Ms. Palin, the former Alaska governor and a vice-presidential nominee in 2008, sued The Times in 2017, accusing it of defaming her in an editorial that incorrectly linked her political rhetoric with a 2011 mass shooting. The Times corrected the error the morning after the editorial was published.

The case was seen as a test of the landmark 1964 Supreme Court decision, The New York Times Company v. Sullivan, which set a high bar of proof for public officials claiming defamation. By ruling in favor of The Times on Tuesday, the jury affirmed the precedent, finding that newspaper and its former opinion editor, James Bennet, had not acted with the level of malice or recklessness claimed by Ms. Palin’s team. Public figures must prove that a news organization acted with “actual malice” in publishing false information, meaning it displayed a reckless disregard for the truth or knew the information was false.

Ms. Palin is expected to appeal the verdict. Judge Rakoff said on Wednesday that although neither party objected to his issuing of a ruling while allowing the jury to continue deliberations, he was bringing the issue of the jurors being notified to both parties’ attention in “an excess of caution.”

“If any party feels there is any relief they seek based on the above, counsel should promptly initiate a joint phone conference with the court to discuss whether any further proceedings are appropriate,” Judge Rakoff wrote.

Lawyers for Ms. Palin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/business/media/sarah-palin-libel-new-york-times.html

Source Article from https://www.tmz.com/2022/02/16/george-floyd-aunt-angela-harrelson-speaks-memoir-ex-cops-trial/

MOSCOW/KYIV, Feb 16 (Reuters) – There is a growing Russian military presence at Ukraine’s borders, Western countries warned on Wednesday, as Estonia said battle groups were moving ahead of a likely attack to occupy “key terrain,” contradicting Moscow’s insistence of a pullback.

More armored vehicles, helicopters and a field hospital have been spotted, Britain’s defense intelligence chief said in rare public comments.

Up to 7,000 more troops have moved to the border in recent days, including some arriving on Wednesday, a senior official in U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration said, without providing evidence.

World powers are engaged in one of the deepest crises in East-West relations for decades, jostling over post-Cold War influence and energy supplies as Russia wants to stop Ukraine ever joining the NATO military alliance.

Western nations have suggested arms control and confidence-building steps to defuse the standoff, which has prompted them to urge their citizens to leave Ukraine because an attack could come at any time. Russia denies it has any plans to invade.

“There’s what Russia says. And then there’s what Russia does. And we haven’t seen any pullback of its forces,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview on MSNBC.

“We continue to see critical units moving toward the border, not away from the border.”

Estonian intelligence is aware of around 10 battle groups of troops moving toward the Ukrainian border, where it estimates about 170,000 soldiers are already deployed, said Mikk Marran, director general of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service.

The attack would include missile bombardment and the occupation of “key terrain,” he added.

“If Russia is successful in Ukraine, it would encourage it to increase pressure on the Baltics in the coming years,” he said. “The threat of war has become the main policy tool for Putin.”

Russia’s defense ministry said its forces were pulling back after exercises in southern and western military districts near Ukraine, and Moscow’s ambassador to Ireland insisted forces in western Russia would be back to their normal positions within three to four weeks.

It published video that it said showed tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled artillery units leaving the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.

But NATO military commanders are drawing up plans for new combat units that diplomats said could be deployed in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia.

Such units – designed to buy time for additional soldiers to reach the front line if needed – already exist in Poland and the Baltic states.

Britain will double the size of its force in Estonia and send tanks and armored fighting vehicles to the small Baltic republic bordering Russia as part of the NATO deployment.

‘DAY OF UNITY’

Ukraine also increased the number of border guards on its frontier with Belarus, Russia’s ally, where some 9,000 Russian troops are estimated to be involved in military exercises.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is criss-crossing the country to help bolster Ukrainians’ morale, observed drills by his armed forces that included Javelin anti-tank missiles.

Wednesday was designated a patriotic holiday in response to reports Russia could invade on that day. “No one can love our home as we can. And only we, together, can protect our home,” he said. read more

People raised flags and played the national anthem to show unity against fears of an invasion.

The government said a cyberattack that hit the defense ministry was the worst of its kind the country had seen, pointing the finger at Russia, which denied involvement. read more

U.S. officials were as yet unable to say who was responsible, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said.

‘MORE TROOPS ON WAY’

The risk of Russian aggression against Ukraine would remain high for the rest of February and Russia could still attack Ukraine “with essentially no, or little-to-no, warning,” according to a senior Western intelligence official.

NATO said it could prove Russia’s failure to pull back its soldiers with satellite imagery. “More troops are on their way,” said Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Moscow has accused the West of hysterical war propaganda after repeated warnings of a possible attack.

Russia sees Ukraine joining NATO as a threat to its security and has said it is ready to reroute energy exports to other markets if it is hit by sanctions, which Washington and its allies have threatened if it invades.

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said sanctions against Russian banks would be “unpleasant” but the state would ensure all bank deposits and transactions were secured. read more

Despite the war of words, diplomatic efforts continue.

Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz underscored the “importance of continued transatlantic coordination” on a call on Wednesday, the White House said.

Ukraine has asked the U.N. Security Council to discuss on Thursday a bid by Russia’s parliament to recognize self-proclaimed separatists.

British foreign minister Liz Truss is due to visit Kyiv this week and Blinken will travel to Germany for the Munich Security Conference, which starts on Friday, to coordinate with allies.

