William Bohman https://digitalalaskanews.com/william-bohman/
WILLIAM KARL (BILL) BOHMAN, 76, a resident of Wasilla, Alaska, died in his home on October 2, 2022.
Bill was the oldest of five children born to K Daryl and Betty Jane (Day) Bohman on March 19, 1946, in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and moved to Palmer in December of 1961. Bill attended, played basketball, and graduated from Palmer High School. He later attended Ricks College and multiple flight schools for various certifications including High Altitude Helicopter Operations.
To plant a tree in memory of William Bohman as a living tribute, please visit Tribute Store.
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Video Shows Russian Cruise Missile Strike Popular Kyiv Footbridge
Video Shows Russian Cruise Missile Strike Popular Kyiv Footbridge https://digitalalaskanews.com/video-shows-russian-cruise-missile-strike-popular-kyiv-footbridge/
Terrifying footage from Kyiv shows an explosion engulfing a popular footbridge in the Ukrainian capital, as dozens of Russian missiles rained down on Ukraine Monday morning.
The security footage from Kyiv’s Glass Bridge shows the shockwave from an apparent missile impact on the ground below shatter the tourist attraction’s glass sides. A ball of smoke and flame rises up to engulf the bridge.
At least one person was on the bridge when it was struck. A woman in civilian clothing can be seen walking towards the middle of the bridge as the missile explodes. She flinches at the explosion before turning and running in the other direction.
The timestamp on the footage indicates the strike happened around 8:18 in the morning Kyiv time.
“Such a time and such targets were specially chosen to cause as much damage as possible,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address to Ukrainian citizens Monday.
The missile that struck the heart of Lyiv Monday morning was one of dozens launched against civilian areas of Ukraine.
via REUTERS
The video, apparently shot by Zelensky himself on a cellphone, was filmed on a vacant Kyiv street in broad daylight as he asked Ukrainians to “please stay in shelters today.”
“The enemy wants us to be afraid, wants to make people run,” he said. “But we can only run forward, and we demonstrate this on the battlefield.
“Ukraine existed before this enemy appeared, and Ukraine will exist after it,” Zelensky added.
The Glass Bridge, in peacetime, was a popular tourist attraction near the seat of Ukrainian government.
AP
The glass-bottomed footbridge hit in the strike sits a mere 3,000 yards from Kyiv’s complex of government buildings, which includes the presidential palace and Ukrainian parliament.
Zelensky’s video was filmed in front of the Presidential Office, several blocks away.
Monday’s attack on Kyiv was the first assault on the Ukrainian capital in months, and part of a coordinated series of strikes against major civilian centers throughout the country.
Ukrainian authorities reported explosions in at least 10 cities, including the far western city of Lviv, which has been relatively untouched by the war.
At least one Ukrainian was on the bridge when it was hit. They can be seen fleeing the bridge in the security footage.
via REUTERS
Ukraine’s Emergency Services reported at least 11 dead in the strikes and 89 injured.
Ukrainian authorities also reported partial power outages across 15 provinces Monday as a result of strikes on infrastructure.
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Analysis | How Much Of Right-Wing Opposition To Vaccination Was Fox Newss Fault?
Analysis | How Much Of Right-Wing Opposition To Vaccination Was Fox News’s Fault? https://digitalalaskanews.com/analysis-how-much-of-right-wing-opposition-to-vaccination-was-fox-newss-fault/
Katie Lane’s father, Patrick, died of covid-19 in summer 2021. Hundreds of thousands of Americans did, of course, but Katie Lane believes that her father was among the estimated 234,000 people whose deaths could have been prevented had he been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Asked during an interview on CNN why she thought her father chose not to get a dose of the vaccine, Katie Lane suggested that there were a number of factors, media consumption included.
“He watched some Tucker Carlson videos on YouTube, and some of those videos involved some misinformation about vaccines,” Lane said, “and I believe that that played a role.”
New research suggests that Patrick Lane was probably not the only consumer of the Fox News host’s rhetoric to turn away from being vaccinated. And, therefore, he was probably not the only one to die of covid-19 who might otherwise have lived.
We’ve known for some time that there is a partisan divide in vaccine uptake. A lot of attention has been paid to the divide in vaccination rates by race — often because pointing at lower vaccination rates among Black Americans is used as a bit of whataboutism to rationalize low vaccination rates among Republicans. But research has consistently shown that White Republicans are far less likely than Black Americans to report having been vaccinated, and far, far less likely than White Democrats.
Research published this month found a correlation between partisanship and rates of excess deaths during the pandemic. In places where vaccine uptake was lower — which correlates to support for Donald Trump in the 2020 general election — Republicans died at a much higher rate than they did before the pandemic, a gap that primarily emerged in the months after the vaccine became widely available.
But why? What made Republicans less likely to get vaccinated?
In part, we can point to the interplay of partisanship itself. As president, Trump tried to downplay the danger of the virus and, with an eye to reelection, cast efforts to contain the virus as power plays from an overbearing government. This certainly helped influence behaviors among Republicans on vaccination, masking and social distancing.
Research published last week, though, identifies a likely role for another prominent voice on the political right: Fox News.
“Our results show that Fox News is reducing COVID-19 vaccination uptake in the United States, with no evidence of the other major networks having any effect,” the study from researchers at ETH Zurich concluded. “[T]here is an association between areas with higher Fox News viewership and lower vaccinations,” noting that “media emphasis on minority viewpoints against scientific consensus is linked to vaccination hesitancy.”
Tracking vaccinations from March to June 2021 shows markedly lower rates of vaccinations among Fox News viewers under 65, particularly in the month of May — the month after vaccinations were opened up to all adults.
Recognizing that Fox News’s audience is heavily Republican, the researchers worked to extricate partisanship from their analysis — with success.
“We can rule out that the effect is due to differences in partisanship, to local health policies, or to local COVID-19 infections or death rates,” the study’s authors write. “The other two major television networks, CNN and MSNBC, have no effect.”
So what was happening on Fox News in the period being studied? Well, for one thing, Fox News was discussing the vaccines less often than its main competitors. During April and in the first two weeks of May, the word “vaccine” was mentioned about twice as often on CNN as on Fox News and substantially more on MSNBC.
During the period of the study, there was one Fox News show in the top 10 shows mentioning the word “vaccine” most often on cable news: Tucker Carlson’s.
In May 2021, Carlson’s was the second-most watched prime-time show on cable news — but most watched in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic.
What was Carlson saying about the vaccine in May 2021? See for yourself. But it included his elevation of inaccurate numbers about purported deaths from coronavirus vaccines and touting the idea that natural immunity was as effective as vaccination — ignoring, of course, the risk posed by reaching natural immunity. Carlson played host to covid-vaccine opponent Alex Berenson more than once. (Berenson’s shaky grasp of the data had already earned him the apt title “the pandemic’s wrongest man.”)
So the show that was most popular among those under 65 on Fox News was making ceaseless false claims about the vaccine or downplaying its efficacy during a period when Fox News viewers under 65 were demonstrably less likely to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The Department of Health and Human Services last week reported that vaccinations probably saved 330,000 lives among Medicare recipients in 2021. Most of them are 65 and over, the group most likely to get vaccinated.
When he died, Patrick Lane was 45.
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'It's A Free-For-All': Trump Gives Evangelicals Permission To Embrace Flawed Candidates Like Herschel Walker
'It's A Free-For-All': Trump Gives Evangelicals Permission To Embrace Flawed Candidates Like Herschel Walker https://digitalalaskanews.com/its-a-free-for-all-trump-gives-evangelicals-permission-to-embrace-flawed-candidates-like-herschel-walker/
President Donald Trump is greeted by NFL Hall of Famer Herschel Walker during an event for black supporters at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta on Sept. 25, 2020. – BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/AFP/TNS
The Georgia Senate race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker has turned into a matchup between two contrasting versions of American Christianity.
Walker, who has used his faith as a defense against concerns about his character and fitness, represents the merger between conservative Christianity and right-wing politics, while Warnock, a lifelong minister who now leads the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s church, embodies a tradition where faith challenges injustices, reported the New York Times.
“We are witnessing two dimensions of Christian faith, both the justice dimension and the mercy dimension,” said the Rev. Dr. Robert M. Franklin Jr., a professor in moral leadership at Candler School of Theology at Emory University.
An ex-girlfriend has come forward to claim Walker paid for her to have an abortion, although he supports banning those without exception, but those revelations haven’t seemed to cut into his support from evangelical conservatives who see him as a vehicle to retake the GOP Senate majority.
IN OTHER NEWS: Trump lawyer Christina Bobb threw colleagues under the bus to avoid being ‘fall gal’ for docs scandal: report
“I always vote for policy more than personality,” said Jentezen Franklin, pastor of Free Chapel in Gainesville.
Donald Trump’s presidency has raised the tolerance for personally flawed candidates who pledge to deliver political results, regardless of any religious hypocrisy.
“It’s a free-for-all,” said Joseph N. Cousin, who leads Allen Temple A.M.E. Church in Cherokee County. “If you really bring it along racial lines, perhaps it is a group that was in the majority for so long trying to stay in that majority, but on the flip side, you have to draw a line and say right is right, wrong is wrong.”
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Trump Lawyer Christina Bobb Speaks To Federal Investigators In Mar-A-Lago Case MsnNOW
Trump Lawyer Christina Bobb Speaks To Federal Investigators In Mar-A-Lago Case – MsnNOW https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-lawyer-christina-bobb-speaks-to-federal-investigators-in-mar-a-lago-case-msnnow/
Trump lawyer Christina Bobb speaks to federal investigators in Mar-a-Lago case msnNOW
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Jeb Bush Reignites Trump Feud After Donald Accused HW Of Taking Documents To Bowling Alley
Jeb Bush Reignites Trump Feud After Donald Accused HW Of Taking Documents To Bowling Alley https://digitalalaskanews.com/jeb-bush-reignites-trump-feud-after-donald-accused-hw-of-taking-documents-to-bowling-alley/
October 10, 2022 12:13 PM
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush expressed his confusion toward former President Donald Trump‘s recent accusations that his father took presidential materials to a bowling alley.
During a rally over the weekend, Trump blasted the Justice Department investigation into his handling of classified material by pointing to other presidents such as George H.W. Bush.
GEORGE H. W. BUSH SNUBBED TRUMP AT AIRPORT BY HIDING BEHIND A NEWSPAPER: REPORT
“George H.W. Bush took millions of documents to a former bowling alley and a former Chinese restaurant where they combined them. So they’re in a bowling alley slash Chinese restaurant,” Trump said at a rally. Jeb downplayed the accusation, asking what “the heck” was up with the former president.
“I am so confused. My dad enjoyed a good Chinese meal and enjoyed the challenge of 7 10 split. What the heck is up with you?” Jeb tweeted in response.
Independent fact-checkers have dunked on Trump’s claim, saying it was misleading while noting that the National Archives and Records Administration combed through George H.W. Bush’s documents for his library at a facility that was once a Chinese restaurant/bowling alley.
Unlike Trump’s moving of documents to Mar-a-Lago, it appears that George H.W. Bush did not move the documents there. In August, the FBI conducted a search and seizure at Trump’s resort and reportedly confiscated roughly 100 pages of material with classified markings.
The DOJ is investigating possible violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice in its inquiry about the document tranche at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump has vehemently denied wrongdoing, insisting that he declassified the material while maintaining that a president can declassify material “even by thinking about it.” His legal team previously agreed that “it would be appropriate for a special master to possess a Top Secret/SCI security clearance” to review the documents.
During the rally, Trump also demanded that authorities return the material seized. A special master, a third-party reviewer tasked with filtering out privileged material from the stash, is currently going through the records.
Trump: I had a small number of boxes in storage… There is no crime. They should give me immediately back everything they have taken from me because it’s mine. pic.twitter.com/nSR2MjmAMk
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 10, 2022
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Trump has famously feuded with the Bush family, along with all other living presidents in recent years. During the 2016 campaign, he dubbed Jeb, once the early front-runner in the GOP primary, as “low energy.” He has also condemned former President George W. Bush for the Iraq War.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump shakes hands with then-fellow presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
(AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
Jeb, meanwhile, has rebuked Trump’s temperament, contending that Trump’s public conduct is beneath the presidency. His brother, George W. Bush, has reportedly been stumping for Republican candidates such as Colorado Senate hopeful Joe O’Dea who have bucked Trump.
