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AP News Summary At 11:52 A.m. EDT https://digitalalabamanews.com/ap-news-summary-at-1152-a-m-edt/ 10 torture sites in 1 town: Russia sowed pain, fear in Izium IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — An Associated Press investigation has found that Russian torture in the Ukrainian town of Izium was arbitrary, widespread and absolutely routine for both civilians and soldiers. AP journalists located 10 torture sites in the town, including a deep sunless pit in a residential compound, a clammy underground jail that reeked of urine, a medical clinic, and a kindergarten. AP also spoke to 15 survivors of Russian torture and confirmed the deaths of eight men. All but one were civilians. The AP also found a former Ukrainian soldier who was tortured three times hiding in a monastery, and connected him with loved ones. The town has now been liberated by Ukrainian forces. 125 die as tear gas triggers crush at Indonesia soccer match MALANG, Indonesia (AP) — Police firing tear gas after an Indonesian soccer match in an attempt to stop violence triggered a disastrous crush of fans that has left at least 125 people dead. Attention immediately focused on police crowd-control measures at Saturday night’s match between host Arema FC of East Java’s Malang city and Persebaya Surabaya. Witnesses described officers beating them with sticks and shields before shooting tear gas canisters directly into the crowds. President Joko Widodo ordered an investigation of security procedures and the president of FIFA called the deaths “a dark day for all involved in football and a tragedy beyond comprehension.” While FIFA has no control over domestic games, it has advised against the use of tear gas at soccer stadiums. EXPLAINER: What’s behind Indonesia’s deadly soccer match? JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Violence, tear gas and a deadly crush that erupted following a domestic league soccer match Saturday night marked another tragedy in Indonesian football. Emotions often run high for sports fans, and Indonesia is no stranger to soccer violence. Saturday’s chaos occurred when a disappointing loss led to fans throwing objects and swarming the soccer pitch, then to police firing tear gas, which led to a crush of people trying to escape. At least 125 have died. Indonesia’s soccer association has banned host team Arema from hosting matches for the remainder of the season. Ukraine presses on with counteroffensive; Russia uses drones KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia has attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown with suicide drones. This comes as Ukraine has pushed ahead with its counteroffensive that has embarrassed the Kremlin. Ukraine took back control of the strategic eastern city of Lyman, which Russia had been using as a transport and logistics hub. That’s a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine. Photos circulating online pointed to some battlefield movement for Ukraine, showing Ukrainian soldiers entering what appeared to be newly retaken settlements in the south and east. Pope Francis, meanwhile, on Sunday decried Russia’s nuclear threats against the West and appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop “this spiral of violence and death.” Florida deaths rise to 47 amid struggle to recover from Ian FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Rescuers have evacuated stunned survivors cut off by Hurricane Ian on Florida’s largest barrier island, and the state’s death toll has risen sharply amid recovery efforts. Hundreds of thousands of people are still sweltering without power in the state, days after Ian’s rampage from Florida to the Carolinas. Florida now has 47 confirmed deaths. Ian was one of the strongest U.S. hurricanes on record when the Category 4 monster smashed ashore at midweek. Many storm victims were left isolated with limited cellphone service and lacking basic amenities like water and power. As of Sunday morning, nearly 850,000 customers in Florida were still without electricity. Poor Florida neighborhood battered by flood tries to recover HARLEM HEIGHTS, Fla. (AP) — The Gladiolus Food Pantry usually hands out supplies on Wednesdays to about 240 families. But when Hurricane Ian swept through last week it canceled their distribution and laid waste to much of their supplies. Food bank founder and director Miriam Ortiz couldn’t even get out of her nearby house the day after Ian because of the floodwaters. Over the weekend, she and volunteers were cleaning up while people from around the region were dropping off food and other supplies to donate to families in need. Ortiz says many of the people the pantry serves were already struggling with rising rents and inflation before the hurricane hit. Brazil holds historic election with Lula against Bolsonaro RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilians are voting in a highly polarized election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years. The race pits far-right President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Recent polls have given da Silva a commanding lead, pointing to a chance that he might win the first round outright, without need for a runoff. Da Silva would have to get more than 50% of the votes cast Sunday, topping the total vote for Bolsonaro and the other nine candidates. US shift away from coal hits tribal community in New Mexico KIRTLAND, N.M. (AP) — The lights are out at a coal-fired power plant in northwestern New Mexico that has provided electricity to millions of people across the southwestern U.S. for nearly a half-century. The closure of the San Juan Generating Station follows years of legal battles by environmentalists and mounting regulatory pressures aimed at curbing pollution and climate change. The realities of closing the plant and the adjacent mine are now setting in for surrounding communities, many of which are home to Native Americans. Hundreds of good-paying jobs are evaporating along with tens of millions of dollars in annual tax revenue that’s used to fund local schools. Man accused of killing 22 older women goes on trial again DALLAS (AP) — A man who has been charged with killing 22 women in the Dallas area is set to go on trial in the death of an 87-year-old woman. Billy Chemirmir’s capital murder trial in the death of Mary Brooks is scheduled to begin Monday in Dallas. If convicted, he faces a second sentence of life in prison without parole. He was found guilty in April of capital murder in the death of an 81-year-old woman. The charges against him grew in the years following his 2018 arrest, as police across the Dallas area reexamined the deaths of older people that had been considered natural. Trump: ‘King’ to some in Pennsylvania, but will it help GOP? MONONGAHELA, Pa. (AP) — The enthusiasm for Donald Trump’s unique brand of nationalist populism has cut into traditional Democratic strongholds in places such as Monongahela in western Pennsylvania. That’s where House Republicans recently outlined their election-year campaign agenda, called  “Commitment to America.” They’re hoping they can tap into the same political sentiment Trump used to attract voters. But it’s not clear whether the support that propelled Trump to the White House will be there on Election Day this November. Just as challenging for the Republican Party is whether Trump’s false claims of voter fraud will hurt the GOP if voters decide to sit out the election. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Read More…

Blown Leads Becoming Commonplace For Auburn Under Bryan Harsin https://digitalalabamanews.com/blown-leads-becoming-commonplace-for-auburn-under-bryan-harsin/ The losses are becoming formulaic at this point for Bryan Harsin’s program. Auburn saw another double-digit lead slip away against an SEC opponent, and its offense again struggled to produce in the second half against quality competition Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium. This time it was in a 21-17 loss to LSU in which Auburn squandered a 17-point first-half lead and failed to score in the second half against its division rival. “It hurts,” Auburn center Brandon Council said. “We know what we have. We’ve just got to go back to the drawing board. We’ve just got to finish. We’ve got to finish when we don’t get it done.” Read more Auburn football: What Bryan Harsin said about Auburn’s loss to LSU Rewinding Auburn’s 21-17 loss to LSU Bryan Harsin assesses job security after latest setback against LSU It has become a familiar refrain for Auburn, which has watched double-digit leads disappear in five consecutive SEC games. Harsin’s team is just 1-4 in those games, with the lone win coming last week in overtime against Missouri. Auburn built a 14-0 lead in that game and won 17-14 after Missouri’s Nathaniel Peat fumbled away the game-winning touchdown just shy of the goal line in the extra period. On Saturday night under the lights at Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn raced out to a 17-0 lead against LSU, only to watch is evaporate by the end of the third quarter. “We got to close that gap,” Harsin said. “We got to find ways to finish and play four quarters. So, all the things that I’ve said before, and the things that really do matter, I mean, those are the things that are going to change the game. Disappointed for our players and know those guys, they put the effort in. We all have to just do a better job, and that starts with me.” Auburn scored on its opening drive of the night, with Robby Ashford connecting with Ja’Varrius Johnson for a 53-yard touchdown—and the first of the season by an Auburn receiver. That lead doubled early in the second quarter after one of the most impressive drives the team has put together during Harsin’s tenure. Backed up to its own 1-yard line, Auburn put together a six-play, 99-yard scoring drive that was capped by an 18-yard pass from Ashford to freshman receiver Camden Brown with 14:04 to go in the first half. Auburn tacked on a short field goal from Anders Carlson to make it 17-0 with 9:38 left in the half. It wound up being the final points Auburn scored against LSU, which put up 21 unanswered to finish the game. “I thought we got off to a fast start,” Harsin said. “Did some good things from that standpoint in the second quarter. Second half, you know, it was an area where we know we have to improve, just throughout this year, and that kind of showed up again in the game.” Things began to unravel for Auburn midway through the second quarter. LSU’s B.J. Ojulari sacked Ashford on the first play of Auburn’s next drive. LSU defensive back Jay Ward scooped up the fumble and returned it 23 yards to put LSU on the board. It was the glimmer of hope LSU needed on a night in which its offense was out of sorts throughout much of the game; Brian Kelly’s team posted just 270 total yards and saw its quarterbacks combine to go 10-of-26 for 85 yards. LSU cut Auburn’s lead to three just before halftime, when Harsin’s attempt to be aggressive late in the half backfired. LSU got the ball back with 1:56 to go in the first half after a missed 40-yard field goal by Anders Carlson. Auburn had two timeouts left, and Harsin used them after stops on first and second down, as he attempted to get his team the ball back and a chance to add to its lead before halftime. Auburn got an apparent third-down stop, but a personal foul gave LSU new life and extended the drive. LSU marched downfield and scored on a Jayden Daniels 1-yard touchdown run with 15 seconds left in the half that made it 17-14 at the break. Auburn’s collapse was completed late in the third quarter, when John Emery Jr. broke off a 20-yard touchdown run that put LSU in front, 21-17, with 3:32 left in the period. Auburn threw an interception on its ensuing drive—an errant pass by wide receiver Koy Moore on a failed trick play. It went three-and-out on the drive after that, then muffed a punt after another defensive stop. Auburn’s final possession of the night ended with the team’s fourth turnover—this one an interception by LSU’s Greg Brooks Jr., who ripped away the ball from Moore on a pass from Ashford. “It’s frustrating,” Auburn linebacker and team captain Owen Pappoe said. “We just have to do a better job and take care of the ball. We can’t have too many turnovers like that because that can hurt us. We’ve just got to be better all around.” LSU ran out the clock from there, converting a third-and-3 with 2:09 left to seal the game. In its last eight games against Power 5 competition, Auburn has now been outscored 104-21, a troubling trend that Harsin’s program has been unable to kick. “I know that everyone wants an answer that’s greater than that, but it really comes down to (execution),” Harsin said. “…It comes down to four quarters of executing and doing the little things — the details and the things that show up. There were plenty of things that we did that hurt ourselves, and that’s going to happen in games. There’s never going to be a perfect game. I would never expect that from any player on the field, whatsoever. When you start to eliminate those things, that’s when you get more consistency within your program. “It really just comes down to execution. Really, every single play, there’s a chance for you to be successful. That’s why you focus on the details and why we talk about execution — there’s always a chance to be successful each and every play.” Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

Election Officials Brace For Confrontational Poll Watchers https://digitalalabamanews.com/election-officials-brace-for-confrontational-poll-watchers-3/ GOLDSBORO, N.C. — The situation with the poll watcher had gotten so bad that Anne Risku, the election director in North Carolina’s Wayne County, had to intervene via speakerphone. “You need to back off!” Risku recalled hollering after the woman wedged herself between a voter and the machine where the voter was trying to cast his ballot at a precinct about 60 miles southeast of Raleigh. The man eventually was able to vote, but the incident was one of several Risku cited from the May primary that made her worry about a wave of newly aggressive poll watchers. Many have spent the past two years steeped in lies about the accuracy of the 2020 election. Those fears led the North Carolina State Board of Elections in August to tighten rules governing poll watchers. But the state’s rules review board, appointed by the Republican-controlled Legislature, blocked the new poll watcher regulations in late September, leaving election officials such as Risku without additional tools to control behavior on Election Day, Nov. 8. “It becomes complete babysitting,” Risku said in an interview. “The back and forth for the precinct officials, having somebody constantly on you for every little thing that you do — not because you’re doing it wrong, but because they don’t agree with what you’re doing.” Poll watchers have traditionally been an essential element of electoral transparency, the eyes and ears for the two major political parties who help ensure that the actual mechanics of voting are administered fairly and accurately. But election officials fear that a surge of conspiracy believers are signing up for those positions this year and are being trained by others who have propagated the lie spread by former President Donald Trump and his allies that the 2020 presidential election was riddled with fraud. read more In Michigan, groups that have spread falsehoods about that race are recruiting poll watchers. In Nevada, the Republican Party’s nominee for secretary of state, Jim Marchant, denies President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and was a featured speaker at a party poll watcher training. Cleta Mitchell, a prominent conservative lawyer and North Carolina resident, is running a group recruiting poll watchers and workers in eight swing states. Mitchell was on the phone with Trump when the then-president called Georgia’s secretary of state in January 2021 and asked that official to “find” enough votes for Trump to be declared the state’s winner. Chris Harvey, who was Georgia’s election director in 2020 when Trump claimed the election was being stolen from him, recalled how swarms of Trump backers came as self-appointed poll watchers to observe the state’s manual recounts, harassing election workers and disrupting the process. Harvey fears a repeat this year. “The whole tension that we’re expecting to see at polling places is something we’re talking to election officials about, something we’re talking to law enforcement about,” said Harvey, who is advising a group of election officials and law enforcement before November. The laws governing poll watchers vary from state to state. Their role is generally to observe, question any deviations from required procedure and, in some states, lodge formal complaints or provide testimony for objections filed in court. The worries this year are similar to those during the 2020 election, when Trump began railing against mail voting and the Republican National Committee launched its first national operation in decades. It had recently been freed from a consent decree that limited its poll watching operation after it previously was found to have targeted Black and Latino voters. But voting went smoothly that November. Mitchell said her organization, the Election Integrity Network, is just trying to ensure that everyone follows the law. “We are not a threat,” she told The Associated Press during a text message exchange. “Unless you think elections that are conducted according to the rule of law are a threat. We train people to follow the law.” Risku said there were issues with poll watchers from both parties during the primary in May. But of the 13 incidents she reported to the North Carolina board from Wayne County, all involved Republicans. In addition to the poll watcher who had to be ejected, Risku said another Republican poll watcher in her district waited after hours in the parking lot of the Mount Olive Train Depot early voting site until Chief Judge Susan Wiley began carrying boxes of marked ballots to her car. On two occasions, the man tried to follow her back to the elections office in Goldsboro, about a 20-minute drive. Recognizing that the job has become “a scary ordeal” in the last year, Risku said she has stepped up security before November and offered raises to entice precinct officials to stay. She expects many won’t return after this year. The North Carolina GOP chair, Michael Whatley, said that’s not what the party is teaching its poll watchers. “What we saw in terms of some of the activities that were at play may have been coming from Republicans but were not things that we have been teaching people in our training sessions,” Whatley said. “What we want to do is make sure that we have people that are in the room that are going to be very respectful of the election officials at all times, be very respectful of the voters at all times and, if they see issues, then report them in.” He has declined to allow reporters to attend the training sessions, which he said have trained 7,000 potential poll watchers so far this year. As in many states, poll watchers are only permitted in North Carolina if they have been designated by the major parties. But in Michigan, organizations that register with local election offices also can provide poll watchers. A coalition of groups that have questioned the 2020 election are scrambling to get as many of their members in place as possible in the politically critical state. “The best I can do is put a whole bunch of eyeballs on it to make sure that anything that doesn’t look right gets a further look,” said Sandy Kiesel, executive director of the Michigan Election Integrity Fund and Force, part of a coalition that recruited 5,000 poll watchers for the state’s August primary. Kiesel said several of her coalition’s poll watchers and poll challengers — Michigan law allows one person to observe and another person to formally lodge challenges at precincts — were prevented from observing or escorted out of polling places in August. Michigan election officials are bracing for more confrontations in November. Patrick Colbeck, a former Republican state senator and prominent election conspiracy theorist who is part of Kiesel’s coalition, announced this past week that a comprehensive fall push to scrutinize every aspect of voting would be called “Operation Overwatch.” “They are talking about intimidating people who have the right to vote,” said Barb Byrum, clerk of Michigan’s Ingham County, which includes Lansing, the state capital. In a sign of the importance the state’s Republicans place on poll watchers, the GOP-controlled Legislature last week agreed to let election offices throughout Michigan start processing mailed ballots two days before Election Day — something most states with mail voting allow long before then — but only if they allow poll watchers to observe. The ballots are not actually counted until Election Day. In Texas, a new law allows every candidate to assign up to two poll watchers, raising the potential that observers could pack polling locations, particularly around big cities such as Dallas and Houston where ballots are the longest. According to records from the secretary of state’s office, more than 900 people in Texas already had received poll watching certification in the three weeks after the state opened required training on Sept. 1. Hannah Schoenbaum and Nicholas Riccardi, The Associated Press. Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, Gabe Stern in Reno, Nevada, and Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report. Read More…