“The door continues to be open to diplomacy,” said Psaki.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-pullout-meets-uk-scepticism-ukraine-defence-website-still-hacked-2022-02-16/

Travis McMichael (left) speaks with attorney Jason B. Sheffield during his sentencing in state court last month for the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery.

Stephen B. Morton/Pool/AP


hide caption

toggle caption

Stephen B. Morton/Pool/AP

Travis McMichael (left) speaks with attorney Jason B. Sheffield during his sentencing in state court last month for the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery.

Stephen B. Morton/Pool/AP

There was a text message from Travis McMichael, complaining about Black people at a local restaurant. “Need to change the name from Cracker Barrel to N****r Bucket,” he wrote.

There was a video, shared by McMichael on Facebook, of a Black boy dancing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the original music cut out and swapped for the racist song “Alabama N****r” by Johnny Rebel. The music went on and on for an uncomfortably long time, the dehumanizing lyrics blasting through the courtroom like something from a blackface minstrel show.

A comment under a video of Black Lives Matter protesters, in which McMichael wished for a semiautomatic rifle in order to shoot the people he described as “goddamn monkeys,” and another post advocating driving into a group of Black people with a vehicle.

Even a text conversation between McMichael and a friend about zoodles — that’s noodles made of zucchini — involved the N-word.

“Is that the only evidence, or is there more?” asked the prosecutor.

“There was more,” replied the witness, FBI agent Amy Vaughn.

Vaughn had analyzed the contents of cellphones and social media accounts for the government, building its case against McMichael; his father, Greg McMichael; and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, who are on trial for violating Ahmaud Arbery’s civil rights when they chased him down a public street and shot him while he was out for a run on Feb. 23, 2020.

The three men were already convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in a state trial last year. Now, federal prosecutors are trying to prove that the McMichaels and Bryan went after Arbery because of his race, violating his right to use a public street. In opening statements on Monday, prosecutor Bobbi Bernstein claimed that texts and social media evidence from the defendants would prove the government’s case.

Investigators were unable to get Greg McMichael’s cellphone records because of phone encryption but pointed out a few Facebook posts, including one status update that “a gun in hand is worth more than an entire police force on the phone.”

McMichaels laughed about trespassing while hunting

Prosecutors also played a video of the father and son laughing about trespassing on private property while out hunting, chuckling that “there’s private property and then there’s private property, you know?”

The McMichaels have tried to defend their actions against Arbery as justified because Arbery was seen trespassing on private property — a home under construction in the neighborhood.

Bryan’s text records show, according to Vaughn, “a pattern seen over several years” of making derogatory comments about Black people on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and WhatsApp messages about Bryan’s daughter’s new Black boyfriend, including a message in which his daughter writes passionately that race doesn’t matter and begs her father for understanding.

“I’ve always told her this is the only thing I could not accept,” Bryan texted a friend. One day after killing Arbery, Bryan texted the friend again, still about the falling-out with his daughter.

Lawyers for the defense briefly argued that some of the racist comments are taken out of context but declined an extensive cross-examination. In their opening statements, the defense lawyers admitted that all three men have said very racist things but racial slurs are not illegal.

“I’m not going to ask you to like Travis McMichael,” attorney Amy Lee Copeland told the jurors, saying they should consider the evidence and still find him not guilty.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/02/16/1081257533/racist-violent-evidence-presented-in-federal-trial-against-ahmaud-arberys-killer

Two years after she went missing, a six-year-old girl has been found alive and in good health in a makeshift room underneath a staircase in a house in New York state, according to police who said they suspected she was abducted by her biological non-custodial parents.

Officers found the girl, Paislee Shultis, on Monday in a house in the town of Saugerties, two years after she went missing from Spencer, New York, about 180 miles (290 km) to the west, the Saugerties police department said in a statement on Tuesday.

At the time, police believed her biological parents, Kimberly Cooper, 33, and Kirk Shultis Jr, 32, abducted her, they said. The couple did not have custody of the girl, police said.

Kirk Shultis Jr and Kimberly Cooper were charged with custodial interference and endangering the welfare of a child. Photograph: Stefan Jeremiah/Reuters

On Monday, police said they received a tip about the girl’s whereabouts and obtained a search warrant.

They said they went to the girl’s grandfather’s house where they searched for about an hour before locating the child hidden in a makeshift room, under a closed staircase leading to the basement.

Upon removing the step boards, the girl and her mother Kimberly were found hiding in the dark and wet enclosure, police said.

Paislee was taken to police headquarters where paramedics examined her, police told the Daily Freeman, the community’s local newspaper. The girl was in good health and released to her legal guardian.

Police arrested her parents and the girl’s grandfather Kirk Shultis, 57. They face charges of custodial interference and endangering the welfare of a child.

Police said they interviewed Kirk Shultis Jr several times since the girl went missing. He maintained that he had no knowledge of her location and told officers that he had not seen the child.

Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/16/paislee-shultis-missing-girl-found-new-york

Masks are still required for unvaccinated people and remain compulsory for everyone in airports, hospitals, K-12 schools, medical settings and shelters. But gone is the rule that people mask up when visiting, say, a shop, theater or government office.

