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An aerial view of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is seen, Aug. 10, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. Lawyers for Donald Trump were in court Friday, Dec. 9, for sealed arguments as part of the ongoing investigation into the presence of classified information at the former president’s Florida estate.
An aerial view of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is seen, Aug. 10, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. Lawyers for Donald Trump were in court Friday, Dec. 9, for sealed arguments as part of the ongoing investigation into the presence of classified information at the former president’s Florida estate.
Trump lawyers in court for sealed hearing in Mar-a-Lago case
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Donald Trump were in court Friday for sealed arguments as part of the ongoing investigation into the presence of classified information at the former president’s Florida estate.
The proceedings were taking place before U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, the chief judge of the federal court in the District of Columbia. Defense lawyers were seen entering the courtroom around 2 p.m. and left more than an hour later without addressing reporters.
A lawyer for The Associated Press and other news organizations had submitted a letter earlier Friday requesting media access to the hearing, but despite that, it took place entirely behind closed doors.
Court spokeswoman Lisa Klem said in a statement that the hearing concerned “an ongoing and sealed grand jury matter” that remains under seal.
It was not immediately clear what the outcome of the proceedings were. The Washington Post, relying on anonymous sources, reported on Thursday that the Justice Department had earlier asked Howell to hold Trump’s office in contempt for failure to fully comply with a May subpoena that sought the return of classified documents in his possession. The department also wants the Trump team to appoint a custodian of records who could attest that all classified documents have been returned, according to the Post.
Lawyers for Trump declined to comment ahead of the hearing. A Justice Department spokesman also did not return a phone message seeking comment Friday afternoon.
The roughly 100 documents marked as classified that the FBI took from Mar-a-Lago in August were on top of 37 documents bearing classification markings that Trump lawyers retrieved from the home during a June visit. In addition, 15 boxes containing about 184 classified documents were recovered in January by the National Archives and Records Administration.
The possibility that the Justice Department had not yet recovered all classified materials has existed for months.
The FBI’s August search of the home came after investigators developed evidence indicating that additional sensitive documents remained there, even though Trump representatives had certified in June that all classified documents requested in a Justice Department subpoena had been located and returned.
Ex-cop who kneeled on George Floyd’s back gets 3.5-year term
MINNEAPOLIS — The former Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on George Floyd’s back while another officer kneeled on the Black man’s neck was sentenced Friday to 3 1/2 years in prison.
J. Alexander Kueng pleaded guilty in October to a state count of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. In exchange, a charge of aiding and abetting murder was dropped. Kueng is already serving a federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights, and the state and federal sentences will be served at the same time.
Kueng appeared at the hearing via video from a federal prison in Ohio. When given the chance to address the court, he declined.
With credit for time served and different parole guidelines in the state and federal systems, Kueng will likely serve a total of about 2 1/2 years behind bars.
Floyd died on May 25, 2020, after former Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes as Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe and eventually went limp. The killing, which was recorded on video by a bystander, sparked worldwide protests as part of a broader reckoning over racial injustice.
Kueng kneeled on Floyd’s back during the restraint. Then-Officer Thomas Lane held Floyd’s legs and Tou Thao, also an officer at the time, kept bystanders from intervening. All of the officers were fired and faced state and federal charges.
As part of his plea agreement, Kueng admitted that he held Floyd’s torso, that he knew from his experience and training that restraining a handcuffed person in a prone position created a substantial risk, and that the restraint of Floyd was unreasonable under the circumstances. Floyd of his right to medical care, and Thao and Kueng were also convicted of failing to intervene to stop Chauvin during the killing.
Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema switches to independent
WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona announced Friday she has registered as an independent, a renegade move that could bolster her political brand but won’t upend the Democrats’ narrow Senate majority. She says she will not caucus with Republicans.
Sinema, who faces reelection in 2024, has been a vibrant yet often unpredictable force in the Senate, tending toward the state’s independent streak and frustrating Democratic colleagues at times with her overtures to Republicans and opposition to Democratic priorities.
“I just don’t fit well into a traditional party system,” Sinema she said in an interview Friday.
In the interview, Sinema said she hasn’t decided whether she will run for reelection. But she said this was the time to be “true to myself and true to the values of the Arizonans I represent.”
While unusual for a sitting senator to switch party affiliation, Sinema’s decision may well have more impact on her own political livelihood than the operations of the Senate. She plans to continue her committee positions through the Democrats. Her move comes just days after Democrats had expanded their majority to 51-49 for the new year, following the party’s runoff election win in Georgia.
The Democrats “will maintain our new majority on committees, exercise our subpoena power and be able to clear nominees without discharge votes,” he said.
In case of tie votes, Vice President Kamala Harris will continue to provide the winning vote for Democrats.