AP News Summary At 10:51 A.m. EDT https://digitalalabamanews.com/ap-news-summary-at-1051-a-m-edt/ 10 torture sites in 1 town: Russia sowed pain, fear in Izium IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — An Associated Press investigation has found that Russian torture in the Ukrainian town of Izium was arbitrary, widespread and absolutely routine for both civilians and soldiers. AP journalists located 10 torture sites in the town, including a deep sunless pit in a residential compound, a clammy underground jail that reeked of urine, a medical clinic, and a kindergarten. AP also spoke to 15 survivors of Russian torture and confirmed the deaths of eight men. All but one were civilians. The AP also found a former Ukrainian soldier who was tortured three times hiding in a monastery, and connected him with loved ones. The town has now been liberated by Ukrainian forces. 125 die as tear gas triggers crush at Indonesia soccer match MALANG, Indonesia (AP) — Police firing tear gas after an Indonesian soccer match in an attempt to stop violence triggered a disastrous crush of fans that has left at least 125 people dead. Attention immediately focused on police crowd-control measures at Saturday night’s match between host Arema FC of East Java’s Malang city and Persebaya Surabaya. Witnesses described officers beating them with sticks and shields before shooting tear gas canisters directly into the crowds. President Joko Widodo ordered an investigation of security procedures and the president of FIFA called the deaths “a dark day for all involved in football and a tragedy beyond comprehension.” While FIFA has no control over domestic games, it has advised against the use of tear gas at soccer stadiums. EXPLAINER: What’s behind Indonesia’s deadly soccer match? JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Violence, tear gas and a deadly crush that erupted following a domestic league soccer match Saturday night marked another tragedy in Indonesian football. Emotions often run high for sports fans, and Indonesia is no stranger to soccer violence. Saturday’s chaos occurred when a disappointing loss led to fans throwing objects and swarming the soccer pitch, then to police firing tear gas, which led to a crush of people trying to escape. At least 125 have died. Indonesia’s soccer association has banned host team Arema from hosting matches for the remainder of the season. Ukraine presses on with counteroffensive; Russia uses drones KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia has attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown with suicide drones. This comes as Ukraine has pushed ahead with its counteroffensive that has embarrassed the Kremlin. Ukraine took back control of the strategic eastern city of Lyman, which Russia had been using as a transport and logistics hub. That’s a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said more Ukrainian flags are flying in what was recently Russian-occupied territory. Pope Francis, meanwhile, on Sunday decried Russia’s nuclear threats against the West and appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop “this spiral of violence and death.”___ Florida deaths rise to 47 amid struggle to recover from Ian FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Rescuers have evacuated stunned survivors cut off by Hurricane Ian on Florida’s largest barrier island, and the state’s death toll has risen sharply amid recovery efforts. Hundreds of thousands of people are still sweltering without power in the state, days after Ian’s rampage from Florida to the Carolinas. Florida now has 47 confirmed deaths. Ian was one of the strongest U.S. hurricanes on record when the Category 4 monster smashed ashore at midweek. Many storm victims were left isolated with limited cellphone service and lacking basic amenities like water and power. As of Sunday morning, nearly 850,000 customers in Florida were still without electricity. Brazil holds historic election with Lula against Bolsonaro RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilians are voting in a highly polarized election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years. The race pits far-right President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Recent polls have given da Silva a commanding lead, pointing to a chance that he might win the first round outright, without need for a runoff. Da Silva would have to get more than 50% of the votes cast Sunday, topping the total vote for Bolsonaro and the other nine candidates. Battered by flood, Florida neighborhood tries to recover HARLEM HEIGHTS, Fla. (AP) — The Gladiolus Food Pantry usually hands out supplies on Wednesdays to about 240 families. But when Hurricane Ian swept through last week it canceled their distribution and laid waste to much of their supplies. Food bank founder and director Miriam Ortiz couldn’t even get out of her nearby house the day after Ian because of the floodwaters. Over the weekend, she and volunteers were cleaning up while people from around the region were dropping off food and other supplies to donate to families in need. Ortiz says many of the people the pantry serves were already struggling with rising rents and inflation before the hurricane hit. Burkina Faso junta urges calm after French Embassy attack OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Burkina Faso’s new junta leadership is calling for calm after the French Embassy and other buildings were attacked. The unrest following the West African nation’s second coup this year came after a junta statement alleged that the ousted interim president was at a French military base in Ouagadougou. France vehemently denied the claim and has urged its citizens to stay indoors amid rising anti-French sentiment in the streets. The whereabouts of Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba remained unknown Sunday. He himself had taken power in a coup back in January, promising to curb the Islamic extremist violence but frustration mounted as the attacks continued. Trump: ‘King’ to some in Pennsylvania, but will it help GOP? MONONGAHELA, Pa. (AP) — The enthusiasm for Donald Trump’s unique brand of nationalist populism has cut into traditional Democratic strongholds in places such as Monongahela in western Pennsylvania. That’s where House Republicans recently outlined their election-year campaign agenda, called  “Commitment to America.” They’re hoping they can tap into the same political sentiment Trump used to attract voters. But it’s not clear whether the support that propelled Trump to the White House will be there on Election Day this November. Just as challenging for the Republican Party is whether Trump’s false claims of voter fraud will hurt the GOP if voters decide to sit out the election. Election officials brace for confrontational poll watchers GOLDSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Local election officials across the United States are bracing for a wave of confrontations on Election Day in November. Emboldened Republican poll watchers, including many who embrace former President Donald Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election, are expected to flood election offices and polling places. The Republican Party and conservative activists have been holding poll watcher training sessions, but in many states they’ve barred the media from observing those sessions. Some Republican-led states passed laws after the 2020 election that require local election offices to allow poll watchers and give them expanded access to observe and challenge ballots. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Read More…

Donald Trump Says A Simple Disclaimer Gives Him Immunity From Fraud. Could He Have A Point? https://digitalalabamanews.com/donald-trump-says-a-simple-disclaimer-gives-him-immunity-from-fraud-could-he-have-a-point/ Trump’s net-worth statements start with disclaimers that essentially warn lenders: “Check my math.” Loading Something is loading. The statements were unsealed last week as part of NY AG Letitia James’ fraud lawsuit against Trump. Trump told Sean Hannity the disclaimers absolve him of responsibility and the AG has “no case.” Donald Trump hunched forward in his gold-painted, spindle-backed chair under the chandeliers of Mar-a-Lago’s glittering grand ballroom and told Sean Hannity why New York’s attorney general, who’d sued him earlier that day, has “no case.” “We have a disclaimer,” Trump told the Fox News host. “Right on the front. And it basically says, you know, get your own people. You’re at your own risk … It may be way off.” Trump was describing the disclaimer that fills the second and third pages of his annual proclamations of net-worth — the 20-page “Statements of Financial Condition” at the center of AG Letitia James’ massive lawsuit against the former president, his three oldest kids, and his real estate and golf resort empire. James calls these statements “fraudulent,” and says each one is filled with wildly exaggerated math — implausible numbers that misled banks into lending Trump and the New York-incorporated Trump Organization hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade. But Trump told Hannity none of that would matter because each Statement of Financial Condition begins with a warning.  “Be careful,” Trump told Hannity the disclaimers essentially say.  “Because it may not be accurate. It may be way off … get your own people. Use your own lawyers,” Trump added. “Don’t rely on us.” Former financial crimes prosecutor Armen Morian, who worked for the AGs office from 2006 to 2019 before founding Morian Law, believes Trump has a point. Sure, the annual Statements of Financial Condition may be filled with real whoppers, including all those years — from 2012 through 2016 — when they tripled the actual square footage of Trump’s triplex atop Manhattan’s Trump Tower, adding as much as $200 million a year to the former president’s net worth. But each year, the disclaimers put banks on notice to double check the numbers before relying on them in deciding how much to lend and at what rate of interest, Morian said.  And if the banks cut Trump a good deal anyway, despite this warning — as Deutsche Bank did year after year,  pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into his Miami golf club, his skyscraper in Chicago and the Old Post Office in DC — then they did so with eyes wide open, he said.  “What the disclaimers are saying is, ‘Beware when you read these financial statements,'” Morian said, after a decade’s worth of the statements were unsealed in court filings last week. “That’s all it has to do,” he said of their disclaimers, affixed to the front of each year’s statement by longtime Trump accountants Mazars USA. “And that doesn’t cover just Mazars,” added Morian, whose AG financial fraud cases included the 13-year prosecution of insurance magnate Maurice “Hank” Greenberg. “It covers Trump.” The opening paragraphs of the disclaimer for Donald Trump’s 2012 Statement of Financial Condition (highlights added). Laura Italiano/Insider Morian noted that these are “robust” disclaimers — set down right in the open, not hidden in fine print. “We have not audited or reviewed the accompanying financial statement,” their first paragraphs say, in boilerplate language repeated through the years. And so the accountants at Mazars, “do not express an opinion or provide any assurance about whether the financial statement is in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.” Deutsche Bank in particular — the largest single lender to the Trump Organization and Donald Trump over the last ten years — is a “sophisticated counterparty,” Morian said. They well knew Trump’s reputation for puffery in an industry — real estate — already known for puffery. “All of that,” Morian said, “essentially renders the disclaimer an absolute defense.”  A license to exaggerate? To lie? So, a business can lie about its worth? And get away with it, just by warning, as Trump put it, “It may not be accurate. It may be way off?”  “There is something unsatisfying about it,” Morian conceded. “But I have a hard time taking off my hat as a lawyer. This is a legal question, and it turns on facts and the law. That’s the game we’re playing in, and that’s the game the attorney general is playing in also.  “It’s shocking that they brought this case,” Morian added. But not everyone agrees, least of all the former president’s fixer-turned-critic, Michael Cohen, who turned over Trump’s Statements of Financial Condition for 2011 through 2013 as part of his testimony before Congress in 2019. “The attorney general was not filing a 200-plus page lawsuit, after three years of investigatory work, to have her case negated by a disclaimer,” Cohen told Insider. That disclaimer was written and signed by Mazars in order to protect Mazars, not Trump, Cohen noted.  These are not our numbers, Mazars essentially tells would-be lenders, and you’ll get no assurances from us on their accuracy. Diana Florence, a former Manhattan prosecutor for complex financial fraud cases, agreed. “Sure, they’re a hurdle,” she told Insider of the disclaimers. But the AG is alleging some 200 false and misleading valuations involving 23 properties. Deutsche Bank can’t be expected “to literally chase down everything in the statement and verify it,” Florence said. And while James’ lawsuit shines its widest, brightest spotlight on the Statements of Financial Condition, it suggests that other paperwork could put Trump at greater risk. Through the years, Trump or his childrens signed multiple documents that personally attest to Mazars and to Deutsche Bank that the Statements of Financial Condition are accurate, or at least “fairly” represent Trump’s worth, the lawsuit alleges. “Trump could say, ‘Yeah, if Deutsche Bank were really worried they could have asked for more things or could have turned us down. They didn’t do any due diligence,'” Florence said. “But it doesn’t change what the case is about, which is patterns of fraud.” The AGs office and lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mazars quit working for Trump in the middle of preparing his and Melania Trump’s tax returns, saying that the last 10 years of Statements of Financial Condition “should no longer be relied upon.” In declining to comment, a Mazars spokesperson said, “We remain committed to fulfilling all of our professional and legal obligations.” Read More…

Convicted Felon Sentenced To Life Without Parole In Connection To 2020 Gas Station Shooting https://digitalalabamanews.com/convicted-felon-sentenced-to-life-without-parole-in-connection-to-2020-gas-station-shooting/ MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — A judge sentenced a convicted felon to life without the possibility of parole in connection to a 2020 shooting at a gas station on Spring Hill Avenue, according to a Facebook post from the Mobile District Attorney’s Office. A Mobile County Jury convicted Reginald Blevins on all counts of first-degree robbery and second-degree assault in August. In January 2020, Blevins, 36, entered a CEFCO gas station on Spring Hill Avenue and attempted to steal three cases of Bud Light. When Blevins was “confronted by a store cashier,” he pulled out a revolver and threatened store employees. Blevins then shot an “innocent and unarmed,” cashier in the thigh. Three days later, Blevins led officers on a high-speed chase. According to the release, Blevins is a “habitual offender with five prior convictions, one of which was a Class-A Felony.” A Mobile County Jury convicted Blevins on all counts of first-degree robbery and second-degree assault in August. Later that month on January 28, Blevins pleaded not guilty to shooting the clerk. Blevins had a warrant out for his arrest in Daphne for allegedly stealing beer from a CVS Pharmacy earlier that same month. Blevins’ preliminary bond hearing was suspended early because the judge cut it short when Blevins yawned. In February 2020, Blevins’ probation was fully revoked. “Today’s sentence by Judge Youngpeter ensures that Reginald Blevins will no longer torment the citizens of Mobile County,” said Assistant District Attorney Coy Morgan. “While this sentence will never fully relieve the victims of Blevins’ numerous crimes over the years, I hope today’s sentence provides at least some closure, not only for the victims but for the citizens of Mobile County.” Stay ahead of the biggest stories, breaking news and weather in Mobile, Pensacola and across the Gulf Coast and Alabama. Download the WKRG News 5 news app and be sure to turn on push alerts. Read More…

'We Are Human Beings': Alabama Prisoners Strike To Protest Abusive Conditions, Excessive Sentencing https://digitalalabamanews.com/we-are-human-beings-alabama-prisoners-strike-to-protest-abusive-conditions-excessive-sentencing/ Inmates across the deep-red state are refusing to work, demanding better treatment and an overhaul of out-of-whack standards that offer little chance of rehabilitation Swift Justice, an inmate at the Fountain Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, went to prison at the age of 17. Today, he’s 47, with 20 more years to go on a half-century prison term he got before he was an adult.   “In Alabama, it’s lock ‘em up and throw away the key,” he tells Rolling Stone. It’s one of many reasons Justice and nearly 10,000 other inmates in Alabama have gone on strike, abandoning posts in the dining room and laundry, as well as workshops where they make cheap license plates in exchange for little or no money.   According to participants, inmates in nearly every facility in the state have joined the strikes. From day one, the guards cut back their food from three to two meals a day. There have been reports of organizers being jumped by guards and thrown into solitary. Still, the men Rolling Stone spoke with are resolute, with some even sounding giddy that their activism is getting attention in the press. The movement reminds Justice of the famous uprising in Attica, with the same refrain. “We are men. We are human beings,” he declares.  Their demands include an immediate retroactive repeal of the state’s habitual offender laws; creation of a statewide conviction integrity unit; streamlined review for medical furloughs; reduction of the minimum of 30 years served before juveniles with life sentences are eligible of parole; and a stop to life-without-parole sentences. They’re also demanding a more transparent parole process.  The same day the strike began, Gov. Kay Ivey’s office called those demands unwelcome and unreasonable. “Unwelcome, maybe,” Justice retorts. “But unreasonable? Our demands are not only reasonable but fully in line with maintaining public safety.”  It’s hard to overstate how out of whack — unreasonable, even — U.S. sentences and prison conditions are compared to most the world. Andres Brevik, the fascist mass shooter that killed 77 people, mostly children, in cold blood got Norway’s maximum of 21 years. Life without parole has been abolished or is virtually never used in every Western democracy but the U.S. America has normalized the idea that millions of people are irremediable, that a teenager who might get into trouble is thrown away for a lifetime in a carceral system that strips offenders of their humanity. The strike is about getting it back.   Tivon Thomas isn’t scheduled for release until 9999. This is not a typo. Several states mete out punishments that would take several generations to complete. Thomas was convicted of attempted robbery where several people were shot but no one was killed. His priors include forgery and marijuana possession. Thomas is being held in “close” confinement, described by the ADOC as the “most restrictive custody level to which an inmate can be assigned,” in which inmates are “housed in a single cell in a close security institution.” It’s essentially solitary. The U.N. has said that more than 15 days in solitary is torture.   “I think everyone deserves a second chance or however many it takes to get them right,” Thomas’ father, 64-year-old Tyrone Brinkley, tells Rolling Stone. “He’s right now and deserves a chance to prove it,” he adds. “He thinks the strike has the right purpose, to bring light on the situation in Alabama.”   In 2020, more than 500 people were serving life without parole in Alabama thanks to the state’s habitual offender statute. “The law — passed at the dawn of the tough-on-crime era — mandates longer sentences each time someone commits a felony, regardless of the time between offenses,” the ACLU of Alabama explained in 2021. The law mandates life without parole for anyone convicted of a class A felony who has prior felonies on their record. As the ACLU notes, murder and rape are class A felonies in the state — but so are robbery, burglary, drug trafficking, and manufacturing of a controlled substance.  Despite the strike’s success so far in getting people to join and being covered by the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, there are drawbacks. The organizers weren’t able to alert people in solitary to allow them to stockpile food. There are reports from inmates in multiple facilities that the two small meals per day are punishment for the strike. Multiple inmates have told Rolling Stone and other outlets that they are perpetually hungry due to the food shortages. A recent meal for diabetics was comprised of a piece of white bread, an apple, and a smudge of peanut butter, according to a Facebook group of prisoner families. Larry, who asked to have his name changed for fear of retaliation, says the food was never much to write home about, but at least it added up to the right amount of calories. “Now we’re hungry all day,” he tells Rolling Stone. On Wednesday, the Alabama Department of Corrections issued a press release claiming that the food shortage was a result of lack of staffing due to the strike. “This is not a retaliatory measure but logistically necessary to ensure that other critical services are being provided,” they wrote. When Rolling Stone asked the Department of Corrections for comment, they replied by sending the same press release claiming the food shortage isn’t retaliatory.    In addition to changes in sentencing and parole, the prisoners are protesting conditions behind bars. The U.S. Department of Justice has concluded that conditions in the state’s prisons violate the rights of the incarcerated men because of the levels of violence. Daniel, a 42-year-old who also asked for his name to be changed, is serving 10 years. Still, he’s taking part in the strike, because, “The conditions … I never would have believed it until I saw it with my own eyes.” He says he’s witnessed guards cheering on violent brawls among inmates, and even knife fights. “They’ve created this culture in these prisons of violence and abuse. It’s just the norm,” he says. In the summer, temperatures inside can hit 120 and the men swelter in the heat in the absence of air-conditioning. It’s not uncommon for them to find giant cockroaches in their food trays. “We’re not looking to get steak and shrimp for dinner,” he jokes. “Just to be treated as human.”  Fentanyl is easily smuggled into the prisons, which has led to a surge of overdose deaths, according to Justice. “I saw guards giving illegal drugs to prisoners,” Daniel adds. There are all the stabbings, and very little health care. “Get help,” Kastellio Vaughan begged his sister, with a picture of his emaciated body, from an apparent intestinal illness that wasn’t being adequately treated. There’s a lack of educational opportunities that help prepare inmates for healthy reintegration into society.  Justice is beyond fear of retaliation, having previously been thrown in solitary and jumped by guards for his activism, he says. “We’ve had hits put on us. But you can’t stop it. It is what it is. You gotta do what you gotta do. Keep fighting.” (When asked for comment on allegations that corrections officers have retaliated with physical violence and segregation, the ADOT responded with the same press release issued Wednesday, which notes that certain “security measures” have been used to “maintain a secure environment” since the work stoppages began.) Criminal reform advocates often point out that life or near-life sentences are counterproductive because, if you extinguish all hope, what incentive is there for rehabilitation or self-improvement? Parole boards exist to rectify overly draconian sentences, especially if the inmate shows that they’re changed and no longer pose a public threat. But according to the ACLU of Alabama, in the past few years, the state’s parole board has drastically decreased the rate of pardons. In 2018, they granted 80 percent of appeals; by June of 2021, they only granted 22 percent. “​​We’re used to the pendulum swinging a little bit back and forth, but always within a certain range,” Andrew Skier, a Montgomery attorney who’s represented clients seeking parole, told AL.com. “But what we’re seeing now is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in all that time. There are cases now that would have been absolute no-brainers two years ago. That I would have told the client I’m almost positive we’re going to be successful on this that are now being denied and with no explanation.”  Jeffrey, 45, who asked that we don’t reveal his identity, is serving 30 years for a murder he was convicted of at 18. Over and over, he says, the parole board has denied his appeal: “Can a person never change? Or does our worst day define the rest of our lives?”  Larry describes the impact of the state’s glacially sluggish parole process on inmates and their families. “We’re not given the opportunity to redeem ourselves,” he says. He was put in life for crimes he committed as a minor and as such, he’s allowed parole. “But the way the Alabama parole board is operating … they’re virtually giving me life without parole.” His elderly father has made it to his son’s parole hearings, a two-hour drive, only to have the board glance at the case for a few minutes and rule, “Five more years. Five, five, five,” Larry says.  He and the others have had enough. “You’re not gonna keep working us for free, all day every day, year in and year out,” he says. “We made mistakes.”  That inmates are forced to work for free or practically free reminds Justice of another uniquely American institution. “It’s slavery. Plain and simple,” he says.  Diyawn Caldwell is president of Both Sides of the Wall, an advocacy group that helped coordinate the strike. Her husband has been in a...