And the grocery store. To breathe maskless in the grocery store is a wonderful thing, if only for the ability to moisten your fingertips and open those compostable plastic produce bags with ease. Also, to be able to read the grocery aisle signs through glasses free of the fog that masks create. What greater bliss?

But the pandemic isn’t over. The coronavirus’ highly infectious omicron variant is still at large. Thousands of people remain unvaccinated, and many are still getting sick and spreading the infection. Though no longer compulsory, masks are still recommended.

Curious how people responded to their first day of mask freedom since mid-December, The Chronicle sent reporters to three groceries around the bay to find out. Between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Wednesday, the reporters also counted how many people wore masks, or didn’t, as they exited the stores.

The verdict: it appeared that some people hadn’t heard the news, while many others still chose to wear face coverings. Fewer than 10% of the shoppers we tallied were mask-free. Here’s a sampling of what we found.

Trader Joe’s

337 3rd St., San Rafael

“I might be one of the only ones without a mask,” said a smiling Jan Horn, 68, a homemaker, as she left the store. Horn said she felt comfortable being unmasked inside the store, protected by her two vaccinations and one booster — and by Marin’s high vaccination rate. She noticed no stares or nasty glances. “I was ready,” she said. “It felt great, much more comfortable. I love it.”

Alan and Susan Katz, both 75 and retired, said they felt more comfortable in indoor public spaces with masks on. “I’m probably going to continue to wear them indoors for a while,” Alan Katz said. “I don’t really see any reason not to.” If the coronavirus continues to weaken, he said he may consider taking off his mask. Susan Katz said she’ll probably keep hers on indoors — at least until kids younger than 5 can be vaccinated. “We have little grandchildren and want to make sure we can protect them,” she said.

Jan Horn, homemaker, unloads her groceries in the Trader Joe’s parking lot on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022, in San Rafael, Calif.

Samantha Laurey/The Chronicle

Tom Hendricks didn’t even think of leaving the mask home. “I’m a creature of habit,” said Hendricks, 83, as he and his wife, Faye Hendricks, pushed a loaded cart out of the store. Out in the open air, they removed their masks. When might he doff his face covering indoors? “I think I’ll wear it into the beyond,” he said. “I think COVID is going to go on.”

(From left to right) Tom and Faye Hendricks walk past Trader Joe’s to their car on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022, in San Rafael, Calif.

Samantha Laurey/The Chronicle

Rainbow Grocery

1745 Folsom St., San Francisco

Marianne Bennett Budin, 71 and masked, was pulling out her shopping cart and getting ready to shop when a reporter mentioned that masks were no longer required. Budin took it off immediately. “I’ve been vaccinated three times. I’ve received my federal COVID-19 test kits,” said Budin, who lives in Sacramento. “Polio was a major epidemic for many, many years. This is something we have to live with.”

La Tigre Waters, 35, stands for a portrait while shopping at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022.

Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

La Tigre Waters also yanked off her mask when told about the new rules. Why? Because of lipstick, of course. “It gets so messed up,” said Waters, 35, before heading, maskless, down aisle 10.

Yara Reid, 39, shops at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022.

Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

Yara Reid, a teacher, said her mask will stay on in indoor public spaces until she gets the news that no one — regardless of vaccination status — is ending up in the hospital with COVID. Since the pandemic began, Reid, 39, has briefly removed her mask only twice indoors with strangers. After one of the gatherings, she said, half the people wound up with COVID. She wasn’t one of them. So she considers the mask freedoms a helpful guideline, nothing more. “Guidelines can only protect me so much,” Reid said. “I need to take care of myself.”

Alameda Natural Grocery

1650 Park St, Alameda

Tommy Speer, 43, said he’s had COVID three times. The rave organizer from Oakland — unvaccinated, unmasked and unconcerned — called the lifting of the mask mandate “amazing.” “It should’ve been done a long time ago,” he said. What he may not have realized, or cared about, was that as an unvaccinated person, he still had to wear a mask. Yet he was able to enter the store unmasked and buy a takeout salad. Speer, a diamond earring sparkling beneath an Airpod in his left ear, said that even his children weren’t vaccinated — for anything. “Never will be.”

With time to spare before meeting a customer, Emma Tuttle of San Francisco popped into the island’s natural food store to browse. Fully masked, Tuttle, 24, didn’t know the covering was no longer required until a reporter gave her the news. She said she was excited. “I don’t like wearing my mask inside,” she said, adding that she was fully boosted. Still, she made no move to remove the surgical mask that matched her black hi tops. She gazed at her fellow shoppers, nearly all of them similarly masked. And she considered what they might say if they saw her, suddenly, remove hers. Would someone tell her to put it back on? “That’s embarrassing. I’m not a flop,” she said. The mask stayed on.

Tommy Speer, 43, stands for a portrait at Alameda Natural Grocery in Alameda, Calif. on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. California health officials lifted the statewide COVID-19 indoor mask mandate this morning, allowing vaccinated Bay Area residents to go maskless in public settings.

Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle

California Gov. Gavin Newsom may have removed the state’s indoor mask mandate for vaccinated people, but a pink-clad toddler in a grocery cart wielded a higher authority. “She can’t be vaccinated,” said Rio’s mom, Jen Woo, 37, as she shopped for strawberries and kale. That means Woo’s and Rio’s masks stay on, no matter what the mask rules are. Until vaccinations are approved for children under 5, Woo said, “I don’t think it’s going to change.”

