Liz Truss Admits No Chance Of US Brexit Trade Deal Talks For Years
Liz Truss Admits No Chance Of US Brexit Trade Deal Talks For Years https://digitalarkansasnews.com/liz-truss-admits-no-chance-of-us-brexit-trade-deal-talks-for-years/
Brexit trade deal negotiations with the United States will not restart for years, Liz Truss has conceded.
The Prime Minister made the admission as she flew to New York for a meeting with Joe Biden on Wednesday.
Brexiteeers claimed an agreement with the US would be easy to secure and suggested that it was a major benefit of leaving the EU’s customs union.
But speaking overnight on her flight to New York the prime minister downplayed the idea and told reporters that she had no expectations of talks restarting with Joe Biden’s government.
She said instead her priority was striking agreements with India and the Gulf states, as well as joining a Pacific trading bloc.
There aren’t currently any negotiations taking place with the US and I don’t have an expectation that those are going to start in the short to medium term
Liz Truss
“There aren’t currently any negotiations taking place with the US and I don’t have an expectation that those are going to start in the short to medium term,” she said.
Questioned about the comments, No 10 officials did not deny that Ms Truss was effectively conceding it would be years before talks with the White House resumed
Theresa May and Boris Johnson heavily courted former US president Donald Trump in the hope that he would sign an agreement with them and give them a supposed Brexit win.
But Mr Biden has effectively put negotiations on ice – and also raised concerns about the impact of the UK governemnt’s Brexit policy on the territory’s peace process.
He also also focused on signing trade deals with other countries, in May adopting a new agreement with the same 12 Indo-Pacific nations Ms Truss wants to target.
The political situation in the US may or may not change after 2024. Mr Trump is expected to seek to run again for the opposition Republican party.
Speaking on Tuesday morning culture secretary Michelle Donelan told Sky News: “The Prime Minister and the President will be meeting this week, they’ll be talking about a variety of different issues, including potential trade deals. So let’s see what comes out of that meeting.”
But pressed on whether trade talks would come up, she said: “The purpose of this meeting is not to secure a trade deal. This is the first bilateral meeting between the newly elected prime minister and the president of the United States.”
The meeting was rescheduled after a previous planned bilateral ahead of the Queen’s funeral was cancelled.
When Boris Johnson last visited the US as prime minister, Mr Biden downplayed the possibility of a deal with the UK and warned the British government against tampering with the “Irish accords” amid a row over the post-Brexit protocol.
Mr Johnson has been threatening to unilaterally override parts of the Brexit deal, in breach of international law – a policy Ms Truss has said she will continued.
Joe Biden (James Manning/AP)
(AP)
While in New York, Ms Truss is also set to have talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen, which are expected to prominently feature Brexit issues.
Ms Truss will meet Mr Macron on Tuesday, before seeing Mr Biden and Ms von der Leyen on Wednesday. She had been set to talk to the US President in Britain over the weekend as he visited for the Queen’s funeral, but the meeting was postponed.
Labour’s Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, who is also attending UN general assembly meeting, said: “After being snubbed by the Biden administration within her first weeks in office, Liz Truss urgently needs to wake up to the damage her reckless approach to foreign policy is doing to the UK’s national interest.
“The Prime Minister must use the UN General Assembly to bring the UK back in from the cold and begin rebuilding our country’s diplomatic influence.”
And shadow international trade secretary Nick Thomas Symonds said Ms Truss’s admitted was “terrible news for the UK economy” and “costing billions in lost potential trade opportunities and holding back growth”.
He added: “There is no doubt that the blame for this mess lies at the door of the Prime Minister, who tarnished the UK’s international reputation as Foreign and International Trade Secretary. This is an embarrassment for Liz Truss.
“The Conservative manifesto promised a trade deal with the United States by the end of this year, now this has no chance of being delivered.”
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Asia Markets Trade Higher As Japan's Inflation Nears 8-Year High; China Keeps Benchmark Lending Rate Unchanged
Asia Markets Trade Higher As Japan's Inflation Nears 8-Year High; China Keeps Benchmark Lending Rate Unchanged https://digitalarkansasnews.com/asia-markets-trade-higher-as-japans-inflation-nears-8-year-high-china-keeps-benchmark-lending-rate-unchanged/
An employee works at the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo, Japan, on Jan. 13, 2022.
Toru Hanai | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Shares in the Asia-Pacific rose Tuesday as Japan’s inflation accelerated and China kept its loan prime rate on hold. Investors are also looking ahead to the Federal Reserve meeting in the U.S.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 1.36% in the final hour of trade and the Hang Seng tech index was up 2.22%.
The Shanghai Composite in mainland China rose 0.22% to 3,122.41 and the Shenzhen Component advanced 0.686% to 11,283.92.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.29% to 6,806.40. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.44% to close at 27,699.42 on its return to trade after a holiday and the Topix gained 0.45% to 1,947.27.
The Kospi in South Korea added 0.52% to 2,367.85, while the Kosdaq was 1.12% higher at 760.35. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares gained 1.18%.
Core inflation in Japan increased 2.8% from a year ago, the fastest rate of increase since late 2014. China’s loan prime rate was left unchanged Tuesday, in line with predictions in a Reuters poll.
Tech, casino stocks in Hong Kong buoy broader index
Australia’s central bank says the argument for slower rate hikes strengthening
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA)’s board members “saw the case for a slower pace of increase in interest rates as becoming stronger,” according to minutes from its Sept. 6 meeting, where it raised its interest rate by 50 basis points to 2.25%.
“The Board expects to increase interest rates further over the months ahead, but it is not on a pre-set path given the uncertainties surrounding the outlook for inflation and growth,” it said in the minutes released Tuesday.
It added medium-term inflation expectations remained “well anchored.”
Future interest rate increases will be guided by data and the outlook for inflation and labor markets, the RBA said.
— Abigail Ng
CNBC Pro: Goldman says copper demand is about to surge. Here are the stocks it expects to benefit
A copper deficit could be on the horizon, with demand set to surge on the push toward net zero — and some metal stocks could shine in this scenario, according to Goldman Sachs.
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Weizhen Tan
China keeps key lending rates unchanged
The People’s Bank of China kept its one-year and five-year loan prime rates (LPR) unchanged, in line with predictions in a Reuters poll.
The one-year loan prime rate remains at 3.65%, and the five-year rate closely tied to home mortgages stands at 4.3%. China cut both those rates last month.
— Abigail Ng
CNBC Pro: Fund manager says the bear market is going to get ‘nasty’
Fund manager Cole Smead believes the stock market is still in the early innings of a bear market — and warns that it won’t be a “garden variety” one.
But, he is not losing any sleep over it. Here’s why:
Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Zavier Ong
Japan’s core inflation accelerates in August
Core consumer prices in Japan rose 2.8% in August from a year ago, government data showed.
That’s the fastest growth in nearly eight years, and the fifth consecutive month where inflation has exceeded the central bank’s target of 2%.
Analysts polled by Reuters predicted a 2.7% increase, and consumer prices gained 2.4% in July.
The Japanese yen strengthened slightly to 142.96 per dollar.
— Abigail Ng
Stocks finish Monday’s volatile session higher
Stocks seesawed on Monday but ended the session in positive territory as a big Federal Reserve week kicked off.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 197.26 points higher, or 0.64%, to settle at 31,019.68. The S&P 500 jumped 0.69% to 3,899.89 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.76% to 11,535.02.
— Samantha Subin
10-year Treasury yield jumps above 3.5%, hits highest level since 2011
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rose to 3.5% on Monday morning, hitting its highest level since 2011 as investors brace for a higher-for-longer period of interest rates amid the Federal Reserve’s fight against inflations.
Treasury yields rose above the board last week after the August consumer price index report showed a surprise increase in prices. However, the 10-year largely held near its June highs of 3.495% before taking another leg higher on Monday.
The 10-year last traded at a yield of 3.506%, up nearly 6 basis points. Yields move opposite to price, and one basis point is equal to 0.01%.
— Jesse Pound
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3 Firearms Reported Stolen https://digitalarkansasnews.com/3-firearms-reported-stolen/
JONESBORO — A total of three firearms were stolen on Friday and Saturday in three residential burglaries, according to Jonesboro police reports.
On Friday afternoon, a 64-year-old Jonesboro woman said she believed her son’s girlfriend stole her .380-caliber Taurus handgun from her apartment in the 3000 block of Apache Drive and believes the gun was pawned in Walnut Ridge.
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Congress Eyes Strongest Response Yet To Jan. 6 Attack
Congress Eyes Strongest Response Yet To Jan. 6 Attack https://digitalarkansasnews.com/congress-eyes-strongest-response-yet-to-jan-6-attack/
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., listens as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing at the Capitol in Washington, July 12, 2022. House Democrats are voting this week on changes to a 19th century law for certifying presidential elections, their strongest legislative response yet to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
By Mary Clare JalonickThe Associated Press
Tue., Sept. 20, 2022timer5 min. read
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats are voting this week on changes to a 19th century law for certifying presidential elections, their strongest legislative response yet to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
The vote to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, expected Wednesday, comes as a bipartisan group of senators is moving forward with a similar bill. Lawmakers in both parties have said they want to change the arcane law before it is challenged again.
Trump and his allies tried to exploit the law’s vague language in the weeks after the election as they strategized how they could keep Joe Biden out of office, including by lobbying Vice President Mike Pence to simply object to the certification of Biden’s victory when Congress counted the votes on Jan. 6.
Pence refused to do so, but it was clear afterward that there was no real legal framework, or recourse, to respond under the 1887 law if the vice president had tried to block the count. The House and Senate bills would better define the vice president’s ministerial role and make clear that he or she has no say in the final outcome.
Both versions would also make it harder for lawmakers to object if they don’t like the results of an election, clarify laws that could allow a state’s vote to be delayed, and ensure that there is only one slate of legal electors from each state. One strategy by Trump and his allies was to create alternate slates of electors in key states Biden won, with the ultimately unsuccessful idea that they could be voted on during the congressional certification on Jan. 6 and result in throwing the election back to Trump.
“We’ve got to make this more straightforward to respect the will of the people,” said Senate Rules Committee Chairman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., whose committee will hold a vote on the legislation bill next week. “We don’t want to risk Jan. 6 happening again,” she said.
The bills are a response to the violence of that day, when a mob of Trump’s supporters pushed past police, broke into the building and interrupted Biden’s certification. The crowd was echoing Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud and calling for Pence’s death after it became clear that he wouldn’t try to overturn the election.
Democrats in both chambers have felt even more urgency on the issue as Trump is considering another run for president and is still claiming the election was stolen. Many Republicans say they believe him, even though 50 states certified Biden’s win and courts across the country rejected Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud.
While the House vote is expected to fall mostly along party lines, the Senate bill has some Republican support and its backers are hopeful they will have the 10 votes they need to break a filibuster and pass it in the 50-50 Senate. But that could be tricky amid campaigning for the November midterm elections, and Republicans most aligned with Trump are certain to oppose it.
The Senate Rules panel is expected to pass the measure next Tuesday, with some tweaks, though a floor vote will most likely wait until November or December, Klobuchar said.
Even though they are similar, the House version is more expansive than the Senate bill and the two chambers will have some key differences that lawmakers will have to work out. The House legislation was introduced on Monday by House Administration Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, both members of the House panel that has been investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Like the Senate bill, the House legislation would require that there is a single set of electors from each state submitted by the governor. The House bill would also narrow the grounds on which members of Congress could object to any state’s electoral votes and raise the threshold for how many objections would be needed. Currently, the House and Senate each debate and vote on whether to accept a state’s electors if there is just one objection from each chamber.
The House bill would require instead that a third of the House and a third of the Senate object to a particular state’s electors in order to hold a vote. The Senate bill would require that a fifth of each chamber object.
Two such votes were held on Jan. 6, 2021, after the rioters were cleared, because GOP Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri joined dozens of House members in objecting to Biden’s victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania. Both the House and Senate voted to certify the legitimate results.
Lofgren said the American people should be deciding the election, not Congress.
People who wanted to overturn the election “took advantage of ambiguous language as well as a low threshold to have Congress play a role that they really aren’t supposed to play,” she said.
The general similarities of the House bill to the Senate version could be a signal that House members are willing to compromise to get the legislation passed. Some House members had criticized the Senate bill for not going far enough. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of both the Jan. 6 and House Administration committees, had said this summer that the Senate bill was not “remotely sufficient” to address the challenges presented by current law.
House members know they will have to give in some, though, to pass it through the 50-50 Senate. There are currently nine GOP senators and seven Democrats on the Senate bill, which is sponsored by centrist Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., and Susan Collins, R-Maine.
Collins said Monday, “I believe we can work this out, and I hope that we do so.”
The bipartisan group of senators worked for months to find agreement on a way to revamp the process, eventually settling on a series of proposals introduced in July.
Klobuchar’s Republican counterpart on the Senate Rules Committee, Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, has also been supportive.
“This is something we shouldn’t carry over into another election cycle,” Blunt said at a Senate hearing in August.
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ENTERTAINMENT NOTES: Movies At MacArthur Series Covers Battle Of Britain
ENTERTAINMENT NOTES: ‘Movies At MacArthur’ Series Covers Battle Of Britain https://digitalarkansasnews.com/entertainment-notes-movies-at-macarthur-series-covers-battle-of-britain/
Kenneth C. Barnes, emeritus professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas, is the recipient of the 2022 Booker Worthen Literary Prize for his book “The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Arkansas.” (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
Elsewhere in entertainment, events and the arts:
FILM: Battle of Britain
The MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, 503 E. Ninth St., Little Rock, screens the documentary “Thirteen Hours That Saved Britain,” 6:30 p.m. today, part of its “Movies at MacArthur” series. The film covers the start of the Battle of Britain, Sept. 15, 1940, a bloody contest fought entirely in the skies over Britain that led to Hitler’s first major defeat. Admission, popcorn and beverages are free. Call (501) 376-4602.
LITERATURE: Prize-winning author
The Central Arkansas Library System has awarded the 2022 Booker Worthen Literary Prize to University of Central Arkansas emeritus professor of history Kenneth C. Barnes for his book “The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Arkansas” (University of Arkansas Press). The prize, which includes a $2,000 stipend, goes each year “to the best work, fiction or nonfiction, by an author living in Arkansas,” according to a library system news release.
The book focuses on the widespread influence the Klan had throughout the state during most of the 1920s. It has also earned Barnes the 2022 J.G. Ragsdale Book Award from the Arkansas Historical Association, for best book-length study in Arkansas history.