Sinema, who has modeled her political approach on the maverick style of the late Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, will join a small but influential group of independent senators aligned with the Democrats — Sen. Angus King of Maine and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
The move to forgo a political party will scramble the Senate election landscape for 2024 as Democrats already face a tough path to maintaining Senate control. Her switch risks splitting the Democratic vote in Arizona between her and the eventual Democratic nominee, giving Republicans a solid opening.
Club shooter’s 2021 bomb case dropped, family uncooperative
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooter had charges dropped in a 2021 bomb threat case after family members who were terrorized in the incident refused to cooperate, according to the district attorney and unsealed court documents.
The charges were dropped despite authorities a finding a tub with more than 100 pounds (45 kilograms) of explosive materials and later receiving warnings from other relatives that suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich was sure to hurt or murder a set of grandparents if freed, according to the documents, which were unsealed Thursday.
In a letter last November to state District Court Judge Robin Chittum, the relatives painted a picture of an isolated, violent person who did not have a job and was given $30,000 that was spent largely on the purchase of 3D printers to make guns. Chittum is the same judge who ruled to unseal the case Thursday.
Aldrich tried to reclaim guns seized after the threat, but authorities did not return the weapons, El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen said. The case included allegations that Aldrich threatened to kill the grandparents in a chilling confrontation during which the suspect described plans to become the “next mass killer” more than a year before the nightclub attack that killed five people.
The suspect’s mother and the grandparents derailed that earlier case by evading prosecutors’ efforts to serve them with a subpoena, leading to a dismissal of the charges after defense attorneys said speedy trial rules were at risk, Allen said.
Testifying at a hearing two months after the threat, the suspect’s mother and grandmother described Aldrich in court as a “loving” and “sweet” young person who did not deserve to be jailed, the prosecutor said.
The former district attorney who was replaced by Allen told The Associated Press he faced many cases in which people dodged subpoenas, but the inability to serve Aldrich’s family seemed extraordinary.
“I don’t know that they were hiding, but if that was the case, shame on them,” Dan May said of the suspect’s family. “This is an extreme example of apparent manipulation that has resulted in something horrible.”
Aldrich’s attorney, public defender Joseph Archambault, had argued against the document release, saying Aldrich’s right to a fair trial was paramount.
“This will make sure there is no presumption of innocence,” Archambault said.
The grandmother’s in-laws wrote to the court in November 2021 saying Alrich was a continuing danger and should remain incarcerated. The letter also said police tried to hold Aldrich for 72 hours after a prior response to the home, but the grandmother intervened.
“We believe that my brother, and his wife, would undergo bodily harm or more if Anderson were released. Besides being incarcerated, we believe Anderson needs therapy and counseling,” Robert Pullen and Jeanie Streltzoff wrote. They said Aldrich had punched holes in the walls of the grandparents’ Colorado home and broken windows and that the grandparents “had to sleep in their bedroom with the door locked” and a bat by the bed.
During Aldrich’s teenage years in San Antonio, the letter said, Aldrich attacked the grandfather and sent him to the emergency room with undisclosed injuries. The grandfather later lied to police out of fear of Aldrich, according to the letter, which said the suspect could not get along with classmates as a youth so had been homeschooled.
The judge’s order came after news organizations, including the AP, sought to unseal the documents, and two days after the AP published portions of the documents that were verified with a law enforcement official.
Aldrich, 22, was arrested in June 2021 on allegations of making a threat that led to the evacuation of about 10 homes. The documents describe how Aldrich told the frightened grandparents about firearms and bomb-making material in the grandparents’ basement and vowed not to let them interfere with plans for Aldrich to be “the next mass killer” and “go out in a blaze.”
Aldrich — who uses they/them pronouns and is nonbinary, according to their attorneys — holed up in their mother’s home in a standoff with SWAT teams and warned about having armor-piercing rounds and a determination to “go to the end.” Investigators later searched the mother’s and grandparents’ houses and found and seized handguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, body armor, magazines, a gas mask and a 12-gallon tub with explosive chemicals.
The tub had bags with an estimated 113 pounds of ammonium nitrate and packets of aluminum powder that are explosive when combined, the documents show.
A sheriff’s report said there had been prior calls to law enforcement referring to Aldrich’s “escalating homicidal behavior” but did not elaborate. A sheriff’s office spokesperson did not immediately provide more information.
The grandparents’ call to 911 led to the suspect’s arrest, and Aldrich was booked into jail on suspicion of felony menacing and kidnapping. But after their bond was set at $1 million, Aldrich’s mother and grandparents sought to lower the bond, which was reduced to $100,000 with conditions including therapy.
The case was dropped when attempts to serve the family members with subpoenas to testify against Aldrich failed, according to Allen. Both grandparents moved out of state, complicating the subpoena process, Allen said.