San Francisco resident Emma Tuttle, 24, shops at Alameda Natural Grocery in Alameda, Calif. on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. California health officials lifted the statewide COVID-19 indoor mask mandate this morning, allowing vaccinated Bay Area residents to go maskless in public settings.

Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle

Michael Cabanatuan, Ryce Stoughenborough, Annie Vainshtein and Nanette Asimov are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com, ryce.stoughenborough@sfchronicle.com, avainshtein@sfchronicle.com, nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @CTuan, @RStoughts, @AnnieVain, @NanetteAsimov

Source Article from https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/How-Bay-Area-shoppers-are-reacting-to-the-lifting-16924879.php

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The San Francisco district attorney’s stunning claim that California crime labs are using DNA from sexual assault survivors to investigate unrelated crimes shocked prosecutors nationwide, and advocates said the practice could affect victims’ willingness to come forward.

District Attorney Chesa Boudin said he became aware of the “opaque practice” last week after prosecutors found a report among hundreds of pages of evidence in the case against a woman recently charged with a felony property crime. The papers referred to a DNA sample collected from the woman during a 2016 rape investigation.

Boudin read from the report Tuesday at a news conference and said he could not share it because of privacy concerns, but his office allowed the San Francisco Chronicle to review the documents. The newspaper said the woman was tied to a burglary in late 2021 during “a routine search” of a San Francisco Police Department crime lab database. The match came from DNA gathered from the same laboratory listed in a report on the sexual assault, The Chronicle reported.

Boudin said someone at the crime lab told his office the practice was a standard procedure. According to Rachel Marshall, Boudin’s spokeswoman, that person was crime lab Director Mark Powell.

Powell did not respond Wednesday to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said his department is investigating. If he finds his department is using victims’ DNA to investigate other crimes, he is committed to ending the practice.

A spokesman declined to comment Wednesday on when the results of the investigation can be expected. He said Scott would likely address the allegations later Wednesday during a Police Commission meeting.

There are strict government regulations surrounding DNA collection and analysis on the state and federal level, yet dozens of local police departments around the U.S. have amassed their own DNA databases to track criminals, AP found in 2017.

It’s not clear whether that’s what occurred in the San Francisco crime lab, or if it’s what Boudin was referring to as a common practice.

“These databases work in the background with very little regulation and very little light,” said Jason Kreag, a law professor at the University of Arizona who has studied forensic DNA issues. “It doesn’t surprise me, and I wouldn’t think this is the only instance where it actually happened.”

California law allows local law enforcement crime labs to operate their own forensic databases that are separate from federal and state databases. The law also lets municipal labs perform forensic analysis, including DNA profiling, using those databases — without regulation by the state or others.

Kreag said there could be other instances where someone’s DNA is collected for a specific purpose and then run through a database. For example, homeowners could submit their DNA in a burglary case to exclude them, but later that DNA could be linked to another crime.

“Would the district attorney have come out so forcefully” in a case like that? Kreag asked. He said he has not heard of such a case involving a sexual assault victim’s DNA.

Several other law enforcement agencies in California and elsewhere around the U.S. pushed back against Boudin’s assertion that it was a common practice.

New York Police Department Detective Sophia Mason said the agency “does not enter victims’ DNA profiles into databases or use them in unrelated investigations.”

Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said: “Certainly the department does not do that.”

District attorneys in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Sacramento counties also swatted down the suggestion, as did representatives from San Diego police, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department crime lab and others.

In Oakland, law enforcement uses sexual assault victim DNA only “in the context of the case for which the evidence was submitted, not to investigate other cases.”

“As far as I know, it’s not a widespread practice,” said Ilse Knecht, director of policy and advocacy at the Joyful Heart Foundation, which assists survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse.

Knecht and others fear the effect on sexual assault victims, many of whom are already reluctant to report their experiences to law enforcement. Experts say only a third of sexual assaults are reported to authorities.

The possibility — however remote — that an accuser’s DNA could be used against them could throw up additional barriers.

“I think anybody can understand how survivors would be fearful of reporting after hearing this story,” Knecht said.

Nelson Bunn, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, said he did not personally know of crime labs using DNA in such a manner. Rape-kit DNA should only be used in sexual assault investigations, he said.

“Otherwise, trust would be eroded,” he said, citing “a detrimental effect on justice for victims of sexual assault.”

Boudin’s news conferences did not occur in a political vacuum. The progressive prosecutor faces a recall election in June and has been publicly feuding with local law enforcement.

The clash between his office and the police department intensified this month after the start of a trial against Terrance Stangel, a former police officer facing battery and assault charges for beating a man with a baton in 2019. It’s the first excessive-force case against an on-duty San Francisco police officer to go to trial.

Earlier this month, Scott ended an agreement to cooperate in the district attorney’s investigations of police shootings, in-custody deaths and uses of force resulting in serious injury because of concerns over the office’s impartiality.

Boudin has denied violating the agreement, and the two have since pledged to renegotiate it with help of the state attorney general and San Francisco’s mayor and city attorney.

___

Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press Writer Michael Balsamo in New York contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/crime-california-san-francisco-sexual-assault-3dcd00bf0522ce7c39bb2a7ec53cf7d3

MOSCOW/KYIV, Feb 16 (Reuters) – There is a growing Russian military presence at Ukraine’s borders, Western countries warned on Wednesday, as Estonia said battle groups were moving ahead of a likely attack to occupy “key terrain,” contradicting Moscow’s insistence of a pullback.

