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Trump Lawyers Don't Want To Say If He Declassified Documents In FBI Search https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-lawyers-dont-want-to-say-if-he-declassified-documents-in-fbi-search/ Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 3, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers resisted revealing whether he declassified materials seized in an August FBI search of his Florida home as the U.S. judge appointed to review the documents planned his first conference on the matter on Tuesday. Judge Raymond Dearie on Monday circulated a draft plan to both sides that sought details on documents Trump allegedly declassified, as he claimed publicly and without evidence, though his lawyers have not asserted that in court filings. In a letter filed ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Trump’s lawyers argued it is not time and would force him to reveal a defense to any subsequent indictment – an acknowledgement that the investigation could lead to criminal charges. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Dearie, a senior federal judge in Brooklyn, was selected as an independent arbiter known as a special master. He will help decide which of the more than 11,000 documents seized in the Aug. 8 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home should be kept from the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the alleged mishandling of the documents. Dearie will recommend to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon which documents may fall under attorney-client privilege or an assertion of executive privilege, which allows a president to withhold certain documents or information. It is unclear whether the review would go forward as instructed by Cannon, the Florida judge appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020 who ordered the review. Trump is under investigation for retaining government records, some marked as highly classified, at the resort in Palm Beach, his home after leaving office in January 2021. He has denied wrongdoing, and said without providing evidence that he believes the investigation is a partisan attack. The Justice Department on Friday appealed a portion of Cannon’s ruling, seeking to stay the review of roughly 100 documents with classified markings and the judge’s restricting FBI access to them. Federal prosecutors said the special master review ordered by the judge would hinder the government from addressing national security risks and force the disclosure of “highly sensitive materials.” On Tuesday, Trump’s legal team filed its response to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, opposing the government’s request and calling the Justice Department’s investigation “unprecedented and misguided.” In their 40-page filing, Trump’s attorneys said the court should not take the Justice Department at its word that the roughly 100 documents in question are in fact still classified, and said the special master should be permitted to review them as a step towards “restoring order from chaos.” In Cannon’s order appointing Dearie as special master, she asked him to conclude his review by the end of November. She instructed him to prioritize the documents marked classified, though her process calls for Trump’s counsel to review the documents, and Trump’s lawyers may not have the necessary security clearance. The Justice Department has described the special master process as unnecessary, as it has already conducted its own attorney-client privilege review and set aside about 500 pages that could qualify. It opposes an executive privilege review, saying any such assertion over the records would fail. The August FBI search came after Trump left office with documents that belong to the government and did not return them, despite numerous requests by the government and a subpoena. It is still unclear whether the government has all the records. The Justice Department has said some classified material still could be missing after the FBI recovered empty folders with classification markings from Mar-a-Lago. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Karen Freifeld, additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham, David Gregorio and Chizu Nomiyama Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More Here

Donald Trump Mocks Biden's Seating At Queen's Funeral, But The January 6 Committee Hearings Are Back https://digitalalaskanews.com/donald-trump-mocks-bidens-seating-at-queens-funeral-but-the-january-6-committee-hearings-are-back/ The landscape for Donald Trump is looking increasingly grim this week. Article continues below advertisement Not only was he not invited to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, but the January 6 committee hearings return date has been announced and his legal team’s bid for a ‘special master’ to protect him in the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation may have just backfired. So what does the former POTUS (FPOTUS) do? He mocks Biden and pushes children’s books – but that isn’t stopping the inevitable. Article continues below advertisement Trump Mocks where Biden was Seated for the Funeral He Wasn’t Even Invited To Article continues below advertisement Trump took to Truth Social after the Queen’s funeral to post an image of where the Bidens were seated during the ceremony, writing, “This is what’s happened to America in just two short years. No respect! However, a good time for our President to get to know the leaders of certain Third World countries. If I were president, they wouldn’t have sat me back there—and our Country would be much different than it is right now!” Of course – Trump wasn’t invited. So his seating was arguably worse. But Trump seemed undeterred by that small detail, “re-truthing” the same image an hour later, adding this time, “In Real Estate, like in Politics and in Life, LOCATION IS EVERYTHING!!!” Article continues below advertisement January 6 Commitee Hearings are Back, and Subpoenas are Plentiful The FPOTUS then took to Truth to blast a series of posts about Don Lemon (former CNN anchor), a children’s book written by Kash Patel (“The Plot Against the King: 2,000 Mules!”) and respond to rumors that Ohio Governor Mike DeWine snubbed him ahead of last weekend’s rally. Article continues below advertisement But it did not distract from the fact that we now have a date for the next January 6 committee hearing – and it’s soon. The hearings will resume September 28, and this time they’re bringing a bumper crop of new information obtained through a flurry of subpoenas issued over the past few weeks. Article continues below advertisement ‘Special Master’ Bid May Have Backfired for Trump And the news just goes from bad to worse if you’re Donald Trump, because a bid by his legal team may have just backfired spectacularly. Article continues below advertisement Trump’s team wanted a “special master” appointed to oversee the sorting and processing of documents seized from his home in Mar-a-Lago, many of which are marked highly classified. A federal judge appointed by Trump agreed to the assignment of a special master, and both Trump’s legal team and the Department of Justice agreed on who it would be. Article continues below advertisement And then, the special master, US District Court Judge Raymond Dearie, got to work. Dearie requested, “specific information regarding declassification,” but Trump’s team did not want to provide it. Dearie will be holding his first hearing today, as Department of Justice and Trump legal team lawyers meet with him to try to argue their case. If Trump’s team hoped that the special master would do nothing but slow things down, it was a miscalculation; Dearie seems determined to adhere to the court’s November 30 deadline and has so far been neutral in his efforts. Read More Here

Trump Files Response To DOJ Request To Block Parts Of Judge’s Ruling On Seized Docs https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-files-response-to-doj-request-to-block-parts-of-judges-ruling-on-seized-docs/ Former President Trump on Tuesday filed a response to the Department of Justice’s attempt to block parts of a federal judge’s ruling that paused its review of documents marked as classified that were seized at Mar-a-Lago. Driving the news: Trump’s legal team in the 40-page filing argued that the Department of Justice has not successfully proven that the documents “it claims are classified are, in fact, classified and their segregation is inviolable.” Trump’s team argues that documents with classification markers “does not necessarily negate privilege claims,” including Trump’s handwritten notes. Editor’s note: This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. Read More Here

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Stock Market News Today: Dow Tumbles 300 Points; Treasury Yields Keep Rising https://digitalalaskanews.com/stock-market-news-today-dow-tumbles-300-points-treasury-yields-keep-rising/ About this page Last Updated: Sep 20, 2022 at 11:15 am ET Follow The Wall Street Journal’s full markets coverage. Read More Here

Highest-Paying Jobs In Bismarck https://digitalalaskanews.com/highest-paying-jobs-in-bismarck/ BISMARCK, ND (KXNET) — Stacker collected information on the highest-paying jobs in Bismarck, ND, using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Jobs are ranked by average annual salary with information up to date as of May 2021. In Bismarck, the annual mean wage is $54,090 or 7.2% lower than national mean of $58,260, while the highest-paying occupation makes $293,480. Read on to see which jobs make the list. #50. Business teachers, postsecondary Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $80,710 – #135 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 30 National – Annual mean salary: $105,720 – Employment: 79,640 – Entry level education requirements: Doctoral or professional degree – Metros with highest average pay: — Auburn-Opelika, AL ($175,640) — Ann Arbor, MI ($175,080) — Visalia-Porterville, CA ($154,600) #49. Physical therapists Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $80,810 – #357 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 170 National – Annual mean salary: $92,920 – Employment: 225,350 – Entry level education requirements: Doctoral or professional degree – Metros with highest average pay: — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($123,190) — San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA ($118,370) — Midland, TX ($116,880) #48. Career/technical education teachers, postsecondary Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $81,160 – #18 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 130 National – Annual mean salary: $63,130 – Employment: 105,440 – Entry level education requirements: Bachelor’s degree – Metros with highest average pay: — Santa Rosa, CA ($116,850) — Champaign-Urbana, IL ($97,110) — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($95,200) #47. First-line supervisors of mechanics, installers, and repairers Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $81,180 – #33 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 230 National – Annual mean salary: $73,590 – Employment: 526,240 – Entry level education requirements: High school diploma or equivalent – Metros with highest average pay: — Bremerton-Silverdale, WA ($93,830) — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($93,030) — San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA ($92,870) #46. Network and computer systems administrators Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $81,990 – #156 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 120 National – Annual mean salary: $91,250 – Employment: 316,760 – Entry level education requirements: Bachelor’s degree – Metros with highest average pay: — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($135,440) — San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA ($116,370) — New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA ($110,930) #45. Occupational health and safety specialists Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $82,080 – #79 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 70 National – Annual mean salary: $78,740 – Employment: 106,340 – Entry level education requirements: Bachelor’s degree – Metros with highest average pay: — Kennewick-Richland, WA ($111,950) — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($108,240) — San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA ($108,020) #44. Health specialties teachers, postsecondary Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $82,740 – #116 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 80 National – Annual mean salary: $133,310 – Employment: 191,830 – Entry level education requirements: Doctoral or professional degree – Metros with highest average pay: — Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT ($226,440) — Jackson, MS ($202,690) — Sacramento–Roseville–Arden-Arcade, CA ($183,250) #43. Chiropractors Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $83,140 – #70 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 50 National – Annual mean salary: $81,240 – Employment: 35,810 – Entry level education requirements: Doctoral or professional degree – Metros with highest average pay: — Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT ($140,450) — Reno, NV ($114,560) — New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA ($113,420) #42. Loan officers Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $84,520 – #81 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 260 National – Annual mean salary: $80,570 – Employment: 340,170 – Entry level education requirements: Bachelor’s degree – Metros with highest average pay: — New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA ($111,830) — Bend-Redmond, OR ($106,290) — Wilmington, NC ($104,930) #41. Civil engineers Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $85,140 – #237 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 450 National – Annual mean salary: $95,490 – Employment: 304,310 – Entry level education requirements: Bachelor’s degree – Metros with highest average pay: — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($119,720) — San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA ($116,550) — Sacramento–Roseville–Arden-Arcade, CA ($115,120) #40. Facilities managers Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $85,320 – #240 highest pay among all metros – Employment: data not available National – Annual mean salary: $101,970 – Employment: 101,230 – Entry level education requirements: nan – Metros with highest average pay: — Kennewick-Richland, WA ($146,040) — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($136,440) — Ithaca, NY ($136,210) #39. Computer science teachers, postsecondary Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $85,750 – #73 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 30 National – Annual mean salary: $89,610 – Employment: 37,600 – Entry level education requirements: Doctoral or professional degree – Metros with highest average pay: — Visalia-Porterville, CA ($152,280) — Auburn-Opelika, AL ($145,360) — Tuscaloosa, AL ($144,170) #38. Personal financial advisors Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $86,510 – #295 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 90 National – Annual mean salary: $119,960 – Employment: 263,030 – Entry level education requirements: Bachelor’s degree – Metros with highest average pay: — Barnstable Town, MA ($172,780) — San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA ($161,010) — East Stroudsburg, PA ($158,790) #37. Project management specialists Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $86,530 – #185 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 250 National – Annual mean salary: $98,420 – Employment: 743,860 – Entry level education requirements: nan – Metros with highest average pay: — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($133,950) — Birmingham-Hoover, AL ($130,250) — Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA ($125,330) #36. First-line supervisors of firefighting and prevention workers Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $86,670 – #69 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 50 National – Annual mean salary: $83,270 – Employment: 80,890 – Entry level education requirements: Postsecondary nondegree award – Metros with highest average pay: — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($171,060) — Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA ($145,740) — San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA ($135,860) #35. First-line supervisors of production and operating workers Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $86,750 – #5 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 190 National – Annual mean salary: $67,330 – Employment: 629,420 – Entry level education requirements: High school diploma or equivalent – Metros with highest average pay: — Baton Rouge, LA ($98,170) — Lake Charles, LA ($97,910) — Norwich-New London-Westerly, CT-RI ($90,410) #34. Computer programmers Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $87,220 – #94 highest pay among all metros – Employment: data not available National – Annual mean salary: $96,650 – Employment: 152,610 – Entry level education requirements: Bachelor’s degree – Metros with highest average pay: — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($144,130) — San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA ($126,220) — Dalton, GA ($123,500) #33. Electrical power-line installers and repairers Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $90,170 – #62 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 90 National – Annual mean salary: $79,060 – Employment: 123,940 – Entry level education requirements: High school diploma or equivalent – Metros with highest average pay: — Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA ($117,700) — Salinas, CA ($110,180) — San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA ($109,490) #32. Labor relations specialists Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $91,180 – #15 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 30 National – Annual mean salary: $77,070 – Employment: 63,810 – Entry level education requirements: Bachelor’s degree – Metros with highest average pay: — Urban Honolulu, HI ($104,620) — Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT ($98,470) — Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA ($97,520) #31. Power plant operators Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $91,440 – #27 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 130 National – Annual mean salary: $83,740 – Employment: 28,960 – Entry level education requirements: High school diploma or equivalent – Metros with highest average pay: — Fresno, CA ($129,650) — Wenatchee, WA ($123,180) — Sacramento–Roseville–Arden-Arcade, CA ($114,660) #30. First-line supervisors of police and detectives Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $92,220 – #147 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 70 National – Annual mean salary: $98,760 – Employment: 128,230 – Entry level education requirements: High school diploma or equivalent – Metros with highest average pay: — San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($182,700) — San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA ($170,740) — Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA ($164,600) #29. Environmental engineers Bismarck, ND – Annual mean salary: $92,700 – #102 highest pay among all metros – Employment: 50 National – Annual mean salary: $100,220 – Employment: 42,660 – Entry level education requirements: Bachelor’s degree – Metros with highest average pay: — Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX ($131,700) — San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA ($127,470) — Idaho Falls, ID ($127,160) #28. Mechanical engineers Bismarck, ND ...

