Disgraced modeling agent and Jeffrey Epstein associate Jean Luc Brunel died by suicide in his prison cell Saturday night in Paris, ABC News has learned.
The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed to ABC News that Brunel was found dead in his prison cell around 1 a.m. local time at La Sante Prison.
Jean Luc Brunel’s lawyers tell ABC News Brunel hanged himself.
The prosecutor’s office declined to confirm those details of Brunel’s death.
In December 2020, Brunel was charged with rape of minors over the age of 15 and sexual harassment — a crime in France.
In a statement on their client’s death which was in French and sent to and translated by ABC News, Brunel’s lawyers said: “[Brunel’s] distress (despair) was the one of a 75-year-old man who was destroyed by the judicial-media lynching and we should question it. Our client firmly asserted he never abused any women. He made multiple efforts to prove it.”
“His decision was not led by a feeling of guilt but by a deep feeling of injustice,” Brunel’s attorneys Mathias Chichportich, Marianne Abgrall and Christophe Ingrain added.
A delegate from the Force Ouvriere Union for France’s Penitentiaries, Erwan Saoudi, further confirmed Brunel’s death.
Saoudi said the prison’s procedure are that prison guard conduct five check on prisoners every night. Saoudi said while there was no closed-circuit TV inside Brunel’s cell — video in prison corridors proves that prison guards did not miss any of these checks.
Saoudi said Brunel died by suicide just after the guard round [of checks] “which shows the strong will of Jean-Luc Brunel to kill himself.” Saoudi added that Brunel was not on suicide watch.
Brunel was initially arrested in Charles De Gaulle Airport in December 2020. According to Paris prosecutors, Brunel was initially held in a probe into the rape of minors and trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation in association with their probe into possible crimes committed by Epstein. Days later, Brunel was charged with rape of minors over the age of 15 and sexual harassment. Brunel maintained he was innocent.
In January 2021, Virginia Giuffre flew to Paris to provide testimony at a closed-door hearing on Brunel’s detention.
Giuffre, in the same court filing in 2014 in which she first accused Prince Andrew of sexually assaulting her, claimed to have been trafficked by Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell to Brunel.
“The suicide of Jean Luc Brunel, who abused me and countless girls and young women, ends another chapter. I am disappointed that I was not able to face him in a final trial and hold him accountable for his actions, but gratified that I was able to face him in person last year in Paris, to keep him in prison,” Virginia Giuffre said in a statement issued though her lawyer, Sigrid McCawley.
“I was with Virginia Giuffre in court in Paris when she provided her powerful testimony against Jean Luc Brunel. It is devastating to Virginia and all the survivors that Brunel will not be tried for his crimes and be held accountable. But as we said when Jeffrey Epstein cowardly killed himself, for the women who have stood up and called for accountability from law enforcement around the world, it is not how these men died, but how they lived and the damage they caused to so many. The fight to seek truth and justice goes on,” said McCawley, a partner at Boies, Schiller Flexner.
Brunel had denied Giuffre’s allegations.
ABC News’ James Hill contributed to this report.
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, help is available. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can also reach the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741741.
“They seek a new era, as they say, to replace the existing international order,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said in Munich on Saturday. “They prefer the rule of the strongest to the rule of law, intimidation instead of self-determination, coercion instead of cooperation.”
The strengthening China-Russia ties could herald a reconfiguring of the triangle of power that defined the Cold War and that President Richard M. Nixon exploited 50 years ago on Monday when he made a historic visit to Beijing to normalize diplomatic relations. That helped the United States and China counterbalance the Soviet Union. Ties between Beijing and Moscow had been unraveling for years over issues of ideology and foreign policy.
The opposite is happening now.
“It’s certainly concerning, and it is not a positive development from the standpoint of U.S. national security or U.S. national interests,” said Susan Shirk, the chair of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego, and a former State Department official. “They have a kind of common perspective on the U.S. right now, and there is this affinity between the leaders.”
Ms. Shirk said President Biden nonetheless should try engaging in diplomacy with Mr. Xi to coax him to act with the United States on the Russia-created Ukraine crisis. “This seems like Diplomacy 101 given at least the history of this triangular relationship,” she added.
China and Russia are not united by ideology, and they are in a marriage of convenience that Russia needs more. While Mr. Xi appreciates Mr. Putin’s defiance of the United States, he does not want the economic uncertainty that a European war would bring. China also traditionally insists on respecting every nation’s sovereignty, as Mr. Wang made clear on Saturday.
There are limits to what China would do to help Mr. Putin if he invades Ukraine. After Washington imposes sanctions on Russia, Chinese companies could buy more oil and gas from Russia and help fill some technology gaps, but the major Chinese state-owned banks would probably refrain from overt violations of the sanctions for fear of being shut out of the global financial system.
Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin have met 38 times as national leaders. They share a drive to restore their nations to a former glory that they see as having been stripped from their homelands by Western European powers, the United States and, in China’s case, Japan. Both are obsessed with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991: Mr. Putin seeks to forcefully wind back the clock to a pre-collapse era, while Mr. Xi aims to prevent China from meeting the same fate as the Soviet empire. They accuse Washington of fomenting mass protests and democracy movements around the world to overthrow other governments.
President Biden continues to monitor the evolving situation in Ukraine, and is being updated regularly about events on the ground by his national security team. They reaffirmed that Russia could launch an attack against Ukraine at any time.
This afternoon, the President received an update on the Vice President’s meetings at the Munich Security Conference with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, European Commission President von der Leyen, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, leaders of the Baltic states (Prime Minister Kallas of Estonia, President Levits of Latvia, and President Nauseda of Lithuania), Chancellor Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Mitsotakis of Greece, and leaders of other Allies and partners.
Tomorrow, the President will convene a meeting of the National Security Council on the situation in Ukraine.
A Huntington Beach police helicopter crashed into the water in Newport Beach Saturday afternoon, leaving one officer dead and another in critical condition, the Huntington Beach Police Department said.
The two officers were responding to a disturbance fight call in Newport Beach when it crashed into the water, Huntington Beach police chief Eric Parra said in a press conference Saturday.
The officer who died was identified as 44-year-old Nicholas Vella, a 14 year veteran of the Huntington Beach Police Department.
The crash appeared to have happened not far from the shore off the Balboa Peninsula.
We can confirm that our police helicopter, HB1, crash landed in the Newport Beach area. Rescue efforts are underway & more information will be released when available.
The Russian-led breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine mobilized able-bodied men against what they said was an imminent attack by Kyiv, as shelling across the front line intensified, killing two Ukrainian soldiers.
Kyiv dismissed the call-up and moves to evacuate civilian residents of Russian-held Donetsk and Luhansk areas to Russia as a provocation. The escalation followed Western warnings that Moscow is about to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Western leaders gathered at a security conference in Munich on Saturday that he wants sanctions to be imposed against Russia before any potential invasion of his country, not after.
“You’re telling me that it’s 100% that the war will start in a couple of days. Then what [are you] waiting for?” Zelensky said. “We don’t need your sanctions after the bombardment will happen, and after our country will be fired at or after we will have no borders or after we will have no economy or parts of our country will be occupied. Why would we need those sanctions then?”
“So when you’re asking what can be done, well lots of different things can be done. We can even provide you the list. The most important is willingness,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, southern Germany, on February 19, 2022.
THOMAS KIENZLE/AFP via Getty Images
Earlier on Saturday, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris warned of financial penalties for Russia if it launches an invasion.
“Let me be clear, I can say with absolute certainty: If Russia further invades Ukraine, the United States, together with our allies and partners, will impose significant, and unprecedented economic costs,” she said at the security conference.
She also met with Zelensky.
“They discussed the united Transatlantic approach if Russia further invades Ukraine, and the Vice President outlined the swift and severe economic measures that have been prepared alongside our Allies and partners,” according to the White House. “The Vice President and President Zelenskyy agreed on the importance of diplomacy and de-escalation.”
A potential Russian invasion of Ukraine is a leading topic at the Munich Security Conference, which is an annual event to prevent another war in Europe.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Saturday during a visit to Lithuania that Russia is “uncoiling and are now poised to strike.”
There had been concern among delegates over whether it was a good idea for Zelensky to leave Ukraine with the threat of Russian invasion looming.
When asked about the topic, Zelensky said he had eaten breakfast in Ukraine, and he would eat dinner there.
“I’m sure that our country is in good hands. This is not just my hands — these are hands of our soldiers and citizens. I think my visit here is important,” he said.
Zelensky said the current crisis in Ukraine was not just regional, but about the whole world.
“This system is slow and failing us time and again, because of arrogance and irresponsibility of countries on a global level,” he said.
Zelensky said he wanted to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to come up with a solution to the crisis.
“Ukraine is longing for peace, Europe is longing for peace, the world is saying it doesn’t want any war, while Russia claiming she doesn’t want to intervene — someone here is lying.”
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Hundreds of police in riot gear swept through Canada’s capital Saturday, retaking control of the streets around the Parliament buildings and appearing to end the siege of Ottawa after three weeks of protests.
Protesters, angry over the country’s COVID-19 restrictions and with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, retreated from the largest police operation in the country’s history, with police arresting or driving out demonstrators and towing away their trucks.
In Ottawa, Interim Police Chief Steve Bell said that some smaller protests continued but “this unlawful occupation is over. We will continue with our mission until it is complete.”
While some protesters vowed to stay on Ottawa’s streets, one organizer told reporters they had “decided to peacefully withdraw.”
“We will simply regroup as a grassroots movement,” Tom Marazzo said at a press conference.
