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  • Sources: As DPS investigation of Uvalde response nears end, two officials face increased scrutiny | CNN

    Sources: As DPS investigation of Uvalde response nears end, two officials face increased scrutiny | CNN

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    Austin, Texas
    CNN
     — 

    Texas Department of Public Safety investigators looking into the botched response at Robb Elementary School have become increasingly troubled by the actions of two officials – former Uvalde schools police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo and former Uvalde Police Lt. Mariano Pargas – according to law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation.

    The officials told CNN that this assessment comes after investigators reviewed hours of police body camera footage and interviewed hundreds of law enforcement personnel and witnesses.

    The DPS investigation is nearly complete and expected to be in the hands of Uvalde County’s district attorney any day, DPS Director Col. Steven McCraw told CNN Thursday. The district attorney, who will ultimately decide on any charges against law enforcement, has been meeting with victims’ families to update them on the investigation and autopsy results.

    Arredondo was fired as school police chief in August following criticism of his actions during the massacre on May 24, in which law enforcement waited more than an hour before entering the adjoining classrooms where the gunman was holed up. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the attack.

    Arredondo is seen on body-worn cameras giving orders and receiving information during the response, but he has said he did not see himself as the incident commander.

    CNN confronts Chief Pete Arredondo. See the interaction

    Pargas, who was acting city police chief that day, was placed on leave in July when videos from body-worn cameras raised questions about whether he had taken any action to assume command. CNN’s reporting demonstrated Pargas was aware students were alive and needed rescue during the shooting but failed to organize help. Pargas ultimately resigned.

    CNN has reached out to both Pargas and Arredondo this week to address questions about their roles and has not received responses.

    On Monday, Pargas, who is also a county commissioner, told a reporter at the commission meeting: “All I can say is a lot of the stuff that’s been put out there, that is not the way it happened.” When pressed by CNN for specifics, he would not explain what he meant.

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  • ‘It’s being left in the dark,’ mother of murdered Idaho student says of police investigation | CNN

    ‘It’s being left in the dark,’ mother of murdered Idaho student says of police investigation | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The mother of one of the four college students killed near the University of Idaho last month expressed frustration over police communications on the status of the investigation into the murders.

    “It’s sleepless nights. It’s feeling sick to your stomach. It’s just being left in the dark,” Kristi Goncalves, the mother of 21-year-old victim Kaylee Goncalves, said in an interview aired on NBC’s TODAY show Thursday.

    Goncalves recounted the day she learned something had happened to her daughter.

    “We’re running around for hours just not knowing what was going on, what happened,” she explained. “… We found out by people calling us. And the sheriff showed up about three hours later.”

    She also described learning about the police interest in a white Hyundai sedan seen in the area around the time of the murders not from investigators but from reading about it in a news release sent to her by someone else.

    Authorities are sorting through tens of thousands of registered vehicles that fit the criteria of one spotted near the residence the night of the attacks, the Moscow Police Department said in a news release Thursday.

    “So far, we have a list of approximately 22,000 registered white Hyundai Elantras that fit into our criteria that we’re sorting through,” Chief James Fry said in a video update. “We are confident that the occupant or occupants of that vehicle have information that’s critical to this investigation.”

    Goncalves said her family learned graphic details of their daughter’s autopsy when a woman from the coroner’s office called and asked her 17-year-old daughter if she wanted to know the findings.

    “She asked, are you sure you want to know this? And my daughter, thinking that she did for whatever reason, said yes. And she proceeded to tell her.”

    The Latah County Coroner’s Office was not immediately available for comment.

    The killings of Kaylee Goncalves, 21-year-old Madison Mogen, 20-year-old Xana Kernodle, and Kernodle’s boyfriend, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin in the early morning hours of November 13 shook the small college town of Moscow, Idaho, which had not recorded a murder since 2015.

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  • Why people in China are panic buying canned yellow peaches as Covid surges | CNN Business

    Why people in China are panic buying canned yellow peaches as Covid surges | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    An unprecedented wave of Covid cases in China has sparked panic buying of fever medicines, pain killers, and even home remedies such as canned peaches, leading to shortages online and in stores.

    Authorities said Wednesday they had detected 2,249 symptomatic Covid-19 cases nationally through nucleic acid testing, 20% of which were detected in the capital Beijing. CNN reporting from the city indicates the case count in the Chinese capital could be much higher than recorded.

    Demand for fever and cold medicines, such as Tylenol and Advil, is surging nationally as people rush to stockpile drugs amid fears they may contract the virus.

    Canned yellow peaches, considered a particularly nutritious delicacy in many parts of China, have been snapped up by people looking for ways to fight Covid. The product is currently sold out on many online shops.

    Its sudden surge in popularity prompted Dalian Leasun Food, one of the country’s largest canned food manufacturers, to clarify in a Weibo post that canned yellow peaches don’t have any medicinal effect.

    “Canned yellow peaches ≠ medicines!” the company said in the post published Friday. “There is enough supply, so there is no need to panic. There is no rush to buy.”

    The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, also tried to set the record straight. It published a long Weibo post on Sunday urging the public not to stockpile the peaches, calling them “useless in alleviating symptoms of illness.”

    Authorities also pleaded with the public not to stockpile medical supplies. On Monday, the Beijing city government warned residents that it was facing “great pressure” to meet demand for drug and medical services because of panic buying and an influx of patients at clinics.

    It urged the public not to hoard drugs or call emergency services if they have no symptoms.

    The rising demand and shortage of supply of Covid remedies have fueled bets on drugmakers.

    Shares of Hong Kong-listed Xinhua Pharmaceutical, China’s largest manufacturer of ibuprofen, have gained 60% in the past five days. The stock has so far jumped by 147% in the first two weeks of this month.

    “Our company’s production lines are operating at full capacity, and we are working overtime to produce urgently needed medicines, such as ibuprofen tablets,” Xinhua Pharmaceutical said Monday.

    Ibuprofen is an anti-inflammatory drug used to treat pain and fever. It is also known as Advil, Brufen, or Fenbid.

    The drug shortage has spread from mainland China to Hong Kong, a special administrative region which has a separate system of local government. On Sunday, the city’s health chief urged the public to refrain from panic buying cold medicines they do not need and urged residents “not to overact.”

    In some Hong Kong drugstores, fever drugs such as Panadol, the local brand name for Tylenol, have sold out. Most of the buyers were sending the medicines to their families and friends in the mainland, sales representatives told CNN.

    Shares of Shenzhen-listed Guizhou Bailing Group Pharmaceuticals, known for making cough syrup, have gained 21% this week and risen 51% so far this month. Yiling Pharmaceutical, the sole producer of Lianhua Qingwen, a traditional Chinese medicine recommended by the government for treating Covid, has also jumped more than 30% in the past month.

    Even providers of funeral services and burial plots have gotten a huge boost. Shares in Hong Kong-traded Fu Shou Yuan International, China’s largest burial service company, have soared more than 50% since last month.

    There is “strong pent-up demand for burial plots” in 2023, analysts from Citi Group said in a recent research report, adding that they’ve noticed increasing investor interest in the sector.

    They cited the existence of hundreds of thousands of cremated remains, which are being temporarily stored in government facilities awaiting burial. Lockdowns across much of the country have halted funeral services, they said.

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  • Tornadoes leave a trail of destruction in Louisiana and the Southeast, killing at least 3, collapsing homes and knocking out power | CNN

    Tornadoes leave a trail of destruction in Louisiana and the Southeast, killing at least 3, collapsing homes and knocking out power | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A severe weather system cutting through the South has left a trail of destruction in Louisiana, killing at least three people and injuring dozens of others as violent tornadoes touched down, collapsing homes, turning debris into projectiles and knocking out power.

    The deaths attributed to storm-related events include a 56-year-old woman who died after a tornado hit her home in the Killona area in St. Charles Parish, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.

    Additionally, a boy and his mother were found dead after a tornado destroyed their home Tuesday in the northwestern Louisiana community of Keithville, the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office said. The mother and son’s bodies were found hours apart, far from where their house once stood, officials said.

    Multiple communities throughout Louisiana reported destruction, with roofs ripped off, homes splintered, debris littering roadways and cars flipper over. As ferocious winds downed power lines, more than 50,000 customers were left without power in across Louisiana and Mississippi Wednesday evening, according to PowerOutage.us. That number was down to less than 15,000 early Thursday.

    There were at least 49 tornado reports across Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama and Florida Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the Storm Prediction Center. More tornado reports are likely to come in as surveyors continue to check for damage.

    And the threat isn’t over yet. More than 15 million people could see severe weather Thursday in parts of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas as the severe weather shifts the east, according to CNN Meteorologist Robert Shackelford.

    More than 1.5 million people were under tornado watches in southeastern Alabama, northern Florida and southern Georgia until 9 a.m. Thursday. Strong tornadoes are still likely as well as quarter sized hail and powerful wind gusts up to 70 mph.

