Tag: Courts

Idaho slayings suspect agrees to extradition to face charges

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STROUDSBURG, Pa. — A criminology graduate student accused of the November slayings of four University of Idaho students agreed Tuesday to be extradited from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week, to face charges in Idaho.

Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old doctoral student at Washington State University — a short drive from the murder scene across the state border — will be transported to Idaho within 10 days.

Students at the University of Idaho and nearby residents lived in fear for weeks as authorities seemed stumped by the mysterious and brutal stabbings on Nov. 13. Idaho police appeared to make a breakthrough, however, after searching for a white sedan seen around the time of the killings and analyzing DNA evidence at the crime scene.

Investigators have said they are still looking for a murder weapon and a motive for the killings. More details about the case are expected to be released after Kohberger arrives in Idaho and an affidavit is unsealed.

But attorneys, law enforcement officers and others involved in the case won’t be able to discuss the affidavit or other court documents after an Idaho magistrate judge on Tuesday evening issued a so-called “gag order” barring officials from talking publicly about many aspects of the case outside of court.

Judges sometimes issue the orders when they fear that pre-trial publicity could prevent a defendant from getting a fair trial.

Wearing a red jumpsuit with his hands shackled in front of him, Kohberger showed little emotion during Tuesday’s brief hearing in a Pennsylvania courtroom in which he acknowledged facing four counts of first-degree murder and a burglary charge.

Kohberger, who was arrested by state police at his parents’ home in eastern Pennsylvania last Friday, will be held at a jail in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, until his extradition.

Kohberger’s parents and sisters sat in the front row of the courtroom gallery, behind the defense table. His mother and his sister Melissa broke down as he walked into the courtroom, sobbing quietly and holding one another. A sheriff’s deputy brought them a box of tissues. Kohberger glanced at his family briefly as he was led out of the courtroom.

Latah County prosecutors in Idaho have said they believe Kohberger broke into the victims’ home near the university campus intending to commit murder.

The students were: Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; and Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington. They were close friends and members of the university’s Greek system.

Mogen, Goncalves and Kernodle lived in the three-story rental home with two other roommates. Kernodle and Chapin were dating, and he had been visiting the house that night.

The killings have left the rural town of Moscow, Idaho deeply shaken, and police have released few details about the investigation. For weeks the Moscow Police Department faced heavy criticism for telling frightened residents that there was no great risk to the community, even though a suspect had not been named.

University officials hired extra security to escort students across campus, but nearly half of the 11,500-student body temporarily left campus for the perceived safety of online classes.

Would-be sleuths attempted to fill the void with their own theories online –- some of them targeting friends and acquaintances of the slain students with hurtful and inaccurate allegations.

The chief public defender in Monroe County said his client is eager to be exonerated. Kohberger should be presumed innocent and “not tried in the court of public opinion,” said the public defender, Jason LaBar.

After Tuesday’s hearing, LaBar described Kohberger as “an ordinary guy,” and said that after his extradition he would be represented by the chief public defender in Kootenai County, Idaho.

Capt. Anthony Dahlinger, of the Moscow Police Department in Idaho, told The Associated Press on Saturday that authorities believe Kohberger was responsible for all four slayings at a rental home near campus.

“We believe we’ve got our man,” said Dahlinger, adding that investigators obtained samples of Kohberger’s DNA directly from him after he was arrested.

Pennsylvania State Police Maj. Christopher Paris said Tuesday that Kohberger’s warrant merited an after-dark arrest, which requires a higher standard of probable cause.

“We wanted to go in at a time when we thought it would be the safest for everybody. Safest for anybody else in the house, safest for Mr. Kohberger and safest for our people,” he said.

A tactical response team reviewed floor plans of the home, and broke multiple doors and windows when they entered, Paris said.

In her gag order — formally called a “non-dissemination order” — Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall prohibited people involved in the case from talking about anything “reasonably likely to interfere with a fair trial of this case.” That includes details about any evidence, the existence of any confessions or other statements given by the defendant, or the merits of the case, Marshall wrote in the order.

The gag order will last until a verdict is given or it modified by the court. The paper documents filed in the criminal case are still expected to be open to the public once Kohberger arrives in Idaho, however.

DNA evidence played a key role in identifying Kohberger as a suspect, and officials were able to match his DNA to genetic material recovered during the investigation, a law enforcement official said last week. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation.

In addition to the DNA evidence, authorities also learned Kohberger had a white Hyundai Elantra, the official who spoke anonymously said.

Moscow police had already identified a white Hyundai Elantra seen near the scene of the crime, and asked the public for help finding the white sedan. Tips poured in, and Idaho investigators soon were trying to narrow down a list of roughly 20,000 possible vehicles to find the right one.

The Indiana State Police announced Tuesday that on Dec. 15, a trooper stopped a white Hyundai Elantra on Interstate 70 for following too closely. A body camera worn by the trooper appeared to show Bryan Kohberger in the driver’s seat, the police said. At the time, there was no information available to the trooper that would have identified Kohberger as a suspect in the Idaho killings, the agency said, and he was released with a verbal warning.

Kohberger had also been stopped a few minutes earlier by a deputy from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department for following too closely, and given a verbal warning, the sheriff’s department said.

Federal and state investigators are combing through Kohberger’s background, financial records and electronic communications as they work to build the case against him, the official who spoke anonymously said. The investigators are also interviewing people who knew Kohberger, including those at Washington State University, the official said.

