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  • Bidens publicly acknowledge their seventh grandchild for the first time | CNN Politics

    Bidens publicly acknowledge their seventh grandchild for the first time | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden on Friday publicly acknowledged a daughter of his son Hunter for the first time, breaking a long-held silence on the matter by describing the situation as a “family matter.”

    “Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward,” Biden said in a statement that was first reported by People.

    The statement went on to read: “This is not a political issue, it’s a family matter.”

    “Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy,” read the statement.

    The statement amounts to the Bidens’ first acknowledgment of their seventh grandchild.

    The president spoke to his son and family about the overall situation with his grandchild, Navy, and wants what’s best for her, including possibly meeting her at some point, according to a source familiar.

    The matter has grown politically sensitive in recent months as Hunter Biden’s legal predicament entered the spotlight.

    Lunden Roberts, an Arkansas woman, gave birth to a girl and claimed Hunter Biden was the father in 2019. He denied paternity, but after a DNA test confirmed that he was the father, he eventually agreed in 2020 to pay $20,000 a month in child support.

    Hunter Biden sought to reduce the monthly payments, and last month settled a child support case. As part of the deal, Hunter Biden will give some of his paintings to his daughter, who can either keep some of her choosing or keep the money from any sales of those paintings.

    Roberts is also dropping her bid to change the girl’s last name to “Biden,” according to the court filing.

    In court filings in April, Roberts said Hunter Biden “has never seen or contacted” his 4-year-old daughter and that President Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden “remain estranged” from their grandchild.

    A source familiar with the situation pointed to the contentious legal proceedings for reasoning as to why the Bidens are now acknowledging their seventh grandchild.

    “You have to remember there were some fairly contentious legal proceedings between Navy’s parents happening until just a few weeks ago. As grandparents, the Bidens are following Hunter’s lead. They are – and have been – giving Hunter and Lunden the space and time to figure things out,” the source said.

    Now that much of the legal matter has been sorted, “Navy’s parents are working on a way forward that’s best for her,” the source said.

    “Thousands of families have faced similar circumstances, working it out in private, versus the spotlight. At the center is a 4-year-old girl and everyone wants what is best for her, including all of her grandparents,” said the source familiar.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Witness says Rep. Ronny Jackson handcuffed and ‘briefly detained’ during rodeo while trying to assist with medical emergency | CNN Politics

    Witness says Rep. Ronny Jackson handcuffed and ‘briefly detained’ during rodeo while trying to assist with medical emergency | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas was handcuffed and placed on the ground face-first by local law enforcement while he was trying to assist a teenage girl in medical distress at a rodeo over the weekend, according to a witness who spoke to CNN.

    In a Facebook post, Linda Dianne Shouse, a home healthcare and traveling nurse, said her 15-year-old relative was “seizing due to possible hypoglycemia” Saturday night at the White Deer rodeo, about 45 miles northeast of Amarillo, Texas. Jackson represents the Amarillo area and was an attendee at the rodeo.

    Shouse said she and another family member, who is also a nurse, were attending to the girl when Jackson, who is an ER physician, stepped in to assist. Shouse said she didn’t know Jackson was a congressman at the time but told CNN they were all working together to help the teen girl.

    “We were just waiting for EMS to get there. The police came up, the deputies, highway patrol, and everyone was just screaming, ‘Get back, get back, get back,’” she said during an interview.

    Shouse said she was pushed back and then punched in the chest by a woman and said she saw a law enforcement official screaming in Jackson’s face, telling him to “Get the f**k back.”

    “He was trying to tell them that he was a doctor and probably trying to tell him who he was, to be honest. And they were screaming that they did not effing care who he was,” she said. “And the next thing I knew, they had him on the ground, grabbed him by the shirt, threw him on the ground, face first into the concrete and had him in cuffs.”

    Shouse said once they realized Jackson was a congressman and doctor, they uncuffed him and started apologizing.

    “We had the scene under control. We were just ready to give a report to EMS and get the patient out of there. And that’s not what happened,” Shouse said, recalling what she described as a “loud, chaotic” situation. “She wound up going eventually, but whenever you have someone laying there – when it could be neurological – time is on your hands.”

    In a statement provided to CNN, a spokesperson for Jackson said the congressman was “briefly detained” while trying to help the teenager. When Jackson approached the scene, a relative of the girl, who is a nurse, was assisting the 15-year-old. Jackson asked if the relative needed any help, and she said she did, according to the statement.

    “While assessing the patient in a very loud and chaotic environment, confusion developed with law enforcement on the scene and Dr. Jackson was briefly detained and was actually prevented from further assisting the patient,” the spokesperson said.

    His office believes he was detained for a matter of minutes. Jackson was released immediately when officers realized that he was tending to the medical emergency, the spokesperson said. Jackson’s office did not deny he was handcuffed during the incident.

    According to the Texas Tribune, Carson County Sheriff Tam Terry said in a statement that one person was “temporarily detained” at the rodeo on Saturday night and his department was “reviewing the incident.”

    CNN has reached out to Sheriff Tam Terry of Carson County for further comment. CNN has also reached out to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

    Jackson previously served as the White House physician for Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. He retired from the US Navy as a rear admiral in 2019 and was elected in 2020 to represent the 13th Congressional District in Texas.

    Shouse said the girl is back in her hometown and undergoing further evaluation.

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  • Lawmakers reluctant to pursue gun control measures following Nashville school shooting | CNN Politics

    Lawmakers reluctant to pursue gun control measures following Nashville school shooting | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Monday’s deadly school shooting in Nashville has sparked a familiar cycle of condolences and calls to action among lawmakers in Washington, but both sides of the aisle have been quick to concede that the recent violence is probably not enough to sway a divided Congress to move substantive gun control efforts forward.

    After three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville on Monday, President Joe Biden asserted that he’s done all he can do to address gun control and urged members on Capitol Hill to act. But the shooting, so far, has not compelled lawmakers in Washington – particularly Republican leadership and some members representing Tennessee – to push forward gun control, signaling no end to the impasse within the GOP-controlled House and nearly deadlocked Senate.

    The Nashville incident was just among the latest in 130 mass shooting incidents so far this year, according to data from the national Gun Violence Archive.

    White House officials are not currently planning a major push around gun safety reform in the wake of the deadly Nashville school shooting, three senior administration officials said. But Biden and White House officials will continue to urge Congress to act.

    Biden on Tuesday told CNN’s MJ Lee, “I can’t do anything except plead with the Congress to act reasonably.”

    “I have done the full extent of my executive authority – to do on my own, anything about guns …The Congress has to act. The majority of the American people think having assault weapons is bizarre, it’s a crazy idea. They’re against that. And so I think the Congress could be passing an assault weapon ban,” he added.

    Biden has taken more than 20 executive actions on guns since taking office, including regulating the use of “ghost guns” and sales of stabilizing braces that effectively turn pistols into rifles. He also signed a bipartisan bill in 2022 which expands background checks and provides federal funding for so-called “red flag laws” – although it failed to ban any weapons and fell far short of what Biden and his party had advocated for.

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

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

    On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would not answer questions on whether any congressional action should be taken on guns after the shooting in Nashville. And House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana who survived being shot in 2017, demurred when asked if the most recent school shooting in Nashville would move Congress to address any sort of reforms.

    “I really get angry when I see people try to politicize it for their own personal agenda, especially when we don’t even know the facts,” he said when asked if his conference was prepared to do anything to address the spate of mass shootings, mentioning only improving mental health and securing schools.

    “Let’s get the facts. And let’s work to see if there’s something that we can do to help secure schools,” he added. “We’ve talked about things that we can do and it just seems like on the other side, all they want to do is take guns away from law abiding citizens. … And that’s not the answer, by the way.”

    Sen. Thom Tillis, a key GOP negotiator in last year’s bipartisan gun legislation, said on Tuesday that he doesn’t see a path forward on new gun legislation. Instead, he believes that lawmakers need to focus on implementing what has already been signed into law.

    “The full implementation is going to take months and years,” Tillis said of the gun bill that passed last summer. “There is a lot of unimplemented or to be implemented provisions in there. Let’s talk about that first.”

    House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican whose committee has jurisdiction over gun policy, said Tuesday that he doesn’t think Congress should take action to limit assault weapons, though he declined to say why it’s okay to ban fully automatic rifles but not semi-automatic weapons.

    “The Second Amendment is the Second Amendment,” he continued. “I believe in the Second Amendment and we shouldn’t penalize law-abiding American citizens.”

    Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has been involved in past negotiations on gun legislation, said: “I don’t know if there’s much space to do more, but I’ll certainly look and see.”

    Graham said he is opposed to a ban on AR-15s – which was one of the weapons the Nashville suspect used during Monday’s shooting – noting that he owns one himself and arguing that it would “be hard to implement a national red flag law.”

    Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju why he wouldn’t support a ban of AR-15s, Andy Ogles, who represents the district where Monday’s shooting took place, replied, “Why not talk about the real issue facing the country – and that’s mental health.” And Sen. Bill Hagerty, the Tennessee Republican, refused to discuss calls to ban AR-15s after the Nashville shooting.

