Digital Alaska News

First Proud Boys Leader Pleads Guilty To Jan. 6 Seditious Conspiracy https://digitalalaskanews.com/first-proud-boys-leader-pleads-guilty-to-jan-6-seditious-conspiracy/ A lieutenant of longtime former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio became the group’s first member to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot on Thursday, deepening the government’s case against an organization accused of mobilizing violence to prevent the inauguration of Joe Biden. Jeremy Bertino, 43, of Belmont, N.C., agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department against Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders with ties to influential Donald Trump supporters Roger Stone and Alex Jones. The Proud Boys defendants are set to face trial in December on charges including plotting to oppose by force the presidential transition, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. At a hearing before U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly in Washington, Bertino pleaded guilty to that count and to one count of illegal possession of firearms as a former felon, punishable by 51 to 63 months in prison at sentencing under advisory federal guidelines, prosecutors said. In a sign of the sensitivity and potential importance of Bertino’s testimony, prosecutors agreed that in exchange for “substantial cooperation,” they could seek leniency at sentencing and enter Bertino into a Justice Department witness protection program. In plea papers, Bertino said Proud Boys leaders “agreed that the election had been stolen, that the purpose of traveling to Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, was to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote, and that the [Ministry of Self Defense] leaders were willing to do whatever it would take, including using force against police and others, to achieve that objective.” He admitted that at least two days earlier he received encrypted chat messages indicating that members of the Proud Boys leadership group who called themselves the Ministry of Self Defense “believed that storming the Capitol would achieve the group’s goal” and would require using violence. Bertino had a place in the inner circle of Proud Boys leaders accused of conspiring to impede Congress with angry Trump supporters as lawmakers met to certify the election results. Bertino’s home in North Carolina was searched in March at the same time that Tarrio was arrested on charges that he and at least the four others “directed, mobilized and led” a crowd of 200 to 300 supporters onto Capitol grounds. Many in that crowd are accused of leading some of the earliest and most aggressive attacks on police and property. At the time of the search, Bertino allegedly possessed two pistols, a shotgun, a bolt-action rifle and two semiautomatic AR-15-style rifles with scopes. Bertino was convicted in 2004 of first-degree reckless endangerment in New York state, a felony, and sentenced to five years of probation with a period of local jail time, according to court filings. Bertino’s testimony could implicate Tarrio, a former aide to GOP strategist Stone, and co-defendant Joe Biggs, a former employee of Jones’s online Infowars show. Stone and Jones are two prominent right-wing figures who promoted Trump’s incendiary and baseless assertions that the election was stolen. Stone remained in contact with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida and in Washington in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, coordinated post-election protests and privately strategized with figures such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn and “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander, The Washington Post has reported. Stone also communicated via encrypted texts after the 2020 election with Tarrio as well as Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of a second right-wing extremist group, the Oath Keepers, accused of playing an outsize role in planning for and organizing violence at the Capitol. Rhodes was on trial Thursday on seditious conspiracy charges in the same courthouse where Bertino pleaded. Before Bertino, all four of 14 people hit with the historically rare charge of seditious conspiracy in the Capitol riots who have pleaded guilty were affiliated with the Oath Keepers. Tarrio and Rhodes were part of a Signal chat group titled F.O.S. — or Friends of Stone, and the pair met in an underground parking garage next to the Capitol the evening before Jan. 6 with leaders of two pro-Trump grass-roots groups. Jones, meanwhile, promoted a Nov. 20, 2020, podcast by Tarrio with Biggs and co-defendant Ethan Nordean in which Tarrio suggested in an expletive-laden call that Trump supporters infiltrate the Biden inauguration and turn it into a “circus, a sign of resistance, a sign of revolution.” Rhodes, Tarrio, Nordean and Biggs have pleaded not guilty to seditious conspiracy and other charges. Stone, who has not been charged, has denied involvement in the Jan. 6 riot. He has previously told The Post: “Any claim, assertion or implication that I knew about, was involved in or condoned the illegal acts at the Capitol on Jan. 6 is categorically false and there is no witness or document that proves otherwise.” An attorney for Alexander said he testified before a federal grand jury this summer after being assured he was not a target of the investigation. Jones has said he did not lead but followed the crowd to the Capitol that day, grew alarmed by the chaos and recorded himself urging calm and directing others not to fight police. Tarrio and Bertino were not in Washington on Jan. 6, the only two of more than 870 federally charged defendants who were elsewhere. But in sworn plea papers that largely restated the 10-count indictment against Tarrio and others, Bertino corroborated many of prosecutors’ allegations against the others, and admitted joining in calls for violence including against police, whose support the Proud Boys have long tried to cultivate. Released videos show Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio meeting Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes the day before the attack on the Capitol. (Video: U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia) Bertino was a regional leader in charge of recruiting handpicked members for the MOSD. He said the group was trying on Dec. 30, 2020, to prepare for the expected arrest of Tarrio for burning a Black Lives Matter flag at an earlier pro-Trump rally in Washington, speculating that it might cause Proud Boys and others gathering for Jan. 6 to “riot.” “Maybe it’s the shot heard round the world and the normies will f— up the cops,” Bertino admitted saying. Tarrio was arrested Jan. 4, released on bond and later pleaded guilty and completed a jail term this year. On Jan. 4, according to his indictment, Tarrio posted a voice message to an MOSD leaders group of Proud Boys, stating, “I didn’t hear this voice note until now, you want to storm the Capitol.” After the Capitol was breached, Tarrio wrote in a Telegram group chat, “We did this,” prosecutors said. That night, Bertino — previously identified as “Individual A” or “Person 1” in charging papers — acknowledged messaging Tarrio, “Brother you know we made this happen,” and “1776,” exulting with a profanity. Tarrio replied, “The Winter Palace,” according to Tarrio’s indictment. Prosecutors allege it is a reference to a Proud Boys planning document that had a section called “Storm the Winter Palace,” referring to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the former imperial palace in St. Petersburg that was raided by Bolsheviks, CNN first reported. Bertino has been on the radar of both the FBI and a House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6. Bertino told the House panel that membership “tripled” after Trump famously urged the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during a 2020 presidential debate, according to a video clip of his interview played during a House hearing in June. Social media posts, video recordings from Jan. 6 and earlier charging papers by the FBI also indicate that Nordean and Proud Boys leaders were motivated to confront police that day in part by what they perceived to be an insufficient response to the stabbing of Bertino outside Harry’s Bar in downtown Washington after a pro-Trump demonstration the previous month. Read More Here

Fairbanks Pilot Dies In Plane Accident On Lake https://digitalalaskanews.com/fairbanks-pilot-dies-in-plane-accident-on-lake/ FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaska State Troopers say a Fairbanks man is dead after flipping his plane in a lake at low speed Wednesday afternoon. A dispatch by troopers said 75-year-old Jerald Stansel was pulled from the submerged plane after witnesses at the Chena Marina Airstrip reported that “the plane flipped over forward while taxiing at a slow speed.” A troopers spokesperson said the first report came in around 4 p.m. Wednesday, and Stansel was extricated from the cockpit about 30 minutes later. He was taken to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead. Stansel’s next of kin have been notified. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating, according to troopers. Copyright 2022 KTUU. All rights reserved. Read More Here

Tensions Soar On Korean Peninsula As Pyongyang Tests More Missiles, Flies Warplanes Near Border https://digitalalaskanews.com/tensions-soar-on-korean-peninsula-as-pyongyang-tests-more-missiles-flies-warplanes-near-border/ Hours after its sixth ballistic missile launch in less than two weeks, North Korea flew a dozen war planes near its border with South Korea on Thursday, prompting Seoul to scramble 30 military fighter jets sending soaring tensions on the peninsula even higher amid growing fears that Pyongyang may soon test a nuclear weapon. Such a test — which would be the first for the isolated North Korean regime since 2017 — would pose a major political and security challenge for the Biden administration, which already has its hands full dealing with the fallout from Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine and rising tensions with China over the future status of Taiwan. South Korean military officials said they responded to the North Korean provocation with an “overwhelming” show of force that included test-fires of air-to-surface missiles, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported. Despite the close encounter, there were no clashes between the two sides. The highly unusual North Korean flights come on the immediate heels of a series of major military drills by U.S. and South Korean troops, which appear to have enraged Pyongyang and led to a record number of missile tests over the past several weeks. The latest test late Wednesday night saw North Korea launch two missiles from its capital region, with both landing in the waters between Japan and the Korean peninsula. All told, North Korea has fired more than 40 ballistic and cruise missiles over more than 20 launch events so far in 2022. South Korean military officials blasted the launch and said the continued tests represent a major threat to regional and global stability. “North Korea‘s continued ballistic missile launches are a grave provocative action that threatens not only the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula but also the international society,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, according to Yonhap. The latest launch came less than two days after North Korea fired an intermediate-range missile that soared over Japanese territory into the Pacific, sparking evacuation alerts and leading the Japanese government to take the rare step of halting commuter trains. That launch is widely viewed as Pyongyang‘s most provocative act since 2017, when it last tested a nuclear weapon and led to former President Donald Trump’s now-famous vow to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea if it targeted U.S. interests. With a pattern of escalation emerging from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, U.S. diplomatic and military officials condemned the most recent tests. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Thursday that the test is “a very clear violation” of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions limiting Pyongyang‘s weapons programs. Officials at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement the launches did not pose an immediate threat to American forces or allies, but they warned the continued tests are examples of “the destabilizing impact” North Korea‘s ballistic missile program is having on the region. Japan and South Korea, which have a tangled and often testy bilateral relationship, have moved closer together in the wake of the North Korean threat. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol jointly condemned the latest North Korea missile tests in a nearly half-hour telephone call Thursday, South Korean newspapers reported. “The two leaders strongly condemned North Korea‘s launch of ballistic missiles as a serious provocation which poses a grave threat to the peace and security of not only the Korean Peninsula, but also Northeast Asia and the international community,” deputy presidential spokesperson Lee Jae-myoung told reporters in Seoul. “The leaders also agreed that the North’s reckless provocations need to stop, and that such acts will entail a hefty price,” Mr. Lee added. North Korea‘s tightly controlled state press has yet to comment on the barrage of recent missile tests, but Mr. Kim did issue an official congratulations to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who turns 70 on Friday. “Today Russia is smashing the challenges and threats of the United States and its vassal forces and firmly defending the dignity and fundamental interests of the state,” the statement by Mr. Kim carried in North Korea‘s KCNA news agency read in part. “It is unthinkable apart from your outstanding leadership and strong will.” Drills resume After the test, the U.S. and South Korea resumed military drills as part of the two nations’ “firm will” to counter Pyongyang‘s threats, South Korean military officials said. Those drills included the American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which returned to the waters off the South Korean on Wednesday after joint drills with the South Korean and Japanese navies earlier in the week. The presence of the USS Reagan, coupled with the joint U.S.-South Korean drills, has touched a nerve in Pyongyang. The North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the U.S. aircraft carrier and its strike group pose “a serious threat to the stability of the situation on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity.”  Pyongyang also condemned an effort in the U.N. Security Council to impose new economic sanctions as a result of its recent weapons tests. Those efforts failed amid resistance from permanent Security Council members China and Russia. There is some speculation in foreign policy circles that Mr. Kim may be demonstrating his country’s ballistic-missile capability as a bargaining chip for future diplomatic talks with the U.S. and its allies. Such a calculation seemed to be a key part of Mr. Kim’s strategy in the Trump era.  After the 2017 nuclear test, Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump held three in-person meetings in an unprecedented round of direct diplomatic talks. But those talks ended without a firm agreement to curb North Korean weapons programs in exchange for relief from economic sanctions that have helped strangle the country’s economy. Some national security observers believe Mr. Kim may again be preparing for a nuclear-weapons test as a way to demonstrate to his country’s military capabilities and scare the U.S. and its allies into making concessions in any future negotiations. But some analysts argue the U.S. should take a much different approach. They say the Pentagon, along with U.S. allies in the region, should develop an aggressive policy of intercepting and destroying North Korean missiles after launch. “A real breakthrough would be achieving deterrence by denial,” retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson wrote in a recent piece for the website 1945.com. “We need a comprehensive multi-domain surveillance network and ready shooters. Immediate launch detection followed by target-quality data on the missile passed to the most advantageous shooter on the network that fires autonomously or near-autonomously,” said Lt. Gen. Gregson, now a senior advisor at The Roosevelt Group. “Large doses of autonomy and artificial intelligence are needed to achieve an effective, near-instant, response. The goal is boost phase or early ascent phase intercept. Destroying an enemy missile over enemy territory, especially if it is armed with a weapon of mass destruction, is a very good thing.” • Mike Glenn contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire-service reports. Read More Here