Kohberger’s relatives in Pennsylvania have expressed sympathy for the families of the victims but vowed to support him and promote “his presumption of innocence.”

Investigators have asked for information about Kohberger from anyone who knows him, and Dahlinger said investigators got 400 calls to a tip line within the first hour of that request. He said they were “trying to build this picture now of him: Who he is, his history, how we got to this event, why this event occurred.”

———

Boone contributed to this report from Boise, Idaho.

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January 4, 2023
‘Varsity Blues’ mastermind faces sentencing for college scam

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BOSTON — The mastermind of the nationwide college admissions bribery scandal is set to be sentenced on Wednesday after helping authorities secure the convictions of a slew of wealthy parents involved in his scheme to rig the selection process at top-tier schools.

Federal prosecutors are asking for six years behind bars for Rick Singer, who for more than a decade helped deep-pocketed parents get their often undeserving kids get into some of the nation’s most selective schools with bogus test scores and athletic credentials.

The scandal embarrassed elite universities across the country, put a spotlight on the secretive admissions system already seen as rigged in favor of the rich and laid bare the measures some parents will take to get their kids into the school of their choice.

Singer, 62, began secretly cooperating with investigators and worked with the FBI to record hundreds of phone calls and meetings before the arrest of dozens of parents and athletic coaches in March 2019. More than 50 people — including popular TV actresses and prominent businessmen — were ultimately convicted in the case authorities dubbed Operation Varsity Blues.

In the nearly four years since the scandal exploded into newspaper headlines, Singer remained out of jail and kept largely silent publicly. He was never called as a witness by prosecutors in the cases that went to trial, but will get a chance to address the court before the judge hands down his sentence in Boston federal court.

In a letter to the judge, Singer blamed his actions on his “winning at all costs” attitude, which he said was caused in part by suppressed childhood trauma. His lawyer is requesting three years of probation, or if the judge deems prison time necessary, six months behind bars.

“By ignoring what was morally, ethically, and legally right in favor of winning what I perceived was the college admissions ‘game,’ I have lost everything,” Singer wrote.

Singer pleaded guilty in 2019 — on the same day the massive case became public — to charges including racketeering conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. Dozens of others ultimately pleaded guilty to charges, while two parents were convicted at trial.

Authorities blew the lid off the scandal after an executive under investigation for an unrelated securities fraud scheme told investigators that a Yale soccer coach had offered to help his daughter get into the school in exchange for cash. The Yale coach led authorities to Singer, whose cooperation unraveled the sprawling scheme.

For years, Singer paid off entrance exam administrators or proctors to inflate students’ test scores and bribed athletic coaches to designate applicants as recruits for sports they sometimes didn’t even play, seeking to boost their chances of getting into the school. Singer took in more than $25 million from his clients, paid bribes totaling more than $7 million, and used more than $15 million of his clients’ money for his own benefit, according to prosecutors.

“He was the architect and mastermind of a criminal enterprise that massively corrupted the integrity of the college admissions process – which already favors those with wealth and privilege – to a degree never before seen in this country,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.

If the judge agrees with prosecutors, it would be by far the longest sentence handed down in the case. So far, the toughest punishment has gone to former Georgetown University tennis coach Gordon Ernst, who got 2 1/2 years in prison for pocketing more than $3 million in bribes.

Others ensnared in the scandal included “Full House” actor Lori Loughlin, her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli, and “Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman. The federal appeals court in Boston is considering a challenge to the convictions of two other parents who were found guilty at trial.

One parent, who wasn’t accused of working with Singer, was acquitted on all counts stemming from accusations that he bribed Ernst to get his daughter into the school. And a judge ordered a new trial for former University of Southern California water polo Jovan Vavic, who was convicted of accepting bribes.

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January 3, 2023
Colorado funeral home owner sentenced in body sales case

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GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — A Colorado funeral home operator accused of illegally selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday by a federal court judge.

Megan Hess received the maximum sentence after pleading guilty to mail fraud in November under a plea agreement in which other charges against her were dropped, The Daily Sentinel reported.

U.S. authorities said that on dozens of occasions, Hess and her mother, Shirley Koch, who also pleaded guilty to mail fraud, transferred bodies or body parts to third parties for research without families’ knowledge.

U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello in Grand Junction also sentenced Koch on Tuesday to 15 years in prison. Arguello sentenced the pair after victims testified about the pain they’d suffered under the scheme.

Hess, 48, and Koch, 69, operated the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in the western city of Montrose. They were arrested in 2020 and charged with six counts of mail fraud and three counts of illegal transportation of hazardous materials.

A grand jury indictment said that from 2010 through 2018, Hess and Koch offered to cremate bodies and provide the remains to families at a cost of $1,000 or more, but many of the cremations never occurred.

Hess created a nonprofit organization in 2009 called Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation as a body-broker service doing business as Donor Services, authorities said.

On dozens of occasions, Hess and Koch transferred bodies or body parts to third parties for research without families’ knowledge, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The transfers were done through Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation and Donor Services and families were given ashes that were not those of their loved ones, authorities said.

Hess and Koch also shipped bodies and body parts that tested positive for, or belonged to people who died from, infectious diseases including HIV and Hepatitis B and C, despite certifying to buyers that the remains were disease-free, authorities said.

