years and seven months in prison for his actions during the attack.
Mark Ponder, who attacked police officers with poles, was sentenced to five years and three months in prison in July.
Reuters/ABC
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New York Fraud Lawsuit Adds Court-Sized Complication To Possible Trump 2024 Plans
New York Fraud Lawsuit Adds Court-Sized Complication To Possible Trump 2024 Plans https://digitalalabamanews.com/new-york-fraud-lawsuit-adds-court-sized-complication-to-possible-trump-2024-plans/
New York AG Letitia James’ suit – while a civil matter rather than a criminal one – is the most definitive sign yet that Donald Trump will likely be pulled into court while running for president.
Donald Trump ponders another presidential run in 2024 while facing an array of investigations.
This week, the New York attorney general sued Trump over fraud allegations.
Trump’s legal woes will “be in the news over and over again,” said Andrew Weissmann, a prosecutor on the Russia probe.
But former Trump AG Bill Barr disagreed. “I don’t think it’s going to hurt him,” Barr said.
WASHINGTON – Now that the New York attorney general sued Donald Trump for fraud, one thing seems nearer certainty: If Trump runs for president again in 2024, he will do so while defending himself in a court of law.
Maybe several courts of law.
The long-running panoply of investigations into Trump – over his business practices, his handling of classified information, his efforts to overturn his election loss in 2020, and his role in the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021 – will burden any 2024 presidential run by the former chief executive, analysts said.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’ suit — while a civil matter rather than a criminal one — takes things a step further than those other probes: It is the most definitive sign yet that Trump could be pulled into court while running for president, an unprecedented position for a major party candidate.
Citing James’ recital of allegations against Trump, including fraud running into the tens of millions of dollars or more, historian Michael Beschloss said, “I have never seen anything remotely like this in the history of the American presidency.”
And with a separate tax fraud case currently also moving against the Trump Organization, Trump’s legal woes will be in the headlines for months, or perhaps even years, to come.
“It will be in the news over and over again,” said Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor who was part of the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
More investigations?: New York lawsuit against Trump, family could prompt new federal criminal inquiries
The investigations so far: Investigations may help Donald Trump politically — and that may hurt the Republican Party
Anger – and discovery
Trump and his allies— including some past allies — say the investigations will only help him politically as voters rally around a man they believe is being unfairly targeted.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who has criticized Trump over his actions in a classified documents case, criticized James over the lawsuit. If she fails to make her case, Barr said, it could hurt other investigations with voters who believe the government is “piling on” Trump.
“I don’t think it’s going to hurt him,” Barr said. “The more overboard these cases get, the more I think it’s going to help him.”
In an interview broadcast Thursday, Trump agreed with Fox News host Sean Hannity’s contention, without evidence, that investigators would back off if he simply announced he was not running in 2024.
But Trump said he would not do that, because a formal announcement would subject him to campaign fundraising rules. “I have to fight,” Trump said at one point. “I’m under siege.”
Weissmann said Trump’s reaction is understandable – “he thrives on being the victim and running against the elites” – but could be hard to sustain as cases develop against him.
Discovery, or the information exchange process in court, and submission of court documents could be “hideous” for Trump and his cause, Weissmann said.
A 2024 test in 2022
Trump has not formally declared a 2024 presidential candidacy. He does frequently flirts with the idea, especially after bad legal news, including James’ lawsuit announcement.
In the lawsuit, the attorney general said Trump and members of his family fraudulently over-valued properties to secure bank loans or de-valued them to reduce tax bills.
Claiming the valuations amounted to financial fraud, James said: “There aren’t two sets of laws for people in this natio. Former presidents must be held to the same standards as everyday Americans.” James also said she has referred the Trump case to federal prosecutors in New York and the Internal Revenue Service.
Trump, who accused James of seeking to criminalize standard business practices, has been under investigative clouds since leaving the White House on Jan. 20, 2021.
His single term ended two weeks after a mob of supporters stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to block President Joe Biden’s election victory. The insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, followed weeks of false claims by Trump of a stolen election.
Now a grand jury in Atlanta is investigating Trump’s pressure on state officials to overturn his election loss in Georgia.
The Department of Justice is investigating whether Trump has culpability for the insurrection.
The DOJ also is investigating Trump’s removal of classified information from the White House. That probe inspired the Aug. 8 search of Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Fla., by the FBI, a stunning legal development that amped up speculation about the former president’s political future.
Strong with Republicans, weak with independents
Trump-backed candidates in the current midterm elections are in some cases struggling.
Candidates who won nominations largely because of Trump’s backing are struggling in general elections, including races in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona that will decide which party controls the U.S. Senate.
Probes and politics: Prosecution vs. politics: Can AG Garland pursue Trump probes without influencing the midterms?
Trump v. DeSantis in 2024? USA TODAY/Suffolk poll shows Florida Republicans prefer their governor
“The 2022 mid-terms are a test case” for the impact of Trump’s legal difficulties, said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.
In Ohio – a key, red-leaning state in most presidential elections – only 26% of independents have a favorable view of Trump, Paleologos said.
“He’s always had to fight for independents,” Paleologos said. “The investigations don’t help him.”
‘No Way’
A number of people question how Trump could run a credible presidential candidacy while tied up in court, especially if he is hit with criminal indictments.
Michael Cohen, the former Trump attorney whose congressional testimony led to the James investigation over property valuations, said he always doubted there will be another Trump presidential campaign and said he thinks Trump only talks about it in order to raise money.
“I never thought he was going to run in 2024, and that this was a stunt in order to grift off of his supporters for as long as possible,” said Cohen, a one-time confidante who has since turned on his former boss.
