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  • Hackers post email addresses linked to 200 million Twitter accounts, security researchers say | CNN Business

    Hackers post email addresses linked to 200 million Twitter accounts, security researchers say | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Email addresses linked to more than 200 million Twitter profiles are currently circulating on underground hacker forums, security experts say. The apparent data leak could expose the real-life identities of anonymous Twitter users and make it easier for criminals to hijack Twitter accounts, the experts warned, or even victims’ accounts on other websites.

    The trove of leaked records also includes Twitter users’ names, account handles, follower numbers and the dates the accounts were created, according to forum listings reviewed by security researchers and shared with CNN.

    “Bad actors have won the jackpot,” said Rafi Mendelsohn, a spokesman for Cyabra, a social media analysis firm focused on identifying disinformation and inauthentic online behavior. “Previously private data such as emails, handles, and creation date can be leveraged to build smarter and more sophisticated hacking, phishing and disinformation campaigns.”

    Some reports suggested the data was collected in 2021 through a bug in Twitter’s systems, a flaw the company fixed in 2022 after a separate incident in July involving 5.4 million Twitter accounts alerted the company to the vulnerability.

    Troy Hunt, a security researcher, said Thursday that his analysis of the data “found 211,524,284 unique email addresses” that had been leaked. The Washington Post earlier reported a forum listing promoting the data of 235 million accounts.

    Hunt did not immediately respond to a question from CNN asking whether the records would be added to his website, haveibeenpwned.com, which allows users to search hacked records to determine if they have been affected. CNN has not independently verified the records’ authenticity.

    Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Its communication team, along with roughly half of Twitter’s overall workforce, was gutted after billionaire Elon Musk completed his acquisition the company in late October. The significant staff reductions could now add to concerns about the company’s ability to respond to security threats.

    The breadth of the leaked data could allow malicious actors or repressive governments to connect anonymous Twitter handles with the real names or email addresses of their owners, potentially unmasking dissidents, journalists, activists or other at-risk users around the world, security researchers warn.

    “For those people, this is a very consequential breach,” said John Scott-Railton, a security researcher at The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab.

    The account data could also be valuable to hackers who can use the information as part of password-reset attempts and account takeovers. The risk is particularly high for individuals who use the same account credentials on Twitter as they do for other digital services such as banks or cloud storage, researchers said, because hackers could take information gleaned from the leak to pry open user accounts elsewhere.

    Verified Twitter users caught up in the apparent leak, or users with particularly large followings, will be particularly valuable targets as a result of the leak, security experts warned, as those account holders may be especially influential celebrities or susceptible to extortion.

    To protect themselves from phishing attempts, internet users should use unique passwords for each online service and keep track of them using a digital password manager, security researchers say. They should also enable multi-factor authentication for each of their accounts, and exercise caution when opening unsolicited email or links.

    According to the cybersecurity news outlet BleepingComputer, which did claim to test the data, the latest dump appears similar to a leaked dataset advertised on hacking forums in November containing an alleged 400 million records, but slimmed down to eliminate some duplicate records. Twitter has not commented on that leak.

    Reports of the leak could expand Twitter’s already significant legal and regulatory risk.

    In December, Twitter’s main European privacy regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission, said it is investigating the July 2022 leak as a possible violation of Europe’s signature privacy law, known as GDPR.

    Last summer, the company’s former head of security, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, filed a whistleblower report to the US government alleging long-ignored security vulnerabilities in Twitter’s operations. Zatko claimed that Twitter’s shortcomings on security reflected a breach of Twitter’s binding commitments to the Federal Trade Commission, a serious offense. (Twitter broadly and repeatedly pushed back at Zatko’s allegations.)

    Successive incidents at Twitter have led to the company signing two consent orders with the FTC since 2011 to improve its cybersecurity posture. Violations of FTC orders can lead to fines, business restrictions and even sanctions targeting individual executives.

    In November, top Twitter officials responsible for privacy and security resigned from the company, just days after Musk closed his purchase of the platform and amid the mass layoffs that in some cases cut whole departments.

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  • 12-year-old in custody in Oklahoma for fatally stabbing 9-year-old brother while parent slept upstairs, police say | CNN

    12-year-old in custody in Oklahoma for fatally stabbing 9-year-old brother while parent slept upstairs, police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A 12-year-old girl is in custody in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after fatally stabbing her 9-year-old brother, according to police.

    The child is being held in a Tulsa juvenile detention facility, according to a Tulsa Police news release.

    Officers responded to a stabbing late Thursday night, the release said. When officers arrived, paramedics and firefighters “were already on scene and performing CPR to a 9-year-old male victim,” police said.

    “Officers learned the children’s parent was upstairs asleep when the 12-year-old daughter woke the parent up and said that she had stabbed her nine-year-old brother,” said the release.

    The boy “was rushed to the hospital and taken into surgery,” but succumbed to his injuries shortly after 2:30 a.m. CT, according to police.

    The 12-year-old suspect was taken into custody and is being held at the Family Center for Juvenile Justice, said the news release. Neither child has been identified by authorities.

    The Tulsa Police Department Child Crisis Unit is handling the stabbing investigation.

    This is the second homicide in the city of Tulsa this year, the department said.

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  • Woman sentenced to three years in state prison for collecting $400,000 in viral GoFundMe scam | CNN

    Woman sentenced to three years in state prison for collecting $400,000 in viral GoFundMe scam | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A New Jersey woman has been sentenced to three years in state prison for her role in scamming more than $400,000 from GoFundMe donors, by claiming to be collecting money for a homeless man.

    Katelyn McClure, 32, is currently serving a 12-month and one day term in a federal prison in Connecticut for her involvement in the scheme, the Burlington County Prosecutor announced in a news release Friday.

    Her state sentence will run concurrently with her federal prison time, according to the prosecutor’s office. The judge also ruled McClure, who formerly worked at the state Department of Transportation, is “permanently barred from ever holding another position as a public employee,” the release said.

    In 2017, McClure claimed she ran out of gas and was stranded on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia. The homeless man, Johnny Bobbitt Jr., supposedly saw her and gave her his last $20 for gas.

    McClure and her then-boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, posted about the “good deed” on social media, including a picture of her with Bobbitt on a highway ramp. They also started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the homeless veteran, saying they wanted to pay it forward to the good Samaritan and get him off the streets.

    The story went viral and made national headlines, with more than 14,000 donors contributing. The scammers netted around $367,000 after fees, according to court documents.

    Prosecutors said the then-couple spent the money on a BMW, a New Year’s trip to Las Vegas, gambling in casinos, Louis Vuitton handbags, and other items.

    Bobbitt, who received $75,000 from the fundraiser, according to prosecutors, took civil action against D’Amico and McClure and the scam soon became public.

    An investigation revealed the real story. According to Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina, the couple first met Bobbitt at an off-ramp near a casino at least a month before the GoFundMe campaign went live. Investigators reviewed texts the couple sent discussing the scam and their money troubles, including one McClure sent to a friend which read, “Okay so wait the gas part is completely made up, but the guy isn’t. I had to make something up to make people feel bad.”

    D’Amico and Bobbitt were charged in 2018 alongside her for concocting the scheme, prosecutors said.

    McClure pleaded guilty to one count of theft by deception in the second degree in 2019, according to the Burlington County prosecutor.

    Bobbitt pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft by deception in 2019 and was sentenced to a five-year special probation period which includes drug treatment. D’Amico also pleaded guilty and agreed to a five-year term in New Jersey state prison, as well as restitution of GoFundMe and the donors, in 2019.

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  • As police in Idaho faced mounting criticism, investigators worked meticulously behind the scenes to nab a suspect | CNN

    As police in Idaho faced mounting criticism, investigators worked meticulously behind the scenes to nab a suspect | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    In the weeks after four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death in a home near campus, police faced mounting criticism from the public as the investigation appeared to be at a standstill.

    In fact, court documents show, a team of local and state law enforcement officers, along with a slew of FBI agents, were working meticulously through the holiday season to catch the alleged killer.

    Weeks before making an arrest on December 30, investigators began setting their sights on Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old PhD student in criminology at a nearby university who has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.

    “I bristled in the days after the arrest when people questioned whether police had the right man because a PhD candidate in criminal justice would be too smart for this crime,” said John Miller, a CNN law enforcement analyst and former New York Police Department deputy commissioner. “You can teach a master’s class on how to do a complex criminal investigation based on this case.”

    The brutal nature of the November 13 killings set off a wave of fear and anxiety in Moscow, a small college town on the Idaho-Washington border that had not reported a murder in seven years.

    Police found the door to the off-campus residence open and the bodies of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and 20-year-old Ethan Chapin in rooms on the second and third floors. Two other young women were in the three-floor, six-bedroom rental at the time but were not injured, according to police.

    Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt told CNN she saw “lots of blood on the wall” when she arrived at the scene. She said there were multiple stab wounds on each body, likely from the same weapon. One victim had what appeared to be defensive stab wounds on the hands.

    Moscow police initially told the public the attack was targeted and there was no threat to the community. Days later, however, Police Chief Jason Fry backtracked: “We cannot say that there is no threat to the community,” he said. Many students began leave town.

    Authorities remained tight-lipped, withholding details of the crime and some of the leads they were tracking. For weeks, law enforcement officials said they had not identified a suspect or located the murder weapon.

    Jim Chapin, the father of Ethan Chapin, said in a November 16 statement that the lack of information from the university and local police “further compounds our family’s agony after our son’s murder.”

    “For Ethan and his three dear friends slain in Moscow, Idaho, and all of our families, I urge officials to speak the truth, share what they know, find the assailant, and protect the greater community,” the statement said.

    As frustrations continued to mount, pundits and relatives of the victims became even more critical of the apparent lack of progress in the case.

    “It takes a while to put together and piece together that whole timeline of events and the picture of really what occurred,” Idaho State Police spokesman Aaron Snell said on November 22, nine days after the killings. “A lot of this the public doesn’t get to see because it’s a criminal investigation. But I guarantee you behind the scenes, there’s so much work going on.”