Hess’ attorney, Ashley Petrey, told the court Tuesday Hess was motivated by a desire to advance medical research.

Assistant Unites States Attorney Tim Neff scoffed at the argument.

“Eight years of repeated conduct of this nature is all the court needs to know about her history and character,” Neff said.

Koch said during the sentencing hearing, “I acknowledge my guilt and take responsibility for my actions. I’m very sorry for harm I caused you and your families.”

Hess declined to address the court.

A victim restitution hearing was scheduled for March.

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January 3, 2023
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty to fraud

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NEW YORK — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court Tuesday to charges that he cheated investors and looted customer deposits on his cryptocurrency trading platform as a judge set a tentative trial date for October.

Bankman-Fried, 30, denied charges accusing him of illegally diverting massive sums of customer money from FTX to make lavish real estate purchases, donate money to politicians and make risky trades at Alameda Research, his cryptocurrency hedge fund trading firm.

Bankman-Fried’s attorney, Mark Cohen, announced his client’s plea, saying: “He pleads not guilty to all counts.”

Afterward, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan set a tentative trial date of Oct. 2, saying he might move it forward or backward a day or two. A prosecutor estimated it would take the government a month to present its case to a jury, while a defense lawyer projected putting on a case lasting two to three weeks.

Wearing a backpack, Bankman-Fried marched through a crush of cameras as he entered the courthouse on a rainy day to make his first appearance before Kaplan. In the courtroom, Bankman-Fried appeared relaxed through most of the half-hour-long proceeding, occasionally speaking to a lawyer next to him. When he left court, he did not speak to reporters outside.

After Bankman Fried pleaded not guilty, the judge discussed with lawyers a schedule for proceeding toward trial, setting April dates for defense lawyers to submit arguments challenging the validity of the charges and for prosecutors to respond to them. Oral arguments were set for May 18.

The judge also added to Bankman-Fried’s bail conditions by banning him from accessing or transferring cryptocurrency or assets of FTX or Alameda Research or any assets purchased with funds from the companies.

He did so after Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon said Bankman-Fried had worked with foreign regulators to transfer FTX assets to them after FTX declared bankruptcy and he knew U.S. bankruptcy authorities were also interested in those assets.

Sassoon said Bankman-Fried expressed to a co-conspirator that he knew there was competition between U.S. bankruptcy authorities and foreign regulators and he wanted to get the assets to the foreign regulators in part because he thought they’d be more lenient with him and he might be able to regain control of his business.

Cohen, though, insisted that Bankman-Fried had not personally transferred any assets and that anything that was moved came at the insistence of a court in the Bahamas that ordered it to occur.

Sassoon, noting FTX was the second largest cryptocurrency exchange, also told the judge that the government hoped to create a website for victims of the fraud, rather than notify them individually since they might number over one million.

Prior to Bankman-Fried’s appearance, his lawyers sent a letter to the judge, saying Bankman-Fried’s parents — both Stanford Law School professors, in recent weeks have become the target of “intense media scrutiny, harassment, and threats. They said the parents had received “a steady stream of threatening correspondence, including communications expressing a desire that they suffer physical harm.”

As a result, the lawyers asked that the names be redacted on court documents for two individuals who were lined up to sign Bankman-Fried’s $250 million personal recognizance bond. Bankman-Fried was released with electronic monitoring about two weeks ago on the condition that he await trial at his parents’ house in Palo Alto, California.

The judge allowed the names to remain secret for now, but he said he may reconsider his decision if members of the media or others object.

Carolyn Ellison, 28, who ran Alameda, and Gary Wang, 29, who co-founded FTX, have pleaded guilty to fraud charges and are cooperating with prosecutors in a bid for leniency. Both are free on bail.

Their pleas were kept secret until Bankman-Fried was in the air after his extradition from the Bahamas, where FTX is based, due to fears that he might flee.

Shortly before Bankman-Fried’s arraignment, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams announced that he was launching a task force made up of senior prosecutors in his office to investigate and prosecute matters related to the FTX collapse. He said the task force also will work to trace and recover victim assets.

“The Southern District of New York is working around the clock to respond to the implosion of FTX,” Williams said in a press release. “It is an all-hands-on-deck moment. We are launching the SDNY FTX Task Force to ensure that this urgent work continues, powered by all of SDNY’s resources and expertise, until justice is done.”

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January 3, 2023
‘Romeo & Juliet’ stars sue over 1968 film’s teen nude scene

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LOS ANGELES — The two stars of 1968’s “Romeo and Juliet” sued Paramount Pictures for more than $500 million on Tuesday over a nude scene in the film shot when they were teens.

Olivia Hussey, then 15 and now 71, and Leonard Whiting, then 16 now 72, filed the suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging sexual abuse, sexual harassment and fraud.

Director Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, initially told the two that they would wear flesh-colored undergarments in the bedroom scene that comes late in the movie and was shot on the final days of filming, the suit alleges.

But on the morning of the shoot, Zeffirelli told Whiting, who played Romeo, and Hussey, who played Juliet, that they would wear only body makeup, while still assuring them the camera would be positioned in a way that would not show nudity, according to the suit.

Yet they were filmed in the nude without their knowledge, in violation of California and federal laws against indecency and the exploitation of children, the suit says.

