“);var a = g[r.size_id].split(“x”).map((function(e) {return Number(e)})), s = u(a, 2);o.width = s[0],o.height = s[1]}o.rubiconTargeting = (Array.isArray(r.targeting) ? r.targeting : []).reduce((function(e, r) {return e[r.key] = r.values[0],e}), {rpfl_elemid: n.adUnitCode}),e.push(o)} else l.logError(“Rubicon bid adapter Error: bidRequest undefined at index position:” + t, c, d);return e}), []).sort((function(e, r) {return (r.cpm || 0) – (e.cpm || 0)}))},getUserSyncs: function(e, r, t) {if (!A && e.iframeEnabled) {var i = “”;return t && “string” == typeof t.consentString && (“boolean” == typeof t.gdprApplies ? i += “?gdpr=” + Number(t.gdprApplies) + “&gdpr_consent=” + t.consentString : i += “?gdpr_consent=” + t.consentString),A = !0,{type: “iframe”,url: n + i}}},transformBidParams: function(e, r) {return l.convertTypes({accountId: “number”,siteId: “number”,zoneId: “number”}, e)}};function m() {return [window.screen.width, window.screen.height].join(“x”)}function b(e, r) {var t = f.config.getConfig(“pageUrl”);return e.params.referrer ? t = e.params.referrer : t || (t = r.refererInfo.referer),e.params.secure ? t.replace(/^http:/i, “https:”) : t}function _(e, r) {var t = e.params;if (“video” === r) {var i = [];return t.video && t.video.playerWidth && t.video.playerHeight ? i = [t.video.playerWidth, t.video.playerHeight] : Array.isArray(l.deepAccess(e, “mediaTypes.video.playerSize”)) && 1 === e.mediaTypes.video.playerSize.length ? i = e.mediaTypes.video.playerSize[0] : Array.isArray(e.sizes) && 0
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/25/politics/joe-biden-2020-president/index.html
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Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/politics/hillary-clinton-mueller-report-op-ed/index.html
The North Korean leader sets foot on Russian soil for the first time after traveling by train; Greg Palkot reports on the goals of the meeting.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin – whose nations are both hurting as a result of U.S. economic sanctions – will hold a summit Thursday in the Russian port city of Vladivostok that may strengthen their trade and cooperation.
I don’t expect dramatic developments to come out of the meeting, but it could be a significant step that allows the two countries to begin working more closely together for their mutual benefit and be in a better position to resist pressure from the Trump administration.
Kim is under far more pressure than Putin. The North Korean dictator faces severe U.S. and United Nations sanctions designed get him to give up his small arsenal of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
NORTH KOREAN LEADER KIM JONG UN ARRIVES IN RUSSIAN PORT CITY AHEAD OF FIRST MEETING WITH PUTIN
Since the failure of Kim’s February summit with President Trump in Vietnam, Kim is eager to find another country willing to help him evade U.N. economic sanctions that are crippling his economy.
At his summit with Trump, Kim sought relief from the most punishing sanctions in return for promising limited steps on a path toward eventual denuclearization of the North. But Trump wanted Kim to move forward rapidly to begin getting rid of all his nuclear weapons. Kim refused, leading the summit to end abruptly.
Putin is in a similar position to Kim in some respects. Moscow is also being subjected to U.S. economic sanctions, but not for nuclear weapons development. Instead, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, seizure of Crimea from that country, and a whole host of other transgressions have led to American sanctions
Since the failure of Kim’s February summit with President Trump in Vietnam, Kim is eager to find another country willing to help him evade U.N. economic sanctions that are crippling his economy.
Putin wants to show the world – but mostly President Trump – that he also has options, or potential cards to play against Washington if U.S.-Russia relations get even worse.
Should we worry about improved Russian-North Korea relations?
Keep in mind, it was the old Soviet Union that gave North Korea its first pieces of nuclear technology in the 1960s that helped give birth to its atomic weapons. It was also Russian scientists in the early 1990s who helped give Pyongyang the technical know-how it needed to develop the powerful long-range missiles it is perfecting today.
Thankfully for Western civilization, there is little to fear from these two old allies coming closer together.
Russia is no longer the Soviet Union – and thank God for that. Putin’s Russia is an impoverished nation in decline, with an economy smaller than South Korea’s or Italy’s. Moscow does not have the economic muscle to help North Korea in a major way even if it wanted to.
Then there is the issue of granting North Korea what it wants most: sanctions relief. The most damaging sanctions come courtesy of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions passed in 2016 and 2017 that have not only halted growth but caused North Korea’s economy to contract considerably.
Considering that it would take all five permanent U.N. Security Council members – including the U.S. – to vote for repeal of these sanctions, there will not be any sanctions relief coming any time soon.
While there is always the possibility that Russia would outright violate U.N. resolutions and break the sanctions regime altogether, Putin will likely conclude the consequences and likely pushback by the Trump administration would not be worth the risk.
But Putin might have another card up his sleeve. Imagine a situation in the future where U.S.-Russia relations are even worse than what they are now. Moscow would love to have a North Korea card in its pocket, ready to pull out at a moment’s notice.
Consider a situation, for example, where there is another incident over Ukraine or in the Baltics and America and Russia are at loggerheads. Russia would always have the option of raising the stakes by helping North Korea in some way.
Moscow, for example, could make it much harder for America to destroy Kim’s nuclear weapons by giving Pyongyang advanced air defense equipment like the S-400 or even newer S-500 that could potentially attack stealth aircraft.
While such ideas might be fiction now, history tells us the great powers of the world must consider every eventuality – something Putin seems to be good at.
North Korea also seems to be thinking about the future. Kim, in many respects, is trying to emulate the foreign policy of his grandfather who ruled North Korea, Kim Il Sung.
Grandpa Kim was good at playing off the great powers against one another. North Korea was at its strongest – and in fact, the envy of many communist nations – when it received large amounts of economic aid from both the Soviet Union and China as both nations competed for Pyongyang’s allegiance.
And while now there are no economic goodies or great power bidding wars for Kim’s love today, there may come a day when there is a deal over North Korea’s nuclear program and sanctions are lifted. At that point, nations the world over will want a piece of North Korea’s economic modernization.