National Taco Day: Where To Get Free Or Cheap Tacos On Oct. 4 https://digitalalabamanews.com/national-taco-day-where-to-get-free-or-cheap-tacos-on-oct-4/ You never really need an excuse to eat more tacos, but chowing down for free is definitely a great reason. Oct. 4 is National Taco Day, which happens to fall on a Tuesday this year, giving you even more reason to celebrate. Here are the best restaurants giving out taco freebies or running great deals. Rusty Taco Dallas-founded franchise Rusty Taco is giving out a new menu item on National Taco Day — an updated version of a limited edition taco from 2020. The Uptown, a customer favorite, is made with hand-breaded fried chicken, queso, honey, sriracha and slaw wrapped in a flour tortilla. Sign up for the Friends of Rusty e-club to grab this freebie. Taco John’s  Taco John’s takes Taco Tuesday so seriously that it trademarked the holiday. This year, the Tex-Mex chain is celebrating National Taco Day by handing out a free Taco Bravo to each customer who places an order on the Taco John’s app. If crispy beef and creamy refried beans wrapped in a warm flour tortilla sounds delicious to you, stop by. Chronic Tacos Want your choice of taco on National Taco Day? Chronic Tacos is offering free chicken, carnitas, al pastor or veggie tacos on Tuesday with the purchase of a drink.  Fuzzy’s Taco Shop Fuzzy’s is offering $1.50 tacos all day. If chowing down on Baja tacos for less than the price of a coffee isn’t enough to get you there, go for the chance to win free tacos for a year. Every National Taco Day order placed through the Fuzzy’s rewards app will be entered into the drawing, and 100 lucky customers will win. On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina On The Border isn’t giving out free tacos, but it is hosting an all-day taco happy hour. Grab $2 classic or $4 premium tacos, and wash them down with $3 bottled beer. Chuy’s Chuy’s is another spot offering great deals on tacos and drinks all day. Customers can add a ground beef taco in a soft or crispy tortilla to any entrée for $1. You also can get an extra pour of tequila in your margarita for $1. Want your Chuy’s taco for free? You might need to swallow your pride. Customers can dress like a taco, tag their photo with #ChuysTacoDay and show up at any location for a free dine-in entrée. At least your Halloween costume will be ready. 7-Eleven If you want your taco fix to be as convenient as possible, stop by 7-Eleven on National Taco Day to get 10 mini-tacos for just $2. To cash in on this steal you’ll need to sign up as a 7Rewards or Speedy Rewards member. Select Speedway and Stripes stores also will be participating. Taco Cabana Texas taco lovers can take advantage of National Taco Day deals at Taco Cabana. Guests can grab $1 classic bean and cheese tacos or unlimited $12 bean-and-cheese dozen boxes. Customers also can pair their cheap eats with $3 margaritas that come in creative flavors like green apple or dragon fruit. Now that’s a reason to celebrate. Brats, BBQ and Baja tacos: Here’s each state’s most iconic dish Flavored Nation reveals its 50 dishes The state of Alaska is represented by reindeer sausage. California, by Baja-style fish tacos. Oregon, by marionberry pie. Flavored Nation, the ambitious food event that features an iconic dish from each state, is currently making its way around the country. The idea is that each of the 50 states will be represented by one iconic dish cooked by a chef from that state. From fish tacos in California to bratwurst in Wisconsin and barbecue in Missouri, here’s a look at the food that represents each state, according to Flavored Nation Flavored Nation is the brainchild of Richard Gore, who used to run the live-event division of the Food Network, and, among others, David Rosengarten, the former long-time Food Network host and two-time James Beard Award-winning food writer. *Photos might not represent exact dish listed. Food descriptions, when available, are from Flavored Nation. The dishes from each state are: Alabama: Fried green tomato salad with crab meat “In 1991 a movie called “Fried Green Tomatoes,” based on a novel by Alabama native Fannie Flagg, introduced the dish of fried green tomatoes to many Americans and helped epitomize it as a food of the south. Prepared by slicing unripe tomatoes, coating the slices in cornmeal and frying, the dish is traditionally served as a side. However, today, fried green tomatoes are served in a variety of forms: in poboys, in pasta, beneath shrimp and remoulade. At Flavored Nation, fried green tomato will be served as a salad with crabmeat.” AP Photo/Larry Crowe Alaska: Reindeer sausage “Reindeer sausage is a longtime Alaskan staple, typically either served as a side in diners or on a bun at hot dog carts. Native to northern Europe and Russia, reindeer – a close relation to wild caribou – were brought to Alaska in the late 19th century as a solution to a post-whaling industry food shortage among Native Alaskans. In the 1930s, there were over 400K reindeer in western Alaska (peaking to 640K in the 1930s). Today, there are around 20 reindeer herders and 20,000 reindeer in that area, helping provide meat and sausage to Alaskans across the state.” AP Photo/Al Grillo Arizona: Chimichangas “A chimichanga is a deep-fried burrito typically prepared by filling a flour tortilla with rice, cheese and meat (beef, chicken, pork or even fish) then folding it into a rectangular package and deep-frying. Consensus is that it’s an Arizona invention. However, there’s a decades long rivalry between two restaurant heavyweights – Macayo’s in Phoenix and El Charro in Tucson (the latter is attending Flavored Nation) – over who actually invented the dish back in the 1950s. It remains the most discussed mystery in Arizona-Sonoran cuisine.” By Dainsleaf – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons Arkansas: Fried catfish “Easy to catch and abundant in the state’s streams, lakes and rivers, catfish is a staple of Arkansas. Often breaded with flour, cornbread and spices then fried and served with a side of hush puppies, catfish can be found at most every restaurant (and is also an easy dish to make at home).” UROS ZUNIC California: Baja-style fish tacos “In Baja, sometime in the past 40 or 50 years, someone concocted what is now considered the classic fish taco. The dish involves a double layer of corn tortillas, big hunks of fried fish (or grilled, for the more health conscious), shredded cabbage, crema (a sort of thinner sour cream), pico de gallo and, often, a spritz of lime. The fish is usually a white, flaky fish like mahi-mahi, cod, or other frequenters of Southern California waters.” AP Photo/Larry Crowe Colorado: Pueblo chiles three ways “The Pueblo chile is grown in southeastern Colorado, around the city of Pueblo. The high elevation, along with hot summer days and cool nights, create chiles that are thick and meaty, which makes them ideal for roasting. Eaten throughout the year, chile is a staple especially in Pueblo. It can be found in all varieties of restaurants, as well as people’s freezers, to be used in anything that needs a “kick.” While Hatch green chiles (iconic to neighboring New Mexico) are known for their smoky, rich flavor, Colorado’s Pueblo chiles are known for being a little hotter than cayenne peppers. And, yes, there’s an ongoing chile rivalry between the two states.” Connecticut: Warm lobster roll “Also called ‘the coastal,’ the Connecticut-style lobster roll is a heap of warm, sweet lobster meat piled onto a soft, buttery hot dog bun. Unlike lobster rolls from Maine, there is no dressing — just melted butter that’s used to drizzle on the lobster meat right before taking the first bite. Originated in Connecticut, the ‘warm w/ butter’ lobster roll type is gaining in popularity in New England and across the U.S.” By Lee Coursey – Lobster Roll at the Lobster Claw, Bar HarborUploaded by Ekabhishek, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons Delaware: Scrapple sliders “Scrapple, also called, pannhaus by the Pennsylvania Dutch, originated in southeastern Pennsylvania during colonial times. However, Delaware is now the nation’s largest scrapple producer and home to an annual Apple Scrapple Festival. Scrapple is made (traditionally) of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal, wheat flour and spices then formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf. It’s then sliced and pan-fried. Scrapple is considered a breakfast staple across the mid-Atlantic region; however, the meat can be used in a wide variety of dishes, including scrapple sliders (which will be served at Flavored Nation)” By Stu Spivack – Made by author, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons Florida: Key lime pie “Key lime pie is a dessert made of Key lime juice, egg yolks, and sweetened condensed milk in a pie crust. The dish uses small key limes, tarter and more aromatic than common limes, that grow throughout the Florida Keys. Originating in the mid-1800s alongside the invention of ‘no refrigeration needed’ condensed milk, many early recipes for the pie didn’t instruct baking, relying on a natural chemical reaction to produce the filling’s consistency (however, now, because of the raw eggs, its baked). In 2006, Florida passed legislation selecting “Key lime pie” as the official pie of the state.” AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee Georgia: Peach cobbler “Emerging as a makeshift, trail-friendly pie recipe for American settlers, cobblers were created by combining fruit with ‘cobbled’ together clumps of biscuit dough then baking over a fire. Once a big part of the settler diet (many eating it for breakfast or as a main dish), today, cobbler is labeled a dessert and usually accompanied by a scoop of ice cream. Peach Cobbler Day – emphasizing an important commercial crop of the south – was created by the Georgia Peach Council in April 1950.” AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh Hawaii: Plate lunch with kalua pig and pineapple rice “Plate lunch is a filling go-to meal for Hawa...

Trump Defends 'great Woman' Ginni Thomas After Jan. 6 Testimony | CNN Politics https://digitalalabamanews.com/trump-defends-great-woman-ginni-thomas-after-jan-6-testimony-cnn-politics/ CNN  —  Former President Donald Trump praised the “courage and strength” of Ginni Thomas at a rally Saturday, days after the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas met with congressional investigators about her efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In a four-and-a-half hour meeting with investigators on Thursday, Thomas discussed her marriage to the conservative justice, claiming in an opening statement obtained by CNN that she “did not speak with him at all about the details of my volunteer campaign activities.” Thomas, who attended Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, 2021 landed on the radar of the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol after text message exchanges she had with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about election fraud claims surfaced during the ongoing congressional probe. Thomas had “significant concerns about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election. And, as she told the Committee, her minimal and mainstream activity focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated,” her attorney Mark Paoletta said after her closed-door testimony. During a campaign appearance in Michigan, Trump claimed that Thomas told the House panel “she still believes the 2020 election was stolen,” commending her because “she didn’t wilt under pressure.” “Do you know Ginni Thomas?” the former President polled the crowd. “She didn’t say, ‘Oh, well I’d like not to get involved. Of course, it was a wonderful election.’ It was a rigged and stolen election. She didn’t wait and sit around and say, ‘Well let me give you maybe a different answer than [what] I’ve been saying for the last two years.’” “No, no,” Trump continued, “She didn’t wilt under pressure like so many others that are weak people and stupid people… She said what she thought, she said what she believed in.” Thomas, who has previously criticized the House probe into January 6, has long been a prominent fixture in conservative activism – even becoming a persistent annoyance to some Trump White House officials as she tried to install friends and allies into senior administration roles throughout his presidency. She and her husband attended a private lunch with Trump and his wife Melania at the White House shortly after the 2018 midterms, though CNN has previously reported that her direct interactions with the former President were fairly limited beyond that meeting. But on Saturday, Trump praised Thomas as “a great woman,” comparing her to countless former aides and allies who have admitted in their own depositions with the House panel that they themselves didn’t believe Trump’s claims about voter fraud following the 2020 election. Thomas said she “never spoke” with her husband about “any of the legal challenges to the 2020 election,” addressing ethical questions that were raised in the wake a Supreme Court ruling last year on a January 6-related case. Thomas and Meadows texted repeatedly about overturning the election results. Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chairs the committee, said that Thomas did confirm during her testimony that she still believes the election was stolen, adding that “at this point we are glad she came in.” Read More…

Iran Lawmakers Chant 'thank You, Police' Despite Growing Public Fury Over Woman's Death https://digitalalabamanews.com/iran-lawmakers-chant-thank-you-police-despite-growing-public-fury-over-womans-death/ DUBAI, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Iranian lawmakers chanted “thank you, police” during a parliament session on Sunday, in a show of support for a fierce crackdown on widespread anti-government protests against the death of a young woman in police custody. The protests, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini from Iranian Kurdistan, have spiralled into the biggest show of opposition to Iran’s authorities in years, with many calling for the end of more than four decades of Islamic clerical rule. Pledging allegiance to the Islamic Republic’s top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the lawmakers chanted: “The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader”, a video shared on Iranian state media showed. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com At least 52 people have died in the crackdown, according to a tally by rights group Amnesty International. Iranian authorities say many members of the security forces have been killed by “rioters and thugs backed by foreign foes”. Khamenei has not commented on the protests, which began at Amini’s funeral on Sept. 17 and quickly spread to Iran’s 31 provinces, with all layers of society, including ethnic and religious minorities, taking part. Several prominent soccer players who are stars in Iran and around Asia, including the former captain of Iran’s national team, Ali Daei, have criticised the repression of protesters. Some social media posts suggested that Daei has been banned from leaving Iran. Reuters could not confirm the report. The protests have not abated despite the growing death toll and the crackdown by security forces using tear gas, clubs, and in some cases, according to videos on social media and rights groups, live ammunition. Videos on social media showed demonstrations in several cities such as Kermanshah, Shiraz and Mashhad on Sunday, with participants chanting “independence, freedom, death to Khamenei”. Activist Twitter account 1500tasvir, which has more than 160,000 followers, posted a video of protesters in the central city of Isfahan calling for a nationwide strike and setting up a road block to bring truck drivers to their ranks. Reuters could not verify the videos. Iranian state media shared a video of pro-government students, who gathered at the Ferdowsi university in Mashhad, chanting “the Islamic Republic is our red line”. DEATH IN COMA Amini was arrested on Sept. 13 in Tehran for “unsuitable attire” by the morality police who enforce the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. She died three days later in hospital after falling into a coma. The lawyer for Amini’s family, Saleh Nikbakht, told the semi-official Etemadonline news website that “respectable doctors” believe she was hit in custody. Amini’s autopsy report and other medical details have not been released, but her father said he saw bruises on her leg and that other women detained with her said she was beaten. Iran’s police authorities say Amini died of a heart attack and deny she was beaten to death in custody. The country’s hardline President Ebrahim Raisi has ordered an investigation into Amini’s death. He said last week that a forensic report would be presented in “coming days”. Amnesty International on Friday reported 52 people killed in the protests, with hundreds injured and thousands arrested. Iranian state media said last week, 41 people, including security forces, had been killed. Amini’s death and the crackdown have drawn international criticism of Iran’s rulers, who in turn accuse the United States and some European countries of exploiting the unrest to try to destabilise the Islamic Republic. Iran said last week it had arrested nine people from Germany, Poland, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and other countries for their role in the protests. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Frank Jack Daniel Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More…