Police had been brought in from across the country to help in the clearance operation, Bell said, adding that 170 people were arrested Friday and Saturday and multiple investigations had been launched because of weapons seizures.
“We’re not going anywhere until you have your streets back,” he said at a press conference, vowing to go after protesters who don’t disperse with “financial sanctions and criminal charges.”
By early Saturday afternoon, protesters were gone from the street in front of Parliament Hill, the collection of government offices that includes the Parliament buildings, which had the heart of the protests. It had been occupied by protesters and their trucks since late last month, turning into a carnival on weekends.
“They are trying to push us all away,” said one protester, Jeremy Glass of Shelburne, Ontario, as authorities forced the crowds to move further from the Parliament buildings. “The main camp is seized now. We’re no longer in possession of it.”
Police said protesters remained “aggressive and assaultive” and that pepper spray had been used to protect officers. Authorities also said children had been brought right to the police lines, saying it was “putting the children at risk.”
Canadian authorities also announced they had used emergency powers to seize 76 bank accounts connected to protesters, totaling roughly $3.2 million ($2.5 million U.S.).
On Saturday, they also closed a bridge into the nation’s capital from Quebec to prevent a renewed influx of protesters.
Around midday, protest organizers said they had ordered truckers to move away from Parliament Hill, decrying the police’s actions as “abuses of power.”
“To move the trucks will require time,” organizers said in a statement. “We hope that (police) will show judicious restraint.”
Earlier, Ottawa police addressed the protesters in a tweet: “We told you to leave. We gave you time to leave. We were slow and methodical, yet you were assaultive and aggressive with officers and the horses. Based on your behavior, we are responding by including helmets and batons for our safety.”
Police said one protester launched a gas canister and was arrested as police advanced.
Earlier, Bell said most of the arrests were for mischief charges and that no protesters had been hurt. One officer had a minor injury, he said.
Those arrested included four protest leaders. One received bail while the others remained jailed.
Tow truck operators wearing neon-green ski masks, with their companies’ decals taped over on their trucks to conceal their identities, arrived under police escort and started removing hundreds of big rigs, campers and other vehicles parked shoulder to shoulder near Parliament. Police smashed through the door of at least one camper Friday before hauling it away.
The crackdown on the self-styled Freedom Convoy began Friday morning, when hundreds of police, some in riot gear and some carrying automatic weapons, descended into the protest zone and began leading demonstrators away in handcuffs through the snowy streets as holdout truckers blared their horns.
The capital and its paralyzed streets represented the movement’s last major stronghold after weeks of demonstrations and blockades that shut down border crossings into the U.S. and created one of the most serious tests yet for Trudeau. They also shook Canada’s reputation for civility, with some blaming America’s influence.
The Freedom Convoy demonstrations initially focused on Canada’s vaccine requirement for truckers entering the country but soon morphed into a broad attack on COVID-19 precautions and Trudeau’s government.
Ottawa residents complained of being harassed and intimidated by the truckers and obtained a court injunction to stop their incessant honking.
Trudeau portrayed the protesters as members of a “fringe” element. Canadians have largely embraced the country’s COVID-19 restrictions, with the vast majority vaccinated, including an estimated 90% of the nation’s truckers. Some of the vaccine and mask mandates imposed by the provinces are already falling away rapidly.
The biggest border blockade, at the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, disrupted the flow of auto parts between the two countries and forced the industry to curtail production. Authorities lifted the siege last weekend after arresting dozens of protesters.
But even as things were growing calmer in Ottawa, the Canadian border agency warned that operations at a key truck crossing from western Canada into the United States had been slowed by protesters, advising travelers to find a different route. The crossing near the town of Surrey remained open, officials said, but further details were not available.
The protests have been cheered on and received donations from conservatives in the U.S.
A helicopter has crashed in Newport Beach Saturday night, and police have confirmed that it is a law-enforcement aircraft that was involved.
The helicopter crashed near West Balboa Boulevard and 18th Street, according to Newport Beach Police Department spokeswoman Heather Rangel.
The Huntington Beach Police Department later confirmed that the helicopter was theirs.
“We can confirm that our police helicopter, HB1, crash landed in the Newport Beach area. Rescue efforts are underway & more information will be released when available,” the department wrote on Twitter.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department is assisting police with a rescue near Lido Island, according to Sgt. Ryan Anderson of the OCSD.
Snow squall warnings were in effect as an arctic front brought intense bouts of heavy snow and strong winds to portions of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts on Saturday afternoon, the National Weather Service said. Snow squalls are considered by the weather agency to be “one of the most dangerous winter weather phenomena.”
The warnings were in effect for portions of eastern Pennsylvania and New York, as well as northern New Jersey and western Massachusetts. The NWS confirmed that snow squalls were reported earlier in the afternoon in all four states. By the evening, some of the squalls had cleared.