Given the James lawsuit and the other investigations, Cohen said he just doesn’t see how Trump can mount a presidential campaign, or how voters could take him seriously. Cohen said: “There is no way he could legitimately run a race with all of the legal baggage that is plaguing him.”
Grand juries investigating Trump aren’t expected to take any formal action against the ex-president before this year’s Election Day on Nov. 8. In the meantime, however, news leaks, pre-trial litigation, and legal discovery may continue to rain down on Trump, a preview of legal and political storms to come.
The Trump Organization, the former president’s company, has been charged with fraud in a separate case, as well, and faces trial in October. Some of the testimony is expected to touch on Trump and his business dealings. Little of this is expected to help Trump politically.
But Matt Wolking, a deputy communications director for Trump’s 2020 campaign said that, if anything, the James lawsuit and the other investigations will only encourage Trump to run. “It certainly gives him an incentive to fight back,” he said.
Republicans point out the investigations may not loom as the biggest issues facing voters when Republican primaries roll around in early 2024 – especially if the economy continues to struggle. The inflation rate, for example, has been hovering near a 40-year high, squeezing Americans on everything from rent to the cost of eggs.
There’s also the fact that Trump survived any number of scandals on his way to the White House the first time, said Liz Mair, an anti-Trump Republican political consultant.
“The problem with Donald Trump,” Mair said, “is that he doesn’t operate in the same reality as everybody else.”
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Americans In Russia-Ukraine Prisoner Swap Wondered If Death Was Near
Americans In Russia-Ukraine Prisoner Swap Wondered If Death Was Near https://digitalalabamanews.com/americans-in-russia-ukraine-prisoner-swap-wondered-if-death-was-near/
As they were led from their prison cell deep inside Russian-occupied Ukraine, Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh contemplated their uncertain fate: Were they about to be freed — or would they be killed?
Days after their capture in June, the Kremlin proclaimed that the men, both American military veterans, were suspected war criminals and refused to rule out that they could face the death penalty. In a phone call with his aunt Thursday, Drueke said that in that moment, it seemed things “could go either way.”
“That was one of those moments,” said the aunt, Dianna Shaw, “where it was a gut punch for me.”
The Americans were released Wednesday as part of a prisoner exchange between the governments in Kyiv and Moscow, an agreement as stunning as it was sprawling. In addition to Drueke, 40, and Huynh, 28, the Russian government agreed to release eight other foreign nationals who had joined the war on behalf of Ukraine, plus 215 Ukrainians. Fifty-five Russian fighters were freed in exchange, along with Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian opposition politician who has such warm relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Putin is believed to be the godfather to Medvedchuk’s daughter.
Details of the sweeping deal, mediated with involvement from the governments of Saudi Arabia and Turkey, continued to trickle out Thursday. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters covering the U.N. General Assembly in New York that the prisoner exchange was the result of “diplomatic traffic I conducted” with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling it an “important step” toward ending the war that began seven months ago, according to a transcript of his comments carried by state-run media. Ankara also played a key role in brokering a breakthrough deal this summer that allowed for the resumption of grain exports after Russia’s naval blockage of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, but thus far Erdogan has been unable to secure a direct meeting between Putin and Zelensky.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, where Drueke and Huynh are convalescing, also was credited with facilitating the foreign nationals’ release. A senior member of the Saudi government on Thursday said Mohammed’s efforts illustrate his “proactive role in bolstering humanitarian initiatives.” The U.S. government has expressed gratitude to the crown prince for his efforts in securing the two Americans’ release, but relations between the two countries remain strained over Saudi Arabia’s record on human rights and, notably, over Mohammed’s suspected role orchestrating the plot to kill Saudi American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In Russia, there was outrage among some nationalists who considered the deal a betrayal. Medvedchuk once was seen as a potential replacement for Zelensky, had Russian forces successfully managed to topple the government in Kyiv and install a puppet regime. Several of the Ukrainians released in exchange for Medvedchuk and other Russians were members of the far-right Azov Regiment, a military force Putin has branded Nazis.
In Ukraine — where Azov forces have been cheered for their courage during Russia’s bloody siege of Mariupol — the deal was celebrated.
A senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said, “It is telling Putin elected to trade his crony and one of his long-term proxies in Ukraine, Medvedchuk, for the heroes of Mariupol,” calling the move further evidence of how the Russian leader prioritizes himself over the interests of the Russian people.
“Even as this [war] is awful for Ukraine … it’s awful for the Russian people,” the official said. “Putin has chosen his own vain imperial ambition over his people’s needs.”
Kyryl Budanov, who leads Ukraine’s chief military intelligence directorate, said some of the liberated Ukrainians had been “subjected to very cruel torture” while in captivity. It is unclear if Drueke and Huynh endured such treatment, although there are signs both went through stages of physical degradation that may take time to reverse.
Drueke’s aunt said her nephew has not yet shared many details with his family about how his captors treated him and Huynh. She said Drueke and Huynh have some “minor, minor, minor health considerations” and that both are “very dehydrated,” noting that the family is unsure precisely when Drueke and Huynh may be ready to make the 14-hour flight home to Alabama from Saudi Arabia.
Footage of the captives’ release that aired on German television network Deutsche Welle station showed a gaunt and thin Drueke being assisted by what appeared to be medical personnel as he walked. He was carrying his own bag, however.
Drueke, a former U.S. soldier, and Huynh, a Marine Corps veteran, disappeared near the city of Kharkiv on June 8 while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces. They were moved a few times during their captivity, and likely were held in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Drueke’s family believes.
Drueke and Huynh appear to have been kept together throughout their captivity, according to Shaw. For at least some of their time as prisoners, they were also held in the same cell as British national John Harding, who also was freed this week as part of the exchange.