US Capitol Riot: Proud Boys Member Admits To Seditious Conspiracy https://digitalalaskanews.com/us-capitol-riot-proud-boys-member-admits-to-seditious-conspiracy/ Several other members of far-right group face seditious conspiracy charges over their alleged roles in January 6 attack. Published On 6 Oct 20226 Oct 2022 A member of the far-right Proud Boys has pleaded guilty to a seditious conspiracy charge over his role in the United States Capitol riot last year, admitting he plotted with other members of the group to violently stop the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 presidential elections. Jeremy Joseph Bertino, the first Proud Boys member to plead guilty to a seditious conspiracy charge, agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation into the role the group’s leaders played in the attack on January 6, 2021, a federal prosecutor said on Thursday. US District Judge Timothy Kelly agreed to release Bertino pending a sentencing hearing, which was not immediately scheduled. Bertino also pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawfully possessing firearms in March 2022 in Belmont, North Carolina. The judge accepted his guilty plea to both charges during a brief hearing after the case against Bertino was filed on Thursday. The involvement of far-right groups, including the Proud Boys, in the storming of the US Capitol by the mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters has been a focus for investigators and lawmakers in the United States. Former Proud Boys national chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and four other group members have also been charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a coordinated attack on the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Bertino’s cooperation could ratchet up the pressure on other Proud Boys charged in the riot. A trial for Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola is scheduled to start in December. The charging document for Bertino’s case names those five defendants and a sixth Proud Boys member as his co-conspirators. Meanwhile, a trial is taking place in Washington, DC, in a seditious conspiracy case against the founder of the Oath Keepers and other members of the anti-government militia group over their participation in the January 6 riot. More than three dozen people charged in the Capitol riot have been identified by federal authorities as leaders, members or associates of the Proud Boys. Two — Matthew Greene and Charles Donohoe — pleaded guilty to conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, the joint session of Congress on January 6 to certify the Electoral College vote. Proud Boys members describe the group as a politically incorrect men’s club for “Western chauvinists” and have denied accusations they are tied to the far-right. But the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks far-right extremism in the US, has designated the Proud Boys as a hate group, saying its members and leaders “regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists”. Video testimony by Bertino was featured in June at a hearing by the House committee investigating the January 6 riot. At that time, the panel showed a clip of Bertino saying the group’s membership “tripled, probably” after Trump’s comment at a presidential debate that the Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by”. Tarrio wasn’t in Washington, DC on January 6, but authorities say he helped put into motion the violence that day. Police arrested Tarrio in the US capital two days before the riot and charged him with vandalising a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during a protest in December 2020. Tarrio was released from jail on January 14 after serving his five-month sentence for that case. The indictment in Tarrio’s case alleges the Proud Boys held meetings and communicated over encrypted messages to plan for the attack in the days leading up to January 6. On the day of the riot, authorities say the Proud Boys dismantled metal barricades set up to protect the Capitol and mobilised, directed and led members of the crowd into the building. Read More Here

States Win Suit Targeting Trump-Era Policy Linked To Mail Delays https://digitalalaskanews.com/states-win-suit-targeting-trump-era-policy-linked-to-mail-delays/ States challenging US Postal Service policy changes made in the lead-up to the 2020 elections were harmed by those changes, a federal judge in Washington has ruled. New York, Hawaii, and New Jersey, along with New York City and San Francisco County, sued USPS, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, and the president, arguing that the delays limited their ability to provide crucial government services. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia said Thursday that with the 2020 “postal policy changes” the agency reduced mail-sorting machines by 14.7%, and officials worked to reduce overtime and … To read the full article log in. © 2022 The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. All Rights Reserved Read More Here

Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse Is Likely To Resign To Become University Of Florida President https://digitalalaskanews.com/nebraska-senator-ben-sasse-is-likely-to-resign-to-become-university-of-florida-president/ WASHINGTON (AP) — Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse is the sole finalist to become president of the University of Florida, the school said Thursday, and the Republican senator indicated he will take the job. That means he would likely resign in  the coming weeks. The school said in a statement that its presidential search committee had unanimously recommended Sasse as the sole finalist, a decision that will have to be be voted on by the school’s board of trustees and then confirmed by the board of governors. He is to visit the campus on Monday to meet with students, faculty and other members of the university community, the school said. In a statement released by the school, Sasse said he was “thrilled about the opportunity to work alongside one of the nation’s most outstanding faculties.” Sasse was president of Midland University, a Christian school in eastern Nebraska, before he ran for the Senate. In a separate tweet, Sasse said he had been pursued by other universities but “this time is different because the University of Florida is very different.” “If UF wants to go big, I’m excited about the wide range of opportunities,” he said. If Sasse resigns, Nebraska’s governor will appoint someone to fill his seat for the next two years. That person would then have to run for the office in 2024. If the resignation takes effect before Jan. 3, Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts will name Sasse’s replacement. After Jan. 3, Ricketts’ successor would appoint the new senator. Nebraska’s other senator, Deb Fischer, is up for re-election in 2024, so Nebraska would have two Senate seats to vote on that year. Sasse is a second-term senator who has had a complicated relationship with Republicans in his own state after his outspoken criticism of former President Donald Trump. He was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict the former president of “incitement of insurrection” after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Nebraska Republicans reprimanded Sasse but stopped short of censuring him after the impeachment trial. The state GOP’s Central Committee passed a resolution last February expressing “deep disappointment and sadness” about Sasse’s approach to his work in the Senate. The state party urged him to represent “the people of Nebraska to Washington and not Washington to the people of Nebraska.” At the time, Sasse brushed off the criticism from his party and noted his conservative voting record in the Senate. He said Nebraska party activists were “hacked off” that he condemned Trump’s statements to a crowd just before the riot at the U.S. Capitol. After voting to convict Trump, Sasse said he had “promised to speak out when a president – even of my own party – exceeds his or her powers.” “I cannot go back on my word, and Congress cannot lower our standards on such a grave matter, simply because it is politically convenient,” he said. “I must vote to convict.” In March 2016, the Nebraska GOP’s Central Committee did censure him for his criticism of then-candidate Trump. In 2019, Sasse toned down his criticism of Trump when he was running for reelection against a pro-Trump primary challenger. Trump later endorsed Sasse, saying he had done a “wonderful job” representing Nebraska. But a year later, he called on Republicans to replace Sasse after he criticized him again. Midland University, where Sasse previously served as president, is a small university based in Fremont, Nebraska, that has just over 1,600 students. Sasse, who has degrees from Harvard and Yale, worked in the Justice Department and as an assistant secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush. Read More Here

Biden Pardons Thousands With Federal Convictions Of Simple Marijuana Possession https://digitalalaskanews.com/biden-pardons-thousands-with-federal-convictions-of-simple-marijuana-possession/ President Joe Biden has announced a pardon of all prior federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana in a move welcomed as “long overdue” by criminal justice advocates. “There are thousands of people who have prior federal convictions for marijuana possession, who may be denied employment, housing, or educational opportunities as a result. My action will help relieve the collateral consequences arising from these convictions,” Biden said in a statement released on Thursday afternoon. “Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit. Criminal records for marijuana possession have also imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities. And while white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate rates,” he added. Administration officials said that the pardon could benefit about 6,500 people, the Hill reports. “It’s time that we right these wrongs,” Biden said. He went on to urge all governors to do the same with regards to state offenses, saying, “Just as no one should be in a federal prison solely due to the possession of marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason, either.” The president also called on the secretary of health and human services and the attorney general to begin the administrative process to review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. Marijuana is currently classified in schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act under federal law. Drugs classified under this schedule have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse”. This classification puts marijuana in the same schedule as for heroin and LSD and even higher than the classification of fentanyl and methamphetamine, two drugs that are fueling the ongoing overdose epidemic across the country. Advocacy groups praised Biden’s announcement, with Kassandra Frederique, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, saying the organization was “thrilled”, but adding “this is incredibly long overdue”. “There is no reason that people should be saddled with a criminal record – preventing them from obtaining employment, housing and countless other opportunities – for something that is already legal in 19 states and DC and decriminalized in 31 states.” The Rev Al Sharpton, the president of the National Action Network, said Biden’s “righteous action today will give countless Americans their lives back”. But he added, “The United States will never justly legalize marijuana until it reckons with the outdated policies that equated thousands of young Black men with hardened drug pushers.” The move also fulfils one of the top priorities of the Democratic nominee in one of their party’s most critical Senate races, as Pennsylvania’s, lieutenant governor, John Fetterman, has repeatedly pressed Biden to take the step, including last month when they met in Pittsburgh. Fetterman, in a statement, took credit for elevating the issue on Biden’s agenda and praised the decision, calling it “a massive step towards justice”. “This action from President Biden is exactly what this work should be about: improving people’s lives. I commend the president for taking this significant, necessary, and just step to right a wrong and better the lives of millions of Americans,” he said. The Associated Press contributed to this report Read More Here

Markets Are Starting To Act Super Strange https://digitalalaskanews.com/markets-are-starting-to-act-super-strange/ (CNN) — Investors are tightening their neck braces as US stocks soar upwards, plummet back down and then do it all over. Stock market volatility is at its bumpiest level since July. The whiplash-inducing ride comes as conflicting data paints a cloudy picture about the state of the US economy. Investors have been reading economic reports as tea leaves, searching for signs that the Federal Reserve could soon pivot to a slower pace of rate hikes to fight inflation, and reacting accordingly. What’s happening: The S&P 500 just printed its worst performance through the first nine months of any year since 2002. September was particularly rough — with all three major US indexes falling into a bear market. October brought more vertigo as stocks quickly recovered. The S&P 500 gained 5.7% on Monday and Tuesday, its biggest two-day increase since April 2020. On Wednesday, stocks plunged once more before quickly bouncing back slightly. They ended the day slightly lower. This week’s strange swings correspond with two new data points that buoyed the possibility of a Fed pivot. Markets surged on the news that the Reserve Bank of Australia raised interest rates by just a quarter of a percentage point on Tuesday. That’s half the amount analysts had expected. The move led to speculation that the Fed could jump on the bandwagon and dial back its own rates. That seems unlikely. “We’re starting to see some things the doves can hang their hat on, but I don’t think it will be enough to stop another 75 basis-point move in November,” wrote Neil Dutta at Renaissance Macro Research in a note Tuesday. Then, September job vacancy numbers dropped sharply, falling below analyst expectations, according to Refinitiv data. A weakening labor market puts downward pressure on wages and inflation. So while fewer job openings appear bad at face value, they indicate that the Fed’s tightening regimen is working. The Fed will see this as “an encouraging development,” wrote analysts at Barclays, but they cautioned that it’s just one piece of data among many. The labor market is still tight with about 1.7 job openings for every unemployed worker in the US. The hope appeared to be fleeting, anyway. New private employment data on Wednesday by payroll services firm ADP suggested that the labor market isn’t losing any steam. Businesses beat estimates with 208,000 jobs added in September. They added 185,000 jobs in August. The disconnect: If it feels like we’ve been here before, it’s because we have. Pivot-friendly thinking helped fuel the bear market rally we saw in July and August. That didn’t last, and markets crashed to hit new lows by early fall. Fed officials have repeatedly said they plan to continue with their policy of elevated rate hikes and have publicly worried that markets refuse to listen to their messaging. Panic and ecstasy are not investing strategies, and a blink is not a pivot. What’s next: Expect more volatility as investors digest the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest unemployment data on Friday morning. The data measures the change in the number of people employed in September and is closely watched by the Fed. In this “good-means-bad” Fed world, an increase in unemployment will likely send stocks up. OPEC announces biggest cut to oil production since 2020 OPEC+ said Wednesday that it will slash oil production by 2 million barrels per day, the biggest cut since the start of the pandemic. It’s a move that threatens to push gasoline prices higher as Europe faces a heating crisis this winter and just weeks before US midterm elections. The reduction is equivalent to about 2% of global oil demand, reports my colleague Hanna Ziady. The group of major oil producers, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, together controls more than 40% of global oil production. The price of Brent crude oil rose 1.5% to more than $93 a barrel on the news, adding to gains this week ahead of the gathering of oil ministers. Oil prices were little changed early Thursday. The rise in oil gave a lift to energy stocks, helping to boost the overall market, reports Paul R. La Monica. Chevron was one of the top Dow stocks, rising nearly 1%. Exxon Mobil and oil service giants Schlumberger and Halliburton were among the leaders in the S&P 500, with each stock gaining between 4% and 6%. Musk’s Twitter deal is bad news for Trump’s media company Elon Musk’s decision this week to once again move forward with his deal to acquire Twitter could signal the return of former President Donald Trump to the platform, reports my colleague Donie O’Sullivan. That presents a double-edged sword for Trump. The former president could regain access to the nearly 90 million Twitter followers he had before he was banned permanently by the platform two days after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. But it could make Truth Social, the social media business created by Trump after his Twitter ban, unnecessary. Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, is in the middle of a contentious bid to go public through a merger with blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp. This news further complicates the merger. Shares of DWAC fell more than 5% Tuesday to $17.10, and remained near that level on Wednesday. The stock’s 2022 peak was about $97 in March. Twitter stock is up nearly 20% this week. “I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump; I think that was a mistake,” Musk said at a conference in May, pledging to reverse the ban were he to become the company’s owner. Jack Dorsey, who was the CEO of Twitter when the company banned Trump but has since left the company, responded to Musk’s comments saying he agreed that there should not be permanent bans. He said Trump’s ban was a “business decision” and it “shouldn’t have been.” © 2022 Circle City Broadcasting I, LLC. | All Rights Reserved. Read More Here