    The massive storm that brought the destruction to Louisiana and across the Southeast is part of a massive system that has also brought blizzard conditions in northern parts of the central US.

    For Thursday, the storms are expected to weaken slightly, but there is a risk for severe weather for much of Florida, coastal Georgia and coastal Carolinas. Cities like Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Savannah and Charleston could see damaging winds, large hail and isolated tornadoes, Shackelford said.

    In Louisiana, the damage has been widespread, affecting multiple communities, prompting Gov. John Bel Edwards to declare a state of emergency.

    As many as 5,000 structures were likely damaged when a tornado struck the city of Gretna, across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, Mayor Belinda Constant said.

    Farther north, at least 20 people were injured in the small Union Parish town of Farmerville when a tornado struck Tuesday night, demolishing parts of an apartment complex and a mobile home park, Farmerville police Detective Cade Nolan said.

    Patsy Andrews was home with her children in Farmerville when she heard “rushing wind like a train” outside, she told CNN affiliate KNOE-TV.

    Her son told her not to open the door when she went to investigate, but it was too late.

    “All of a sudden that wind was so heavy, it broke my back door,” Andrews said. “The lights went off and all we could hear was glass popping everywhere.”

    She said she and her daughter hit the floor, crawling into a hallway as glass shattered around them and water leaked through the roof. They ended up taking shelter in their bathroom.

    “We just got in the tub and we hugged each other. We just kept praying and I just kept calling on Jesus,” Andrews said. Her family survived the storm but were left with damage to their home.

    In the Algiers area of New Orleans, four residents were taken to area hospitals as the storm battered the area on the west bank of the Mississippi River, Collin Arnold, director of the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness told CNN. At least one house collapsed in the area and other residences and businesses have been impacted, Arnold added.

    Officials in St. Bernard Parish also reported “major damage” in Arabi, where a tornado touched down, they said, leaving much of the area without power.

    Crews in Arabi will be conducting search and rescue efforts throughout the night, St. Bernard Parish Sheriff James Pohlmann said. Ten people have been rescued due to severe weather, but no serious injuries or deaths have been reported, Pohlmann added.

    Cindy DeLucca Hernandez thought she could beat the storm while driving home after picking up her 16-year-old son from school. But on the journey, she found herself facing a tornado.

    “It was extremely scary, I’ve never ever been through anything like that,” Hernandez said.

    Video she shared with CNN shows her waiting at red light as a tornado blew through Arabi, kicking up debris and taking out power lines.

    “We started seeing debris and we got hit a couple of times by it and that’s when I put the car in reverse,” she said. Hernandez and her son made it home safe.

    Jefferson Parish Councilman Scott Walker said he saw at least a mile-long path of debris.

    “Power lines down, homes severely damaged, rooftops ripped off,” he said in a video shared online describing the scene. “It is an extensive damage scene and a long path of destruction here on the west bank.”

    Two schools in Jefferson Parish suffered storm damage and were expected to stay closed Thursday.

    Iberia Medical Center “sustained a significant amount of damage,” police Capt. Leland Laseter said on Facebook. CNN has sought comment from the medical center.

    The New Iberia Police Department reported on Facebook that two tornadoes touched down in the city, with several homes damaged and reports of people trapped in the Southport Subdivision.

    Storm damage in Blue Ridge, Texas, on December 13, 2022.

    The storm also left damage behind in Texas and Oklahoma as it moved through the south earlier this week, spawning tornadoes.

    In Texas, at least seven people were injured Tuesday in the Dallas-Fort Worth area – including at least five hurt around the city of Grapevine. Two tornado reports were made in Grapevine, where police said a mall and other businesses were damaged.

    An EF2 tornado struck Wise County near the communities of Paradise and Decatur, damaging homes and businesses, officials said. Video showed homes splintered, with roofs ripped off in Decatur.

    In Wayne, Oklahoma, an EF2 tornado damaged homes, outbuildings and barns early Tuesday, officials said. No injuries were reported but homes were flattened or had roofs torn off, video from CNN affiliate KOCO shows.

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  • 2 police officers shot and killed in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi | CNN

    2 police officers shot and killed in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Two police officers were shot and killed early Wednesday morning in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, officials said.

    Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves identified the slain officers as Branden Estorffe and Steven Robin, according to a tweet from his verified account.

    “I am heartboken by this terrible loss of two brave law enforcement officers. I am praying for their family, friends, their fellow officers, and the entire Bay St. Louis community,” Reeves wrote. “Mississippians will never forget the sacrifice of these heroes.”

    The two officers received a call for service at a Motel 6 on Highway 90, according to a news release from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. The officers encountered a woman who shot both officers before turning the gun on herself.

    One officer died on the scene, and the second officer was taken to the hospital but later died.

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  • Jury deliberations begin in murder trial of former Texas police officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson in her home | CNN

    Jury deliberations begin in murder trial of former Texas police officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson in her home | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Texas jury began deliberations Wednesday in the trial of a former Fort Worth police officer accused of murder in the 2019 shooting of 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in her home.

    The deliberations got underway after closing arguments in which the state portrayed Aaron Dean as a power-hungry former cop whose preconceived notions about the neighborhood where Jefferson lived tainted his conduct the night of the shooting.

    The defense countered that Dean fired his weapon in self-defense while fearing for his life in what attorneys said was a tragic accident but not a criminal act.

    The case went to the jury more than three years after Dean and his partner responded to Jefferson’s house around 2:25 a.m. on October 12, 2019, in response to a neighbor calling a nonemergency police line to report that her doors were open.

    Dean, who is White, resigned days afterward and was arrested and charged in the killing of Jefferson, who is Black. He has pleaded not guilty to murder, a charge which carries a possible sentence of five to 99 years.

    Jurors also can consider the lesser included offense of manslaughter, which carries a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

    Prosecutors maintained there is no evidence Dean saw a gun in Jefferson’s hand before firing.

    “If you can’t feel safe in your own home, where can you feel safe?” Tarrant County Prosecutor Ashlea Deener told jurors in closing. “When you think about your house, you think about safety. It’s where you go to retreat, to get away from the world.”

    Dean, the prosecutor said, had a “tremendous amount of power” when he put on his uniform.

    “When you put on that badge and you put on that uniform you say you’re going to serve and protect us all. That means her too,” Deener said of Jefferson.

    “And the Fort Worth Police Department – those officers that do serve and protect us, that don’t have those preconceived notions, that did a thorough investigation in this case – are ashamed that they ever called somebody like him a brother in blue,” she added, referring to the former officer.

    Defense attorney Bob Gill told jurors Dean feared for his life as he peered through the bedroom window that night.

    “The state cannot prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that this was not self-defense,” Gill said. “It’s tragic, but is not an offense under the state of Texas.”

    Defense attorney Bob Gill gives his closing argument.

    Holding his hands in the air to show the size of the gun Dean claimed he saw through the bedroom window, Gill told the jury: “What is immediately more necessary than having a handgun stuck in your face? And you have heard from several people, starting with Aaron, that that handgun was this big when he saw it.”

    Gill added, “If you believe that Aaron was legitimately defending a third person, and reasonably defending a third person, or if you had a reasonable doubt about whether he was doing such, then you are to acquit Aaron. And you don’t have to agree that it was self-defense or defense of a third person. You just have to decide in your mind that he reasonably believed he was doing one of those two things.”

    Dean testified Monday that he fired at Jefferson because she pointed a gun at him.

    “As I started to get that second phrase out, ‘Show me your hands,’ I saw a silhouette,” the former officer said. “I was looking right down the barrel of a gun, and when I saw the barrel of that gun pointed at me, I fired a single shot from my duty weapon.”

    Dean said he had his weapon out because he believed the home was in the midst of being robbed. He fired at her through the window “because we’re taught to meet deadly force with deadly force. We’re not taught that we have to wait,” he said.

    In cross-examination, however, Dean admitted many of his actions that night were “bad police work,” including firing without seeing her hands or what was behind her, failing to tell his partner he saw a gun and rushing into the home without fully ensuring it was safe.

    “You’ve got another fellow officer from the Fort Worth Police Department entering a home which you have determined to be a burglary in progress with a possible armed assailant, and you didn’t think to tell your partner, ‘Hey there’s a gun inside?’” prosecutor R. Dale Smith asked.

    “No,” Dean said.

    Body cam footage released by the Fort Worth Police department. Must Mention the video is heavily edited and released by police when using.

    Woman shot and killed by police officer in her own home

    “You didn’t think to tell her, ‘Hey I saw somebody with a gun?’” Smith asked.

    “No,” he said.

    Dean’s testimony is pivotal in the trial, which also featured body-camera footage of the shooting and testimony from the primary witnesses, Dean’s police partner Carol Darch and Jefferson’s 11-year-old nephew.

