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AP News Digest 3 Am https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ap-news-digest-3-am/ Here are the AP’s latest coverage plans, top stories and promotable content. All times EDT. For up-to-the minute information on AP’s coverage, visit Coverage Plan at https://newsroom.ap.org. © Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. APTOPIX Indonesia Soccer Deaths ————————— TOP STORIES ————————— KOREAS-TENSIONS — North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan for the first time in five years, forcing Japan to issue evacuation notices and suspend trains during the flight of the nuclear-capable weapon that could reach the U.S. territory of Guam and possibly beyond. The launch was the most provocative weapons demonstration by North Korea this year as it ramps up missile tests to build a full-fledged nuclear arsenal that viably threatens U.S. allies and the American homeland with the goal of wresting outside concessions, some experts say. By Hyung-Jin Kim, Kim Tong-Hyung and Mari Yamaguchi. SENT: 990 words, photos. RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR-NUCLEAR RISKS — Trying to get inside the head of Russian President Vladimir Putin is a tough nut to crack for Kremlin watchers trying to figure out whether his nuclear threats are bluff. For now, they cautiously suggest that the risk of Putin using his nuclear arsenal still seems low. And the CIA says it’s not seeing signs that a Russian nuclear detonation may be imminent. Still, increasingly nervous analysts acknowledge that they can’t be sure if Putin is rational and well-informed. By John Leicester. SENT: 1,000 words, photos. TROPICAL WEATHER — Nearly a week after Hurricane Ian smashed into Florida and carved a path of destruction that reached into the Carolinas, more than half a million statewide residents faced another day without electricity as rescuers continued their search for those trapped inside homes inundated with lingering floodwaters. At least 78 people have been confirmed dead from the storm: 71 in Florida, four in North Carolina and three in Cuba. Search and rescue efforts were still ongoing in Florida, where more than 1,600 people have been rescued statewide. By Rebecca Santana. SENT: 1,070 words, photos, videos. Also see TROPICAL WEATHER-CHURCHES below. INDONESIA-SOCCER DEATHS — An Indonesian police chief and nine elite officers were removed from their posts and 18 others were being investigated for responsibility in the firing of tear gas inside a soccer stadium that set off a stampede, killing at least 125 people, officials said. By Agoes Basoeki and Edna Tarigan. SENT: 1,040 words, photos, video. SUPREME COURT-REDISTRICTING-ALABAMA — The Supreme Court is taking up an Alabama redistricting case that could have far-reaching effects on minority voting power. The justices are hearing arguments in the latest high-court showdown over the federal Voting Rights Act, lawsuits seeking to force Alabama to create a second Black majority congressional district. By Mark Sherman. SENT: 370 words, photo. UPCOMING: 700 words after 10 a.m. arguments. ELECTION-2022-GEORGIA-WALKER — Herschel Walker, who has vehemently opposed abortion rights as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Georgia, paid for an abortion for his girlfriend in 2009, according to a new report. By Bill Barrow. SENT: 620 words, photos. ——————————————— MORE ON RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR ——————————————— RUSSIA-UKRAINE-PROPAGANDA — Russia’s retreat from a key Ukrainian city elicits an outcry from an unlikely crowd — state-run media outlets that typically cast Moscow’s war in glowing terms. SENT: 790 words, photo. ————————— TRENDING ————————— SUPREME COURT-THE ONION — The Onion and the Supreme Court. Not a parody. SENT: 360 words, photo. TRUMP-CNN LAWSUIT — Donald Trump files $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN. SENT: 290 words, photos. KARDASHIAN-CRYPTO — Kim Kardashian fined $1 million by SEC over crypto promotion. SENT: 560 words, photo. RAMS-49ERS-FAN ON FIELD — Rams linebacker Wagner flattens protester who gets on field. SENT: 200 words, photos. RAMS-49ERS — 49ers use defense, Deebo Samuel to beat Rams 24-9. SENT: 790 words, photos. FILM-EMANCIPATION-WILL SMITH — Will Smith’s “Emancipation” gets release date, post-slap. SENT: 400 words, photos. MUSIC-RINGO-STARR — Ringo Starr tour on hold as he recovers from COVID-19, SENT: 140 words, photo. ————————— ELECTION 2022 ————————— ELECTION 2022-ARIZONA — Fortunes appear to have flipped for two Arizona Democrats — Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Sen. Mark Kelly. SENT: 1,120 words, photos. ELECTION 2022-NEVADA-SENATE — Republican Adam Laxalt is trying to capitalize on his military experience and Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s lack of it as he tries to turn a red seat blue in the swing state of Nevada. SENT: 1,150 words, photos. ————————— NATIONAL ————————— CALIFORNIA DROUGHT-WELLS RUN DRY — As California’s drought deepens, more rural communities are running out of water as heavy pumping depletes groundwater supplies that aren’t being replenished by rain and snowmelt. SENT: 1,140 words, photos, video. With CALIFORNIA DROUGHT — California braces for dry winter as Western drought drags on. TROPICAL WEATHER-CHURCHES — In darkness and despair, there were flickers of light and hope, even for Jane Compton who lost her home and possessions to Hurricane Ian’s wrath. As the storm approached last week, she and her husband found sanctuary at their Baptist church, huddling with fellow parishioners through wind, rain and worry. SENT: 1,060 words, photos, video. CALIFORNIA-SERIAL KILLINGS — Ballistics tests have linked the fatal shootings of six men and the wounding of one woman in California — all potentially at the hands of a serial killer — in crimes going back more than a year, police said. SENT: 530 words, photos, video. ————————— INTERNATIONAL ————————— ECUADOR-PRISON RIOT — A clash between inmates armed with guns and knives inside the Latacunga prison in central Ecuador left at least 15 people dead and 20 injured, authorities said. SENT: 180 words. UPCOMING: photos. ——————————- HEALTH/SCIENCE ——————————- NOBEL PRIZE-PHYSICS — The winner of the Nobel Prize in physics will be announced at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. SENT: 210 words, photos. UPCOMING: Developing from 5:45 a.m. announcement. ————————— BUSINESS/ECONOMY ————————— FINANCIAL MARKETS — Asian shares rose, encouraged by a rally in U.S. shares after some weak economic data raised hopes that the Federal Reserve might ease away from aggressive interest rate hikes. By Business Writer Yuri Kageyama. SENT: 790 words, photos. With AUSTRALIA-ECONOMY — Australian central bank lifts cash rate to nine-year high 2.6%. JOB OPENINGS — The Labor Department reports on job openings and labor turnover for August. By Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber. UPCOMING: 130 words, photo, after 10 a.m. release, then expanded. ————————— SPORTS ————————— BEHIND THE CALL — First Tua Tagovailoa. Then Cameron Brate. The NFL isn’t passing the eye test on head injuries. By Pro Football Writer Arnie Stapleton. SENT: 850 words, photos. AUSTRALIA-KYRGIOS-LEGAL-CASE — Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios will apply to have an assault charge dismissed on mental health grounds. SENT: 460 words, photo. ————————— HOW TO REACH US ————————— At the Nerve Center, Jerome Minerva can be reached at 800-845-8450 (ext. 1600). For photos, Wally Santana (ext. 1900). For graphics and interactives, ext. 7636. Expanded AP content can be obtained from http://newsroom.ap.org. For access to AP Newsroom and other technical issues, contact apcustomersupport@ap.org or call 844-777-2006. From news to politics, travel to sport, culture to climate – The Independent has a host of free newsletters to suit your interests. To find the stories you want to read, and more, in your inbox, click here. Read More Here

Trump Files A Defamation Suit Against CNN | CNN (Video) – Social News XYZ https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-files-a-defamation-suit-against-cnn-cnn-video-social-news-xyz/ Posted By: Social News XYZ October 4, 2022 CNN … . CNN … 3900 . 29 US . CNN . 2021 7700 CNN . 2024 .. CNN . #etvandhrapradesh #latestnews #newsoftheday #etvnews Download ETV Win App to Watch All ETV Channels for both Android & IOS: https://f66tr.app.goo.gl/apps For Latest Updates on ETV Channels !!! Visit our Official Website:http://www.ap.etv.co.in Subscribe to Latest News : https://goo.gl/9Waw1K Subscribe to our YouTube Channel : http://bit.ly/JGOsxY Like us : https://www.facebook.com/ETVAndhraPradesh Follow us : https://twitter.com/etvandhraprades Follow us : https://www.instagram.com/etvandhrapradesh Etv Win Website : https://www.etvwin.com/ About SocialNewsXYZ An Indo-American News website. It covers Gossips, Politics, Movies, Technolgy, and Sports News and Photo Galleries and Live Coverage of Events via Youtube. The website is established in 2015 and is owned by AGK FIRE INC. Summary Title Trump Files a Defamation Suit Against CNN | CNN (Video) Description CNN … . CNN … 3900 . 29 US . CNN . 2021 7700 CNN . 2024 .. CNN . —————————————————————————————————————————- #etvandhrapradesh #latestnews #newsoftheday #etvnews —————————————————————————————————————————- Download ETV Win App to Watch All ETV Channels for both Android & IOS: https://f66tr.app.goo.gl/apps —————————————————————————————————————————– For Latest Updates on ETV Channels !!! Visit our Official Website:http://www.ap.etv.co.in Subscribe to Latest News : https://goo.gl/9Waw1K Subscribe to our YouTube Channel : http://bit.ly/JGOsxY Like us : https://www.facebook.com/ETVAndhraPradesh Follow us : https://twitter.com/etvandhraprades Follow us : https://www.instagram.com/etvandhrapradesh Etv Win Website : https://www.etvwin.com/ —————————————————————————————————————————– Read More Here

Trump Suing CNN For Defamation, Seeks $475 Mln In Damages https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-suing-cnn-for-defamation-seeks-475-mln-in-damages/ Former President Donald Trump sues CNN for defamation, highlighting most significantly the latter’s “Trump is Hitler” narrative. Trump sues CNN for defamation citing the “Trump is Hitler” narrative (Getty Images) Former US President Donald Trump is suing CNN for defamation, seeking $475 million for allegedly weaponizing CNN‘s reputation as a “reliable source” to undermine his own. The lawsuit was filed on Monday in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida by the former Republican president. The lawsuit argued that “Beyond simply highlighting any negative information about [Trump] and ignoring all positive information about him, CNN has sought to use its massive influence —purportedly as a ‘trusted’ news source — to defame [Trump] in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically.” It adds that CNN adopted “scandalous” labels to undermine the former president’s image for its audience, denouncing him as a “racist,” “Russian lackey,” “insurrectionist,” and “Hitler.” The latter, at the very least, meets the threshold of “actual malice” allowing for a public figure to claim defamation in the US, according to Trump. The complaint provides several examples of CNN‘s anti-Trump hostility, pointing out that even historically Trump-averse platforms like fact-checker Politifact have awarded CNN the “dreaded ‘Pants On Fire!’ resignation” for its Hitler parallels. The complaint claims that as a result of CNN‘s relentless “Trump is Hitler” narrative, its audience has irreversibly associated the two, characterizing the conclusion as irrevocably detrimental to Trump’s political career.  It includes undercover camera footage from CNN HQ obtained by Project Veritas, in which network workers gloat that their coverage was both meant to push their viewers to vote him out and was ultimately responsible for that outcome. According to the lawsuit, CNN not only caused Trump “damage to his reputation, embarrassment, pain, humiliation, and mental anguish,” but they did so out of vindictiveness and they knew that they were lying, having reportedly refused to correct a list of “false and defamatory statements” sent to them by Trump’s legal team in July.  Trump attorneys have asked for the elimination of compensatory damage limits, $475 million in punitive damages, reimbursement of legal and travel expenses, and a jury trial – which, according to Sputnik, is unlikely to be broadcasted live on CNN. The controversial figure is presently facing various lawsuits, including a $250 million lawsuit in New York alleging fraudulent business practices, as well as a criminal inquiry into accusations that he improperly retained classified documents on his property at Mar-a-Lago upon vacating the White House.  During his four-year administration, he was impeached twice by the Democrat-led House, but he was never convicted. Furthermore, Trump has repeatedly implied that he would run for president again in 2024. Read more: Hillary Clinton readies for 2024 US presidency as “moderate” choice Read More Here

Trump Sues CNN For $475M Over ‘Big Lie’ References – Armenia News https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-sues-cnn-for-475m-over-big-lie-references-armenia-news/ Trump sues CNN for $475M over ‘Big Lie’ references  Armenia News Read More Here