Adnan Syed Released After Baltimore Judge Vacates Murder Conviction https://digitalalaskanews.com/adnan-syed-released-after-baltimore-judge-vacates-murder-conviction/ A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge on Monday approved the state’s motion to vacate the murder conviction of Adnan Syed. Syed, 41, appeared in court Monday afternoon after Baltimore City prosecutors filed a motion last week to vacate his murder conviction in the death of his high school ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee.| PDF: Read the judge’s order | Read the state’s motionSyed is accused of killing Lee in 1999 and was subject of the popular podcast, “Serial.” His first trial ended in a mistrial. A jury convicted him in a second trial. Syed had been in jail since his arrest in February 1999.Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn said in her ruling: “In the interest of judgment and fairness, the state’s motion to vacate judgment … is hereby granted. The defendant will be released and placed on remote monitoring … The state will have 30 days to refile or nolle pros. At this time, we will remove the shackles off of Mr. Syed.”Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said her office awaits DNA testing and that the case continues to be investigated. They have to decide within 30 days whether to go to a new trial or nolle pros.”The investigation is separate and apart from the 30-day mandate. What we are currently waiting for is DNA analysis. So we are going to try to expedite that,” Mosby said.Syed kept his hands on his lap and looked forward during the hearing. His attorney was wiping tears from her eyes while the judge announced her decision. He did not say anything as he left the courthouse, but his attorney said Syed is grateful to start rebuilding his free life and asks for privacy so he can start to heal.”Today, my friend and client Adnan Syed walks free for the first time in 23 years. In 1999, Adnan was a senior at Woodlawn High School. He had been accepted to college with plans to major in pre-med. Those dreams were ended with Adnan was accused of the brutal murder of his friend and classmate, Hae Min Lee,” Assistant Public Defender and Innocence Project Clinic Director Erica Suter said.Suter said prosecutors failed to tell Syed information about evidence that would have allowed him to defend himself, including details that established two other people had threatened Lee’s life.”When prosecutors do not do their duty, when they do not disclose evidence as they are supposed to, the result can be that innocent people like Adnan lose decades of their lives for crimes they did not commit,” Suter said.| PDF: Read full statement from the public defender for SyedVideo below: Supporters of Syed explain why they wanted to be at courtWillie Hamilton was good friends with Syed while they were in prison — one of many friends he made there.”This is one of the greatest days of my life seeing this man walk out,” Hamilton said. “He’s kind of a private person. So, seeing all this is probably overwhelming for him because he doesn’t deserve all of this, but he deserves everything he has coming for him. This should’ve happened a long long time ago. He’s one of the best individuals I know. He’s a genuine individual and I’m just so ecstatic.””It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders to see him released and free today knowing he was innocent the whole time,” said Desmond Perry, another friend of Syed’s.Mosby’s office said it’s not yet declaring Syed’s innocence but said he is entitled to a new trial.Hearing starts with statement from Lee’s brotherThe judge ruled against a motion from the attorney for Lee’s family to postpone the hearing until the family can participate. The judge granted a 30-minute recess for the attorney to reach Lee’s brother in California so he could participate in the hearing via Zoom.The hearing resumed shortly after 3:30 p.m. and heard from Lee’s brother, who asked the judge to make the “right decision,” saying he feels the motion is unfair, especially for his family, which has trusted the courts: “This is not a podcast for me. It’s real life that will never end — it’s been 20-plus years. It’s a nightmare … This is killing us,” he said.Steve Kelly, an attorney for the Lee family, said outside the courthouse after the hearing: “We are disappointed that today’s hearing happened so quickly with, unfortunately, no notice and that the court acted the way it did and that the prosecutor’s office made the recommendation the way that they did. This family is interested in the pursuit of justice. They want to know more than anybody who it was that killed Hae Min Lee.”Video below: Representative says family given little notice about hearingLEE FAMILY STATEMENTKelly also released a statement on behalf of the family, saying: “For more than 20 years, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office has told the family of Hae Min Lee that their beloved daughter and sister was murdered by Adnan Syed. One week ago, for the first time, the family was informed that, through a year-long investigation that is apparently still ongoing, the state had uncovered new facts and would be filing a motion to vacate Mr. Syed’s conviction. “For more than 20 years, no one has wanted to know the truth about who killed Hae Min Lee more than her family. “The Lee family is deeply disappointed that today’s hearing happened so quickly and that they were denied the reasonable notice that would have permitted them to have a meaningful voice in the proceedings.” Prosecutor lays out new evidence foundNext, the prosecutor asked the judge to set a new trial date and release Syed on his own recognizance, pending a decision on whether to go to trial.”If this is granted, we will continue to investigate and possibly ask for a new trial,” the prosecutor said.Video below: The moment Adnan Syed was released from courtProsecutors then put on the record the new evidence and information they said their investigation uncovered this year. Prosecutors said their new investigation revealed information about two other potential suspects who may have been involved. Prosecutors said that based on the new potential suspect information, problematic cellphone evidence, DNA testing and Brady violations when it came informing the defense, they are pursing this motion to vacate.Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh released a statement, saying: “Among the other serious problems with the motion to vacate, the allegations related to Brady violations are incorrect.”Neither State’s Attorney Mosby nor anyone from her office bothered to consult with either the assistant state’s attorney who prosecuted the case or with anyone in my office regarding these alleged violations. The file in this case was made available on several occasions to the defense.”The state said cellphone tower records were unreliable and should not have been presented at trial. The state conferred “the location of the actual phone during incoming calls could not be conclusively determined” and the evidence should not have come in. The state said the prosecution really had no case against Syed without the cellphone evidence, telling the judge the case was flimsy at best.”The state has overwhelming cause to question the reliability of the defendant’s conviction,” the prosecutor said.Video below: Lisa Robinson reports from courtThe motion to vacate from prosecutors says the evidence against Syed in the previous trial was largely circumstantial, and they lacked confidence “in the integrity of the conviction.”The defense agreed with the state. The defense attorney began remarks by expressing condolences to the Lee family.”My client is innocent,” the defense attorney said.”The way the state’s attorney’s office handled this case is just inexcusable,” Kelly said.Supporters of Syed: ‘It was stacked against him’Syed’s case was featured on the popular podcast, “Serial,” garnering attention and support from around the country. Some of those supporters — who never even knew him — wanted to be in court Monday.”We’ve been following this case since ‘Serial’ started. I went to high school in Baltimore in the mid-90s and Woodlawn was one of my bus stops. I knew places, I knew people who knew the people and it just hit close to home,” said Lauren Tait, a supporter.”We’ve been to court a couple of times to see the previous appeals and things and were always really saddened that the justice system was designed not to really have justice done. It was stacked against him,” said Mickey Tait, a supporter.Syed could still be re-tried, but for now, he’s back with his family.”I’m very excited to see what happens, and I think that if he’s innocent, then justice for Adnan is the same as justice for Hae Min Lee,” Lauren Tait said.Video below: Baltimore City state’s attorney speaks after ruling BALTIMORE — A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge on Monday approved the state’s motion to vacate the murder conviction of Adnan Syed. Syed, 41, appeared in court Monday afternoon after Baltimore City prosecutors filed a motion last week to vacate his murder conviction in the death of his high school ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. | PDF: Read the judge’s order | Read the state’s motion Syed is accused of killing Lee in 1999 and was subject of the popular podcast, “Serial.” His first trial ended in a mistrial. A jury convicted him in a second trial. Syed had been in jail since his arrest in February 1999. Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn said in her ruling: “In the interest of judgment and fairness, the state’s motion to vacate judgment … is hereby granted. The defendant will be released and placed on remote monitoring … The state will have 30 days to refile or nolle pros. At this time, we will remove the shackles off of Mr. Syed.” Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said her office awaits DNA testing and that the case continues to be investigated. They have to decide within 30 days whether to go to a new trial or nolle pros. “The investigation is ...

Paulette Russell https://digitalalaskanews.com/paulette-russell-2/ Paulette Russell passed peacefully surrounded by family at her home in North Pole, AK on September 8, 2022 after living with cancer for the past four and half years. Born in Phillips, Wisconsin in 1952, Paulette moved to Alaska in 1975 where she began a lifelong career as a teacher. It was in Alaska that she met and married fellow “Cheese Head” (Wisconsinite) Don Russell in 1978. Paulette spent the better part of 30 years teaching kindergarten and special education in North Pole before retiring in 2002. Her love of students and the classroom never left her, and she spent many years after retirement as a substitute teacher in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District. Read More Here

The Divider: Trump In The White House, 2017–2021 By Peter Baker, Susan Glasser https://digitalalaskanews.com/the-divider-trump-in-the-white-house-2017-2021-by-peter-baker-susan-glasser/ Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. Doubleday, $32 (752p) ISBN 978-0-385-54653-9 Married journalists Baker and Glasser follow up The Man Who Ran Washington with a comprehensive and scathing chronicle of the Trump administration. Contending that the January 6 Capitol riot was “the culmination of a sustained, four-year war on the institutions and traditions of American democracy,” the authors deliver a blow-by-blow account of that assault as it unfolded. Familiar themes emerge: a White House riven by rivalries and factions from day one (Reince Priebus v. Steve Bannon; Kellyanne Conway v. everybody); an astonishingly ill-informed and erratic president constrained by an “Axis of Adults” (whose own “pettiness… suggested a middle school cafeteria”); the “unique symbiosis” between Fox News and Trump; Republican lawmakers and conservative activists swallowing their distaste for the president in order to advance their own agendas. But Baker and Glasser, enriching their own reporting with the juiciest material from the slew of books about the Trump presidency, fashion a coherent narrative out of the chaos, offering lucid and insightful accounts of the Muslim travel ban, talks with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, the Mueller investigation, Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, both impeachment trials, and more. There’s also plenty of color, including a “pumped up” Trump “sucking down Diet Cokes and chomping on a Hershey’s chocolate bar” as he awaited the reaction to FBI director James Comey’s firing. The result is the most encyclopedic account of the Trump presidency yet published. (Sept.) close Details Reviewed on: 09/20/2022 Genre: Nonfiction Read More Here

Bret Baier Pushed Fox News President Jay Wallace To Retract 2020 Election Call Under Pressure From Trump Camp https://digitalalaskanews.com/bret-baier-pushed-fox-news-president-jay-wallace-to-retract-2020-election-call-under-pressure-from-trump-camp/ Fox News anchor Bret Baier reportedly pushed the network’s president to rescind the election night call of Arizona for President Joe Biden amid pressure from former President Donald Trump’s campaign. According to the forthcoming book “The Decider” by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser (in an excerpt reported on by Insider), Baier — who was on the anchor desk for Fox’s 2020 election night coverage — fired off an email during the broadcast to Fox News president and executive editor Jay Wallace noting the blowback from the Trump campaign. “This situation is getting uncomfortable,” Baier reportedly wrote. “Really uncomfortable. I keep having to defend this on air.” The email also noted, “The Trump campaign was really pissed.” The Fox News anchor believed the network was “holding on for pride” after its Decision Desk called Arizona for Biden. Fox News was the first network to project that the Democrat had won the state, and it proved a pivotal call. Baier, according to the new book, was pushing to reverse it. “It’s hurting us,” Baier added. “‘The sooner we pull it — even if it gives us major egg — and we put it back in his column the better we are in my opinion.’” Wallace held firm and the network did not retract its call. In a statement to Mediaite, a network spokesperson said, “Fox News made an election night call of historic magnitude and was first to do so. We stood by the call in the days that followed, it was proven correct, and other news organizations eventually joined us.” Baker and Glasser report that two members of the Decision Desk were fired afterwards, with one of the dismissals being labeled a retirement, and the other — then-Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt — being chalked up to restructuring. Citing employee confidentiality, Fox News has not commented on the specific departures, but did make this statement in January 2021: “As we conclude the 2020 election cycle, Fox News Digital has realigned its business and reporting structure to meet the demands of this new era. We are confident these changes will ensure the platform continues to deliver breakthrough reporting and insightful analysis surrounding major issues, both stateside and abroad.” Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com Read More Here