This could mean trillions of dollars in North Korean minerals up for grabs and even potential offshore oil. There will, in many respects, be a race to North Korea, and Kim will be in a good position to take advantage of it.
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Having friendly ties with Russia now could come in very handy later for Kim.
So it would seem both Putin and Kim will have a lot to smile about when they pose for photos at their summit. Each could see a potential partner in the future, even if for now there is not much one can offer the other. And, at least for now, both seem to be happy with such an arrangement.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/harry-kazianis-putin-and-kim-jong-un-seek-improved-relations-in-summit
Sanders says even the Boston bomber should have the right to vote while in prison; reaction from First Step Act beneficiary Matthew Charles.
The first man released from prison under President Trump’s criminal justice reform law reacted to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., saying that prisoners should be permitted to vote by noting the “logistical” problems of allowing prisoners serving a sentence to vote and backing prisoners who served their time to have their rights restored.
“I do know while you’re incarcerated you do lose some of your liberties. But my thing is, once a person has been completely released and they paid their debt to society and they are back in society actually functioning, paying taxes, then they should have their rights restored to vote,” Matthew Charles, who was released from prison under the First Step Act, said on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”
“But during the period they’re incarcerated, it’s going to be like a complex issue because of the logistics. You got people incarcerated in states that they actually are not from.”
Sanders opened himself to scrutiny this week after saying that not only should incarcerated prisoners be permitted to vote but that Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should also be permitted to vote.
“If somebody commits a serious crime, sexual assault, murder, they will be punished. But I think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy. Yes, even for terrible people,” Sanders said Monday on a CNN Town Hall.
Trump’s re-election campaign called out Sanders Wednesday, describing his idea “deeply offensive.”
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“The extremity and radicalism of the 2020 Democrats knows no bounds,” Trump campaign press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told Fox News.
“Giving imprisoned terrorists, sex offenders, and murderers the right to vote is an outrageous proposal that is deeply offensive to innocent victims across this country, some of whom lost their lives and are forever disenfranchised by the very killers that 2020 Democrats seek to empower,” she said.
Fox News’ Sally Persons and Alex Pappas contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/former-prisoner-released-under-trumps-criminal-justice-reform-law-reacts-to-bernie-sanders
Sanders says even the Boston bomber should have the right to vote while in prison; reaction from First Step Act beneficiary Matthew Charles.
2020 presidential contender Bernie Sanders faced an aggressive and, at times, outwardly combative audience at the She The People Forum devoted to women of color in Houston on Wednesday, as the self-described democratic socialist struggled to convince attendees of his commitment to minority and underprivileged communities.
The tense moments underscored the challenges Sanders’ campaign still faces despite its frontrunner status. The 77-year-old Vermont senator, long a champion for progressive causes, has sought to win over voters who turned out in massive numbers to support former President Barack Obama.
In a particularly striking moment, host Aimee Allison asked Sanders what he would do to fight white-supremacist violence. In response, Sanders launched into a familiar anecdote that — perhaps precisely because of its familiarity — seemed to crash and burn.
“I know I date myself a little bit here, but I actually was at the March on Washington with Dr. [Martin Luther] King back in 1963,” Sanders began, as audible groans and jeers broke out at the auditorium at Texas Southern University. One person apparently shouted, “We know!”
BERNIE SANDERS, AT FIERY FOX NEWS TOWN HALL, MAKES NO APOLOGIES FOR MAKING MAD MILLIONS
“And,” Sanders continued, as he held his hand up to quiet the crowd and apparently to wag his finger, “as somebody who actively supported Jesse Jackson’s campaign, as one of the few white elected officials to do so in ’88, I have dedicated my life to the fight against racism, and sexism, and discrimination of all forms.”
Sanders faced similar backlash when he responded to an audience question about white supremacy by discussing immigration and the federal minimum wage, as well as his sweeping “Medicare for All” proposal. The audience loudly applauded when Allison reminded Sanders that the “core of the question” concerned violence against minorities.
Separately, co-host Joy Reid asked Sanders how he would win over Hillary Clinton voters, including black women in particular. In response, Sanders trashed Trump as “the most dangerous president” in modern history, and generally called for unity among Democrats as well as “social justice, racial justice, and environmental justice.”
That response immediately drew more hecklers, as Reid pressed, “Yeah, and for black women specifically?”
“I’m sorry?” Sanders asked, as the jeers became louder. “For black women specifically,” Reid reiterated.
BERNIE SLAMS PROGRESSIVE GROUP HE SAYS IS ‘SMEARING’ HIM — IS DEM CIVIL WAR BREWING?
Sanders responded: “Black women will be an integral part of what our campaign, and what our administration is about. Okay? And that means –“
The audience erupted with heckling for a few seconds, as Sanders tossed his arm up in the air in dismay and muttered, “Okay.”
“Were you finished with your –,” Allison asked when the crowd quieted.
“Yeah,” Sanders replied.
Seven other 2020 Democrats spoke at the first-ever She The People forum on Wednesday, including Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard and Amy Klobuchar.
Some used the event to make news and largely avoided audience attacks. Booker, for example, definitively declared that his running mate will be a woman.
But, the road was rocky for others. Gabbard, a Hawaii congresswoman, also faced some heat from the crowd during her own remarks.
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“There are a lot of bad people in the world,” Gabbard began at one point.
Then came the reply from a heckler: “You’re one of them!”
Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bernie-sanders-visibly-frustrated-after-hecklers-unload-at-she-the-people-forum-for-women-of-color
“A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for every community in California, and the strategy of ‘no’ no longer works,” McGuire said. “No matter if you are a large city, a small city, an urban county, a rural county, everyone has to do their part to be able to combat this crisis of lack of affordable housing.”
Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-senate-bill-50-changes-20190424-story.html
Former Vice President Joe Biden has put in his time in front of labor groups in the run-up to announcing his presidential candidacy. | Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images
Amid concerns about fundraising and a late start, the former vice president is relying on his longtime labor allies for a show of force at his official campaign rollout.
His political operation is still taking shape. There are concerns about whether he’ll be able to raise enough money to compete. He hasn’t run his own campaign in over a decade.