    One day later, Steve Goncalves, Kaylee’s dad, told CNN he was focused on securing justice for his daughter, despite the dearth of information.

    “We all want to play a part in helping, and we can’t play a part if we don’t have any real substantial information to work from,” he said.

    Asked what he’d heard from local police, Goncalves said, “They’re not sharing much with me.” He suggested Moscow police might be limited in what they can share.

    One bit of information initially not shared publicly was that a review of surveillance footage from the area around the home brought to investigators’ attention a white sedan, later identified as a Hyundai Elantra, according to a probable cause affidavit released Thursday in the case against Kohberger.

    By November 25, law enforcement in the area had been notified to be on the lookout for such a vehicle, the affidavit said.

    And several days later, officers at nearby Washington State University, where the suspect was a graduate student in the criminal justice program, identified a white Elantra and subsequently found it was registered to Kohberger.

    This was just part of the behind-the-scenes work in a complex quadruple homicide investigation where any hint to the public about a suspect or the various leads police are following can cause it to fall apart, according to experts.

    “We don’t want to tip off suspects or spook them so that they end up going on the run. We don’t want them trying to get rid of evidence or destroy things,” said Joe Giacalone, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a retired NYPD sergeant who directed the department’s homicide school and the Bronx cold case squad.

    “There’s a lot of people in the public that need to apologize to the police department,” Giacalone said. “That Moscow, Idaho, police chief took a beating and he kept on moving ahead.”

    Miller agreed: “They were willing to take it on the chin, from the public, from the press, from local critics, in order to keep the case clean and keep the investigation going.”

    One crucial clue not shared by police was that one of the two roommates who survived told investigators she saw a masked man dressed in black in the house the morning of the attack, according to the probable cause affidavit.

    The roommate, identified in the document as D.M., said she “heard crying” in the house that morning and a male voice say, “It’s ok, I’m going to help you.” D.M. said she then saw a “figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose walking towards her,” the document said.

    “D.M. described the figure as 5’ 10” or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows,” according to the affidavit. “The male walked past D.M. as she stood in a ‘frozen shock phase.’”

    Kohberger’s driver’s license information, which was reviewed by investigators in late November, turned out to be consistent with the description provided by the surviving roommate, the affidavit said, noting specifically his height and his “bushy eyebrows.”

    Armed with driver’s license and plate information, investigators were able to obtain phone records that indicated Kohberger’s phone was near the victims’ residence at least 12 times between June 2022 to the present day, the affidavit said.

    Those records also showed that Kohberger’s phone was near the crime scene again after the killings, between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m., the document said.

    “For weeks before the arrest, so called experts, pundits and some in the press criticized the Moscow police for not being up to the task and for not having an arrest,” Miller said. “It’s not like ‘Law & Order,’ ‘Blue Bloods’ or ‘CSI.’”

    From the morning the murders were discovered, Miller said, the Moscow police knew they needed help and brought in the state police homicide squad and the FBI.

    “What the Moscow police had, that the FBI and the state police could never have, was they knew the area,” Miller said. “They knew the community and they knew the people and they had a very engaged community. But the FBI brought technical prowess and expertise. And what the state police brought was experience in homicide investigations and a state-of-the-art lab.”

    By mid December the public criticism of the police department continued to grow as few details of the investigation were made public.

    But the court documents show that investigators worked through the holidays to build their case, which included DNA found at the scene of the killings and at the Pennsylvania home of Kohberger’s family.

    “The general public tends to think all of this happens overnight,” said retired FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole. “You have a group of investigators from different agencies coming together and working together. It’s very challenging.”

    Investigators learned that Kohberger received a new license plate for his Elantra five days after the killings, the affidavit said, citing records from the Washington State Department of Licensing.

    At the scene of the killings, investigators found a tan leather knife sheath on the bed next to one of the victims, the affidavit said. On its button snap, the Idaho State Lab would later find a single source of male DNA.

    Late last month, Pennsylvania law enforcement recovered trash from Kohberger’s family home in Albrightsville, according to the affidavit. That evidence, too, was sent to the Idaho State Lab.

    The DNA in the trash is believed to belong to the biological father of the person whose DNA was found on the sheath, the document said.

    On December 29, authorities requested an arrest warrant for Kohberger on four counts of first-degree murder and burglary, according to the affidavit.

    The next day, a Pennsylvania State Police SWAT team moved in on the Kohberger family home. They broke down the door and broke through windows in what is known as a “dynamic entry” – a rare tactic used to arrest “high risk” suspects, a law enforcement source told CNN.

    Kohberger was booked into the Latah County jail last week after being extradited from Pennsylvania. The affidavit, with many previously unknown details of the case, was released Thursday as the suspect made his first court appearance in Idaho.

    Kohberger did not enter a plea and he is due back in court on Thursday. A court order prohibits the prosecution and defense from commenting beyond the public records of the case.

    Moscow police “took a lot of criticism and a lot of heat in those seven weeks after the incident,” University of Idaho Provost and Executive Vice President Torrey Lawrence told CNN. “And I’m just so thankful that they stayed committed to that case and to sharing only what they could share so that they didn’t disrupt the investigation… If they had shared more, we could wonder would Mr. Kohberger have been able to elude them.”

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  • Arrest of Idaho students murder suspect brings ‘a great sense of relief’ to university campus before a return to classes this week, provost says | CNN

    Arrest of Idaho students murder suspect brings ‘a great sense of relief’ to university campus before a return to classes this week, provost says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Following the stabbing deaths of four students in November, the tight-knit University of Idaho community was shaken for weeks, but the recent arrest of a suspect may allow the campus to regain a sense of security as students return to classes this week.

    “I think I speak for many in our community that there’s a great sense of relief, but it’s bittersweet because this is still a horrible tragedy,” the university’s provost and executive vice president Torrey Lawrence told CNN Friday.

    Bryan Kohberger, 28, is charged with the murders of students Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, who were found brutally stabbed to death in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13.

    The gruesome killings rattled the campus community and city of Moscow, which had not seen a murder since 2015. Anxieties only worsened as weeks passed without a named suspect, leading some students to leave campus and complete the semester remotely.

    Classes resume on Wednesday following the winter break, and though students who are still uncomfortable being on campus have the option to attend remotely, most students are planning to return, Lawrence said.

    “The timing of this for our students was probably good,” the provost said, adding, “Hopefully we can really just be focused on classes starting and on that student experience that we provide.”

    Security will remain heightened on campus, he said, though some measures such as a state patrol presence are no longer in place.

    Still, the “very peaceful, safe community” students enjoyed before the killings has experienced a “loss of innocence,” he said.

    Kohberger, who is the sole suspect, was pursuing a PhD in criminal justice at nearby Washington State University at the time of the killings and lived just minutes from the scene of the killings, according to authorities.

    Investigators say phone records indicate Kohberger was near the victims’ home at least 12 times between June 2022 and the present day, according to an affidavit detailing the evidence against him. The records also show the suspect was near the residence on the morning of the killings, court documents say.

    DNA recovered from the the Kohberger family’s trash was linked to DNA found on a tan leather knife sheath found on the bed of one of the victims, according to the affidavit. The DNA in the trash is believed to belong to the biological father of the person whose DNA was found on the sheath, the document says.

    The suspect’s white Hyundai Elantra was also seen close the victims’ home around the time of the killings, according to investigators. Kohberger received a new license plate for the car five days after the killings, Washington state licensing records and court documents reveal.

    Kohberger had his initial court appearance in Idaho on Thursday and did not enter a plea at the hearing.

    Before Kohberger’s arrest, authorities noted that the suspect thoroughly cleaned his vehicle and was seen wearing surgical gloves repeatedly outside his family’s Pennsylvania home, a law enforcement source tells CNN.

    The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was briefed on observations made by investigators during four days of surveillance leading up to Kohberger’s arrest at his family home.

    Kohberger “cleaned his car, inside and outside, not missing an inch,” according to the law enforcement source.

    A surveillance team assigned to Kohberger was tasked with two missions, according to multiple law enforcement sources: keep eyes on Kohberger so they could arrest him as soon as a warrant was issued, and try to obtain an object that would yield a DNA sample from Kohberger, which could then be compared to DNA evidence found at the crime scene.

    Kohberger was seen multiple times outside the Pennsylvania home wearing surgical gloves, according to the law enforcement source.

    In one instance prior to Kohberger’s arrest, authorities observed him leaving his family home around 4 a.m. and putting trash bags in the neighbors’ garbage bins, according to the source. At that point, agents recovered garbage from the Kohberger family’s trash bins and what was observed being placed into the neighbors’ bins, the source said.

    The recovered items were sent to the Idaho State Lab, per the source.

    Last Friday, a Pennsylvania State Police SWAT team then moved in on the Kohberger family home, breaking down the door and windows in what is known as a “dynamic entry” – a tactic used in rare cases to arrest “high risk” suspects, the source added.

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  • Police search for suspect in shooting of detective in downtown Phoenix | CNN

    Police search for suspect in shooting of detective in downtown Phoenix | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The Phoenix Police Department is seeking an “armed and dangerous” suspect who fled after shooting and wounding a Scottsdale detective Friday night.

    Detectives were attempting to execute a search warrant at an apartment complex in downtown Phoenix just after 7 p.m. local time. The suspect is wanted for a number of criminal offenses, Scottsdale Police Chief Jeff Walther said during a press conference late Friday.

    When officers arrived at the apartment, they encountered a woman and child who told officers there was no one else there. Detectives entered the apartment and spotted the suspect, who went into another room and began firing at detectives through the wall, Walther said.

    A Scottsdale detective, who has not been identified, was shot once in the abdomen. He was rushed to the hospital. He is expected to survive, the chief said.

    A manhunt is underway for the suspect, whose identity is known.

    Walther said local law enforcement agencies are seeing an increased number of aggravated assaults on police officers.

    “We have to ask ourselves, when did this become OK?” Walther said.

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  • How an American hero ‘lit his legacy on fire’ | CNN Politics

    How an American hero ‘lit his legacy on fire’ | CNN Politics

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    Watch “Giuliani: What Happened to America’s Mayor?” on CNN at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday, January 8.