'The Ingraham Angle' On Biden's '60 Minutes' Interview, 2024 Plans https://digitalalaskanews.com/the-ingraham-angle-on-bidens-60-minutes-interview-2024-plans/ This is a rush transcript of “The Ingraham Angle” on September 19, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. INGRAHAM: I’m Laura Ingraham, this is THE INGRAHAM ANGLE from Washington tonight. Thank you so much for being with us. ‘Apocalypse Biden’, that’s the focus of tonight’s ‘Angle’. Alright, will he or won’t he, as in? Will Joe Biden seek a second term or not? Well, the White House’s answer to the question has been well evolving. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: My plan is to run for reelection. That’s my expectation. REPORTER: Is he going to run in 2024 or is he telling staff that? JEN PSAKI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Yes, that’s his intention. REPORTER: Is the President running for reelection? KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: His answer has been pretty simple, which is yes. KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Joe Biden is running for reelection, and I will be his ticket mate. Full stop, full stop, he said, listen to President Biden, he intends to run. And if he does, I intend to run with him. So there you go. And if he does, I will be running with him probably. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Imagine when Dr. Jill was asked about it just a few days later, on notice more nervous laughter. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: Have you talked about it with him? JILL BIDEN, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Not yet. We’ve been a little bit too busy. Not yet, but I’m sure it’ll be a discussion. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: I’m sure it’ll be a discussion. Oh, wait, has anyone told, Joe? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BIDEN: Look, my intention, as I said to begin with, is that I would run again, but it’s just an intention. But it’s a firm decision that I run again, that remains to be seen. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: I’m going to tell you tonight what remains to be seen, just how many seats the Democrats are going to lose in the House and the Senate. And it remains to be seen whether Biden is even capable of standing upright at this moment. Now his cognitive decline, everybody knows that it’s obvious. He needs cards for pretty much everything. And lately, it seems he doesn’t just need electoral support from women, but physical support as well like whenever he’s walking with Michigan Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, that was odd. And today attending the Queen’s funeral, Dr. Jill seemed more like nursemaid Jill, than First Lady. Then rudely, did you notice this the Biden’s actually arrived late, and thus in a very awkward moment the President of the United States had to stand and be told to wait as Military heroes processed in. The Guardian writing, ‘After arriving hand in hand, the Biden’s finally sat down in their places at the abbey at 10:05am. The schedule published by Buckingham Palace suggested the 500 invited dignitaries should have been seated between 9:35am and 9:55am. Perhaps as a consequences of the opting out of the buses taking other leaders from the assembly point at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the Biden’s were also given seats, 14 rows back in the south transept of the Abbey.’ Now for a President, who publicly prided himself on his vast experience in foreign and domestic affairs, this was embarrassing. It even when needing physical support, Joe Biden can always count on his regime media support. Look out KJP because Scott Pelley of CBS seems like he’s auditioning for your job. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SCOTT PELLEY, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: Summer was going so well for the President. The White House threw a party last week with a concert by James Taylor. You have had a string of legislative successes recently. The much more modest bipartisan gun law that passed this summer may be the best example of the President’s legislative breakthroughs that no one thought possible. Catholic and devout, he keeps a rosary in his pocket. You have lived a long life of triumph and tragedy. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: And then a moment where even Pelley couldn’t save Biden from himself. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PELLEY: What should Chinese President Xi know about your commitment to Taiwan? BIDEN: We agree with what we signed on to, a long time ago, and that there’s one China policy and Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence. PELLEY: But would US forces defend the island? BIDEN: Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack. PELLEY: So unlike Ukraine to be clear sir, US forces, US men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion? BIDEN: Yes. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Oops. And that brings us too. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After our interview, a White House official told us the US policy has not changed. Officially, the US will not say whether American forces would defend Taiwan. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Now, this was at least I think the fourth time that Biden is bollocks the Taiwan question, but that’s OK. It was only risking starting a war with China, no big deal or anything. But all the media spin and all those softball questions. Look, it can’t change reality just 50 days before the midterms. Be on the sight of the global elites, America under Biden is becoming its own hellscape of economic pain. An article in the Wall Street Journal was so upsetting to me tonight that I had to share it with you. When single mom Jamaica Bonvillian was asked about her grocery trip, she started tearing up. ‘I just get to the point she said where I break down and I’m like, OK, how do I do it? She’s taken on extra work, painting and landscaping on the weekends to try to make up the difference’. And then there’s the heartbreaking story of Jessica Boudreaux. Her other son and her grandson are moving in with her soon, and she doesn’t know how she’s going to afford to feed everyone. ‘Luckily, my grandbaby is only two, so he doesn’t eat a lot,’ she said. And maybe just maybe the party claiming that they’re so pro women should pay attention to Megan Naquin’s experience. The Journal reports that she now spends more on her groceries for her family of eight than on her $1,500 monthly mortgage. Stuff hasn’t gone up a little bit. It’s gone up tremendously, the homemaker said. Now, these are real American stories. And once in a while a reporter from another network will actually do his job. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE KERNEN, CNBC HOST: If you’re going to blame everything on the pandemic for inflation, then you’ve got to acknowledge that reopening after the pandemic is why we just got back to basically the job that we had before the pandemic, the $10 million just got us back an even. REPORTER: So we are audit, but we are putting ourselves on a better path now. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: A better, better path is that what she said, well, sweetheart, voters don’t think so. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEVE KORNACKI: NBC NEWS NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Can we ask this question about Joe Biden, the effect his policies have had in the economy a two to one margin, folks saying it’s more hurt the economy, then help the economy. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Of course, they’re saying that. It the incessant drumbeat of the past several weeks, is that the Democrats are somehow turning the corner. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: For months, Republicans were sure that they’d be surfing a red wave. But now with just 51 days to go, Democrats actually think that they’re back in the game. And here’s why. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The notion of a red wave gone. Democrats stand a good chance of holding the Senate and maybe picking up a couple seats. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to be questioning whether or not this red wave really will happen. (END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Yes with Senate races in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia, they’re tightening Axios is forced to report that The Angle has been predicting for weeks that was right. Now that summer is over the harsh, cold reality of American life under this Democrat majority is starting to set in. Republicans are well-positioned to comfortably win back the House, and are on a surer footing than just weeks ago to net the one seat necessary to capture a narrow Senate majority. And the concern of whether leadership in the Senate was going to get involved has apparently awakened Mitch McConnell. Not only is he holding it another fundraiser for Blake Masters in Arizona, but again Axios is reporting in another article tonight, that he’s actually having some closed door confidence over the GOP winning back the Senate now. We told you, then for good reason look, they have a winning argument. Last week’s FOX poll found that 59 percent of voters said they were extremely concerned with inflation and higher prices. Of course, 40 percent said, 45 percent said the same about abortion policy. And Republicans are trusted more on the economy by a margin of 14 points, that’s 52 to 38 according to new polling by the New York Times. The economy, crime and the border should be all that the Republicans hit and hit hard from now until Election Day. Anything else it frankly right this, this one is a distraction. And the first time candidates that you know the Republican Party is nominated, that people are said all they’re not good enough. Look, they’re not squishes, they want real change. Because the time for small reforms that’s over, we have to save America all over again and frankly that’s going to require big reforms. The radicals though now running the Democrat party, it’s easy to point out they’re responsible for the coming recession and the violent crime that’s tearing apart the American landscape. The tears that are welling up in the eyes have worried mothers and grandmothers, all the concern felt by fathers and young people and entrepreneurs, all those people just starting out, they are the direct result of the Democrats cruel po...

Post Politics Now: Biden To Plug Campaign Finance Bill, Head To New York For Fundraiser https://digitalalaskanews.com/post-politics-now-biden-to-plug-campaign-finance-bill-head-to-new-york-for-fundraiser/ Today, President Biden plans to plug a Senate bill that would require super PACs and so-called “dark money” groups to disclose donors who give $10,000 or more during an election cycle. After the event at the White House, the president is scheduled to head to New York ahead of his address Wednesday to the U.N. General Assembly. Biden’s schedule Tuesday night includes an appearance in New York at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. In the House, the Rules Committee is expected to advance legislation that aims to prevent future presidents from trying to overturn election results through Congress. The full House could vote on the bill later this week. The Senate is expected to consider its own version of the legislation, inspired by President Donald Trump’s efforts to reverse the 2020 election results. Your daily dashboard Noon Eastern time: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and national security adviser Jake Sullivan brief reporters. Watch live here. 1:45 p.m. Eastern: Biden delivers remarks on the Disclose Act. Watch live here. 1:55 p.m. Eastern: Vice President Harris delivers remarks at South Carolina State University’s Fall Convocation in Orangeburg, S.C. 7:30 p.m. Eastern: Biden participates in a DNC fundraiser in New York. Got a question about politics? Submit it here. After 3 p.m. weekdays, return to this space and we’ll address what’s on the mind of readers. Noted: Trump wants you to know he was not ‘dissed’ by Gov. DeWine Return to menu To be seen or not be seen with Donald Trump has become an issue for Republicans in the final stretch before the November midterms. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), who has been endorsed by the former president, was a no-show at Trump’s rally Saturday in Youngstown, Ohio, where Trump touted the candidacy of GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance. DeWine said days earlier that he would not make it because he planned to be cheering on his granddaughters at a cross-country meet. He wound up meeting Trump at the airport ahead of the rally before heading back to his hometown of Cedarville for the race. Analysis: GOP balks at covid funding after Biden declares pandemic over Return to menu President Biden’s impromptu remarks that the “pandemic is over” are complicating an already arduous path for more coronavirus aid on Capitol Hill. Writing in The Health 202, The Post’s Rachel Roubein notes that congressional Republicans are seizing on the comments as they continue to question the necessity of funding the administration’s $22.4 billion request for more testing, treatments and next-generation vaccines. Per Rachel: This comes as congressional negotiators are hashing out the details of a stopgap spending bill to keep the government’s lights on past Sept. 30 — and top White House officials have pushed lawmakers to attach more money for covid-19 to the must-pass vehicle. “The president said the pandemic is over,” said Sen. Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, adding that covid funding wasn’t the highest priority. One Senate GOP aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid, went as far as to say it’s off the table, while Democrats said negotiations on a short-term spending bill are ongoing. The administration’s ask earlier this month for more dollars was already a long shot. You can read the full analysis here. Analysis: House to move quickly on Electoral Count Act bill. When will Trump weigh in? Return to menu The House is moving quickly on a bill to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, the 19th-century law governing the certification of presidential elections. Writing in The Early 202, The Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer say that Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) unveiled their bill Monday, and the House is expected to vote on it on Wednesday, where it is expected to pass with the support of Democrats and at least a few Republicans. Our colleagues write: The Senate released its version in June, but the earliest it would be brought up for a vote is after the midterm elections during the “lame duck” session. The speed at which it is being ushered through the House is, in part, to put Republicans on the record ahead of the midterms. Then-President Trump tried to exploit the law’s ambiguities in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results by pressuring Vice President Pence to reject electors from certain states. Pence declined, but Trump’s effort culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, when rioters backing his false claims of widespread election fraud attacked police and ransacked the Capitol. You can read the full analysis here. On our radar: Biden to tout bill requiring disclosure of super PAC donors Return to menu President Biden on Tuesday is seeking to give a boost to legislation that would require super PACs and s0-called “dark money” groups to disclose donors who give $10,000 or more during an election cycle. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced Monday that his chamber would vote on the legislation, branded as the Disclose Act, later this week, saying it is needed to address a “cancer” in the nation’s campaign finance rules. Citizens United and subsequent Supreme Court rulings permit super PACs and certain types of tax-exempt groups, such as 501(c)(4) nonprofits, to spend unlimited sums in elections. Under current law, many of those groups are not required to disclose their donors. The latest: Biden’s claim that ‘pandemic is over’ complicates matters on Capitol Hill, elsewhere Return to menu President Biden’s surprise declaration that the coronavirus pandemic is “over” has thrown a wrench into the White House’s efforts to secure additional funding to fight the virus and persuade Americans to get a new booster shot, while fueling more Republican criticism about why the administration continues to extend a covid “emergency.” The Post’s Dan Diamond reports that Biden’s comments, which aired Sunday on “60 Minutes,” reflect growing public sentiment that the threat of the virus has receded even as hundreds of Americans continue to die of covid each day. Dan writes: On our radar: A landmark Supreme Court fight over social media now looks likely Return to menu Conflicting lower court rulings about removing controversial material from social media platforms point toward a landmark Supreme Court decision on whether the First Amendment protects Big Tech’s editorial discretion or forbids its censorship of unpopular views. The Post’s Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow write that the stakes are high, not just for government and the companies, but because of the increasingly dominant role that platforms such as Twitter and Facebook play in American democracy and elections. Per our colleagues: Take a look: In Nevada, Democrats seek to link Laxalt to ‘Big Oil’ Return to menu The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is out with a new 30-second ad Tuesday linking the Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, Adam Laxalt, to deep-pocketed oil companies. A man in a T-shirt sitting inside a garage says Laxalt “tried to block a fraud investigation into a Big Oil company” and that “oil executives” spent “millions on his campaign.” The man also says Laxalt “made millions” at a “fancy” lobbying firm “that works for Big Oil.” The ad broadly echoes attacks made earlier by the Democratic senator Laxalt is trying to unseat, Catherine Cortez Masto. When Laxalt was Nevada’s attorney general, he joined Republican attorneys general in opposing a probe by New York’s attorney general, who, according to PolitiFact, looked into “whether oil companies had made fraudulent disclosures about climate change.” Noted: Video appears to undercut Trump elector’s account of alleged voting-data breach in Georgia Return to menu On Jan. 7, 2021, a group of forensics experts working for lawyers allied with President Donald Trump spent eight hours at a county elections office in southern Georgia, copying sensitive software and data from its voting machines. The Post’s Jon Swaine and Emma Brown report that under questioning last month for a lawsuit, a former Georgia Republican Party official named Cathy Latham said in sworn testimony that she briefly stopped by the office in Coffee County that afternoon. She said she stayed in the foyer and spoke with a junior official about an unrelated matter at the front desk. The latest: Trump lawyers acknowledge Mar-a-Lago probe could lead to indictment Return to menu The Justice Department and lawyers for Donald Trump filed separate proposals Monday for conducting an outside review of documents seized at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, with key disagreements over how the process should work and Trump’s team acknowledging that the criminal probe could lead to an indictment. The Post’s Perry Stein and Devlin Barrett report that both sides referenced a “draft plan” given to them by Judge Raymond J. Dearie, the newly appointed special master. Per our colleagues: Read More Here

