February, 2022 | últimas notícias

Trucker protests start to hurt auto plants nationwide – NBC News

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Macron was kept away from Putin in Kremlin for ‘refusing Russian Covid test’ – The Guardian

Emmanuel Macron refused a Kremlin request that he take a Russian Covid-19 test when he arrived to see Vladimir Putin this week, and was therefore kept at a distance from the Russian leader, two sources in Macron’s entourage told Reuters.

Observers were struck by images of Macron and Putin sitting at opposite ends of 4-metre-long (13 ft) table to discuss the Ukraine crisis on Monday, with some diplomats and others suggesting Putin might have wanted to send a diplomatic message.

But the two sources, who have knowledge of the French president’s health protocol, told Reuters Macron had been given a choice: either he accepted a PCR test done by the Russian authorities and was allowed to get close to Putin, or he refused and had to abide by more stringent social distancing.

“We knew very well that meant no handshake and that long table. But we could not accept that they get their hands on the president’s DNA,” one of the sources told Reuters, referring to security concerns if the French leader was tested by Russian doctors.

A Kremlin spokesperson did not immediately respond to a message from Reuters seeking comment.

The second source in Macron’s entourage confirmed Macron declined to take a Russian PCR test. The source said Macron instead took a French PCR test before departure and an antigen test done by his own doctor once in Russia.

“The Russians told us Putin needed to be kept in a strict health bubble,” the second source said.

On Thursday, three days after Macron and Putin had their socially distanced meeting, the Russian leader received Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. The two men shook hands, and sat close to each other, divided only by a small coffee table.

Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/10/macron-was-kept-away-from-putin-in-kremlin-for-refusing-russian-covid-test

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Opinion | Listen to the Canadian Truckers – POLITICO – POLITICO

The protests in Canada will likely be remembered as an inflection point in the response to the pandemic. In the U.S., it took worrisome polls for blue-state governors to finally begin to give way on mask mandates this week; in Canada, where there has been some comparable loosening, it took the truckers putting the issue front and center and emboldening conservative politicians.

Obviously, the tactics are a problem. It’s one thing to run a convoy to the capital to garner support and attention; it’s another to blockade the Parliament building and stop traffic on important cross-border bridges, with consequences for international trade. Lawbreaking shouldn’t be condoned or tolerated, although relative to some of the mayhem of the Black Lives Matters protests after the killing of George Floyd, blocking streets is relatively mild.

That said, the truckers are correct about their grievance that sparked the protest in the first place.

Throughout the pandemic, truckers have been exempt from Covid restrictions at the border. They were, rightly, considered essential workers. Despite continuing work when many people on both sides of the border were locked down — and when we had no vaccines and knew comparatively little about the virus — it is only now that the Canadian government has decided to impose a more onerous rule on the truckers.

Beginning on Jan. 15, Canadian truckers coming back across the border from the U.S. had to be vaccinated or they’d have to isolate for two weeks — in other words, be forced for all intents and purposes to give up their livelihoods.

This made no sense. It wasn’t in response to a new public-health emergency. Cases in Canada have been collapsing since early January, in keeping with the dynamic of the rapid rise and fall of the winter Omicron wave.

People should get vaccinated and boosted for their own good, but it’s obviously not bulletproof protection, since we all know by now that the vaccinated and boosted frequently get the virus.

Even if the unvaccinated were unique spreaders of the disease, truckers are as cocooned from other people as it’s possible to get during their workdays. Indeed, their vocation practically consists of self-isolation.

Instead of treating the truckers as fellow citizens who have a valid, or at least reasonable, complaint about a relatively unimportant policy that the government vacillated on prior to its implementation, the establishment and center-left in Canada have reacted to them with outrage and contempt.

They are agents of malign foreign influence or white nationalists. They must be fought on the beaches and the landing fields.

A columnist at the National Observer wrote a piece titled, “Anti-vaxxer truck convoy signals invidious spread of Trumpism in Canada.”

Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the New Democrat Party, said the convoy is “led by those that claim the superiority of the white bloodline and equate Islam to a disease.”

Justin Trudeau speaks as if an enemy horde has descended that must be resisted in another Battle of Maldon. “I want to be very clear — we are not intimidated by those who hurl abuse at small business workers and steal food from the homeless,” he said. “We won’t give in to those who fly racist flags. We won’t cave to those who engage in vandalism or dishonor the memory of our veterans.”

In this, he engaged in classic nutpicking, focusing on a few instances of misbehavior to tar the entire group. It’d be hard to come up with a better expression of the high-handedness that has characterized pro-restriction officeholders and public-health experts during the pandemic than Trudeau’s sneering attitude toward the protestors.

Canada has been a relative monolith on Covid. Conservative officeholders have been broadly willing to go along with lockdowns and mandates. There has been no Ron DeSantis. Nor is there any conservative alternative media in Canada (with a few exceptions) to give a platform to dissenters from the Covid orthodoxy — the positive coverage of the truckers, for instance, has mostly been emanating from the United States.

Surely, this is why the truckers have taken on such an outsized significance.

In representing such a high-profile break from the Covid consensus, they have given conservative politicians permission — or affirmatively pressured them — to begin to back off restrictions. Already, the conservative leader who lost to Trudeau last year and is a relatively conciliatory figure has been dumped and will likely be replaced by a more combative alternative. Alberta and Saskatchewan have moved this week to lift various Covid restrictions.

The truckers are another sign of the class inversion in advanced Western countries. The Left continues to shed working-class voters and gain college-educated voters and the well-coiffed Trudeau, fully attuned to haut progressive sensibilities, is the perfect paladin for the upper-middle class. On the other hand, the right is doing the opposite and sees blue-collar virtue in the truckers to whom it once would have felt no natural connection.

One hopes that, on the ground, the whole episode doesn’t have an ugly end.

Trudeau should give the truckers their victory on the vaccination mandate. His government, which already backed off on it once only to re-embrace it, can easily back off again. It’s not as though this was a law passed by parliament. It’s a unilateral, arbitrary rule of the sort that proliferated throughout the pandemic. And no one can seriously believe Canada is going to suffer a renewed Covid surge based on roughly 10 percent of its truckers not being vaccinated.

For their part, if they get the concession on the mandate, the truckers should declare victory and go home, or at the minimum, take a step back from any confrontation with the police. They’ve already changed the trajectory of Canadian politics around Covid restrictions. That should be enough. Any other loose goal some of the protestors are talking about, like bringing down the government, is a pipe dream and not how a parliamentary system should work — there’s always the next election.