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Jeb Bush Claps Back At Trump For Demanding Investigation Of Dead Father
Jeb Bush Claps Back At Trump For Demanding Investigation Of Dead Father https://digitalalaskanews.com/jeb-bush-claps-back-at-trump-for-demanding-investigation-of-dead-father/
Former Florida governor and 2016 Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush has clapped back at President Donald Trump’s demands for an investigation into his late father, former President George H.W. Bush.
Speaking at a rally Sunday evening (9 October) in Arizona, Trump claimed that George H.W. Bush transported “millions and millions of documents” to a former bowling alley that was also “pieced together” with what was “a broken Chinese restaurant” at the time.
“They put them together. And it had a broken front door and broken windows. Other than that, it was quite secure,” Trump said.
The former commander-in-chief was seemingly referencing that so that he could justify why keeping documents at Mar-a-Lago was acceptable.
While the National Archives did sort Bush documents for his presidential library in a heavily secured facility that was a former bowling alley and restaurant – that’s far different to how Trump portrayed the scene.
A senior official once explained how a secure space was created in the larger warehouse to house classified documents.
On Sunday, Jeb took to his Twitter to jokingly hit back at Trump.
“I am so confused. My dad enjoyed a good Chinese meal and enjoyed the challenge of 7 10 split. What the heck is up with you?” he tweeted, noting the bowling outcome where the player has left two pins while eyeing a spare.
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u201cI am so confused. My dad enjoyed a good Chinese meal and enjoyed the challenge of 7 10 split. What the heck is up with you?u201d
— Jeb Bush (@Jeb Bush) 1665362381
One person wrote: “Jeb Bush trash-talking Trump on Twitter. Never thought I’d see that.”
“Ok, Jeb! did a funny,” another added while a third wrote:
“It’s funny, but it’s really NOT funny. This man should be locked up for slander and libel ALONE. Somebody, please make him SHUT UP.”
Someone else added: “And just like that, I’m agreeing with Jeb Bush. Today is wild already.
Check out other reactions below.
u201c@JebBush Trump is having issues. That’s what’s up with him.u201d
— Jeb Bush (@Jeb Bush) 1665362381
u201c@JebBush Would you say it was a *succulent* Chinese meal?u201d
— Jeb Bush (@Jeb Bush) 1665362381
u201c@JebBush @gtconway3d What the hell are you confused about? When someone shows you who they are believe them. Heu2019s been showing us who he is for 7 +years nowu201d
— Jeb Bush (@Jeb Bush) 1665362381
Since Jeb’s 2016 campaign, Trump had frequently attacked him for having “low energy,” the Daily Beastreported.
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Newly-Released Emails Debunk Trump And Allies' Attempts To Blame The GSA For Packing Boxes That Ended Up In Mar-A-Lago | CNN Politics
Newly-Released Emails Debunk Trump And Allies' Attempts To Blame The GSA For Packing Boxes That Ended Up In Mar-A-Lago | CNN Politics https://digitalalaskanews.com/newly-released-emails-debunk-trump-and-allies-attempts-to-blame-the-gsa-for-packing-boxes-that-ended-up-in-mar-a-lago-cnn-politics/
06:31 – Source: CNN
Trump asks Supreme Court to intervene in the Mar-a-Lago documents fight
Washington CNN —
When the Government Services Administration prepared to ship pallets of material to Florida for former President Donald Trump in July 2021, the federal agency asked Trump aide Beau Harrison to affirm what was in the boxes being shipped.
Harrison, Trump’s former assistant for operations, was asked to affirm that everything packed and shipped to Florida was either “required to wind down the office of the Former President or are items that are property of the Federal Government,” so it could be covered by transition funding.
Former presidents are allowed to take certain government materials and office equipment required to set up a permanent office away from the White House. But that does not include the sort of classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago – which are at the center of an ongoing Justice Department criminal probe.
Harrison, one of the handful of aides interviewed by federal investigators in the spring as they sought information on presidential records, returned a letter on “The Office of Donald J. Trump” letterhead stating what was in the boxes.
The email exchange between GSA officials and Harrison is one of more than 100 pages of emails and documents newly released by the GSA that debunk claims from Trump and his allies that the government agency is to blame for packing the boxes containing classified documents that were later recovered by the FBI during the search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in August.
The newly released emails also provide new details underscoring the rushed, chaotic nature of Trump’s transition after he spent two months exhausting numerous avenues trying to overturn the 2020 election.
The emails make clear that the boxes had already been packed and sat shrink-wrapped in an empty office space in Arlington, Virginia, as GSA officials planned logistics to ship the five pallets of boxes – including 30 banker boxes similar to those recovered by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago – to Florida.
The released communications, which were first reported by Bloomberg News, outline how boxes, including 1,400 pounds of “document boxes,” traveled from the White House to Florida, from inventories of the purchase of boxes and shipping materials to photos of the new office space Trump’s team would inhabit.
It remains unclear whether anything in the boxes that GSA shipped contained the government documents in the 15 boxes sent to the National Archives in January or the tens of thousands of documents the FBI retrieved in August – materials now at the heart of the criminal investigation into the classified material found at Mar-a-Lago.
But the new cache of email adds new detail showing how documents from the Trump administration made their way to Florida – and directly debunks attempts Trump and his allies have made to defend the former President by blaming GSA.
In an interview on Fox News on August 12, four days after the FBI search, former Trump defense official Kash Patel claimed the GSA was responsible for the documents being at Trump’s Florida home.
“Even if (the documents were) classified … they’ll never meet the burden of intent because the president didn’t pack it up and take it out himself, the GSA has said they did it and they made a mistake,” Patel said. The GSA has never said they packed the boxes.
“They packed them,” Trump said in an interview with Sean Hannity on September 23.
A spokesman for Trump did not directly address how these emails dispute claims made by the former president and allies, and instead attacked the Biden administration.
“A routine and necessary process has been leveraged by power-hungry partisan bureaucrats to intimidate and silence those who have dared to support President Trump and his America First agenda,” said Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich. “Why? Because Democrats have done nothing to deliver for the American people and they are left scrambling to fabricate a new witch-hunt to distract from their abject failures.”
In emails throughout 2021, however, career officials at the GSA outlined to Trump’s aides what could and could not be included in the shipments GSA would send to Florida – underscoring that the federal agency was relying on Trump’s aides to assess the contents being shipped.
While the transition team worked with the GSA to facilitate the move, concern inside the National Archives over missing presidential documents was growing. The National Archives alerted Trump’s lawyers in May 2021 that Trump’s letters with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – and two dozen boxes of records – were missing.
But documents were never raised in the logistics email exchanges.
Instead, they focused at times on what items could and could not be shipped to Florida on the federal government’s dime. In particular, a 300-pound portrait of Trump that had been gifted to the former President led to multiple rounds of back and forth, with the GSA ultimately declining to ship the item, deeming it “personal property.”
At one point, the GSA outgoing transition director sent the Trump aides guidance on what was allowed to be sent.
“If the item is considered property of the Former President then it should not be shipped using Transition Funds. If the item is considered property of the Federal Government then it should go to NARA or GSA,” Kathy Geisler wrote in an email and attached the guidance on gifts. “I just wanted to make sure we had an understanding of what you are allowed to ship using Transition funds.”
The gigantic portrait was sent to an aide’s home to eventually ship to the former President’s resort.
In the email exchange, Trump’s director of correspondence Desiree Thompson Sayle asked Geisler to point out where in the federal code she was referring to. “I want to ensure that we are in compliance, and the attached appears to be general guidance on what gifts (foreign and domestic) can be accepted by a government employee or elected official,” she wrote.
“Working with NARA and GSA, I am in full compliance with the final disposition of gifts. So much so, we are loading the large portrait received after the 21st on a Penske truck to transport to my house so I can put it on my moving van,” Sayle added.
It wasn’t until mid-January – just nine days before President Joe Biden’s inauguration – that Trump’s staff began setting up a post presidential life for the former President following a plan signed off on by former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Following the same pattern of past presidential transitions, GSA would provide the funds and support to help with the transition and setting up a post-presidential office.
Around the time Meadows signed the plan, White House aides described a chaotic and unsure environment with a President more focused on overturning the 2020 election than beginning his next chapter. These circumstances lead to a delayed, unorganized and nontraditional transition, made apparent in the trove of emails.
The chaotic environment continued after Trump vacated the White House. In July 2021, a flurry of late-night emails show staff scrambling unsuccessfully to get the boxes sent off on the final night the outgoing team would be allowed to use transition funds to assist the move, eventually having to use other resources.
After the boxes were to be picked up and Trump’s team had long gone to Florida, there was yet another snag in August – one pallet was the wrong size and couldn’t fit on the freight elevator. The event delayed the delivery again, the emails show, and resulted in an intern being flown back from the Sunshine State to repack the pallets and prepare them to be sent to Mar-a-Lago, where they finally arrived mid-September.
“My intern is flying back to DC tomorrow, and he can repack the pallets in Crystal City,” Sayle wrote to GSA. “Before I send him to pick up a roll of shrink wrap from Uhaul and plan to head over, can you tell me if there is AC on the 12th floor?”
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'A Time Bomb': Anger Rising In A Hot Spot Of Iran Protests
'A Time Bomb': Anger Rising In A Hot Spot Of Iran Protests https://digitalalaskanews.com/a-time-bomb-anger-rising-in-a-hot-spot-of-iran-protests/
SULIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) — Growing up under a repressive system, Sharo, a 35-year-old university graduate, never thought she would hear words of open rebellion spoken out loud. Now she herself chants slogans like “Death to the Dictator!” with a fury she didn’t know she had, as she joins protests calling for toppling the country’s rulers.
Sharo said that after three weeks of protests, triggered by the death of a young woman in the custody of the feared morality police, anger at the authorities is only rising, despite a bloody crackdown that has left dozens dead and hundreds in detention.
“The situation here is tense and volatile,” she said, referring to the city of Sanandaj in the majority Kurdish home district of the same name in northwestern Iran, one of the hot spots of the protests.
“We are just waiting for something to happen, like a time-bomb,” she said, speaking to The Associated Press via Telegram messenger service.
The anti-government protests in Sanandaj, 300 miles (500 kilometers) from the capital, are a microcosm of the leaderless protests that have roiled Iran.
Led largely by women and youth, they have evolved from spontaneous mass gatherings in central areas to scattered demonstrations in residential areas, schools and universities as activists try to evade an increasingly brutal crackdown.
Tensions rose again Saturday in Sanandaj after rights monitors said two protesters were shot dead and several were wounded, following a resumption of demonstrations. Residents said there has been a heavy security presence in the city, with constant patrols and security personnel stationed on major streets.
The Associated Press spoke to six female activists in Sanandaj who said suppression tactics, including beatings, arrests, the use of live ammunition and internet disruptions make it difficult at times to keep the momentum going. Yet protests persist, along with other expressions of civil disobedience, such as commercial strikes and drivers honking horns at security forces.
The activists in the city spoke on the condition their full names be withheld fearing reprisals by Iranian authorities. Their accounts were corroborated by three human rights monitors.
THE BURIAL
Three weeks ago, the news of the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police in Tehran spread rapidly across her home province of Kurdistan, of which Sanandaj is the capital. The response was swift in the impoverished and historically marginalized area.
As the burial was underway in Amini’s town of Saqqez on Sept. 17, protesters were already filling Sanandaj’s main thoroughfare, activists said.
People of all ages were present and began chanting slogans that would be repeated in cities across Iran: “Woman. Life. Freedom.”
The Amini family had been under pressure from the government to bury Mahsa quickly before a critical mass of protesters formed, said Afsanah, a 38-year-old clothing designer from Saqqez. She was at the burial that day and followed the crowds from the cemetery to the city square.
Rozan, a 32-year old housewife, didn’t know Amini personally. But when she heard the young woman had died in the custody of the morality police in Tehran and had been arrested for violating the Islamic Republic’s hijab rules, she felt compelled to take to the street that day.
“The same thing happened to me,” she said. In 2013, like Amini, she had ventured to the capital with a friend when she was apprehended by the morality police because her abaya, or loose robe that is part of the mandatory dress code, was too short. She was taken to the same facility where Amini later died, and fingerprinted and made to sign a declaration of guilt.
“It could have been me,” she said. In the years since then Rozan, a former nurse, was fired from the local government health department for being too vocal about her views about women’s rights.
After the funeral, she saw an elderly woman take a step forward and in one swift gesture, remove her headscarf. “I felt inspired to do the same,” she said.
SUPPRESSION
In the first three days after the burial, protesters were plucked from the demonstrations in arrest sweeps in Sanandaj. By the end of the week, arrests targeted known activists and protest organizers.
Dunya, a lawyer, said she was one among a small group of women’s rights activists who helped organize protests. They also asked shopkeepers to respect a call for a commercial strike along the city’s main streets.