    “The tragedy that happened in my state was the result of a depraved person and somebody very very sick. And the result has been absolutely devastating for the people in my community. Right now with the victims, the family and the people in my community – we are all mourning right now,” Hagerty told CNN.

    Asked about banning those weapons, he added: “I’m certain politics will wave into everything. But right now I’m not focused on the politics of the situation. I’m focused on the victims.

    Tennessee GOP Rep. Tim Burchett told reporters that “laws don’t work” to curb gun violence.

    “We want to legislate evil – it’s just not gonna happen,” he said. “If you think Washington is going to fix this problem, you’re wrong. They’re not going to fix this problem. They are the problem.”

    Asked by CNN why private citizens need AR-15s, Burchett pointed to self-defense. He also argued that even though other countries don’t observe the United States’ high frequency of shootings, “other countries don’t have our freedom either … And when people abuse that freedom, that’s what happens.”

    Meanwhile, some Democrats in Congress are slamming House Republicans for their disinterest.

    “As a country and as a Congress, we can do better and we know that, so shame on Speaker McCarthy for not bringing something up, for not announcing that we can and do more. All we’re going to get are thoughts and prayers out of their Twitter accounts, and that’s not enough” Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar of California said during a press conference.

    On the other side of the Capitol, however, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin told reporters that he is “not very hopeful” that the Senate can pass gun legislation this Congress.

    “I’m not very hopeful, yet we have to try,” he said.

    Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to force a vote on a semi-automatic weapons ban to put Republicans on the record.

    “We need a fight in Congress, and I’m prepared to conduct that fight, others are as well,” he told CNN. “And ultimately the American people deserve to know where each of us stands on common sense gun violence prevention.”

    Schumer would not say whether he intends to put legislation banning assault weapons on the Senate floor for a vote this Congress. There is nowhere close to enough support to overcome a legislative filibuster.

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  • What to know about the Trump indictment on the eve of his court appearance | CNN Politics

    What to know about the Trump indictment on the eve of his court appearance | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump, the first former president in history to face criminal charges, is heading to New York Monday for an expected arraignment on Tuesday after being indicted last week by a Manhattan grand jury.

    The expected voluntary surrender of a former president and 2024 White House candidate will be a unique affair in more ways than one – both for the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the New York courthouse where he’ll be arraigned and for a nation watching to see how it’ll shake up the GOP presidential primary.

    The former president has remained “surprisingly calm,” spending the weekend in Florida playing golf and mulling how to use it to boost his campaign, CNN reported Sunday night, after an indictment that caught him and his advisers “off guard.”

    Trump faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud, CNN has reported, but the indictment remains under seal.

    The Manhattan district attorney’s office has been investigating Trump in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 presidential election. Trump and his allies have already attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – and an advertised Tuesday night speech back at Mar-a-Lago will likely given Trump more opportunity to claim he’s being political persecuted.

    Here is what we know about the expected arraignment.

    Trump left Florida shortly after noon ET on Monday, and is scheduled to land at New York’s LaGuardia airport around 3 p.m. ET, according to a source familiar with his plans. The former president will stay at Trump Tower Monday night and is expected to depart New York immediately after Tuesday’s arraignment to head back to Florida, the source said.

    But even before Trump’s appearance, his presence will be felt in the Manhattan courthouse Tuesday, as all trials and most other court activity is being halted before he is slated to arrive.

    The Secret Service, the New York Police Department and the court officers are coordinating security for Trump’s expected appearance. The Secret Service is scheduled to accompany Trump in the early afternoon to the district attorney’s office, which is in the same building as the courthouse.

    Trump will be booked by the investigators, which includes taking his fingerprints. Ordinarily, a mug shot would be taken. But sources familiar with the preparations were uncertain as to whether there would be a mugshot – because Trump’s appearance is widely known and authorities were concerned about the improper leaking of the photo, which would be a violation of state law.

    Typically, after defendants are arrested, they are booked and held in cells near the courtroom before they are arraigned. But that won’t happen with Trump. Once the former president is finished being processed, he’ll be taken through a back set of hallways and elevators to the floor where the courtroom is located. He’ll then come out to a public hallway to walk into the courtroom.

    Trump is not expected to be handcuffed, as he will be surrounded by armed federal agents for his protection.

    “Obviously, this is different. This has never happened before. I have never had Secret Service involved in an arraignment before at 100 Centre Street,” Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “All the Tuesday stuff is still very much up in the air, other than the fact that we will very loudly and proudly say not guilty.”

    By the afternoon, Trump is expected to be brought to the courtroom, where the indictment will be unsealed and he will formally face the charges. After he is arraigned, Trump will almost certainly be released on his own recognizance. It is possible, though perhaps unlikely, that conditions could be set on his travel.

    Ordinarily, a defendant who is released would walk out the front doors, but Secret Service will want to limit the time and space where Trump is in public. So instead, once the court hearing is over, Trump is expected to walk again through the public hallway and into the back corridors to the district attorney’s office, back to where his motorcade will be waiting.

    Then he’ll head to the airport so he can get back to Mar-a-Lago, where he’s scheduled an event that evening to speak publicly.

    Several media outlets, including CNN, have asked a New York judge to unseal the indictment and for permission to broadcast Trump’s expected appearance in the courtroom on Tuesday.

    The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are among the outlets making the request.

    The news organizations are asking for a “limited number of photographers, videographers, and radio journalists to be present at the arraignment,” and said in the letter that they are making “this limited request for audio-visual coverage in order to ensure that the operations of the Court will not be disrupted in any way.”

    If the judge does not grant the media outlets’ unsealing request, it is expected that the indictment will be made public when Trump appears in court.

    Judge Juan Merchan is no stranger to Trump’s orbit.

    Merchan, an acting New York Supreme Court justice, has sentenced Trump’s close confidant Allen Weisselberg to prison, presided over the Trump Organization tax fraud trial and overseen former adviser Steve Bannon’s criminal fraud case.

    Merchan does not stand for disruptions or delays, attorneys who have appeared before him told CNN, and he’s known to maintain control of his courtroom even when his cases draw considerable attention.

    Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore said during an interview Friday on CNN that Merchan was “not easy” on him when he tried a case before him but that he will likely be fair.

    “I’ve tried a case in front of him before. He could be tough. I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be something that’s going to change his ability to evaluate the facts and the law in this case,” Parlatore said.

    Tacopina told CNN’s Dana Bash Sunday that the former president will plead not guilty. His team “will look at every potential issue that we will be able to challenge, and we will challenge,” Tacopina said.

    The Trump team’s court strategy could center around challenging the case because it may rely on business record entries that prosecutors tie to hush money payments to Daniels seven years ago, beyond the statute of limitations for a criminal case. Tacopina suggested in TV interviews Sunday the statute of limitations may have passed, and said the Trump businesses didn’t make false entries.

    Trump’s legal team isn’t currently considering asking to move the case to a different New York City borough, Tacopina said. “There’s been no discussion of that whatsoever,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in another interview Sunday. “It’s way too premature to start worrying about venue changes until we really see the indictment and grapple with the legal issues.”

    Trump’s political advisers over the weekend were actively discussing how to best campaign off the indictment they have portrayed as a political hoax and witch hunt, according to sources close to Trump.

    His team has spent the last several days presenting the former president with polls showing him with a growing lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, currently considered Trump’s biggest 2024 rival, in a head-to-head match up. And his team says it has raised more than $5 million dollars since he was indicted Thursday.

    Despite the initial shock of the indictment, Trump has remained surprisingly calm and focused in the days ahead of his court appearance, CNN’s Kristen Holmes reported.

    The former president has seemingly saved his rage for his social media site, escalating his attacks on Bragg and leveling threats.

    Many of Trump’s allies, critics and likely opponents in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race have similarly attacked Bragg before and after the indictment.

    But former Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who announced his presidential campaign on Sunday, doubled down on his call for Trump to drop out of the race now that he is facing criminal charges.

    “The office is more important than any individual person. So for the sake of the office of the presidency, I do think that’s too much of a sideshow and distraction,” Hutchinson said in an interview on ABC News. “He needs to be able to concentrate on his due process.”

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  • Italy blocks ChatGPT over privacy concerns | CNN Business

    Italy blocks ChatGPT over privacy concerns | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Regulators in Italy issued a temporary ban on ChatGPT Friday, effective immediately, due to privacy concerns and said they had opened an investigation into how OpenAI, the US company behind the popular chatbot, uses data.

    Italy’s data protection agency said users lacked information about the collection of their data and that a breach at ChatGPT had been reported on March 20.

    “There appears to be no legal basis underpinning the massive collection and processing of personal data in order to ‘train’ the algorithms on which the platform relies,” the agency said.

    The Italian regulator also expressed concerns over the lack of age verification for ChatGPT users. It argued that this “exposes children to receiving responses that are absolutely inappropriate to their age and awareness.” The platform is supposed to be for users older than 13, it noted.

    The data protection agency said OpenAI would be barred from processing the data of Italian users until it “respects the privacy regulation.”

