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  • White House expands its playbook for responding to mass shootings in the year after Uvalde | CNN Politics

    White House expands its playbook for responding to mass shootings in the year after Uvalde | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    When news broke of a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, one year ago, President Joe Biden was on his way back from Tokyo following a major international summit.

    Biden watched the news unfold on Air Force One, feeling, like others, horrified and heartbroken for the families, and deciding in that moment to speak upon returning to the White House, a White House official told CNN.

    Moments after landing, a somber Biden – who had been in the Obama White House during the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School – walked into a briefing in the Oval Office and prepared an address he delivered that evening in the Roosevelt Room.

    “I had hoped, when I became president, I would not have to do this again,” Biden said as he started the speech. He later visited Uvalde.

    Over the last year, Biden has signed legislation called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law and implemented two dozen executive actions to try to reduce gun violence. And on Wednesday, Biden will again deliver remarks to mark the one-year remembrance of the Uvalde shooting.

    But in that same time span, hundreds more mass shootings have gripped communities nationwide.

    Mass shootings have become so common in the United States that the White House has framed their approach as akin to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s hurricane response. Behind the scenes, administration officials have been developing ways in which the federal government can respond in the short and long term after a mass shooting, recognizing the physical, mental and economic ramifications.

    “I think we’ve learned that the needs of these communities are really intense, and they also last long after the immediate hours and days after a mass shooting. If a hurricane devastates a community, you get that immediate White House response, but you also get FEMA deployed on the ground to provide direct services and support to survivors,” one source told CNN.

    This recognition of the long after-effects of mass shootings has prompted discussions within the White House about additional measures, including earlier this month, when Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice gathered the first meeting of Cabinet officials and senior staff to discuss steps forward in responding to mass shootings, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

    The reality officials were up against in that meeting came into sharp focus again less than 24 hours later, when another mass shooting unfolded – that time, in Allen, Texas.

    “I don’t think we could feel more urgency than we did on [that] Friday. I think people feel this very deeply. We now work with so many communities that have experienced shootings. It’s devastating, of course, when another gets added to the list,” the source told CNN.

    The Buffalo, New York, shooting last year at a local grocery story was an example of a tragedy that had unanticipated effects as it left a mostly Black community without a crucial grocery store for a period of time.

    “For too long, when we’ve thought about mass shootings and gun violence in general, we’ve only thought about the individuals hurt or killed. What this administration does is certainly attend to survivors and the families of those who have been hurt, but they have a realization that a mass shooting or gun violence in general ripples through the community,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told CNN.

    An operation kicks into gear within the walls of the White House the moment an alert pops up of a potential mass shooting.

    The White House Situation Room and the National Security Council work with the Justice Department and other law enforcement, as well as the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, to track down information and gather the facts as they emerge. Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall will then brief Biden on what’s known about the situation and the weapon used, according to a White House official, acknowledging that it can be a fluid situation.

    The Domestic Policy Council, meanwhile, assesses patterns and whether there are new lessons to be gleaned and considered in policy making. And the intergovernmental affairs team also races to reach out to the mayor’s office or other local officials to provide a point of contact at the White House.

    Biden’s advisers keep him updated along the way. But the exasperation felt by White House officials after each mass shooting has been reflected in Biden’s statements, which have started with: “Once again.”

    In an op-ed this month, Biden touted the work done by this administration, but called on Congress to do more.

    “But my power is not absolute. Congress must act, including by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring gun owners to securely store their firearms, requiring background checks for all gun sales, and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability,” he wrote.

    White House officials have also been sober about the political realities Democrats face with the current makeup of Congress, where Republicans in control of the House have rejected Biden’s calls for an assault weapons ban. Even when both chambers of Congress were controlled by Democrats during the first two years of Biden’s term, an assault weapon ban gained little traction, in part because of a 60-vote threshold necessary to advance bills through the Senate.

    After three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville in March, Biden asserted that he’s done all he can to address gun control and urged members on Capitol Hill to act.

    Many Republicans in Congress, including those in positions of leadership and in the Tennessee delegation, had either been reluctant to use the deadly violence in Nashville as a potential springboard for reform or they outright rejected calls for additional action on further regulating guns, arguing that there isn’t an appetite for tougher restrictions. Some Democrats in Congress, meanwhile, slammed House Republicans for their disinterest.

    Advocacy groups have welcomed Biden’s executive actions and the administration’s response in the wake of a shooting, but stress there’s room for more.

    “It’s part of what moves the needle. Seeing the movement at the federal level is encouraging,” said Mark Barden, co-founder and CEO of the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund. “It’s something. It’s not everything. It’s not enough. We certainly need more.”

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  • Here’s why Idaho student murder suspect Brian Kohberger may have chosen to ‘stand silent’ in court, experts say | CNN

    Here’s why Idaho student murder suspect Brian Kohberger may have chosen to ‘stand silent’ in court, experts say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of stabbing four Idaho college students to death, sat wordlessly in court during his arraignment on Wednesday as a judge read aloud the murder and burglary charges against him and asked whether the suspect was prepared to announce his plea.

    Instead of entering a plea, Kohberger’s attorney replied, “Your honor, we are standing silent.”

    The unconventional legal strategy, also known as “standing mute,” relies on an Idaho criminal rule which requires a judge to then enter a not guilty plea on the defendant’s behalf, effectively allowing him to avoid verbally committing to being guilty or not guilty.

    “It doesn’t matter what he says or doesn’t say,” Seattle attorney Anne Bremner told CNN. “Either way, he’s on the record with a not guilty plea.”

    Though highly unusual, standing silent is not unheard of. The tactic was also used in the case against Nikolas Cruz, the gunman responsible for the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

    As the October trial looms, Kohberger faces four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary for the November 13 killings of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho.

    Though a sweeping gag order has largely shrouded details of the case from the public, investigators have said Kohberger, a graduate student in the Department of Criminology at nearby Washington State University, broke into the victims’ home and stabbed them repeatedly before fleeing the scene.

    The gruesome killings and prolonged investigation blanketed the college campus and surrounding city in uncertainty and apprehension. After nearly seven weeks, Kohberger was arrested and identified as the alleged killer.

    There are a number of reasons defendants may choose to “stand silent,” especially in such a high-profile and highly scrutinized case as Kohberger’s, according to University of Idaho law professor Samuel Newton.

    The defendant may want to avoid criticism that could come with a certain plea, Newton said. A not guilty plea, for example, may spark public outrage that they are not taking responsibility for their alleged actions, he explained.

    Prosecutors and defense attorneys may also be negotiating behind the scenes, potentially discussing a plea agreement, Newton said.

    Bremner dismissed the idea that the move could indicate Kohberger’s attorney may be considering a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity because there is no insanity defense in Idaho.

    Bryan Kohberger listens during his arraignment in Latah County District Court on May 22, 2023.

    Kohberger has been held without bail since he was arrested in December at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania and brought back to Idaho, where he awaits trial.

    The trial is set to begin October 2 and is expected to last about six weeks.

    Prosecutors have 60 days from Monday to announce, in writing, whether they plan to seek the death penalty in their case against him.

    Two hearings are also scheduled for June 9 to address motions, filed by an attorney representing the family of Goncalves and a media coalition, regarding concerns over the wide-ranging gag order in the case.

    The restriction currently prohibits prosecutors, defense lawyers, attorneys for victims’ families and witnesses from publicly discussing details of the case that are not already public record.

    After Kohberger was arrested, investigators laid out some of the evidence that led them to home in on the 28-year-old as their suspect, including surveillance footage, a witness account and DNA evidence.

    A key lead came from surveillance footage which caught a white Hyundai Elantra near the victims’ home that night, according to a probable cause affidavit. The vehicle, which was later found by police at Washington State University in nearby Pullman, Washington, was registered to Kohberger, authorities said.

    Kohberger’s driver’s license information was consistent with a description of the suspect given to police by once of the victims’ surviving roommates, officials said.

    The roommate told investigators that she saw a masked figure clad in black in the house on the morning of the killings, according to an affidavit. She described the person as “5’10” or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows,” it said.

    As the investigation was still ongoing, Kohberger drove cross-country to his parents’ house in Pennsylvania, arriving there about a week before Christmas, Monroe County Chief Public Defender Jason LaBar told CNN in December.

    There, investigators were finally able to connect Kohberger to the crime scene by linking DNA found in trash collected from his family’s home to DNA on a tan leather knife sheath found lying next to one of the victims, the affidavit said.

    A cache of items was seized from the Pennsylvania home after the suspect’s arrest, including a cell phone, black gloves, black masks, laptops, a Smith and Wesson pocket knife and a knife in a leather sheath, according to an evidence log.

    Authorities also seized a white 2015 Hyundai Elantra an attorney for the suspect previously said he’d used to drive, accompanied by his father, to his parents’ home for the holidays.