Since their release, the American veterans have been sharing an apartment in Saudi Arabia while they take the first steps toward recovery. The former captives are keenly aware, Shaw said, that the return to normalcy could be a long road.
“He did not sound regretful to me at all — he sounded excited to be coming home,” Shaw said. “He is still very much in admiration of the Ukrainian people.”
Kareem Fahim in Beirut; Robyn Dixon and Mary Ilyushina in Riga, Latvia; and John Hudson in New York contributed to this report.
War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The latest: Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial mobilization” of troops in an address to the nation on Sept. 21, framing the move as an attempt to defend Russian sovereignty against a West that seeks to use Ukraine as a tool to “divide and destroy Russia.” Follow our live updates here.
The fight: A successful Ukrainian counteroffensive has forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in recent days, as troops fled cities and villages they had occupied since the early days of the war and abandoned large amounts of military equipment.
Annexation referendums: Staged referendums, which would be illegal under international law, are set to take place from Sept. 23 to 27 in the breakaway Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine, according to Russian news agencies. Another staged referendum will be held by the Moscow-appointed administration in Kherson starting Friday.
Photos: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground from the beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work.
How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can help support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating.
Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video.
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Former Alabama Prep Star Makes Eye-Popping NFL Catch
Former Alabama Prep Star Makes Eye-Popping NFL Catch https://digitalalabamanews.com/former-alabama-prep-star-makes-eye-popping-nfl-catch/
Sports
Published: Sep. 22, 2022, 8:14 p.m.
Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver George Pickens hangs on to a reception during an NFL game against the Cleveland Browns on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland.(AP Photo/David Richard)
Rookie wide receiver George Pickens caught one pass in each of his first two NFL games with the Pittsburgh Steelers. The former Hoover High School standout equaled his career reception total in the first quarter of Thursday night’s game against the Cleveland Browns, and his second catch was one for the highlight reel.
On a second-and-3 snap at the Pittsburgh 46-yard line, quarterback Mitch Trubisky lofted the football for Pickens running a vertical route. Pickens made the connection work by reaching up for a one-handed catch.
With a first down at the Cleveland 18-yard line with 52 seconds left in the first quarter, Pittsburgh went on to score a touchdown on the first snap of the second quarter to tie the score at 7-7.
The Steelers selected Pickens in the second round of the NFL Draft with the 52nd overall pick on April 29.
During the 2021 season, Pickens caught five passes for 107 yards in four games for Georgia. He missed the first 10 games of the Bulldogs’ national championship season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during spring practice.
Before playing at Georgia, Pickens earned All-State recognition at Hoover High School in 2017 and 2018. In Pickens’ first All-State season, the Bucs won their second AHSAA Class 7A championship in a row.
FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.
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Flora Sarinopoulos Boardman Obituary (1927 2022) The Birmingham News
Flora Sarinopoulos Boardman Obituary (1927 – 2022) The Birmingham News https://digitalalabamanews.com/flora-sarinopoulos-boardman-obituary-1927-2022-the-birmingham-news/
Flora Sarinopoulos Boardman April 13, 1927 – Sept. 19, 2022 Flora Sarinopoulos Boardman, 95, of Huntsville, passed away on September 19, 2022 after a brief illness. Flora was born in Fairfield, Alabama, on April 13, 1927, the daughter of Greek immigrants. She graduated high school as Valedictorian at the age of 16, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa as salutatorian from Birmingham Southern College at the age of 19. Flora earned a graduate degree from the University of New Mexico, then joined the faculty at Auburn University, when she was 21. In 1951, Flora was hired as an Engineering Technician at Hayes Aircraft Corporation in Birmingham, Alabama. She was the only female professional in the Hayes engineering department. In May 1956, she met Frank Seymour Boardman, a new hire at Hayes. They married on March 3, 1957. Flora and Frank had four children and were married for almost 52 years, until his death. In 1961 they moved to Huntsville, Alabama for Frank to begin work at the newly-formed NASA. In 1964, Flora was a founding member of the Holy Cross Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church, dedicating almost 60 years of her time and efforts to the growth and development of the parish. She taught Spanish at University of Alabama- Huntsville for 30 years, then continued to teach Beginner Spanish for seniors until the 2010’s. Flora was trilingual- she was fluent in English, Greek, and Spanish- and she and her husband were avid travelers. Flora also served as an Orthodox missionary to Mexico, Guatemala, Albania, and Alaska. In total, she traveled to 34 countries and territories. In her final decade, Flora continued to travel often, albeit domestically, to visit her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Flora accomplished so much in her long life, and endured much as well. Flora is predeceased by her parents, Anest and Christina; her husband Frank; her brother George and his wife Alice; her sisters, Marietta and Margaret; and her grandson Benjamin. She is survived by her son Mark Boardman (Cathy) of Birmingham; daughter Dr. Valerie Thomas (Bob) of Tavares, Florida; son Thomas Boardman (Wendy) of Millersville, Maryland; son Frank Paul Boardman (Demetra) of Charlotte, North Carolina; eight grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. Flora was a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother; a mathematician, an engineer, a teacher, a traveler. Above all she was a faithful Greek Orthodox Christian, and dedicated her life to her church and to her family. May her memory be eternal. Services will be held at Holy Cross – Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church, 3021 University Drive, Huntsville, AL 35816 on Saturday, September 24. Visitation begins at 10 AM with the funeral at 11 AM, followed by a traditional makaria dinner. Internment will occur at 3 PM, Elmwood Cemetery, Birmingham. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Holy Cross – Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church. The family thanks Nancy Culpepper for her devoted care and assistance to Flora in her final years.
Published by The Birmingham News from Sep. 22 to Sep. 23, 2022.
34465541-95D0-45B0-BEEB-B9E0361A315A
To plant trees in memory, please visit the
Sympathy Store.