    OpenAI has been given 20 days to communicate the measures it will take to comply with Italy’s data rules. Otherwise, it could face a penalty of up to €20 million ($21.8 million), or up to 4% of its annual global turnover.

    Since its public release four months ago, ChatGPT has become a global phenomenon, amassing millions of users impressed with its ability to craft convincing written content, including academic essays, business plans and short stories.

    But concerns have also emerged about its rapid spread and what large-scale uptake of such tools could mean for society, putting pressure on regulators around the world to act.

    The European Union is finalizing rules on the use of artificial intelligence in the bloc. In the meantime, EU companies must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, as well as the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, which apply to tech platforms.

    Meanwhile, so-called “generative AI” tools available to the public are proliferating.

    Earlier this month, OpenAI released GPT-4, a new version of the technology underpinning ChatGPT that is even more powerful. The company said the updated technology passed a simulated law school bar exam with a score around the top 10% of test takers; by contrast, the prior version, GPT-3.5, scored around the bottom 10%.

    This week, some of the biggest names in tech, including Elon Musk, called for AI labs to stop the training of the most powerful AI systems for at least six months, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.”

    — Julia Horowitz contributed reporting.

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  • Biden signs bill ending Covid-19 national emergency | CNN Politics

    Biden signs bill ending Covid-19 national emergency | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden signed legislation Monday to end the national emergency for Covid-19, the White House said, in a move that will not affect the end of the separate public health emergency scheduled for May 11.

    A White House official downplayed the impact of the bill, saying the termination of the emergency “does not impact our ability to wind down authorities in an orderly way.”

    The bill to end the national emergency cleared the Senate last month in a bipartisan 68-23 vote and passed the House earlier this year with 11 Democrats crossing party lines to vote for the joint resolution.

    “Since Congress voted to terminate the National Emergency earlier than anticipated, the Administration has worked to expedite its wind down and provide as much notice as possible to potentially impacted individuals,” the official said, adding that the country is in a “different place” than it was in January.

    The administration has been winding down authorities over the past few months, the official noted.

    The official said that “to be clear, ending the National Emergency will not impact the planned wind-down of the Public Health Emergency on May 11” – which enabled the government to provide many Americans with Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines at no charge, as well as offer enhanced social safety net benefits, to help the nation cope with the pandemic and minimize its impact, as CNN previously reported.

    “But since Congress moved to undo the National Emergency earlier than intended, we’ve been working with agencies to address the impacts of ending the declaration early,” the official said.

    The White House had signaled strong opposition to the bill but said that ultimately, the president would sign it if it came across his desk. The White House had planned end to both emergencies by May 11.

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  • Cash App founder Bob Lee knew the suspect in his stabbing death, police say | CNN Business

    Cash App founder Bob Lee knew the suspect in his stabbing death, police say | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    San Francisco Police have arrested Nima Momeni in connection to the murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said during a news conference on Thursday.

    Scott described Momeni as a 38-year-old man from Emeryville, California. Scott said Momeni and Lee knew one another, but he 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.

    Momeni was taken into custody without incident, according to Scott, and taken to the San Francisco County jail where he was booked on one charge of murder.

    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.”

    Many in the tech world and beyond responded to news of Lee’s death with an outpouring of shock and grief. Some, including Elon Musk, also said the incident highlighted the fact that “violent crime in SF is horrific.”

    But on Thursday, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins criticized Musk’s statement as “reckless and irresponsible.” Jenkins said Musk’s remark “assumed incorrect circumstances” about the death and effectively “spreads misinformation” while police were actively working to solve the case.

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

    Josh Goldbard, the CEO MobileCoin, previously told CNN: “Bob was a dynamo, a force of nature. Bob was the genuine article. He was made for the world that is being born right now, he was a child of dreams, and whatever he imagined, no matter how crazy, he made real.”

    Earlier Thursday, San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Matt Dorsey expressed his gratitude to the police department’s homicide detail for “their tireless work to bring Bob Lee’s killer to justice and for their arrest of a suspect this morning.”

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  • FTC chair Lina Khan warns AI could ‘turbocharge’ fraud and scams | CNN Business

    FTC chair Lina Khan warns AI could ‘turbocharge’ fraud and scams | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT could lead to a “turbocharging” of consumer harms including fraud and scams, and the US government has substantial authority to crack down on AI-driven consumer harms under existing law, members of the Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday.

    Addressing House lawmakers, FTC chair Lina Khan said the “turbocharging of fraud and scams that could be enabled by these tools are a serious concern.”

    In recent months, a new crop of AI tools have gained attention for their ability to generate convincing emails, stories and essays as well as images, audio and videos. While these tools have potential to change the way people work and create, some have also raised concerns about how they could be use to deceive by impersonating individuals.

    Even as policymakers across the federal government debate how to promote specific AI rules, citing concerns about possible algorithmic discrimination and privacy issues, companies could still face FTC investigations today under a range of statutes that have been on the books for years, Khan and her fellow commissioners said.

    “Throughout the FTC’s history we have had to adapt our enforcement to changing technology,” said FTC Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter. “Our obligation is to do what we’ve always done, which is to apply the tools we have to these changing technologies … [and] not be scared off by this idea that this is a new, revolutionary technology.”

    FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said companies cannot escape liability simply by claiming that their algorithms are a black box.

    “Our staff has been consistently saying our unfair and deceptive practices authority applies, our civil rights laws, fair credit, Equal Credit Opportunity Act, those apply,” said Bedoya. “There is law, and companies will need to abide by it.”

    The FTC has previously issued extensive public guidance to AI companies, and the agency last month received a request to investigate OpenAI over claims that the company behind ChatGPT has misled consumers about the tool’s capabilities and limitations.

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  • Man accused of killing Cash App founder Bob Lee intends to plead not guilty next week, his attorney says | CNN Business

    Man accused of killing Cash App founder Bob Lee intends to plead not guilty next week, his attorney says | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Nima Momeni, the man accused of killing Cash App founder Bob Lee in San Francisco, intends to plead not guilty next week, his attorney said.

    Momeni was to be arraigned on a murder charge Tuesday but that was put off until May 2 after defense attorney Paula Canny asked for more time to prepare.

    Canny told reporters after the hearing that her client also will deny the special allegation of using a knife in the crime.

    Lee, who cofounded the mobile payment service provider Cash App, was stabbed to death in the Rincon Hill neighborhood early on April 4.

    Authorities have said Momeni, 38, of Emeryville, California, and Lee knew each other and they were in a vehicle shortly before the stabbing.

    The district attorney’s office has indicated that the stabbing may have been premeditated.

    “This is a person who was in his vehicle with a kitchen knife,” San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said earlier this month. “That’s not something most of us carry around at all times with us.”

    Canny said she believes she has evidence to support Momeni’s innocence.

    The attorney says she has seen surveillance videos in the case but is still awaiting police reports and the full autopsy report. “I don’t think you can see anything” in the video, Canny said.

    Jenkins said Tuesday autopsy reports typically take about 60 days and, in this case, the report is not yet ready.

    “We believe that we have sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Momeni murdered Bob Lee,” Jenkins said.

    Canny told station KNTV nearly two weeks ago that there is a “much greater back story” than what has been disclosed.

    California Secretary of State records indicate that Momeni has been the owner of an IT business. He has been held without bail since his arrest nearly two weeks ago.

    Canny said she believes her client is not a danger to the community or a flight risk and will push for bail to be set. Jenkins disagreed. “Certainly somebody that we believe committed murder is an extreme threat to public safety.”

    About 20 of Momeni’s family members, including his two teenage children, were in court for the hearing.

    Documents from the district attorney’s office have laid out what authorities say preceded the stabbing.

    A motion to detain document cites a witness interviewed by police and security camera footage, offering a detailed timeline of where Lee and Momeni were.

    A witness, described as a close friend of Lee’s, said he went over to an apartment after being invited by Lee on April 3, where Lee was drinking with a woman later identified as Momeni’s sister, the document states.

    The witness told police the woman was married but her “relationship was possibly in jeopardy,” and the witness was unsure whether the woman and Lee had an intimate relationship, according to the document. Lee later told the witness that they were going to go to his hotel room, where he invited the woman but she declined.

    While at the hotel room, the witness said Lee was having a conversation with Momeni, which involved Momeni saying he was picking up his sister from the apartment Lee and the witness were previously at, according to the document. Momeni asked Lee “whether his sister was doing drugs or anything inappropriate,” the document states. Lee had told Momeni nothing inappropriate happened, according to the document.

    After the conversation with Momeni, Lee and the witness went to Lee’s apartment until about 12:30 a.m. on April 4, when Lee left, the document says.

    Surveillance footage shows Momeni arriving at his sister’s apartment building in a white BMW around 8:30 p.m. on April 3, and later shows Lee entering the building around 12:39 a.m. on April 4. A little after 2 a.m., security footage shows Lee and Momeni entering an elevator together and getting into Momeni’s BMW. Additional footage from the area shows the two driving in the car together.

