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WHITE HOUSE: A Proclamation on Honoring the Victims of the Tragedy in Allen, Texas
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/05/07/a-proclamation-on-honoring-the-victims-of-the-tragedy-in-allen-texas/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/texas-mall-shooting-live-updates-rcna83297
Why so many mass killings? Families, experts seek answers
By STEFANIE DAZIO and LARRY FENN today
Related coverage
Agents reviewing Texas gunman’s extremist social media postings
https://apnews.com/article/shooting-outlet-mall-allen-texas-cf100ef3cfc6e3c2e687119c06191b87?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=RelatedStories&utm_campaign=position_01
Lives immigrants built in Texas town shattered by shooting
https://apnews.com/article/texas-mass-shooting-immigrants-victims-df61a57ec5fb0db16be7b2f2cbd3d5e5?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=RelatedStories&utm_campaign=position_02
Frequent shootings put US mass killings on a record pace
https://apnews.com/article/mass-killings-record-pace-2023-d685a6cd67e0f449f3f9d1d8713d451c?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=RelatedStories&utm_campaign=position_03
In this Oct. 4, 2017, file photo, agents from the FBI continue to process evidence at the scene of a mass shooting in Las Vegas.
It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history on the Las Vegas Strip in 2017.
More than 100 people have been killed in mass shootings thus far in 2023, an average of one mass killing a week. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
More than five years after his son was gunned down in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, Richard Berger still asks why.
Why Stephen Berger was killed the day after celebrating his 44th birthday. Why the gunman rained bullets over the Las Vegas Strip in 2017, turning a country music festival into a bloodbath. Why the massacre’s death toll didn’t shock U.S. leaders into doing more to prevent that kind of violence from happening again and again.
Why?
“It’s just a hole in our hearts,” Berger said. “We just don’t know, and we just don’t know what to say.”
For the Bergers, the families of the other 59 victims in Vegas — and relatives and friends of countless others slain in mass killings across the country in the years since — the questions loom just as large now as when the crimes happened. Yet the carnage continues.
Over the first four months and six days of this year, 115 people have died in 22 mass killings —
an average of one mass killing a week .. .https://apnews.com/article/mass-killings-record-pace-2023-d685a6cd67e0f449f3f9d1d8713d451c
That includes the bloodshed Saturday at a Dallas-area mall where eight people were fatally shot. .. https://apnews.com/article/shooting-outlet-mall-allen-texas-cf100ef3cfc6e3c2e687119c06191b87
The total represents the highest number of mass-killing deaths this early in the year since at least 2006, an Associated Press data analysis shows, and the deaths were already happening at a record pace before the horror unfolded in Texas.
"Texas mall shooting live updates: Victims identified in massacre at Allen Premium Outlets"
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/texas-mall-shooting-live-updates-rcna83297
Experts point to a few contributing factors: a general increase in all types of gun violence in recent years; the proliferation of firearms amid lax gun laws; the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, including the stress of long months in quarantine; a political climate unable or unwilling to change the status quo in meaningful ways; and an increased emphasis on violence in U.S. culture.
Such explanations are little comfort not only to the families ripped apart by the killings but to Americans everywhere who are reeling from the cascading, collective trauma of mass violence.
US on record pace for mass killings
This year has seen more mass killings to date than any other year since data collection started in 2006
[...] More and graphics
https://apnews.com/article/mass-shootings-gun-violence-why-78d4a122a1807f956b6e52e253b5428b?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01
WHITE HOUSE: A Proclamation on Honoring the Victims of the Tragedy in Allen, Texas
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/05/07/a-proclamation-on-honoring-the-victims-of-the-tragedy-in-allen-texas/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/texas-mall-shooting-live-updates-rcna83297
Why so many mass killings? Families, experts seek answers
By STEFANIE DAZIO and LARRY FENN today
Related coverage
Agents reviewing Texas gunman’s extremist social media postings
https://apnews.com/article/shooting-outlet-mall-allen-texas-cf100ef3cfc6e3c2e687119c06191b87?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=RelatedStories&utm_campaign=position_01
Lives immigrants built in Texas town shattered by shooting
https://apnews.com/article/texas-mass-shooting-immigrants-victims-df61a57ec5fb0db16be7b2f2cbd3d5e5?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=RelatedStories&utm_campaign=position_02
Frequent shootings put US mass killings on a record pace
https://apnews.com/article/mass-killings-record-pace-2023-d685a6cd67e0f449f3f9d1d8713d451c?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=RelatedStories&utm_campaign=position_03
In this Oct. 4, 2017, file photo, agents from the FBI continue to process evidence at the scene of a mass shooting in Las Vegas.
It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history on the Las Vegas Strip in 2017.
More than 100 people have been killed in mass shootings thus far in 2023, an average of one mass killing a week. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
More than five years after his son was gunned down in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, Richard Berger still asks why.
Why Stephen Berger was killed the day after celebrating his 44th birthday. Why the gunman rained bullets over the Las Vegas Strip in 2017, turning a country music festival into a bloodbath. Why the massacre’s death toll didn’t shock U.S. leaders into doing more to prevent that kind of violence from happening again and again.
Why?
“It’s just a hole in our hearts,” Berger said. “We just don’t know, and we just don’t know what to say.”
For the Bergers, the families of the other 59 victims in Vegas — and relatives and friends of countless others slain in mass killings across the country in the years since — the questions loom just as large now as when the crimes happened. Yet the carnage continues.
Over the first four months and six days of this year, 115 people have died in 22 mass killings —
an average of one mass killing a week .. .https://apnews.com/article/mass-killings-record-pace-2023-d685a6cd67e0f449f3f9d1d8713d451c
That includes the bloodshed Saturday at a Dallas-area mall where eight people were fatally shot. .. https://apnews.com/article/shooting-outlet-mall-allen-texas-cf100ef3cfc6e3c2e687119c06191b87
The total represents the highest number of mass-killing deaths this early in the year since at least 2006, an Associated Press data analysis shows, and the deaths were already happening at a record pace before the horror unfolded in Texas.
"Texas mall shooting live updates: Victims identified in massacre at Allen Premium Outlets"
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/texas-mall-shooting-live-updates-rcna83297
Experts point to a few contributing factors: a general increase in all types of gun violence in recent years; the proliferation of firearms amid lax gun laws; the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, including the stress of long months in quarantine; a political climate unable or unwilling to change the status quo in meaningful ways; and an increased emphasis on violence in U.S. culture.
Such explanations are little comfort not only to the families ripped apart by the killings but to Americans everywhere who are reeling from the cascading, collective trauma of mass violence.
US on record pace for mass killings
This year has seen more mass killings to date than any other year since data collection started in 2006
[...] More and graphics
https://apnews.com/article/mass-shootings-gun-violence-why-78d4a122a1807f956b6e52e253b5428b?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01
Jan. 6 prosecutors seek 25 years for Oath Keepers’ Rhodes
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER yesterday
FILE - Stewart Rhodes, founder of the citizen militia group known as the Oath Keepers, speaks during a rally outside the White House in Washington, on June 25, 2017. The Justice Department is seeking 25 years in prison for Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as a violent plot to keep President Joe Biden out of the White House, according to court papers filed Friday, May 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
The Justice Department is seeking 25 years in prison for Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder .. https://apnews.com/article/oath-keepers-founder-guilty-of-seditious-conspiracy-42affe1614425c6820f7cbe8fd18ba96 .. convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as a violent plot to keep President Joe Biden out of the White House, prosecutors said in court papers filed Friday.
A Washington, D.C., jury convicted Rhodes in November in one of the most consequential cases brought in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters assaulted police officers, smashed windows and temporarily halted Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory.
Prosecutors described the Oath Keepers’ actions as “terrorism,” and told the judge that a harsh sentence is critical to deter future political violence. They wrote that Rhodes believes he has done nothing wrong and “still presents a threat to American democracy and lives.”
“Rhodes used his powers of persuasion and his platform as leader of the Oath Keepers to radicalize more than 20 other American citizens to oppose by force the authority of the government of the United States,” prosecutors wrote in the nearly 200-page court filing. “Those who have studied Rhodes and who know him best suggest that such behavior is completely in character and unlikely to change.”
Jurors found that Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, plotted an armed rebellion with members of his far-right extremist group to stop the transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden. In addition to seditious conspiracy, Rhodes was convicted of obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory. Both charges calls for up to 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors asked the judge to go above the standard sentencing guidelines, arguing the crimes deserve a longer sentence for terrorism because the goal was to influence the government through intimidation or coercion.
Prosecutors wrote that Rhodes, in media interviews behind bars, portrays himself as a victim of a politically motivated prosecution and “continues to invoke the words and deeds of the Founding Fathers in not-so-veiled calls for violent opposition to the government.”
Rhodes is scheduled to be sentenced on May 25. As of Friday evening, Rhodes’ attorneys hadn’t yet filed papers indicating how much time they will ask the judge to impose. They have vowed to appeal his conviction.
Prosecutors are seeking prison sentences ranging from 10 to 21 years for eight other Oath Keepers defendants convicted at trials.
The Justice Department asked for 21 years behind bars for Kelly Meggs, the Florida chapter leader convicted of the sedition charge alongside Rhodes.
Meggs’ attorney urged the judge in court papers filed late Friday to sentence him to no more than 28 months, saying his client did not participate in any violence or destruction at the Capitol. Meggs’ lawyer called what happened of Jan. 6 “abhorrent,” but said the events that day “do not reflect Mr. Meggs’s true character, nor his respect for the law.”
“Mr. Meggs undoubtedly accepts responsibility for his actions and has spent every day while detained regretting any involvement he had with the Oath Keepers and the events of January 6,” his attorney wrote.
The sentencing recommendations come a day after jurors in a different case convicted four leaders of another extremist group, the Proud Boys — including former national chairman Enrique Tarrio — of seditious conspiracy. The Proud Boys were accused of a separate plot to forcibly keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.
Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate and former Army paratrooper, didn’t go inside the Capitol. Taking the witness stand at trial, he insisted there was no plan to attack the Capitol and said the Oath Keepers who did acted on their own. Rhodes said the Oath Keepers’ only mission that day was to provide security for Trump ally Roger Stone and other figures at events before the riot.
Prosecutors built their case around dozens of encrypted messages and other communications in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 that showed Rhodes rallying his followers to fight to defend Trump and warning they might need to “rise up in insurrection” to defeat Biden if Trump didn’t act.
Hundreds of people have been convicted in the riot, but Rhodes and Meggs were the first Jan. 6 defendants convicted at trial of seditious conspiracy. Three other defendants on trial with them were acquitted of seditious conspiracy, but convicted of obstructing Congress. Another four Oath Keepers were convicted of the sedition charge during a second trial.
“These defendants were prepared to fight. Not for their country, but against it.
In their own words, they were ‘willing to die’ in a ‘guerilla war’ to achieve their goal of halting the transfer of power after the 2020 Presidential Election,” prosecutors wrote.