Biden Administration Seeks Delay Over Prince Mohammed Immunity Decision https://digitalalabamanews.com/biden-administration-seeks-delay-over-prince-mohammed-immunity-decision/ The Biden administration is seeking a 45-day delay in a court proceeding in which it has been asked by a US judge whether it believes Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman should be granted sovereign immunity in a case involving the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Representatives from the US justice department said in a legal notice filed on Friday that the department was seeking the extension after Saudi Arabia announced in a press release last week that Prince Mohammed had been named prime minister. Critics of the Saudi government said they believed the new designation was a manoeuvre designed to try to establish sovereign immunity protection for the 37-year-old prince, who is facing a civil case in the US for his alleged role in the murder of Khashoggi. The legal case, which is being heard in a district court in Washington DC, has been filed against Prince Mohammed by Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, and Dawn, a pro-democracy group founded by the journalist before he was killed. The case has put the Biden administration in a legal and diplomatic bind. The US president entered the White House promising to make the crown prince accountable for Khashoggi’s murder and to make him a “pariah”. But Biden has largely abandoned that pledge in favour of pursuing other political and foreign policy objectives. In a trip to Jeddah this summer, the president fist-bumped the crown prince even after his own administration released a declassified intelligence briefing last year that concluded Prince Mohammed had likely ordered the Khashoggi killing. Prince Mohammed fist bumps Joe Biden at Al Salman Palace, July 2022. Photograph: Bandar Algaloud/Reuters Prince Mohammed has said he has taken responsibility for the murder but that he did not order the killing. The administration is not formally a party to the case, but was invited to weigh in on the matter. It had been given until 3 October – Monday – by a judge hearing the Khashoggi case to respond to a series of legal questions about whether Prince Mohammed should be granted legal immunity, which traditionally is granted to a state’s ruler, like a prime minister, president, or king. In its two-page filing on Friday, the Biden administration acknowledged it needed more time after already being granted an extension to settle the issue because of Prince Mohammed’s recent elevation to the role of prime minister. “In light of these changed circumstances, the United States requests a second extension of time of 45 days to prepare its response to the Court’s invitation,” the administration said in a notice to the court. “The United States appreciates the Court’s patience and consideration in this matter.” Legal experts who have studied the issue say they believe Cengiz’s legal team will likely challenge any legal argument that calls for Prince Mohammed to be granted immunity. Among other issues, they will likely argue that King Salman’s designation was solely designed for Prince Mohammed to evade justice. That’s because, in announcing the change – an exception to Saudi law that calls for the king to also serve as prime minister – it is stated that King Salman will still act as prime minister in meetings in which he is present. Human-rights lawyers have also argued against giving sovereign immunity protection precedence over other principles human rights principles. Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said there were “far greater values at stake” than the immunity of a “possible sovereign that has proven repeatedly that he is prepared to violate the sovereignty of other states and international law”. “The protection of the right to life, the prohibition of torture and enforced disappearance, international peace, the use of force on the territory of another state , principles of international justice and the protection of fundamental human rights should trump concerns of sovereign immunity,” Callamard said. Sarah Leah Whitson, a lawyer and executive director of Dawn, a co-plaintiff in the case, said the best thing the US government could do would be to refuse to weigh in on the matter. Any such decision would likely be seen as a sign to the court that the administration did not believe it had an interest in the case. “MBS’s [Mohammed bin Salman’s] ploy to secure immunity by designating himself as PM should be rejected as an abuse of sovereign immunity. To allow tyrants to dodge prosecution for war crimes and grave abuses by title-washing will eviscerate universal jurisdiction laws all over the world,” she said. Experts have also cautioned that much more is at stake for Prince Mohammed than the civil case in Washington. If a US judge were to determine that the crown prince should be granted sovereign immunity, it would likely assure the crown prince that he was no longer facing legal threats or the threat of possible arrest when he travels outside the kingdom. If a judge determines that Prince Mohammed ought not to be granted sovereign immunity – either because he is not yet fully ruler of the kingdom, or because his alleged wrongdoing was too grave – it would conversely send a stark message that the crown prince could face more legal trouble. The decision in the first instance will be made by Judge John Bates, who was appointed to the bench in 2001 by then-president, George W Bush. Bates has previously received media attention as a Republican-appointed federal judge who ruled against the Trump administration in 2018 after the White House sought to end an Obama-era programme known as Daca, which was designed to protect immigrants who arrived in the US as children. Bates called the Trump administration’s reasoning in the case “arbitrary” and said it had not given sufficient explanation of why the programme should be considered unlawful. Read More…

In Defense Of Donald Trump – Santa Barbara News-Press https://digitalalabamanews.com/in-defense-of-donald-trump-santa-barbara-news-press/ Purely Political, By James Buckley COURTESY PHOTO Donald Trump I know, I know. Enough with this Trump stuff. We’ve got to move on. I’ve said as much, though I have always insisted that if Donald Trump runs again, I’ll vote for him. For two important reasons. The first being that as president, Mr. Trump tried mightily to fulfill every campaign promise he’d made. In the face of treachery from all sides, particularly from what he called the Deep State, and political intransigence from his own party, he risked everything, including — as the Founding Fathers once did —  his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor —  to complete his self-appointed task to Make America Great Again. After all, as he would often say, he didn’t need this. He had a great life. The other reason being that a second term was denied him via a quasi-legal campaign of adjusting election rules, particularly in battleground states (using the ongoing pandemic as an excuse for doing so), ballot harvesting, creation of thousands of unguarded drop boxes into which anyone at any time could drop undetected and un-monitored, however many mail-in ballots one had “collected,” and the like. But you knew that, so as we enter a never-ending Election Month, I feel an urgent need to keep the distasteful 2020 campaign effort front and center so that voters don’t forget. The following are extracts I’ve pulled from a speech entitled “Trump’s Virtues,” given by Thomas Klingenstein, chairman of the Claremont Institute, who feels that way too. I don’t know the man, but he was an early supporter of Mr.Trump, and his 17-minute speech encapsulates who the former and perhaps future president is and isn’t, and why it’s important to remember what he accomplished. TRUMP’S VIRTUES “Many leading Republicans and conservatives want someone other than Donald Trump to run for president in 2024. “Other Republican politicians say some version of, ‘I like his policies but don’t like the rest of him.’ But this gets it almost backward. Although Trump advanced many important policies, it is the ‘rest of him’ that contains the virtues that inspired a movement. “Trump was born for the current crisis: the life and death struggle against the totalitarian enemy I call ‘woke communism.’ The ‘woke comms’ clench the Democratic party by the scruff of its neck. They tell us lies and silence those who challenge the lies. Like most totalitarian regimes, they have a scapegoat (white males), a narrative (America is systemically racist) and a utopian vision of society where there are equal outcomes for all preferred identity groups in every area of human life. The woke comms control all the cultural, and economic centers of power in the country from where they ruthlessly push their agenda. That agenda rests on the conviction that America is thoroughly bad (systemically racist) and must be destroyed. “Trump critics say he caused or exacerbated the divide in this country. No, he did not. He revealed — not caused — the divide. “Trump is unreservedly, unquestionably pro-American. He makes no apologies for America’s past. Trump is a refreshing break from the guilt and self-loathing that mark our age. “Trump has said over and over exactly what political correctness prohibits one from saying: ‘We have our culture, it’s exceptional, and that’s the way we want to keep it.’ “It is difficult to overestimate the significance of Trump’s fight against political correctness, a fight in which most Republicans are reluctant to engage. “Trump treated the woke media with the same contempt he treated political correctness, provoking their outrage and revealing their utter corruption. “Unlike most politicians, Trump — when he sees a problem — goes out and fixes it. He fixed our porous borders, moved our Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, normalized relations between Arab countries and Israel, eliminated hate-America Critical Race Theory in his administrative agencies, developed a vaccine for the coronavirus in record time, achieved energy independence and much more. “Trump is guided by facts and common sense. He has no use for theories. He knows that slavish devotion to theory can lead to nonsensical beliefs; for instance, that children should be able to change their sex; that police forces should be defunded; or that biological boys should be able to compete against girls in athletics. “Trump taught us crucial things. For starters, that China is a mortal enemy. Before his presidency, the public did not appreciate this. Now it does. “Trump smoked rats out of their hiding places. Because of Trump, we now know that our intelligence agencies are corrupt. We know also that the mainstream media is not just biased but is the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. “Trump also understands that what Americans of all races and creeds desire are stable communities and the opportunity to raise their families in a culture that values industriousness, self-reliance, patriotism and freedom. “Trump is the most towering political figure in living memory. He has, like it or not, defined the politics of our age. “Among the talked-about alternatives to Trump, I have not yet seen anyone who possesses, or even fully understands, Trump’s virtues. Nor I have seen anyone with his backbone and fortitude. One does not appreciate the strength of relentless gale-force winds until one is in the eye of the storm. I am not suggesting that it is time for everyone to make way for Trump; rather that it is much too early to throw him overboard. “If Republicans do choose another candidate to lead the Trump movement, they must do so in full confidence that (their candidate) will embody Trump’s virtues. If not Trump himself, his virtues must be the standard by which we judge other candidates.” Readers should go online to YouTube and punch in “Trump’s Virtues” and watch the entire speech. It’s well worth your time. James Buckley is a longtime Montecito resident. He welcomes questions or comments at jimb@substack.com. Readers are invited to visit jimb.substack.com, where Jim’s Journals are on file. He also invites people to subscribe to Jim’s Journal. Read More…

Election Officials Brace For Confrontational Poll Watchers https://digitalalabamanews.com/election-officials-brace-for-confrontational-poll-watchers-2/ GOLDSBORO, N.C. (AP) — The situation with the poll watcher had gotten so bad that Anne Risku, the election director in North Carolina’s Wayne County, had to intervene via speakerphone. “You need to back off!” Risku recalled hollering after the woman wedged herself between a voter and the machine where the voter was trying to cast his ballot at a precinct about 60 miles southeast of Raleigh. The man eventually was able to vote, but the incident was one of several Risku cited from the May primary that made her worry about a wave of newly aggressive poll watchers. Many have spent the past two years steeped in lies about the accuracy of the 2020 election. Those fears led the North Carolina State Board of Elections in August to tighten rules governing poll watchers. But the state’s rules review board, appointed by the Republican-controlled Legislature, blocked the new poll watcher regulations in late September, leaving election officials such as Risku without additional tools to control behavior on Election Day, Nov. 8. “It becomes complete babysitting,” Risku said in an interview. “The back and forth for the precinct officials, having somebody constantly on you for every little thing that you do — not because you’re doing it wrong, but because they don’t agree with what you’re doing.” Wayne County Elections Director Anne Risku prepares absentee ballots at the Wayne County Board of Elections office on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, in Goldsboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum) Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Hannah Schoenbaum FILE – Polling workers inspect and count absentee ballots as poll watchers sit opposite, Nov. 10, 2020, in New York. Election officials across the country are bracing for a wave of confrontations in November as emboldened Republican poll watchers, many embracing former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, flood polling places for the general election. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/John Minchillo The Wayne County Board of Elections sign stands outside their office on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, in Goldsboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum) Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Hannah Schoenbaum PreviousNext Poll watchers have traditionally been an essential element of electoral transparency, the eyes and ears for the two major political parties who help ensure that the actual mechanics of voting are administered fairly and accurately. But election officials fear that a surge of conspiracy believers are signing up for those positions this year and are being trained by others who have propagated the lie spread by former President Donald Trump and his allies that the 2020 presidential election was riddled with fraud. In Michigan, groups that have spread falsehoods about that race are recruiting poll watchers. In Nevada, the Republican Party’s nominee for secretary of state, Jim Marchant, denies President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and was a featured speaker at a party poll watcher training. Cleta Mitchell, a prominent conservative lawyer and North Carolina resident, is running a group recruiting poll watchers and workers in eight swing states. Mitchell was on the phone with Trump when the then-president called Georgia’s secretary of state in January 2021 and asked that official to “find” enough votes for Trump to be declared the state’s winner. Chris Harvey, who was Georgia’s election director in 2020 when Trump claimed the election was being stolen from him, recalled how swarms of Trump backers came as self-appointed poll watchers to observe the state’s manual recounts, harassing election workers and disrupting the process. Harvey fears a repeat this year. “The whole tension that we’re expecting to see at polling places is something we’re talking to election officials about, something we’re talking to law enforcement about,” said Harvey, who is advising a group of election officials and law enforcement before November. The laws governing poll watchers vary from state to state. Their role is generally to observe, question any deviations from required procedure and, in some states, lodge formal complaints or provide testimony for objections filed in court. The worries this year are similar to those during the 2020 election, when Trump began railing against mail voting and the Republican National Committee launched its first national operation in decades. It had recently been freed from a consent decree that limited its poll watching operation after it previously was found to have targeted Black and Latino voters. But voting went smoothly that November. Mitchell said her organization, the Election Integrity Network, is just trying to ensure that everyone follows the law. “We are not a threat,” she told The Associated Press during a text message exchange. “Unless you think elections that are conducted according to the rule of law are a threat. We train people to follow the law.” Risku said there were issues with poll watchers from both parties during the primary in May. But of the 13 incidents she reported to the North Carolina board from Wayne County, all involved Republicans. In addition to the poll watcher who had to be ejected, Risku said another Republican poll watcher in her district waited after hours in the parking lot of the Mount Olive Train Depot early voting site until Chief Judge Susan Wiley began carrying boxes of marked ballots to her car. On two occasions, the man tried to follow her back to the elections office in Goldsboro, about a 20-minute drive. Recognizing that the job has become “a scary ordeal” in the last year, Risku said she has stepped up security before November and offered raises to entice precinct officials to stay. She expects many won’t return after this year. The North Carolina GOP chairman, Michael Whatley, said that’s not what the party is teaching its poll watchers. “What we saw in terms of some of the activities that were at play may have been coming from Republicans but were not things that we have been teaching people in our training sessions,” Whatley said. “What we want to do is make sure that we have people that are in the room that are going to be very respectful of the election officials at all times, be very respectful of the voters at all times and, if they see issues, then report them in.” He has declined to allow reporters to attend the training sessions, which he said have trained 7,000 potential poll watchers so far this year. As in many states, poll watchers are only permitted in North Carolina if they have been designated by the major parties. But in Michigan, organizations that register with local election offices also can provide poll watchers. A coalition of groups that have questioned the 2020 election are scrambling to get as many of their members in place as possible in the politically critical state. “The best I can do is put a whole bunch of eyeballs on it to make sure that anything that doesn’t look right gets a further look,” said Sandy Kiesel, executive director of the Michigan Election Integrity Fund and Force, part of a coalition that recruited 5,000 poll watchers for the state’s August primary. Kiesel said several of her coalition’s poll watchers and poll challengers — Michigan law allows one person to observe and another person to formally lodge challenges at precincts — were prevented from observing or escorted out of polling places in August. Michigan election officials are bracing for more confrontations in November. Patrick Colbeck, a former Republican state senator and prominent election conspiracy theorist who is part of Kiesel’s coalition, announced this past week that a comprehensive fall push to scrutinize every aspect of voting would be called “Operation Overwatch.” “They are talking about intimidating people who have the right to vote,” said Barb Byrum, clerk of Michigan’s Ingham County, which includes Lansing, the state capital. In a sign of the importance the state’s Republicans place on poll watchers, the GOP-controlled Legislature last week agreed to let election offices throughout Michigan start processing mailed ballots two days before Election Day — something most states with mail voting allow long before then — but only if they allow poll watchers to observe. The ballots are not actually counted until Election Day. In Texas, a new law allows every candidate to assign up to two poll watchers, raising the potential that observers could pack polling locations, particularly around big cities such as Dallas and Houston where ballots are the longest. According to records from the secretary of state’s office, more than 900 people in Texas already had received poll watching certification in the three weeks after the state opened required training on Sept. 1. ___ Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, Gabe Stern in Reno, Nevada, and Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report. ___ Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Read More…

Is Jonathan Jones The NFL’s Best Cornerback? https://digitalalabamanews.com/is-jonathan-jones-the-nfls-best-cornerback/ The best cornerback in the NFL three weeks into the 2022 season is the New England Patriots’ Jonathan Jones, according to Pro Football Focus. New England doesn’t seem to have a coaching staff that would put a lot of stock in PFF ratings, and Patriots cornerbacks coach Mike Pellegrino doesn’t need a third party to tell him something that he sees every day. MORE NFL: · FORMER ALABAMA LINEBACKER ELIGIBLE TO PLAY AGAIN ON SUNDAY · CONSULTANT WHO CLEARED TUA TAGOVAILOA ON SUNDAY FIRED · JETS COACH CALLS NEW QUINNEN WILLIAMS CONTROVERSY ‘BUSH LEAGUE’ “I don’t look too much into the whole PFF or Pro Football Focus,” Pellegrino said. “I know my guys. I know Jon’s a good football player. And that’s what he is – he’s a good football player, a versatile guy, can do multiple things and I can tell you there’s not – point out a tougher guy. He’s right up there with them. He’s an absolute competitor. I appreciate everything Jon does and has done for us and just continues to work.” Since earning his way into the NFL on special teams as an undrafted rookie from Auburn in 2016, Jones has steadily become a bigger part of the New England defense over the years, carving out his playing time mainly as a slot corner, but his elite speed has made him handy anywhere in the secondary. When Pro Bowl cornerback J.C. Jackson left the Patriots for the Los Angeles Chargers in free agency in the offseason, New England shifted Jones from the slot to the outside vacancy. “You’re definitely on your own,” Jones said of playing outside corner. “It’s a different perspective from being inside. There’s not as many bodies between you and the quarterback. You’re kind of just out there on your own. But it’s the same mentality. You lock in, eyes on your guy, and when it’s man — or if it’s zone, you’re a different part of it — but you just get out there and compete.” In the Patriots’ 37-26 loss to the Baltimore Ravens last week, Jones intercepted a pass and caused a fumble that New England recovered in addition to making four tackles. “It’s something to start on — getting turnovers,” Jones said. “We want to as a defense to continue to get turnovers. Hopefully, I have a lot more of them.” While profootballreference.com stats show Jones as allowing seven completions and New England ranks eighth in passing defense in the NFL, the Patriots have a 1-2 record, beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 17-14 between a season-opening 20-7 loss to the Miami Dolphins and the defeat by the Ravens. “I feel like we’ve been in every game we’ve been in this year,” Jones said. “Had an opportunity. And in this league, that’s kind of all you want is an opportunity to be in the game, an opportunity to win, so I definitely feel like in every game we’ve been in, we’ve made enough plays to come out with the win. We just didn’t have enough points and didn’t stop the other teams from scoring too many points.” To even their record, the Patriots will need to win against four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers at Lambeau Field, where they play the Green Bay Packers at 3:25 p.m. CDT Sunday. RELATED: NFL WEEK 4: SCHEDULE, TV, ODDS “He’s one of the best,” Jones said of the Packers’ quarterback. “He’s a future Hall of Famer, so you have to be on your P’s and Q’s when you’re going up against a guy like that, so you try to study, study as much as you can. You know he’s going to bring his A game.” Jones has played 83 percent of New England’s defensive snaps in 2022, which would be the highest rate of his career. Last season, a shoulder injury limited Jones to six games after he had missed one regular-season game in his first five years. “It’s a blessing to be back out there with my teammates,” Jones said. “Anytime I can go out there and fight with those guys. They make me better. I enjoy being out there with them. They bring my best. I just try to go out there every Sunday and give them my best.” 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. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