This is Barnes’ second Worthen Prize; the library system also awarded him in 2017 for “Anti-Catholicism in Arkansas: How Politicians, the Press, the Klan, and Religious Leaders Imagined an Enemy.” The prize was established in 1999 in memory of banker William Booker Worthen, a 22-year member of the library system board of trustees.
TICKETS: Cirque Christmas
“A Magical Cirque Christmas,” a combination of cirque, comedy, music and magic, takes the stage for two Arkansas shows:
7:30 p.m. Nov. 17 at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall, 426 W. Markham St. $45-$67.50. (501) 244-8800
7 p.m. Nov. 18 at the First Financial Music Hall, 101 E. Locust St., El Dorado. $39-$84. (870) 444-3007
The Guardian of Time, who manages the changing of the seasons with his giant magical clock, can’t quite get into the seasonal spirit; when an optimistic, magical Christmas fairy (played by comedic magician Lucy Darling) tries to help, she causes time to go haywire when she breaks the clock.
Visit MagicalCirqueChristmas.com.
Comic Carrington
Comedian Rodney Carrington brings his “Let Me In!” tour to Arkansas for three shows:
7 p.m. Dec. 29, ArcBest Corp. Performing Arts Center, 55 S. Second St., Fort Smith. Tickets are $46-$66, $196 VIP (premium seat, tour laminate, post-show meet-and-greet with Carrington), plus fees. (479) 788-8932
7 p.m. Dec. 30, First National Bank Arena, 217 Olympic Drive, Jonesboro. Tickets are $49.50-$69.50. (870) 972-2781
7 p.m. Dec. 31 (New Year’s Eve), Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway. Tickets are $49.50-$69.50, $199 VIP. (501) 244-8800.
Visit ticketmaster.com.
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Leader Truss Says Queen https://digitalarkansasnews.com/leader-truss-says-queen/
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British Prime Minister Liz Truss speaks during the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey in central London, Monday, Sept. 19, 2022. The Queen, who died aged 96 on Sept. 8, will be buried at Windsor alongside her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last year.
British Prime Minister Liz Truss speaks at the Westminster Abbey during the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, in London, Monday Sept. 19, 2022.
Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss, her husband Hugh O’Leary, former Prime Minister John Major and his wife Norma, former Prime Minister Tony Blair with his wife Cherie Blair depart, after the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, at Westminster Abbey, inn London, Monday Sept. 19, 2022. The Queen, who died aged 96 on Sept. 8, will be buried at Windsor alongside her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last year.
Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss, right, and her husband Hugh O’Leary observe a minute silence outside 10 Downing Street, in London, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022, ahead of tomorrow’s funeral of the late Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century, died Thursday Sept. 8, 2022, after 70 years on the throne. She was 96.
FILE – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, left, welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022. British Prime Minister Liz Truss took office less than two weeks ago, impatient to set her stamp on government. The death of Queen Elizabeth II ripped up Truss’s carefully laid plans for the first weeks of her term, putting everyday politics in the U.K. on hold as the country was plunged into official and emotional mourning.
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British Prime Minister Liz Truss speaks during the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey in central London, Monday, Sept. 19, 2022. The Queen, who died aged 96 on Sept. 8, will be buried at Windsor alongside her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last year.
British Prime Minister Liz Truss speaks at the Westminster Abbey during the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, in London, Monday Sept. 19, 2022.
Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss, her husband Hugh O’Leary, former Prime Minister John Major and his wife Norma, former Prime Minister Tony Blair with his wife Cherie Blair depart, after the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, at Westminster Abbey, inn London, Monday Sept. 19, 2022. The Queen, who died aged 96 on Sept. 8, will be buried at Windsor alongside her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last year.
Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss, right, and her husband Hugh O’Leary observe a minute silence outside 10 Downing Street, in London, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022, ahead of tomorrow’s funeral of the late Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch and a rock of stability across much of a turbulent century, died Thursday Sept. 8, 2022, after 70 years on the throne. She was 96.
FILE – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, left, welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022. British Prime Minister Liz Truss took office less than two weeks ago, impatient to set her stamp on government. The death of Queen Elizabeth II ripped up Truss’s carefully laid plans for the first weeks of her term, putting everyday politics in the U.K. on hold as the country was plunged into official and emotional mourning.
NEW YORK (AP) — British Prime Minister Liz Truss says the death of Queen Elizabeth II is a “very difficult moment” for the country, and acknowledged that dealing with it has been a challenge for her untested new government.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
There’s a fine line between a Tom Brady and a Gale Sayers. Whether a player is a seven-time Super Bowl champion who plays well into his 40s like Brady or an all-time great running back knocked out of football during his prime like Sayers there’s an element of luck to longevity in the NFL. Its inescapable, regardless of era. For all the evolving technology, increased awareness of the value of year-round fitness regimens and rule changes designed to make the game safer, players concede good fortune is a common dominator to staying on the field.
British Prime Minister Liz Truss says the death of Queen Elizabeth II is a “very difficult moment” for the country,” and dealing with it has been a challenge for her untested new government. Truss took office just two days before the queen died on Sept. 8, and the first days of her term have been spent attending memorial services and the funeral of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch. Truss said that since the queen died she had had “the most tremendous support” from civil servants, royal staff and the armed forces. She said there has been “a huge outpouring of love and affection for her late majesty as well as a huge amount of warmth towards King Charles III,”
Ugandan health authorities say a man who died this week has tested positive for the virus that causes Ebola. They said in a statement that it’s still unknown how the man became infected with Ebola. He lived in the central Ugandan town of Mubende, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) west of the capital, Kampala. Six other people in the same area died earlier in September after suffering “a strange illness,” said the statement.
An unofficial tribunal organized by a group of media freedom organizations has declared Mexico, Sri Lanka and Syria guilty of violating international humanitarian law for failing to protect journalists. The People’s Tribunal on the Murder of Journalists, which no legal authority, delivered a judgment aimed at holding the governments accountable. Relatives holding photos of slain journalists on Monday watched from the pews of a 17th-century church in The Hague used for the proceedings. None of the governments submitted any defense for the unofficial trial despite being invited to do so. The media rights groups spent a year investigating the killings of three journalists.
The energy crisis facing Italian industry and households is a top voter concern going into Sunday’s parliamentary elections as fears grow that astronomically high bills will shutter some businesses and force household rationing by winter. Never in an Italian election campaign has energy been such a central talking point. Candidates have sparred over whether debt-laden Italy, which has already spent more than 60 billion euros to help families, businesses and local governments, should incur yet more debt to finance new relief. They also disagree on whether Italy should consider reinvesting in new nuclear technologies. But no party is discussing whether to implement conservation measures, like many of Italy’s European neighbors.
A new court filing says a former Republican Party official in Georgia who was a fake elector in 2020 misrepresented her role in an alleged breach of voting equipment at a rural elections office two months after the presidential election. The filing late Monday is part of a broader lawsuit challenging the security of the state’s voting machines that has been drawn into a separate investigation of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in Georgia. According to the latest filing, Cathy Latham helped coordinate the arrival of a computer forensics team at the Coffee County elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, and spent nearly all day there instructing them what to copy. The filing says that directly refutes her previous testimony.
Prime Minister Liz Truss has kicked off her first visit to the United States as Britain’s leader with an admission that a U.K-U.S. free trade deal is not going to happen for years. On her way to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Truss said “there (aren’t) currently any negotiations taking place with the U.S., and I don’t have an expectation that those are going to start in the short to medium term.” That’s a sharp contrast with the stance of her immediate predecessors, Boris Johnson and Theresa May. Both dangled the promise of a deal with the world’s biggest economy as one of the main prizes of Britain’s exit from the European Union.
Australian iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group has announced a $6.2 billion plan to eliminate fossil fuels and carbon emissions from its operations by the end of the decade. The world’s fourth-largest iron ore producer said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange on Tuesday that it expects to save $818 million annually from 2030 based on current prices of diesel, gas and carbon credits. Most of the spending is planned for 2024-28. It includes an additional 2-to-3 gigawatts of renewable energy generation and battery storage and a “green mining” fleet of trucks and trains. Fortescue chairman Andrew Forrest said the company is already benefiting financially from a decarbonization policy that began two years ago.
A local elected official is due in court on a murder charge in the stabbing death of a Las Vegas investigative journalist who wrote articles critical of him and his managerial conduct. Robert Telles, the Clark County public administrator, has been jailed without bail since his arrest Sept. 7 — five days after the killing of veteran Las Vegas Review-Journal staff writer Jeff German. Police allege the 45-year-old Telles planned the attack and waited in a vehicle outside German’s home before stabbing him seven times. Telles had lost his Democratic primary for reelection in June, after German’s articles appeared in the Review-Journal. His term in office expires Dec. 31.
Hurric...
Former FBI Assistant Director Says Trump Is Getting 'increasingly Cornered' And That His Embrace Of QAnon Is The 'last Act Of A Desperate Man'
Former FBI Assistant Director Says Trump Is Getting 'increasingly Cornered' And That His Embrace Of QAnon Is The 'last Act Of A Desperate Man' https://digitalarkansasnews.com/former-fbi-assistant-director-says-trump-is-getting-increasingly-cornered-and-that-his-embrace-of-qanon-is-the-last-act-of-a-desperate-man/
Donald Trump.Kyle Mazza/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi said Trump is drawn to QAnon like a moth to a flame.
Figliuzzi said Trump is embracing the movement because he feels “increasingly cornered.”
Figliuzzi warned that violence could ensue if the QAnon movement felt threats to its leader.
A former FBI official said former President Donald Trump is likely feeling cornered and embracing the QAnon movement out of desperation.
Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director, was weighing in on Trump’s links to the QAnon movement during a Monday appearance on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House.” Host Nicolle Wallace asked Figliuzzi if he thinks Trump knows just how dangerous the movement is to the US.
“Oh, not only do I think he knows it, but I think that’s what attracts him to this. It’s like a moth to the flame,” Figliuzzi said.
“And the thing is, he knows that he’s increasingly cornered,” Figliuzzi added. “He’s in trouble on so many legal fronts, even criminal fronts now, that this is, kind of, the almost last act of a desperate man.”
Figliuzzi referenced Trump’s rally in Youngstown, Ohio, where a QAnon song played during Trump’s speech. During the rally, Trump’s supporters were seen pointing their fingers to the sky in a strange, one-finger salute, which experts say might have been a nod to the movement’s slogan, “where we go one we go all.”
While the stadium in Ohio was not fully filled, and thus a sign that Trump may be losing support from his base, Figliuzzi said there’s still a significant threat from Trump and the QAnon movement.
“What is extremely dangerous based on past histories of cults, is that as they come near the end, as the leader is threatened, they get more and more dangerous,” Figliuzzi said. “And they do something cult experts call ‘forcing the end.'”
This could happen if the movement’s leader “calls for the violence” or is “taken out,” Figliuzzi said.
“The members take a step up and force the ending — whatever that could be,” Figliuzzi said. “That’s what concerns me and we’ve learned from January 6, it only takes a small number of people to do that.”
The Trump rally in Ohio is just one of many recent instances in which the former president appeared to embrace QAnon — a movement that claims without basis that Trump is fighting a deep-state cabal of pedophiles. In a stream of messages after the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago, Trump shared over a dozen posts on his Truth Social account, some of which referenced QAnon and contained baseless conspiracy theories about the FBI. Other posts by the former president on the Truth Social platform in September included a reposted image of himself sporting a “Q” lapel pin, along with the movement’s “where we go one we go all” slogan.
Figliuzzi and a representative at Trump’s post-presidential press office did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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New Footage Confirms Fake Trump Elector Spent Hours Inside Georgia Elections Office Day It Was Breached | CNN Politics
New Footage Confirms Fake Trump Elector Spent Hours Inside Georgia Elections Office Day It Was Breached | CNN Politics https://digitalarkansasnews.com/new-footage-confirms-fake-trump-elector-spent-hours-inside-georgia-elections-office-day-it-was-breached-cnn-politics/
Washington CNN —
A Republican county official in Georgia and operatives working with an attorney for former President Donald Trump spent hours inside a restricted area of the local elections office on the day voting systems there were breached, newly obtained surveillance video shows.
The video reveals for the first time what happened inside the Coffee County elections office on January 7, 2021, the same day its voting systems are known to have been compromised. Among those seen in the footage is Cathy Latham, a former GOP chairwoman of Coffee County who is under criminal investigation for posing as a fake elector in 2020.
CNN previously reported that Latham escorted operatives working with former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell through the front door of the elections office on January 7, 2021. The new footage appears to undercut previous claims by Latham that she was not “personally involved” in the breach.
02:20 – Source: CNN
See video of ex-Georgia official escorting Trump operatives into election offices
The new video, obtained as part of a years-long civil lawsuit in Georgia related to the security of voting systems there, shows Latham remained in the office for hours as those same operatives set up computers near election equipment and appear to access voting data.
The footage also features the two men Latham escorted into the building earlier that day, Scott Hall and Paul Maggio, both of whom have acknowledged they were part of a team that gained access to Coffee County’s voting systems.
Maggio did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. The data firm he works for, SullivanStrickler, which court documents show was hired by Powell, previously said in a statement to CNN that it was “directed by attorneys to contact county election officials to obtain access to certain data” in Georgia and also “directed by attorneys to distribute that data to certain individuals.”
In an August 29, 2022 email, an attorney for SullivanStrickler acknowledges that Latham was the “primary point of contact” in coordinating the team’s visit to Coffee County.
The firm said it had no reason to believe these attorneys would ask or direct it to “do anything either improper or illegal.”
A lawyer representing Latham pushed back on the claim she was the primary point of contact for the SullivanStrickler team, telling CNN that the calls she can be seen in the video making are not with anyone from the firm.
“There is no evidence of which we are aware that Mrs. Latham spoke to Ms. Powell or to anyone at SullivanStrickler on or before January 6, 2021. And indeed there is no evidence of which we are aware that Mrs. Latham spoke to Ms. Powell or to anyone at SullivanStrickler on or before January 6, 2021,” the lawyer added.
A second lawyer representing Latham, Bob Cheeley, previously told CNN, “Cathy Latham has dedicated significant time and effort over many years protecting the integrity of elections in Coffee County, Georgia. She would not and has not knowingly been involved in any impropriety in any election.”
Hall, an Atlanta bail bondsman and Fulton County Republican poll watcher, did not reply to repeated requests for comment from CNN.
The new video also shows a third operative, Jeffery Lenberg, entering the restricted server room inside the Coffee County elections office more than two weeks later on January 26. Lenberg is under criminal investigation by the Michigan state attorney general in connection to a series of voting system breaches there.