Heavy snow brought whiteout conditions with zero visibility. Wind gusts in some areas topped 40 mph, making for travel conditions that ranged from hazardous to life-threatening, the NWS said.
A wind advisory is in effect for parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut until midnight ET. Wind gusts could reach up to 50 mph, CBS New York reports.
“Reduce your speed and turn on headlights!” the agency said. “During snow squalls, the visibility may suddenly drop to near zero in whiteout conditions.”
What is a snow squall?
According to the National Weather Service, a snow squall is “an intense short-lived burst of heavy snowfall that leads to a quick reduction in visibilities and is often accompanied by gusty winds.”
Unlike a snowstorm, which can last for many hours or even days, snow squalls occur in quick, intense bursts, the National Weather Service said. A snow squall usually only lasts between 30 and 60 minutes.
The service warned that snow squalls can bring “sudden whiteout conditions” as well as “slick roadways” that can lead to traffic accidents.
“Although snow accumulations are typically an inch or less, the added combination of gusty winds, falling temperatures and quick reductions in visibility can cause extremely dangerous conditions for motorists,” the service wrote on its website. “Unfortunately, there is a long history of deadly traffic accidents associated with snow squalls.”
Eighty years ago, as anti-Japanese fervor gripped the US, the parents and grandparents of the California congressman Mark Takano were among 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly removed from their homes and sent to desolate camps scattered across the west.
They were allowed to take only what they could carry. Everything else was sold, stored or left behind. Confined by barbed wire fences and armed military guards, their only offense was looking like the enemy.
“They were incarcerated without any due process of law, never accused of a crime, never convicted of a crime but in an internment camp strictly because of their racial characteristics,” Takano told the Guardian.
Two-thirds of those interned were American citizens, like Takano’s maternal grandparents and paternal grandmother. Many were American-born children, like his parents, far too young to pose a threat to national security, as was the spurious claim.
What is remembered as one of the darkest chapters in American history was set in motion on 19 February 1942, 74 days after Japan attacked on Pearl Harbor, when Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066.
On the 80th anniversary of Roosevelt’s order, an occasion marked by events from Hawaii to Idaho that will include many witnesses, Takano is worried.
“What I fear we’re in now is a moment of forgetting,” he said.
A 1942 photo shows the first arrivals at a camp in Manzanar, California. Photograph: AP
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the US has witnessed an alarming spike in violence and hate against Asian Americans. Toxic rhetoric and attacks on immigrants and racial and religious minorities have become a routine part of the political discourse in democracies around the world.
Takano warned of an “insidious nostalgia” that seeks to whitewash the shameful parts of American history. “It’s a hankering for a flawed America,” he said. “And its premise is that America should never evolve.”
It was a dangerous worldview, he said, encapsulated by Donald Trump’s promise to “make America great again”. Those who subscribed to it, he continued, “don’t want America to get better. They don’t want to see a more perfect union.”
It is why stories like his family’s are worth retelling and remembering.
Takano’s paternal grandfather was a teenager when he arrived in the US from Japan in 1916. He worked and saved until he had enough money to marry. So-called alien land laws prevented him from buying property and precluded him from becoming a citizen. But because his grandmother was a citizen, they were able to buy land in her name.
In the late 1930s, they purchased a five-acre plot of land in Bellevue, Washington, where they farmed strawberries, chrysanthemums and tomatoes to be sold at Pike’s Place Market in Seattle.
When war broke out, they were forced to leave their farm and sent to the Tule Lake internment camp in northern California. Their incarceration lasted until the end of the war, he said.
His father bore the physical scars from his internment: burns on his legs from when he fell into an incineration pit. “When he wore short pants, his shins were all discolored,” Takano said.
There were emotional scars, too.
After their release, Takano said his paternal grandfather wanted to return to Japan. But his paternal grandmother, who was born in America and knew little of Japan, did not want to leave.
His grandparents nearly boarded a ship bound for Japan, Takano said, but his grandmother experienced a mental breakdown from which he said she never recovered. “To have all of this intersect at once – they get out of the camps but the woes are not over,” he said “You can imagine how stressful and traumatic it was.”
Robbed of his property and now his wife’s health, his grandfather raised his young children with the help of his extended family and the tight-knit Japanese American community in southern California.
When Takano was 10, he boarded a plane for the first time and flew with his grandfather to Washington. Together they visited the property his family had once owned, “the place where he had had a stake in the American dream and lost it”.
At the time, Takano said a Holiday Inn occupied part of the land, situated in what is now the heart of the state’s prosperous tech industry. Elsewhere, he remembers seeing remnants of the old greenhouses, vestiges of a dream deferred.
In the eight decades since Roosevelt signed the order, the federal government as well as state and local governments have sought to make amends.