What Joe Biden does have, however, are strong ties to organized labor. And on the eve of his expected entry into a primary where 19 other Democrats have a head start, the former vice president is counting on his longtime union allies for a show of force.
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It’s a powerful reminder that whatever hurdles lie ahead for Biden on the campaign trail, he enters the race with a reservoir of goodwill from a key Democratic constituency. But it also emphasizes the traditional nature of his candidacy in a diverse and crowded primary where that might not be an asset.
After announcing his 2020 bid in a video to be released Thursday, Biden is expected to formally kick off his campaign with a Monday rally at a Pittsburgh union hall. United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said Biden can count on steelworkers to turn out on Monday, including many “wearing their USW gear.” The same holds true for the International Association of Fire Fighters, according to an IAFF spokesman.
For Biden, labor’s heavy presence would serve to underscore an argument central to his case for the Democratic nomination: that he continues to be serve as the party’s best-known emissary to working-class whites, the precise demographic that Donald Trump picked off in key industrial states like Pennsylvania in 2016.
“Clearly many of us in the labor movement and in our union are friends with Vice President Biden. He’s been a true supporter of working people and their agenda. He’s someone who we’ve worked with a lot and we all admire tremendously,” Gerard told POLITICO, though he cautioned that a formal primary endorsement hasn’t yet occurred and must go through internal processes. “I can say that it would be an understatement to say that our members admire and look forward to working with Vice President Biden. He’s been strong in particular on infrastructure and jobs.”
In the run-up to his announcement, Biden has put in his time in front of labor groups, including recent speeches before the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the IAFF. Last week, Biden appeared at the Stop & Shop supermarket strike to support striking United Food and Commercial Workers in Dorchester, Mass., with Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, himself a strong labor supporter and Biden ally.
“I think there is one thing that is inarguable: The Democrats as a party and the presidential candidates, have had problems with union members defecting to Republicans since the Reagan era,” said Larry Rasky, a Boston-based consultant who worked on both of Biden’s previous presidential campaigns. “Everybody knows that the candidate with the best chance of bringing union members — not necessarily the leadership but the rank and file — back into the Democratic fold is Biden.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a rally in support of striking Stop & Shop workers in Boston, April 18. | Michael Dwyer/AP Photo
Hosting a kick-off in a Western Pennsylvania union hall, places Biden in his element. Last year, Biden joined Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey at the IBEW Local 5 in Pittsburgh and made a deep impression on a Pennsylvania Democratic operative who noted that Biden “was electric. He has a real connection. There was a cross-section: old-school union guys, young biker folks covered in tattoos and moms with babies. And Biden didn’t have any staff. He just showed up and worked the room, and people loved him.”
Labor’s prominent role isn’t merely limited to the campaign launch. Earlier this week, International Association of Fire Fighters president Harold Schaitberger told POLITICO a Biden endorsement was all but certain, and part of that support would translate into foot soldiers in early presidential states.
“We’ll be focused on the early caucus in Iowa. In South Carolina, we have a fairly sophisticated political operation, a pretty large cadre of very experienced, capable, skilled leaders that really know how to operate within a political environment,” Schaitberger said. “We have a very good footprint in New Hampshire and understand the primary process there. We’ll be able to do our part. It’s not just a paper endorsements.”
An early state organizer with knowledge of Biden’s strategy, said the campaign-in-waiting has for weeks began laying the groundwork to lure rank-and-file union members to his camp — even if their own union doesn’t formally endorse Biden in the primary.
“When you look at Secretary Clinton, the union leadership in the primary got behind her but at the average member level, there was not much excitement,” the organizer said. “In this case, I think the average member of the labor union is interested in supporting Joe Biden … looking at both for the primary and general, there’s going to be a lot of focus on getting support from both labor leadership and average labor members.”
Though Biden’s event is planned at the Teamsters Local 249 in Pittsburgh, according to the national group, though a local union representative said the venue “isn’t confirmed” and the chapter’s president didn’t return calls for comment. A spokesman for the national Teamsters said Biden is not being endorsed — at least not yet — by the union.
“The campaign reached out to the local chapter to host the union hall and, as with any pro-labor candidate, they were afforded that courtesy. Just because you have an event at the hall, it doesn’t mean there’s an endorsement,” said a national spokesman, who wanted to speak anonymously to avoid giving an official position.
The Teamsters, along with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, say they’re going through the process now of vetting candidates and preparing to poll members to issue endorsements.
“There were three reasons Barack Obama chose Biden as a running mate: his foreign policy chops, his debating skills and the third was his appeal to working class voters, particularly in the Midwest,” Rasky said. “He delivered on all three of those accounts. Those ethnic, blue collar voters, what we refer to as ‘Reagan Democrats,’ they are the people we need to turn the Electoral College on Trump. I think it’s apparent to the leadership for a lot of unions that Joe is the guy who can deliver.”
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Source Article from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/24/joe-biden-unions-2020-1289642
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — An avowed racist who orchestrated one of the most gruesome hate crimes in US history was executed Wednesday in Texas for the dragging death of a black man.
John William King, who was white, received lethal injection for the slaying nearly 21 years ago of James Byrd Jr., who was chained to the back of a truck and dragged for nearly 3 miles (5 kilometers) along a secluded road in the piney woods outside Jasper, Texas. The 49-year-old Byrd was alive for at least 2 miles (3 kilometers) before his body was ripped to pieces in the early morning hours of June 7, 1998.
Prosecutors said Byrd was targeted because he was black. King was openly racist and had offensive tattoos on his body, including one of a black man with a noose around his neck hanging from a tree, according to authorities.
King, 44, was put to death at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. He was the fourth inmate executed this year in the US and the third in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.
The killing of Byrd was a hate crime that put a national spotlight on Jasper, a town of about 7,600 residents near the Texas-Louisiana border that was branded with a racist stigma it has tried to shake off ever since. Local officials say the reputation is undeserved.
King’s appellate lawyers had tried to stop his execution, arguing King’s constitutional rights were violated because his trial attorneys didn’t present his claims of innocence and conceded his guilt.
The US Supreme Court rejected King’s last-minute appeal.