    The vehicle was dismantled by investigators, who collected parts, fibers and swabs for further examination, court documents show.

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  • 3 people killed, 1 critically injured in Kansas City nightclub shooting | CNN

    3 people killed, 1 critically injured in Kansas City nightclub shooting | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Three people were killed and one is in critical condition after a nightclub shooting early Sunday morning in Kansas City, Missouri, police say.

    At least five people were shot at Klymax Lounge on Indiana Ave., the police department in Kansas City, Missouri, confirmed.

    Officers responded to the lounge just before 1:30 a.m. local time, “located multiple victims upon their arrival and began providing medical aid,” police said.

    “Officers located five victims all believed to be adults,” the department said in an email to CNN. “Three of the victims were transported by EMS to the hospital. Two victims were pronounced deceased at the scene. One of those victims was located outside the lounge and the second was located inside the business.”

    One of the victims died later at the hospital, police said.

    Two victims remain in the hospital, according to police, with one in critical condition and the other in stable condition.

    Authorities are asking those with information on the shooting to come forward, as “there is a reward of up to $25,000 for information provided.”

    CNN has reached out to Klymax Lounge for comment.

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  • Arizona student arrested and accused of bringing AR-15 and ammunition to high school | CNN

    Arizona student arrested and accused of bringing AR-15 and ammunition to high school | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A student in Phoenix faces “a number of serious felony charges” after police accused him of bringing an AR-15 weapon and ammunition to a high school, authorities said.

    Phoenix Police Department officers and two school security officers responded Friday afternoon to a call of a student with a gun on campus, the department said in a news release Saturday.

    School administrators called police after learning of a possible weapon at Bostrom High School shortly before 1 p.m., the Phoenix Union High School District said in a statement emailed to CNN.

    “During our investigation, we discovered the report was accurate, and local authorities intervened and confiscated the weapon,” the school district said in an email.

    Arriving officers detained the male juvenile student in the main office of Bostrom High School, authorities said.

    Police said they “acted quickly” to arrest the student, who was found to have brought additional ammunition in his lunchbox and backpack, according to the statement.

    School administrators placed the campus on lockdown during the investigation, according to the high school district.

    The Phoenix Police Department’s Crime Gun Intelligence Unit is assisting with the investigation, and the department said it’s working closely with school and district officials.

    “We commend those who originally reported the possibility of a weapon on school grounds to adults on campus who immediately called police,” police said in the statement.

    The police did not immediately release information on where the semi-automatic rifle came from and why the student allegedly brought it to campus.

    The student’s name and age were not released because he is a minor.

    His arrest comes days after an 18-year-old man in Farmington, New Mexico, used an AR-15-style rifle and two other guns to shoot and kill three people and injure six others, including two police officers, CNN reported.

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  • Katie Taylor faces Chantelle Cameron in ‘huge boxing event for Ireland’ as national hero attempts to become a two-weight undisputed world champion | CNN

    Katie Taylor faces Chantelle Cameron in ‘huge boxing event for Ireland’ as national hero attempts to become a two-weight undisputed world champion | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Katie Taylor is one of women’s boxing’s ‘Mount Rushmore’ figures.

    The undisputed lightweight world champion, Taylor holds 18 gold medals – including an Olympic gold – and sits second in the Ring’s women’s pound-for-pound rankings.

    Yet, at 36 years old, Taylor has never fought professionally in her native Ireland.

    She’s fought in England, Wales and the US but featuring in a major event in Ireland has been a long time coming – until now.

    On May 20, national hero Taylor will face Chantelle Cameron – the undisputed super-lightweight world champion – at the 3Arena in Dublin in front of a partisan home crowd as she attempts to become a two-weight undisputed world champion.

    With two undefeated fighters at the peak of their powers, the event is one of the most highly-anticipated bouts of the year.

    However, Saturday’s fight is also another landmark moment for Ireland – major boxing promotions moved away from the country after gunmen killed one person during a weigh-in for a boxing match in a Dublin hotel in 2016.

    Gunmen, including two disguised as police and another one as a woman, fired shots inside and outside the weigh-in room killing one and injuring two others.

    The shooting was not an act of terrorism, a police representative told CNN at the time. Investigators were looking into whether it was gang-related.

    Two years before the Dublin hotel shooting, Jamie Moore – Cameron’s trainer – was shot in Marbella, Spain, in 2014, outside of the house of Daniel Kinahan, according to the BBC.

    On an appearance on ‘The All or Nothing Podcast in 2021, Moore said that he has nerve damage in his leg and a bullet in his hip from where he was shot twice. He said his shooting was a case of “wrong place, wrong time.”

    Kinahan was named as one of the leaders of the Kinahan Transnational Criminal Organization by the US Department of State last year. The US Treasury Department described the group as “a murderous organization involved in the international trafficking of drugs and firearms.”

    Kinahan’s lawyers have denied any criminal wrongdoings. CNN has not been able to independently confirm the allegations made against Kinahan.

    Moore trained fighters for MTK Global, a boxing agency who Kinahan had ties to.

    MTK Global ceased operating in April 2022.

    Before it ceased operations, MTK Global said that it would “comply fully with the sanctions made by the US government against Daniel Kinahan … We will cooperate fully with all authorities and assist with any ongoing investigations.”

    According to media reports, Moore refused to answer any questions on his links to Kinahan in a press conference in March. CNN has reached out to Moore via his gym in Salford, in northern England, to offer him a right of reply to his alleged links to Kinahan.

    Cameron, the 32-year-old from Northampton, United Kingdom, was previously signed to MTK Global but is now signed to Matchroom Boxing alongside Taylor.

    Four international boxing promotions have been held across Ireland over the last six months, according to Mel Christle, chairman of the Boxing Union of Ireland.

    “It is true to say that there has not been a boxing event of this magnitude ever in Ireland,” Christle told CNN of the bout between Taylor and Moore.

    “There are no fewer than three world title events on the 3Arena bill. The presence of Katie Taylor headlining the bill, in her hometown, is making it a huge sporting event for Ireland,” added Christie.

    The Irish police, An Garda Síochána, told CNN in a statement that it “puts in place appropriate and proportionate policing plans for major events.”

    Taylor has developed into the biggest name in women’s boxing, beating allcomers, including a mammoth clash against Amanda Serrano in April last year – the first women’s boxing match to headline Madison Square Garden.

    But outside of all her achievements so far in her career, coming home to fight in front of a home crowd in a professional bout for the first time – she has previously fought in amateur fights in Ireland – means even more to her.

    “This is absolutely incredible. One of the things that I wanted to achieve when I first turned pro six years ago was to fight here at home,” she said during a pre-fight press conference. “And this is a nation who love their sport, who love their boxing.

    “For a very small nation, we’re very, very good at it as well so its amazing to be bringing bigtime boxing back to this nation again where it belongs. And this isn’t any normal fight. This is undisputed champion vs. undisputed champion. This is a very special fight, one of the biggest fights of boxing I believe.

    “I think we’re definitely turning over a new leaf for Irish boxing. Hopefully this is the first night of many nights here in Ireland.

    “And even looking at the public workout the other day, just looking at so many young fighters there, young girls watching there watching the public workout, they’re looking up to myself and Chantelle and all these other fighters, it’s absolutely fantastic. It’s great to be in the position where you’re influencing the next generation of fighters. They’re going to grow up with big dreams and big ambitions as well which is absolutely as well.”

    According to the 3Arena website ticket prices to watch Saturday’s event range from €80 ($86) to €750 ($808), with a VIP package costing €1,500 ($1,616).

    Eddie Hearn, chairman of Matchroom Sport, said that the promoters had originally wanted the fight to be staged at Croke Park, which has a capacity of 82,000, but had to settle for the 3Arena which has 10% the capacity.

    Hearn said Taylor’s appearance in Dublin is just the first of many boxing events that he wants to bring to the city.

    “What we love is to come to cities and places that have passion, love a great night out, love entertainment, make noise, produce great TV, great visuals and great atmospheres and nights we’ll never forget,” he said during an interview earlier this week.

    “And as far as I’m concerned, Dublin is the No. 1 place for that. It’s amazing to think that world championship, big time boxing is back in the city this Saturday.

    “It’s a brilliant night of boxing and I believe it’s going to be the first of many back in this city.”

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  • Alabama death row inmate cannot be executed due to intellectual disability, appeals court rules | CNN

    Alabama death row inmate cannot be executed due to intellectual disability, appeals court rules | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    An appeals court has ruled the state of Alabama cannot execute man with an intellectual disability who was sentenced to death for murdering a man in 1997, upholding a lower court’s decision.

    The US Eleventh Court of Appeals’ decision on Friday means that 53-year-old Joseph Clifton Smith cannot be executed unless the decision is overturned by the US Supreme Court.