UK cost-of-living woes stir push for more free school meals
BIRMINGHAM, England — As the school bell rings, dozens of children begin filing into the canteen at Hillstone Primary School. The day’s offering, a roast dinner, is a popular one, and many are eager to tuck into their plates of turkey slices, roasted potatoes, broccoli and gravy.
For some children in this area of suburban Birmingham, central England, where many families are low income, it may be the only nutritious hot meal in a day.
Some students eating sandwiches from their lunchboxes instead say they get one hot lunch a week, but they would like more. “My mum says it costs a bit more,” one girl said last week.
Free school lunches are provided for all 4- to 7-year-olds in England, but most parents of older children have to pay about 2.20 pounds ($2.70) a day for their child to have a cooked meal. That may sound like a small amount, but charities and teachers say it’s becoming increasingly unaffordable for hundreds of thousands of families struggling to cope with the United Kingdom’s worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.
Whether Britain’s government should spend to feed more schoolchildren is a hot-button issue as more families fall into poverty and cannot afford basics after paying their skyrocketing energy and food bills. The government said it will keep reviewing meal eligibility and pointed to other relief given to needy families.
Inflation in the U.K. has hit a 41-year high of 11.1%, driven in large part by gas and electricity costs, which have almost doubled from last winter amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. Prices for staples like milk, butter and pasta also have shot up by some 30%.
To qualify for free school lunches, England’s households have to receive government benefits and earn less than 7,400 pounds ($9,021) a year. That’s below the threshold in parts of the U.S., Europe and even elsewhere in the U.K.
The Food Foundation, a charity leading a campaign to extend the free school lunch program, argues the income level is too low. It estimates that 800,000 children in England are living in poverty but not eligible for free meals.
“It’s those children who we are really worried right now during the cost-of-living crisis, because those families are having to make really tough choices about where to spend their money,” said Anna Taylor, the charity’s executive director.
To save cash, many parents don’t pay for a school meal and pack their kids a lunch, which often isn’t as nutritious, Taylor said.
“We’ve been hearing from teachers that children are going to school with empty lunchboxes or with stuff that they’re very ashamed to show to their friends,” she added.
During the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Food Foundation and soccer star Marcus Rashford persuaded Britain’s government to provide free meals to children in poverty over the school holidays. Rashford, who spoke of his mother struggling to put food on the table, helped sway the government to change its policies that allowed 1.3 million children to claim free meals.
Taylor said many Britons are now even worse off because some never recovered from pandemic job losses before being hit with massively higher bills. Monthly surveys conducted by her charity suggested that the number of families saying they have had to skip or have smaller meals because they couldn’t afford food has doubled over the course of January to October.
“It’s unprecedented levels of food insecurity right now,” she said.
The Department of Education said the government understands the “pressures” many households face and that it is already giving cost-of-living subsidies to millions of the poorest families, supporting “more children and young people than ever before.” It added that officials will “keep all free school meal eligibility under review.”
At Hillstone Primary, 51% of children qualify for free lunches, and headteacher Jason King says many of the others also need financial help. Some parents even approached the school for food.
Iran executes first known prisoner arrested in protests
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran said Thursday it executed a prisoner convicted for a crime allegedly committed during the country’s ongoing nationwide protests, the first such death penalty carried out by Tehran.
The execution of Mohsen Shekari comes as other detainees also face the possibility of the death penalty for their involvement in the protests, which began in mid-September, first as an outcry against Iran’s morality police. The protests have expanded into one of the most serious challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Activists warn that others could also be put to death in the near future, saying that at least a dozen people so far have received death sentences over their involvement in the demonstrations.
The execution “must be met with strong reactions otherwise we will be facing daily executions of protesters,” wrote Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights. “This execution must have rapid practical consequences internationally.”
The Mizan news agency, run by Iran’s judiciary, said Shekari had been convicted in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, which typically holds closed-door cases. The tribunals have been internationally criticized for not allowing those on trial to pick their own lawyers or even see the evidence against them.
Shekari was accused of blocking a street in Tehran and attacking with a machete a member of the security forces, who required stitches for his wounds, the agency said.
The Mizan report also alleged that Shekari said he had been offered money by an acquaintance to attack the security forces.
Iran’s government for months has been trying to allege — without offering evidence — that foreign countries have fomented the unrest. Protesters say they are angry over the collapse of the economy, heavy-handed policing and the entrenched power of the country’s Islamic clergy.
Mizan said Shekari had been arrested on Sept. 25, then convicted on Nov. 20 on the charge of “moharebeh,” a Farsi word meaning “waging war against God.” That charge has been levied against others in the decades since 1979 and carries the death penalty. Mizan said an appeal by Shekari’s lawyer against the sentence failed.