The 8 At 8: Tuesday https://digitalarkansasnews.com/the-8-at-8-tuesday/ GOOD MORNING. Here’s all the news you need to know as you start your day. Concrete levy 1. In our lead story this morning, Christina Finn reports on Sinn Féin’s Dáil motion to scrap the concrete levy, introduced as part of Budget 2023, in its current form. The new 10% levy on concrete blocks, pouring concrete and other products will be introduced next April to fund the mica redress scheme. The levy is expected to raise €80 million annually, but experts have predicted that the cost is likely to be passed on to house buyers. Restaurants’ energy crisis 2. Restaurants across the country have made the decision to close entirely on off-peak days in an attempt to keep energy costs down, according to the head of the industry’s lobby group. Speaking to The Journal, CEO of the Restaurants Association of Ireland Adrian Cummins said he has been hearing from food businesses that are “sitting down with staff to talk about contingency measures regarding the sustainability of their businesses in autumn and winter”. He said one of the main measures businesses are taking is a reduced week, keeping their doors closed on less busy days earlier in the week. An Bord Pleanála 3. An action plan to reform An Bord Pleanála is to be brought before Cabinet, it is understood. The plan is to include a new regime of recruitment for appointments to the Board, which will see the nomination process replaced entirely. The planning authority has been at the centre of controversy for several months with its deputy chair, Paul Hyde, resigning in July following revelations about alleged conflicts of interest. Hyde has always denied any wrongdoing. Electricity prices 4. Electric Ireland set to tell members of the Oireachtas Environment Committee that it had “no choice” but to increase its energy prices due to the “unprecedented” rise in wholesale gas prices. The energy provider’s executive director and the managing director of ESB Networks will appear before the committee today to answer questions on the price increases being experienced by customers. The energy provider announced three price increases this year. North Korean missile 5. North Korea has fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan, prompting Tokyo to activate the country’s missile alert system and order people to take shelter. South Korea’s military said it had detected the launch of an IRBM, which flew around 4,500 kilometres at an altitude of about 970 kilometres and a speed of around Mach 17, or nearly 21,000 kilometres per hour. Indonesia stadium tragedy 6. A police chief and nine elite officers have been removed from their posts in Indonesia after 125 people were killed at a football stadium. The disaster on Saturday night was among the deadliest ever at a sporting event, with 125 deaths, including 17 children. Donald Trump 7. Former US president Donald Trump has filed a $475 million (€483 million) lawsuit against CNN, alleging the broadcaster defamed him to short-circuit any future political campaign. The lawsuit focuses primarily on the term “The Big Lie” about Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud that he says cost him the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. Rower 8. Irishman Damian Browne has become the first person to row from New York to Galway. He spent nearly 16 weeks at sea. Making a difference A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. For the price of one cup of coffee each week you can make sure we can keep reliable, meaningful news open to everyone regardless of their ability to pay. Read More Here

Japan Issues Rare Alert As North Korea Fires Missile Without Warning Over Main Island | CNN https://digitalarkansasnews.com/japan-issues-rare-alert-as-north-korea-fires-missile-without-warning-over-main-island-cnn/ Seoul, South Korea CNN  —  Japan urged residents to take shelter early Tuesday morning after North Korea fired a ballistic missile without warning over the country for the first time in five years, in a major and potentially dangerous escalation of recent weapons tests by the Kim Jong Un regime. The launch, which prompted immediate backlash from Tokyo and Seoul, comes amid a spate of missile tests, with five launches in the past 10 days, and follows renewed military drills between the United States and its regional allies. The intermediate-range missile was launched from Mupyong-ri near North Korea’s central border with China at around 7:23 a.m. local time, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). It flew about 4,600 kilometers (2,858 miles) for 20 minutes at an estimated maximum altitude of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) over Japan’s Tohoku region on the main island of Honshu before falling into the Pacific Ocean, some 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) from the country’s shore, Japanese officials said. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida strongly condemned the launch and called North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches “outrageous” in comments to reporters at his official residence. Tuesday’s launch is the country’s 23rd such missile test this year, including both ballistic and cruise missiles. There were no reports of damage to aircraft or vessels near the missile trajectory, according to Japanese authorities, but the unannounced missile triggered a rare J-alert, a system designed to inform the public of emergencies and threats in Japan. In such emergencies, alerts are sent out via sirens, through community radio stations and to individual smartphone users. On Tuesday, alerts were sent out at around 7:30 a.m. local time to people in Aomori prefecture, Hokkaido and Tokyo’s Izu and Ogasawara islands, according to Japanese officials. A tweet posted by Japan’s Prime Minister’s office urged residents to take shelter in buildings and to “not approach anything suspicious that is found and to immediately contact the police or fire department.” Other governments were quick to decry the launch, with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol branding it a “reckless” provocation, adding that North Korea will face a decisive response from the South Korean military and its allies. The White House also “strongly condemned” the test, with National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson calling it a “destabilizing” action that shows North Korea’s “blatant disregard for United Nations Security Council resolutions and international safety norms.” Kim Seung-kyum, chief of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and Paul LaCamera, the United States Forces Korea commander, held a meeting after the launch and reaffirmed the combined defense posture will be further strengthened against any threats and provocations from North Korea, the JCS said. The US Indo-Pacific Command also released a statement saying American commitments to the defense of Japan and South Korea “remain ironclad.” Ankit Panda, a senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said regular missile testing was was part of North Korea’s plan to maintain its nuclear forces. “It is quite possible that the United States, South Korea and Japan will take away a message from this missile test that North Korea is continuing to assert itself to show that it has the ability to deliver nuclear weapons to targets including the US territory of Guam,” he said, adding that “risk reduction” to stop a crisis from escalating should be the current priority. “If such a crisis were to play out, it would play out under a significantly more advanced North Korean nuclear capability, which I think would significantly limit the options that the United States and South Korea would have, potentially to retaliate or manage escalation with North Korea,” he said. Tuesday’s launch could herald an intensification of provocations by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, experts told CNN. “Pyongyang is still in the middle of a provocation and testing cycle and is likely waiting until after China’s mid-October Communist Party Congress to conduct an even more significant test,” said Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. “The Kim regime is developing weapons such as tactical nuclear warheads and submarine-launched ballistic missiles as part of a long-term strategy to outrun South Korea in an arms race and drive wedges among US allies.” Four previous missile launches occurred in the space of a week in late September and early October, around the same time US Vice President Kamala Harris made an official visit to Japan and South Korea, and as US, Japanese and South Korean navies held joint exercises. North Korea’s tests also come as international attention remains firmly focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and as both Moscow and Beijing appear reluctant to side with the West to further censure Pyongyang. In May, Russia and China vetoed a US-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution to strengthen sanctions on North Korea for its weapons testing, in a vote the US said was likely to fuel Pyongyang’s program to develop nuclear-capable missile systems. Washington and the International Atomic Energy Agency have both warned this year that North Korea may be preparing for a nuclear test, which would be its first since 2017. Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute, drew a connection between the missile tests and a potential nuclear test. “North Korea is going to keep conducting missile tests until the current round of modernization is done. I don’t think a nuclear (test) explosion is far behind,” he told CNN. 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Herschel Walker Denies Report That He Paid For Girlfriend’s Abortion https://digitalarkansasnews.com/herschel-walker-denies-report-that-he-paid-for-girlfriends-abortion/ Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Georgia, on Monday denied a claim that he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, saying in a televised interview on Fox News Channel that the account published in the Daily Beast is a “flat-out lie.” Walker’s denial came after the Daily Beast published a detailed description from an unnamed former girlfriend who said that Walker encouraged her to have an abortion after she became pregnant while they were dating, wrote her a $700 check to pay for the procedure and then sent her a subsequent “get well” card. When asked by Fox News’s Sean Hannity about the reported $700 check, Walker, who has voiced opposition to abortion rights, said he frequently gives money to others. “I send money to a lot of people,” Walker said. “I believe in being generous.” The Washington Post has not independently verified the reporting in the Daily Beast. Walker did not respond to a text message from The Post seeking comment. The Republican Senate candidate issued a written statement posted on Twitter referencing the Daily Beast story. “I deny this in the strongest possible terms,” he said. In that statement, Walker also said he planned to “sue the Daily Beast.” Walker is challenging Democratic Sen. Raphael G. Warnock in one of the most closely watched Senate contests of the year. The outcome of race, which polls show is competitive, is expected to help determine which party controls the Senate for the next two years. Shortly after the Daily Beast story published, one of Walker’s children turned to social media to criticize his father, accusing Walker of lying and saying that the former football star threatened him and his mother with violence that forced them to move multiple times. “I know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father Herschel Walker stopped lying and making a mockery of us,” wrote Christian Walker. Christian Walker has offered support for his father in the past, tweeting a video last December in which he hugged his father. “Had the honor of introducing my dad, @HerschelWalker, last night at Mar a Lago,” Christian Walker wrote. The younger Walker has also used his Twitter account to promote conservative ideas. On Monday evening, Christian Walker alleged that his father “threatened to kill us” and caused him and his mother to move six times in six months “running from your violence.” Christian Walker’s mother, Cindy Grossman, was married to Herschel Walker for nearly two decades and has recounted violent episodes in the past. Speaking to CNN, she detailed a time when he “held the gun to my temple and said he was gonna blow my brains out.” Walker has faced criticism for false claims, as well as allegations of stalking and violent threats. He has said that he has battled dissociative identity disorder throughout his life. Christian Walker also said that other family members discouraged his father from running for office “because we all knew (some of) his past.” “He decided to give us the middle finger and air out all of his dirty laundry in public, while simultaneously lying about it. I’m done,” Christian Walker wrote. He did not immediately respond to an email or direct message seeking additional comment. Asked for comment on Christian Walker’s postings, the Herschel Walker campaign pointed to a tweet from the candidate. “I LOVE my son no matter what,” Herschel Walker wrote on Twitter shortly after his son’s messages posted. Walker, 60, one of the most well-known figures in Georgia football history, won the Republican primary by a wide margin in May. He ran with former president Donald Trump’s endorsement and the name recognition of a national championship-winning Heisman Trophy winner. Read More Here

Australia Stocks Jump After Smaller-Than-Expected Rate Hike; Asia Markets Rise https://digitalarkansasnews.com/australia-stocks-jump-after-smaller-than-expected-rate-hike-asia-markets-rise/ Pedestrians wearing face masks walk past a monitor displaying the Nikkei 225 index on February 25 in Tokyo, Japan. Tomohiro Ohsumi | Getty Images Asia-Pacific shares traded higher on Tuesday after stocks on Wall Street rallied overnight. The Nikkei 225 in Japan rose 2.96% to close at 26,992.21, and the Topix index gained 3.21% to close at 1,906.89. South Korea’s Kospi advanced 2.5% to close at 2,209.38. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 1.95%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 jumped 3.75% to close at 6,699.3. The Reserve Bank of Australia raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points. Markets in mainland China and Hong Kong were closed for a holiday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average popped 765.38 points, or nearly 2.7%, to close at 29,490.89. The S&P 500 advanced about 2.6% to 3,678.43. The Nasdaq Composite added nearly 2.3% to end at 10,815.43. It was the best day since June 24 for the Dow, and the S&P 500′s the best day since July 27. — CNBC’s Tanaya Macheel and Samantha Subin contributed to this report. Indonesia is Asia-Pacific’s best-performing major index for the year The Jakarta Composite index in Indonesia has risen around 6% since the start of the year — and that’s been driven by an inflow of foreign investment into stocks and buoyed by higher commodity prices, said Maynard Arif, head of Indonesia equities at DBS Group Research. Analysts also told CNBC that there are tailwinds for the broader Southeast Asian market compared to North Asian markets. As of Monday’s close, the worst performers were South Korea’s Kospi and mainland China’s Shenzhen Component. Read more here. — Abigail Ng Oil prices climb ahead expectations of output cut from OPEC+ meeting Oil prices climbed on Tuesday ahead of an upcoming OPEC+ meeting which could see a huge output cut of more than a million barrels per day. Brent crude futures strengthened 0.64% to stand at $89.43 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate inched up 0.49% to $84.04 per barrel. “The Saudi-led cartel’s desire for elevated prices is no surprise after last month’s meeting,” Mizuho Bank’s Vishnu Varathan wrote in a note, referring to the group’s announcement in September, when it announced to cut oil production by 100,000 barrels per day. The move would be a “natural progression for OPEC+ to backstop prices,” Varathan wrote. — Lee Ying Shan Australia’s rate hike will help balance demand and supply: RBA statement The Reserve Bank of Australia said its rate hike of 25 basis points will “help achieve a more sustainable balance of demand and supply” in the nation’s economy. The central bank said it expects to continue increasing rates over the period ahead. It also noted that Australia’s unemployment rate is at its lowest in almost 50 years and said an increase in the rate is expected with slowing economic growth. –Jihye Lee Australia’s central bank raises interest rates by 25 basis points The Reserve Bank of Australia raised its benchmark interest rates by 25 basis points to 2.60%, missing expectations forecasted by economists in a Reuters poll. RBA’s board members had said “the case for a slower pace of increase in interest rates as becoming stronger,” according to minutes from its meeting in September. This is the sixth consecutive move by the central bank in its attempt to control inflationary pressures in the economy. The Australian dollar was down 0.8% at $0.64625 against the greenback shortly after the decision. –Jihye Lee South Korea, Japan defense stocks rise following North’s missile test South Korea’s Naver slips more than 4% on Poshmark deal announcement Shares of Naver fell in early trade after the South Korean internet giant said Monday it would buy U.S. e-retailer Poshmark for around $1.2 billion. Naver’s stock dropped 4.65%, compared to a rise of 1.34% on the broader Kospi index. Poshmark shares jumped around 14% overnight in the U.S. after the announcement. — Abigail Ng CNBC Pro: Want a ‘defensive move’ with up to 5% return? Buy this fund, says strategist It’s been a volatile year for both stocks and bonds, with major Wall Street indexes just ending their worst month since March 2020, and Treasury yields remaining elevated. However David Dietze, chief investment strategist at Point View Wealth Management, says “pockets of opportunity” still exist. “Short-term defensive measures probably are warranted,” Dietze told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday, and named his favorite fund to play the market right now. Pro subscribers can read more here. — Weizhen Tan Mon, Oct 3 20222:53 AM EDT Australia’s central bank expected to hike rates by 50 basis points: Reuters poll A Reuters poll of economists expects the Reserve Bank of Australia to hike its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points to 2.85%. RBA’s board members said the case for a slower pace of rate hikes was growing, according to minutes from its Sept. 6 meeting, when it raised its interest rate by 50 basis points. Analysts at Nomura are expecting the central bank to raise rates by 40 basis points, “to convey the view of RBA nearing the end of upsized hikes.” Economists at Commonwealth Bank Australia see a higher chance for a 25-basis-point hike than a 50-basis-point hike. –Jihye Lee CNBC Pro: Here’s what’s next for stocks, according to Wall Street pros September is finally behind us, much to the relief of many equity investors who endured a difficult month, with all major U.S. indexes posted steep losses. With a historically weak month now firmly in the rearview mirror, what is the outlook for stocks as we enter into the fourth quarter of the year? CNBC Pro combed through the research to find out what Wall Street thinks. Pro subscribers can read more here. — Zavier Ong Read More Here