Also gaining access to the Coffee County elections office in late January 2021 was Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, who oversaw the partisan election audit in Maricopa County, Arizona, and is also a target of the Michigan criminal investigation.
According to court documents, Logan and Maggio are part of a team that gained access to voting systems in Antrim County, Michigan at the end of 2020 – ultimately leading to a since-debunked report on Dominion voting system vulnerabilities that remains at the center of baseless claims about widespread voter fraud pushed by Trump and his allies.
Surveillance video from the exterior of the building shows Logan visited the Coffee County elections office more than once in January 2021, roughly two weeks after the breach took place. CNN has reached out to attorneys for Logan.
Lenburg has not denied visiting the Coffee County elections office but claimed on an internet show last week that he and Logan only helped “direct” the “testing” of voting systems there.
“We didn’t do the testing. We just helped direct it. We actually didn’t touch the equipment. Doug Logan and I,” he said, adding that they just provided instructions to two Coffee County elections officials who handled the equipment at their direction.
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Ukraine Marches Farther Into Liberated Lands Separatist Calls For Urgent Referendum
Ukraine Marches Farther Into Liberated Lands, Separatist Calls For Urgent Referendum https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ukraine-marches-farther-into-liberated-lands-separatist-calls-for-urgent-referendum/
Ukraine says its forces capture village near Lysychansk
Separatist leader calls for referendum to join Russia
“Occupiers are clearly in a panic,” Zelenskiy
Russia relocates some Black Sea submarines- UK
IZIUM, Ukraine, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Ukraine said its troops have marched farther east into territory recently abandoned by Russia, paving the way for a potential assault on Moscow’s occupation forces in the Donbas region as Kyiv seeks more Western arms.
“The occupiers are clearly in a panic,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a televised address late on Monday, adding that he was now focused on “speed” in liberated areas.
“The speed at which our troops are moving. The speed in restoring normal life,” Zelenskiy said.
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The Ukrainian leader also hinted he would use a video address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday to call on countries to accelerate weapons and aid deliveries.
“We are doing everything to ensure Ukraine’s needs are met at all levels – defence, financial, economic, diplomatic,” Zelenskiy said.
Ukraine’s armed forces had regained complete control of the village of Bilohorivka, and were preparing to retake all of Luhansk province from Russian occupiers, provincial Governor Serhiy Gaidai said. The village is only 10 km (6 miles) west of Lysychansk city, which fell to the Russians after weeks of grinding battles in July.
“There will be fighting for every centimeter,” Gaidai wrote on Telegram. “The enemy is preparing their defence. So we will not simply march in.”
Luhansk and the neighbouring province of Donetsk comprise the industrialised eastern region of Donbas, which Moscow says it intends to seize as a primary aim of what it calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops have begun to push into Luhansk since driving Russian forces out of northeastern Kharkiv province in a lightning counter-offensive this month.
In a sign of nervousness from a Moscow-backed administration in Donbas about the success of Ukraine’s recent offensive, its leader called for urgent referendums on the region becoming part of Russia.
Denis Pushilin, head of the Moscow-based separatist administration in Donetsk, called on his fellow separatist leader in Luhansk to combine efforts toward preparing a referendum on joining Russia. read more
The Ukraine general staff said fighting in the past 24 hours had been limited to the Donetsk region, and Russian attacks had been repelled near Mayorsk, Vesele, Kurdyumivka and Novomykhailivka settlements.
In the south, where another Ukrainian counter-offensive has been making slower progress, Ukraine’s armed forces said they had sunk a barge carrying Russian troops and equipment across a river near Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region.
“Attempts to build a crossing failed to withstand fire from Ukrainian forces and were halted. The barge … became an addition to the occupiers’ submarine force,” the military said in a statement on Facebook.
Reuters could not independently verify either side’s battlefield reports.
Increased Ukrainian long-range strike capability had likely forced Russia’s Black Sea fleet to relocate some of its submarines from the port of Sevastopol in Crimea to Novorossiysk in Krasnodor Krai in southern Russia, the British military said on Tuesday. read more
Ukrainian servicemen ride on Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) and a tank, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, near the town of Izium, recently liberated by Ukrainian Armed Forces, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine September 19, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
GRIM GRAVES
Ukraine is still assessing what took place in areas that were under Russian control for months before a rout of Russian troops dramatically changed the dynamic of the war earlier this month.
At a vast makeshift cemetery in woods near the recaptured town of Izium, Ukrainian forensic experts have so far dug up 146 bodies buried without coffins, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov said on Monday. Some 450 graves have been found at the site, Zelenskiy has said read more
Fanning out in groups beneath the trees, workers used shovels to exhume the partially decomposed bodies, some of which locals said had lain in the town streets long after they died before being buried.
The government has not yet said how most of the people died, though officials say dozens were killed in the shelling of an apartment building, and there are signs others were killed by shrapnel.
According to preliminary examinations, four showed signs of torture, with their hands tied behind their backs, or in one case a rope tied round their neck, Serhiy Bolvinov, the head of investigative police in the Kharkiv region, told Reuters at the burial ground.
Bolvinov said the great majority of the bodies appeared to be civilians. Locals have been identifying their dead by matching names to numbers on flimsy wooden crosses marking the graves. read more
“Soldiers had their hands tied, there were signs of torture on civilians,” Bolvinov said. Ukraine says 17 soldiers were in a mass grave at the site. read more
Reuters could not corroborate Ukraine’s allegations of torture.
The Kremlin denied on Monday that Russia was to blame for atrocities that Ukraine says it has uncovered in the recaptured territory.
“It’s a lie, and of course we will defend the truth in this story,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, comparing the allegations to incidents earlier in the war where Russia claimed without evidence that atrocities were staged by Ukrainians.
ALARM OVER NUCLEAR PLANT
Ukraine accused Russian forces on Monday of shelling near the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in the country’s southern Mykolaiv region.
A blast occurred 300 metres (yards) away from the reactors and damaged power plant buildings shortly after midnight on Monday, Ukraine’s atomic power operator Energoatom said in a statement.
The reactors were not damaged and no staff were hurt, it said, publishing photographs showing a huge crater it said was caused by the blast.
“Russia endangers the whole world. We have to stop it before it’s too late,” Zelenskiy said in a social media post.
The strikes will add to global concern over the potential for an atomic disaster, already elevated by fighting around another nuclear power plant in the south, Zaporizhzhia, captured by Russian forces in March.
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Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Rami Ayyub and Michael Perry; Editing by Stephen Coates
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Lawyers Seek Data In Georgia Election Equipment Breach
Lawyers Seek Data In Georgia Election Equipment Breach https://digitalarkansasnews.com/lawyers-seek-data-in-georgia-election-equipment-breach/
ATLANTA – A former Republican Party official in Georgia who was a fake elector in 2020 misrepresented her role in an alleged breach of voting equipment at a rural elections office two months after the last presidential election, according to a court filing.
The filing late Monday is part of a broader lawsuit challenging the security of the state’s voting machines that has been drawn into a separate investigation of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in Georgia.
According to the latest filing, Cathy Latham helped coordinate the arrival of a computer forensics team at the Coffee County elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, welcomed them upon arrival and spent nearly all day there instructing them what to copy. That turned out to be “virtually every component of the voting system,” the court filing says. That directly refutes her testimony in a sworn deposition and her representations in filings with the court, the document states.
The filing comes in response to Latham’s attorneys’ attempt to quash subpoenas for her personal electronic devices, including any cellphones, computers and storage devices.
Robert Cheeley, an attorney for Latham, did not respond to an email seeking comment. He previously said his client doesn’t remember all the details of that day. But he said she “would not and has not knowingly been involved in any impropriety in any election” and “has not acted improperly or illegally.”
Latham said in a deposition last month that she moved to Texas over the summer. In January 2021, she was chair of the Coffee County Republican Party and was the state party caucus chair for more than 125 of Georgia’s smaller counties. Latham also was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
Trump in fact lost Georgia by nearly 12,000 votes to Democrat Joe Biden. The investigation into Trump’s efforts to change the results includes a phone call he made to the Georgia secretary of state suggesting he could “find” just enough votes to make Trump the winner.
The Georgia secretary of state’s office has described the copying of data from Coffee County’s election system as an “alleged unauthorized access.” It’s the latest of several suspected breaches of voting system data around the country tied to Trump allies since his election loss.
Attorney Sidney Powell and other Trump allies were involved in arranging for the copying of the election equipment in Coffee County — it is home to 43,000 people and voted overwhelmingly for Trump — as part of a wider effort to access voting equipment in several states, according to documents produced in response to subpoenas in the long-running lawsuit over Georgia’s voting machines.
Latham’s “data likely will reveal additional details about the work performed and information obtained in the breach, what was done with the compromised software and data, and the people involved in planning and orchestrating the breach, which puts voters and future elections at enormous risk,” the filing says.
An exhibit attached to the Monday filing juxtaposes quotes from Latham’s deposition with images pulled from security camera footage that appear to directly contradict her statements.
Latham said that she went to her job as a high school teacher and stopped by the election office briefly that afternoon. But the video image shows her arriving at 11:37 a.m. while time stamps on other images show her there throughout much of the day. She also said she didn’t see specific people and saw others only briefly, but the video images show otherwise.
The lawsuit that includes the fight over Latham’s personal electronic devices was originally filed several years before the 2020 election by individual voters and the Coalition for Good Governance, an election security advocacy group. It alleges that Georgia’s touchscreen voting machines are not secure and seeks to have them replaced by hand-marked paper ballots.
The Monday filing said the plaintiffs have identified multiple specific documents that Latham failed to produce in response to a previous subpoena. It seeks to have a third party make a temporary forensic copy of her devices and search for responsive documents.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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GOPs Election-Year Standing With Independents At Risk
GOP’s Election-Year Standing With Independents At Risk https://digitalarkansasnews.com/gops-election-year-standing-with-independents-at-risk-2/
COLUMBUS, Wis. (AP) — Sarah Motiff has voted for Sen. Ron Johnson every time his name appeared on the ballot, starting in 2010 when the Wisconsin Republican was first elected as part of the tea party wave. Fond of his tough views on spending, she began the year planning to support his reelection again.
She became skeptical this summer as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection reported his office discussed giving then-Vice President Mike Pence certificates with fake presidential electors for Donald Trump from Wisconsin and Michigan, part of a broader push to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Johnson has downplayed the effort and the certificates were never given to Pence, but Motiff, a political independent, wasn’t convinced.
“I’m not going to lie when I say I’ve had some concerns about some of the reports that have come out,” the 52-year-old nonpartisan city councilwoman from Columbus, Wisconsin, said. “It just put a bad taste in my mouth.”
Nudged further by the June U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidating a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, Motiff is opposing Johnson and supports his Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, in one of the most fiercely-contested Senate races this year.
“Which was really a hard decision for me because I do think he’s done good things in the past,” Motiff said of Johnson. “But this is pretty damaging.”
Motiff’s evolution represents the challenge for Republicans emerging from a tumultuous summer, defined by the court decision, high-profile hearings on former President Donald Trump’s actions during the insurrection and intensifying legal scrutiny of his handling of classified information and efforts to overturn the election. Now, a midterm campaign that the GOP hoped would be a referendum on President Joe Biden and the economy is at risk of becoming a comparison of the two parties, putting Republicans in an unexpectedly defensive position.
In politically-divided Wisconsin where recent elections have been decided by a few thousand votes, the outcome could hinge on self-described independent voters like Motiff.
“Having former President Trump so prominently in the news in so many ways makes it easier for Democrats to frame the midterm as a choice between two competing futures as opposed to a referendum on the Democrat governance,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. “That’s hurting Republicans. It’s distracting from the referendum message and allowing more of a focus on a choice of two different parties.”
That tension is playing out in Columbia County, Wisconsin, a constellation of tidy small towns surrounded by rolling dairy farm country, all within commuting distance of Madison.
Statewide, top-of-the-ticket candidates have won by barely a percentage point in the past three elections. Trump won Columbia County by a little more than 500 votes out of 33,000 cast in 2020.
In interviews with more than a dozen independent voters here over two days last week, many were rethinking their support of the GOP this fall.
Steve Gray, a self-described Republican-leaning independent “but never a Trump fan,” opposed the June court decision, because he backs abortion rights. But the 61-year-old school maintenance manager also resented what he saw as an unwelcome political power play by out-of-power Republicans.
“Trump stacked the Supreme Court. We all knew he wanted to overturn Roe,” said Gray, of small-town Rio, where Trump won by two votes in 2020. “That decision was a partisan hand grenade Trump threw into this election.”
The court decision “upended the physics of midterm elections,” said Jesse Stinebring, a pollster advising several Democratic campaigns.
It gave voters the rare opportunity to judge a policy advance backed by the minority party, distracting them from a pure up-or-down vote on majority Democrats, he said.
“The backlash from a political perspective isn’t directed at the traditional party in power, but is actually reframed in terms of this Republican control of the Supreme Court,” Stinebring said.
The decision made Dilaine Noel’s vote automatic.
The 29-year-old data analytics director for a Madison-area business said she had never affiliated with either party.
Despite her grievances about Democrats’ warring moderate and liberal wings, her support for abortion rights gave her no choice than to vote for the party’s candidates this fall.
“By default, I have to move in that direction,” said Noel, from small-town Poynette in the Wisconsin River valley. “I’m being forced to.”
Mary Percifield is a lifelong independent voter who says the abortion decision motivated her to vote Democratic because she worries the court might overturn other rights.
“A right has been taken away from us,” the 68-year-old customer service representative from Pardeeville, said. “I question if a woman’s right to vote will be taken away. A woman’s right for birth control.”
Independent voters who lean neither Democrat nor Republican nationally preferred Biden over Trump, 52% to 37% in 2020, and preferred Democrats over Republicans in U.S. House races by a similar margin in the 2018 midterms, according to AP VoteCast. Independents who lean neither Democrat nor Republican made up 5% of the 2020 electorate and 12% in 2018.
Independents had moved toward Republicans by early this year, seeking answers on the economy, said Republican pollster David Winston, a senior adviser to House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. But they have drifted back toward Democrats as efforts by GOP leaders to focus on the economy have clashed with Republican attacks on the Justice Department and Trump’s continuing complaints about the 2020 election.
“Everything is suddenly back in the context of Trump,” Winston said in light of Trump’s prominent endorsement of Senate candidates and protests of the federal investigation into classified documents recovered from his Florida home. “It’s not that Democrats are gaining. It’s that Republicans over the summer were off talking about a variety of things. And independents are thinking, ‘If you’re not talking specifically about the problems that I’m concerned about, why am I listening?’”