If all parties step back from the brink, then the next political melodrama can be left to play out, more naturally to type, in their friendly neighbor to the South.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/10/canadian-truckers-listen-parliament-right-trudeau-00007849

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Deputy Virginia AG resigns over posts lauding Jan. 6 rioters – WTOP

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A deputy Virginia attorney general resigned Thursday after social media posts surfaced in which she praised the Capitol rioters as “patriots,” falsely claimed Donald Trump won the 2020 election and espoused conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

A spokeswoman for Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares confirmed Monique Miles’ resignation and said that her posts, first reported by The Washington Post, had been unknown to the office before Thursday morning.

“The Attorney General has been very clear — Joe Biden won the election and he has condemned the January 6th attack,” spokeswoman Victoria LaCivita said in a statement to The Associated Press.

The Washington Post reported that it had obtained screenshots of the Facebook posts by Miles, authenticated them with people who interacted with Miles, and shared them with Miyares’ office.

The newspaper reported that the social media comments from Miles were not publicly visible but that Miles said they had not been deleted.

Miles, who could not immediately be reached by the AP for comment, told The Post in an email that the posts were being taken out of context and were shared in a “character assassination to stir up controversy.”

“The posts were made at a time when the news was still developing re: the facts around the election, the court cases, the Rally on the Ellipse and what happened at the capitol,” Miles said in the email, The Post reported. “That was before all the audits occurred. These posts have been taken out of context.”

According to a screenshot of one of the Facebook posts published by The Post, Miles praised the Capitol rioters on the afternoon of Jan. 6.

“News Flash: Patriots have stormed the Capitol. No surprise. The deep state has awoken the sleeping giant,” Miles wrote. “Patriots are not taking this lying down. We are awake, ready and will fight for our rights by any means necessary.”

Miyares announced Miles’ hiring in January as deputy attorney general for government operations and transactions. The role involved overseeing elections issues for the office, LaCivita confirmed Thursday.

A news release at the time of her appointment said she was the founder and managing partner of a law firm in northern Virginia.

The AP left a message seeking comment from Miles at that law office and attempted to reach her by phone.

Miyares, who was elected in November, condemned the Capitol insurrection the day it occurred, calling it “a disgusting attack” against the principle of law and order.

“Ignoring orders and attacking law enforcement is never acceptable, under any circumstance,” he tweeted on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Democratic Attorneys General Association highlighted The Post’s reporting in a news release.

“Jason Miyares needs to come clean: is he lying or incompetent?” Geoff Burgan, the group’s communications director, said in a statement.

Copyright
© 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

Source Article from https://wtop.com/virginia/2022/02/deputy-ag-resigns-after-post-reporting-on-social-media-posts/

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Critics mock liberal fact-checking site for rating reporting on Biden crack pipe funding ‘mostly false’ – Fox News

Video

Media top headlines February 10

In media news today, NPR gets mocked for an article on ‘white privilege’ emoji’s, an MSNBC contributor criticizes his own network for comparing Alabama congressional maps to Jim Crow, and a Washington Post columnist mocks CNN anchors for ‘whimpering’ over Jeff Zucker’s exit.

Snopes, a liberal fact-checking site, was mocked by critics this week for rating reporting on the Biden administration’s alleged funding of crack pipe distribution to drug users as “mostly false,” while also admitting that “safer smoking kits” were required to be distributed as part of a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) grant.

In a Tuesday piece claiming news reports “grossly misrepresented” details about the substance abuse harm reduction program, Snopes stuck with its “mostly false” rating by arguing it was inaccurate to say that the distribution of the “smoking kits” was intended to “advance racial equity,” but admitted that the pipes would be distributed with race as “a secondary consideration.”

Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra testifies before a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing, Sept. 30, 2021, on Capitol Hill.
(Shawn Thew/Pool via AP, File)

HHS SEC. BECERRA SAYS CRACK PIPES WON’T BE DISTRIBUTED USING FEDERAL FUNDS IN SMOKING KITS

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the grant program, overseen by HHS, would help make drug use safer for addicts by providing funds to nonprofits and local governments. The grant includes funds for “smoking kits/supplies,” and, according to a spokesman for the agency speaking with the Free Beacon, the kits “will provide pipes for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and ‘any illicit substance.’”

The Free Beacon added that, “Applicants for the grants are prioritized if they treat a majority of ‘underserved communities,’ including African Americans and ‘LGBTQ+ persons,’ as established under President Joe Biden’s executive order on ‘advancing racial equity.’”

“In 2022, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services substance abuse harm reduction grant did require recipients to provide safer smoking kits to existing drug users. In distributing grants, priority would be given to applicants serving historically underserved communities,” Snopes wrote in its fact-check.

“This was just one of around 20 components of the grant program and far from its most prominent or important one, despite being the primary focus of outraged news reports. The purpose of the program was to reduce harm and the risk of infection among drug users, not to advance racial equity, although that was a secondary consideration,” it added, essentially disproving its own fact-check.

A pipe for crack cocaine use, a needle for heroin use, and a pipe for methamphetamine use are shown at the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance, the nation’s largest needle-exchange program, in Seattle, Washington, April 30, 2015.
(Reuters/David Ryder)

SENATOR RIPS WHITE HOUSE FOR FAILING TO BE ‘CANDID’ ON ALLEGED CRACK PIPE DISTRIBUTION

Critics took to social media to mock Snopes for proving the Free Beacon’s reporting on the crack pipes accurate, despite it’s “mostly false” rating.

“I don’t understand why fact-checking sites twist themselves into rhetorical pretzels like this,” wrote one critic, while another joked that one needed to “read the fine print” when it came to Snopes’ fact-checking.

BLACKBURN DEMANDS ANSWERS REGARDING REPORTS OF BIDEN’S TAXPAYER-FUNDED CRACK PIPE DISTRIBUTION

After being pilloried by critics, Snopes oddly updated its fact-check from “mostly false” to “outdated.” It also updated the piece with an explanation to reflect the change.

“After a wave of grossly misleading news coverage in February 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stipulated that federal funding would not be used to include pipes in safe smoking kits, as part of a substance abuse harm reduction grant program. This newly-stipulated detail was not originally available, meaning the assertions made in a first wave of coverage had become outdated,” it adjusted its original fact-checking piece to read.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Snopes’s updated piece appeared to reflect HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra’s Wednesday statement that no pipes would be put into “safe smoking kits.”