Fort Smith https://digitalarkansasnews.com/fort-smith/ River Valley Vietnamese Catholic community oversees cleaning, scheduling, hospitality Published: October 4, 2022    By Maryanne Meyerriecks Fort Smith Correspondent Maryanne Meyerriecks Father Peter Le-Thanh Quang, associate pastor for Vietnamese ministry at Sacred Heart of Mary Church in Barling, stands in the chapel of the Divine Mercy Retreat Center in Fort Smith Sept. 19. A former Methodist church in Fort Smith has been transformed into a retreat center devoted to Divine Mercy. Since its opening in April, the Divine Mercy Retreat Center has hosted Vietnamese Catholics from all over the United States to pray for divine mercy for the world and support one another in practicing divine mercy in their daily lives. The Divine Mercy Association, located in California, was established to support the Southern Congregation of Jesus of Mercy in Vietnam and promote devotion in the United States. It encourages benefactors to join the Third Order of Divine Mercy as lay oblates affiliated with the Vietnamese congregation. “The association was looking for a location to build a retreat center in the United States,” Father Peter Le-Thanh Quang, associate pastor for Vietnamese ministry at Sacred Heart of Mary Church in Barling said. “It was able to purchase this building on Kelley Highway, a former Methodist church, for $310,000. It sits on two and a half acres and has 12,000 square feet. We have a chapel, a large community room, kitchen and 10 offices and classrooms we converted into bedrooms.” “We hosted volunteers from all over who helped us,” Bang Nguyen, a Sacred Heart of Mary parishioner, said. “After we installed showers and sinks and converted the classrooms into bedrooms, we could house up to 40 people for weekend retreats.” Bang Nguyen, a Sacred Heart of Mary parishioner, helped renovate the retreat center. “We hosted volunteers from all over who helped us,” he said. “After we installed showers and sinks and converted the classrooms into bedrooms, we could house up to 40 people for weekend retreats. One volunteer from Texas painted a mural of Jesus holding a basket of loaves and fishes in the kitchen.” The exterior building is adorned with a large painting of the Divine Mercy. Manicured flower beds circle the building and parking lot. The rear entrance opens to a large lawn suitable for outdoor gatherings or activities. The sanctuary has three large images behind the altar. The Divine Mercy is flanked by St. Faustina on the left and St. John Paul II, who canonized St. Faustina in 2000, on the right. “We had our first Mass here when we opened on Divine Mercy Sunday (April 24) this year,” Father Le said. “Bishop (Anthony B.) Taylor visited our retreat center, although it is under the province of the Divine Mercy Association in California. He told us Mass can be offered when groups are assembled for retreats. We are not designated as a church because Fort Smith already has enough churches.” Retreatants pray the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy every three hours during their Friday-Sunday meetings, beginning at 3 p.m. The local Vietnamese Catholic community also prays with them as their schedules permit. Many of the retreatants know Father Le through his daily Divine Mercy Radio broadcasts at radioltxc.org where they tune in and pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Chaplet of the Holy Spirit and listen to homilies and Bible studies. The Vietnamese Catholic community in the River Valley is entrusted with caring for the property. Volunteers oversee the gardening, cleaning, scheduling and hospitality. Father Le said he hopes to cover the monthly utility costs by renting out the community room with a giant screen and adjacent kitchen for parties, movie nights or game-day viewing events. “So far we have had one party here,” he said, “but we hope to host many more.” Father Le would also like to host weekly luncheons for senior citizens to gather and socialize. He is happy for the graces the center will bring to the community as more people pray the Chaplet, Novena and Litany of Divine Mercy to obtain mercy, increase their trust in God and show mercy to others. “I’m very excited to have this center open in our community,” Nguyen said, “because so many people will come and pray for Divine Mercy.” Please read our Comments Policy before posting. Article comments powered by Read More Here

Trump's Defamation Suit Against CNN Demands $475 Million https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trumps-defamation-suit-against-cnn-demands-475-million/ US ex-president Donald J. Trump sued CNN on Monday (local time), accusing the network of running a smear campaign against him in advance of the 2024 presidential elections. On Monday (local time), former US President Donald J. Trump filed a lawsuit against CNN, accusing the network of running a smear campaign against him in advance of the 2024 presidential elections. Trump is reportedly asking for more than $475 million in compensation, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. The complaint, filed in a federal court in southern Florida, argues that CNN intentionally circulated false information about Trump to its viewers to bring about his political demise. A report in The Wall Street Journal claims that Trump has accused CNN of presenting him as a Russian puppet and a Nazi, likening him to Adolf Hitler. He claimed that the network’s efforts to discredit him have been increasing recently because of speculation that he would seek the presidency again in 2024. Trump’s Defamation Suit Against CNN Demands $475 Million (3) It is worth noting that throughout his business and political career, Trump has regularly threatened to sue media organizations over news coverage. According to The New York Times, in 2020, his re-election campaign filed a lawsuit against both the newspaper and its editorial board for publishing pieces that implied a connection between the former US President and Russian intervention in American elections. Trump threatened legal action against CNN in 2019 for “unethical and unlawful attacks.” That warning was labelled by CNN as “a desperate PR stunt.” According to The New York Times, a lawsuit was never filed. Also, the day after Trump’s legal team sued CNN, the ex-president threatened legal action against other news organisations and the House select committee looking into the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Former President Donald Trump has filed a $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN. He is seeking punitive damages, claiming that the network used its influence to defeat him politically with a “campaign of libel and slander.” More: https://t.co/46UoV4T9hw pic.twitter.com/aAzgnXte6F — NewsNation (@NewsNation) October 3, 2022  According to The Hill, Trump did not name any other media sites that he intends to sue, but he did say he will sue them for spreading “disinformation” about the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden. Trump said in a statement reported by The Hill that the administration plans to sue “a significant number of other Fake News Media Companies for their lies, slander, and misconduct,” including “The Big Lie” used to describe the media’s disinformation campaign against the 2020 presidential election. For failing to look into his allegations of electoral fraud, the former president has threatened to sue the Jan. 6 commission. Trump continued, “The Unselect Committee has refused to acknowledge, as was done by the Biden Inspector General at the Department of Defense, and others, that days ahead of January 6th. I recommended and authorized thousands of troops to be deployed to ensure that there was peace, safety, and security at the Capitol and throughout the Country.”(The Business Standard staff may have modified the headline and accompanying image, but the remainder of this report was likely created automatically from a syndicated feed.) Read More Here

Trump Threatens 'Appropriate Action' Against Jan. 6 Committee https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-threatens-appropriate-action-against-jan-6-committee/ Former President Donald Trump on Monday said he “may bring appropriate action” against the Jan. 6 Committee. The statement, issued through the Save America political action committee (PAC) and shared on Trump’s Truth Social account, came as part of an announcement about a lawsuit he brought against CNN, alleging defamation. It is unclear whether Trump was threatening to bring legal action against the Jan. 6 Committee, or something else. A spokesperson for the Jan. 6 Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s threat. In his statement on Monday, Trump said of the Jan. 6 Committee: “notwithstanding overwhelming evidence, they REFUSED to investigate the massive Presidential Election Fraud which took place, but only investigate and harass the people and Patriots who complained and asked questions about it.” He added: “The rigging and stealing of our Presidential Election was perhaps The Crime Of The Century, and look at what is happening to our Country now!” Trump also said that the committee has “refused to acknowledge” that he had “recommended and authorized thousands of troops to be deployed to ensure that that there was peace, safety, and security at the Capitol and throughout the Country.” “That offer of National Guard was rejected by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Mayor Bowser of Washington, D.C.-the law requires their request, they failed to make one, and in turn failed the Country,” Trump added. Former Pentagon chief of staff Kash Patel previously noted that Trump authorized up to 20,000 National Guard troops for use in D.C. or elsewhere on Jan. 6, 2021, but the use of those troops was later rejected by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the U.S. Capitol Police. Patel explained in an EpochTV documentary published in July called “The Real Story of Jan. 6”  that Trump several days before Jan. 6 had authorized as many as 20,000 Guard troops for use on the day. But Bowser and Pelosi rejected the request. Background The Jan. 6 Committee was formed after the Democrat-majority House narrowly voted in its favor on June 30, 2021. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had initiated a resolution to create the committee to probe the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The nine-member committee has been criticized for its apparent partisanship, in part because the only two Republicans on the panel—Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.)—are both known for their strong opposition to Trump. Republican leaders have denounced the Jan. 6 Committee, saying it wasn’t formed according to House rules, because Pelosi had selected Kinzinger and Cheney after having refused to seat Reps Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who were chosen by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to be on the panel. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the House Republican Conference chair, alleged in June that the committee “does not serve any true legislative or oversight purpose.” She had also previously accused the Jan. 6 panel of being a political weapon “used to cover up for Nancy Pelosi’s failures.” The Jan. 6 committee, on its website, describes Jan. 6, 2021, as “one of the darkest days of our democracy,” when “insurrectionists … launched an assault on the United States Capitol Complex that resulted in multiple deaths, physical harm to over 140 members of law enforcement, and terror and trauma among staff, institutional employees, press, and Members.” Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) preside over a Joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 Electoral College results after protestors stormed the Capitol earlier in the day in Washington on Jan. 6, 2020. (Erin Schaff/Pool/AFP via Getty Images) Lawmakers that day had gathered for a joint session of Congress to count and certify the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election. It was temporarily interrupted when a sizable group of protesters entered the building and its surrounds. Outside were thousands of other mostly peaceful protesters who had gathered in Washington on the day to express concerns about election integrity. Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was determined to have died from homicide on Jan. 6, having been shot and killed by Lt. Michael L. Byrd, a Capitol Police officer. Another death involved a woman in her 30s, Rosanne Boyland. The D.C. medical examiner ruled her death as an accident from a drug overdose. But video unsealed in December 2021 showed that Boyland was crushed and trampled when the crowd of protesters was pushed out of a tunnel in the Capitol building. She was then repeatedly struck by a police officer as she lay unconscious. Another three people died of what were ultimately determined to be natural causes that coincided but were unrelated to the protests in Washington and the Capitol breach itself. One of them was Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick who died on Jan. 7; he was initially believed to have died due to injuries caused by protesters but was ultimately determined to have died due to a stroke. The other two people were men in their 50s who died on Jan. 6 due to hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. As of early October, more than 900 people have been dealt charges by the Justice Department under the Biden administration, accusing them of having committed federal crimes on Jan. 6, 2021. About 400 of them have pleaded guilty. Juries have convicted eight Jan. 6 defendants after trials. None of the defendants who had jury trials were acquitted of any charges. Joseph M. Hanneman contributed to this report. Follow Mimi Nguyen Ly covers world news with a focus on U.S. news. Contact her at mimi.nl@epochtimes.com Read More Here

Donald Trump Files Defamation Lawsuit Against CNN, Demands $475 Million In Damages https://digitalarkansasnews.com/donald-trump-files-defamation-lawsuit-against-cnn-demands-475-million-in-damages/ Washington: Former US president Donald Trump sued CNN on Monday, accusing the cable television news network of defamation and seeking $475 million in punitive damages. Trump, in the lawsuit filed in a US District Court in Florida, accused CNN of waging a campaign of “libel and slander” against him because it “fears” he will run for president again in 2024. “CNN has sought to use its massive influence — purportedly as a ‘trusted’ news source — to defame the plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically,” Trump’s lawyers said in the 29-page complaint. “As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the Left, CNN has tried to taint the plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler,'” the complaint said. Trump, who requested a jury trial, had a caustic relationship with CNN and other major news outlets like The New York Times during his presidency, branding them “fake news” and repeatedly raging against them on social media. Read More Here