Jurors in Rhodes’ case saw video of his followers wearing combat gear and shouldering their way through the crowd in military-style stack formation before forcing their way into the Capitol.
Rhodes spent thousands of dollars on an AR-platform rifle, magazines, mounts, sights and other equipment on his way to Washington ahead of the riot, prosecutors told jurors. Prosecutors said Oath Keepers stashed weapons for “quick reaction force” teams prosecutors said were ready to get weapons into the city quickly if they were needed. The weapons were never deployed
The trial revealed new details about Rhodes’ efforts to pressure Trump to fight to stay in the White House in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6. Shortly after the election, in a group chat that included Stone, Rhodes wrote, “So will you step up and push Trump to FINALLY take decisive action?”
Another man testified that after the riot, Rhodes tried to persuade him to pass along a message to Trump that urged the president not to give up his fight to hold onto power. The intermediary — a man who told jurors he had an indirect way to reach the president — recorded his meeting with Rhodes and went to the FBI instead of giving the message to Trump. During that meeting, Rhodes said they “should have brought rifles” on Jan. 6.
Associated Press reporter Michael Kunzelman in Washington contributed
https://apnews.com/article/stewart-rhodes-oath-keepers-seditious-conspiracy-sentencing-daba8199cbc1d98c54f042452696e9c8
King Charles III and Queen Camilla crowned: Highlights from the coronation
Crowds cheered the royal couple after a ceremony steeped in tradition at Westminster Abbey, where monarchs have been crowned since 1066.
Updated May 6, 2023, 12:06 PM CDT
By NBC News
04:07
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/king-charles-coronation-live-updates-rcna80824
LONDON — King Charles III was crowned monarch of the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland on Saturday, in a ceremony steeped in a millennium of tradition and pageantry.
Shouts of “God Save the King!” were heard, trumpets blared and gun salutes rang out after the Archbishop of Canterbury placed the crown on Charles’s head at Westminster Abbey. The coronation comes almost eight months after Charles ascended the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Sept. 8.
Charles, 74, and his wife, Queen Camilla, 75, then returned to Buckingham Palace in a sumptuous procession cheered on by crowds lining the roads despite the heavy rain. Soon after, the couple and other members of the family, including Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales, and their three children appeared on the palace’s balcony and greeted a flag-waving crowd below them.
Not everyone is a fan of King Charles and the royals, however, and at least 25 anti-monarchy activists and other protesters were arrested earlier on Saturday. For many, the royal opulence is a bad-taste juxtaposition with what’s really going on in modern Britain: Economic hardship for millions.
[...]
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/king-charles-coronation-live-updates-rcna80824
'It's a horror show': Bill Barr slams Trump when asked if his ex-boss is 'fit' for presidency
Story by David McAfee • 2h ago
Donald Trump, Bill Barr in in Washington, DC on May 22, 2019
© Raw Story
Former Attorney General Bill Barr slammed Former President Donald Trump when asked by Geraldo Rivera whether Trump is "fit" to be president.
Rivera begins by telling Barr, who previously served in the Trump administration, that he is the most "honest" person in Washington, and that he trusts him. Rivera then asks, "Do you think he is emotionally fit to be President of the United States? Is he fit to be president of the United States?"
"This is the way I'll answer that, Geraldo," Barr says to laughter in the crowd. He adds, "If you believe in his policies, what he's advertising as his policies, he's the last person who could actually execute them and achieve them."
"He does not have the discipline. He does not have the ability for strategic thinking and linear thinking or setting priorities, or how to get things done in the system," Barr said. "It's a horror show when he's left to his own devices."
01:52
Related video: Former Attorney General Bill Barr weighs in on Trump's legal issues
(Daily Mail)
"You may want his policies, but Trump will not deliver Trump policies.
He will deliver chaos and, if anything, lead to a backlash that will set his policies much further back than they otherwise would be.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/it-s-a-horror-show-bill-barr-slams-trump-when-asked-if-his-ex-boss-is-fit-for-presidency/ar-AA1aNNmr?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=f72b6fd13b4a4e808619556c19eae112&ei=25
Jury convicts Proud Boys members of seditious conspiracy in US Capitol attack
By Sarah N. Lynch
May 4, 2023 11:20 AM ET
Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, shown here at a protest in support for Cubans demonstrating against their government in Miami on July 16, 2021.
Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP via Getty Images
Former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the far-right Proud Boys group have been found guilty of seditious conspiracy by a federal jury in Washington, D.C.
Jurors also convicted Tarrio and the others of obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging their duties, obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder and destruction of government property with value of over $1,000 in one of the most important cases to date stemming from the siege on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Jurors failed to reach a verdict on seditious conspiracy as to one other defendant, Dominic Pezzola, who is well known for taking a shield from a police officer on Jan. 6 and using it to bash in a window at the Capitol.
Judge Timothy Kelly polled the jurors on the charges and instructed to return to deliberate on other counts for which they have failed to reach a verdict. He excused them at 11:13 A.M.
The verdict amounts to a significant victory for the Justice Department, which has now secured convictions against top leaders of both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers for their roles in the attempt to keep former President Trump in power and stop certification of the 2020 election. .. https://www.npr.org/2023/01/13/1148172095/proud-boys-trial-tarrio-opening-statements-jan-6-capitol
"Politics was no longer something for the debating floor or the voting booth," prosecutor Conor Mulroe told jurors in his closing argument last week. "For them, politics meant actual physical violence. ... And they liked it and they were good at it."
Tarrio and the other defendants, who have been held in federal custody in the course of the trial, face as many as 20 years in prison on the most serious charges against them.
Former President Donald Trump has loomed over the trial like a shadow.
Both prosecutors and defense lawyers played the jury a video of Trump calling on the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by" during a presidential debate, a moment that made the club jubilant and produced a flood of new membership inquiries.
Lawyers for Tarrio, who spent Jan. 6 in a Baltimore hotel room, but who monitored the action from afar, argued he was a mere "scapegoat" for the Justice Department and a far easier target.
"It was Donald Trump's words, it was his motivation, it was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6 in your amazing and beautiful city," Hassan said. "They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald Trump and those in power."
But prosecutors reminded the jury that after a mob overtook the Capitol that day, Tarrio sent a message that read, "make no mistake, we did this."
The sprawling case included 500,000 chat messages, video clips, podcasts and even a police riot shield. FBI special agents, police on the front lines on January 6, and former members of the Proud Boys who pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors made up the bulk of the Justice Department witness list.
Two defendants also agreed to testify — with checkered results.
Zachary Rehl, the former leader of the Philadelphia chapter of the Proud Boys, painted himself as a family man only to be confronted with video of him allegedly spraying law enforcement officers with chemicals.
Pezzola, who broke a window in the Capitol that other rioters used to pour into the building, told jurors he took responsibility for his mistakes that day, only to call the case "corrupt" in an outburst during cross examination.
Defense lawyers said there was not a scrap of written evidence that the men had conspired to stop the certification of the election by using force.
"There are no statements in any of those chats regarding stopping the transfer of power ... with or without force," Hassan said.
Nick Smith, an attorney for defendant Ethan Nordean, cited "nearly constant attempts to lure you into rendering a judgment based on anger" about the defendants' right-wing political views and inflammatory language.
The other defendant is Joseph Biggs, a former military service member who worked for the conspiracy site InfoWars. His attorney, Norm Pattis, told jurors many of the Proud Boys genuinely believed the 2020 election had been stolen.
"Why do I stress the president's role?" Pattis asked the jury. "He's not on trial here much though I wish he were. ... If my president tells me my republic is being stolen, who do I listen to: the thief or the commander in chief?"
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1172530436/proud-boys-jan-6-sedition-trial-verdict
I saw this cycling event mentioned on Atlantic...
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2023/04/photos-of-the-week-martian-moon-human-tower-kazakh-camel/673887/?utm_source=&silverid=%%RECIPIENT_ID%%
9. The pack of riders cycles up a narrow street during the men's elite race of the Liège-Bastogne-Liège one-day cycling event in Belgium, on April 23, 2023. #
================================================
Liège-Bastogne-Liège | EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS | 4/23/2023 | Cycling on NBC Sports
30 years ago, one decision altered the course of our connected world
April 30, 20237:00 AM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
By Julian Ring
30 years ago, listeners tuning into Morning Edition heard about a futuristic idea that could profoundly change their lives.
"Imagine being able to communicate at-will with 10 million people all over the world," NPR's Neal Conan said. "Imagine having direct access to catalogs of hundreds of libraries as well as the most up-to-date news, business and weather reports. Imagine being able to get medical advice or gardening advice immediately from any number of experts.
"This is not a dream," he continued. "It's internet."
But even in the early 1990s, that space-age sales pitch was a long way from the lackluster experience of actually using the internet. It was almost entirely text-based, for one.
It was also difficult to use. To read a story from NPR, for example, you would need to know which network-equipped computer had the file you wanted, then coax your machine into communicating directly with the host. And good luck if the computers were made by different manufacturers.
But 30 years ago this week, that all changed.
On April 30, 1993, something called the World Wide Web launched into the public domain.
...
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/30/1172276538/world-wide-web-internet-anniversary
30 years ago, one decision altered the course of our connected world
April 30, 20237:00 AM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
By Julian Ring
30 years ago, listeners tuning into Morning Edition heard about a futuristic idea that could profoundly change their lives.
"Imagine being able to communicate at-will with 10 million people all over the world," NPR's Neal Conan said. "Imagine having direct access to catalogs of hundreds of libraries as well as the most up-to-date news, business and weather reports. Imagine being able to get medical advice or gardening advice immediately from any number of experts.
"This is not a dream," he continued. "It's internet."
But even in the early 1990s, that space-age sales pitch was a long way from the lackluster experience of actually using the internet. It was almost entirely text-based, for one.
It was also difficult to use. To read a story from NPR, for example, you would need to know which network-equipped computer had the file you wanted, then coax your machine into communicating directly with the host. And good luck if the computers were made by different manufacturers.
But 30 years ago this week, that all changed.
On April 30, 1993, something called the World Wide Web launched into the public domain.
...
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/30/1172276538/world-wide-web-internet-anniversary
Does your Mommy know you snuck onto her computer?
The reign of King Charles III begins.
CharlesIII, A Job At Last
King Charles III Cartoons
https://cartoonmovement.com/collection/king-charles
Coronation: Public asked to swear allegiance to King Charles
Published 1 hour ago
The updated coronation service will reflect the King's commitment to respecting all faiths
By Harry Farley
BBC News
People watching the Coronation will be invited to join a "chorus of millions" to swear allegiance to the King and his heirs, organisers say.
The public pledge is one of several striking changes to the ancient ceremony revealed on Saturday.
In a coronation full of firsts, female clergy will play a prominent role, and the King himself will pray out loud.
The Christian service will also see religious leaders from other faiths have an active part for the first time.