Election Officials Brace For Confrontational Poll Watchers https://digitalalabamanews.com/election-officials-brace-for-confrontational-poll-watchers/ HANNAH SCHOENBAUM and NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Associated Press Oct. 2, 2022Updated: Oct. 2, 2022 4:56 a.m. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 1of6Wayne County Elections Director Anne Risku prepares absentee ballots at the Wayne County Board of Elections office on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, in Goldsboro, N.C.Hannah SchoenbaumShow MoreShow Less 2of6FILE – A Republican election challenger at right watches over election inspectors as they examine a ballot as votes are counted into the early morning hours, Nov. 4, 2020, at the central counting board in Detroit. Election officials across the country are bracing for a wave of confrontations in November as emboldened Republican poll watchers, many embracing former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, flood polling places for the general election.David Goldman/APShow MoreShow Less 3of6FILE – Polling workers inspect and count absentee ballots as poll watchers sit opposite, Nov. 10, 2020, in New York. Election officials across the country are bracing for a wave of confrontations in November as emboldened Republican poll watchers, many embracing former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, flood polling places for the general election.John Minchillo/APShow MoreShow Less 4of6Wayne County Elections Director Anne Risku prepares absentee ballots at the Wayne County Board of Elections office on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, in Goldsboro, N.C.Hannah Schoenbaum/APShow MoreShow Less 5of6The Wayne County Board of Elections sign stands outside their office on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, in Goldsboro, N.C.Hannah SchoenbaumShow MoreShow Less 6of6Stickers sit inside the Wayne County Board of Elections office on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, in Goldsboro, N.C.Hannah SchoenbaumShow MoreShow Less GOLDSBORO, N.C. (AP) — The situation with the poll watcher had gotten so bad that Anne Risku, the election director in North Carolina’s Wayne County, had to intervene via speakerphone. “You need to back off!” Risku recalled hollering after the woman wedged herself between a voter and the machine where the voter was trying to cast his ballot at a precinct about 60 miles southeast of Raleigh. The man eventually was able to vote, but the incident was one of several Risku cited from the May primary that made her worry about a wave of newly aggressive poll watchers. Many have spent the past two years steeped in lies about the accuracy of the 2020 election. Those fears led the North Carolina State Board of Elections in August to tighten rules governing poll watchers. But the state’s rules review board, appointed by the Republican-controlled Legislature, blocked the new poll watcher regulations in late September, leaving election officials such as Risku without additional tools to control behavior on Election Day, Nov. 8. “It becomes complete babysitting,” Risku said in an interview. “The back and forth for the precinct officials, having somebody constantly on you for every little thing that you do — not because you’re doing it wrong, but because they don’t agree with what you’re doing.” Poll watchers have traditionally been an essential element of electoral transparency, the eyes and ears for the two major political parties who help ensure that the actual mechanics of voting are administered fairly and accurately. But election officials fear that a surge of conspiracy believers are signing up for those positions this year and are being trained by others who have propagated the lie spread by former President Donald Trump and his allies that the 2020 presidential election was riddled with fraud. In Michigan, groups that have spread falsehoods about that race are recruiting poll watchers. In Nevada, the Republican Party’s nominee for secretary of state, Jim Marchant, denies President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and was a featured speaker at a party poll watcher training. Cleta Mitchell, a prominent conservative lawyer and North Carolina resident, is running a group recruiting poll watchers and workers in eight swing states. Mitchell was on the phone with Trump when the then-president called Georgia’s secretary of state in January 2021 and asked that official to “find” enough votes for Trump to be declared the state’s winner. Chris Harvey, who was Georgia’s election director in 2020 when Trump claimed the election was being stolen from him, recalled how swarms of Trump backers came as self-appointed poll watchers to observe the state’s manual recounts, harassing election workers and disrupting the process. Harvey fears a repeat this year. “The whole tension that we’re expecting to see at polling places is something we’re talking to election officials about, something we’re talking to law enforcement about,” said Harvey, who is advising a group of election officials and law enforcement before November. The laws governing poll watchers vary from state to state. Their role is generally to observe, question any deviations from required procedure and, in some states, lodge formal complaints or provide testimony for objections filed in court. The worries this year are similar to those during the 2020 election, when Trump began railing against mail voting and the Republican National Committee launched its first national operation in decades. It had recently been freed from a consent decree that limited its poll watching operation after it previously was found to have targeted Black and Latino voters. But voting went smoothly that November. Mitchell said her organization, the Election Integrity Network, is just trying to ensure that everyone follows the law. “We are not a threat,” she told The Associated Press during a text message exchange. “Unless you think elections that are conducted according to the rule of law are a threat. We train people to follow the law.” Risku said there were issues with poll watchers from both parties during the primary in May. But of the 13 incidents she reported to the North Carolina board from Wayne County, all involved Republicans. In addition to the poll watcher who had to be ejected, Risku said another Republican poll watcher in her district waited after hours in the parking lot of the Mount Olive Train Depot early voting site until Chief Judge Susan Wiley began carrying boxes of marked ballots to her car. On two occasions, the man tried to follow her back to the elections office in Goldsboro, about a 20-minute drive. Recognizing that the job has become “a scary ordeal” in the last year, Risku said she has stepped up security before November and offered raises to entice precinct officials to stay. She expects many won’t return after this year. The North Carolina GOP chairman, Michael Whatley, said that’s not what the party is teaching its poll watchers. “What we saw in terms of some of the activities that were at play may have been coming from Republicans but were not things that we have been teaching people in our training sessions,” Whatley said. “What we want to do is make sure that we have people that are in the room that are going to be very respectful of the election officials at all times, be very respectful of the voters at all times and, if they see issues, then report them in.” He has declined to allow reporters to attend the training sessions, which he said have trained 7,000 potential poll watchers so far this year. As in many states, poll watchers are only permitted in North Carolina if they have been designated by the major parties. But in Michigan, organizations that register with local election offices also can provide poll watchers. A coalition of groups that have questioned the 2020 election are scrambling to get as many of their members in place as possible in the politically critical state. “The best I can do is put a whole bunch of eyeballs on it to make sure that anything that doesn’t look right gets a further look,” said Sandy Kiesel, executive director of the Michigan Election Integrity Fund and Force, part of a coalition that recruited 5,000 poll watchers for the state’s August primary. Kiesel said several of her coalition’s poll watchers and poll challengers — Michigan law allows one person to observe and another person to formally lodge challenges at precincts — were prevented from observing or escorted out of polling places in August. Michigan election officials are bracing for more confrontations in November. Patrick Colbeck, a former Republican state senator and prominent election conspiracy theorist who is part of Kiesel’s coalition, announced this past week that a comprehensive fall push to scrutinize every aspect of voting would be called “Operation Overwatch.” “They are talking about intimidating people who have the right to vote,” said Barb Byrum, clerk of Michigan’s Ingham County, which includes Lansing, the state capital. In a sign of the importance the state’s Republicans place on poll watchers, the GOP-controlled Legislature last week agreed to let election offices throughout Michigan start processing mailed ballots two days before Election Day — something most states with mail voting allow long before then — but only if they allow poll watchers to observe. The ballots are not actually counted until Election Day. In Texas, a new law allows every candidate to assign up to two poll watchers, raising the potential that observers could pack polling locations, particularly around big cities such as Dallas and Houston where ballots are the longest. According to records from the secretary of state’s office, more than 900 people in Texas already had received poll watching certification in the three weeks after the state opened required training on Sept. 1. ___ Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, Gabe Stern in Reno, Nevada, and P...

Indonesia Authorities Say 125 Dead In Soccer Stadium Stampede https://digitalalabamanews.com/indonesia-authorities-say-125-dead-in-soccer-stadium-stampede/ Around 180 injured during crowd stampede Indonesia football association suspends league to investigate Police say they fired tear gas to control crowd MALANG, Indonesia, Oct 2 (Reuters) – A stampede at a soccer stadium in Indonesia has killed at least 125 people and injured 180 after police sought to quell violence on the pitch, authorities said on Sunday, in one of the world’s worst stadium disasters. Officers fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse agitated supporters of the losing home side who had invaded the pitch after the final whistle in Malang, East Java, on Saturday night, the region’s police chief Nico Afinta told reporters. “It had gotten anarchic. They started attacking officers, they damaged cars,” Nico said, adding that the crush occurred when fans fled for an exit gate. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Some local officials had put the death toll at 174, but East Java Deputy Governor Emil Dardak said the number of fatalities had subsequently been revised down to 125. The earlier figure may have included duplicate fatalities, he said. The stadium disaster appeared to be the world’s worst in decades. Video footage from local news channels showed fans streaming onto the pitch after Arema FC lost 3-2 to Persebaya Surabaya around 10 p.m. (1500 GMT), followed by scuffles, and what appeared to be clouds of tear gas and unconscious fans being carried out of the venue. Many victims at the nearby Kanjuruhan hospital suffered from trauma, shortness of breath and a lack of oxygen due to the large number of people at the scene affected by tear gas, said paramedic Boby Prabowo. The head of another hospital in the area told Metro TV that some victims had sustained brain injuries and that the fatalities included a 5-year-old. President Joko Widodo said authorities must thoroughly evaluate security at matches, adding that he hoped this would be “the last soccer tragedy in the nation”. Jokowi, as the president is known, ordered the Football Association of Indonesia, PSSI, to suspend all games in the top league BRI Liga 1 until an investigation had been completed. TEAR GAS RULES World soccer’s governing body FIFA specifies in its safety regulations that no firearms or “crowd control gas” should be carried or used by stewards or police. East Java police did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they were aware of such regulations. FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a statement to Reuters that the football world was in “a state of shock following the tragic incidents that have taken place in Indonesia” and the event was “dark day for all involved”. FIFA has requested a report on the incident from PSSI, which has sent a team to Malang to investigate, PSSI secretary general Yunus Nusi told reporters. Indonesia’s human rights commission also plans to investigate security at the grounds, including the use of tear gas, its commissioner told Reuters. “Many of our friends lost their lives because of the officers who dehumanised us,” said Muhammad Rian Dwicahyono, 22, crying as he nursed a broken arm at the local Kanjuruhan hospital. “Many lives have been wasted.” On Sunday mourners gathered outside the gates of the stadium to lay flowers for the victims. Amnesty International Indonesia slammed the security measures, saying the “use of excessive force by the state … to contain or control such crowds cannot be justified at all”. The country’s chief security minister, Mahfud MD, said in an Instagram post that the stadium had been filled beyond its capacity. Some 42,000 tickets had been issued for a stadium designed to hold 38,000 people, he said. INDONESIAN FOOTBALL SCENE Financial aid would be given to the injured and the families of victims, East Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa told reporters. There have been outbreaks of trouble at matches in Indonesia before, with strong rivalries between clubs sometimes leading to violence among supporters. Crowds pack stadiums but the football scene in Indonesia, a country 275 million people, has been blighted by hooliganism, heavy-handed policing and mismanagement. Zainudin Amali, Indonesia’s sports minister, told KompasTV the ministry would re-evaluate safety at football matches, including considering not allowing spectators in stadiums. Periodic stadium disasters have horrified fans around the world. In 1964, 328 people were killed in a crush when Peru hosted Argentine at the Estadio Nacional. In a 1989 British disaster, 96 Liverpool supporters were crushed to death when an overcrowded and fenced-in enclosure collapsed at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. Indonesia is scheduled to host the FIFA under-20 World Cup in May and June next year. They are also one of three countries bidding to stage next year’s Asian Cup, the continent’s equivalent of the Euros, after China pulled out as hosts. The head of the Asian Football Confederation, Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, said in a statement he was “deeply shocked and saddened to hear such tragic news coming out of football-loving Indonesia”, expressing condolences for the victims, their families and friends. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Yuddy Cahya Budiman and Prasto Wardoyo in Malang, Stefanno Sulaiman and Stanley Widianto in Jakarta, and Tommy Lund in Gdansk Writing by Kate Lamb Editing by Ed Davies, William Mallard, Kim Coghill and Frances Kerry Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More…

Mathews: Why Gavin Newsom Will Never Be America’s President https://digitalalabamanews.com/mathews-why-gavin-newsom-will-never-be-americas-president/ If Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are going to create space for hate and human rights violations, then why should anyone complain about California Gavin Newsom creating spaces that protect the rest of us? That’s the question that should be posed to California pundits who have responded with knee-jerk cynicism to Newsom’s many interventions on behalf of Trump’s targets.  These pundits describe the governor’s forays into national disputes over abortion, immigration, and LGBTQ rights as political ploys — performed in service of presidential ambitions. The truth is the exact opposite. Whether he’s trumpeting a maximalist pro-abortion stance on out-of-state billboards or banning state-funded travel to places hostile to LGTBQ people, Newsom is actually throwing away whatever chances he might have had of being president. Getting elected president, if you’re a Democrat, is about soft-pedaling divisive issues, and building broad, diverse coalitions. That’s how Barack Obama and Joe Biden won the White House. But Newsom’s constant blasts into cultural politics divide the country and make enemies. While picking fights with Trump and like-minded governors might be good politics, Newsom is also calling out national Democrats, including Biden, for not being combative enough. And his national battles are hurting his presidential chances, particularly in battleground states like Arizona and North Carolina (to which California banned state-funded travel). So why is Gavin Newsom, of all people, sacrificing his chances? I think there are three possible explanations—  two that are peculiar to our very peculiar governor, and one that stems from California’s growing estrangement from the United States. The first explanation is that Newsom simply can’t help himself. The governor has always lacked discipline, ignoring basic rules of political communication. He uses three big words when one short one will do. He’s often a witness against himself, volunteering arguments against his own policies. He offers too many details, like an overeager waiter at  his restaurants, telling you about all the specials, when you just want to order. Newsom’s self-indulgence has verged into personal recklessness—he had an affair with a top aide’s wife, and dined maskless at the French Laundry during the pandemic. That’s the ugly side of Newsom’s undiscipline. But there is an admirable side to it, too — which leads me to the second explanation. While wise politicians try to avoid fights, Newsom tends to jump into disputes, and draw fire to himself. Why? I can’t read his mind or put this child of divorce on a psychiatrist’s couch. But, reviewing his speeches, I believe that Newsom often intervenes when he feels someone needs protection. Just go back and look at his endless budget press conferences, where he explains almost every expenditure in defensive language. He is constantly protecting—the climate, the environment, the homeless, children, this community, that interest group. This protective instinct is why he’s jumped into national politics. If media are going to give the Trumpists space to spew hate, attack democracy, and spread fear among women and immigrants and gay people, how can he sit on the sidelines? His recent decision to place billboards — paid for with his own campaign money, in seven states that eliminated abortion rights—is a perfect example of the Newsomian mindset. The boards tell women that California will protect their right to bodily autonomy and to abortion. If such boards turn off Ohio and Florida voters—whom a Democratic presidential contender will need someday — so what? Let me be clear: these interventions aren’t heroic. Here at home, his national blasts are good politics, feeding his base. And contrary to critics who say Newsom’s national forays distract from his duties to Californians, the governor’s national fights actually help him do his job. How? By keeping him in the spotlight, which has allowed him to make a public case for his wildly ambitious agenda. But Newsom’s California supremacy is poison in the other 49 states, where Americans can’t accept the truth that we really do know better. That’s why Newsom is not sacrificing much when he sabotages his future White House prospects. A Californian doesn’t have much chance at the presidency anyway. And Newsom is demographically wrong for a Democratic party that desperately needs to nominate more women and people of color. But Newsom is perfectly cast to call out while male political bullies. And who knows? While he’ll never be America’s president, he still could lead a nation someday. If our state and the rest of the country continue to apart, it’s not hard to imagine Newsom as the first president of an independent California Republic. Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square. Read More…