In a press release, Becerra and Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Dr. Rahul Gupta said the administration was “focused on using our resources smartly to reduce harm and save lives. Accordingly, no federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits.”

Fox News’ Sam Dorman contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/media/critics-mock-fact-checking-site-rating-reporting-biden-crack-pipe-funding-mostly-false

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Some Trump records taken to Mar-a-Lago clearly marked as classified, including documents at ‘top secret’ level – The Washington Post

Trump’s years-long defiance of the Presidential Records Act, which requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president’s official duties, and other unusual record-keeping practices have long drawn scrutiny. In 2018, for example, Politico reported on his penchant for ripping up official documents. But in recent weeks, Trump’s activities have generated new attention — in large part because of the House select committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/10/trump-records-classified/

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Trump denies he flushed records down White House toilet – NBC News

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Canadian Mayor Makes Plea for Injunction as Trucker Protest Limits Ford, GM Auto Production – The Wall Street Journal

A Canadian judge on Thursday delayed a bid by the Canadian border city of Windsor, Ontario, to obtain a court order to remove demonstrators who for four days have blocked most traffic on a crucial U.S.-Canada trade corridor.

The protest against Covid-19 vaccine mandates at the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit with Windsor, forced Detroit-based auto makers to scale back production in the U.S. and Canada and temporarily send employees home because parts required for assembly couldn’t be delivered.

Source Article from https://www.wsj.com/articles/trucker-protests-in-canada-prompt-ford-gm-to-scale-back-work-at-auto-plants-11644507448

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Critics mock liberal fact-checking site for rating reporting on Biden crack pipe funding ‘mostly false’ – Fox News

Video

Media top headlines February 10

In media news today, NPR gets mocked for an article on ‘white privilege’ emoji’s, an MSNBC contributor criticizes his own network for comparing Alabama congressional maps to Jim Crow, and a Washington Post columnist mocks CNN anchors for ‘whimpering’ over Jeff Zucker’s exit.

Snopes, a liberal fact-checking site, was mocked by critics this week for rating reporting on the Biden administration’s alleged funding of crack pipe distribution to drug users as “mostly false,” while also admitting that “safer smoking kits” were required to be distributed as part of a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) grant.

In a Tuesday piece claiming news reports “grossly misrepresented” details about the substance abuse harm reduction program, Snopes stuck with its “mostly false” rating by arguing it was inaccurate to say that the distribution of the “smoking kits” was intended to “advance racial equity,” but admitted that the pipes would be distributed with race as “a secondary consideration.”

Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra testifies before a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing, Sept. 30, 2021, on Capitol Hill.
(Shawn Thew/Pool via AP, File)

HHS SEC. BECERRA SAYS CRACK PIPES WON’T BE DISTRIBUTED USING FEDERAL FUNDS IN SMOKING KITS

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the grant program, overseen by HHS, would help make drug use safer for addicts by providing funds to nonprofits and local governments. The grant includes funds for “smoking kits/supplies,” and, according to a spokesman for the agency speaking with the Free Beacon, the kits “will provide pipes for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and ‘any illicit substance.’”

The Free Beacon added that, “Applicants for the grants are prioritized if they treat a majority of ‘underserved communities,’ including African Americans and ‘LGBTQ+ persons,’ as established under President Joe Biden’s executive order on ‘advancing racial equity.’”

“In 2022, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services substance abuse harm reduction grant did require recipients to provide safer smoking kits to existing drug users. In distributing grants, priority would be given to applicants serving historically underserved communities,” Snopes wrote in its fact-check.

“This was just one of around 20 components of the grant program and far from its most prominent or important one, despite being the primary focus of outraged news reports. The purpose of the program was to reduce harm and the risk of infection among drug users, not to advance racial equity, although that was a secondary consideration,” it added, essentially disproving its own fact-check.

A pipe for crack cocaine use, a needle for heroin use, and a pipe for methamphetamine use are shown at the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance, the nation’s largest needle-exchange program, in Seattle, Washington, April 30, 2015.
(Reuters/David Ryder)

SENATOR RIPS WHITE HOUSE FOR FAILING TO BE ‘CANDID’ ON ALLEGED CRACK PIPE DISTRIBUTION

Critics took to social media to mock Snopes for proving the Free Beacon’s reporting on the crack pipes accurate, despite it’s “mostly false” rating.

“I don’t understand why fact-checking sites twist themselves into rhetorical pretzels like this,” wrote one critic, while another joked that one needed to “read the fine print” when it came to Snopes’ fact-checking.

BLACKBURN DEMANDS ANSWERS REGARDING REPORTS OF BIDEN’S TAXPAYER-FUNDED CRACK PIPE DISTRIBUTION

After being pilloried by critics, Snopes oddly updated its fact-check from “mostly false” to “outdated.” It also updated the piece with an explanation to reflect the change.

“After a wave of grossly misleading news coverage in February 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stipulated that federal funding would not be used to include pipes in safe smoking kits, as part of a substance abuse harm reduction grant program. This newly-stipulated detail was not originally available, meaning the assertions made in a first wave of coverage had become outdated,” it adjusted its original fact-checking piece to read.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Snopes’s updated piece appeared to reflect HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra’s Wednesday statement that no pipes would be put into “safe smoking kits.”

In a press release, Becerra and Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Dr. Rahul Gupta said the administration was “focused on using our resources smartly to reduce harm and save lives. Accordingly, no federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits.”

Fox News’ Sam Dorman contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/media/critics-mock-fact-checking-site-rating-reporting-biden-crack-pipe-funding-mostly-false

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Russia holds drills in Belarus as West warns of ‘dangerous moment’ – Reuters

BRUSSELS/MOSCOW, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Britain said on Thursday the “most dangerous moment” in the West’s standoff with Moscow appeared imminent, as Russia held military exercises in Belarus and the Black Sea following the buildup of its forces near Ukraine.

Ukraine also staged war games and the United States urged Americans in the country to leave immediately due to increased threats of Russian military action. But leaders on all sides signalled they hoped diplomacy could still prevail in what British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called Europe’s biggest security crisis for decades.

In a new round of talks, Britain’s foreign minister sparred publicly with her Russian counterpart in Moscow, Johnson visited NATO headquarters in Brussels and Germany’s leader met his Baltic states counterparts in Berlin, where officials from Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France were also holding discussions.

Russia, which has more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders, denies Western accusations it may be planning to invade its former Soviet neighbour, though it says it could take unspecified “military-technical” action unless demands are met.