The Coronation on Saturday will be the first to incorporate other languages spoken in Britain, with a hymn set to be sung in Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic.
Despite changes designed to reflect other faiths, the three oaths the King will take and form the heart of the service remain unchanged, including the promise to maintain "the Protestant Reformed Religion".
Full details of the Westminster Abbey service - the theme of which is "called to serve" - have been published by Lambeth Palace.
The Archbishop of Canterbury said it would "recognise and celebrate tradition" as well as contain "new elements that reflect the diversity of our contemporary society".
The public will be given an active role in the ceremony for the first time, with people around the world set to be asked to cry out and swear allegiance to the King.
This "homage of the people" replaces the traditional "homage of peers" where hereditary peers swear allegiance to the new monarch. Instead everyone in the Abbey and watching at home will be invited to pay homage in what Lambeth Palace described as a "chorus of millions".
The order of service will read: "All who so desire, in the Abbey, and elsewhere, say together: I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God."
It will be followed by the playing of a fanfare.
The Archbishop of Canterbury will then proclaim "God save the King", with all asked to respond: "God save King Charles. Long live King Charles. May the King live forever."
A spokesman for Lambeth Palace, the archbishop's office, said: "The homage of the people is particularly exciting because that's brand new.
"That's something that we can share in because of technological advances, so not just the people in the Abbey, but people who are online, on television, who are listening, and who are gathered in parks, at big screens and churches.
[...]
More on this story
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2 days ago
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Your full guide to how Coronation day will unfold
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20 April
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65435426
10 Trump election lies his own officials called false
By Daniel Dale, CNN
Updated 2:34 PM EDT, Thu June 16, 2022
Washington CNN — Many of former President Donald Trump’s own officials knew that his false claims about the 2020 election were false. In some cases, they told him to his face that his information was wrong.
Testimony to the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol has revealed that it wasn’t only journalists, elections officials and Democrats who were rejecting Trump’s lies about what happened in the election he lost but claimed to win. People Trump selected for important positions, from his campaign manager to the US attorney general, were also saying – mostly in private – that Trump’s fraud allegations were baseless.
The January 6 hearings are ongoing, and the public has only seen committee-selected video clips of certain former officials’ testimony. We know that some other figures in Trump’s orbit were joining him in promoting lies about the election, not rejecting those lies.
But the hearings have already shown that Trump’s government appointees or people on his campaign dismissed at least 10 of his false claims – from the overarching lie that the election was stolen to various specific tales about what happened in swing states he lost.
Here’s a list.
1) The false claim of a ‘stolen’ election
Trump has incessantly repeated the false claim that the election was stolen from him – baselessly insisting that he would have been returned to the White House if not for massive fraud and other nefarious Democratic behavior.
But William Barr, who served as attorney general under Trump, testified to the committee: “I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the President was bullshit.” Barr testified that “my opinion then and my opinion now is that the election was not stolen by fraud.”
Richard Donoghue, who served as principal associate deputy attorney general and then as acting deputy attorney general, also testified that claims of major fraud were untrue – and that he told Trump directly: “I said something to the effect of, ‘Sir, we’ve done dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews. The major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed. We’ve looked at Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada. We’re doing our job. Much of the info you’re getting is false.’”
Jeffrey Rosen, who served as deputy attorney general and then briefly, after Barr’s resignation in December 2020, as acting attorney general, said that when Trump would cite a supposed election impropriety, claiming that “people are telling me this” or “I heard this” or “I saw on television,” they could correct him: “We were in a position to say, ‘Our people already looked at that. And we know that you’re getting bad information. That’s – that’s not correct. It’s been demonstrated to be incorrect from our point of view. It’s been debunked.”
Derek Lyons, who was White House staff secretary and counselor to Trump, testified that, at a meeting about a month and a half after Election Day, top White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Eric Herschmann “told the group, the President included, that, you know, none of those allegations had been substantiated to the point where they could be the basis for any litigation challenge to the election.”
Alex Cannon, who was a lawyer for the Trump campaign, testified that he told Vice President Mike Pence at the White House in November 2020 that he had not found “anything sufficient to alter the results of the election” and that he had told White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on a November 2020 call that “we weren’t finding anything that would be sufficient to change the results in any of the key states.”
Matt Morgan, who was the Trump campaign’s general counsel, testified that, as of early January 2021, he and top Pence advisers – chief of staff Marc Short and attorney Greg Jacob – were in agreement that even “if aggregated and read most favorably to the campaign,” election “fraud, maladministration, abuse or irregularities” were “not sufficient to be outcome-determinative.”
2) The false claim that Trump had won on Election Night
Trump falsely claimed in a speech on Election Night that he had won the election because he had leads in the vote counts in several key states. Trump used similar language in his rally speech on January 6, 2021 – claiming that “our election was over at 10 o’clock in the evening,” when the vote counts showed him leading in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, but “then late in the evening or early in the morning, boom, these explosions of bullshit.”
But it was clear to other key figures in Trump’s orbit – as it was to millions of others – that his leads in the early Election Night count, as millions of votes remained uncounted, did not mean he had won. Bill Stepien, who was Trump’s campaign manager, testified that Election Night was “too early to call the race”: “It was far too early to be making any calls like that. Ballots – ballots were still being counted. Ballots were still going to be counted for days.”
Stepien said he had explained to Trump that early returns would be “positive,” but they would then have a long night waiting for the counting of additional ballots. The fact that states’ vote counts got worse for Trump as the hours went by, Barr said, was not indicative of fraud: Barr noted that “people had been talking for weeks, and everyone understood for weeks, that that was going to be what happened on Election Night.”
Indeed, Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, testified that people at the White House on Election Night were a little nervous to see what would happen with “the red wave or the red mirage.” Red mirage was a term media outlets had been citing for months to explain that early results would almost certainly be misleadingly favorable to Trump because it would take time for states to count the mail-in ballots Trump had warned his own supporters against using.
Miller testified that he recalled saying on Election Night “that we should not go and declare victory until we had a better sense of the numbers.” Ivanka Trump, Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, testified that she didn’t know if she had held a “firm view” about what Trump should say on Election Night, but she added, “The results were still being counted. It was becoming clear that the race would not be called on Election Night.”
3) A false claim about fraudulent totals in Philadelphia
Trump tweeted in December 2020 that there were “MORE VOTES THAN ACTUAL VOTERS” in Philadelphia. He repeated that claim in a January 2022 interview with NPR, though he phrased it as a question.
Barr testified that the claim was “absolute rubbish.” (In reality, about two-thirds of Philadelphia’s registered voters cast a ballot in the 2020 election.) Barr added: “The turnout in Philadelphia was in line with the state’s turnout and in fact it was not as – as impressive as many suburban counties. And there was nothing strange about the Philadelphia turnout. It wasn’t like there was all these unexpected votes that came out in Philadelphia.”
4) A false claim about absentee ballots in Pennsylvania
Trump tweeted in late November 2020 to promote a graphic that suggested Pennsylvania had recorded far more mail-in votes in the general election than the number of mail-in ballots it had actually distributed to voters. Trump added, “The 1,126,940 votes were created out of thin air.”
But the graphic was plain wrong; the supposed 1,126,940 extra votes did not exist at all, as Pennsylvania journalists quickly explained. The graphic – which had been posted by Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, now the Republican gubernatorial nominee – improperly contrasted numbers from the November 2020 general election with numbers from the state’s June 2020 primaries.
Barr explained in his testimony that Mastriano had been comparing apples to oranges. “Once you actually go and look and compare apples to apples, there’s no discrepancy at all,” he said.
5) A false claim about a truckload of ballots being driven from New York to Pennsylvania
In December 2020, Trump tweeted out a video clip featuring a Fox interview with a truck driver who claimed he had been unwittingly used in a scheme to transport numerous completed mail-in ballots from New York to Pennsylvania.
Donoghue testified that he told Trump: “I essentially said, ‘Look, we looked at that allegation. We looked at both ends, both the people who load the truck and the people unload the truck. And that allegation was not supported by the evidence.”
6) False claims about Dominion voting technology
Trump and some of his allies made multiple false claims about the election technology provided by a company called Dominion Voting Systems. They inaccurately alleged that Dominion technology had switched Trump votes to Biden votes in large numbers and that Dominion was a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections for late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. (Dominion is pursuing a series of defamation lawsuits over such claims; the company was actually founded in Canada, is not connected to Chavez, and did not flip or otherwise manipulate 2020 votes.)
Barr testified: “I saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations, but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people, members of the public, that there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes didn’t count and that these machines controlled by somebody else were actually determining it, which was complete nonsense. And it was being laid out there. And I told them that it was – that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that. And it was doing a great, grave disservice to the country.”
Barr added of Trump and Dominion: “And I was somewhat demoralized because I thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff he has, you know, lost contact with – with – he’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff.” Barr also said of Trump: “There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were.”
Cannon testified that he told Trump adviser Peter Navarro in mid-November 2020 that he “didn’t believe the Dominion allegations.” And Herschmann dismissed various theories put forward by lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted a variety of conspiracy theories about election technology and foreign interference. (Powell is one of the people being sued by Dominion.) Herschmann called at least one theory “completely nuts” – it wasn’t clear in the clip shown by the committee which theory he was referring to – and scoffed at claims about “Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelans.”
7) A false claim about Dominion machines in Michigan
Trump tweeted in December 2020 to claim that there was a “68% error rate in Michigan Voting Machines” – exaggerating a conspiratorial consultant’s finding, about a single Michigan county, that was itself quickly debunked by Michigan media.
Donoghue, too, rejected the “68% error rate” claim. He testified of a conversation with Trump: “And then I went into, for instance, this thing from Michigan, this report about ’68% error rate.’ Reality is it was only 0.0063% error rate, less than 1 in 15,000. So the President accepted that. He said, ‘OK, fine, but what about the others?’”
8) A false claim about non-citizens voting in Arizona
Trump falsely claimed in his January 6, 2021, rally speech that, in Arizona, “over 36,000 ballots were illegally cast by non-citizens.”
Stepien testified that the claim that “thousands of illegal citizens, people not eligible to vote” had cast Arizona ballots was a “wild claim” that “on its face didn’t seem, you know, realistic or possible to me.” He said that after asking Cannon to look into the claim, it turned out “the reality of that was not illegal citizens voting in the election” but rather that the votes were cast by “people who were eligible to vote.”
9) The false story about election workers in Georgia
Trump and some of his allies, notably including lawyer Rudy Giuliani, repeatedly made false claims about fraud they insisted had been committed by elections workers in Fulton County, Georgia, home to Atlanta. Trump declared in his January 6, 2021, rally speech that workers had pulled “suitcases of ballots out from under a table” and illegally scanned “tens of thousands of votes.”
