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  • Kirstie Alley died of colon cancer. Here’s how to lower your risk | CNN

    Kirstie Alley died of colon cancer. Here’s how to lower your risk | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Colon cancer has claimed another life. Emmy Award and Golden Globe winner Kirstie Alley, best known for her roles in the television sitcoms “Cheers” and “Veronica’s Closet,” died Monday at age 71 after battling cancer that was “recently discovered,” according to a family statement.

    A representative for Alley confirmed to CNN via email on Tuesday that she had been diagnosed with colon cancer prior to her death.

    Colorectal cancer, which includes colon and rectal cancers, is the second most common cause of death from cancer in 2022, outranked only by lung and bronchus cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program.

    Regular checkups are the best way to keep colon cancer at bay, according to the US Preventive Services Task Force. The task force lowered the age to begin screening for colon and rectal cancer to 45 last year after a worrisome spike in cases of colorectal cancer in people younger than 50.

    The new recommendations apply to everyone ages 45 to 75, including people with no symptoms, no prior diagnosis, no family history of colon or rectal disease, and no personal history of polyps, which are all key risk factors. Polyps are bumps or tiny mushroom-like stalks that grow inside the colon or rectum.

    If these growths are not found and removed, they can turn cancerous.

    Adults ages 76 to 85 years can also be screened, depending on their overall health, prior screening history and personal preferences, the task force said.

    Colorectal cancer screening can occur in several ways, including simple mail-in tests that look for blood or cancer cells in a sample of stool collected by the patient. However, all stool tests can have false-positive test results, which would likely require a more invasive test to rule out cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.

    Stool tests: While a stool test is the least invasive option, it does have to be done at least once a year, the society said. No anti-inflammatory pain relievers can be taken for seven days prior to a stool test, while red meats such as beef, lamb or liver and any citrus or vitamin C supplements should be avoided for at least three days.

    If the test finds something of concern, “you will still need a colonoscopy to see if you have cancer,” according to ACS. However, hidden bleeding in the stool does not automatically signal cancer, as ulcers, hemorrhoids and other conditions can also cause rectal bleeding.

    DNA stool test: A DNA stool test is another option, the society said. Because colorectal cancer cells can have DNA mutations, the test can screen for those genetic abnormalities. This test only needs to be done once every three years, but an entire stool sample must be collected and mailed.

    Patients may have insurance coverage issues because the test is fairly new, ACS said. Again, if anything suspicious is found, a colonoscopy will still be required.

    For all of the following tests, the colon must be clean and free of stool matter, which requires at-home bowel prep. Ways to empty the bowels include pills, drinking a laxative solution or the use of an enema the night before the procedure.

    This process has become much easier over the years with the advent of new kits that don’t require as much liquid laxative, so talk to your doctor about your options, ACS suggested.

    Colonoscopy: One of the most widely used tests, this procedure allows a doctor access to the entire length of the colon and rectum with a colonoscope, a “flexible, lighted tube about the thickness of a finger with a small video camera on the end,” ACS said.

    Typically, the patient is under light sedation during the whole procedure, waking up with no knowledge of the process. Watching on video in real time as the scope moves through the intestine, the doctor can stop and insert small instruments into the scope to take a sample or even remove any suspicious polyps.

    Virtual colonscopy: This test uses computer programs that take X-rays and a computed tomography (CT) scan to make three-dimensional pictures of the inside of the colon and rectum.

    The test does not require sedation. However, it does require the same bowel prep as a regular colonoscopy. After the patient drinks a contrast dye, a small, flexible tube will be inserted into the rectum, followed by pumped air expand the rectum and colon for better pictures.

    As with all CT scans, this procedure exposes the patient to a small amount of radiation and can cause cramping until the air exits the body, the society said. If a suspicious mass is detected, a colonoscopy will still be needed to remove the mass.

    Flexible sigmoidoscopy: This test inserts the same flexible camera tube into the lower part of the colon. However, because the tube is only 2 feet (60 centimeters) long, this test only allows the doctor to examine the entire rectum and less than half of the colon — any polpys in the upper colon will be missed. This test is not often used in the United States, the society said.

    Many people avoid a colonoscopy, partly due to the preparation, so as a way of encouraging people to get screened, former “Today” host Katie Couric broadcast her entire procedure in 2000 — from prep the night before to a mildly sedated Couric watching the procedure as it unfolded.

    “I have a pretty little colon,” Couric said with a sleepy chuckle as she watched the video projection from the scope inside her colon. “You didn’t put the scope in yet, did you?” asked Couric, whose husband, Jay Monahan, had died from colon cancer at age 42 in 1998.

    “Yes! We’re doing the examination. We’re almost done,” said her physician, the late Dr. Kenneth Forde, who taught for nearly 40 years at Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York City.

    More recently, actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney videotaped parts of their colonoscopies to raise public awareness after Reynolds lost a bet.

    “Rob and I both, we turned 45 this year,” Reynolds said in the video. “And you know, part of being this age is getting a colonoscopy. It’s a simple step that could literally — and I mean, literally — save your life.”

    Doctors found both actors had polyps that were removed during the screening.

    “It’s not every day that you can raise awareness about something that will most definitely save lives. That’s enough motivation for me to let you in on a camera being shoved up my a–,” Reynolds said.

    READ MORE: Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being.

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  • As China moves away from zero-Covid, health experts warn of dark days ahead | CNN

    As China moves away from zero-Covid, health experts warn of dark days ahead | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    China’s zero-Covid policy, which stalled the world’s second-largest economy and sparked a wave of unprecedented protests, is now being dismantled as Beijing on Wednesday released sweeping revisions to its draconian measures that ultimately failed to bring the virus to heel.

    The new guidelines keep some restrictions in place but largely scrap the health code system that required people to show negative Covid-19 tests for daily activities and roll back mass testing. They also allow some Covid-19 cases and close contacts to skip centralized quarantine.

    They come after a number of cities in recent days started to lift some of the harsh controls that dictated – and heavily restricted – daily life for nearly three years in China.

    But while the changes mark a significant shift – and bring relief for many in the public who’ve grown increasingly frustrated with the high costs and demands of zero-Covid – another reality is also clear: China is underprepared for the surge in cases it could now see.

    Experts say though much is still unknown about how the next weeks and months will progress, China has fallen short on preparations like bolstering the elderly vaccination rate, upping surge and intensive care capacity in hospitals, and stockpiling antiviral medications.

    While the Omicron variant is milder than previous strains and China’s overall vaccination rate is high, even a small number of severe cases among vulnerable and under-vaccinated groups like the elderly could overwhelm hospitals if infections spike across the country of 1.4 billion, experts say.

    “This is a looming crisis – the timing is really bad … China now has to relax much of its measures during the winter (overlapping with flu season), so that was not as planned,” said Xi Chen, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health in the United States, pointing to what was likely an acceleration in China’s transition, triggered by public discontent.

    The guidelines released Wednesday open up a new chapter in the country’s epidemic control, three years after the first cases of Covid-19 were detected in central China’s Wuhan and following protests against the zero-Covid policy across the country starting late last month.

    Where China once controlled cases by requiring testing and clear health codes for entry into a number of public places and for domestic travel, those codes will no longer be checked except for in a handful of locations like medical institutions and schools. Mass testing will now be rolled back for everyone except for those in high-risk areas and high-risk positions. People who test positive for Covid-19 but have mild or asymptomatic cases and meet certain conditions can quarantine at home, instead of being forced to go to centralized quarantine centers, as can close contacts.

    Locations classified by authorities as “high risk” can still be locked down, but these lockdowns must now be more limited and precise, according to the new guidelines, which were circulated by China’s state media.

    The changes mark a swift about-face, following mounting public discontent, economic costs and record case numbers in recent weeks. They come after a top official last week first signaled the country could move away from the zero-Covid policy it had long poured significant resources into – though another official on Wednesday said the measures were a “proactive optimization,” not “reactive” when asked in a press briefing.

    “China has pursued this policy for so long, they’re now between a rock and a hard place,” said William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the US. “They don’t have good options in either direction anymore. They had really hoped that this epidemic globally would run its course, and they could survive without impact. And that hasn’t happened.”

    As restrictions are relaxed, and the virus spreads across the country, China is “going to have to go through a period of pain in terms of illness, serious illness, deaths and stress on the health care system” as was seen elsewhere in the world earlier in the pandemic, he added.

    Since the global vaccination campaign and the emergence of the Omicron variant, health experts have questioned China’s adherence to zero-Covid and pointed out the unsustainability of the strategy, which tried to use mass testing and surveillance, lockdowns and quarantines to stop a highly contagious virus.

    But as some restrictions are lifted, in what appears to be a haphazard transition following years of focus on meticulously controlling the virus, experts say change may be coming before China has made the preparations its health officials have admitted are needed.

    “An uncontrolled epidemic (one which only peaks when the virus starts running out of people to infect) … will pose serious challenges to the health care system, not only in terms of managing the small fraction of Covid cases that are severe, but also in the ‘collateral damage’ to people with other health conditions who have delayed care as a consequence,” said Ben Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong.

    But even with easing restrictions, Cowling said, it was “difficult to predict” how quickly infections will spread though China, because there are still some measures in place and some people will change their behavior – such as staying at home more often.

    “And I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that stricter measures are reintroduced to combat rising cases,” he said.

    Experts agree that allowing the virus to spread nationally would be a significant shift for a country that up until this point has officially reported 5,235 Covid-19 deaths since early 2020 – a comparatively low figure globally that has been a point of pride in China, where state media until recently trumpeted the dangers of the virus to the public.

    Modeling from researchers at Shanghai’s Fudan University published in the journal Nature Medicine in May projected that more than 1.5 million Chinese could die within six months if Covid-19 restrictions were lifted and there was no access to antiviral drugs, which have been approved in China.

    However, death rates could fall to around the levels of seasonal flu, if almost all elderly people were vaccinated and antiviral medications were broadly used, the authors said.

    Last month, China released a list of measures to bolster health systems against Covid-19, which included directives to increase vaccination in the elderly, stockpile antiviral treatments and medical equipment, and expand critical care capacity – efforts that experts say take time and are best accomplished prior to an outbreak.

    “(Is China prepared?) If you look at surge capacity three years on and the stockpiling of effective antivirals – no. If you talk about the triage procedures – they are not strictly enforced – and if you talk about the vaccination rate for the elderly, especially those aged 80 and older, it is also overall no,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

    Chinese authorities, he added, would likely be closely assessing outcomes like the death rate to decide policy steps going forward.

    Citizens wearing masks board a subway train on Monday in Henan province's Zhengzhou, where negative Covid-19 test results are no longer required for riding public transport.

    The US has at least 25 critical care beds per 100,000 people, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development – by contrast, China has fewer than four for the same number, health authorities there said last month.

    The system also provides limited primary care, which could drive even moderately sick people to hospitals as opposed to calling a family doctor – putting more strain on hospitals, according to Yale’s Chen.