Ukraine Forces Break Through Russian Defences In South, Advance In East https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ukraine-forces-break-through-russian-defences-in-south-advance-in-east/ Ukraine making gains in two of four regions annexed by Russia Retaking of strategic hub of Lyman improves access to the Donbas Elon Musk proposal for ending war draws Ukrainian condemnation Ukraine says it took 31 Russian tanks out of action in south SVIATOHIRSK/KYIV, Oct 4 (Reuters) – Ukrainian forces have broken through Russian defences in the south of the country while expanding their rapid offensive in the east, seizing back more territory in areas annexed by Russia and threatening supply lines for its troops. Making their biggest breakthrough in the south since the war began, Ukrainian forces recaptured several villages in an advance along the strategic Dnipro River on Monday, Ukrainian officials and a Russian-installed leader in the area said. Ukrainian forces in the south destroyed 31 Russian tanks and one multiple rocket launcher, the military’s southern operational command said in a nightly update, without providing details of where the fighting occurred. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield accounts. The southern breakthrough mirrors recent Ukrainian advances in the east even as Russia has tried to raise the stakes by annexing land, ordering mobilisation, and threatening nuclear retaliation. Ukraine has made significant advances in two of the four Russian-occupied regions Moscow last week annexed after what it called referendums – votes that were denounced by Kyiv and Western governments as illegal and coercive. In a sign Ukraine is building momentum on the eastern front, Reuters saw columns of Ukrainian military vehicles heading on Monday to reinforce the rail hub of Lyman, retaken at the weekend, and a staging post to press into the Donbas region. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s army had seized back towns in a number of areas, without giving details. “New population centres have been liberated in several regions. Heavy fighting is going on in several sectors of the front,” Zelenskiy said in a video address. Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of Luhansk – one of two regions that make up the Donbas – said Russian forces had taken over a psychiatric hospital in the town of Svatovo, a target en route to recapturing the major cities of Lysychansk and Sivierodonetsk. “There is quite a network of underground rooms in the building and they have taken up defensive positions,” he told Ukrainian television. In the south, Ukrainian troops recaptured the town of Dudchany along the west bank of the Dnipro River, which bisects the country, Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed leader in occupied parts of Ukraine’s Kherson province, told Russian state television. “There are settlements that are occupied by Ukrainian forces,” Saldo said. Dudchany is about 30 km (20 miles) south of where the front stood before Monday’s breakthrough, indicating the fastest advance of the war in the south. Russian forces there had been dug into heavily reinforced positions along a mainly static front line since the early weeks of the invasion. While Ukraine has yet to give a full account of the developments, military and regional officials did release some details. Soldiers from Ukraine’s 128th Mountain Assault Brigade raised the blue and yellow national flag in Myrolyubivka, a village between the former front and the Dnipro, according to a video released by the defence ministry. Serhiy Khlan, a Kherson regional council member, listed four other villages recaptured or where Ukrainian troops had been photographed. “It means that our armed forces are moving powerfully along the banks of the Dnipro nearer to Beryslav,” he said. Reuters was unable to independently verify the developments. ‘ABILITY TO ATTACK’ The southern advance is targeting supply lines for as many as 25,000 Russian troops on the Dnipro’s west bank. Ukraine has already destroyed the river’s main bridges, forcing Russian forces to use makeshift crossings. A substantial advance down river could cut them off entirely. “The fact we have broken through the front means that … the Russian army has already lost the ability to attack, and today or tomorrow it could lose the ability to defend,” said Oleh Zhdanov, a military analyst based in Kyiv. Ukraine appears to be on course to achieve several of its battlefield objectives, giving it “a much better defensive position to ride out what probably will be a tamping down of the hot fighting over the winter”, Celeste Wallander, a senior Pentagon official, said on Monday. Just hours after a concert on Moscow’s Red Square on Friday where Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed the provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to be Russian territory forever, Ukraine recaptured Lyman, the main Russian bastion in the north of Donetsk province. Billionaire Elon Musk on Monday asked Twitter users to weigh in on a plan to end the war which included proposing U.N.-supervised elections in the four occupied regions and recognising Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014, as Russian. The plan drew immediate condemnation from Ukrainians, including President Zelenskiy. read more Russia’s flagging fortunes have led to a shift in mood on state media, where talkshow hosts have been acknowledging setbacks and searching for scapegoats. “For a certain period of time, things won’t be easy for us. We shouldn’t be expecting good news right now,” said Vladimir Solovyov, the most prominent presenter on state television. The commander of Russia’s western military district, which borders Ukraine, has lost his job, Russian media reported on Monday, the latest in a series of top officials to be fired after defeats. (This story refiles to correct spelling of Saldo in paragraph 13) Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Rami Ayyub and Lincoln Feast; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Sam Holmes Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More Here

Kelly, Hobbs Face Different Prospects In Crucial Ariz. Races https://digitalarkansasnews.com/kelly-hobbs-face-different-prospects-in-crucial-ariz-races/ PHOENIX (AP) — A year ago, Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs was all over cable news, building a national profile as a defender of democracy and raking in cash for her campaign for governor. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, newly elected to finish the late John McCain’s last term and running for reelection, looked to be among the most vulnerable members of the Senate. Fortunes appear to have flipped for the two Democrats as the midterm campaign enters the home stretch in a fast-growing, diverse state that is increasingly central to how the Democratic Party sees its future. Kelly maintains a position of strength in polling and fundraising while Hobbs is in a tighter spot. The dynamics reflect how the campaigns have sometimes pursued different strategies and face different types of rivals. Kari Lake, Hobbs’ opponent as the Republican nominee for governor, has gained a significant following as a savvy ally of former President Donald Trump. Blake Masters, Kelly’s rival in the Senate race, has struggled to gain the same type of traction. “People like shiny objects, and Kari Lake is that shiny object that’s putting herself out there,” said Bridget Bellavigna, a Democrat who was inspired by Trump’s election to get involved in local politics. She’s running for constable in the Phoenix suburbs. FILE – Arizona Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs speaks to the media before dropping off her primary election ballot, July 21, 2022, in Scottsdale, Ariz. A year ago, Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs was all over cable news, building a national profile as a defender of democracy and raking in cash for her campaign for governor. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, newly elected to finish John McCain’s last term and running for re-election, looked to be among the most vulnerable members of the Senate. Fortunes appear to have flipped for the two Democrats. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File) Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Ross D. Franklin A Fox News poll released Thursday found Kelly leading Republican Blake Masters 46% to 40%, while the race for governor was roughly tied. The survey of 1,008 Arizona voters was conducted Sept. 22-26. The margin of error was 3 percentage points. Hobbs and Kelly are working largely independently of one another and have not campaigned together. Both portray their Republican opponents as extremists but otherwise are taking different approaches to their public persona. Kelly, a former Navy pilot and astronaut, flies around the state in a rented four-seat plane, courting media attention along the way. Hobbs, by contrast, had a sparse presence on the campaign trail through the Democratic primary in August and much of the period since. She’s focused her attention on rural areas far from the voter-rich areas of Phoenix and Tucson, where Democrats have to drive up turnout if they’re to be competitive here. She’s been more visible over the past two weeks, though she prefers choreographed events in which she largely sticks to a script and limits her interactions with journalists. In a brief interaction after an event last month, Hobbs said she’s not running from tough questions. “I’m doing what my team is having me do,” she said. “I’m not looking to dodge anything.” Hobbs is playing “prevent defense,” a cautious football strategy that concedes short gains to the opponent in an attempt to run out the clock, said Wes Gullett, a Republican consultant and former adviser to McCain. Gullett attached his name to a public list of Republicans supporting Democrat Adrian Fontes for secretary of state, but he’s declined to do the same for Hobbs, though he says he’d prefer that she beats Lake. “What I want to see from Katie Hobbs is a more aggressive candidate,” Gullett said. “Talking about the issues that she cares about, talking about what’s important.” Late last month, Hobbs jumped on a chance to sharpen her message when a judge in Tucson ruled that prosecutors can enforce a near-total ban on abortion that was first enacted during the Civil War. She pledged to use the full power of the governor’s office to protect women’s rights, though she acknowledged there was little she could do without cooperation from the Legislature, which is likely to be controlled at least in part by Republicans who oppose abortion. Hobbs announced over the weekend that she raised $1.2 million in the week following the abortion ruling, a major uptick in fundraising, though she hasn’t yet had to file campaign finance statements that would confirm the numbers. Hobbs is a former social worker who worked with people experiencing homelessness and later was a lobbyist for a domestic violence shelter. She was elected to the Legislature in 2010, running on a slate with now-U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to represent the same central Phoenix district, Hobbs in the House and Sinema in the Senate. “At the end of the day, we’re confident that sanity will beat chaos and Sec. Hobbs will be elected in November,” Hobbs campaign manager Nicole DeMont said in a statement to The Associated Press. The race for governor is closer than the race for Senate because Hobbs faces a tougher matchup, said Chad Campbell, a Democratic consultant and former Arizona legislator. Lake is a stronger candidate than Masters, he said. “Kari Lake is a better version of Trump,” Campbell said. “She’s a more polished, better looking version of Donald Trump.” It also helps Kelly that Senate races attract significantly more money than campaigns for governor, allowing Kelly and Democratic allies to relentlessly attack Masters, who is struggling to keep up financially. The Senate race also has a Libertarian candidate who could draw votes from right-leaning voters. Independent voters make up a third of the electorate in Arizona and hold the keys to statewide victories. They often split their tickets, electing Sinema to the Senate and Republican Doug Ducey as governor in 2018. Two years later, they propelled Kelly to a 2.4 percentage point victory while Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden eked out a 0.3 point win, the closest margin of any state he won. Republicans ran the table on the rest of the ballot. Hobbs became the undisputed Democratic frontrunner last year when she forcefully defended the 2020 election as Trump supporters oversaw a discredited recount of ballots in Maricopa County on behalf of state Senate Republicans. But she’s struggled to translate her defense of democracy into a firm position of strength. Her own missteps haven’t helped. Late last year, a jury for a second time sided with a Black former legislative aide, Talonya Adams, who said she was fired for discriminatory reasons in 2015, when Hobbs was the top Democrat in the Senate. Hobbs testified that she made a group decision with two others to fire Adams. Hobbs at first defended the decision and deflected responsibility, blaming Republicans for underpaying Adams. After a firestorm from Democrats who felt she was dismissive of workplace discrimination against people of color, Hobbs apologized to Adams and said her initial response “fell short of taking real accountability.” Two-thirds of the Hobbs campaign staff quit this summer, telling the Arizona Agenda newsletter that the atmosphere was emotionally abusive. More recently, she’s faced an onslaught of criticism, even from allies, and weeks of negative headlines for her decision not to debate Lake. “It’s bad for her not to,” said Linda Martini, a Democratic volunteer from Phoenix who tried to share her opinion with Hobbs at a recent campaign event but was rebuffed by the candidate, who walked away. “Furthermore, she could destroy her opponents. There’s no doubt about it. And the people want to see her on TV.” Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Read More Here

The Trial Has Begun Against Oath Keepers Accused Of Attacking The US Capitol. https://digitalarkansasnews.com/the-trial-has-begun-against-oath-keepers-accused-of-attacking-the-us-capitol/ In the United States, the trial began against members of the Oath Keepers group, who were present in the January 6, 2020 attack on the United States Capitol, when they tried to block the certification of Joe Biden as US President by Congress . They deny the charges they have been charged with: conspiracy to treason. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler argued in his lawsuit against the extremist group Oath Keepers that its founder, Stewart Rhodes, and four other associates planned an “armed rebellion” in the January 6, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill. President Donald Trump is in power. According to the prosecutor, the purpose of Rhodes and his gang was to “prevent by any means necessary, the legal transfer of presidential power, even taking up arms against the government of the United States” and noted that they created “an American democracy.” The plan of an armed rebellion to shatter the foundations of These are the first defendants from that day to be tried on charges of conspiracy to treason, which stems from the Civil War and carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years. The last time the Justice Department received such a sentence was 30 years ago in a trial. “Overthrow, Repeal, or Dismantle Congress” The prosecutor’s office told the jury that the rebellion was not a spontaneous outburst of anger over the election results, but part of an elaborate plan whose sole purpose was to prevent Joe Biden from reaching the White House. Nestler noted the fact that in November 2020, Rhodes sent his followers a detailed plan that was based on a popular uprising in Yugoslavia 20 years earlier and that the rhetoric of the head of the Oath Keepers had become more violent and desperate . During an interview in December, Rhodes called the senators “traitors” and warned those sworn in would “overthrow, repeal, or eliminate Congress.” But Rhodes defense attorney Philip Linder paints a different picture, describing the group as a “peace-keeping” force. According to him, the prosecutor’s office built the case on the basis of selected evidence from messages and videos. “The story the government is trying to tell today is completely wrong,” he said. The lawyer also said that “Rhodes had no intention of harming the Capitol that day” and was merely preparing the orders expected of Trump, which never came. On test for the events of January 6, 2020 Some 900 people have been charged and hundreds have been convicted for the events of that January 6, when rioters tried to interfere with Joe Biden’s certification as president, crossed the Capitol’s police barriers, agents engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with the Congress, broke the windows and entered the building where the Congress Plenary session was held, causing panic among the Congressmen. Prosecutor Nestler said, “Oath Keepers stormed the Capitol in helmets and other combat gear while Rhodes stood outside, as if “one was watching his soldiers on the battlefield.” After the attack, members of the group ” enthusiasm”, he said. Rhodes wrote messages on January 6 that drew attention to the lawsuit. “The patriots entering their own capitol to send a message to the traitors are nothing compared to what is to come” was one of them. Guns and ammunition worth $17,000 Before Biden’s inauguration, prosecutors said Rhodes spent nearly $17,000 on firearms, ammunition and other items and that the order of the Oath Keepers chief was to organize a militia to oppose the Democrat’s nomination. The prosecution stated in its statement, “These defendants were fighting a war and they won a battle on January 6, but they planned to continue that war to prevent the transfer of power. Fortunately, their plan failed. ” Logic. The defense says the sworn-in went to Washington for the sole purpose of providing security at events where former President Donald Trump’s aide, Roger Stone, was scheduled to attend, and that members of the group who worked in the attack . Capital did this because of your account. In addition to Rhodes, Kelly Meigs, Florida leader of the Oath Keepers; Kenneth Harrelson, also from Florida; Thomas Caldwell, a US Navy intelligence officer, and Jessica Watkins, who led a militia group from Ohio. Meggs and Harrelson were the ones who guided a group of seven people toward the Capitol’s House of Representatives, where, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, they were specifically looking for the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Associated Press. with Read More Here