Zeffirelli told them they must act in the nude “or the Picture would fail” and their careers would be hurt, the suit said. The actors “believed they had no choice but to act in the nude in body makeup as demanded.”

Whiting’s bare buttocks and Hussey’s bare breasts are briefly shown during the scene.

The film, and its theme song, were major hits at the time, and has been shown to generations of high school students studying the Shakespeare play since.

The court filing says the Hussey and Whiting have suffered emotional damage and mental anguish for decades, and that each had careers that did not reflect the success of the movie.

It says given that suffering and the revenue brought in by the film since its release, the actors are entitled to damages of more than $500 million.

An email seeking comment from representatives of Paramount was not immediately returned.

The lawsuit was filed under a California law temporarily suspending the statute of limitations for child sex abuse, which has led to a host of new lawsuits and the revival of many others that were previously dismissed.

Hussey defended the scene in a 2018 interview with Variety, which first reported the lawsuit, for the film’s 50th anniversary.

“Nobody my age had done that before,” she said, adding that Zeffirelli shot it tastefully. “It was needed for the film.”

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Hussey and Whiting have.

———

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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January 3, 2023
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces arraignment in New York

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NEW YORK — FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will be arraigned in a Manhattan federal court Tuesday on charges that he cheated investors and looted customer deposits on his cryptocurrency trading platform.

Bankman-Fried, 30, was accused of illegally diverting massive sums of customer money from FTX to make lavish real estate purchases, donate money to politicians and make risky trades at Alameda Research, his cryptocurrency hedge fund trading firm.

He is expected to plead not guilty before Judge Lewis A. Kaplan before the judge and lawyers discuss a schedule for proceeding toward a trial.

Carolyn Ellison, 28, who ran Alameda, and Gary Wang, 29, who co-founded FTX, have pleaded guilty to fraud charges and are cooperating with prosecutors in a bid for leniency. Both are free on bail.

Their pleas were kept secret until Bankman-Fried was in the air after his extradition from the Bahamas, where FTX is based, due to fears that he might flee.

Bankman-Fried, 30, was released from custody on a $250 million personal recognizance bond with electronic monitoring about two weeks ago on the condition that he await trial at his parents’ house in Palo Alto, California.

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January 3, 2023
German doctor jailed for illegally issuing mask exemptions

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FILE – A man wearing a face mask to protect against coronavirus travels on a metro in Berlin, Germany, March 22, 2022. A German doctor has been sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for illegally issuing more than 4,000 people with exemptions from wearing masks during the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)

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January 3, 2023
Mexico’s Supreme Court elects 1st female chief justice

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MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Supreme Court elected the first female chief justice in its history Monday.

Justice Norma Lucía Piña was sworn in for her four-year term at the head of the 11-member court, pledging to maintain the independence of the country’s highest court.

“Judicial independence is indispensable in resolving conflicts between the branches of government,” Piña said Monday in laying out her plans. “My main proposal is to work to build majorities, leaving aside my personal vision.”

As chief justice, Piña will also head the entire judicial branch. She is not considered an ally of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and opposition parties welcomed her election.

The 6-5 vote by her fellow ministers Monday came despite pressure by López Obrador on the ministers.

López Obrador had backed another female justice, Yasmín Esquivel, for the top post. But indications emerged recently that Justice Esquivel may have plagiarized an academic paper to get her bachelor’s degree in the late 1980s.

The public university where she got that degree is still studying the case; her thesis, presented in 1987, was identical to one presented a year earlier. Esquivel claimed the earlier thesis copied her later work.

The president has pushed a number of controversial laws through Congress, only to see them blocked by the courts, and getting an ally elected as chief justice was seen as key for López Obrador.

On Monday, he claimed “the judicial branch has been kidnapped … has been eclipsed by money, by economic power.”

However, Sen. Olga Cordero, López Obrador’s former Interior Secretary, welcomed Piña’s election.

“Now is the time of human rights, the time for women,” Cordero wrote in her social media accounts.

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January 2, 2023
State seeks long prison term for accused NYC subway gunman

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NEW YORK — Prosecutors plan to seek a decades-long prison sentence for a man who is expected to plead guilty this week to opening fire in a subway car and wounding 10 riders in an attack that shocked New York City.

Frank James, 63, is scheduled to enter a guilty plea on Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court, admitting that he was responsible for the April 12 attack. It set off a massive 30-hour manhunt that ended when he called the police on himself.

Prosecutors told Judge William F. Kuntz II in a letter late last week that they plan to ask him to go beyond the roughly 32-year to 39-year sentence that federal sentencing guidelines would recommend. James planned the attack for years and endangered the lives of dozens of people, prosecutors said in the letter.

Defense attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday, when courts were closed to observe the New Year’s holiday.

James had been scheduled to stand trial in late February.

His lawyers informed the judge on Dec. 21 that James wanted to plead guilty. Prosecutors say he plans to plead guilty to 11 charges without a plea agreement.

Ten of those charges — each one corresponding to a specific victim — accuse him of committing a terrorist attack against a mass transportation system carrying passengers and employees.

The 11th charge accuses James of discharging a firearm during a violent crime.

Kuntz issued an order last week instructing the U.S. Marshals Service to use “all necessary force” to ensure that James shows up at Tuesday’s plea proceeding, noting that James has refused to appear at past hearings. James, who is being held in a federal jail, balked at being taken to a court date in October but then appeared later that day, after Kuntz issued a similar order for him to be forced to court if necessary.