    Meanwhile, weak medical infrastructure in rural areas could foster crises there, especially as testing is reduced and younger people living in cities return to rural hometowns to visit elderly family members over the Lunar New Year next month, he said.

    While China’s overall vaccination rate is high, its elderly are also less protected than in some other parts of the world, where the oldest and most vulnerable to dying from Covid-19 were prioritized for vaccination. Some countries have already rolled out fourth or fifth doses for at-risk groups.

    By China’s accounting, more than 86% of China’s population over 60 are fully vaccinated, according to China’s National Health Commission, and booster rates are lower, with more than 45 million of the fully vaccinated elderly yet to receive an additional shot. Around 25 million elderly who have not received any shot, according to a comparison of official population figures and November 28 vaccination data.

    For the most at-risk over 80 age group, around two-thirds were fully vaccinated by China’s standards, but only 40% had received booster shots as of November 11, according to state media.

    But while China refers to third doses for its widely used inactivated vaccines as booster shots, a World Health Organization vaccine advisory group last year recommended that elderly people taking those vaccines receive three doses in their initial course to ensure sufficient protection.

    The inactivated vaccines used in China have been found to elicit lower levels of antibody response as compared to others used overseas, and many countries using the doses have paired them with more protective mRNA vaccines, which China has not approved for use.

    Cowling said evidence from Hong Kong’s outbreak, however, showed China’s inactivated vaccines worked well to prevent severe disease, but it was critical that the elderly receive three doses in the initial course, as recommended by the World Health Organization. They should then use a fourth dose on top of that to keep immunity high, he added.

    Top health officials on November 28 announced a new plan to bolster elderly vaccination rates, but such measures will take time, as will other preparations for a surge.

    Minimizing the worst outcomes in a transition out of zero-Covid depends on that preparation, according to Cowling. From that perspective, he said, “it doesn’t look like it would be a good time to relax the policies.”

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  • Idaho authorities continue to investigate whether one of the slain university students had a stalker, police say | CNN

    Idaho authorities continue to investigate whether one of the slain university students had a stalker, police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Three weeks after four Idaho college students were found stabbed to death in an off-campus house, Moscow police said they are still looking into the possibility that one of the victims had a stalker.

    Police outlined a situation in October when a man appeared to be following Kaylee Goncalves, one of the victims, outside a local business, according to a news release from the department. Police said this was an isolated incident, and the man and an associate were trying to meet women at the business, which police said was corroborated through additional investigation. It was not an ongoing pattern of stalking. There is currently no evidence tying the two men to the killings, the release said.

    Last month, investigators looked “extensively” into hundreds of pieces of information about Goncalves having a stalker, but “have not been able to verify or identify a stalker,” police said.

    Police are still asking for tips from the public on information regarding a possible stalker.

    “Investigators continue looking into information about Kaylee having a stalker. Information about a potential stalker or unusual occurrences should go through the Tip Line,” according to the release.

    Goncalves, 21, along with roommates Madison Mogen, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20; as well as Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, who did not live in the house, were found dead November 13. Police initially said the slayings took place after 1:45 a.m., but no one called 911 until noon that same day. In the updated release Monday, police said the surviving roommates called friends to the home because they believed one of the victims had passed out and was not waking up. This prompted someone, using one of the surviving roommates’ cell phones, to call 911 for an unconscious person. Police arrived and found all four victims whose cause and manner of death was ruled four days later to be homicide by stabbing, the release said.

    A coroner determined the four victims were each stabbed multiple times and were likely asleep when the attacks began, police have said. Local, state and federal investigators have all been working to find a suspect. They are starting to receive forensic testing results from the crime scene, Moscow police spokesperson Rachael Doniger told CNN last week.

    On Saturday, Moscow police said they’ve received more than 2,000 email tips, phone tips and more than 1,000 submissions to an FBI link. The killings have unnerved the town of Moscow, with its 26,000 residents, because it had not recorded a murder since 2015.

    At this point in the investigation, police have not identified a suspect or found the murder weapon, believed to be a knife. Police have also not released the names of the surviving roommates who were said to have been in the home at the time of the killings. CNN did not report their names until they were publicly identified during a memorial service Sunday when a pastor read letters written by the two roommates – identified as Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke.

    In the letters that were read aloud Sunday, Mortensen and Funke wrote how much they would miss the victims and what they meant to them as both roommates and friends.

    “My life was greatly impacted to have known these four beautiful people,” the pastor read in Mortensen’s letter. “My people who changed my life in so many ways and made me so happy. I know it will be hard to not have the four of them in our lives, but I know Xana, Ethan, Maddie and Kaylee would want us to live life and be happy and they would want us to celebrate their lives.”

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  • Al Jazeera to submit Shireen Abu Akleh case to ICC, network says | CNN Business

    Al Jazeera to submit Shireen Abu Akleh case to ICC, network says | CNN Business

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    Jerusalem
    CNN
     — 

    Al Jazeera said Tuesday it will submit a case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot in the head while covering an Israeli raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank in May.

    “Al Jazeera’s legal team has conducted a full and detailed investigation into the case and unearthed new evidence based on several eyewitness accounts, the examination of multiple items of video footage, and forensic evidence pertaining to the case,” Al Jazeera said in a statement.

    The network claims new evidence and video show the Palestinian-American journalist and her colleagues were directly fired at in a “deliberate killing” by what Al Jazeera called Israeli occupation forces, a claim which Israel has repeatedly denied.

    Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid Tuesday repeated a long-standing rejection that any outside authority would investigate Israel Defense Forces troops.

    “No one will investigate IDF soldiers and no one will preach to us about morals in warfare, certainly not Al Jazeera,” Lapid said.

    The IDF referred CNN questions about the ICC case to the Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which declined to comment.

    In September, the IDF ​admitted there is a “high possibility” Abu Akleh was “accidentally” shot and killed by Israeli fire aimed at “suspects identified as armed Palestinian gunmen during an exchange of fire.”

    The IDF said at the time the Israeli military did not intend to pursue criminal charges or prosecutions of any of the soldiers involved.

    A CNN investigation published two weeks after Abu Akleh was killed suggested that the fatal shot came from a position where IDF troops are known to have been positioned. The pattern of gunfire on a tree behind where she was standing at the time suggested that the gunfire was targeted rather than indiscriminate, an expert told CNN.

    The CNN investigation unearthed evidence — including two videos of the scene of the shooting — suggesting that there was no active combat, nor any Palestinian militants, near Abu Akleh in the moments leading up to her death.

    She was wearing a flak jacket identifying her as press at the time she was killed.

    Al Jazeera said Tuesday: “The claim by the Israeli authorities that Shireen was killed by mistake in an exchange of fire is completely unfounded. The evidence presented to the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) confirms, without any doubt, that there was no firing in the area where Shireen was, other than the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces) shooting directly at her.”

    “The IOF inquiry that found there was no suspicion of any crime being committed is entirely undermined by the available evidence which has now been provided to the OTP. The evidence shows that this deliberate killing was part of a wider campaign to target and silence Al Jazeera,” the network added.

    Abu Akleh’s family also submitted an official complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) earlier this year to demand justice for her death, Al Jazeera reported.

    CNN has contacted the ICC to confirm if they received the case.

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  • Kirstie Alley, ‘Cheers’ and ‘Veronica’s Closet’ star, dead at 71 | CNN

    Kirstie Alley, ‘Cheers’ and ‘Veronica’s Closet’ star, dead at 71 | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Actress Kirstie Alley, star of the big and small screens known for her Emmy-winning role on “Cheers” and films like “Look Who’s Talking,” has died after a brief battle with cancer, her children True and Lillie Parker announced on her social media.

    She was 71.

    “We are sad to inform you that our incredible, fierce and loving mother has passed away after a battle with cancer, only recently discovered,” the statement read.

    “She was surrounded by her closest family and fought with great strength, leaving us with a certainty of her never-ending joy of living and whatever adventures lie ahead,” the family’s statement continued. “As iconic as she was on screen, she was an even more amazing mother and grandmother.”

    “Our mother’s zest and passion for life, her children, grandchildren and her many animals, not to mention her eternal joy of creating, were unparalleled and leave us inspired to live life to the fullest just as she did,” the statement said.

    Kirstie Alley’s sexy spin on ‘DWTS’


    02:14

    – Source:
    HLN

    Donovan Daughtry, a representative for Alley, also confirmed to CNN via email that the actress has died.

    A two-time Primetime Emmy Award winner, Alley was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1951.

    After a standout role in 1982’s “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” she played roles in movies like 1984’s “Blind Date” and 1987’s “Summer School” opposite Mark Harmon.

    That same year, Alley would follow Shelley Long to play the lead opposite Ted Danson in the latter part of TV classic sitcom “Cheers,” which premiered in 1982. Alley first appeared in 1987, playing strong and independent bar manager Rebecca Howe, staying on the acclaimed show until it ended in 1993.

    After winning the Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series in 1991 for “Cheers” and another for lead actress in a miniseries or special for 1994’s “David’s Mother,” she again found TV success in the late ’90s with series “Veronica’s Closet,” which scored her another Emmy nod.

    Additionally, Alley starred in a number of memorable films, like the “Look Who’s Talking” movies, 1990’s “Madhouse” and 1999’s “Drop Dead Gorgeous” with Ellen Barkin.

    In 2005, Alley co-wrote and starred in the Showtime comedy “Fat Actress” before making a foray into reality TV.

    She appeared in “Kirstie Alley’s Big Life” in 2010, was a contestant on Season 12 of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” the next year and placed second on Season 22 of the British version of “Celebrity Big Brother” in 2018. In 2022, she competed in Season 7 of Fox’s “The Masked Singer.”

    Though she had an impressive body of work, the later part of her career was marked by Alley’s penchant for stirring controversy, especially through social media.

    In a 2007 interview, Alley said she was proud of her no holds barred ways.

    “I’ve always felt like if someone asks me something, they want the real answer,” Alley told Good Housekeeping. “I think there’s also something about being from Kansas. Usually people think I’m from New York. The only similarity between New Yorkers and Midwesterners is that what you see is what you get.”

    John Travolta, who costarred with Alley in 1989’s hit “Look Who’s Talking” as well as two sequels, wrote on Instagram on Monday, “Kirstie was one of the most special relationships I’ve ever had. I love you Kirstie. I know we will see each other again.”

    Jamie Lee Curtis – who worked with Alley in 2016 on episodes of TV’s “Scream Queens” – shared a statement on Facebook to pay tribute to the late actress, writing, “She was a great comic foil in @tvscreamqueens and a beautiful mama bear in her very real life. She helped me buy onesies for my family that year for Christmas. We agreed to disagree about some things but had a mutual respect and connection. Sad news.”

    Josh Gad tweeted, “My heart breaks for Kirstie and her family. Whether it was her brilliance in ‘Cheers; or her magnetic performance in the ‘Look Who’s Talking’ franchise, her smile was always infectious, her laugh was always contagious and her charisma was always iconic. RIP.”