More armored vehicles, helicopters and a field hospital have been spotted, Britain’s defense intelligence chief said in rare public comments.

Up to 7,000 more troops have moved to the border in recent days, including some arriving on Wednesday, a senior official in U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration said, without providing evidence.

World powers are engaged in one of the deepest crises in East-West relations for decades, jostling over post-Cold War influence and energy supplies as Russia wants to stop Ukraine ever joining the NATO military alliance.

Western nations have suggested arms control and confidence-building steps to defuse the standoff, which has prompted them to urge their citizens to leave Ukraine because an attack could come at any time. Russia denies it has any plans to invade.

“There’s what Russia says. And then there’s what Russia does. And we haven’t seen any pullback of its forces,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview on MSNBC.

“We continue to see critical units moving toward the border, not away from the border.”

Estonian intelligence is aware of around 10 battle groups of troops moving toward the Ukrainian border, where it estimates about 170,000 soldiers are already deployed, said Mikk Marran, director general of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service.

The attack would include missile bombardment and the occupation of “key terrain,” he added.

“If Russia is successful in Ukraine, it would encourage it to increase pressure on the Baltics in the coming years,” he said. “The threat of war has become the main policy tool for Putin.”

Russia’s defense ministry said its forces were pulling back after exercises in southern and western military districts near Ukraine, and Moscow’s ambassador to Ireland insisted forces in western Russia would be back to their normal positions within three to four weeks.

It published video that it said showed tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled artillery units leaving the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.

But NATO military commanders are drawing up plans for new combat units that diplomats said could be deployed in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia.

Such units – designed to buy time for additional soldiers to reach the front line if needed – already exist in Poland and the Baltic states.

Britain will double the size of its force in Estonia and send tanks and armored fighting vehicles to the small Baltic republic bordering Russia as part of the NATO deployment.

‘DAY OF UNITY’

Ukraine also increased the number of border guards on its frontier with Belarus, Russia’s ally, where some 9,000 Russian troops are estimated to be involved in military exercises.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is criss-crossing the country to help bolster Ukrainians’ morale, observed drills by his armed forces that included Javelin anti-tank missiles.

Wednesday was designated a patriotic holiday in response to reports Russia could invade on that day. “No one can love our home as we can. And only we, together, can protect our home,” he said. read more

People raised flags and played the national anthem to show unity against fears of an invasion.

The government said a cyberattack that hit the defense ministry was the worst of its kind the country had seen, pointing the finger at Russia, which denied involvement. read more

U.S. officials were as yet unable to say who was responsible, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said.

‘MORE TROOPS ON WAY’

The risk of Russian aggression against Ukraine would remain high for the rest of February and Russia could still attack Ukraine “with essentially no, or little-to-no, warning,” according to a senior Western intelligence official.

NATO said it could prove Russia’s failure to pull back its soldiers with satellite imagery. “More troops are on their way,” said Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Moscow has accused the West of hysterical war propaganda after repeated warnings of a possible attack.

Russia sees Ukraine joining NATO as a threat to its security and has said it is ready to reroute energy exports to other markets if it is hit by sanctions, which Washington and its allies have threatened if it invades.

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said sanctions against Russian banks would be “unpleasant” but the state would ensure all bank deposits and transactions were secured. read more

Despite the war of words, diplomatic efforts continue.

Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz underscored the “importance of continued transatlantic coordination” on a call on Wednesday, the White House said.

Ukraine has asked the U.N. Security Council to discuss on Thursday a bid by Russia’s parliament to recognize self-proclaimed separatists.

British foreign minister Liz Truss is due to visit Kyiv this week and Blinken will travel to Germany for the Munich Security Conference, which starts on Friday, to coordinate with allies.

“The door continues to be open to diplomacy,” said Psaki.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-pullout-meets-uk-scepticism-ukraine-defence-website-still-hacked-2022-02-16/

Travis McMichael (left) speaks with attorney Jason B. Sheffield during his sentencing in state court last month for the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery.

Stephen B. Morton/Pool/AP


hide caption

toggle caption

Stephen B. Morton/Pool/AP

Travis McMichael (left) speaks with attorney Jason B. Sheffield during his sentencing in state court last month for the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery.

Stephen B. Morton/Pool/AP

There was a text message from Travis McMichael, complaining about Black people at a local restaurant. “Need to change the name from Cracker Barrel to N****r Bucket,” he wrote.

There was a video, shared by McMichael on Facebook, of a Black boy dancing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the original music cut out and swapped for the racist song “Alabama N****r” by Johnny Rebel. The music went on and on for an uncomfortably long time, the dehumanizing lyrics blasting through the courtroom like something from a blackface minstrel show.

A comment under a video of Black Lives Matter protesters, in which McMichael wished for a semiautomatic rifle in order to shoot the people he described as “goddamn monkeys,” and another post advocating driving into a group of Black people with a vehicle.

Even a text conversation between McMichael and a friend about zoodles — that’s noodles made of zucchini — involved the N-word.

“Is that the only evidence, or is there more?” asked the prosecutor.

“There was more,” replied the witness, FBI agent Amy Vaughn.