“Almost all the women in our group are in jail now,” she said.
Internet blackouts made it difficult for protesters to communicate with one another across cities and with the outside world.
“We would wake up in the morning and have no idea what was happening,” said Sharo, the university graduate. The internet would return intermittently, often late at night or during working hours, but swiftly cut off in the late afternoon, the time many would gather to protest.
The heavy security presence also prevented mass gatherings.
“There are patrols in almost every street, and they break up groups, even if its just two or three people walking on the street,” said Sharo.
During demonstrations security forces fired pellet guns and tear gas at the crowd causing many to run. Security personnel on motorcycles also drove into crowds in an effort to disperse them.
All activists interviewed said they either witnessed or heard live ammunition. Iranian authorities have so far denied this, blaming separatist groups on occasions when the use of live fire was verified. The two protesters killed Saturday in Sanandaj were killed by live fire, according to the France-based Kurdistan Human Rights network.
Protesters say fear is a close companion. The wounded were often reluctant to use ambulances or go to hospitals, worried they might get arrested. Activists also suspected government informants were trying to blend in with the crowds.
But acts of resistance have continued.
“I assure you the protests are not over,” said Sharo. “The people are angry, they are talking back to the police in ways I have never seen.”
DISOBEDIENCE
The anger runs deep. In Sanandaj the confluence of three factors has rendered the city a ripe ground for protest activity — a history of Kurdish resistance, rising poverty and a long history of women’s rights activism.
Yet the protests are not defined along ethnic or regional lines even though they were sparked in a predominantly Kurdish area, said Tara Sepehri Fars, a researcher for Human Rights Watch. “It’s been very unique in that sense,” she said.
There have been waves of protest in Iran in recent years, the largest in 2009 bringing large crowds into the streets after what protesters felt was a stolen election. But the continued defiance and demands for regime change during the current wave seem to pose the most serious challenge in years to the Islamic Republic.
Like most of Iran, Sanandaj has suffered as U.S. sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic devastated the economy and spurred inflation. Far from the capital, in the fringes of the country, its majority Kurdish residents are eyed with suspicion by the regime.
By the third week, with the opening of universities and schools, students began holding small rallies and joined the movement.
Videos circulated on social media showing students jeering school masters, school girls removing their headscarves on the street and chanting: “One by one they will kill us, if we don’t stand together.”
One university student said they were planning on boycotting classes altogether.
Afsanah, the clothing designer, said that she likes wearing the headscarf. “But I am protesting because it was never my choice.”
Her parents, fearing for her safety, tried to persuade her to stay home. But she disobeyed them, pretending to go to work in the morning only to search for protest gatherings around the city.
“I am angry, and I am without fear — we just need this feeling to overflow on the street,” she said.
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Russian-Speaking Hackers Knock Multiple US Airport Websites Offline. No Impact On Operations Reported | CNN
Russian-Speaking Hackers Knock Multiple US Airport Websites Offline. No Impact On Operations Reported | CNN https://digitalalaskanews.com/russian-speaking-hackers-knock-multiple-us-airport-websites-offline-no-impact-on-operations-reported-cnn/
CNN —
More than a dozen public-facing airport websites, including those for some of the nation’s largest airports, appeared inaccessible Monday morning, and Russian-speaking hackers claimed responsibility.
No immediate signs of impact to actual air travel were reported, suggesting the issue may be an inconvenience for people seeking travel information.
“Obviously, we’re tracking that, and there’s no concern about operations being disrupted,” Kiersten Todt, Chief of Staff of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said Monday at a security conference in Sea Island, Georgia.
The 14 websites include the one for Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. An employee there told CNN there were no operational impacts.
The Los Angeles International Airport website was offline earlier but appeared to be restored shortly before 9 a.m. Eastern. A spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
The hacking group known as Killnet listed multiple US airports as targets. It stepped up activity to target organizations in NATO countries after Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine. The loosely organized “hacktivists” are politically motivated to support the Kremlin but ties to Moscow are unknown.
The group claimed responsibility last week for knocking offline US state governments websites. Killnet is blamed for briefly downing a US Congress website in July and for cyberattacks on organizations in Lithuania after the country blocked shipment of goods to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in June.
The type of cyberattack used by Killnet is known as “distributed denial of service” (DDoS), in which hackers flood computer servers with phony web traffic to knock them offline.
“DDoS attacks are favored by actors of varying sophistication because they have visible results, but these incidents are usually superficial and short lived,” John Hultquist, a vice president at Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant, told CNN.
A Transportation Security Administration spokesperson said the agency is monitoring the issue and working with airport partners.
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Bank Of England Offers More Support For Pension Funds Amid Crisis
Bank Of England Offers More Support For Pension Funds Amid Crisis https://digitalalaskanews.com/bank-of-england-offers-more-support-for-pension-funds-amid-crisis/
Turmoil in the U.K. bond market created a feedback loop that left investors like pension funds short on cash and rippled out into other markets. WSJ’s Chelsey Dulaney explains the type of investment at the heart of the crisis. Illustration: Ryan Trefes
Updated Oct. 10, 2022 10:58 am ET
LONDON—The Bank of England expanded its support of pension funds at the heart of the U.K.’s bond-market crisis even as borrowing costs leapt higher, a sign that stress in the financial system wasn’t going away.
The U.K.’s central bank said Monday that it would increase the daily amounts it was willing to buy in long-dated bonds before ending the program as scheduled on Friday. It also unveiled two types of lending facilities aimed at freeing up cash for pension funds beyond the end of the bond buying.
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McCarthy Told 2 Officers In Private Meeting That Trump Had No Idea His Supporters Were Attacking Capitol On January 6 Newly Obtained Audio Shows KION546
Iran Fast Facts – KION546 https://digitalalaskanews.com/iran-fast-facts-kion546/
CNN Editorial Research
Iran is a republic in Asia, sharing a border with seven countries: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey and Turkmenistan. It has been officially known as the Islamic Republic of Iran since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.
About Iran
(from the CIA World Factbook)
Area: 1,648,195 sq km, slightly smaller than Alaska
Population: 86,758,304 (2022 est.)
Median Age: 31.7 years
Capital: Tehran
Ethnic Groups: Persian, Azeri, Kurd, Lur, Baloch, Arab, Turkmen and Turkic tribes
Religion: Muslim (official) 99.6% (Shia 90-95%, Sunni 5-10%), other (includes Zoroastrian, Jewish and Christian) 0.3%, unspecified 0.2% (2016 est.)
Unemployment: 11.8% (2017 est.)
Other Facts
Before the 1930s, Iran was known as Persia to outsiders.
Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic relations since 1980.
Timeline
1921 – Officer Reza Khan stages a coup and takes control of the military.
1925 – Khan has himself crowned Reza Shah Pahlavi.
1939 – During World War II, Reza Shah aligns Iran with Nazi Germany.
1941 – Allied forces invade Iran and force Reza Shah to abdicate in favor of his 21-year-old son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
1951 – Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq orchestrates passage of a bill in Iran’s parliament which nationalizes British oil fields in Iran.
1953 – The Shah is forced to abdicate by the supporters of Mosaddeq. However, within days, Great Britain and the United States back a coup that returns the Shah to power.
1963 – The Shah forces cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a critic of his modernization plans, into exile.
October 1971 – The Shah hosts an elaborate party, costing tens of millions of dollars, to celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire.
January 16, 1979 – After months of riots, protests and unrest, the Shah leaves Iran for what is described as a vacation, but is generally understood to be permanent exile.
February 1, 1979 – Khomeini returns to Iran from exile in France. After his supporters overthrow the government of Premier Shahpur Bakhtiar, Khomeini becomes the Supreme Leader of Iran.
April 1, 1979 – The country is renamed the Islamic Republic of Iran.
October 22, 1979 – The Shah arrives in the United States for treatment of lymphatic cancer.
November 4, 1979 – Iranian revolutionaries seize control of the US embassy in Tehran and take 66 embassy workers hostage. They demand the extradition of the Shah from the United States in exchange for the hostages. Thirteen of the hostages are released within two weeks, and one is released later for medical reasons. The other 52 spend a total of 444 days in captivity.
April 1980 – An attempt by US airborne forces to rescue the hostages fails, killing eight service members.
July 27, 1980 – The Shah dies in Cairo, Egypt.
September 22, 1980 – Iraq invades Iran, starting an eight-year war. Hundreds of thousands of people are killed on both sides. The war ends in 1988 in a ceasefire, with no clear victor. A formal peace agreement is signed in August 1990.
January 20, 1981 – The remaining 52 US hostages are released.
January 1984 – The United States designates Iran as a State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST).
June 3, 1989 – Khomeini dies.
June 1989 – Seyyed Ali Khamenei becomes Supreme Leader of Iran.
July 28, 1989 – Hashemi Rafsanjani is elected president of Iran.
May 1997 – Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, is elected to the office of president.
June 2001 – Khatami is reelected as president of Iran.
November 2003 – The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran has been secretly manufacturing small amounts of uranium and plutonium for two decades.
June 2005 – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mayor of Tehran, is elected president of Iran.
June 12, 2009 – In a highly controversial election, Ahmadinejad wins reelection with 62.63% of the vote, according to Iranian government sources. His nearest rival, Mir Hossein Moussavi, receives 33.75% of the vote.
June 2009 – Demonstrations take place in Tehran, protesting the outcome of the election. Dozens of people are reported killed.
June 30, 2009 – Despite widespread unrest the reelection of Ahmadinejad is formally certified by the Council of Guardians.
August 5, 2009 – Ahmadinejad is sworn in for a second term.
February 13, 2011 – In reaction to the anti-government protests spreading throughout the Arab world, demonstrations break out in major Iranian cities and are met with reportedly brutal force by security officers.
February 22, 2011 – Two Iranian warships pass through the Suez Canal, the first such ships to sail through the canal since the 1979 revolution.
November 29, 2011 – Hundreds of Iranian protesters storm Great Britain’s embassy and a separate diplomatic compound in Tehran. The next day, Great Britain evacuates all embassy staff in Iran and orders that Iran immediately close its embassy in London.
December 1, 2011 – European Union foreign ministers agree to impose sanctions on Iranian firms and individuals in response to protesters storming the British Embassy in Tehran. Italy withdraws its ambassador.
December 1, 2011 – The US Senate passes economic sanctions against Iran.
January 23, 2012 – The European Union announces it will ban the import of Iranian crude oil and petroleum products.
February 19, 2012 – Iran’s oil ministry says that it has suspended crude exports to British and French companies, days after Iran threatened to cut oil exports to some European Union countries in retaliation for sanctions.
March 30, 2012 – US President Barack Obama announces that the United States will implement previously announced sanctions that could significantly cut sales of Iranian oil.
July 1, 2012 – The EU embargo on Iranian oil takes effect.
October 3, 2012 – Demonstrators in Tehran begin protesting Ahmadinejad, blaming him for the rapidly falling value of Iran’s currency.
June 14, 2013 – Hassan Rouhani wins the presidential election after securing 50.7% of the 36.7 million votes cast. Ahmadinejad was not eligible to run, due to term limit. Rouhani is sworn in August 4.
September 27, 2013 – Rouhani and Obama speak by phone, the first direct conversation between leaders of Iran and the United States since 1979.
November 24, 2013 – Six world powers and Iran reach a six-month agreement over Iran’s nuclear program. The deal calls on Iran to limit its nuclear activities in return for lighter sanctions.
November 24, 2014 – The deadline for a final nuclear agreement between Iran and the UN Security Council’s P5+1 countries (the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany) has been set for July 1, 2015.
April 2, 2015 – Negotiators from Iran, the United States, China, Germany, France, Britain and Russia reach a framework for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, which includes reducing its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%.
April 9, 2015 – Rouhani announces that Iran will only sign a final nuclear agreement if economic sanctions are lifted on the first day of implementation.
July 14, 2015 – The United States and its five partners reach a nuclear deal with Iran, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, during a final meeting in Vienna.
January 4, 2016 – Two days after the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia and an attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, Saudi Arabia severs diplomatic ties with Iran. United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan also sever or downgrade diplomatic ties with Iran.
January 12, 2016 – US sailors are captured by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard after their ship enters Iranian waters. They are released a day later. One of the sailors is shown apologizing in an interview on Iranian television.
January 17, 2016 – Iran releases four Americans in a prisoner swap, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Marine veteran Amir Hekmati and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini. American student Matthew Trevithick is also released.