    “Baywatch” actor Parker Stevenson, who was married to Alley from 1983 to 1997 and is the father of her two children, also paid tribute to her on social media. In an Instagram post, confirmed to be Stevenson’s by a representative for the actor, he wrote: “Kirstie, I am so grateful for our years together, and for the two incredibly beautiful children and now grandchildren that we have. You will be missed.”

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  • What is Strep A, the common bacterium that has killed 6 children in the UK? | CNN

    What is Strep A, the common bacterium that has killed 6 children in the UK? | CNN

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Health officials in the United Kingdom are advising parents and schools to watch for Strep A infections following the recent deaths of six children.

    With Covid-19 restrictions such as masking and social distancing no longer required in the UK, infections such as Strep A are spreading more easily, with cases increasing over the past month.

    Also known as Group A Streptococcus (GAS), Strep A can cause a range of symptoms varying from minor to severe but is not fatal for most people who become infected.

    Strep A is a bacterium found in the throat and on the skin. It usually causes fever and throat infections, and many people carry it without any symptoms. However, they can still spread it to others through coughs, sneezes and close contact.

    Symptoms of infection include pain when swallowing, fever, skin rashes and swollen tonsils and glands, with infection common in crowded settings such as schools and daycare centers, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says on its website.

    “(Infection) tends to be fairly harmless,” Beate Kampmann, professor of Paediatric Infection & Immunity, and director of the Vaccine Centre at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said in a statement on Friday.

    “(But) in very rare circumstances when the bacterium produces a toxin it can gain access to the bloodstream and cause really serious illness” such as sepsis, heart inflammation and toxic shock with organ failure, she said.

    She advised parents to seek medical advice immediately if a child looks “very ill” with symptoms such as fever, vomiting, muscle aches or a rash.

    To confirm a Strep A infection, clinicians usually either use a rapid antigen detection test (RADT) or a throat culture, according to the CDC. A culture is when a sample such as mucus or skin is taken from a person and tested to see if it contains a bacterial infection, like Strep A. Due to the varying sensitivities of RADTs, a throat culture is the preferred diagnostic test.

    Similarly in the UK, infections are typically diagnosed with a culture taken from the infected site – for example, the throat, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).

    Invasive Group A Streptococcus (iGAS) is the term used when the bacteria invade the body, overcoming its natural defenses to enter areas such as the blood, and is more dangerous, the UKHSA explains on its website.

    While there is no vaccine to prevent Strep A or iGAS infections, antibiotics are usually effective at treating them.

    “We are seeing a higher number of cases of Group A strep this year than usual,” Colin Brown, deputy director at UKHSA, said in a statement on Friday.

    The increase in iGAS this year has particularly been observed in children under 10, the UKHSA added. Five children have died in England. One death has been reported in Wales, according to Public Health Wales.

    Data from UKHSA shows that there were 2.3 cases per 100,000 children aged 1 to 4 between mid-September and mid-November, compared with the average of 0.5 in the pre-pandemic seasons (2017 to 2019).

    For children aged 5 to 9, there were 1.1 cases per 100,000, compared with the pre-pandemic average of 0.3.

    The last period of high infections was between 2017 to 2018, with four children under 10 dying in the equivalent period, the statement added.

    The UKHSA said it doesn’t believe a new strain is circulating, with the increase in infections likely a result of “circulating bacteria and social mixing.”

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  • Belgium’s biggest ever trial begins over Brussels bombings | CNN

    Belgium’s biggest ever trial begins over Brussels bombings | CNN

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    Brussels
    Reuters
     — 

    Belgium began proceedings on Monday in its largest ever trial to determine whether 10 men played a part in the Islamist suicide bombings in Brussels in 2016 that killed 32 people and injured over 300.

    More than six years after the attacks, presiding judge Laurence Massart will confirm on Monday the identity of all parties to the case, including the defendants and lawyers representing around 1,000 people affected by the attacks claimed by Islamic State.

    She will then address the jury, selected from a pool of 1,000 Belgians last week in a process lasting 14 hours.

    The Brussels bombings’ trial has clear links to the French trial over the November 2015 Paris attacks. Six of the Brussels accused were sentenced to jail terms of between 10 years and life in France in June, but the Belgian trial will be different in that it will be settled by a jury not judges.

    Pieces of evidence are on display at the start of the trial.

    The twin bombings at Brussels Airport and a third bomb on the city’s metro on March 22, 2016 killed 15 men and 17 women – Belgians, Americans, Dutch, Swedish and nationals of Britain China, France, Germany, India, Peru and Poland, many based in Brussels, the home to EU institutions and military alliance NATO.

    Nine men are charged with multiple murders and attempted murders in a terrorist context, with potential life sentences, and all 10 with participating in the activities of a terrorist group.

    They include Mohamed Abrini, who prosecutors say went to the airport with two suicide bombers, but fled without detonating his suitcase of explosives, and Osama Krayem, a Swedish national accused of planning to be a second bomber on Brussels’ metro.

    Salah Abdeslam, the main suspect in the Paris trial, is also an accused, along with others prosecutors say hosted or helped certain attackers. One of the 10, presumed killed in Syria, will be tried in absentia.

    In accordance with Belgium court procedure, the defendants have not declared whether they are innocent or guilty.

    Prosecutors are expected to start reading from the 486-page indictment on Tuesday before hearings of some 370 experts and witnesses can begin.

    The trial in the former headquarters of NATO is expected to last seven months and is estimated to cost at least 35 million euros ($36.9 million).

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  • Lost remains of last Tasmanian tiger found hiding in plain sight | CNN

    Lost remains of last Tasmanian tiger found hiding in plain sight | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    For decades, nobody knew where the remains of the last thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, were located.

    It turns out they were hiding in plain sight – at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG), in the Australian island state, where they had been unidentified for more than 80 years.

    About the size of a coyote, the thylacine disappeared about 2,000 years ago virtually everywhere except Tasmania. As the only marsupial apex predator that lived in modern times, it played a key role in the island’s ecosystem, but that also made it unpopular with humans.

    European settlers on Tasmania in the 1800s blamed thylacines for livestock losses (although, in most cases, feral dogs and human habitat mismanagement were actually the culprits), and they hunted the shy, semi-nocturnal Tasmanian tigers to extinction.

    The last known thylacine was an old female captured by a trapper and sold to a zoo in May 1936, according to a TMAG news release published Monday.

    The animal died several months later, with its body transferred to the museum afterward. But the zoo kept no records about the sale because ground-based snaring was illegal – meaning the trapper could have faced a fine, the release said.

    That meant researchers and staff at the museum were wholly unaware of the significance of the thylacine in their collection.

    “For years, many museum curators and researchers searched for its remains without success, as no thylacine material dating from 1936 had been recorded in the zoological collection, and so it was assumed its body had been discarded,” said Robert Paddle, a comparative psychologist from the Australian Catholic University, in the news release.

    After being brought to TMAG, the thylacine’s body was skinned and its skeleton taken apart as part of an education collection, used by museum teachers to explain thylacine anatomy to students, and often transported outside the museum, according to the release.

    During that time, most of the world mistakenly thought another thylacine that died at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart on September 7, 1936 was the last known individual of its species.

    The mistake wasn’t realized until recently, when an unpublished museum taxidermist’s report was discovered. The report, dated 1936-1937, mentioned a thylacine among the specimens worked on that year – prompting a review of all thylacine skins and skeletons at TMAG, where the last thylacine was finally identified.

    “It is bittersweet that the mystery surrounding the remains of the last thylacine has been solved, and that it has been discovered to be part of TMAG’s collection,” said TMAG director Mary Mulcahy.

    The remains are now on display in the museum’s thylacine gallery for public viewing.

    In recent years, the Tasmanian tiger has reappeared in headlines due to ongoing – and controversial – efforts by scientists to bring back the animal through ancient DNA retrieval, gene editing and artificial reproduction.

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  • As the University of Idaho homicide investigation enters a critical stage, police must protect information ‘at all costs,’ experts say | CNN

    As the University of Idaho homicide investigation enters a critical stage, police must protect information ‘at all costs,’ experts say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The investigation into the murders of four University of Idaho students is entering a critical stage in its third week, as police are starting to receive forensic testing results from the crime scene, law enforcement experts tell CNN.

    Dozens of local, state and federal investigators have yet to identify a suspect or find the murder weapon used in the attack last month in Moscow.

    The public, as well as the victims’ family members, have criticized police for releasing little information, in what at times has been a confusing narrative.

    But the complex nature of a high-level homicide investigation involves utmost discretion from police, experts say, because any premature hint to the public about a suspect or the various leads police are following can cause it to fall apart.

    “What police have been reluctant to do in this case is to say they have a suspect, even though they have had suspects who have risen and fallen in various levels of importance, because that’s the nature of the beast,” said John Miller, CNN chief law enforcement analyst and former deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism for the New York Police Department.

    “Police having no suspects is factually incorrect,” Miller said. “Police have had a number of suspects they’ve looked at, but they have no suspect they’re willing to name. You don’t name them unless you have a purpose for that. That’s not unusual.”

    The victims – Ethan Chapin, 20; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Madison Mogen, 21 – were found stabbed on the second and third floors of their shared off-campus home on November 13, according to authorities.

    The quadruple murder has upended the town of 26,000 residents, which had not recorded a single murder since 2015, and challenged a police department which has not benefited from the experience of investigating many homicides, let alone under the pressure of a national audience, Miller says.

    The Moscow Police Department is leading the investigation with assistance from the Idaho State Police, the Latah County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI, which has assigned more than 40 agents to the case across the United States.

    “They have really coordinated this into over 100 people that are operating as one team,” Miller said of the homicide investigation.

    The FBI plays three important roles in the Idaho investigation, according to Miller.

    The first involves its behavioral science unit, which is highly valuable for cases with an unknown offender because it narrows the scope of offender characteristics.

    The second is its advanced technology, such as its Combined DNA Indexing System, which allows law enforcement officials and crime labs to share and search through thousands of DNA profiles.

    Lastly, the FBI has 56 field offices in major cities throughout the country, which can expand the reach and capability of the investigation.

    “The FBI brings a lot to this, as well as experience in a range of cases that would be beyond what a small town typically would have,” Miller said.

    Every homicide investigation begins with the scene of the crime, which allows investigators only one chance to record and collect forensic evidence for processing, which includes toxicology reports on the victims, hair, fibers, blood and DNA, law enforcement experts say.

    “That one chance with the crime scene is where a lot of opportunities can be made or lost,” Miller said.

    Extensive evidence has been collected over the course of the investigation, including 113 pieces of physical evidence, about 4,000 photos of the crime scene and several 3D scans of the home, Moscow police said Thursday.

    “To protect the investigation’s integrity, specific results will not be released,” police said.

    Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt told CNN she saw “lots of blood on the wall” when she arrived at the scene and police said “some” of the victims had defensive wounds.

    Chances are “pretty high” a suspect could have cut themselves during the attack, so police are looking carefully at blood evidence, says Joe Giacalone, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and retired NYPD sergeant who directed the agency’s Homicide School and Cold Case Squad.