In the subway attack, the shooter set off a pair of smoke grenades and then fired a barrage of random shots inside the train, bloodying passengers as it moved between stations.

Before the shooting, James, who is Black, posted dozens of videos online in which he ranted about race, violence and his struggles with mental illness. In some, he decried the treatment of Black people and talked about how he was so frustrated, “I should have gotten a gun and just started shooting.”

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January 2, 2023
US may execute its first openly transgender woman

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ST. LOUIS — Unless Missouri Gov. Mike Parson grants clemency, Amber McLaughlin, 49, will become the first openly transgender woman executed in the U.S. She is scheduled to die by injection Tuesday for killing a former girlfriend in 2003.

McLaughlin’s attorney, Larry Komp, said there are no court appeals pending.

The clemency request focuses on several issues, including McLaughlin’s traumatic childhood and mental health issues, which the jury never heard in her trial. A foster parent rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler and her adoptive father used a stun gun on her, according to the clemency petition. It says she suffers from depression and attempted suicide multiple times.

There is no known case of an openly transgender inmate being executed in the U.S. before, according to the anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center. A friend in prison says she saw McLaughlin’s personality blossom during her gender transition.

Before transitioning, McLaughlin was in a relationship with girlfriend Beverly Guenther. McLaughlin would show up at the suburban St. Louis office where the 45-year-old Guenther worked, sometimes hiding inside the building, according to court records. Guenther obtained a restraining order, and police officers occasionally escorted her to her car after work.

Guenther’s neighbors called police the night of Nov. 20, 2003, when she failed to return home. Officers went to the office building, where they found a broken knife handle near her car and a trail of blood. A day later, McLaughlin led police to a location near the Mississippi River in St. Louis, where the body had been dumped.

McLaughlin was convicted of first-degree murder in 2006. A judge sentenced McLaughlin to death after a jury deadlocked on the sentence. A court in 2016 ordered a new sentencing hearing, but a federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty in 2021.

One person who knew Amber before she transitioned is Jessica Hicklin, 43, who spent 26 years in prison for a drug-related killing in western Missouri in 1995. She was 16. Because of her age when the crime occurred, she was granted release in January 2022.

Hicklin, 43, began transitioning while in prison and in 2016 sued the Missouri Department of Corrections, challenging a policy that prohibited hormone therapy for inmates who weren’t receiving it before being incarcerated. She won the lawsuit in 2018 and became a mentor to other transgender inmates, including McLaughlin.

Though imprisoned together for around a decade, Hicklin said McLaughlin was so shy they rarely interacted. But as McLaughlin began transitioning about three years ago, she turned to Hicklin for guidance on issues such as mental health counseling and getting help to ensure her safety inside a male-dominated maximum-security prison.

“There’s always paperwork and bureaucracy, so I spent time helping her learn to file the right things and talk to the right people,” Hicklin said.

In the process, a friendship developed.

“We would sit down once a week and have what I referred to as girl talk,” Hicklin said. “She always had a smile and a dad joke. If you ever talked to her, it was always with the dad jokes.”

They also discussed the challenges a transgender inmate faces in a male prison — things like how to obtain feminine items, dealing with rude comments, and staying safe.

McLaughlin still had insecurities, especially about her well-being, Hicklin said.

“Definitely a vulnerable person,” Hicklin said. “Definitely afraid of being assaulted or victimized, which is more common for trans folks in Department of Corrections.”

The only woman ever executed in Missouri was Bonnie B. Heady, put to death on Dec. 18, 1953, for kidnapping and killing a 6-year-old boy. Heady was executed in the gas chamber, side by side with the other kidnapper and killer, Carl Austin Hall.

Nationally, 18 people were executed in 2022, including two in Missouri. Kevin Johnson, 37, was put to death Nov. 29 for the ambush killing of a Kirkwood, Missouri, police officer. Carmen Deck was executed in May for killing James and Zelma Long during a robbery at their home in De Soto, Missouri.

Another Missouri inmate, Leonard Taylor, is scheduled to die Feb. 7 for killing his girlfriend and her three young children.

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January 2, 2023
Illinois high court halts elimination of cash bail

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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Illinois Supreme Court has halted provisions of a new law that would eliminate cash bail for criminal defendants, issuing a stay hours before the new policies were set to take effect Sunday.

The high court said in Saturday’s order that the stay was needed to “maintain consistent pretrial procedures throughout Illinois” as the court prepares to hear arguments on the matter.

The order said the court would coordinate an “expedited process” for an appeal the Illinois Attorney General’s Office filed Friday with the court of a local judge’s ruling, which found that eliminating cash bail for criminal defendants is unconstitutional.

Democrats who control the Illinois General Assembly had pushed for eliminating the posting of a cash bond — a practice long used to ensure that people accused of crimes appear at trial. Opponents of requiring bail contend that it results in the poor and innocent sitting in jail awaiting their day in court while the wealthy and guilty go free.

Republicans, meanwhile, said they fear that eliminating cash bail risks potentially releasing dangerous criminals.

In November, Democrats sought to appease that criticism by adding numerous offenses to a list of crimes that qualify a defendant to remain jailed while awaiting trial.