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Trump Faces Growing Legal Peril As He Seeks To Raise Profile Ahead Of 2024
Trump Faces Growing Legal Peril As He Seeks To Raise Profile Ahead Of 2024 https://digitalalabamanews.com/trump-faces-growing-legal-peril-as-he-seeks-to-raise-profile-ahead-of-2024/
The legal dangers facing former president Donald Trump rose this week, after the New York attorney general filed a fraud lawsuit that could effectively shutter the Trump Organization and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit allowed federal investigators to continue their probe into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.
These and other setbacks for Trump come as at least a half-dozen additional legal efforts proceed against the president and his allies — committing him to months of legal wrangling as he seeks to raise his political profile for a possible 2024 bid while also increasing the prospect of becoming the first former U.S. president to face indictment after leaving office.
Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed dozens of his former advisers, and many others, as part of a sprawling investigation into efforts to obstruct the transfer of power after the 2020 election. Separately, a Georgia grand jury has been looking at allegations that he tried to obstruct that state’s electoral count by pressuring Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to “find” enough votes to overturn the election.
An aspiring corporate partner for his new social media company has received subpoenas from the Securities and Exchange Commission. District attorneys in Westchester, N.Y., and Manhattan have ongoing investigations of his companies. One of his sexual assault accusers filed court papers last month disclosing her intent to sue him under a recently passed New York law that offers exceptions to the standard statute of limitations for sex crimes.
Attorneys aligned with the Democratic Party have even begun to lay the groundwork for legal challenges if he declares another presidential campaign, under the premise that his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, as revealed by congressional investigators, bars him from serving in office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies those who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding public office.
The breadth of current and potential legal challenges are large even by the standards of Trump, who has spent much of his adult life in litigation. He has returned to old tactics in response, seeking to delay proceedings against him, refusing to admit any misdeed and using the claims against him to rally his political supporters.
“The people behind these savage witch hunts have no shame, no morals, no conscience, and absolutely no respect for the citizens of our country,” he told supporters at a rally in Ohio Saturday in a retooled stump speech. “Our cruel and vindictive political class is not just coming after me. They’re coming after you, through me.”
In other ways, Trump has been forced to adjust, devoting a growing share of political contributions to pay attorney fees. The summer’s planning for a fall presidential campaign announcement has been put on pause, according to two people familiar with the plans, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Two Trump advisers said the former president was surprised and angry at the lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) on Wednesday, and that her “attacks,” in the words of one of them, anger him more than other investigations. Trump has accused James, who is Black, of being “racist,” without explaining how.
Trump now has more than a dozen lawyers working on various probes against him, with financial support for their efforts coming from both the Republican National Committee and his political committee, Save America. There are separate sets of lawyers for each of the investigations. His political team has tried to cheer him up at times with positive tweets and other conservative news articles that he shares through his PAC’s website.
“He doesn’t seem to have a breaking point,” one of these people said. “He just rolls on and acts like all these things, at least to everyone around him, aren’t slowing him down.”
Among Trump’s advisers, the Jan. 6 investigation from the Justice Department and the Mar-a-Lago document probe are widely viewed as the most wide-ranging and perilous to Trump and his inner circle. But some advisers fear the biggest political damage could be done by James, as his wealth has long been part of his mystique to Republican voters, they say.
Trump himself has paid close attention to that probe, two advisers said. And the Georgia investigation is viewed as something of a wild card with an aggressive prosecutor.
One recent visitor to Trump’s club said he did not focus on the classified documents seized from him — other than to say it was a “witch hunt, overblown and they’re not a problem.” He continues to argue that he won the 2020 election, which he lost to President Biden.
For the moment, there is little sign that the legal attacks have shifted Trump’s political standing and some advisers argue that they will only strengthen him among his core supporters. His favorability rating among the American people, as measured by averages of public polling, remains effectively unchanged over the last 18 months, at about 43 percent. In late August, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) predicted there would be “riots in the streets” if Trump is prosecuted.
“If the media, if the Democrats, if the New York attorney general and the Department of Justice just left this guy alone, you would see his numbers among Republicans fade, I guarantee it,” said one former Trump White House adviser who remains bullish on Trump’s prospects in a Republican nomination fight. “He is constantly getting attacked by these people, who our voters hate. That is what cleaves the base to him.”
Democrats nonetheless believe the controversies, coming less than seven weeks before the midterm elections, have helped them to make the argument to moderate Republicans and independent voters that the current crop of Republican candidates, who have not distanced themselves from Trump, are more extreme than past GOP opponents.
“The impact that the Mar-a-Lago issue has had is it’s raised the stakes on the unquestioning fealty of Republicans to Trump,” Democratic pollster Geoff Garin said. “So I don’t think they are necessarily litigating the details of Trump’s possession of super-classified documents, but voters are litigating the blind loyalty that Republicans have to President Trump and that is part of what people think about when they think about MAGA Republicans.”
Trump has been a regular instigator and defendant in civil litigation, dating back to a 1973 Justice Department civil rights claim for housing discrimination against his family real estate business that ended in a consent decree. Years later, he found himself back in court over his alleged hiring and underpayment of undocumented Polish workers for his first major Manhattan building project, Trump Tower, in 1980.
Under oath in a 2012 deposition about the alleged fraud at a real estate seminar called Trump University — a case he later settled for $25 million — Trump said he had testified in over 100 court hearings and given over 100 depositions.
“Normal course of business, unfortunately,” he explained.
Trump’s time in the White House earned him a brief reprieve, as judges debated whether he could be held accountable in civil matters during his tenure. Justice Department precedent, meanwhile, protected him from criminal charges while in office. Congress, however, kept up the pressure, with the House impeaching him twice.