    On the stand, Dean described the silhouette he saw as being “bent over” facing the window with upper arm movement.

    He grew emotional as he spoke about the moments after he shot Jefferson.

    “I observed the person that we now know is Ms. Jefferson. I heard her scream and saw her fall like this,” Dean said, gesturing in a downward motion. “And I knew that I’d shot that person.”

    He said after firing the shot he tried opening the window to render aid but couldn’t get it open, so they ran around to the front door and entered the home. He and Darch went into the bedroom and saw a child there.

    “I’m thinking, who brings a kid to a burglary? What is going on?” Dean said.

    The prosecution’s first witness was Zion Carr, who was 8 years old and in the bedroom with his “Aunt Tay” when she was shot.

    Now 11, the boy testified they had accidentally burned hamburgers earlier in the night, so they opened the doors to air the smoke out of the house.

    He and his aunt were up late playing video games when Jefferson heard a noise outside, and she then went to her purse to get her gun, he testified. He did not see her raise her firearm toward the window, he testified.

    Zion said he did not hear or see anything outside the window, but he saw his aunt fall to the ground and start crying.

    “I was thinking, ‘Is it a dream?’” he testified. “She was crying and just shaking.”

    Prosecutors also called to the stand Dean’s police partner, Darch, who testified she was with Dean when they went to investigate the home.

    She said she believed the home was being burglarized because two doors were open, lights were on inside, cabinets were wide open and things were strewn about the living room and kitchen area.

    She had her back to the window when Dean began to yell out commands for Jefferson to put her hands up, she testified. Darch said she started to turn around, heard a gunshot, then looked over Dean’s shoulder and could see a face in the window with eyes “as big as saucers.”

    She testified she did not see Jefferson holding a gun and didn’t recall Dean ever saying Jefferson had a gun.

    An attorney for Jefferson’s family said she was trying to protect her nephew from what they both thought was a prowler. She had moved into her ailing mother’s Fort Worth home a few months earlier to take care of her, family attorney S. Lee Merritt said at the time. She also took care of her nephews.

    Jefferson graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2014 with a degree in biology and worked in pharmaceutical equipment sales, according to her family’s attorney.

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  • ‘Shame on you’: Club Q survivors blame GOP rhetoric for mass violence | CNN Politics

    ‘Shame on you’: Club Q survivors blame GOP rhetoric for mass violence | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Survivors of the Club Q mass shooting directly tied Republicans’ rhetoric to the massacre at the Colorado LGBTQ nightclub and detailed their experiences on the night of the shooting, in prepared testimony read before the House Oversight and Reform committee Wednesday.

    “To the politicians and activists who accuse LGBTQ people of grooming children and being abusers: shame on you,” said Michael Anderson, who survived the shooting. “As leaders of our country, it is your obligation to represent all of us, not just the ones you happen to agree with. Hate speech turns into hate action, and actions based on hate almost took my life from me, at 25 years old.”

    Survivor James Slaugh gave emotional testimony, describing getting shot and watching his loved ones bleed. He also placed direct blame on lawmakers’ hateful rhetoric, saying it was “the direct cause” of the Club Q massacre. He also warned of the damage caused by hateful rhetoric that does not explicitly call for violence, including rhetoric on which bathrooms LGBTQ people can use and whether they can join certain sports teams.

    “Hate rhetoric from politicians, religious leaders, and media outlets is at the root of the attacks like at Club Q, and it needs to stop now. Rhetoric that seeks to silence what sports we can play, what bathrooms we can use, how we define our family and who I can marry,” Slaugh said.”The hateful rhetoric you have heard from elected leaders is the direct cause of the horrific shooting at Club Q. We need elected leaders to demonstrate language that reflects love and understanding, not hate and fear.”

    In her opening remarks, Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York, said, “My heart breaks for those who endured this ruthless act of violence. The Club Q shooting represents an attack on all sacred places for LGBTQI+ people across the country that offer the promise of community and refuge from rampant bigotry,” adding, “The attack on Club Q and the LGBTQI community is not an isolated incident, but part of a broader trend of violence and intimidation across our country.”

    Maloney told the survivors that “Their testimony will serve as a tremendous public service for their community and for our nation. Thank you. Let us honor them by recommitting to the bold action necessary to ensure that every person in the United States can experience to live authentically and safely regardless of who they love or how they identify.”

    Ranking Republican member James Comer – who is expected to takeover the committee when Republicans retake the majority next year – sharply pushed back on those remarks and defended Republicans against claims they were contributing to any violence.

    Comer said his “thoughts and prayers” are with survivors, victims and their families, and said, “No one should have to experience what you all have experienced. Let me state clearly, as we have consistently said, Republicans condemn violence in all forms. Unfortunately, Democrats are using committee time and resources today to blame Republicans for this horrendous crime. This is not an oversight hearing. This is a ‘blame Republicans so we don’t have to take responsibility for our own defund the police and soft on crime policies.’”

    “On this committee, we should be using our time and resources to conduct oversight into the rise of violent crimes committed against all Americans and organizations. Every day, Americans no matter what the, what side of the aisle, are living in a high-crime environment,” Comer said.

    When Club Q owner and survivor Matthew Haynes read his prepared remarks, he seemed to push back directly at Comer, saying, “I know that we, our Club Q community, are in the thoughts and prayers of so many of you. Unfortunately these thoughts and prayers alone are not saving lives. They’re not changing the rhetoric of hate.”

    “We need safe places like Club Q more than ever. And we need you, our leaders, to support and protect us.” Haynes said, before reading some of the hate messages he received celebrating the deaths of gay people.

    Haynes blasted Republicans for voting against the Respect for Marriage Act, saying by doing so they were sending a message that it “is OK to disrespect and not support our marriages. We are being slaughtered and dehumanized across this country in communities you took oaths to protect,” Haynes said directly toward lawmakers. “LGBTQ issues are not political issues. They are not lifestyles. They are not beliefs. They are not choices. They are basic human rights.”

    “And so I ask you today, not simply what are you doing to safeguard LGBTQ Americans; but rather, what are you or other leaders doing to make America unsafe for LGBTQ people,” he said.

    President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law on Tuesday, after Congress passed it last month. The House vote was 258 to 169 with 39 Republicans joining the Democrats voting in favor. The bill passed the Senate with support of all members of the Senate Democratic caucus and 12 Republicans.

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  • What is an aortic aneurysm? | CNN

    What is an aortic aneurysm? | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Sports reporter Grant Wahl died of a rupture of an ascending aortic aneurysm with hemopericardium – an accumulation of blood in the sac around his heart – his wife, Dr. Céline Gounder announced on Wednesday. The aneurysm was slowly growing and had gone undetected, she wrote in a statement on Substack.

    “The chest pressure he experienced shortly before his death may have represented the initial symptoms. No amount of CPR or shocks would have saved him. His death was unrelated to COVID. His death was unrelated to vaccination status. There was nothing nefarious about his death,” Gounder wrote.

    An aneurysm occurs when a weak spot in a blood vessel bulges or balloons out. In Wahl’s case, the bulge was in the aorta, the largest artery carrying blood away from the heart. An ascending aortic aneurysm happens when the bulge is located in the section of the aorta that is close to the heart, right where it begins to climb out of the lower left pumping chamber.

    If left untreated, aneurysms can cause the wall of a blood vessel to split or burst, leading to death.

    It’s very rare to survive an event like the one that happened to Wahl, said CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Tara Narula, who is a practicing cardiologist.

    Narula said the blood in the sac around the heart is an indication that the artery wall had ruptured.

    “Normally there’s no blood in that space. And what can happen is if there’s enough blood that gets in there, the heart essentially can’t beat because it sort of compresses the heart, and you can have a cardiac arrest,” she said, adding that she couldn’t comment specifically on what with Wahl, because she didn’t have any personal knowledge of his case.

    Aortic aneurysms were the cause of death for about 10,000 people in 2019, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Aneurysms in the chest become more common as people age. They are slightly more common among men than women, according to the American Heart Association. They are usually caused by high blood pressure or sudden injury, or a history of high cholesterol or smoking.

    Certain inherited conditions such as Marfan syndrome or Ehlers-Danlos syndrome can make it more likely for a person to experience one.

    Symptoms of an aortic aneurysm include:

    • Sudden sharp pain the back or chest
    • Trouble breathing or swallowing

    Not everyone will experience symptoms, even with a large aneurysm. Actor John Ritter died suddenly in 2003 from an aortic aneurysm while he was rehearsing on set.

    If an aneurysm is caught in time, it may be able to be treated with medication or surgery.

    Aortic aneurysms have become more common over the last decade, increasing about 75%, according to the American Heart Association. Still these events are rare, occurring in about two out of every 100,000 people.

    Because of their association with tobacco use, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that all men who have ever smoked have an ultrasound screening between the ages of 65 and 75, for abdominal aortic aneurysms, even if they don’t have symptoms. Abdominal aortic aneurysms are bulges of that artery that could rupture in the abdomen.