    Lab results from the scene can be returned to investigators fairly quickly, but in this case investigators are dealing with mixtures of DNA, which can take longer, he says.

    “When you have several donors with the DNA, then it becomes a problem trying to separate those two or three or four. That could be part of the issue … toxicology reports can sometimes take a couple of weeks to come back,” Giacalone added.

    The next stage in a homicide investigation is looking at the behavioral aspects of the crime. Two agents with the FBI’s Behavior Analysis Unit were assigned to the case to assess the scene and go over evidence to learn about the suspect or suspects’ behavior, based on the way they carried out the crime, Miller says.

    “Understanding the victimology in a mystery can be very important, because it can lead you to motivation, it can lead you to enemies and it can lead you to friends,” he said.

    Investigators will learn every detail about the four victims, their relationships with each other and the various people in their lives, Miller says. This includes cell phone records and internet records, he says, as well as video surveillance from every camera surrounding the crime scene.

    “When you do an extensive video canvass, you may get a picture of a person, a shadowy figure, and then if you have a sense of direction, you can string your way down all the other cameras in that direction to see if that image reappears,” Miller said.

    At this stage, investigators rely on the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, which collects and analyzes information about violent crimes in the United States.

    The program can match a suspect’s DNA found at the scene with that of a person who is already in the system. It also scans all crimes across the country to determine if the way the attack was carried out mirrors a previous one, pointing to the same perpetrator, Miller says.

    “You always start with people who are close to the victims, whether it’s love, money or drugs,” Giacalone told CNN. “That’s generally the first step that you take because most of us are victimized by someone we know. We have to ask things like, who would benefit from having this person or in this case, a group, killed?”

    In an effort to locate the weapon – believed to be a fixed-blade knife – detectives contacted local businesses to see if a similar knife had been purchased recently.

    “It’s highly unlikely, although not impossible, that a first-time offender is going to come prepared with a tactical knife and murder multiple people, even in the face of resistance, and that this is going to be their first encounter with violent crime or the use of a knife,” Miller said.

    One aspect of a homicide investigation is to “keep the media happy,” according to Giacalone.

    “Today in the social media, true crime, community-driven world in these cases, the demand for information is so great that sometimes police departments kind of fill in that blank air and say something just for the sake of saying something, and then realizing that it’s either not 100% true, or it’s misleading,” he said.

    It’s critical for police to protect their information at “all costs” and they always know more than what they release to the public. Otherwise, it could cause the suspect to go on the run, he says.

    The media gathers as Moscow Police Chief James Fry speaks during a news conference.

    Miller said it’s “not fair” to investigators for the public or media to criticize them for not releasing enough information about the case.

    But, ultimately, the department has a moral obligation to share some information with families who are suffering in uncertainty, Miller says, but they must be judicious about what they share.

    “If you tell them we have a suspect and we’re close to an arrest but that doesn’t come together, then everybody is disappointed or thinks you messed it up or worse, goes out and figures out who the suspect is and tries to take action on their own,” he said.

    Investigators rely on the trove of physical and scientific evidence, information from the public and national data on violent crimes to cultivate possible leads, Miller says.

    Public tips, photos and videos of the night the students died, including more than 260 digital media submissions people have submitted through an FBI form, are being analyzed, police say. Authorities have processed more than 1,000 tips and conducted at least 150 interviews to advance the case.

    “Any one of those tips can be the missing link,” Miller said. “It can either be the connective tissue to a lead you already had but were missing a piece, or it can become the brand new lead that solves the case.”

    Every tip must be recorded in a searchable database so investigators can go back to them as they learn new details over the course of the investigation, Miller says. While 95% to 99% of public tips may provide no value, one or several might crack the entire case, he adds.

    “Police in this case could be nowhere tonight, having washed out another suspect, and tomorrow morning they could be making an arrest,” Miller said of the Idaho investigation. “Or, for the suspect they’re working on today, it might take them another month from now to put together enough evidence to have probable cause. That’s just something they won’t be able to reveal until it happens.”

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  • Former Iran football team player challenges authorities’ ‘silence’ after death of man celebrating World Cup defeat | CNN

    Former Iran football team player challenges authorities’ ‘silence’ after death of man celebrating World Cup defeat | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A former Iran national team football player has criticized authorities for their “silence” over the death of a man who celebrated the country’s World Cup defeat to the United States earlier this week.

    Mehran Samak, 27, died in Bandar Anzali city, northern Iran, during public celebrations by anti-government protesters following Tuesday’s match – in which the US beat Iran 1-0 to advance to the knockout stages of the competition.

    The Norway-based watchdog group Iran Human Rights has alleged, citing “several independent sources,” that he was shot in the head by security personnel.

    Police, however, have denied he was killed by authorities and have announced the arrests of several suspects in connection with his death, according to Iranian state media.

    In a video that circulated on social media on Saturday, Mohammad Ahmadzadeh, who played for Iran from 1988 to 1990 and coached Malavan F.C. from 2018 to 2020, challenged Bandar Anzali’s member of parliament Ahmad Donyamali and called for accountability from city officials.

    “Hello to all my fellow people of Anzali who are bereaved because we have lost yet another youth, Mehran Samak,” he said. “We’ve lost this dear one and all the people of Anzali are bereaved.”

    “I don’t know what their crime was. I want to ask the authorities of the city – what was their crime? Is it a crime, punishable by death, to honk your horn or to be happy for whatever reason? I want to ask Mr. Donyamali, who considers himself a representative of this city – why are you silent? Aren’t you a rep of this city? What reaction have you shown to the events so far?”

    The state-aligned Iran Students’ News Agency reported Thursday that the Bandar Anzali prosecutor had opened a case into the “suspicious” killing.

    Several videos were posted on social media Tuesday night showing people in cities across Iran, including in the capital Tehran, celebrating inside their homes following the match.

    “I am happy, this is the government losing to the people,” one witness to celebrations in a city in the Kurdish region told CNN on Wednesday. CNN is not naming the witness for security concerns.

    Activist outlet 1500tasvir also posted videos showing security forces, reportedly on Tuesday night, opening fire at people in Behbahan and beating up a woman in Qazvin. Both cities are south of Bandar Anzali where Samak is said to have been shot.

    CNN cannot independently confirm the information as Iran’s government is not allowing foreign media into the country, and has not been transparent in its reporting on protests and protest casualties.

    Demonstrations have rocked Iran for several months, sparking a deadly clampdown from authorities.

    The nationwide uprising was first ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in mid-September after being detained by the country’s morality police. Since then, protesters across Iran have coalesced around a range of grievances with the regime.

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  • Authorities say they’ve received thousands of tips regarding 4 slain University of Idaho students | CNN

    Authorities say they’ve received thousands of tips regarding 4 slain University of Idaho students | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Authorities investigating the killings of four University of Idaho students who were found stabbed to death last month say they have received thousands of tips from the public.

    In a Saturday update, the Moscow Police Department said it has received more than 2,640 emails to a tip web address, more than 2,770 phone tips and more than 1,000 submissions to an FBI link.

    Investigators have collected more than 110 pieces of physical evidence and roughly 4,000 crime scene photos.

    But the case remains unsolved. Police have not located the murder weapon nor identified a suspect.

    “To assist with the ongoing investigation, any odd or out-of-the-ordinary events that took place should be reported,” Moscow police said Saturday. “Your information, whether you believe it is significant or not, might be the piece of the puzzle that helps investigators solve these murders.”

    Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernolde’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, were likely stabbed multiple times in their sleep just days before Thanksgiving break, police said.

    Their horrific deaths have since rattled Moscow, a college town of some 25,000 people which hasn’t recorded a single murder since 2015, and the nation.

    In an attempt to clear up false information that’s been spreading about the case, Moscow police this week debunked several theories.

    “There is speculation, without factual backing, stoking community fears and spreading false facts,” the Moscow Police Department said in a news release Friday.

    None of the victims in the quadruple homicide were tied and gagged, refuting online reports. A report of a “skinned” dog weeks before the killings is not connected to the case, according to police, and deceased animals left on a resident’s property elsewhere were determined to be wildlife activity.

    Additionally, police noted the students’ killings are not related to two other stabbing incidents in neighboring states Washington and Oregon – in 1999 and 2021, respectively – which may “share similarities,” but “there does not appear to be any evidence to support the cases are related,” according to the release.

    Police also reassured the public that a September incident which involved an argument between a group of people walking on the University of Idaho bike path and a cyclist, who displayed a folding knife, is not connected to the students’ killings.

    “The individual involved turned himself in, and charges were referred to the Moscow City Attorney’s Office,” police said.

    And although police have said they don’t know who carried out the killings, they have released information eliminating some people as suspects, most recently a person listed on the lease of the residence where the killings happened, police said Friday.

    “They have spoken to this individual and confirmed they moved out prior to the start of the school year and was not present at the time of the incident. Detectives do not believe this person has any involvement in the murders,” Moscow police said.

    Police also ruled out the two surviving roommates who were in house at the time of the killings and other people inside the house when the 911 call was made. The person who made the 911 call alerting authorities to the home after the killings has not been identified.

    Goncalves and Mogen, two of the victims, were driven home by someone after the pair purchased food from a truck hours before they were killed – authorities have ruled out the driver as a suspect.

    Additionally, a man seen in surveillance video from a food truck visited by Goncalves and Mogen, and another man the pair called “numerous times” in the hours before their deaths, were also ruled out as suspects by police.

    It remains unclear how close authorities are to releasing information about a potential suspect or suspects. “Only vetted information that does not hinder the investigation will be released to the public,” Moscow police noted Friday.

    But some details released by authorities since the start of the investigation have required further clarification.

    This week, Moscow police noted and backtracked comments from the Latah County prosecutor that said, “the suspect(s) specifically looked at this residence” and “that one or more of the occupants were undoubtedly targeted.”

    Moscow police called that a “miscommunication,” and added: “Detectives do not currently know if the residence or any occupants were specifically targeted.”

    On Thursday, Moscow police attempted to clarify the key conflicting information, once and for all.

    “We remain consistent in our belief that this was a targeted attack, but investigators have not concluded if the target was the residence or if it was the occupants,” police said.

    Authorities have also needed to clarify other information, including initially saying on November 15 that detectives believed the attacks were “isolated” and “targeted” and that the community was not under imminent threat. The following day, Moscow Police Chief James Fry said police were not definitive in concluding the public was not at risk.

    Police tape on November 30 surrounds the residence where four University of Idaho students were killed in Moscow, Idaho.

    Detectives have received testing and analysis of the crime scene evidence from Idaho State Police Forensic Services, and they will continue to receive the results of additional tests, according to police.

    “To protect the investigation’s integrity, specific results will not be released,” police said.

    Detectives also collected the contents of three dumpsters on the street where the house is located and seized five nearby vehicles to be processed for evidence, according to police.

    As for the murder weapon – believed to be a fixed-blade knife – detectives contacted local businesses regarding knife purchases in the days leading up to the killings.