ISBI Will Sell Tickets To First LIV Golf Finale At Trump National Doral – Kansas City Business Journal – The Business Journals https://digitalarkansasnews.com/isbi-will-sell-tickets-to-first-liv-golf-finale-at-trump-national-doral-kansas-city-business-journal-the-business-journals/ ISBI will sell tickets to first LIV Golf finale at Trump National Doral – Kansas City Business Journal  The Business Journals Read More Here

FBI Data Finds Arkansans Have High Change Of Being A Violent Crime Victim https://digitalarkansasnews.com/fbi-data-finds-arkansans-have-high-change-of-being-a-violent-crime-victim/ LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KAIT) – A new study found living in Arkansas means you have a higher chance of being a victim of a violent crime. According to data from the FBI, Arkansas has the fourth most violent crime per 100 thousand people, with nearly 672 violent crimes per 100,000 people. With seas of blue across the state and police investigating more violent crime cases, those who call Arkansas home said they are not surprised. Steve Kirksey is a longtime Jonesboro resident who worries about crime. “It is just getting out of hand,” said Kirksey. “I fear my Grandchildren will grow up in a society where they can’t even go outside without fear of getting shot or robbed.” Ofure Ogbediwi moved to Jonesboro from Los Angeles and is one of those victims. She is a single mother and said she was the victim of a home break-in just a few weeks ago. “I will definitely be more aware of my surroundings and my safety,” said Ogbediwi. The FBI Little Rock said Jonesboro is not a hot spot for crime, but cities like Pine Bluff, Helena-West Helena, West Memphis, and Little Rock are. Ogbediwi said even though Jonesboro isn’t on the FBI’s list, she has noticed a change in the crime rate here. “Pretty unsafe, pretty unsure, pretty uncertain about being in my apartment, being in my neighborhood,” said Ogbediwi. “I have been noticing more gunshots, definitely hear about more shootings, more crime so I think more people that are coming in from other places are making it more unsafe.” The Natural State isn’t alone in its ranking; Alaska ranked the most dangerous, followed by New Mexico and Tennessee. While police patrol across the state, people like Ogbediwi and Kirksey are taking no chances regarding their safety. “It has definitely become an issue with safety so I am more alert with my safety,” said Ogbediwi. “Keep my house locked. Keep my vehicles locked. I think we need more police officers in this city, in this state. There are not enough police officers,” said Kirksey. The FBI Little Rock office told Region 8 News they would release new crime numbers this week. As soon as we get them, we will pass them along. Copyright 2022 KAIT. All rights reserved. Read More…

Laurence Silberman, Titan Of Conservative Jurisprudence, Dies At 86 https://digitalarkansasnews.com/laurence-silberman-titan-of-conservative-jurisprudence-dies-at-86/ Laurence H. Silberman, one of the most influential conservative judges on the federal appellate bench, whose opinions on Second Amendment rights, the separation of powers, and the limits of press freedom resonated in the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court and across American jurisprudence, died Oct. 2 at his home in Washington. He was 86. His son Robert Silberman confirmed his death and said the cause was an undiagnosed infection. Mr. Silberman was named to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by President Ronald Reagan in 1985. He remained in full-time service on that bench — widely considered the second-most important judicial body in the country after the Supreme Court — until taking senior status in 2000. He continued hearing cases until shortly before his death and was celebrated among conservatives as a constant if sometimes provocative exponent of judicial restraint, the notion that judges must limit the exercise of their power to the analysis of the legal questions that come immediately before them. Mr. Silberman’s decades on the D.C. appeals court capped a government career that dated to the administration of Richard M. Nixon, one of several Republican presidents he served. Under Nixon, Mr. Silberman was solicitor of labor, the Labor Department’s top lawyer, and deputy attorney general. Under President Gerald Ford, Mr. Silberman served as U.S. ambassador to what then was Yugoslavia from 1975 to 1976. Three decades later, Mr. Silberman paused his judicial duties when President George W. Bush named him and Chuck S. Robb, a Democrat who served as U.S. senator and governor of Virginia, as co-chairmen of a presidential commission that issued a scathing report on the intelligence failures leading to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Bush later awarded Mr. Silberman the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, calling him “a stalwart guardian of the Constitution” whose “work to strengthen our national security institutions has made Americans safer.” But Mr. Silberman was best known as a jurist, and for the rigorous, sometimes tartly worded opinions he issued elucidating his legal worldview. “It has always seemed rather simple to me that in a democracy federal judges appointed for life may not allow themselves, or should not allow themselves, to make policy judgments,” he once said in an oral history for the Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit.” Rather, he said, they “should do their very best to interpret the policy judgments Congress makes and turns into legislation as well as the policy judgments that are embodied” in the Constitution. That position, “didn’t please everyone — or anyone all of the time,” Paul Clement, a former clerk to the judge who became U.S. solicitor general, wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “But disappointing those who view judicial decisions through a political lens was part of the job.” Mr. Silberman “wrote important opinions and spotted lurking jurisdictional defects,” Clement observed, “as he strived to model his vision of judicial restraint.” Mr. Silberman issued one of his most important opinions in Parker v. District of Columbia, authoring the 2-1 decision in 2007 that found a District gun control measure in violation of Second Amendment protections of the right to bear arms. The case proceeded as District of Columbia v. Heller to the Supreme Court, which voted 5-4 the following year to strike down the D.C. law. Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion, one of the most significant of his career, reflected Mr. Silberman’s view that Second Amendment protections apply not only to militia members, but also to individuals. Mr. Silberman wrote a majority opinion in 1988 that would have invalidated the law that created an independent counsel to investigate government officials, including the president, accused of certain federal crimes. The judge saw the law as a violation of the separation of powers. The case advanced to the Supreme Court as Morrison v. Olson, in which the court voted to uphold the independent counsel law. It was, Mr. Silberman said, “my greatest disappointment as a judge.” Scalia wrote a noted dissent — of which Mr. Silberman’s earlier opinion had “formed the first draft,” according to Clement — and the law was allowed to expire in 1999. Mr. Silberman occasionally surprised court-watchers, including when he voted to uphold the 2010 Affordable Care Act, one of President Barack Obama’s signature policy achievements, against Republican challenges. He disliked the law but argued that it was supported by the “commerce clause” of the Constitution allowing Congress to regulate commerce between the states. Mr. Silberman was frequently floated as a contender for a seat on the Supreme Court, including when Justice William Brennan Jr. resigned in 1990. Around that time, Mr. Silberman ruled in favor of Oliver L. North, the National Security Council aide who had appealed his convictions in connection with the Iran-contra affair. (The charges against him were eventually dropped.) According to The Washington Post, Mr. Silberman’s decision in that case was seen as possibly costing him the Supreme Court nomination, which ultimately went to David Souter. One of Mr. Silberman’s most controversial opinions was a dissent in a 2021 libel case, in which he argued that the unanimous 1964 Supreme Court decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, a foundational case in media law that protects journalists from libel suits from public figures, should be reevaluated. “Two of the three most influential papers (at least historically), The New York Times and The Washington Post, are virtually Democratic Party broadsheets. And the news section of The Wall Street Journal leans in the same direction,” he wrote. “Nearly all television — network and cable — is a Democratic Party trumpet.” “I recognize how difficult it will be to persuade the Supreme Court to overrule such a ‘landmark’ decision,” he conceded. “After all, doing so would incur the wrath of press and media. … But new considerations have arisen over the last 50 years that make the New York Times decision (which I believe I have faithfully applied in my dissent) a threat to American Democracy. It must go.” Mr. Silberman’s opinion caused an uproar among journalists and advocates for press freedom. It was sharply criticized by J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge appointed by President George H.W. Bush, as “dangerous” and “chilling.” To his admirers, the decision represented Mr. Silberman’s ability to shape legal conversations in the country even when he was not in the majority. “Judge Silberman had a powerful legal mind, enormous energy, and a passion for freedom,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said in a statement after Mr. Silberman’s death. “Our country benefited greatly from that combination. And there was never a dull moment when he was in the room.” Laurence Hirsch Silberman was born in York, Pa., on Oct. 12, 1935. His paternal grandfather made a fortune in the steel industry, and he described his father as “spoiled and pretty much a ne’er-do-well who lost a great deal of money in various ventures financed by my grandfather.” Mr. Silberman was a baby when his 5-year-old brother was fatally struck by a car. His parents soon relocated to Philadelphia and then to New Jersey, where Mr. Silberman grew up. His parents divorced when he was 9, and his mother later worked in real estate and remarried. He said that his mother, his grandfather and an uncle who was a lawyer all encouraged him to enter the legal field. He graduated with a history degree from Dartmouth College in 1957 and, after Army service, from Harvard Law School in 1961. He practiced law in Hawaii before joining the National Labor Relations Board as a lawyer in 1967. At the Labor Department, he helped draft the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. At the Labor Department, Mr. Silberman once threatened to resign when the Nixon administration attempted to block the nomination of an African American labor scholar. He was deeply affected by an episode in 1975 when, as a top Justice Department official, he was tasked with reviewing the secret files of J. Edgar Hoover, the powerful FBI director who had died three years earlier. “It was the single worst experience of my long governmental service,” Mr. Silberman wrote years later in the Journal. “I intend to take to my grave nasty bits of information on various political figures — some still active.” “As bad as the dirt collection business was, perhaps even worse was the evidence that he had allowed — even offered — the bureau to be used by presidents for nakedly political purposes,” Mr. Silberman continued. “I have always thought that the most heinous act in which a democratic government can engage is to use its law enforcement machinery for political ends.” In between his stints in government, he worked in private practice, as a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and as an executive at Crocker National Bank in San Francisco. Mr. Silberman was married for 49 years to Rosalie Gaull “Ricky” Silberman, who co-founded the Independent Women’s Forum, an advocacy organization representing conservative women. She was a vocal supporter of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas during his 1991 confirmation process, which was bitterly contested over allegations that he had sexually harassed Anita Hill, a former colleague at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where Mr. Silberman’s wife also had worked. Thomas was ultimately confirmed to the high court. Ricky Gaull Silberman died in 2007. In 2008, Mr. Silberman married Patricia Winn. Besides his wife, of Washington, survivors...

Average Gas Price In Los Angeles County Rises To Record High https://digitalarkansasnews.com/average-gas-price-in-los-angeles-county-rises-to-record-high/ LOS ANGELES (KABC) — The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in Los Angeles County rose seven-tenths of a cent to a record $6.466 Monday, topping the previous high of $6.462 set June 14. The average price has risen 31 consecutive days, increasing $1.22, including 1 cent Sunday and 15.3 cents Thursday, the largest daily increase since the record 19.2-cent hike on Oct. 5, 2012, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service. The increases Sunday and Monday are the smallest since a half-cent increase Sept. 19. The average price is 62.6 cents more than one week ago, $1.202 higher than one month ago and $2.05 greater than one year ago. The streak of increases follows a run of 78 decreases in 80 days totaling $1.216 that began June 15, one day after the average price rose to a record $6.462. The Orange County average price rose one-tenth of a cent to $6.423, one day after dropping seven-tenths of a cent. It rose 4.3 cents Saturday to a record $6.429, topping the previous high of $6.41 set June 12. Sunday’s decrease ended a 12-day streak of increases totaling $1.033, including a 15.9-cent increase Thursday, the largest daily increase since the record 19.5-cent hike on Oct. 5, 2012. The Orange County average price is 59.2 cents more than one week ago, $1.23 higher than one month ago, and $2.044 greater than one year ago. The rising prices are the result of insufficient supply to meet demand caused in part by reduced production of gasoline from refineries undergoing maintenance, Marie Montgomery, a public relations specialist with the Automobile Club of Southern California, told City News Service. Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked refineries to switch to their winter blend gas earlier than normal. The blend is typically cheaper, but analysts say it is unclear how soon drivers will see that change at the pump. Meanwhile, some relief could come soon arrive through gas rebate checks for Californians who filed their 2020 tax returns. Checks could be rolled out as early as Friday. The national average for a gallon of gas is $3.79. City News Service contributed to this report. Copyright © 2022 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved. Read More Here