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  • World Cup security guard dies after ‘fall’ while on duty at the Lusail Stadium | CNN

    World Cup security guard dies after ‘fall’ while on duty at the Lusail Stadium | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Kenyan security guard who reportedly fell while on duty at Qatar’s Lusail Stadium has died in hospital, his family and officials have confirmed to CNN.

    His employer had notified the migrant worker’s family on Saturday that 24-year-old John Njue Kibue had fallen from the 8th floor of the stadium while on duty, his sister Ann Wanjiru said.

    “We don’t have the money to get justice for him, but we want to know what happened,” she told CNN.

    A medical certificate obtained by CNN shows he was admitted at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Hamad General Hospital in Doha. The document says Njue had a “severe head injury, facial fractures and pelvic fractures.”

    In a statement, the organizers of the World Cup – the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy – announced Kibue’s death.

    “We regret to announce that, despite the efforts of his medical team, he sadly passed away in hospital on Tuesday 13 December, after being in the intensive care unit for three days,” the statement added.

    “His next of kin have been informed. We send our sincere condolences to his family, colleagues and friends during this difficult time.”

    Earlier this week, the committee announced that Kibue suffered a serious fall while on duty.

    “Qatar’s tournament organisers are investigating the circumstances leading to the fall as a matter of urgency and will provide further information pending the outcome of the investigation, ” it said in its statement.

    “We will also ensure that his family receive all outstanding dues and monies owed.”

    He had been unconscious since Saturday and was connected to a machine to help him breathe, his medical records showed. A family member was informed on Monday morning of his death.

    But the security guard’s family says his Qatari employer, Al Sraiya Security Services, has not explained how he fell or any of the circumstances surrounding his death.

    “We want justice. We want to know what caused his death. They have never sent us a picture to show where he fell from or given us any other information,” his sister Wanjiru told CNN.

    CNN has contacted Al Sraiya Security Services for comment after the guard’s death and is yet to receive a response.

    In a statement to CNN, the Kenyan embassy in Qatar said it was aware of the matter and “undertaking necessary consular assistance whilst awaiting official communication from Qatar’s Supreme Committee and competent authorities.”

    The guard’s family says he moved to Qatar last November for a contract with Al Sraiya Security Services.

    A WhatsApp message seen by CNN was sent to his colleagues at other World Cup stadiums soliciting for contributions.

    “He came here to support his family back home but by bad luck his dreams came to an end today,” it reads in part. “Let’s do something for our beloved comrade.”

    He is the second migrant worker reported dead since the tournament began in the Gulf nation after another was reportedly killed in an accident at a resort used by Saudi Arabia during the group stages.

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  • Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend reaches $2 million settlement with City of Louisville | CNN

    Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend reaches $2 million settlement with City of Louisville | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, has reached a $2 million dollar settlement with the City of Louisville, resolving lawsuits Walker filed in response to “the unlawful police raid that led to Ms. Taylor’s death,” a news release from Walker’s legal team says.

    Breonna Taylor, 26, was shot and killed by Louisville Metro Police Department officers on March 13, 2020, as they executed a search warrant as part of a narcotics investigation in the early morning hours.

    Just before 1 a.m., officers battered down the door of Taylor’s apartment. The officers said they announced their presence before entering.

    Walker later said he and Taylor yelled to ask who was at the door, but they did not get a response. Believing police to be intruders, Walker grabbed a gun he legally owned and fired a shot when the officers broke through the door, CNN previously reported.

    Walker was accused of shooting Louisville Metro Police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg and was charged at first with attempted murder of a police officer and first-degree assault, but prosecutors later decided to drop the charges.

    Walker filed a lawsuit in state court in September 2020, followed by a federal civil rights lawsuit in March 2021. Both lawsuits named as defendants the Louisville Metro Government and some of the individual officers involved in obtaining a “materially false” search warrant and Taylor’s fatal shooting.

    The settlement resolves both lawsuits, the news release says.

    “While this tragedy will haunt Kenny for the rest of his life, he is pleased that this chapter of his life is completed. He will live with the effects of being put in harm’s way due to a falsified warrant, to being a victim of a hailstorm of gunfire and to suffering the unimaginable and horrific death of Breonna Taylor,” Steve Romines, one of the attorneys representing Walker, said in the release.

    The statement does not indicate whether the agreement included an admission of wrongdoing by the defendants.

    CNN has reached out to the city for comment but has not yet received a response.

    About six months after Taylor was killed, the city paid a historic $12 million settlement to her family to settle a wrongful death lawsuit. At the time, Mayor Greg Fischer said the agreement did not include an admission of wrongdoing.

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  • State documents appear to indicate Uvalde Sheriff Nolasco has not completed active shooter training | CNN

    State documents appear to indicate Uvalde Sheriff Nolasco has not completed active shooter training | CNN

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    Uvalde, Texas
    CNN
     — 

    Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco does not appear to have completed an active shooter training course, according to documents CNN obtained Monday from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the regulatory agency for peace officers in Texas.

    The information comes on the heels of a contentious Uvalde County Commission meeting, during which Richard Carter, an attorney with expertise in police actions, presented the results of an independent review – which the county hired him to conduct – of the Sheriff’s Office policies at the time of the Robb Elementary School massacre.

    According to Carter, the sheriff’s office did not have an active shooter policy on May 24, when a teenaged gunman with a semi-automatic rifle stormed the school and killed 19 students and two teachers.

    Active shooter training is not required by county or state rules for people who aren’t school-based law enforcement officers. And an active shooter response policy is not required by Texas law of law enforcement agencies, according to the report.

    County commissioners met behind closed doors for more than 90 minutes to review the report and meet with victims’ family members. Community members called for Nolasco’s ouster at the meeting following CNN’s reporting last week about his failure to mount a response at the school and his failure to share critical information about the shooter.

    Nolasco was one of the senior law enforcement officials on the scene of the massacre.

    After the meeting, Carter also appeared to indicate Nolasco hadn’t received active shooter training.

    “He has not taken the course that his officers – all but three of his officers – have. He plans on doing that in the immediate future,” Carter said. “What I understood was, he wanted to make sure that all of his people that might go out were trained,” before he received his own training.

    In an email to CNN that included Nolasco’s records, law enforcement commission spokesperson Gretchen Grigsby said that “active shooter training is only required for school-based law enforcement officers as part of a one-time certification,” but she expected the topic would be a subject of discussion during the next legislative session.

    CNN has reached out to Nolasco about the contents of the report but has not received a response.

    CNN has also reached back out to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to clarify the contents of Nolasco’s training history, and has not received a response.

    The conclusion of Carter’s review comes after months of reporting by CNN about the law enforcement response to the shooting, including that Nolasco had vital information about the shooter that was not shared as the incident unfolded. It was just the latest revelation of senior law enforcement officers not taking command or following protocol to stop an active shooter and get swift treatment to victims.

    Carter’s inquiry, which was conducted over about two months, dealt strictly with the sheriff’s office’s policies, he said Monday.

    The office has since adopted an active shooter policy, Carter said during the public portion of Monday’s meeting.

    But at the time of the shooting – the worst at a K-12 school in the US in nearly a decade – its handbook only defined “active shooter,” Carter said. And while there were “portions that dealt with critical incidences and how officers would respond,” it did not constitute an active shooter policy, he added.

    Whether the sheriff’s office had an active shooter policy, however, is “no excuse for what happened” the day of the shooting, one community member said in a public comment portion of the meeting Monday.

    “Our officers in Uvalde County, including the city, school, and county, don’t live under a rock,” Diana Olvedo-Karau said. “Active shooter incidents happen across our nation all too often… so to step back and give the impression that because there was no policy there’s no accountability, is unacceptable, inexcusable, and shameful.”

    Carter did not examine the actions of the agency’s personnel on the scene of the shooting, he said, which, along with the broader law enforcement response, have been highly scrutinized.

    The grandmother of shooting victim Amerie Jo Garza said she was in “total shock” the Sheriff’s Office didn’t have an active shooter policy in place.

    “I could not believe that with all the mass shootings that have taken place, just in Texas alone, that there was no policy in place. It was a total shock,” Berlinda Irene Arreola said on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.

    Arreola said it was difficult seeing Mariano Pargas, acting Uvalde police chief on the day of the shooting, at the meeting.

    “It was very hard, and It was very sad,” she said of Pargas, who has since resigned but is still a county commissioner.

    Arreola said that she believes he had plenty of time to take control of the incident but that “instead he ran in the other direction.”

    “So, seeing him for the first time was very, very hurtful,” she said.

    Arreola said the upcoming holidays are going to be a difficult time for her family without Amerie.

    “My son and my daughter-in-law just can’t keep it together to be able to enjoy the holidays. So it’s going to be different, definitely different this year and very sad. Very sad,” she said.