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

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

    The subject in dark-colored clothing, who authorities believe to be Lee, walks northbound, while the subject in the light-colored clothing walks south and stops along a fence, where a knife was ultimately recovered, the document says. The BMW then “leaves at a high rate of speed,” the document states.

    An autopsy later found Lee was “stabbed three separate times, once in the hip and twice in the chest,” according to the documents. One of the stab wounds “directly penetrated” Lee’s heart, causing his death.

    A kitchen knife was found near the scene, District Attorney Jenkins said in a news conference, adding the department had “proof beyond a reasonable doubt that (Momeni) committed murder.”

    On April 11, investigators found a text message from Momeni’s sister to Lee that showed the sister checking in on Lee, according to the motion to detain document. The text message, per the document, stated: “Just wanted to make sure your doing ok Cause I know nima came wayyyyyy down hard on you And thank you for being such a classy man handling it with class.”

    Meanwhile, additional details in an August 2022 incident involving a woman and Momeni were made available in a police report, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday.

    Police in Emeryville cited and released Momeni on a misdemeanor battery charge after a woman reported he attacked her, the newspaper reported, citing documents obtained in a public records request. CNN has requested the documents and reached out to Emeryville police.

    The woman, whose name was redacted from the report, and Momeni reportedly got into an argument the afternoon of August 1, 2022, according to the police report.

    Momeni denied the allegation when questioned by responding officers.

    The woman told police that Momeni was prone to behavior shifts, the Chronicle reported, telling them that “one minute he will be fine and the next he will go off for no reason.”

    In a statement to CNN on Monday, Momeni’s attorney Canny said, “It is only a police report.”

    “There was no arrest. There was no case filed – the Alameda County District Attorney refused to prosecute,” she said.

    The Alameda County District Attorney’s office confirmed to CNN last week it did not file charges but declined to say why or give more detail.

    In the police report, the woman said she met Momeni a week earlier and he allowed her to stay on his couch in exchange for cleaning the residence, the Chronicle says, adding she told officers that she and Momeni were not dating.

    The woman told police that earlier in the day, she had been in the loft’s kitchen when Momeni came downstairs and yelled for her to collect her belongings and leave, the Chronicle reports.

    “Momeni forcefully grabbed her right upper arm and her right side waist area,” Officer Johnson wrote in the report, according to the Chronicle. “He then pushed her against a counter.”

    He denied the allegation to police, according to the newspaper, and a roommate told police that he didn’t see violence and that the woman appeared to be the aggressor.

    Momeni told officers he wanted to pursue charges against the woman for pushing him the day before when they had also argued, the report says, according to the Chronicle.

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  • Elizabeth Holmes delays start of prison sentence with last-minute appeal | CNN Business

    Elizabeth Holmes delays start of prison sentence with last-minute appeal | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Elizabeth Holmes won’t be starting her 11-year prison sentence just yet.

    The disgraced Theranos founder was previously expected to report to prison on Thursday, but she will remain free a little longer while the court considers a last-minute appeal, according to a filing Tuesday night.

    Holmes was sentenced last November after she was convicted months earlier on multiple charges of defrauding investors while running the now-defunct blood testing startup. Earlier this month, her request to remain free while she appeals her conviction was denied by a judge, setting her up to report to prison on April 27.

    On Tuesday, however, Holmes’ legal team filed an appeal of the judge’s decision. As a result, Holmes can remain free on bail while the latest appeal is considered by the court, as per the court’s rules.

    Holmes dropped out of Stanford at the age of 19 to focus full-time on Theranos, the health tech startup which claimed to have invented technology that could accurately test for a range of conditions using just a few drops of blood. Theranos raised $945 million from an impressive list of investors and was valued at some $9 billion at its peak – making Holmes a paper billionaire.

    Her company began to unravel after a Wall Street Journal investigation in 2015 reported that Theranos had only ever performed roughly a dozen of the hundreds of tests it offered using its proprietary technology, and with questionable accuracy. It also came to light that Theranos was relying on third-party manufactured devices from traditional blood testing companies rather than its own technology.

    Holmes’ ex-boyfriend and former COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani was indicted alongside Holmes and convicted of fraud in a separate trial. Like Holmes, Balwani’s legal team delayed the start of his prison sentence by roughly a month with an appeal.

    Balwani reported to prison last week to serve out his nearly 13-year sentence.

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  • 5 ways a debt default could affect you | CNN Politics

    5 ways a debt default could affect you | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden and House Republicans may have as little as a month to prevent the US from defaulting on its debt, which would impact millions of Americans and unleash economic and fiscal chaos here and around the world.

    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Monday that the government may not be able to pay all of its bills in full and on time as soon as June 1. However, the forecast was uncertain, and the default date might come several weeks later, she said. The US hit its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in January, and Treasury has been using cash and “extraordinary measures” to satisfy obligations since then.

    Just what would happen if the nation defaults on its debt is unknown since it’s never actually happened before. A close call in 2011 roiled the financial markets and prompted Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the US’ credit rating to AA+ from AAA.

    Yellen gave a sense of the turmoil it would cause in her letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday.

    “If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, it would cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position, and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests,” she wrote.

    To be clear, a debt default doesn’t mean all payments would stop and people would permanently lose out on money they are owed. Treasury would have the funds to satisfy some obligations, but it’s not certain how the agency would handle the disbursements. Much would also depend on how long it takes Congress to address the borrowing cap.

    “Tens of millions of people across the country who expect payments from the federal government may not get them on time,” said Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

    Here are five ways that Americans could be affected by debt default:

    About 66 million retirees, disabled workers and others receive monthly Social Security benefits. The average payment for retired workers is $1,827 a month in 2023.

    Almost two-thirds of beneficiaries rely on Social Security for half of their income, and for 40% of recipients, the payments constitute at least 90% of their income, according to the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

    These payments could be delayed in a debt default scenario, though it’s possible Treasury could continue making on-time payments because of the entitlement program’s trust fund, Akabas said.

    The benefits are disbursed four times a month, on the third day of the month and on three Wednesdays. Roughly $25 billion a week is sent out, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

    “Even a short delay in the payment of Social Security benefits would be a burden for the millions of Americans who rely on their earned benefits to pay for out-of-pocket health care expenses, food, rent and utilities,” Max Richtman, the committee’s CEO, said in a statement.

    Many other government payments could also be affected, including funding for food stamps; federal grants to states and municipalities for Medicaid, highways, education and other programs; and Medicare payments to hospitals, doctors and health insurance plans.

    More than 2 million federal civilian workers and around 1.4 million active-duty military members could see their paychecks delayed. Federal government contractors could also see a lag in payments, which could affect their ability to compensate their workers.

    Also, certain veterans benefits, including disability payments and pensions for some low-income veterans and their surviving families, could be affected.

    “Such calamity would place further stress on our servicemembers, retirees, and veterans, as well as their families, caregivers, and survivors,” Rene Campos, senior director of government relations for the Military Officers Association of America, said in a blog post. “Though life in uniform is not always predictable, those who serve or have served their country expect their country to honor their commitment to service.”

    About $25 billion in pay or benefits for active-duty members of the military, civil service and military retirees, veterans and recipients of Supplemental Security Income is sent out on the first day of the month, according to the CBO.

    Americans’ investments would take a direct hit. Case in point: Markets had what was then their worst week since the financial crisis during the 2011 debt ceiling standoff after the Standard & Poor’s downgrade.

    Even if the debt ceiling impasse is resolved soon after a default, stocks could shed as much as a third of their value. That would wipe out around $12 trillion in household wealth, according to Moody’s Analytics.

    If a default occurs, yields on US Treasuries will inevitably rise to compensate for the increased risk that bondholders won’t receive the money they’re owed from the government.

    Since interest rates on loans, credit cards and mortgages are often based on Treasury yields, the cost of borrowing money and paying off debt would rise. That’s on top of the increased costs Americans are already facing from the Federal Reserve rate hikes.

    Families and businesses would also have a tougher time getting approved for lines of credit since banks would have to be more selective about to whom they loan money. That’s because their costs of borrowing money will also rise, which limits the amount of money they can lend out.

    A debt default could trigger an economic downturn, which would prompt a spike in unemployment. It would come at a particularly fragile time – when the nation is already dealing with rising interest rates and stubbornly high inflation.

    How much damage would be done would depend on how long the crisis continues. If the default lasts for about a week, then close to 1 million jobs would be lost, including in the financial sector, which would be hard hit by the stock market declines. Also, the unemployment rate would jump to about 5% and the economy would contract by nearly half a percent, according to Moody’s.

    But if the impasse dragged on for six weeks, then more than 7 million jobs would be lost, the unemployment rate would soar above 8% and the economy would decline by more than 4%, according to Moody’s. The effects would still be felt a decade from now.

    “It would be a body blow to the economy, and it would be a manufactured crisis,” said Bernard Yaros, an economist at Moody’s.

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  • Sullivan declines to say if Biden brought up jailed Navy officer with Japanese PM but says US working ‘extremely hard’ on case | CNN Politics

    Sullivan declines to say if Biden brought up jailed Navy officer with Japanese PM but says US working ‘extremely hard’ on case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said Sunday that the White House is working “extremely hard” on the case of a US Navy officer jailed in Japan but declined to say whether President Joe Biden had brought it up during his trip to the country.