    In a statement released after the appeals court decision, Amanda Priest, communications director for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, said, “Smith’s IQ scores have consistently placed his IQ above that of someone who is intellectually disabled. The Attorney General thinks his death sentence was both just and constitutional.”

    “The Attorney General disagrees with the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling, and will seek review from the United States Supreme Court,” the statement concluded

    In 2021, a US District Court judge ruled that due to his intellectual disability, Smith could not “constitutionally be executed,” and vacated his death sentence.

    The judge referenced the district court’s finding that Smith’s “intellectual and adaptive functioning issues clearly arose before he was 18 years of age,” according to the 2021 appeals court ruling, which agreed with the lower court.

    Smith confessed to murdering Durk Van Dam, whose body was found “in an isolated area near his pick-up truck” in Mobile County in southwest Alabama, according to the court’s Friday ruling. Smith “offered two conflicting versions of the crime,” the ruling says – first admitting he watched Van Dam’s murder and then saying he participated but didn’t intend to kill the man.

    The case went to trial and the jury found Smith guilty, the order states. During his sentencing proceedings, Smith’s mother and sister testified that his father was “an abusive alcoholic,” according to the ruling.

    Smith had struggled in school since as early as the first grade, the order says, which led to his teacher labeling him as an “underachiever” before he underwent an “intellectual evaluation,” which gave him an IQ score of 75, the court said. When he was in fourth grade, Smith was tested again and placed in a learning-disability class – at the same time as his parents were going through a divorce, the court said.

    “After that placement, Smith developed an unpredictable temper and often fought with classmates. His behavior became so troublesome that his school placed him in an ‘emotionally conflicted classroom,’” the ruling states.

    Smith then failed the seventh and eighth grades before dropping out of school entirely, the ruling says, and he then spent “much of the next fifteen years in prison” for burglary and receiving stolen property.

    One of the witnesses in Smith’s evidentiary hearing held by the district court to determine whether he has an intellectual disability was Dr. Daniel Reschly, a certified school psychologist, the ruling says.

    The court ultimately determined that Smith “has significant deficits in social/interpersonal skills, self-direction, independent home living, and functional academics,” the ruling says.

    In its conclusion, the appeals court wrote: “We hold that the district court did not clearly err in finding that Smith is intellectually disabled and, as a result, that his sentence violates the Eighth Amendment. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment vacating Smith’s death sentence.”

    “This case is an example of why process is so important in habeas cases and why we should not rush to enforce death sentences—the only form of punishment that can’t be undone,” the office of Smith’s federal public defender said in a statement after the appeals court decision.

    “Originally, this same District Court denied Mr. Smith the opportunity to be heard, and it was an Eleventh Circuit decision that allowed a hearing that created this avenue for relief,” the statement said.

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  • Jim Brown Fast Facts | CNN

    Jim Brown Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of activist, actor and Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown. He played his entire career with the Cleveland Browns.

    Birth date: February 17, 1936

    Birth place: St. Simons Island, Georgia

    Birth name: James Nathaniel Brown

    Father: Swinton Brown, a professional boxer

    Mother: Theresa Brown, a housekeeper

    Marriages: Monique Gunthrop (1997-present); Sue Jones (1958-1972, divorced)

    Children: with Monique Gunthrop: Aris and Morgan; with Sue Jones: Kim, Kevin (twins) and James Jr.; with Kim Jones: Kimberly; with Brenda Ayres: Shellee; mother’s name unavailable publicly: Karen Brown Ward

    Education: Syracuse University, B.A., 1957

    At Syracuse, Brown played football, lacrosse, basketball and ran track.

    Qualified for the 1956 Olympics as a decathlete, but did not compete in order to focus on football.

    Inducted into the the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971, the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995 and National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1983.

    Led the NFL in rushing eight out of his nine seasons.

    Played in nine straight Pro Bowls, for the 1957-1965 seasons.

    NFL’s MVP in 1957, 1958 and 1965.

    Starred in movies such as “The Dirty Dozen,” “Ice Station Zebra” and “100 Rifles.”

    1957 – First round draft pick, sixth player overall, by the Cleveland Browns. Later named Rookie of the Year and also Most Valuable Player.

    1960s – Founds the Negro Industrial and Economic Union (later renamed the Black Economic Union) to support black entrepreneurship.

    1964 – “Off My Chest,” Brown’s autobiography, with Myron Cope, is published.

    1964 – Film debut in “Rio Conchos.”

    December 27, 1964 – The Cleveland Browns defeat the Baltimore Colts 27-0 in the NFL Championship Game. (The Super Bowl replaced the NFL Championship Game in 1967).

    July 24, 1965 – A jury finds Brown not guilty of assault and battery against 18-year-old Brenda Ayres, after an incident in his hotel room.

    July 14, 1966 – After nine seasons and 118 games, retires from professional football at the age of 30.

    1968 – Brown is charged with assault with intent to commit murder after model Eva Bohn-Chin is found beneath the balcony of Brown’s second floor apartment. The charge is later dismissed after Bohn-Chin refuses to name him as her assailant. Brown also pays a $300 fine for striking a deputy sheriff during the same incident.

    1969 – Stars in “100 Rifles” with Raquel Welch. It is one of the first major studio films to feature an interracial love scene.

    February 5, 1970 – A jury finds Brown not guilty of assault and battery charges, stemming from a traffic accident in 1969.

    1971 – Is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, in his first year of eligibility.

    1978 – Is sentenced to one day in jail for beating and choking his golfing partner, Frank Snow. Brown is also fined $500 and receives two years’ probation.

    1985 – Brown is charged with raping and assaulting a 33-year-old woman in his home. The judge later dismisses the charges based on inconsistent testimony.

    August 1986 – Brown is arrested for assaulting live-in girlfriend Debra Clark. The charges are later dropped after Clark refuses to prosecute.

    1988 – Founds the Amer-I-Can program, an organization dedicated to stopping gang violence and helping individuals “take charge of their lives and achieve their full potential.”

    1989 – Brown’s memoir, with Steve Delsohn, “Out of Bounds,” is published.

    June 15, 1999 – Following a domestic disturbance with his wife Monique Gunthrop Brown, Brown is arrested and charged with making terrorist threats toward his wife. In the 911 tape, Monique Brown accuses Brown of threatening to kill her, a claim she later recants.

    September 10, 1999 – A jury finds Brown guilty of vandalism for smashing his wife’s car with a shovel during the June incident. He is later fined $1,800 and sentenced to three years’ probation, one year of domestic violence counseling and 400 hours community service or 40 hours on a work crew.

    January 5, 2000 – Brown is sentenced to six months in jail for refusing the court-ordered counseling and community service hours handed down in 1999. He serves almost four months in the Ventura County jail in 2002.

    2002 – Spike Lee’s documentary, “Jim Brown: All American,” is released.

    2005-2010 – Executive adviser to the Cleveland Browns.

    2008 – Files a lawsuit against Electronic Arts, alleging that the video game company used his likeness in the Madden NFL video games without his consent.

    2009 – A federal judge dismisses Brown’s 2008 lawsuit against Electronic Arts. An appeals court upholds the ruling in 2013.

    May 29, 2013 – Is named special adviser to the Cleveland Browns.

    July 2014 – Files a lawsuit against sports memorabilia dealer Lelands, alleging that the online auction dealer was selling Brown’s stolen 1964 championship ring. Lelands countersues Brown in August 2014.

    October 2015 – The lawsuit is settled, and Brown’s ring is returned.

    September 18, 2016 – A bronze statue of Brown is unveiled outside FirstEnergy Stadium, home of the Cleveland Browns. It is the first statue outside the stadium to honor a former player.

    October 11, 2018 – Along with Kanye West, Brown meets with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

    November 22, 2019 – Brown is announced as one of the 100 greatest players in NFL history as part of the NFL 100 All-Time Team.

    January 13, 2020 – ESPN names Brown the number one greatest player in college football’s 150 year history.

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  • Man who drove off cliff says he was pulling over to check tire pressure; wife claims he drove off purposefully, San Francisco Chronicle reports, citing court documents | CNN

    Man who drove off cliff says he was pulling over to check tire pressure; wife claims he drove off purposefully, San Francisco Chronicle reports, citing court documents | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A California man accused of purposefully driving himself, his wife and two children off a cliff on a coastal highway told police he pulled off to the side of the road to check on the car’s tire pressure, according to court documents exclusively obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.

    His wife told first responders her husband, 41-year-old Dharmesh Patel, drove them off the cliff on purpose, the Chronicle reported, citing a search warrant affidavit.

    The outlet did not post the court documents online.

    Patel was charged with three counts of attempted murder in January after prosecutors say he intentionally steered his Tesla off a portion of the Pacific Coast Highway called Devil’s Slide, sending the family plunging about 250 feet to a rocky beach below. All four family members survived the crash. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

    CNN has reached out to Patel’s attorney and his wife, Neha Patel, for comment. CNN is also working to obtain a copy of the court documents.