Justice Thomas Goes Toe-To-Toe With The Legal ‘chimpanzee’ https://digitalalabamanews.com/justice-thomas-goes-toe-to-toe-with-the-legal-chimpanzee/ Justice Clarence Thomas has been on the Supreme Court for more than three decades, and his judicial philosophy rooted in adhering to the original meaning of the Constitution is finally controlling big rulings.  Yet he’s still cranking out opinions just like his days wandering in the legal desert of the liberal “living Constitution” era. “He’s always been one to kind of identify problems that maybe the court hasn’t grappled with, or issues that need to be brought up,” said Carrie Severino, who clerked for the justice 15 years ago.  “It’s taken decades, he’s been on the court over 30 years now, but the court has ultimately been like ‘Oh, yeah, that is an issue we need to look at.’”  The difference between then and now, she said, is “you now see a majority of justices joining him.” Justice Thomas will take the bench Monday for the start of the 2022-2023 term after his most influential year yet. He led colleagues in forcefully asserting Second Amendment gun rights and First Amendment religious free-exercise rights, and of course, defenestrating Roe v. Wade. That 1973 decision had been the guide star of liberal legal scholarship for decades, yet it succumbed to Justice Thomas’s brand of originalism last year. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the chief opinion, saying it was time to undo years of wrong legal reasoning that had led to — and flowed from — Roe. Justice Thomas joined the ruling, but wrote a concurring opinion to warn his colleagues that their job is not done. He said the same “substantive due process” right that Roe had relied on to establish a national right to abortion has been the basis for other decisions, on federal constitutional guarantees of access to contraception and same-sex marriage. Ms. Severino said that’s typical Thomas. She said he likens the court’s use of precedent to justify later decisions with engineers adding more cars to a train. “He’s like, ‘Look, you want me to add another car to this long train. I don’t even know where this train is going,  who’s driving this train. So what we need to do is trace it back, go forward one car at a time until we get to the very beginning, we find out what is going on,’” she said. “Sometimes, he says, you’ll find there’s a chimpanzee driving it. We should not be adding more cases to this line of reasoning.” That’s one reason why, at a time when his philosophy is controlling more of the court’s opinions, he’s still writing prolifically. Adam Feldman, who runs Empirical SCOTUS, said Justice Thomas writes a separate opinion for every five cases on which he votes. That’s a full opinion ahead of the runner-up, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the closest thing that the liberal wing of the court has to Justice Thomas. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., by contrast, writes a separate opinion just once in every 14.5 cases he votes on, according to Mr. Feldman’s data. “Even when [Justice Thomas] agrees with the outcome, he will go further in asserting his own points of view,” Mr. Feldman said. That’s particularly true when it comes to the use of stare decisis, the legal concept of fealty to precedent. In the hands of many justices, it can be a shield to defend a position, or a weapon to attack a colleague’s position, depending on the needs of the moment. For Justice Thomas, it’s usually just an academic question to be surmounted. “Thomas will go out and say, ‘I don’t think it’s just overturning the law in this case, I don’t think there’s a distinct place for stare decisis in our jurisprudence that requires our respect. If I don’t agree with it, I’m going to overturn it,’” Mr. Feldman said. “He takes it a step further.” Over the last term, Justice Thomas wrote eight concurring opinions where he agreed with the outcome, but wanted to make his particular points, as in the abortion ruling. He had the highest concurrence rate on the court. In the upcoming term, court-watchers figure Justice Thomas will play a significant role in looming cases involving voting rights, election procedures, affirmative action in college admissions and First Amendment challenges to laws that require service for same-sex marriages even when it conflicts with a business owner’s religious dictates. “I could see him having, just because where he sits on these issues of religious liberty and the right to exclude based on a religious perspective, I could see him having some further-reaching opinion than the court’s willing to go,” Mr. Feldman said. That the 6-3 conservative court has tilted toward Justice Thomas is mostly a matter of math. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement and Ginsburg’s death opened up slots that have been filled by more conservative-leaning members, tilting a court from moderately originalist to aggressively originalist. Justice Thomas has found a new voice in oral argument during the pandemic. He was famously reticent to take part in the back-and-forth during oral arguments, and once went a decade without asking a question. The New York Times sniffed that he’d given various explanations for his silence, but seemed to settle on one that it was rude to the litigants to interrupt and preen and prod, as has been the practice for oral argument in recent years. When the pandemic struck, the court went to virtual hearings, and Chief Justice Roberts carved out specific time for each justice to ask questions, since talking over each other remotely would be a disaster. Justice Thomas, as the senior member of the court, got the first crack, and he began to engage again. The court has gone back to in-person argument, but Chief Justice Roberts has maintained the structured format for each member to have a dedicated chance at questions, and Justice Thomas remains engaged. “I think his colleagues recognized the value that added,” Ms. Severino said. His success on the bench has led to a rocky summer. George Washington University’s law school, where he has co-taught a constitutional law seminar for years, faced a rebellion of sorts from students who demanded he be fired. The school rejected those calls, saying that while the justice’s views didn’t represent the school’s beliefs, an open debate was part of the point of education. But Justice Thomas himself then withdrew from teaching the class. Meanwhile, an online petition circulated over the summer demanding the justice’s impeachment garnered more than a million backers, though Democrats on Capitol Hill dismissed the idea as a non-starter. His wife Virginia “Ginni” Thomas has also been under scrutiny for communications surrounding the 2020 election and her attendance at the pro-Trump rally on Jan. 6, 2021. She testified Thursday to the House committee probing the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol later that day, reportedly telling lawmakers she believes the election was stolen. She also said Justice Thomas doesn’t discuss his court work with her. His detractors wonder whether the 74-year-old jurist will call it quits soon. Ms. Severino doubts it. “No way,” she said. “On the Supreme Court, the mid-70s is like the new 40s.” Read More…

UAE: New Mobile Police Station Launched In Sharjah https://digitalalabamanews.com/uae-new-mobile-police-station-launched-in-sharjah/ This is in line with the Ministry of Interior’s strategy aimed at enhancing customer satisfaction with the services provided Published: Sun 2 Oct 2022, 3:38 PM Sharjah Police launched a new mobile police station in order to receive traffic and crime reports in various parts of the emirate. Their aim is to provide residents with the best services. During the launch ceremony, Major General Saif Al Zari Al Shamsi, Commander in Chief of Sharjah Police, said that the launch of the vehicle comes as part of the efforts made by the authority to improve the services it provides to customers. This is in line with the Ministry of Interior’s strategy aimed at enhancing customer satisfaction with the services provided. Major General Saif Al Zari Al Shamsi confirmed that the move comes as a continuation of the plans set by Sharjah Police, that the stations for providing traffic and crime services will be spread in all areas of the emirate to facilitate the customers to complete their various transactions without the need to go to police stations. Lt. Colonel Khalid Mohammad Al Kai, Director of the Vehicles and Drivers Licensing Department at Sharjah Police, said that the vehicle is equipped with all the smart systems that is upgradable to cope developments technology. It will work to provide proactive services to customers where they are, represented in various traffic and criminal services, including eye examination and driver license renewal. The vehicle will reach elderly and people of determination to their doorsteps and provide them the services related to traffic and crime such as filing reports and complaints. ALSO READ: UAE: Over 200kg drugs seized as cops raid villa UAE: Director Alejandra Alcala humanises refugee issue in ‘The Neighbourhood Storyteller’ at SIFF 2022 Read More…

Cooper Green Mercy Health: 50 Years Of Care For The Neediest https://digitalalabamanews.com/cooper-green-mercy-health-50-years-of-care-for-the-neediest/ By Nicole S. Daniel | The Birmingham Times Cooper Green Mercy Health Services, the facility that has cared for Jefferson County’s underserved population, is celebrating its 50th year this fall—and at the same time preparing for the next 50 and beyond with a brand new $120 million, five-story building. One word usually comes to mind for those familiar with the facility: “Lifesaver.” That’s a word used by Maralyn Mosley, 84, a health care advocate who, after going through a divorce, returned to Birmingham from New York in December 1988 and found out she had high blood pressure. “I was using a public health clinic in North Birmingham that was run by the health department. When they closed down the adult medicine clinic, I went to Cooper Green. I went to the emergency department, and they immediately took me in. I was an indigent Black woman, overweight,” said Mosley, who remembers she was never asked whether she had a job or money. “They started to treat my high blood pressure and gave me enough medication to see me through,” she added. “That was my introduction to Cooper Green, and I have been there ever since. I was one of the many patients they served that had no health care [coverage]. I didn’t [have] a lot of money, so Cooper Green was a lifesaver for me, as it was for a lot of people.” Former Jefferson County CEO Tony Petelos, outside Cooper Green Mercy Health Services on Sixth Ave. South. (Joe Songer, For The Birmingham Times) Tony Petelos, former Jefferson County Manager, is one of those. He recalls attending a 2014 meeting at Cooper Green during which he thought to himself, “I know something is going on.” After the meeting, Petelos went downstairs to the urgent care facility because his primary doctor had retired. After undergoing a series of tests, he was told to visit a urologist, a medical professional who specializes in diagnosing and treating diseases of the urinary tract and the male reproductive system. “When I did that, I found out I had bladder and prostate cancer. So, the beginning of my cancer journey was at Cooper Green, which informed me that I needed to go see a specialist, which I did,” said Petelos, who is now cancer-free. While Cooper Green has been lifesaver for the last 50 years, Petelos said he’s very excited to see the facility move into a new era. “It has saved a lot of lives and helped people that could not afford insurance or did not have other means recover from sicknesses and injuries,” he said. “[I am excited to see] a state-of-the-art facility that will be able to continue to provide services to some of the poorest people in Jefferson County, as well as to the working poor that don’t have insurance.” State-of-the-Art Last week, the Cooper Green Mercy Health Services Authority received final approval from the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama System to move forward with plans to replace the current Cooper Green building with a state-of-the-art medical clinic; construction should begin this winter. The new facility—a five-story, 207,000-square-foot building with an overall estimated cost of $120 million—will be built on the site of the former Cooper Green parking deck, which was demolished earlier this year. The building will feature new equipment, including plans for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine that will ease scheduling for Cooper Green patients who need screening. Other amenities that will improve access to care include an expanded rehabilitation suite with a covered outdoor section for developing outdoor skills, such as navigating curbs and different ground surfaces. In addition, the new facility will house several other professional and community services, such as Cahaba Dental, the Recovery Resource Crisis Center, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Community Psychiatry Program, and the UAB School of Nursing Providing Access to Healthcare (PATH) Clinic. “We are building a first-class medical facility to serve the residents of Jefferson County,” said David Randall, chief strategy officer for the UAB Health System and board president and CEO of the Cooper Green Mercy Health Services Authority. “Jefferson County leadership and UAB are committed to providing the highest-quality health care for Cooper Green patients, and this new facility is an important step toward achieving that goal.” Raegan Durant, M.D., medical director for Cooper Green, said investment in the new building “is a sign of our commitment to ensuring that there will be another 50 years of providing … care and services to [underserved] populations.” Mercy Hospital opened in 1972 to provide health care to all residents of Jefferson County, regardless of ability to pay. In 1975, the hospital was renamed after Birmingham mayor and Jefferson County Commission president Cooper Green. Over the years, the facility faced several challenges and changes. Once a 319-bed inpatient hospital, Cooper Green Mercy transitioned to a medical-service clinic in August 2012, after a majority of the Jefferson County Commission voted to close the inpatient care unit and emergency room. On Jan. 1, 2013, Cooper Green Hospital closed and began operating as an urgent care center with primary clinics. In 2020, a UAB-led authority assumed responsibility for the day-to-day operations at Cooper Green Mercy Health services, ushering in a new era of care for the indigent population in Jefferson County. “The goal for us is to expand care … but also bring to bear UAB’s expertise around larger purchasing,” Randall said at the time. Exemplary Care Despite all of the changes, Cooper Green’s exemplary care has never changed, Mosely said. Although hundreds of patients were in and out of the facility, doctors always showed compassion and concern. “They did dynamite work considering the number of patients they saw in a day,” she said. Maralynn Mosley (Birmingham Times file photo) When Mosley first became a patient, Cooper Green had candy stripers: “Young women wearing candy-striped aprons would come around, especially in the morning, and offer you orange juice and crackers,” Mosely recalled. “That was part of Cooper Green, and that was nice.” Meanwhile, some of the doctors would help patients enroll in programs that would decrease the cost of medication. “If you were indigent … your doctor or your primary doctor would fill out some papers for you. My primary said to me, ‘Ms. Mosley, I am going to fill out this form for you, so the drug company will send your high blood pressure medication directly to you, and it won’t cost you anything.’” At the time, Mosley was struggling financially and couldn’t afford to pay for her medication. “I would get half of it filled for two weeks and the other half the next two weeks, so it was God-sent when my primary [physician] filled out the forms for me … to receive my high blood pressure medication at no cost,” she said. “It was a lifesaver.” Like most, Mosley is excited about Cooper Green’s 50th anniversary. “I think it’s tremendous that Cooper Green has survived 50 years,” she said. “I believe they have provided quality health care to the citizens in Jefferson County, and not just in Birmingham.” As for the new building Mosley said, “I’m excited. Just because you are poor, does that mean you don’t deserve the best? I think the new building is going to be fabulous.” Cooper Green Mercy Health Services operates as an outpatient clinic at 1515 6th Ave. S., Birmingham, AL 35233. Urgent care is open Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and clinics are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. To get connected with Cooper Green, call 205-930-3377. This article originally appeared in The Birmingham Times. Post Views: 93 Read More…

Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet: All You Need To Know To Win In Week 4 https://digitalalabamanews.com/fantasy-football-cheat-sheet-all-you-need-to-know-to-win-in-week-4/ play Why fantasy managers should consider playing Evan Engram (1:29) Liz Loza explains why Evan Engram may be under the radar, but is a decent choice for the TE position in Week 4. (1:29) 6:13 AM ET AJ MassESPN Staff Writer Close Fantasy football, baseball and college basketball contributor. Author of book, “Yes, It’s Hot in Here.” So much changes from week to week around the NFL, and we’re here to make sure you’re on top of it all heading into Week 4 of the 2022 NFL season. The weekly fantasy football cheat sheet provides a rundown of the best tips from all the fantasy football content that ESPN has posted over the past seven days. You’ll find answers to the biggest start/sit questions of the week and other pertinent matchup advice from our team, including Field Yates, Mike Clay, Eric Karabell, Tristan H. Cockcroft, Matt Bowen, Seth Walder, Al Zeidenfeld, Eric Moody, Liz Loza, Daniel Dopp and ESPN Insiders Jeremy Fowler and Dan Graziano, plus all of NFL Nation. It’s all the best advice in one handy article. Here’s what our experts are saying about Week 4 in the NFL: Uncertainty in the backfield While there are a lot of fantasy managers who are more than happy to be able to “set it and forget it” by starting Saquon Barkley or Jonathan Taylor every week, there seem to be far more backfield situations where there doesn’t seem to be any true No. 1 option. Our NFL Nation team discussed a few of these murkier situations, which have arisen either by design or by necessity. Is this a full-blown backfield committee where nobody matters for fantasy? The Kansas City Chiefs still don’t seem comfortable using Clyde Edwards-Helaire in most third-down situations, and until they do the backfield is going to be more of a committee thing. But don’t ignore that Edwards-Helaire has three touchdowns in three games. He probably won’t maintain that pace, but he seems to be the Chiefs’ favorite near the goal line. — Adam Teicher What should you expect the touch split between Cam Akers and Darrell Henderson Jr. to be moving forward? The way the game is playing out affects these splits, so it’s hard to predict. Akers spent most of the first half against the Cardinals on the sidelines, but after an impressive series Sean McVay continued to lean on him, and he and Henderson ended the game with a 50/50 split in carries. I’d lean on close to that going forward, with the expectation that there will be several games this season in which McVay continues to ride the hot hand. — Sarah Barshop When David Montgomery went to IR with a knee injury in 2021, Khalil Herbert averaged 19.5 carries and over 70 rushing yards per game Weeks 5-8, providing the Chicago Bears a glimpse at how effective the run game can still be without its No. 1 back. When Montgomery exited the Houston game early with an ankle injury, Herbert ran all over the Texans (19 carries, 157 yards and 2 TDs) and leads all running backs in rushing yards over expectation per attempt, according to Next Gen Stats. In short, Herbert can be every bit of what Montgomery provides to Chicago’s offense. The Bears are going to need to lean on the run game while they work through issues with their passing attack, so Herbert will have ample opportunity for a consistent workload no matter how much time Montgomery may have to miss. — Courtney Cronin Can you rely on rookie receivers? Last season, Ja’Marr Chase of the Cincinnati Bengals exploded onto the scene with a stellar rookie campaign that consisted of 81 catches for 1,455 yards and 13 touchdowns. Let’s be clear: That’s not typical for a first-year player. However, fantasy managers are always hoping to catch that next bit of lightning in a bottle, even though it might not strike again for quite some time. Here’s a quick look at how some of the newest rookie WRs are doing in 2022. In Week 3, Treylon Burks of the Tennessee Titans saw just two targets (compared with six for Derrick Henry and nine for Robert Woods). Should we remain patient on the rookie or are we looking at an unreliable fantasy asset for the rest of this season? Remain patient. Burks is continuing to find an increasing role in the Titans game plan. The targets will come his way. Offensive coordinator Todd Downing wants to get him more opportunities with the ball in his hands to take advantage of his yards after catch ability. Downing said Burks has been growing every week and generating confidence with the coaching staff because of how he has taken advantage of the opportunities that have come his way. The play-action passes across the middle that used to result in touchdowns for A.J. Brown are now earmarked for Burks. Ryan Tannehill called Burks a big, strong, physical receiver with great hands and good body control. — Turron Davenport Is Romeo Doubs the WR1 in the Green Bay Packers‘ offense or is it going to change weekly? The way Aaron Rodgers raved about him after the latest game, Doubs just might be next in line for that role. While Rodgers is always going to rely on Randall Cobb and Allen Lazard, there’s no denying that Doubs can do things others can’t. His combination of route running and athletic ability — combined with fast-improving hands — make him the most likely receiver to break out in this offense. That’s not to say Christian Watson won’t, but Doubs is off to a much faster start, and there might not be any looking back now. — Rob Demovsky With 13 targets in consecutive games for Chris Olave of the New Orleans Saints, is he someone we can now count on weekly? For now, yes, because the other options are dwindling by the week. With Taysom Hill, Michael Thomas, Jarvis Landry, Deonte Harty and Tre’Quan Smith all injured in some form, Olave just might be the last man standing. On a positive note, the rookie appears to be improving by the week. — Katherine Terrell Looking for the latest injury news leading up to kickoff? Check out all of the Week 4 inactives here. Are veteran receivers any better? While rookie receivers don’t always live up to the hype, you’re supposed to feel a bit more comfortable on a weekly basis with some of the wideouts with a bit of a track record in the NFL. So what do our experts have to say about a few of these WR options with a bit more experience who haven’t quite performed up to the ADP in 2022? Justin Jefferson of the Minnesota Vikings had a huge Week 1 (184 yards, 2 TDs) but has struggled since. Mike Clay believes the down days may continue: “The success defenses have had shadowing Jefferson this season suggests we can expect Marshon Lattimore to travel with him in Week 4. These teams last met in Week 16 of 2020, and Lattimore shadowed Jefferson on 35 of his 41 routes, including 33-of-34 on the perimeter. Jefferson had a solid day, posting a 6-85-0 receiving line on 10 targets, though 30 yards of that came away from Lattimore’s coverage. Lattimore is playing well and the Saints have been solid against receivers, so this is another tough spot for Jefferson.” Here’s what Field Yates thinks about DJ Moore of the Carolina Panthers: “Through three games, Moore has just 88 receiving yards after just 2 yards in Week 3. It’s astonishing, as Moore is an incredible talent. The bottom line is that the passing offense he’s in is among the least efficient and lowest volume in the league, so his 23% target share is offset by those factors. I love Moore, but he’s a sit right now.” play 1:34 Field Yates and Mike Clay break down DJ Moore’s fantasy struggles and what they recommend fantasy managers do with him. Meanwhile, Tristan H. Cockcroft is not feeling Rashod Bateman of the Baltimore Ravens this week against the Buffalo Bills: “The Bills have been dealing with a multitude of injuries on defense, including missing cornerbacks Tre’Davious White and Dane Jackson, safeties Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer and defensive tackle Ed Oliver in Week 3, which made it all the more impressive that they limited the Dolphins’ Jaylen Waddle to 15.1 PPR fantasy points and Tyreek Hill to 5.3 points in that game. What stands out on their side is their tendency to rein in vertical passes and big plays; the team led the NFL with only 25 receptions and no touchdowns allowed (everyone else afforded at least three) on throws at least 15 yards downfield in 2021, and they’ve allowed only six such receptions through three weeks this year. Bateman is the Ravens’ deep threat, a boom-or-bust type who doesn’t match up well against a defense like this.” Eric Karabell is left scratching his head as to why Chase Claypool of the Pittsburgh Steelers has been this disappointing in his second season: “Claypool scored 11 touchdowns as a Steelers rookie in 2020. We knew it was unlikely to last based on low volume, but still, for Claypool to have two touchdowns in 18 games over the past two seasons is quite the change in direction and value. The Steelers really need to do a better job involving Claypool. Only four teams average fewer passing yards per game than Pittsburgh, and Diontae Johnson isn’t sharing much.” Jump on the Jaguars bandwagon? Sitting at 2-1 and currently atop the AFC South, nobody is saying that the Jacksonville Jaguars (+6000) are going to win the Super Bowl just yet. That said, in terms of fantasy value? According to our experts, although you may not want to go “all in” with them, it’s not that much of a gamble to get some of these guys into your lineups when the matchup is right. We can see the development of Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence (25.18 fantasy points in Week 3) in his improved footwork and upper-body mechanics. The production in Doug Pederson’s scheme gives the quarterback leveled reads. Lawrence gets a really good test in Week 4 versus an Eagles defense with a pass rush and urgent defenders in the secondary. — Bowen I’m as impressed as anyone by Lawrence’s se...