Republicans remain optimistic about their chances in November, particularly about netting the handful of seats they need to regain the U.S. House majority. Inflation remains high and, despite a recent uptick, approval of Biden is still low for a party hoping to maintain its hold on power.
The economy remains the most effective message and one that breaks through others, GOP campaign officials say.
“Prices and things are so front-of-mind to people,” said Calvin Moore, the communications director for Congressional Leadership Fund, a superPAC supporting Republican U.S. House candidates. “It’s not just something that’s on the news. It’s something they are experiencing every day in their daily life. It’s something they face themselves every day when they go to the grocery store.”
A shift by independents is particularly meaningful in Wisconsin, as Republicans work to overtake Democrats’ one-seat majority in the Senate.
Johnson, among the most vulnerable Republicans running for reelection this fall, is locked in a tight race with Barnes, Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor. Of the most competitive Senate seats this year, his is the only one held by a Republican.
Though Johnson dismissed testimony about fake electors as staff work which never reached him, it reminded Christian Wood, an independent voter from Lodi, of Johnson’s opposition to certifying the election before Jan. 6. Johnson reversed course after the riot.
“It’s absolutely scary,” said Wood, who has often voted Republican. “To me that’s the most existential threat to our democracy. And to think he was even considering it makes him a non-starter.”
There’s time for an economic message to win out, but it will require news about Trump fading, GOP pollster Ayres said.
Meanwhile, Trump has a full schedule of fall campaign travel for candidates he has endorsed.
“Any distraction from that focus undermines the best Republican message,” he said.
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Trump Opposes Immediately Sharing Declassification Details In Mar-A-Largo Case
Trump Opposes Immediately Sharing Declassification Details In Mar-A-Largo Case https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-opposes-immediately-sharing-declassification-details-in-mar-a-largo-case/
Former President Trump’s legal team on Monday night opposed a request by the special master reviewing the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Largo to make disclosures about the declassification of documents found at his Florida residence.
Driving the news: Attorneys for Trump in a letter to Judge Raymond Dearie cited a draft plan that they said “requires that the Plaintiff disclose specific information regarding declassification to the Court and to the Government.”
The “time and place” for such declarations “would be in connection with a Rule 41 motion that specifically alleges declassification as a component of its argument for return of property,” wrote the lawyers, in reference to a court filing seeking the return of property seized in an unlawful search.
“Otherwise, the Special Master process will have forced the Plaintiff to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order,” they said.
Why it matters: The statement on a potential indictment is notable as it indicates that Trump accepts that he or his aides may face criminal charges, the Washington Post notes.
The big picture: Judge Aileen Cannon last week ordered the special master review and rejected the Justice Department’s request to exclude classified documents from Dearie’s examination, which is due to be completed at the end of November.
The Department of Justice is investigating whether Trump mishandled White House records at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump has said publicly that he “declassified” the documents before leaving office, which the DOJ has disputed in court filings.
What’s next: Dearie, a former chief federal judge in New York, is due to hold a preliminary conference at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn with the parties on Tuesday.
Editor’s note: This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
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Stock Futures Rise Slightly With Fed Set To Kick Off September Meeting On Tuesday
Stock Futures Rise Slightly With Fed Set To Kick Off September Meeting On Tuesday https://digitalarkansasnews.com/stock-futures-rise-slightly-with-fed-set-to-kick-off-september-meeting-on-tuesday/
Stock futures rose slightly on Tuesday morning as Wall Street looked to build on a modest rebound ahead of another rate hike from the Federal Reserve.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 61 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures added 0.22%, and those for the Nasdaq 100 rose 0.27%.
The Federal Open Markets Committee kicks off its September meeting on Tuesday, and the central bankers are expected to announce a 0.75 percentage point rate hike on Wednesday. Stocks have tumbled in recent weeks as comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell and an unexpectedly hot August consumer price index report caused traders to prepare for even higher rates until inflation cools.
“I think last week a lot of the work was done to reset interest rate expectations,” said Angelo Kourkafas, investment strategist at Edward Jones.
“The momentum in equity markets is to the downside. … Until we establish that pattern of lower [inflation] readings, it’s going to be hard to reverse that elevated uncertainty and volatility that we are seeing,” Kourkafas added.
During a choppy trading session on Monday, stocks rose in the afternoon to snap a two-day losing streak and claw back some of their recent losses. The Dow rose 197 points, or about 0.6%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained roughly 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively.
However, after the market closed on Monday, Ford announced that supply chain issues would cost the automaker an extra $1 billion in the third quarter. Shares fell 4.5% in extended trading.
On the economic front, investors will get a fresh look at the housing market on Tuesday morning with the August reports for housing starts and building permits.
CNBC Pro: Fund manager says the bear market is going to get ‘nasty’
Fund manager Cole Smead believes the stock market is still in the early innings of a bear market — and warns that it won’t be a “garden variety” one.
But, he is not losing any sleep over it. Here’s why:
Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Zavier Ong
Ford under pressure after supply chain warning
Shares of Ford fell more than 4% in extended trading after the automaker warned it would take a $1 billion hit due to supply chain costs for the third quarter.
Ford set that an inability get all the parts it needs could delay delivery for more than 40,000 vehicles to dealerships. The company did say it expects those vehicles to be moved during the fourth quarter and reiterated its full-year guidance for adjusted earnings before interest and taxes.
— Jesse Pound
Stock futures open higher
U.S. stock futures opened modestly higher on Monday evening, suggesting that the late-day rise for equities may carry over into the next session.
Nasdaq 100 futures were the early leaders, but were still up just 0.2%.
— Jesse Pound
Stocks break losing streak on Monday
The three major indexes ended positive today — breaking multi-day losing streaks — as the markets came out of last week’s sell-off.
SPDR S&P 500 and Invesco QQQ both surpassed their 30-day average volume.
Approximately three stocks in the New York Stock Exchange advanced for every two that declined.
Nine of 11 sectors were positive, with materials up the highest at 1.6%. Of those that fell, health care posted the greatest loss going down approximately 0.5%.
The U.S. two-year, five-year and 10-year Treasury notes all hit highs not seen in more than a decade.
DJ Transports gained nearly 2%, breaking a four-day losing streak. It was the largest gain of any of the major U.S. indices, which all were positive at the close.
— Alex Harring, Chris Hayes
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Arkansas State Crime Lab Actively Working To Reduce Number Of Untested Sexual Assault Kits
Arkansas State Crime Lab Actively Working To Reduce Number Of Untested Sexual Assault Kits https://digitalarkansasnews.com/arkansas-state-crime-lab-actively-working-to-reduce-number-of-untested-sexual-assault-kits/
Despite Arkansas’s efforts to clear a growing backlog of sexual assault test kits, thousands of kits have still been sitting on shelves inside the crime lab.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Despite the state’s latest efforts to clear a growing backlog in sexual assault test kits, thousands of kits have still been sitting on shelves inside of the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory.
In 2019, Arkansas passed Act 839 which was a big step in working to increase the transparency for victims and to try and prevent the backlog from happening again.
Though it is now three years later, the backlog has still not been cleared.
“It’s not where we need to be,” Kermit Channell, Director of the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory said.
We have been following this story for nearly a decade, and have documented the progress that the state has made in clearing the backlog of sexual assault kits.
Channell commented that when Act 839 was first passed, the lab had a total of 461 untested kits.
Three years later, that number has since increased to 567 untested kits that are still sitting on a shelf.
Channell explained there are many factors that have contributed to why the crime lab hasn’t been able to get caught up— and he’s looking forward to increased support and resources from state officials to assist in the problem.
He has hopes that increased resources can continue to provide survivors with the answers they need.
“I can’t imagine, but the last thing I would want is for a victim, or a survivor of sexual assault to have that kit taken, and that kit sits there, and she’s ignored, or she’s not believed,” Channell said.
One of the main issues that they have faced is the constant flow of test kits that the crime lab receives.
“I think we’re always seeing an uptick in the number of sexual assault cases that are coming into the lab,” he explained.
Channell added that the crime lab consistently receives more than 800 new sexual assault test kits a year, and it has been that way over the course of the past 3 years— He also commented that it has made it difficult to focus on clearing the backlog.
Josie Graves, a survivor of sexual assault, said she was raped at the age of 4, 14, during undergrad, and during law school— And all of those happened in Arkansas.
She said her sexual assault test kit has been processed, but as a sexual assault survivor, she remains concerned for those still awaiting results.
“As a survivor, it gives you the feeling that what happened to you isn’t being prioritized, and that your safety and your traumatic experiences aren’t being prioritized,” Graves described.
Act 839 was enacted to specifically fix issues like those.
The law requires law enforcement to submit a sexual assault test kit for processing within 15 days of receiving it. Then, the lab has 60 days from that time to test and complete it.
The crime lab explained that they are nowhere near meeting that goal, and the current turnaround time for the kits is actually 8 months, instead of 60 days.
“I’m not going to be happy with that until we reach 60 days. I would love to have 30, but 30 is very hard,” Channell said.
Having prolonged test kits sitting on shelves in the crime lab is very harmful to a survivor’s recovery, Graves added. She went on to comment on how it also takes a lot of strength to even get tested in the first place.
“A rape kit is supposed to be for you and your benefit, but it still feels like you’re being violated all over again,” she said.
She also explained that you’re continually anxious and waking up just wondering how the process will turn out.
Graves shared that this anxiety and “waiting game” takes an emotional toll on survivors, and it’s oftentimes on the heels of them experiencing the most traumatic event of their lives.
“To think that you could be walking around with your assailant on the same streets as you, that’s appalling,” she said. “To think that person could be out revictimizing other people because it’s not just you,” she said.
The crime lab has acknowledged there’s work to be done, but it’s not just a rise in new cases that has been preventing them from dealing with the backlog.
Chanell said that understaffing is also a major contributor to this problem.
“To address that, the Governor has given us 5 new DNA positions that we’re currently trying to fill. We’ve filled some, but we’re not getting a whole lot of applicants,” Channell said.
Channell explained that it’s not easy to become a DNA forensic scientist, due to extensive coursework, and training, which can take up to a year to complete.
Once that is completed, it takes a while before a new hire can ever touch a case.
He went on to share that even after training, the starting salary for this position is around $47,000.
“We’re not fully staffed at all. I have 6 people right now in training so I’m still trying to fill some other positions, but when we have those on board, I think we’ll be right where we need to be,” he said.
Channell stated the lab has lost 7 DNA analysts since over the last few years for various reasons.
Now, the crime lab has begun to look into providing other incentives to attract qualified candidates, such as increasing the starting pay for the position.
Until then, hundreds of survivors could be left waiting for answers, and waiting for the closure these processed test kits can bring.
“It’s harder to work on yourself when other people don’t think that your healing is just as important as well,” Graves said.
Channell also said the crime lab will continue to be “victim-centered” and he has taken on the challenge to get the backlog cleared.
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Disgraced Crypto Founder Says Hes Not On The Run. But No One Knows Where He Is.
Disgraced Crypto Founder Says He’s Not On The Run. But No One Knows Where He Is. https://digitalarkansasnews.com/disgraced-crypto-founder-says-hes-not-on-the-run-but-no-one-knows-where-he-is/
The person most closely associated with last spring’s crypto crash appears to be on the run after an arrest warrant was issued for him — and investigators have asked for Interpol’s help to track him down.
Do Kwon, the South Korean developer of the TerraUSD and Luna cryptocurrencies, is believed to have been in Singapore since at least the spring, when those coins lost nearly all of their value. But Singapore authorities said this weekend he is no longer there, and South Korean investigators have reportedly asked Interpol to issue a “red notice” that would allow officers in member countries to provisionally arrest Kwon pending extradition if they find him.
Last Wednesday the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office issued an arrest warrant for Kwon and five other people who worked on both the currencies and Terraform Labs, the company that Kwon co-founded. Prosecutors did not list the charges, but investors have said he defrauded them in promoting the coins. TerraUSD — which used a computer program that claimed to peg its value to the U.S. dollar — and a related token known as Luna both took off in the past year, with each multiplying in value dozens of times over before crashing in May.
A Terra spokesman did not reply to a request for comment. Kwon also did not reply to a request for comment. He said on Twitter Sunday that “We are in the process of defending ourselves in multiple jurisdictions – we have held ourselves to an extremely high bar of integrity, and look forward to clarifying the truth over the next few months.”
The red-notice request was originally reported by the Financial Times.
The Kwon case is being watched closely as a sign of how aggressively law enforcement will pursue those engaged in allegedly illegal activities in the crypto space. Last month the Treasury Department issued sanctions on Tornado Cash, which helps anonymize crypto transactions, in a strong example of a crackdown on tech-based financial tools.
But the pursuit of individuals in crypto is much rarer, and Kwon’s case could be a bellwether for how other projects that lost large sums of value could be targeted in the courts — and if, eventually, some investors might claw their money back.
The 31-year-old Kwon graduated from Stanford University and briefly worked at Apple before returning to his home country several years ago to found a number of crypto projects, including Luna. Before the spring crash, Kwon was hailed as a visionary and even attracted a cult of everyday fans known as “Lunatics.”
Nor was it just retail traders — Terraform also raised money from respective financiers such as Silicon Valley VC firm Lightspeed Venture Partners.
But in May a quick sell-off began for still-unclear reasons, prompting the loss of more than $40 billion in value, according to analysis firm Elliptic, as the price of Luna plunged to nearly zero and TerraUSD went from $1 to $0.11. The collapse helped trigger a broader crypto crash that affected dozens of other assets and companies.
Bitcoin has gone from nearly $40,000 to under $20,000 since the Terra collapse, and the total market value of crypto has plummeted by more than a trillion dollars in just a few months.
Kwon made an attempt to relaunch Luna shortly after, to the outrage of many investors.
Law-enforcement experts said that they believed prosecution of the entrepreneur was possible but challenging given the vagaries of crypto, with the line in the industry between fraud and risky investment often blurry.
“If someone walks into a bank and holds it up for a lot of money with a videotape of the whole thing, well that’s a pretty clear-cut case,” said William Callahan III, a former Drug Enforcement Administration special agent who now serves as director of government and strategic affairs for a crypto company called the Blockchain Intelligence Group. “Investigating and prosecuting something like this requires a much more unique set of skills.”
He said the case against Kwon would likely turn on whether it can be proved he knowingly misled investors in stumping for the coins or was mounting a good-faith campaign for a risky-but-legal-venture.