    CNN
     — 

    The evolution of Rudy Giuliani is an epic tale. A celebrated crime fighter who brought down mafia bosses and put Wall Street crooks behind bars, he traded on trust and integrity to prove Republicans could still get elected as mayors of big cities.

    His empathy and leadership on 9/11 in New York City made him a global figure and a bona fide hero.

    How that man, who used to get standing ovations whenever he entered a room, morphed into former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theory lackey peddling lies about the 2020 election is the subject of the new CNN Original Series, “Giuliani: What Happened to America’s Mayor?”

    The images of Giuliani’s early success paired with his later disgrace are striking and sad.

    I reached out to one key voice in the series, CNN political analyst John Avlon, who was Giuliani’s chief speech writer during his second term as mayor, including on 9/11, and later worked for Giuliani’s presidential campaign.

    Excerpts of our conversation about Avlon’s perceptions of the series and what happened to his old boss are below.

    WOLF: The Giuliani of today is at the fulcrum of so many of Trump’s problems. Giuliani’s dirt digging in Ukraine contributed to the first Trump impeachment. Giuliani helped enable the election denialism that led to the second Trump impeachment. How would you describe his place in Trump’s political history?

    AVLON: I think that among some hard-core Trump true believers, Rudy will be scapegoated as the source of Trump’s multiple problems. I think that’s an attempt to evade Trump’s responsibility for the chaos he himself caused.

    But you have got to hand it to him – Rudy is the first presidential lawyer whose actions contributed to not one, but two impeachments. That’s a special place in American history. And unfortunately, I think this tragic last chapter in his life will overwhelm the very positive, constructive role he played in different chapters of his life.

    I don’t think it’ll ultimately eclipse 9/11 and his leadership on that day. But he lit his legacy on fire in service of Donald Trump and got nothing in return except disgrace, ignominy, (possible) disbarment and a gutting of his personal fortune.

    WOLF: I think a lot of people will be surprised to learn about those earlier chapters. He’s this prosecutor who brought down mafia families and insider traders. He’s the mayor who cleaned up the city. How does that guy become the conspiracy theory pusher?

    AVLON: That’s, to a large extent, what the documentary is about. I think it is important for people to remember he was a leading lawyer of his generation, with an objective record of success in terms of dismantling the mob and taking on Wall Street.

    That alone would have made him a major figure in contemporary American politics. But then what he did as mayor was absolutely remarkable. George Will called it America’s most successful case of conservative governance.

    I worked for him in City Hall in his second term as chief speechwriter, and if you just look at the data of what he did, it’s remarkable:

    He cut murders by 68%, crime by 56%.

    He turned a $2 billion deficit into a multibillion-dollar surplus.

    He cut taxes for New Yorkers.

    He improved the quality of life.

    I think his policies ushered in an era of resurgence for urban America. In New York City, I think 20 years of Rudy and (Michael) Bloomberg together really helped turn around the city in fundamental ways.

    The tragedy – and I use the term advisedly because it’s self-inflicted, but it is tragic – is that the guy who believed that the law is a search for the truth ended up trying to defend his client in the court of public opinion using the law in pursuit of a lie.

    I think that he got caught in a right-wing echo chamber ecosystem, where he was totally invested in an alternate reality that was fundamentally hyperpartisan and therefore they couldn’t even conceive of losing fairly.

    And so at the end of the day, they tried to overturn an election, overturn our democracy on the basis of a pretty self-evident lie with no evidence.

    I’m not going to try to diagnose how he’s changed. But the filter in the judgment of the man I knew and was proud to work for is fundamentally off.

    WOLF: The perception is that he has changed as a person, but there are these interesting moments in the documentary that presage the Rudy of today. We see a riot of police officers at City Hall in 1992 that is compared with the riot at the Capitol. In ’89, he suggested but did not pursue the idea that there had been fraudulent voting. Has he actually changed, or has he just been uncovered?

    AVLON: Robert Caro has a great line about how power doesn’t corrupt, power reveals. I’m always more inclined to believe the adage that as people grow older, they get more so. There are moments, and the documentary makes a lot of them, to draw a narrative connection between the police riot and January 6th. The person I knew and worked for – those incidents did not define him on a day-to-day basis.

    Character counts. One of the things for good or for ill about Rudy, and something that I learned on 9/11, is you don’t have to be perfect to be a hero. Rudy was not one of these politicians who pretended to be perfect.

    He understood that he was a flawed human being and was actively interested in figuring out his flaws and what motivated him in certain low times. He was someone who thought philosophically about politics.

    If you talked to him about his position on abortion, for example, he would, in an unpretentious way, start talking about St. Thomas Aquinas, the debate about when life begins.

    He was also the kind of human who thought about becoming a priest and ended up becoming a prosecutor. But I think there has been a change in his judgment.

    The Trump orbit tends to attract people who are not at their best in terms of stability. Rudy found attention and relevance at the expense of his legacy and reputation.

    WOLF: It was instructive for me to revisit just how much of a national hero he was after 9/11. How do you think that specifically affected him? You saw it happen.

    AVLON: First of all, there is a misperception that’s partly partisan nature that Rudy was deeply unpopular before 9/11. That is statistically not true.

    That’s not to say he wasn’t controversial and divisive at times. What he would say is that when you’re turning around a ship at sea, you’ve got to throw your shoulder to the wheel.

    9/11 was a classic case of the man meeting the moment. The New York Observer, which was often critical of Rudy, said that he distinguished himself almost overnight as New York’s greatest mayor.

    He became seen as sort of a modern-day Churchill and that was because of his instinctive response to an unprecedented massive attack.

    And it was also because of his empathy and his honesty. He was able to channel grief in a constructive direction. He was resolute. He said the number of people who died was more than any of us can bear, and he was an inspiration to a fundamentally shaken and horrified world.

    And it was extraordinary. For months and years afterward, he would be greeted with standing ovations when he walked in the room.

    I think it’s a little too simple to say that creates a presumption of that kind of reception wherever you go. But I think what it does is highlight how tragic the fall has been.

    And if he had kept his credibility as sort of a centrist Republican senior statesman who was tough on the issues that a lot of people care about – law and order, fiscal discipline, etc., including on social issues – he could have played a major stabilizing force within the Republican Party.

    He could have been somebody who parks and statues and streets would have been named after across the nation, because of his example of leadership on that day, which was the apotheosis of his career. That was a reflection of the true mettle and character.

    WOLF: You talked about him being a Republican in a Democratic city. He wasn’t the only big city Republican mayor. Los Angeles had one at the time. Republicans put up John McCain for president in 2008. Mitt Romney tried to be severely conservative, but these days he’s just about as moderate as Republicans get. Do you think Republicans are interested in moving back into that middle ground and governing a big city as opposed to just using it as a foil for their national ambitions?

    AVLON: It’s a great and important question. If you take the biggest possible step back at America’s historical political divisions, you’ll see that much bigger than Democrat / Republican or liberal / conservative is urban vs. rural.

    We need urban Republicans and rural Democrats to help bridge divides. When there were progressive Republicans back in the day, particularly in the Northeast, and conservative Democrats, there were a ton of problems. But you could always find governing majorities within divided government. You could cobble together coalition.

    The decline of urban Republicans and rural Democrats is enormously disruptive for the country in terms of further inflaming hyperpartisanship and polarization and the kind of distrust that already exists culturally kind of in our America.

    Republicans should care about playing in urban areas, and Democrats should care a hell of a lot more about playing in rural areas in red states.

    WOLF: We tend to think that it was proximity to Trump that radicalized Rudy, but there’s a riff in the documentary about Giuliani’s visceral reaction to the Barack Obama presidency, similar to how Trump reacted to Obama’s presidency, actually. I wondered how you felt about seeing that portion.

    AVLON: After his presidential campaign, he becomes more and more sort of isolated in that bubble. That right-wing ecosystem. It’s a form of acculturation where the hyperpartisan environment becomes kind of assumed.

    It’s the places you’re giving speeches. It’s the television networks you watch. You spend all your time with partisans. It isolates you from the act of responsibility of governing and uniting a very diverse city – even certainly he had challenges with that.

    I think that his animus toward Hillary Clinton and the Clintons was one of the things that drove him to embrace Donald Trump late in the (2016) campaign.

    By the way, he never endorsed (former New Jersey Gov.) Chris Christie or (former Florida Gov.) Jeb Bush, but he really was inclined to support either of them first, because they’re the kind of Republicans that he was.

    After he made that comment about Obama, I believe it was a fundraiser for (then-Wisconsin Gov.) Scott Walker, he actually called me at home to explain himself. (Read CNN’s report from 2015, when Giuliani said he didn’t think Obama “loves America.”)

    It was strange, because I think we just had our first son, and Margaret and I met working on his presidential campaign. (Avlon is married to the CNN political commentator and host of PBS’ “Firing Line,” Margaret Hoover). And he called me to, like, explain what he meant.

    I thought it was revealing of the right-wing media he had been ingesting, and also that somewhere there was a degree of guilt that he felt the need to explain himself to me, who worked for him before, a long time ago.

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  • A traffic stop involving a deputy threatening to shoot a driver in the chest is under investigation, Los Angeles County police say | CNN

    A traffic stop involving a deputy threatening to shoot a driver in the chest is under investigation, Los Angeles County police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Los Angeles County traffic stop in which a local rapper was approached by a deputy who threatened that the man would “take one to the chest” if he failed to comply with exiting his parked vehicle is now under investigation, according to police.

    Rapper Feezy Lebron was detained by two Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department patrol deputies on New Year’s Eve while sitting in his car in a South Los Angeles parking lot, according to his social media posts.

    “If you don’t listen, you’re done,” the deputy can be heard saying on video from a body worn camera, which was released Friday by the sheriff’s department, along with a statement.

    “During the contact, the deputies ordered the man to exit his car. One deputy displayed pepper spray, then drew his firearm and used unprofessional language, which later resulted in a complaint filed by that community member,” the LASD statement said.

    “Sheriff (Robert) Luna has made it clear that he expects Department personnel to treat all members of the public with dignity and respect, and that personnel who do not uphold our training standards will be held accountable,” the statement said.