“I honestly don’t think a decision has yet been taken” by Moscow on whether to attack, Johnson told a news conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. “But that doesn’t mean that it is impossible that something absolutely disastrous could happen very soon indeed.”

“This is probably the most dangerous moment, I would say, in the course of the next few days, in what is the biggest security crisis that Europe has faced for decades.”

The way forward was diplomacy, Johnson later told reporters in Poland.

Stoltenberg also said it was a dangerous moment for European security, adding: “The number of Russian forces is going up. The warning time for a possible attack is going down.”

In a new point of friction, Ukraine criticised Russian naval exercises that it said were part of a “hybrid war” and had made navigation in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov “virtually impossible”. read more

Nearly nine hours of talks between Ukraine and Russia on Thursday failed to produce a breakthrough on signing a joint document, but both sides agreed to keep talking, the chief of staff to Ukraine’s president said after the talks in Berlin.

Russia said the talks with Ukraine, France and Germany on the conflict in eastern Ukraine fell short of any new agreement, and criticised what it called a lack of clarity in the Ukrainian position.

‘THINGS COULD GO CRAZY QUICKLY’

The U.S. State Department urged Americans in Ukraine to leave immediately due to what it called increased threats of Russian military action.

“American citizens should leave now,” President Joe Biden told NBC News in an interview. “We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It’s a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly.”

Asked whether there was a scenario that could prompt him to send troops to rescue fleeing Americans, Biden replied: “There’s not. That’s a world war when Americans and Russia start shooting at one another. We’re in a very different world than we’ve ever been.”

Visiting Moscow, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was upbraided by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who accused her of refusing to listen. read more

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A Russian service member is seen on a BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle during drills held by the armed forces of the Southern Military District at the Kadamovsky range in the Rostov region, Russia February 3, 2022. REUTERS/Sergey Pivovarov

“I’m honestly disappointed that what we have is a conversation between a mute person and a deaf person,” the 71-year-old veteran diplomat told a news conference.

“Our most detailed explanations fell on unprepared soil .. numerous facts that we produced bounced off (the British delegation.”

Truss, who warned of tough Western sanctions if Ukraine was attacked, challenged Lavrov over his assertion that Russia’s build-up of troops and weaponry was not threatening anyone.

“I can’t see any other reason for having 100,000 troops stationed on the border, apart from to threaten Ukraine. And if Russia is serious about diplomacy, they need to remove those troops and desist from the threats,” she said.

Lavrov said Moscow favoured diplomacy to resolve the crisis.

DE-ESCALATION EFFORTS

Truss’s talks in Moscow follow shuttle diplomacy from French President Emmanuel Macron, who visited Moscow and Kyiv this week. In contrast to U.S. and British leaders, Macron has played down the likelihood of a Russian invasion soon.

As part of U.S. efforts to “reduce chances of miscalculation”, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, spoke on Thursday with his Belarusian counterpart, a Pentagon spokesman said.

Urging de-escalation, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany and its allies were ready for dialogue with Moscow and wanted peace.

However further military aggression against Ukraine “would have very serious political, economic and strategic consequences for Russia,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin.

Moscow has used the tensions to seek security concessions from the West that would include a promise never to admit Ukraine to NATO and halt the military alliance’s expansion.

The EU said on Thursday it had delivered a single letter in response to Russia’s proposals on European security, NATO and the United States having earlier portrayed Russia’s main demands as non-starters.

Stoltenberg said last week that Russia was expected to have 30,000 troops in Belarus as well SU-35 fighter jets, S-400 air defence systems and nuclear-capable Iskander missiles.

Russia held a briefing for military attachés that lasted just eight minutes, and gave notice of an exercise that was already under way, a senior U.S. State Department official said.

“That’s highly inconsistent with agreements for transparency for large military exercises in Europe. That’s bad news,” the official said.

Ukraine launched its own war games on Thursday which, like Russia’s joint drills with Minsk, will run until Feb. 20.

The Ukrainian forces, whose numbers have not been disclosed, are set to use Bayraktar drones and anti-tank Javelin and NLAW missiles provided by foreign partners. Kyiv was due to receive a further shipment of U.S. military aid later on Thursday.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/wrapup-1-russia-starts-belarus-military-drills-amid-new-diplomacy-ukraine-2022-02-10/

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Biden on Ukraine situation: ‘Things could go crazy quickly’ – CNN

By Maegan Vazquez, Kevin Liptak and Sam Fossum, CNN

Updated 7:24 PM ET, Thu February 10, 2022

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/10/politics/biden-ukraine-things-could-go-crazy/index.html

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Judge rebukes RNC’s ‘legitimate political discourse’ language at Jan. 6 sentencing – ABC News

A federal judge on Thursday directly rebuked the Republican National Committee’s resolution that declared the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol “legitimate political discourse” as she sentenced a man convicted of punching two officers during the assault to six months in prison.

“It is not ‘legitimate political discourse,’ and it is not justified to descend on the nation’s Capitol at the direction of a disappointed candidate and disrupt the electoral process,” said D.C. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson before she sentenced Mark Leffingwell, a disabled former Marine from Washington state. “Cancelling out the votes of other people with a show force is the opposite of what America stands for.”

On top of his jail time, Leffingwell, 52, who suffered a traumatic brain injury while serving in the Army National Guard in Iraq, also faces two years probation, $2,000 in restitution charges and 200 hours of community service. He pleaded guilty to assaulting, resisting or impeding officers in October.

Prosecutors said Leffingwell flew from his Seattle home to Philadelphia and drove with a friend to attend then-President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse. He joined the assault on the Capitol about an hour after it had started, they said, and investigators cited videos showing him standing at the front of a large crowd on the Senate West Wing steps, just inside the building, where police officers formed a protective line in front of him.

He yelled “Stop the steal!,” “Shame!” and “Join us!” at the officers, prosecutors said.

They said while some of the crowd began to back up at the instruction of officers, Leffingwell, still at the front of the crowd, shouted “If you back up, you’ll never get back in!” Officers began pressing the crowd, per court records, and he then punched two officers in the head.

He was arrested on the spot, one of few rioters taken into custody during the course of the riot.

Federal prosecutors recommended a 27-month sentence for aggravated assault. For about 30 minutes, Judge Jackson and the attorneys deliberated over whether the term “aggravated assault” applied in Leffingwell’s case. If so, it would mean he committed a felony with the intent to commit another felony.

Judge Jackson said she took into account Leffingwell’s traumatic brain injury, along with his having no other criminal history. She said she also took into account his two sons when handing down the six-month sentence.