Vaughn had analyzed the contents of cellphones and social media accounts for the government, building its case against McMichael; his father, Greg McMichael; and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, who are on trial for violating Ahmaud Arbery’s civil rights when they chased him down a public street and shot him while he was out for a run on Feb. 23, 2020.

The three men were already convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in a state trial last year. Now, federal prosecutors are trying to prove that the McMichaels and Bryan went after Arbery because of his race, violating his right to use a public street. In opening statements on Monday, prosecutor Bobbi Bernstein claimed that texts and social media evidence from the defendants would prove the government’s case.

Investigators were unable to get Greg McMichael’s cellphone records because of phone encryption but pointed out a few Facebook posts, including one status update that “a gun in hand is worth more than an entire police force on the phone.”

McMichaels laughed about trespassing while hunting

Prosecutors also played a video of the father and son laughing about trespassing on private property while out hunting, chuckling that “there’s private property and then there’s private property, you know?”

The McMichaels have tried to defend their actions against Arbery as justified because Arbery was seen trespassing on private property — a home under construction in the neighborhood.

Bryan’s text records show, according to Vaughn, “a pattern seen over several years” of making derogatory comments about Black people on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and WhatsApp messages about Bryan’s daughter’s new Black boyfriend, including a message in which his daughter writes passionately that race doesn’t matter and begs her father for understanding.

“I’ve always told her this is the only thing I could not accept,” Bryan texted a friend. One day after killing Arbery, Bryan texted the friend again, still about the falling-out with his daughter.

Lawyers for the defense briefly argued that some of the racist comments are taken out of context but declined an extensive cross-examination. In their opening statements, the defense lawyers admitted that all three men have said very racist things but racial slurs are not illegal.

“I’m not going to ask you to like Travis McMichael,” attorney Amy Lee Copeland told the jurors, saying they should consider the evidence and still find him innocent.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/02/16/1081257533/racist-violent-evidence-presented-in-federal-trial-against-ahmaud-arberys-killer

With protests against California’s continued mask mandate at schools unfolding across the state, Sacramento County’s public health officer on Wednesday appealed for patience from parents and explained why she agreed with the state’s decision to hold off on ditching the requirement for now.

California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said this week that the state aimed to announce an end date for its school mask mandate on Feb. 28, following a two-week reassessment of pandemic trends.

“My request to parents is we ask you to be patient,” Sacramento County Public Health Officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye said during a briefing with reporters. “We are reviewing the data but I think it’s important for parents to recognize that children can and are affected by COVID-19.”

This year did show an increase in hospitalizations with children and some kids and staff have conditions that put them at risk, she said.

“So I want to make sure that we have measures in place to keep everybody safe,” she said. “I think this is the time when we need to be careful in how we make those steps.”

Kasirye outlined positive trends in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, though she said deaths are up to an average of nine to 10 per day.

Sacramento County is averaging 500-600 COVID-19 cases a day for a weekly average rate of 38.2 per 100,000 people, she said. That’s down more than 75% from the peak rate of 250 per 100,000 last month. Hospitalizations and outbreaks of COVID-19 at the county’s jails are looking better too, she said.

Hospitalizations stand at 415 patients with COVID-19 and 66 at intensive care units. That’s down from the peak of 657 and more than 100 in the ICU last month. Last week, the outbreak at the county’s main jail downtown was 150 cases. That number is now 52. The outbreak at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center stands at 91, falling from 236 a week ago, she said.

On Wednesday, Sacramento County followed the state’s lead and ended its own local indoor mask mandate and a separate order that public meetings be held virtually. Besides schools, masks are still required for people who are unvaccinated and for those on public transportation or in health care and congregate settings, homeless shelters and child care settings. Businesses can choose to have people self-attest to their vaccination status or choose to require masks for everyone regardless of their status.

Demand for COVID-19 testing is subsiding and as a result, starting March 1 the county will downgrade the number of community testing sites it offers from 13 to 7. One site, Robertson Community Center, will offer free PCR testing Mondays through Saturdays.

| RELATED | See Sacramento County’s list of COVID-19 testing sites and hours here.

Kasirye said she was “optimistic” about the course of the pandemic even as she said she didn’t know if cases would fall below 5 per 100,000 people with omicron as the dominant variant. That was the metric the county once held out as the point when it would end its local mask mandate before deciding to follow the state’s lead instead.

“When we set that goal of 5 per 100,000 we were dealing with delta,” Kasirye said. “So we don’t know how far it’s going to fall. I think what is very hopeful is that the numbers are declining very quickly.”

With the end of the state and local indoor mask mandate, state health officials still recommend masking up in public places and indoors.

Kasirye said that people who are vaccinated now can make an individualized risk assessment and for her, that still means wearing a mask at times.

“I have full confidence in the vaccine and I am vaccinated and boosted, but I will still wear a mask, especially when going into certain public places because each layer of protection that we use increases our confidence in being able to avoid getting COVID,” she said. “So I will be continuing to use the mask.”

Source Article from https://www.kcra.com/article/sacramento-countys-public-health-officer-dr-kasirye-school-mask-protests/39110642

Andrew Broe, 52, a trucker from Trenton, Ontario, took the leaflet from the police and threw it into the fire he was tending in a canister to keep warm on the street outside the Parliament building. “It is a piece of encouragement,” he said, referring to the leaflet. “They are drawing at straws trying to remove a peaceful protest.”