    In the months since the shooting, criticism of law enforcement’s response has focused on its failure to follow the main tenets of post-Columbine policies to immediately take down an active shooter. Instead, acting on the early and erroneous assessment that the gunman was barricaded, as opposed to an active shooter with his victims surrounding him inside two adjoining classrooms, police waited 77 minutes before confronting him.

    Much of the initial criticism focused on Uvalde School Police Chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, who had said he never considered himself in charge the day of the shooting. He was ultimately fired in August.

    In the months since the shooting, however, it’s become clear the failures that day went far beyond the scope of the small school police force. According to a preliminary report by a Texas House of Representatives investigative committee, 376 officers from local, state and federal agencies were on the scene of the massacre.

    Pargas, who remains an elected county commissioner, resigned from the police department after CNN reported he knew children needed rescuing and did not organize help.

    Separately, a Texas Ranger and a state police captain are under review for their actions or inaction the day of the shooting, and a state police sergeant was terminated. Another officer who quit the state police force and took a job with the Uvalde school district was also fired after CNN reported she was under investigation for her actions during the shooting.

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  • Former officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson testifies she pointed a gun at him before he fired | CNN

    Former officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson testifies she pointed a gun at him before he fired | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The former Fort Worth police officer charged with murder for the 2019 shooting of 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in her own home testified Monday he fired at her because she pointed a gun at him.

    “As I started to get that second phrase out, ‘Show me your hands,’ I saw a silhouette,” the former officer, 38-year-old Aaron Dean, said. “I was looking right down the barrel of a gun, and when I saw the barrel of that gun pointed at me, I fired a single shot from my duty weapon.”

    Dean said he had his weapon out because he believed the home was in the midst of being robbed. He fired at her through the window “because we’re taught to meet deadly force with deadly force. We’re not taught that we have to wait,” he said.

    Yet in cross-examination, he admitted many of his actions that night were “bad police work,” including firing without seeing her hands or what was behind her, failing to tell his partner he saw a gun and rushing into the home without fully ensuring it was safe.

    “You’ve got another fellow officer from the Fort Worth Police Department entering a home which you have determined to be a burglary in progress with a possible armed assailant, and you didn’t think to tell your partner, ‘Hey there’s a gun inside?’” prosecutor R. Dale Smith asked.

    “No,” Dean said.

    “You didn’t think to tell her, ‘Hey I saw somebody with a gun?’” Smith asked.

    “No,” he said.

    His testimony is likely to be pivotal in the trial, which began last week and has already featured body-camera footage of the shooting and testimony from the primary witnesses, Jefferson’s 11-year-old nephew and Dean’s police partner Carol Darch. The prosecution rested its case after three days of testimony.

    Woman shot and killed by police officer in her own home

    The testimony comes more than three years after Dean and his partner responded to Jefferson’s house around 2:25 a.m. on an October night in response to a neighbor calling a nonemergency police line to note her doors were open.

    The officers did not at any point identify themselves as police when scoping out the home, and Dean then shot into a back window at Jefferson, who was up late playing video games with her young nephew.

    Heavily edited body camera footage released to the public showed an officer peering through two open doors, but he didn’t knock or announce his presence. Instead, he walked around the house for about a minute. Eventually, the officer approached a window and shined a flashlight into what appeared to be a dark room.

    “Put your hands up! Show me your hands!” the officer yelled before firing a single shot, according to the body camera footage.

    Dean, who is White, resigned days afterward and was arrested and charged with murder for killing Jefferson, who is Black. He has pleaded not guilty to murder, a charge which carries a possible sentence of five to 99 years.

    His defense has said he fired in self-defense, but prosecutors argued there is no evidence he saw a gun in her hand before firing.

    On Monday, Dean testified he and his partner arrived to the scene and approached the home quietly because they believed it was in the midst of a burglary. They parked at a nearby home and did not announce themselves as police when approaching.

    When they were in the home’s backyard, Dean said he saw the silhouette of a person in the window. He thought the person was a burglar and shouted out commands for the person to show their hands. Dean said he could not identify the gender or race of the person in the window.

    Dean described the silhouette as being “bent over” facing the window with upper arm movement.

    He grew emotional on the stand as he spoke about the moments after he shot Jefferson.

    “I observed the person that we now know is Ms. Jefferson. I heard her scream and saw her fall like this,” Dean said, gesturing in a downward motion. “And I knew that I’d shot that person.”

    He said after firing the shot, he tried opening the window to render aid but couldn’t get it open, so they ran around to the front door and entered the home. He and Darch went into the bedroom and saw a child there.

    “I’m thinking, who brings a kid to a burglary? What is going on?” Dean said.

    He testified he found a firearm between Jefferson’s feet and noticed it had a green laser attached to it. Body-camera footage shows he audibly exhaled at that moment. “I was thinking that’s how close we came to dying,” he testified.

    In a confrontational cross-examination, Smith, the prosecutor, walked through each of Dean’s actions that night and repeatedly asked him, “Is that good police work?”

    Dean acknowledged many of his actions were not. In particular, he acknowledged he could not tell whether the gun was raised in a position ready to fire, only that he saw the barrel of the gun and decided to shoot.

    “Once you saw the barrel of the gun, you decided to pull the trigger and take who was on the other side of that window’s life?” the prosecutor said.

    “Yes,” Dean said.

    Smith went step-by-step through Dean’s body camera footage, showing multiple missteps Dean and his partner took while surrounding Jefferson’s home. Dean admitted he did not secure exits for a potential burglar, did not call for backup and did not administer CPR to Jefferson.

    Still, he gave himself an overall grade of “B” on an A-to-F scale for his actions before he pulled the trigger.

    “I’m sure there are things we could have done better,” he said.

    In opening statements, prosecutors acknowledged Jefferson had a firearm but said there was no evidence Dean saw the weapon in her hand before firing at her.

    “This is not a circumstance where they’re staring at the barrel of a gun and he had to defend himself against that person or to protect his partner,” Tarrant County prosecutor Ashlea Deener said. “The evidence will support he did not see the gun in her hand. This is not a justification. This is not a self-defense case. This is murder.”

    Yet Dean’s defense attorney said the former officer had seen an armed silhouette with a green laser pointed at him before firing.

    “In that window he sees a silhouette,” attorney Miles Brissette said. “He doesn’t know if it’s a male or female, he doesn’t know the racial makeup of the silhouette. He sees it, he sees the green laser and the gun come up on him. He takes a half-step back, gives a command and fires his weapon.”

    The prosecution’s first witness was Zion Carr, who was 8 years old and in the bedroom with his “Aunt Tay” when she was shot. Now 11, he testified they had accidentally burned hamburgers earlier in the night, so they opened the doors to air the smoke out of the house.

    He and his aunt were up late playing video games when Jefferson heard a noise outside, and she then went to her purse to get her gun, he testified. He did not see her raise her firearm toward the window, he testified.

    Zion said he did not hear or see anything outside the window, but he saw his aunt fall to the ground and start crying.

    “I was thinking, ‘Is it a dream?’” he testified. “She was crying and just shaking.”

    Prosecutors also called to the stand Dean’s police partner Carol Darch, who testified she was with Dean when they went to investigate the home.

    She said she believed the home was being burglarized because two doors were open, lights were on inside, cabinets were wide open and things were strewn about the living room and kitchen area.

    She had her back to the window when Dean began to yell out commands for Jefferson to put her hands up, she testified. Darch said she started to turn around, heard a gunshot, then looked over Dean’s shoulder and could see a face in the window with eyes “as big as saucers.”

    She testified she did not see Jefferson holding a gun and doesn’t recall Dean ever saying Jefferson had a gun.

    An attorney for Jefferson’s family said she was trying to protect her nephew from what they both thought was a prowler. She had moved into her ailing mother’s Fort Worth home a few months earlier to take care of her, family attorney S. Lee Merritt said at the time. She also took care of her nephews.

    Jefferson graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2014 with a degree in biology and worked in pharmaceutical equipment sales, according to her family’s attorney.

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  • Survivor found ‘gasping for life’ among bodies of 27 men dumped on Zambian roadside | CNN

    Survivor found ‘gasping for life’ among bodies of 27 men dumped on Zambian roadside | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Zambia’s police service says it is investigating the deaths of 27 men, all believed to be Ethiopian nationals, whose bodies were found on Sunday “dumped” by the roadside near the capital, Lusaka.

    Police spokesman Danny Mwale said in a statement that a total of 28 victims were found abandoned along Chiminuka road in the Ngwerere area of Lusaka.

    Only one of the men – who were all aged between 20 and 38 years – survived, Mwale said.

    “Out of the 28 persons, one was found gasping for life,” the police statement said, adding that the 27 bodies had been transferred to a Lusaka morgue “awaiting formal identification and postmortem.”

    The sole survivor was taken to a hospital for treatment, the police said.