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine sued Trump two days after he left office for abusing nonprofit funds to enrich himself by overpaying his own hotel during his 2016 inauguration. He settled that case for $750,000 more than a year later, without admitting guilt. Months after leaving office, he sat for hours of deposition in a civil case about claims that Trump’s personal security assaulted protesters in 2015 outside his Manhattan office.
The Justice Department’s sprawling investigation of the role of Trump and his aides in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results remains in the early stages, with a new round of broad subpoenas issued earlier this month. Prosecutors are seeking vast amounts of information and communications with more than 100 people about the origin, fundraising and motives of the effort to block Biden from being certified as president — including the slates of fake electors and the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“It looks like a multipronged fraud and obstruction investigation,” former federal prosecutor Jim Walden told The Washington Post last week. “It strikes me that they’re going after a very, very large group of people, and my guess is they are going to make all of the charging decisions toward the end.”
The department’s criminal investigation into the potential mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago won an important victory on Wednesday night, when a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit overturned parts of a lower court judge’s ruling and said the FBI may once again have access to the classified documents they seized from Trump’s Florida residence and private club on Aug. 8.
In that case, Trump and his aides could be in considerable legal peril, according to experts. That’s because Trump’s lawyers told the Justice Department they had returned all documents with classified markings in response to a subpoena — only to have FBI agents recover about 100 more classified documents during their court-authorized search.
The Justice Department, from Attorney General Merrick Garland on down, has repeatedly said that no one is above the law. But legal experts say prosecutors may still feel that they need a serious, can’t-miss case to file criminal charges against a former commander in chief.
If authorities were to seek an indictment against Trump — or any for...
Trump-Backed GOP Pick For Michigan AG Has Been A Vocal Supporter Of Election Lies. Emails Show Just How Far He's Gone For The Cause ABC17NEWS
Trump-Backed GOP Pick For Michigan AG Has Been A Vocal Supporter Of Election Lies. Emails Show Just How Far He's Gone For The Cause – ABC17NEWS https://digitalalabamanews.com/trump-backed-gop-pick-for-michigan-ag-has-been-a-vocal-supporter-of-election-lies-emails-show-just-how-far-hes-gone-for-the-cause-abc17news/
By Bob Ortega, Curt Devine, Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Audrey Ash and Drew Griffin, CNN
Months after Joe Biden’s 2020 victory over Donald Trump in Michigan had been certified, and confirmed by audits and voting reviews, a clerk in rural Barry County received an unusual and confusing request from Matthew DePerno, an attorney in Kalamazoo.
DePerno, who’d filed a lawsuit on behalf of a local resident claiming voting-machine fraud in Antrim County, more than 200 miles to the north, sent the clerk a subpoena demanding access to her county’s voting equipment, election tapes, logs — and ballots, which had been sealed and stored after the election.
“It was totally random,” Pam Palmer, the clerk, told an attorney for the county, in a March 17, 2021, email obtained by CNN through a public-records request. In another email later the same day, she added, “He informed me that I do need to collect the ballots which are under seal at this point, and not to be opened for 22 months. He informed me they will be opening the ballot bags & resealing them.”
Palmer is among at least eight county clerks who received DePerno’s subpoenas, including in counties that didn’t even use the Dominion Voting Systems machines at issue in DePerno’s lawsuit.
DePerno’s subpoenas were ultimately rejected by a judge — but his attempt to get sealed voter ballots helps show how far he’s gone to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.
His relentless efforts have landed him at the center of an investigation by a Michigan special prosecutor into whether DePerno and eight others illegally tampered with voting machines in the state.
And still, as the Republican nominee to become Michigan’s attorney general, DePerno continues to sow doubts about the reliability of voting machines and the election process among voters — and among local government officials who’ll play a role in certifying this November’s election results in their towns and counties.
But DePerno’s impact reaches far beyond Michigan. His original false claim — that Dominion machines connected to the internet initially flipped conservative Antrim County to Biden in 2020 and that, therefore, machines similarly flipped votes elsewhere — sprouted like a fairy-tale magic bean into demands for audits and baseless claims of vote fraud across the US.
His claims have been repeatedly, thoroughly debunked. But that fairy tale continues to stoke demands that voting machines be scrapped and the vote in November’s midterms be counted by hand. It’s cited by MAGA candidates who warn of fraud to come and claim that Democrats can only win if they cheat.
Ten out of 30 attorney general races nationwide — including DePerno’s bid in Michigan — have an election denier on the ballot, according to a recent report by the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan group that works on election issues. The group also found that candidates who deny that Biden won in 2020 will be on this November’s ballot in half the races for governor and 44% of the races for secretary of state. In three states — Alabama, Arizona and Michigan — GOP election deniers are running for all three top positions.
“What this could lead to long term is because this is so divorced from reality, people all over the country believing that any election in which their candidate does not win is stolen,” said David Becker, director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group that works to ensure accessible and secure elections. “And you can imagine what this does to the fabric of democracy.”
The ‘fishing expedition’ that had legs
When DePerno sent the subpoena to Palmer, seeking the voting machines and records, he told her he was sending a team to unseal and examine her county’s ballots, according to emails obtained by CNN.
Palmer’s attorney asked the judge to toss out the subpoena or at least to require DePerno and his client, Bill Bailey, to “guarantee that Barry County equipment will not be altered, damaged, or compromised in any way” and “to show that each individual on his inspection team” had proper training and credentials to offer the same guarantee.
In April 2021, Circuit Court Chief Judge Kevin Eisenheimer quashed the subpoenas as a “fishing expedition,” saying that DePerno needed “more than mere conjecture, more than speculation,” to support his request. In May, Eisenheimer dismissed DePerno’s suit.