Alternative Social Media Sites Seen As Haven For Right-Wing Users https://digitalalaskanews.com/alternative-social-media-sites-seen-as-haven-for-right-wing-users/ (CN) — A study released Thursday by the Pew Research Center shows alternative social media sites like Truth Social and Parler are playing a small but growing role in the overall news and information landscape. In recent years, the information environment has been impacted by tensions between the news media and former President Donald Trump’s accusations of “fake news,” causing Republicans to grow more skeptical of their trust in mainstream news sources. As many Americans rely on major social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter for information, these sites began imposing third-party fact-checkers to label misinformation and suspending accounts for posting threatening content. When Trump’s accounts were permanently suspended following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, he created his own social media site, Truth Social, appealing to those who too felt censored by mainstream platforms and “cancel culture.” Several other new social media options have also emerged and taken a similar approach, many of which explicitly present themselves as “welcoming havens for free speech.” These newer sites have created a small but satisfied community of news consumers, many of whom say one of the major reasons they are there is to stay informed about current events, according to the Pew study. The study included a survey of over 10,000 U.S. adults, along with an audit of seven alternative social media sites – BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social – and a detailed analysis of prominent accounts and content across them. Although fewer than 1 in 10 respondents said they regularly use any of these seven sites to get their news, most of the 6% of Americans who do identify as Republicans or lean toward the Republican Party (66%), in contrast with the news consumers on more established social media sites, who largely identify as Democrats or lean Democratic. Out of 200 accounts with the most followers per site, roughly half (54%) of their profiles appealed to some kind of value or political orientation. Twenty-six percent of these prominent accounts expressed a right-wing message, “more of which centered around Trump or his ‘Make America Great Again’ movement than with the Republican Party or conservative ideology,” according to Pew. Like Trump, the study also found that 15% of prominent accounts on alternative social media sites have been banned or demonetized elsewhere on the internet. Many of these accounts were blocked for spreading misinformation and inaccurate information, including that of Dr. Robert Malone, who spread false Covid-19 vaccine claims on Spotify’s “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. Despite their promotion of being a free speech sanctuary, almost all of the sites analyzed by Pew have at least some restrictions on content. With the exception of Gab, each of them moderates user content beyond the legal requirements to remove illegal content and cooperate with law enforcement requests. These moderations include banning or suspending accounts that are deemed offensive or spreading misinformation, removing posts that may contain violent, racist or offensive content and, in some cases, for the political viewpoint expressed. The Americans who said they have heard of these sites but do not use them as sources for news said it is because they are skeptical of the platforms. “When asked for the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about alternative social media sites, people in this category commonly cite inaccuracy and misinformation, political bias and the political right, and extremism and fringe ideas,” the Pew report states. An analysis of recent content posted by prominent accounts on these sites alluded to some of these associations, finding that the most common phrases included some that are “controversial and even inflammatory,” expressing wariness toward vaccines and negative associations with LGBTQ people. Posts relating to vaccines were mostly found to be from vaccine skeptics, discussing terms related to real but rare impacts such as “adverse reaction,” “blood clot” and “heart inflammation.” However, other frequently mentioned terms had no basis in medical evidence related to vaccines, such as “sudden adult death syndrome” and low sperm counts. LGBTQ-related posts commonly contained “derisive allegations toward gay and transgender individuals, such as ‘pedo’ and ‘groomer,’ implying that they prey on children,” the Pew report states. The analysis further found that much of the discussion surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection on these sites involved terms related to persecution, including “political prisoner,” “DC gulag,” “unselect committee,” “witch hunt” and “sham hearing.” Six percent of these most prominent accounts were also found to have mentioned associations with QAnon, a baseless conspiracy theory that portrays Trump as a warrior battling a shadowy cabal of liberal “deep state” pedophiles. The Gateway Pundit, a digital outlet that has been criticized for publishing false information, was one of the most common links used in these trending posts. Notably, nearly two-thirds (64%) of news consumers on these alternative social media sites said they favor the protection of free speech even if it brings with it some false content, while the majority of all U.S. adults (61%) said that tech companies should take steps to restrict false information even if it limits freedom of information. Read the Top 8 Sign up for the Top 8, a roundup of the day’s top stories delivered directly to your inbox Monday through Friday. Read More Here

K https://digitalalaskanews.com/k-2/ Kimberly Layne Tippitt, 57, of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, passed away Saturday, October 1, 2022, in Lawrenceburg, IN. She was born May 8, 1965, in Fairbanks, Alaska, daughter of the late Wayne Clements and Betty (Norwood) Clements. Kim was very family oriented and loved spending time with everyone, especially her grandkids. She went to all their games and activities. Kim was an avid reader. She enjoyed shopping and playing games on her tablet. Kim was a dog and animal lover. Kimberly is survived by her loving children, Jacob Edward (Kelsey) Satchwill of Versailles, IN, Sara Katherine Satchwill of Aurora, IN, Shane Colin Satchwill of Versailles, IN; siblings, Kelly (Marc Tougaw) Canfield of Mayflower, AK, Mark Clements of Independence, KY, Jace (Angel) Clements of Lawrenceburg, IN, Kasey (Joe) Shultz of Floyds Knob, IN, Cindy (Mark) Hedrick of Little Rock, AK, Kevin (Sonja) Canfield of Austin, AK; grandchildren, Logan Andrew Hochstrasser, Owen Thomas Smith, Noah Allen Satchwill, Reid Wilder Satchwill; several nieces, nephews and cousins. She was preceded in death by parents, Wayne Clements and Betty (Norwood) Clements. Friends will be received for a Celebration of Life from 6:00pm- 9:00pm, Sunday, October 9, 2022 at the Aurora Civic Center, 415 Park Ave., Aurora, IN. Contributions may be made to the funeral home to defray expenses. Please call the funeral home office at (812) 926-1450 and we will notify the family of your donation with a card. Visit: www.rullmans.com Read More Here

US Forecast https://digitalalaskanews.com/us-forecast-116/ City/Town, State;Yesterday’s High Temp (F);Yesterday’s Low Temp (F);Today’s High Temp (F);Today’s Low Temp (F);Weather Condition;Wind Direction;Wind Speed (MPH);Humidity (%);Chance of Precip. (%);UV Index Albany, NY;75;55;65;38;Cooler;WNW;11;69%;59%;2 Albuquerque, NM;64;53;68;54;A shower and t-storm;SE;7;59%;95%;3 Anchorage, AK;59;47;54;46;A little p.m. rain;NW;6;75%;96%;0 Asheville, NC;73;47;76;47;Mostly sunny, nice;NW;7;54%;9%;5 Atlanta, GA;79;52;84;55;Mostly sunny;NNW;7;46%;10%;5 Atlantic City, NJ;69;59;76;50;Breezy in the p.m.;NNW;12;59%;31%;4 Austin, TX;90;64;92;65;Partly sunny;ENE;5;40%;3%;6 Baltimore, MD;79;57;77;49;Breezy in the p.m.;NNW;11;50%;28%;4 Baton Rouge, LA;87;58;88;62;Partly sunny, warm;NNE;6;51%;11%;6 Billings, MT;59;41;64;43;Mostly sunny;SW;6;70%;3%;4 Birmingham, AL;83;52;84;52;Mostly sunny;N;7;47%;9%;5 Bismarck, ND;48;22;54;32;Plenty of sun;SW;7;45%;0%;3 Boise, ID;82;52;82;51;Mostly sunny, warm;ENE;7;30%;0%;4 Boston, MA;71;57;75;45;Breezy in the p.m.;WNW;12;62%;30%;4 Bridgeport, CT;75;56;73;43;Breezy in the p.m.;NW;11;60%;26%;4 Buffalo, NY;69;48;53;39;Cooler with a shower;NW;15;70%;66%;1 Burlington, VT;75;56;65;37;Afternoon showers;WNW;13;72%;100%;1 Caribou, ME;72;49;66;37;Afternoon rain;W;6;73%;91%;1 Casper, WY;70;39;60;37;Partly sunny;E;7;65%;4%;4 Charleston, SC;76;59;81;61;Plenty of sunshine;SSW;6;57%;4%;5 Charleston, WV;73;49;69;42;Breezy;NNW;14;71%;22%;3 Charlotte, NC;80;52;82;55;Mostly sunny;W;5;52%;10%;5 Cheyenne, WY;67;36;55;36;Partly sunny, cooler;SSW;7;60%;7%;4 Chicago, IL;73;46;54;39;A couple of showers;NW;15;58%;85%;1 Cleveland, OH;73;51;54;44;Breezy and cooler;NNW;15;71%;66%;1 Columbia, SC;82;53;85;58;Sunny and pleasant;SSW;4;50%;4%;5 Columbus, OH;76;49;58;36;Breezy and cooler;N;15;62%;15%;2 Concord, NH;75;49;72;36;Breezy in the p.m.;WNW;11;69%;29%;4 Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX;90;65;88;62;Mostly sunny;NE;7;36%;9%;5 Denver, CO;72;44;61;42;Partly sunny, cooler;ENE;7;57%;35%;5 Des Moines, IA;68;39;55;33;Partly sunny, cooler;ENE;9;52%;4%;4 Detroit, MI;79;45;54;35;A sprinkle, cooler;NNW;15;57%;31%;2 Dodge City, KS;80;43;64;41;Cooler;ENE;12;47%;43%;5 Duluth, MN;50;34;47;35;Partly sunny, chilly;WSW;8;58%;3%;3 El Paso, TX;74;60;77;60;A t-storm around;ESE;9;53%;58%;2 Fairbanks, AK;56;42;50;38;Rain and drizzle;NE;6;72%;91%;0 Fargo, ND;48;28;50;33;Mostly sunny;SW;8;52%;3%;3 Grand Junction, CO;75;49;77;49;Sunny and beautiful;E;7;36%;0%;5 Grand Rapids, MI;68;40;52;36;Partly sunny, cooler;NNW;15;61%;17%;2 Hartford, CT;75;55;74;44;Breezy in the p.m.;NW;11;65%;18%;4 Helena, MT;65;44;67;44;Partly sunny, nice;W;5;62%;0%;4 Honolulu, HI;88;72;86;72;A couple of showers;NE;7;64%;86%;8 Houston, TX;90;64;90;67;Partly sunny;SSW;6;49%;10%;5 Indianapolis, IN;76;46;59;38;Breezy and cooler;N;15;58%;7%;4 Jackson, MS;86;56;86;58;Partly sunny;NNE;7;50%;6%;5 Jacksonville, FL;85;58;87;60;Mostly sunny, warm;SE;6;49%;7%;6 Juneau, AK;59;44;58;48;Partly sunny;ENE;5;75%;65%;2 Kansas City, MO;80;44;59;38;Partly sunny, cooler;NNE;8;48%;8%;4 Knoxville, TN;78;49;78;47;Partly sunny;N;6;56%;12%;5 Las Vegas, NV;93;68;93;68;Sunny and hot;NW;5;20%;0%;5 Lexington, KY;78;50;67;37;Not as warm;N;9;61%;19%;4 Little Rock, AR;90;57;85;51;Nice with sunshine;NNE;8;49%;7%;5 Long Beach, CA;80;65;84;66;Turning sunny;S;6;67%;0%;5 Los Angeles, CA;79;63;86;64;Abundant sunshine;S;6;69%;1%;5 Louisville, KY;79;53;68;38;Not as warm;N;10;55%;15%;4 Madison, WI;62;37;52;32;Partly sunny, cool;WNW;8;57%;1%;2 Memphis, TN;85;60;81;51;Sunny and pleasant;NNE;9;49%;10%;5 Miami, FL;84;75;86;75;Mostly sunny, breezy;NE;14;60%;62%;7 Milwaukee, WI;71;42;52;36;Cooler with a shower;WNW;15;60%;40%;2 Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN;57;37;51;34;Periods of sun, cool;WSW;8;50%;4%;4 Mobile, AL;86;58;87;63;Partly sunny;NW;5;52%;10%;6 Montgomery, AL;85;52;85;56;Mostly sunny;N;5;50%;5%;5 Mt. Washington, NH;53;41;44;22;Cooler;W;12;82%;83%;2 Nashville, TN;84;51;77;42;Sunny and nice;N;9;54%;13%;5 New Orleans, LA;84;66;86;68;Partly sunny;W;7;54%;13%;6 New York, NY;76;60;74;47;Breezy in the p.m.;NW;11;52%;27%;4 Newark, NJ;75;56;74;45;Breezy in the p.m.;NW;11;55%;27%;4 Norfolk, VA;78;57;79;58;Partly sunny;SSW;7;57%;9%;5 Oklahoma City, OK;85;56;75;49;Not as warm;NE;11;51%;44%;3 Olympia, WA;75;49;79;47;Sunny;NE;5;68%;5%;3 Omaha, NE;70;37;57;34;Partly sunny, cooler;NE;7;51%;5%;4 Orlando, FL;84;64;87;65;Sunny and pleasant;E;7;52%;4%;6 Philadelphia, PA;77;56;77;48;Breezy in the p.m.;NNW;11;51%;27%;4 Phoenix, AZ;94;73;93;75;A t-storm around;ESE;7;34%;64%;5 Pittsburgh, PA;72;52;58;41;Breezy and cooler;NW;15;70%;60%;2 Portland, ME;73;53;68;40;Breezy in the p.m.;WNW;11;71%;30%;3 Portland, OR;82;55;84;55;Abundant sunshine;NNE;6;54%;5%;3 Providence, RI;75;54;75;41;A passing shower;WNW;11;59%;82%;4 Raleigh, NC;80;54;81;57;Mostly sunny, nice;SW;6;55%;5%;5 Reno, NV;83;47;84;47;Sunny and very warm;W;6;27%;0%;5 Richmond, VA;78;52;82;52;Partly sunny;N;6;52%;14%;4 Roswell, NM;73;56;73;55;Mostly cloudy;NE;7;62%;44%;2 Sacramento, CA;91;57;93;58;Sunny and hot;SSW;6;40%;1%;4 Salt Lake City, UT;79;53;79;52;Sunny and warm;ESE;7;35%;0%;4 San Antonio, TX;90;65;89;66;Periods of sun;SW;6;49%;3%;5 San Diego, CA;72;66;76;67;Turning sunny;W;7;77%;1%;5 San Francisco, CA;70;55;71;56;Fog to sun;WSW;9;72%;1%;4 Savannah, GA;84;55;83;59;Sunny and pleasant;SSE;5;53%;4%;5 Seattle-Tacoma, WA;74;56;78;57;Mostly sunny;NNE;7;58%;5%;3 Sioux Falls, SD;56;29;53;27;Mostly sunny, cool;W;6;49%;4%;4 Spokane, WA;81;49;79;48;Partly sunny, warm;ENE;6;50%;1%;3 Springfield, IL;76;46;59;31;Partly sunny, cooler;N;15;58%;5%;4 St. Louis, MO;79;51;63;38;Sunshine and cooler;N;10;51%;6%;4 Tampa, FL;86;63;89;63;Plenty of sun;E;6;58%;5%;6 Toledo, OH;76;44;55;32;Breezy and cooler;NNW;16;58%;9%;2 Tucson, AZ;85;66;83;65;A stray p.m. t-storm;ESE;10;50%;65%;3 Tulsa, OK;86;55;76;48;Not as warm;NNE;10;50%;6%;5 Vero Beach, FL;84;64;84;68;Mostly sunny;NE;9;54%;5%;6 Washington, DC;78;55;77;50;Breezy in the p.m.;NNW;11;55%;24%;4 Wichita, KS;83;49;65;43;Cooler;NNE;13;48%;16%;4 Wilmington, DE;75;54;76;49;Breezy in the p.m.;NNW;12;56%;27%;4 _____ Copyright 2022 AccuWeather Read More Here