Kankakee County Circuit Judge Thomas Cunnington ruled Wednesday that the General Assembly had violated the constitution’s separation of powers clause by eliminating cash bail in the so-called SAFE-T Act criminal justice overhaul. He said the issue of bail should be left to the judiciary.

Prosecutors and sheriffs from 64 Illinois counties had filed a lawsuit challenging the bail provision, called the Pretrial Fairness Act, although Cunnington’s ruling did not include the injunction they had sought.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said Saturday he appreciated the high court’s haste to address the issue. But Raoul, a Democrat, said in a statement it was “important to note that the order issued today by the court is not a decision on the merits of the constitutionality of the SAFE-T Act.”

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he was confident the act would be found to be constitutional by the justices. He said in a statement the law’s changes reflect “long overdue reforms that will make Illinois families safer and prevent violent offenders from being able to buy their freedom just because they are wealthy enough.”

Before the state Supreme Court issued its stay, Illinois counties were positioned to handle defendants’ first court appearances quite differently beginning Sunday. Cook County officials were vowing to proceed with the reforms while many counties named in the lawsuit said they would not implement them.

The SAFE-T Act was borne of the May 2020 police-involved murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Buoyed by a state Supreme Court commission that recommended reform, lawmakers eliminated bail to ease the burden on defendants, who are innocent until proven guilty, who can’t afford the price of pretrial freedom.

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January 1, 2023
Lula set for inauguration to preside over polarized Brazil

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BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil’s President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be sworn in Sunday in the capital, Brasilia, and assume office for the third time, marking the culmination of a political comeback sure to thrill supporters and enrage opponents in a fiercely polarized nation.

But Lula’s presidency is unlikely to be like his previous two mandates, coming after the tightest presidential race in more than three decades in Brazil and resistance to his taking office by some of his opponents, political analysts say.

The leftist defeated far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in the Oct. 30 vote by less than 2 percentage points. For months, Bolsonaro had sown doubts about the reliability of Brazil’s electronic vote and his loyal supporters were loath to accept the loss.

Many have gathered outside military barracks since, questioning results and pleading with the armed forces to prevent Lula from taking office.

His most die-hard backers resorted to what some authorities and incoming members of Lula’s administration labeled acts of “terrorism” – something the country had not seen since the early 1980s, and which have prompted growing security concerns about inauguration day events.

“In 2003, the ceremony was very beautiful. There wasn’t this bad, heavy climate,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo, referring to the year Lula first took office. “Today, it’s a climate of terror.”

Tanya Albuquerque, a student, flew from Sao Paulo to Brasilia and had tears in her eyes as she heard local leftists celebrating incoming visitors at Brasilia’s airport. She decided to attend after seeing pictures of Lula’s first inauguration.

“Maybe we won’t have 300,000 people tomorrow like then; these are different and more divisive times. But I knew I wouldn’t be happy in front of a TV,” Albuquerque, 23, said on Saturday.

Lula has made it his mission to heal the divided nation. But he will have to do so while navigating more challenging economic conditions than he enjoyed in his first two terms, when the global commodities boom proved a windfall for Brazil.

At the time, his administration’s flagship welfare program helped lift tens of millions of impoverished people into the middle class. Many Brazilians traveled abroad for the first time. He left office with a personal approval rating of 83%.

In the intervening years, Brazil’s economy plunged into two deep recessions — first, during the tenure of his handpicked successor, and then during the pandemic — and ordinary Brazilians suffered greatly.

Lula has said his priorities are fighting poverty, and investing in education and health. He has also said he will bring illegal deforestation of the Amazon to a halt. He sought support from political moderates to form a broad front and defeat Bolsonaro, then tapped some of them to serve in his Cabinet.

Given the nation’s political fault lines, however, it is highly unlikely Lula ever reattains the popularity he once enjoyed, or even sees his approval rating rise above 50%, said Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at Rio de Janeiro’s State University.

Furthermore, Santoro said, the credibility of Lula and his Workers’ Party were assailed by a sprawling corruption investigation. Party officials were jailed, including Lula — until his convictions were annulled on procedural grounds. The Supreme Court then ruled that the judge presiding over the case had colluded with prosecutors to secure a conviction.

Lula and his supporters have maintained he was railroaded. Others were willing to look past possible malfeasance as a means to unseat Bolsonaro and bring the nation back together.

But Bolsonaro’s backers refuse to accept someone they view as a criminal returning to the highest office. And with tensions running hot, a series of events has prompted fear that violence could erupt on inauguration day.

On Dec. 12, dozens of people tried to invade a federal police building in Brasilia, and burned cars and buses in other areas of the city. Then on Christmas Eve, police arrested a 54-year-old man who admitted to making a bomb that was found on a fuel truck headed to Brasilia’s airport.

He had been camped outside Brasilia’s army headquarters with hundreds of other Bolsonaro supporters since Nov. 12. He told police he was ready for war against communism, and planned the attack with people he had met at the protests, according to excerpts of his deposition released by local media. The next day, police found explosive devices and several bulletproof vests in a forested area on the federal district’s outskirts.

Lula’s incoming Justice Minister, Flávio Dino, this week called for federal authorities to put an end to the “antidemocratic” protests, calling them “incubators of terrorists.”

In response to a request from Lula’s team, the current justice minister authorized deployment of the national guard until Jan. 2, and Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes banned people from carrying firearms in Brasilia during these days.