10 Historic Churches In Alabama From Each Denomination https://digitalalabamanews.com/10-historic-churches-in-alabama-from-each-denomination/ According to a 2016 study by the Pew Research Center, Alabama is tied with Mississippi for the most religious state in the country. The most popular religion by far in Alabama is Christianity, particularly Evangelical Protestantism. Alabama is also home to a handful of other Christian denominations, including Catholics, Mainline Protestants and even Eastern Orthodox Christians. It’s no surprise that churches played a big role in our history, culture and way of life. Here are 10 historic churches from each major denomination: The first documented congregation of the Church of Christ in Alabama was founded in 1811 near the Antioch community in Jackson County by settler William J. Price. Price had been baptized in Tennessee along with his wife and a slave named Moses.  When Price died, he deeded a piece of property to the church where it presently stands. In 1864, the church building was burned down by federal troops, and it was rebuilt by 1870. The congregation of the Flint River Primitive Baptist Church formed 25 years after the end of the American War for Independence when 12 individuals gathered in 1808 at the home of James Deaton, becoming the first Baptist church in what would later become the state of Alabama. In 1809, a building was constructed near the Maysville community, and an official deed was acquired in 1819, the same year Alabama was incorporated. Flint River Church joined the Flint River Association of Baptists in the 1810s, which it still belongs to today. Photo from Flint River Primitive Baptist Church Facebook page. Methodism was brought to Alabama by traveling ministers such as Lorenzo Dow and Matthew P. Sturdevant. These traveling preachers often gave their sermons outdoors, preaching in the remote parts of the Alabama frontier.  Upon Alabama’s incorporation in 1819, the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church began building the First Methodist Church in Huntsville. It was completed in 1821 but was burned down by federal troops during the Civil War. The current building was constructed in 1867 and added to in 1924 and 1956. Photo from Huntsville First UMC Facebook. The Kimberly Church of God was founded by Martin Scott Haynes. Haynes was hired by the Methodist church in the late 1800s to design buildings for Birmingham-Southern College. He also was hired to design St. Vincent Hospital. Haynes held a revival meeting in a tent at the intersection of Stouts Road and Highway 31 in 1902, where the church still meets today. In 2014, pastor Stan Cooke told AL.com that the church was the oldest continuing Pentecostal Church in both Alabama and the United States. The church building was damaged by a tornado in 2014. Mount Cavalry Presbyterian Church was founded in 1806 by a group of men and women of mostly Scotch-Irish heritage and became a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in March 1823. The church burned down in 1925 but was rebuilt shortly after. Mount Cavalry is now part of the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA), which it joined in 1981. Photo from Mt. Cavalry Presbyterian Facebook page Named after the Anglo-Saxon monk and historian The Venerable Bede, St. Bede’s Anglican Church is the oldest continuing Anglican Church in Alabama. It was founded in 1977 by Rev. Canon William Marvin. It is a Parish of the Diocese of the Holy Cross, a non-geographic diocese of the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC). The ACC was formed in 1977 in response to the Episcopal Church’s revision of the Book of Common Prayer and its decision or ordain women. Since then, other Anglican sects have broken off of the Episcopal Church. According to the Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral website, the first Greek male immigrant arrived in Birmingham in 1884. He was the first among many. The immigrants formed “The Lord Buron Society” in 1906 to raise money to build a church and purchased a wooden building which became Holy Trinity.  After World War I, the Greek community in Birmingham grew, and an additional Orthodox church on the north side of the town, Holy Cross, was formed. The two consolidated in 1953. Photo from Holy Trinity Holy Cross website. The Cathedral Parish was established in Mobile in July 1703 during the French occupation of the settlement. In 1711, a new parish church, Our Lady of Mobile, was built, but it was renamed under Spanish occupation to its current name, Immaculate Conception. The current cathedral was designed in 1833 by Claude Beroujon. Though construction began in 1834, the Panic of 1837 delayed its completion until 1850. Photo from the Alabama Department of the Archives and History The Episcopalian Church branched off from the Church of England during the American War for Independence. In the 1800s, the Episcopalian Church was the church of many of Alabama’s prominent planters and politicians.  Christ Church Cathedral in Mobile is the oldest Episcopal congregation in Alabama. It was established in 1823, and a building was constructed from 1838 to 1840. It was significantly damaged by a hurricane in 1906 but was restored over the years. Its interior features stained Tiffany glass, and a new steeple was recently installed. Photo from Mobile.org. The first Lutheran congregation in Alabama was established by Theodore Heischman in Mobile in 1867 under the name of the “Free German Evangelical Lutheran Congregation of Mobile.” Heischman saw the construction of a church building in August 1868, but when he left for California to raise funds, he was replaced by another minister. In 1897, the congregation voted to join the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The congregation moved to a new location on Government Street in 1953 and changed its name to Grace Lutheran Church. Photo by Tim Fillmon from the Historic Marker Database. To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email will.blakely@1819news.com or find him on Twitter and Facebook. Don’t miss out! Subscribe to our newsletter and get our top stories every weekday morning. Read More…

Iran Says It Is Due $7bn For Release Of US-Iranian Father And Son https://digitalalabamanews.com/iran-says-it-is-due-7bn-for-release-of-us-iranian-father-and-son/ Iran is awaiting the release of about $7bn (£6.3bn) in funds frozen abroad, state media said on Sunday, after it allowed an Iranian-American to leave the country and released his son from detention. Baquer Namazi, 85, was permitted to leave Iran for medical treatment abroad, and his son Siamak, 50, was released from detention in Tehran, the UN said on Saturday. “With the finalisation of negotiations between Iran and the United States to release the prisoners of both countries, $7bn of Iran’s blocked resources will be released,” said the state news agency, IRNA. Billions of dollars in Iranian funds have been frozen in a number of countries – notably China, South Korea and Japan – since the US reimposed biting sanctions on the Islamic republic in 2018 after unilaterally withdrawing from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. Tehran has accused Seoul of holding $7bn of its funds “hostage”, repeatedly calling on South Korean authorities to release it. IRNA on Sunday said that “Washington is pursuing at the same time the release of its citizens detained in Tehran and the release of Iranian funds in South Korea”. The development comes amid on-off talks that have been under way since April 2021 to revive the 2015 deal that gave Iran much-needed relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. Iran has repeatedly called for the lifting of sanctions, as well as guarantees that the US will not again pull out of a revived deal. Baquer Namazi is a former Unicef official who was detained in February 2016 when he went to Iran to press for the release of his son, Siamak, who had been arrested in October the previous year. Both were convicted of espionage in October 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The father was released on medical leave in 2018 and had been serving his sentence under house arrest. Read More…

Auburn University Presents https://digitalalabamanews.com/auburn-university-presents/ Auburn University is presenting a play that is unlike any other show they’ve done in the past. “Detroit ‘67” is the university’s first production of the 2022-23 season about sibling conflict as they share their recently inherited childhood home during times of social change. “This play shows how those who don’t have much are trying their best to make ends meet. And because of the racism inherent in 1967, it shows what they’re facing and how it eventually boils over,” said Abdul-Khaliq Murthada, director of “Detroit ‘67.” Cast member Ché Echols says Auburn does not have plays like this. “When I went to audition, I looked at the pictures of past plays in the room and you don’t see many Black faces – definitely not a play with the majority of the cast being Black like ‘Detroit ‘67’ is,” Echols said. “This is going to be, for some, very refreshing to see and something that probably won’t happen again for another decade at Auburn University.” Echols and Murthada are both excited for the audience to see the relationship between each character and the family dynamic. “The story is really about the love of a family mixed in with the history of America and the American Dream,” Murthada. Echols is playing Sly, a headstrong dreamer in a time when Black men weren’t allowed to dream that big, he says. “I haven’t acted on stage since I was in high school,” Echols said. “I’ve done extra roles and music videos since then but nothing of this capacity. But this show is a different sort of level of skill.” Murthada has a background in acting and producing in California, South Dakota, Florida and many other places. “I’m very fortunate to be here. I’m so very fortunate to have such a collaborative team,” Murthada said. The show takes place at the Telfair B. Peet Theatre for four more showings: a Sunday matinee at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. as well as a 7:30 p.m. showing Tuesday and Wednesday. Tickets can be found online and are $12 for non-Auburn students, $16 for non-students and free for Auburn University students. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Read More…

The Nation In Brief: Judge Upholds Georgia Election Laws https://digitalalabamanews.com/the-nation-in-brief-judge-upholds-georgia-election-laws/ Max Baer, the chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Baer has died at age 74 only months before he was set to retire. The court confirmed Saturday that Baer died overnight at his home near Pittsburgh. (AP/Administrative office of Pennsylvania Courts) Judge upholds Georgia election laws ATLANTA — A federal judge upheld Georgia’s election laws in a ruling issued Friday evening in a blow to Fair Fight Action, the voting-rights group founded by Stacey Abrams, now the state’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee. Abrams’ group filed a lawsuit against Georgia’s secretary of state soon after her 2018 election defeat, arguing that the state’s absentee ballot policies — which require an “exact match” for names and addresses between voters’ IDs and voter registration records — represented “gross mismanagement” of the state’s election systems that violated Georgia voters’ constitutional rights. A federal judge ruled in favor of the state, however, saying the law was valid and that the “burden on voters is relatively low.” “Although Georgia’s election system is not perfect, the challenged practices violate neither the constitution nor the [Voting Rights Act],” U.S. District Judge Steve Jones wrote in his decision. “The Court finds that plaintiffs have failed to prove that the burdens imposed by [exact match] outweigh the State’s interests in preventing fraud,” said Jones, an appointee of President Barack Obama. Georgia’s “exact match” system placed nearly 50,000 Georgians’ registrations on hold before the 2018 election. Abrams’ group argued that the law was racially discriminatory because 70 percent of those people were Black. New firm’s rocket deploys satellites VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. — A new aerospace company reached orbit with its second rocket launch and deployed multiple small satellites Saturday. Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket lifted off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base in early morning darkness and arced over the Pacific. “100% mission success,” tweeted Firefly, based in Cedar Park, Texas. A day earlier, an attempt to launch abruptly ended when the countdown reached zero. The first-stage engines ignited, but the rocket automatically aborted. The rocket’s payload includes multiple small satellites designed for a variety of technology experiments and demonstrations as well as educational purposes. The mission, dubbed “To The Black,” was the company’s second demonstration flight of its entry into the market for small satellite launchers. The first Alpha was launched in September 2021 but did not reach orbit. Baer, Pennsylvania’s chief justice, dies PITTSBURGH — Max Baer, chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, has died only months before he was set to retire, the court confirmed Saturday. He was 74. Baer died overnight at his home near Pittsburgh, the court said. It didn’t give a cause of death but called his “sudden passing” a “tremendous loss for the court and all of Pennsylvania.” The court also said Justice Debra Todd becomes chief “as the justice of longest and continuous service on the court.” “Chief Justice Baer was an influential and intellectual jurist whose unwavering focus was on administering fair and balanced justice,” Todd said. “He was a tireless champion for children, devoted to protecting and providing for our youngest and most vulnerable citizens.” Gov. Tom Wolf ordered flags at government facilities, public buildings and grounds lowered to half-staff, saying he was “extremely saddened” by the death of such a “respected and esteemed jurist with decades of service to our courts and our commonwealth.” Baer, a Duquesne Law graduate, was an Allegheny County family court judge and an administrative judge in family court before being elected to the high court in 2003 and became chief justice last year. He was deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania from 1975 to 1980 and was in private practice before entering the judiciary. Earlier this year, Baer was part of the 5-2 majority as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld a wide expansion of mail-in voting in the state. Trump ex-adviser enters into plea deal LAS VEGAS — An ex-adviser to former President Donald Trump has taken a plea deal to resolve allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances to a GOP donor at a Las Vegas event. Corey Lewandowski entered into a plea agreement last month involving a charge of misdemeanor battery, according to online Clark County, Nev., records. While he did not admit to any wrongdoing, Lewandowski will undergo eight hours of impulse control counseling and 50 hours of community service. The charge is to be dismissed if he satisfies the requirements and stays out of trouble for one year. “A misdemeanor case was filed but we are pleased to say the matter has been resolved,” defense attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld said. “The court set conditions that Mr. Lewandowski will fulfill and the case will ultimately be dismissed.” Trump donor Trashelle Odom alleged that Lewandowski repeatedly touched her without her permission, made lewd comments and stalked her throughout a September 2021 fundraising event. The allegations led to several Republican figures cutting ties with him. Read More…

Nagy: The Harsh World Of 2022 As Seen From Central Europe https://digitalalabamanews.com/nagy-the-harsh-world-of-2022-as-seen-from-central-europe/ By Tibor Nagy  |  Special to the Avalanche-Journal Each year my wife Jane and I go back to Hungary to see the family I left behind as a refugee and to get an appreciation of how different the world looks when seen from Budapest as opposed to Washington, D.C. (or Lubbock). The change from 2021 to 2022 has been the most dramatic since the Iron Curtain came down in 1989, and this time it’s not for the better. Russia’s invasion of next-door Ukraine has had a monumental impact on all facets of Hungarian life, as it has on other Central European states. While Americans may feel like the Ukraine war has made our lives more difficult, our hardships have been miniscule compared to what Central Europeans are facing. (Much like the difference between how the chicken and pig are affected by being included in bacon and eggs!)Imagine your utility bill next month increasing by a factor of four or more. For members of my family, this means paying up to 50% of their monthly income for gas and electricity. And forrestaurants and other businesses it means turning off grills when not in use and every otherdevice which uses energy. Meanwhile, overall inflation is running at well over 20% making many essentials simply unaffordable. Business owners told me there is no way they can pass all costs on to customers and may just have to close. Governments are already mandating strict temperature controls for winter, and people are prepping for the worst – those who can are stockpiling wood in case there are periods when no energy is available. Some apartment blocks are even planning for communal cooking fires if electricity fails. But so far the hardships have not dimmed Central Europe’s determination to help Ukrainians. Each day some 5,000 to 10,000 Ukrainians – mostly women and children, as men remain to fight the Russians – arrive in Hungary, having quite an impact on a population of 9 million. In response, Hungary and other Central European nations have established strong support systems to make the refugees as comfortable as possible while they await an end to the war so they can go home.During Trump’s presidency, the U.S. and Hungary enjoyed mutually collaborative relations.Unfortunately, the Biden administration, instead of applauding the support Hungary is giving to Ukrainians, is focused on criticizing Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban and his “illiberal” policies and accommodationist approach to Russia – to the extent that current bilateral relations can best be described as toxic. US liberals are apoplectic over Hungary’s conservative and traditionalist views, without fully understanding Central Europe’s complex history. Unlike the U.S., Central European nations have had to fight numerous wars to maintain their national existence and save their national identities, and some – like Poland – simply disappeared from the map for long periods. And much of the region endured occupation by the Ottoman Turks for long periods, which included forced conversions to Islam – so wanting to safeguard a JudeoChristian heritage is understandable. Thus, while a socially progressive, multi-cultural, multiethnic, non-sectarian society might make sense for the US (and not all Americans even agree with that), that does not mean that it’s the default setting for all the world. If Hungarians – and others – want to pursue another model, they should have the freedom to do so.Hungary’s cooperative relations with Russia are more problematic (and I’m not objective, having lived and suffered under Russian occupation as a child). But here again, as with many African countries which have not supported US sanctions against Russia, nations choose their own relationships based on their own interests – not those of America. If the US really wants Hungary to cut its ties with Russia, most especially in the energy sector, then the correct and most effective approach would be to work collaboratively and offer alternatives, instead of simply shouting displeasure through a megaphone. And let’s remember, it was our ally Germany’s decades-long cozy relations with Russia and willingness to become hooked onRussian energy which is a major cause of Europe’s current energy crisis.So, Central Europe, given its proximity to the war, enters the Fall with a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety. This became observable in mid-September when temperatures plunged over 24 hours from the balmy 80s to the chilly and wet 50s, with the reality of the coming cold winter on the horizon. Everyone hopes for a quick end to the war, but also accepts that Russia cannot be allowed to win – else Putin will go for an even bigger goal in the next round. Europeans also fear Putin’s willingness to use battlefield nuclear weapons and the potential spread of radiation but hope that his generals will not execute such orders, or that Russian nukes – given years of neglect and corruption – will simply not function. Meanwhile, for the US to support Central Europe’s will to hold as “frontline” states against Putin’sexpansionist goals, we must focus on areas of mutual interest, instead of on what we don’t like. Ambassador Tibor Nagy was most recently Assistant Secretary of State for Africa after serving as Texas Tech’s Vice Provost for International Affairs and a 30-year career as a US Diplomat. Follow him on Twitter @TiborPNagyJr Read More…