    When rescuers were pulling the family members out of the car, the wife told an emergency worker “something to the effect that the driver, her husband Dharmesh Patel, did it on purpose,” CHP officer Aaron Sapien wrote in a three-page search warrant affidavit seeking grounds to seize Patel’s property, the Chronicle reports.

    “She then told him that her husband needs a psych evaluation,” Sapien wrote in the affidavit, according to the Chronicle. “She said that suspect Patel drove them off and repeated this multiple times.”

    Another emergency worker also recalled hearing Neha say Patel drove off the cliff on purpose and “tried to kill everyone,” Sapien wrote in the affidavit, the Chronicle reports.

    During an interview with police following the incident, Patel told investigators he and his family were driving approximately 20 miles to his brother’s home in Montara, California, the Chronicle reports, citing the search warrant. He told officers he stopped at three gas stations on the drive to put air in the left rear tire, but his dashboard sensor continued to show low pressure, the search warrant says, according to the outlet. While driving on the highway, Patel said the car “began to feel different,” Sapien wrote in the warrant, the outlet says.

    “Patel then moved the Tesla to the ‘dirt path’ to check the tire air pressure,” the officer wrote in the search warrant, the Chronicle says. “Patel related that it was a short distance before they fell down the cliff.”

    Patel also told officers he hadn’t been on any medication or under the influence at the time of the crash, the search warrant says, according to the outlet.

    “When asked if he felt depressed, he related he was not really depressed, he just felt down because times were bad in the world, the war and the drugs,” Sapien wrote in the search warrant, the Chronicle says. “When asked if he felt suicidal, he stated, ‘you know, not like a plan, not usually’ and related that he was more worried about the world.”

    In responding to the Chronicle’s report, San Mateo District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe told CNN there was “nothing new for us” as his office wrote the documents that supported the search warrants. “The details in the documents are important evidence of the charges we have brought against Mr. Patel,” he said.

    Patel is scheduled to appear in court June 12 for a preliminary hearing, court records show.

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  • Iran condemned after executing three men over recent protests | CNN

    Iran condemned after executing three men over recent protests | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Iran has been condemned by international watchdogs after it executed three more men over recent protests that rocked the country.

    Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaqoubi were executed in Isfahan, judiciary news outlet Mizan News said on Friday. The three were accused of carrying out an attack that killed three security officers in Isfahan in November 2022 during anti-government protests.

    The US State Department on Thursday urged Iran to refrain from carrying out the executions, calling the proceedings “sham trials.”

    And Amnesty International said the men were “fast-tracked through Iran’s judicial system” without due process being observed.

    “These executions are meant to prolong the Islamic Republic’s rule and only a high political cost can stop more protester executions,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of the non-governmental organization Iran Human Rights, wrote on Twitter.

    “Unless the Iranian authorities are met with serious consequences by the international community, hundreds of protester lives will be taken by their killing machine,” he said.

    Iran executed at least 582 people last year, a 75% increase on the previous year, according to human rights groups who say the rise reflects an effort by Tehran to “instill fear” among anti-regime protesters.

    It was the highest number of executions in the Islamic republic since 2015, according to a report released last month by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and the France-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) groups.

    More than half of the executions last year took place after the protests erupted in September.

    The US State Department condemned the latest planned executions of Kazemi, Mirhashemi and Yaqoubi on Thursday.

    “The execution of these men, after what have been widely regarded as sham trials, would be an affront to human rights and basic dignity in Iran and everywhere,” said State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel at a press briefing.

    “It is clear from this episode that the Iranian regime has learned nothing from the protests that began with another death, the death of Mahsa Amini in September of last year,” Patel added.

    The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, another NGO that monitors human rights violations in Iran, said on Twitter that the three men “had the minimal defense rights of an accused.” The group decried what it called an “unfathomable wave of executions in Iran.”

    Nationwide protests rocked Iran last fall, as decades of bitterness over the regime’s treatment of women and other issues boiled over after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the country’s so-called morality police.

    Authorities violently repressed the months-long movement, which had posed one of the biggest domestic threats to Iran’s ruling clerical regime in more than a decade.

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  • Accused killer of tech exec Bob Lee pleads not guilty to murder charge at arraignment | CNN

    Accused killer of tech exec Bob Lee pleads not guilty to murder charge at arraignment | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The man accused of fatally stabbing tech executive Bob Lee last month pleaded not guilty to murder in a San Francisco court Thursday.

    Nima Momeni, 38, will be held in custody without bail, the judge said.

    Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai argued Momeni presents a public safety risk and is a flight risk. He said the knife used in the killing was connected to Momeni. It was a knife of the same brand as found in his sister’s apartment, and Momeni’s DNA was found on the knife’s handle, Talai said.

    Paula Canny, Momeni’s attorney, said the DNA testing on the knife “isn’t entirely accurate” and argued Momeni is not a flight risk, noting he had not fled in the nine days between the killing and his arrest.

    “(He) is a loving son, hardworking, has never been convicted of a felony, has no criminal record or been convicted of a crime of violence,” she said. Momeni is not a citizen and would risk being deported to Iran, she added.

    Canny said this was “never a case of ‘who done it,’ it was always a case about ‘what happened.’” Outside court Thursday, Canny offered a preview of her client’s defense.

    “My defense is it was a combination of an accident and self-defense,” she said. “There was no premeditation or deliberation.”

    San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins defended the charge after the hearing. “We believe that this was an intentional killing,” she said.

    The hearing comes more than a month after Lee, a 43-year-old who cofounded the mobile payment service provider Cash App, was stabbed to death in the Rincon Hill neighborhood in the predawn hours of April 4. An autopsy report shows he suffered knife wounds that pierced his heart and lung.

    Authorities have said Lee and Momeni knew each other and were in a white BMW shortly before the stabbing at about 2 a.m. The prosecution’s case relies heavily on grainy security video of what they say was the fatal stabbing, but Canny has said, “I don’t think you can see anything” in the video.

    A witness described as Lee’s close friend said Momeni and Lee had an earlier discussion about Momeni’s sister and “whether his sister was doing drugs or anything inappropriate,” according to court documents. Lee had told Momeni nothing inappropriate had happened, according to the documents.

    Further, a message from Momeni’s sister to Lee afterward showed the sister checking in on Lee. “Just wanted to make sure your doing ok Cause I know nima came wayyyyyy down hard on you And thank you for being such a classy man handling it with class,” she wrote, according to documents from the district attorney’s office.

    The killing has rattled the San Francisco tech scene and spurred broader criticisms of crime in the city, including from Tesla and Twitter executive Elon Musk, who connected the killing to “repeat violent offenders” being released from custody. However, Jenkins criticized Musk’s statement as “reckless and irresponsible” and said his remarks “assumed incorrect circumstances” about the case.

    Lee was the former chief technology officer of Square who helped launch Cash App. He later joined MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency and digital payments startup, in 2021 as its chief product officer.

    Momeni has been the owner of an IT business, California Secretary of State records indicate. He has been held without bail since his arrest last month.

    Motion-to-detain documents and surveillance footage from the DA’s office last month laid out what authorities say preceded the stabbing.

    The footage shows Momeni arriving at his sister’s apartment building in a white BMW around 8:30 p.m. on April 3, and later shows Lee entering the building around 12:39 a.m. on April 4.

    A little after 2 a.m., security footage shows Lee and Momeni leaving the building and getting into Momeni’s BMW. Additional footage from the area shows the two driving in the car together.

    Video then shows the BMW drive to a “dark and secluded area” on Main Street, just out of view for the video to see the interaction between the two men, per the document.

    Eventually, the two subjects, who are unidentifiable by their faces but seem to be wearing the same clothing as earlier, appear back in frame. After about five minutes, the subject wearing a white-colored top, consistent with what Momeni appeared to be wearing, “suddenly move(s) toward the other subject,” the document says. The two subjects then separate.

    The person in dark-colored clothing, who authorities believe to be Lee, walks northbound, while the person in the light-colored clothing walks south and stops along a fence, where a knife was ultimately recovered, the document says. The BMW then speeds away, the document states.

    A kitchen knife was found near the scene, Jenkins has said.

    The toxicology report shows Lee had cocaine, ketamine and alcohol in his system at the time of the stabbing, but the substances were not indicated as a factor in his death.

    The alcohol was equivalent to the amount of a beer, and the ketamine could have been given as anesthesia in the hospital, said Dr. Kendall Von Crowns, the chief medical examiner in Tarrant County, Texas, who reviewed and analyzed the toxicology report for CNN.

    Canny used the toxicology report to accuse Lee of unstated wrongdoing and said it would be a factor in Momeni’s defense.