Denis Brown, 57, who said he quit his job as a technology service provider because he didn’t want to get vaccinated for travel, was circulating his own message on a piece of paper: The politicians should be arrested, it said.

At a news conference on Wednesday, protest organizers called on more demonstrators to pour into Ottawa to help foil police efforts to put the occupation down.

But the patience of many Canadians with the protests is growing thinner by the day. The nation’s image of serenity and order has given way to scenes of truckers shouting “freedom,” honking horns, confronting police and, in some cases, taunting fellow citizens who wear masks. Blockades have undermined the economy, while the demonstrations have dented Canada’s reputation on the global stage as a nation of stability.

Opinion data released this week by the Angus Reid Institute, a leading polling group, showed that nearly three-quarters of Canadians say the time has come for protesters to go home.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/world/canada/ottawa-protesters-police.html

Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonRight wing criticizes media for lack of coverage on Durham probe  Liberal activists need to level with their base Document dump turns toxic for Trump MORE on Wednesday criticized former President TrumpDonald TrumpHillicon Valley — Cyberattack hits Ukrainian defense On The Money — GOP senators block Biden’s Fed picks Florida county clerk’s typo directed ticketed drivers to site selling Trump merchandise MORE and Fox News for “spinning up a fake scandal” over special counsel John DurhamJohn DurhamRight wing criticizes media for lack of coverage on Durham probe  Lawyer charged in Durham probe accuses prosecutors of seeking to ‘inflame media coverage’ The Hill’s Morning Report – Russia-Ukraine waiting game MORE‘s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

“Trump & Fox are desperately spinning up a fake scandal to distract from his real ones. So it’s a day that ends in Y,” Clinton tweeted. “The more his misdeeds are exposed, the more they lie.”

Clinton also shared a Vanity Fair article that she said included “a good debunking of their latest nonsense.”

In a court filing last week, Durham, who was appointed by former Attorney General William BarrBill Barr36 percent in Texas poll think Biden didn’t win election legitimately Durham alleges cyber analysts ‘exploited’ access to Trump White House server Kamala Harris takes center stage MORE as special counsel to investigate the FBI’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, claimed that tech entrepreneur Rodney Joffe had used nonpublic government domain name system data to look into supposed links between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank.

The filing was part of a case against Michael Sussmann, a former attorney for Joffe who worked on behalf of Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Durham has accused Sussmann of lying when he told the FBI in 2016 that he was not representing a client when presenting data that potentially established a link between former President Trump’s business and Alfa Bank based in Moscow.

Durham’s filing alleged that Sussmann got the relevant information from Joffe.

Trump quickly reacted to the filing and claimed the lack of media attention on the filing was indicative of “how totally corrupt and shameless the media is.”

“Can you imagine if the roles were reversed and the Republicans, in particular President Donald Trump, got caught illegally spying into the Office of the President? All hell would break loose and the electric chair would immediately come out of retirement,” said Trump.

However, as the Vanity Fair article shared by Clinton noted, Sussmann’s conversation with federal authorities had already been reported on last year, and Durham had not claimed that the White House had been infiltrated or that the Clinton campaign had paid Joffe.

The court filing also did not state that the White House data that had come under scrutiny had come from the Trump administration.

Source Article from https://thehill.com/homenews/news/594608-hillary-clinton-on-durham-report-trump-fox-are-desperately-spinning-up-a-fake

A makeshift memorial outside of slain Chinatown resident Christina Yuna Lee’s apartment building was vandalized overnight, her former landlord told The Post on Wednesday. 

The memorial, which was set up on the sidewalk in front of the building where Lee was stabbed to death over the weekend, featured flowers, candles and signs decrying anti-Asian hate, some of which were found destroyed Wednesday morning. 

“This morning, the candles that we have all lit as a community for her during the vigil and we all left out here were smashed. The ‘Stop Asian Hate’ sign was torn. One sign was ripped up. I threw it away,” Brian Chin, the landlord of the Chrystie Street building where Lee was found butchered to death in her bathroom over the weekend, said Wednesday.

“I had to clean up all the shattered glass. I try to put the sign back together as best as I can … They try to desecrate her as much as they could and we as a community are beyond fed up, we are beyond angry and we are tired of being attacked,” he added. “We are tired of seeing this hatred and we are not going to stand for it anymore.”

Christina Yuna Lee was stabbed to death at her Chinatown apartment.
Linkedin

Early Sunday morning, Assamad Nash, 25, allegedly stabbed Lee 40 times and left her to die after he forced his way into her sixth-floor apartment after she returned home from a night out. 

During Nash’s arraignment Monday night, prosecutors said the attack was sexually motivated but they’re continuing to investigate to determine if race also played a role. 

Wellington Chen, the director of Chinatown Business Improvement District, was outside of the building Wednesday afternoon helping to tape signs around the memorial and arrange flowers as others swept up shards of glass from the shattered candles. 

Brian Chin, the landlord of the Chrystie Street building where Lee was killed, told The Post the memorial honoring Lee was damaged. 
Robert Miller

“You don’t desecrate a memorial like this … on top of this horrific event, that’s the last thing we need,” Chen said. 

“It means a lot to us Asian people and it should mean a lot to all New Yorkers, too.” 

Virginia Buchan, who stopped by the memorial to pay her respects, said she was “horrified” by the vandalism. 