In 1983, the Federal Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians concluded that the incarceration of Japanese Americans was a “grave injustice” motivated by “racial prejudice, war hysteria and failure of political leadership”. Five years later, the US issued a formal apology and paid Japanese American survivors $20,000 each for violations of their civil liberties and constitutional rights.
In 2020, California also a formally apologized for the central role it played in the internment of Japanese Americans.
Japanese Americans incarcerated at Tule Lake, California, plant potatoes in 1943. Photograph: AP
Last week, the US Senate passed legislation to create a national historic site on a rural patch of land in south-eastern Colorado known as Camp Amache, where more than 7,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals were imprisoned from 1942 and 1945.
In a presidential proclamation commemorating Saturday as a Day of Remembrance, Joe Biden reaffirmed “the Federal Government’s formal apology to Japanese Americans whose lives were irreparably harmed during this dark period of our history, and we solemnly reflect on our collective moral responsibility to ensure that our Nation never again engages in such un-American acts”.
“I have always believed that great nations do not ignore their most painful moments – they confront them with honesty and, in doing so, learn from them and grow stronger as a result,” he said. “The incarceration of Japanese Americans 80 years ago is a reminder to us today of the tragic consequences we invite when we allow racism, fear, and xenophobia to fester.”
Takano, now chair of the House veterans committee, is particularly proud of his great-uncle, who fought fascism in Europe as part of the US army’s highly decorated 442nd regimental combat team even as his family was interned in the US.
“It’s the contradiction of a country that is fighting fascism, but has some of the seeds of it in its own backyard,” he said.
His great-uncle died in Italy just weeks before the end of the war in 1945, he said.
“I think of my uncle as betting his life on the promise of what America could be and what the world could be,” he said. “And the fact that I’m a member of Congress today I hold out as an example that my uncle won his bet.”
But he urged vigilance.
“We’re in danger of forgetting and we’re in danger of this nefarious nostalgia,” he said. “These two things put all of that at risk.”
Hundreds of Canadian police swept through the country’s capital Saturday, arresting protesters and clearing out vehicles in an attempt to bring an end to a three-week protest against COVID-19 restrictions.
Over 100 people were arrested Friday and Saturday, after police began the crackdown of the so-called Freedom Convoy on Friday morning. Officers, some in riot gear, approached the protest zone and scuffles broke out in some areas as police, including some officers on horses, pushed the crowd back.
Protesters were gone from the street in front of Parliament Hill by Saturday morning. Police said on Twitter that protesters were “aggressive and assaultive” throughout their attempts to clear the area, and pepper spray was used to disperse them. They also said children had been brought to the front of the police line.
“The presence of children and youth within or near the zone is highly concerning,” The Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa said.
Interim Police Chief Steve Bell said at a press conference Saturday that 47 additional people were arrested Saturday. The operation to clear the protesters is “not over,” Bell said.
“Go home. If you don’t go home, we will remove you from the streets,” Bell told remaining protesters during the press conference.
The demonstrations in the capital are the last stronghold of a movement that for weeks disrupted trade between the U.S. and Canada by shutting down the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit and Windsor. The border crossing reopened earlier this week.
“Police holding the line have issued a warning from a loudspeaker for demonstrators to move back. As a result, we have seen people move back and give the police more room,” Ottawa Police tweeted Saturday afternoon.
Meanwhile, U.S. Capitol Police officials are considering reinstalling a fence around the Capitol ahead of a planned trucker protest against COVID-19 restrictions next month in Washington, D.C. In a Friday statement, Capitol Police said they were working closely with the Secret Service and other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to prepare for the possible protests.
Also in the news:
►Los Angeles County Unified School District is ending its outdoor masking requirement starting next week, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho tweeted Friday.
►Masks will be optional on all Indiana University campuses starting March 4, officials announced Friday.
►Country artist Willie Nelson has canceled eight concerts in Nashville, New Orleans, Fort Worth and San Antonio in March and April because of COVID-19 concerns, but some upcoming Austin-area appearances are still on.
►The Navajo Nation is maintaining a mask mandate to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, even as the last of the states that surround the reservation dropped the requirement.
📘 What we’re reading: How bad is it to be in ICU with COVID-19? It’s far more miserable than people can imagine, experts tell USA TODAY. Read the full story.
US surgeon general, family test positive for COVID despite vaccines
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and his family have all tested positive for COVID-19 despite being vaccinated, he announced Friday, saying the experience was “disappointing.”
Murthy was not present at the White House coronavirus briefing Wednesday, and he has not had any recent contact with the president, according to the White House.
Murthy, his wife, Dr. Alice Chen, their 5-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter all tested positive. All have been fully vaccinated, except the youngest child who is not eligible to receive a vaccine, Murthy said.
Their daughter tested positive first and is feeling a little better after having had a fever, cough and congestion. Their son has been congested and had a low-grade fever, Murthy said in tweets Friday. He and his wife have “mild symptoms,” he said, including headache and chills. “Our breathing is fine, thankfully,” he said.