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  • Angry lawmakers accuse Fed of inaction in insider trading investigation | CNN Business

    Angry lawmakers accuse Fed of inaction in insider trading investigation | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Congressional lawmakers grilled Federal Reserve Inspector General Mark Bialek Wednesday over possible insider trading among Fed officials in 2020, accusing the nation’s central bank of inaction.

    The heads of the Boston and Dallas Federal Reserve banks retired early in 2021 after trades they made before and during the pandemic came to light. Bialek said his investigation into any potential legal violations from the trades is “ongoing.”

    A separate investigation by Bialek last year found no wrongdoing stemming from trades by a financial adviser on behalf of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s family trust and by former Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida.

    Bialek told members of a Senate Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy that he was limited in what he could disclose because it would impede his ability to “conduct a thorough, independent investigation” into the former regional bank heads’ trades.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, interrupted: “You have had a year and a half,” she said. “This is not strong oversight. In fact, it is not even competent oversight.”

    As Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the subcommittee pointed out, Bialek, who has served in his role since 2011, is appointed by members of the Fed’s Board of Governors, whom he is tasked with investigating. Bialek told lawmakers there was no conflict of interest and that he was still able to conduct fair, independent investigations. Warren, among others, said she was unconvinced.

    “It looks like, to anyone in the public, that you gave your boss a free pass,” she said. “The Fed continues to stonewall Congress, stonewall the public on the underlying information about these trades. This is not acceptable.”

    The Office of Inspector General declined to comment Wednesday night.

    After Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in March, Warren and Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida introduced a bill to require a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed inspector general to the Fed Board of Governors.

    A separate Fed investigation into SVB’s collapse, not involving Bialek, faulted Fed supervisors. Scott on Wednesday said he lacked confidence in Bialek’s ability to investigate those Fed supervisory lapses.

    “Somebody at the Federal Reserve that was responsible for these banks for supervision clearly did it wrong,” he said Wednesday, referring to bank collapses since 2008. “The average person in America pays for all this.”

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  • Migrants are staying on school grounds, in hotels or at police stations in several states — and some residents are furious | CNN

    Migrants are staying on school grounds, in hotels or at police stations in several states — and some residents are furious | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    In New York City, hundreds of migrants are staying in current or former school gymnasiums.

    In Chicago, dozens of migrants have been sleeping in a police station.

    And in Florida, where the Republican governor has sent migrants to Democratic-led cities across the country, the state has hired three companies to relocate migrants from the state.

    While the surge of new migrants after last week’s expiration of Title 42 was not as large as many expected, the scramble to place asylum seekers who trekked thousands of miles to flee violence or crushing poverty has yielded widespread tensions within and between states.

    And more parts of the US could suddenly find themselves with unexpected migrants.

    About 300 migrants have been placed in current and former school gyms in New York City, a source familiar with the planning process told CNN.

    As of Monday, 220 migrants were in the gym of a former school on Staten Island, the source said. Less than 80 migrants have been housed at a gym at PS 188 on Coney Island, and fewer than 30 have been placed at a gym at PS 17 in Williamsburg, the source said.

    The gyms are not physically connected to the schools, the source added.

    Some New York City parents were dismayed or bewildered to learn of the city’s plan to temporarily house migrants in 20 school gyms.

    “I would like other places to be considered,” Samantha Clark told CNN affiliate WABC. “Our school is tiny. We can barely fit in it as it is.”

    Aramis Rosa said he sympathizes with the migrants but also opposes the plan to house them in school gyms.

    “We’re not against them,” Rosa told WABC. “They’re all welcome – just not to our school, next to our children.”

    Mayor Eric Adams has said the migrants would not interact with students, but that did little to assuage concerns from parents.

    Outside PS 17 in Brooklyn, a group of parents and students protested Wednesday morning over migrants being housed in the school’s gym.

    About 100 people marched around the block chanting, “We want our gym back!” and “Let us play!”

    Parents and children alike carried signs reading, “We need recess,” “No asylum on school grounds,” and “Safety first.”

    One protest organizer stressed the need to support migrants – though she didn’t think housing them on school grounds was appropriate.

    “What we’re gonna do is we’re going to support them. All of you kids are going to help us write notes, and we’ll make care packages, for all the people coming through here,” the organizer announced to the crowd.

    “We wish them well. We care. But they shouldn’t be on school grounds, and not in a place that only has three bathrooms for 100 people, right?”

    Elsewhere in the state, a New York state supreme court judge has granted a temporary restraining order blocking New York City’s mayor from sending asylum seekers to nearby Orange County to try to ease the influx of migrants arriving in the nation’s most populous city.

    The order, requested last week by Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus, allows for the 186 asylum seekers already staying at the Crossroads Hotel and Ramada by Wyndham in the town of Newburgh to stay in the county, according to the filing.

    But new migrants won’t be allowed to stay at the hotels if any of the current occupants leave, the order states.

    The pushback comes as New York City scrambles to house a crush of migrants – some of them bused to New York by Republican governors and local officials from Southern states.

    Since last spring, New York City has processed more than 65,000 migrants and around 35,000 remain in the city’s care, city officials have said. The city has opened more than 140 emergency shelters and eight large-scale humanitarian relief centers to manage the crisis, the mayor said.

    And a wave of new asylum seekers arrived last week with the expiration of Title 42 – the Trump-era policy enacted early in the Covid-19 pandemic that allowed authorities to quickly expel migrants at US land borders.

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul last week asked for federal government assistance with constructing and operating temporary shelters “in anticipation of several thousand asylum seekers arriving in New York City every week.”

    Adams’ office said it’s disappointed in the judge’s ruling.

    “New York City has cared for more than 65,000 migrants – sheltering, feeding, and caring for them, and we have done so largely without incident,” Adams’ press secretary Fabien Levy told CNN on Tuesday night.

    “We need the federal government to step up, but until they do, we need other elected officials around the state and country to do their part. New York City is out of space and we’re only asking Orange County to manage approximately ¼ of 1% of the asylum seekers who have come to New York City, with New York paying for shelter, food, and services.”

    But the executive of Orange County said, “New York City should not be establishing a homeless shelter outside of its borders in Orange County.”

    “The city is a self-proclaimed sanctuary city; Orange County is not,” Neuhaus said in a statement. “We should not have to bear the burden of the immigration crisis that the Federal government and Mayor Adams created, and I will continue to fight for Orange County’s residents in regard to this important manner.”

    The New York Immigration Coalition, an immigrant’s rights advocacy group, criticized both Adams and Neuhaus, saying the two need to start working together in coordinating and addressing the needs of asylum seekers in the region.

    “But County Executive Neuhaus shouldn’t be gloating about the judge’s temporary restraining order. His actions in response to asylum seekers to his region have been shameful – he has done nothing more than stoke fear and resentment in his community,” NYIC Executive Director Murad Awawdeh said in a statement.

    “At a moment when he should be choosing to welcome, he has instead chosen cruelty.”

    Hundreds of migrants have been staying in Chicago city buildings after they were “inhumanely” bused to Chicago, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot said earlier this month, according to CNN affiliate WBBM.

    During her final days in office, Lightfoot issued an emergency declaration in hopes of getting federal and state money to help the city respond to the crisis.

    More than 70 migrant families were staying in the Chicago Police Department’s 12th district station.

    “I’ve been here for two weeks,” Johon Torres, a migrant from Venezuela, told WBBM. Torres was joined by his three daughters and niece.

    The families in limbo have received donated supplies from refugee organizations, good Samaritans and even some police officers.

    But the situation is not tenable, said Sgt. James Calvino of the Chicago Police Sergeants’ Association.

    “It’s ballooned exponentially – way out of control,” Calvino told WBBM.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has chosen three companies to execute the next phase of its migrant relocation program, according to documents obtained by CNN.

    The Florida Division of Emergency Management selected Vertol Systems Company Inc., ARS Global Emergency Management and GardaWorld Federal Services to “manage and implement a program to relocate individuals” who have been processed and released by the US government, according to a FDEM document.

    The contract sets up the framework to once again send migrants to Democratic-led cities, as seen in 2022 when Vertol Systems Company Inc., provided two planes to relocate migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, under DeSantis’ direction.

    The state requires vendors to be “solely responsible” from beginning to end of the transporting of participants, including social services that should be provided to them at the destination cities.

    The newly selected vendors are tasked with providing ground and air transportation services to assist with what the DeSantis administration is calling the “voluntary relocation of Inspected Unauthorized Aliens,” who have agreed to be relocated from “Florida, or another state, to a location within the United States.”

    The FDEM did not indicate the number of migrants expected to be transferred and says it will be determined “based on circumstances on the ground.” One vendor noted its capability of moving 40-50 passengers per week, or about 2,200 a year.