Some evidence gathered by South Korean investigators so far, according to local media, includes allegations that Kwon and other Terraform executives decided to close their South Korea offices just a week before the currencies crashed. Kwon has said the shuttering was long in the works.
On Sunday the pursuit of Kwon took a surreal social-media turn when Kwon, outspoken on Twitter, took to the platform to deny he is a fugitive.
“I am not ‘on the run’ or anything similar – for any government agency that has shown interest to communicate, we are in full cooperation and we don’t have anything to hide,” he posted.
But the Seoul prosecutors quickly denied it. He is “obviously on the run,” the office said in a statement, according to local news media agency Yonhap.
Kwon quipped that he would only give away his coordinates if “1) we are friends, 2) we have plans to meet 3) we are involved in a gps based web3 game.”
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Trump Lawyers Acknowledge Mar-A-Lago Probe Could Lead To Indictment
Trump Lawyers Acknowledge Mar-A-Lago Probe Could Lead To Indictment https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-lawyers-acknowledge-mar-a-lago-probe-could-lead-to-indictment/
The Justice Department and lawyers for Donald Trump filed separate proposals Monday for conducting an outside review of documents seized at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home, with key disagreements over how the process should work and Trump’s team acknowledging that the criminal probe could lead to an indictment.
Both sides referenced a “draft plan” given to them by Judge Raymond J. Dearie, the newly appointed special master. Trump’s lawyers expressed concern that Dearie posed questions about the documents that the judge who appointed Dearie has left unasked, arguing that Trump might be left at a legal disadvantage if he answered them at this stage of the process.
Specifically, the legal team objected to what it said was Dearie’s request that it “disclose specific information regarding declassification to the Court and to the Government.”
Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the special master and document-review process, has not asked Trump’s lawyers to address whether about 100 documents with classified markings that were seized by the FBI on Aug. 8 might in fact not be classified.
Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly suggested in court filings that the former president could have declassified the documents — but they have not actually asserted that he did so.
In Monday’s filing, Trump’s lawyers wrote that they don’t want Dearie to force Trump to “fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order” — a remarkable statement that acknowledges at least the possibility that the former president or his aides could be criminally charged.
The Justice Department is investigating the possible mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and the possible hiding or destroying of government records. A key issue in the probe is that even after Trump’s team responded to a grand jury subpoena requesting all documents with classified markings that were being kept at Mar-a-Lago, with aides reportedly saying all relevant material had been handed over, the FBI search turned up about 100 more such documents.
The government’s filing Monday evening did not address how Dearie should review the classified documents. Prosecutors said they were waiting to see if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta would grant their request to stay Cannon’s decision to include the classified documents in the special master review — leaving about 11,000 nonclassified documents and other items.
Prosecutors have said the classified material is by definition the property of the government and cannot be shielded from them by privilege. Cannon’s order barred prosecutors from using the classified materials in their criminal probe until the outside review is complete.
Dearie — a former chief federal judge in New York — is scheduled to meet for the first time with Trump’s lawyers and Justice Department prosecutors Tuesday afternoon. The session, in Dearie’s courtroom in the Brooklyn federal courthouse, will focus on how to proceed.
The Justice Department’s filing said a third-party vendor should be hired to scan the seized documents into a secure software system. Trump’s lawyers would then review the nonclassified documents and decide which should be shielded from criminal investigators because of attorney-client or executive privilege. Prosecutors would note any disagreement with Trump’s defense team, and Dearie would settle any disputes.
“FBI agents will attend and observe the scanning process to maintain the chain of custody of the evidence,” the government wrote.
In earlier filings, the Justice Department had unsuccessfully argued that a special master was unnecessary and that, as a former president, Trump could not assert executive privilege in this investigation. Prosecutors also said that temporarily barring the government from using the documents in its investigation could pose a national security risk.
But Cannon disagreed.
She has ordered Dearie to complete his review by Nov. 30 and said he should prioritize sorting through the classified documents, though she did not provide a timeline as to when that portion must be completed. The Justice Department said it hopes its Monday proposal helps complete the review in an “efficient and timely manner.”
Trump’s team said in its filing that the government should begin to make the classified documents available for review as soon as next week by Dearie — who previously served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which handles sensitive national security cases.
The Justice Department urged Dearie in its Monday filing to check in with the National Archives and Records Administration — the federal agency charged with maintaining and tracking government records — as he conducts the review.
It also proposed that Dearie conduct weekly reviews with the parties by video or audio conference to resolve questions and ensure smooth operation of the review process.
The government has said that it already reviewed all the seized documents prior to Trump requesting a special master, to separate out any that should be shielded from investigators because of attorney-client privilege. That filter team, approved by the magistrate judge who also approved the search warrant, set aside 64 sets of documents — made up of some 520 pages — that might be considered protected by attorney-client privilege, the government has said.
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Cheney Says GOP Leaders Are Treating Trump Like A king By Defending Him In Mar-A-Lago Probe
Cheney Says GOP Leaders Are Treating Trump Like A ‘king’ By Defending Him In Mar-A-Lago Probe https://digitalarkansasnews.com/cheney-says-gop-leaders-are-treating-trump-like-a-king-by-defending-him-in-mar-a-lago-probe/
WASHINGTON — Rep. Liz Cheney launched a blistering attack on Donald Trump and his allies Monday, accusing Republican leaders of treating the former president like a “king” by defending him at every turn in a federal investigation into classified documents stored at his Florida estate.
“Those who are protecting Donald Trump — elected leaders of my party — are now willing to condemn FBI agents, Department of Justice officials, and pretend that taking top-secret SCI documents and keeping them in a desk drawer in an office in Mar-a-Lago, or in an unsecured location anywhere, was somehow not a problem. They are attempting to excuse this behavior,” Cheney, R-Wyo., said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. (SCI is short for “sensitive compartmented information.”)
“Bit by bit, excuse by excuse, we’re putting Donald Trump above the law. We are rendering indefensible conduct normal, legal and appropriate — as though he were a king,” Cheney added, citing what she said was the willingness of some elected GOP officials to defend allegations of actions that touch on obstruction of justice.
Cheney, a vocal Trump critic and the vice chairwoman of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, has been shunned in some conservative circles. But on this day, she was the keynote speaker at the AEI’s annual Constitution Day lecture, where she got a standing ovation and laughter when she told a story about how a House GOP colleague had mocked Trump as “orange Jesus.” Cheney did not reveal the colleague’s name.
Both of Cheney’s parents — former Vice President Dick Cheney and Lynn Cheney — attended Monday’s speech, as did Bush-era conservatives like Peter Wehner and Paul Wolfowitz, as well as Jeffrey Rosen, the former acting attorney general who refused Trump’s order to help him overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Cheney, who lost her primary for another House term and is flirting with a 2024 presidential bid, warned that Trump is encouraging his supporters to turn to violence “to prevent his prosecution.”
“It is hard to see this as anything but a direct threat to our Constitution, to our republic — and a credible one at that,” she said. “One can only wonder, is this where the Republican Party will go next? That prosecution is inappropriate, because MAGA will violently oppose it?”
Shortly before her speech, Cheney introduced election reform legislation with Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., aimed at preventing another Jan. 6 attack or a future attempt to overturn a presidential election.
The Presidential Election Reform Act would overhaul the Electoral Count Act, the archaic 1887 law that governs the counting of electoral votes, which Trump and his allies tried to halt in a bid to stay in power after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. The House could vote on the bill this week.
But Cheney made it clear in her speech that the legislation is not meant to take the focus off Trump’s action’s.
“No one should take our effort to reform the electoral count as any indication that Donald Trump did not violate the existing law or did not violate the Constitution,” she said.
As she has done repeatedly over the past two years, Cheney knocked Trump for not calling off a mob of his supporters who were attacking police officers and hunting down members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6.
She praised Pence for his actions that day; he called Defense Department officials for help and returned to the Capitol to finish certifying the election results.
“Mike Pence was essentially the president for most of that day,” Cheney said. “White House staff knew it, and so did every other Republican and Democratic leader in Washington. How could Donald Trump’s refusal to act, his betrayal of our republic, of our Constitution, of our principles, come with no cost?”
In a previously untold story, Cheney recounted how, on Jan. 6 before the violence, she was in the Republican cloakroom just off the House floor watching her GOP colleagues sign sheets of paper to object to the 2020 election results for states like Arizona and Pennsylvania.
“And as I was sitting there, a member came in and he signed his name on each one of the state’s sheets. And then he said under his breath, ‘The things we do for the orange Jesus,’” Cheney said, sparking some laughter from the audience. “And I thought, you know, you’re taking an act that is unconstitutional.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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Hurricane Fiona Seen Intensifying After Slamming Dominican Republic Puerto Rico
Hurricane Fiona Seen Intensifying After Slamming Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico https://digitalarkansasnews.com/hurricane-fiona-seen-intensifying-after-slamming-dominican-republic-puerto-rico/
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico/Santo Domingo, Sept 19 (Reuters) – Hurricane Fiona was churning north on Monday evening after bringing torrential rain and powerful winds to the Dominican Republic and triggering a total power outage in neighboring Puerto Rico, where at least two people died.
The Category 2 hurricane will likely become a Category 3 as it moves across warm Caribbean waters toward the Turks and Caicos. Fiona was upgraded to a Category 2 with winds of 105 mph (169 kph) by the National Hurricane Center on Monday evening.
On Tuesday, the center of Fiona is expected to pass near or to the east of the archipelago, which is subject to a current hurricane warning, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Tropical storm conditions were also expected in the Bahamas.
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After strafing Puerto Rico, Fiona made landfall in the Dominican Republic near Boca Yuma at 3:30 a.m. local time, according to the NHC. The center of the storm reached the northern coast of Hispaniola before noon.
It is the first hurricane to score a direct hit on the Dominican Republic since Jeanne left severe damage in the east of the country in September 2004.
Fiona caused severe flooding, leaving several villages isolated, and some 800 evacuees and more than 11,000 people without power in the eastern region of the country.
“The damage is considerable,” said Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader. He plans to declare a state of disaster in the provinces of La Altagracia, where the famed resort of Punta Cana is located, El Seibo and Hato Mayor.
In La Altagracia, in the extreme east of the country and where the hurricane made landfall Monday morning, the overflow of the Yuma River damaged agricultural areas and left several towns isolated.
Electric and water utilities are working to restore services in affected areas.
In Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States, residents were still facing strong winds, frequent lightning and heavy rain.
Fiona made landfall there on Sunday afternoon, dumping up to 30 inches (76.2 cm) of rain in some areas.
The storm comes five years after the Puerto Rico was ravaged by Hurricane Maria, which triggered the worst power blackout in U.S. history.
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi on Monday, promising to increase the support personnel sent to the island over the next few days.
“The President said that he will ensure that the Federal team remains on the job to get it done,” according to the White House.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell will travel there on Tuesday.
Jeannette Rivera, 54, a public relations worker in Orlando, Florida, said she had not spoken with her family since a spotty phone call early Sunday.
A view of destroyed buildings in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, September 19, 2022. REUTERS/Ricardo Rojas
She fears for her parents’ safety and the health of her 84-year-old father, who had just contracted COVID-19 and was running a fever.
“My worry is that if they need help, there’s no way to communicate,” Rivera said.
WITHOUT POWER
Nearly 90% of Puerto Rico remained without power on Monday, according to Poweroutage.us. Officials said it would take days to reconnect the whole island of 3.3 million people.
Many roads were left impassable due to downed trees and mudslides. Images on social media depicted submerged cars, people wading in waist-deep water and rescue boats floating down swamped streets. Just 30% of drinking water customers have service.
Crews rescued some 400 people from flooding in Salinas, a town in the south where rain has turned to a drizzle. The south and southeast regions were the hardest hit.
Puerto Rico’s power grid remains fragile despite emergency repairs after Maria, according to Center for a New Economy, a Puerto Rican think tank.
Maria, a Category 5 storm in 2017 which killed more than 3,000 people, left 1.5 million customers without electricity and knocked out 80% of power lines. Thousands of Puerto Ricans still live under makeshift tarpaulin roofs.
While the National Weather Service lifted its hurricane warning for Puerto Rico on Monday, officials warned that rainbands could follow the storm system for hundreds of miles.
A 70-year-old man in the northern town of Arecibo is the first known casualty in Puerto Rico. He was trying to start his electric generator when the machine exploded, killing him instantly, police said.
A second man drowned in the afternoon. Police said an 88-year-old woman died of a heart attack at a shelter.
Hundreds of responders were assisting in recovery efforts after Biden declared an emergency for the island, allowing FEMA to coordinate disaster relief and provide emergency protective measures.
Pierluisi said the government’s response has been much more efficient than during Hurricane Maria, which became highly politicized with former President Donald Trump’s administration criticized for being too sluggish in providing disaster relief. Trump refuted that.
The government has not estimated the damages, since it is still in the response period, though the governor said damages were in the millions.
For most of the five years since Maria struck Puerto Rico, the debt-laden government and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority were mired in bankruptcy and island finances were managed by a federally appointed oversight board.
(This story corrects year that Hurricane Jeanne struck Dominican Republic to 2004, not 2018, in 5th paragraph)
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Reporting by Ivelisse Riveria in San Juan and Ezequiel Abiu Lopez in Santo Domingo; Additional reporting by Tyler Clifford, Rich McKay, Trevor Hunnicutt, Mica Rosenberg, Christian Plumb and Tim Reid; Writing by Tyler Clifford and Costas Pitas; Editing by Frank McGurty, Mark Porter, Richard Chang and Leslie Adler
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Trump Mocks Biden For Being Seated At Back Of Queens Funeral
Trump Mocks Biden For Being Seated At Back Of Queen’s Funeral https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-mocks-biden-for-being-seated-at-back-of-queens-funeral/
Donald Trump has ridiculed President Joe Biden for where he was seated at Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral on Monday.
The President and First Lady were placed a whole 14 rows behind King Charles III, towards the back of Westminster Abbey.
Taking to his social media platform, Truth Social, the 45th president claimed America has lost respect on the international stage under Mr Biden’s leadership.
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He also took the opportunity to suggest his successor should get to know the leaders of “Third World” nations.
“This is what’s happened to America in just two short years. No respect,” he wrote.
“However, a good time for our President to get to know the leaders of certain Third World countries.
“If I were president, they wouldn’t have sat me back there – and our country would be much different than it is right now!”
He then followed up with another post highlighting the importance of location, adding: “In real estate, like in politics and in life, LOCATION IS EVERYTHING!!!”
Mr Biden was also forced to wait because he turned up at Westminster ten minutes after foreign leaders were designated to arrive.