But in sobering and extensive remarks, Jackson said there was a need to deter would-be rioters from doing the same as Leffingwell did.

“The heated rhetoric that got you riled up and brought you to Washington D.C. has not subsided,” Jackson said. “The lie that the election was stolen and illegitimate is still being perpetrated. Indeed, it is being amplified, not only on social media, but on mainstream news outlets, and worse, it’s become heresy for a member of the former president’s party to say otherwise. So, it needs to be crystal clear that it is not patriotism. It is not standing up for America.”

In a brief statement to the court, Leffingwell expressed remorse.

“I wish I could go back and make it not happen,” he said.

Several of his friends and family wrote letters to the judge, calling him “thoughtful” and an “honest and good American” while describing a strong work ethic.

Prosecutors said he had sound judgment and that he was responsible for his actions, despite his traumatic brain injury. When he encountered the police, “he knew very much what he was doing,” a government lawyer said.

“Those letters tell you all of that,” said an assistant U.S. attorney. “Despite the injuries that he’s suffered, he knows right from wrong.”

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/judge-rebukes-rncs-legitimate-political-discourse-language-jan/story?id=82809655

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A top deputy to Virginia’s new attorney general called Jan. 6 rioters ‘patriots’ in Facebook post – The Washington Post

“Yes,” Miles replied, according to a screenshot, “it’s based on evidence of actual fraud in PA, AZ, Michigan, and other states and violations of election laws and the Constitution. You will see in the next few weeks.”

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/02/10/facebook-jan-6-virginia-attorney-general-miles/

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White House records obtained by Jan. 6 panel show gap in Trump’s phone calls on day of riot – NBC News

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Critics mock liberal fact-checking site for rating reporting on Biden crack pipe funding ‘mostly false’ – Fox News

Video

Media top headlines February 10

In media news today, NPR gets mocked for an article on ‘white privilege’ emoji’s, an MSNBC contributor criticizes his own network for comparing Alabama congressional maps to Jim Crow, and a Washington Post columnist mocks CNN anchors for ‘whimpering’ over Jeff Zucker’s exit.

Snopes, a liberal fact-checking site, was mocked by critics this week for rating reporting on the Biden administration’s alleged funding of crack pipe distribution to drug users as “mostly false,” while also admitting that “safer smoking kits” were required to be distributed as part of a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) grant.

In a Tuesday piece claiming news reports “grossly misrepresented” details about the substance abuse harm reduction program, Snopes stuck with its “mostly false” rating by arguing it was inaccurate to say that the distribution of the “smoking kits” was intended to “advance racial equity,” but admitted that the pipes would be distributed with race as “a secondary consideration.”

Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra testifies before a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing, Sept. 30, 2021, on Capitol Hill.
(Shawn Thew/Pool via AP, File)

HHS SEC. BECERRA SAYS CRACK PIPES WON’T BE DISTRIBUTED USING FEDERAL FUNDS IN SMOKING KITS

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the grant program, overseen by HHS, would help make drug use safer for addicts by providing funds to nonprofits and local governments. The grant includes funds for “smoking kits/supplies,” and, according to a spokesman for the agency speaking with the Free Beacon, the kits “will provide pipes for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and ‘any illicit substance.’”

The Free Beacon added that, “Applicants for the grants are prioritized if they treat a majority of ‘underserved communities,’ including African Americans and ‘LGBTQ+ persons,’ as established under President Joe Biden’s executive order on ‘advancing racial equity.’”

“In 2022, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services substance abuse harm reduction grant did require recipients to provide safer smoking kits to existing drug users. In distributing grants, priority would be given to applicants serving historically underserved communities,” Snopes wrote in its fact-check.

“This was just one of around 20 components of the grant program and far from its most prominent or important one, despite being the primary focus of outraged news reports. The purpose of the program was to reduce harm and the risk of infection among drug users, not to advance racial equity, although that was a secondary consideration,” it added, essentially disproving its own fact-check.

A pipe for crack cocaine use, a needle for heroin use, and a pipe for methamphetamine use are shown at the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance, the nation’s largest needle-exchange program, in Seattle, Washington, April 30, 2015.
(Reuters/David Ryder)

SENATOR RIPS WHITE HOUSE FOR FAILING TO BE ‘CANDID’ ON ALLEGED CRACK PIPE DISTRIBUTION

Critics took to social media to mock Snopes for proving the Free Beacon’s reporting on the crack pipes accurate, despite it’s “mostly false” rating.

“I don’t understand why fact-checking sites twist themselves into rhetorical pretzels like this,” wrote one critic, while another joked that one needed to “read the fine print” when it came to Snopes’ fact-checking.

BLACKBURN DEMANDS ANSWERS REGARDING REPORTS OF BIDEN’S TAXPAYER-FUNDED CRACK PIPE DISTRIBUTION

After being pilloried by critics, Snopes oddly updated its fact-check from “mostly false” to “outdated.” It also updated the piece with an explanation to reflect the change.

“After a wave of grossly misleading news coverage in February 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stipulated that federal funding would not be used to include pipes in safe smoking kits, as part of a substance abuse harm reduction grant program. This newly-stipulated detail was not originally available, meaning the assertions made in a first wave of coverage had become outdated,” it adjusted its original fact-checking piece to read.

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Snopes’s updated piece appeared to reflect HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra’s Wednesday statement that no pipes would be put into “safe smoking kits.”

In a press release, Becerra and Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Dr. Rahul Gupta said the administration was “focused on using our resources smartly to reduce harm and save lives. Accordingly, no federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits.”

Fox News’ Sam Dorman contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/media/critics-mock-fact-checking-site-rating-reporting-biden-crack-pipe-funding-mostly-false

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Access to three US-Canada border crossings cut off by trucker protest blockades – CNN

(CNN)Access to three border crossings in Michigan, North Dakota and Montana have been cut off by truckers and like-minded demonstrators on the Canadian side of the border who are protesting Covid-related restrictions.

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CNN’s Paradise Afshar, Josh Campbell, Tanika Gray, Jason Hanna, Chris Isidore, Chuck Johnston, Paul P. Murphy, Donie O’Sullivan, Raja Razek and Geneva Sands contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/10/americas/canada-trucker-protests-covid-thursday/index.html

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Biden claims Senate ‘close’ to passing huge spending bill as inflation soars – New York Post

President Biden claimed Thursday that Democrats are “close” to passing his sweeping social spending bill — just hours after official data revealed inflation hit a new 40-year high in January, stiffening opposition to the $2 trillion plan.