    “There are certain times when saying less in public and more in private is the best way to resolve these cases. This is one of those instances,” Sullivan said on “State of the Union” when asked if Biden had raised the case of Lt. Ridge Alkonis with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during his trip to Hiroshima for the Group of Seven summit, which concluded Sunday.

    On Friday, a pair of Democratic lawmakers from California had asked Biden to once again bring up the issue with Kishida.

    In a letter addressed to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, US Sen. Alex Padilla and US Rep. Mike Levin said that “while we understand the sensitive nature of this case” around Lt. Ridge Alkonis, “it is important to resolve this situation promptly to prevent further irritants in the U.S.-Japan relationship.”

    “Lieutenant Alkonis has served almost a year in Japanese prison after being involved in a tragic and unforeseeable car accident due to a medical emergency he suffered while driving. Despite your repeated interventions from your Administration, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Ambassador Rahm Emanuel. Lieutenant Alkonis’ case remains stalled in the Japanese system,” the pair wrote.

    Alkonis, who was stationed in Japan, was sentenced to three years in Japanese prison in October 2021 for negligent driving resulting in the death of two people and injuries to a third person in May 2021. CNN previously reported that Alkonis said he suffered from acute mountain sickness as he was driving with his family from Mount Fuji, which caused him to lose consciousness. That argument was rejected by the court, and his appeal was denied in July 2022.

    Biden raised the Alkonis case with Kishida during the prime minister’s visit to the White House in January, and the two countries agreed to establish a working group to solve the problem. But Alkonis has since expressed despair about his situation, according to a handwritten note to his wife.

    “I’m not doing that good,” he wrote in a letter dated April 30, which was shared with CNN. “The walls and bars seem to be making my cell even smaller as of late.”

    His family has requested that he be transferred back to the US under the Council of Europe’s Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, which would allow him to serve out his sentence there.

    Alkonis’ wife, Brittany Alkonis, told CNN earlier this week that parts of the US government have been “incredibly proactive” on that request but claimed that the US Department of Defense as well as the Japanese government had not productively engaged. Ridge Alkonis has not been designated as wrongfully detained by the US State Department.

    “Prison has always been a hard place. You know, he talks about how just anything that would bring you happiness is not allowed. He says it’s just soul crushing,” Brittany Alkonis told CNN.

    “Lieutenant Alkonis’ service records make clear that he is an extraordinary officer, and we believe he deserves better,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote to Biden and Harris. “We ask that you insist on a prompt prisoner transfer under the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, so that he, his wife, and their three young children can be reunited in California.”

    Brittany Alkonis and her children have been able to visit Ridge Alkonis every few weeks in prison, with the current setup allowing for five half-hour visits per month, she said. Her children – all under the age of ten years old – are the ones who are “paying the price” for this challenging situation, she said.

    “They’re hurting. They try to make sense of this. We talk about it all the time,” Brittany Alkonis said. “But my son asked me the other day, he said, ‘Mommy, you said the president is getting daddy home, then why isn’t he home yet.’”

    This story and headline have been updated with additional details.

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  • Jessica Watkins: Oath Keepers member and Army veteran sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for January 6 | CNN Politics

    Jessica Watkins: Oath Keepers member and Army veteran sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for January 6 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Jessica Watkins, an Army veteran and member of the far-right Oath Keepers, was sentenced Friday to 8.5 years in prison for participating in a plot to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election culminating in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    Judge Amit Mehta said Watkins’ efforts at the Capitol were “aggressive” and said she did not have immediate remorse, even though she has since apologized.

    “Your role that day was more aggressive, more assaultive, more purposeful than perhaps others’. And you led others to fulfill your purposes,” Mehta said. “And there was not in the immediate aftermath any sense of shame or contrition, just the opposite. Your comments were celebratory and lacked a real sense of the gravity of that day and your role in it.”

    At trial, prosecutors showed evidence that Watkins founded and led a small militia in Ohio and mobilized her group in coordination with the Oath Keepers to Washington, DC, on January 6. Watkins and her counterparts ultimately marched in tactical gear to the Capitol and encouraged other rioters to push past police outside the Senate chamber.

    “I was just another idiot running around the hallway,” Watkins told the court before the sentence was handed down Friday. “But idiots are responsible, and today you are going to hold this idiot responsible.”

    Two of Watkins’ codefendants, Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs, were sentenced Thursday to 18 and 12 years in prison, respectively, for seditious conspiracy.

    Unlike Rhodes and Meggs, Watkins was acquitted of the top charge of seditious conspiracy, but convicted of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding – which carries the same 20-year maximum prison sentence as seditious conspiracy – as well as other felony charges.

    “Nobody would suggest you are Stewart Rhodes, and I don’t think you are Kelly Meggs,” Mehta told Watkins on Friday. “But your role in those events is more than that of just a foot soldier. I think you can appreciate that.”

    Watkins, who is transgender, gave emotional testimony during the trial about struggling with her identity in the Army while the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was still in effect, and about being dragged into the underbelly of conspiracy theories around the 2020 presidential election.

    She tearfully reiterated to the judge on Friday that she was “very fearful and paranoid” at that time, and that while “for a long time I was in denial of my own culpability,” she now “can see my actions for what they were – they were wrong and I am sorry.”

    “I understand now that my presence in and around the Capitol that day probably inspired those individuals to a degree,” Watkins said. “They saw us there and that probably fired them up. Oath Keepers are here, and they were patting us on the back.”

    She continued: “How many people went in because of us? We’re responsible for that.”

    Prosecutor Alexandra Hughes disagreed, telling Mehta that Watkins was not remorseful.

    Hughes quoted a January phone call from jail, in which Watkins allegedly said of officers at the Capitol “boo hoo the poor little police officers, got a little PTSD, waaaa, I had to stand there and hold a door open for people waaaaaa.”

    “It is perhaps an unsurprising fact of human nature that those who are subjected to injustice occasionally bring injustice on others,” Hughes said. “We do not dispute what she has been through, but what she did on that day has deep and devastating – devastating – effects on individuals who showed up to work that day and never did anything to Jessica Watkins.”

    Before handing down the sentence, Mehta addressed Watkins’ traumatic history directly, saying that “I think you would not have a human … who heard your testimony and would not have been moved.”

    “Your story itself shows a great deal of courage and resilience,” Mehta said. “You have overcome a lot, and you are to be held out as someone who can actually be a role model for other people in that journey. And I say that at a time when people who are trans in our country are so often vilified and used for political purposes.”

    The judge added: “It makes it all the more hard for me to understand the lack of empathy for those who suffered that day.”

    Surveillance footage shows Kenneth Harrelson in the hallway of the Comfort Inn in Arlington, Virginia, on January 7, 2021.

    Kenneth Harrelson, an Oath Keeper from Florida who chanted “treason” inside the Capitol on January 6, was also sentenced Friday to four years in prison for his role in the sprawling conspiracy.

    Prosecutors alleged that Harrelson was appointed the “ground team leader” of the Oath Keepers on January 6, stockpiled weapons at a so-called quick reaction force just outside Washington, DC, and moved through the Capitol chanting “treason.”

    In an address to the judge before he was sentenced, Harrelson said that he has “no gripes against the government, then or now” and merely “got in the wrong car at the wrong time and went to the wrong place with the wrong people.”

    “I didn’t have a clue,” Harrelson said. “It’s not to say I didn’t have signs or warnings that I should have paid attention to, but it just didn’t register.”

    He continued, at times sobbing and supporting his body with a lectern inside the well of the court: “I don’t know why. I have destroyed my life and I am fully responsible.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Wagner chief rejects Russian Defense Ministry efforts to rein in his force | CNN

    Wagner chief rejects Russian Defense Ministry efforts to rein in his force | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The boss of the Russian private military company Wagner says he won’t sign contracts with Russia’s Defense Ministry, rejecting an attempt to bring his force in line.

    Yevgeny Prigozhin’s comments follow an announcement by the Russian Ministry of Defense Saturday that “volunteer units” and private military groups would be required to sign a contract with the ministry.

    The order – signed by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu – said the move would “give the voluntary formations the necessary legal status,” and create “unified approaches” to their work.

    The order did not name the Wagner group but the move is seen a way of controlling the influential military force.

    Prigozhin – who has publicly feuded with defense chiefs – said the move did not apply to Wagner.

    “The orders and decrees issued by (Defense Minister Sergei) Shoigu apply to employees of the Ministry of Defense and military personnel. PMC ‘Wagner’ will not sign any contracts with Shoigu,” Prigozhin said in a Telegram post.

    Wagner, he said, would “absolutely” pursue the “the interests of the Russian Federation and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.”

    Prigozhin and Wagner have played a prominent role in the Ukraine war. In May he said his troops had capture Bakhmut in a costly and largely symbolic gain for Russia.

    The Wagner chief has previously criticized Russia’s traditional military hierarchy, blaming Russian defense chiefs for “tens of thousands” of casualties and stating that divisions could end in a “revolution.”