“From the time of indictment through his trial, Mr. King maintained his absolute innocence, claiming that he had left his co-defendants and Mr. Byrd sometime prior to his death and was not present at the scene of his murder. Mr. King repeatedly expressed to defense counsel that he wanted to present his innocence claim at trial,” A. Richard Ellis, one of King’s attorneys, wrote in his petition to the Supreme Court.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles also turned down King’s request for either a commutation of his sentence or a 120-day reprieve.
Over the years, King had also suggested the brutal slaying was not a hate crime, but a drug deal gone bad involving his co-defendants.
King, who grew up in Jasper and was known as “Bill,” was the second man executed for Byrd’s killing. Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed in 2011. The third participant, Shawn Allen Berry, was sentenced to life in prison.
King declined an interview request from The Associated Press in the weeks leading up to his execution.
In a 2001 interview with the AP, King said he was an “avowed racist” but wasn’t “a hate-monger murderer.”
Louvon Byrd Harris, one of Byrd’s sisters, said King’s execution sent a “message to the world that when you do something horrible like that, that you have to pay the high penalty.”
Compared to “all the suffering” her brother suffered before his death, Harris said King and Brewer got “an easy way out.”
Billy Rowles, who led the investigation into Byrd’s death when he was sheriff in Jasper County, said after King was taken to death row in 1999, he offered to detail the crime as soon as his co-defendants were convicted. When Rowles returned, all King would say was, “I wasn’t there.”
“He played us like a fiddle, getting us to go over there and thinking we’re going to get the rest of the story,” said Rowles, who now is sheriff of Newton County.
A week before Brewer was executed in 2011, Rowles said he visited Brewer, who confirmed “the whole thing was Bill King’s idea.”
Mylinda Byrd Washington, another of Byrd’s sisters, said she and her family will work through the Byrd Foundation for Racial Healing to ensure her brother’s death continues to combat hate everywhere.
“I hope people remember him not as a hate crime statistic. This was a real person. A family man, a father, a brother and a son,” she said.
___
Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70
Source Article from https://www.thisisinsider.com/texas-executes-avowed-racist-john-william-king-brutal-hate-crime-2019-4
And on Twitter, Mr. Trump offered a novel idea for pushing back against any impeachment proceedings if House Democrats tried to move forward with them: He would get the Supreme Court to order them to stop.
“If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Mr. Trump wrote over two posts. “Not only are there no ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors,’ there are no Crimes by me at all.”
Nothing in the Constitution or American legal history gives the Supreme Court a role in deciding whether Congress has misidentified what counts as a high crime or misdemeanor for the purpose of impeachment.
Notwithstanding Mr. Trump’s denunciation of the subpoena to Mr. McGahn, his administration’s legal team has not put forward any legal theory for why executive privilege — the president’s power to keep secret certain internal executive branch information — would ban the kind of testimony the House Judiciary Committee is seeking from the former White House lawyer: essentially, to go over what he already told Mr. Mueller.
Mr. Trump waived executive privilege to let Mr. Mueller freely question Mr. McGahn about their conversations, and Attorney General William P. Barr made Mr. McGahn’s accounts public by disclosing most of the special counsel’s report — likely a further waiver of the privilege.
Mr. McGahn has expressed frustration about the situation, according to a person close to him. He advised the president in 2017 against cooperating with Mr. Mueller and believes that if Mr. Trump had followed his advice, he would have a far stronger argument that their conversations are protected by executive privilege, the person said.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/us/politics/donald-trump-subpoenas.html
We will hear from them, including our colleague Monique Batson, afterward.
6:26 p.m. UPDATE
Just got word from the Enterprise’s Monique Batson, who is waiting to be led into the execution chamber with other witnesses, that the Supreme Court has DENIED a stay for John William King’s execution.
We will continue to update.
6 p.m. UPDATE
We are at the scheduled execution time but have yet to hear from the U.S. Supreme Court, which is reviewing a plea for a stay from attorneys for John William King.
That’s not necessarily unusual, and officials say the execution must go forward by midnight or be postponed.
Meanwhile, a group of about 50 protesters have gathered outside the Huntsville Unit to decry the death penalty. They just finished broadcasting an instrumental hymn and are waiting like the rest of us.
5 p.m. UPDATE
Newton County Sheriff Billy Rowles, who was the sheriff in Jasper County when James Byrd Jr. was dragged to his death in one of the nation’s most shocking hate crimes, has arrived in Huntsville ahead of tonight’s scheduled execution of killer John William King.
“The closer it gets, the more you realize someone is fixing to die,” Rowles said. “As bad as a guy as he is, he’s still a human being fixing to take his last breath.”
Rowles said he used to look forward to this day since King, Lawrence Russell Brewer and Shawn Allen Berry were convicted of capital murder. But now he can’t help but have mixed emotions about the situation. He said he didn’t attend the execution of Brewer, but he felt he needed to be here to witness King’s date with justice.
“I’ve seen people die, and I’ve had the hollowness in my stomach when you see the life leave someone,” Rowles said. “I kind of have that same sentiment right now.”
Rowles said he has spoken with King in the past, but that the condemned man has never admitted being there the night of the crime.
“I hope for his sake and the (Byrd) family that he changes his mind before he is executed,” he said.
It is not yet known whether King plans any final statement.
4:30 p.m. UPDATE
Still no word from the U.S. Supreme Court on the scheduled 6 p.m. execution of Jasper hate killer John William King. His attorneys are continuing to press for a stay before King is to die by injection.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has blocked off the street in front of the Huntsville Unit, an imposing red-brick prison known colloquially as “The Walls,” as part of the preparation for the execution.
TDCJ chief spokesman Jeremy Desel has been briefing the gathering reporters on King’s activities.
At this moment, King is being held in a small holding cell about 4 steps (10 feet) from the execution chamber. He has not requested any spiritual advisers, but a pair of chaplains are available to him to facilitate his use of the telephone and, if needed, to talk about other matters.
King has had several visitors over the last few days, Desel said. No one will attend the actual execution on his behalf.
Two sisters and a niece of James Byrd Jr., the victim of the vicious hate crime 21 years that landed King and another man on death row and sent a friend of theirs to prison for life, will view the execution along with media and official witnesses.