US Forecast https://digitalalaskanews.com/us-forecast-115/ City/Town, State;Yesterday’s High Temp (F);Yesterday’s Low Temp (F);Today’s High Temp (F);Today’s Low Temp (F);Weather Condition;Wind Direction;Wind Speed (MPH);Humidity (%);Chance of Precip. (%);UV Index Albany, NY;75;55;65;38;Cooler;WNW;11;69%;59%;2 Albuquerque, NM;64;53;68;54;A shower and t-storm;SE;7;59%;95%;3 Anchorage, AK;59;47;54;46;A little p.m. rain;NW;6;75%;96%;0 Asheville, NC;73;47;76;47;Mostly sunny, nice;NW;7;54%;9%;5 Atlanta, GA;79;52;84;55;Mostly sunny;NNW;7;46%;10%;5 Atlantic City, NJ;69;59;76;50;Breezy in the p.m.;NNW;12;59%;31%;4 Austin, TX;90;64;92;65;Partly sunny;ENE;5;40%;3%;6 Baltimore, MD;79;57;77;49;Breezy in the p.m.;NNW;11;50%;28%;4 Baton Rouge, LA;87;58;88;62;Partly sunny, warm;NNE;6;51%;11%;6 Billings, MT;59;41;64;43;Mostly sunny;SW;6;70%;3%;4 Birmingham, AL;83;52;84;52;Mostly sunny;N;7;47%;9%;5 Bismarck, ND;48;22;54;32;Plenty of sun;SW;7;45%;0%;3 Boise, ID;82;52;82;51;Mostly sunny, warm;ENE;7;30%;0%;4 Boston, MA;71;57;75;45;Breezy in the p.m.;WNW;12;62%;30%;4 Bridgeport, CT;75;56;73;43;Breezy in the p.m.;NW;11;60%;26%;4 Buffalo, NY;69;48;53;39;Cooler with a shower;NW;15;70%;66%;1 Burlington, VT;75;56;65;37;Afternoon showers;WNW;13;72%;100%;1 Caribou, ME;72;49;66;37;Afternoon rain;W;6;73%;91%;1 Casper, WY;70;39;60;37;Partly sunny;E;7;65%;4%;4 Charleston, SC;76;59;81;61;Plenty of sunshine;SSW;6;57%;4%;5 Charleston, WV;73;49;69;42;Breezy;NNW;14;71%;22%;3 Charlotte, NC;80;52;82;55;Mostly sunny;W;5;52%;10%;5 Cheyenne, WY;67;36;55;36;Partly sunny, cooler;SSW;7;60%;7%;4 Chicago, IL;73;46;54;39;A couple of showers;NW;15;58%;85%;1 Cleveland, OH;73;51;54;44;Breezy and cooler;NNW;15;71%;66%;1 Columbia, SC;82;53;85;58;Sunny and pleasant;SSW;4;50%;4%;5 Columbus, OH;76;49;58;36;Breezy and cooler;N;15;62%;15%;2 Concord, NH;75;49;72;36;Breezy in the p.m.;WNW;11;69%;29%;4 Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX;90;65;88;62;Mostly sunny;NE;7;36%;9%;5 Denver, CO;72;44;61;42;Partly sunny, cooler;ENE;7;57%;35%;5 Des Moines, IA;68;39;55;33;Partly sunny, cooler;ENE;9;52%;4%;4 Detroit, MI;79;45;54;35;A sprinkle, cooler;NNW;15;57%;31%;2 Dodge City, KS;80;43;64;41;Cooler;ENE;12;47%;43%;5 Duluth, MN;50;34;47;35;Partly sunny, chilly;WSW;8;58%;3%;3 El Paso, TX;74;60;77;60;A t-storm around;ESE;9;53%;58%;2 Fairbanks, AK;56;42;50;38;Rain and drizzle;NE;6;72%;91%;0 Fargo, ND;48;28;50;33;Mostly sunny;SW;8;52%;3%;3 Grand Junction, CO;75;49;77;49;Sunny and beautiful;E;7;36%;0%;5 Grand Rapids, MI;68;40;52;36;Partly sunny, cooler;NNW;15;61%;17%;2 Hartford, CT;75;55;74;44;Breezy in the p.m.;NW;11;65%;18%;4 Helena, MT;65;44;67;44;Partly sunny, nice;W;5;62%;0%;4 Honolulu, HI;88;72;86;72;A couple of showers;NE;7;64%;86%;8 Houston, TX;90;64;90;67;Partly sunny;SSW;6;49%;10%;5 Indianapolis, IN;76;46;59;38;Breezy and cooler;N;15;58%;7%;4 Jackson, MS;86;56;86;58;Partly sunny;NNE;7;50%;6%;5 Jacksonville, FL;85;58;87;60;Mostly sunny, warm;SE;6;49%;7%;6 Juneau, AK;59;44;58;48;Partly sunny;ENE;5;75%;65%;2 Kansas City, MO;80;44;59;38;Partly sunny, cooler;NNE;8;48%;8%;4 Knoxville, TN;78;49;78;47;Partly sunny;N;6;56%;12%;5 Las Vegas, NV;93;68;93;68;Sunny and hot;NW;5;20%;0%;5 Lexington, KY;78;50;67;37;Not as warm;N;9;61%;19%;4 Little Rock, AR;90;57;85;51;Nice with sunshine;NNE;8;49%;7%;5 Long Beach, CA;80;65;84;66;Turning sunny;S;6;67%;0%;5 Los Angeles, CA;79;63;86;64;Abundant sunshine;S;6;69%;1%;5 Louisville, KY;79;53;68;38;Not as warm;N;10;55%;15%;4 Madison, WI;62;37;52;32;Partly sunny, cool;WNW;8;57%;1%;2 Memphis, TN;85;60;81;51;Sunny and pleasant;NNE;9;49%;10%;5 Miami, FL;84;75;86;75;Mostly sunny, breezy;NE;14;60%;62%;7 Milwaukee, WI;71;42;52;36;Cooler with a shower;WNW;15;60%;40%;2 Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN;57;37;51;34;Periods of sun, cool;WSW;8;50%;4%;4 Mobile, AL;86;58;87;63;Partly sunny;NW;5;52%;10%;6 Montgomery, AL;85;52;85;56;Mostly sunny;N;5;50%;5%;5 Mt. Washington, NH;53;41;44;22;Cooler;W;12;82%;83%;2 Nashville, TN;84;51;77;42;Sunny and nice;N;9;54%;13%;5 New Orleans, LA;84;66;86;68;Partly sunny;W;7;54%;13%;6 New York, NY;76;60;74;47;Breezy in the p.m.;NW;11;52%;27%;4 Newark, NJ;75;56;74;45;Breezy in the p.m.;NW;11;55%;27%;4 Norfolk, VA;78;57;79;58;Partly sunny;SSW;7;57%;9%;5 Oklahoma City, OK;85;56;75;49;Not as warm;NE;11;51%;44%;3 Olympia, WA;75;49;79;47;Sunny;NE;5;68%;5%;3 Omaha, NE;70;37;57;34;Partly sunny, cooler;NE;7;51%;5%;4 Orlando, FL;84;64;87;65;Sunny and pleasant;E;7;52%;4%;6 Philadelphia, PA;77;56;77;48;Breezy in the p.m.;NNW;11;51%;27%;4 Phoenix, AZ;94;73;93;75;A t-storm around;ESE;7;34%;64%;5 Pittsburgh, PA;72;52;58;41;Breezy and cooler;NW;15;70%;60%;2 Portland, ME;73;53;68;40;Breezy in the p.m.;WNW;11;71%;30%;3 Portland, OR;82;55;84;55;Abundant sunshine;NNE;6;54%;5%;3 Providence, RI;75;54;75;41;A passing shower;WNW;11;59%;82%;4 Raleigh, NC;80;54;81;57;Mostly sunny, nice;SW;6;55%;5%;5 Reno, NV;83;47;84;47;Sunny and very warm;W;6;27%;0%;5 Richmond, VA;78;52;82;52;Partly sunny;N;6;52%;14%;4 Roswell, NM;73;56;73;55;Mostly cloudy;NE;7;62%;44%;2 Sacramento, CA;91;57;93;58;Sunny and hot;SSW;6;40%;1%;4 Salt Lake City, UT;79;53;79;52;Sunny and warm;ESE;7;35%;0%;4 San Antonio, TX;90;65;89;66;Periods of sun;SW;6;49%;3%;5 San Diego, CA;72;66;76;67;Turning sunny;W;7;77%;1%;5 San Francisco, CA;70;55;71;56;Fog to sun;WSW;9;72%;1%;4 Savannah, GA;84;55;83;59;Sunny and pleasant;SSE;5;53%;4%;5 Seattle-Tacoma, WA;74;56;78;57;Mostly sunny;NNE;7;58%;5%;3 Sioux Falls, SD;56;29;53;27;Mostly sunny, cool;W;6;49%;4%;4 Spokane, WA;81;49;79;48;Partly sunny, warm;ENE;6;50%;1%;3 Springfield, IL;76;46;59;31;Partly sunny, cooler;N;15;58%;5%;4 St. Louis, MO;79;51;63;38;Sunshine and cooler;N;10;51%;6%;4 Tampa, FL;86;63;89;63;Plenty of sun;E;6;58%;5%;6 Toledo, OH;76;44;55;32;Breezy and cooler;NNW;16;58%;9%;2 Tucson, AZ;85;66;83;65;A stray p.m. t-storm;ESE;10;50%;65%;3 Tulsa, OK;86;55;76;48;Not as warm;NNE;10;50%;6%;5 Vero Beach, FL;84;64;84;68;Mostly sunny;NE;9;54%;5%;6 Washington, DC;78;55;77;50;Breezy in the p.m.;NNW;11;55%;24%;4 Wichita, KS;83;49;65;43;Cooler;NNE;13;48%;16%;4 Wilmington, DE;75;54;76;49;Breezy in the p.m.;NNW;12;56%;27%;4 _____ Copyright 2022 AccuWeather Read More Here