    A document showing questions and answers between unnamed vendors and the FDEM, posted on the state’s contract procurement website, sheds light on how the state wants the companies to carry out the program.

    One vendor mentioned California, New York, and Georgia as potential destinations for flights originating from Florida.

    The state wants vendors to start transportation of migrants “within 72 hours of notification by the Division,” and must fulfill their contract until June 30, 2025, unless terminated earlier.

    In response to a question about handling the transportation of minors, FDEM said it does not “anticipate relocating juveniles without a parent or guardian.”

    FDEM said it anticipates this contract to be “turnkey,” saying “vendors will locate and identify, vet and verify individuals for program eligibility and transport.”

    The document states $10 million has been allocated to FDEM for the 2022-23 fiscal year for this program, which expires June 30.

    CNN has reached out to Vertol Systems Company, ARS Global Emergency Management and GardaWorld Federal Services for comment.

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  • NYC bike path terrorist set to be sentenced to life in prison after avoiding death penalty verdict at trial | CNN

    NYC bike path terrorist set to be sentenced to life in prison after avoiding death penalty verdict at trial | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A terrorist convicted of striking and killing eight people with a rented truck on a New York City bike path in an attack for ISIS is scheduled to be sentenced to serve life in prison Wednesday.

    Sayfullo Saipov effectively learned his sentence in March, when the jury in the penalty phase of his trial in Manhattan federal court told a judge it was unable to reach an undivided decision favoring the death penalty on any of the nine capital counts against him.

    The capital counts each carry a mandatory life imprisonment sentence by law after the jury didn’t unanimously vote for the death penalty.

    Saipov’s case was the first death penalty case under the Biden administration.

    About 25 surviving victims and family members of those killed in the attack are expected to give victim impact statements at the sentencing hearing Wednesday morning, according to court filings.

    Of the eight people killed in the attack, five were from Argentina, two were Americans, and one was from Belgium. The majority of those participating in the Manhattan federal court hearing are traveling from Argentina and Belgium, the prosecutors said in a memo.

    The convicted terrorist will have an opportunity to address the court before he is sentenced, but it is unclear if he will do so.

    On Halloween in 2017, Saipov drove a rented U-Haul truck into cyclists and pedestrians on Manhattan’s West Side bike path, then crashed the vehicle into a school bus, authorities said.

    After leaving the truck while brandishing a pellet gun and paintball gun, he was shot by a New York City Police Department officer and taken into custody, officials said.

    The jury convicted Saipov in January of all 28 counts against him for the fatal attack.

    Those counts included murder in aid of racketeering activity, assault with a dangerous weapon and attempted murder in aid of racketeering activity, attempted murder in aid of racketeering activity, provision of material support to ISIS, and violence and destruction of a motor vehicle.

    Saipov is expected to serve his life sentence at the Federal Bureau of Prisons ADX facility in Florence, Colorado, in solitary confinement at least 22 hours a day, his attorneys said during trial.

    Federal prosecutors who say Saipov deserves no leniency want District Judge Vernon Broderick to sentence Saipov to the fullest extent of the sentencing guidelines for his 28-count conviction; eight consecutive life sentences, a consecutive term of 260 years’ imprisonment and two concurrent life sentences.

    “Because Saipov deliberately committed the most abhorrent crime imaginable for which he has expressed no remorse, he deserves no leniency. Only the maximum punishment on each count of conviction will reflect the unimaginable harm inflicted and send the appropriate message that terrorist attacks on innocent civilians will be punished as harshly as the law allows,” prosecutors said in a pre-sentencing court filing.

    The harshest sentence, prosecutors wrote, would be “an exercise of such discretion to hold the defendant fully accountable for his crimes, and to send the appropriate message to the defendant, the public, and any others who might contemplate an attack on U.S. soil.”

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  • 98-year-old woman and her daughter among 3 victims killed by New Mexico student who fired randomly, hitting cars and homes | CNN

    98-year-old woman and her daughter among 3 victims killed by New Mexico student who fired randomly, hitting cars and homes | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A 98-year-old woman and her 73-year-old daughter were among the three people killed by an 18-year-old high school student who roamed through his neighborhood Monday firing indiscriminately at homes and passersby in their vehicles, according to authorities in the northwestern New Mexico town of Farmington.

    In all, Beau Wilson shot nine people Monday morning before four Farmington police officers fatally shot him, police officials said at a Tuesday news conference.

    Gwendolyn Schofield, 98, and daughter Melody Ivie, 73, were killed in their vehicle and Shirley Volta, 79, who also was shot in a car, died at a hospital, according to authorities.

    Farmington Police Sgt. Rachel Discenza was wounded in the exchange of fire with the assailant and New Mexico State Police officer Andreas Stamatiadas was shot as he came to the scene.

    Four other wounded victims were hospitalized, but like the officers, have been released.

    “The amount of violence and brutality that these innocent people faced is something that is unconscionable to me. And I don’t care what age you are. I don’t care what else is going on in your life. To kill three innocent elderly women that were just absolutely in no position to defend themselves is always going to be a tragedy,” Farmington Deputy Chief Kyle Dowdy said Tuesday.

    Investigators are still working on a motive for the shooting, Dowdy said. Interviews with Wilson’s family indicated they had concerns about his mental health, but it was unknown whether Wilson had been diagnosed with any mental health issues, he added.

    The shooter only had “minor infractions” as a juvenile, so he was not on the radar of authorities, the deputy chief said.

    The gunman turned 18 in October 2022 and the next month purchased one of the three weapons used in the shooting, Dowdy said. The deputy chief said police believe the other weapons were legally owned by a family member and they are investigating how the shooter got them.

    One of the guns was an assault-style rifle – a weapon of choice among US mass shooters in recent, high-profile massacres, including the 2012 Sandy Hook school attack and a shooting in Uvalde, Texas, nearly a year ago that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

    The attack left Farmington “shaken to the core by an unthinkable incldent that robbed families of their loved ones,” Mayor Nate Duckett told reporters. It is the latest American city to experience the wider scourge of US gun violence that’s resulted in 225 mass shootings in the first 20 weeks of the year.

    The shooter walked through the neighborhood in this commercial hub near the Southwest’s Four Corners and “randomly fired at whatever entered his head to shoot at,” before police fatally shot him, Police Chief Steve Hebbe said in a video statement Monday night.

    “There were no schools, no churches, no individuals targeted,” he said.

    Dowdy said investigators have not seen a link between the assailant and the victims, but the shooter was staying at a residence in the neighborhood.

    Investigators are piecing together how the attack that left more than 150 shell casings over a “wide and complex scene” that spans more than a quarter of a mile unfolded, authorities said. The assailant fired at three vehicles and six houses, though none of the victims was in a residence.

    Dowdy said investigators were still at the scene and haven’t found all the shell casings it was unclear how many of those the gunman fired.

    Discenza, a patrol sergeant with 10 years at the department, was wearing body armor but was hit by a bullet in the pelvic region, police officials said.

    Stamatiadas was shot while driving to the scene, officials said, and drove himself to a medical facility, according to the chief. The mayor said both have been released from the hospital.

    The four civilians who were shot are no longer in the hospital, Farmington Deputy Chief Baric Crum said Tuesday,

    Five people were treated at the scene for injuries such as cuts from flying glass.

    The shooting was first recorded on a doorbell camera at 10:56 a.m. MT and then emergency dispatch received “hundreds” of calls for an active shooter, police said. Officers were dispatched one minute later, including three who on their way to lunch and responded without body armor.

    They arrived at 11:02 and four minutes later the officers killed the gunman, according to Dowdy. Farmington officers were the only law enforcement personnel who shot at the gunman, firing 16 rounds total, officials said.

    Wilson was a student at Farmington High School, which was set to have its graduation ceremony Tuesday evening.

    Authorities expect to hold another news conference Wednesday.

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  • Four killed after US convoy attacked in Nigeria | CNN

    Four killed after US convoy attacked in Nigeria | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A United States convoy was attacked in Nigeria on Tuesday killing four people, including two personnel from the US consulate and two police officers, and kidnapping three others, according to local police and US officials.

    The attack took place in the southeastern Anambra state, with Anambra Police Command telling CNN that the attackers “murdered two police operatives and two staff of the US consulate and set their bodies and their vehicles ablaze.”

    The personnel who were killed were not US citizens, according to the White House and the local police. “No US citizens were involved and therefore there were no US citizens hurt,” said John Kirby of the US National Security Council. “We are aware of some casualties, perhaps even some killed.”

    When the assailants saw security forces “they made away with two police operatives and a driver of the second vehicle in the convoy,” Ikenga Tochukwu, deputy superintendent of police, said. “No US citizen was in the convoy,” he added.

    Police said that joint security forces “have embarked on a rescue and recovery operation in the area.”

    A State Department spokesperson said Tuesday that “Mission Nigeria personnel are working with Nigerian security services to investigate.”