Biden gave the dubious spin about his agenda’s status in a speech in Culpeper, Va., after annual inflation hit 7.5 percent, which centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said was more reason to resist massive new spending.

“In my Build Back Better legislation that … passed the House of Representatives, we can [lower drug prices]. Now we just have to get it through the United States Senate. And we’re close,” Biden claimed.

The president spoke after getting a rude welcome from protesters. A girl who appeared roughly 7 years old held a sign visible to Biden’s motorcade that said, “Don’t sniff me,” while adults brandished anti-Biden placards that read, “Let’s Go Brandon,” “FJB,” “Biden Sucks” and “Build Crack Better.”

Demonstrators hold signs as President Biden’s motorcade passes by in Brandy Station, Virginia, on Feb. 10, 2022.

REUTERS

President Biden addresses inflation in Culpeper, Virginia, on Feb. 10, 2022.

YouTube/White House

Biden briefly recognized new federal data showing worsening inflation in January, but he tried to turn it into a sales pitch for his stalled spending bill, which would subsidize child care and home health care, among many other initiatives.

“Inflation is up. It’s up. And coming from a family when [if] the price of gas went up, you felt it … it matters,” Biden said. “But the fact is that if we were able to do the things I’m talking about here, it will bring down the cost for average families.”

Biden claimed his bill is “fully paid for” with new taxes and therefore would not worsen inflation — despite the Congressional Budget Office saying the bill would add $367 billion in unfunded spending.

The House passed the sprawling bill with a $2.2 trillion price tag in November — but Manchin accused fellow Democrats of deceptive “gimmicks” that undercounted its true cost by making new programs last for shorter periods of time than proposed new revenue.

A Republican-requested CBO score said that the package would cost about $4.5 trillion and add $3 trillion in deficit spending if programs extended over 10 years, or the same period of time used to calculate new revenue.

On Thursday, Manchin issued a statement saying that Congress must not add “more fuel to an economy already on fire.” He reaffirmed last week that Biden’s Build Back Better Act is “dead” because of his opposition in the evenly divided Senate, where all 50 Republicans oppose the package, which could pass with a bare majority using special budget rules.

Inflation has helped tank Biden’s popularity along with the fate of the bill that includes most of his domestic policy priorities.

The White House has previously described inflation as “transitory,” while Biden himself claimed in December that the prior month’s 6.8 percent annual inflation rate was likely the “peak.” He also said in July that inflation was “temporary” when it was around 5 percent.

The president has blamed inflation on COVID-19 supply chain bottlenecks, the cost of gasoline and the alleged greed of large meat processors. But critics blame his policies, including the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, signed in March, which gave $1,400 stimulus checks to Americans who earned up to $75,000 per year, extended a $300 weekly unemployment supplement through Sept. 6 and expanded the annual child tax credit to $3,000-$3,600 per child, up from $2,000.

Biden’s stimulus followed bipartisan legislation in 2020 that doled out about $4 trillion to keep the US afloat during the pandemic. Biden signed in November a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that the CBO said would add $256 billion to the federal deficit, though Biden argued it would ultimately lower inflation and boost the economy by improving the transportation of goods.

Biden claims that Democrats are “close” to passing his sweeping social spending bill.

Getty Images

The Build Back Better bill includes $555 billion for environmental programs, $400 billion to fund universal preschool and cap child care costs at 7 percent of income for most families and $200 billion to extend the enhanced child tax credit for families that earn up to $150,000 — from $2,000 to $3,000 per child, or $3,600 for those under six.

The plan also includes $150 billion for home health care for the elderly and people with disabilities through Medicaid, $150 billion for housing including 1 million new “affordable” rental units, $130 billion in new Obamacare subsidies, $90 billion in racial and gender “equity” initiatives, $40 billion for higher education grants and $35 billion to expand Medicare to include the cost of hearing aids.

The bill would increase from $10,000 to $80,000 the “SALT cap” on state and local taxes that can be deducted from federal taxes — costing an estimated $300 billion in lost federal revenue. Another $206 billion in the bill would federally subsidize four weeks of paid private-sector family leave — an item that is opposed by Manchin.

Biden has on at least one occasion acknowledged the possible impact of generous social spending on inflation.

“The irony is people have more money now because of the first major piece of legislation I passed. You all got checks for $1,400. You got checks for a whole range of things,” Biden said in a November speech. “It changes people’s lives. But what happens if there’s nothing to buy and you got more money to compete for getting [goods]? It creates a real problem.”

Source Article from https://nypost.com/2022/02/10/joe-biden-pushes-dead-2t-spending-bill-as-inflation-woes-cure/

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L.A. County on track to relax some outdoor mask rules – Los Angeles Times

The number of coronavirus-positive patients hospitalized in Los Angeles County has dropped below 2,500, putting the region on track to potentially relax some outdoor masking rules next week.

Should COVID-19 hospitalizations remain under this threshold for seven consecutive days, county health officials will lift face covering requirements at outdoor “mega-events” — including those at venues such as the Hollywood Bowl, Dodger Stadium, SoFi Stadium and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — and outdoor spaces at K-12 schools and childcare settings.

That countdown began Wednesday, according to state data released Thursday.

While past is not always prologue, it seems likely L.A. County will be able to lift those select rules next Wednesday, based on recent trends. In any case, the requirement will still be in force for Sunday’s Super Bowl at SoFi.

There are more than 1,000 fewer coronavirus-positive people hospitalized countywide now than at the beginning of February. And the latest hospital census is only about half that recorded at the height of the Omicron variant surge last month.

According to state data released Thursday, the number of coronavirus-positive hospital patients in L.A. County on Wednesday was 2,464 — down 38% from the previous Wednesday, when there were 3,398 patients.

The number peaked this winter, when 4,814 coronavirus-positive patients were in hospitals on Jan. 19. That’s significantly higher than the summer Delta surge peak of 1,790, recorded Aug. 17, but still lower than last winter’s peak of 8,098, a time when hospital morgues were overflowing.

Hospitals throughout Southern California have suffered so much strain that many have been forced to postpone scheduled surgeries and procedures, and some ambulances were delayed responding to 911 calls. L.A. County’s public hospitals are still suffering staffing shortages related to the coronavirus, and hospitals are not expected to fully recover from the Omicron peak for a couple of months.