August 3, 2016 – US officials confirm that the Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal. The $400 million was Iran’s money, placed into a US-based trust fund to support American military equipment purchases in the 1970s. When the Shah was ousted by a 1979 popular uprising that led to the creation of the Islamic Republic, the United States froze the trust fund. US officials said cash had to be flown in because existing US sanctions ban American dollars from being used in a transaction with Iran and because Iran could not access the global financial system due to international sanctions it was under at the time.
January 8, 2017 – Rafsanjani dies after suffering a heart attack, Iranian state-run media says.
January 27, 2017 – US President Donald Trump bans nationals from Iran and six other Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for at least the next 90 days by executive order.
February 3, 2017 – The United States enacts new sanctions on Iran. The moves come as punishment for the country’s recent test launch of a ballistic missile.
August 5, 2017 – Rouhani is sworn in for a second term.
May 8, 2018 – Trump announces he is pulling out of the nuclear deal with Iran, adding he will initiate new sanctions. “Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States,” Trump says.
September 22, 2018 – At least 29 people are killed during an attack on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. The separatist group Patriotic Arab Democratic Movement in Ahwaz claims responsibility for the attack, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. The separatist group says that the state media report is false, and it had no role in the attack.
September 23, 2018 – Iran’s Revolutionary Guard accuses Saudi Arabia of supporting th...
Maggie Haberman Accused Of Withholding Information On Trump For Her Book
Maggie Haberman Accused Of Withholding Information On Trump For Her Book https://digitalalaskanews.com/maggie-haberman-accused-of-withholding-information-on-trump-for-her-book/
Maggie Haberman has been accused of withholding information concerning former President Donald Trump for her new book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.
Zeinab Badawi of BBC Radio asked the New York Times journalist if she had put “profits before principles”.
Speaking on Sunday, Ms Badawi asked Ms Haberman why she hadn’t reported information included in the book concerning Mr Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 election loss.
She writes in the book that Mr Trump learned of his defeat, but said he would refuse to leave the White House.
“I’m just not going to leave, how can you leave when you won an election,” Mr Trump said, according to Ms Haberman.
“This was new information, wasn’t it?” the radio host said. “And we have ongoing investigations. The US House of Representatives, Justice Department investigations into his refusal to cede power after the election. Why did you not make this revelation available sooner?”
“When I learn of information and it’s confirmed and reportable, my goal is always to get it into publication as quickly as possible,” the journalist said. “I wanted to paint a fuller picture and it’s a process of going back and revisiting scenes and interviewing sources and that often reveals new information.”
“But you have received criticisms for not making this information available before the publication of your book,” Ms Badawi noted. “I mean, were you putting profits before principles?”
“As I said, books take time. I turned to this project in earnest after the second impeachment trial, after Trump had left the White House and it was a process of learning new information,” Ms Haberman retorted.
Ms Badawi pressed on, asking, “and you don’t feel any regret?”
Ms Haberman said she understands the point of view of her critics, but added that “I stand by what I just said about the process of writing a book”.
The radio host said there were “calls on social media now for people not to buy your book as a kind of protest”.
“I think people are entitled to their views and they will make assumptions about when information is learned and how,” the journalist said. “And you know, they are perfectly entitled to do that.”
“It goes to the heart of what we expect from journalists. As a journalist, rather than the author of a book, what do you think your duty is to the public?” Ms Badawi asked.
“The book is part of journalism,” Ms Haberman responded. “The book is a work of journalism.”
She went on to say that “people are willing to say things for history in books that they sometimes are not and to reveal information that they are not for the daily report”.
“And so I hope that people will understand that, and if they don’t, I completely get that too,” she said. “You know, books are part of journalism.”
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Column | Sledding About To Get Tougher For Unbeaten Ole Miss
Column | Sledding About To Get Tougher For Unbeaten Ole Miss https://digitalalaskanews.com/column-sledding-about-to-get-tougher-for-unbeaten-ole-miss/
Warning: If you think anything I have to say has any bearing on how Ole Miss plays the rest of the season, stop now. Don’t read any further. This is a practice in looking ahead at the bigger picture.
Ok, I warned you.
Ole Miss is 6-0 and ranked No. 9 in the country. The last time the Rebels started a season 6-0 without having to vacate any of their wins was in 1962. Count ’em up. That’s been 60 years. I wasn’t born and many of you weren’t either (many of you were). Ole Miss was recognized as the 1962 national champion by the Billingsley Report, Litkenhous and Sagarin Ratings that year. It’s one of three national championships the Rebels claim.
No one could have seen then the drought that was about to cover the Rebels, a.k,a. the 1970s, 80s and lot of the 90s and 2000s.
But here we are. Ole Miss has navigated the first half of its season without a loss. That part of the mission, well, has been accomplished.
Standing on the outside and looking in, one might not be so impressed. The six wins are over Troy, FCS member Central Arkansas, Georgia Tech, Tulsa, Kentucky and Vanderbilt. Ole Miss blew the fenders off Troy, Central Arkansas and Georgia Tech, but at one point or another was involved in battles with Tulsa, Kentucky and Vandy with a couple of really sticky moments. Kentucky…without QB Will Levis…looks average (see the Wildcats home loss to South Carolina on Saturday). Vanderbilt is better but still lost to Alabama 55-3 a few weeks back. Tulsa lost at Navy…gulp…53-21 on Saturday.
I’m not raining on the parade. Six wins in six games is impressive.
In fact, the Rebels are right where we thought they’d be at this point of the season. I predicted them to go 10-2 and I still stand by it. We all thought the front end of the schedule was a little light and that’s of no fault of anyone’s. Schedules are made out years in advance. Georgia Tech could have been world-beaters this season for all anyone knew way back when the contract was signed.
(Photo: USA TODAY Sports)
Now we move on. The Rebels move on.
Ole Miss is a two-touchdown favorite over Auburn on Saturday in Oxford. When was the last time that happened? I think the Rebels win and move to 7-0. It’s really an easy call with everyone under the notion that Auburn head coach Bryan Harsin will be fired at season’s end…if not sooner. Things are in disarray on the Plains. The Rebels are too good for an uninspired team to come into the Vaught and beat them, in my opinion.
Then it’s on to Baton Rouge where literally anything can happen in that crazed environment.
Then it’s off to Texas A&M to see which Aggies team shows up that weekend. If it was the one that played Alabama to the final play Saturday night, well, it could…will…be a serious test.
If all continues to go well, it sets up the mother of all games on Nov. 12, in Oxford…Alabama. It sure seems like the game has the potential to be just that as of this writing but lots can happen with both teams before then.
Then the Rebels close the season with two extremely difficult contests…at Arkansas and home for the Egg Bowl.
Right now, Ole Miss is unbeaten, untied and undefeated. That much is undisputed. Sure, you can do what I just did and examine who the 6-0 came against, but that matters not. The Rebels are 6-0.
But the sledding is about to get a lot tougher.
It’s the SEC. We all knew it would.
“247Sports
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European Markets Claw Back Losses As Volatility Continues
European Markets Claw Back Losses As Volatility Continues https://digitalalaskanews.com/european-markets-claw-back-losses-as-volatility-continues/
European markets were choppy on Monday as volatility continued amid concerns over economic growth and monetary policy tightening from central banks.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 hovered around the flatline by mid-afternoon, having fallen more than 0.8% in early trade. Retail and chemicals stocks both added 2% while utilities fell 1.1%.
Along with concern over interest rate hikes from central banks and their impact on economic growth, markets in Europe are also watching developments in Ukraine, where the war is showing signs of escalating. Multiple explosions hit the center of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on Monday.
European shares initially followed negative global sentiment as investors bet that last week’s U.S. jobs data will keep the Federal Reserve on an aggressive path of interest rate hikes. However, opening losses were all but erased by late morning.
U.S. stock futures were higher in early deals Monday, with Wall Street looking ahead to a key inflation print on Thursday and the beginning of corporate earnings season.
Markets in Asia-Pacific retreated overnight, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index leading losses as Chinese chip stocks listed in the city plunged following new export rules from the U.S.
U.S. markets open higher
U.S. stocks opened higher Monday as Wall Street looked ahead to key earnings and inflation reports to be released this week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.5% higher in early deals while the S&P 500 was up 0.1%. The Nasdaq Composite, however, dipped 0.5%.
— Karen Gilchrist
The war in Ukraine is a ‘fight until collapse,’ TS Lombard analyst says
The war in Ukraine is a “fight until collapse,” Christopher Granville, managing director at TS Lombard says.
Stocks on the move: DS Smith up 12%, Oxford Nanopore down 7%
British packaging company DS Smith saw its shares jump more than 12% by mid-afternoon after projecting that annual performance ahead of expectations, on the back of robust revenue growth and cost-cutting measures.
At the bottom of the Stoxx 600, Britain’s Oxford Nanopore shares fell more than 7% after a director share sale disclosure.
– Elliot Smith
UK Finance Minister Kwarteng brings forward fiscal policy plan to Oct. 31
U.K. Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng will now deliver his medium-term fiscal plan — building on the controversial Sep. 23 “mini-budget” — on Oct. 31, three weeks sooner than previously scheduled.
Last month’s policy announcements spooked the market, leading the pound to all-time lows and forcing the Bank of England to intervene in the bond market to prevent the collapse of pension funds.
The new date will allow the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to assess critical data updates and embark on a full forecast process, Kwarteng told parliament’s Treasury Select Committee in a letter.
– Elliot Smith
Stoxx 600 touches one-week low
The European blue chip index briefly touched a one-week low on Monday morning, falling more than 0.8% before recouping some of its losses.
Concerns over economic growth, in the face of tightening monetary policy and the war in Ukraine, continued to dampen investor sentiment.
Stocks on the move: DS Smith up 8%, ams-Osram down 9%
British packaging company DS Smith saw its shares jump more than 8% in early trade after projecting that annual performance ahead of expectations, on the back of robust revenue growth and cost-cutting measures.
At the bottom of the Stoxx 600, ams-Osram shares fell more than 9% after announcing that its CFO plans to step down from April 2023.
– Elliot Smith
Bank of England announces liquidity measures to help ease pension fund issues
The Bank of England is set to introduce further liquidity measures as it seeks to ensure financial stability in the U.K.
It comes after the central bank on Sep. 28 announced a two-week emergency two-week purchase program for long-dated U.K. government bonds. It was designed to protect liability driven investment (LDI) funds from imminent collapse.
Now, the BOE has announced further measures to ensure an “orderly end” to its purchase scheme on Oct. 14, including increasing the size of its daily auctions to allow headroom for gilt purchases ahead of Friday’s deadline.
Read more here.
— Elliot Smith
CNBC Pro: Goldman says these ‘cheap’ global stocks are set to win in the short and long-term
As Europe struggles with soaring electricity and gas bills, Goldman Sachs says global companies focussing on energy efficiency are set to outperform.
“We think Energy Efficiency companies can outperform over the short term, with the focus on energy efficiency to tackle the current energy crisis that followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the analysts wrote in a note on Oct. 3.
“[And] over the long term, with the focus on energy efficiency to tackle the climate change and reach the ambitious ‘net zero’ targets.”
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Weizhen Tan
Here are the opening calls
Britain’s FTSE 100 is seen around 51 points lower at 6,940, Germany’s DAX is set to slide by around 122 points to 12,151 and France’s CAC 40 is expected to drop around 61 points to 5,806.
CNBC Pro: Porsche is now more valuable than VW: Here’s what the pros think of the carmakers
A week after its stock market debut, luxury automaker Porsche’s market cap raced past its former parent company Volkswagen Group’s.
Some fund managers are already comparing the German firm to Tesla, the largest electric carmaker in the world, saying Porsche’s electrification plan for its hot-selling Macan EV is expected to be an instant success.
Compared to its parent company VW, which makes nearly 10 million cars annually, Porsche manufactures just over 300,000 cars but accounts for a quarter of the profits at Volkswagen.
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Ganesh Rao
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Strikes On Ukraine Raise Pressure On Allies To Send Advanced Air Defense
Strikes On Ukraine Raise Pressure On Allies To Send Advanced Air Defense https://digitalalaskanews.com/strikes-on-ukraine-raise-pressure-on-allies-to-send-advanced-air-defense/
BRUSSELS — The string of strikes against Ukrainian cities and key infrastructure on Monday galvanized long-standing calls from the government to its allies for more sophisticated air defense systems and longer-range weapons.
The Russian attacks appeared to signal a significant escalation, raising pressure on the United States and other European countries that have been reluctant to provide Ukraine with the latest in military technology.
In a bid to avoid direct military conflict with Russia, Western allies have been slow to provide Ukrainian forces with the most advanced weapons systems — a trend that has persisted even as the Kremlin has repeatedly declared that its fight is not just with Ukraine, but against the United States and NATO.