Washington County Quorum Court Tables Vote On Abortion Resolution https://digitalarkansasnews.com/washington-county-quorum-court-tables-vote-on-abortion-resolution/ Washington County Quorum Court tables vote on abortion resolution Monday night, the Washington County Justices of The Peace decided during a committee meeting to postpone voting on a resolution that would support exceptions for Arkansas abortion law. The state bans abortion except to save the life of a pregnant woman.The resolution would have made exceptions for things like rape or incest. The Quorum Court can’t change the state’s abortion law, but this would have asked lawmakers to revisit it.Justice Evelyn Rios Stafford introduced the resolution. “Yes, I will continue to fight for this,” she said. “I think what happened tonight was ridiculous.”She says what happened at Monday’s meeting is something she’s never seen before. “My colleagues decided to violate Robert’s roles and table the resolution before it was even heard on the agenda,” she said. “Therefore, denying me a chance to speak. I think that this was a cowardly move by folks who didn’t want to vote on a difficult issue for them this close to the election.”Justice Butch Pond says his decision wasn’t political. He wants his fellow justice members to have more time to think about it. “They may need more time to study this,” he said. “This is a very difficult thing to discuss, and I’ve seen very gentle caring people had their words turned around because they misspoke.”But his mind is already made up that he won’t support this resolution “I don’t believe in taking an innocent life,” he said.It will get voted on at their next committee meeting, but there’s not another one scheduled through the end of the year. So Stafford is worried that this will get lost in the shuffle. FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Monday night, the Washington County Justices of The Peace decided during a committee meeting to postpone voting on a resolution that would support exceptions for Arkansas abortion law. The state bans abortion except to save the life of a pregnant woman. The resolution would have made exceptions for things like rape or incest. The Quorum Court can’t change the state’s abortion law, but this would have asked lawmakers to revisit it. Justice Evelyn Rios Stafford introduced the resolution. “Yes, I will continue to fight for this,” she said. “I think what happened tonight was ridiculous.” She says what happened at Monday’s meeting is something she’s never seen before. “My colleagues decided to violate Robert’s roles and table the resolution before it was even heard on the agenda,” she said. “Therefore, denying me a chance to speak. I think that this was a cowardly move by folks who didn’t want to vote on a difficult issue for them this close to the election.” Justice Butch Pond says his decision wasn’t political. He wants his fellow justice members to have more time to think about it. “They may need more time to study this,” he said. “This is a very difficult thing to discuss, and I’ve seen very gentle caring people had their words turned around because they misspoke.” But his mind is already made up that he won’t support this resolution “I don’t believe in taking an innocent life,” he said. It will get voted on at their next committee meeting, but there’s not another one scheduled through the end of the year. So Stafford is worried that this will get lost in the shuffle. Read More Here

Western Arkansas Under Extreme Drought https://digitalarkansasnews.com/western-arkansas-under-extreme-drought/ Barge traffic not affected on Arkansas River thanks to locks and dams The amount of rainfall for Fort Smith in September has been reported as zero by the National Weather Service. There has been a big zero for October in the rain department too so far. Western Arkansas has now been moved into the extreme drought category after being in severe drought the last several months, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. While a number of football fields in the area do have artificial turf, there are schools having to deal with maintaining their fields with no rain and the high daytime temperatures. “We still got to get the field ready and just trying to water it as much as we can and keeping it mowed down low,” said Pocola, Oklahoma Coach Jason Parker. “I think this next week will be better since the temperatures are supposed to be lower, get some water on it and maybe it’ll come back a little green.” What the drought means for the area, livestock If the drought of 2022 happened in 1800s, people might have been able to walk across the Arkansas River. There is plenty of water in the river for barges despite the drought this year. More than 100 years ago, there was not a lock and dam system barges and tug boats navigate. Marty Shell is the owner of Five Rivers Distribution in Barling, an intermodal port where barges, trucks and trains unload. The U.S. Corps of Engineers keep channels 9 feet deep at all times by dredging if the rains stop. The U.S. Drought Monitor has listed western Arkansas, including Sebastian and Crawford counties and bordering areas of eastern Oklahoma as being in extreme drought. Parts of eastern Oklahoma are in exceptional drought. Effects on wildlife:Deer, bear archery seasons open in western Arkansas There is water in the river because of those locks and dams. Shell works near the  James W. Trimble Lock and Dam 13 in Barling. “Without those locks and dams we could walk across the river. The Corps of Engineers is doing a great job,” Shell said. There are low places in the river. Area lakes are also below normal level. The locks and dams in western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma is part of the McClelland-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System from Tulsa to the Mississippi in southeast Arkansas. The drought has not been as bad in eastern parts of the state, but areas near the Mississippi are in abnormally dry or moderate drought conditions, the U.S. Drought Monitor reports. Cattle ranchers have also been affected this year by the drought. The drought started in late June, drying up much-needed grasses for livestock, area ranchers said. Cattle have been sold early at the Fort Smith Stockyards in Moffett. The rising cost of hay and fuel since the drought started during the summer. Ranchers sold off herds as prices of hay went up. The long winter months could make matters worsen for area ranchers should the lack of rainfall continue. Weather reports show no forecast for rain. In Greenwood, city officials have asked residents to conserve water and only water outdoors with a hose on odd or even days matching their addresses. Burn ban, weather forecast A burn ban for all outdoor burning remains in effect in Sebastian County. The National Weather Service forecast through Oct. 9 shows sunny skies with mostly highs in the 80s. Leaves on trees will turn from green to yellow and fall earlier during drought. Last year, Fort Smith had 50.60 inches of rain. The year 2022 was on track to have about the same amount before June. There has been no rain in September or October, the National Weather Service reports. Fort Smith had 2.02 inches of rain in August, and just 2.06 inches in July. The drought did not start until June, as the National Weather Service data shows. June was a wet month in Fort Smith with 11.02 inches. So far for 2022, Fort Smith has had 40.28 inches of rain, the National Weather Service reported Monday, Oct. 3. George “Clay” Mitchell / Fort Smith Southwest Times Record contributed to this report. Read More Here

Follow The 9News Live Breaking News Blog Throughout The Day https://digitalarkansasnews.com/follow-the-9news-live-breaking-news-blog-throughout-the-day/ Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here 12:49pm Oct 4, 2022 live feed Almost 50 firefighters are at the scene of a two-storey building fire in Sydney’s south. The fire has caused the Princes Highway to be closed between Bay Street and Bestic Street in Rockdale. “Motorists are advised to avoid the area or allow plenty of extra travel time,” Traffic NSW said. Images show smoke billowing from the top of the building as crews from 12 firetrucks fight the blaze. A rainfall map has revealed a grim forecast for most of NSW, parts of Victoria and Queensland over the next week. NSW Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke posted the image which shows a vast coating of green across NSW, indicating between 50mm and 100mm of rain between today and October 11. The north of Victoria will also see a significant amount of rain, around 50mm. Similarly, in south-west Queensland, the map indicates around 100mm of rain. “Two wet weather systems are expected this week, impacting both inland and coastal communities,” Cooke said. “Staying safe is a shared responsibility, please be prepared.” A sprawling waterfront mansion in Dubai has sold for an eye-watering amount as Russian oligarchs flee to the country. The sale set a new record for the country. The buyer remained anonymous but snapped up the villa for a staggering $126 million. Former US president Donald Trump has sued CNN, seeking $US475 million ($730 million) in damages, saying the network had defamed him in an effort to short-circuit any future political campaign. The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, focuses primarily on the term “The Big Lie” about Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud that he says cost him the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. There was no immediate comment from CNN. Trump’s lawsuit claims “The Big Lie,” a phrase with Nazi connotations, has been used in reference to him more than 7700 times on CNN since January 2021. In a statement, Trump suggested that similar lawsuits would be filed against other news organisations. Major trackwork on Sydney’s T1 North Shore train line between Gordon and North Sydney has left many commuters waiting in long lines for a replacement bus. Sydney Trains announced buses would replace trains from Monday to Friday this week due to trackwork on the T1 North Shore Line. Photos show lines of commuters waiting at the North Sydney replacement bus stop. Meanwhile, the North Shore line will be further disrupted this weekend. “On Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 October buses replace trains between Hornsby and Wynyard,” Sydney Trains said. © Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2022 Live News Daily Australia national World King Charles III Royals Royal Family federal politics Anthony Albanese Peter Dutton Russia Ukraine UK Politics Wild Weather New South Wales Victoria queensland tasmania Western Australia South Australia Australian Capital Territory Northern Territory China news Joe Biden USA Live Robodebt NASA space accidents Optus Russia hackers floods Weather Melissa Caddick inquest finance Hurricane Florida Link in bio coles Woolworths Indonesia cricket CONTACT US Send your photos, videos and stories to 9News contact@9news.com.au Read More Here

Georgia Election Probe Enters New Phase With Search Warrants https://digitalarkansasnews.com/georgia-election-probe-enters-new-phase-with-search-warrants/ Fulton County Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis is shown in her office on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022. The Georgia prosecutor investigating whether Donald Trump and his allies broke the law trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state is seeking search warrants in the case, a sign that the wide-ranging probe has entered a new phase. The revelation came Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, in a court order filed by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury that has been seated as part of the investigation. (AP Photo/Ben Gray, File) ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia prosecutor investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies broke the law trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state is seeking search warrants in the case, a sign that the wide-ranging probe has entered a new phase. The revelation came Monday in a court order filed by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury seated to help the investigation. In an order sealing any search warrants and related documents from being made public, McBurney wrote that District Attorney Fani Willis’ office is “now seeking to obtain and execute a series of search warrants, the affidavits for which are predicated on sensitive information acquired during the investigation.” Disclosure of the information could compromise the investigation, McBurney wrote, “by, among other things, causing flight from prosecution, destruction of or tampering with evidence, and intimidation of potential witnesses.” It could also result in risks to the “safety and well-being” of people involved in the investigation, he wrote. It wasn’t immediately clear who the targets of the search warrants are or whether any search warrants had yet to be approved by a judge. To obtain a search warrant, prosecutors must convince a judge they have probable cause that a crime occurred at the location where authorities want to search. As Willis’ investigation ramps up, the public court filings in the case have provided a rare window into the workings of a special grand jury that meets behind closed doors. Willis, a Democrat, opened the investigation early last year, shortly after the release of a recording of a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump suggested that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger could “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden. In addition to the Trump-Raffensperger call, Willis confirmed early on that she was investigating a call that Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina made to Raffensperger, the sudden departure of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta in early January 2021 and statements made during legislative committee meetings by people pushing debunked claims casting doubt on the legitimacy of the state’s election. Court filings in recent months have also shown that Willis is interested in a slate of fake electors who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. She said in a court filing that the 16 Georgia Republicans who signed that certificate have all been notified they are targets of the investigation, meaning they could face criminal charges. Attorneys for Rudy Giuliani, a former New York mayor and Trump lawyer, say their client has also been notified that he’s a target of Willis’ investigation. He appeared at state legislative committee hearings in December 2020 and made claims of election fraud in Georgia. Giuliani was also involved in coordinating the fake elector plan, Willis wrote in a court filing. He testified before the special grand jury in August. Willis’ investigation has also expanded into a breach of voting equipment at the elections office in a rural Georgia county, some 200 miles southeast of Atlanta. Documents, emails, security video and deposition testimony produced in response to subpoenas in a long-running lawsuit have shown that lawyer Sidney Powell and other Trump allies hired a computer forensics team to go to Coffee County to make complete copies of data and software on elections equipment there. Willis is seeking testimony from Powell and has also requested documents from the company that employs the computer forensics team. Another thread Willis seems to be pursuing is alleged attempts to pressure a Fulton County election worker. A petition filed last month indicates she wants to question Harrison Floyd, a director of Black Voices for Trump. Willis said in the petition that Floyd and Trevian Kutti, whom Willis described as a Chicago-based “purported publicist,” tried to pressure Ruby Freeman. Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, were election workers falsely accused by Trump allies of pulling fraudulent ballots from a suitcase during ballot counting. As the investigation has progressed, a number of people who have been summoned to testify have tried to avoid testifying. Most have been unsuccessful. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who’s facing a reelection challenge from Democrat Stacey Abrams, managed to delay his testimony until after next month’s election. Graham’s attempt to fight his subpoena is currently pending before a federal appeals court. Willis has said in a court filing that she wants to talk to Graham about calls he made to Raffensperger and his staff in which he reportedly asked about “reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump.” Graham has denied any wrongdoing and said his status as a senator shields him from having to testify. A number of high-ranking Georgia state officials, including Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr, have already testified before the special grand jury. Others in Trump’s orbit who’ve undergone questioning include attorneys John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro. And the panel is still expecting testimony from others, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Willis has indicated she could seek to compel testimony from Trump himself. The former president has hired a legal team in Atlanta and last month disparaged the investigation as a “strictly political Witch Hunt!” Read More Here

Trump Files $475 Million Defamation Lawsuit Against CNN https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-files-475-million-defamation-lawsuit-against-cnn/ NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Monday sued CNN, seeking $475 million in damages, saying the network had defamed him in an effort to short-circuit any future political campaign. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, focuses primarily on the term “The Big Lie” about Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud that he says cost him the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. There was no immediate comment from CNN. Trump repeatedly attacked CNN as president, which resonated with his conservative followers. He has similarly filed lawsuits against big tech companies with little success. His case against Twitter for knocking him off its platform following the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection was thrown out by a California judge earlier this year. Numerous federal and local election officials in both parties, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even Trump’s own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of the election fraud he alleges. Trump’s lawsuit claims “The Big Lie,” a phrase with Nazi connotations, has been used in reference to him more than 7,700 times on CNN since January 2021. “It is intended to aggravate, scare and trigger people,” he said. In a statement Monday, Trump suggested that similar lawsuits would be filed against other news organizations. And he said he may also bring “appropriate action” against the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters. The lawsuit comes as he is weighing a potential bid for the presidency in 2024. New CNN chief Chris Licht privately urged his news personnel in a meeting more than three months ago to refrain from using the phrase because it is too close to Democratic efforts to brand the former president, according to several published reports. Read More Here