“This is the fruit of political polarization, of political extremism,” said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco. Pavão stressed that Bolsonaro, who mostly vanished from the political scene since he lost his reelection bid, was slow to disavow recent incidents.

“His silence is strategic: Bolsonaro needs to keep Bolsonarismo alive,” Pavão said.

Bolsonaro finally condemned the bomb plot in a Dec. 30 farewell address on social media, hours before flying to the U.S.. His absence on inauguration day will mark a break with tradition and it remains unclear who, instead of him, will hand over the presidential sash to Lula at the presidential palace.

Lawyer Eduardo Coutinho will be there. He bought a flight to Brasilia as a Christmas present to himself.

“I wish I were here when Bolsonaro’s plane took off, that is the only thing that makes me almost as happy as tomorrow’s event,” Coutinho, 28, said after singing Lula campaign jingles on the plane. “I’m not usually so over-the-top, but we need to let it out and I came here just to do that. Brazil needs this to move on.”

———

Jeantet reported from Rio de Janeiro. AP writer Mauricio Savarese contributed from Brasilia.

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January 1, 2023
Appeals court rules against transgender man in bathroom case

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MIAMI — A federal appeals court has ruled that a Florida school district’s policy of separating school bathrooms based on biological sex is constitutional.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced its 7-4 decision on Friday, ruling that the St. Johns County School Board did not discriminate against transgender students based on sex, or violate federal civil rights law by requiring transgender students to use gender-neutral bathrooms or bathrooms matching their biological sex.

The court’s decision was split down party lines, with seven justices appointed by Republican presidents siding with the school district and four justices appointed by Democratic presidents siding with Drew Adams, a former student who sued the district in 2017 because he wasn’t allowed to use the boys restroom.

A three-judge panel from the appeals court previously sided with Adams in 2020, but the full appeals court decided to take up the case. Though his assigned gender was female at birth, Adams began the transition to become male before he enrolled in Allen D. Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, just southeast of Jacksonville.

Judge Barbara Lagoa wrote in the majority opinion that that the school board policy advances the important governmental objective of protecting students’ privacy in school bathrooms. She said the district’s policy does not violate the law because it’s based on biological sex, not gender identity.

Judge Jill Pryor wrote in a dissenting opinion that the interest of protecting privacy is not absolute and must coexist alongside fundamental principles of equality, specifically where exclusion implies inferiority.

Lambda Legal, a LGBTQ rights group that has been providing aid to Adams, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment from The Associated Press.

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December 31, 2022
Afghan war orphan remains with Marine accused of abduction

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The Afghan woman ran down the street towards her friend’s apartment as soon as she heard the news: the White House had publicly weighed in on her family’s case.

Surely her child, who she says was abducted by a U.S. Marine more than a year ago, would now be returned, she thought. She was so excited that it was only after she’d arrived that she realized she wasn’t wearing any shoes.

“We thought within one week she’d be back to us,” the woman told The Associated Press.

Yet two months after an AP report on the high-stakes legal fight over the child raised alarms at the highest levels of government, from the White House to the Taliban, the baby remains with U.S. Marine Corps Major Joshua Mast and his family. The Masts claim in court documents that they legally adopted the child and that the Afghan couple’s accusations are “outrageous” and “unmerited.”

“We are all concerned with the well being of this child who is at the heart of this matter,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre after the AP detailed the child’s plight in October.

Last month, the U.S. Justice Department filed a motion to intervene in the legal wrangling over the fate of the child, arguing that Mast’s adoption should never have been granted. The government has said Mast’s attempts to take the child directly conflicted with a U.S. foreign policy decision to reunite the orphan with her Afghan family. They asked that the case be moved from a rural Virginia court to federal court, but were denied by Presiding Circuit Court Judge Richard E. Moore.

Additionally, federal authorities say multiple investigations are underway.

“We all just want resolution for this child, whatever it’s going to be, so her childhood doesn’t continue to be in limbo,” said Samantha Freed, a court-appointed attorney assigned to look after the best interests of the child. “We need to get this right now. There are no do-overs.”

The legal fight has taken more than a year, and Freed is worried it could take months — maybe even years — more. The child is now 3 ½ years old. The Afghan family spoke with the AP on condition of remaining anonymous out of fear for their safety and concerns for their relatives back in Afghanistan.

Mast became enchanted with the child while on temporary assignment in Afghanistan in late 2019. Just a few months old, the infant had survived a Special Operations raid that killed her parents and five siblings, according to court records.

As she recovered from injuries in a U.S. military hospital, the Afghan government and the International Committee of the Red Cross identified her relatives, and through meetings with the State Department, arranged for their reunification. The child’s cousin and his wife — young newlyweds without children yet of their own — wept when they first saw her, they said: Taking her in and raising her was the greatest honor of their lives.

Nonetheless, Mast — in spite of orders from military officials to stop intervening — was determined to take her home to the United States. He used his status in the military, appealed to political connections in the Trump administration and convinced the small-town Virginia court to skip some of the usual safeguards that govern international adoptions.

Finally, when the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan last summer, he helped the family get to the United States. After they arrived, they say, he took their baby from them at the Fort Pickett Virginia Army National Guard base. They haven’t seen her since and are suing to get her back.