    They continued: “The security of our personnel is always paramount, and we take extensive precautions when organizing trips to the field,” they continued.

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  • San Francisco security guard will not be charged in fatal shooting of suspected Walgreens shoplifter | CNN

    San Francisco security guard will not be charged in fatal shooting of suspected Walgreens shoplifter | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The security guard who shot and killed a suspected shoplifter at a Walgreens in downtown San Francisco last month will not face criminal charges, the district attorney’s office announced Monday, saying the shooter acted in self-defense.

    The district attorney’s office under Brooke Jenkins released surveillance video and a written report Monday regarding Michael Anthony’s fatal shooting of Banko Brown on April 27.

    According to the report, the guard said Brown had repeatedly threatened to stab him prior to the shooting. Police did not find a knife in Brown’s possession, the report states, but prosecutors still determined his fear was reasonable.

    “Given the totality of the circumstances, including the threat that Anthony believed, and could reasonably believe, the evidence shows that Brown’s shooting was not a criminal act because Anthony acted in lawful self-defense,” the report states. “Thus, Anthony is not criminally liable for the death of Brown.”

    The San Francisco Board of Supervisors last week sent a letter asking District Attorney Brooke Jenkins to release the surveillance video showing the shooting after no charges were brought against the guard during the 72 hours he was in custody.

    The surveillance camera video released Monday shows Brown attempting to leave the store before being stopped by the security guard, identified by police as Anthony. Brown then shoves the guard, leading to a physical altercation.

    Brown is held on the ground by the guard but released after about a minute, the video shows. Brown starts to leave but appears to turn around and move toward the guard, who then shoots him, the video shows.

    The killing and lack of charges has led to protests in San Francisco connected to broader debates over crime, poverty, homelessness and criminal justice in the Northern California city.

    San Francisco has seen a marked exodus of middle class residents since the Covid-19 pandemic, and a series of brazen property crimes and rampant public drug use has created a sense of disorder, as CNN explored in the recent special, “What happened to San Francisco?”

    One such incident was a daytime theft at a Walgreens store in 2021 captured on video in which a suspect casually grabbed items from shelves, tossed them into a black bag and left the store, brushing past the store’s security guard and several onlookers. Walgreens said at the time this “blatant retail theft” was an ongoing problem at its stores, although a company executive said earlier this year “maybe we cried too much” about the issue.

    As part of the backlash, the progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin was recalled by a 55% vote last year. Jenkins was appointed to replace him and pledged to “restore accountability and consequences to our criminal justice system,” saying this was a moment to “take back our streets.”

    Surveillance camera video shows a portion of the encounter involving Banko Brown, left, and security guard Michael Anthony before Anthony fatally shot Banko.

    In his videotaped interview with police, the guard said Brown repeatedly threatened to stab him during the fight.

    “I felt like I was in danger. I felt like I was going to be stabbed,” Anthony said.

    According to the district attorney’s report, Brown was a transgender man. Anthony, using incorrect pronouns, further described his mental state the moment Brown moved toward him.

    “And I didn’t know what she was planning on doing, but, uh … turns out her intention was to … try to spit at me and by that reaction by her turning around and advancing towards me … that’s when I lifted it (motions with hands) and then shot once.”

    The district attorney’s report notes that self-defense applies when a person has a reasonable belief they are in imminent danger of being killed or suffering great bodily harm.

    “There is no evidence to contradict that Anthony’s fear was honest,” the report states.

    However, John Burris, an attorney representing Brown’s family, said he will move forward with filing a lawsuit in the case soon.

    “I’ve seen the tape and looked it over pretty closely and I believe this shooting death was unjustified,” he told CNN.

    “The family is very disturbed that no prosecution has taken place, particularly the father and the mother, and they would like the matter to be sent to the attorney general’s office for review.”

    San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin said he is asking the state attorney general and the US Department of Justice to review the case. He told CNN affiliate KGO he was troubled by the video.

    “There’s distance between them, Banko Brown is unarmed, Banko Brown is outside of the store,” he said.

    Walgreens issued a statement offering its condolences to Brown’s family.

    “The safety of our patients, customers and team members is our top priority, and violence of any kind will not be tolerated in our stores,” the company said. “We take this matter seriously and are cooperating with local authorities.”

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  • China sentences elderly US citizen to life in prison on spying charges | CNN

    China sentences elderly US citizen to life in prison on spying charges | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    A 78-year-old American citizen has been sentenced to life in prison by a Chinese court on spying charges.

    John Shing-Wan Leung, who is also a Hong Kong permanent resident, was convicted of espionage and given a life sentence Monday by the Intermediate People’s Court in the eastern city of Suzhou, according to a statement on the court’s social media account.

    Leung was detained on April 15, 2021 by state security authorities in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, according to the brief statement, which did not provide details on his charges.

    The court also confiscated personal property worth 500,000 yuan ($71,797), the statement added.

    Chinese authorities and state media have not previously disclosed any information on Leung’s detention or the court process that led to his conviction. In China, cases involving state security are usually handled behind closed doors.

    The US Embassy in Beijing said Monday it was aware of reports of Leung’s sentencing.

    “The Department of State has no greater priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment,” a spokesperson for the US Embassy said in a statement to CNN.

    The sentencing of Leung comes at a time when relations between Beijing and Washington are at their lowest point in half a century amid intensifying rivalry over trade, technology, geopolitics and military supremacy.

    It also comes as American and Chinese officials are resuming high-level engagements since a dispute over a suspected Chinese spy balloon shattered efforts to mend ties earlier this year.

    Leung is among a growing number of foreign nationals to have been ensnared in China’s widening crackdown on espionage under leader Xi Jinping.

    In March, Chinese authorities detained a Japanese employee of Astellas Pharma in Beijing on suspected espionage – the 17th Japanese national to have been detained in China since the counter-espionage law was introduced in 2014.

    In another high-profile case, two Canadians – former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor – were detained by China for nearly three years.

    Their arrest on espionage charges in late 2018 came shortly after Canada arrested Chinese businesswoman and Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a US warrant related to the company’s business dealings in Iran.

    Beijing repeatedly denied that their cases were a political retaliation, but the two men were nonetheless released on the same day Meng was allowed by Canada to return to China.

    Last month, China passed a wide-ranging amendment to its already sweeping counter-espionage law, which will take effect from July 1.

    The new legislation expanded the definition of espionage from covering state secrets and intelligence to any “documents, data, materials or items related to national security and interests,” and to include cyberattacks against state organs or critical information infrastructure.

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  • 2 dead, 5 injured following shooting involving teens in Yuma, Arizona | CNN

    2 dead, 5 injured following shooting involving teens in Yuma, Arizona | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Police in southwestern Arizona are investigating a fatal weekend shooting that left two people dead and five others injured, including teenagers, authorities said Sunday.

    Victims ranged from 15 to 20 years old in the shooting that happened Saturday night at a gathering in a residential area of Yuma, according to the Yuma Police Department.

    Officers responded shortly before 11 p.m. local time and found several gunshot victims who were all male, police said in a statement.

    Two of the victims – 19-year-old and 20-year-old men – were taken to the Yuma Regional Medical Center, where they were both pronounced dead.

    The 19-year-old victim was transported to the hospital before police arrived at the scene, and the Yuma Fire Department took the 20-year-old victim to the hospital, the statement said.

    A 16-year-old boy was also taken to the same medical center and later flown to Phoenix with life-threatening injuries.

    The injuries of the remaining gunshot victims aged 15, 16, 18 and 19 were not life-threatening, authorities said.

    Several off-duty officers who happened to be in the area also responded to the shooting, police said.

    Investigators were interviewing several witnesses Sunday, said Yuma Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Lori Franklin, CNN affiliate KYMA reported.

    A suspect has not yet been taken into custody as authorities continue their investigation, according to the statement.

    The shooting marks the 33rd mass shooting of May 2023, and more than 215 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

    CNN and the GVA define a mass shooting as one in which four or more people were either injured or killed, excluding the shooter.

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  • A mother was raising her son in a city she loved. Then San Francisco changed and stole her boy | CNN

    A mother was raising her son in a city she loved. Then San Francisco changed and stole her boy | CNN

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    Watch how drugs, homelessness and crime have changed a city, and what is being done about it. CNN’s Sara Sidner asks “What Happened to San Francisco?” on “The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper,” Sunday at 8 p.m. ET.


    San Francisco
    CNN
     — 

    Tanya Tilghman moved to the Bay Area as a teenager to live with her mom. Later, she married, had two sons and made a home in San Francisco’s historically Italian North Beach district, up the hill from the tourist and financial centers.

    Even when her marriage broke down, she never thought of leaving. This was her city, her people. Liberal like her, with a mix of income levels and a general sense of community. She didn’t worry about her growing boys going out on the streets where she herself always felt safe.