Trump Files $475m Lawsuit For Defamation Against CNN https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-files-475m-lawsuit-for-defamation-against-cnn/ Former US president Donald Trump is suing CNN for $475 million (£419 million) in damages for allegedly defaming him to short-circuit any future political campaign. The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, focuses primarily on the term “The Big Lie” about Mr Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud that he says cost him the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. Mr Trump repeatedly attacked CNN as president, which resonated with his conservative followers. He has similarly filed lawsuits against big tech companies with little success. His case against Twitter for knocking him off its platform following the January 6 2021 US Capitol insurrection was thrown out by a California judge earlier this year. Numerous federal and local election officials in both parties, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even Mr Trump’s own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of the election fraud he alleges. His lawsuit claims “The Big Lie”, a phrase with Nazi connotations, has been used in reference to him more than 7,700 times on CNN since January 2021. “It is intended to aggravate, scare and trigger people,” he said. In a statement on Monday, Mr Trump suggested similar lawsuits would be filed against other news organisations, adding that he may also bring “appropriate action” against the House committee investigating the January 6 attack. The lawsuit comes as he is weighing a potential bid for the presidency in 2024. New CNN chief Chris Licht privately urged his news personnel in a meeting more than three months ago to refrain from using the phrase because it is too close to Democratic efforts to brand the former president, according to several published reports. For stories from where you live, visit InYourArea. Find recommendations for eating out, attractions and events near you here on our sister website 2Chill Find recommendations for dog owners and more doggy stories on our sister site Teamdogs Read More Here

Oath Keepers Trial: Jan. 6 Was 'rebellion,' Prosecutor Says https://digitalarkansasnews.com/oath-keepers-trial-jan-6-was-rebellion-prosecutor-says/ By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates planned an “armed rebellion” to keep President Donald Trump in power, a federal prosecutor contended Monday as the most serious case yet went to trial in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Stewart Rhodes and his band of extremists were prepared to go to war were prepared to go to war to stop Joe Biden from becoming president, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler told jurors. The group celebrated the Capitol attack as a victory in that fight and continued their plot even after Biden’s electoral victory was certified, Nestler alleged. “Their goal was to stop, by whatever means necessary, the lawful transfer of presidential power, including by taking up arms against the United States government,” the prosecutor said during his opening statement. “They concocted a plan for armed rebellion to shatter a bedrock of American democracy.” The defendants are the first among hundreds of people arrested in the Capitol riot to stand trial on seditious conspiracy, a rare Civil War-era charge that calls for up to 20 years behind bars. The stakes are high for the Justice Department, which last secured such a conviction at trial nearly 30 years ago, and intends to try two more groups on the charge later this year. The trial comes as Trump continues to insist, against much evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and as vocal pushback against the charges filed against those who entered the Capitol continues in some quarters. The broader reaction could show how the American public, as well as the jury, sees the attack, nearly two years later. Defense attorneys accused prosecutors of cherry-picking comments from messages and videos and said the government has no evidence there ever was any plan to attack the Capitol. Rhodes’ attorney said his client will take the stand and show that the Oath Keepers had merely been preparing for orders they expected from Trump but never came. “Stewart Rhodes meant no harm to the Capitol that day. Stewart Rhodes did not have any violent intent that day,” Rhodes’ attorney, Phillip Linder, said. “The story the government is trying to tell you today is completely wrong.” On trial with Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, are Kelly Meggs, leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers; Kenneth Harrelson, another Florida Oath Keeper; Thomas Caldwell, a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer from Virginia, and Jessica Watkins, who led an Ohio militia group. They face several other charges as well. They are among roughly 900 people who have been charged in the attack, which temporarily halted the certification of Biden’s victory, sent lawmakers running for cover and left dozens of police officers injured. In the Oath Keepers case, prosecutors will try to prove that their actions were not a spontaneous outpouring of election-fueled rage but part of a detailed, drawn-out plot to stop Biden from entering the White House. The Oath Keepers “were prepared in November, they were prepared in December and when the opportunity finally presented itself on Jan 6, 2021, they sprang into action,” Nestler said. Rhodes began plotting to overturn Biden’s victory right after the election, Nestler said. In November 2020, Rhodes sent his followers a step-by-step plan for stopping the transfer of power based on a popular uprising that brought down Yugoslavia’s president two decades earlier. As December approached, Rhodes’ rhetoric became increasingly violent and desperate, Nestler said. In messages and comments read to the jury, the Oath Keepers repeatedly warned of violence if Biden were to become president. During a December interview, Rhodes called senators “traitors” and warned that the Oath Keepers would have to “overthrow, abort or abolish Congress.” He described Jan. 6 as a “hard constitutional deadline” for stopping the transfer of power. The Oath Keepers organized training, including one session on “unconventional warfare.” Before coming to Washington, they stashed “weapons of war” at a Virginia hotel to serve as “quick reaction force” that could get guns into the capital quickly if necessary, the prosecutor said. As Oath Keepers stormed the Capitol in helmets and other battle gear, Rhodes remained on the outside, like “a general surveying his troops on a battlefield,” Nestler said. After the attack, the elated Oath Keepers went to a Virginia restaurant to celebrate their victory, the prosecutor said. They planned to continue “that war,” but “thankfully their plans were foiled,” Nestler said. In the days between the riot and Biden’s inauguration, Rhodes spent more than $17,000 on firearm parts, ammunition and other items, prosecutors say. About a week after the insurrection, Rhodes was secretly recorded saying that his “only regret is that they should have brought rifles,” Nestler said. Prosecutors showed jurors a slew of videos, including showing Meggs, Harrelson and others firing AR-15 style rifles at targets at a range. Meggs sent the video, set to rock music, to a group on Jan. 5 and declared: “We are ready!” the prosecutor said. Among those who may testify during the trial, which will last several weeks, are three Oath Keepers who’ve pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and are cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of getting lighter sentences. They include a man who says that after arriving in Washington, Meggs told him that another Florida Oath Keeper had brought explosives in his RV. The government’s first witness was a FBI agent, who responded on Jan. 6 to help rescue senators. He described lawmakers crying, broken doors and windows and a scene that “looked like a bomb had gone off.” Defense lawyers say prosecutors have ripped the Oath Keepers’ messages out of context to paint them unfairly. The Oath Keepers came to Washington to provide security at events for figures such as Trump ally Roger Stone before the president’s big outdoor rally behind the White House, defense lawyers said. Rhodes’ attorney described the group as a “peacekeeping” force and called his client an “extremely patriotic” man who “loves this country.” Rhodes’ attorneys plan to argue that Rhodes believed Trump was going to going to invoke the Insurrection Act and call up a militia, which Rhodes had been calling on him to do to stop Biden from becoming president. Rhodes’ lawyers have said he was merely lobbying the president to invoke a U.S. law. Prosecutors say it’s clear the Oath Keepers were going to act regardless of what Trump did. Nestler told jurors that Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate, was only using the Insurrection Act as “legal cover.” In one message, Rhodes wrote in December 2020 that Trump “needs to know that if he fails to act, then we will.” An attorney for Caldwell said his client is a disabled veteran who didn’t even know of the Oath Keepers until November 2020. The defense lawyer, David Fischer, called Jan. 6 a “black eye” for the country, but said Caldwell merely came to Washington “on a date with his wife” and wasn’t een planning to go to the Capitol until Trump’s speech on the Ellipse before the riot. “Mr. Caldwell couldn’t storm his way out of a paper bag,” Fischer said. “I came here to clear his name.” ___ This story has been corrected to reflect that there are five defendants, not five men, on trial. ___ For full coverage of the Capitol riot, go to https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Read More Here

AP News Summary At 8:41 P.m. EDT https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ap-news-summary-at-841-p-m-edt/ Ukraine claws back more territory Russia is trying to absorb KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces have scored more gains in their counteroffensive across a broad front. The troops advanced Monday in the very areas Russia is trying to absorb. Their breakthroughs challenged Russia’s effort to engage fresh troops and its threats to defend incorporated areas by all means, including with nuclear weapons. Ukrainian forces penetrated Moscow’s defenses in the strategic southern Kherson region, one of the four areas Russia is annexing. Ukraine’s advances have become so apparent that even Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman admitted the gains. He cited Ukraine’s numerically superior tank units. Also Monday, Russia released from detention the head of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. N. Korea sends missile soaring over Japan in escalation SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has fired a ballistic missile over Japan, its neighbors said, escalating tests of weapons designed to strike key targets in regional U.S. allies amid stalled nuclear diplomacy. The Japanese prime minister’s office said at least one missile fired from North Korea flew over Japan and was believed to have landed into the Pacific Ocean. It said authorities have issued an alert to residents in northeastern regions to evacuate buildings. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it also detected the launch of a ballistic missile that was fired toward the North’s eastern waters. Officials: US to send Ukraine more advanced rocket systems WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. will soon deliver four more advanced rocket systems to Ukraine, under a new $625 million package of aid expected to be announced Tuesday. That’s according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of the package ahead of the announcement. The decision marks the first time the U.S. has sent more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to Ukraine since late July, and it will bring the total number delivered so far to 20. The systems have become a key tool in Ukraine’s ability to strike bridges that Russia has used to supply its troops, enabling Ukrainian forces to make inroads in Russia-controlled regions. Oath Keepers trial: Jan. 6 was ‘rebellion,’ prosecutor says WASHINGTON (AP) — Prosecutors are saying at the opening of the most serious case to reach trial in the attack on the U.S. Capitol that the founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates planned for an “armed rebellion” to stop the transfer of presidential power. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler delivered his opening statement Monday in Washington’s federal court in the trial of Stewart Rhodes and others charged with seditious conspiracy. They are accused of a weekslong plot to stop the transfer of power from Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. Defense attorneys accused prosecutors of cherry-picking comments from messages and videos and said the government has no evidence there ever was any plan to attack the Capitol. Frustration and desperation mount as Ian’s effects linger FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Days after Hurricane Ian carved a path of destruction from Florida to the Carolinas, the dangers persisted, and even worsened in some places. It was clear the road to recovery from the storm will be long and painful. More than 500,000 homes and businesses remained without power Monday in Florida and it will be the weekend before most power is restored. And Ian still is not done. Officials warned there still was the potential of coastal flooding from Long Island south to North Carolina’s Outer Banks where the only highway to the barrier islands was closed by sand and seawater. Seventy-eight deaths have been blamed on Ian, with 71 of them reported in Florida. Georgia election probe enters new phase with search warrants ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia prosecutor investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies broke the law trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state is seeking search warrants in the case. It’s a sign the wide-ranging probe has entered a new phase. The revelation came Monday in a court order filed by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney. It wasn’t immediately clear who the targets of the search warrants are or whether any search warrants had been executed. As the investigation ramps up, the public court filings have provided a rare window into the workings of a special grand jury that meets behind closed doors. Trump rallies drift to fringe ahead of potential 2024 bid WARREN, Mich. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump’s rallies have always attracted a broad swath of supporters. They draw first timers taking advantage of their chance to see a president in person to devotees who camp out for days and follow him around the country like rock band groupies. But after spending much of the last two years obsessively peddling false claims of a stolen election, Trump is increasingly attracting those who have broken with reality. That includes adherents of the baseless QAnon conspiracy, which began in the dark corners of the internet and is premised on the belief that the country is run by a ring of child sex traffickers that only Trump can defeat. Frustration with Ukraine war spills out on Russian state TV Russia’s retreat from a key Ukrainian city over the weekend elicited outcry from an unlikely crowd – state-run media outlets that typically speak glowingly about Moscow’s war. A series of embarrassing military losses for Moscow has presented a growing challenge for prominent hosts of Russian news and political talk shows scrambling to find ways to paint Kyiv’s gains in a way that is still favorable to the Kremlin. The less conciliatory tone from state-run media comes as President Vladimir Putin faces more than just battlefield losses; there is widespread Russian discontent about his partial mobilization of reservists and officials are struggling to explain plans to annex Ukrainian regions while they are being retaken by Kyiv’s forces. Wall Street soars to best day since summer, S&P 500 up 2.6% NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street rallied to its best day since July as falling bond yields eased some of the pressure that’s battered markets. The S&P 500 rose 2.6% Monday, the latest swing for a scattershot market that’s been mostly falling this year on worries about a possible global recession. Treasury yields fell after a report on U.S. manufacturing came in weaker than expected. That could mean the Federal Reserve won’t have to be so aggressive about raising interest rates to beat down the high inflation damaging households’ finances, but analysts still see plenty more turbulence ahead. Will Smith’s ‘Emancipation’ gets release date, post-slap NEW YORK (AP) — After holding “Emancipation” in limbo following Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock at the Academy Awards in March, Apple will release the actor’s next big project in December. The fate of the $120 million runaway slave thriller directed by Antoine Fuqua had been uncertain. One of Apple’s most high-profile productions yet, the film had once been expected to be a potential Oscar contender this year. But an awards-season rollout of a film headlined by Smith has obvious complications as Smith is banned from attending the Oscars for 10 years. Apple TV+ will debut “Emancipation” on Dec. 2 in theaters and stream it Dec. 9. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Read More Here