Final Farewell To Queen Elizabeth II, US-Taliban Prisoner Swap: 5 Things Podcast https://digitalalaskanews.com/final-farewell-to-queen-elizabeth-ii-us-taliban-prisoner-swap-5-things-podcast/ On today’s episode of the 5 Things podcast: The world bids final farewell to Queen Elizabeth II The queen has been laid to rest. What’s next for King Charles III? Plus, national political correspondent David Jackson says investigations involving Donald Trump may help him politically, Adnan Syed has been freed from prison after his case grabbed attention on the ‘Serial’ podcast, education reporter Alia Wong looks at school book bans and the Biden administration makes a prisoner swap with the Taliban. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here. Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Taylor Wilson: Good morning. I’m Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Tuesday the 20th of September, 2022. Today, a look at yesterday’s funeral for Queen Elizabeth II. Plus, how ongoing investigations could help Donald Trump, and more. Here are some of the top headlines: Hurricane Fiona slammed Puerto Rico yesterday with relentless rain. Hundreds of thousands were without running water, and less than 10% of the island has regained electricity after an island-wide blackout. Government helicopters have attacked a school and village in Northern Myanmar, killing at least 13 people, including seven children. Civilian casualties and attacks by the military government on pro-democracy insurgents and their allies have been common in the country since a 2021 coup. And law enforcement authorities in Texas said yesterday that they’re opening an investigation into how 48 Venezuelan migrants were brought last week from Texas to Massachusetts by Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis. A Texas Sheriff said they were lured into the trip under false pretenses. Queen Elizabeth II has been laid to rest. The late queen was celebrated at a funeral at Westminster Abbey, the same church where her coronation took place in 1953. During the service, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby praised the queen’s life of service. Justin Welby: Her late Majesty famously declared on a 21st birthday broadcast that her whole life would be dedicated to serving the nation and commonwealth. Rarely has such a promise been so well kept. Few leaders receive the outpouring of love that we have seen. Taylor Wilson: After the funeral, a private burial service was held and she was brought to her final place of rest at St. George’s Cathedral on the grounds of Windsor Castle. She was laid together with her late husband, Prince Phillip, who died last year. St. George’s is also the resting place of 10 other former British monarchs, including Henry VIII, who ruled in the early 1500s, and the beheaded Charles I, who ruled in the mid-1600s. A period of royal mourning has now begun and will last for seven days across Britain. King Charles III has already begun duties as monarch, but he’s not been crowned yet. His coronation will likely take place at some point within the next year. Taylor Wilson: Ongoing investigations against Donald Trump might actually help the former president politically, but that could hurt the Republican Party. National political correspondent, David Jackson has more with producer PJ Elliott. David Jackson: Well, it helps with his voters. It helps him with his voters, his solid political base that feels like the establishment is against them. And this is yet another excuse for Trump to say that, “The political establishment, all they want to do is get me and throw me in jail. And while they’re at it, they want to try to reduce your political voice.” Since the search at Mar-a-Lago in early August, he’s been pounding this drum and there’s plenty of poll evidence to suggest that a lot of his supporters believe it, and if anything, it’s only intensified his support. The problem is that a lot of the Trump-backed candidates for state and local offices, particularly candidates for the US Senate, are struggling and have seen their support decline since the Mar-a-Lago search. And the evidence there suggests that moderate Republicans and Independents are turning away from not only Trump, but Trump-backed candidates. So it’s a weird cause and effect in the fact that all the investigations seem to be helping Trump with his voters, but they’re hurting Republican candidates overall with all voters. PJ Elliott: So does this mean that the Democrats are most likely going to take control of the Senate this midterm? David Jackson: Well, they certainly have a better chance than they did maybe three or four months ago, no doubt. The primary season was very good for them. They have a much better chance to win the Senate now than they did when primary started back in March. And one of the reasons is because Trump’s endorsement helped so many iffy Republican candidates win nominations. You’ve got guys like Herschel Walker in Georgia, Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, J.D. Vance in Ohio, and a guy named Blake Masters in Arizona. Those are all first-time candidates who’ve made more than their share of mistakes and they’re very associated with Trump. And the polls are suggesting that a lot of independent voters don’t like that association with Trump and the Democrats and all of those races are either even or slightly ahead. So the feeling is that if they sweep those races, the Democrats will actually be able to control the Senate and actually expand their margin. PJ Elliott: So what about 2024? Is it a safe bet that if Trump decides to run again, that the nomination is his? David Jackson: Well, he’s certainly got a good chance at it. If anything, the FBI search and the intensity of these investigations against him are encouraging him to run. I’m told he’s definitely thinking more about running, if only to defend himself against all these investigations. He figures it will be harder to prosecute him in court if he’s actually a candidate for president. So the fact is that the odds are much more likely that he will run, and given the increase in his support from his base, he goes into your average Republican primary with a solid support of maybe 25% to 30%, that’d be enough to win a lot of these primaries especially if it’s a crowded field. So the fact is that I think the investigations do make it more likely he will he run and also make it more likely that he will be able to capture the nomination. Taylor Wilson: You can find a link to David’s full story in today’s episode description. Adnan Syed has been released from prison. He was sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years after being convicted of the Maryland murder of 18-year-old Hae Min Lee in 1999. Syed has maintained his innocence since he was 17. Now 41 years old, he walked out yesterday. Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn ruled that his conviction be vacated because the state violated its legal obligation to share exculpatory evidence with Syed’s defense. She ordered him released from custody and placed on home detention. The state now has 30 days to decide whether to seek a new trial against Syed or dismiss the case entirely. Syed’s case became the focus of the hit podcast, Serial’s first season in 2014. Legal experts have credited the hit show with bringing Syed’s case national attention. The podcast explored problems with both Syed’s defense and the prosecution’s case. Host Sarah Koenig explored shoddy cell phone data, inconsistent timelines, ignored witnesses, and other possible suspects. Deirdra Enright, founder of the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia School of Law also credited a recent 2021 Maryland law allowing for people convicted of crimes as juveniles to seek new sentences after 20 years in prison. Prosecutors recently said that a year-long investigation into Syed’s case revealed two alternate suspects and major reliability issues with evidence used to convict him. Prosecutors asked for a new trial at minimum. The state is waiting for DNA analysis to decide whether they want to pursue a new trial or drop the case entirely. Dozens of so-called parents rights groups, including a number of national organizations with hundreds of local chapters, are helping to drive book bans across the country. Producer PJ Elliott and Alia Wong have more. Alia Wong: Between July 1st, 2021 and June 30th, 2022 – so last school year, in addition to a few months surrounding them – there were more than 2,500 book bands enacted, and that affected more than 1,600 unique titles. So there were more than 2,500 decisions to ban a book and this bulk book banning, it spanned more than 30 states and more than 130 school districts. So these statistics really mark an escalation of a trend that traces back at least a year, and the people who are behind these bans are really getting more sophisticated in their tactics. Parents’ rights activist groups are responsible or have played a role in roughly half of the bans that were enacted in the past school year. And these activist groups have really been successful in mobilizing supporters. A lot of these groups, or a handful of these groups rather, they have hundreds of chapters nationwide and are publishing lists of books that they want banned and distributing these lists. PJ Elliott: So what about the rest of this school year and even going forward? Are more books going to be banned? Alia Wong: Researchers anticipate that this trend will only pick up momentum as we wade into this school year. These activists, along with legislators who are in support of them and pushing for legislation that would also restrict access to books, they’re getting a lot more savvy in their strategizing and their messaging is really resonati...

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Trump Is A ‘distraction’ For The Republican Party https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-is-a-distraction-for-the-republican-party/ Sky News host James Morrow says former US president Donald Trump has become a “distraction”. “The more Republicans talk about Trump and are forced to talk about Trump by the Democrats, that’s all time they’re not able to spend talking about really what are key issues for American voters,” he told Sky News host Cory Bernardi. Mr Morrow said cost of living, crime and immigration are three talking points Republicans “need to be hitting” hard. “The more they get caught up in those fights between Trump and the papers of Mar-a-Lago and things like that, it’s just providing cover to the Democrats,” he said. “Trump is a distraction at this point.” Read More Here

Texas Sheriff Opens Investigation Into DeSantis’ Migrant Flight To Martha’s Vineyard https://digitalalaskanews.com/texas-sheriff-opens-investigation-into-desantis-migrant-flight-to-marthas-vineyard/ A Texas sheriff has launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Gov. Ron DeSantis’ choice to transport a group of migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard, according to the sheriff’s office.San Antonio’s Bexar County Sheriff, Javier Salazar, gave a news conference on the migrant flight on Monday. It’s important to note that DeSantis is a Republican and Salazar is a Democrat.“The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has opened an investigation into the migrants that were lured from the Migrant Resource Center, located in Bexar County, TX, and flown to Florida, where they were ultimately left to fend for themselves in Martha’s Vineyard, MA,” the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office tweeted. “Additionally, we are working with private attorneys who are representing the victims, as well as advocacy organizations regarding this incident.”Video below: Civil rights attorney discusses migrants being flown to Martha’s Vineyard The agency added that it was “preparing to work with any federal agencies that have concurrent jurisdiction, should the need arise.”Salazar said his office is investigating whether the migrants were the victims of a crime.Several migrants said a woman approached them outside a migrant center in San Antonio and offered them jobs and assistance if they flew to Massachusetts. But officials there had no prior knowledge of their arrival.A spokesperson for DeSantis’s office responded to the probe Monday: “Immigrants have been more than willing to leave Bexar County after being abandoned, homeless, and ‘left to fend for themselves.’ Florida gave them an opportunity to seek greener pastures in a sanctuary jurisdiction that offered greater resources for them, as we expected. Unless the MA national guard has abandoned these individuals, they have been provided accommodations, sustenance, clothing and more options to succeed following their unfair enticement into the United States, unlike the 53 immigrants who died in a truck found abandoned in Bexar County this June.”Related: DeSantis says he’s ‘protecting Florida’ by sending migrants to Martha’s VineyardWatch the news conference below: BEXAR COUNTY, Texas — A Texas sheriff has launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Gov. Ron DeSantis’ choice to transport a group of migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard, according to the sheriff’s office. San Antonio’s Bexar County Sheriff, Javier Salazar, gave a news conference on the migrant flight on Monday. It’s important to note that DeSantis is a Republican and Salazar is a Democrat. “The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has opened an investigation into the migrants that were lured from the Migrant Resource Center, located in Bexar County, TX, and flown to Florida, where they were ultimately left to fend for themselves in Martha’s Vineyard, MA,” the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office tweeted. “Additionally, we are working with private attorneys who are representing the victims, as well as advocacy organizations regarding this incident.” Video below: Civil rights attorney discusses migrants being flown to Martha’s Vineyard The agency added that it was “preparing to work with any federal agencies that have concurrent jurisdiction, should the need arise.” This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has opened an investigation into the migrants that were lured from the Migrant Resource Center, located in Bexar County, TX, and flown to Florida, where they were ultimately left to fend for themselves in Martha’s Vineyard, MA. — Bexar County Sheriff’s Office (@BexarCoSheriff) September 19, 2022 Salazar said his office is investigating whether the migrants were the victims of a crime. Several migrants said a woman approached them outside a migrant center in San Antonio and offered them jobs and assistance if they flew to Massachusetts. But officials there had no prior knowledge of their arrival. A spokesperson for DeSantis’s office responded to the probe Monday: “Immigrants have been more than willing to leave Bexar County after being abandoned, homeless, and ‘left to fend for themselves.’ Florida gave them an opportunity to seek greener pastures in a sanctuary jurisdiction that offered greater resources for them, as we expected. Unless the MA national guard has abandoned these individuals, they have been provided accommodations, sustenance, clothing and more options to succeed following their unfair enticement into the United States, unlike the 53 immigrants who died in a truck found abandoned in Bexar County this June.” Related: DeSantis says he’s ‘protecting Florida’ by sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard Watch the news conference below: This content is imported from Facebook. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Read More Here

The Fed Is Now Expected To Keep Raising Rates Then Hold Them There, CNBC Survey Shows https://digitalalaskanews.com/the-fed-is-now-expected-to-keep-raising-rates-then-hold-them-there-cnbc-survey-shows/ US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell gives a press briefing after the surprise announcement the FED will cut interest rates on March 3, 2020 in Washington, DC. Eric Baradat | AFP | Getty Images Wall Street finally looks to be embracing the idea that the Federal Reserve will hike rates into restrictive territory and stay at that high rate for a substantial period. That is, the Fed will hike and hold, not hike and cut as many in the markets had been forecasting. The September CNBC Fed Survey shows the average respondent believes the Fed will hike 0.75 percentage point, or 75 basis points, at Wednesday’s meeting, bringing the federal funds rate to 3.1%. The central bank is forecast to keep hiking until the rate peaks in March 2023 at 4.26%. The new peak rate forecast represents a nearly 40 basis-point increase from the July survey. Fed funds expectations CNBC Respondents on average forecast the Fed will remain at that peak rate for nearly 11 months, reflecting a range of view of those who say the Fed will maintain its peak rate for as little as three months to those who say it will hold there for up to two years. “The Fed has finally realized the seriousness of the inflation problem and has pivoted to messaging a positive real policy rate for an extended period of time,” John Ryding, chief economic advisor at Brean Capital, wrote in response to the survey. Ryding sees a potential need for the Fed to hike as high as 5%, from the current range of 2.25%-2.5%. At the same time, there is growing concern among the 35 respondents, including economists, fund managers and strategists, that the Fed will overdo its tightening and cause a recession. “I’m fearing they are on the cusp of going overboard with the aggressiveness of their tightening, both in terms of the size of the hikes along with (quantitative tightening) and the speed at which they are doing so,” Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of Bleakley Financial Group, wrote in response to the survey. Boockvar had been among those who had urged the Fed to pivot and tighten policy very early on, a delay that many say has created the need for officials to move quickly now. Respondents put the recession probability in the U.S. over the next 12 months at 52%, little changed from the July survey. That compares with a 72% probability for Europe. In the U.S., 57% believe the Fed will tighten too much and cause a recession, while just 26% say it will tighten just enough and cause only a modest slowdown, a five-point drop from July. Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at The Leuthold Group, is among the few optimists. He says the Fed “has a real chance at a soft-landing” because the lagged effects of its tightening to date will reduce inflation. But that’s provided it doesn’t’ hike too far. “All the Fed has to do to enjoy a soft landing is stand down after raising the funds rate to 3.25%, allow real GDP growth to remain positive, and take all the credit as inflation declines while real growth persists,” Paulsen wrote. The bigger problem, however, is that most respondents do not see the Fed succeeding at hitting its 2% inflation target for several years. Respondents forecast the consumer price index will end the year at a 6.8% year-over-year rate, down from the current level of 8.3%, and fall further to 3.6% in 2023. Only in 2024 does a majority forecast the Fed will hit its target. Elsewhere in the survey, more than 80% of respondents said they made no change to their inflation forecasts for this year or next as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act. In the meantime, stocks look to be in a very difficult spot. Respondents marked down their average 2022 outlook for the S&P 500 for the sixth straight survey. They now see the large-cap index ending the year at 3,953, or about 1.4% above Monday’s close. The index is expected forecast to rise to 4,310 by the end of 2023. At the same time, most believe markets are more reasonably priced than they were during most of the pandemic. About half say stock prices are too high relative to the outlook for earnings and the economy, and half say they are too low or just about right. During the pandemic, at least 70% of respondents said stock prices were too high in nearly every survey. The CNBC risk/reward ratio — which gauges the probability of a 10% upside minus downside correction in the next six months — is closer to the neutral zone at -5. It has been -9 to -14 for most of the past year. The U.S. economy is seen running at stall speed this year and next with just 0.5% growth forecast in 2022 and little improvement expected for 2023 where the average GDP forecast is just 1.1%. That means at least two years of below trend growth is now the most likely case. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics wrote: “There are many potential scenarios for the economic outlook, but under any scenario the economy will struggle over the next 12-18 months.” The unemployment rate, now at 3.7, is seen rising to 4.4% next year. While still low by historical standards, it is rare for the unemployment rate to rise by 1 percentage point outside of a recession. Most economists said the U.S. is not in a recession now. Read More Here