At the time of his arrest, King was a shocking figure whose body was adorned with white supremacist and other tattoos. Today, Desel said, he looks like a typical mid-40s man, with close-cropped hair and a slight beard.
3 p.m. UPDATE
About four hours before his scheduled execution, John William King was “fairly talkative,” and in a “fairly typical mood,” according to officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
King, 44, is one of three men convicted of capital murder for chaining 49-year-old James Byrd Jr. to the back of a pickup and dragging him three miles before leaving his mangled body the roadside in 1998.
Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed in 2011; Shawn Allen Berry was sentenced to life in prison and will be eligible for parole in 2038.
King’s activities since 12:01 a.m. have included cleaning, visiting with friends, showering and reading, according to a log provided by TDCJ. He is currently in a holding cell about 10 feet from the death chamber.
He will not have any witnesses in attendance. Three members of the Byrd family, two of his sisters and one niece, will be witnessing on behalf of the victim.
A motion to stop his execution was filed with the Supreme Court Tuesday after Texas justices ruled 5-4 in favor of execution. No judgement has been made as of now.
> > MORE: King’s fate rests with Supreme Court
Source Article from https://m.chron.com/news/article/The-Latest-13791513.php
In comments that flooded national headlines, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Monday night that he believes all prisoners — including “terrible people” like the Boston Marathon bomber — should be allowed to vote. He said people serving time, no matter how serious their offense, deserve enfranchisement.
“I think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy,” Sanders said. “Yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away and you say that person committed a terrible crime, not gonna let him vote, or that person did that, not gonna let that person vote — you’re running down a slippery slope.”
The debate over whether released felons should vote was at the center of recent election in Florida. “When they get out of jail, they certainly should have the right to vote,” Sanders said this week. “I do believe that even if they are in jail, they’re paying their price to society, but that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy.”
Sanders said this ideal has been the reality in Vermont since the state’s founding. “In my own state of Vermont, from the very first days of our state’s history, what our Constitution says is that everybody can vote,” he said. “That is true. So people in jail can vote.”
It’s certainly true that all of Vermont’s prisoners currently enjoy the right to vote, but has that been true since day 1 of the state’s founding? The Sanders camp said it could not immediately reply to questions about the candidate’s claim.
Vermont is one of just two states, the other being Maine, where prisoners currently have the right to vote. The Burlington Free Press described Vermont’s prison voting system in an article following on Sanders’ remarks. Even prisoners being held out-of-state in Mississipi are given the opportunity to cast ballots in their most recent “voluntary” address back home.
Dylan Lynch, a policy associate from the National Conference on State Legislatures, noted that four other states introduced legislation this year that would allow people to vote while incarcerated for a felony. In Connecticut, the measure failed, but in Louisiana, Massachusetts and New Jersey, bills are still pending.
It’s also true that Vermont has allowed incarcerated people to vote since its founding. Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos confirmed that incarcerated Vermonters have “never had their right to vote taken away during incarceration.”
In the 1790s, the Vermont Legislature tried to outlaw inmate voting, but it was overruled in a 1799 decision by the Council of Censors, a “now-defunct fourth branch of government that met every seven years to decide constitutional questions,” according to a 2008 Associated Press story. Vermont’s 1793 Constitution was interpreted to mean that the loss of voting rights could only occur in response to voter fraud. That case was cited as precedent as recently as the 1980s, in the most recent attempt to outlaw inmate voting in Vermont.
Vermont’s current Constitution states that every person who is 18 years old and a citizen of the United States, “having resided in this State for the period established by the General Assembly and who is of a quiet and peaceable behavior … shall be entitled to all the privileges of a voter of this state.”
Sean Morales-Doyle, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan public policy institute, said there are certain phrases about voting that are common in state Constitutions, but that being of “quiet and peaceable behavior” is not one of them, making it difficult to know exactly what it means. But he said specific laws around inmate voting, as opposed to the language in state constitutions, often decided whether prisoners can cast ballots.
Morales-Doyle said the timing of when disenfranchisement for prisoners was codified in states’ laws is far from random. Before the passage of the 15th Amendment guaranteeing men the right to vote regardless of race, Morales-Doyle said very few states bothered to disenfranchise prisoners. But after the amendment passed, he said there was a wave of states that passed laws or amendments to take away prisoners’ right to vote.
He said the fact that 48 states still don’t allow incarcerated people to vote is unquestionably a relic of Jim Crow-era laws. But, Morales-Doyle said, after Florida’s 2018 vote to enfranchise felons who have completed their sentences, there has been an increased interest in efforts to return voting rights to people across the criminal justice system.
In Vermont, though, even having total enfranchisement for prisoners still leaves a narrower field of voters than there once was. Peter Teachout, a professor at Vermont Law School, said from 1777 to 1824, the state was “so hungry for voters” that even non-U.S. citizens had the right to vote in Vermont. (Vermont’s capital city voted last year to allow non-citizens to vote once again, a charter change now being debated in the state Legislature.)
The question that cannot be answered is whether Vermont’s prisoners actually employed their Constitutional rights throughout history. Condos said the state doesn’t track how many incarcerated Vermonters vote. Rather, they appear on the voter checklist in the same manner as all other voters. Condos said there’s very little evidence to suggest inmates in Vermont institutions were historically able to exercise that right.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not the case, only that we have yet to find any evidence of it,” Condos said. “Voting is the bedrock of our democracy, and we have worked hard to ensure that we’re breaking down barriers for eligible voters to register and cast their ballots.”
Sanders said: “In my own state of Vermont, from the very first days of our state’s history, what our Constitution says is that everybody can vote. That is true. So people in jail can vote.”
It’s true that Vermont felons can vote from prison today, and we can’t find anything to suggest that hasn’t always been the case in the state. Though it seems quite possible that the efforts being made today to allow them to cast ballots hasn’t always been made.
The Vermont Constitution requires people to be of “quiet and peaceable behavior,” but otherwise places no restrictions on who can vote. And Sanders said prisoners “can” vote, not that they always have voted.
We rate this claim True.