    CNN has reached out to Lebron and to the union representing Los Angeles County deputies for further comment.

    It’s unclear what happened before the bodycam recording picks up, but LASD said in a release, “while on the scene, their attention was drawn to a man sitting in a car in the parking lot.”

    In the video, one deputy is already at the driver’s open car door and can be seen leaning in toward the driver. When the deputy whose bodycam video was released approached, he initially threatened to spray the driver with pepper spray if the man did not get out of the car, and warned the first deputy to move out of the way.

    Almost immediately, the deputy can be seen trading the spray for his weapon, pointing it at the driver, at which point he says, “if you take off in this car, I’m gonna shoot you. If you put this car in drive, you’re getting one right to the chest.”

    “You’re gonna shoot me?” Lebron asked.

    “Absolutely. Absolutely,” the unnamed deputy replied.

    Throughout the interaction, the driver continually asks what he’s being detained for and whether he’s under arrest.

    “It’s already been explained to you,” the deputy is heard telling Lebron. The deputy also stated that Lebron was being detained for refusing to comply. 

    Once out of the car, the man is placed in handcuffs and asked if he’s on probation or parole, to which he answers no. The deputy accuses him of smoking marijuana in his car and the man defiantly says that he did not smoke weed in his car, but does have weed in his vehicle, which is legal.

    Eventually, the man was cited for a missing license plate, the LASD said.

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  • Times Square machete attack suspect indicted on terrorism charges | CNN

    Times Square machete attack suspect indicted on terrorism charges | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Trevor Bickford, the 19-year-old accused of attacking New York Police Department officers with a machete on New Year’s Eve, was indicted Friday on more than a dozen charges, including several terrorism charges, prosecutors announced.

    Bickford now faces three counts of attempted murder in the first degree, as well as three counts of attempted murder in the first degree in furtherance of an act of terrorism, one count of assault in the first degree as a crime of terrorism, one count of aggravated assault on a police officer as a crime of terrorism, two counts of attempted assault in the first degree as a crime of terrorism, and several other charges related to assault and attempted assault.

    “We are grateful for our NYPD officers who put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe, as well as our Joint Terrorism Task Force partners,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement Friday evening.

    “All eyes are on Times Square on New Year’s Eve and these charges reflect the seriousness of this alleged threat to the safety of our city and our officers,” Bragg added.

    Rosemary Vassallo-Vellucci, Bickford’s attorney with the Legal Aid Society, said Wednesday her client should be presumed innocent.

    Bickford allegedly went to the Times Square checkpoint just after 10 p.m., authorities said. At the security area, he allegedly pulled out a machete, struck one officer with the blade and another officer in the head with the handle, and then swung the blade at a third officer, who shot Bickford in the shoulder, according to law enforcement sources and the NYPD.

    The three officers were hospitalized in stable condition and released, the department previously said.

    At his arraignment on Wednesday, prosecutors said the suspect tried to grab a gun from an officer during the attack but could not get it out of the holster.

    Prosecutors also alleged the suspect said all government officials were his target because in his mind, they “cannot be proper Muslims because the United States government supports Israel.”

    According to law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation, Bickford told officers he went to Times Square that night prepared to kill, but only agents of the government, not civilians.

    Bickford said he was about to attack a police officer who was talking to a woman with a small child, but did not want to risk injuring the woman and child so he attacked the next officer from behind and then engaged the other two officers who came to his aid, the sources said.

    Prosecutor Lucy Nicholas also alleged in court Wednesday the suspect “admitted that he purposefully waited until he saw a moment when the officer was isolated and not near any civilian when he could attack him.”

    Multiple law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the case also previously told CNN a diary which was found in the suspect’s backpack expressed a desire to join the Taliban and it criticized his brother for joining the US military.

    The suspect also worried his mother would not repent to Allah, according to another writing in the diary, the sources said.

    Bickford had also been interviewed by FBI agents in Maine last month after he said he wanted to travel overseas to help fellow Muslims and was willing to die for his religion, according to multiple law enforcement sources.

    Bickford’s mother and grandmother became increasingly concerned about his desire to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban and reported this to the Wells, Maine, police department out of concern for him on December 10, the sources said.

    When the FBI opened its wider investigation, they also placed him on a terrorist watch list, according to sources. Because the Taliban is not designated a foreign terrorist entity, planning to travel to Afghanistan to join the group does not constitute the federal crime of “attempted material support of a terrorist group.”

    Multiple law enforcement sources told CNN Bickford traveled to New York via Amtrak, so those travels would not have tripped any watch list databases.

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  • Michigan attorney general re-opens criminal probe into fake electors for Trump | CNN Politics

    Michigan attorney general re-opens criminal probe into fake electors for Trump | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has re-opened her criminal investigation into fake electors who signed a certificate claiming former President Donald Trump won the state in the 2020 election when he did not, she said on Friday.

    Nessel, a Democrat who previously referred the matter to federal prosecutors, told reporters that she is “a little worried” that more than a year has passed since she referred cases related to the false slates of electors to the Justice Department and believes there is “clear evidence” to support charges against the fake electors from Michigan.

    “What we have seen from the January 6 committee is an overwhelming amount of evidence. I thought that there was already a substantial amount of evidence in that case. But now, there is just clear evidence to support charges against those 16 false electors, at least in our state,” Nessel said.

    “Quite candidly, yes, we are re-opening our investigation because I don’t know what the federal government plans to do,” she added.

    CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

    Nessel said last January that her office had been evaluating charges related to the effort to put forward a slate of fake electors from Michigan. At the time, Nessel said publicly she was “confident we have enough evidence to charge” people under state law for “forgery of a public record,” and other crimes. But ultimately, she decided to ask the Justice Department to investigate.

    On Friday, the second anniversary of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol in Washington, DC, Nessel confirmed the state investigation has been re-opened, noting it’s unclear how the Justice Department probe is proceeding.

    Witness emails, text messages and testimony from the House January 6 committee – all of which are now in the possession of DOJ prosecutors working under special counsel Jack Smith, show Trump’s role in pushing alternate slates of electors, pressing battleground state officials to overturn the election results, attempting to replace the acting attorney general with someone who would embrace election fraud claims, and laying the early groundwork to call his followers to the US Capitol.

    The committee’s investigation has given a fuller and more nuanced picture of the interconnected plots that the DOJ has been investigating, including the scheme to put forward slates of illegitimate Trump electors from battleground states that Joe Biden won to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence and Congress to halt the certification of the results.

    That includes the Trump team’s efforts in Michigan, as newly released testimony from state officials revealed new details about the involvement of the former president’s campaign and legal team.

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  • ‘Maybe we cried too much’ over shoplifting, Walgreens executive says | CNN Business

    ‘Maybe we cried too much’ over shoplifting, Walgreens executive says | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Throughout the pandemic, major retailers have warned about surging theft and a rise in brazen shoplifting attempts. But a top Walgreens executive now says the freakout may have been overblown.

    “Maybe we cried too much last year” about merchandise losses, Walgreens finance chief James Kehoe acknowledged Thursday on an earnings call. The company’s rate of shrink — merchandise losses due to theft, fraud, damages, mis-scanned items and other errors — fell from 3.5% of total sales last year to around 2.5% during its latest quarter.

    Kehoe’s message is a notable shift from comments about theft from Walgreens and other retailers like Walmart and Target over the last nearly three years.

    Companies and retail industry groups have tried to draw attention to shoplifting and “organized retail crime” rings smashing windows and grabbing aisles full of merchandise off shelves, urging lawmakers to crack down. Incidents have certainly happened: Many political leaders and local and national news outlets, including CNN, have picked up on viral incidents of smash-and-grab robberies.

    So retailers took action. Some began locking up more products like deodorant and toothpaste, adding extra security guards and even shuttering stores.

    Last January, Walgreens

    (WBA)     said its shrink was up by more 50% from the year prior. The company blamed part of that spike on organized retail crime and closed five locations in the San Francisco area in 2021, claiming theft as the reason for their closure.

    “This is not petty theft,” Kehoe said last January. “These are gangs that actually go in and empty our stores of beauty products. And it’s a real issue.”

    But a year later, Kehoe said Thursday that the company added too much extra security in stores.

    “Probably we put in too much, and we might step back a little bit from that,” he said of security staffing. The company has found private security guards to be “largely ineffective” in deterring theft, so instead it’s putting in more police and law enforcement officers.

    Though Walgreens may have overblown the shoplifting threat over the last few years, it’s true that theft has always been a problem for retailers — and that it often spikes during recessions and other periods of economic hardship, when people are desperate and may feel the need to turn to petty crime to sustain themselves. What’s more, recent factors like shortstaffed stores and self-checkout can make it easier for thieves to steal.

    The National Retail Federation estimated that shrink cost retailers $94.5 billion in 2021, up from $61.7 billion in 2019 before the pandemic. Shoplifting often does not go reported to the police, but companies have said theft has worsened during the Covid crisis.

    “Along with other retailers, we’ve seen a significant increase in theft and organized retail crime across our business,” Target

    (TGT)     CEO Brian Cornell said in November.

    Walmart

    (WMT)     CEO Doug McMillon said last month on CNBC that “theft is an issue” and “higher than what it has historically been.” He warned stores could close if it continued.

    However, it’s not clear the numbers add up.

    For example, data released by the San Francisco Police Department does not support the explanation Walgreens gave that it was closing five stores because of organized retail theft, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2021.

    One of the shuttered stores that closed had only seven reported shoplifting incidents in 2021 and a total of 23 since 2018, according to the newspaper. Overall, the five stores that closed had fewer than two recorded shoplifting incidents a month on average since 2018.

    Similarly, a 2021 Los Angeles Times analysis of figures released by industry groups on losses due to organized retail crime found “there is reason to doubt the problem is anywhere near as large or widespread as they say.”