“One of the most harmful consequences of this winter surge has been the extraordinary pressure on the healthcare system, forcing many hospitals to postpone routine services and divert patients to other settings,” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told the Board of Supervisors earlier this week. “The return of most hospitals and healthcare facilities to providing the full range of services needed by patients and residents is an important indication of reduced danger to the county.”

However, wider relaxation of the county’s mask rules remains a ways off.

Effective next Wednesday, California will officially lift the 2-month-old statewide requirement that all residents mask up in indoor public spaces.

After that date, masks will still be required for unvaccinated Californians indoors and for everyone in certain settings, such as nursing homes or while aboard public transit.

All K-12 students and staff also will still be required to wear masks indoors when at school, though state officials have indicated that guidance may soon change.

“We are getting closer and closer to making public an announcement on mask wearing in our public schools, and no one looks forward to that more than I do,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday. “And, hopefully, in a matter of days, we’ll be putting that out.”

While many counties have said they plan to immediately align with the state’s revised indoor-masking guidance, L.A. County will keep that rule in place for at least a few more weeks.

When the county will follow suit hinges on one of two developments: The county either needs to record two straight weeks of “moderate” coronavirus transmission as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; or COVID-19 vaccines must have been available for children ages 6 months to 4 years for eight weeks.

L.A. County’s daily tally of new cases would need to fall below 730 to meet the CDC definition. According to a Times analysis of state data, L.A. County is averaging about 7,100 cases a day over the past week.

L.A. County is seeing its daily coronavirus case rate cut in half every week, Ferrer said. At this rate, according to a Times analysis, L.A. County would hit the goal in early March, meaning that — as long as daily case rates remain under the goal for two consecutive weeks — the local indoor mask mandate could be lifted by late March, around the start of spring.

If L.A. County’s descent in daily coronavirus cases hits a snag, the other pathway to lift the mask mandate — tied to the release of vaccines for children under the age of 5 — will be triggered soon.

An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday will consider approving the vaccine for the youngest children, and an advisory panel to the CDC is meeting the following week.

That means vaccines could become available to this age group by the end of February, which would allow L.A. County to lift its mask order by the end of April.

Some have criticized L.A. County’s approach to lifting restrictions as too slow, continuing to subject residents and businesses to a burden that won’t be shared by the vast majority of other Californians.

While County Supervisor Kathryn Barger is “in support of essential measures,” she said she thinks “committing to keeping these in place until late spring is inconsistent with the public health approaches from across the state and the country.”

However, Ferrer said it’s important to recognize that, for all the recent progress, coronavirus transmission remains elevated throughout the region.

“We’re not trying to set the bar too high at all. We’re actually trying to set a reasonable bar that says to us: It’s much safer for our workers and our most vulnerable people to have masks off when there’s not as much transmission,” she said.

A majority of supervisors have backed Ferrer’s approach, saying they think it’s prudent to keep masks on until coronavirus transmission falls to more modest levels.

“We’ve been wearing masks now for two years. I think that we can probably do it for another month or two,” Supervisor Sheila Kuehl said, voicing concern about lifting the mask mandate so early that it would expose frontline workers to maskless customers.

The county’s criteria match the CDC recommendation that vaccinated people in indoor public settings wear masks when there are 50 or more cases a week for every 100,000 residents.

L.A. County last achieved this moderate level of transmission last year, between mid-March and mid-July, ending when the Delta variant began spreading quickly.

Santa Clara County has also decided to retain its local indoor mask mandate, even as most nearby counties in the San Francisco Bay Area will align with the state’s more permissive approach. But Santa Clara County’s goal is more permissive than L.A. County’s: getting to under 200 cases a week for every 100,000 residents, and remaining there for a week, a feat officials suspect they can reach in early March.

“If there’s a way to rethink what that threshold is and not align fully with CDC, I’m completely open to that,” Ferrer said. “What I think our team doesn’t feel comfortable with … is an arbitrary date that’s actually not tied to the conditions in the community. And we feel like our risk is just way too big right now with the rate that we’re at.”

Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-10/l-a-county-on-track-to-relax-some-outdoor-mask-rules

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Wolves Will Regain Federal Protection – The New York Times

Since federal protection for wolves ended, wolf hunting has increased sharply in certain states. The Trump Administration’s decision to delist came despite concerns from some of the scientists who performed the independent review that is required before the Fish and Wildlife Service can remove a species from federal protection.

Wolves were among the first animals shielded by the 1973 Endangered Species Act.

Before the arrival of Europeans, they flourished from coast to coast in North America, living in forests, prairies, mountains and wetlands. Two centuries of eradication campaigns drove them to near disappearance. By the mid-20th century, perhaps 1,000 were left in the lower 48 states, mainly in northern Minnesota.

Wolves’ numbers began to rebound after they were placed under federal protection in the 1960s. In the mid-1990s, the Fish and Wildlife Service took a bold new step, relocating 31 wolves from Canada into Yellowstone National Park. They multiplied quickly, and by 2020 about 6,000 wolves ranged the western Great Lakes and Northern Rocky Mountains, with small numbers spreading into Oregon, Washington and California.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/climate/wolves-endangered-species-list.html

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Judge unseals search warrants at center of police shooting of Amir Locke – KSTP

Police cited officers’ safety when applying for the no-knock search warrant on a downtown Minneapolis apartment that led to 22-year-old Amir Locke’s death, court records unsealed on Thursday show.

The Minneapolis Police Department requested the warrants to aid in a St. Paul homicide case and carried them out before dawn the morning of Feb. 2 at the Bolero Flats building on South Marquette Avenue.

The warrants signed by Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill — the same judge who presided over former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s state trial — request searches at three separate Bolero Flats apartments and another at an apartment building on the 2700 block of Minnehaha Avenue.

The petitioner states that investigators were in search of blood, forensic evidence, firearms, ammunition, electronic devices, drugs, identifying documents, money, fire extinguishers, Mercedes key fobs and specific sets of clothing tied to persons of interest associated with each of the addresses.

Locke was not named in the warrants and was staying at the home of his cousin. That cousin’s brother, 17-year-old Mekhi Speed, was named in the warrants as a suspect. Speed was arrested in Winona earlier this week in connection with the Jan. 10 death of 38-year-old Otis Elder.

Police applied for both standard daytime warrants and nighttime no-knock warrants “outside the hours of 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.” The no-knock warrants were necessary “to prevent the loss, destruction or removal of the objects of the search or to protect the searchers or the public,” police said, because the suspect used a .223 caliber rifle capable of piercing police body armor when he shot Elder.

Executing the warrant outside of daytime hours “will not only increase officer safety, but it will also decrease the risk for injuries to the suspects and other residents nearby,” the warrant states.