    Multiple agencies and law enforcement personnel are investigating the homicides. More than 30 employees including detectives, patrol officers and support staff from the Moscow Police Department are working on the case, police said Friday in the news release.

    The FBI has devoted 22 investigators in Moscow, 20 agents through the country and two investigators from the agency’s Behavior Analysis Unit, police said.

    Plus, there are 20 Idaho State Police investigators assigned to Moscow, and an additional 15 uniformed troopers are patrolling the community. Forensic services and a mobile crime scene team from the state police are also working the case.

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  • FedEx driver is arrested in the kidnapping and killing of a 7-year-old girl who went missing outside her home this week, police say | CNN

    FedEx driver is arrested in the kidnapping and killing of a 7-year-old girl who went missing outside her home this week, police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A driver working for FedEx was arrested and charged Friday in the kidnapping and killing of a 7-year-old girl who had disappeared from her home’s driveway in Texas earlier this week, police said.

    Athena Strand’s body was recovered Friday evening, Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin said at a news conference.

    “It hurts our hearts to know that child died,” Akin said Friday.

    “It’s one of the toughest investigations that I’ve been involved in because it’s a child. And anytime there’s a child that dies, it just hits you in your heart,” he said.

    Athena was reported missing Wednesday and authorities launched a search for her across Wise County, located northwest of Fort Worth. Authorities believe the young girl was killed within an hour after her kidnapping from her family’s driveway, which is about 200 yards from her home.

    Tanner Lynn Horner, 31, 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. It was unclear whether Horner had an attorney Friday.

    Horner, identified by authorities as a contract driver for FedEx, was allegedly making a delivery to Athena’s home at the time she disappeared.

    Earlier Friday, police say they received a tip that helped investigators determine Horner abducted the child from her driveway.

    Strand’s mother, Maitlyn Presley Gandy, said her daughter was taken from her by “a sick, cruel monster for absolutely no reason,” she wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday morning.

    “I cannot describe the pain and absolute anger I feel. Missing her doesn’t cover how I feel,” Gandy said in the post accompanying a video of Athena, then age 3. “I want the world to know my baby, my first baby, my first true love, the reason I breathe.”

    “Athena is innocent, beautiful, kind, intelligent, and just the brightest, happiest soul you could ever meet. I don’t want her to be the girl known as the one murdered and discarded by a monster,” she added. “I want everyone to know, every single person in this world, that this is my baby and my baby was taken from me. I want everyone to know her face and her voice and just how wonderful of a person she is.”

    Athena will be remembered for so much, like her dream of growing up to be a Viking princess with tattoos just like her dad’s, how much she loved her two little sisters, and her love for anything pink, her mother wrote.

    Authorities did not indicate a possible motive and said Horner did not know the family or the child, according to Akin.

    Athena’s cause of death remains under investigation and her body was transferred to the medical examiner’s office Friday, Akin said.

    Gandy shared another Facebook post dedicated to thanking “the hundreds if not thousands of volunteers” and the authorities who helped look for her daughter.

    “As a mother, I know no one is as broken as I am…” she wrote, adding that the official agencies who assisted in the investigation “have all cried with me.”

    “It takes a special kind of person and whether a child is yours or not, working crime scenes involving children are hard,” she added. “Thank you for finding my baby. I know everyone wishes this would have ended differently.”

    In a statement to CNN, 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.

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  • Suspect in 2017 killing of two Indiana teen girls ‘has nothing to hide,’ attorneys say | CNN

    Suspect in 2017 killing of two Indiana teen girls ‘has nothing to hide,’ attorneys say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Attorneys for the suspect in the 2017 killing of two teenage girls in Delphi, Indiana, said in a statement Friday that their client “has nothing to hide. ”

    Richard Allen, who was arrested last month in connection with the killings, will make “a vigorous legal and factual challenge” to the prosecution claim that a .40 caliber unspent round found near the bodies of the two teens tied him to the crime, attorneys Brad Rozzi and Andrew Baldwin said in the statement.

    The statement comes days after the unsealing of a probable cause affidavit on Tuesday that shed light on how investigators narrowed in on Allen and arrested him more than five years since the slayings of Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14.

    Allen is charged with two counts of murder and has pleaded not guilty.

    The two girls went for a hike along Delphi Historic Trails but never showed up at a previously arranged time to meet Libby’s dad, according to police. Their bodies were found the next day in a wooded area near the trail, about a half mile from the Monon High Bridge where they’d been dropped off, according to authorities.

    A grainy video of a man walking and a garbled voice recording were among the scant clues authorities publicized over the years.

    “Rick has nothing to hide,” the statement from the attorneys said. “We feel it appropriate, necessary, and within the bounds of our rules of professional conduct to make a few comments concerning the probable cause affidavit and Rick’s innocence.”

    Investigators believe the evidence they gathered shows that Allen is the man seen on a video from Liberty’s phone who forced the girls down a hill and that he led them to the location where they were killed, according to the affidavit.

    That evidence includes interviews with witnesses who were in the area the teens were hiking on a day off from school on February 13, 2017, as well as the video from Libby’s phone. The video shows a man in a dark jacket and jeans walking behind the girls and then telling them, “Guys, down the hill,” according to the affidavit.

    Allen’s lawyers said their client “contacted the police and voluntarily discussed being on the trail that day,” according to the statement. “Like many people in Delphi, Rick wanted to help any way he could.”

    The two girls were dropped off in the area just before 1:50 p.m. that day, the affidavit said. The video showed they encountered the man at the Monon High Bridge at 2:13 p.m.

    A witness told investigators she had seen a man heading away from that bridge later “wearing a blue colored jacket and blue jeans and was muddy and bloody,” and appeared to have gotten in a fight, the affidavit said. The man was traveling on a road adjacent to the crime scene, and investigators were able to determine that took place shortly before 4 p.m.

    Allen remembers “seeing three younger girls on the trail that day” but “his contact with the girls was brief and of little significance,” his attorneys said.

    “The probable cause affidavit seems to suggest that a single magic bullet is proof of Rick’s guilt,” Rozzi and Baldwin said. “We anticipate a vigorous legal and factual challenge to any claims by the prosecution as to the reliability of its conclusions concerning the single magic bullet.”

    Another witness told investigators she noticed an oddly parked vehicle at an old Child Protective Services building. A tip to investigators had also referenced a vehicle parked at the building that “appeared as though it was backed in as to conceal the license plate.” Investigators believe the description of the vehicle matched one of two vehicles that Allen owned in 2017, the affidavit said.

    When Allen spoke with an officer in 2017, he admitted he was on the trail for roughly two hours, the affidavit said. In a subsequent interview in October 2022, Allen told authorities he had gone out there to “watch fish,” that he was wearing jeans and a black or blue jacket and also said he owns firearms which were at his home, according to the affidavit.

    “On October 13th, 2022, Investigators executed a search warrant of Richard Allen’s residence,” the affidavit said. “Among other items, officers located jackets, boots, knives and firearms, including a Sig Sauer, Model P226, .40 caliber pistol with serial number U 625 627.”

    According to the document, investigators found a .40 caliber unspent round less than two feet away from one of the bodies, and between the two victims.

    Lab results confirmed the unspent round had been cycled through Allen’s Sig Sauer, the affidavit said. When Allen was questioned about that result, he denied knowing their victims or having any involvement in their killings, according to the affidavit.

    The affidavit does not make any reference to any other participants in the girls’ killings, despite Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland recently saying in court that he had “good reason to believe that Richard Allen is not the only actor in this heinous crime.”

    Allen’s lawyers said they pushed to have the affidavit unsealed.

    “We were hoping that we would receive tips that would assist us in proving up his innocence,” the statement said. “Although it is the burden of the prosecutor to prove Rick’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the defense team looks forward to conducting its own investigation concerning Rick’s innocence.”

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  • Shanquella Robinson’s death is being investigated as a femicide. Here is what it means | CNN

    Shanquella Robinson’s death is being investigated as a femicide. Here is what it means | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The killing of Shanquella Robinson is being investigated as a femicide, an unfamiliar term for many in the United States as this gender-motivated crime has not been defined by US legislation despite being a global issue.

    Robinson, a 25-year-old student at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina died in October while staying in a luxury rental property in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur.

    Prosecutors in Mexico are seeking to extradite one of Robinson’s friends as a suspect in the case. Daniel de la Rosa, the attorney general for Baja California Sur told local media last week that an arrest warrant was issued for the crime of femicide, or the killing of a woman because of her gender, in connection with Robinson’s case.

    No one has been charged in the case, and authorities have not released the names of Robinson’s friends.

    Unlike Mexico and other Latin American countries, the US does not have a law recognizing femicide as a different crime than homicide, which several experts say does not mean that killings targeting women are not happening in the US at alarming rates.

    “Femicides happen all the time in the US, and many famous murder cases that we all have in our consciousness are actually femicide, but we don’t put that label on them,” said Dabney P. Evans, director of Emory University’s Center for Humanitarian Emergencies, who studies violence against women.

    As the investigation into Robinson’s death continues, here’s what you need to know about what is considered femicide in Mexico, why gender-based violence is a big problem globally, and why scholars say that writing femicide into US law could help women.

    Femicide is the most extreme form of gender-based violence (GBV) and is defined as the “intentional murder of women because they are women.” 

    Femicides fall into two categories: intimate and non-intimate femicide. The former refers to the killing of women by current or ex-partners, while the latter is the killing of women by people with whom they had no intimate relationship.

    In most countries, femicide is not different from homicide in criminal law, but Mexico is among at least 16 countries that have included femicide as a specific crime.

    Under federal law in Mexico, people can face up to 60 years in prison if convicted. The difference between homicide, or unlawful killing, and femicide, varies from state to state in Mexico.

    There could be a history of violence – sexual or not – and threats, or “if the victim was in community, for example, and if she was killed and her body was in public,” said Beatriz García Nice, who leads the Wilson Center’s initiative on gender-based violence.

    A video circulating online in recent weeks appears to show a physical altercation inside a room between Robinson and another person. Her father, Bernard Robinson, told CNN his daughter is seen in that video being thrown to the floor and beaten on the head.

    It’s not clear when the video was taken or if it depicts the moment Robinson suffered the injury that led to her death.

    While there is legislation against femicide in Mexico, “the main problem is the execution,” García Nice said. The number of gender-based violence cases are underreported in national statistics and the law is “under executed” in the judicial system, she said.

    García Nice says nearly 95% of femicide cases in Mexico go unpunished. “If you commit a crime of femicide, there’s really not that much of a chance for you to get convicted for it. And that’s one of the reasons why we see that rates are still very, very high.”

    Alejandra Marquez, an assistant professor of Spanish with a focus on gender and sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean at Michigan State University, said the “feminicidos” crisis in Mexico started several decades ago and first gained national attention in the 1990s when hundreds of women were killed in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez.

    “There used to be this idea, especially in central Mexico, where it was like ‘women are getting killed over there at the border,’ but because it’s expanded all over the country, it’s sort of become this phenomenon that can no longer be ignored,” Marquez told CNN.