    Ethiopians are increasingly taking desperate measures to escape Africa’s second most populous country, which has been in the grip of civil war for the past two years.

    Some Ethiopian nationals are lured with promises of job opportunities in South Africa but end up being held in dire conditions, according to immigration officials cited by the Lusaka Times.

    The latest discovery comes less than two months after police in neighboring Malawi found a mass grave that contained the remains of 25 Ethiopians in Malawi’s northern Mzimba district.

    Four more bodies of Ethiopian nationals were found “in a decomposed state” a day after, near the site of the mass grave in Mzimba, Malawi’s police said at the time.

    Just like Malawi, which has increasingly become a popular route for smuggling syndicates, Zambia has been described as both “a transit and destination country” for illegal migrants from the Horn of Africa who pass through the southern African country with the aim of reaching South Africa.

    In July, Zambia’s immigration officials intercepted more than 50 Ethiopians who were believed to have been smuggled into the country on their way to South Africa.

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  • Second known protest-related execution carried out in Iran | CNN

    Second known protest-related execution carried out in Iran | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Iran has executed a second man allegedly involved in the nationwide anti-government protest movement after he was convicted of fatally stabbing two security officials last month, Mizan Online, a news agency affiliated with Iran’s judiciary, and the semi-official Tasmin news agency reported on Monday.

    Mizan Online named the man as Majidreza Rahnavard. He was convicted of “waging war against God” for reportedly killing two members of the Basij paramilitary force, and injuring four others on November 17, the outlet said. The charge of “waging war against God” carries the death penalty under the theocracy of the Islamic Republic since 1979.

    Rahnavard was hanged in a public execution in the northeastern city of Mashhad early Monday morning, it said.

    He is the second known person to be executed in connection to the 2022 protests. His death comes less than a week after Mohsen Shekari – the first known protester to be executed – who was hanged last Thursday.

    Several more Iranians have been sentenced to death by execution during the nationwide protests, which were sparked by the case of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being apprehended by the state’s morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.

    Public anger over Amini’s death has combined with a range of grievances against the Islamic Republic’s oppressive regime to fuel the demonstrations even in the face of harsh punishments, and possibly the death sentence.

    CNN cannot independently verify the number of people facing executions in Iran, or the latest arrest figures or death tolls related to the protests – precise numbers are impossible for anyone outside the Iranian government to confirm.

    Last week, Amnesty International said it had identified at least 17 others, in addition to Rahnavard and Shekari, who are at risk of execution in connection to the recent protests.

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  • Paul Silas, 3-time NBA champion player and coach, dead at 79 | CNN

    Paul Silas, 3-time NBA champion player and coach, dead at 79 | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Former NBA All-Star and longtime head coach Paul Silas has died at the of age 79, the league announced Sunday.

    “We mourn the passing of former NBA All-Star and head coach Paul Silas. Paul’s lasting contributions to the game are seen through the many players and coaches he inspired, including his son, Rockets head coach Stephen Silas. We send our deepest condolences to Paul’s family,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement Sunday.

    Known for his defensive prowess, Silas was a three-time NBA champion in his 16 seasons as a player in the league. Silas was drafted by the St. Louis Hawks, who have since moved to Atlanta, with the No. 10 pick in the 1964 NBA Draft out of Creighton University.

    Silas won two of his NBA championships while with the Boston Celtics in 1974 and 1976, and his third with the Seattle Supersonics in 1979. He was a two-time All-Star and five-time All-Defensive player.

    As a college player with Creighton, Silas was a three-time All-American basketball player from 1961 to 1964, and became one of five players in NCAA history to average more than 20 points (20.5) and 20 rebounds (21.6), joining Bill Russell, Julius Erving, Kermit Washington and Artis Gilmore.

    He was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.

    After retiring as a player, Silas joined the coaching ranks, becoming the head coach of the then-San Diego Clippers in 1980 – a stint that lasted three years.

    Following his time with the Clippers, Silas spent more than a decade as an assistant coach before returning to a head coaching position with the Charlotte Bobcats, Charlotte Hornets, Cleveland Cavaliers and New Orleans Hornets.

    While with the Cavaliers, Silas was the first head coach of superstar LeBron James.

    In his coaching career, Silas finished with a 387-488 record and led the Hornets teams to the playoffs three times, reaching the conference semifinals twice.

    (From left to right) Head coach Paul Silas and LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers look on during the game against the Sacramento Kings at Arco Arena on October 29, 2003, in Sacramento, California.

    Hornets owner Michael Jordan released the following the statement on the death of Silas, “Our Hornets family mourns the passing of Paul Silas. Paul was an incredible leader and motivator who served as our head coach on two occasions. He combined the knowledge developed over nearly 40 years as an NBA player and coach with an innate understanding of how to mix discipline with his never-ending positivity.

    “On or off the court, Paul’s enthusiastic and engaging personality was accompanied by an anecdote for every occasion. He was one of the all-time great people in our game, and he will be missed. My thoughts, and the thoughts of our entire organization, are with his wife, Carolyn; his children, Paula and Stephen; and the entire Silas family.”

    Stephen Silas is the current head coach of the Houston Rockets. Silas will miss the Rockets game against the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday night due to the death of his father.

    “The Fertitta Family and the Rockets organization are deeply saddened by the passing of Paul Silas, father of Rockets head coach Stephen Silas,” the Rockets said in a statement Sunday. “Our heartfelt thoughts are with Stephen and his family during this difficult time.”

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  • After 25 years of wrongful imprisonment, 2 Georgia men set free after newly uncovered evidence exonerates them of murder charges | CNN

    After 25 years of wrongful imprisonment, 2 Georgia men set free after newly uncovered evidence exonerates them of murder charges | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    After spending 25 years in prison on murder convictions related to the 1996 shooting death of their friend, two Georgia men were exonerated this week, after new evidence uncovered in a true-crime podcast last year proved their innocence, their lawyers said.

    Darrell Lee Clark and his co-defendant Cain Joshua Storey were 17 years old when they were arrested for their alleged involvement in the death of 15-year-old Brian Bowling.

    He died from a gunshot wound to the head in his family’s mobile home on October 18, 1996, according to Clark’s lawyers, Christina Cribbs and Meagan Hurley, with the nonprofit Georgia Innocence Project.

    Moments before the gun was fired, Bowling was on the phone with his girlfriend and told her he was playing a game of Russian roulette with a gun, which was brought to his home by Storey, who was in the room at the time of the shooting, according to a news release from the Georgia Innocence Project.

    Storey was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but months later, police began investigating the death as a homicide, and interviewed two witnesses whose statements led authorities to tie Clark to Bowling’s death, the Georgia Innocence Project said.

    “Despite the circumstances, which strongly indicated that Bowling accidentally shot himself in the head, at the urging of Bowling’s family members, police later began investigating the death as a homicide,” according to a motion filed by Clark’s attorneys, requesting a new trial.

    The two teenagers were sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, following a weeklong trial in 1998.

    Clark’s exoneration came a year and a half after investigative podcasters Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis began scrutinizing his case in their Proof true-crime podcast in 2021, and interviewed two of the state’s key witnesses.

    Through their investigation, new evidence emerged which “shattered the state’s theory of Clark’s involvement” in Bowling’s death and the podcasters flagged his case to the Georgia Innocence Project, according to its news release.

    The first witness, a woman who lived near Bowling’s home was interviewed by police, who claimed she alleged the teens confessed they had “planned the murder of Bowling because he knew too much about a prior theft Storey and Clark had committed,” according to the Georgia Innocence Project.

    Based on her testimony, Storey was charged with murder and Clark was arrested as a co-conspirator despite having a corroborated alibi, stating he was home on the night of the shooting, which was supported by two witnesses, according to Clark’s motion for a new trial.

    But the woman revealed in the podcast, police coerced her into giving false statements and threatened to take her children away from her if she failed to comply, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.

    Darrell Lee Clark was released from the Floyd County Jail on Thursday after the Rome Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office and Floyd County Superior Court Judge John Neidrach agreed that his conviction should be overturned.

    Police claimed the other witness, a man who was in a different room of the Bowlings’ home at the time of the shooting, identified Clark from a photo lineup as the person he saw running through the yard on the night Bowling was shot, the news release said.

    It was uncovered in the podcast the man’s testimony was based on an “unrelated, factually similar shooting” which he witnessed in 1976, and he never identified Clark as the individual in the yard, nor did he ever witness anyone in the yard on the night of the shooting, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.

    Davis told CNN in an interview when she and Simpson started their investigation, they weren’t expecting anything to come of it, but as they interviewed more people, it was “clear that it just wasn’t adding up.”

    “It took us a long time to talk to both of those witnesses. The podcast was happening in almost real time as an investigation. When we finally found and were able to talk to those two witnesses, it really solidified that both of these guys had been wrongly convicted,” Davis said.