Within hours of the strikes, Zelensky held emergency phone calls with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to discuss air defense and other military aid. Zelensky said he will address an emergency meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized nations on Tuesday.
Amid the rush of diplomacy, Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively made Zelensky’s case for air defense by threatening additional strikes.
“The best response to Russian missile terror is the supply of anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems to Ukraine — protect the sky over Ukraine!” Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted Monday. “This will protect our cities and our people. This will protect the future of Europe.”
Even before the strikes Monday, the country’s top officials were loudly proclaiming the need to boost air defenses.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted Sunday after Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia that “we urgently need more modern air defense and missile defense systems to save innocent lives. I urge partners to speed up deliveries.”
Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that “instead of talking we need air defense, MLRS, longer-range projectiles,” referring to multiple-launch rocket systems.
Estonia’s intelligence chief urged Western countries to heed the calls and consider sending longer-range weapons to Ukraine. “We have a self-interest in giving Ukraine what they ask for,” Mikk Marran said in a Yahoo News interview published Sunday.
Ukraine’s military said that in Monday’s attack, its air defenses took down 43 of the 83 missiles launched at it.
The German Defense Ministry said Monday that the first of four IRIS-T air defense systems promised to Ukraine would arrive in the “next few days,” and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Germany is doing “everything we can” to quickly reinforce Ukraine.
“Residents of Kyiv in fear of death in the morning traffic. An impact crater next to a playground,” she tweeted. “It is vile & unjustifiable that Putin is firing rockets at cities and civilians.”
In the phone call with Zelensky on Monday morning, Macron pledged increased support for Ukraine, including more military equipment, but there are growing questions over the extent to which the French are actually living up to their promises.
A recent ranking by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy concluded that France has spent less on announced weapons deliveries to Ukraine than much smaller European nations like Estonia and the Czech Republic. Overall, France ranked as only the 11th-biggest global supplier of Ukrainian military aid by August — a “humiliating” result for a country that views itself as the E.U.’s leading military power, critics say.
Ukraine is interested in air defense systems used by the French military, including the SAMP/T. The Le Monde newspaper reported that one reason for France’s hesitation has been that the country has a limited stock of the necessary batteries.
French government officials have defended the extent of their support, citing “discretion” and suggesting that they have not disclosed all their supplies. They have also argued that their deliveries — including 18 highly accurate CAESAR self-propelled howitzer cannons — have been key additions on the battlefield. France is in negotiations to divert additional CAESAR cannons that were originally ordered by Denmark to Ukraine.
But the criticism that France has fallen behind smaller allies in aiding Ukraine appears to have struck a nerve at the Élysée Palace in recent days. As Macron met with other E.U. leaders in Prague on Friday, he announced the creation of a 100 million euro ($97 million) fund that will allow Ukraine to buy its own military equipment.
The fund is in addition to around $230 million France had committed to military aid but far behind the more than $17 billion that the Biden administration has sent Ukraine since February.
The Pentagon said in late September that it will deliver two advanced antiaircraft systems, called the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, within the next two months — something Ukraine had long been asking for.
Noack reported from France, Morris from Berlin.
War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The latest: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees Friday to annex four occupied regions of Ukraine, following staged referendums that were widely denounced as illegal. Follow our live updates here.
The response: The Biden administration on Friday announced a new round of sanctions on Russia, in response to the annexations, targeting government officials and family members, Russian and Belarusian military officials and defense procurement networks. President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Friday that Ukraine is applying for “accelerated ascension” into NATO, in an apparent answer to the annexations.
In Russia: Putin declared a military mobilization on Sept. 21 to call up as many as 300,000 reservists in a dramatic bid to reverse setbacks in his war on Ukraine. The announcement led to an exodus of more than 180,000 people, mostly men who were subject to service, and renewed protests and other acts of defiance against the war.
The fight: Ukraine mounted a successful counteroffensive that forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in early September, as troops fled cities and villages they had occupied since the early days of the war and abandoned large amounts of military equipment.
Photos: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground from the beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work.
How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating.
Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video.
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Steele Dossier Source Heads To Trial In Possible Last Stand For Durham
Steele Dossier Source Heads To Trial, In Possible Last Stand For Durham https://digitalalaskanews.com/steele-dossier-source-heads-to-trial-in-possible-last-stand-for-durham/
Former president Donald Trump said that special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe should “reveal corruption at a level never seen before in our country.”
But the special counsel’s nearly three-and-a-half-year examination seems destined for a less dramatic conclusion this month in a federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., where Durham will put on trial a private researcher he says lied to the FBI.
Igor Danchenko — a researcher who fed information to former British spy Christopher Steele, and whose contributions ended up in the now-infamous “Steele dossier” of allegations about Trump’s ties to Russia in 2016 — goes on trial Tuesday. The trial is expected to last one week.
Danchenko was indicted on charges of lying to FBI agents who interviewed him in 2017 about the sources behind his claims to Steele. Defense attorneys argue that Danchenko made a series of “equivocal” statements to the FBI and should not be penalized for giving wishy-washy answers to vaguely worded questions.
Whatever the outcome, the Danchenko trial is shaping up to be Durham’s last stand in court.
A grand jury Durham had been using in Alexandria is now inactive, according to two people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the pending legal proceedings. It is not clear whether Durham is still using a grand jury in D.C.
Durham was tasked with writing a report summarizing his investigation, as former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III did at the close of his earlier probe into Trump and Russia. But it would be up to Attorney General Merrick Garland how much, if any, of Durham’s report to make public.
“The public is waiting ‘with bated breath’ for the Durham Report, which should reveal corruption at a level never seen before in our country,” Trump wrote in August on his social media platform, Truth Social, after FBI agents raided his Mar-a-Lago complex.
Durham, a longtime federal prosecutor who served as the U.S. attorney in Connecticut in the Trump administration, was asked by then-Attorney General William P. Barr in 2019 to dig into the origins of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into possible coordination between Trump and Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign. A report by the Justice Department’s inspector general in 2019 criticized the FBI for failing to note doubts about the veracity of the information it used to seek court approval of secret surveillance on a former Trump campaign adviser, though the inspector general said he found no evidence of political bias in the agency’s decision-making. Barr, a Trump appointee, had complained that the 2016 probe was initiated on the “thinnest” of evidence.
Barr later appointed Durham as a special counsel and directed him to write a final report “in a form that will permit public dissemination.”
The special counsel trained his sights in large part on the FBI’s use of reports Steele produced, which are now commonly referred to as the “Steele dossier.” Steele had been hired to produce the reports by research firm Fusion GPS, which had been retained by a law firm that represented Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee. Fusion GPS initially had been hired to dig into Trump’s background by a website funded by a deep-pocketed GOP donor.
Years after they began digging, Durham and his team have found only mixed success. The Danchenko case marks the second time that the prosecutor who was supposed to root out dishonesty and misconduct within the ranks of the FBI and intelligence agencies will instead try to portray the FBI as victims, not perpetrators, of lies and deception.
“This case is likely the last real test for Durham’s office to justify its years-long investigation into possible collusion with Russia in the 2016 election,” said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, adding that it “will only add fodder to critics of Durham’s office who believe that his prosecutions have failed to get to the core of his mandate to investigate the genesis of the Russian collusion allegations, but instead have only charged individuals with more technical violations.”
A former FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, pleaded guilty in 2020 to altering a government email to justify secret surveillance of the former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page. Clinesmith was sentenced to a year of probation. In May, a jury in D.C. federal court acquitted the only other defendant who went to trial as part of Durham’s investigation, cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann, who also was accused of lying to the FBI.
The Danchenko indictment has gotten a skeptical reception from the federal judge presiding over the matter, and much of the case Durham wanted to present won’t be weighed by the jury.
At a hearing last month, U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga allowed the case to proceed to trial but said it was “an extremely close call” whether Danchenko’s statements to the FBI could even be prosecuted.
This month, Trenga ruled that Durham’s team cannot raise the most salacious allegations in the Steele dossier — concerning Trump, the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow and unproven claims about a “pee tape” featuring prostitutes — that investigators say they traced back to Danchenko and his purported sources.
Trenga, a senior judge who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush, and who sits on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, also barred other pieces of evidence Durham had hoped to show jurors.
“Danchenko’s allegedly false statements regarding his sourcing of the Ritz-Carlton allegations do not qualify as direct evidence,” Trenga wrote in an order Oct. 4. He added: “Why Steele characterized the sources for the Ritz-Carlton allegations as he did in the Report or, indeed, whether the listed sources, in fact, came from Danchenko are subject to a significant degree of speculation.”
Steele himself might be able to shed light on Danchenko’s claims, but he is not expected to testify. Neither is Sergei Millian, the former president of the Russian American Chamber of Commerce, who prosecutors say Danchenko lied about during his FBI interviews.
That poses another challenge for Durham: narrating a complex story to the jury about claims Danchenko made to the FBI, about previous claims he made to Steele, about information he supposedly received from Millian and others — all of it without Millian or Steele providing their own versions of events.
Durham and his team did not respond to a request for comment.
The indictment and filings submitted in the case are dense and technical, with some focusing on the proper grammatical way to parse FBI questions and Danchenko’s responses. For example, Danchenko’s attorneys argue that some of his statements to the FBI in 2017 — that he “believed” it was Millian who reached out to him anonymously in a phone call and shared information about Trump and Russia — were “literally true” and thus not a crime.
Stuart A. Sears, an attorney for Danchenko, argued at a hearing last month: “If Rudy Giuliani says he believes the 2020 election was fraudulent, that doesn’t make it a false statement. He believes it.”
Mintz said: “This will be a difficult case for prosecutors because there is ambiguity in the facts, and prosecutors will have to prove Danchenko intended to mislead the FBI during his questioning as part of its investigation. While lying to federal agents is a crime, without more serious underlying charges it may be difficult to convince jurors that this case matters.”
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McCarthy Told 2 Officers In Private Meeting That Trump Had No Idea His Supporters Were Attacking Capitol On January 6 Newly Obtained Audio Shows KION546
Democrats Won https://digitalalaskanews.com/democrats-won/
By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN
Requests for Barack Obama are pouring in from Democrats around the country — candidates are desperate for his help in what they feel is an existential midterms battle, one in which each race could help determine control of Congress and governments in the states.
More than a dozen advisers and others who have spoken with Obama say the former president’s approach in the fall campaign will remain limited and careful. That cautious approach comes as Obama tells people his presence fires up GOP opposition just as much as it lights up supporters, that he has more of an impact if he does less and that he can’t cloud out the up-and-coming generation of Democrats.
Obama’s small staff has instead been coordinating which appearances he’ll make and which ads he’ll record with President Joe Biden’s White House political operation and the Democratic National Committee. A similar effort already happened with fundraising emails his name has been put on — political coordination between a sitting and former president, which — like so much else in current politics — is unprecedented.
Democratic operatives say they’re eager to see Obama play an active role — even now, they say, his best role is driving up crucial Black voter turnout in places like Philadelphia and Detroit — even as they note his appeal is shifting. Among the disinterested voter blocs are a rising generation too young to remember his 2008 win, those who argue that his failure to deliver on soaring promises helped set up the crisis of faith and political despair that has followed and those who have gotten tired of seeing how little he’s engaged.
He’ll make a handful of appearances on the campaign trail, bundling appearances for candidates for Senate and governor and secretaries of state, arguing that Democrats winning those races is essential to preserving democracy.
But beyond the midterm season, Obama sees a larger purpose to this latest phase of his post-presidency life. No matter how the midterms go, the former President will host what he’s calling a Democracy Forum two weeks after Election Day — the first event that he’s hoping to turn into an annual gathering, reflecting a recalibration of the Obama Foundation to focus on democracy in America and around the world.
“We’ll explore a range of issues — from strengthening institutions and fighting disinformation, to promoting inclusive capitalism and expanded pluralism — that will shape democracies for generations to come,” Obama writes in an announcement of the event going out to donors, first obtained by CNN. “We’ll showcase democracy in action around the world, and approaches that are working. And we’ll discuss and debate ideas for how we can adapt our democracies and our institutions for a new age.”
Ben Rhodes, a longtime adviser who has been helping plan the Democracy Forum, said that the foundation’s work is removed from politics but will reflect Obama’s priorities.
“All the things he might care about as an ex-president — climate change, health care, avoiding war — all connect back to whether or not democracy survives, and frankly whether or not the worst-case outcomes happen in terms of who’s in charge of countries,” Rhodes said. “He sees it as the thread that connects everything he’s doing.”