“We’ve tried to be safe, but it’s tough when your kids are sick. You want to comfort them when they’re unwell. That often requires being close physically. We’d make that choice again, but I feel for those who struggle to balance protecting themselves with caring for family,” he said in his tweet.
The surgeon general urged others not to feel ashamed if they get COVID despite taking all precautions, adding that nothing can completely eliminate risk. It can be “frustrating and disappointing” to get COVID even with precautions, Murthy said, and people should not judge others as “careless” if they get sick.
Though vaccination is still considered the best defense against serious illness and hospitalization, according to health and government officials, the latest wave of infections with the omicron variant has seen many test positive who were already vaccinated. Murthy said being vaccinated has given him “peace of mind” and the ability to continue to care for his children even while sick.
Bill honoring doctor who died by suicide amid pandemic passes Senate
President Joe Biden will receive a bill passed by Congress honoring Dr. Lorna Breen, who died by suicide amid the stress of the COVID pandemic in 2020.
Breen, 49, was an emergency room doctor in Manhattan and was treating COVID patients on the frontlines early on in the coronavirus pandemic. Her family has been advocating for bolstered federal resources to go toward fighting mental health concerns among health care workers.
“Personal Protective Equipment can reduce the likelihood of being infected, but what they cannot protect heroes like Dr. Lorna Breen, or our first responders, against is the emotional and mental devastation caused by this disease,” Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney said at the time of her death.
Port Canaveral commissioner says CDC controls over cruising ‘sounds a lot like communism’
Port Canaveral Chief Executive Officer John Murray was detailing the latest twists in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19-related guidelines for the cruise industry to the Canaveral Port Authority, when Port Commissioner Micah Loyd apparently had heard enough.
“I can’t speak for my fellow commissioners up here, but I think it sounds a lot like communism to me, personally, if you want to know my personal view about it,” said Loyd, who is the owner of Loyd Contracting Inc. in Titusville. “Why they would put this extra layer on top of it to try to control commerce is beyond my comprehension of American values. It’s hindering our operations, in my opinion.”
Loyd was reacting to new CDC voluntary guidelines announced on Feb. 9 that establish a new status classification for cruise ships called “vaccination standard of excellence.” Under that standard, not only would at least 95% of passengers be vaccinated — as they would be in a ship classified as “highly vaccinated” — but they also would need to have a booster shot, if eligible.
Murray also noted a positive for the cruise industry: The CDC lowered its warning on cruise ship travel, from the highest alert level — a “Level 4” — to “Level 3,” citing a drop in the number of COVID-19 cases reported on vessels.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has posed the question that’s kept the world on edge for weeks: will Russia attack Ukraine?
Not even those in the Russian government — besides President Vladimir Putin — appear to know the answer, but the fact remains that there has been a steady buildup of Russian troops and military hardware near the Ukraine border; the largest since the end of the Cold War.
“They have all the capabilities in place, Russia, to launch an attack on Ukraine without any warning at all. No one is denying that Russia has all these forces in place,” Stoltenberg told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. “The question is, will they launch an attack?”
Over 150,000 Russian troops are stationed at various points along the border with Ukraine. Russian forces have also been posted in Belarus, an ally that lies to the north of Ukraine.
Stoltenberg’s comments came as Russia’s military launched ballistic and cruise missiles on Saturday in a show of its nuclear readiness. It was part of what the Kremlin called a “planned exercise of the strategic deterrence forces.”
“Aerospace Forces successfully launched Kinzhal hypersonic aeroballistic missiles. Ships and submarines of the Northern and Black Sea Fleets launched Kalibr cruise missiles and Zirkon hypersonic missiles at sea and ground targets,” the statement from the Russian presidency said Saturday.
“The tasks envisaged during the exercise of the strategic deterrence forces were completed in full, all missiles hit their assigned targets, confirming the specified characteristics.”
‘Very high risk’
Moscow has insisted it has no plans to invade Ukraine and its forces in Belarus are there for military drills set to take place in the coming days. The U.S. and its Western allies have warned of severe economic and diplomatic sanctions against Russia should an invasion go ahead.
But Stoltenberg added: “NATO allies and the United States have the same assessment, that it’s a very high risk for a Russian attack on Ukraine.”
Russia’s military said in a statement earlier this week that it was pulling back some of its troops to mark the end of their exercises, leading markets to breathe a brief sigh of relief, but Western leaders stress that there is no evidence of a genuine reduction in forces around Ukraine.
Also of concern is “the very threatening rhetoric,” the NATO chief added, noting that, “we have seen attempts by Russia to stage a pretext — the Ukraine situation in Donbas or somewhere else — as an excuse for attacking Ukraine. We have seen false accusations about genocide, we have seen accusations of violations of ceasefires in Donbas, and all of this of course adds to the picture that this is a real danger for a Russian attack.”