He and wife Jill arrived shortly after 10am, ten minutes after the cut-off period of 9.35am to 9.55am when the international leaders were expected to be seated.
They then had to make way for the arrival of Victoria and George Cross holders and were only allowed to enter Westminster Abbey after that procession had concluded.
After Her Majesty’s death on September 8, Mr Trump paid tribute to her life by saying she left behind a tremendous legacy.
“Queen Elizabeth’s historic and remarkable reign left a tremendous legacy of peace and prosperity for Great Britain,” he said.
“Her leadership and enduring diplomacy secured and advanced alliances with the United States and countries around the world.”
The diplomatic contingent which included heads of state and dignitaries comprised 500 of the 2,200-strong guestlist crammed into Westminster Abbey for one of the most anticipated global events in recent history.
Mr Trump – and the other four living presidents – were not invited given they are not current heads of state.
All five were however invited to a memorial service in Washington to honour Her Majesty this Wednesday.
The exclusive event at the National Washington Cathedral will feature an honour guard by the Queen’s Colour Squadron which is a unit of the Royal Air Force.
The Cathedral’s bell tolled 96 times after Her Majesty’s death to give thanks for her lifetime of devotion.
It also held a memorial service in 1965 for former British prime minister Winston Churchill.
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Ron DeSantis: I Wasnt Actually Responsible For Creating That Migrant Stunt
Ron DeSantis: I Wasn’t Actually Responsible For Creating That Migrant ‘Stunt’ https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ron-desantis-i-wasnt-actually-responsible-for-creating-that-migrant-stunt/
Fox News
On Hannity Monday night, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attempted to dismiss accusations that he engaged in a stunt when he flew about 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard last week, instead claiming that President Joe Biden engaged in “the biggest stunt” by not going along with his predecessor’s immigration policies.
While some have accused the governor of “political human trafficking,” Sean Hannity helped DeSantis portray his actions as acceptable to the public at large and welcomed by the migrants themselves.
“Just for the record: this was voluntary. All migrants were put up in hotels, given accommodations, they were fed, they were showered, they were offered haircuts and any other services that were needed, correct?” Hannity asked.
“Yeah,” DeSantis replied briskly. “And not only that — they all signed consent forms to go. And then the vendor that is doing this for Florida provided them with a packet that had a map of Martha’s Vineyard. It had the numbers for different services on Martha’s Vineyard. And then it had numbers for the overall agencies in Massachusetts that handle things involving immigration and refugees. So it was voluntary. And all of the other nonsense you’re hearing is just not true.”
The “nonsense” DeSantis is referring to could be allegations from migrants that they were transported under false pretenses. Some Democrats have also supported investigations into possible civil rights violations and kidnapping.
DeSantis pointed to the U.S.-Mexico border to defend his decision, which Hannity and other Fox hosts had a field day with last week, as Martha’s Vineyard is a frequent destination for former President Barack Obama.
“I think what we’ve been able to do is show that this border is a disaster. Biden failed on this as much or more than on any other policy, and now people are talking about it,” DeSantis said, later praising former President Donald Trump’s border policies. (Trump, meanwhile, has reportedly bristled at DeSantis’ move, claiming he’s trying to steal his thunder when it comes to policies targeting immigrants.)
Speaking of those in the opposite party, DeSantis continued: “They accused the governors of Arizona, Texas and me of political stunts dealing with illegal immigration.”
“But the biggest stunt was Biden coming into office and reversing Trump’s policies, not because Trump’s policies were not working — he reversed them because he wanted to virtue-signal to his base and he wanted to show that he thought Donald Trump was bad,” DeSantis claimed, adding that Biden knew “what would end up happening.”
“And so he has done — he has pulled the biggest political stunt.”
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Jam-Packed Little Rock Ward 6 Meeting Gets Heated https://digitalarkansasnews.com/jam-packed-little-rock-ward-6-meeting-gets-heated/
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – It was a jam-packed community meeting tonight for Ward 6 in Little Rock, with locals bringing up issues for more than an hour that they would like to see fixed.
The concerns varied from complaints about speeding and drainage issues in Ward 6 to crime. Just this weekend, there was a homicide on John Barrow Road, which is in Ward 6.
The city director said all of the complaints are things they are working on, but her opponent said otherwise.
The original point of the meeting was to discuss how to use the money Ward 6 is getting from a bond that was approved last October — with streets, drainage and parks being the main concerns.
But, for more than an hour, residents brought up issues they are seeing… asking why they are seeing no changes.
Some said these issues with safety and crime are not issues you would see in other parts of town, and they feel neglected.
City Director Doris Wright said she is listening to residents and working on their behalf, but the community meeting tonight also set the stage for a political scene.
“I don’t care what you heard tonight,” Wright said. “Nobody else that is in my position could have done any more than what I have done.”
Wright’s opponent, Andrea Lewis, said she feels the meeting Monday night revealed a lack of communication in Ward 6 and showed a need for more meetings.
“I just feel like they need new fresh perspective, change to really get some of these issues brought to the forefront,” Lewis said.
Wright acknowledged this is one of the few public meetings because it required input from residents, but said she is willing to attend any meeting that she is informed about.
Residents in the area have until the end of the month to submit their requests for improvements that can be done with bond money received.
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A Landmark Supreme Court Fight Over Social Media Now Looks Likely
A Landmark Supreme Court Fight Over Social Media Now Looks Likely https://digitalarkansasnews.com/a-landmark-supreme-court-fight-over-social-media-now-looks-likely/
Conflicting lower court rulings about removing controversial material from social media platforms point toward a landmark Supreme Court decision on whether the First Amendment protects Big Tech’s editorial discretion or forbids its censorship of unpopular views.
The stakes are high not just for government and the companies, but because of the increasingly dominant role platforms such as Twitter and Facebook play in American democracy and elections. Social media posts have the potential to amplify disinformation or hateful speech, but removal of controversial viewpoints can stifle public discourse about important political issues.
Governments that say conservative voices are the ones most often eliminated by the decisions of tech companies scored a major victory Friday, when a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a Texas law barring companies from removing posts based political ideology.
“Big Tech’s reign of endless censorship and their suppression of conservative viewpoints is coming to an end,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said after the decision. “These massive corporate entities cannot continue to go unchecked as they silence the voices of millions of Americans.”
But a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit went the other way earlier this year, saying that a similar Florida law violated constitutional protections for tech companies that do not want to host views on their platforms that they find hateful, divisive or false.
Judge Kevin Newsom criticized a depiction of social media platforms as “dumb pipes … reflexively transmitting data from point A to point B.” Instead, he wrote, their “content-moderation decisions constitute the same sort of editorial judgments” entitled to First Amendment protections when made by a newspaper.
All of the appeals court judges considering the Florida and Texas laws have noted the difficulty of applying some Supreme Court precedents regarding legacy media. And all weighing in so far were nominated by Republican presidents, with Newsom and Judge Andrew Oldham, who wrote the conflicting opinion in the Texas case, both nominated by President Donald Trump, who was kicked off Twitter in the aftermath of the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
“We are in a new arena, a very extensive one, for speakers and for those who would moderate their speech,” wrote Judge Leslie Southwick, who has served on the 5th Circuit for 15 years and dissented from Friday’s decision. “None of the precedents fit seamlessly. … The closest match I see is case law establishing the right of newspapers to control what they do and do not print, and that is the law that guides me until the Supreme Court gives us more.”
It is possible such guidance will come soon, perhaps in the term that begins next month. Disagreements among lower courts about important legal issues is the most likely driver of the Supreme Court’s decision to take up a case, and Florida’s petition challenging the 11th Circuit ruling is due at the high court Wednesday.
When the justices in May decided to keep Texas’s law from taking effect while legal battles continued, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the issue “will plainly merit this court’s review.”
“Social media platforms have transformed the way people communicate with each other and obtain news,” wrote Alito, who was joined by colleagues Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch. “At issue is a ground-breaking Texas law that addresses the power of dominant social media corporations to shape public discussion of the important issues of the day.”
Alito added: “It is not at all obvious how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the internet, should apply to large social media companies.” The court’s majority did not explain its reasoning for blocking the Texas law, but at the time, only a district court had weighed in, and it had ruled for the tech companies.
Oldham’s opinion changed that. He wrote that social media companies “offer a rather odd inversion of the First Amendment.”
“That Amendment, of course, protects every person’s right to ‘the freedom of speech,’ ” Oldham wrote. “But the platforms argue that buried somewhere in the person’s enumerated right to free speech lies a corporation’s unenumerated right to muzzle speech.”
Generally, legal experts closely tracking the case said the 5th Circuit decision is at odds with long-standing court precedent and warned that the Texas law would force the companies to disseminate what they consider misinformation and harmful content on their platforms.
“To the extent that politicians have spread conspiracy theories or incitement, that will no longer be grounds for platforms taking them down,” said Evelyn Douek, who teaches about the regulation of online speech at Stanford Law School. Social media platforms, she added, may be forced to keep “a lot of horrible and otherwise hateful speech” that they currently remove and “may become unusable.”
At its core, the First Amendment protects against government infringement on speech. Courts have also held that the First Amendment protects the right of private companies, including newspapers and broadcasters, to control the speech they publish and disseminate. That includes the right of editors not to publish something they don’t want to publish.
In a 2019 decision, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote for the court’s conservatives that a private cable access company did not become a government actor subject to the First Amendment’s restrictions just because it was licensed by a government.
In the course of the decision, he touched on the roles of private companies. “Providing some kind of forum for speech is not an activity that only governmental entities have traditionally performed,” Kavanaugh wrote in Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck. “Therefore, a private entity who provides a forum for speech is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor.”
The liberals on the court dissented on the specifics of the case but seemed to agree on the rights of private companies. “There are purely private spaces, where the First Amendment is (as relevant here) inapplicable,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “The First Amendment leaves a private store owner (or homeowner), for example, free to remove a customer (or dinner guest) for expressing unwanted views.”
Oldham found that unenlightening for the Texas case, and pointed to a footnote in Kavanaugh’s opinion: “A distinct question not raised here is the degree to which the First Amendment protects private entities such as [media companies] from government legislation or regulation requiring those private entities to open their property for speech by others.”
Oldham distinguished newspapers from social media platforms, which Oldham writes are more akin to “common carriers” like telephone companies. (Thomas also has declared himself open to such a reading of the law.) Legal experts said the court was correct to note the difference, but that online platforms are distinct from phone companies, for instance, which do not cut off service based on the content of a conversation.
“That’s what makes these cases hard,” said Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “We don’t have a doctrinal box to put social media platforms in. They occupy a new space, and they should occupy a new space in the law too, but what does that look like?”
Some laws that would be unconstitutional as applied to news outlets and their publishing decisions, Jaffer suggested, may be permitted when it comes to social media platforms. A social media company could be required, for instance, to explain its decision to remove someone from its platform or to be more transparent about how it moderates content.
Both the Texas and Florida laws have such provisions, and the judges reviewing them were inclined to let them stand.
Alan Z. Rozenshtein, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, agreed with the 5th Circuit’s description of social media platforms as increasingly central to public discussion, and said there is potentially a role for some government regulation of content moderation. But he said the Texas law goes too far, calling the 5th Circuit’s position that content moderation is censorship “extreme.”
The companies, he said, are trying to create platforms that their users “want to hang out on.”
“We can talk about whether or not Nazis and terrorists should have the right to speak, but it’s not straightforward censorship,” he said. “If you have an unmoderated cesspool, that’s great for the trolls, but that’s not conducive to other people’s speech — especially to those who are going to be threatened and turned off. There has to be some balance.”
Tech industry groups representing the social media companies are still weighing how they will respond to the ruling. Lawyers for the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and Netchoice met Monday to discuss how to challenge the decision, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their plans.
They are considering an emergency request to the Supreme Court to block the law from taking effect early next month, the person said. The groups are also considering asking a full complement of 5th Circuit judges to reconsider the case initially decided by a three-judge panel or appealing directly to the high court, potentially forcing a decision that could have broad implications for state legislatures considering legislation similar to the Texas law.
“The fight is far from over, and in the long run we are very confident that any ruling that attempts to legally mandate what viewpoints a private business distributes will not stand,” said Matt Schruers, CCIA president.
Ca...
Trump Ally Mike Lindell Must Face Defamation Suit Over Election-Rigging Claims
Trump Ally Mike Lindell Must Face Defamation Suit Over Election-Rigging Claims https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-ally-mike-lindell-must-face-defamation-suit-over-election-rigging-claims/
MyPillow Inc. Chief Executive Mike Lindell must face a defamation lawsuit brought by a voting machine company that the Trump ally falsely accused of rigging the 2020 U.S. election, a Minnesota federal judge ruled on Monday.
Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright denied Lindell and MyPillow’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit by Smartmatic USA Corp., finding ample evidence that Lindell ignored publicly available information that contradicted his theories.
Judge Wright also found sufficient evidence that Lindell knew or should have known his statements were false and acted with “actual malice” in promoting them, a key legal threshold in defamation cases.
Lawyers for the defendants did not immediately respond to inquiries Monday.
An attorney for Smartmatic, J. Erik Connolly, told Reuters in a statement the company was pleased with the ruling.
“Mr. Lindell continues to spread disinformation and, by doing so, jeopardizes secure and accurate voting in the United States and elsewhere. It must come to an end,” Connolly said.
Smartmatic operated voting machines in Los Angeles County in 2020 and says there were no irregularities in its tallies.
The London-based company alleged in its January complaint that Lindell knowingly made false election-rigging claims to boost MyPillow’s sales and made Smartmatic “synonymous with election fraud.”
The defendants said in their motion to dismiss that Lindell’s statements were “not inherently improbable” and were based on publicly available information about problems with voting machines.
Smartmatic and competitor Dominion Voting Systems Inc have filed similar lawsuits against Trump allies and media outlets that spread the rigging claims, including Fox Corp and Newsmax Media Inc.
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Fairlee And Other Vermont Municipalities Asked To Inspect 2020 Ballots
Fairlee And Other Vermont Municipalities Asked To Inspect 2020 Ballots https://digitalarkansasnews.com/fairlee-and-other-vermont-municipalities-asked-to-inspect-2020-ballots/
Published: 9/19/2022 9:37:26 PM
Modified: 9/19/2022 9:37:30 PM
At least three Vermont municipalities received requests to inspect ballots from the 2020 election in the past month in what appears to be part of a national movement by election deniers.
The three towns that have received such requests are Bennington, Fairlee and Montpelier.
Federal law requires states to provide the ballots if requested within 22 months of an election. After the so-called retention deadline, the ballots can be discarded.