Stepping back from an unwanted post-presidency role
A common feature of Obama’s post-presidency period will be noticeably missing in this first midterm election under Biden.
Gone will be the rounds of mass campaign endorsement lists for statewide, House and state legislator candidates that Obama had been putting out since leaving the White House. The decision to stop those lists is a function, people who’ve been working with him say, of stepping back from the extended leadership role he played in the Democratic Party during the Trump years — a role they say he never wanted.
Now Obama will only endorse candidates who have already been endorsed by Biden, to prevent any sense of potential daylight between them.
Obama continues to occupy a unique place in politics: A former President who really wants to leave politics behind but whose popularity is growing; a man already six years out of office who is still more than a decade younger than Biden and other top Democratic leaders — not to mention Donald Trump, the man who succeeded him and appears set to run again in 2024.
“I’m not sure I can think of him as an elder,” said Rep. Mike Levin, who was one of six first-time House candidates in California with whom Obama did a joint event for in 2018. All six went on to win. Levin in an interview last week was still talking about the 2008 race almost as if it just happened.
Much of Obama’s focus has been the multi-million-dollar deals continuing his transformation from president to brand. With the Emmy last month for the national parks documentary he narrated for Netflix, he’s a Tony short of becoming an EGOT, if his production company is included.
Some Democrats mock his various ventures as “Obama, Inc.” Among them: Switching his podcast deal from Spotify to Audible, expanding productions under his Netflix deal and a second volume of memoirs — adding to the already 768-page book published in 2020 that stopped chronologically at the killing of Osama bin Laden during his first term.
And with the early construction of his library Obama has moved from flashy PowerPoint demonstrations for donors to actual beams and columns on the South Side of Chicago, he is still courting multimillion dollar donors to fund it.
“He’s happy Biden is president,” a friend of Obama’s told CNN. “And he’s being post-president as he sees fit.”
And there are Democrats who are happy to see him take a step back.
“One person is still in the ring as the one we look to to advance our values. The other guy is a celebrity,” said one high level Democratic operative. “If your passion is politics, you want to be with the person in the arena.”
Still, Obama has quietly strategized with political leaders at home and abroad — from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to new, young, leftist Chilean President Gabriel Boric or British opposition leader Keir Starmer — while avoiding getting into the daily fray.
“This idea that he should be the guy to sway people’s minds is just silly. That’s not his role. Does he speak inspirationally? Yes,” said the Obama friend. “But he’s a pragmatist.”
Even the limited amount of appearances Obama has continued to do — as he’s tried to get back to the kind of post-presidency he was hoping for before Trump’s election — demonstrate how worried he is about anti-democratic trends on the rise and progressives giving up hope.
“I’m not sure he would have been at COP26 and Copenhagen and holding a summit on democracy here at home if he wasn’t recognizing what’s happening broadly,” said Eric Schultz, a senior adviser who’s been working with Obama since the White House days, referencing last year’s climate summit in Scotland and a major speech on democracy in Denmark earlier this year.
Staying involved behind the scenes
As much as Obama likes to insist that he’s ready to start playing a more background part, he consulted with both Biden and Schumer about the failed attempt to push through a bill on voting rights. He was also on the phone after Biden’s Build Back Better legislation collapsed, backing the idea of slimming down the bill to just be climate change provisions and whatever else was needed to get West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s support.
He spent months on phone calls with tech leaders and advocates, building up to a speech he delivered at Stanford in the spring aimed at rallying the elites and intellectuals into getting involved with what he described as essentially unregulated social media companies.
A few weeks later, he gathered several Black journalists — The New York Times Magazine’s Nikole Hannah-Jones, Los Angeles Times executive editor Kevin Merida, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wes Lowery, Columbia University School of Journalism dean and New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb and Washington Post global opinion editor Karen Attiah — in his Washington office to talk about the ways in which disinformation works its way into Black communities, and what could possibly be done to combat that.
“He was in a space of how he could be helpful, how he could help to move things along from the seat he is in currently,” said Rashad Robinson, the president of the advocacy group Color of Change, who also attended the meeting.
Obama’s staff, meanwhile, has remained in regular touch with Biden’s political staff at the White House, strategizing about opportunities to speak up on the President’s behalf. He was a sounding board for Biden on the Afghanistan withdrawal and followed up with a strong statement of support.
Obama is still important stamp of approval during moments of celebration as well, like when he called in August to congratulate the President after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Obama’s disdain for the current turn in the Republican Party is clear and his pitch is a more dispirited take on the hopeful pitch he used to make — that Democratic ideas are more popular and that the more people who vote, the better Democratic candidates will do.
Attendees at a rare Obama fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in San Francisco saw a man in his new element: Tieless, in a large chair in the home of a co-founder of Qualcomm, delivering long answers to a room full of tech billionaires on a handheld microphone as he fielded set-up questions lobbed at him by Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson.
They were struck by the intensity of his attacks on Republicans. But they also noted how he seemed to be reflecting fresh on harbinger moments from his own presidency, like when he pleaded with Republican senators not to blow up the norms of government by blockading Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court and marvel...
Russian Analyst Set To Face Trial On Charges Of Lying To FBI | The North State Journal
Russian Analyst Set To Face Trial On Charges Of Lying To FBI | The North State Journal https://digitalalaskanews.com/russian-analyst-set-to-face-trial-on-charges-of-lying-to-fbi-the-north-state-journal/
FILE – Igor Danchenko leaves the Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse in Alexandria, Va., Nov. 4, 2021. Danchenko, a think tank analyst who played a major role in the creation of a flawed report about former President Donald Trump, is scheduled to go on trial Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, for lying to the FBI about how he developed information that went into what is now infamously known as the “Steele dossier.” (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Five years after the term “Steele dossier” entered the political lexicon, a think tank analyst who contributed to research about Donald Trump and Russia goes on trial Tuesday for lying to the FBI about his sources of information.
Igor Danchenko is the third person to be prosecuted by Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed to investigate the origins of “Crossfire Hurricane” — the designation given to the FBI’s 2016 probe into former president Trump’s Russia connections. It is also the first of Durham’s cases that delves deeply into the origins of the dossier that Trump derided as fake news and a political witch hunt.
Here’s some background on what the case is about.
WHO IS DANCHENKO AND WHAT IS HE ACCUSED OF?
Danchenko, a Russian analyst, was a source of information for Christopher Steele, a former British spy who was paid by Democrats to research ties between Russia and presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The compilation of research files, which included salacious rumors and unproven assertions, came to be familiarly known as the “Steele dossier.” Though the dossier did not help launch the FBI’s investigation into potential coordination between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, the Justice Department did rely on it when it applied for and received warrants to monitor the communications of a former Trump campaign adviser.
As part of its efforts to verify information in the dossier, the FBI interviewed Danchenko in 2017.
He is charged with lying to agents about his information sources, with prosecutors accusing Danchenko of misleading the FBI in an effort to make his own contributions seem more credible.
WHAT DO THE PROSECUTORS SAY?
Prosecutors say Danchenko lied when the FBI asked him about how he obtained the information he gave to Steele. Specifically, they say he denied that he relied on a Democratic operative, Charles Dolan, a public relations executive who volunteered for Hillary Clinton’s presidential 2016 campaign.
Prosecutors also say Danchenko lied when he said he received information from an anonymous phone call that he believed was placed by a man named named Sergei Millian, a former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. They argue Danchenko knew that Millian wasn’t a source of any anonymous phone call.
The indictment says the FBI could have better judged the veracity of the Steele dossier had it known that a Democratic operative was the source of much of its information.
WHAT DOES THE DEFENSE SAY?
Danchenko’s lawyers say the prosecution “is a case of extraordinary government overreach.” They note that Danchenko agreed to multiple voluntary FBI interviews throughout 2017. They say his answers to the FBI were all technically true.
For instance, an FBI agent asked Danchenko whether he ever “talked” with Dolan about the information that showed up in the dossier. While prosecutors have produced evidence that the two had email exchanges about topics in the dossier, there’s no evidence that they talked orally about those topics.
“It was a bad question,” said Danchenko’s lawyer, Stuart Sears, at a pretrial hearing last month. “That’s the special counsel’s problem. Not Mr. Danchenko’s.”
And while Danchenko said he believed Millian was the voice on the anonymous phone call, he never told the FBI with any certainty that it was Millian. Sears argued that ambiguous statements like that fall short of what’s necessary to convict on a false statements charge.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga last month rejected a request from defense lawyers to dismiss the charges, though he called his decision to let the case move forward an “extremely close call.” He has since ruled that prosecutors cannot present evidence about the most salacious parts of the dossier.
WHAT OTHER CASES HAS DURHAM BROUGHT?
Durham was the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut in 2019 when he was tapped by then-Attorney General William Barr to hunt for potential misconduct by government officials who conducted the original Russia investigation.
The first case was against an FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, who was accused of altering an email related to the surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. It ended in a guilty plea and a sentence of probation – and involved FBI misconduct already uncovered by the Justice Department’s inspector general.
Last year, Durham’s team charged a Democratic lawyer with making a false statement to the FBI’s top lawyer during a 2016 meeting in which he presented information about a purported digital backchannel between a Russia bank and the Trump organization. The FBI investigated but found no suspicious contact. The case against the lawyer, Michael Sussmann, ended in a swift acquittal in May.
Durham’s work has continued deep into the Biden administration Justice Department, but the Danchenko trial seems likely to be the last criminal case his team will bring. It is not clear when Durham might produce a report summarizing his findings.
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Inflation Relief Checks Live Online Updates By State: California Florida | Payments Who Qualifies & Amounts
Inflation Relief Checks Live Online Updates By State: California, Florida… | Payments, Who Qualifies & Amounts https://digitalalaskanews.com/inflation-relief-checks-live-online-updates-by-state-california-florida-payments-who-qualifies-amounts-2/
Inflation Relief Checks: live updates
Latest News
California Inflation Relief Check: do I qualify according to my filing status?
The amount of money that will be distributed to households for the Middle-Class Tax Refund depends on income and tax filing status.
The state allocated around $9.5 billion for the refund and hopes that families will be able to use the payments to keep up with prices. The state leads the country in the cost of gas and after a brief period of relief from high prices from July to September, they are on the climb once again.
The payments for the tax refund are worth anywhere between $200 and $1,050, and you can read our full coverage to determine your eligibility and payment amount.
SOCIAL SECURITY
Social Security Increase: what is the expected COLA raise for 2023?
This week the Social Security Administration will announce the 2023 COLA, which is expected to be historic in size.
Earlier in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased slightly by 0.1 percent in August. Combined, the last two months of price increases show a 8.3 percent increase in average prices in August compared to August last year.
Georgia begins sending checks
Gov. Brian Kemp, facing stanch competition for his seat, has decided to send inflation relief payments to many across his state.
The first batch of payments was sent in late September and are worth $350.
The payments are being sent to those on SNAP, social security, and other government benefit programs.
A COLA of 8.7 percent is extremely rare and would be the highest ever received by most Social Security beneficiaries alive today. There were only three other times since the start of automatic adjustments that it was higher (1979-1981).
US NEWS
California Inflation Relief Check: when will I receive the payment & how to track?
The first payments for the Middle Class Tax Refund were sent out on October 7. People will, of course, be hoping to receive their money as soon as possible, and fortunately, the California Franchise Tax Board (CFTB) has published information for when people should receive their payment.
The CFTB says it expects to send 90 percent of the direct deposit payments for the Middle-Class Tax Refund in October 2022. Those who received the first or second Golden State Stimulus (GSS I and II) via direct deposit can expect to see the money in their account between 7 October and 25 October. The remaining direct deposits will be issued between 28 October and 14 November 2022.
Read more on when you can expect your payment.
Welcome to the AS USA live blog on financial payments being sent by states to assist residents as inflation continues to rock the economy.
Last week, California sent out its first batch of payments for the Middle-Class Tax Refund, which will send checks worth up to $1,050 to millions of households across the state. Direct deposit payments will be made first.
Additionally, this week, the Social Security Administration will announce the 2023 Cost-of-living adjustment that will be made to payments in January.
Follow along for more news on the payments being sent in other states, as well as support that may come from the federal level.
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Stock Market Today: Stock Futures Edge Down https://digitalalaskanews.com/stock-market-today-stock-futures-edge-down/
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Last Updated: Oct 10, 2022 at 7:56 am ET
The Wall Street Journal’s full markets coverage.