Donoghue testified that he debunked the claim at length to Trump: “The President kept fixating on this suitcase that supposedly had fraudulent ballots and that the suitcase was rolled out from under the table. And I said, ‘No sir, there is no suitcase.’ You can watch that video over and over. There is no suitcase. There is a wheeled bin where they carry the ballots, and that’s just how they move ballots around that facility. There’s nothing suspicious about that at all. I told him that there was no multiple scanning of the ballots – one of the – one part of that allegation was that they were taking one ballot and scanning it through three or four or five times to rack up votes, presumably for Vice President Biden. I told him that the video did not support that.”
Byung “BJay” Pak, a Trump-appointed former US attorney in Georgia who was previously a Republican state legislator, testified that the supposed “suitcase” was actually an “official lockbox” for storing ballots at that facility and that the full video disproved the fraud claims Giuliani had tried to promote by showing Georgia legislators a limited section of the footage. Pak, who resigned in January 2021, testified: “We interviewed – the FBI interviewed – the individuals that are depicted in the videos, that purportedly were double, triple counting of the ballots, and determined that nothing irregular happened in the counting, and the allegations made by Mr. Giuliani were false.”
10) The false claim that “2000 Mules” proves the election was rigged
Trump has seized on a movie called “2000 Mules,” made by a right-wing filmmaker, that claims to contain proof of a major fraudulent scheme involving Democrats and the submission of mail-in ballots at drop boxes. Trump has suggested that the movie proves his assertion that the election was rigged.
But similar to numerous others who have pointed out major holes in “2000 Mules,” Barr described the movie’s purported cell phone evidence as “singularly unimpressive,” said its purported photo evidence was “lacking,” and noted that it “didn’t establish widespread illegal harvesting” of ballots.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/16/politics/fact-check-trump-officials-testimony-debunking-election-lies/index.html
Fact check: Trump, in 2023, tells a new lie about the 2020 election
By Daniel Dale, CNN
Published 3:56 PM EDT, Tue April 25, 2023
Add another election lie to the long, long list.
Former President Donald Trump has tried for nearly two and a half years to convince Americans that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election he lost fair and square to Joe Biden. He is still trying today, in 2023, as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination once more.
But Trump’s latest supposed piece of evidence, like his previous supposed pieces of evidence, is complete bunk. .. "10 Trump election lies his own officials called false"
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/16/politics/fact-check-trump-officials-testimony-debunking-election-lies/index.html
In a speech to a Republican gathering in Florida on Friday, during which he repeated his usual lie that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen,” Trump pointedly noted that Biden got more votes than Trump in fewer than a fifth of US counties in 2020. Trump then said, “Nothing like this has ever happened before. Usually it’s very equal, or – but the winner always had the most counties.”
Facts First: Trump’s claim that the winner of every presidential election before 2020 always carried the most counties is false. The two previous Democratic winners before Biden, Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, carried a minority of counties in each of their victories. Obama won about 28% of counties in his 2008 victory and even fewer, about 22% of counties, in his 2012 victory, according to figures provided to CNN by David Wasserman, a prominent analyst of election data who is a senior editor at The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. Like Biden, Obama won the national popular vote by millions even as he carried fewer than a third of counties.
Biden carried about 17% of counties while beating Trump in 2020, a smaller percentage of counties than Obama carried while winning in 2008 and 2012, but there is nothing odd about the 2020 figure. In fact, it’s easy to explain. Land doesn’t vote, people do. In the current political era, Democratic presidential candidates have tended to be dominant in the most populous counties, some of which have hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, while Republicans have tended to do best in areas with fewer residents.
“There is nothing suspicious about winning the presidency with a smaller number of counties,” William Frey, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution think tank, said in an email. “Counties vary widely in size, with large urban and suburban counties – areas where Biden did best – housing far larger populations than most of the outer suburb, small town and rural counties that Trump won.”
Here’s an example of why winning a county is not inherently significant. Trump handily carried Loving County, Texas, in 2020 – but that county had an estimated mid-2020 population of 65 people. Biden, conversely, handily carried Harris County, Texas, which had an estimated mid-2020 population of 4.7 million people.
If you’re counting all county victories as equal, that’s a tie, one county for Trump and one county for Biden. But Biden netted more than 217,000 extra votes from the 1-for-1 trade.
The split between vote totals, which determine who wins the election, and the counties-carried tally, which is an inconsequential matter of trivia, could keep getting wider. Said Frey, a well-known demographer: “The residents of Biden-won counties represent faster growing parts of the population – people of color, college graduates, foreign born and single people – than those the that dominate Trump counties. Trump counties will continue to grow more slowly than Biden counties.”
The county numbers for Clinton, Obama and Biden
Here is what happened in the last five presidential elections won by Democrats; all of these candidates lost a majority of counties while comfortably winning the Electoral College and popular vote. The county figures are all courtesy of Wasserman. He excluded Alaska, which uses a system of boroughs rather than counties.
Bill Clinton, 1992: Won 1,524 counties out of 3,112, or about 49%. Won the Electoral College 370 to 168. Won the popular vote by 5.81 million.
Bill Clinton, 1996: Again won 1,524 counties out of 3,112, or about 49%. Won the Electoral College 379 to 159. Won the popular vote by 8.20 million.
Barack Obama, 2008: Won 875 counties out of 3,113, or about 28%. Won the Electoral College 365 to 173. Won the popular vote by 9.55 million.
Barack Obama, 2012: Won 693 counties out of 3,113, or about 22%. Won the Electoral College 332 to 206. Won the popular vote by 4.98 million.
Joe Biden, 2020: Won 538 counties out of 3,113, or about 17%. Won the Electoral College 306 to 232. Won the popular vote by 7.06 million.
Pence testifies before election probe grand jury: AP source
By ERIC TUCKER 3 minutes ago
Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Federalist Society Executive Branch Review conference, Tuesday, April 25, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence testified Thursday before a federal grand jury investigating efforts by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The person requested anonymity to discuss the private appearance before the grand jury.
Pence’s appearance before a grand jury in Washington scrutinizing the president he once loyally served is a milestone in the Justice Department’s investigation and likely gives prosecutors a key first-person account about certain conversations and events in the weeks preceding the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. It also carries significant political implications, coming as Pence hints at entering the 2024 presidential race and a potential run against Trump, the Republican front-runner.
The testimony came hours after a federal appeals court in a sealed order rejected a bid by Trump’s lawyers to block Pence’s appearance.
Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Federalist Society Executive Branch Review conference, Tuesday, April 25, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/pence-trump-grand-jury-2020-jan-6-9dac6db37ab8923ff1b0f09f3a9a32c8
US adult cigarette smoking rate hits new all-time low
By MIKE STOBBE today
FILE - Cigarette butts fill a smoking receptacle outside a federal building in Washington, Thursday, April 15, 2021.
According to government survey data released Thursday, April 27, 2023, U.S. adults are smoking less. Cigarette smoking dropped to another new all-time low in 2022, with 1 in 9 adults saying they were current smokers. Meanwhile, e-cigarette use rose, to about 1 in 17 adults. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. cigarette smoking dropped to another all-time low last year, with 1 in 9 adults saying they were current smokers, according to government survey data released Thursday.
Meanwhile, electronic cigarette use rose, to about 1 in 17 adults... https://apnews.com/hub/vaping
The preliminary findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are based on survey responses from more than 27,000 adults. .. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/earlyrelease202304.pdf
Cigarette smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, and it’s long been considered the leading cause of preventable death. ..https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm
More coverage
– Juul Labs agrees to pay $462 million settlement to 6 states
https://apnews.com/article/juul-tobacco-million-settlement-youth-vaping-318854025e4ee05d8b18296cb7dae772?utm_source=apnews&utm_medium=relatedcontentmodule
– Flavored cannabis marketing is criticized for targeting kids
https://apnews.com/article/health-new-york-city-marijuana-business-4245bb958368e1863d7ac9b639886790?utm_source=apnews&utm_medium=relatedcontentmodule
In the mid-1960s, 42% of U.S. adults were smokers. The rate has been gradually dropping for decades, due to cigarette taxes, tobacco product price hikes, smoking bans and changes in the social acceptability of lighting up in public.
Last year, the percentage of adult smokers dropped to about 11%, down from about 12.5% in 2020 and 2021. The survey findings
E-cigarette use rose to nearly 6% last year, from about 4.5% the year before, according to survey data.
The rise in e-cigarette use concerns Dr. Jonathan Samet, dean of the Colorado School of Public Health. Nicotine addiction has its own health implications, including risk of high blood pressure and a narrowing of the arteries, according to the American Heart Association.
“I think that smoking will continue to ebb downwards, but whether the prevalence of nicotine addiction will drop, given the rise of electronic products, is not clear,” said Samet, who has been a contributing author to U.S. Surgeon General reports on smoking and health for almost four decades.
Smoking and vaping rates are almost reversed for teens. Only about 2% of high school students were smoking traditional cigarettes last year, but about 14% were using e-cigarettes, according to other CDC data.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content
https://apnews.com/article/how-many-people-smoke-us-64987fe2b7bf764c64d4594e5b02e6ea
Every smoker who quit had their own way of doing so.
I quit smoking many years ago when smoking was still permitted in most buildings, except maybe schools and churches.
There were no Quit Smoking programs then, so I just quit cold turkey.
It took me 3 times, but I finally made it. And never had the urge to smoke again.
Jury to deliberate in major Jan. 6 case against Proud Boys
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN an hour ago
FILE - Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio rallies in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 17, 2019. A federal jury is scheduled to hear a second day of attorneys’ closing arguments in the landmark trial for former Proud Boys extremist group leaders charged with plotting to violently stop the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election.(AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The seditious conspiracy case against former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants went to the jury on Tuesday after dozens of witnesses over more than three months in one of the most serious cases to emerge from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The jury will begin deliberating Wednesday to decide whether the onetime Proud Boys national chairman and four co-defendants are guilty of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors allege was a desperate plot to keep President Donald Trump in the White House after the Republican lost the 2020 election.
Prosecutors in Washington have shown jurors hundreds of messages exchanged by Proud Boys in the days leading up to Jan. 6 that show the far-right extremist group peddling Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and trading fears over what would happen when President Joe Biden took office.
Defense attorneys say there was no conspiracy and no plan to attack the Capitol. They’ve sought to portray the Proud Boys as an unorganized drinking club whose members’ participation in the riot was a spontaneous act fueled by Trump’s election rage.
A lawyer for Tarrio sought to push the blame onto Trump in his closing argument, telling jurors on Tuesday that the Justice Department is making Tarrio a scapegoat for the former president.
Defense lawyer Nayib Hassan noted Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, having been banned from the capital after being arrested on allegations that he defaced a Black Lives Matter banner. Trump, Hassan argued, was the one to blame for extorting a crowd outside the White House to “ fight like hell.”
“It was Donald Trump’s words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6th in your beautiful and amazing city,” Hassan told jurors. “It was not Enrique Tarrio. They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald J. Trump and those in power.”
Tarrio, a Miami resident, was tried alongside four other Proud Boys: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. They could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era charge that can be difficult to prove.