The 22-month period for the most recent presidential election — which took place on Nov. 3, 2020 — passed earlier this month.
Last week in Montpelier, a small group of people inspected that city’s ballots from the 2020 election, according to Eric Covey, chief of staff in the Secretary of State’s Office.
Covey said that he could not speak to the specific motivations of the Vermonters who requested the ballots, but he did describe a national movement of election deniers who falsely believe Donald Trump beat President Joe Biden.
“The trends that we’re seeing nationally is that election deniers, who — despite the inability to provide any evidence that there was any sort of widespread fraud or rigging of the 2020 election — continue to make baseless claims, lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election,” Covey said. “As a result, you are seeing some renewed call for individuals to examine certain aspects of the election process.”
Montpelier Town Clerk John Odum agreed. “I suspect, though I can’t say for sure, that they were responding to a national call for such actions,” he said.
Covey emphasized that the event in Montpelier fulfilled a public records request and was not a recount.
“What we’re experiencing now is a request from individuals to inspect certain records of that election — in this case, to inspect the ballots themselves,” he said.
Odum said the request in that city came about a week before the retention deadline.
One of the people who inspected the ballots in Montpelier may have claimed to find a discrepancy in 14 of the 5,216 votes cast, according to the Montpelier Bridge. That would amount to a fraction of a percent.
According to the election archives maintained by the Secretary of State’s Office, Biden won 4,576 votes in Montpelier, while Trump garnered 468 votes and other candidates picked up the balance.
Regardless, the ballot inspection would have had no real effect on the results of the 2020 election, Covey said.
“The election was held securely in 2020,” he said.
Officials expect that the timing of the requests was no coincidence. The Washington Post recently reported an “unprecedented wave of public records requests in the final weeks of the summer.”
The article pointed toward leading election deniers such as MyPillow founder Mike Lindell as having instigated this wave. Lindell called on supporters to request records from their local election offices before the 22-month retention period ended.
The Post also reported on speculation that the records requests were made not in an attempt to gain information about the 2020 election, but to disrupt the upcoming general election in November.
“The timing is rather unfortunate, on the one hand, in terms of workflow,” Odum said, referring to the fall election. “On the other hand, these are folks who were well within their right to want to examine the process.”
Both Odum and Covey indicated that misinformation is likely the biggest threat to elections.
Still, Odum said he respected any ballot inspection request, “especially since it was done very civilly and cooperatively.”
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Former USC Dean Pleads Guilty In Political Bribery Case
Former USC Dean Pleads Guilty In Political Bribery Case https://digitalarkansasnews.com/former-usc-dean-pleads-guilty-in-political-bribery-case/
FILE – Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas attends a board meeting in Los Angeles, June 1, 2010. On Monday, Sept. 19, 2022, Marilyn Flynn, a former University of Southern California dean, pleaded guilty in a bribery case involving Ridley-Thomas, a powerful Los Angeles politician.
Damian Dovarganes – staff, AP
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former dean at the University of Southern California pleaded guilty Monday in a bribery case involving a powerful Los Angeles politician who promised to help steer a multi-million contract to the school if his son got a scholarship and a teaching job.
Marilyn Flynn, 83, was dean of USC’s School of Social Work from 1997 to 2018. In her plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Flynn said that she arranged for $100,000 to be illegally funneled on behalf of Mark Ridley-Thomas in 2018, when he was on the LA County Board of Supervisors.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
A former University of Southern California dean has pleaded guilty in a bribery case involving a powerful Los Angeles politician. Marilyn Flynn entered the plea Monday in federal court. She was dean of USC’s School of Social Work for two decades. Prosecutors said that in 2018 she arranged to use USC to illegally funnel $100,000 that Mark Ridley-Thomas provided from his campaign funds to a non-profit run by his son, who also got a teaching job and a scholarship. Ridley-Thomas, then a county supervisor, allegedly backed a lucrative amendment to a county contract for USC. He later joined the LA City Council but was suspended last year and faces a corruption trial in November. He’s pleaded not guilty.
A U.S. judge on Monday blocked Alabama from executing an inmate who says the state lost his paperwork requesting an alternative to lethal injection. U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker, Jr. issued a preliminary injunction to block the state from executing Alan Miller by any method other than nitrogen hypoxia. The ruling blocks Alabama from carrying out the lethal injection that had been set for Thursday. Miller testified last week that he returned a state form selecting nitrogen on the same day it was distributed to inmates by a prison worker. Alabama has not yet finalized procedures for using nitrogen to carry out death sentences.
A federal judge in Miami has awarded $73 million in damages to the family of a prominent opponent of Venezuela’s socialist government who died while in custody in what he described as a “murder for hire” carried out by a criminal enterprise led by President Nicolás Maduro. Fernando Albán was arrested in 2018 upon arrival to the Caracas airport from New York. He died three days later in what authorities initially described as a suicide jump from the 10th floor of a building belonging to Venezuela’s intelligence services. Last year his widow and two children sued Maduro and several high-ranking members of his government for carrying out the kidnapping, torture and murder.
A U.S. judge in West Texas has ruled unconstitutional a federal law banning those under felony indictments from buying guns. U.S. District Judge David Counts, whom then-President Donald Trump appointed to the federal bench in Pecos, Texas, dismissed a federal indictment against Jose Gomez Quiroz that had charged him under the federal ban. Quiroz was under a state burglary indictment when he tried to buy a handgun and challenged the ensuing federal charge. Counts acknowledges the case’s “real-world consequences” and that valid public policy and safety concerns exist. However, he says precedents hold the Second Amendment as definite.
A man who broke windows and security cameras at a Planned Parenthood clinic in southwestern Oregon because he opposed abortion has pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports a plea agreement says 27-year-old Devin Kruse of Grants Pass, Oregon, admitted he broke five security cameras, a window and a sign at the clinic on Nov. 23. He also said he returned days later, threw a concrete block through a window, tore down an intercom system and broke lightbulbs. The plea deal says Kruse will pay restitution and that prosecutors will recommend two years of probation.
Developers and city officials are pushing back on family members’ expectations for a memorial for 98 people who died last year when a beachfront Florida condominium building collapsed. Surfside Mayor Shlomo Danzinger hosted a meeting Monday for representatives from DAMAC Properties and people whose loved ones died when the Champlain Towers South building fell. Danzinger says it would have been nice to build a park on the former building site, but a judge ordered that it be sold. Dubai-based DAMAC purchased the 1.8-acre beachside site for $120 million earlier this year. Family members want a memorial that marks where people actually died, but the developers say that would cut too far into the buildable portion of the property.
A U.S. judge in West Texas has ruled unconstitutional a federal law banning those under felony indictments from buying guns. U.S. District Judge David Counts, whom then-President Donald Trump appointed to the federal bench in Pecos, Texas, dismissed a federal indictment against Jose Gomez Quiroz that had charged him under the federal ban. Quiroz was under a state burglary indictment when he tried to buy a handgun and challenged the ensuing federal charge. Counts acknowledges the case’s “real-world consequences” and that valid public policy and safety concerns exist. However, he says precedents hold the Second Amendment as definite.
A man who broke windows and security cameras at a Planned Parenthood clinic in southwestern Oregon because he opposed abortion has pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports a plea agreement says 27-year-old Devin Kruse of Grants Pass, Oregon, admitted he broke five security cameras, a window and a sign at the clinic on Nov. 23. He also said he returned days later, threw a concrete block through a window, tore down an intercom system and broke lightbulbs. The plea deal says Kruse will pay restitution and that prosecutors will recommend two years of probation.
Developers and city officials are pushing back on family members’ expectations for a memorial for 98 people who died last year when a beachfront Florida condominium building collapsed. Surfside Mayor Shlomo Danzinger hosted a meeting Monday for representatives from DAMAC Properties and people whose loved ones died when the Champlain Towers South building fell. Danzinger says it would have been nice to build a park on the former building site, but a judge ordered that it be sold. Dubai-based DAMAC purchased the 1.8-acre beachside site for $120 million earlier this year. Family members want a memorial that marks where people actually died, but the developers say that would cut too far into the buildable portion of the property.
The ongoing violent protests that have plunged a crisis-wrecked Haiti into a deeper state of chaos and lawlessness are being “financed by economic actors who stand to lose money,” a top aide in the Biden administration on Latin America and the Caribbean said Monday.
King County Executive Dow Constantine has proposed measures to boost public safety in Washington state’s most populous county with alternatives to traditional law enforcement. The Seattle Times reports many of the proposals announced Monday focus on alternatives to incarceration and law enforcement oversight, while at the same time both the county sheriff department and correctional staff seek to add employees with hiring bonuses and recruitment drives. The priorities of funding both policing and less-traditional approaches — represent what Constantine said were dual prerogatives — stopping “immediate harm” and addressing “root causes to prevent future offenses.”
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (AP) – Results from Argentine football:
‘Growing numb’: Frustrated McConnell tries to keep focus on inflation, not culture wars
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Victims who survived a school shooting 25 years ago spoke to members of the Kentucky Parole Board on Monday as the board weighed the possibility of granting release to a man who killed three people and injured five others when he opened fire in a high school in 1997.
WASHINGTON — Republicans need to win six seats in the November election to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives. In advertising spending, they’re beating Democrats in seven districts that were already leaning their way.
Authorities in Texas have opened a criminal investigation into Gov. Ron DeSantis’ operation to fly roughly 50 Venezuela migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard last week.
Germany’s climate envoy says the country remains committed to phasing out coal as a source of power by 2030 even as it reactivates coal-fired power plants. The country says it has taken this step to get through the coming winter amid energy shortages as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Ten months ago, in her role at Greenpeace, Jennifer Morgan chastised world leaders for being “weak” on phasing down coal rather than phasing it out altogether. More circumspect as a government official, she now says the dirty fuel is bitter medicine that her country is forced to take this winter.
A Texas sheriff on Monday opened a criminal investigation into two flights of migrants sent to Martha’s Vineyard by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar on Monday did not say what laws may have been broken in putting 48 Venezuelans on private planes last week from San Antonio. The elected Democratic sheriff...
Her Majesty’s Last Broadcast https://digitalarkansasnews.com/her-majestys-last-broadcast/
Critic’s Notebook
The funeral for Queen Elizabeth II honored a seven-decade public life. It also felt like a capstone to the mass TV era that defined her reign.
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The long reign of Queen Elizabeth II began on television, and on Monday a global audience watched her coffin reach its final resting place, at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. The hearse was designed to allow spectators to see the coffin as it passed by.Credit…Molly Darlington/Getty Images
Sept. 19, 2022Updated 9:27 p.m. ET
Television introduced Queen Elizabeth II to the world. It was only fitting that television should see her out of it.
The queen’s seven-decade reign almost exactly spanned the modern TV era. Her coronation in 1953 began the age of global video spectacles. Her funeral on Monday was a full-color pageant accessible to billions.
It was a final display of the force of two institutions: the concentrated grandeur of the British monarchy and the power amassed by television to bring viewers to every corner of the world.
“I have to be seen to be believed,” Elizabeth once reportedly said. It was less a boast than an acknowledgment of a modern duty. One had to be seen, whether one liked it or not. It was her source of authority at a time when the crown’s power no longer came through fleets of ships. It was how she provided her country reassurance and projected stability.
The last funeral service for a British monarch, King George VI, was not televised. For one last time, Elizabeth was the first. She entered the world stage, through the new magic of broadcasting, as a resolute young face. She departed it as a bejeweled crown on a purple cushion, transmuted finally into pure visual symbol.
Americans who woke up early Monday (or stayed up, in some time zones) saw striking images aplenty, on every news network. The breathtaking God’s-eye view from above the coffin in Westminster Abbey. The continuous stream of world leaders. The thick crowds along the procession to Windsor, flinging flowers at the motorcade. The corgis.
Viewers also saw and heard something unusual in the TV news environment: long stretches of unnarrated live action — the speaking of prayers, the clop of horse hooves — and moments of stillness. This was notable in the golf-whisper coverage on BBC World News, which let scenes like the loading of the coffin onto a gun carriage play out in silence, its screen bare of the usual lower-thirds captions.
The commercial American networks, being the distant relations at this service, filled in the gaps with chattery bits of history and analysis. News departments called in the Brits. (On Fox News, the reality-TV fixtures Piers Morgan and Sharon Osbourne critiqued Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s media ventures.) “Royal commentators” broke down points of protocol and inventoried the materials and symbolism of the crown, scepter and orb like auction appraisers.
But even American TV fell still during the funeral ceremony. The cameras drank in the Gothic arches of Westminster Abbey, bathed in the hymns of the choirs, goggled at the royal jewels, lingered on the solemn face of Charles III during the performance of — it still sounds strange — “God Save the King.” Finally, we watched from above as bearers carried the coffin step by step across the black-and-white-diamond floor like an ornate chess piece.
The quiet spectating was a gesture of respect but also a kind of tourist’s awe. We had come all this way; of course we wanted to take in the sights.
Some Key Moments in Queen Elizabeth’s Reign
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A historic visit. On May 18, 1965, Elizabeth arrived in Bonn on the first state visit by a British monarch to Germany in more than 50 years. The trip formally sealed the reconciliation between the two nations following the world wars.
First grandchild. In 1977, the queen stepped into the role of grandmother for the first time, after Princess Anne gave birth to a son, Peter. Elizabeth’s four children have given her a total of eight grandchildren, who have been followed by several great-grandchildren.
Princess Diana’s death. In a rare televised broadcast ahead of Diana’s funeral in 1997, Queen Elizabeth remembered the Princess of Wales, who died in a car crash in Paris at age 36, as “an exceptional and gifted human being.”
A trip to Ireland. In May 2011, the queen visited the Irish Republic, whose troubled relationship with the British monarchy spanned centuries. The trip, infused with powerful symbols of reconciliation, is considered one of the most politically freighted trips of Elizabeth’s reign.
Breaking a record. As of 5:30 p.m. British time on Sept. 9, 2015, Elizabeth II became Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, surpassing Queen Victoria, her great-great-grandmother. Elizabeth was 89 at the time, and had ruled for 23,226 days, 16 hours and about 30 minutes.
Marking 70 years of marriage. On Nov. 20, 2017, the queen and Prince Philip celebrated their 70th anniversary, becoming the longest-married couple in royal history. The two wed in 1947, as the country and the world was still reeling from the atrocities of World War II.
Elizabeth’s reign was marked by unprecedented visibility, for better or worse. Her coronation in 1953 spurred the British to buy television sets, bringing the country into the TV age and inviting the public into an event once reserved for the upper crust.