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Democrats Won't Get As Much Obama As They Want In The Midterms. But He Has Some Other Plans. KVIA
Democrats Won't Get As Much Obama As They Want In The Midterms. But He Has Some Other Plans. – KVIA https://digitalalaskanews.com/democrats-wont-get-as-much-obama-as-they-want-in-the-midterms-but-he-has-some-other-plans-kvia/
By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN
Requests for Barack Obama are pouring in from Democrats around the country — candidates are desperate for his help in what they feel is an existential midterms battle, one in which each race could help determine control of Congress and governments in the states.
To these candidates, American democracy itself is on the line. And while Obama agrees with them on the stakes, many of those invitations are about to get turned down.
More than a dozen advisers and others who have spoken with Obama say the former president’s approach in the fall campaign will remain limited and careful. That cautious approach comes as Obama tells people his presence fires up GOP opposition just as much as it lights up supporters, that he has more of an impact if he does less and that he can’t cloud out the up-and-coming generation of Democrats.
Obama’s small staff has instead been coordinating which appearances he’ll make and which ads he’ll record with President Joe Biden’s White House political operation and the Democratic National Committee. A similar effort already happened with fundraising emails his name has been put on — political coordination between a sitting and former president, which — like so much else in current politics — is unprecedented.
Democratic operatives say they’re eager to see Obama play an active role — even now, they say, his best role is driving up crucial Black voter turnout in places like Philadelphia and Detroit — even as they note his appeal is shifting. Among the disinterested voter blocs are a rising generation too young to remember his 2008 win, those who argue that his failure to deliver on soaring promises helped set up the crisis of faith and political despair that has followed and those who have gotten tired of seeing how little he’s engaged.
He’ll make a handful of appearances on the campaign trail, bundling appearances for candidates for Senate and governor and secretaries of state, arguing that Democrats winning those races is essential to preserving democracy.
But beyond the midterm season, Obama sees a larger purpose to this latest phase of his post-presidency life. No matter how the midterms go, the former President will host what he’s calling a Democracy Forum two weeks after Election Day — the first event that he’s hoping to turn into an annual gathering, reflecting a recalibration of the Obama Foundation to focus on democracy in America and around the world.
“We’ll explore a range of issues — from strengthening institutions and fighting disinformation, to promoting inclusive capitalism and expanded pluralism — that will shape democracies for generations to come,” Obama writes in an announcement of the event going out to donors, first obtained by CNN. “We’ll showcase democracy in action around the world, and approaches that are working. And we’ll discuss and debate ideas for how we can adapt our democracies and our institutions for a new age.”
Ben Rhodes, a longtime adviser who has been helping plan the Democracy Forum, said that the foundation’s work is removed from politics but will reflect Obama’s priorities.
“All the things he might care about as an ex-president — climate change, health care, avoiding war — all connect back to whether or not democracy survives, and frankly whether or not the worst-case outcomes happen in terms of who’s in charge of countries,” Rhodes said. “He sees it as the thread that connects everything he’s doing.”
Stepping back from an unwanted post-presidency role
A common feature of Obama’s post-presidency period will be noticeably missing in this first midterm election under Biden.
Gone will be the rounds of mass campaign endorsement lists for statewide, House and state legislator candidates that Obama had been putting out since leaving the White House. The decision to stop those lists is a function, people who’ve been working with him say, of stepping back from the extended leadership role he played in the Democratic Party during the Trump years — a role they say he never wanted.
Now Obama will only endorse candidates who have already been endorsed by Biden, to prevent any sense of potential daylight between them.
Obama continues to occupy a unique place in politics: A former President who really wants to leave politics behind but whose popularity is growing; a man already six years out of office who is still more than a decade younger than Biden and other top Democratic leaders — not to mention Donald Trump, the man who succeeded him and appears set to run again in 2024.
“I’m not sure I can think of him as an elder,” said Rep. Mike Levin, who was one of six first-time House candidates in California with whom Obama did a joint event for in 2018. All six went on to win. Levin in an interview last week was still talking about the 2008 race almost as if it just happened.
Much of Obama’s focus has been the multi-million-dollar deals continuing his transformation from president to brand. With the Emmy last month for the national parks documentary he narrated for Netflix, he’s a Tony short of becoming an EGOT, if his production company is included.
Some Democrats mock his various ventures as “Obama, Inc.” Among them: Switching his podcast deal from Spotify to Audible, expanding productions under his Netflix deal and a second volume of memoirs — adding to the already 768-page book published in 2020 that stopped chronologically at the killing of Osama bin Laden during his first term.
And with the early construction of his library Obama has moved from flashy PowerPoint demonstrations for donors to actual beams and columns on the South Side of Chicago, he is still courting multimillion dollar donors to fund it.
“He’s happy Biden is president,” a friend of Obama’s told CNN. “And he’s being post-president as he sees fit.”
And there are Democrats who are happy to see him take a step back.
“One person is still in the ring as the one we look to to advance our values. The other guy is a celebrity,” said one high level Democratic operative. “If your passion is politics, you want to be with the person in the arena.”
Still, Obama has quietly strategized with political leaders at home and abroad — from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to new, young, leftist Chilean President Gabriel Boric or British opposition leader Keir Starmer — while avoiding getting into the daily fray.
“This idea that he should be the guy to sway people’s minds is just silly. That’s not his role. Does he speak inspirationally? Yes,” said the Obama friend. “But he’s a pragmatist.”
Even the limited amount of appearances Obama has continued to do — as he’s tried to get back to the kind of post-presidency he was hoping for before Trump’s election — demonstrate how worried he is about anti-democratic trends on the rise and progressives giving up hope.
“I’m not sure he would have been at COP26 and Copenhagen and holding a summit on democracy here at home if he wasn’t recognizing what’s happening broadly,” said Eric Schultz, a senior adviser who’s been working with Obama since the White House days, referencing last year’s climate summit in Scotland and a major speech on democracy in Denmark earlier this year.
Staying involved behind the scenes
As much as Obama likes to insist that he’s ready to start playing a more background part, he consulted with both Biden and Schumer about the failed attempt to push through a bill on voting rights. He was also on the phone after Biden’s Build Back Better legislation collapsed, backing the idea of slimming down the bill to just be climate change provisions and whatever else was needed to get West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s support.
He spent months on phone calls with tech leaders and advocates, building up to a speech he delivered at Stanford in the spring aimed at rallying the elites and intellectuals into getting involved with what he described as essentially unregulated social media companies.
A few weeks later, he gathered several Black journalists — The New York Times Magazine’s Nikole Hannah-Jones, Los Angeles Times executive editor Kevin Merida, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wes Lowery, Columbia University School of Journalism dean and New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb and Washington Post global opinion editor Karen Attiah — in his Washington office to talk about the ways in which disinformation works its way into Black communities, and what could possibly be done to combat that.
“He was in a space of how he could be helpful, how he could help to move things along from the seat he is in currently,” said Rashad Robinson, the president of the advocacy group Color of Change, who also attended the meeting.
Obama’s staff, meanwhile, has remained in regular touch with Biden’s political staff at the White House, strategizing about opportunities to speak up on the President’s behalf. He was a sounding board for Biden on the Afghanistan withdrawal and followed up with a strong statement of support.
Obama is still important stamp of approval during moments of celebration as well, like when he called in August to congratulate the President after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Obama’s disdain for the current turn in the Republican Party is clear and his pitch is a more dispirited take on the hopeful pitch he used to make — that Democratic ideas are more popular and that the more people who vote, the better Democratic candidates will do.
Attendees at a rare Obama fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in San Francisco saw a man in his new element: Tieless, in a large chair in the home of a co-founder of Qualcomm, delivering long answers to a room full of tech billionaires on a handheld microphone as he fielded set-up questions lobbed at him by Twilio CEO Jeff L...
Its Not Your Imagination: Polling Data Confirm Conservatives Flip On Morality In Candidates And Hershel Walker Is Exhibit B Baptist News Global
It’s Not Your Imagination: Polling Data Confirm Conservatives’ Flip On Morality In Candidates, And Hershel Walker Is Exhibit B – Baptist News Global https://digitalalaskanews.com/its-not-your-imagination-polling-data-confirm-conservatives-flip-on-morality-in-candidates-and-hershel-walker-is-exhibit-b-baptist-news-global/
That conservative evangelicals appear to be turning a blind eye to Herschel Walker’s documented moral failures illustrates the flip-flop on valuing moral behavior found within the Republican Party over the past 20 years, according to research by journalist Aaron Blake writing in the Washington Post.
He concludes: “It’s not so much that the world has changed as that the Republican Party has.”
Blake begins by quoting Donald Trump, often seen as the bellwether for shifting concern about morality in the GOP, on Walker’s various problems. As reported in New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s book, Confidence Man, Trump explains that Walker carries “a personal history that, 10 years ago, maybe it would have been a problem. Twenty years ago would’ve been a bigger problem. I don’t think it’s a problem today.”
The latest revelation last week came via The Daily Beast’s report that the U.S. Senate candidate from Georgia had paid for an abortion in 2009, although Walker denies doing so and declared he doesn’t know the woman, who it turns out is the mother of one of his multiple children born out of wedlock.
As a Republican candidate for the Senate, Walker has taken a harsh stand against abortion — a requirement for any Republican candidate today.
But Walker is not alone in his hypocrisy, Blake notes. Since being known as the party of “values voters” in the early 2000s, the GOP has flipped the script, and its conservative evangelical base has gone along.
“What’s clear is that the party has evolved considerably since then, toward a version of itself that can accept the likes of Trump and Walker — and overwhelmingly,” Blake wrote.
He backed up this statement with data from Public Religion Research Institute. In 2011, PRRI asked Americans whether they thought an elected official who committed an immoral act “can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.”
Then, half of Democrats said candidates could, but only 36% of Republicans said the same.
Fast forward just five years — into the 2016 launch of Trump’s nomination as the Republican Party presidential candidate — and “things had changed substantially,” Blake said. “With a vulgar, thrice-married alleged adulterer at the top of the party’s ticket, the number of Republicans who said such an official could fulfill their duties nearly doubled to 70%. And by the end of Trump’s term as president, that number stood at 71%.”
This happened not in spite of but because of evangelical voters, Blake said.
“The shift was driven by the evangelical Christians who had once pushed the party to embrace morality. While in 2011, just 30% of white evangelicals said such a candidate could fulfill their duties, that number in 2020 was 72%. Among the major religious groups, this one went from the least tolerant of such a candidate to the most tolerant.”
Further, this trend affected only the Republican Party.
“Democrats, by contrast, are about where they were in 2011. While back then 49% said such a candidate could fulfill their duties, in 2020 that number stood at 47%,” Blake reported.
The news on Walker allegedly paying for a girlfriend’s abortion is only the latest in a string of morality issues that previously would have sunk a GOP candidate but have not dampened his support among the Republican faithful this year.
His son alleged that Walker “threatened to kill us” and that the family had to move repeatedly to flee violence from Walker.
His ex-wife has reported incidents in which Walker allegedly held a gun to her head.
He is known to have fathered three previously undisclosed children with three different women — all without benefit of marriage.
He has lied about his business dealings.
He has lied about his academic record at the University of Georgia.
He has lied about working in law enforcement.
“The devil went down to Georgia this week, and he was surprised to find that white evangelicals had already beat him to soul stealing.”
In a scathing column for MSNBC, University of Pennsylvania professor and author Anthea Butler wrote: “The devil went down to Georgia this week, and he was surprised to find that white evangelicals had already beat him to soul stealing. This time, though, no amount of good fiddle playing is going to make the state’s evangelical voters let go of Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, an anti-abortion rights candidate accused of paying for a former sexual partner’s abortion in 2009.”
Butler explained: “A few decades ago, the allegation that he paid for an abortion would have disqualified Walker from consideration by white evangelicals. He definitely would not have been their preferred candidate. Not anymore. Today’s MAGA evangelicals are willing to forgive anything and everything for their candidates — as long as they keep running as hardline MAGA Republicans.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that conservative radio host and former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch is among those Republican leaders making light of Walker’s deficiencies as a candidate.
“I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles,” Loesch said. “I want control of the Senate.”
Related articles:
Atlanta Baptist pastor prays an imprecatory Psalm against Republican candidate’s foes
At Faith and Freedom conference, evangelical Christian voters once again abandon their concern for marital fidelity
Georgia representative says Christian nationalism actually is a good thing
A vote is ‘a kind of prayer,’ Warnock says in first Senate speech
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Noem: SDSU Sucks At Polling! https://digitalalaskanews.com/noem-sdsu-sucks-at-polling/
I guess when Kristi tweets “#GoJacks”, she means “Go take a hike, Jacks!”
Last week political science professor Dave Wiltse said his SDSU Poll shows Representative Jamie Smith in a statistical tie with Governor Kristi Noem. Team Noem responded to this bad news by saying her alma mater sucks at polling.