The U.S. has accused Russia of plotting to fabricate an attack by Ukrainian forces as a pretext for the invasion of its neighbor. The White House said in early February that it has intelligence Russia is considering using a staged video of a Ukrainian attack involving actors.
The Kremlin has denied it is preparing any “false flag” operations.
The accusation comes amid a prolonged period of escalated tensions between Russia and Ukraine, with the U.S. and NATO concerned about the unfurling geopolitical crisis.
—CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt and Sam Meredith contributed to this report.
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Hundreds of police in riot gear swept through the streets of Canada’s besieged capital Saturday, arresting or driving out protesters, towing away their trucks and finally retaking control of the streets in front of the country’s Parliament buildings.
With protesters in clear retreat under the increasing pressure of one of the largest police operations in Canada’s history, authorities’ hopes were rising for an end to the three-week protest against the country’s COVID-19 restrictions and the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
By early Saturday afternoon, protesters were gone from the street in front of Parliament Hill, the collection of government offices that includes the Parliament buildings, which had the heart of the protests. It had been occupied by protesters and their trucks since late last month, turning into a carnival on weekends.
“They are trying to push us all away,” said one protester, Jeremy Glass of Shelburne, Ontario, as authorities forced the crowds to move further from the Parliament buildings. “The main camp is seized now. We’re no longer in possession of it.”
Police said protesters remained “aggressive and assaultive” and that pepper spray had been used to protect officers. Authorities also said children had been brought right to the police lines, saying it was “putting the children at risk.”
Canadian authorities also announced they had used emergency powers to seize 76 bank accounts connected to protesters, totaling roughly $3.2 million ($2.5 million U.S.).
On Saturday, they also closed a bridge into the nation’s capital from Quebec to prevent a renewed influx of protesters.
Around midday, protest organizers said they had ordered truckers to move away from Parliament Hill, decrying the police’s actions as “abuses of power.”
“To move the trucks will require time,” organizers said in a statement. “We hope that (police) will show judicious restraint.”
Earlier, Ottawa police addressed the protesters in a tweet: “We told you to leave. We gave you time to leave. We were slow and methodical, yet you were assaultive and aggressive with officers and the horses. Based on your behavior, we are responding by including helmets and batons for our safety.”
Police said one protester launched a gas canister and was arrested as they advanced.
At least 47 people were arrested Saturday, police said. More than 100 were arrested Friday, mostly on mischief charges, and nearly two dozen vehicles had been towed, including all of those blocking one of the city’s major streets, authorities said. One officer had a minor injury, but no protesters were hurt, interim Ottawa Police Chief Steve Bell said.
Those arrested included four protest leaders. One received bail while the others remained jailed.
Tow truck operators wearing neon-green ski masks, with their companies’ decals taped over on their trucks to conceal their identities, arrived under police escort and started removing hundreds of big rigs, campers and other vehicles parked shoulder to shoulder near Parliament. Police smashed through the door of at least one camper before hauling it away.
The crackdown on the self-styled Freedom Convoy began Friday morning, when hundreds of police, some in riot gear and some carrying automatic weapons, descended into the protest zone and began leading demonstrators away in handcuffs through the snowy streets as holdout truckers blared their horns.
The capital and its paralyzed streets represented the movement’s last stronghold after weeks of demonstrations and blockades that shut down border crossings into the U.S. and created one of the most serious tests yet for Trudeau. They also shook Canada’s reputation for civility, with some blaming America’s influence.
The Freedom Convoy demonstrations initially focused on Canada’s vaccine requirement for truckers entering the country but soon morphed into a broad attack on COVID-19 precautions and Trudeau’s government.
Ottawa residents complained of being harassed and intimidated by the truckers and obtained a court injunction to stop their incessant honking.
Trudeau portrayed the protesters as members of a “fringe” element. Canadians have largely embraced the country’s COVID-19 restrictions, with the vast majority vaccinated, including an estimated 90% of the nation’s truckers. Some of the vaccine and mask mandates imposed by the provinces are already falling away rapidly.
The biggest border blockade, at the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, disrupted the flow of auto parts between the two countries and forced the industry to curtail production. Authorities lifted the siege last weekend after arresting dozens of protesters.
The final border blockade, in Manitoba, across from North Dakota, ended peacefully on Wednesday.
The protests have been cheered on and received donations from conservatives in the U.S.
His death was the latest in a series of developments in that scandal. This week, Prince Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth II, settled a lawsuit brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who accused the British royal of raping her when she was a teenager. In December, Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s former companion, was convicted of conspiring with him to recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls.
Mr. Brunel carved out a successful career as a modeling agent in France in the 1970s, before expanding his portfolio to the United States, where he met and befriended Mr. Epstein. The two often traveled together and socialized in the same circles before having a falling out as the sex-trafficking accusations against Mr. Epstein emerged.