Source Article from https://www.politifact.com/vermont/statements/2019/apr/24/bernie-sanders/sanders-set-firestorm-over-prisoners-voting-his-fa/
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Washington (CNN)Attempted Russian interference in US public affairs has continued as Department of Homeland Security officials and senior leaders have alerted the White House about the risks ahead of the 2020 presidential election — but it was “like pulling teeth” to get the White House to pay attention, a US government official told CNN Wednesday.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/politics/kirstjen-nielsen-trump-election-security/index.html
In California, travelers from abroad have introduced measles into the state at least 10 times this year, but there have only been three outbreaks. The biggest, in Northern California, has infected 15 people so far, which pales in comparison to the 390 cases confirmed in Brooklyn and Queens in an ongoing New York City outbreak.
Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-vaccine-exemption-review-bill-20190424-story.html
The leader of a militia group that had been detaining asylum-seekers in New Mexico at gunpoint was beaten in jail, according to the man’s lawyer and a sheriff’s department.
Larry Hopkins, 69, was “jumped and beaten by fellow detainees,” according to a letter his lawyer sent to the jail on Wednesday. Hopkins, who also goes by the alias Johnny Horton Jr., was arrested Saturday on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Hopkins led the United Constitutional Patriots, whose members, some armed, held migrants who had crossed the border with Mexico until Border Patrol agents arrived.
“I talked to him afterwards yesterday and he was beaten, bruised, injured, dazed — and thoroughly demoralized,” Attorney Kelly O’Connell wrote to the Doña Ana County Detention Center.
A spokesperson for the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement Wednesday that an “alleged battery” at the county jail was under investigation.
Spokeswoman Kelly Jameson said in a statement that the incident occurred after 9 p.m. on Monday and that the reported victim was Hopkins.
He was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, Jameson said, and transferred Tuesday from the jail by the U.S. Marshals Service.
O’Connell wrote that he was deeply concerned over the “violent attack.”
“Mr. Hopkins’ case is certainly high profile, and he has developed a controversial reputation because of his border activities,” he wrote.
Hopkins has been described as the “commander” of the United Constitutional Patriots, and the group’s actions, posted as videos to social media, has drawn an outcry from the local police chief, politicians and activists.
Hopkins’ arrest Saturday stemmed from gun charges based on reports to an FBI tip line about “alleged militia extremist activity” at his home in Flora Vista, New Mexico, and a subsequent visit to his residence by FBI agents, according to a criminal complaint.
In describing reports to that tip line, the FBI agent who wrote the complaint said Hopkins allegedly said the group was “training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama.”
O’Connell has said that accusation is “categorically false” and questioned the timing of Hopkins’ arrest.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Union Pacific railroad company determined it owned the land where the United Constitutional Patriots had been camped out and asked remaining members to vacate. A short time later, the last members of the group peacefully left the property and cleared the camp. Three people remaining at the camp sought to distance themselves from Hopkins and the United Constitutional Patriots, saying they were “citizen journalists” documenting the border crisis.
A spokesperson for the United Constitutional Patriots has described the group as aiding in immigration enforcement as the “eyes and ears of Border Patrol.”
Customs and Border Protection has said it “does not endorse private groups or organizations taking enforcement matters into their own hands.”
Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/leader-armed-militia-detained-migrants-new-mexico-says-he-was-n998181
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif does not believe U.S. President Donald Trump wants war with Iran, but he told Reuters on Wednesday that Trump could be lured into a conflict.
“I don’t think he wants war,” Zarif said in an interview at the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York. “But that doesn’t exclude him being basically lured into one.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Zarif’s remarks.
Zarif said a so-called “B-team,” including Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton, an ardent Iran hawk, and conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could goad Trump into a conflict with Tehran.
“Those who have designed the policies that are being pursued do not simply want a negotiated solution. But let me make it clear that Iran is not seeking confrontation, but will not escape defending itself,” he said.
In somewhat cryptic remarks, Zarif also warned of the possibility that people could try “to plot an accident” that could trigger a broader crisis.
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have risen since the Trump administration withdrew last year from an international nuclear deal with Iran and began ratcheting up sanctions. Earlier this month, the United States blacklisted Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and demanded buyers of Iranian oil stop purchases by May or face sanctions.
The U.S. blacklisting of the IRGC, Iran’s most powerful security organization with huge stakes in the economy, was the first time any nation has labeled another country’s military a terrorist organization.
Zarif said Iran would act with “prudence” in response to what he saw as dangerous policies by the United States. In one example, he said Iran would still allow U.S. warships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil artery.
Zarif called the decision on the IRGC “absurd,” but suggested that Iran did not plan to respond militarily unless the United States changed the rules of engagement guiding how it interacts with Iran’s forces. The U.S. military has not suggested it would change its behavior after the blacklisting.
“We will exercise prudence but it doesn’t mean that if the United States changed the rules of the game, or changed the rules of engagement, it would be able to get away with that,” Zarif said.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and some senior military commanders have threatened to disrupt oil shipments from the Gulf countries if Washington tries to strangle Tehran oil exports.
Carrying one third of the world’s seaborne oil every day, the Strait of Hormuz links Middle East crude producers to markets in Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and beyond.
When asked if U.S. warships could still pass through the Strait of Hormuz, Zarif – a veteran diplomat who has been foreign minister for more than six years – said: “Ships can go through the Strait of Hormuz.”
“If the United States wanted to continue to observe the rules of engagement, the rules of the game, the channels of communication, the prevailing protocols, then in spite of the fact that we consider U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf as inherently destabilizing, we’re not going to take any action,” Zarif said.
The United States has accused Tehran of destabilizing the Middle East and helping to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war that began in 2011.
Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, the overseas arm of the IRGC, appeared on frontlines across Syria.
Zarif said Iran would remain “vigilant” in Syria and in Iraq after investing resources to fight there. “And we will not simply abandon that, that fight,” Zarif said.
Zarif, the U.S.-educated architect of the 2015 nuclear deal who came under attack from anti-Western hardliners in Iran after Trump pulled out of the agreement last year, signaled Tehran would be resilient in the face of U.S. sanctions.
“I mean there are always ways of going around the sanctions. We have a PhD in that area,” Zarif said.
The United States on Monday demanded buyers of Iranian oil stop purchases by May or face sanctions, ending six months of waivers which allowed Iran’s eight biggest buyers, most of them in Asia, to continue importing limited volumes.