    “When you’re in Mexico, it’s part of day-to-day conversation,” Marquez added.

    The disproportionate killings of Black women, the crisis of missing or murdered Indigenous people and the 2021 deadly shootings of women at Atlanta-area spas are some examples of cases that could potentially be labeled as femicides, experts say.

    “As a society, we need to recognize that these are not one-off deaths. These are in fact, connected to patterns of masculine violence, and we need to think more closely about preventing that kind of violence,” said Evans, the scholar at Emory University.

    An analysis of homicide data by the Violence Policy Center shows 2,059 women in the US were killed by men in 2020 and 89% knew their offenders.

    For Evans, having femicide legislation in the US would not solve the issues of toxic masculinity, patriarchy, and misogyny that lead to gender-based violence but the terminology could “allows us to talk about this phenomenon” and prevent it from happening.

    There are existing laws that address gender-based violence in the US and mechanisms to track domestic violence but they are flawed.

    The federal hate crime law covers violent or property crimes at least partially motivated by bias against race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity. At the state level, the definition of a hate crime varies and several states do not cover bias based on gender.

    Earlier this year, federal lawmakers reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act. The legislation is aimed at protecting and supporting survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking – all documented precursors in femicide cases.

    During a March ceremony celebrating the act’s passage, President Joe Biden said more needs to be done to address the issue.

    “No one, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, should experience abuse. Period. And if they do, they should have the services and support they need to get through it. And we’re not going to rest.”

    An estimated 81,100 women and girls around the world were killed intentionally last year with about 56% of them by intimate partners or family members, a UN report published last week shows.

    It’s hard to describe the full scope of gender-based violence, the report says, because roughly 4 in 10 killings reported by authorities have “no contextual information to allow them to be identified and counted as gender-related killings.”

    “These rates are alarmingly high, as we can see; however, that’s the tip of the iceberg,” Kalliopi Mingeirou, the chief of Ending Violence against Women Section at UN Women, one of the entities that compiled the report.

    Mingeirou said when a femicide isn’t classified legally for what it is, police cannot investigate properly. Other challenges in stopping and preventing femicides include the lack of resources and training for authorities expected to implement laws.

    “What women and girls deserve around the world is to have a world that respects their choices, that respects their rights,” Mingeirou said. “We need to have equal rights. We have a primary right to be free from violence because if we are free from violence and harassment, we can achieve, and we can thrive in this world.”

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  • Suspect in murder of Cash App founder appears in court | CNN Business

    Suspect in murder of Cash App founder appears in court | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Nima Momeni, the suspect in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee, appeared in a San Francisco court Friday morning for an arraignment, one day after police announced his arrest.

    When Momeni entered the courtroom, members of his family sitting in the front row held up heart signs with their hands. Momeni, who was not cuffed, acknowledged them and smiled back.

    Momeni’s arraignment is set to continue on April 25. He will be held without bail in the meantime.

    Lee was stabbed to death in the Rincon Hill neighborhood of San Francisco early in the morning of April 4th. The moments following the stabbing attack were captured on surveillance video and in a 911 call to authorities, according to a local Bay Area news portal.

    The surveillance footage, reviewed by the online news site The San Francisco Standard, shows Lee walking alone on Main Street, “gripping his side with one hand and his cellphone in the other, leaving a trail of blood behind him.”

    In announcing his arrest Thursday, law enforcement described Momeni as a 38-year-old man from Emeryville, California and said Momeni and Lee knew one another, but didn’t provide further details about their connection.

    California Secretary of State Records indicate that Momeni has been the owner of an IT business, which, according to its website, provides services like technical support.

    Lee’s family issued a statement Thursday thanking the San Francisco Police Department “for bringing his killer to Justice” after Momeni’s arrest.

    “Our next steps will be to work with the District Attorney’s office to ensure that this person is not allowed to hurt anyone else or walk free,” the statement said.

    In the statement, the family described Lee’s upbringing, his career, and the impact of the technology he helped create.

    “Every day around the world, people interact with technology that Bob helped create. Bob will live on through these interactions and his dreams of improving all of our lives,” the statement reads.

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  • Golf’s new Saudi deal presents questionable political, business and sporting realities | CNN Politics

    Golf’s new Saudi deal presents questionable political, business and sporting realities | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The PGA Tour once advertised its brightest stars with the catch phrase “These guys are good.” A better slogan might now be “These guys are even richer.”

    In a bombshell announcement so staggering that many golf fans thought it was fake at first, the venerable PGA Tour unveiled a partnership Tuesday with Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund, the financier of its sworn rival LIV Golf – a breakaway circuit that split the sport and seeded feuds among its top players.

    The deal means that the PGA Tour – built on the image of quintessentially American Arnold Palmer, who epitomized post World War II US values – will now rest atop a pile of money put up by the regime that the US blamed for the murdering and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, that was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers of September 11, 2001, attack, and that has frequently been condemned by Washington for infringing women’s rights.

    It is beyond doubt that the new reality of pro-golf will mean a better spectacle for fans since it will end the split between the two rival tours and will also fold in the DP World Tour (formerly known as the European tour) and mean the brightest stars will play one another more often.

    For many sports fans in the US and elsewhere, that’s just fine. They like to plop down on the couch and watch their favorite golfer on the back nine on Sunday or their Gulf-owned Premier League team on TV. Who can begrudge them one oasis free from bitter, tribal modern politics?

    And the deal is also undeniably a great piece of business, assuming PGA Tour players accept it. Global golfers stand to win a lot more money, various tours will be invigorated and Saudi Arabia’s government and its ruthless leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), get to be associated with one of the planet’s most prestigious year-round sporting properties. And all pending litigation between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour was also mutually ended under the new agreement.

    But for others, Tuesday’s peace deal on the links raises painful moral issues. It also exposes top PGA leaders – who had blasted golfers who defected to LIV – to accusations of hypocrisy and reflects the way modern professional sports are hostage to the highest bidders. This can only pose uncomfortable questions to fans whose values and history clash with those of distant and sometimes politically dicey entities who effectively own their teams and top stars.

    PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, for instance, had some explaining to do – not least to the tour’s players gathered at the Canadian Open this week after many tweeted that they had no advance notice of the deal. Monahan had played the 9/11 card last year at the same event, saying that two families that were close to him had lost loved ones in the worst terror attack on American soil, adding, “I would ask any player that has left, or any player that would ever consider leaving, have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?”

    Now Monahan stands to be the effective supremo of global golf, save for the four majors – the sport’s most prestigious tournaments – aided by a gusher of Saudi cash.

    9/11 Families United effectively accused Monahan of using the tragedy as leverage in a business deal to reunite golf. He “co-opted the 9/11 community last year in the PGA’s unequivocal agreement that the Saudi LIV project was nothing more than sports washing of Saudi Arabia’s reputation,” the group said in a statement. “But now the PGA and Monahan appear to have become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation so that Americans and the world will forget how the Kingdom spent their billions of dollars before 9/11 to fund terrorism, spread their vitriolic hatred of Americans, and finance al Qaeda and the murder of our loved ones.”

    Monahan was asked about his reversal after what he said was a “heated” meeting with PGA Tour players on Tuesday.

    “I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite,” he said. “Anytime I said anything, I said it with the information that I had at that moment, and I said it based on someone that’s trying to compete for the PGA TOUR and our players.”

    Major champions who jumped to the rival circuit last year like Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed and Cam Smith might also now wonder whether their PGA tour brethren will face the same grilling over human rights that they had to endure at the time.

    One very famous golfer was delighted by the deal and seemed keen to claim some reflected credit – former President Donald Trump. The current front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination associated himself with LIV after the PGA Tour and other golf governing bodies distanced themselves from him over his radioactive political reputation. Trump has hosted several tournaments at his courses for LIV – a circuit that sits well with his record of refusing to sever links with the Saudis over the murder of Khashoggi in 2018, reasoning that the Saudis were great customers of the US.

    “A big, beautiful, and glamorous deal for the wonderful world of golf. Congrats to all!!!” Trump wrote in block capital letters on his Truth Social platform.

    Some defenders of LIV golfers have pointed out that the players were only making a choice to prioritize personal interests over moral ones in partnering with the Saudis – a calculus that mirrored decades of US foreign policy. Indeed, President Joe Biden had called on the 2020 campaign trail for the kingdom to be treated as a “pariah” because of Khashoggi’s murder only to travel to the kingdom as president to fist-bump MBS when he needed a spike in oil price production to bring down American gas prices.

    On Tuesday, after the LIV/PGA partnership was announced, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sat down for talks with the Crown Prince in Riyadh.

    The idea that politics and sport shouldn’t mix has always been quaint. The Olympics and the World Cup are two of the planet’s most political spectacles after all. And modern sport has long run on money as monster TV rights contracts translate into huge salaries for top soccer players, Formula One Drivers, NBA stars and the top names in other sports.

    But Tuesday’s LIV/PGA Tour agreement lays bare questions of morality so starkly precisely because of the way golf has sold itself. In a sport where players call penalties on themselves, and commentators idolize top players in whispered tones as paragons of gentlemanly conduct, patriotism and family values, the origin of the sport’s new financial lifeline is glaring.

    The PGA Tour and Saudi partnership may be the most prominent example yet of the phenomenon known as sports washing, whereby an authoritarian nation seeking to buff up its image – despite serious criticism over its political system and human rights performance – woos the world’s top sporting stars. China was accused of such an agenda with its 2008 and 2022 Summer and Winter Olympics, where attempts at political activism largely fizzled under its repressive rule. The Qatar World Cup last year was another example of a nation that used its financial muscle to present a new image to the world. Various controversies during the tournament over LGBTQ rights and the plight of workers who built the stadiums undercut global governing body FIFA’s pretensions to inclusion.

    The Saudis, Qataris and others are using their oil wealth to buy themselves a foothold among the world’s most powerful nations and to create tourism, entertainment and sporting legacies to sustain them when their reserves of carbon energy are depleted.

    This mirrors a global shift in power and especially financial muscle – from the capitals of Western Europe to new epicenters in the emerging economies of the Middle East, India and China. Soccer, like golf, is taking its share of the cash. Traditional working class football clubs knitted into their communities for decades in the UK, for example, now suddenly find themselves owned by foreign energy magnates. Premier League giant Manchester City was bought by a United Arab Emirates-led group. And Newcastle United is owned by a Saudi Arabia-led consortium, forcing fans to consider (or not) the ethical dimensions of their support for their hometown clubs. And global cricket has been transformed by the Indian Premier League, which pays lavish salaries in a shortened form of the game.

    One of the top names in soccer, Cristiano Ronaldo, is playing out the twilight of a glorious career spent at Europe’s top clubs in the up-and-coming Saudi league for a massive salary. And on Tuesday, Saudi team Al-Ittihad announced the signing of Real Madrid and French forward Karim Benzema, completing a sporting double whammy for the kingdom.

    There are as many sporting questions about the PGA Tour/LIV Golf partnership that remain unanswered. The partnership combines the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity. A spokesman for the PGA tour told CNN that the deal is not a merger.