At least one of Mr. Epstein’s accusers has said that Mr. Brunel used his position as a modeling scout to procure minors for Mr. Epstein, who owned an apartment in an upscale Parisian neighborhood and traveled regularly to France.
In filings in a federal court in New York, Ms. Giuffre said that Mr. Brunel would offer modeling jobs to girls — some as young as 12 — and take them to the United States to “farm them out to his friends, especially Epstein.”
But Mr. Brunel has faced direct accusations of abuse himself. Ms. Giuffre said that Mr. Epstein sexually trafficked her to Mr. Brunel on “numerous occasions and in numerous places,” including the south of France, according to court records.
The incident, which occurred on Wednesday during the day, prompted a search for the individual, who went missing 150 miles off the coast of Louisiana.
In the clip, obtained by Fox 8, the passenger can be seen being detained by security guards on the deck of a Carnival Valor ship. During her struggle with authorities, she can be heard screaming “Alicia,” before being ushered away by security.
Moments later, the video shows passengers rushing toward the ship’s balcony after hearing that the woman jumped overboard. She was reported by Fox 8 to be a 32-year-old woman.
Previous reports cited accounts from unnamed eyewitnesses who claimed that the woman put on a life vest before jumping. In a statement to Insider, however, Carnival disputed the claim and said it was “pure rumor.”
In a previous statement provided to Insider on Thursday, Carnival Cruise said the ship’s command immediately began search-and-rescue procedures after the guest jumped overboard from her balcony. They notified the US Coast Guard to assist in their finding of the woman.
The Carnival Valor ship was traveling to New Orleans from Cozumel, Mexico, on a five-day voyage when the tragic incident occurred.
The passenger, however, has still not been found, according to the US Coast Guard. In a blog post, they wrote that they suspended the search after looking “approximately 2,514 square miles for over 14 search hours.”
“The decision to suspend a search-and-rescue case is never one we come to lightly,” said chief warrant officer Tricia Eldredge, command duty officer at Sector New Orleans.
He added: “We offer our deepest sympathies to the family during this difficult time.”
Carnival told Insider: “Coast Guard officials took over the search effort and released Carnival Valor on Wednesday evening. Our thoughts are with our guest’s family.”
It added that the ship left on its next cruise on Thursday evening, after arriving at its homeport of New Orleans on Thursday morning.
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The family of Daunte Wright spoke out following former officer Kim Potter’s downward departure sentence Friday, saying “the justice system murdered him all over again.”
Potter, who shot and killed the 20-year-old Black motorist during a traffic stop, was sentenced to 16 months in prison and will serve an additional eight months in supervised release. She said she meant to use her Taser, not her gun during the fatal incident.
Before handing down the sentence, Judge Regina Chu said that this was the case of a “cop who made a tragic mistake. She drew her firearm thinking it was a Taser and ended up killing a young man.” The court approved a downward departure from the typical sentence, as Chu said Potter never intended to use her firearm and the scene was chaotic.
In an emotional press conference following the sentence, the family of Wright expressed their disappointment with the judge’s decision for a lighter sentence.
“Kim Potter murdered my son and he died April 11,” Katie Wright said. “Today the justice system murdered him all over again. White women’s tears trumped justice.”
Crump: The Wright family is disappointed. Says the Black officer Mohammed Noor got a longer sentence for a lesser conviction than Potter https://t.co/qcCvfN2l93
“This lady got a slap on the wrist and we still every night, sitting around crying, waiting on my son to come home,” said Arbuey Wright, Daunte Wright’s father, upset to see a judge reduced to tears after Potter cried while expressing how sorry she was for confusing her gun for a Taser and taking a life.
“This isn’t okay. This is the problem with the justice system today. White women in tears trumps, trumps justice and I thought my white women tears would be good enough because they are true and genuine,” said Katie Wright.
The family’s attorney Ben Crump said there was an “apples to apples” comparison to the case of Mohamed Noor, a Somali American former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, who was white. Noor was initially sentenced to more than 12 years in prison, before he was resentenced in late 2021 on a lesser charge.
“What we see today is the legal system in America in Black and white,” Crump said, highlighting the disparities in the way the criminal justice system sentences BIPOC and white convicted criminals. He added that there are Black people in prison serving a longer sentence for selling marijuana than Potter will serve for killing Wright.
An hour before the sentencing hearing began, supporters of Daunte Wright’s family gathered at the east plaza of the Hennepin County Government Center.
“We’re still going to be out here making sure we hold people accountable, making sure that justice and accountability is going to be served,” said Donald Hooker, Jr.
Chants of justice for Wright filled the air as supporters of Kim Potter began to arrive.
“It doesn’t matter how warm, how cold, we are going to be out here to support because we are a community, we are family,” said Athena Papagiannopouls.
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