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  • Idaho suspect in student murders thoroughly cleaned vehicle, also seen wearing surgical gloves multiple times outside family home, source says | CNN

    Idaho suspect in student murders thoroughly cleaned vehicle, also seen wearing surgical gloves multiple times outside family home, source says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students in November had thoroughly cleaned the interior and exterior of his car and was also seen wearing surgical gloves multiple times before being apprehended, a law enforcement source tells CNN.

    Bryan Kohberger, 28, is currently the sole suspect in the gruesome stabbings of students Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, who were found dead inside their off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13.

    Kohberger, who was pursuing a PhD in criminal justice at Washington State University at the time of the killings, “cleaned his car, inside and outside, not missing an inch,” according to the law enforcement source.

    The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was briefed on observations made by investigators during four days of surveillance leading up to Kohberger’s arrest at his family’s Pennsylvania home on December 30.

    As Kohberger now remains behind bars in Idaho awaiting his January 12 status hearing, new details have emerged elucidating some of the suspect’s movements in the days leading up to his arrest.

    A surveillance team assigned to Kohberger was tasked with two missions, according to multiple law enforcement sources: keep eyes on Kohberger so they could arrest him as soon as a warrant was issued, and try to obtain an object that would yield a DNA sample from Kohberger, which could then be compared to DNA evidence found at the crime scene.

    Kohberger was seen multiple times outside the Pennsylvania home wearing surgical gloves, according to the law enforcement source.

    In one instance prior to Kohberger’s arrest, authorities observed him leaving his family home around 4 a.m. and putting trash bags in the neighbors’ garbage bins, according to the source. At that point, agents recovered garbage from the Kohberger family’s trash bins and what was observed being placed into the neighbors’ bins, the source said.

    The recovered items were sent to the Idaho State Lab, per the source.

    Last Friday, a Pennsylvania State Police SWAT team then moved in on the Kohberger family home, breaking down the door and windows in what is known as a “dynamic entry” – a tactic used in rare cases to arrest “high risk” suspects, the source added.

    On Thursday, Kohberger had his initial court appearance in Idaho after he was booked into the Latah County jail Wednesday night following his extradition from Pennsylvania.

    Kohberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. He did not enter a plea at the hearing.

    Steve Goncalves, whose daughter Kaylee was among those killed, he told CNN’s JIm Sciutto in an interview that aired Friday morning.

    “Nobody understands exactly why but he was stalking them, he was hunting them,” Goncalves said. “He was a person looking for an opportunity and it just happened to be in that house. And that’s hard to take.

    “She had her phone right next to her and she couldn’t call 911. So these were just girls that went to sleep that night and a coward, you know, a hunter that went out and he picked his little opponent that was girls, that’s probably why the house was targeted.”

    Goncalves was in the courtroom for Kohberger’s appearance.

    “He knows I want him to look me in the eye. So he didn’t. He didn’t give me that opportunity,” Goncalves said. “He’s scared to look at me in the eyes and start to understand what’s about to happen to him. You know, he picked the wrong family.”

    Authorities spent nearly two months investigating before they were able to name publicly a suspect, a task that grabbed national attention and rattled the victims’ loved ones as well as the community – which had not recorded a murder in years.

    Still, the public’s view of the case remains mired with questions. As of late Thursday, it remains unclear what motivated the killings. It’s also unclear how the suspect entered the house after authorities said there was no sign of forced entry or why two roommates who were inside the residence at the time of the killings survived the attacks.

    Here’s how investigators narrowed the search to Kohberger:

    • DNA: Trash recovered from Kohberger’s family home revealed that the “DNA profile obtained from the trash” matched a tan leather knife sheath found “laying on the bed” of one of the victims, according to a probable cause affidavit released Thursday. The DNA recovered from the trash “identified a male as not being excluded as the biological father” of the suspect whose DNA was found on the sheath. “At least 99.9998% of the male population would be expected to be excluded from the possibility of being the suspect’s biological father,” the affidavit said.
    • Phone records: Authorities found the suspect’s phone was near the victims’ Moscow, Idaho, home at least a dozen times between June 2022 to the present day, according to the affidavit. The records also reveal Kohberger’s phone was near the crime scene hours after the murders that morning between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m, the document says. The killings were not reported to authorities until just before noon.
    • A white sedan: A Hyundai Elantra was seen near the victims’ home around the time of their killings. Officers at Washington State University identified a white Elantra and later learned it was registered to Kohberger. The same car was also found at the suspect’s Pennsylvania family home when he was arrested last Friday. The suspect’s university is about a 10-minute drive from the Idaho crime scene.

    One of two roommates who were not harmed in the attacks said she saw a masked man dressed in black inside the house on the morning of the killings, according to the probable cause affidavit.

    Identified as D.M. in the court document, the roommate said she “heard crying” in the house that morning and also heard a man’s voice say, ‘It’s OK, I’m going to help you.’” D.M. said she then saw a “figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose walking towards her,” the affidavit continued.

    “D.M. described the figure as 5’ 10” or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows,” the affidavit says. “The male walked past D.M. as she stood in a ‘frozen shock phase.’

    “The male walked towards the back sliding glass door. D.M. locked herself in her room after seeing the male,” the document says, adding the roommate did not recognize the male.

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  • A Wall Street Journal reporter was handcuffed by police while standing outside a Chase Bank. The newspaper is demanding answers | CNN Business

    A Wall Street Journal reporter was handcuffed by police while standing outside a Chase Bank. The newspaper is demanding answers | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The Wall Street Journal is demanding answers from the Phoenix Police Department after an officer detained and handcuffed one of its reporters outside a Chase Bank — an incident that press freedom advocates say raises First Amendment concerns and mirrors a larger, growing hostility from local law enforcement toward journalists across the country.

    The incident between The Journal reporter Dion Rabouin and the Phoenix officer occurred in late November, but just became public his week after ABC affiliate KNXV reported on the matter. In a statement, The Journal said that it is “deeply concerned” with how its reporter was treated and has asked the Phoenix Police Department to conduct an investigation.

    “No journalist should ever be detained simply for exercising their First Amendment rights,” The Journal said.

    A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up here for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape

    In response, the Phoenix Police Department — which is being probed by the Department of Justice to determine whether its officers retaliate against people “for conduct protected by the First Amendment” — stressed to me that the incident occurred on private property, but that the department had nonetheless shared concerns raised by the paper with the Professional Standards Bureau andthat an investigation is underway.

    At the crux of this particular matter is a rather innocent act of journalism. While visiting family in Arizona for the Thanksgiving holiday, Rabouin attempted to interview passersby on a sidewalk outside a Chase branch for an ongoing story about savings accounts, he told the Phoenix affiliate.

    Representatives from the bank approached him and asked what he was doing and Rabouin said he identified himself as a journalist. Rabouin said he was never asked to leave, but an officer soon arrived on the scene.

    Rabouin said he volunteered to simply stop reporting from the scene, but video captured by a bystander shows the responding officer handcuff him, put him in the back of a police vehicle, and even threaten to shove him in if he did not comply. The video shows Rabouin repeatedly identified himself as a reporter for The Journal, but the officer did not appear to care. The bystander who began recording the incident was also threatened with arrest.

    Ultimately, after about 15 minutes, when other officers showed up, Rabouin was allowed to walk free. A representative for Chase told me Thursday that the bank did apologize to Rabouin over the incident. But the local police department has thus far refrained from doing so.

    In a letter dated December 7 from Journal Editor-In-Chief Matt Murray to Phoenix Police Department Interim Chief Michael Sullivan, the editor described the officer’s conduct as “offensive to civil liberties,” and demanded to know what steps the department will take to “ensure that neither Mr. Rabouin nor any other journalist is again subjected to such conduct.” The Journal told me Thursday that Murray has not received a response from Sullivan.

    For press freedom advocates, the incident is representative of countless others that take place around the US each year. According to the US Press Freedom Tracker, at least 218 journalists have been arrested in the country since 2020.

    Bruce Brown, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told me in a statement that “the alarming number of incidents we’ve seen over the last several years where police have detained, arrested, or assaulted journalists who were doing their jobs threatens to chill this kind of essential newsgathering.”

    Brown added, “It’s time for the law enforcement community to hold itself accountable for its actions. The Phoenix Police Department can start now.”

    The Committee to Protect Journalists has also sounded the alarm over the incident. Katherine Jacobsen, the organization’s US and Canada program director, told me the detention of Rabouin “highlights a very real threat faced by reporters – especially local reporters – across the country.” Jacobsen went on to say that it is “disheartening to see acts of hostility toward journalists working in the United States.”

    Through a spokesperson, Rabouin declined to comment to me on Thursday. But he did post one tweet about the matter.

    “Thanks to everyone who has reached out to offer support,” Rabouin wrote. “We’re hoping to hear back from the chief or someone at the department soon.”

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  • Kansas sexual assault suspect accused of kidnapping children was taken into custody, police say | CNN

    Kansas sexual assault suspect accused of kidnapping children was taken into custody, police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A 21-year-old sexual assault suspect accused of kidnapping three children over the span of two days was taken into custody Thursday, police in Wichita, Kansas, said.

    All three children have been located and are safe, Wichita Police Department spokesperson Chad Ditch told reporters during a Thursday news conference.

    A teenage girl reported being kidnapped on Wednesday evening by a “biracial male driving a blue vehicle” who attempted to sexually assault her in the car, Ditch said. The teen was let go by the suspect and reported the incident to a family member. Authorities began looking into the case and investigated throughout the night, Ditch added.

    Ditch described the victim as being in her “early teens.”

    Less than 24 hours later, two elementary school students – a boy and a girl – left their home by foot shortly before 9 a.m. to go to school. The children were allegedly kidnapped by a man in a blue vehicle who would go on to drop off the boy shortly after, police said.

    The young girl was also located safe a short time later, according to Ditch.

    Officers who were patrolling the area spotted the suspect’s vehicle and after attempting to stop him, a brief pursuit by foot occurred. He was eventually taken into custody without incident, Ditch said.

    Authorities did not identify the suspect by name.

    “Both these cases are still in their early stages,” Ditch added. “We have investigators out here still actively investigating both incidents. We do strongly believe that the suspect that we have in custody is the suspect involved in both of these cases.”