Tarrio is one of the top targets of the Justice Department’s investigation of the riot, which temporarily halted the certification of Biden’s election win.
Trump has denied inciting any violence on Jan. 6 and has argued that he was permitted by the First Amendment to challenge his loss to Biden. The former president is facing several civil lawsuits over the riot and a special counsel named by Attorney General Merrick Garland is also overseeing investigations into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election.
A prosecutor told jurors on Monday during the first day of closing arguments that the Proud Boys were ready for “all-out war” and viewed themselves as foot soldiers fighting for Trump as the Republican spread lies that Democrats stole the election from him.
“These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it,” said the prosecutor, Conor Mulroe.
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/capitol-riot-proud-boys-enrique-tarrio-5dd9377b31c90d2cc87bc6b4d01013af?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_07
E. Jean Carroll lawsuit against Trump for defamation, battery set for trial on Tuesday
By Graham Kates
April 24, 2023 / 2:28 PM / CBS News
"Who is E. Jean Carroll and what does she claim? Ms. Carroll is a journalist and a onetime advice columnist"
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday in a civil trial stemming from a lawsuit filed by advice columnist and author E. Jean Carroll against former President Donald Trump.
06:21
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/e-jean-carroll-lawsuit-against-trump-defamation-battery-trial-tuesday/
Carroll says Trump raped her in a New York City department store in the mid-1990s and defamed her when she went public with the story in 2019, when New York Magazine published an excerpt from a book Carroll was soon to publish.
Trump has denied Carroll's allegations, claiming she fabricated them, and accusing her of doing so for publicity.
Carroll first sued Trump in 2019
Carroll first sued Trump for defamation in 2019, but the lawsuit has yet to go to trial .. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-rape-trial-delay-request-denied/ .. because courts first wrestled with legal questions regarding suits against sitting presidents.
The trial scheduled to begin Tuesday stems from a second lawsuit filed in November 2022, alleging defamation and battery under New York State's new Adult Survivors Act. The legislation opened a one-year window in which people who say they were the survivors of sexual abuse as adults could sue even if the state's statute of limitations would otherwise bar their claims.
Carroll's lawyers have indicated they will argue her allegations are emblematic of a pattern of behavior displayed by Trump, and they have said they will call two witnesses who have separately accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
"Access Hollywood" video
Jurors may also hear an infamous video recorded while Trump was filming an interview with the television show "Access Hollywood." The clip made headlines in October 2016, during Trump's first presidential campaign, when he could be heard referring to "grabbing" women's genitals.
Trump's attorneys unsuccessfully sought to have the tape barred from being used at trial. They are expected to argue that the alleged assault never occurred and to say that there were no witnesses.
In an October deposition for the case, portions of which were put into the public court record, Trump was combative and unapologetic. He denied sexually assaulting Carroll during the 5 1/2-hour deposition, and repeatedly referred to her using derogatory terms.
During his deposition, Trump threatened to countersue Carroll and sue her attorney, Roberta Kaplan.
Carroll, a former columnist for Elle magazine and "Saturday Night Live" writer, has said Trump raped her in late 1995 or early 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll's attorney, has estimated in pretrial hearings that he expects the trial to last about a week. Kaplan has ordered that jurors will be anonymous, to protect them from harassment and other potentially unwanted publicity that might occur due to their involvement in a high-stakes trial involving a former president.
Trump's attorneys have not said if he will attend any of the trial, though they asked the judge to read to jurors a note saying if Trump doesn't attend it is because he wants to save New York City the "logistical and financial burdens" of hosting a former president in court. Kaplan rejected that request.
Trump attorney Joe Tacopina noted in his request that when Trump was arraigned on felony charges on April 4, at a state criminal court one block from the federal building where the civil trial is happening, several city blocks were shut down and the courthouse was nearly empty as the Secret Service shuttled the former president to and from his hearing.
The trial comes as Trump is facing significant criminal and civil legal scrutiny.
His April 4 court hearing marked the first time in U.S. history a former president was charged with a crime — 34 counts of felony falsification of business records in connection with a 2016 "hush money" payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Trump, three of his children and their company were sued in September by the New York Attorney General, who is seeking $250 million and sanctions designed to severely limit the company's operations, while alleging more than a decade of widespread fraud.
In Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis is considering charges in an investigation into alleged efforts by Trump and more than a dozen of his allies to undermine the 2020 election results after he lost.
In Washington, D.C., special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing two Justice Department investigations into alleged efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, and Trump's handling of sensitive government documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home, including possible obstruction of efforts to retrieve them.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in all of the cases.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/e-jean-carroll-lawsuit-against-trump-defamation-battery-trial-tuesday/
MORE: Russia admits its own warplane accidentally bombed Russian city of Belgorod, near Ukraine border
April 21, 2023 / 7:09 AM / CBS/AP
Moscow — When a powerful blast shook a Russian city near the border of Ukraine residents thought it was a Ukrainian attack.
But the Russian military quickly acknowledged that it was a bomb accidentally dropped by one of its own warplanes.
Belgorod, a city of 340,000 about 25 miles east of the border with Ukraine, has faced regular drone attacks that Russian authorities blame on the Ukrainian military, but the explosion late Thursday was far more powerful than anything its residents had heard before.
Witnesses reported a low hissing sound followed by a blast that made nearby apartment buildings tremble and threw a car on a store roof.
It left a 66-foot-wide crater in the middle of a tree-lined boulevard flanked by apartment buildings, shattering their windows, damaging several cars and injuring two residents. A third person was later hospitalized with hypertension.
Immediately after the explosion, Russian commentators and military bloggers were abuzz with theories about what weapon Ukraine had used for the attack.
Many called for a powerful retribution. But about an hour later, the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged that the explosion was caused by a weapon accidentally dropped by one of its own Su-34 bombers. It didn't offer any further details, but military experts said the weapon likely was a powerful 1,100-pound bomb.
In Thursday's blast, the weapon was apparently set to explode with a small delay after impact, to hit underground facilities.
Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said local authorities decided to temporarily resettle residents of a nine-story apartment building near the blast while it was inspected to make sure it hadn't suffered irreparable structural damage.
The explosion in Belgorod followed the crash of a Russian warplane next to a residential building in the port city of Yeysk on the Sea of Azov that killed 15 people. Yeysk hosts a big Russian air base with warplanes flying missions over Ukraine.
Military experts have noted that as the number of Russian military flights have increased sharply during the fighting, so have the crashes and accidents.
Analysts and U.S. officials have described Russia's tactics in the Ukraine war as akin to the methods applied by the armies on both sides of the First World War as Moscow has thrown wave after wave of both man and machine at the front lines for months, rapidly depleting its resources with little to show in return.,
Last month it emerged that the Russian military was rolling Soviet-era tanks off storage bases where they had been mothballed for decades, presumably to bolster its forces amid the wanton destruction of its hardware on the battlefield.
Ukraine has also relied heavily on its stocks of old Soviet-era tanks and other weapons during the war, but it has begun to take delivery of dozens of modern battle tanks promised by its European partners, with U.S. tanks also expected to arrive this year.
In March, Poland said it would also give Ukraine about a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, becoming the first NATO member to fulfill Kyiv's increasingly urgent requests for warplanes to defend itself against the Russian invasion.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-bombs-own-city-near-ukraine-as-war-increases-russian-military-accidents/
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171761320
The Top 10 Earth Day Events of 2023
April 3, 2023
Just as Valentine’s Day nudges us to cherish our loved ones a little more, Earth Day is a reminder to dedicate our time, resources, and energy to solving climate change and other environmental issues.
April 22, 2023, marks the 53rd anniversary of the birth to the modern environmental movement.
The celebration of eco-consciousness takes place in more than 190 countries around the globe and is the most widely observed nonreligious holiday in history.
From parties, parades and protests to cleanups, rallies, and teach-ins, there are an endless number of ways to activate in celebration of Earth Day.
Here are the 10 major events happening around the globe you should know about and consider attending this Earth Day!
#10- The Cape Coral Cleanup in Cape Coral, FL
The city of Cape Coral has come a long way in recovering from Hurricane Ian, but there is still much more to be done. This Earth Day, they are focused on building a cleaner and healthier community by tackling the remnants of trash and debris left behind in the wake of the storm.
With more than 5,000 volunteers expected to participate, Cape Coral is planning to host the biggest cleanup their city has ever seen in honor of Earth Day 2023. For more information, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/CityofCapeCoral.
#9- ‘Heaven on Earth’ Cleanup at The Dal Lake (India)
Up in the Himalayas is the beautiful state of Jammu and Kashmir (often referred to as ‘Heaven on Earth’). Its major town, Srinagar, has a special attraction for tourists – the iconic ‘Dal Lake.’ Dal Lake is dotted with over a thousand houseboats (shikaras) serving as residences, schools, and markets where you can buy items embroidered with the local crewel and handicrafts crafted out of walnut wood.
For years, Earth Day India has helped clean up this major tourist attraction. For Earth Day 2023, a final clean up and special ceremony will take place, declaring the area as an Earth Day Star Village for their dedication to being stewards for the Earth. To learn more about this clean up, please visit, https://www.facebook.com/earthdaynetworkindia/.
#8- Earth Day Jubilee at Heal the Bay Aquarium in Santa Monica, CA
Heal the Bay is an environmental nonprofit dedicated to making the coastal waters and watersheds of the Greater Los Angeles area safe, healthy, and clean since 1985. For them, every day is this Earth Day, but April 22nd is extra special because communities from around the world come together in appreciation for our shared home and work together to help heal our planet.
On April 22nd, Heal the Bay is hosting their Earth Day Jubilee on the Santa Monica Pier as they celebrate the beauty of our oceans. With indoor and outdoor activities ranging from visits with the aquarium’s most beloved animals and wildlife observation decks to craft stations, short films, and mini dance parties throughout the day, this family-friendly Earth Day event is a great way to educate our children and youth about the environmental movement. For more information about Heal the Bay and their Earth Day Jubilee, please visit: https://healthebay.org/.
#7- Village for the Earth in the Green Heart of Rome (Italy)
Earth Day Italia annually hosts the 5-day celebration of World Earth Day in the green heart of Rome between the Pincio Terrace and the Villa Borghese Galoppatoio.
Known as the most iconic of all Italian Earth Day celebrations, Village for the Earth consists of over 600 events in collaboration with more than 200 organizations over the course of April 21-25. These unforgettable five days hold ample opportunities to indulge in entertainment, culture, sport, and environment, with a full schedule of celebrations, institutional meetings, forums, shows, and a village dedicated to children with playful and educational workshops. For more information, please visit: https://www.earthdayitalia.org/villaggio-per-la-terra/.
#6- Earth Day: In Love and Rage at City Hall Plaza in Boston, MA
Extinction Rebellion is an international movement using non-violent and direct action to demand just action on the climate and ecological emergency we face. In protest of the federal government’s newly approved projects in Alaska and Massachusetts, Extinction Rebellion is rallying at Boston City Hall on April 21st to demand no new fossil fuel infrastructure in Massachusetts.