    He also accused Russian military leaders “sit like fat cats” in “luxury offices,” while his fighters are “dying,” and later accused the Russian Defense Ministry of trying to sabotage his troops’ withdrawal from Bakhmut, claiming the ministry laid mines along the exit routes.

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  • Whistleblowers say IRS recommended far more charges, including felonies, against Hunter Biden | CNN Politics

    Whistleblowers say IRS recommended far more charges, including felonies, against Hunter Biden | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Two whistleblowers told Congress that IRS investigators recommended charging Hunter Biden with attempted tax evasion and other felonies, which are far more serious crimes than what the president’s son has agreed to plead guilty to, according to transcripts of their private interviews with lawmakers.

    The IRS whistleblowers said the recommendation called for Hunter Biden to be charged with tax evasion and filing a false tax return – both felonies – for 2014, 2018 and 2019. The IRS also recommended that prosecutors charge him with failing to pay taxes on time, a misdemeanor, for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to the transcripts, which were released Thursday by House Republicans.

    It appears that this 11-count charging recommendation also had the backing of some Justice Department prosecutors, but not from more senior attorneys, according to documents that the whistleblowers provided to House investigators.

    In a deal with prosecutors announced earlier this week, Hunter Biden is pleading guilty to just two tax misdemeanors.

    The allegations come from Gary Shapley, a 14-year IRS veteran, who oversaw parts of the Hunter Biden criminal probe, and an unnamed IRS agent who was on the case nearly from its inception. Shapley approached Congress this year with information that he claimed showed political interference in the investigation. He and the entire IRS team were later removed from the probe.

    “I am alleging, with evidence, that DOJ provided preferential treatment, slow-walked the investigation, did nothing to avoid obvious conflicts of interest in this investigation,” Shapley told lawmakers.

    David Weiss, the Trump-appointed US attorney in Delaware who oversaw the Hunter Biden criminal probe, eventually reached a plea deal where the president’s son will plead guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay taxes on time. The plea agreement will also resolve a separate felony gun charge, if Hunter Biden abides by certain court-imposed conditions for a period of time.

    Hunter Biden isn’t pleading guilty to any felonies, and he wasn’t charged with any tax felonies. CNN reported that prosecutors are expected to recommend no jail time. He is scheduled to appear in federal court in Delaware on July 26.

    It isn’t uncommon for there to be internal disagreements among investigators over which charges to file against the target of an investigation, much like the disagreements that the IRS whistleblowers described. CNN reported last year that some FBI and IRS investigators were at odds with other Justice Department officials over the strength of the case, and that there were discussions over which types of charges were appropriate and whether further investigation was needed.

    Sources familiar with the criminal probe told CNN in April that prosecutors were still actively weighing a felony tax charge against Hunter Biden. And it is common for prosecutors to strike deals with defendants where they plead guilty to a small subset of the possible charges they could’ve faced.

    The Justice Department probe into Hunter Biden was opened in November 2018, and was codenamed “Sportsman.” According to Shapley’s testimony, federal investigators knew as early as June 2021 that there were potential venue-related issues with charging Hunter Biden in Delaware. Under federal law, charges must be brought in the jurisdiction where the alleged crimes occurred.

    If the potential charges couldn’t be brought in Delaware, then Weiss would need help from his fellow US attorneys. He looked to Washington, DC, where some of Hunter Biden’s tax returns were prepared, and the Central District of California, which includes the Los Angeles area where Hunter Biden lives.

    But Shapley told the committee that the US attorneys in both districts wouldn’t seek an indictment.

    A second whistleblower, an IRS case agent who also testified to the committee but hasn’t been publicly identified, also told lawmakers that this is what happened. He agreed that Weiss was “was told no” when he tried to get the cooperation of the US attorneys in in DC and Los Angeles, who are Biden appointees.

    Hunter Biden’s eventual plea agreement was filed in Weiss’ jurisdiction, in Delaware.

    Shapley contends in his interview that Attorney General Merrick Garland was not truthful when he told Congress that Weiss had full authority on the investigation.

    Shapley recounted a meeting on October 7, 2022, where, according to Shapley’s notes memorializing the meeting, Weiss said, “He is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed” against Hunter Biden. This undermines what Weiss and Garland have publicly said about Weiss’ independence on the matter.

    Shapley also testified to committee investigators that it was during this October 2022 meeting that he learned for the first time that Weiss had requested to be named as a special counsel, but was denied.

    In testimony to Congress in March, Garland said Weiss was advised “he is not to be denied anything he needs.”

    Regarding the claims of political interference with the Hunter Biden criminal probe, Weiss told House Republicans in a recent letter that Garland granted him “ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges.”

    After the transcripts were released Thursday, spokespeople for the US attorney’s offices in DC and Los Angeles issued near-identical statements reiterating that Weiss “was given full authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction he deemed appropriate.” The Justice Department echoed those comments in a statement saying Weiss “needs no further approval” to bring charges wherever he wants.

    The whistleblowers also allege that at multiple key junctures, investigators were thwarted in their efforts because prosecutors were concerned about interfering in the 2020 presidential election.

    In 2020, IRS investigators sought to conduct search warrants and take other overt steps. But according to Shapley, several weeks before the election, in September 2020, a Justice Department prosecutor questioned the optics of searching Hunter Biden’s residence and Joe Biden’s guest home.

    Later that year, other planned searches were delayed because then-President Donald Trump was refusing to concede and was continuing to contest the results.

    Republicans have slammed the plea agreement Hunter Biden struck as a “sweetheart deal,” and said it amounted to “a slap on the wrist.”

    House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith said earlier Thursday that the transcripts reveal “credible whistleblower testimony alleging misconduct and abuse” at the Justice Department that “resulted in preferential treatment for the president’s son.”

    The Missouri Republican highlighted the whistleblowers’ allegations that the Justice Department “overstepped” in their efforts to intervene in the Hunter Biden criminal probe.

    “The testimony … details a lack of US attorney independence, recurring unjustified delays, unusual actions outside the normal course of any investigation, a lack of transparency across the investigation and prosecution teams, and bullying and threats from the defense counsel,” Smith said.

    Democrats on the committee said the transcripts were “a premature and incomplete record” of what happened with the Hunter Biden probe and accused the GOP of a “stunning abuse of power.”

    Hunter Biden’s lawyer pushed back in a statement Friday against the whistleblowers claims, saying it was “preposterous and deeply irresponsible” to suggest that federal investigators “cut my client any slack” during their “extensive” five-year probe.

    “A close examination of the document released publicly yesterday by a very biased individual raises serious questions over whether it is what he claims it to be,” attorney Chris Clark said. “It is dangerously misleading to make any conclusions or inferences based on this document.”

    Shapley, the IRS supervisor-turned-whistleblower, told House lawmakers that Justice Department prosecutors denied requests to look into messages allegedly from Hunter Biden where he used his father as leverage to pressure a Chinese company into paying him.

    “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” according to a document Shapley gave to Congress, which quotes from texts that are allegedly from Hunter Biden to the CEO of a Chinese fund management company.

    The message continues: “Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand. And now means tonight.” The message goes onto say, “I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

    The second, unnamed IRS whistleblower also testified to lawmakers about this alleged WhatsApp message, saying prosecutors questioned whether they could be sure Hunter Biden was telling the truth that his father was actually in the room in the messages. The unnamed whistleblower testified that they did not know whether the FBI investigated the message.

    Shapley told House investigators that a Justice Department attorney insisted that the FBI not ask directly about Joe Biden when doing interviews. But the FBI did manage to ask one key witness about Joe Biden, and Shapley said the witness told investigators that some suggestions of the president’s involvement were overstated.

    An email sent among business partners of Hunter Biden said an equity stake should be held “for the big guy,” an apparent reference to Joe Biden, who was vice president at the time. But one of the associates told the FBI that it was probably just “wishful thinking or maybe he was just projecting” that Joe Biden would get involved if he did not run for president in 2016.

    Joe Biden has repeatedly denied having any involvement in his son’s overseas business dealings, where he made millions of dollars from China, Ukraine and other countries. House Republicans have used their oversight probes to look for evidence that Joe Biden was actually involved.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • The Supreme Court just handed Joe Biden a series of setbacks. It may have also given Democrats new motivation to reelect him | CNN Politics

    The Supreme Court just handed Joe Biden a series of setbacks. It may have also given Democrats new motivation to reelect him | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden wasn’t planning to take questions on Thursday. His helicopter was waiting outside on the White House’s South Lawn.

    But after a 10-minute statement on the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling, a CNN reporter called out, “Is this a rogue court?” The president stopped in his tracks.

    Pausing to think a moment, he looked over his shoulder. “This is not a normal court,” he said before leaving.

    This week’s monumental rulings – striking down affirmative action in college admissions and unraveling Biden’s student debt relief plan among them – amount to serious setbacks for a president who promised as a candidate to advance racial equity and erase student debt.

    They are also an urgent reminder to Democrats of the enduring consequences of elections at a moment Biden’s advisers are searching for ways to inject enthusiasm into his bid for another term.