    Authorities are continuing to investigate potential charges, Ditch said. Though the children are safe, the experience was “extremely traumatizing,” he said.

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  • Newly-released video shows chaos and gore in the immediate aftermath of April 2022 subway shooting in Brooklyn | CNN

    Newly-released video shows chaos and gore in the immediate aftermath of April 2022 subway shooting in Brooklyn | CNN

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    One of the first things you can hear is the sound of someone moaning.

    The camera is shaky, but in the video, you can see blood on the ground and on the seats. The smoke begins to clear and then, the confusion sets in.

    “I don’t know – someone’s bleeding,” a man can be heard saying. Later he asks aloud, “was it gunshots?”

    A few moments after, amid the screeching of the subway car, glimpses of a tangle of injured people are seen close to the floor, with more blood pooling around some of them. A man continues to moan, and another advises him to “stay low.”

    The graphic video, taken by one of the 29 people injured after Frank James opened fire on a crowded New York City subway train during morning rush hour on April 12, shows the chaos, confusion and gore of the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

    The witness’ video was one of several pieces of evidence unsealed Thursday in James’ case. CNN has reached out to attorneys representing James for comment.

    James, who initially pleaded not guilty last May, admitted on Tuesday to 10 counts of committing a terrorist attack and other violence against a mass transportation system and vehicle carrying passengers and employees. He also pleaded guilty to one count of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. 

    James, 63, is accused of setting off smoke grenades and firing a handgun at least 33 times on a crowded train traveling toward the 36th Street station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood.

    He is due to be sentenced at a later date, but his sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.

    By the time the 13-minute video begins, the shooting has stopped, but the train has yet to reach the next station, so everyone on the train car remains trapped inside, prosecutors said in a new court filing Thursday.

    James fled the scene and was not apprehended by authorities until the next day, but it’s unclear at what point he left the train car.

    A passenger can be heard on the video asking someone to help him. The man who shot the video says he will help, and can be heard asking the passenger, “are you OK?”

    “No, f**k, my leg hurts a lot,” the passenger responds.

    As soon as the train pulls into the next station, people on the video can be seen rushing out one of the subway car’s doors. While some rush into another train on the opposite side of the platform, others collapse to the ground, with more blood pooling around them.

    “Oh f**k, that’s a lot of blood! Sh*t,” the injured passenger can be heard saying. Other shouting can be heard around them, before another man, whom prosecutors describe as “subway worker,” yells out, “Did anybody see what happened?”

    The man who took the video, whom prosecutors describe as “Victim-1” responds “yes.” He then proceeds to say there was an “explosion bomb,” “black smoke” and a “popping sound” that came from the end of the train next to a construction worker “with orange clothes on.”

    About one minute later, as MTA workers are trying to gather more information about what happened, the video captures Victim-1 yell out again: “Orange! Orange! He was wearing orange!” the court filing from prosecutors states.

    Later on, the video moves to show the inside of the now-empty subway car, with a large amount of blood on the car’s floor. An MTA worker can be heard making an announcement asking others to leave the station, while another passenger still cries out in pain on the station’s floor.

    The video ends with glimpses of first responders arriving on the platform. The person who took the video was eventually treated for smoke inhalation at an area hospital and released, according to an NYPD document also unsealed Thursday.

    A 30-hour manhunt for the perpetrator ensued after the subway shooting, only to conclude when James turned himself into authorities.

    After he was arrested, James was interviewed at least twice on April 13. Videos of those interviews were also unsealed Thursday, with faces of the investigators blurred.

    In the first video, when investigators ask him if there are any more weapons out there or if he had any other plans to hurt anyone, Frank appears to deny any involvement in the shooting and says he was just another passenger on the train.

    “I have no idea what you’re talking about at all. See, I was on the train. I was on the train,” James said. “I was on the train and when whatever happened, happened — anybody else … all I had was my equipment that was in my bag and in my shopping cart. And the only thing in my coat was just more clothes to cover my face because of the smoke was blinding me and making me nauseous and all of that. That’s all I’m saying.”

    James later admitted to having guns, but said they were “disposed of.”

    “That has nothing to do with me. You know, so I don’t, you know, I really don’t want to answer these questions without having an attorney involved in this situation,” James said. “Every firearm that – every firearm that I have owned has been disposed of. And that’s all I can tell you.”

    The interview lasted less than four minutes. A few minutes later, other investigators are seen on video entering the room where James is being held. During this interview, James begins talking about his YouTube page and how he uses it to “express himself.”

    At one point, he also says, “violence is all right any time, violence is all right all the time.” 

    CNN has previously reported James was linked to a series of videos posted to a YouTube channel that have since been removed.

    CNN was able to analyze the videos before they were taken down. They include rambling speeches filled with racist and misogynistic language, as well as references to violence.

    Investigators also searched James’ storage unit and the apartment in which he was staying before the attack. Law enforcement records from those searches, also unsealed Thursday, state items such as a stun gun, ammunition, a train schedule, empty gun magazines, handwritten notes and “smoke bombs” were found.

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  • Key takeaways from court documents in case against Bryan Kohberger and some questions that remain | CNN

    Key takeaways from court documents in case against Bryan Kohberger and some questions that remain | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    DNA allegedly found on a knife sheath recovered at the murder scene.

    A roommate described a masked figure with “bushy eyebrows.”

    Phone records showed the suspect was near the victims’ residence numerous times in the months before the killings.

    Nearly two months after the killings of four University of Idaho students captivated the country and sowed fear in the small community of Moscow, Idaho, an affidavit released Thursday offered a look at the investigative work that went into identifying Bryan Kohberger as the suspect.

    The 28-year-old PhD student in criminal justice was extradited to Idaho Wednesday from his home state of Pennsylvania. Facing four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary, Kohberger did not enter a plea during his initial court appearance Thursday.

    The suspect was arrested in Pennsylvania December 30, nearly seven weeks after Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, were found fatally stabbed in an off-campus home.

    Here are key takeaways from the court documents – which include the probable cause affidavit used to support Kohberger’s arrest and obtain a warrant – and some questions that remain.

    Trash recovered from the Pennsylvania home of Kohberger’s family late last month and sent to the Idaho State Lab for DNA testing revealed that the “DNA profile obtained from the trash” matched a tan leather knife sheath found “laying on the bed” of one of the victims, according to the probable cause affidavit.

    The DNA in the trash “identified a male as not being excluded as the biological father” of the suspect whose DNA was found on the sheath.

    “At least 99.9998% of the male population would be expected to be excluded from the possibility of being the suspect’s biological father,” the affidavit said.

    One of two roommates who were not harmed told investigators she saw a masked man dressed in black in the house the morning of the attack, according to the probable cause affidavit.

    Identified in the document as D.M., the roommate said she “heard crying” in the house that morning and a male voice saying, ‘It’s OK, I’m going to help you.’”

    D.M. told investigators she saw a “figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose walking towards her,” according to the affidavit.

    “D.M. described the figure as 5’ 10” or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows,” the affidavit said. “The male walked past D.M. as she stood in ‘frozen shock.’”

    “The male walked towards the back sliding glass door. D.M. locked herself in her room after seeing the male,” according to the document, which said the roommate did not recognize the male.

    Authorities reviewed local surveillance footage and were drawn to a white sedan, later identified as a Hyundai Elantra, according to the affidavit.

    The vehicle was seen in the area around the home where the killings took place.

    By November 25, local law enforcement had been notified to be on the lookout for the vehicle, the affidavit said.

    Days later, officers at nearby Washington State University, where the suspect was a PhD student in criminal justice, identified a white Elantra and found it was registered to Kohberger.

    Kohberger’s driver’s license information was consistent with the description the unharmed roommate gave investigators, according to the affidavit.

    The document specifically noted Kohberger’s height and weight – 6 feet and 185 pounds – and that he has bushy eyebrows.

    Kohberger received a new license plate for his Elantra five days after the killings, the affidavit said, citing records from the Washington State Department of Licensing.

    At the time of Kohberger’s arrest last week, a white Elantra was found at his parents’ house in Pennsylvania, according to Monroe County Chief Public Defender Jason LaBar, who said Kohberger had gone home for the holidays.

    Phone records show Kohberger’s phone was near the victims’ residence at least 12 times since June, according to the court documents.

    “All of these occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours of their respective days.”

    Additionally, records show Kohberger’s phone was near the murder scene – 1122 King Road – between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m. – hours after the killings, according to the court documents.

    A review of phone records showed Kohberger’s phone left his home at approximately 9 a.m. and traveled to Moscow, the affidavit said, and that the same phone traveled “back to the area of the Kohberger Residence … arriving to the area at approximately 9:32 a.m.”

    Kohberger applied for an internship with the Pullman Police Department in Washington in the fall of 2022, court documents show.

    “Pursuant to records provided by a member of the interview panel for Pullman Police Department, we learned that Kohberger’s past education included undergraduate degrees in psychology and cloud-based forensics,” according to an affidavit.

    “These records also showed Kohberger wrote an essay when he applied for an internship with the Pullman Police Department in the fall of 2022. Kohberger wrote in his essay he had interest in assisting rural law enforcement agencies with how to better collect and analyze technological data in public safety operations.”

    Nearly two months after the killings, however, a number of questions remain.

    It’s not clear why the unharmed roommate did not immediately call 911, or why the roommates were spared.

    The motive for the crime also remains a mystery, and police have said they are still looking for the murder weapon.

    The documents released Thursday shed no light on whether Kohberger had any other reason to be in the area at the time of the killings.

    Why wasn’t Kohberger arrested until more than six weeks after the victims were found dead?

    And authorities have not said publicly whether Kohberger knew any of the victims.

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  • Biden announces new migration programs as he prepares to visit the border on Sunday | CNN Politics

    Biden announces new migration programs as he prepares to visit the border on Sunday | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden on Thursday announced he is expanding a program to accept up to 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela – along with a plan to expel as many migrants from those countries who circumvent US laws – as his administration confronts a surge of migrants at the southern border.

    In a speech from the White House, Biden also unveiled plans to visit the US southern border on Sunday, stopping in El Paso, Texas, to meet local officials and address border security issues. It will be his first stop at the border as president.