Chinatown residents were appalled by the vandalism at the memorial.
Robert Miller

“This is simply an outpouring of empathy and recognition for a woman,” said Buchan, a teacher who lives in Chinatown and has two adopted Asian children. 

“I am angry and appalled. I find it incomprehensible. Why would somebody take the trouble of destroying a peaceful memorial?” 

Wai Fun Tso, who’s lived in the neighborhood for two decades, was furious to hear the memorial had been vandalized. 

The vandalism of the memorial was not captured on video.
Robert Miller

“This is racism against Asians. I can feel it. Why are they after us? I don’t know. We didn’t do anything wrong,” Tso, 62, said. 

“I feel sad. I am upset. Don’t touch it. Leave it alone. Let her rest in peace.” 

Chin, who previously had surveillance cameras set up outside of the building, said the vandalism wasn’t captured on tape because the NYPD took his equipment as part of their probe into Lee’s murder.

Some tried to help put the memorial back together.
Robert Miller

He said he didn’t report the vandalism to cops. 

“What’s the point?” he questioned. 

“It’s a sign of how things are in the Asian community. We don’t report these things anymore.”

Source Article from https://nypost.com/2022/02/16/memorial-outside-of-christina-yuna-lees-apartment-vandalized/

A makeshift shrine to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting is set up shortly after the massacre in December 2012 in Newtown, Conn.

Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images


hide caption

toggle caption

Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images

A makeshift shrine to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting is set up shortly after the massacre in December 2012 in Newtown, Conn.

Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images

Families of victims killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have reached a landmark settlement with the gun-maker Remington Arms. The lawsuit closes almost 10 years after the massacre that killed six adults and 20 schoolchildren between 6 and 7 years old.

Remington’s four insurers have all agreed to pay $73 million total as the result of the suit, which questioned how Remington marketed the model of AR-15-style rifle used in the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.

“Our legal system has given us some justice today,” said Francine Wheeler on the suit’s close, whose 6-year-old son, Benjamin, was killed in the shooting. “But David and I will never have true justice. True justice would be our 15-year-old healthy and standing next to us right now.”

Benjamin’s father, David Wheeler, joined Morning Edition to reflect on whether the settlement will change how the gun industry markets deadly weapons.

“Perhaps there’s some solace in knowing, or thinking or hoping that another family will be spared this kind of tragedy and trauma and loss because another young person doesn’t feel it necessary to make themselves feel like more of a man, or more effective or make a mark in society by using this in the wrong way,” Wheeler says.

Connecticut Public Radio’s Frankie Graziano tells Up First that the families sued in the hopes of stopping future shootings in part by putting companies that insure gun manufacturers on notice that they could be forced to pay huge amounts in some circumstances. Families also fought to be able to release documents they obtained during the discovery phase of the suit that they say show Remington targeted insecure young men specifically with their gun marketing, reports Graziano.

Although federal law usually protects U.S. gun-makers from liability, the Connecticut families argued the way Remington marketed the gun used in the killings violated that state’s consumer law and prioritized profits over public safety. The settlement still needs a judge’s approval to be final.

The settlement may mark the first time that damages of this magnitude are awarded against a U.S. gun manufacturer based on a mass shooting, says Adam Skaggs, chief counsel and policy director at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Last year, Nevada’s Supreme Court ruled the manufacturers of the weapons used in a 2017 mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip couldn’t be held responsible for the killings because of a state law that shielded them from liability unless a weapon malfunctions.

Below is more from Wheeler’s conversation with Morning Edition host Leila Fadel.

On whether the settlement means justice for families like his

Well, that’s a difficult … thing to describe. I mean, the whole point of this suit from the very beginning was to try to move the needle in the way the firearms industry operates in this country. They’re the only industry that has blanket immunity that creates these lethal products and markets them and manufactures them and brings them to the market. And the whole point of this, from the beginning, was to try to change how that works. And I think we’ve done it a little bit, and for that, I’m satisfied.

On what people should know about how gun manufacturers operate

Well, up until yesterday, the gun industry has essentially been untouchable and the insurance companies and the banking industries have been shielded from accountability in that way as well, through this blanket immunity they have through the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that was signed in 2005, commonly known as PLCAA. And it just doesn’t seem right, and it doesn’t seem fair that you should be able to manufacture and market the most lethal consumer product we know, without any checks and balances on the way you do that. There’s a reasonable and a morally acceptable way to market anything. And you have to take into account the circumstances surrounding the product that you create, that you bring to the marketplace. So we’re hoping that this will move things in the right direction in terms of this industry being a little bit more responsible about how they make their money and not to prioritize profits over people’s lives.

On what still needs to change and what already has about gun ownership in America

You know, it’ll be a little while before we know this concretely, but the right direction for this would be for companies that make these products, as they said, to be more responsible in the way they bring them to market. When you’re making the world’s most lethal consumer product, it doesn’t make sense to try to appeal to the sense of insecurity or to try to appeal to promised glory or masculinity to some disaffected young person. That just doesn’t seem right. It’s clear that that kind of approach results in the kind of tragedy that befell my family and hurt countless others.

On what he and his family will do now that the years-long lawsuit is over

Well, we just go on, you know, one foot in front of the other.

This story originally appeared in the Morning Edition live blog.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/02/16/1081168604/sandy-hook-families-remington-gun-industry