    What impact that will have on the coming election remains unknown. But Biden and his team have already begun assigning blame on Republicans for dismantling programs that have benefited young, college-educated and minority voters – all critical components of the Democratic coalition Biden will need to mobilize if he hopes to win reelection.

    That three justices within the court’s conservative majority were appointed by President Donald Trump – both Biden’s predecessor and, according to polls, his most likely opponent next year – creates even more of an impetus for Biden to use the rulings as a political cudgel as his campaign heats up.

    “The excesses of the Supreme Court are going to backfire,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat. “You know, the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe versus Wade reduced what was supposed to be a red wave in the 2022 election cycle to nothing more than a red trickle. So not only is the Supreme Court’s decision bad law, it’s also bad politics and it’s going to come back to haunt the Republican Party.”

    Speaking to a group of Democratic donors in New York City on Thursday evening, Biden sought to underscore the stakes of the court’s new supermajority, a preview of how he’ll frame the issue over the coming year.

    “The Supreme Court is becoming not just conservative, but almost – it’s like a throwback. It’s like a throwback, some of the decisions they’re making,” Biden told donors in a private dining room inside the Seagram Building. “Did you ever think we’d be in a position, after 50 years of acknowledging the right of privacy in the Constitution, suggesting that there’s no such thing as the right to privacy?”

    Despite his criticism of the court, Biden has rejected some liberal suggestions on reforming the panel. He opposes expanding the number of justices that sit on the court and hasn’t embraced term limits.

    “If we start the process of trying to expand the court, we’re going to politicize it, maybe forever, in a way that is not healthy,” Biden said during a friendly interview on MSNBC shortly after Thursday’s decision on affirmative action.

    Biden’s student loan plan, which came about last year after months of agonizing internal debate over its costs and eligibility criteria, was intended to free low- and middle-income Americans from crippling debt.

    Throughout the process, Biden expressed concern at being seen as offering a handout to the wealthy. Eventually, pressure to fulfill one of his top campaign promises led to the plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt for certain borrowers.

    For months the White House publicly said there was no alternative plan if the Supreme Court struck down the student debt relief program. But behind the scenes, top White House officials were working for several weeks to fulfill a simple directive from the president to “be ready in the event the Supreme Court did not do the right thing,” White House officials said.

    The president’s charge to his team was described as this: “If the court ruled against the program, find other ways to deliver relief for as many working and middle-class borrowers as possible, accounting for all the legal issues.”

    For the past few weeks, White House chief of staff Jeff Zients gathered his team for weekly meetings to map out all scenarios for the Supreme Court’s ruling and explore all legal avenues available to them after the president told his team to build a “fully developed response” to all possible rulings, officials said.

    Zient’s office – led by deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian, the Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council and White House Counsel’s Office – worked with the Department of Education and the Department of Justice to come up with options the administration could take if the ruling was not in their favor.

    “All of these meetings were structured around one question – how would we be able to deliver relief to as many borrowers as we could, as quickly as possible under any possible outcome of the Supreme Court,” official said.

    The White House also stayed in touch with and fielded suggestions for next steps from debt relief advocate groups and congressional allies throughout the process. Lawyers from the White House, Justice Department and Education Department examined all of the recommendations, including administration action and the legal authorities available to the administration, and ultimately crafted responses for multiple scenarios.

    Inside the White House, some officials had held out hope the court would uphold Biden’s student debt program, pointing to some surprising decisions over the past weeks that saw some conservative justices joining liberals on issues of voting rights and congressional redistricting.

    But even Biden acknowledged after the court’s oral arguments in February he wasn’t certain the ruling would go his way.

    “I’m confident we’re on the right side of the law,” Biden told CNN in March when asked if he was confident the administration would prevail in the case. “I’m not confident of the outcome of the decision yet.”

    His instinct was correct. The president was in the Oval Office on Friday morning when he was informed of the Supreme Court’s decision by his senior aides and then engaged in meetings stretching into the afternoon to fine-tune their response after the ruling was not in their favor.

    Ultimately, the president directed his team to move forward with a new plan, which includes pursuing a new path for debt relief through the authorities in the Higher Education Act of 1965, which was promoted by some debt relief advocate groups and progressive lawmakers, as well as creating a temporary 12-month “on-ramp repayment” program for federal student loan borrowers when payments resume in October.

    A day earlier, Biden was watching the news on television when the affirmative action decision was handed down by the court, according to an official. A team from the White House counsel’s office came to brief him on the ruling.

    “In our conversations with the White House about why student debt cancelation was needed, it’s about reducing the racial wealth gap,” said Wisdom Cole, national director of the Youth & College division at the NAACP. “If the administration is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, they must use every tool in their toolkit. Every legal authority to ensure that we see relief happen.”

    Demonstrating urgency in responding to the court’s actions was a key objective as the White House prepared for both rulings, according to people familiar with the matter.

    Looming over the preparations was the impression left after last year’s Supreme Court term that the Biden administration was unprepared for the decision striking down the nationwide right to abortion, despite a leaked court opinion months ahead of time indicating the justices were prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade.

    The White House has strongly denied it was caught flat-footed on abortion and has pointed to actions taken in the months after the decision to expand access, including to medication abortion.

    The issue proved galvanizing to Democratic voters in November’s midterm elections and has propelled Democratic victories even in traditionally Republican districts.

    Whether the court’s ruling on student debt relief and affirmative action can have a similar effect will prove critical over the coming year, as Biden works to convince voters he is still fighting to fulfill his promises. Initial reaction from progressive Democrats was positive.

    “It was not a foregone conclusion that the President would act so swiftly today. But he announced an alternative path to student debt cancellation by using his Higher Education Act authority given by Congress – and that deserves praise,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Institute.

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  • Why there won’t be a backlash against the Supreme Court this time | CNN Politics

    Why there won’t be a backlash against the Supreme Court this time | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Supreme Court handed down several key rulings this past week that dismayed liberals. Chief among them was the court’s decision to disallow colleges and universities from using race or ethnicity as a specific factor in admissions. The court also found that President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan was unconstitutional and that a Colorado web designer could refuse to create websites that celebrate same-sex weddings over religious objections.

    Unlike last year, when the Supreme Court greatly upset liberals by overturning Roe v. Wade, this year’s big rulings by the justices are unlikely to spark a major backlash from the public at large.

    This is well reflected in the public polling. Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide, had become massively popular.

    Right before the decision to overturn Roe leaked in May 2022, a Fox News poll found that 63% of registered voters were opposed to such a move while 27% supported it. An ABC News/Washington Post poll put the split at 54% wanting the court to uphold Roe and 28% wanting the decision overturned.

    This majority of Americans who wanted abortion to be legal nationally have maintained their stance since the Supreme Court officially struck down Roe in June 2022. Since that time, abortion supporters have won every related measure placed on the ballot across the country – from deep-blue states like California to ruby-red ones like Kentucky.

    California is an important state to note because voters there faced a 2020 ballot measure to consider the use of race, sex or ethnicity in government institutions (such as education). A clear majority, 57%, voted against allowing state and local entities to consider such factors in public education, employment and contracting decisions.

    When a state that voted for Biden by nearly 30 points is against affirmative action, it shouldn’t be surprising that the nation as a whole is.

    A Pew Research Center poll released last month found that 50% of Americans disapproved of certain colleges and universities taking race and ethnicity into account in admissions decisions to increase diversity. Only 33% approved of the practice.

    This Pew poll is no outlier. An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted after the court decided its case showed that 52% of Americans approved of the decision, while 32% were opposed.

    Some polling before the ruling had shown even more opposition: 70% of Americans in a recent CBS News/YouGov survey indicated that the Supreme Court should not allow colleges to consider race and ethnicity in admissions.

    But perhaps what’s most interesting isn’t how many people are for or against considering race in college admissions. Rather, it’s how many people simply didn’t care enough to pay close attention to the affirmative action case before the Supreme Court.

    When explicitly given the option, a majority (55%) said in a May Marquette University Law School poll that they hadn’t heard enough to form an opinion about the case. (Those who had heard enough were against allowing colleges to use race in admissions.)

    This is quite different from March 2022, when just 30% of Americans hadn’t heard enough to form an opinion about the court potentially overturning Roe v. Wade, when asked the same question by Marquette but about the abortion case. (A plurality of those who had heard enough didn’t want the court to overturn Roe.)

    It’s hard for an issue to galvanize voters when they aren’t paying attention to it.

    The same holds true for Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan that the court blocked. A USA Today/Ipsos poll from April indicated that 52% of Americans were familiar with the case and a mere 16% were very familiar with it. (Those who had student loans were more familiar at 71%, though that’s a fairly low percentage for something that could affect them directly.)

    Possibly because of that low familiarity, the percentage of Americans who favor or oppose canceling certain student debt differs greatly depending on how the question is worded. When Marquette didn’t mention Biden or the government specifically in its May poll, a majority (63%) said they favored forgiveness of up to $20,000. It was a much lower 47% in the Ipsos poll.