    Biden renewed calls on Congress to pass new immigration laws, arguing his powers to address a growing crisis are limited. He said the politics around border policy and migration often cloud discussions around how to handle migration and crossings at the border.

    “It’s important to step back and see the bigger picture,” Biden said, citing the migrants’ desire to seek their own version of the American dream.

    The announcements and border visit amount to a surge in presidential attention on an issue that’s increasingly become a political liability for Biden. He has been relentlessly criticized by Republicans and even some border-district Democrats for failing to address record levels of border crossings.

    “If the most extreme Republicans continue to demagogue this issue, and reject solutions, I’m left with only one choice … do as much as I can on my own to try to change the atmosphere,” he said.

    He said the process he unveiled “is orderly, it’s safe and humane, and it works,” Biden said.

    Immigrant advocates, though, immediately denounced the plans, arguing that it risks leaving more migrants in harm’s way in Mexico and is likely to exclude people with no connections to the US.

    “Opening up new limited pathways for a small percentage of people does not obscure the fact that the Biden administration is illegally and immorally gutting access to humanitarian protections for the majority of people who have already fled their country seeking freedom and safety,” International Refugee Assistance Project Policy Director Sunil Varghese said in a statement.

    The president acknowledged in his remarks the steps he was taking were not enough to remedy the problem but framed them as an effort to use his executive powers to manage the swelling crisis.

    “These actions alone that I’m going to announce today aren’t going to fix our entire immigration system, but they can help us a good deal in better managing what is a difficult challenge,” he said.

    The announcements come ahead of Biden’s first visit as president to Mexico, where he will discuss migration issues with the country’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The Biden administration is leaning on Mexico and other countries in the Western Hemisphere to provide temporary protections to migrants who have fled their home countries.

    “We should all recognize that as long as America is the land of freedom and opportunity, people are going to try to come here,” Biden said in his remarks. “And that’s what many of our ancestors did. And it’s no surprise that it’s happening again today. We can’t stop people from making the journey, but we can require them to come here in an orderly way.”

    Administration officials have repeatedly stressed unprecedented migration across the Western Hemisphere as deteriorating conditions were exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, prompting thousands of people to move north.

    In Texas on Sunday, Biden will arrive at the epicenter of the issue. El Paso began seeing record levels of migrant arrivals beginning a few weeks ago, when anxiety about the scheduled end of the Trump-era pandemic public health rule known as Title 42 prompted thousands of migrants to turn themselves in to border authorities or to cross into the United States illegally in a very short period of time.

    Title 42 allows immigration authorities to swiftly return some migrants to Mexico. The policy was scheduled to lift last month, but a Supreme Court ruling kept the rule in place while legal challenges play out in court.

    Biden said he wanted to wait until he knew an outcome in the Title 42 legal machinations before traveling to the border, but accused Republicans calling for him to travel there of playing political games.

    “They haven’t been serious about this at all,” he said.

    Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents El Paso, said in a tweet she’s “excited” to welcome Biden to the city. While she didn’t place a big emphasis on Biden visiting the border, she made clear she welcomed it in recent weeks and urged the federal government to provide assistance to the city.

    The announcements Biden made Thursday reflect the administration’s effort to prepare for the end of Title 42, along with putting in place programs to manage the surge of migrants that have coincided with the anticipated end of the rule.

    The administration will now accept up to 30,000 migrants per month from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela under a humanitarian parole program geared toward those nationalities. Those who do not come to the US under that program may be expelled to Mexico under Title 42.

    Officials said they would return 30,000 migrants per month who circumvent the legal processes to Mexico.

    Migrants from those countries who wish to come to the United States must apply from their home countries first – including through a phone app – before traveling to the US. They must have a US sponsor, and, if they are approved, can travel by plane.

    Administration officials previously touted the parole program for Venezuela following its rollout late last year, attributing a drop in border crossings of Venezuelans to the policy. For months, officials have been considering expanding the program to other nationalities to try to manage the flow of migration to the US southern border, culminating in Thursday’s announcement.

    The Department of Homeland Security also announced it will propose a new rule placing additional restrictions on migrants seeking asylum in the United States. If approved, the new rule will target asylum seekers who unlawfully entered the US and failed to seek protection in a country through which they traveled on their way to the US.

    Those asylum seekers will be subject to a “rebuttable presumption of asylum ineligibility,” except in certain circumstances, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said during a press conference.

    Officials said the announcements are meant to send a message to migrants that they should apply for entry to the United States before leaving their home countries, and that circumventing the process will result in expulsion.

    “My message is this: If you’re trying to leave Cuba, Nicaragua or Haiti, have agreed to begin a journey to America, do not – do not – just show up at the border,” Biden said. “Stay where you are and apply legally. Starting today, if you don’t apply through the legal process, you will not be eligible for this new parole program.”

    In addition, Biden announced new humanitarian assistance to Mexico and Central America.

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • Jair Bolsonaro Fast Facts | CNN

    Jair Bolsonaro Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at the life of Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil.

    Birth date: March 21, 1955

    Birth place: Campinas, Brazil

    Birth name: Jair Messias Bolsonaro

    Father: Percy Geraldo Bolsonaro, dentist

    Mother: Olinda Bonturi Bolsonaro

    Marriage: Michelle Bolsonaro; Ana Cristina Valle (divorced); Rogéria Bolsonaro (divorced)

    Children: with Michelle Bolsonaro: Laura; with Ana Cristina Valle: Jair Renan; with Rogéria Bolsonaro: Flavio, Carlos and Eduardo

    Education: Agulhas Negras Military Academy, 1977

    Military: Army, Captain

    Religion: Roman Catholic

    A conservative provocateur, Bolsonaro has a predilection for making inflammatory statements. His rhetorical targets include women and the LGBTQ community. In 2003, he told a congresswoman that she was not worthy of being raped. During a 2011 interview with Playboy magazine, Bolsonaro said he would be incapable of loving a gay son. He has expressed a sense of nostalgia for Brazil’s past as a military dictatorship.

    Bolsonaro served seven terms as a congressman in the Chamber of Deputies. While in congress, his priorities included protecting the rights of citizens to own firearms, promoting Christian values and getting tough on crime. In 2017, he said, “A policeman who doesn’t kill isn’t a policeman.”

    Bolsonaro changed his party affiliation numerous times, ultimately campaigning for president as a member of the Social Liberal Party.

    When Bolsonaro took office, Brazil was suffering through a prolonged period of economic malaise and rising insecurity. His ascent was preceded by a corruption scandal that rocked political and financial institutions. During his inaugural address, Bolsonaro vowed to transform Brazil into a “strong and booming country.”

    1986 – Bolsonaro writes an opinion column for the magazine Veja that criticizes the Brazilian Army’s pay system. He is subsequently disciplined for insubordination.

    1989-1991 – Councilman for Rio de Janeiro.

    1991-2018 – Congressman representing Rio de Janeiro in the Chamber of Deputies.

    July 22, 2018 – Bolsonaro announces he is running for president.

    August 15, 2018 – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former president of Brazil, announces he has submitted the necessary paperwork to register as the Workers’ Party candidate to run against Bolsonaro. Lula da Silva campaigns from prison, where he is serving a 12-year sentence for corruption.

    September 1, 2018 – Brazil’s top electoral court bars Lula da Silva from running for reelection while incarcerated. Ultimately, a former mayor of São Paulo named Fernando Haddad steps in as the Workers’ Party candidate.

    September 6, 2018 – Bolsonaro is stabbed in the stomach during a campaign rally. He spends more than three weeks in the hospital recovering.

    October 7, 2018 – Voters cast ballots in the first round of elections. Although Bolsonaro wins more votes than Haddad, he doesn’t surpass the 50% threshold. A runoff is set for later in the month.

    October 28, 2018 – Bolsonaro wins the runoff. The final tally shows Bolsonaro with 55.13% and Haddad with 44.87%.

    January 1, 2019 – Bolsonaro is sworn into office. On the same day, he issues a series of executive orders. One order could potentially strip away many LGBTQ civil rights protections by eliminating LGBTQ issues from the list of matters handled by the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights. Another order gives the Agriculture Ministry the authority to designate indigenous lands, paving the way for agricultural development in areas that were previously off limits.

    January 15, 2019 – Signs an executive order temporarily eliminating a regulation that limits firearms purchases only to individuals who provide a justification for owning a gun. The regulation gave police discretion to approve or deny gun sales.

    January 28, 2019 – Officials say Bolsonaro has undergone successful surgery to remove a colostomy bag he was fitted with after being stabbed four months ago.

    February 28, 2019 – Bolsonaro meets with Venezuelan opposition leader and self-proclaimed interim president, Juan Guaidó in Brasilia. During a joint news conference, Bolsonaro pledges Brazil’s support to help ensure “democracy is re-established in Venezuela.”

    May 3, 2019 – A spokesman for Bolsonaro announces that the president has canceled a trip to New York, where he was set to be honored with a Person of the Year award from the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce. The trip was scrapped amid a political backlash. The event’s original host venue, the American Museum of Natural History canceled and some corporate sponsors dropped out. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio had called Bolsonaro “a dangerous man.”

    May 7, 2019 – Bolsonaro signs an executive order relaxing gun control restrictions. The executive order makes it easier for guns to be imported and boosts the amount of ammunition an individual can purchase annually.

    July 11, 2019 – During a news conference, Bolsonaro says that he wants his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, to serve as ambassador to the United States. He says that Eduardo is friendly with the children of US President Donald Trump.

    August 23, 2019 – Bolsonaro announces a plan to send army troops to fight wildfires sweeping through the Amazon rainforest.

    August 26, 2019 – At the G7 summit in France, French President Emmanuel Macron announces a $20 million emergency fund to help Brazil with the fires. Bolsonaro responds that he cannot accept Macron’s “intentions behind the idea of an ‘alliance’ of the G7 countries to ‘save’ the Amazon, as if we were a colony or no man’s land.” The dispute devolves after a Facebook user posts a meme ridiculing the appearance of Macron’s wife on Bolsonaro’s page and the president jokes, “Don’t humiliate the guy…haha.”