Printed Letters: Oct. 2, 2022 https://digitalalabamanews.com/printed-letters-oct-2-2022/ Am I really the biggest threat to this country? I have a confession to make. I am “unwoke.” I am a MAGA white American male. I have been called a “deplorable” a “smelly Walmart,” “a Bible thumping gun toting racist” who voted for Donald Trump and Loren Boebert. According to our current President I am the biggest threat to America. Sun Sunday 68°/52° Showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 60s and lows in the low 50s. Chance of Rain: 99% Sunrise: 07:11:24 AM Sunset: 06:54:59 PM Humidity: 76% Wind: SE @ 12 mph UV Index: 5 Moderate Sunday Night Scattered thunderstorms. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. Low 52F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%. Mon Monday 71°/50° Isolated thunderstorms. Highs in the low 70s and lows in the low 50s. Chance of Rain: 31% Sunrise: 07:12:21 AM Sunset: 06:53:24 PM Humidity: 68% Wind: SE @ 8 mph UV Index: 6 High Monday Night A few clouds from time to time. Low near 50F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Tue Tuesday 73°/48° Abundant sunshine. Highs in the low 70s and lows in the upper 40s. Chance of Rain: 13% Sunrise: 07:13:19 AM Sunset: 06:51:49 PM Humidity: 58% Wind: ESE @ 8 mph UV Index: 6 High Tuesday Night Clear skies. Low 48F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Wed Wednesday 72°/48° Sunshine. Highs in the low 70s and lows in the upper 40s. Chance of Rain: 4% Sunrise: 07:14:16 AM Sunset: 06:50:15 PM Humidity: 47% Wind: E @ 7 mph UV Index: 6 High Wednesday Night A mostly clear sky. Low 48F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Thu Thursday 74°/48° Sunny. Highs in the mid 70s and lows in the upper 40s. Chance of Rain: 3% Sunrise: 07:15:15 AM Sunset: 06:48:41 PM Humidity: 44% Wind: ESE @ 8 mph UV Index: 6 High Thursday Night Clear. Low 48F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Fri Friday 73°/48° Plenty of sun. Highs in the low 70s and lows in the upper 40s. Chance of Rain: 15% Sunrise: 07:16:13 AM Sunset: 06:47:08 PM Humidity: 43% Wind: ESE @ 8 mph UV Index: 6 High Friday Night Mostly clear. Low 48F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Sat Saturday 74°/50° Partly cloudy. Highs in the mid 70s and lows in the low 50s. Chance of Rain: 3% Sunrise: 07:17:12 AM Sunset: 06:45:35 PM Humidity: 46% Wind: SE @ 8 mph UV Index: 5 Moderate Saturday Night Clear to partly cloudy. Low near 50F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Read More…

Zelensky Says Russian Retreat Shows Annexation Is A ‘Farce’ https://digitalalabamanews.com/zelensky-says-russian-retreat-shows-annexation-is-a-farce/ Image A photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service of President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday in Kyiv.Credit…Ukrainian Presidential Press Service, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine quickly sought to capitalize politically on the Russian retreat from the crucial rail hub of Lyman, saying that it showed that Moscow’s attempt to illegally annex much of the country was an “absolute farce.” On Friday, after Russian-appointed officials held discredited referendums in four partially occupied areas of Ukraine, the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, announced that the areas, including Donetsk Province, where Lyman is, would be absorbed into Russia and that its people would be Russian citizens “forever.” Mr. Putin claimed the residents in those provinces had voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation, but Ukraine and its Western allies dismissed the referendums as shams, as most of the citizens had fled the region and many of those left behind were forced to cast ballots at gunpoint. In his nightly address on Saturday, Mr. Zelensky said Moscow’s propagandists had filmed a “pseudo-referendum” in Donbas — the mineral-rich region that includes Donetsk and Luhansk, and that Russia now claims to control. “Russia has staged a farce in Donbas. An absolute farce, which it wanted to present as an alleged referendum,” he said, adding that “now a Ukrainian flag is there.” He then vowed that there would be more Ukrainian flags flying over the Donbas during the coming week as Kyiv’s counteroffensive inches forward. “Our flag will be everywhere,” he said. There was no public comment on Saturday from Mr. Putin or his spokesman about the Russian army’s retreat, even as pro-war commentators and two of Mr. Putin’s closest allies sharply criticized the Defense Ministry for retreating from the city. The spokesman for the Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, told the Russian state news agency Tass that the troops in Lyman had made a tactical retreat to avoid being encircled and trapped. He said the Ukrainian forces had “significant superiority” in numbers and the Russians had withdrawn “to more advantageous lines.” Image A Ukrainian military truck near Lyman, Ukraine, on Tuesday.Credit…Nicole Tung for The New York Times Russia’s retreat from Lyman on Saturday leaves its troops in the country’s east in an increasingly perilous position. The battle for the town was a continuation of Ukraine’s northeastern offensive in September, which routed Russian forces from cities, towns and dozens of villages and recaptured more than a thousand square miles of territory in the Kharkiv region. The lightning victory there severed most supply lines to Lyman, where Russian forces relied on a north-south rail line that is now mostly under Ukrainian control. With a prewar population of around 20,000 people, Lyman sits on the northeastern banks of the Siversky Donets, a meandering river that has served as a natural division between Russian and Ukrainian front lines since Russian forces captured the city in May. Now that Ukrainian forces have retaken the city, they will have a solid foothold on the northeastern side of the river that they can use to advance farther east, applying pressure on the Russian front lines that formed following their recent defeats around Kharkiv. The battle for Lyman was hard fought. In recent days and weeks Ukrainian forces closed in from the south and west. With bridges across the Siversky Donets under frequent shelling, Ukraine relied on boats to move troops and casualties to and away from the front. Dense forest near Lyman proved a confusing nightmare for both sides. Initially, recapturing the city was thought to be easy, according to Ukrainian commanders, but as days turned to weeks, Russian forces reinforced Lyman with troops that had fled from Kharkiv and elsewhere in Ukraine’s east, known as the Donbas. On Saturday, Russian authorities said its forces had retreated to a more advantageous position, effectively surrendering the town. Seizing the mineral-rich Donbas region for Russia has been one of President Vladimir V. Putin’s primary war aims since his forces invaded Ukraine in February. On Friday, he announced the official annexation of four regions in Ukraine — including the entirety of the Donbas and the two Kremlin-backed breakaway republics there that were formed in 2014. Mr. Putin has claimed that any attack on the annexed territory would amount to an attack on Russia, and he has threatened to escalate the war further, potentially with nuclear weapons. Natalia Yermak contributed reporting. The State of the War Annexation Push: After Moscow’s proxies conducted a series of sham referendums in the Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Luhansk and Donetsk, President Vladimir V. Putin declared the four territories to be part of Russia. Western leaders, including President Biden in the United States, denounced the annexation as illegal. Retreat From Key City: Russian forces withdrew from the strategically important city of Lyman, in Donetsk Province, on Oct. 1. The retreat was a significant setback for Moscow, coming just a day after Mr. Putin declared the region to be Russian territory. U.S. Military Aid: The Pentagon seems to be preparing to overhaul how the United States and its allies train and equip the Ukrainian military, reflecting what officials say is the Biden administration’s long-term commitment to supporting Ukraine in the war. Russia’s Draft: The Kremlin has acknowledged that its new military draft is rife with problems, as protests have erupted across Russia, recruitment centers have been attacked and thousands of men have left the country. Image The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in August. The plant was taken by Russian forces in March but is run by Ukrainian engineers.Credit…David Guttenfelder for The New York Times The head of the United Nations’ nuclear agency called on Saturday for the release of the director general of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, who has been detained by Russia, saying that his detention has “a very significant impact” on the safety of the Russian-controlled facility. The director general, Ihor Murashov, is responsible for nuclear and radiation safety, according to Energoatom, the Ukrainian national energy company. At around 4 p.m. Friday, a car carrying Mr. Murashov was stopped on the road leading to the plant, and he was blindfolded and taken to an unknown location, the company said. The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael M. Grossi, said in a statement on Saturday that Mr. Murashov’s detention “has an immediate and serious impact on decision-making in ensuring the safety and security of the plant.” The sudden arrest also put a psychological strain on the rest of the plant’s staff, he added. The nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, was seized by Russian forces in March but is run by Ukrainian engineers. Fighting nearby has raised international concern about an accident. Shelling has at times caused the plant to be disconnected from Ukraine’s power grid, which Ukraine’s energy minister has said put critical cooling systems at risk of relying solely on emergency backup power. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called in a statement for Russia to immediately release Mr. Murashov and urged the U.N. nuclear agency to take “decisive measures.” The I.A.E.A. has had two inspectors at the plant since September. It said in a statement on Friday that there had been a series of land mine explosions near the plant in recent days that was jeopardizing safety and security at the facility. The latest blast, the sixth reported in a week, damaged a low-voltage cable outside the fence perimeter, according to the agency. The explosion was close to a nitrogen-oxygen facility and indirectly damaged a voltage transformer at one of the reactors, the statement said. Earlier in the week, the agency said that the land mines appeared to have been set off by animals. Ukrainian and Russian military forces have accused each other of using the specter of nuclear disaster in brinkmanship in the war by making attacks near the plant. Mr. Grossi has repeatedly urged the establishment of a security zone in the area. The plant is in the Zaporizhzhia region, part of the slice of eastern and southern Ukraine that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia moved to illegally annex on Friday. Ukrainian officials have noted the fatigue and stress of Ukrainian control room employees, saying that Russian soldiers had subjected them to harsh interrogations, including torture with electric shocks, suspecting them of sabotage or of informing the Ukrainian military about activities at the plant. — Erin Mendell Image President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia displayed on Friday on a screen in Moscow as he addressed the sham annexation of four regions of Ukraine.Credit…Alexander Nemenov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images WASHINGTON — For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, top Russian officials are making explicit nuclear threats and officials in Washington are gaming out scenarios should President Vladimir V. Putin decide to use a tactical nuclear weapon to make up for the failings of Russian troops in Ukraine. In a speech on Friday, Mr. Putin raised the prospect anew, declaring again that he would use “all available means” to defend Russian territory — which he has now declared includes four provinces of eastern Ukraine. Mr. Putin reminded the world of President Harry S. Truman’s decision to drop atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 77 years ago, adding: “By the way, they created a precedent.” Senior American officials say they think the chances that Mr. Putin would employ a nuclear weapon remain low. They s...

What The War Means For Ukrainians With Disabilities https://digitalalabamanews.com/what-the-war-means-for-ukrainians-with-disabilities/ Listen to this story: Lviv, Ukraine – Four-year-old Teona sits in a room filled with purple beanbags and other sensory toys, patting an inflated balloon vigorously with both her hands. She seems cheerful and vivacious, occasionally crying out in joy. Speaking to her in a kindly, measured tone is a play therapist, Sofia. Her job is to help Teona improve her social skills. Watching the two interact, it’s hard to imagine that the last few months have been intensely traumatic for Teona in ways that she cannot articulate. For now, she is safe at the Dzherelo Children’s Rehabilitation Centre, an NGO offering rehabilitation services and treatment for young people with disabilities in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. The journey was not easy, though. She and her mother, Viktoria Plyush, 33, fled by train, waiting fearfully at dangerous checkpoints before arriving on July 9, just over four months after Russian forces captured their hometown of Hola Prystan in the southern region of Kherson. Teona has non-verbal autism, and before the Russians overran Hola Prystan she had been attending a kindergarten that provided play and speech therapy. For months, her mother clung to the hope that Ukrainian forces would liberate the area. Teona had been confined to their home for several months, unable to go to school or see any of her classmates, who had all gone to Poland or Romania with their families. She grew agitated, covering her ears and screaming constantly. “All the facilities for children with developmental disabilities shut down because they refused to cooperate with the Russian occupiers, which we think is the honourable thing to do,” Plyush says. A mild-mannered woman with a determined gaze, she sits ramrod straight in her chair as she speaks, occasionally glancing at Teona as she plays with Sofia. The family lived in fear. “Rockets were flying everywhere and there were no air raid sirens to warn us,” she recalls. The only times she left the house were to dash out to the market to buy food. The last straw came when she heard about the Russian army kidnapping civilians or fighters with Ukrainian loyalties. Teona wailed throughout the arduous two-day journey from Hola Prystan into Lviv. Now, Plyush, her husband and Teona live with her sister in Lviv. Plyush is relieved that Teona can resume the therapy she needs, and not be isolated any longer. Despite her sunny disposition and the friends she’s made at Dzherelo, Teona is still on edge following her ordeal. After months at home with Plyush in Hola Prystan, she also has separation anxiety, screaming if her mother is out of sight for more than a few minutes. But it’s not just Teona who has needed extra care after all the stress she has endured. Yaroslava Nikashin, 35, an easy-going and warm social worker at Dzherelo, says that her work in recent months has focused on supporting parents and ramping up psychological help and counselling for caregivers. “Some of the parents like her [Plyush] seem calm, but on the inside, they’re also really scared and sad,” she says. Despite worries that financing for NGOs like Dzherelo will dwindle as the war drags on and most financial aid is diverted to the armed services, Nikashin has made up her mind to continue her work. “We have to try and maintain both the quality and quantity of the services we offer and give as much as we can,” she says. The Dzherelo centre, in a suburb of Lviv, offers treatment and rehabilitation services for disabled young people [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera] Challenges accessing support As the Russian invasion grinds into its eighth month, Ukrainians with intellectual and physical disabilities – as well as their carers – continue to encounter huge challenges in accessing the support they need. According to two Brussels-based NGOs, the European Disability Forum and Inclusion Europe, some 2.7 million people with disabilities are registered in Ukraine. Of these, an estimated 261,000 have intellectual disabilities. Both organisations have documented a drastic deterioration in the quality of life for Ukrainians with disabilities. Some are unable to access medication or food, while those with developmental disabilities have seizures or become aggressive while frightened by shelling. In addition, wheelchair users or those with mobility issues are not able to access bomb shelters, so people with physical disabilities have no choice but to remain at home, leaving them at a disproportionate risk of death. Thousands more are believed to be trapped in care homes or poorly-maintained institutions, cut off from their communities and languishing in neglect. Since the end of June, Dzherelo has been working with UNICEF and the Ukrainian government on an emergency intervention, dispatching mobile teams of medical experts to seven regions of western Ukraine, focusing on remote areas where children with physical impediments and developmental difficulties might struggle to receive the assistance they need. In total, Dzherelo has supported more than 750 families through this scheme and their Lviv facility. Zoreslava Liulchak, the director of Dzherelo, says that in the early days of the war, the centre met people at the train station in Lviv who had carried their children for the entire journey from the east to western Ukraine, as they were not able to bring wheelchairs from home. “There’s also a big problem with leaving itself,” she adds. “The Russians often do not release people from the occupied territory.” She cites the example of a rehabilitation specialist from Kherson who is now working at Dzherelo. Along with his two nephews who have cerebral palsy, he had to escape through Russian-controlled Crimea, as they were not permitted to leave via any other route. These stories are commonplace, Liulchak says, and such stressful journeys can “provoke complications in physical and psychological conditions” already experienced by children with disabilities. A trampoline at the Dzherelo centre, which has helped more than 750 families through a joint emergency programme focusing on remote areas which started in late June [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera] Gruelling, expensive work Some 735km (575 miles) away in Galway, Ireland, 40-year-old Ukrainian disability rights activist Yuliia Sachuk is all too familiar with the frustrations faced by people with disabilities who are trying to evacuate to safety – whether to western Ukraine or abroad. As the chair and co-founder of Fight for Right, a female-led Ukrainian NGO for disability rights, Sachuk and her team of nearly 30 have been overworked arranging the delivery of essential medications, financial support and legal advice for more than 4,100 individuals in the disabled community since the end of February. Sachuk was studying for a master’s in disability law in Galway when she returned home in early 2022 as tensions were rising in eastern Ukraine. She fled the country in the late hours of February 24, following the invasion, with her 17-year-old son and sister after hearing about a bombing near a medical facility for people with disabilities. Their train from Kyiv kept stopping amid explosions and she frantically texted other activists in neighbouring countries for help. One of her contacts helped the family get to Romania, and eventually to Ireland. Her husband has remained in Ukraine and is volunteering with the Territorial Defence Forces. Sachuk says her work has been non-stop, gruelling and expensive. Arranging a medical evacuation for a person with disabilities, especially from the worst-affected cities, can cost the equivalent of $5,100 to $10,300 – in part due to the equipment needed. The group started a GoFundMe online crowdfunding campaign to help with evacuations and support those who cannot leave with food and medicine. As of late September, it has raised 481,096 euros ($464,188) of its 700,000-euro ($675,390) goal. According to Sachuk, requests for help from people with disabilities continue to stream in. Aside from receiving initial guidance from two US-based organisations – the Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies and the World Institute on Disability – on how to set up Fight For Right’s response strategy, Sachuk says they were let down by other international disability charities. “In the first months of the war, all these organisations were not helpful at all when it comes to direct support. Nobody worked with us,” Sachuk says. “If [we’re talking about] getting a person here and now to help a disabled person to their car, or to buy some food or medicine, all of these organisations have failed.” Ukrainian disability organisations were left on their own to save people, she says. With sadness, she recalls the first few months of the war when she received goodbye calls and messages from people with disabilities in occupied regions. “They were stuck in their houses and they didn’t have the possibility of evacuation,” she says. Sachuk knows intimately what it means to live with a disability. Born in the western Ukrainian city of Lutsk with severe congenital visual impairment, she was in and out of hospital throughout her childhood as she underwent multiple eye surgeries. Her sight is still poor today but she says she manages to get by with the aid of magnifying glasses and enlarged letters on computer screens. “When you have lived with this for all your life, you get used to it, and stop thinking of it as a problem,” she says. She credits her parents for fighting for her to attend a state-run school, instead of one of the boarding schools for children with disabilities that are infamous for rampant abuse and mistreatment. At school, she was bullied by classmates. She remembers hearing stories about children with disabilities who were confined to their homes as some parents were ashamed of them. “It was just not talked ...

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