U.S.: Oath Keepers, Rhodes Attacked ‘bedrock Of Democracy’ On Jan. 6 https://digitalarkansasnews.com/u-s-oath-keepers-rhodes-attacked-bedrock-of-democracy-on-jan-6/ Members of the extremist group Oath Keepers led by Stewart Rhodes planned for an armed rebellion “to shatter a bedrock of American democracy” — the peaceful transfer of presidential power — culminating in their role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, a prosecutor told a jury Monday in the first seditious conspiracy trial of the sprawling Jan. 6 investigation. Rhodes and four co-defendants that day staged an “arsenal” of firearms in nearby Virginia and several forcibly breached the Capitol with a mob to prevent Congress from confirming President Biden’s 2020 election victory, thwarting the will of U.S. voters and elected representatives, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler said during opening statements in federal court. “That was their goal — to stop by whatever means necessary the lawful transfer of presidential power, including by taking up arms against the United States government,” Nestler said. Descending on Washington “to attack not just the Capitol, not just Congress, not just our government — but our country itself.” Rhodes’s defense decried the prosecution as “government mischaracterization and government overreach.” Oath Keepers came to Washington as “peacekeeping” security guards who “had no part in the bulk of the violence that occurred on January 6th,” attorney Phillip Linder said, believing that President Donald Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act to mobilize private militias, put down riots and remain in power. “That is why he did what he did,” Linder said, adding that Rhodes would testify in his own defense. “You’re going to hear from Stewart Rhodes himself about who he is, about the Oath Keepers, what their role is and what their role was on January 6th.” The clashing views of democracy, patriotism and violence at the seat of the U.S. government during the handoff from Trump to Biden played out in the most-anticipated trial to arise from the Jan. 6. 2021, Capitol siege. Held at a federal courthouse blocks from the Capitol where events unfolded 21 months ago, the trial of Rhodes — a former Army paratrooper and Yale Law graduate who has become one of the most visible figures of the far-right anti-government movement — poses a major legal and political test of the Biden administration’s pledge to combat domestic terrorism, as well as the law and the courts. Prosecutors in court and lawmakers in a parallel House investigation describe the Oath Keepers as an anti-government group that played an outsize role in organizing individuals to come to the Capitol prepared for violence. The group’s leaders worked with Trump post-election “Stop the Steal” advisers who spent weeks making unfounded allegations of election fraud, including former national security aide Michael Flynn and longtime political confidant Roger Stone. On the day networks declared the election for Biden, Nov. 7, Rhodes shared a text with Stone and others asking, “What’s the plan?” the prosecution’s first witness, an FBI agent, testified. Rhodes then shared an action plan from an anti-government uprising in Serbia that included storming its parliament. Four days after Jan. 6, Nestler told jurors, Rhodes urged an intermediary to tell Trump, “It’s still not too late too take action.” But the person secretly recorded Rhodes. “My only regret is that they should have brought rifles” into the city, Rhodes said in audio Nestler played to jurors. Nine of at least 33 alleged Oath Keepers members or associates arrested on charges related to the Jan. 6 riot have pleaded guilty, including seven to conspiracy charges, and several of them are expected to testify for the government against Rhodes. Rhodes and 10 others were indicted in January on three related conspiracy charges, plotting to oppose by force federal authority and laws related to Biden’s swearing-in; to obstruct an official proceeding of Congress; and to impede lawmakers from discharging their duties. The first two charges are punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Nine remaining defendants face trial this week and in early November on those charges and others alleging destruction of federal property, destruction of evidence, and impeding police in a riot. Four others are on trial with Rhodes, including three who have served in the military. Kelly Meggs, 53, is an auto dealer from Dunnellon, Fla. Kenneth Harrelson, 42, of Titusville, Fla., and Ohio militia leader and bar owner Jessica Watkins, 39, of Woodstock are Army veterans. Thomas Caldwell, 68, of, Berryville, Va., is a retired Navy intelligence officer. In a 75-minute opening statement, prosecutors recapped a 48-page, 17-count indictment and alleged dramatic new details. Nestler told jurors that on Jan. 6 just as 14 Oath Keepers co-conspirators allegedly pushed past police and through the Capitol’s East Rotunda doors after marching up the steps in military-style formation and gear, Rhodes stood back “like a general overseeing the battlefield” and did not enter the building. The prosecutor said Rhodes was recorded on video saying of lawmakers inside: “They need to be sh—–g their pants. Sic semper tyrannis!” “Thus always to tyrants,” Nestler translated from the Latin after playing the video for jurors. “It’s what John Wilkes Booth yelled when he assassinated President Lincoln,” Nestler said. Nestler gave the jury of nine men and seven women a panoramic view of actions spanning from the Nov. 3, 2020, election, through the Capitol attack and up to the first co-defendants’ arrests on Jan. 17, 2021. While Rhodes named his group for the oath sworn by members of the U.S. military “to defend the Constitution against all enemies,” Nestler argued that the philosophy “perverts the constitutional order.” “He preaches to his followers that they should disobey orders that he says are unconstitutional,” Nestler said. The prosecutor said Rhodes’s orders unfolded beginning Nov. 4 and that he told an invitation-only message group of Oath Keepers leaders to ignore the election results: “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit,” On Nov. 10, after contacting Stone and Oath Keepers leaders, he published openly to Oath Keepers a “step-by-step” call to action modeled after the Serbian plot that included storming parliament after filling the streets and seeking support from the police and military. On Nov. 9, Rhodes laid out that they should use “code or shorthand” when describing their plan to stop the transfer of power through violence if necessary, by linking it to Trump’s use of the Insurrection Act, “magic words” that gave them “plausible deniability” for any actions to follow, Nestler alleged. Another “alarmed follower” recorded Rhodes saying on a Nov. 9 conference call that mentioning the law would give the group “legal cover” for bringing firearms as part of “quick reaction force” teams to Washington for use as needed. In open letters in December 2020, Rhodes elaborated by calling on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, saying that “millions” of American gun owners stood ready to answer his “call to arms.” Rhodes said that on Jan. 6, if Congress defied his false claims of a stolen election, “tens of thousands of patriotic Americans … will already be in Washington D.C., and many of us will have our mission-critical gear stowed nearby just outside D.C., and we will answer the call right then and there.” As officials including Trump’s own attorney general, William P. Barr, and White House attorneys said there was no evidence of anything that would cast doubt on Biden’s win, Rhodes wrote on Christmas Day, “The only chance we/he has is if we scare the s— out of them [Congress] and convince them it will be torches and pitchforks time,” Nestler said. Rhodes purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of firearms and related gear in the days before and after Jan. 6, and seven co-conspirators including co-defendants Meggs, Harrelson and Caldwell were seen stashing firearms cases and bags at a Comfort Inn in the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington, across the Potomac, where “heavy” QRF teams from Florida, Arizona and North Carolina had rooms, Nestler said. Meggs and Caldwell allegedly laid plans to transport firearms by boat if bridges to Washington were closed, Nestler said. Meggs and Harrelson and others engaged in firearms and “unconventional warfare” training in Florida, including from a man who Meggs allegedly told a cooperating witness drove to Washington with hand grenades inside his recreational vehicle that the FBI later recovered. On Jan. 6, Meggs searched for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.,) inside the Capitol, while Watkins allegedly impeded police guarding an entrance to the Senate chamber, Nestler said. “We are in the main dome right now. We are rocking it. They are throwing grenades, they are fricking shooting people with paint balls. But we are in here,” Watkins shouted over a push-to-talk radio-phone app, according to a recording played by Nestler. “Get it, Jess,” an Illinois Oath Keepers leader not at the Capitol responded, “This is … everything we f—ing trained for!” Nestler said. In defense, Linder said government and media accounts were wrong, that the prosecution revealed little new that wasn’t laid out in charging papers, and promised “surprises” when the defense’s turn to present evidence came. Linder said the defendants face “substantial prison sentences” and have been portrayed as “a paramilitary group, a racist group, a violent group.” His statements drew a warning from U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta, who said the latter assertions are not alleged by the government and that sentencing penalties are withheld from jurors so they do not form judgments about defendants’ guilt. Linder suggested government cooperators lied in pursuit of leniency. He singled out ...

N.Korea Fires Missile Over Japan, Some Residents Warned To Take Cover https://digitalarkansasnews.com/n-korea-fires-missile-over-japan-some-residents-warned-to-take-cover/ SEOUL/TOKYO, Oct 4 (Reuters) – Nuclear-armed North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan for the first time in five years on Tuesday, prompting a warning for residents to take cover and a temporary suspension of train operations in northern Japan. The Japanese government warned citizens to take cover as the missile appeared to have flown over and past its territory before falling into the Pacific Ocean. It said it did not use any defence measures to destroy the missile, which was the first to fly over or past Japan from North Korea since 2017. “North Korea’s series of actions, including its repeated ballistic missile launches, threatens the peace and security of Japan, the region, and the international community, and poses a serious challenge to the entire international community, including Japan,” Japan’s top government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno, said in a brief news conference. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Speaking to reporters shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called North Korea’s actions “barbaric”, and said the government would continue to gather and analyse information. The launch over Japan was “unfortunate,” Daniel Kritenbrink, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, said during an online event hosted by the Institute for Corean-American Studies. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it appeared to have been an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) launched from North Korea’s Jagang Province. North Korea has used that province to launch several recent tests, including multiple missiles that it claimed were “hypersonic.” TV Asahi, citing an unnamed government source, said North Korea might have fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and it fell into the sea some 3,000 km (1,860 miles) from Japan. The test prompted East Japan Railway Co (9020.T) to suspend train operations in the northern regions, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. Matsuno said there were no reports of damage to aircraft or ships from the missile. ‘REAL-WORLD’ TEST North Korea’s flurry of missile testing is helping make more of its weapons operational, develop new capabilities, and send a message that its weapons development is sovereign right that should be accepted by the world, analysts said. North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programmes are banned by United Nations Security Council resolutions, which have imposed sanctions on the country. Many of North Korea’s ballistic missile tests are conducted on a “lofted trajectory,” which sends them high into space but leads to an impact point not far from the launch site, avoiding over flights of its neighbours. Firing over or past Japan allows North Korea’s scientists to test missiles under more realistic conditions, said Ankit Panda of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Compared to the usual highly lofted trajectory, this allows them to expose a long-range reentry vehicle to thermal loads and atmospheric reentry stresses that are more representative of the conditions they’d endure in real-world use,” he said. “Politically, it’s complicated: the missile largely flies outside of the atmosphere when it’s over Japan, but it’s obviously distressing to the Japanese public to receive warnings of a possible incoming North Korean missile.” The latest launch was Pyongyang’s fifth in 10 days, amid military muscle-flexing by the United States and South Korea, which conducted trilateral anti-submarine exercises last week with Japanese naval forces. South Korea staged its own show of advanced weaponry on Saturday to mark its Armed Forces Day, including multiple rocket launchers, ballistic missiles, main battle tanks, drones and F-35 fighters. The North has completed preparations for a nuclear test, which it might look to undertake sometime between China’s Communist Party Congress this month and U.S. mid-term elections in November, South Korean lawmakers said last week. “So I guess the extremely sensitive period of the run-up to Xi Jinping’s 20th Party Congress was not deemed sensitive enough in Pyongyang to prevent or at least delay this,” John Delury of Seoul’s Yonsei University, said of Tuesday’s missile launch in a post on Twitter. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith in Seoul, and Chang-Ran Kim and Kantaro Komiya in Tokyo; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Leslie Adler, Chris Reese, Lincoln Feast and Gerry Doyle Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More Here

Arkansas Supreme Court https://digitalarkansasnews.com/arkansas-supreme-court/ Events | Arts and SciencesOctober 03, 2022 Arkansas Supreme Court’s Appeals on Wheels Coming to UAFS Oct. 20 Written By: Rachel Rodemann Putman The Arkansas Supreme Court will travel to the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith on October 20th, 2022, as part of the Court’s “Appeals onWheels” program. Appeals on Wheels is an outreach program that provides an opportunity for students to view how the Supreme Court functions up close.  Twice a year, the Supreme Court travels to different communities across the state to hold an oral argument. Although most appeals are completed in written form through briefs, oral argument provides an opportunity for the attorneys on each side of a case to further explain certain legal points and for the Justices to ask questions directly of the attorneys about material they have included in their written briefs.    The Court will hear oral argument at 10:00 AM in the case CR-22-114, Shawn Cone v. State of Arkansas, an appeal from Craighead County Circuit Court. The Appellant, Mr. Cone, was convicted of capital murder, abuse of a corpse, theft of a credit or debit card, and theft of property. Mr. Cone makes several claims of error concerning his trial. After the oral argument, the Justices will meet with student groups to answer general questions about the law, how courts work, and the role of judges.   The public is invited to attend, but seating may be limited. Latecomers will not be allowed to enter. The Code of Judicial Conduct prohibits the Justices from making statements in connection with cases, controversies, or issues likely to come before the court.     The Arkansas Supreme Court is committed to providing opportunities for Arkansas citizens, particularly students, to see how the state’s highest court administers justice.  “It is important for the judicial branch of government to go out into the community and show citizens the manner in which an appellate argument is conducted,” said Chief Justice John Dan Kemp. “We do not want people to feel far removed from the judiciary. The judicial branch is essential to keeping a system of checks and balances in place. We hope that members of the public, as well as students, will attend this court hearing.” “The University of Arkansas – Fort Smith is honored to host the Arkansas Supreme Court for oral arguments on our campus,” said UAFS Chancellor Terisa Riley. “This opportunity represents our commitment to demonstrating civic responsibility for our students as well as for students from local high schools. These students will have a new framework to understand the importance of political science in our society.” Oral arguments are usually live streamed from the courtroom of the Arkansas Supreme Court, which is located in the Justice Building, in Little Rock.  However, the October 20th oral argument will be recorded and posted at a later date to the video archives http://arcourts.gov. Read More Here