    Clark’s attorneys filed pleadings in September to challenge a wrongful conviction and ask for a new trial, citing new information which proved his conviction was based on false evidence and coercion, Hurley told CNN.

    Clark, now 43, was released from the Floyd County Jail Thursday after the Rome Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office and Floyd County Superior Court Judge John Neidrach agreed the conviction should be overturned and all underlying charges against him dismissed, after evidence in the case was reexamined.

    Storey, who admitted to bringing the gun to Bowling’s home, was also released after accepting a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter, and a 10-year sentence with time served, after spending 25 years in prison. He was also exonerated of murder charges.

    Storey told CNN in an interview he was afraid to go to sleep the first night after he was released in case he would wake up and “realize it was all a dream.”

    “It’s been surreal to say the least,” he added. “I believe it’s going to be great. One step at a time. I never allowed my mind to get locked up all those years, anyhow.”

    “You never think something like that is going to happen to you,” said Lee Clark in a statement released by the Georgia Innocence Project. “Never would I have thought I would spend more than half my life in prison, especially for something I didn’t do.”

    Clark’s father, Glen Clark, told CNN in an interview, “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time. 25 years. My son was wrongly accused, and I knew it all these years. It’s hard for me to live with that.”

    “I watched my son go into prison as a kid, I watched him go through prison, I watched him come out as a man. He became a man in prison,” he added.

    Clark is living with his family in their home in Floyd County for the foreseeable future as he focuses on readjusting to life outside prison and rebuilding his life, he told CNN. Storey said he also moved back to Floyd County, with plans to go back to school and get a job.

    Clark said Judge Neidrach apologized on behalf of the state of Georgia and Floyd County this week during the court hearing this week, which was an important step toward healing.

    “That really touched my heart, because I had been living in corruption for so long, and it meant a lot to have someone acknowledge that wrong,” he told CNN.

    The Georgia Innocence Project will work to support Clark during his transition and connect him to resources, and a personal fundraiser has been organized on the MightyCause platform, open to the public for donations to Clark and his family, Hurley said.

    “It’s probably going to take some time to like truly process that he is free and doesn’t have to go back behind prison walls, because he spent most of his life behind them,” Hurley said.

    After his release, Clark is living with his family in their home in Floyd County for the foreseeable future as he focuses on readjusting to life outside prison and rebuilding his life.

    “More than anything, he’s looking forward to getting to spend time with his family and rebuilding some of those relationships that he was, frankly, ripped away from at the age of 17,” she added.

    The exonerations of both men were the culmination of a collaboration between Clark, Storey and his defense team, as well as the Bowling family, which was willing to take an “objective look at this case and reevaluate some of the things they have been told in the past,” Hurley said.

    Davis was in the courtroom during Clark and Storey’s hearing this week and said she’s still “in shock” and feels a huge amount of relief for both men.

    “In the end, I also feel for Brian Bowling’s family who have been incredibly gracious and supportive as well. It’s really rare when you have the victim’s family support the convictions being overturned,” Davis said.

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  • Former Minneapolis police officer who helped restrain George Floyd sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison | CNN

    Former Minneapolis police officer who helped restrain George Floyd sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A former Minneapolis police officer who assisted in the fatal restraint of George Floyd was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison Friday for his role in the killing.

    J. Alexander Kueng pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter on the day his state trial was to begin last October, agreeing to the plea in exchange for the state dropping a count of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder in the May 25, 2020, death that triggered international protests against police brutality.

    Kueng appeared remotely from the US Bureau of Prisons Elkton facility in Lisbon, Ohio, where he’s serving a three-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights. He did not address the court.

    “Nothing your honor, thank you,” he said when asked if he had any remarks.

    There was no formal victim impact statement.

    “The sentencing of Alexander Kueng for his role in the murder of George Floyd delivers yet another piece of justice for the Floyd family,” attorneys Ben Crump, Antonio Romanucci and Jeff Storms, who represent Floyd’s family, said in a statement.

    “While the family faces yet another holiday season without George, we hope that moments like these continue to bring them a measure of peace, knowing that George’s death was not in vain.”

    Harrowing video taken by a bystander showed Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, desperately pleading for the officers restraining him to let him breathe before he lost consciousness and died.

    Kueng was among four officers who were fired and criminally charged after Floyd’s death. The city of Minneapolis agreed last year to pay Floyd’s estate $27 million to settle a lawsuit with his family.

    “I really can’t come close to comprehending what the family and friends of George Floyd have had to go through,” prosecutor Matthew Frank told the court before sentencing.

    “It’s not just watching a video of your loved one dying and seeing it on TV over and over again. Throughout these two and a half years, throughout all the court proceedings, we think of them often and we wish them the best in healing and moving forward.”

    Frank said Floyd was a “crime victim” and Kueng “was not simply a bystander in what happened that day.”

    “Mr. Kueng was an active part of this,” he added.

    Defense attorney Thomas Plunkett said police leaders “failed” both Floyd and Kueng by not adequately training officers.

    Kueng received credit for 84 days time served. He will be prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition for the rest of his life, Judge Peter Cahill ruled.

    His sentencing Friday was delayed several hours because of technical issues with the web conference.

    Kueng, who helped restrain Floyd as Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, and another officer, Tou Thao, who fended off angry witnesses pleading for police to get off Floyd, were both convicted of federal charges in the killing. They were found guilty on charges of violating Floyd’s civil rights and of failing to intervene to stop Chauvin during the restraint.

    Kueng was sentenced to three years and Thao was sentenced to 3 ½ years. Keung will serve his state sentence concurrently with his federal sentence.

    The two former cops began serving those sentences in October, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

    Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in state court and was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison in June 2021.

    In federal court, Chauvin pleaded guilty to depriving Floyd of his rights and an unrelated civil rights violation was sentenced to 21 years in prison. He is serving the sentences concurrently.

    Thomas Lane, the fourth officer, who held Floyd’s legs during the arrest, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in the summer and was sentenced to three years in prison in September. He is serving that concurrently with a two-and-a-half year federal sentence in Colorado.

    Kueng initially was to go on trial in October with Thao.

    Thao, according to his attorney, Robert Paule, agreed to a trial by stipulated evidence, meaning he waived his right to a trial by jury and the court would decide Thao’s fate after reviewing evidence presented by both parties.

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  • Buffalo grocery store mass shooter willing to plead guilty to federal charges if death penalty off the table, attorneys say | CNN

    Buffalo grocery store mass shooter willing to plead guilty to federal charges if death penalty off the table, attorneys say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The gunman who killed 10 people and wounded three in a racist attack at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, would be willing to plead guilty to federal charges – including hate crimes – if prosecutors agree to take the death penalty off the table, his attorneys said Friday.

    Attorneys representing Payton Gendron made their statements during a court hearing on Friday, seven months after Gendron used an illegally modified semiautomatic rifle to carry out the mass shooting.

    Gendron, a 19-year-old White man, had faced multiple federal hate crime charges, which carry the potential for the death penalty, in addition to several firearms charges. He had pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

    He pleaded guilty in a state court last month to one count of a domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate, 10 counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder and a weapons possession charge in the mass shooting at Tops Friendly Markets on May 14. Those charges come with a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole.

    “Just as Payton Gendron entered a plea of guilty to the indictment in county court, he is prepared to enter a plea of guilty in federal court in exchange of the same sentence, which is the sentence of life in prison, without parole,” said his defense attorney Sonya Zoghlin.

    Magistrate Judge Kenneth Schroeder in court on Friday balked at giving attorneys more time to review the voluminous evidence connected with the case since Gendron has already pleaded guilty to state charges.

    Gendron’s defense team said in court they plan to take the first steps to meet with the US Attorney in Buffalo and the Assistant Attorney General from Washington so that they can make a formal presentation to as to why Gendron should not get the death penalty.

    The first meetings are scheduled after the new year, attorneys said in court on Friday.

    “There’s a lot to go through and I think that mitigation presentation, obviously, is highly important for them, in addition to the facts of the case, so that’s why we consented this time,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi.

    Judge Schroeder scheduled the next hearing for March 10, during which attorneys will give an update on how much of the evidence they’ve been able to review and if they can work out a deal with prosecutors.

    Meanwhile, Gendron will be sentenced on his state conviction on similar charges in February.

    The victims, including customers, employees and an armed security guard, ranged in age from 20 to 86. Eleven of the 13 people shot were Black and two were White, officials said.

    Social media posts and a lengthy document written by the gunman reveal he had been planning his attack for months and had visited the Tops supermarket several times previously. He posted that he chose Tops because it was in a particular ZIP code in Buffalo that had the highest percentage of Black people close enough to where he lived in Conklin, New York.

    The document outlined his goals for the attack, according to Flynn: “To kill as many African Americans as possible, avoid dying and spread ideals.”

    Gendron shot four people outside the grocery store and nine more inside before surrendering to Buffalo Police officers who responded to the scene, according to an indictment.