    But those streets have changed, she says. She believes policies from City Hall and even groups who advocate for the homeless have exacerbated some of the problems and the community she once felt a part of has gone, she says. And her son got caught up in a scene you can almost not avoid in the city: the drug scene.

    Roman Vardanega first tried illegal drugs at the start of high school, Tilghman said, taking a prescription medication at a friend’s house.

    He quickly became hooked, his mother said, moving on to cocaine, heroin and later fentanyl, all available in the city’s seedy Tenderloin area.

    Tilghman admits she was uneducated about the prevalence of hard drugs, even naïve. But it was not something she encountered every day. Back then “I think it’s a lot worse now than when I was growing up here,” she said. “We used to come to the Tenderloin when I was a teenager because we thought it was just kind of fun, edgy and I never as a teenager felt unsafe. But I also don’t remember people coming up to me and asking me if I want to buy drugs.”

    One of her first clues that her son was getting in deep was when she was with him on a tour outside City Hall while he was in high school. It was a few blocks from the Tenderloin and some of the unhoused people on the street knew him by name, as if he spent a lot of time out there with them – which is what he was doing, scoring his drugs.

    She tried to help. Vardanega spent the 11th grade in rehab but persuaded his mom to let him return. She welcomed him home, but so did the streets.

    Roman Vardanega showed musical talent from a young age, his mother said, before his addictions consumed him.

    By then, her neighborhood had changed, with drugs seemingly freely available, even just heading home on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) local transport system.

    “When I got out of the BART station, the first thing that I was asked is if I wanted to buy drugs,” Tilghman said. The ease of getting and using drugs made the city a dangerous and sometimes deadly playground for people like her son.

    Vardanega started to live on the streets full-time when the Covid pandemic hit in 2020. The city shut down, residents either left or stayed inside and at the height of the pandemic, more people died of drug overdoses than Covid-19.

    “All the tents started going up in the city,” Tilghman said. “The open-air drug market became a lot worse. And so it became easier for him to buy drugs and to use it out in the open.”

    And confusingly to Tilghman, the city just seemed to look away.

    “The city’s policies have absolutely hurt my son, has hurt us, and has caused him to, I would say go into his addiction even a lot more,” she said.

    “If you got busted with drugs, most likely you’re not going to jail, the police officers would just let you go,” she said. “That made the situation a lot worse, especially for my son because he’s really young, and still kind of in that party state of mind.”

    Tilghman’s state of mind was focused on one goal: finding her son. She knew he was an addict. She knew she loved him so much it hurt. And she knew she would not stop searching until she found him even if that meant putting herself in danger.

    She would walk the streets looking at things most people try to avoid, looking directly into the eyes of the people living on the streets. Sometimes she got back blank stares. Other times a sympathetic ear or a hopeful hint about where her son might be.

    She didn’t find him, but so many people were like him. “What makes me sad is that I see my son’s face in everybody’s faces … out on the streets,” Tilghman said.

    As Covid descended, many housed residents began disappearing and the tent cities exploded onto the sidewalks, along with the drugs, the addictions and signs of mental illness.

    Rectangles are painted on the ground to encourage homeless people to keep social distancing at a city-sanctioned homeless encampment across from City Hall in San Francisco in May 2020.

    Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in the city, to include a “linkage center” in the Tenderloin, promoted as a place where addicts could get services to help them.

    When it opened in January 2022, Tilghman was hopeful it could be somewhere her son would find himself, and one day she went to take a look. When she got there, she heard music blaring and tried to get a look inside.

    “I saw people doing drugs. I couldn’t believe it. I’m like, this is a place where people are supposed to get help. And they’re actually doing drugs?” Tilghman said.

    A little later, she posed as an addict and went to the center for a closer look.

    “I said to them that I wanted to get off drugs, and that I needed help,” she said. “And they laughed at me. And the guy at the door said, ‘We can help you do drugs. But if you want help getting off drugs, you’re gonna have to come back tomorrow’,” Tilghman said.

    The center had what was supposed to be an area where overdoses could be treated, but it became known as a place to take drugs, not seek other services.

    “The most upsetting thing … was that the harm reduction area was more like a party scene,” Tilghman said. “If my son were to go there wanting to access services, him being addicted to drugs, if he were to see a party scene with people dancing and singing and doing drugs, and most likely selling drugs inside, there’s just no way he would access services. Because he would get so distracted, and be so triggered that he would go and use.”

    The city’s laissez-faire philosophy had just gone too far, she felt.

    “When you could walk into a store and steal under $1,000 worth of merchandise and get away with it – that’s going way too far,” she said. “It’s going too far when you could smoke crack in front of a police officer and the police officer just looks at you and doesn’t even arrest you.”

    The struggle to try to save her son wore her down. Not once, but three times Tilghman says she got so low and so hopeless she attempted suicide.

    The situation is beginning to change, both for Tilghman personally, and perhaps her city.

    The Tenderloin Linkage Center, which was later renamed to just the Tenderloin Center, closed last December. Tilghman has found new support and a mission working with Mothers Against Drug Addiction and Deaths. A new district attorney took over after the previous one was recalled by voters who perceived him as soft on crime. Tilghman’s son Vardanega got in trouble with the law, served jail time and was sent to a court-mandated rehab program.

    Incarceration is a good thing for him in Tilghman’s mind – keeping him alive, off the streets and giving him a chance in a treatment program.

    San Francisco is still beautiful to her – with the Golden Gate Bridge, the Presidio and Fisherman’s Wharf, the Italian enclave of North Beach. But it has become scarier, and she feels some of the blame has to go to politicians whose job it is to clean up the streets.

    “I’m liberal,” Tilghman said. “My politics have stayed the same and things have gone crazy around me.”

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  • McDonald’s found liable after child suffers burns from ‘hot’ chicken nuggets, Florida jury finds | CNN Business

    McDonald’s found liable after child suffers burns from ‘hot’ chicken nuggets, Florida jury finds | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    A South Florida jury returned a split verdict in a civil lawsuit filed against McDonald’s and one of its franchisees that alleged “dangerously hot” chicken nuggets from a Happy Meal burned a toddler, according to CNN affiliate WPLG.

    The jury on Thursday found that McDonald’s and franchise owner Upchurch Foods liable for failing to properly warn or provide reasonable instructions on the possible harm from the hot McNuggets dispensed at a Tamarac, Florida, drive-thru, the news station reported. However, only Upchurch Foods was found to be negligent. Jurors also found there was no inherent defect in putting McNuggets on the market and no breach of implied warranty.

    The suit was filed in 2019 against McDonald’s and Upchurch Foods. The Fort Lauderdale jury said both were at some fault for the burns sustained by Philana Holmes and Humberto Caraballo Estevez’s daughter when the hot nuggets fell on to her lap, WPLG reported.

    The complaint said Holmes bought and paid for the Happy Meal from the drive-thru and then drove away. The nugget fell and became lodged between her 4-year-old daughter’s leg and car seat, the law firm representing the plaintiffs said.

    “The Chicken McNuggets inside of that Happy Meal were unreasonably and dangerously hot (in terms of temperature),” and caused her “skin and flesh around her thighs to burn,” the complaint alleged, leaving her “disfigured and scarred.”

    The complaint said the franchise should have known the nuggets were “unfit for human handling,” had a duty not to sell them, and it should have adequately trained and supervised its employees.

    The law firm representing the plaintiff, Fischer Redavid, said in a blog post that the case will go to a second trial to “determine the damages owed to our client.”

    The case echoes the infamous McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit of the ’90s, in which a woman spilled coffee on her lap and suffered third-degree burns. A jury agreed with her contention that the coffee was unreasonably hot. Fischer Redavid noted that the plaintiff in that case was initially awarded nearly $3 million, but she settled for less after an appeal.

    “This is not the infamous Hot Coffee case; this is Olivia’s case,” the law firm said in a statement to WPLG. “She’s an adorable, innocent child who was severely burned through no fault of her own.”

    In a statement, McDonald’s called it an “unfortunate incident” but that they “respectfully disagree with the verdict.” McDonald’s defense said it had no control over the injuries and damages.

    “Our sympathies go out to this family for what occurred in this unfortunate incident, as we hold customer safety as one of our highest priorities,” local McDonald’s owner and operator, Brent Upchurch, said in a statement. “That’s why our restaurant follows strict rules in accordance with food safety best practices when it comes to cooking and serving our menu items, including Chicken McNuggets.”

    Upchurch said the Tamarac location “did indeed follow” safety protocols.

    Fischer Redavid’s statement said the verdict “reflected the truth, the facts, and the law.”

    “We don’t view this as a ‘split verdict.’ Two defendants went to trial, denying liability. A jury found both liable.”

    – CNN’s Danielle Wiener-Bronner contributed to this report

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