This family-family party encourages activists to come dressed up as their favorite endangered species and/or carry one of the animal puppets provided by them. If you love Earth, love animals and nature, and want a livable future, join Extinction Rebellion alongside friends and family to march, dance, and process in support and love for the Earth! For more information, please visit: https://xrboston.org/action/earth-day-2023/.
#5- The Big One on the Streets of London (United Kingdom)
With the support of more than 70 organizations, including EARTHDAY.ORG, the Extinction Rebellion has organized arguably the largest environmental protest of 2023. Starting on the streets of London, 100,000 individuals (about the seating capacity of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum) are expected to march side by side to fight for Parliament to act against the climate crisis.?
Starting Friday, the 21st, individuals will unite to survive by flooding Westminster with a wave of flags and banners. Saturday the 22nd will be an enormous celebration of individuals united for nature, biodiversity, and the planet, and led by a family-friendly march in honor of Earth Day. To finish the weekend off, The Big One will be joining forces with the London Marathon on Sunday the 23rd to engage with the huge crowds of spectators and completing the four-day event on Monday the 24th by delivering the demand to Parliament to choose a green future. For more information, please visit: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/#which-days-should-i-come.
#4- End the Era of Fossil Fuels at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.
Earth Day DC is saying NO to fossil fuels by coming together this Earth Day to fight for climate justice and demand real change from decision-makers. Kicking off the day, a youth-led rally in Freedom Plaza will feature the voices of young people from around D.C. and across the country alongside music from the Too Much Talent Band.
Following the rally, individuals will take to the streets of Washington, D.C. and march to the White House to demand President Biden take bold action to follow through with his promise to end the fossil fuel era. Lastly, the event will conclude with a fair back at Freedom Plaza where climate cages, art projects, teach-ins, dance parties, and more will take place. For more information, please visit: https://www.earthdaydc.org/.
#3- Earth Day Fiesta (Zimbabwe)
Earth Day Africa works with staff and partners in Sub-Saharan countries to activate everyday citizens to rise and come together to make positive, tangible, and sustainable changes to protect Africa. Following up on the first ever commemoration in 2022, Earth Day Africa will host the second annual Earth Day Fiesta this April 22nd to celebrate Earth Day and share the African Climate Story.
Aligning with this year’s theme, Invest in Our Planet, the fiesta will bring together everyone from?Africa for a historical fun day together in Zimbabwe. The fiesta will host a day full of traditional African music, food, and arts, and collectively advocate for environment and climate action. To learn more, please visit: https://www.earthday.org/africa/.
#2- Pledge to Our Keiki Dive Across Every Island in Hawaii
Kanu Hawaii is an organization of dedicated, everyday individuals working together to protect and highlight what makes Hawaii so special. This Earth Day, they are organizing movements across Hawaii to transform thought into action. April 22nd will begin with a global moment of peace. Faith leaders will join in prayer at sunrise atop two volcanoes in honor of the children of Hawaii to rise and awaken the world in support of the Pledge to Our Keiki.
As the day continues Kanu Hawaii, alongside partners and local businesses, will attempt the world’s largest dive cleanup, with more than 700 divers expected to participate across the Hawaiian Islands. In addition to the dive, more than 400 nonprofits, 800 events, and over 20,000 volunteers will activate to draw attention to what drives global pollution and to call out the systems causing massive amounts of waste. To learn more, please visit: https://www.kanuhawaii.org/.
#1- An Earth Day 2023 Event Local to You
If the events listed above aren’t close enough for you to join in, or you want to show your environmental stewardship in another way, don’t worry! EARTHDAY.ORG’s interactive Events Map shows you up-to-date rallies, cleanups, and so much more happening all around the world and in communities local near you.
April 22nd serves as an annual reminder to NEVER underestimate your power. When your voice and actions are united with millions of others around the world, we can create an inclusive and impactful movement impossible to ignore. United together, we’ll drive a year of energy, enthusiasm, and commitment to a sustainable and equitable future for our planet.
To learn more about Earth Day 2023, please visit: https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2023/.
https://www.earthday.org/the-top-10-earth-day-events-of-2023/
The Top 10 Earth Day Events of 2023
April 3, 2023
Just as Valentine’s Day nudges us to cherish our loved ones a little more, Earth Day is a reminder to dedicate our time, resources, and energy to solving climate change and other environmental issues.
April 22, 2023, marks the 53rd anniversary of the birth to the modern environmental movement.
The celebration of eco-consciousness takes place in more than 190 countries around the globe and is the most widely observed nonreligious holiday in history.
From parties, parades and protests to cleanups, rallies, and teach-ins, there are an endless number of ways to activate in celebration of Earth Day.
Here are the 10 major events happening around the globe you should know about and consider attending this Earth Day!
#10- The Cape Coral Cleanup in Cape Coral, FL
The city of Cape Coral has come a long way in recovering from Hurricane Ian, but there is still much more to be done. This Earth Day, they are focused on building a cleaner and healthier community by tackling the remnants of trash and debris left behind in the wake of the storm.
With more than 5,000 volunteers expected to participate, Cape Coral is planning to host the biggest cleanup their city has ever seen in honor of Earth Day 2023. For more information, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/CityofCapeCoral.
#9- ‘Heaven on Earth’ Cleanup at The Dal Lake (India)
Up in the Himalayas is the beautiful state of Jammu and Kashmir (often referred to as ‘Heaven on Earth’). Its major town, Srinagar, has a special attraction for tourists – the iconic ‘Dal Lake.’ Dal Lake is dotted with over a thousand houseboats (shikaras) serving as residences, schools, and markets where you can buy items embroidered with the local crewel and handicrafts crafted out of walnut wood.
For years, Earth Day India has helped clean up this major tourist attraction. For Earth Day 2023, a final clean up and special ceremony will take place, declaring the area as an Earth Day Star Village for their dedication to being stewards for the Earth. To learn more about this clean up, please visit, https://www.facebook.com/earthdaynetworkindia/.
#8- Earth Day Jubilee at Heal the Bay Aquarium in Santa Monica, CA
Heal the Bay is an environmental nonprofit dedicated to making the coastal waters and watersheds of the Greater Los Angeles area safe, healthy, and clean since 1985. For them, every day is this Earth Day, but April 22nd is extra special because communities from around the world come together in appreciation for our shared home and work together to help heal our planet.
On April 22nd, Heal the Bay is hosting their Earth Day Jubilee on the Santa Monica Pier as they celebrate the beauty of our oceans. With indoor and outdoor activities ranging from visits with the aquarium’s most beloved animals and wildlife observation decks to craft stations, short films, and mini dance parties throughout the day, this family-friendly Earth Day event is a great way to educate our children and youth about the environmental movement. For more information about Heal the Bay and their Earth Day Jubilee, please visit: https://healthebay.org/.
#7- Village for the Earth in the Green Heart of Rome (Italy)
Earth Day Italia annually hosts the 5-day celebration of World Earth Day in the green heart of Rome between the Pincio Terrace and the Villa Borghese Galoppatoio.
Known as the most iconic of all Italian Earth Day celebrations, Village for the Earth consists of over 600 events in collaboration with more than 200 organizations over the course of April 21-25. These unforgettable five days hold ample opportunities to indulge in entertainment, culture, sport, and environment, with a full schedule of celebrations, institutional meetings, forums, shows, and a village dedicated to children with playful and educational workshops. For more information, please visit: https://www.earthdayitalia.org/villaggio-per-la-terra/.
#6- Earth Day: In Love and Rage at City Hall Plaza in Boston, MA
Extinction Rebellion is an international movement using non-violent and direct action to demand just action on the climate and ecological emergency we face. In protest of the federal government’s newly approved projects in Alaska and Massachusetts, Extinction Rebellion is rallying at Boston City Hall on April 21st to demand no new fossil fuel infrastructure in Massachusetts.
This family-family party encourages activists to come dressed up as their favorite endangered species and/or carry one of the animal puppets provided by them. If you love Earth, love animals and nature, and want a livable future, join Extinction Rebellion alongside friends and family to march, dance, and process in support and love for the Earth! For more information, please visit: https://xrboston.org/action/earth-day-2023/.
#5- The Big One on the Streets of London (United Kingdom)
With the support of more than 70 organizations, including EARTHDAY.ORG, the Extinction Rebellion has organized arguably the largest environmental protest of 2023. Starting on the streets of London, 100,000 individuals (about the seating capacity of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum) are expected to march side by side to fight for Parliament to act against the climate crisis.?
Starting Friday, the 21st, individuals will unite to survive by flooding Westminster with a wave of flags and banners. Saturday the 22nd will be an enormous celebration of individuals united for nature, biodiversity, and the planet, and led by a family-friendly march in honor of Earth Day. To finish the weekend off, The Big One will be joining forces with the London Marathon on Sunday the 23rd to engage with the huge crowds of spectators and completing the four-day event on Monday the 24th by delivering the demand to Parliament to choose a green future. For more information, please visit: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/#which-days-should-i-come.
#4- End the Era of Fossil Fuels at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.
Earth Day DC is saying NO to fossil fuels by coming together this Earth Day to fight for climate justice and demand real change from decision-makers. Kicking off the day, a youth-led rally in Freedom Plaza will feature the voices of young people from around D.C. and across the country alongside music from the Too Much Talent Band.
Following the rally, individuals will take to the streets of Washington, D.C. and march to the White House to demand President Biden take bold action to follow through with his promise to end the fossil fuel era. Lastly, the event will conclude with a fair back at Freedom Plaza where climate cages, art projects, teach-ins, dance parties, and more will take place. For more information, please visit: https://www.earthdaydc.org/.
#3- Earth Day Fiesta (Zimbabwe)
Earth Day Africa works with staff and partners in Sub-Saharan countries to activate everyday citizens to rise and come together to make positive, tangible, and sustainable changes to protect Africa. Following up on the first ever commemoration in 2022, Earth Day Africa will host the second annual Earth Day Fiesta this April 22nd to celebrate Earth Day and share the African Climate Story.
Aligning with this year’s theme, Invest in Our Planet, the fiesta will bring together everyone from?Africa for a historical fun day together in Zimbabwe. The fiesta will host a day full of traditional African music, food, and arts, and collectively advocate for environment and climate action. To learn more, please visit: https://www.earthday.org/africa/.
#2- Pledge to Our Keiki Dive Across Every Island in Hawaii
Kanu Hawaii is an organization of dedicated, everyday individuals working together to protect and highlight what makes Hawaii so special. This Earth Day, they are organizing movements across Hawaii to transform thought into action. April 22nd will begin with a global moment of peace. Faith leaders will join in prayer at sunrise atop two volcanoes in honor of the children of Hawaii to rise and awaken the world in support of the Pledge to Our Keiki.