But that didn’t end the effort. In June, investigators for Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, a DePerno ally, began questioning township clerks in the county about the 2020 election. A call from one worried clerk led Palmer to confront a deputy and another investigator at the Carlton Township offices — only to discover the investigators had told clerks not to talk to one another or to her “because they want the element of surprise,” she told an attorney for the county, Allan Vander Laan, in a June 14, 2021, email previously reported by The Detroit News.
Vander Laan responded, “Are they trying to get what they could not get by subpoena? Do not give them records. Do not allow them access to ballots.”
“I am livid!” Palmer wrote. “This is a fishing attempt …”
Meanwhile, DePerno falsely argued in July 2021 that ElectionSource, a company doing routine maintenance on Michigan voting equipment, planned to “destroy election data,” and sent the company a letter threatening a lawsuit, a company representative emailed county officials.
DePerno’s “misinformation campaign is dangerous not only to my staff but to your clerks as well,” wrote Steve Delongchamp, vice president of ElectionSource, in a July 14, 2021, email to several clerks. “We have received many threatening calls from individuals that have no concept of how elections work.”
Despite initially agreeing to speak to CNN, DePerno ultimately refused to comment for this story.
DePerno’s history with ‘frivolous’ litigation
Long before he dove into the 2020 election fraud claims, DePerno had established a troubling track record — from clients who sued him for overbilling and malpractice to getting involved in the years-long case of a Michigan lawmaker involved in a sex scandal, who attempted to cover up an alleged affair with another legislator.
DePerno’s relentless, litigious approach to these cases and others earned him heavy professional criticism — which he consistently has denied.
DePerno “is litigious in an unnecessary way,” said former state Circuit Judge William Buhl, who asked the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission to investigate DePerno in 2016 in relation to the malpractice case. “Many of the things he raises are frivolous, and people have to go through the trouble of answering them … DePerno does it just as a matter of course, even if there is no merit to it.”
The grievance commission did not make its findings public. DePerno has called Buhl’s accusations “total nonsense” and claimed the matter was “ultimately dismissed” by the grievance commission, “as it should be,” according to Bridge Michigan.
Even so, his reputation as a no-holds-barred litigator made him a key player in Antrim County — where he quickly helped stoke claims of fraud after the 2020 election.
Antrim County claims were ‘indefensible’
On election night in 2020, human error led to early, unofficial results being released that showed Joe Biden ahead in the conservative rural county in northern Michigan. The mistake was quickly caught and corrected; it didn’t affect ballot tabulation or official results, which showed Trump easily winning the county, according to state officials.
But with Trump having claimed for months that only fraud could prevent his reelection, he and allies were quick to leverage the error. Three weeks after the election, DePerno filed a suit alleging vote fraud, placing the blame on Dominion voting machines and asking a state judge to allow him to take images of Antrim County vote tabulators.
The charade fueled Trump ally and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne to send a team of researchers to the county to dig into the fraud allegations. Those researchers quickly produced a report that claimed Dominion voting machines were “intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.”
That report was used as purported evidence on multiple legal fronts: DePerno filed it as an exhibit in his lawsuit and Trump attorney Sidney Powell cited it in a December 13, 2020, petition to the US Supreme Court, as part of an effort to overturn the election results.
It didn’t work — and the report was roundly discredited. A GOP-led investigation by the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee in June 2021 called the false Antrim claims “indefensible.” Former US Attorney General Bill Barr testified to the January 6 committee that the report was “amateurish” and said that to believe it, Trump would have to be “detached from reality.”
Even so, the report on Antrim County has become foundational to the fiction that Dominion machines around the country secretly flipped votes — bolstering several high-profile attempts to challenge the 2020 elections results. Among them:
Members of Byrnes’ team who worked with DePerno in Antrim County included Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, who led the widely-ridiculed audit in Maricopa County, Arizona, that failed to prove any vote fraud. Ben Cotton, one of DePerno’s cybersecurity consultants and also part of that audit, testified that “he forensically examined Dominion Democracy Suite voting systems” in Maricopa County, Antrim County, Colorado’s Mesa County, and Georgia’s Coffee County, according to court documents.
Logan and Jeffrey Lenberg, another analyst...
AP News Summary At 8:49 P.m. EDT https://digitalalabamanews.com/ap-news-summary-at-849-p-m-edt/
Trump’s legal woes mount without protection of presidency
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s latest legal troubles — sweeping fraud allegations by New York’s attorney general and a stark repudiation by federal judges he appointed — have laid bare the challenges piling up as the former president operates without the protections afforded by the White House. The bluster and bravado that served him well in the political arena are less handy in a legal realm dominated by verifiable evidence, where judges this week have looked askance at his positions. This week alone, he has been sued in New York and a federal appeals court has sharply rejected his legal team’s arguments about documents seized from his Florida home.
US urges world to tell Russia to stop its nuclear threats
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States is urging other nations to tell Russia to stop making nuclear threats and end “the horror” of its war in Ukraine. All three countries’ top diplomats spoke at a high-profile U.N. Security Council meeting. But they didn’t quite meet. Held alongside the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders, the session followed a striking development in the war this week. Russia called up a portion of its reserves for the first time since World War II. At the same time, President Vladimir Putin said his nuclear-armed country would “use all means available to us” to defend itself if its territory is threatened.
Tears and hugs for Russians called up to fight in Ukraine
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Russia is escalating its military and political campaign to take over Ukrainian territory. Russian army reservists were rounded up to fight while pro-Moscow authorities prepared for voter referendums starting Friday that could lead to the annexation of four Russian-held regions of Ukraine. A day after President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization to bolster his troops in Ukraine, dramatic scenes of tearful families bidding farewell to men departing from military mobilization centers in Russia appeared Thursday on social media. Germany’s interior minister offered concrete support to potential deserters. She said that anyone who “courageously opposes Putin’s regime and therefore puts himself in the greatest danger” can apply for asylum.