    Surveys that did identify the proposal as Biden’s plan tend to be in the same ballpark, with a split public and a sizable percentage unsure.

    The ABC News/Ipsos poll showed that 45% approved of the court striking down Biden’s student debt plan, with 40% disapproving. About a sixth (16%) of the public was undecided.

    This jibes with polling before the court’s decision was announced. An NBC News poll from last year showed that 43% said Biden’s plan was a good idea compared with 44%, who said it was a bad idea. Just over 10% had no opinion.

    The USA Today/Ipsos survey found that 43% of Americans wanted the Supreme Court to allow the government’s student loan forgiveness plan to move forward, while 40% did not. Another 17% had no opinion.

    (I should point out that those with student debt were more likely to want government forgiveness in all these surveys, though about 80% of Americans don’t have student loan debt.)

    The public was similarly split about the court ruling in favor of the Colorado web designer who refuses to make wedding websites for same-sex couples over religious objections. According to the ABC News/Ipsos poll, 43% of Americans agreed with the court’s decision, 42% disagreed and 14% were undecided.

    There was limited polling on this case before the ruling, though none of it indicated massive opposition. A majority (60%) in a Pew poll that specifically mentioned “wedding websites” and “same-sex marriages” indicated they believed business owners should be allowed to refuse services if it violated their religious or personal beliefs.

    The polling on Roe v. Wade didn’t look anything like this last year. There were no close splits in opinion. People were consistently against overturning Roe, and they cared a lot about it. This led to a historically strong performance for the party in the White House during the 2022 midterm elections and a major backlash against the Supreme Court.

    The current polling on affirmative action in college admissions, Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan and allowing people to opt out of certain services to married LGBTQ couples if they believe it goes against their religion suggests that court’s opinions on those issues aren’t likely to have a similar impact.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • US-Israeli citizen charged with arms trafficking, acting as Chinese agent | CNN Politics

    US-Israeli citizen charged with arms trafficking, acting as Chinese agent | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    US prosecutors unsealed an indictment Monday charging the co-director of a think tank with illicit arms trafficking, violating US sanctions laws, and other charges, five months after he was arrested in Cyprus and fled from authorities.

    The US-Israeli citizen, Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, is also someone House Oversight Chairman James Comer, a top Republican, has described as an informant claiming to have incriminating information on Hunter Biden.

    Luft has tweeted denials of the allegations, saying in February, “I’ve been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the US. The US, claiming I’m an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren’t tragic. I’ve never been an arms dealer. DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim&Hunter Biden.”

    An attorney for Luft did not immediately respond to a request for comment. CNN has reached out to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.

    Luft is a fugitive, prosecutors say.

    Luft was charged with failing to register as an agent for China in the US, including in 2016 acting through a former high-ranking US official who was then advising President-elect Donald Trump. He was also charged with acting as a middleman to aid Chinese companies buying weapons. The indictment also alleges Luft violated US sanctions by attempting to broker sales of Iranian oil.

    House Republicans are investigating the Biden family’s financial dealings and have requested information from the Justice Department about its investigation into Hunter Biden, who has agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors. At least one Republican, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, has claimed that Luft is an important witness in that investigation.

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  • Sarah Silverman sues OpenAI and Meta alleging copyright infringement | CNN Business

    Sarah Silverman sues OpenAI and Meta alleging copyright infringement | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors are suing Meta and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, alleging the companies’ AI language models were trained on copyrighted materials from their books without their knowledge or consent.

    The pair of lawsuits against OpenAI and Facebook-parent Meta were filed in a San Francisco federal court on Friday, and are both seeking class action status. Silverman, the author of “The Bedwetter,” is joined in filing the lawsuits by fellow authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey.

    A new crop of AI tools has gained tremendous attention in recent months for their ability to generate written work and images in response to user prompts. The large language models underpinning these tools are trained on vast troves of online data. But this practice has raised some concerns that these models may be sweeping up copyrighted works without permission – and that these works could ultimately be served to train tools that upend the livelihoods of creatives.

    The complaint against OpenAI claims that “when ChatGPT is prompted, ChatGPT generates summaries of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works—something only possible if ChatGPT was trained on Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.” The authors “did not consent to the use of their copyrighted books as training material for ChatGPT,” according to the complaint.

    The complaint against Meta similarly claims that the company used the authors’ copyrighted books to train LLaMA, the set of large language models released by Meta in February. The suit claims that much of the material used to train Meta’s language models “comes from copyrighted works—including books written by Plaintiffs—that were copied by Meta without consent, without credit, and without compensation.”

    The suit against Meta also alleges that the company accessed the copyrighted books via an online “shadow library” website that includes a large quantity of copyrighted material.

    Meta declined to comment on the lawsuit. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The legal action from Silverman isn’t the first to focus on how large language models are trained. A separate lawsuit filed against OpenAI last month alleged the company misappropriated vast swaths of peoples’ personal data from the internet to train its AI tools. (OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on the suit.)

    In May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to acknowledge more needed to be done to address concerns from creators about how AI systems use their works.

    “We’re trying to work on new models where if an AI system is using your content, or if it’s using your style, you get paid for that,” he said at an event.

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  • Pentagon watchdog finds some Western weaponry sent to Ukraine was stolen before being recovered last year | CNN Politics

    Pentagon watchdog finds some Western weaponry sent to Ukraine was stolen before being recovered last year | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Criminals, volunteer fighters and arms traffickers in Ukraine stole some Western-provided weapons and equipment intended for Ukrainian troops last year before it was recovered, according to a Defense Department inspector general report obtained by CNN.

    The plots to steal the weaponry and equipment were disrupted by Ukraine’s intelligence services and it was ultimately recovered, according to the report, titled “DoD’s Accountability of Equipment Provided to Ukraine.” CNN obtained the report via a Freedom of Information Act request. Military.com first reported the news.

    But the inspector general report noted that after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, the Defense Department’s ability to track and monitor all of the US equipment pouring into Ukraine, as required by law under the Arms Export Control Act, faced “challenges” because of the limited US presence in the country.

    According to the report, which examined the period of February-September 2022, the Office of Defense Cooperation-Kyiv “was unable to conduct required [end-use monitoring] of military equipment that the United States provided to Ukraine in FY 2022.”

    “The inability of DoD personnel to visit areas where equipment provided to Ukraine was being used or stored significantly hampered ODC-Kyiv’s ability to execute” the monitoring, the report added.

    The report is dated October 6, 2022. In late October, the US resumed on-site inspections of Ukrainian weapons depots as a way to better track where the equipment was going. The department has also provided the Ukrainians with tracking systems, including scanners and software, the Pentagon’s former under secretary of defense for policy, Colin Kahl, told lawmakers in February.

    But the report underscores how difficult it was in the early days of the war for the US to track the billions of dollars worth of weapons and equipment it was sending to Ukraine.

    Republicans have criticized the Biden administration over what they view as a lack of accountability over the billions of dollars of aid going to Ukraine. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said earlier this year that he supports Ukraine but doesn’t “support a blank check.” The same sentiment has been shared by Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    CNN reported in April 2022 that the Biden administration was willing to take the risk of losing track of weapons supplied to Ukraine despite a lack of visibility, as they saw it as critical to Ukraine’s defeat of Russian forces.

    “We have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, we have almost zero,” a source briefed on US intelligence told CNN at the time. “It drops into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time.”

    US European Command tried to alleviate the issue last year by requesting and maintaining hand receipts from the Ukrainians, which the Ukrainians made a “good faith effort” to provide, the report says, citing EUCOM personnel. The personnel did not provide the IG with corroborating paperwork by the time the investigation concluded, however, the report notes.

    The Office of Defense Cooperation-Kyiv also asked the Ukrainian government for expenditure, loss, and damage reports for US-provided equipment, the report says, and they “made efforts to prevent illicit proliferation of defense material provided by the United States.”

    Still, criminal organizations managed to steal some weaponry and equipment provided by the US and its allies, the report says.

    In late June 2022, an organized crime group overseen by an unnamed Russian official joined a volunteer battalion using forged documents and stole weapons, including a grenade launcher and machine gun, and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, the report says. Ukraine’s intelligence service disrupted the plot, according to the report.

    That same month, Ukraine’s intelligence services also disrupted a plot by arms traffickers working to sell weapons and ammunition they stole from the frontlines in southern Ukraine, as well as a separate plot by Ukrainian criminals posing as aid workers who stole $17,000 worth of bulletproof vests, the report says.

    And in August 2022, Ukraine’s intelligence services discovered a group of volunteer battalion members who stole 60 rifles and almost 1,000 rounds of ammunition and stored them in a warehouse, “presumably for sale on the black market.”

    The report does not specify whether the weapons and equipment were American, but the anecdotes are outlined in a highly redacted section that deals with Ukrainian tracking of US-provided weaponry.

    The Pentagon inspector general wrote that some larger items like missiles and helicopters were easier to track through intelligence mechanisms. Smaller items, like night-vision devices, however, were harder to monitor.

    The report ultimately does not make any recommendations, noting that the Defense Department “has made some efforts to mitigate the inability to conduct in-person” monitoring.

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