Acute Exposure To Air Pollutants Increase The Risk Of Acute Glaucoma – BMC Public Health https://digitalalaskanews.com/acute-exposure-to-air-pollutants-increase-the-risk-of-acute-glaucoma-bmc-public-health/ Liping Li1,2 na1, Yixiang Zhu3 na1, Binze Han1,2, Renjie Chen3,4, Xiaofei Man 5,6, Xinghuai Sun 1,2,7, Haidong Kan 3,6 & … Yuan Lei 1,2  BMC Public Health volume 22, Article number: 1782 (2022) Cite this article Abstract Background Ambient air pollution is related to the onset and progression of ocular disease. However, the effect of air pollutants on the acute glaucoma remains unclear. Objective To investigate the effect of air pollutants on the incidence of acute glaucoma (acute angle closure glaucoma and glaucomatocyclitic crisis) among adults. Methods We conducted a time-stratified case-crossover study based on the data of glaucoma outpatients from January, 2015 to Dec, 2021 in Shanghai, China. A conditional logistic regression model combined with a polynomial distributed lag model was applied for the statistical analysis. Each case serves as its own referent by comparing exposures on the day of the outpatient visit to the exposures on the other 3–4 control days on the same week, month and year. To fully capture the delayed effect of air pollution, we used a maximum lag of 7 days in main model. Results A total of 14,385 acute glaucoma outpatients were included in this study. We found exposure to PM2.5, PM10, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) significantly increased the odds of outpatient visit for acute glaucoma. Wherein the odds of acute glaucoma related to PM2.5 and NO2 were higher and more sustained, with OR of 1.07 (95%CI: 1.03–1.11) and 1.12 (95% CI: 1.08–1.17) for an IQR increase over lag 0–3 days, than PM10 and CO over lag 0–1 days (OR:1.03; 95% CI: 1.01–1.05; OR: 1.04; 95% CI: 1.01–1.07). Conclusions This case-crossover study provided first-hand evidence that air pollutants, especially PM2.5 and NO2, significantly increased risk of acute glaucoma. Peer Review reports Introduction The onset and progression of multiple diseases connected closely with ambient air pollution [1] including cardiovascular disease [2,3,4,5,6], type 2 diabetes mellitus [7,8,9,10], chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [11, 12], and even cancer [13, 14] and mortality [15]. Recently, the association between glaucoma and ambient air pollution is emerging [16, 17]. Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in the world, which is estimated more than 70 million persons aged 40–80 suffering from this condition worldwide [18, 19]. According to the risk factors, etiology, duration, symptoms, treatment, and prognosis, glaucoma is classified into different types [20]. Both angle closure glaucoma and glaucomatocyclitic crisis can have acute onset. Angle closure glaucoma is presented with an anatomically closed angle which was casued by apposition of the iris [21]. A closed angle prevents the outflow of aqueous humor and hence causes elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) [22]. In acute primary angle closure attack, IOP could reach to 30 mmHg or even higher. There are several risk factors related to angle closure such as female, older age, and Asian ethnicity (e.g. Chinese) [23] The clinical data from our hospital reveals that primary angle closure glaucoma accounted for 50–55% glaucoma patients [21]. Glaucomatocyclitic crisis (also called Posner-Schlossman syndrome), uaually involves recurrent episodes of increased IOP, acute anterior chamber inflammation and keratic precipitates [24]. The etiology of glaucomatocyclitic crisisris is not very clear which may be involved of virus infections. It has the similar clinical manifestation like an acute angle-closure glaucoma because of the initial sudden and remarkable IOP elevation and the mild anterior chamber inflammatory. High IOP has a similar pathological mechanism with high blood pressure [25]. The association of ambient air pollution with hypertension and blood pressure was investigated by numerous studies [26,27,28,29]. A meta-analysis, which searched seven international and Chinese databases, showed significant associations of long-term or short-term exposures to ambient air pollution with blood pressure and hypertension [30]. In recent years, particulate matter pollution was related to the incidence of self-reported glaucoma or unclassified glaucoma according to the epidemiological studies [31,32,33,34]. And our previous studies showed mice exposed to ambient air pollutants lead to ocular hypertension [35, 36]. However, each type of glaucoma has its own distinctive etiology, it is important to know which types of glaucoma patients are affected by air pollution so that appropriate cautions can be made. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the impact of air pollutants on the incidence of acute glaucoma attacks including acute angle closure glaucoma and glaucomatocyclitic crisisris. The analysis is conducted based on the outpatient data from two hospitals in Shanghai. Air pollutants include PM2.5 (particulate matter ≤2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter), PM10 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter � 10 μm), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and ozone (O3). Methods Design and population Date on acute glaucoma outpatient visits were collected between 1, January, 2015 and 31, Dec, 2021 from the Eye Ear Nose and Throat Hospital of Fudan University and Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in Shanghai, China. The inclusion and exclusion procedures were shown in Fig. S1. All patients clinically diagnosed with acute angle closure glaucoma or glaucomatocyclitic crisisris by physicians were regarded as acute glaucoma attack and were included in this study. Demographic characteristics, including age, gender, residential addresses and date of outpatient visits were collected. Pearson correlation analysis was conducted to examine the correlations between the air pollutants and meteorological variables. The patients without demographic information, aging under 18 or above 85 years old, and living out of Shanghai were excluded. Moreover, the patients with glaucoma surgery history, prescribing for medicines, suspected as glaucoma were excluded as well. Totally 14,385 cases living in Shanghai city were incorporated into this study (Fig. 1). The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the Eye Ear Nose and Throat Hospital of Fudan University (IRB#2022027) and adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki. The informed consent was waived by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the Eye Ear Nose and Throat Hospital of Fudan University. Fig. 1 Address of patients for acute glaucoma attack and air quality monitoring stations in Shanghai, China, during 2015–2021 A time-stratified case-crossover design was applied to evaluate the potential associations of air pollution exposure and outpatient visits for acute glaucoma. In this design, each subject serves as his or her own control by selecting 3–4 control days matched to other days on the week of the same month-year of the outpatient visit day. This design could provide unbiased effect estimate and control the long-term trend and seasonal pattern [37, 38]. Exposure assessment Air pollution data was derived from the nearest air quality monitoring stations to participants’ address on China’s National Urban Air Quality Real-time Publishing Platform. We included the data of the daily (24 h) levels of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, and CO and daily 8 h maximum averages O3 in the analysis. Daily meteorological data (average temperature and relative humid) recorded from the nearest weather stations were also acquired in the China Meteorological Data Sharing Service System (http://data.cma.cn/). Statistical analysis A conditional logistic regression model with polynomial distributed lag model (PDLM) was conducted to quantitatively examine the association between air pollution with outpatient visits for glaucoma. The results were presented as the odds ratios (ORs) of glaucoma incidence associated an interquartile range (IQR) with the 95% confidence intervals (CI) of the air pollutants. The PDLM was widely applied to estimate the lagged impact of environmental factors on health. As flexible “cross-basis” functions, air pollution indices was defined as combinations of natural cubic spline with 2 degrees of freedom (df) for exposure space and 3 df for lag space [39, 40]. To fully capture the delayed effect of air pollution, we used a maximum lag of 7 days in PDLM. Furthermore, considering the nonlinear confounding effects of weather conditions, the model included a smoothing function using natural splines with 6 df for the 3- day moving average temperature and 3 df for 3-day moving average relative humidity to adjust for the nonlinear confounding effects of weather conditions. The public holidays were also adjusted in the model. Furthermore, we used conditional logistic regression model combined with distributed non-linear models (DLNM) to describe the exposure-response associations of air pollution with risk of glaucoma. By examining and plotting cumulative effects, lag days with significant effects was found and then applied to plot the exposure-response (E-R) association. The models fit from the 0.1th to 99.9th percentiles of the concentrations of each pollutant, respectively. We also performed subgroup analyses by gender (male and female) and age (18–44 and 45–85 years) to assess the modifying effects of demographic features. We tested the statistical significance of differences between effect modifications by calculating the 95% confidence interval as $$hat{Big({mathrm{Q}}_1}-hat{{mathrm{Q}}_2}Big)pm 1.96sqrt{hat{{{mathrm{SE}}_1}^2}+hat{{{mathrm{SE}}_2}^2}}$$ where (hat{{mathrm{Q}}_1}) and (hat{{mathrm{Q}}_2}) represent the estimates for the 2 categories, and (hat{{m...

Donald Trump Mocks Joe Biden Over Seating At Queen Elizabeth https://digitalalaskanews.com/donald-trump-mocks-joe-biden-over-seating-at-queen-elizabeth/ “If I were president, they wouldn’t have sat me back there” Author of the article: U.S. President Joe Biden takes his seat with wife Jill Biden other heads of state and dignitaries, including French President Emanuel Macron at the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, held at Westminster Abbey, London September 19, 2022. Photo by Dominic Lipinski /Pool via REUTERS Donald Trump has mocked Joe Biden after the U.S. president was seated in the 14th row at Queen Elizabeth’s state funeral. Advertisement 2 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The ‘Apprentice’ star — whose term of office ended in January 2021 — slammed organizers of the service at London’s Westminster Abbey on Monday  for showing “no respect” to America and insisted they would never have asked him to sit seven rows from the back of the building if he had still been the country’s leader. Your Midday Sun From our newsroom to your inbox at noon, the latest headlines, stories, opinion and photos from the Toronto Sun. By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300 Trump shared a photo of the assembled world leaders, with a red arrow pointing at his successor, on his social media outlet Truth Social. He captioned the image: “This is what’s happened to America in just two short years. No respect! “However, a good time for our President to get to know the leaders of certain Third World countries. “If I were president, they wouldn’t have sat me back there – and our Country would be much different than it is right now! Advertisement 3 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. “In Real Estate, like in Politics and in Life, LOCATION IS EVERYTHING!!!” Trump’s post mocking Biden at Queen’s funeral. The president and his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, were seated next to Switzerland’s president Ignazio Cassis, with China’s vice president Wang Oishan on the same row. Czech prime minister Petr Fiala was directly behind them, and Andrzej Duda, President of Poland, in front. Due to protocol, Commonwealth leaders were seated in front of those from other countries, meaning the likes of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, were further in front. Before the Queen’s funeral, Biden paid tribute to the “decent, honourable” monarch. Speaking as he signed a book of condolence at Lancaster House, he said over the weekend: “We’ve had the opportunity to meet with an awful lot of consequential people, I can say that the ones who stand out in your mind are those whose relationship and interaction with you are consistent with their reputation. Advertisement 4 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. We apologize, but this video has failed to load. “When the Queen had us to the castle for tea and we had crumpets, she kept offering me more, I kept eating everything she put in front of me. “She was the same in person as her image – decent, honourable and all about service. “My hearts go out to the Royal Family, to King Charles and all the family, it’s a loss that leaves a giant hole and sometimes you think you’ll never overcome it, but as I’ve told the King, she’s going to be with him every step of the way, every minute, every moment and that’s a reassuring notion. “So to all the people of England, to all the people of the United Kingdom, our hearts go out to you and you were fortunate to have had her for 70 years, we all were, the world’s better for her.” Read More Here

AP News Summary At 7:45 A.m. EDT https://digitalalaskanews.com/ap-news-summary-at-745-a-m-edt/ ‘We have nothing’: Izium’s trauma after Russian occupation IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — Izium, in far eastern Ukraine, was among the first cities taken by Russian forces after the war started on Feb. 24 and became a command center for the occupying forces. By early March, the city was almost completely isolated — no cell phones, no heat, no power. Residents didn’t know what was going on in the war, whether their relatives were alive, whether there was still a Ukraine. They were liberated Sept. 10 in a Ukrainian counteroffensive that swept through the Kharkiv region, but more than a week later residents are still emerging from the confusion and trauma of six months of occupation. The city gained attention last week after the discovery of one of the war’s largest mass grave sites. Fiona barrels toward Turks and Caicos as Cat. 3 hurricane SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hurricane Fiona is barreling toward the Turks and Caicos Islands as a Category 3 storm, prompting the government to impose a curfew. Forecasters say Fiona is expected to pass near Grand Turk, the British territory’s capital island, on Tuesday morning. Premier Washington Misick, who has been in London attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, has urged people to take every needed precaution. The intensifying storm is also keeping copious rain falling over the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Lawyers seek data in Georgia election equipment breach ATLANTA (AP) — A new court filing says a former Republican Party official in Georgia who was a fake elector in 2020 misrepresented her role in an alleged breach of voting equipment at a rural elections office two months after the presidential election. The filing late Monday is part of a broader lawsuit challenging the security of the state’s voting machines that has been drawn into a separate investigation of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in Georgia. According to the latest filing, Cathy Latham helped coordinate the arrival of a computer forensics team at the Coffee County elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, and spent nearly all day there instructing them what to copy. The filing says that directly refutes her previous testimony. WNBA players skipping Russia, choosing other places to play Read More Here

I https://digitalalaskanews.com/i-5/ Kash Jain ‘24 Opinion Editor Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican who has gained notoriety for a series of political stunts, has again returned to the headlines. This time, DeSantis had fifty migrants to Texas sent by plane to Martha’s Vineyard. There are conflicting reports, but it seems that these migrants were told that they would be going to Boston and would receive expedited work papers. Conservatives have argued that, by sending migrants to more liberal cities, they are trying to make a statement about the “open border.” This false claim has become a major talking point for Republicans attempting to paint a picture of a massive surge of drugs and crime driven by lax immigration policy created by the Biden administration that places a significant strain on red states and their residents. Though these claims are misleading or, in some cases, outright false, fearmongering about illegal immigration has consistently proven to be a salient attack point for the right. These sorts of statements and claims spark fear and xenophobic sentiment, then Republicans translate it into political gain. DeSantis stated that the decision was part of a plan to send migrants to “sanctuary destinations.” At a glance, this may be a fair reason—helping migrants get to places with the infrastructure and the will to help them is sensible; however, the falsehoods told to migrants, the fact that local officials were not informed that these migrants would be coming, and the aggressiveness with which Republicans have campaigned on illegal immigration make it difficult to believe that benevolence was at the core of this action. Rather, the opposite seems true: DeSantis made a deliberate decision to interfere with people’s lives in order to score political points. This decision was a despicable political maneuver; DeSantis is openly exploiting migrants, including children, for political gain. This is an indefensible and nefarious move; it’s cruelty for personal gain. However, the reason why this benefits DeSantis must be understood. This political stunt helps DeSantis get in the news: it gives him more attention so he can take radical stances and build his support among conservatives. It’s only his latest move in a series of actions on social issues including Critical Race Theory and the rights of gay and transgender Americans—issues that are particularly salient among the Republican base. Each of his actions, from the tax punishment for Disney as retaliation for its opposition of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill to enacting an education-focused law called the “Stop Woke Act,” have been made to take imagined issues, rile people up, and capitalize on their outrage. DeSantis has not stopped at enacting hostile policy. He has continuously attacked the Biden administration on issues that Republicans have focused on, including inflation and COVID-19 policies. He has closely associated himself with Trump and has even been accused of adopting some of his mannerisms and rhetoric. Beyond Trump, DeSantis has associated himself with the broader MAGA movement and other high-profile members of it: he even spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Tampa earlier this year alongside top Republican officials and activists. So far, DeSantis’ strategy seems to be working. He has risen in prominence over the past two years through these activities, these deliberate moves to mark himself as someone friendly to the MAGA movement and authoritarian sentiments. DeSantis has effectively captured the moment, asserting himself as a major opponent to Biden and a standard-bearer of the right—a station that he could perhaps turn into a presidential bid. A straw poll conducted at the August CPAC convention in Dallas found that 69% of attendees want Trump to be the Republican nominee for President in 2024—24% preferred DeSantis. 65% of respondents said that, if Trump didn’t run, DeSantis would be their preference. Whether or not the former president will run in 2024 remains to be seen, but if he does not, there is a clear avenue for DeSantis—arguably a clearer path than there has been for any other presidential candidate in recent memory. What makes it especially clear that DeSantis’ goal is to build his reputation is what he focuses on. DeSantis never makes headlines for policies that would bring jobs to Florida, increase the quality of education, or improve access to healthcare. Why? Well, the answer is simple: DeSantis, and those who share his ideological convictions, don’t push for policy that would address broader concerns faced by their constituents because they don’t benefit from it. To put it a bit more brashly: for Republicans seeking to elevate their profiles, there is little political gain in doing good things. Social issues like abortion and gay marriage have been the bread and butter for the Republican Party and its base. Vocalizing support for conservative stances on social issues, especially rights-centric issues, such as George W. Bush’s call at his 2004 inauguration to “defend the sanctity of marriage,” has been incredibly effective for Republicans. Prioritizing these issues helps generate donations and support from interest groups and activists while motivating voters. Though Republicans often position themselves as a pro-business, economically-focused party, their policy goals and decisions have rarely reflected that. This is especially true at the state level, where Republicans have focused heavily on pushing positions on social issues held by interest groups and more extreme activists rather than enacting policy that would have a broader impact and materially benefit people. This problem has worsened as the far-right has taken hold of the party. Conservatives have found themselves facing mounting pressure from right-wing activists to focus on these social issues and, therefore, take increasingly extreme stances on them. This means that there is a cost for many Republicans if they choose to stand up to attacks on people’s rights, and there is significant benefit for contributing to such attacks. A Republican that wants attention and support from the party’s base can receive this by taking aggressive, radical stances on social issues and making inflammatory statements. DeSantis knows this and is using it to build a place for himself on the national stage. This isn’t to say that DeSantis and other Republicans have completely ignored more immediate issues and needs; they will still take action on less flashy issues. However, the airtime that DeSantis has had and the political will that he has exerted have focused on taking extremist stances and actions on these attention-grabbing issues instead of prioritizing legislation that would have a positive impact on Floridians. In a more just world, DeSantis’ stunt would elicit universal condemnation and backlash. This should be the sort of thing that sinks political careers, but the political reality that we live in means that DeSantis will benefit from this and will continue along this line of actions to bolster his profile and qualifications as a leader of the far-right. Read More Here