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said following the attack that the AR-15 style rifle used in the shooting was legally purchased in New York State, but was modified with a high-capacity magazine, which is not legal in the state.

    The earlier guilty plea ensured there will be no state trial and Gendron will not appeal, defense attorney Brian Parker said.

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  • FedEx driver charged in 7-year-old Athena Strand’s death delivered her Christmas present before abducting her, mother says | CNN

    FedEx driver charged in 7-year-old Athena Strand’s death delivered her Christmas present before abducting her, mother says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The FedEx driver accused of kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Athena Strand delivered her Christmas present –Barbie dolls – before the girl’s disappearance, her mother said Thursday.

    Maitlyn Gandy called for stricter screening policies for delivery drivers at a news conference.

    On an easel beside her was the package, a box of “You can be anything” Barbie dolls. It was the first time she’d seen the present, she said.

    “Athena was robbed (of) the opportunity to be anything she wanted to be,” a tearful Gandy said. “I was robbed of watching her grow up, by a man that everyone was supposed to be able to trust to do just one simple task – deliver a Christmas present and leave.”

    Athena disappeared from the driveway of her home in Wise County, Texas, on November 30. After a county-wide search, her body was recovered Friday evening, according to Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin. Authorities believe she was killed within an hour of her alleged kidnapping, but her cause of death is still under investigation, Akin said Friday.

    The suspect, identified by authorities as a contract driver for FedEx, is 31-year-old Tanner Lynn Horner, Akin said. He allegedly delivered a package to Athena’s father’s home when she disappeared, authorities said.

    Horner is being held in Wise County jail on capital murder and aggravated kidnapping charges, according to its website. Bond was set at $1.5 million, Akin said. CNN has repeatedly tried to locate an attorney for Horner, to no avail.

    Horner told investigators he had accidentally hit Athena as he was backing up his delivery truck and although she was not seriously injured, he panicked and put her in the van before allegedly killing her, according to two arrest warrants obtained by CNN affiliate KTVT.

    According to the warrants, one issued for each charge, Horner told authorities that he strangled the child because “she was going to tell her father about being hit by the Fed Ex truck.”

    Horner was tracked down by his employer, a subcontractor of FedEx, after authorities learned Athena went missing around the time a FedEx delivery was made to the home, according to the warrants. Surveillance video from the truck showed the child inside, talking to the driver, according to the warrants.

    After he was questioned, Horner led investigators to the child’s body and surrendered without incident, according to a warrant.

    Akin, the sheriff, did not respond to CNN’s messages Thursday afternoon.

    Authorities said Horner did not know the family or the child, Akin previously said.

    Gandy said her goal is to affect change in hiring policies “so that monsters wearing delivery uniforms don’t show up on our children’s doorsteps.”

    Her attorney Benson Varghese said he is still in the “investigation phase” of Athena’s case. Varghese said his office has put people they “think might be responsible” on notice, asking them to preserve any evidence related to the investigation.

    Varghese said he plans to hold any person or corporation accountable “whose actions or inactions could have prevented this little girl’s tragic death,” but said he is not in a rush to file a lawsuit.

    “The ultimate goal here is to ensure that no parent, or grandparent, or family member feels the loss that Maitlyn’s going through right now,” Varghese said.

    In a statement to CNN last week, FedEx expressed its sympathies and directed further questions to law enforcement.

    “Words cannot describe our shock and sorrow at the reports surrounding this tragic event. First and foremost, our thoughts are with the family during this most difficult time, and we continue to cooperate fully with the investigating authorities,” the statement reads.

    Earlier this week, several school districts across Texas wore pink in honor of Athena.

    Gandy, who appeared at Thursday’s news conference sporting bright pink hair, said she was grateful for the community’s outpouring of love and support.

    “I have felt your prayers, I have read your messages and your letters and I see your pink everywhere.”

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  • Warnock honored 5 civil rights ‘martyrs’ in his victory speech. Here are their stories | CNN

    Warnock honored 5 civil rights ‘martyrs’ in his victory speech. Here are their stories | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Sen. Raphael Warnock’s re-election is being celebrated by supporters across the nation with many political observers crediting the work of voting rights groups for the consequential win.

    Warnock delivered a victory speech to a fiery crowd in Atlanta on Tuesday night that touched on the power of faith, his deep Georgia roots and the perseverance of voters in the face of Republican-led voter suppression efforts. Election officials said a record number of voters showed up for early voting last week. And Black voters have been largely credited for Warnock’s win, signaling that Georgia is no longer a reliably red state.

    In his speech, Warnock also honored the Black and White unsung heroes of the civil rights movement who died fighting for equal voting rights, making wins like his possible.

    “Tonight, I want to pay tribute to all those, over so many years, who have put their voices, and their lives on the line, to defend that right,” Warnock said. “Martyrs of the movement like (Michael) Schwerner, (James) Chaney and (Andrew) Goodman, Viola Luizzo, James Reeb. And those who stood up and spoke up like Fannie Lou Hamer. John Lewis, who walked across a bridge knowing that there were police waiting to brutalize him on the other side. Yet, by some stroke of destiny mingled with human determination he walked across that bridge in order to build a bridge to a more just future.”

    While Hamer and Lewis have been widely discussed by historians and journalists, Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman, Luizzo and Reeb are lesser known. But that doesn’t negate the significance of their work toward equality. All of them were killed by white supremacists or Ku Klux Klan members.

    Here is what you should know about five “martyrs” of the movement:

    Liuzzo was a 39-year-old wife and mother of five of from Detroit who was killed by Ku Klux Klansmen in Selma on March 25, 1965.

    Historical records show Liuzzo, a White woman, had been committed to fighting for economic justice and civil rights.

    She was an active member of the Detroit NAACP chapter and the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit. Family members say she decided to travel to Selma in 1965 after seeing televised news reports of peaceful protesters being beaten and tear-gassed by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

    In Selma, Liuzzo marched and helped transport demonstrators in her car. She was ambushed and shot to death by KKK members while driving Leroy Moton, a Black man, to Montgomery. Within 24 hours of Liuzzo’s death, President Lyndon Johnson announced the arrests of the KKK members. They were all acquitted by Alabama courts, however a federal grand jury found them guilty of violating Liuzzo’s civil rights and they were sentenced to 10 years in prison.

    In 1991, a marker honoring Liuzzo was erected at the site where she was killed on U.S. Highway 80, about 20 miles east of Selma

    Rev. James J. Reeb, 38, was attacked by a White mob in Selma in 1965 and he died from his injuries days later.

    Reeb, a White Unitarian minister who lived in Boston, died after traveling to Selma, Alabama, in 1965 to answer Martin Luther King Jr’s call to clergy to join demonstrations for voting rights in the aftermath of “Bloody Sunday.”

    The 38-year-old minister was beaten by a group of White men on March 9, 1965 as he and two other White clergymen left an integrated Selma restaurant after having dinner. He was hit in the head and died two days later at a Birmingham hospital.

    His killing gained nationwide attention, prompted vigils in his honor and is believed to have contributed to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

    “The world is aroused over the murder of James Reeb. For he symbolizes the forces of goodwill in our nation. He demonstrated the conscience of the nation. He was an attorney for the defense of the innocent in the court of world opinion. He was a witness to the truth that men of different races and classes might live, eat, and work together as brothers,” King said as he delivered a eulogy for Reeb in 1965.

    Three White men were indicted with murder in Reeb’s killing but their cases resulted in acquittals.

    Andrew Goodman, left, James Chaney, center, and Michael Shwerner, right, were killed in the summer of 1964.

    Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. The killings were among the most notorious of the civil rights era, and were the subject of the 1988 movie “Mississippi Burning.”

    The three men, who registered African Americans to vote, had just visited the victims of the burning of a Black church in Neshoba County when a sheriff’s deputy took them into custody for speeding. The men were driving a car with license plates registered to the Congress of Federated Organizations (COFO), one of the most active civil rights groups in Mississippi, according to an FBI file on the case.

    After their release from the county jail, a Ku Klux Klan mob tailed their car, forced it off the road and shot them to death. Their bodies were found 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam, after an extensive FBI investigation.

    Chaney was a 21-year-old Black volunteer with COFO. Goodman, a White 20-year-old, was a college student and new volunteer from New York. Schwerner, a White 24-year-old former social worker, was an established civil rights organizer who was “particularly reviled by the Klan for his work,” according to the FBI file.

    The killings fueled the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the next year.

    In 1967, prosecutors convicted eight defendants for violating the federal criminal civil rights conspiracy statute, namely the victims’ right to live. None served more than six years in prison.

    No murder charges were filed at the time but nearly 40 years later, Edgar Ray Killen, a part-time Baptist minister and the plot leader, was found guilty of manslaughter in 2005 and sentenced to three consecutive 20-year sentences. Killen died in 2018.

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