During the no-knock warrants at Bolero Flats, police did seize evidence related to Elder’s killing, including marijana, clothing, a bullet and several cell phones.

Tracking a Mercedez-Benz

Elder was sitting in his car outside a recording studio at 502 Prior Ave. N. at the time of the Jan. 10 shooting. Surveillance footage taken from the studio shows a light-colored Mercedes parked nearby.

The warrant then describes the following:

Two people were outside Elder’s car when a gunshot was heard, and they ran back to the Mercedes and drove off. One suspect was wearing a dark jacket and a gray hooded sweatshirt, while the other was wearing all dark clothing.

Traffic camera footage tracked the Mercedes driving west on Interstate 94 and exiting at Grant and 11th streets. The Mercedes eventually stopped outside Bolero Flats.

Criminal analysts with the Minneapolis Police Department and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office matched the description of the suspect vehicle with a gray 2014 Mercedes-Benz CLS250 with Massachusetts plates that had been stolen after a test drive on Nov. 27. That same vehicle was linked to several armed robberies and thefts, including the theft of a Maserati in south Minneapolis.

An off-duty University of Minnesota police officer spotted the stolen Mercedes in a downtown Minneapolis parking ramp and recognized it from an alert sent out to law enforcement. A search warrant on the vehicle found latent fingerprints matching multiple people, including Speed.

Jan. 10 video shows the Mercedes in the Bolero Flats parking garage around 10:16 p.m. Two people matching the descriptions of the homicide suspects left the car, along with a third person. They got in the elevator and went up to the front desk. The suspect in the dark jacket and hooded sweatshirt was seen obscuring an object in his front sweatshirt pocket using his outer jacket.

The Bolero Flats connection

The warrant states that investigators reviewed Bolero Flats security footage with staff at the apartment building. They told police they believed the suspect in the sweatshirt was connected to Apartment 701. That unit was being rented to the girlfriend of Speed’s brother, who also lived there. Locke was staying on the couch in that apartment the morning the search warrant was executed.

Staff said Speed had requested a key to Apartment 701 in the past, and medics had transported him from that apartment on Jan. 22.

Hennepin County probation officers listed Apartment 1402 in the same building as Speed’s home address. The woman who rents that unit lists Speed as her child who lives with her, the warrant states. Cahill had also authorized both daytime and nighttime warrants for Apartment 1402, as well as neighboring apartment 1403.

No-knock controversy

The records released Thursday indicate police were not searching for Locke when they executed the search warrant at Bolero Flats Apartment 701. They were, however, anticipating some sort of firearm.

Body camera footage of the search warrant shows police unlock the door to the apartment and announce, “Police search warrant,” right as they walk through the door. Locke is huddled under a blanket on the living room couch and is seen emerging with a pistol in hand. That’s when Minneapolis Police Officer Mark Hanneman shot Locke three times.

Locke’s family says he was a lawful gun owner and was not aiming his gun at anyone or preparing to shoot when Hanneman opened fire. Video of the incident appears to show Locke pointing the barrel toward the ground with his finger off the trigger.

MPD originally said Locke was pointing the gun at an officer, and when pushed on that detail in a news conference last week, interim Police Chief Amelia Huffman insisted it was being pointed at an officer who was standing off-camera.

Critics have said pre-dawn no-knock warrants like this one are more hazardous than a standard daytime warrant, and activists have repeatedly called for them to be banned in Minneapolis.

Mayor Jacob Frey listed an end to the practice as one of his achievements during campaign materials last year, but he later backtracked on that claim, saying only “unannounced entries” had been banned. In the 10 months after that purported no-knock ban in November 2020, MPD had requested 90 such warrants, University of St. Thomas law professor Rachel Moran said in a presentation to the Minneapolis City Council last week.

Frey issued a formal moratorium on no-knock warrants on Friday, but it’s still not a total ban; no-knock warrants can be requested in cases of “an imminent threat of harm to an individual or the public.”

The agency that asked for Minneapolis police to assist with its homicide investigation has abstained from no-knock warrants for years. St. Paul Police Department spokesman Steve Linders said the city’s police force last executed a no-knock warrant in 2016.

State lawmakers are now exploring legislation to heavily restrict when no-knock warrants can be issued, and activists propse police should wait 30 seconds after knocking for someone to come to the door.

Stay with 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS and KSTP.com for updates on this developing news. Refresh your page to make sure you are seeing the most current information.

Source Article from https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/judge-unseals-search-warrants-at-center-of-police-shooting-of-amir-locke/

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Investigators Find Gaps in White House Logs of Trump’s Jan. 6 Calls – The New York Times

Early on in his administration, Mr. Trump was known to use the cellphone belonging to Keith Schiller, his personal body guard at Trump Tower and later the director of Oval Office operations, for some of his calls. It meant the White House call logs were often an incomplete reflection of his contacts.

After the Supreme Court ruled against Mr. Trump’s efforts to block the release of hundreds of pages of presidential records, the National Archives turned over to the House panel investigating the riot voluminous documents that included daily presidential diaries, schedules, appointment information showing visitors to the White House, activity logs, call logs, and switchboard shift-change checklists showing calls to Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence on Jan. 6.

The committee has learned in recent weeks that Mr. Trump spoke on the phone with Mr. Pence and Republican lawmakers on the morning of Jan. 6 as he pushed to overturn the election. For instance, Mr. Trump mistakenly called the phone of Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, thinking it was the number of Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama. Mr. Lee then passed the phone to Mr. Tuberville, who said he spoke to the former president for less than 10 minutes as rioters were breaking into the building.

But many of the calls the committee is aware of did not show up in the official logs.

The revelations about incomplete call logs come as Mr. Trump is under increasing scrutiny for apparently violating the Presidential Records Act by ripping up some White House documents and taking others with him when he left office. The House Oversight committee on Thursday announced an investigation into what it called “potential serious violations” of the law, including that Mr. Trump took 15 boxes of White House documents to his Palm Beach, Fla., compound and attempted to destroy presidential records.

Mr. Trump’s conduct, said Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the oversight committee, “involves a former president potentially violating a criminal law by intentionally removing records, including communications with a foreign leader, from the White House and reportedly attempting to destroy records by tearing them up.”

The National Archives and Records Administration discovered what it believed was classified information in documents Mr. Trump had taken with him. The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the National Archives had asked the Justice Department to examine Mr. Trump’s handling of White House records.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/us/politics/jan-6-trump-calls.html

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