Same As It Ever Was https://digitalalaskanews.com/same-as-it-ever-was/ I hear from more conservatives than I can respond to, or care to. I hear from some I dare not engage, thus encourage, owing to tone. But there was a certain conservative woman who interested me, leading to an email conversation over the past week that defined Arkansas politics in a logically flowing narrative. She began by saying I had no idea how shrill I sounded waxing indignant all the time about Donald Trump. She couldn’t stand Trump, she wrote. She said that she and her Air Force veteran husband so despised national Democratic liberalism on economic and cultural issues that she’d even vote again for Trump if he was the only general-election option. “You’re welcome,” she ended, dropping the mic. I replied that I couldn’t imagine honest policy disagreements being so defining that they’d license a vote for a megalomaniacal insurrectionist who is a threat to democracy. I referred to a person holding such views as the worst kind of “Trumper,” one that knows better but gets ruled by resentment. She professed great offense at my saying “Trumper” and said she wasn’t one, and that what I said was as insulting as her calling me a “snowflake.” I told her I get called a lot worse and that snowflakes were beautiful. She shot back that snowflakes have no substance, which, I must say, was pretty clever. I told her that I might vote for Mitt Romney or Larry Hogan or Asa Hutchinson over Biden in an attempt to re-forge an American political center that might moderate the currently impractical liberalism and appropriately stigmatize the currently crazed right-wing extremism. By the way, the best commentary I’ve encountered recently about today’s impractical liberalism came from Bill Maher, who said, sure, Republicans are ridiculous to want to whitewash American history, but that the emerging left-wing view of “presentism,” which holds that we are to blame for the less-evolved sins of our ancestors, is just as nutty. I recalled a young man interviewing me in a coffee shop for a college paper on race, and him winding up scolding me sternly because I loved and respected my late dad even if he was racist–until he redeemed himself somewhat by evolution of his underpinning decency in pushing for racial integration of his downtown church, which caused the church to break up. When the young man left, another man in the coffee shop who’d beheld the whole loud thing asked, “How do you like your liberals now?” But back to my correspondent: She replied that her preferred presidential candidate was Ron DeSantis and that she relished his transporting those asylum-seekers to Martha’s Vineyard. She said she’d been laughing all morning about that. I replied that she was revealing herself as a run-of-the-mill resentment conservative who laughs at a grandstand political stunt that dehumanizes people for the self-amusement of trying to embarrass wealthy elite liberals in a place like Martha’s Vineyard. She replied that she’d like to plop an undocumented immigrant on the porch of every Joe Biden voter. And that was that. I’d had enough of her and she perhaps enough of me. She’d taken me on a marvelous revelatory journey, going like this: It’s not about Trump; he’s silly. It’s about hating Democrats over policy disagreements more than we hate sending thugs into the U.S. Capitol to try to feed a madman’s ego and thwart the Constitution. It’s inevitably all about our resentments, including those of persons seeking to come to our country and of smug elitist Democrats whose insulated privilege will be laid bare by having to dirty their hands in forced association with those for whom they profess such hollow compassion from such formerly safe distances. It’s age-old. Frank White upset Bill Clinton in the governor’s race of 1980 largely by bellowing against Cuban refugees coming to the state. Tommy Robinson gathered up county jail inmates and chained them to the state prison fence. The more things seem toxic in Arkansas, the more they’re like how they always were, but before Fox News was there to exploit them daily from Berryville to Dermott, Ashdown to Piggott. Now we have the new poll from Talk Business and Politics and Hendrix College showing Biden’s negative rating in the state to be 62 percent, and Trump’s positive-negative to be 48-48. It shows Sarah Huckabee Sanders getting 51 percent, underperforming in terms of all the anti-Biden votes available to her, but over-performing slightly in terms of Trump’s now wholly wash-out Arkansas standing. Association with Trump gets her to 48. She gets three points on her own. Ridiculing Biden offers her all the way to 62. John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers’ Hall of Fame. Email him at [email protected] Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed. Read More Here

New York Judge Takes Up Review Of Documents FBI Seized At Trump https://digitalalaskanews.com/new-york-judge-takes-up-review-of-documents-fbi-seized-at-trump/     Raymond Dearie, a senior federal judge in Brooklyn, was selected as an independent arbiter known as a special master. He will help decide which of the more than 11,000 documents seized in the Aug. 8 search of the former president’s Mar-a-lago home should be kept from the Department of Justice’s criminal investigation into the mishandling of the documents.     Dearie, 78, will recommend to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon which documents may fall under attorney-client privilege or an assertion of executive privilege, which allows a president to withhold certain documents or information.     It is unclear whether the review will go forward as instructed by Cannon, the Florida judge who ordered the review. Cannon was nominated by Trump in 2020. Trump is under investigation for retaining government records, some marked as highly classified, at the resort in Palm Beach, Florida, his home after leaving office in January 2021. He has denied wrongdoing, and said without providing evidence that he believes the investigation is a partisan attack.     The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday appealed a portion of Cannon’s ruling, seeking to stay the review of roughly 100 documents with classified markings and the judge’s restricting FBI access to them.     Federal prosecutors said the special master review ordered by the judge would hinder the government from addressing national security risks and force the disclosure of “highly sensitive materials.”    The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Trump to respond by noon Tuesday.     Cannon’s order calls for Dearie to conclude his review by the end of November. She instructed him to prioritize the documents marked classified, though her process calls for Trump’s counsel to review the documents, and Trump’s lawyers may not have the necessary security clearance.     The Justice Department has described the process as unnecessary, as it has already conducted its own attorney-client privilege review and set aside about 500 records that could qualify. The department opposes an executive privilege review, saying any such assertion over the records would fail.     The search came after Trump left office with documents that belong to the government and did not return them, despite numerous requests by the government and a subpoena. It is still unclear whether the government has all the records. The Justice Department has said it fears some classified material could be missing, after the FBI recovered empty folders with classification markings from Mar-a-lago. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld, additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and David Gregorio) By Karen Freifeld Read More Here

Cryptoverse: After Merge, Ether Heads For A $20 Billion Shanghai Splurge https://digitalalaskanews.com/cryptoverse-after-merge-ether-heads-for-a-20-billion-shanghai-splurge/ Souvenir tokens representing cryptocurrency networks Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and Ripple plunge into water in this illustration taken May 17, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Sept 20 (Reuters) – The Merge came, saw and conquered. Not that you’d guess from crypto prices. The Ethereum blockchain’s mega-upgrade finally went live on Sept. 15, moving it to a less energy-intensive “proof of stake” (PoS) system with hardly a hiccup. read more Even though anticipation of the event had seen ether rise about 85% from its June doldrums, it has since sunk 19%, hit along with bitcoin and other risky assets by investor angst over inflation and central-bank policy. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Nonetheless, many market players are bullish about the long-term prospects of Ethereum and its native cryptocurrency. “Previously, we have talked to sovereign wealth funds and central banks to help build their digital asset allocations… but direct investment has been voted down due to energy concerns,” said Markus Thielen, chief investment officer at asset manager IDEG Limited. “With Ethereum moving to PoS, this clearly solves this last pillar of concern.” Some crypto investors are now turning their attention to the next event that could shake up prices. The next significant upgrade for Ethereum is the “Shanghai”, expected by market participants in around six months’ time, which is aimed at reducing its high transaction costs. It would allow validators, who have deposited ether tokens on the blockchain in exchange for a yield, to withdraw their staked coins, to hold or sell. There’s a lot at stake: over $20 billion of ether deposits are currently locked up, according to data provider Glassnode. The staked ether crypto coin – viewed as a bet on Ethereum’s long-term success as it cannot be redeemed until Shanghai happens – is trading at nearly parity with ether at 0.989 ether, according to CoinMarketCap data, indicating confidence in future upgrades. The coin had dropped as low as 0.92 in June. PURGE AND SPLURGE Beyond Shanghai, a slew of other upgrades are planned for Ethereum, which co-founder Vitalik Buterin has nicknamed “the surge”, “verge”, “purge” and “splurge”. The primary focus of future upgrades is likely to be on the blockchain’s ability to process more transactions. “Because the Merge was delayed for several years, investors, traders, and end-users have a great deal of trepidation around when Ethereum will meaningfully scale,” said Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at blockchain-focused bank Galaxy Digital. Paul Brody, global blockchain leader at EY, said: “Ethereum’s future needs to, and will, scale to hundreds of millions of transactions a day.” Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics ETHEREUM KILLERS The Merge’s primary goal was to reduce Ethereum’s energy usage as cryptocurrencies come under fire for their massive carbon footprint. The blockchain’s energy consumption was cut by an estimated 99.95%, the developers claim, which could tempt powerful institutional investors, formerly constrained by environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns. The Merge and future upgrades also dent the investment appeal of so-called “Ethereum killer” blockchains like Solana and Polkadot, said Adam Struck, CEO of venture capital firm Struck Crypto. However, institutional investors aren’t jumping in just yet, as a fearsome macro environment chills the waters of risk appetite. Longer-term, though, the switch to PoS is expected to decrease the rate at which ether tokens are issued – potentially by up to 90% – which should drive up prices. Additionally, annual yields of 4.1% for staking ether tokens to validate transactions could prove tempting for investors. However, while the proof-of-stake method allows for these lucrative yields, many crypto purists point out that it moves Ethereum away from a purely decentralized model as the biggest validators could exercise greater influence over the blockchain. For the time being, however, the Ethereum world might be advised to enjoy the Merge moment. “There may be volatility in the days to come,” said analysts at Kaiko Research. “But for now the community can take a well-earned victory lap.” Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Pravin Char Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. Read More Here

Congress Eyes Strongest Response Yet To Jan. 6 Attack https://digitalalaskanews.com/congress-eyes-strongest-response-yet-to-jan-6-attack/ WASHINGTON (AP) – House Democrats are voting this week on changes to a 19th century law for certifying presidential elections, their strongest legislative response yet to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The vote to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, expected Wednesday, comes as a bipartisan group of senators is moving forward with a similar bill. Lawmakers in both parties have said they want to change the arcane law before it is challenged again. Trump and his allies tried to exploit the law’s vague language in the weeks after the election as they strategized how they could keep Joe Biden out of office, including by lobbying Vice President Mike Pence to simply object to the certification of Biden’s victory when Congress counted the votes on Jan. 6. The former White House chief of staff also turned over records. (CNN, WSOC, WSB, POOL, BRENDAN GUTENSCHWAGER, BEN WILLIAMS, GETTY IMAGES, THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW) Pence refused to do so, but it was clear afterward that there was no real legal framework, or recourse, to respond under the 1887 law if the vice president had tried to block the count. The House and Senate bills would better define the vice president’s ministerial role and make clear that he or she has no say in the final outcome. Both versions would also make it harder for lawmakers to object if they don’t like the results of an election, clarify laws that could allow a state’s vote to be delayed, and ensure that there is only one slate of legal electors from each state. One strategy by Trump and his allies was to create alternate slates of electors in key states Biden won, with the ultimately unsuccessful idea that they could be voted on during the congressional certification on Jan. 6 and result in throwing the election back to Trump. “We’ve got to make this more straightforward to respect the will of the people,” said Senate Rules Committee Chairman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., whose committee will hold a vote on the legislation bill next week. “We don’t want to risk Jan. 6 happening again,” she said. The bills are a response to the violence of that day, when a mob of Trump’s supporters pushed past police, broke into the building and interrupted Biden’s certification. The crowd was echoing Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud and calling for Pence’s death after it became clear that he wouldn’t try to overturn the election. Democrats in both chambers have felt even more urgency on the issue as Trump is considering another run for president and is still claiming the election was stolen. Many Republicans say they believe him, even though 50 states certified Biden’s win and courts across the country rejected Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud. While the House vote is expected to fall mostly along party lines, the Senate bill has some Republican support and its backers are hopeful they will have the 10 votes they need to break a filibuster and pass it in the 50-50 Senate. But that could be tricky amid campaigning for the November midterm elections, and Republicans most aligned with Trump are certain to oppose it. The Senate Rules panel is expected to pass the measure next Tuesday, with some tweaks, though a floor vote will most likely wait until November or December, Klobuchar said. The panel plans to issue a final report by the year’s end. (CNN, POOL, FACEBOOK/DONALD J. TRUMP, BANNON WAR ROOM, HOUSE RECORDING STUDIO, BRENDAN GUTENSCHWAGER) Even though they are similar, the House version is more expansive than the Senate bill and the two chambers will have some key differences that lawmakers will have to work out. The House legislation was introduced on Monday by House Administration Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, both members of the House panel that has been investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. Like the Senate bill, the House legislation would require that there is a single set of electors from each state submitted by the governor. The House bill would also narrow the grounds on which members of Congress could object to any state’s electoral votes and raise the threshold for how many objections would be needed. Currently, the House and Senate each debate and vote on whether to accept a state’s electors if there is just one objection from each chamber. The House bill would require instead that a third of the House and a third of the Senate object to a particular state’s electors in order to hold a vote. The Senate bill would require that a fifth of each chamber object. Two such votes were held on Jan. 6, 2021, after the rioters were cleared, because GOP Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri joined dozens of House members in objecting to Biden’s victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania. Both the House and Senate voted to certify the legitimate results. Lofgren said the American people should be deciding the election, not Congress. People who wanted to overturn the election “took advantage of ambiguous language as well as a low threshold to have Congress play a role that they really aren’t supposed to play,” she said. The general similarities of the House bill to the Senate version could be a signal that House members are willing to compromise to get the legislation passed. Some House members had criticized the Senate bill for not going far enough. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of both the Jan. 6 and House Administration committees, had said this summer that the Senate bill was not “remotely sufficient” to address the challenges presented by current law. House members know they will have to give in some, though, to pass it through the 50-50 Senate. There are currently nine GOP senators and seven Democrats on the Senate bill, which is sponsored by centrist Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., and Susan Collins, R-Maine. Collins said Monday, “I believe we can work this out, and I hope that we do so.” The bipartisan group of senators worked for months to find agreement on a way to revamp the process, eventually settling on a series of proposals introduced in July. Klobuchar’s Republican counterpart on the Senate Rules Committee, Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, has also been supportive. “This is something we shouldn’t carry over into another election cycle,” Blunt said at a Senate hearing in August. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Read More Here