Zarif acknowledged that oil sanctions hurt ordinary Iranians and the government would do whatever it could to sell oil to provide for its citizens.
When asked who else Iran might consider selling oil to, Zarif said: “If I told you, we won’t be able to sell it to them.”
Reporting by Michelle Nichols, Lesley Wroughton, Phil Stewart; editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool
Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-usa-exclusive/exclusive-irans-zarif-believes-trump-does-not-want-war-but-could-be-lured-into-conflict-idUSKCN1S02VK
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(CNN)Faced with all-out resistance from the White House, Democrats are turning to the courts as they grapple with a dilemma of limited options to enforce their subpoenas.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/politics/democrats-courts-white-house-subpoenas/index.html
President Trump vowed to fight against the opioid epidemic and took credit for recent progress combating the public health emergency at the Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta on Wednesday.
“Everyone here today is united by the same vital goal, to liberate our fellow Americans from the grip of drug addiction and to end the opioid crisis once and for all,” the president said.
“My administration is deploying every resource at our disposal to empower you to support you, and to fight right by your side. That’s what we are doing. We will not solve this epidemic overnight, but we will stop — nothing is going to stop us,” Trump said.
Combating the opioid epidemic has been a top domestic policy prioity for the administration and a focus of the first lady’s Be Best campaign that has found widespread, bipartisan support. The Trump administration secured $6 billion in new funding over the next two years to combat opioid abuse. Earlier this month, HHS announced a $350 million plan to reduce opioid deaths by 40 percent in three years in certain communities.
Earlier Wednesday, speaking from the South Lawn, the president also claimed credit for progress combating the epidemic.
“It’s a big problem, it’s a big addiction, and we’re handling it,” Trump said. “The doctors are working with us, the labs are working, the clinics are working, the pharmaceutical companies are working with us, and we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress.”
Despite the president’s claims of progress, the statistics surrounding the epidemic remain staggering: On average, 130 Americans die each day from opioid overdose and opioids were involved in 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017 (67.8% of all drug overdose deaths), per the Centers for Disease Control.
The president also claimed — without providing specifics — that the problem is down “17 percent from last year.”
White House spokesperson Judd Deere clarified the president’s statement and noted that since President Trump took office, “the total number of opioid prescriptions dispensed monthly (by retail and mail-order pharmacies) has declined by at least 17%.”
Before speaking in Atlanta, the president was introduced by the first lady, who referenced the work she has done with her Be Best campaign.
“I have seen firsthand both the medical and personal results of this crisis. I have visited hospitals and treatment centers around the country. I have met with doctors, nurses, mothers, and children,” the first lady said. “We will continue to raise awareness of the dangers of opioids to unborn babies. We are also committed to supporting more treatment facilities that have both bond of addiction with the bond of love between a mother and her child.”
“My husband is here today because he cares deeply about what you are doing to help the millions of Americans affected by the opioid epidemic.”
The president also veered off script during his remarks, and claimed that he was victim of a rigged system when talking about foreign pharmaceutical company drug pricing.
“At long last we’re stopping the drug companies in foreign countries from rigging the system,” Trump said. “I know all about the rigging the system because I had the system rigged on me.”
He also touted the work of drug-sniffing dogs like German Shepherds who work alongside CBP officers at the border.
“Dogs do a better job than four hundred million dollars worth of equipment,” Trump said. “We have a lot of dogs and they’re great dogs and we cherish them.”
Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-trump-takes-credit-progress-combating-opioid-crisis/story?id=62604618
In recent months before resigning from her position, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was prevented from convening senior cabinet meetings at the White House on potential future Russian interference in the upcoming 2020 U.S. elections, two senior administration officials familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Nielsen, whose department is charged with defending U.S. infrastructure including elections against cyber attacks, had been sounding the alarm publicly before the 2018 midterms. After the midterms, she pushed for the White House to convene a cabinet meeting to address the issue head-on, but the White House “refused,” according to one of the officials, forcing DHS to start convening meetings with principals on its own.
Nielsen was also told by White House staff the issue did not need to be brought to Trump’s attention, according to the official.
“The White House didn’t want to focus on the issue at a principals level, period,” the official told ABC News.
The last in-person principal-level cabinet meetings on the issue occurred before the November 2018 midterm elections, and since then there have been none, according to three senior administration officials. One said there have been smaller discussions about the topic among top national security officials.
“We are far, far better prepared than we were in 2016, but we are still way behind where our adversaries are. It’s clear the administration hasn’t made foreign interference a high enough priority. That’s a feeling felt throughout the interagency,” one of the officials said.
The New York Times first reported on Wednesday White House pushback to Nielsen’s efforts. The Times reported that acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told Nielsen specifically not to bring it up to the President, reportedly telling her it “wasn’t a great subject and should be kept below his level.”
In a statement to ABC News, Mulvaney said, “I don’t recall anything along those lines happening in any meeting, but unlike the Obama administration, who knew about Russian actions in 2014 and did nothing, the Trump administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections, and we’ve already taken many steps to prevent it in the future.”
The Obama administration did take some action against Russian election interference including private warnings and sanctions.
A spokesperson for the DHS did not respond to a request for comment. Nielsen resigned earlier this month. Garrett Marquis, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said in a statement, “National Security Council staff leads the regular and continuous coordination of the whole-of-government approach to addressing foreign malign influence and ensuring election security.
“Any suggestion that this Administration is giving less than full-throated effort to secure America’s elections is patently false,” he said.
The redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report sent to Congress last week laid out both what he described as Russia’s “sweeping and systematic” effort to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, as well as Trump’s concern that acknowledgment of that interference could undercut his electoral victory.
“After the election, the President expressed concerns to advisors that reports of Russia’s election interference might lead the public to question the legitimacy of his election,” the report said.
Even in the lead up to the midterm election lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including intelligence officials expressed frustration over what they saw as the administration’s lack of clear strategy to combat more Russian interference.
After the publication of the Mueller report, experts said it was “sobering” to see all of Russia’s efforts to undercut American society and the political process all in one place.