WSJ News Exclusive | Twitter, Elon Musk Talks Continue, Focus On Financing, Litigation https://digitalalaskanews.com/wsj-news-exclusive-twitter-elon-musk-talks-continue-focus-on-financing-litigation/ Elon Musk earlier this week proposed closing his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter on the terms he originally agreed to.Photo: DADO RUVIC/REUTERS Updated Oct. 6, 2022 4:33 pm ET Representatives of Twitter and Elon Musk continued Thursday to work to hammer out an agreement that would allow the billionaire’s purchase of the social-media company to proceed, with the parties racing to seal a pact by Monday, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Musk effectively kicked off the negotiations earlier this week with his surprise proposal to close the deal at its original price after seeking for months to get out of it. Read More Here

Russian Infighting Peaks With Calls For Suicide And Execution https://digitalalaskanews.com/russian-infighting-peaks-with-calls-for-suicide-and-execution/ Just over two weeks since Vladimir Putin’s latest hail mary in his war against Ukraine, things are going so well for the Russian leader that draftees are rioting, his top allies are at each other’s throats over a series of losses, and his defense minister has now been urged by his own team to blow his brains out. “Yes, really, many are saying that… a defense minister who allowed such circumstances to arise could, as an officer, just shoot himself. But, you know, for many the word ‘officer’ is not clear,” one of Russia’s puppet leaders in Kherson said Thursday in the latest sign of the wheels falling off the Russian war machine. Kirill Stremousov now joins a rapidly growing list of Putin loyalists openly venting about recent Russian failures on the battlefield—and blaming “worthless” Russian military brass for the humiliating debacle. After weeks of complaints by pro-Kremlin military bloggers, anger at the military has now officially carried over into a more formal setting: even some Russian lawmakers are now lashing out at defense officials, with retired army officer Andrei Kartapolov on Wednesday demanding the army “stop lying” about war losses. Propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, interviewing Kartapolov, suggested the “only solution” would be to execute the defense officials “guilty” of the mounting setbacks. The very public infighting could not come at a worse time for the Kremlin, as Ukraine’s eye-popping counteroffensive to reclaim the country’s land has already forced Russian troops out of territories Putin boasted were officially now part of Russia just days ago. The meltdown also comes, quite fortuitously, just in time for the Russian president’s birthday on Friday, which the Kremlin says he will spend in his hometown of St. Petersburg, more than 800 miles from Belgorod—the scene of the latest episode showing that Putin’s “partial mobilization” is going, quite spectacularly, not according to plan. Just two weeks after Putin announced to all of Russia that he would be summoning hundreds of thousands to face likely death on the battlefield to stop the West from “weakening” and “dividing” the country, his own troops are clearly divided: video has emerged of draftees straight-up rioting over the dysfunctional call-up, and more than a hundred of them are now said to have refused to fight. An estimated 500 draftees were filmed in Belgorod trashing Putin’s chaotic “partial mobilization” this week in a video widely shared by social media channels linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group puppet master who human rights groups say personally recruited hundreds of prison inmates to fight in Ukraine in order to “win this damn war” for Putin. “Nobody needs us, there is absolutely zero preparation!” one of the draftees can be heard shouting in the video. As if the footage of Russian troops deriding their own leaders was not bad enough, the video was also widely seen as evidence of further infighting between Putin loyalists behind the scenes, as several men seen in the video were donning Wagner insignia. The video immediately sparked suspicions that Prighozin himself may have leaked it in order to further smear top Russian defense officials he’s openly criticized for recent war failures, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. That theory appeared to gain traction as news broke that Alexei Slobodenyuk, a staffer for one of Prigozhin’s media projects known for attacking Shoigu, was arrested by a spetsnaz unit in Moscow. But similar scenes have played out elsewhere, and even new legislation threatening deserters with up to 10 years in prison has apparently not deterred Russian draftees from opting out of the war. More than 100 newly mobilized troops from Bryansk are now said to be refusing to go to the front. “Where are they sending us? We have no experience, we have nothing,” an unnamed draftee said in an interview with the news outlet Sota published Thursday. The soldier said military leadership intends to send him and roughly 100 others who are refusing to fight to take back Lyman in the Donetsk region, from where Russian troops were forced to retreat last weekend. “About a hundred and something people were sent there [before] and one remains alive, he’s in a hospital,” the soldier said. Apart from refusing to fight, many of the new troops Putin mobilized also appear to be more busy devouring each other than “defending the Motherland” as the Russian leader hoped. Residents in the Moscow region’s city of Serpuhkov are afraid to leave their homes as draftees drunkenly fight in the streets; draftees in Penza beat up a lieutenant-colonel accused of calling them “meat” for the slaughter; and draftees and conscripts engaged in a mass brawl near Moscow that required police intervention, according to Mozhem Obyasnit. At least 10 Russian draftees have died before even making it to the frontline, according to local media reports. Those already on the battlefield are also revolting, according to human rights group Rus Sidyashaya, which revealed Thursday that 13 soldiers hijacked defense ministry vehicles and fled from a military base in occupied Kherson with weapons and ammunition in tow. And that’s to say nothing of the nearly 700,000 citizens who fled the country after Putin’s mobilization order, according to a new report by Forbes Russia. In the face of such losses, however, the Kremlin appears to prefer sticking to what it does best: playing dumb. “I don’t even know what the Russian publication Forbes is,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday when asked about the mass exodus. “Is it published? Is there even such a publisher?” Read More Here

Jan. 6 Committee Schedules Next Public Hearing For Oct. 13 https://digitalalaskanews.com/jan-6-committee-schedules-next-public-hearing-for-oct-13/ Rioters loyal to President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo / Jose Luis Magana, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has scheduled its next hearing for Oct. 13, pushing the investigation back into the limelight less than three weeks before the midterm election that will determine control of Congress. It will be the panel’s first public session since the summer, when lawmakers worked through a series of tightly scripted hearings that attracted millions of viewers and touched on nearly every aspect of the Capitol insurrection. The committee had planned to hold the hearing in late September, but postponed as Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida. The panel — comprised of seven Democrats and two Republicans — has not yet provided an agenda, but Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said recently that the hearing would “tell the story about a key element of Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the election.” Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, told reporters last week that the hearing would touch on recent revelations about Save America PAC, Trump’s chief fundraising vehicle. It is facing legal scrutiny after the Justice Department issued a round of grand jury subpoenas that sought information about the political action committee’s fundraising practices. The hearing is also expected to include never-before-seen interview footage of witnesses the committee has deposed since late July. That could include Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was interviewed last week behind closed doors. The committee probed Thomas about her role in trying to help Trump overturn his election defeat, including her correspondence with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election. Throughout its initial eight hearings, the committee has sought to show the American public in expansive detail how Trump ignored many of his closest advisers to pursue false claims of election fraud after he lost the election to Democrat Joe Biden, then failed to act when his rhetoric spurred a mob assault on the Capitol. Some of the more than 1,000 witnesses interviewed by the panel — a number of them Trump’s closest allies — recounted in videotaped testimony how the former president sat idly when hundreds of his supporters violently attacked the Capitol as Congress certified Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021. The committee is aiming to wrap up its work by the end of the year and issue a final report and legislative recommendations, but their investigative work is not yet complete as lawmakers explore several unanswered questions. Panel members still want to get to the bottom of missing Secret Service texts from Jan. 5-6, 2021, which could shed further light on Trump’s actions during the insurrection, particularly after earlier testimony about his confrontation with security as he tried to join supporters at the Capitol. Thompson said earlier this month that the committee has recently obtained “thousands” of documents from the Secret Service. Congressional investigators have also been interviewing several of Trump’s former Cabinet members, some of whom had discussed invoking the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office in the aftermath of the insurrection. Another decision for the committee is how aggressively to pursue testimony from Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. Some members have downplayed the value of taking that step and time is running short to request their testimony. The panel will have to wrap up the loose ends by the end of the year when the select committee status expires. If Republicans take the majority in November’s elections, they are expected to dissolve the committee in January. The panel plans to issue a final report by the end of December that will include legislative reforms it says would help prevent future attempts to subvert democracy. Read More Here

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Suddenly, Democrats Aren’t Concerned About The 25th Amendment https://digitalalaskanews.com/suddenly-democrats-arent-concerned-about-the-25th-amendment/ October 06, 2022 03:11 PM It might be hard to believe given the Biden presidency, but at one time, Democrats were allegedly significantly concerned about the mental health of the president of the United States. During Donald Trump’s time at the White House, Democrats claimed he was unstable and a threat to national security. Allegedly, his irrational behavior and incoherent ramblings were proof he couldn’t perform his presidential duties. Rumors began that Democrats would try to use the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. Consider Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). On Oct. 8, 2020, Pelosi commented that Trump suffered from a “dissociation from reality” in response to some of his tweets at the time. She claimed he was in “an altered state” and that his condition “would be funny if it weren’t so deadly.” As a result, Democrats said they would create a commission to determine if they could legally remove Trump from office using the 25th Amendment. ‘RIYADH’S ERRAND BOY’: BIDEN’S SAUDI OVERTURES PANNED AFTER OPEC OIL MOVE The 25th Amendment specifies the procedure for the transfer of presidential power in case of an emergency such as death or disability. Section 4 states that the president can be stripped of his/her power if it is determined that he/she cannot “discharge the powers and duties” of the office. It would require the vice president and members of the Cabinet to give a “written declaration” to the president pro tempore of the Senate and speaker of the House. But were these issues really imminent dangers to the country? If Biden was held to the standards that made Democrats worry about President Donald Trump, then the answer is no. Consider some of Biden’s many mishaps. First, there are his many malapropisms on the rare occasions his handlers let him talk in public. Next, Biden has looked dazed, confused, and lost during press conferences. He’s been seen shaking hands with no one, wandering off a stage, and mispronouncing the name of our country. Finally, last week, while at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, Biden asked to speak to Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN), a former congresswoman who tragically died in a car crash earlier this year. “Where’s Jackie?” trended on social media as a result as Biden was mercilessly mocked. Biden has made enough mistakes that even the most ardent supporter would question his cognitive abilities. Yet, despite these repeated gaffes and many other signs of decline, a president’s mental health deterioration apparently isn’t a national security threat anymore. It shows that all of the Democrats’ talk about the 25th Amendment was nonsense. It was nothing more than left-wing political theater to appeal to a rabid left-wing mob that loathed the president. It had nothing to do with national security or protecting the country. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Read More Here

Police: ‘Active And Dangerous’ Shooting Scene Near Hampton Inn In Downtown Dearborn https://digitalalaskanews.com/police-active-and-dangerous-shooting-scene-near-hampton-inn-in-downtown-dearborn/ Follow live coverage in the video player or on Local 4+ DEARBORN, Mich. – Police are responding to what’s being called an “active shooting scene” at a hotel in Downtown Dearborn on Thursday afternoon. Dearborn police said they were engaged with a shooter at the Hampton Inn hotel at Michigan Avenue and near Military Street. Officers were called to the scene just after 1 p.m., and evacuated the hotel upon arrival. Dearborn police said the shooter is not in custody but is “contained,” and said there was at least one victim that was transported to a local hospital. It appears the shooter is on the third floor of the hotel. Police said they are currently negotiating with the suspect. Police said they believe the shooter is armed with a long gun. A police briefing is expected around 4 p.m. — you can watch it live in the video player above, or on Local 4 News. Michigan State Police called it “an active shooting scene,” and added, “this situation is active and dangerous. Stay away from the scene.” “There are still shots being fired by the suspect. Troopers and officers are working on clearing the entire area around the hotel,” MSP said. Dearborn police also urged people to avoid the area until further notice. Duvall Elementary School has entered a precautionary “soft lockdown.” This is a developing news story. Check back for updates. There is a current active shooting scene at the Hampton Inn, 22324 Michigan Ave in Dearborn. This situation is active and dangerous. Stay away from the scene. pic.twitter.com/bLAlwdmDgn — MSP Second District (@mspmetrodet) October 6, 2022 Copyright 2022 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved. About the Author: Ken Haddad Ken Haddad is the digital content and audience manager for WDIV / ClickOnDetroit.com. He also authors the Morning Report Newsletter and various other newsletters. He’s been with WDIV since 2013. He enjoys suffering through Lions games on Sundays in the fall. Read More Here

Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine War https://digitalalaskanews.com/live-updates-russia-ukraine-war/ KYIV, Ukraine — The head of the U.N.’s atomic energy agency says it’s doubling to four the number of inspectors that it plans to deploy to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in a Russian-controlled area of southern Ukraine as fighting continues in the region, threatening its safety. During a visit Thursday to the Ukrainian capital, Director-General Rafael Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency deplored how workers in Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant are facing “almost unbearable circumstances.” He said he would take up that issue and hopes of establishing a secure protection zone around the nuclear power station during talks with an unspecified “very high-level” official when he travels soon to Moscow. Grossi emphasized that despite Russia’s proclaimed — and widely criticized — annexation of the Zaporizhzhia oblast, or region, the plant remains a Ukrainian facility that belongs to state-run company Energoatom. Earlier Thursday, a local official said Russian missiles hit apartment buildings in the nearby city of Zaporizhzhia, killing three people and wounding at least 12. ___ KEY DEVELOPMENTS: — EXPLAINER: Russia’s military woes mount amid Ukraine attacks — Russian rockets slam into Ukrainian city near nuclear plant — Experts: Russia finding new ways to spread propaganda videos — EU agrees on price cap for Russian oil over Ukraine war — Belarus opposition hopeful at Russian setbacks in Ukraine — Ukraine links World Cup host bid to beating horrors of war Follow all AP stories on the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine. ___ KYIV, Ukraine — The head of Ukraine’s human rights commission says Russian authorities detained hundreds of Ukrainians as they neared Russia’s border with Estonia. Dmytro Lubinets wrote in a post on his Facebook page on Thursday that Russians “took them away on trucks to an unknown destination” a day earlier. He cited information from the Estonian Interior Ministry about the transfers. Amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, most of those Ukrainians had fled their country through Russia and Crimea and were seeking ways to enter the European Union — Estonia is a member state — or find a way to return home, Lubinets wrote. Some travelers, including women, the elderly, and children, were waiting to cross the Russia-Estonia border in cold, humid weather without proper clothes or food, he said, adding that he planned to bring up the matter with Russia’s commissioner for human rights. Lubinets noted that a mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which counts both Russia and Ukraine as members, was expected to meet next week with Ukrainians who had been processed through Russian “filtration camps.” Also Thursday, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said: “We condemn the Russian Federation for not allowing war refugees to cross the border,” saying such actions could amount to provocations by Moscow along the EU-Russia border. ___ KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces have retaken 400 square kilometers (155 square miles) of territory in the southern Kherson region, so far this month as they continue to push Russian troops back in the south and east, Ukraine’s southern military command says. Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for the Ukrainian military’s Operational Command South, said in a briefing Thursday that the situation along the southern front was rapidly changing and remained complicated. Ukraine has recaptured 29 settlements in the oblast since Oct. 1, Oleksii Hromov, deputy chief of the Main Operational Department of the Ukrainian army’s General Staff, told a separate briefing. ___ BRUSSELS — The European Union on Thursday froze the assets of an additional 37 people and entities tied to Russia’s war in Ukraine, bringing the total of EU blacklist targets to 1,351. The newly sanctioned people include officials involved in last week’s illegal Russian annexation of — and sham referenda in — the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The latest sanctions, published in the EU’s Official Journal, also widen trade bans against Russia and lay the ground for a price cap on Russian oil being prepared with other G-7 members. The new commercial curbs hit an estimated 7 billion euros ($6.9 billion) of EU imports of Russian goods including steel, plastics, textiles and non-gold jewelry. The wider EU prohibition on exports to Russia covers such products as coal, electronics used in Russian weapons and aircraft components. —- COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Norway on Thursday said that Russian fishing vessels can only call at three Arctic ports ports, and that all Russian vessels arriving at these ports will be checked. Russian fishing boats only will be allowed in three Arctic ports — Kirkenes, Tromsø and Båtsfjord. “We now have information which indicates that there is a need to increase the control of Russian fishing vessels, Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said. “The recent serious developments with Russia’s unacceptable annexation of Ukraine, the attacks on gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea and increased drone activity, means that the government has further tightened preparedness. “This will make it more difficult to use Russian fishing vessels for illegal activities, for example by circumventing export regulations, ”Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl added. In April, the European Union, of which Norway is not a member, banned Russian vessels from entering EU ports. Norway followed suit with the exception of fishing boats, which led to criticism from the Norwegian opposition. Authorities in Norway, a major oil and gas producer, have reported several drone sightings near offshore installations in the North Sea. ___ PRAGUE — Czech social media users have shared satirical tweets claiming that the Czech Republic has annexed the Russian territory of Kaliningrad and renamed it Královec. It is a satire on Russia’s illegal annexation of four Ukrainian territories where Kremlin-installed authorities held voter “referendums” that Ukraine and its allies regard as an illegitimate farce. Even Slovak President Zuzana Caputova got in on the joke on Thursday, tweeting “I might consider a state visit. Or not.” Turning serious, she added: “Well done our #Czech friends for de-masking the absurdity of #Russia’s fictitious referendums in #Ukraine.” An anonymous Twitter user in Poland first posted about the fake “annexation” of Kaliningrad. A Czech member of the European Parliament, Tomasz Zdechovsky, then posted about it. There has since been an explosion of jokes under the hashtags Kralovec and VisitKralovec. ___ CANBERRA, Australia — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday it was “hard to say” whether the risk of nuclear war had increased with his military’s territorial gains, but he remains confident his Russian counterpart would not survive such as escalation in hostilities. Zelenskyy was addressing the Lowy Institute international think tank in Sydney via video link after Ukraine’s military retook ground illegally annexed by Russia last week. He questioned whether Russian President Vladimir Putin had enough control over the Russian campaign to direct a tactical nuclear strike. The Russians found it “hard to control everything that is happening in their country, just as they’re not controlling everything they have on the battlefield,” Zelenskyy said. Putin “understands that after the use of nuclear weapons he would be unable any more to preserve, so to speak, his life,” Zelenskyy said, “and I’m confident of that.” ___ WARSAW, Poland –- Poland is distributing potassium iodide tablets to regional firefighters’ stations in a pre-emptive measure in case of damage to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russian troops. Stored in some 1,500 stations nationwide, the potassium iodide pills would be distributed to Poles in case of real threat, the government said. Deputy interior and administration minister, Blazej Pobozy, has said radioactive contamination is “very unlikely.” The Zaporizhzhia plant, some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from Poland’s eastern border, is Europe’s largest. It was damaged recently in the fighting with Russian forces. In 1986, following the accident at Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant many Poles took iodine solution to prevent absorbing radiation. ___ WARSAW, Poland — Poland is raising its security emergency level for energy infrastructure located outside Poland’s borders. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki signed the decision Thursday to raise security to the second out of four levels, through November. The decision means that security services need to be especially vigilant and ready to react to any potential terrorist threats. Poland recently opened a new natural gas pipeline from Norway, the Baltic Pipe, that partly runs on the Baltic seabed. It is helping Poland cut its decades-long dependence on Russian gas. Last week Russian’s Nord Stream pipelines suffered leaks in the Baltic Sea caused by explosions, widely believed to be the result of sabotage. ___ KYIV, Ukraine — The U.S. deployed its international development chief to Ukraine on Thursday, the highest-ranking American official to visit the country since Russia illegally annexed the four regions. The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Samantha Power, traveled to Kyiv and was holding meetings with government officials and residents. She said the U.S. would provide an additional $55 million to repair heating pipes and other equipment. Among the sites she visited were a Kyiv neighborhood and school that had previously been hit by Russian missiles. USAID said the United States has delivered $9.89 billion in aid to Ukraine since February. A spending bill signed by President Biden last week promises another $12.3 billion in Ukraine-related aid — direct...

AK Confirms Season's Cross Country Calendar https://digitalalaskanews.com/ak-confirms-seasons-cross-country-calendar/ Athletics Kenya (AK) has confirmed the 2022/23 cross country season calendar which gets underway with the first race in Machakos on 15 October 2022.  The curtains will fall on the season with the national cross country championships at the Prisons Staff Training College in Ruiru on 21 January 203.  A World Cross Country Tour event, the Sirikwa Classic, is scheduled for the Lobo Village in Eldoret on 4 February 2023. The cross country season is expected to serve as part of the selection process for the Kenyan team to the World Cross Country championships set for Bathurst, Australia on 18 February next year.  It will be the event’s 44th edition and the second time after Auckland in 1988 that the event will take place in Oceania. In March 2020 the course was revealed, to be held in the infield of the Mount Panorama Circuit. In December 2020, the event was postponed from 2021 to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Australian travel restrictions. The event was once again postponed to 2023 in September 2021, due to Australian travel restrictions 2022/2023 Season Calendar 15 Oct 2022 – 1 AK Cross Country Build up Competition (Machakos People’s Park) 29 Oct 2022 – 2nd AK Cross Country Build up Competition (Kapsokwony) 12 Nov 2022 – 3rd AK Cross Country Build up Competition (Sotik) 26 Nov 22 – 4th AK Cross Country Build up Competition (Olkalau) 10 Dec 2022 – 5 AK Cross Country Build up Competition (Iten) 17 Dec 2022 – County Cross Country Championships (All Counties) 17 Dec 2022 – Kenya Prisons Service Cross Country Championships (Kenya Prisons Training College) 6 Jan 2023 – Kenya Defence Forces Cross Country Championships (Ulinzi Sports Complex, Langata) 6 Jan 2023 – National Police Service Cross Country Championships (Ngong Racecourse) 7 Jan 2023 – University Cross Country Championships (Kabarak University) 7 Jan 2023 – National Youth Service Cross Country Championships (Ngong Racecourse) 7 Jan 2023 – Kenya Wildlife Services Cross Country Championships (Lobo Village, Eldoret) 7 Jan 2023 – Regional Cross Country Championships  21 Jan 2023 – AK National Cross-Country Championships (Kenya Prisons Training College Ruiru) 4 Feb 2023 – Sirikwa Classic Cross Country Tour – Gold (Lobo Village, Eldoret) 18 Feb 2023 – World Athletics Cross Country Championships Bathurst (AUS) Read More Here

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Biden Addresses Job Creation In New York State Speech – Live https://digitalalaskanews.com/biden-addresses-job-creation-in-new-york-state-speech-live/ Joe Biden is set to deliver remarks at around 2pm ET at the IBM site in Poughkeepsie, New York. Biden is expected to speak on creating jobs in the Hudson Valley and lowering costs, among other topics. We will bring you the latest updates on his address so do stay tuned. “,”elementId”:”41a3a9c3-9096-4dde-acaa-d2c51b989898″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” Reuters has the report: “,”elementId”:”8ea53419-d5f7-402e-9af4-476c8de62c24″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” “The law came into effect on 1 September, creating new requirements for obtaining a license, including submitting social media accounts for review, and creating a list of public and private places where having a gun became a felony crime, even for license holders. “,”elementId”:”1e2e50e0-12c3-4fe5-97d8-6c116f277b4a”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” Lawmakers in New York’s Democratic-controlled legislature passed the law during an emergency session in July after the US supreme court found the state’s licensing regime for firearms to be unconstitutional following a challenge by the New York affiliate of the National Rifle Association, a powerful gun-owners’ rights group. “,”elementId”:”06767cbf-f8ed-4d9a-acde-8af1e2a1e42e”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” On Thursday, Glenn Suddaby, chief judge of the US district court in Syracuse, agreed to issue the order at the request of six New York- resident members of Gun Owners of America, which competes with the National Rifle Association in political influence. Suddaby said his order would not take effect for three days, to allow the New York government to appeal. “,”elementId”:”f6df7bc8-bd68-43da-86c5-246688feeafd”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” Suddaby last month ruled that much of the new law was unconstitutional in dismissing an earlier lawsuit by Gun Owners of America in which he found neither the group nor an individual member of it had standing to sue before the law came into effect.” “,”elementId”:”ee3b9e08-1244-405a-832f-725ad309abf5″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” Background: “,”elementId”:”1399ce7f-4be4-48e0-a100-bbfa75791d45″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement”,”url”:”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/01/new-york-to-enact-new-gun-restrictions-in-response-to-supreme-court-decision”,”text”:”New York enacts new gun restrictions in response to supreme court decision”,”prefix”:”Related: “,”role”:”thumbnail”,”elementId”:”a757f3c0-7d13-4571-a664-e83fa68967f6″}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1665074821000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”12.47 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1665075634000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”13.00 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1665075634000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”13.00 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”13.00″,”title”:”Judge blocks New York gun law”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Thu 6 Oct 2022 14.20 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Thu 6 Oct 2022 09.02 EDT”},{“id”:”633efa9e8f088272fbb9cc23″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” Democrats are seething over Saudi Arabia’s push for Opec+ to cut oil production, potentially driving up US gas prices just as voters head to the midterm elections. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has embarked on a long day of travel that will see him tout the Chips bill to boost semiconductor production, and also attend two Democratic fundraisers as the party prepares to defend its slim holds on both the House and Senate. “,”elementId”:”e01e80f9-dc33-4445-9eb6-75e3084cf008″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” Here’s what else has happened today so far: “,”elementId”:”74f36c23-101f-4b93-b069-071c68bb5815″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” n Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, said he knew “nothing about” a woman’s claim he paid for her to have an abortion – and then had a child with him. n Republicans may decide to impeach homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas if they win a majority in the House. n Election deniers appear poised to win many races in the upcoming midterms, no matter what happens, The Washington Post found. n “,”elementId”:”0445483f-058a-4dab-9158-df743fdfe1ce”}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1665071774000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”11.56 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1665072428000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”12.07 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1665072429000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”12.07 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”12.07″,”title”:”The day so far”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Thu 6 Oct 2022 14.20 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Thu 6 Oct 2022 09.02 EDT”},{“id”:”633ec8658f085c245067ad23″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” Good morning, US politics readers. Vengeance is on the mind of some Democrats after Opec+, the bloc of oil-producing countries in which Saudi Arabia plays a leading role, decided to slash its crude output yesterday. The move will have ripple effects globally, and could drive up prices at gas pumps in the United States just as voters are casting ballots in the midterms. The White House condemned the move yesterday, but later in the day, three lawmakers came out with a bill that essentially declares Saudi Arabia is no longer an ally of Washington, and would mandate American troops leave that country and the United Arab Emirates. There’s no telling yet if Congress has the will, or the time, to consider it before the end of the year. “,”elementId”:”bd897885-c89a-4eda-9a44-6062a91940af”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” Here’s what else is happening today: “,”elementId”:”bf4bd6f1-e2c5-40b8-8196-f78dd090715f”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:” n Joe Biden is heading to New York and New Jersey, where he’ll visit an IBM facility and cheer the announcement of $20bn in new investments from the company. He then attends two fundraisers for Democrats. n Two senatorial candidate debates are scheduled today: Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly will spar with two challengers, including Republican Blake Masters, at 9 m. Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley faces his Democratic opponent, Mike Franken, at 8pm. n Labor department data shows an uptick in new unemployment assistance claims nationwide, but they remain at very low levels in a sign of the job market’s strength. n “,”elementId”:”6a7a23ba-fd48-4a1e-884d-cb613e9f2bb4″}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1665061370000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”09.02 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1665060870000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”08.54 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1665061370000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”09.02 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”09.02″,”title”:”Democrats seek revenge after Saudi-led Opec+ slashes oil production ahead of midterms”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Thu 6 Oct 2022 14.20 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Thu 6 Oct 2022 09.02 EDT”}],”filterKeyEvents”:false,”format”:{“display”:0,”theme”:0,”design”:10},”id”:”key-events-carousel-mobile”}” Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature “We have the best and most productive workers in the world. We have the best research universities in the world… We wrote and passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law…and we finally decided that we’re going to move up from number 13 in the world on infrastructure to number one,” Biden said. “The Chips and Science Act is not handing out blank checks to…companies…we’re going to make sure that small and minority-owned businesses get to participate,” Biden said. “In this law, I have the power to take back federal funding if companies are not meeting the requirements,” he added. “The future of the chips industry is going to be made in America…and many of these good paying jobs don’t require a set of college degrees,” Biden said. “The largest American investment of its kind,” Biden said in his address as he celebrates this summer’s passage of a $280 billion legislative package intended to boost the US semiconductor industry and scientific research. Joe Biden is set to deliver remarks at around 2pm ET at the IBM site in Poughkeepsie, New York. Biden is expected to speak on creating jobs in the Hudson Valley and lowering costs, among other topics. We will bring you the latest updates on his address so do stay tuned. The Biden administration announced that the US will start screening travelers from Uganda for Ebola as an additional precaution aimed at trying to prevent an outbreak in the African country from spreading, the Associated Press reports. The federal government on Thursday expressed support for New York City’s lawsuit seeking to halt the spread of “ghost guns,” as city and state officials try to hold sellers of the largely untraceable firearms accountable. In a “statement of interest” filed in Manhattan federal court, the Department of Justice expressed “serious concerns” about the proliferation of ghost guns, and said kits containing the weapons’ components are classified as firearms under federal gun control law. “Ghost guns are a major contributor to the ongoing plague of gun violence,” US Attorney Breon Peace in Brooklyn said in a statement accompanying the filing, which US Attorney Damian Williams in Manhattan also signed. “The United States will continue to employ every means available, incl...