Russian Losses Hinder Recruiting, U.S. Defense Official Says https://digitalalaskanews.com/russian-losses-hinder-recruiting-u-s-defense-official-says/ Image An abandoned Russian tank with the “Z” symbol in Izium last week, during a media tour arranged by the Ukrainian government after the city was reclaimed.Credit…Nicole Tung for The New York Times WASHINGTON — Russia is struggling to attract recruits for its army amid its setbacks in Ukraine, while the United States is open to potentially sending Western tanks to Kyiv, a senior U.S. defense official said on Monday. “The Russians are performing so poorly that the news from Kharkiv Province has inspired many Russian volunteers to refuse combat,” the official said, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the status of Russia’s war in Ukraine, adding that the leader of the Wagner Group, a private military company with ties to the Kremlin, had been seen in videos posted on social media asking Russian prisoners, Tajiks, Belarusians and Armenians to join the fight in Ukraine. “We believe this is part of Wagner’s campaign to recruit over 1,500 convicted felons,” the official said. “But many are refusing.” Last week, a video posted online and analyzed by The New York Times showed the Wagner Group promising convicts that they would be released from prison in return for a six-month combat tour in Ukraine. It is unclear when the video was filmed. The official added that Russia was failing in its own strategic objectives, noting that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia reiterated last week that the “main goal” of his invasion was limited to capturing the Donbas — the eastern Ukrainian region where Russia has recognized as independent two Kremlin-backed statelets but where Ukraine still controls several key cities and towns. And, at a regional summit in Uzbekistan on Friday, Mr. Putin said Russia was committed to its “special military operation,” despite Russian losses in the northeast and Ukraine’s offensive in the south, near the port city of Kherson. Furthermore, Ukrainian forces now control all of their territory west of the Oskil River in eastern Ukraine, the official said, and have liberated more than 300 settlements in Kharkiv Province. With Ukrainian troops continuing to take back territory from Russian forces, and the war nearly seven months old, the Pentagon is discussing how best to support Kyiv for a long-term war. Part of that, the official said, includes transitioning Ukraine away from their Soviet-era weaponry and replacing them with those used by NATO and other Western militaries. While the United States and other nations have provided Ukraine with Soviet-era tanks, the Pentagon signaled an openness to transferring Western main battle tanks to Kyiv as well. “Armor is a really important capability area for the Ukrainians,” the official said. “We recognize that there will be a day when they may want to transition — and may need to transition — to NATO-compatible models.” President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly asked Western allies for more equipment and ammunition, saying the counteroffensive underway is dependent on getting more. He alluded to the need to speed up aid deliveries in his nightly address on Monday. “Pace is very important now,” Mr. Zelensky said. “We speak about this honestly. The pace of providing aid to Ukraine should correspond to the pace of our movement.” And despite its problems with manpower and organization, Russia still has a significant advantage over Ukraine in supplies and ammunition. “Tanks are absolutely on the table along with other areas,” said the American defense official. “We’re looking at the entirety of the Ukrainian armed forces and considering for the future what capabilities they will need and how the U.S. and our allies will be able to support Ukraine in building out those capabilities.” “In terms of the immediate fight, the tanks that are available that could be provided very quickly with little to no training are Soviet-type tanks, but we are certainly open to other options provided that the training, maintenance and the sustainment can be taken care of.” Image The General Assembly building at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Monday.Credit…Justin Lane/EPA, via Shutterstock The global divisions over the war in Ukraine and its implications, including food and energy crises, are expected to take center stage as world leaders begin addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Tuesday. The 77th session, the first in-person gathering since the pandemic began, will highlight the polarization over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as the United Nations seeks to facilitate dialogue and discussions of plans to address the war’s reverberations. “The General Assembly is meeting at a time of great peril,” António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, said last week. “Our world is blighted by war, battered by climate chaos, scarred by hate, and shamed by poverty, hunger, and inequality.” Notably absent among the more than 150 leaders and government representatives scheduled to deliver speeches from Tuesday through Sunday is Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. Also sitting out the gathering are China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, who each met with Mr. Putin at a regional gathering last week in Uzbekistan and expressed reservations about Russia’s war. Those leaders will be represented by ministers who will deliver speeches later in the week after heads of states and governments have spoken, in accordance with United Nations protocol. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine will address the assembly in a prerecorded video speech on Wednesday. He was granted an exemption to the rule requiring in-person speeches to the General Assembly this year. “There will be important signals from our state,” Mr. Zelensky said of the speech in his nightly address on Monday. He said he would also meet online with “American partners and investors” about Ukraine’s defense, financial, and economic needs. President Biden, who is expected to call for continued support of Ukraine and emphasize the importance of allied democracies at a time of rising authoritarianism, will speak on Wednesday, a day later than his traditionally allotted spot, after returning from Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in London. Among those scheduled to speak Tuesday are Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has positioned himself as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia; Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, whose country is bracing for an energy crisis; and President Emmanuel Macron of France, who has urged diplomatic solutions to the war. The focus on Ukraine is expected to draw concerns from developing countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Leaders there fear the world’s preoccupation with the war in Ukraine has diverted humanitarian aid and resources from other nations that are in dire need. The United States, the European Union and the African Union will hold a joint conference on food insecurity and rising prices on the sidelines of the General Assembly gathering on Tuesday. Image Workers carrying a body exhumed from a mass grave site in Izium, Ukraine, on Saturday.Credit…Nicole Tung for The New York Times Most of the 146 bodies exhumed so far in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Izium were civilians, and some of the bodies showed signs of torture, the leader of the regional military administration, Oleh Synyehubov, said Monday. “Some of the dead have signs of violent death. There are bodies with tied hands and traces of torture,” Mr. Synyehubov wrote in a post on Telegram. Others had stab wounds or injuries from mine explosions and shrapnel, and two of the bodies belonged to children, he added. Izium’s mayor, Valery Marchenko, has said that he expected it will take another two weeks to exhume all of the bodies from several mass grave sites in Izium that were discovered after Russian forces retreated in the face of a Ukrainian counteroffensive. The largest of burial site contained about 440 individual graves, a discovery that cast a renewed spotlight on potential war crimes committed during Russia’s six-month occupation of the city. Investigators say the discoveries recall the broad evidence of atrocities by Russian soldiers in towns like Bucha, near Kyiv, but each body must be forensically examined to determine the cause of death. Russia’s battering of civilian targets including theaters, hospitals and apartment buildings has prompted months of international condemnation. Some attacks have been indiscriminate because of older, imprecise weaponry, while others have been targeted atrocities, like the killings in Bucha. Last month, the United Nations reported that it had confirmed the deaths of 5,587 Ukrainian civilians, though the true number is thought to be in the tens of thousands. Russia has often denied responsibility or blamed Ukraine for civilian deaths. On Monday, Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-appointed proxy leader in Kherson, accused Ukraine of killing 13 civilians in targeted shelling in the eastern Donetsk region. The claim could not be independently verified. Ukrainian officials denied the allegation, saying Moscow was terrorizing civilians in occupied territory to direct attention away from the investigations in Izium before this week’s meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. “The occupiers have already repeatedly used such a pattern to divert attention from their own crimes,” Ukraine’s national security and defense council said in a Telegram post. Image Representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe at a forum in Prague this month. Its chairman, Zbigniew Rau, center, called sentences handed down in a breakaway region of Ukraine “inhumane.”Credit…Albert Zawada/EPA, via Shutterstock A court in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine on Monday sentenced two Ukrainian staff members ...

Video Appears To Undercut Trump Elector’s Account Of Alleged Voting-Data Breach In Georgia https://digitalalaskanews.com/video-appears-to-undercut-trump-electors-account-of-alleged-voting-data-breach-in-georgia/ On Jan. 7, 2021, a group of forensics experts working for lawyers allied with President Donald Trump spent eight hours at a county elections office in southern Georgia, copying sensitive software and data from its voting machines. Under questioning last month for a civil lawsuit, a former Georgia Republican Party official named Cathy Latham said in sworn testimony that she briefly stopped by the office in Coffee County that afternoon. She said she stayed in the foyer and spoke with a junior official about an unrelated matter at the front desk. “I didn’t go into the office,” Latham said, according to a transcript of her deposition filed in court. She said she had seen in passing a pro-Trump businessman who was working with the experts. She said they chatted for “five minutes at most” — she could not remember the topic — and she left soon after for an early dinner with her husband. Surveillance video footage reviewed by The Washington Post shows that Latham visited the elections office twice that day, staying for more than four hours in total. She greeted the businessman, Scott Hall, when he arrived and led him into a back area to meet the experts and local officials, the video shows. Over the course of the day, it shows, she moved in and out of an area where the experts from the data forensics firm, SullivanStrickler, were working, a part of that building that was not visible to the surveillance camera. She took a selfie with one of the forensics experts before heading out at 6:19 p.m. A Post examination found that elements of the account Latham gave in her deposition on the events of Jan. 6 and 7, 2021, appear to diverge from the footage and other evidence, including depositions and text messages. Many of those records, including Latham’s Aug. 8 deposition, were filed in a long-running federal civil court case involving election security in Georgia. During the 2020 election and its aftermath, Latham was a member of the Georgia Republican Party’s executive committee and sat on its election confidence task force. She was also chairwoman of the Coffee County Republican Party. She was one of the “fake electors” who signed unauthorized certificates in a bid to keep Trump in power after his 2020 election defeat. In response to questions from The Post, Latham’s lawyers said, “Failing to accurately remember the details of events from almost two years ago is not lying.” They have said she did not take part in the copying or in anything improper or illegal. Her attorneys Robert D. Cheeley and Holly A. Pierson wrote in a court filing last week that the alleged security breach was “actually less of a breach or criminal undertaking and more of a permissible exercise of the County Elections Board’s authority.” They wrote that “the parties involved plainly believed that they had the authority to authorize it and the authority to do it, and that belief seems to be at least reasonable and likely accurate, which negates any possible criminal intent.” The surveillance footage shows that Latham appeared to introduce the SullivanStrickler team to local officials when they arrived that day. She then watched as they began looking at county voting equipment, it shows. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and a grand jury in Atlanta are probing the incident in Coffee County, a Republican stronghold about 200 miles south of Atlanta. Federal and state prosecutors are also investigating the “fake elector” scheme, in which Latham and dozens of other Republicans in battleground states signed certificates proclaiming Trump the rightful winner. The Coffee County episode is one of several alleged breaches of voting equipment since the 2020 election. In each instance, Trump supporters — often with the help of like-minded local officials — sought access to voting equipment to hunt for evidence that the election was rigged. Access to voting machines is typically tightly restricted, and some security analysts fear that such breaches — including the copying of voting software that is also used elsewhere — risk exposing the systems to hackers. Details about what happened in Coffee County, including the surveillance video reviewed by The Post, have surfaced largely because of a lawsuit brought against Georgia by several voters and the nonprofit Coalition for Good Governance. The plaintiffs say the state’s voting system is unconstitutionally insecure, which state officials deny. The plaintiffs have subpoenaed documents and testimony from a number of individuals, including Latham. Sidney Powell, the Trump-allied attorney who was billed for the work, has not directly responded to questions from The Post about Coffee County. “Prior reports of my involvement were seriously misrepresented,” she said in an email. Records obtained by the plaintiffs show that Powell signed contracts for the forensics experts’ elections work. The SullivanStrickler team updated her by email on the work in Coffee County and billed her more than $26,000, according to the records. Coffee County was among a handful of locations across the nation where Trump and his advisers pounced on minor errors or rumors of voting-machine irregularities in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. After Coffee County elections supervisor Misty Hampton discussed concerns about Dominion Voting Systems machines at a Nov. 10 elections board meeting, a Trump campaign staffer emailed her seeking information available under public records law. The county refused to certify its results after a statewide recount on Nov. 30, claiming that the machines showed inconsistent results. State investigators later concluded that the discrepancies had been caused by human error. A local news outlet published a video that featured Hampton purporting to show how she could “flip” votes from one candidate to another. It went viral. Trump’s team later cited Coffee County in its campaign to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory. In her deposition, Latham said that some time between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Jan. 6, after she had worked a full day as a high school teacher — and as Trump supporters were attacking the U.S. Capitol — she received a call from Hall, the businessman. Hall had been “looking into the election on behalf of the President,” Georgia GOP chairman David Shafer told Trump campaign officials on Nov. 20, 2020, in an email obtained by The Post. The email centered on problems with absentee ballots and did not mention Coffee County or voting machines. In her deposition, Latham said Hall asked her to connect him to Hampton. She did not know why and did not ask, she said. “Because that had been a hectic day. I hadn’t had any sleep, all the stuff had been happening, I had been getting phone calls left and right I was answering. I was tired, I wanted to go home,” Latham said. She said she then briefly telephoned Hampton to put her in touch with Hall. “I would have called Misty and I said, ‘Well, let me give you his email,’” Latham said, adding: “I sent her the email. That’s all I remember doing.” The new surveillance footage shows that Latham and Hampton were together inside the office during this time. Latham arrived at the office at 3:58 p.m. and had at least three phone calls between 4 p.m. and 4:40 p.m. At 4:26 p.m., Hampton texted Eric Chaney, a member of the county elections board that employed her, records show. “Scott Hall is on the phone with Cathy about wanting to come scan our ballots from the general election like we talked about the other day,” she wrote. Latham’s husband joined them at the office at 5 p.m., the footage shows, and later brought in takeout food. The Lathams and Hampton all left the office shortly before 7:40 p.m. The following morning, Latham exchanged text messages with SullivanStrickler’s chief operations officer, Paul Maggio, as the team drove to Coffee County, records show, coordinating who would fetch Hall from the airport. Latham also updated Hampton on the visitors’ movements. “Team left Atlanta at 8. 5 members led by Paul Maggio. Scott is flying in,” Latham wrote Hampton in a text message at 9:26 a.m. “Yay!!!!” Hampton replied. In her deposition, Latham said she was just passing on information that Hall asked her to share with Hampton. She said she didn’t know why Maggio and Hall were coming to Coffee County. Latham said she also worked a full day at Coffee High School on that day, Jan. 7, before briefly visiting the elections-office foyer after about 4 p.m., for reasons unrelated to SullivanStrickler’s work there. Latham said she could see people behind the front desk but that she wasn’t paying attention to who they were and she remained on the other side of the partition. “There were people in there, and I get uncomfortable when there’s others,” she said. External surveillance footage made public earlier this month showed that Latham arrived at the office at 11:37 a.m. that day. Three SullivanStrickler employees arrived at the elections office soon after. They were later joined by a fourth colleague. They intended to collect whatever data possible from the county’s voting machines, emails and billing records show. Cheeley, Latham’s attorney, previously told The Post that Latham did not remember all the details of that day but testified truthfully. He said she did recall visiting the office after school “to check in on some voter review panels from the runoff election” that had been held for Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats earlier that week. Latham described herself to SullivanStrickler as an elections official, an executive from the company said during a deposition on behalf of the firm this month. A lawyer for Latham said something must have been taken out of context or misunderstood because Latham has never been a C...