After his execution, Iranian state television aired a heavily edited package showing the courtroom and parts of Shekari’s trial, presided over by Judge Abolghassem Salavati.
Salavati faces U.S. sanctions for meting out harsh punishments.
“Salavati alone has sentenced more than 100 political prisoners, human right activists, media workers and others seeking to exercise freedom of assembly to lengthy prison terms as well as several death sentences,” the U.S. Treasury said in sanctioning him in 2019.
“Judges on these Revolutionary Courts, including Salavati, have acted as both judge and prosecutor, deprived prisoners of access to lawyers and intimidated defendants.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said America was “appalled” by Shekari’s execution.
“Our message to Iran’s leadership is clear: End this brutal crackdown,” Blinken wrote on Twitter. “We will continue to hold the Iranian regime accountable.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock condemned Shekari’s execution in a Twitter post, saying “the Iranian regime’s contempt for humanity is limitless.”
James Cleverly, the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, described himself as “outraged” and said: “The world cannot turn a blind eye to the abhorrent violence committed by the Iranian regime against its own people.”
France’s Foreign Ministry said the “execution is yet another instance of the serious, unacceptable violations of fundamental rights and freedoms committed by the Iranian authorities.”
And the European Union said it “condemns his execution in the strongest possible terms.”
Iran has been rocked by protests since the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being detained by the country’s morality police. At least 475 people have been killed in the demonstrations amid a heavy-handed security crackdown, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that’s been monitoring the protests since they began. Over 18,000 have been detained by authorities.
Iran is one of the world’s top executioners. It typically executes prisoners by hanging. Already, Amnesty International said it obtained a document signed by one senior Iranian police commander asking an execution for one prisoner be “completed ‘in the shortest possible time’ and that his death sentence be carried out in public as ‘a heart-warming gesture towards the security forces.'”
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Thursday reiterated the organization’s strong opposition to the death penalty.
“And we deplore what we see today in Iran and sadly we see in other countries,” Dujarric said. “What we would want to see is a world where there is no death penalty.”
Manatee relative, 700 new species now facing extinction
Populations of a vulnerable species of marine mammal, numerous species of abalone and a type of Caribbean coral are now threatened with extinction, an international conservation organization said Friday.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature announced the update during the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, conference in Montreal. The union’s hundreds of members include government agencies from around the world, and it’s one of the planet’s widest-reaching environmental networks.
The IUCN uses its Red List of Threatened Species to categorize animals approaching extinction. This year, the union is sounding the alarm about the dugong — a large and docile marine mammal that lives from the eastern coast of Africa to the western Pacific Ocean.
The dugong is vulnerable throughout its range, and now populations in East Africa have entered the red list as critically endangered, IUCN said in a statement. Populations in New Caledonia have entered the list as endangered, the group said.
The major threats to the animal are unintentional capture in fishing gear in East Africa and poaching in New Caledonia, IUCN said. It also suffers from boat collisions and loss of the seagrasses it eats, said Evan Trotzuk, who led the East Africa red list assessment.
“Strengthening community-led fisheries governance and expanding work opportunities beyond fishing are key in East Africa, where marine ecosystems are fundamental to people’s food security and livelihoods,” Trotzuk said.
The IUCN Red List includes more than 150,000 species. The list sometimes overlaps with the species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, such as in the case of the North Atlantic right whale. More than 42,000 of the species on the red list are threatened with extinction, IUCN says.
IUCN uses several categories to describe an animal’s status, ranging from “least concern” to “critically endangered.” IUCN typically updates the red list two or three times a year. This week’s update includes more than 3,000 additions to the red list. Of those, 700 are threatened with extinction.
Jane Smart, head of IUCN’s Centre for Science and Data, said it will take political will to save the jeopardized species, and the gravity of the new listings can serve as a clarion call.
“The news we often give you on this is often gloomy, a little bit depressing, but it sparks the action, which is good,” Smart said.
Pillar coral, which is found throughout the Caribbean, was moved from vulnerable to critically endangered in this week’s update. The coral is threatened by a tissue loss disease, and its population has shrunk by more than 80% across most of its range since 1990, IUCN said. The IUCN lists more than two dozen corals in the Atlantic Ocean as critically endangered.
Almost half the corals in the Atlantic are “at elevated risk of extinction due to climate change and other impacts,” Beth Polidoro, an associate professor at Arizona State University and red list coordinator for IUCN.
Unsustainable harvesting and poaching have emerged as threats to abalone, which are used as seafood, IUCN said. Twenty of the 54 abalone species in the world are threatened with extinction according to the red list’s first global assessment of the species.
Threats to the abalone are compounded by climate change, diseases and pollution, the organization said.
“This red list update brings to light new evidence of the multiple interacting threats to declining life in the sea,” said Jon Paul Rodríguez, chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.
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