Jan. 6 Committee Schedules Hearing For Oct. 13 https://digitalalaskanews.com/jan-6-committee-schedules-hearing-for-oct-13/ The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol announced it will hold its next – and perhaps final – hearing on Oct. 13 at 1 p.m ET. The hearing was rescheduled after the panel postponed a hearing set for last week due to Hurricane Ian, which at the time was barreling toward Florida. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, whose state was badly hit by the hurricane, is among the committee’s members. Next week’s hearing comes weeks after the committee wrapped its summer series and will likely serve as a bookend to the panel’s slew of public events as it looks to wrap its investigation that has gathered testimony from hundreds of witnesses and reviewed thousands of documents over the past 15 months. Political Cartoons But the panel has remained tight-lipped about the hearing’s focus. Nevertheless, it stands to “be potentially more sweeping than some of the other hearings,” Rep. Adam Schiff of California said recently on CNN’s “State of the Union,” and it “will tell the story about a key element of Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the election.” Though the originally set hearing was not slated to include testimony from Ginni Thomas, conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the committee has since conducted a closed-door interview with Thomas, whose texts with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reveal she encouraged efforts to keep President Joe Biden from taking office. More recent reporting has revealed that she also contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin – two swing states where the election results were particularly close. Whether the panel chooses to include that footage remains unclear. Since the committee moved its investigation behind closed doors, it’s also reportedly interviewed members of Trump’s former Cabinet like former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, which may be featured at next week’s hearing. Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi told reporters last week that the committee still had “significant information” to reveal to the public. Read More Here

Markets Are Starting To Act Super Strange – KRDO https://digitalalaskanews.com/markets-are-starting-to-act-super-strange-krdo/ By Nicole Goodkind, CNN Business Investors are tightening their neck braces as US stocks soar upwards, plummet back down and then do it all over. Stock market volatility is at its bumpiest level since July. The whiplash-inducing ride comes as conflicting data paints a cloudy picture about the state of the US economy. Investors have been reading economic reports as tea leaves, searching for signs that the Federal Reserve could soon pivot to a slower pace of rate hikes to fight inflation, and reacting accordingly. What’s happening: The S&P 500 just printed its worst performance through the first nine months of any year since 2002. September was particularly rough — with all three major US indexes falling into a bear market. October brought more vertigo as stocks quickly recovered. The S&P 500 gained 5.7% on Monday and Tuesday, its biggest two-day increase since April 2020. On Wednesday, stocks plunged once more before quickly bouncing back slightly. They ended the day slightly lower. This week’s strange swings correspond with two new data points that buoyed the possibility of a Fed pivot. Markets surged on the news that the Reserve Bank of Australia raised interest rates by just a quarter of a percentage point on Tuesday. That’s half the amount analysts had expected. The move led to speculation that the Fed could jump on the bandwagon and dial back its own rates. That seems unlikely. “We’re starting to see some things the doves can hang their hat on, but I don’t think it will be enough to stop another 75 basis-point move in November,” wrote Neil Dutta at Renaissance Macro Research in a note Tuesday. Then, September job vacancy numbers dropped sharply, falling below analyst expectations, according to Refinitiv data. A weakening labor market puts downward pressure on wages and inflation. So while fewer job openings appear bad at face value, they indicate that the Fed’s tightening regimen is working. The Fed will see this as “an encouraging development,” wrote analysts at Barclays, but they cautioned that it’s just one piece of data among many. The labor market is still tight with about 1.7 job openings for every unemployed worker in the US. The hope appeared to be fleeting, anyway. New private employment data on Wednesday by payroll services firm ADP suggested that the labor market isn’t losing any steam. Businesses beat estimates with 208,000 jobs added in September. They added 185,000 jobs in August. The disconnect: If it feels like we’ve been here before, it’s because we have. Pivot-friendly thinking helped fuel the bear market rally we saw in July and August. That didn’t last, and markets crashed to hit new lows by early fall. Fed officials have repeatedly said they plan to continue with their policy of elevated rate hikes and have publicly worried that markets refuse to listen to their messaging. Panic and ecstasy are not investing strategies, and a blink is not a pivot. What’s next: Expect more volatility as investors digest the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest unemployment data on Friday morning. The data measures the change in the number of people employed in September and is closely watched by the Fed. In this “good-means-bad” Fed world, an increase in unemployment will likely send stocks up. OPEC announces biggest cut to oil production since 2020 OPEC+ said Wednesday that it will slash oil production by 2 million barrels per day, the biggest cut since the start of the pandemic. It’s a move that threatens to push gasoline prices higher as Europe faces a heating crisis this winter and just weeks before US midterm elections. The reduction is equivalent to about 2% of global oil demand, reports my colleague Hanna Ziady. The group of major oil producers, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, together controls more than 40% of global oil production. The price of Brent crude oil rose 1.5% to more than $93 a barrel on the news, adding to gains this week ahead of the gathering of oil ministers. Oil prices were little changed early Thursday. The rise in oil gave a lift to energy stocks, helping to boost the overall market, reports Paul R. La Monica. Chevron was one of the top Dow stocks, rising nearly 1%. Exxon Mobil and oil service giants Schlumberger and Halliburton were among the leaders in the S&P 500, with each stock gaining between 4% and 6%. Musk’s Twitter deal is bad news for Trump’s media company Elon Musk’s decision this week to once again move forward with his deal to acquire Twitter could signal the return of former President Donald Trump to the platform, reports my colleague Donie O’Sullivan. That presents a double-edged sword for Trump. The former president could regain access to the nearly 90 million Twitter followers he had before he was banned permanently by the platform two days after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. But it could make Truth Social, the social media business created by Trump after his Twitter ban, unnecessary. Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, is in the middle of a contentious bid to go public through a merger with blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp. This news further complicates the merger. Shares of DWAC fell more than 5% Tuesday to $17.10, and remained near that level on Wednesday. The stock’s 2022 peak was about $97 in March. Twitter stock is up nearly 20% this week. “I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump; I think that was a mistake,” Musk said at a conference in May, pledging to reverse the ban were he to become the company’s owner. Jack Dorsey, who was the CEO of Twitter when the company banned Trump but has since left the company, responded to Musk’s comments saying he agreed that there should not be permanent bans. He said Trump’s ban was a “business decision” and it “shouldn’t have been.” Up next ConAgra, Constellation Brands, McCormick and Levi Strauss report earnings. Plus: US Department of Labor reports weekly jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET. The-CNN-Wire & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. Read More Here

Liz Cheney Urges Arizona Voters To Reject GOP Candidates For Governor, Secretary Of State In November https://digitalalaskanews.com/liz-cheney-urges-arizona-voters-to-reject-gop-candidates-for-governor-secretary-of-state-in-november/ Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming said Wednesday during an appearance in Arizona that if she lived in the state, she would vote for the Democratic candidates for governor and secretary of state on the ballot in November, and urged voters there to reject the Republican nominees. “For almost 40 years now, I’ve been voting Republican,” Cheney said during an event hosted by the McCain Institute at Arizona State University. “I don’t know if I have ever voted for a Democrat, but if I lived in Arizona now, I absolutely would for governor and for secretary of state.” Cheney has been sounding the alarm about the future of American democracy in the months since the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol and has been the most vocal GOP critic of former President Donald Trump, signaling last month she would leave the Republican Party if he were the presidential nominee in 2024. She was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the insurrection at the Capitol, and she is the vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. The Wyoming congresswoman, who lost her primary to Trump-backed Harriet Hageman in August, stressed the importance of Arizona’s elections this year, saying the outcome is “important for the nation and for the future functioning of our constitutional republic.” Cheney specifically highlighted Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and GOP nominee for secretary of state Mark Finchem, who have spread Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, as a risk to the nation’s future. “They both said that they will only honor the results of an election if they agree with it,” she said, highlighting the recounts, audits and failed legal challenges that affirmed President Biden’s win in Arizona. “They’ve looked at all of that — the law, the facts and the rulings of the courts, and they’ve said it doesn’t matter to them.” Cheney continued: “If you care about democracy and you care about the survival of our republic, then you need to understand, we all have to understand, that we cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections.” In an interview with CBS News on Wednesday, Finchem refused to say Mr. Biden was legitimately elected, but acknowledged he is the president. Finchem was among the crowd of Trump’s supporters who marched to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and he was interviewed by the House select committee and Justice Department in their investigations. Both Lake and Finchem have been endorsed by Trump, and the former president is holding a rally in Arizona on Sunday in support of Lake as well as the GOP nominee for Senate Blake Masters and the “entire Arizona Trump ticket,” according to his political organization, Save America PAC. Other Republicans, such as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, have also rallied support for Lake, and Cheney criticized them for doing so. “Glenn Youngkin should not come here and campaign for Kari Lake. Ted Cruz, who absolutely knows better, absolutely knows that what he’s advocating is unconstitutional, that what she’s saying is unconstitutional, they know it,” she said. “And as Republicans, there have to be consequences and we have to make sure that people understand that we’re going to vote for those that we can trust and depend on to do the right thing and uphold their oath.” Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Sign up for the The Big Sky Blend Newsletter and receive up to date information. Read More Here

US Appeals Court Expedites DOJ Appeal Of Special Master Appointment In Trump Documents Investigation https://digitalalaskanews.com/us-appeals-court-expedites-doj-appeal-of-special-master-appointment-in-trump-documents-investigation/ US appeals court expedites DOJ appeal of special master appointment in Trump documents investigation The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Wednesday issued an order to expedite the ongoing appeal of a third-party review of documents seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from former-President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in August. Wednesday’s order expedites hearings on the issue; Trump’s brief in the case is now due on October 14. The court has not yet scheduled oral arguments but announced that “the appeal will be assigned to a special merits panel from the classified appeals log randomly selected by the Clerk. That panel will decide when and how to hear oral argument.” On September 5, judge Aileen Cannon of the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted Trump’s request for the appointment of a third party to determine whether the seized materials exceeded the scope of the FBI’s search warrant. The Department of Justice (DOJ) claims the third-party review will slow their investigation and is an unnecessary obstacle to justice. On September 22, the Eleventh Circuit ruled that 100 classified documents seized in the FBI raid must be included in the investigation. Trump appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court this Tuesday. Read More Here