This changed something essential in the relation of the masses to the monarchy. The coronation, with its vestments and blessings, signified the exclusive connection of the monarch to God. Once that was no longer exclusive, everything else in the relationship between the ruler and the public was up for negotiation.
Image
The queen was the first British monarch to have a televised coronation, in June 1953.Credit…AFP via Getty Images
The young queen resisted letting in the cameras. The prime minister Winston Churchill worried about making the ritual into a “theatrical performance.” But Elizabeth could no more stop the force of media than her forebear King Canute could halt the tide.
TV undercut the mystique of royalty but spread its image, expanding the queen’s virtual reach even as the colonial empire diminished. There were other surviving monarchies in the world, but the Windsors were the default royals of TV-dom, the main characters in a generational reality-TV soap opera. They became global celebrities, through scandals, weddings, deaths and “The Crown.”
The coronation had worldwide effects too. It began the age when TV would bring the world into your living room live — or at least close to it. In 1953, with live trans-Atlantic broadcasts still not yet possible, CBS and NBC raced to fly the kinescopes of the event across the ocean in airplanes with their seats removed to fit in editing equipment. (They both lost to Canada’s CBC, which got its footage home first.)
The next day’s Times heralded the event as the “birth of international television,” marveling that American viewers “probably saw more than the peers and peeresses in their seats in the transept.” Boy, did they: NBC’s “Today” show coverage, which carried a radio feed of the coronation, included an appearance by its chimpanzee mascot, J. Fred Muggs. Welcome to show business, Your Majesty.
The one limit on cameras at Elizabeth’s coronation was to deny them a view of the ritual anointment of the new queen. By 2022, viewers take divine omniscience for granted. If we can think of it, we should be able to see it.
So after Elizabeth’s death, you could monitor the convoy from Balmoral Castle in Scotland to London, with a glassy hearse designed and lit to make the coffin visible. You could watch the queen’s lying-in-state in Westminster Hall on live video feeds, from numerous angles, the silence broken only by the occasional cry of a baby or cough of a guard. The faces came and went, including the queen’s grandchildren joining the tribute, but the camera’s vigil was constant.
After 70 years, however, television has lost its exclusive empire as well. Even as it broadcast what was described — plausibly but vaguely — as the most-watched event in history, traditional TV shared the funeral audience with the internet and social media.
Elizabeth and the medium that defined her reign were both unifiers of a kind that we might not see again. Though not all of the British support the monarchy, the queen offered her fractious country a sense of constancy. TV brought together disparate populations in the communal experience of seeing the same thing at once.
Now what? Tina Brown, the writer, editor and royal-watcher, asked on CBS, “Will anyone be loved by the nation so much again?” You could also ask: Will Charles’s coronation next year be nearly as big a global media event? Will anything? (You could also ask whether an event like this should be so all-consuming. While American TV news was wall-to-wall with an overseas funeral, Puerto Rico was flooded and without power from Hurricane Fiona.)
Monday’s services felt like a capstone to two eras. For one day, we saw a display of the pageantry that the crown can command and the global audience that TV can.
American TV spent its full morning with the queen. (Well, almost: CBS aired the season premiere of “The Price Is Right.”) The day’s pomp built toward one more never-before-broadcast ceremony, the removal of scepter, orb and crown from the coffin, which was lowered into the vault at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. Then followed something almost unimaginable: A private burial service, with no TV cameras.
Television got one final spectacle out of Elizabeth’s reign. And the queen had one final moment out of the public eye.
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Ford Stock Drops More Than 4% As Supply Costs To Jump By $1 Billion Parts Shortages To Leave More Cars Unfinished
Ford Stock Drops More Than 4% As Supply Costs To Jump By $1 Billion, Parts Shortages To Leave More Cars Unfinished https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ford-stock-drops-more-than-4-as-supply-costs-to-jump-by-1-billion-parts-shortages-to-leave-more-cars-unfinished/
Ford Motor Co. shares dropped more than 4% in the extended session Monday after the company said inflation and parts shortages will leave it with more unfinished vehicles than it had expected, reminding Wall Street supply-chain snags are far from over for auto makers.
Ford F, said it expects to have between 40,000 and 45,000 vehicles in inventory at the end of the third quarter “lacking certain parts presently in short supply.”
The auto maker also said that based on its recent negotiations, payments to suppliers will run about $1 billion higher than expected for the quarter, thanks to inflation. The company reaffirmed its outlook for the year, however.
Ford’s warning “is evidence that auto parts shortages and supply-chain issues are still ongoing,” CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson told MarketWatch.
Many investors had started to believe “these problems were in the rearview mirror with inventories starting to recover from the record lows of the last year or so,” Nelson said.
The unfinished vehicles include high-demand, high-margin models of popular trucks and SUVs, Ford said. That will cause some shipments and revenue to shift to the fourth quarter.
“Ironically, Ford may have become a victim of its own success in that its recent U.S. sales growth has outperformed peers by a wide margin,” Nelson said. Its third-quarter production “apparently wasn’t able to keep pace with demand.”
Ford reiterated expectations of full-year 2022 adjusted earnings before interest and taxes of between $11.5 billion and $12.5 billion, despite the shortages and the higher payments to suppliers, it said.
Ford called for third-quarter adjusted EBIT of between $1.4 billion and $1.7 billion.
Shares of Ford ended the regular trading day up 1.4%. The company has embarked on a reorganization to pivot to electric vehicles, and last month confirmed layoffs in connection with its new structure.
Ford is slated to report third-quarter financial results on Oct. 26, when it said it expects to “provide more dimension about expectations for full-year performance.”
Analysts polled by FactSet expect the auto maker to report adjusted earnings of 51 cents a share, which would match the third-quarter 2021 adjusted EPS, on revenue of $38.8 billion.
The quarterly sales would compare with $35.7 billion in revenue in the year-ago period.
Shares of Ford slid 4.4% after hours, and have lost 28% so far this year, compared with losses of 18% for the S&P 500 index SPX, .
The news comes a week after FedEx Corp. FDX, roiled markets and raised fears of an economic slowdown by withdrawing its outlook for the year and warning that the year was likely to become worse for the business.
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Republicans Election-Year Standing With Independents Under Threat
Republicans’ Election-Year Standing With Independents Under Threat https://digitalarkansasnews.com/republicans-election-year-standing-with-independents-under-threat/
COLUMBUS, Wis. — Sarah Motiff has voted for Sen. Ron Johnson every time his name appeared on the ballot, starting in 2010 when the Wisconsin Republican was first elected as part of the tea party wave. Fond of his tough views on spending, she began the year planning to support his reelection again.
She became skeptical this summer as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection reported his office discussed giving then-Vice President Mike Pence certificates with fake presidential electors for Donald Trump from Wisconsin and Michigan, part of a broader push to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Johnson has downplayed the effort and the certificates were never given to Pence, but Motiff, a political independent, wasn’t convinced.
“I’m not going to lie when I say I’ve had some concerns about some of the reports that have come out,” the 52-year-old nonpartisan city councilwoman from Columbus, Wisconsin, said. “It just put a bad taste in my mouth.”
Nudged further by the June U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidating a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, Motiff is opposing Johnson and supports his Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, in one of the most fiercely-contested Senate races this year.
“Which was really a hard decision for me because I do think he’s done good things in the past,” Motiff said of Johnson. “But this is pretty damaging.”
Motiff’s evolution represents the challenge for Republicans emerging from a tumultuous summer, defined by the court decision, high-profile hearings on former President Donald Trump’s actions during the insurrection and intensifying legal scrutiny of his handling of classified information and efforts to overturn the election. Now, a midterm campaign that the GOP hoped would be a referendum on President Joe Biden and the economy is at risk of becoming a comparison of the two parties, putting Republicans in an unexpectedly defensive position.
In politically-divided Wisconsin where recent elections have been decided by a few thousand votes, the outcome could hinge on self-described independent voters like Motiff.
“Having former President Trump so prominently in the news in so many ways makes it easier for Democrats to frame the midterm as a choice between two competing futures as opposed to a referendum on the Democrat governance,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. “That’s hurting Republicans. It’s distracting from the referendum message and allowing more of a focus on a choice of two different parties.”
That tension is playing out in Columbia County, Wisconsin, a constellation of tidy small towns surrounded by rolling dairy farm country, all within commuting distance of Madison.
Statewide, top-of-the-ticket candidates have won by barely a percentage point in the past three elections. Trump won Columbia County by a little more than 500 votes out of 33,000 cast in 2020.
In interviews with more than a dozen independent voters here over two days last week, many were rethinking their support of the GOP this fall.
Steve Gray, a self-described Republican-leaning independent “but never a Trump fan,” opposed the June court decision, because he backs abortion rights. But the 61-year-old school maintenance manager also resented what he saw as an unwelcome political power play by out-of-power Republicans.
“Trump stacked the Supreme Court. We all knew he wanted to overturn Roe,” said Gray, of small-town Rio, where Trump won by two votes in 2020. “That decision was a partisan hand grenade Trump threw into this election.”
The court decision “upended the physics of midterm elections,” said Jesse Stinebring, a pollster advising several Democratic campaigns.
It gave voters the rare opportunity to judge a policy advance backed by the minority party, distracting them from a pure up-or-down vote on majority Democrats, he said.
“The backlash from a political perspective isn’t directed at the traditional party in power, but is actually reframed in terms of this Republican control of the Supreme Court,” Stinebring said.
The decision made Dilaine Noel’s vote automatic.
The 29-year-old data analytics director for a Madison-area business said she had never affiliated with either party.
Despite her grievances about Democrats’ warring moderate and liberal wings, her support for abortion rights gave her no choice than to vote for the party’s candidates this fall.
“By default, I have to move in that direction,” said Noel, from small-town Poynette in the Wisconsin River valley. “I’m being forced to.”
Mary Percifield is a lifelong independent voter who says the abortion decision motivated her to vote Democratic because she worries the court might overturn other rights.
“A right has been taken away from us,” the 68-year-old customer service representative from Pardeeville, said. “I question if a woman’s right to vote will be taken away. A woman’s right for birth control.”
Independent voters who lean neither Democrat nor Republican nationally preferred Biden over Trump, 52% to 37% in 2020, and preferred Democrats over Republicans in U.S. House races by a similar margin in the 2018 midterms, according to AP VoteCast. Independents who lean neither Democrat nor Republican made up 5% of the 2020 electorate and 12% in 2018.
Independents had moved toward Republicans by early this year, seeking answers on the economy, said Republican pollster David Winston, a senior adviser to House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. But they have drifted back toward Democrats as efforts by GOP leaders to focus on the economy have clashed with Republican attacks on the Justice Department and Trump’s continuing complaints about the 2020 election.
“Everything is suddenly back in the context of Trump,” Winston said in light of Trump’s prominent endorsement of Senate candidates and protests of the federal investigation into classified documents recovered from his Florida home. “It’s not that Democrats are gaining. It’s that Republicans over the summer were off talking about a variety of things. And independents are thinking, ‘If you’re not talking specifically about the problems that I’m concerned about, why am I listening?’”
Republicans remain optimistic about their chances in November, particularly about netting the handful of seats they need to regain the U.S. House majority. Inflation remains high and, despite a recent uptick, approval of Biden is still low for a party hoping to maintain its hold on power.
The economy remains the most effective message and one that breaks through others, GOP campaign officials say.
“Prices and things are so front-of-mind to people,” said Calvin Moore, the communications director for Congressional Leadership Fund, a superPAC supporting Republican U.S. House candidates. “It’s not just something that’s on the news. It’s something they are experiencing every day in their daily life. It’s something they face themselves every day when they go to the grocery store.”
A shift by independents is particularly meaningful in Wisconsin, as Republicans work to overtake Democrats’ one-seat majority in the Senate.
Johnson, among the most vulnerable Republicans running for reelection this fall, is locked in a tight race with Barnes, Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor. Of the most competitive Senate seats this year, his is the only one held by a Republican.
Though Johnson dismissed testimony about fake electors as staff work which never never reached him, it reminded Christian Wood, an independent voter from Lodi, of Johnson’s opposition to certifying the election before Jan. 6. Johnson reversed course after the riot.
“It’s absolutely scary,” said Wood, who has often voted Republican. “To me that’s the most existential threat to our democracy. And to think he was even considering it makes him a non-starter.”
There’s time for an economic message to win out, but it will require news about Trump fading, GOP pollster Ayres said.
Meanwhile, Trump has a full schedule of fall campaign travel for candidates he has endorsed.
“Any distraction from that focus undermines the best Republican message,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report.
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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics
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'There's A Time And Place': Trump Team Refuses To Respond To Their Chosen Special Master's Questions
'There's A Time And Place': Trump Team Refuses To Respond To Their Chosen Special Master's Questions https://digitalarkansasnews.com/theres-a-time-and-place-trump-team-refuses-to-respond-to-their-chosen-special-masters-questions/
Donald Trump speaks to a large crowd at “An Address to Young America” an event hosted by Students for Trump and Turning Point Action. (Nuno21 / Shutterstock.com)
Lawyers for President Donald Trump refused to give Judge Raymond Dearie any information about the former president’s claims that he declassified all of the documents found at his Palm Beach country club.
The judge has requested the lawyers elaborate, a court filing from the special master said, but his lawyers dismissed it, saying that there would be a “time and place” for that.
“Otherwise, the Special Master process will have forced the Plaintiff to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order,” Trump’s lawyers explained in the court filing.
Former prosecutor for special counsel Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, predicted that Trump is about to start a campaign attacking Dearie.
“Dearie’s response to Trump saying it can’t answer as its a possible trial defense is going to be: either you are saying it now or you are not. If you do not now want to claim your declassified docs that is fine, and your choice, but then the docs are not being returned to you,” said Weissmann.
The Trump team will be “ruing the day it proposed Judge Dearie and appalled he is asking for their position on declassification,” Weissmann continued. “As sure as the night follows the day, the next Trump tactic will be denigrating Dearie publicly and asking Cannon to clip his wings.”
The Justice Department’s legal team replied to the Trump team’s hints with their own comments.
“Plaintiff principally seeks to raise questions about the classification status of the records and their categorization under the Presidential Records Act (‘PRA’). But plaintiff does not actually assert — much less provide any evidence — that any of the seized records bearing classification markings have been declassified,” said the DOJ.
“Such possibilities should not be given weight absent plaintiff’s putting forward competent evidence,” the court documents added.
Read the full filing here.
ALSO IN THE NEWS: Trump’s own lawyers ‘steadfastly’ refuse to back up his story in court: former prosecutor
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