As the day continues Kanu Hawaii, alongside partners and local businesses, will attempt the world’s largest dive cleanup, with more than 700 divers expected to participate across the Hawaiian Islands. In addition to the dive, more than 400 nonprofits, 800 events, and over 20,000 volunteers will activate to draw attention to what drives global pollution and to call out the systems causing massive amounts of waste. To learn more, please visit: https://www.kanuhawaii.org/.
#1- An Earth Day 2023 Event Local to You
If the events listed above aren’t close enough for you to join in, or you want to show your environmental stewardship in another way, don’t worry! EARTHDAY.ORG’s interactive Events Map shows you up-to-date rallies, cleanups, and so much more happening all around the world and in communities local near you.
April 22nd serves as an annual reminder to NEVER underestimate your power. When your voice and actions are united with millions of others around the world, we can create an inclusive and impactful movement impossible to ignore. United together, we’ll drive a year of energy, enthusiasm, and commitment to a sustainable and equitable future for our planet.
To learn more about Earth Day 2023, please visit: https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2023/.
https://www.earthday.org/the-top-10-earth-day-events-of-2023/
‘Prove Mike Wrong’ for $5 Million, Lindell Pitched. Now He’s Told to Pay Up.
An arbitration panel ruled that the MyPillow founder had failed to pay a computer software expert who disproved his false election claims as part of a contest.
Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive, at former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort this month. Mr. Lindell has vociferously pushed conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
A profile view shows Mike Lindell, wearing a dark suit, with shadows on his face. He is in a ballroom lit by chandeliers.
By Neil Vigdor
April 20, 2023
Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder and Trump ally who has been a leading voice in pushing conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, must pay $5 million to a software forensics expert who debunked a series of false claims as part of a “Prove Mike Wrong” contest, an arbitration panel said on Wednesday.
Mr. Lindell issued the challenge at a “cyber symposium” in South Dakota in 2021, saying he had data that would support his claims that there was Chinese interference in the election and offering the seven-figure prize to anyone who could prove the data had no connection to the 2020 election.
Because the software expert Robert Zeidman successfully did so, the panel, composed of three members of the American Arbitration Association, ordered that Mr. Lindell would have to pay up.
“Almost everyone there was pro-Trump, and everyone said, ‘This data is nonsense,’” Mr. Zeidman said in an interview on Thursday, identifying himself as a Republican who voted twice for former President Donald J. Trump. “A false narrative about election fraud is just really damaging to this country.”
The ruling against Mr. Lindell was earlier reported by: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/04/20/mike-lindell-prove-wrong-contest/
Mr. Zeidman, 63, who is from Las Vegas, filed the arbitration claim against Mr. Lindell in November 2021 after the contest’s organizers rejected his findings. The claim was filed in Minnesota, Mr. Lindell’s home state.
The arbitrators ordered him to pay Mr. Zeidman within 30 days.
Mr. Lindell, who has spent millions of dollars on partisan reviews of voting data and efforts to bolster election skeptics across the country, vowed in an interview to challenge the panel’s ruling.
“This is disgusting,” he said. He questioned Mr. Zeidman’s credentials and mused about how he had been granted admission to the symposium.
Mr. Zeidman, who described himself as a “well-known” pioneer in the field of software forensics, said that he used his connections in the Trump world to obtain an invitation to Mr. Lindell’s symposium.
“Friends of mine said, ‘You should go because you might win $5 million,’” he said.
When conference organizers gave Mr. Zeidman and other attendees data to dissect, he said that he expected it might take weeks to analyze. But once he started going through the files, he said he quickly concluded that the data was bogus. He presented his findings to Mr. Lindell’s representatives in a 15-page report
.
The $5 million claim against Mr. Lindell is a pittance compared with a pending $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit that the election equipment company Dominion Voting Systems filed against him in 2021 over his assertions that its machines were part of a plot to steal the election. This week, the company reached a $787.5 million settlement with Fox News as part of a similar defamation lawsuit. .. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/18/business/fox-news-dominion-trial-settlement
Brian Glasser, a lawyer for Mr. Zeidman, cast doubt on whether Mr. Lindell would be able to successfully challenge the arbitration decision in court, saying the bar was particularly high. Mr. Lindell would have to prove “manifest injustice,” a legal term for an unduly harsh outcome, he said.
Mr. Glasser also noted that the contest rules set by Mr. Lindell prescribed binding arbitration in the event of a dispute.
Still, Mr. Lindell insisted: “It’s going to end up in court.”
Mr. Zeidman said he planned to give some of the money to nonprofit groups, use part for a start-up business and spend some supporting a voter integrity project.
He does believe there was voter fraud in 2020. “The question is how much and was it actually enough to swing the election? I can’t say that,” Mr. Zeidman said.
He has joined the bipartisan political organization No Labels, he said, and won’t be supporting Mr. Trump for president in 2024.
“I’d rather see a presidential candidate who is not an extremist,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/us/politics/mike-lindell-arbitration-case-5-million.html
Beyond the Poles: The far-reaching dangers of melting ice
"There Are Signs of Hope Amid Climate Crisis, Bank Failures and War "
The surprising connection between Arctic ice and Western wildfires
https://www.npr.org/series/1168056854/beyond-the-poles-ice-melt
The unexpected link between imperiled whales and Greenland's melting ice
https://apps.npr.org/arctic-ice-melting-climate-change/western-us-wildfires.html
Joint Chiefs shuffle: Biden’s top contenders to replace Trump’s military leaders
Besides the chair, the Pentagon could also see new leaders for the Army, Navy, Marines and possibly the Air Force this year.
An illustration featuring President Joe Biden and the potential members of his Joint Chiefs of Staff. | POLITICO illustration/Photos by AP, Getty Images, U.S. military
By LARA SELIGMAN and CONNOR O’BRIEN
04/17/2023 06:30 PM EDT
Donald Trump handpicked the nation’s top military brass while he was in office. Now it’s Joe Biden’s turn.
As many as five members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the eight most senior uniformed leaders who advise the president on military issues, are scheduled to leave their assignments this year. Besides the Joint Chiefs chair, the heads of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and potentially the Air Force are all set to leave. Three of the military’s top operational commanders are changing over as well: The heads of Northern Command, Space Command and Cyber Command.
The vacancies give President Biden a chance to put his stamp on the Joint Chiefs as the administration looks to take big steps to counter Chinese aggression in the Pacific, chart a new course in Europe after the Ukraine invasion and dump old weapons systems to make room for new ones.
“These are legacy moments for the Biden administration, but they are also the guard rails for the republic,” Peter Feaver, a former staffer on the National Security Council and author of “Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations.”
It’s also an opportunity for Biden, who named the first Black defense secretary in 2021, to make more historic appointments, including the first female member of the Joint Chiefs. Last year, Biden chose Adm. Linda Fagan to be the first female commandant of the Coast Guard, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security.
POLITICO spoke to 11 current and former Defense Department officials, as well as leaders in academia with knowledge of the discussions to forecast who’s in the running for the jobs.
Some were granted anonymity to discuss the subject ahead of the announcements.
Here are the names at the top of the list:
Chair
CURRENT LEADER: ARMY GEN. MARK MILLEY, SWORN IN OCT. 1, 2019
The frontrunner: Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown
If you ask most people at DoD, the shoo-in for the top job is Gen. C.Q. Brown, the Air Force chief of staff. Brown, a fighter pilot by training, has stellar credentials, serving as commander of the service’s forces both in the Middle East and in the Pacific. He is also the first Black man to serve as Air Force chief of staff, and was nominated for the job the same summer as the Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation.
Brown is not known for making news, and typically sticks closely to the talking points during public appearances and press engagements. But in a rare candid moment, he weighed in on the racial unrest roiling the country in an emotional video describing his experience navigating the issue in the military. ..
G7 energy, environment leaders haggle over climate strategy
By ELAINE KURTENBACH and MARI YAMAGUCHI today
' Noam Chomsky: There Are Signs of Hope Amid Climate Crisis'
Japan's Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, center left, with Environment Minister Akihiro Nishimura, center right, speaks at the beginning of a plenary session in the G-7 ministers' meeting on climate, energy and environment as they co-chair the meeting in Sapporo, northern Japan, Saturday, April 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
G-7 ministers on climate, energy and environment pose for a photo during its photo session in Sapporo, northern Japan, Saturday, April 15, 2023.
Front row, from left are Vannia Gava, Italy's Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Ecological Transition, EU Oceans and Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius, EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson, Italy's Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Japan's Environment Minister Akihiro Nishimura, Japan's Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, Germany's Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, Canada's Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada's Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and Germany's Economy and Climate Minister Patrick Graichen.
Back row, from left are U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, France's Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher, France's Ecological Transition Minister Christophe Bechu, Britain's Environment Secretary Therese Coffey and Britain's Energy Secretary Grant Shapps. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
SAPPORO, Japan (AP) — Energy and environment ministers of the Group of Seven wealthy nations met Saturday in northern Japan, seeking to reconcile the world’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels with the urgency of ending carbon emissions to stave off the worst consequences of climate change.
The meetings in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo are aimed at forging a consensus on the best way forward, ahead of the G-7 summit in Hiroshima in May.
“We are facing the challenge of promoting reforms to resolve climate change ... and achieving energy security at the same time,” economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told the ministers as the meetings began.
Speaking on the sidelines of the meetings, U.S. Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said the G-7 was “powerfully positioned to be able to lead” in the effort to stem global warming. “We appreciate Japan’s leadership and its stewardship of G-7 this year.”
But differences persist over how, and how quickly, to end carbon emissions, especially at a time when the war in Ukraine has deepened concerns over energy security, complicating that effort.
The talks in Sapporo will also focus on biodiversity loss and other global challenges. But climate change tops the agenda of the closed door meetings. At the G-7 summit last year in Germany, the countries set a common goal of achieving a fully or predominantly decarbonized electricity supply by 2035.
U.S. officials voiced support for Japan’s strategy centering on so-called clean coal, hydrogen and nuclear energy to bridge the transition to renewable energy. Others are pushing for a faster transition to renewable energy.
The head of the United Nations recently called for an end to new fossil fuel exploration and for rich countries to quit coal, oil and gas by 2040. While emissions among the G-7 nations, especially in Europe, have begun falling, they are still rising globally, especially in big, increasingly affluent economies like India and China.
The G-7 nations hope to lead by example, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press.
“We expect that those countries see that this can be done and the nations that have the wherewithal to make these investments to be first out give hope to others to be able to do it as the technology lowers the cost,” she said.
The U.S. government’s approval of fossil fuel initiatives such as the Willow project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope have drawn criticism for their environmental impact and for running counter to President Joe Biden’s pledges to cut carbon emissions and move to clean energy.
There’s a strong business case for climate-friendly policies, Granholm said, given the estimated $23 trillion global market in clean energy by 2030.