Biden vows US won’t walk away from storm-struck Puerto Rico
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Jan. 6 Rioter Who Said He Didnt Know Congress Met At Capitol Gets 4 Years
Jan. 6 Rioter Who Said He Didn’t Know Congress Met At Capitol Gets 4 Years https://digitalalabamanews.com/jan-6-rioter-who-said-he-didnt-know-congress-met-at-capitol-gets-4-years/
A New Jersey man who was one of the first rioters to break into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, then testified under oath that he didn’t know Congress met there, was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison.
Prosecutors had sought more than six years for Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, but a federal judge ruled that his actions did not obstruct “the administration of justice,” though they did obstruct the official proceedings of Congress that day. A jury convicted him of that offense in May.
Also Thursday, the only Jan. 6 defendant to testify about his conduct in front of the House select committee investigating the riot was sentenced to two years of probation for disorderly conduct. Stephen Ayres, a 39-year-old Ohio carpenter, said he thinks about Jan. 6 “every single day” and prays for the injured officers and everyone who lost a loved one.
Hale-Cusanelli, 32, worked as a security guard at Naval Weapons Station Earle and lived on the base in Colts Neck, N.J. In addition to being a supporter of President Donald Trump, the man was a white supremacist who supported Nazi ideology and admired Adolf Hitler, even wearing a “Hitler mustache” to work, the government said in court filings. But U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden ruled that Hale-Cusanelli’s racist preferences were too prejudicial to present to a jury, though he did allow the defendant’s comments that he wanted a civil war to come into evidence.
Surveillance video showed Hale-Cusanelli climbing through a window on the Lower West Terrace at 2:13 p.m., moments after it was first smashed, wearing a gray suit and a red MAGA hat. Before entering, prosecutors said, he moved a bicycle rack barrier aside to enable crowds to get closer to the building, and then urged the mob forward by waving his arms and yelling, “Advance! Advance!”
Once inside, Hale-Cusanelli was part of a group that overwhelmed U.S. Capitol and D.C. police in the crypt. Photos and videos showed that he then attempted to pull a rioter away from a police officer who was arresting that person. Hale-Cusanelli claimed that he didn’t know the officer was an officer, and that he thought the electoral vote certification “was going to be in a building called ‘Congress.’ As stupid as it sounds, I did not realize that Congress sat in the Capitol building.”
On Thursday, McFadden called that “a risible lie,” and after the jury convicted Hale-Cusanelli in May, the judge suggested to prosecutors that he would consider a request for a longer sentence for “obstruction of justice.” And McFadden did, in fact, increase Hale-Cusanelli’s sentencing range for those sworn statements.
But prosecutors sought two even longer sentencing enhancements for obstructing and interfering with the “administration of justice” at the Capitol. Defense attorney Nicholas D. Smith said that while Congress’s act of certifying the electoral college vote might qualify as an “official proceeding,” and all but one D.C. federal judge has agreed, the certification did not qualify as administration of justice. Prosecutors argued in their sentencing brief that the “’administration of justice’ is synonymous with ‘official proceeding.’ ”
McFadden agreed with the defense. He said the electoral college count was “appreciably different” from the investigations and other justice-related actions of Congress. “I don’t think the administration of justice, as used in the sentencing enhancement, is a fair way to describe what is happening here.”
He then reduced the sentencing guidelines range of 70 to 87 months down to 21 to 27 months. The guidelines are advisory, but judges typically issue sentences within the range. The government had requested a sentence of 78 months for Hale-Cusanelli.
But McFadden then blasted Hale-Cusanelli for his racist, sexist and antisemitic remarks, some of which were captured on a recording made by his roommate when Hale-Cusanelli returned to New Jersey after the riot. The judge repeated a profane taunt that Hale-Cusanelli shouted at a female Capitol Police officer during the riot, and criticized his “decision to lie on the witness stand.”
“Neither the jury nor I believed your claim that you didn’t know Congress resides in the Capitol building … you participated in a national embarrassment,” the judge said.
Though he had lowered the sentencing range to 21 to 27 months, McFadden sentenced Hale-Cusanelli to 48 months, followed by three years of supervised release.
The judge credited Hale-Cusanelli for showing remorse.
“My behavior that day was unacceptable and I disgraced my uniform and I disgraced the country,” Hale-Cusanelli said. He claimed he was “operating under the advice of counsel” when he testified about his confusion on where Congress sits. “I was challenging the law as it applied in my case.”
Elsewhere in the courthouse, Ayres told U.S. District Judge John D. Bates that he’s embarrassed and concerned by the political rhetoric that once captivated him. “I wish everybody in this country could stop and see where it’s going,” he said, in comments similar to those he made during a nationally televised meeting of the House Jan. 6 committee, where he said he hoped like-minded people would “take the blinders off.”
Prosecutors asked for 60 days in jail, citing violent social media comments Ayres made before Jan. 6 and his “lukewarm” response on Capitol Hill when asked if he still thought the 2020 presidential election was stolen. But Bates said he believed Ayres’s remorse was “sincere” and placed him on probation.
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South Korean President Overheard Insulting U.S. Congress As idiots
South Korean President Overheard Insulting U.S. Congress As ‘idiots’ https://digitalalabamanews.com/south-korean-president-overheard-insulting-u-s-congress-as-idiots/
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol was caught on a hot mic Wednesday insulting U.S. Congress members as “idiots” who could be a potential embarrassment for President Biden if they did not approve funding for global public health.