    “After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” Monahan said, describing a “transformational partnership” that would “benefit golf’s players, commercial and charitable partners and fans.”

    Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, told CNBC he expected the partnership to be finalized within weeks and revealed, in a stunning move, that he had told LIV figurehead and Hall of Famer Greg Norman about the deal only moments before going on air.

    LIV lured some of the PGA Tour’s top stars with massive signing bonuses and huge purses at substantially fewer events than the PGA tour, prompting the premier US circuit to unveil its own select “designated events” with upped prize money. The two sides were locked in bitter legal battles that have now been resolved.

    It remains unclear, however, what steps LIV stars will have to take to potentially be able to return to events like The Players Championship, currently hosted on the PGA tour from which they were banned.

    Then there is the question of how current PGA Tour members will respond.

    Former British Open Champion Collin Morikawa tweeted, “I love finding out morning news on Twitter.”

    The sudden announcement also did not specify what would happen to LIV tour events, which have struggled to draw a strong TV audience, beyond this season. Monahan’s announcement did hint that the new entity was committed to the new format of team events that has been introduced by LIV, to compliment golf’s traditional reliance on individual tournaments.

    The golfer with the widest smile on Tuesday was probably Mickelson. The three-time Masters champion took the most heat for deserting the PGA tour for a reported massive payday, and was one of the most outspoken supporters of LIV – a breakaway he argued was a way to revolutionize the structure of professional golf and to secure more rewards for players.

    Mickelson was also open about the reality of partnering with the Saudis, calling them “scary m*therf**kers to get involved with,” in an interview with golf journalist Alan Shipnuck that he later claimed was off the record. Shipnuck has written that he offered Mickelson no such agreement.

    On Tuesday, Mickelson simply tweeted: “Awesome day today,” with a smiley sunshine emoji.

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  • Fact check: Biden makes 5 false claims about guns, plus some about other subjects | CNN Politics

    Fact check: Biden makes 5 false claims about guns, plus some about other subjects | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden made false claims about a variety of topics, notably including gun policy, during a series of official speeches and campaign remarks over the last two weeks.

    He made at least five false claims related to guns, a subject on which he has repeatedly been inaccurate during his presidency. He also made a false claim about the extent of his support from environmental groups. And he used incorrect figures about the population of Africa, his own travel history and how much renewable energy Texas uses.

    Here is a fact check of these claims, plus a fact check on a Biden exaggeration about guns. The White House declined to comment on Tuesday.

    Beau Biden and red flag laws

    In a Friday speech at the National Safer Communities Summit in Connecticut, Biden spoke of how a gun control law he signed in 2022 has provided federal funding for states to expand the use of gun control tools like “red flag” laws, which allow the courts to temporarily seize the guns of people who are deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. After mentioning red flag laws, Biden invoked his late son Beau Biden, who served as attorney general of Delaware, and said: “As my son was the first to enforce when he was attorney general.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. Delaware did not have a red flag law when Beau Biden was state attorney general from 2007 to 2015. The legislation that created Delaware’s red flag program was named the Beau Biden Gun Violence Prevention Act, but it was passed in 2018, three years after Beau Biden died of brain cancer. (In 2013, Beau Biden had pushed for a similar bill, but it was rejected by the state Senate.) The president has previously said, correctly, that a Delaware red flag law was named after his son.

    Delaware was far from the first state to enact a red flag law. Connecticut passed the first such state law in the country in 1999.

    Stabilizing braces

    In the same speech, the president spoke confusingly of his administration’s effort to make it more difficult for Americans to purchase stabilizing braces, devices that are attached to the rear of pistols, most commonly AR-15-style pistols, and make it easier to fire them one-handed.

    “Put a pistol on a brace, and it…turns into a gun,” Biden said. “Makes them where you can have a higher-caliber weapon – a higher-caliber bullet – coming out of that gun. It’s essentially turning it into a short-barreled rifle, which has been a weapon of choice by a number of mass shooters.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claims that a stabilizing brace turns a pistol into a gun and increases the caliber of a gun or bullet are false. A pistol is, obviously, already a gun, and “a pistol brace does not have any effect on the caliber of ammunition that a gun fires or anything about the basic functioning of the gun itself,” said Stephen Gutowski, a CNN contributor who is the founder of the gun policy and politics website The Reload.

    Biden’s assertion that the addition of a stabilizing brace can “essentially” turn a pistol into a short-barreled rifle is subjective; it’s the same argument his administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has made in support of its attempt to subject the braces to new controls. The administration’s regulatory effort is being challenged in the courts by gun rights advocates.

    Gun manufacturers and lawsuits

    Repeating a claim he made in his 2022 State of the Union address and on other occasions, Biden said at a campaign fundraiser in California on Monday: “The only industry in America you can’t sue is the – is the gun manufacturers.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false, as CNN and other fact-checkers have previously noted. Gun manufacturers are not entirely exempt from being sued, nor are they the only industry with some liability protections. Notably, there are significant liability protections for vaccine manufacturers and, at present, for people and entities involved in making, distributing or administering Covid-19 countermeasures such as vaccines, tests and treatments.

    Under the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, gun manufacturers cannot be held liable for the use of their products in crimes. However, gun manufacturers can still be held liable for (and thus sued for) a range of things, including negligence, breach of contract regarding the purchase of a gun or certain damages from defects in the design of a gun.

    In 2019, the Supreme Court allowed a lawsuit against gun manufacturer Remington Arms Co. to continue. The plaintiffs, a survivor and the families of nine other victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, wanted to hold the company – which manufactured the semi-automatic rifle that was used in the 2012 killing – partly responsible by targeting the company’s marketing practices, another area where gun manufacturers can be held liable. In 2022, those families reached a $73 million settlement with the company and its four insurers.

    There are also more recent lawsuits against gun manufacturers. For example, the parents of some of the victims and survivors of the 2022 massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, have sued over the marketing practices of the company that made the gun used by the killer. Another suit, filed by the government of Buffalo, New York, in December over gun violence in the city, alleges that the actions of several gun manufacturers and distributors have endangered public health and safety. It is unclear how those lawsuits will fare in the courts.

    – Holmes Lybrand contributed to this item.

    The NRA and lawsuits

    At a campaign fundraiser in California on Tuesday, Biden said the National Rifle Association, the prominent gun rights advocacy organization, itself cannot be sued.

    “And the fact that the NRA has such overwhelming power – you know, the NRA is the only outfit in the nation that we cannot sue as an institution,” Biden said. “They got – they – before this – I became president, they passed legislation saying you can’t sue them. Imagine had that been the case with tobacco companies.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. While gun manufacturers have liability protections, no law was ever passed to forbid lawsuits against the NRA. The NRA has faced a variety of lawsuits in recent years.

    Machine guns

    At the same Tuesday fundraiser in California, Biden said that he taught the Second Amendment in law school, “And guess what? It doesn’t say that you can own any weapon you want. It says there are certain weapons that you just can’t own.” One example Biden cited was this: “You can’t own a machine gun.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. The Second Amendment does not explicitly say people cannot own certain weapons – and the courts have not interpreted it to forbid machine guns. In fact, with some exceptions, people in more than two-thirds of states are allowed to own and buy fully automatic machine guns as long as those guns were legally registered and possessed prior to May 19, 1986, the day President Ronald Reagan signed a major gun law. There were more than 700,000 legally registered machine guns in the US as of May 2021, according to official federal data.

    Federal law imposes significant national restrictions on machine gun purchases, and the fact that there is a limited pool of pre-May 19, 1986 machine guns means that buying these guns tends to be expensive – regularly into the tens of thousands of dollars. But for Americans in most of the country, Biden’s claim that you simply “can’t” own a machine gun, period, is not true.

    “It’s not easy to obtain a fully automatic machine gun today, I don’t want to give that impression – but it is certainly legal. And it’s always been legal,” Gutowski said in March, when Biden previously made this claim about machine guns.

    California, where Biden made this remark on Tuesday, has strict laws restricting machine guns, but there is a legal process even there to apply for a state permit to possess one.

    The ‘boyfriend loophole’

    In the Friday speech to the National Safer Communities Summit, Biden said “we fought like hell to close the so-called boyfriend loophole” that had allowed people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to buy and possess guns if the victim was not someone they were married to, living with or had a child with. Biden then said that now “we finally can say that those convicted of domestic violence abuse against their girlfriend or boyfriend cannot buy a firearm, period.”

    Facts First: Biden’s categorical claim that such offenders now “cannot buy a firearm, period” is an exaggeration, though Biden did sign a law in 2022 that made significant progress in closing the “boyfriend loophole.” That 2022 law added “dating” partners to the list of misdemeanor domestic violence offenders who are generally prohibited from gun purchases – but in a concession demanded by Republicans, the law says these offenders can buy a gun five years after their first conviction or completion of their sentence, whichever comes later, if they do not reoffend in the interim.

    It’s also worth noting that the law’s new restriction on dating partners applies only to people who committed the domestic violence against a someone with whom they were in or “recently” had been in a “continuing” and “serious” romantic or intimate relationship. In other words, it omits people whose offense was against partners from their past or someone they dated casually.

    Marium Durrani, vice president of policy at the National Domestic Violence Hotline, said there are “definitely some gaps” in the law, “so it’s not a blanket end-all be-all,” but she said it is “really a step in the right direction.”

    Biden said at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Saturday: “Let me just say one thing very seriously. You know, I think this is the first time – and I’ve been around, as I said, a while – in history where, last week, every single environmental organization endorsed me.”

    Facts First: It’s not true that every single environmental organization had endorsed Biden. Four major environmental organizations did endorse him the week prior, the first time they had issued a joint endorsement, but other well-known environmental organizations have not yet endorsed in the presidential election.

    The four groups that endorsed Biden together in mid-June were the Sierra Club, NextGen PAC, and the campaign arms of the League of Conservation Voters and the Natural Resources Defense Council. That is not a complete list of every single environmental group in the country. For example, Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy, the National Audubon Society, Earthjustice and Greenpeace, in addition to some lesser-known groups, have not issued presidential endorsements to date.

    Biden’s claim of an endorsement from every environmental group comes amid frustration from some activists over his recent approvals of fossil fuel projects.

    In official speeches last Tuesday and last Wednesday and at a press conference the week prior, Biden claimed that Africa’s population would soon reach 1 billion. “You know, soon – soon, Africa will have 1 billion people,” he said last Wednesday.

    Facts First: This is false. Africa’s population exceeded 1 billion in 2009, according to United Nations figures; it is now more than 1.4 billion. Sub-Saharan Africa alone has a population of more than 1.1 billion.

    At a campaign fundraiser in Connecticut on Friday, Biden spoke about reading recent news articles about the use of renewable energy sources in Texas. He said, “I think it’s 70% of all their energy produced by solar and wind because it is significantly cheaper. Cheaper. Cheaper.”

    Facts First: Biden’s “70%” figure is not close to correct. The federal Energy Information Administration projected late last year that Texas would meet 37% of its electricity demand in 2023 with wind and solar power, up from 30% in 2022.