The U.S. intelligence community and previous Mueller indictments had already accused Russia of three interference efforts in 2016: a hack-and-leak operation that targeted democratic figures, a widespread online influence campaign designed to sow social and political discord in the U.S. and cyber attacks targeting election infrastructure itself, such as voter databases. But last week, the Mueller report laid out, in narrative detail, the push by the Kremlin to weaken American democracy – a strategy that officials and experts say continues today.
The 2018 midterm elections did not see the hack-and-leak strategy or any especially significant attacks on voting infrastructure, but foreign online influence operations continued unabated, an intelligence community assessment said. Top U.S. security officials have been vocal in their warnings that Russia, potentially along with China, Iran and others who learned dark lessons from 2016, are likely to take aim at the 2020 race.
“The risk of election interference by a foreign government is an existential national security threat,” John Cohen, a former senior Department of Homeland Security official and current ABC News contributor, said after the Mueller report’s release. “While some agencies like the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Cyber Command are working to mitigate this threat, the U.S. government can and must do more to address the threat to our election process, but that requires visible leadership from the White House and the president himself.”
Former Trump campaign advisor Chris Christie told the ABC News podcast “The Investigation” on April 18 that if he were speaking to the president he would tell him to “shift focus” now to the 2020 threat – both for practical and political reasons.
“You know, bring in [CIA Director] Gina Haspel and [FBI Director] Chris Wray, bring in the DNI [Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats] and say, ‘Listen, we now have a roadmap for what the Russians did, what are we doing to prepare for the 2020 election? I authorize you to do everything it is you need to do to protect the integrity of that election and we’ll work with Congress to make sure… if you need additional funding that you’ll get it in order to protect the integrity of our elections.’
“I have often thought that that would be a really productive thing for him to do, and a smart thing for him to do politically,” Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and current ABC News contributor, said.
Last week another spokesperson for the White House National Security Council declined to comment on Trump’s personal interest in Russian interference, but pointed to moves by the administration to counter foreign election interference, from broadening offensive cyber rules to paving a pathway for sanctions for those “determined to have interfered in a United States election,” to the Department of Justice indictments against suspected Russian operatives.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that he would warn his Russian counterparts about the “steadfast requirement that Russia not engage in activity that impacts the capacity of our democracy to be successful.”
“And we will make very clear to them that this is unacceptable behavior and as you’ve seen from this administration, we will take tough actions which raise the cost for Russian malign activity,” he said. “And we’ll continue to do that.”
Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dhs-chief-wanted-cabinet-level-election-threat-meetings/story?id=62598630
CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. (WIFR) — Updated: April 24, 2019, 2 p.m.
Crystal Lake Police and the FBI announced the recovery of AJ Freund’s body on Wednesday.
Freund’s parents face several chatges, including first-degree murder and concealing the death.
Police say the body was found wrapped in plastic in a shallow grave.
More details will be added to this story momentarily.
—–
Updated: April 24, 2019, 12:05 p.m.
The Chicago Tribune reports: “The body of the missing Crystal Lake 5-year-old, Andrew “AJ” Freund, has been found, according to a source close to the case.”
A news conference confirming more details on the search for a missing Crystal Lake boy has been pushed back to 1 p.m.
The update is scheduled one hour than previously planned, according to the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office.
——
Updated April 24, 2019, 9 a.m.
Police say they’ll hold a noon press conference to give an update in the case of 5-year-old Andrew “AJ” Freund.
Crystal Lake Police Chief James Black and FBI Special Agent Colin McGuire are speaking at City Hall.
AJ Freund was reported missing Thursday after disappearing from his parents’ home after being put to bed.
A custody hearing over the parents’ younger son, Parker, was pushed back to next week.
Police say AJ’s father spoke to authorities over the weekend, but his mother, JoAnn Cunningham, is not cooperating.
——
While the search for missing 5-year-old Andrew “AJ” Freund continues, Crystal Lake Police have released audio from a 911 call when he was reported missing.
Here is the redacted audio from the call, provided by the Crystal Lake Police Department on Facebook:
In the call made last Thursday, Andrew Freund Sr. tells an officer he arrived home from a doctor’s appointment to discover his son, was gone.
Freund Sr. says he searched the Crystal Lake house, garage, a park, and other locations, but could not find his son. The last time he says he saw his son was when he went to bed Wednesday night.
Crystal Lake Police have asked neighbors for surveillance video in the hunt for clues about the boy’s disappearance. Police say they boy’s mother, JoAnn Cunningham, is refusing to cooperate with the investigation.
Source Article from https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Report-Body-found-believed-to-be-missing-Crystal-Lake-boy-509009991.html
John William King, 44, an avowed racist who orchestrated the attack, is slated to be put to death Wednesday in Huntsville. He will be the second man executed in the case.
This crime has changed the life of local filmmaker Ricky Jason, who says he’s planning to travel to Huntsville because he wants to make sure the person he calls evil is executed.
RELATED: Second man to be executed this week for 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr.
Jason profiled the story in a documentary. He’s remained close with the Byrd family since then and says he has a closing message for King before he’s put to death.
“A jury has spoken,” said Jason. “I’m against capital punishment, but for what you did, John William King, if you’re watching this here, you deserve it.”
During his work, Jason says he wanted to speak to each of the convicted killers. He says 15 years ago, he received a written letter from King himself.
Prior to speaking with ABC13 Eyewitness News, he hasn’t shared the letter with anyone.
In the letter, King addressed Jason, and Byrd’s son, Ross.
“Do you and Ross really want to associate with an unrepentant racist supremacist like me?,” read the letter from King. “If not, speak now, or forever bite your tongues.”
King goes on to write he wasn’t there at the time of the murder, and offered no remorse.
“That don’t show a person has changed,” said Jason. “That shows that he’s still full of hate for blacks, and people of color.”
Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed in 2011. The third participant, Shawn Allen Berry, was sentenced to life in prison.
King is set to be executed on Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Source Article from https://abc13.com/society/letter-tells-story-of-avowed-racist-who-killed-james-byrd-jr/5267113/
In fact, Trump’s personal complaint against House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings, D-Md., is the mirror image of the arguments he advanced to defend his travel ban, which the Supreme Court upheld last year in Trump v. Hawaii.
Source Article from https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/04/24/harry-litman-rude/