    September 8, 2019 – Bolsonaro undergoes a hernia operation to treat complications from prior surgeries conducted as he recovered from a stab wound.

    December 24, 2019 – Tells the Band TV network that he was hospitalized overnight after falling in the presidential palace December 23. He says he had brief memory loss, but that he has recovered.

    April 19, 2020 – Bolsonaro joins a rally in the country’s capital, where protesters called for an end to coronavirus quarantine measures and some urged military intervention to shut down Congress and the Supreme Court. He later defends his participation, saying that he was not calling for military action against the country’s other branches of government.

    June 23, 2020 – Bolsonaro is ordered by a federal judge in Brasilia to wear a face mask in public or face a fine. The decision extends to all government employees in the Federal District, where the capital Brasilia is located.

    July 7, 2020 – Bolsonaro announces he has tested positive for Covid-19, following months of downplaying the virus.

    March 16, 2021 – A Brazilian court orders Bolsonaro to pay damages to a journalist after he made remarks that questioned her credibility.

    April 27, 2021 – Brazil’s Senate launches an inquiry Tuesday into the federal government’s response to Covid-19.

    July 14, 2021 – Bolsonaro is admitted to the hospital to investigate the cause of persistent hiccups that are leading to abdominal pains, according to Brazil’s Special Secretariat for Social Communication.

    December 3, 2021 – Brazil’s Supreme Court orders an investigation into Bolsonaro’s false claim that people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 may have a higher risk of contracting AIDS. The inquiry is launched in response to a request by the country’s parliamentary commission which has been investigating Bolsonaro’s government’s response to the pandemic.

    January 3, 2022 – Bolsonaro is admitted to a hospital with a blockage in his intestine, the latest medical issue linked to his 2018 stabbing.

    June 29, 2022 – A Brazilian court rules that Bolsonaro must pay “moral damages” of 35,000 reais (approximately $6,700) to a Brazilian journalist after making remarks with sexual innuendo about her in 2020.

    October 2, 2022 – In the presidential election, Bolsonaro finishes with 43.2% versus Lula da Silva’s 48.4%. Either candidate needed to surpass 50% to be elected in the first round of voting, so the two will face each other in a runoff on October 30.

    October 30, 2022 – Bolsonaro loses his bid for a second term, after receiving 49.1% of the vote against Lula da Silva, who wins with 50.9%.

    November 22, 2022 – Bolsonaro files a petition with Brazil election authorities formally contesting the results of the presidential vote, alleging that some voting machines had malfunctioned and any votes cast through them should be annulled. The petition is rejected the following day.

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  • Colorado launches new alert system to help find missing Indigenous people | CNN

    Colorado launches new alert system to help find missing Indigenous people | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    After community members searched for Wanbli Vigil in knee-deep snow and brush in Denver, Colorado, authorities activated a statewide alert system on Tuesday to help find the missing 27-year-old Lakota man.

    Vigil’s disappearance is the first case to activate Colorado’s new Missing Indigenous Person Alert (MIPA). The system was launched last week to address the state’s missing Indigenous people crisis. Colorado is among a handful of states that have created similar alert systems in the past year amid the nationwide crisis of unsolved Indigenous missing and murder cases.

    “It’s needed, because we … as Indigenous people have been silenced too long, and abused too long and not taken seriously,” said Daisy Bluestar, a Southern Ute advocate and member of the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Relatives Taskforce of Colorado, a grassroots group that lobbied for the creation of the new alert system.

    Vigil was last seen on December 29 around 2 p.m. as he left an apartment building in Denver and was reported as missing on New Year’s Day, his aunt, Jennifer Black Elk, told CNN. He was wearing blue jeans and a black jacket with white stripes, according to the alert issued by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

    Black Elk said Vigil walked out of their apartment after sharing “personal issues” and left the door cracked. She initially thought Vigil went to pray because he was seen carrying a chanunpa, a ceremonial pipe, she said.

    “He’s pretty funny. He’s pretty laid-back, easygoing and helpful and just a good person inside,” Black Elk said of her nephew.

    The Colorado Bureau of Investigation launched the Missing Indigenous Person Alert system on December 30, 2022.

    Its creation is the result of legislation passed last year to expand the investigation of cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Bluestar and other Indigenous advocates like her worked with state lawmakers to draft and pass Senate Bill 22-150 despite pushback from some lawmakers and agencies in the state. Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law last summer.

    The legislation also required the state to create an office of liaison for missing and murdered Indigenous people.

    The alert system is designed to be activated when an Indigenous person is reported missing to law enforcement. The legislation requires law enforcement agencies that receive a report of a missing Indigenous person to notify the CBI within eight hours of a report of a missing adult or within two hours of a report of a missing child, according to the Colorado Department of Public Safety.

    If an Indigenous child is abducted, an Amber Alert will go out statewide, pinging residents’ phones, the CBI said. An alert under the new system will be issued if an Indigenous child goes missing in a non-abduction case.

    Once an alert is issued, local and state law enforcement in Colorado are notified, as well as media outlets and other stakeholders who might distribute the alert information via email or text, CBI said. Unlike an Amber Alert, state investigators say the Missing Indigenous Person Alert will not go out to cell phones.

    “The CBI understands the importance and effectiveness of the various alerts that are in place in Colorado, and we are pleased to have been asked to develop this newest alert in an effort to quickly locate missing Indigenous persons and return them safely to their loved ones,” CBI Director John Camper said in a statement.

    As the search for Vigil continues, activists criticized how the new alert system was activated this week and said it could have been done in a more timely manner.

    Denver Police said Vigil was reported missing on Sunday, but the Missing Indigenous Person Alert wasn’t issued until Tuesday.

    “We’re losing valuable time in locating this young man or finding evidence as to where his whereabouts might be,” said Raven Payment, a Ojibwe and Kanienkehaka activist and member of the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Relatives Taskforce of Colorado who has joined the search for Vigil.

    When asked about the time it took for the Missing Indigenous Person Alert to be issued, the Denver Police Department said its missing persons unit “opened a missing persons case and followed the notification procedure.”

    When asked about the alert’s timing, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said it issued the alert when it received information from the Denver Police Department. “The Denver Police Department is the lead on this case, as they took the report, and may have been performing investigative tasks leading up to the request for the alert,” the CBI said.

    “For us to get this pushed through was an accomplishment, major accomplishment. But right now, you know, we’re at this point where it still doesn’t seem like it’s important enough or urgent enough,” said Bluestar, the other advocate.

    Colorado is among three states that have implemented alert systems aimed to locate missing Indigenous people. Last year, Washington became the first state to create one and California launched a Feather Alert to assist in search efforts for an Indigenous person who has been reported missing under suspicious circumstances.

    Nationally, there were 782 unresolved cases of missing Native American people as of August 2022, according to data from the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

    Correction: This story has been updated to correct the length of time authorities spent searching for Vigil before the alert system was activated.

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  • Man accused of attacking NYPD officers with machete wanted ‘to kill people and carry out jihad,’ prosecutors say | CNN

    Man accused of attacking NYPD officers with machete wanted ‘to kill people and carry out jihad,’ prosecutors say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Trevor Bickford, the 19-year-old accused of attacking New York Police Department officers with a machete on New Year’s Eve, traveled to the city “in order to kill people and carry out jihad,” prosecutors say.

    Bickford allegedly went to the Times Square checkpoint just after 10 p.m., authorities have said. At the security area, he allegedly pulled out a machete, struck one officer with the blade and another officer in the head with the handle, and then swung the blade at a third officer, who shot Bickford in the shoulder, according to law enforcement sources and the NYPD.

    The three injured NYPD officers were hospitalized in stable condition and have been released, the department said.

    Speaking at Bickford’s arraignment Wednesday, prosecutors said the suspect tried to grab a gun from an officer during the attack, but couldn’t get it out of the holster.

    “The defendant admitted that he purposefully waited until he saw a moment when the officer was isolated and not near any civilian when he could attack him,” prosecutor Lucy Nicholas said in court.

    Bickford, according to a criminal complaint, told authorities during his interview that he said “(Allahu) Akbar” before he walked up and hit the officer over the head with the weapon.

    The suspect also allegedly said that all government officials were his target because in his mind, they “cannot be proper Muslims because the United States government supports Israel,” prosecutors said.

    Bickford appeared via video feed from his hospital bed at Bellevue Hospital, where sources previously said he was being treated for the gunshot wound.

    He was formally charged with three counts of attempted murder in the first degree, one count of assault in the first degree, two counts of attempted assault in the first degree and three counts of assault in the second degree.

    Bickford was remanded back into custody. No plea was entered.

    Rosemary Vassallo-Vellucci, Bickford’s attorney with the Legal Aid Society, said her client is “presumed innocent” and argued he should be released on his own recognizance, highlighting his age, that he’s been in custody for more than 24 hours and has no arrest record.

    Vassallo-Vellucci also mentioned the suspect’s alleged community ties, telling the judge he was living with his family in Maine and most recently worked at a golf course.

    The Legal Aid Society said the suspect “has no prior contact with the criminal legal system.” The group said it had recently received details of the case from the District Attorney’s office and will have “more to say … after a thorough review and investigation.”

    “For now, we ask the public to refrain from drawing hasty conclusions and to respect the privacy of our client’s family,” the group added.

    Bickford had been on the FBI’s radar even before the attack, and was interviewed by federal agents in Maine last month after he said he wanted to travel overseas to help fellow Muslims and was willing to die for his religion, multiple law enforcement sources previously said.

    Bickford’s mother and grandmother became concerned about his desire to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban and reported this to the Wells, Maine, police department on December 10, the sources said.

    When the FBI opened its wider investigation they also placed him on a terrorist watch list, according to sources.

    But because the Taliban is not designated a foreign terrorist entity, planning to travel to Afghanistan to join the group does not constitute the federal crime of “attempted material support of a terrorist group.”

    Multiple law enforcement sources told CNN that Bickford traveled to New York via Amtrak, so those travels would not have tripped any watch list databases.

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