Noem sicced her attack dog Ian Fury to rip into Professor Wiltse’s work, claiming that the SDSU Poll totally botched its call on South Dakota’s 2020 Presidential vote:
Ian Fury, tweets, 2022.10.06.
The only problem with that attack is that the SDSU Poll never tried to call South Dakota’s 2020 Presidential vote. The October 23, 2020, report to which Fury links does not show the SDSU Poll asking South Dakotans, “For whom will you vote in the November election, Trump or Biden?” Rather, Wiltse’s first South Dakota Voter Survey asked respondents to rate various political figures on a “feeling thermometer”, with 0 for “coldest feelings”, 100 for “warmest”, and 50 for neutrality. Responses for Trump averaged to 42; responses for Biden averaged just below 40:
David Wiltse, “President Trump Sees Softer Support in South Dakota Than His Fellow Republicans,” SDSU Poll, 2020.10.23.
Wiltse himself said the feeling thermometer did not predict a close race between Trump and Biden:
While this in no way suggests that Biden is within striking distance of the president in terms of the electoral results, it does show that South Dakotans have clear issues with certain personal traits of the president relative to other top elected officials. In the end, we fully expect the president to carry the state handily, but his margin of victory will likely be less than his 2016 showing [Wiltse, 2020.10.23].
And indeed, Trump’s 2020 margin of victory in South Dakota was less than his 2016 showing: Trump beat Clinton by 29.8 points; he beat Biden by 26.2 points.
It’s curious that the Noem campaign would say that university that gave her a political science degree isn’t very good at political science. It appears that she and her team just aren’t very good at reading political science.
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Russia Strikes Kyiv And Cities Across Ukraine After Crimea Bridge Attack
Russia Strikes Kyiv And Cities Across Ukraine After Crimea Bridge Attack https://digitalalaskanews.com/russia-strikes-kyiv-and-cities-across-ukraine-after-crimea-bridge-attack/
KYIV, Ukraine — A series of blasts rocked Kyiv on Monday morning, with some strikes landing in the heart of the Ukrainian capital’s downtown during rush hour, and rocket attacks hit cities across the country — Russia’s apparent revenge for an explosion Saturday on the Crimean Bridge.
Suspected Russian missiles caused heavy explosions around 8:15 a.m., and vehicles were in flames near Taras Shevchenko Park — on a road often jammed with rush-hour traffic.
At least five people were killed, and at least a dozen others were injured in the strikes, Ukraine’s national police reported on its Telegram channel.
Explosions were reported across other major Ukrainian cities on Monday, including in Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kharkiv and Lviv, as Moscow unleashed a barrage of missiles.
In Kyiv, the strikes came in waves, the first attack on the city since June. But even when Russian forces were on the outskirts of the capital in the early months of the war, no attack had hit so directly in the city center.
Suddenly, the gleeful taunts that characterized Ukraine’s national elation over the fireball on the Crimean Bridge, were replaced on Monday by fury and outrage, charges of terrorism against Moscow, and redoubled resolve to overcome the aggression and defeat the invaders.
In a parallel to the first days of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video of him standing in the center of Kyiv, outside of the presidential office, to address citizens.
“The morning is tough,” Zelensky said. “We are dealing with terrorists.”
“Always remember,” he added, “Ukraine existed before this enemy appeared, and Ukraine will exist after it.”
Russia’s strikes in the heart of the capital raised questions about the strength of Ukraine’s air defenses, which officials have been pushing Western countries to bolster through additional security assistance. Ukraine’s military reported that its air defenses had knocked down 43 of the 83 missiles launched at the country on Monday.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Kyiv was reaching out to its Western allies to organize a response to Monday’s strikes. “I am in constant contact with partners since early morning today to coordinate a resolute response to Russians attacks,” Kuleba posted on Twitter. “I am also interrupting my Africa tour and heading back to Ukraine immediately.”
The strikes appeared to be retribution for Saturday’s attack on the bridge across the Kerch Strait, which has partially reopened, including to rail traffic. The Crimean Bridge is a strategic link between mainland Russia and Crimea and a symbol of President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions to annex Ukrainian territory.
Putin blamed Ukrainian special services for the attack.
“There is no doubt that the attack was aimed at destroying critical civilian infrastructure of the Russian Federation,” Putin said in a video released by the Kremlin on Sunday. The 12-mile span, while used by civilians, is a crucial military logistics conduit for Russia’s military, the only direct road and rail route from mainland Russia to Crimea, which the Kremlin invaded and illegally annexed in 2014.
“And now the answer has arrived,” Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of state-owned channel RT, wrote on Twitter. “The Crimean bridge from the very beginning was that red line. It was obvious.”
Putin has been under pressure to up the ante in what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine after a succession of recent battlefield failures. In the past six weeks, Ukraine has routed Russian forces from the northeast Kharkiv region, and pushed them back in the eastern Donbas region and southern Kherson region.
But while hitting Kyiv might please Russian hard-liners who have been calling for more attacks on the capital, it will not reverse Russia’s core strategic programs, including losses of soldiers and equipment, flagging morale, and repeated logistical failures.
The attacks followed Russia’s announcement on Saturday that Gen. Sergei Surovikin had been named overall commander of the war in Ukraine. Surovikin is a veteran officer who led the Russian military expedition in Syria in 2017, which featured indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.
Moscow’s longtime proxy leader of Crimea called the barrage of strikes across Ukraine “good news.”
“Good news from the early morning: approaches to conducting the special military operation have changed,” the regional chief, Sergey Aksyonov, wrote on Telegram. “I’ve said from the first day of the operation that if such actions aimed at destroying the enemy’s infrastructure have been taken every day, then we would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated.”
“I hope that now the pace of the operation will not slow down,” Aksyonov said.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechnya region in the in the North Caucasus who has repeatedly called for an escalation of the war in Ukraine and sent hundreds of fighters to the front line, said he is now “100 percent satisfied” with Moscow’s war strategy.
Monday’s strikes shattered the sense of relative peace that Kyiv has experienced since April, when Ukrainian troops pushed Russian forces to retreat from the northern edges of the region.
Reports of explosions occurring throughout the country over several hours harked back to the first day of the war, when Russia attempted to wipe out Ukrainian military installations to set the stage for the invasion. On Monday, however, the targets appeared to be mostly civilian.
About 90 minutes after the first explosions rocked the capital, emergency workers and military personnel were arrayed around an intersection that was hit in central Kyiv. The site is next to a major university complex and Taras Shevchenko Park, which is popular with families. One of the missiles landed in the park’s playground.
The burned-out hulls of several cars remained, and at least one body bag was visible on the pavement. Glass from shattered building windows littered the sidewalk.
Another missile hit a glass pedestrian bridge in downtown Kyiv that had been a popular site for tourists.
Kyiv has returned to somewhat normal life in the months since Russia failed to seize the capital and topple the government. People routinely ignored air-raid sirens while sitting at outdoor cafes and walking around town.
After the war’s initial onset prompted many foreign governments to evacuate their embassy staff, embassies gradually reopened. The United States reopened its embassy in May. It was unclear whether Monday’s barrage would prompt those countries to reconsider.
In the western city of Lviv, a refuge for thousands of displaced Ukrainians because it is far from the front line, missiles struck a power plant and knocked out electricity and hot water in some places, the mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, said on Twitter.
“They are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth,” Zelensky said on Telegram. “Destroy our people who are sleeping at home in Zaporizhzhia. Kill people who go to work in Dnipro and Kyiv.”
Khurshudyan reported from Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine. Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiv and Mary Ilyushina in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.
War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The latest: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees Friday to annex four occupied regions of Ukraine, following staged referendums that were widely denounced as illegal. Follow our live updates here.
The response: The Biden administration on Friday announced a new round of sanctions on Russia, in response to the annexations, targeting government officials and family members, Russian and Belarusian military officials and defense procurement networks. President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Friday that Ukraine is applying for “accelerated ascension” into NATO, in an apparent answer to the annexations.
In Russia: Putin declared a military mobilization on Sept. 21 to call up as many as 300,000 reservists in a dramatic bid to reverse setbacks in his war on Ukraine. The announcement led to an exodus of more than 180,000 people, mostly men who were subject to service, and renewed protests and other acts of defiance against the war.
The fight: Ukraine mounted a successful counteroffensive that forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in early September, as troops fled cities and villages they had occupied since the early days of the war and abandoned large amounts of military equipment.
Photos: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground from the beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work.
How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating.
Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video.
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Shooting Outside Rep. Zeldin's Home In New York Injures 2; Family Unhurt | CNN Politics
Shooting Outside Rep. Zeldin's Home In New York Injures 2; Family Unhurt | CNN Politics https://digitalalaskanews.com/shooting-outside-rep-zeldins-home-in-new-york-injures-2-family-unhurt-cnn-politics/
CNN —
A shooting on the Shirley, New York, property of Rep. Lee Zeldin on Sunday left two injured, the congressman and Republican gubernatorial candidate said in a statement. Zeldin’s family was unhurt.
“My 16 year old daughters, Mikayla and Arianna, were at our house doing homework, while my wife, Diana, and I were in the car, having just departed the Bronx Columbus Day Parade in Morris Park,” Zeldin said.
The two individuals who were shot had been laying down under the family’s front porch and in the bushes in front of the porch, Zeldin said.
“After my daughters heard the gunshots and the screaming, they ran upstairs, locked themselves in the bathroom and immediately called 911. They acted very swiftly and smartly every step of the way and Diana and I are extremely proud of them.”
Suffolk County Police said the shooting has no connection to the Zeldin family. A police spokesperson said the two people injured in the incident have been transported to area hospitals for treatment.
A law enforcement source told CNN that the two men were walking down the street on the congressman’s block when a car pulled up and opened fire. The two men then ran toward Zeldin’s home as the car sped away, the source said. Both men are expected to survive their injuries the source added.
Zeldin said police investigators came to his home, and security footage was provided from the family’s home cameras. He said he did not know the identities of the two people.
“My daughters are shaken, but ok,” he said. “Like so many New Yorkers, crime has literally made its way to our front door. My family is grateful to all who have reached out and we will provide another update when we can.”
Zeldin has made criticism of rising crime a central theme in his gubernatorial campaign against incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. He was attacked by a man holding a sharp object on the campaign trail in July.
Hochul tweeted Sunday evening that she had been briefed on the shooting.
“As we await more details, I’m relieved to hear the Zeldin family is safe and grateful for law enforcement’s quick response,” she wrote.
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Oil Falls As China Demand Concerns Fuel Recession Fears
Oil Falls As China Demand Concerns Fuel Recession Fears https://digitalalaskanews.com/oil-falls-as-china-demand-concerns-fuel-recession-fears/
Brent, WTI fall $1 from 5-week highs
OPEC+ decision on big supply curbs boosted prices
Chinese services sector contracts for first time in months
LONDON, Oct 10 (Reuters) – Oil prices fell on Monday, ending five straight days of gains, as investors looked to slowing economic activity in China, the world’s biggest crude importer, which revived concerns about a global recession and falling global fuel demand.
Brent crude futures for December settlement fell by as much as 1.1%, and was last down 77 cents, or 0.8%, at $97.15 a barrel by 0645 GMT.
West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery declined by as much as 1.1% and was last at $92 a barrel, down 64 cents, or 0.7%.
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Services activity in China during September contracted for the first time in four months as COVID-19 restrictions hit demand and business confidence, data showed on Saturday. read more
The slowdown in the economy of China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer after the United States, adds to growing concerns about a possible global recession triggered by numerous central banks raising interest rates to combat high inflation rates.
“Oil … is getting hit with the triple whammy of China’s economic weakness, U.S. monetary policy tightening and Biden administration SPR intervention,” Stephen Innes, managing director at SPI Asset Management, said in a note.
Innes was referring to the possibility of additional releases from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve next month in response to the decision last week by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia, known as OPEC+, to lower their output target by 2 million barrels per day. read more
Brent and WTI posted their biggest weekly percentage gains since March after the reduction was announced.
The OPEC+ cuts, which come ahead of a European Union embargo on Russian oil, will squeeze supply in an already tight market. EU sanctions on Russian crude and oil products will take effect in December and February, respectively.
“The cut is clearly bullish,” ING analysts said in a note.
“However, there is obviously still plenty of other uncertainty in the market, including how Russian oil supply evolves due to the EU oil ban and G7 price cap, as well as the demand outlook given the deteriorating macro picture.”
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Additional reporting by Florence Tan and Emily Chow; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Christian Schmollinger and Louise Heavens
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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