Rep. Liz Cheney Reveals How Trump-Supporting Lawmaker Ripped Him Behind His Back https://digitalalaskanews.com/rep-liz-cheney-reveals-how-trump-supporting-lawmaker-ripped-him-behind-his-back/ Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) confirmed one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington: Some Republican lawmakers who publicly support former President Donald Trump take a very different view behind the scenes. She saw an example of it on Jan. 6, 2021, just hours before Trump supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to block the certification of the 2020 election and keep him in power. During an event on Monday at the American Enterprise Institute, Cheney recalled being in the House cloakroom and working on some remarks when she spotted a pile of papers for lawmakers to sign if they planned to object to the election’s results. “And as I was sitting there, a member came in and he signed his name on each one of the states’ sheets,” Cheney recalled. “And then he said under his breath, ‘The things we do for the Orange Jesus.’” Some in the audience chuckled, but Cheney didn’t seem amused. “I thought, you know, you’re taking an act that is unconstitutional,” she said. Liz Cheney describes what was happening in the Republican Cloakroom on Jan. 6. One member said under their breath: “The things we do for the Orange Jesus.” pic.twitter.com/NvniqtFVCd — The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) September 19, 2022 Cheney, who sits on the committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault, also called out her fellow Republicans for continuing to defend Trump and make excuses for him. “Bit by bit, excuse by excuse, we’re putting Donald Trump above the law,” she said, per NBC News. “We are rendering indefensible conduct normal, legal and appropriate — as though he were a king.” Cheney’s opposition to Trump cost her a leadership role in the House GOP conference earlier this year, and led to her primary loss last month to a Trump-backed candidate. Read More Here

GOP Risks Election-Year Standing With Unaffiliated Voters https://digitalalaskanews.com/gop-risks-election-year-standing-with-unaffiliated-voters/ Sarah Motiff, from politically competitive Columbia, County, Wisconsin, works from home in Columbus, Wis., on Sept. 13, 2022. The 52-year-old city council woman and political independent says testimony that Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson’s office offered a fake slate of Wisconsin electors for the 2020 election “put a bad taste in my mouth.” She is among independent voters nationally who have drifted toward supporting Democrats this fall. (AP Photo/Thomas Beaumont) COLUMBUS, Wis. — Sarah Motiff has voted for Sen. Ron Johnson every time his name appeared on the ballot, starting in 2010 when the Wisconsin Republican was first elected as part of the tea party wave. Fond of his tough views on spending, she began the year planning to support his reelection again. She became skeptical this summer as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection reported his office discussed giving then-Vice President Mike Pence certificates with fake presidential electors for Donald Trump from Wisconsin and Michigan, part of a broader push to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Johnson has downplayed the effort and the certificates were never given to Pence, but Motiff, a political independent, wasn’t convinced. “I’m not going to lie when I say I’ve had some concerns about some of the reports that have come out,” the 52-year-old nonpartisan city councilwoman from Columbus, Wisconsin, said. “It just put a bad taste in my mouth.” Nudged further by the June U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidating a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, Motiff is opposing Johnson and supports his Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, in one of the most fiercely-contested Senate races this year. “Which was really a hard decision for me because I do think he’s done good things in the past,” Motiff said of Johnson. “But this is pretty damaging.” Motiff’s evolution represents the challenge for Republicans emerging from a tumultuous summer, defined by the court decision, high-profile hearings on former President Donald Trump’s actions during the insurrection and intensifying legal scrutiny of his handling of classified information and efforts to overturn the election. Now, a midterm campaign that the GOP hoped would be a referendum on President Joe Biden and the economy is at risk of becoming a comparison of the two parties, putting Republicans in an unexpectedly defensive position. In politically-divided Wisconsin where recent elections have been decided by a few thousand votes, the outcome could hinge on self-described independent voters like Motiff. “Having former President Trump so prominently in the news in so many ways makes it easier for Democrats to frame the midterm as a choice between two competing futures as opposed to a referendum on the Democrat governance,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. “That’s hurting Republicans. It’s distracting from the referendum message and allowing more of a focus on a choice of two different parties.” That tension is playing out in Columbia County, Wisconsin, a constellation of tidy small towns surrounded by rolling dairy farm country, all within commuting distance of Madison. Statewide, top-of-the-ticket candidates have won by barely a percentage point in the past three elections. Trump won Columbia County by a little more than 500 votes out of 33,000 cast in 2020. In interviews with more than a dozen independent voters here over two days last week, many were rethinking their support of the GOP this fall. Steve Gray, a self-described Republican-leaning independent “but never a Trump fan,” opposed the June court decision, because he backs abortion rights. But the 61-year-old school maintenance manager also resented what he saw as an unwelcome political power play by out-of-power Republicans. “Trump stacked the Supreme Court. We all knew he wanted to overturn Roe,” said Gray, of small-town Rio, where Trump won by two votes in 2020. “That decision was a partisan hand grenade Trump threw into this election.” The court decision “upended the physics of midterm elections,” said Jesse Stinebring, a pollster advising several Democratic campaigns. It gave voters the rare opportunity to judge a policy advance backed by the minority party, distracting them from a pure up-or-down vote on majority Democrats, he said. “The backlash from a political perspective isn’t directed at the traditional party in power, but is actually reframed in terms of this Republican control of the Supreme Court,” Stinebring said. The decision made Dilaine Noel’s vote automatic. The 29-year-old data analytics director for a Madison-area business said she had never affiliated with either party. Despite her grievances about Democrats’ warring moderate and liberal wings, her support for abortion rights gave her no choice than to vote for the party’s candidates this fall. “By default, I have to move in that direction,” said Noel, from small-town Poynette in the Wisconsin River valley. “I’m being forced to.” Mary Percifield is a lifelong independent voter who says the abortion decision motivated her to vote Democratic because she worries the court might overturn other rights. “A right has been taken away from us,” the 68-year-old customer service representative from Pardeeville, said. “I question if a woman’s right to vote will be taken away. A woman’s right for birth control.” Independent voters who lean neither Democrat nor Republican nationally preferred Biden over Trump, 52% to 37% in 2020, and preferred Democrats over Republicans in U.S. House races by a similar margin in the 2018 midterms, according to AP VoteCast. Independents who lean neither Democrat nor Republican made up 5% of the 2020 electorate and 12% in 2018. Independents had moved toward Republicans by early this year, seeking answers on the economy, said Republican pollster David Winston, a senior adviser to House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. But they have drifted back toward Democrats as efforts by GOP leaders to focus on the economy have clashed with Republican attacks on the Justice Department and Trump’s continuing complaints about the 2020 election. “Everything is suddenly back in the context of Trump,” Winston said in light of Trump’s prominent endorsement of Senate candidates and protests of the federal investigation into classified documents recovered from his Florida home. “It’s not that Democrats are gaining. It’s that Republicans over the summer were off talking about a variety of things. And independents are thinking, ‘If you’re not talking specifically about the problems that I’m concerned about, why am I listening?'” Republicans remain optimistic about their chances in November, particularly about netting the handful of seats they need to regain the U.S. House majority. Inflation remains high and, despite a recent uptick, approval of Biden is still low for a party hoping to maintain its hold on power. The economy remains the most effective message and one that breaks through others, GOP campaign officials say. “Prices and things are so front-of-mind to people,” said Calvin Moore, the communications director for Congressional Leadership Fund, a superPAC supporting Republican U.S. House candidates. “It’s not just something that’s on the news. It’s something they are experiencing every day in their daily life. It’s something they face themselves every day when they go to the grocery store.” A shift by independents is particularly meaningful in Wisconsin, as Republicans work to overtake Democrats’ one-seat majority in the Senate. Johnson, among the most vulnerable Republicans running for reelection this fall, is locked in a tight race with Barnes, Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor. Of the most competitive Senate seats this year, his is the only one held by a Republican. Though Johnson dismissed testimony about fake electors as staff work which never reached him, it reminded Christian Wood, an independent voter from Lodi, of Johnson’s opposition to certifying the election before Jan. 6. Johnson reversed course after the riot. “It’s absolutely scary,” said Wood, who has often voted Republican. “To me that’s the most existential threat to our democracy. And to think he was even considering it makes him a non-starter.” There’s time for an economic message to win out, but it will require news about Trump fading, GOP pollster Ayres said. Meanwhile, Trump has a full schedule of fall campaign travel for candidates he has endorsed. “Any distraction from that focus undermines the best Republican message,” he said. Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report. Steve Gray, a 61-year-old moderate Republican “though never a Trump fan,” sits on one of his Harley Davidson motorcycles inside his garage in Rio, Wis., on Sept. 12, 2022. Gray, a school maintenance manager, said he is frustrated with the June U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade because it gave Trump a policy win despite being out of office. Gray is among voters nationally who have drifted toward supporting Democrats in November. (AP Photo/Thomas Beaumont) In her backyard in politically competitive Columbia County, Wisconsin, Mary Percifield talks on Sept. 13, 2022 in Pardeeville, Wis. Percifield worries the June U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade puts other federally protected rights at risk. The 68-year-old customer service representative is among independent voters nationally who have drifted toward supporting Democrats in November in light of the court decision and mixed messaging from Republicans over the summer. (AP Photo/Thomas Beaumont) Dilaine Noel, from politically competitive Columbia County, Wisconsin, talks in a downtown park in Lodi, Wis, on Sept. 12, 2022. The 29-year-old data analyst and political independent ...

US Congress Has ‘fired The Starting Gun’ On The Green Industrial Revolution https://digitalalaskanews.com/us-congress-has-fired-the-starting-gun-on-the-green-industrial-revolution/ The US is now better placed than ever for a green energy revolution which will become embedded in its industrial economy. That’s the view of Citywire AA-rated Hamish Chamberlayne, head of socially responsible investing at Janus Henderson. This year has seen the passing into law of two acts by US Congress and President Joe Biden which Chamberlayne said are key to America forging ahead with clean energy. ‘In the last few months, you’ve had two very significant pieces of legislation from the US government – the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. These are really going to fire the starting gun on a green industrial revolution in the US market,’ he told Citywire Selector. The CHIPS Act aims to boost the US semiconductor industry, which Chamberlayne said would support the onshoring of clean energy technology in the US. ‘We view semiconductors as a key enabling industry. Every single sector needs semiconductors to make their products or their infrastructure or their services smarter, more connected, more efficient.’ Meanwhile, the Inflation Reduction Act would complement this by providing long-term clarity to the renewable energy industry in terms of ‘forward planning, tax credits and economics’. ‘The lack of regulatory clarity has held back the acceleration in renewable energy development in the US market. If you look at things like electric vehicles, batteries and everything, one of the big issues is that a lot of supply chain rests in Asia,’ he said. ‘The Inflation Reduction Act contains a provision that electric vehicle sales will only be eligible for a tax credit, if they contain materials – and this is all the way down to the battery materials like lithium, iron and phosphate – that have either been sourced within America or within America’s trade partners. ‘We see this catalysing a huge amount of homegrown investment into the whole electric vehicle and battery supply chain in the US.’ Countering the political flip flop A challenge the US has faced in clean energy development has been political changing of the guard, most notably the transition from climate-friendly President Barack Obama (above) to sceptic Donald Trump, who reversed a great deal of his predecessor’s policies.   Chamberlayne said these two new acts, signed into law by Congress and the president, would not be as easy to unravel. ‘One of the issues that we had under the Obama administration was a lot of the sustainability initiatives were done by presidential decree, so it was relatively straightforward for Trump to come in and unpick those,’ he said. ‘What’s important about the Inflation Reduction Act is that this is being put into law. If it was to be reversed, it would have to go through the US Congress and Senate to do so.’ He said the reshoring of industry would also prove politically popular and gain bipartisan support.  ‘I like the fact that Biden says when he when he hears the word climate, he hears jobs. This is going to be enormously beneficial to US job creation, and re-industrialising parts of the US economy is definitely going to be a vote winner.’ ‘This is something that will be, in time, adopted by Republicans too as being good for the economy and their constituents.’ The Janus Henderson Horizon US Sustainable Equity fund, managed by Chamberlayne, was launched in European markets last year. Read More Here