“People see people getting jobs in this area. People who start to drive electric vehicles who don’t need to pay gasoline prices know that it’s much cheaper to drive EVs. It’s all becoming obvious to people,” she said while touring the Suiso Frontier, the world’s first and only liquid hydrogen carrier, a showcase of the latest technology for what Japan’s leaders call a “hydrogen society.”
While Japanese farm fields increasingly are sown with solar panels rather than crops and its gusty coastlines are studded with wind turbines, the country still expects for about 60% of its energy to come from fossil fuels in 2030, with renewables accounting for up to 38%. New fuels and nuclear power would account for the rest.
Meanwhile, Japan is scrambling to protect communities from extreme weather and other impacts from global warming. Sweltering summers, torrential downpours that trigger flooding and landslides, and violent storms have become the norm.
In Sapporo, Japan is seeking an endorsement of its so-called “GX transformation” plan, which its leaders say is designed to foster energy sufficiency and phase out carbon emissions that contribute to global warming.
Legislation yet to be enacted would entail issuing 20 trillion yen ($150 billion) in bonds to help attract 150 trillion yen ($1.1 trillion) in combined public-private investment in decarbonization. The law also calls for a carbon-pricing system to make businesses pay for their carbon emissions.
Environmental activists say the plan will keep the country’s dwindling nuclear industry on life support while undermining the transition to renewable energy sources.
“As the world tries to overcome two crises of climate and energy, especially in Japan, we need to drastically increase renewables,” said Takejiro Sueyoshi, co-representative of the Japan Climate Initiative, a non-government organization of 768 member companies and organizations.
“Discussions in Japan have gone backward as if we were in the 20th century. We must smash a wedge into the debate to push it forward rather than backwards,” he said.
The JCI urged the officials meeting in Sapporo to push for more ambitious targets, noting that Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy already get more of their electricity from renewable sources than Japan’s 2030 target and that despite its own faltering progress toward phasing out fossil fuels, the United States will get most of its electricity from renewable energy by 2035.
“There’s no time left. The window for change is closing, but there is still hope. We need to use the sense of crisis as a turning point,” Sueyoshi said.
The G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom. ___
AP writer Yamaguchi contributed from Tokyo.
https://apnews.com/article/climate-emissions-japan-g7-environment-energy-b7f09410b09c1f86fe3a4527d1d3ba0d
G7 energy, environment leaders haggle over climate strategy
By ELAINE KURTENBACH and MARI YAMAGUCHI today
' Noam Chomsky: There Are Signs of Hope Amid Climate Crisis'
Japan's Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, center left, with Environment Minister Akihiro Nishimura, center right, speaks at the beginning of a plenary session in the G-7 ministers' meeting on climate, energy and environment as they co-chair the meeting in Sapporo, northern Japan, Saturday, April 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
G-7 ministers on climate, energy and environment pose for a photo during its photo session in Sapporo, northern Japan, Saturday, April 15, 2023.
Front row, from left are Vannia Gava, Italy's Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Ecological Transition, EU Oceans and Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius, EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson, Italy's Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Japan's Environment Minister Akihiro Nishimura, Japan's Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, Germany's Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, Canada's Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada's Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and Germany's Economy and Climate Minister Patrick Graichen.
Back row, from left are U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, France's Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher, France's Ecological Transition Minister Christophe Bechu, Britain's Environment Secretary Therese Coffey and Britain's Energy Secretary Grant Shapps. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
SAPPORO, Japan (AP) — Energy and environment ministers of the Group of Seven wealthy nations met Saturday in northern Japan, seeking to reconcile the world’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels with the urgency of ending carbon emissions to stave off the worst consequences of climate change.
The meetings in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo are aimed at forging a consensus on the best way forward, ahead of the G-7 summit in Hiroshima in May.
“We are facing the challenge of promoting reforms to resolve climate change ... and achieving energy security at the same time,” economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told the ministers as the meetings began.
Speaking on the sidelines of the meetings, U.S. Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said the G-7 was “powerfully positioned to be able to lead” in the effort to stem global warming. “We appreciate Japan’s leadership and its stewardship of G-7 this year.”
But differences persist over how, and how quickly, to end carbon emissions, especially at a time when the war in Ukraine has deepened concerns over energy security, complicating that effort.
The talks in Sapporo will also focus on biodiversity loss and other global challenges. But climate change tops the agenda of the closed door meetings. At the G-7 summit last year in Germany, the countries set a common goal of achieving a fully or predominantly decarbonized electricity supply by 2035.
U.S. officials voiced support for Japan’s strategy centering on so-called clean coal, hydrogen and nuclear energy to bridge the transition to renewable energy. Others are pushing for a faster transition to renewable energy.
The head of the United Nations recently called for an end to new fossil fuel exploration and for rich countries to quit coal, oil and gas by 2040. While emissions among the G-7 nations, especially in Europe, have begun falling, they are still rising globally, especially in big, increasingly affluent economies like India and China.
The G-7 nations hope to lead by example, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press.
“We expect that those countries see that this can be done and the nations that have the wherewithal to make these investments to be first out give hope to others to be able to do it as the technology lowers the cost,” she said.
The U.S. government’s approval of fossil fuel initiatives such as the Willow project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope have drawn criticism for their environmental impact and for running counter to President Joe Biden’s pledges to cut carbon emissions and move to clean energy.
There’s a strong business case for climate-friendly policies, Granholm said, given the estimated $23 trillion global market in clean energy by 2030.
“People see people getting jobs in this area. People who start to drive electric vehicles who don’t need to pay gasoline prices know that it’s much cheaper to drive EVs. It’s all becoming obvious to people,” she said while touring the Suiso Frontier, the world’s first and only liquid hydrogen carrier, a showcase of the latest technology for what Japan’s leaders call a “hydrogen society.”
While Japanese farm fields increasingly are sown with solar panels rather than crops and its gusty coastlines are studded with wind turbines, the country still expects for about 60% of its energy to come from fossil fuels in 2030, with renewables accounting for up to 38%. New fuels and nuclear power would account for the rest.
Meanwhile, Japan is scrambling to protect communities from extreme weather and other impacts from global warming. Sweltering summers, torrential downpours that trigger flooding and landslides, and violent storms have become the norm.
In Sapporo, Japan is seeking an endorsement of its so-called “GX transformation” plan, which its leaders say is designed to foster energy sufficiency and phase out carbon emissions that contribute to global warming.
Legislation yet to be enacted would entail issuing 20 trillion yen ($150 billion) in bonds to help attract 150 trillion yen ($1.1 trillion) in combined public-private investment in decarbonization. The law also calls for a carbon-pricing system to make businesses pay for their carbon emissions.
Environmental activists say the plan will keep the country’s dwindling nuclear industry on life support while undermining the transition to renewable energy sources.
“As the world tries to overcome two crises of climate and energy, especially in Japan, we need to drastically increase renewables,” said Takejiro Sueyoshi, co-representative of the Japan Climate Initiative, a non-government organization of 768 member companies and organizations.
“Discussions in Japan have gone backward as if we were in the 20th century. We must smash a wedge into the debate to push it forward rather than backwards,” he said.
The JCI urged the officials meeting in Sapporo to push for more ambitious targets, noting that Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy already get more of their electricity from renewable sources than Japan’s 2030 target and that despite its own faltering progress toward phasing out fossil fuels, the United States will get most of its electricity from renewable energy by 2035.
“There’s no time left. The window for change is closing, but there is still hope. We need to use the sense of crisis as a turning point,” Sueyoshi said.
The G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom. ___
AP writer Yamaguchi contributed from Tokyo.
https://apnews.com/article/climate-emissions-japan-g7-environment-energy-b7f09410b09c1f86fe3a4527d1d3ba0d
Of course I would NOT 'fight for Russia'
The point is that the Russian military is powering up in an attempt to overcome its loses in Ukraine the last year.
And to be more combat ready with possible issues with other countries.
Russia races to pass tough new military draft rules, banning conscripts from leaving
April 13, 2023 4:38 PM ET
By Charles Maynes
More than 200,000 people had reported to service as of this photo in October 2022 under Russia's mobilization.
The defense minister instructed the military chiefs to provide the conscripts with the necessary clothing, arms and other equipment.
But the public complained about a lack of provisions and training for recruits.
Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to sign a new law that cracks down on draft dodging.
Lawmakers rushed the legislation through both houses of parliament this week.
It could have big implications for the Kremlin's war plans in Ukraine, especially as it tries to bolster Russian forces in anticipation of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Here are few key takeaways.
Draftees are banned from leaving the country
On a basic level, the new law makes it very difficult for Russians — mostly men but also women with specialized skills — to avoid being drafted or conscripted.
Until now, military recruitment officers have had to go in person to deliver a paper summons to a draftee's home or workplace.
That system will now be supplanted by electronic notifications — i.e. emails — issued through systems including the web portals that Russians use to pay their utility bills, taxes and other services.
The electronic notification will be binding from the moment the government hits send.
And with the new law, draftees are immediately banned from leaving the country.
Those who fail to show up at a recruitment office promptly will soon face a raft of new restrictions related to banking, selling property and even gaining access to a driver's license.
Already before the reform, people who refused orders to serve in the military have faced a possible prison sentence of up to 10 years.
The Kremlin learned from mobilization mishaps
Kremlin officials and lawmakers have made clear they see the law as a response to problems carrying out Putin's "partial mobilization" decree last fall to call up 300,000 troops to fight in Ukraine.
It provided reinforcements for the front line, but also drove hundreds of thousands of Russians to flee the country to avoid the draft. Many other citizens dodged service within the country by changing their address or simply claiming not to have seen the draft notice.
The new law's backers said it was time to close up loopholes that allowed some of the mishaps of last year's mobilization.
The Kremlin insists the new law in no way signals a "second wave" mobilization for Ukraine, but some experts are skeptical.
Whether the government calls up more Russians to fight ultimately depends on what happens in the coming months — particularly as Ukraine prepares to launch a counteroffensive to retake occupied territories.
In recent months, the military has focused on recruiting volunteers, offering contract soldiers far higher pay to fight in Ukraine — up to $2,600 a month, a vast sum for Russians from small towns or rural areas.
Authorities seem aware of how deeply unpopular last year's mobilization drive was. It set off protests across the country, and a rash of public complaints that recruits lacked equipment and training for battle — grievances that citizens often aired in public videos. President Putin even made a rare admission that "mistakes" were made.
Russia continues to struggle to meet its military objectives in Ukraine — suffering heavy losses and failing to control territory Moscow illegally claimed to have annexed last fall.
Amid those setbacks, the Defense Ministry in December said it planned to increase the size of the military by 30% to 1.5 million soldiers. That means adding several hundred thousand more troops to the current ranks on top of contract volunteers.
.https://www.npr.org/2023/04/13/1169464889/russia-military-draft-ukraine-war
Keyboard Warrior Trump Became A Complete Coward When He Had To Face Judge - Farron Balanced
4:48
TRUMP WAS WORST PRESIDENT EVER ---- VERIFIED
' Trump is accountable ' LOLOL
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