    Texas has indeed been a leader in renewable energy, particularly wind power, but the state is far from getting more than two-thirds of its energy from wind and solar alone. The organization that provides electricity to 90% of the state has a web page where you can see its current energy mix in real time; when we looked on Wednesday afternoon, during a heat wave, the mix included 15.8% solar, 10.2% wind and 6.6% nuclear, while 67.1% was natural gas or coal and lignite.

    In his Friday speech at the National Safer Communities Summit, Biden made a muddled claim about his past visits to Afghanistan and Iraq – saying that “you know, I spent a lot of time as president, and I spent 30-some times – visits – many more days in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim that he has visited Afghanistan and Iraq “30-some times” is false – the latest in a long-running series of exaggerations about his visits to the two countries. His presidential campaign said in 2019 that he made 21 visits to these countries, but he has since continued to put the figure in the 30s. And he has not visited either country “as president.”

    At another campaign fundraiser in California on Monday, Biden reprised a familiar claim about his travels with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who is, like him, a former vice president.

    “It wasn’t appropriate for Barack to be able to spend a lot of time getting to know him, so it was an assignment I was given. And I traveled 17,000 miles with him, usually one on one,” Biden said.

    Facts First: Biden’s “17,000 miles” claim remains false. Biden has not traveled anywhere close to 17,000 miles with Xi, though they have indeed spent lots of time together. This is one of Biden’s most common false claims as president, a figure he has repeated over and over in speeches despite numerous fact checks.

    Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler noted in 2021 that Biden and Xi often did not even travel parallel routes to their gatherings, let alone physically travel together. The only apparent way to get Biden’s mileage past 17,000, Kessler found, is to add the length of Biden’s flight journeys between Washington and Beijing, during which Xi was not with him.

    A White House official told CNN in early 2021 that Biden was adding up his “total travel back and forth” for meetings with Xi. But that is very different than traveling “with him” as Biden keeps saying, especially in the context of his boasts about how well he knows Xi. Biden has had more than enough time to make his language more precise.

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  • Legendary computer hacker Kevin Mitnick dies at 59 | CNN Business

    Legendary computer hacker Kevin Mitnick dies at 59 | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Kevin Mitnick, one of the most famous hackers in the history of cybersecurity, died over the weekend at age 59 after a more than year-long battle with pancreatic cancer, his family said in a published obituary.

    Before his death on July 16, Mitnick’s hacking sprees were legendary, and multiple films were inspired by him.

    The first, “WarGames” starring Matthew Broderick, was partially based on allegations that Mitnick successfully hacked the computer systems at North American Aerospace Defense Command as a teenager. He denied ever having done so.

    Mitnick’s restless curiosity caught up with him when he was arrested for stealing $1 million in proprietary software from Digital Equipment Corporation in 1988. Mitnick was sentenced to a year in prison and three years of probation, but a new arrest warrant was issued in 1995 for violating that probation. Mitnick went on the run, breaking into the computer systems of multiple corporations, cell phone companies, and educational institutions, according to the federal indictment against him.

    Through it all, Mitnick and his defenders insisted he was harmless, not actually trying to hurt anyone or pursue financial gain.

    “I was an old-school hacker, doing it for intellectual curiosity,” Mitnick told Wired magazine in a 2008 interview. But federal authorities were so concerned about his capabilities that when he was incarcerated again in 1995, Mitnick told CNN he was held in solitary confinement for a time out of concern that even proximity to a telephone could allow him to continue hacking.

    Mitnick and federal prosecutors agreed to a plea deal in 1999 to seven criminal counts, including wire fraud and causing damage to computers. The deal included a 46-month prison sentence and a ban on being “employed in any capacity wherein he has access to computers or computer-related equipment or software” during a period of probation, but he was released in 2000 due to credit for time already served.

    Mitnick published a memoir on his hacking career, “Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker,” in 2011.

    Following his prison term, Mitnick became a white-hat hacker, using his expertise to legally help businesses track people trying to break into their systems. For the past decade, he was the chief hacking officer and partial owner of the tech security firm KnowBe4, founded by his close friend and business partner, Stu Sjouwerman.

    “I made some really stupid mistakes in the past as a younger man that I regret,” Mitnick told CNN in a 2005 interview. “I’m lucky that I’ve been given a second chance and that I could use these skills to help the community.”

    “Kevin was a dear friend to me and many of us here at KnowBe4,” Sjouwerman said in a statement. “He is truly a luminary in the development of the cybersecurity industry, but mostly, Kevin was just a wonderful human being and he will be dearly missed.”

    A memorial for Mitnick is scheduled for August 1 in Las Vegas, his company said. He is survived by his wife Kimberley, who is pregnant with their first child, the family said.

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  • Reporters’ notebook: An intensely personal trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau | CNN Politics

    Reporters’ notebook: An intensely personal trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    This week, we traveled to Poland to help commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when Jews revolted against their Nazi oppressors, who had forced them to live behind barbed wire walls in horrific conditions.

    We also participated in the March of the Living, an annual two-mile walk from the Auschwitz concentration camp to Birkenau, where Nazis brought Jews from all over Europe to be starved, humiliated, terrorized and murdered in gas chambers.

    For both of us, this trip was intensely personal.

    I thought I knew what was in store for me visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau. I had been there some years back when I was working on a report for CNN about my family history – I’m the child of Holocaust survivors. I had heard my parents, both Polish Jews, speak of their painful experiences surviving the war. But I never knew my grandparents because all four of them were rounded up by the Nazis and killed during the Holocaust.

    But this time was different. As our expert guide showed us the Auschwitz gas chamber, I mentioned that I had learned a few years earlier that my dad’s parents were killed at Auschwitz. Our guide said that Polish Jews were largely killed in the very gas chamber we were standing in. He pointed out the gas chamber and the adjacent crematorium, where their bodies were burned and the remains then discarded in a pit. It was the first time I realized that I was standing right where my paternal grandparents had been murdered. Tears came to my eyes.

    My father had told me much about my grandparents, Isaac and Chaya Blitzer. They were very religious and truly wonderful people who had lived and raised their six children nearby. I wish I had known them.

    I never knew my mother’s parents, Wolf and Chaya Zylberfuden, either. My mom always spoke so lovingly of them. They were rounded up elsewhere in Poland and sent to a labor camp, where they were forced to make ammunition for Nazi soldiers. The conditions there were awful, and they soon died of typhoid fever, which was spreading around the area.

    I proudly carry the names of my two grandfathers – Wolf Isaac Blitzer.

    And now a new generation is carrying on the lessons of the Holocaust. At the annual March of the Living, thousands of people – Jews and non-Jews, young and old – come from all around the world to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp to honor and remember those who were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. They also come to learn and then to educate others about the horrors of the Holocaust.

    On this visit, I learned more and deepened my understanding of what my grandparents, parents and their siblings endured during the Holocaust. And as I did, I kept thinking about how important it is for all of us to educate ourselves about this horrible history to make sure we never forget. It is especially vital today in light of increasing antisemitism and Holocaust denialism. As the child of Holocaust survivors, it is hard to comprehend that there are truly evil people out there spreading lies that none of this ever happened.

    That’s why I was so moved by what I saw during our visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

    I had never been to Auschwitz before. I was never actually sure that I wanted to visit this place that represented the depths of hell for the 1.1 million people murdered by the Nazis there, including my own great-grandparents.

    I am now so glad that I went.

    Since I was a little girl, I have heard about the horrors of the Nazi atrocities, not just from the history books but also from my own grandfather Frank Weinman, who along with my grandmother Teri Vidor Weinman, were among the few to escape.

    They miraculously got to America in October 1941, thanks to Frank’s brother Charles, who was living in Chicago and had convinced his boss to put up the exorbitant sums of money the America government then required for Jewish refugees like my grandparents to get US visas to flee Nazi persecution.

    Grandma Teri and her family were Hungarian Jews, and her parents, Rudolph and Matilda Vidor, along with her sister Magda, were safe from Hitler’s wrath until 1944, when he invaded Hungary.

    Before visiting Auschwitz, I knew that they had been killed there.

    But having our expert guide tell my brother David and me exactly where and how was numbing.

    We saw a freight train exactly like the one they were shoved into with little to no water or food, traveling for days from Hungary to camps in Nazi-occupied Poland. We stood on the train tracks the Germans built to bring them into Auschwitz-Birkenau.

    The main railway building is pictured on the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on January 25, 2021.

    We saw what was left of what was likely the gas chamber where they were murdered and informed that because of their ages – both were in their 50s and not considered strong enough for hard labor – they probably were killed within a hour of arriving.

    It was a lot to take in, and it will take a while for my brother and me to process it all.

    But for both of us, our immediate takeaway was one of defiance – that our mere existence is proof that Hitler did not succeed in his quest to annihilate our family just because we are Jews.

    For years, not knowing exactly when or how her parents were killed, my Grandma Teri chose April 19, the day of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, to say Kaddish, the Jewish prayer recited on the anniversary of a loved one’s death.

    This week, my brother and I got to say Kaddish just steps from where they died.

    May their memory be a blessing.

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  • Navy commander removed from job early after death of SEAL candidate last year | CNN Politics

    Navy commander removed from job early after death of SEAL candidate last year | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A Navy commander reprimanded over the death of a SEAL candidate last year has been removed from his job early, according to two Navy officials, as the Navy prepares to release a broader investigation into the notoriously difficult SEAL training course.

    Capt. Brian Drechsler, who served as commander of Naval Special Warfare Center, was relieved in a change of command ceremony on Tuesday, the Navy said. The change of command came two months early for Drechsler, an official said, who was one of three Navy officers to receive administrative action after the death of Navy SEAL candidate Kyle Mullen in February 2022.

    In a brief statement Tuesday, the Navy made no mention of Mullen. “Capt. Mark Burke relieved Capt. Brian Drechsler as commander of the Naval Special Warfare Center (NSWCEN),” the Navy said. Naval Special Warfare Center’s mission includes the “assessment, selection, and training of SEALs and [Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewmen].”

    One of the officials said Drechsler is expected to retire soon.

    Mullen, 24, died of bacterial pneumonia in the hours after completing what is known as “Hell Week” during the special operations force’s demanding basic training program. In the 24 hours before he completed his training, Mullen had breathing issues and coughing up fluid, but he was not pulled from training or sent to a hospital upon the course’s completion.

    Navy investigators concluded Mullen died in the “line of duty, not due to his own misconduct,” Naval Special Warfare Command said in a statement at the conclusion of a line of duty investigation in October.

    A separate, broader investigation into the grueling SEALs selection course is expected soon, one of the Navy officials said.

    Initiated by the previous Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. William Lescher, the investigation is examining oversight of the most difficult and punishing elements of the SEALs selection course, including a look at the use of performance enhancing drugs within basic training to complete the course.

    Mullen’s death drew increased scrutiny of the policies, staff preparation and safety measures around one of the military’s most elite units.

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