“The Circuit Court Rejected Trump’s Opposition”: Experts Say Appeals Ruling A “bad Sign” For Trump https://digitalalaskanews.com/the-circuit-court-rejected-trumps-opposition-experts-say-appeals-ruling-a-bad-sign-for-trump/ A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday granted the Justice Department’s request to expedite its consideration of whether an outside legal expert should have been appointed to review the 11,000 documents seized by the FBI at former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence.  The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order shortening the timeline for the Justice Department and Trump’s lawyers to finish submitting legal briefs to the court by November 17 after the DOJ argued that delaying the process could harm the agency’s investigation into the potential illegal retention of classified documents. Judge Aileen Cannon’s injunction against the DOJ’s review of the material “caused irreparable harm because it constrained the government’s ability to assess and mitigate the national security risks arising from the improper storage of classified records and because the injunction hindered the government’s ability to conduct its criminal investigation,” the DOJ filing said.   Trump’s lawyers opposed the request to expedite the case, arguing that they were not given enough time to file their brief in the case. “The Government, on the other hand, cannot possibly be prejudiced if this appeal is not expedited and President Trump is afforded the few extra days provided under the Rules to file his brief,” Trump attorney Christopher Kise said in the filing. In the new schedule set by the 11th Circuit, federal prosecutors must file their initial brief by Oct. 14, giving Trump’s team until Nov. 10 to respond. If the Justice Department chooses to reply, they have until Nov. 17 to do so. The court will not allow for any extensions.  The previous schedule set by the court provided that federal prosecutors file their initial brief by Oct. 19, giving Trump’s lawyers until Nov. 18 to respond, and the government to file its reply by Dec. 9. Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course. The Justice Department already has more than 100 documents marked as classified that the FBI took from Mar-a-Lago, but appointing a special master temporarily bars investigators from using the 11,000 seized documents in the criminal investigation. However, expediting the appeal means the 11th Circuit may rule on the case before Judge Raymond Dearie does, possibly by the end of next month. Meanwhile, Dearie’s deadline is for December 16.  Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann noted on Twitter that Trump opposed the DOJ request in this matter while pushing for an expedited appeal in the Supreme Court. “Eleventh Circuit not to be outplayed by Trump’s Hail Mary to Supreme Court, where he incidentally asked for an expedited appeal while opposing the expedited schedule in the Eleventh Circuit,” he wrote. “Nice to see the Circuit having none of it.” Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, also added that this is “a bad sign for Trump”. “It is apparent that the panel takes DOJ’s concerns seriously,” he tweeted.   “Trump had opposed DOJ’s motion to expedite the 11th Circuit appeal from Cannon’s appointment of a special master,” wrote Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe. “Without dissent, the Circuit Court rejected Trump’s opposition, which was as baseless as is his trip to the Supreme Court on a collateral aspect of Cannon’s order.” A different three-judge panel will review the appeal than the circuit court panel that sided with DOJ in earlier litigation. If the ruling is in the government’s favor, then it could have the potential to end the litigation over the seized materials and the outside review of those documents. Read More Here

Thailand Massacre: Ex-Cop Kills 24 Children In Knife And Gun Rampage https://digitalalaskanews.com/thailand-massacre-ex-cop-kills-24-children-in-knife-and-gun-rampage/ Total death toll including shooter is 37 – police Attacker kills 24 children, 13 adults in rampage Thai daycare centre was for children aged 2-5 Most child victims were stabbed – police Attacker killed his wife, child, and shot himself NA KLANG, Thailand, Oct 6 (Reuters) – A former policeman killed 34 people, including 23 children, during a knife and gun rampage at a daycare centre in northeast Thailand on Thursday, police said, before later shooting dead his wife and child at home and turning his weapon on himself. In one of the world’s worst child death tolls in a massacre by a single killer in recent history, most of the children who died at the daycare centre in Uthai Sawan, a town 500 km (310 miles) northeast of Bangkok, were stabbed to death, police said. The age range of children at the daycare centre was from two to five years, a local official told Reuters. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Police identified the attacker as a former member of the force who was dismissed from his post last year over drug allegations and he was facing trial on a drugs charge. The man had been in court earlier in the day and had then gone to the daycare centre to collect his child, police spokesperson Paisal Luesomboon told broadcaster ThaiPBS. When he did not find his child there, he began the killing spree, Paisal said. “He started shooting, slashing, killing children at the Uthai Sawan daycare centre,” Paisal said. “It’s a scene that nobody wants to see. From the first step when I went in, it felt harrowing,” Piyalak Kingkaew, an experienced emergency worker heading the first responder team, told Reuters. “We’ve been through it before, but this incident is most harrowing because they are little kids.” A large van that police said contained bodies of 22 people, mostly children, was seen by Reuters departing from a police station headed towards the city of Udon Thani, 80 km (50 miles) away, where autopsies would be performed. ‘I BEGGED HIM FOR MERCY’ A Reuters photographer also saw late on Thursday the body of the shooter, Panya Khamrapm, being moved in a bodybag from a van to a police station in the province. Photographs taken at the daycare centre by the rescue team and shared with Reuters showed the tiny bodies of those killed laid out on blankets. Abandoned juice boxes were scattered across the floor. “He was heading towards me and I begged him for mercy, I didn’t know what to do,” one distraught woman told ThaiPBS, fighting back tears. “He didn’t say anything, he shot at the door while the kids were sleeping,” another woman said, becoming distraught. Police said the attacker’s weapon was a 9 mm pistol and it had been obtained legally. Thailand’s police chief said the perpetrator had tried to break into the premises and had mostly used a knife in the killings. People gather outside a day care center which was the scene of a mass shooting, in the town of Uthai Sawan, around 500 km northeast of Bangkok in the province of Nong Bua Lam Phu, Thailand October 6, 2022. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha “Then he got out and started killing anyone he met along the way with a gun or the knife until he got home. We surrounded his house and then found that he committed suicide in his home,” Damrongsak Kittiprapas told reporters. He said a few children had survived, without giving details. About 30 children were at the facility – a pink, one-storey building surrounded by a lawn and small palm trees – when the attacker arrived, fewer than usual, as heavy rain had kept many people away, said district official Jidapa Boonsom, who was working in a nearby office at the time. “The shooter came in around lunch time and shot four or five officials at the childcare centre first,” Jidapa told Reuters. The attacker forced his way into a locked room where the children were sleeping, Jidapa said. A teacher who was eight months pregnant was also among those stabbed to death, she said. The massacre is among the worst involving children killed by one person. Anders Breivik killed 69 people, mostly teenagers, at a summer camp in Norway in 2011, while the death toll in other cases include 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut in 2012, 16 at Dunblane in Scotland in 1996 and 19 at a school in Uvalde, Texas, this year. The Beslan school hostage crisis in Russia in 2004 saw 186 children killed by a group of hostage takers. Reuters Graphics DRUGS CHARGE Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha was expected to visit the region on Friday. In a statement on Facebook, he called Thursday’s rampage a “shocking incident”. Prayuth ordered all government departments to fly the national flag at half mast on Friday to mark a tragedy that “had caused grief to the entire nation”, his spokesperson Anusha Burapchaisri said. King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida will visit families of the victims in Udon Thani on Friday, according to a local announcement. The government said it would provide financial aid to the families to help cover funeral expenses and medical treatment. The White House and the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres both expressed shock at the attack and sent condolences to the victims’ families. Gun laws are strict in Thailand, where possession of an illegal firearm carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years. But ownership is high compared with some other countries in Southeast Asia. Illegal weapons, many brought in from strife-torn neighbouring countries, are common. Mass shootings in Thailand remain rare, although in 2020, a soldier angry over a property deal gone sour killed at least 29 people and wounded 57 in a rampage that spanned four locations. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Additional reporting by Poppy McPherson and Jiraporn Kuhakan in Na Klang, Orathai Sriring, Panarat Thepgumpanat, Chayut Setboonsarng and Juarwee Kittisilpa in Bangkok; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor, Robert Birsel and Raissa Kasolowsky; Editing by Kim Coghill, Clarence Fernandez, Mark Heinrich and Gareth Jones Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More Here

Missing Merced Family Of 4 Found Dead https://digitalalaskanews.com/missing-merced-family-of-4-found-dead/ MERCED COUNTY, Calif (KSEE/KGPE) – The bodies of the four missing family members who were kidnapped from their business have been found dead, according to the Merced County Sheriff’s Office. “They can now at least have some kind of closure. not the closure we were hoping for and it’s not the closure they were hoping for,” said Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke. 27-year-old Jasleen Kaur, 36-year-old Jasdeep Singh, 39-year-old Amandeep Singh, and eight-month-old Aroohi Dheri were found dead in an orchard field that officials call “very very remote” near Dos Palos Wednesday evening. The Merced County Sheriff’s Office says they received a call from a farmer around 5:30 p.m. telling them the location of the victims after finding them. Details on how the victims died have not been released. According to officials, the suspect 48-year-old Jesus Manuel Salgado has been talking with law enforcement. Salgado has been in a local hospital since Tuesday after he tried to take his own life. The bodies were found near the area where deputies found the victim’s phones. Investigators say the analysis of the scene will continue throughout the night.  Read More Here

New Burn Ban Notification App In Testing At CCFR https://digitalalaskanews.com/new-burn-ban-notification-app-in-testing-at-ccfr/ News Home More from News of the North Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – Though burn season is over in the valley this year, CCFR is looking to unveil a new app next season that could help residents know quicker when a burn ban is in effect. Fire Marshall Dan Jager explained on Action Line that the department has been working with the Western Fire Chiefs Association in developing an online app. The app would allow residents to sign up for a burn permit, while also being able to view current weather conditions. Jager said push notifications about burn bans and why would be sent out via the app. “There’ll be some other features in there such as for our use. If we have a burn ban that we need to let people know about, we can send a message to all of the permit applicants through text messaging email, that ‘hey, there’s going to be a burn ban’ and give some more details as to why instead of just being a ban, and then hoping that word to get spread through whatever method. We’re hoping that’ll be more successful and us being able to not only advise people about burn bans, but just give us a precautionary heads up that there may be some issues with open burning and to use extra caution.” Jager said that for now, they will be doing some internal testing. “We’re hoping in the next couple of months to kind of do some beta testing within our department and just see how this app works out, and by next May, have it available for the public,” he said. “We’re hoping to make it a more user friendly process where instead of people have to go in person or sit in front of a computer, they can do it right off their phone, and be good to go from there.” More from News of the North Kiehl suggests employee training pipeline to address ferry crew shortages Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – Juneau Senator Jesse Kiehl voiced his thoughts on the DOT program aimed at re-imagining the marine highway system while a guest on action line. Wasilla man arrested for attempted plane theft Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – A Wasilla man was arrested Wednesday afternoon after the owner found him in the process of stealing an aircraft. Jensen-Olson Arboretum to shift to winter hours Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – Beginning the week of October 11, the Jensen-Olson Arboretum will adjust open hours for winter operations. Juneau Community Foundation announces recipients of the Individual Artist Awards Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – Four awardees for the Juneau Community Foundation’s Individual Artist Awards, a grant program that aims to foster local artists, were announced Wednesday. AGDC, Mitsubishi, TOYO, Hillcorp sign agreement to assess potential of producing zero-carbon ammonia in the Cook Inlet Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – On Tuesday, the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation announced an agreement between multiple energy organizations to assess the potential to produce zero-carbon ammonia in the Cook Inlet region. Anchorage Man convicted by Jury on drug and firearm charges Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – A federal jury convicted an Anchorage man for possessing heroin, pure methamphetamine, and a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and for being a felon in possession of a firearm. OPEC announces big oil cut, Murkowski urges domestic production Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has released a statement regarding the OPEC+ alliance deciding this week to cut production, urging domestic production. $790,000 in FEMA assistance distributed to Western Alaska residents Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy returned this week from a follow-up trip to communities heavily impacted by the Western Alaska storm, the remnants of Typhoon Merbok. Escaped Anchorage prison inmate sentenced to 50 years Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – On Oct. 4, Superior Court Judge Eric A. Aarseth sentenced 36-year-old Kevin Gerald Tuckfield to serve 50 years for escape, robbery, and attempted kidnapping. Blood Bank of Alaska in critical need for O Positive and O Negative donors Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – Blood Bank of Alaska said Tuesday that they are in critical need for O Positive and O Negative donors, due to recent use of these blood types there is an immediate need for donors at all Alaska centers. Coast Guard aircrew medevacs man from vessel south of Kodiak Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – A Coast Guard aircrew medically evacuated a crewmember from the vessel Palona, approximately 450 miles south of Kodiak, Alaska, on Tuesday. Fairbanks International Airport named recipient of environmental achievement award Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – Fairbanks International Airport received top honors for their environmental work on per-and polyfluorinated substances, or PFAS, used in fire-fighting activities at airports. Read More Here