Yoon had just met with Biden at the Global Fund’s Seventh Replenishment Conference in New York City. There, Biden had pledged $6 billion from the United States to the public health campaign, which fights AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria worldwide. The funding would require congressional approval.
“It would be so humiliating for Biden if these idiots don’t pass it in Congress,” Yoon was overheard telling a group of aides as they left the event. Video of the exchange quickly went viral in South Korea, where Yoon took office in May.
Representatives for Yoon did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday. A spokesman for the National Security Counsel said in a statement Thursday it would “not comment on the hot mic comments.”
“Our relationship with the Republic of Korea is strong and growing,” the statement said. “President Biden counts President Yoon as a key ally. The two leaders had a good, productive meeting on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly yesterday.”
Park Hong-keun, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party in South Korea, criticized Yoon’s “foul language tarnishing the U.S. Congress” as “a major diplomatic mishap,” Agence France-Presse reported.
Yoon and Biden were both in New York for the U.N. General Assembly, where they held discussions on the sidelines Wednesday.
“The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to strengthen the U.S.-ROK alliance and ensure close cooperation to address the threat posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK),” the White House said in a readout of their meeting. “The Presidents also discussed our ongoing cooperation on a broad range of priority issues including supply chain resilience, critical technologies, economic and energy security, global health, and climate change.”
Min Joo Kim contributed to this report.
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Saban Quotes Kobe Bryant Reveals A Rule For His DBs On Hey Coach
Saban Quotes Kobe Bryant, Reveals A Rule For His DBs On ‘Hey Coach’ https://digitalalabamanews.com/saban-quotes-kobe-bryant-reveals-a-rule-for-his-dbs-on-hey-coach/
It’s time for Southeastern Conference play in Tuscaloosa. Alabama (3-0) hosts Vanderbilt (3-1) in Bryant-Denny Stadium. Head coach Nick Saban broke down the matchup and answered questions during his weekly appearance on ‘Hey Coach.’
Saban’s reference of Kobe Bryant’s visit to Alabama was a particular highlight. Here were the rest:
First segment
–Saban recapped the special teams success and explosive plays from the rout over Louisiana-Monroe. “We had more players play to the standard,” Saban said.
— ”Everybody’s got to be able to focus on improving,” Saban said.
–Players need to understand concepts and the “big picture” when asked about how players can avoid “tunnel vision” by guest host Cole Cubelic. Saban said players that struggle only try to memorize their roles and not understand the “attention-to-detail.”
–Saban, in breaking down the practice ability of defensive backs, explained the Tide’s man-to-man techniques, which shows how Alabama is trying to match the “breakpoint” of a wide receiver’s route. Alabama’s head coach is known for his ability to coach the secondary.
“I don’t know if I’m getting too technical here, or not. But I mean everybody here understands what vertical and horizontal is right? You get that part. You understand in-phase and out-of-phase right? I either got the guy cut off or I don’t,” Saban said to a smattering of applause.
–”I love it. I love it,” Saban said of the secondary.
–”We try to play to our strengths,” Saban said of the backlash in years past about Alabama’s run game.
–Saban said Alabama’s guards and centers need to be more physical, citing “personnel” and the competition within the group. Freshman Tyler Booker has gotten first-team reps of late.
Second segment
–Saban called junior wide reciever Will Sheppard a “really good player” with Sheppard’s ability to catch back-shoulder throws. The Commodores, as a whole, are much improved, Saban said.
“I like pull my hair out, literally, when I don’t have much left, which is a problem, but young players, things you just went over in a meeting, just walked through and you put them in the same situation and they don’t get it right. It’s like…you just wonder to yourself: How can I teach this better?”
–”Backups couldn’t see the light” and transferred to go somewhere we they could start, Saban said while admitting the Tide’s success in the transfer portal. Those backups, Saban argued, were experienced and affect the overall team depth.
–Saban referenced when NBA legend Kobe Bryant spoke to the Crimson Tide and mentioned how great athletes always try to “close the gap” on perfection.
–Saban said the current limit of physicality permitted throughout the season and practices is just enough to develop players. “I do think we are OK with where we’re at right now.”
–Alabama only practices “good on good” or the first team against the first team. That level of play, Saban argued, prevents players from falling on the ground and causing injuries.
Third segment
–Saban cited Jalen Milroe as the type of dual-threat quarterback the Tide will need to defend against Vanderbilt.
–”You have to use all 11 of your guys,” to stop a dual-threat offense, specifically the run-pass options.
–”There are three critical factors” in a defensive back: deep ball coverage, tackling when the last line of defense and you have to play man-to-man.”
— “Everybody gets beat in the secondary,” Saban said when explaining how players have to bounce back.
–”A good way to get your butt chewed out,” Saban said of the “hand-clap,” or when a defensive back misses a coverage and claps his hands together in frustration. Saban said you don’t want to let the other team you messed up.
Fourth segment
–Saban was asked about his best throw as a quarterback. He referenced is pop warner days in West Virginia, when Saban called the plays and fans would yell out the spread to players during the game. Saban’s 15-year-old mind called a screen pass on 4th-and-12 and the game on the line. He caught it for a touchdown, “wasn’t a great pass” but they won the game and it was his first coaching lesson: Get it to the best player.
–Saban’s final word asked the fans “Why are we here?” Saban’s answer was to “dominate SEC games.” He again asked for a raucous Bryant-Denny Stadium to distract the other team’s offense. “We need it. It helps every part of the program,” when the fans bring it.
RELATED: Does Alabama’s offense need more tempo to overcome inconsistency?
The reality facing Vanderbilt football in climb from SEC basement
Report: Alabama OC Bill O’Brien on Nebraska’s ‘wish list’
Nick Alvarez is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at NAlvarez@al.com.
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