The Afghan woman gave birth to a daughter just weeks after the girl they’d been raising was taken from them. Every time they buy an outfit or a present for their daughter, they buy a second matching one for the child they pray will come back to them soon.

The Masts did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Stepping out from a recent hearing, Joshua Mast told AP they’ve been advised not to speak publicly.

In court filings, Mast says he acted “admirably” to bring the child to the United States and care for her with his wife. They say they’ve given her “a loving home” and have “done nothing but ensure she receives the medical care she requires, at great personal expense and sacrifice.” Mast celebrated his adoption of the child, whose Afghan family is Muslim, as an act of Christian faith.

The toddler’s future is now set to be decided in a sealed, secret court case in rural Virginia — in the same courthouse that granted Mast custody. The federal government has described that custody order as “unlawful,” “improper” and “deeply flawed and incorrect” because it was based on a promise that Afghanistan would waive jurisdiction over the child, which never happened.

The day Mast and his wife Stephanie Mast were granted a final adoption, the child was 7,000 miles away with the Afghan couple who knew nothing about it.

In court, Mast, still an active duty Marine, cast doubt on whether the Afghan couple is related to her at all. They argue that the little girl is “ an orphan of war and a victim of terrorism, rescued under tragic circumstances from the battlefield.” They say she is a “stateless minor” because she was recovered from a compound Mast says was used by foreign fighters not from Afghanistan.

The case has been consumed by a procedural question: Does the Afghan family — who raised the child for a year and a half — have a right under Virginia law to even challenge the adoption?

Judge Moore ruled in November that the Afghan family does have legal standing; the Masts’ appeal is under review.

The child’s Afghan relatives, currently in Texas, believe the U.S. government should be doing more to help them, because numerous federal agencies were involved in the ordeal.

“The government is not doing their job as they should,” said the Afghan woman. “And in this process, we are suffering.”

A State Department official said one of the agency’s own social workers stood with Mast when he took the baby at Fort Pickett, but “had no awareness of the U.S. Embassy’s previous involvement in reuniting the child with her next of kin in Afghanistan.” The official described how the U.S. had worked hard in Afghanistan to unite the child with her relatives.

“We recognize the human dimension of this situation,” said the official.

The Department of Defense said in a statement that the decision to reunite the child with her family was in keeping with the U.S. government’s foreign obligations, as well as international law principles that mandate family reunification of children displaced in war. The Defense Department said it is aware that Mast “took custody” of the child but declined to comment further.

The Afghan couple pleaded for help from the tangle of agencies at Fort Pickett: the military, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the police. Some didn’t believe them, some said there was nothing they could do, some tried to intervene to no avail.

The couple eventually reached Martha Jenkins, an attorney volunteering at the base.

“When I first heard their story, I thought there must be something lost in translation — how could this be true?” said Jenkins. She contacted authorities.

Almost two months after they lost the child, Virginia State Police dispatch records obtained by the AP show “an advocate” called to report what had happened.

“The family is on Fort Pickett, they are requesting an investigation to the validity of the adoption and if it was done under false pretenses,” wrote the dispatcher. The record notes that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI were involved.

Jenkins, who was in Virginia temporarily, called every Virginia adoption attorney she could find until she reached Elizabeth Vaughan.

“It was very surprising to me that no one helped them,” said Vaughan, who offered to represent the Afghan couple for free. “I don’t think they had a lot of the paperwork Americans like to see when someone’s proving that they have custody. But there are laws about people, trusted adults, who arrive with a child. So much more investigating should have been done.”

A Marine Corps spokesperson wrote in a statement that they are fully cooperating with federal law enforcement investigations, including at least one focused on the alleged unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. In emails Mast sent asking for help bringing the child from Afghanistan, now submitted as exhibitions in court, he referenced reading classified documents about the raid that killed the girl’s family.

Investigators and prosecutors declined to comment, citing the ongoing inquiries.

On the other side of the globe, the Taliban issued a statement saying it “will seriously pursue this issue with American authorities so that the said child is returned to her relatives.”

Now every night before bed, the Afghan couple scroll through an album of 117 photos of the year and half they spent raising her — a sassy child with big bright eyes, who loved to dress up in shiny colors and gold bangle bracelets. There’s a photo of the child wearing a black and green tunic and tiny gold sandals, nestled on the young Afghan man’s lap, smiling mischievously at the camera. In one video, she runs alongside the man, bouncing down the sidewalk to keep up with his stride.

They’ll soon be moving to a new two-bedroom apartment. There, they say, the little girl’s room will be ready for her, whenever she comes home.

———

AP researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report

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December 31, 2022
Police chief in Alaska charged with assaulting man at resort

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A police chief in Alaska pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he assaulted an intoxicated man while he was off-duty at a resort restaurant, including allegedly shoving the man head-first into a wall and putting him in a chokehold.

A grand jury returned an indictment Thursday for Ketchikan Police Chief Jeffrey Harrison Walls for felony third-degree assault. He is also charged with three counts of fourth-degree assault and two counts of reckless endangerment, which are misdemeanors.

During an arraignment Friday, defense attorney Jay Hochberg entered a not-guilty plea for Walls, who moved to Ketchikan from Louisiana in July after being hired in December 2021.

Hochberg called the allegations false and defamatory.

According to court documents, Alaska State Troopers responded to the Salmon Falls Resort restaurant on Sept. 10 to investigate a report of an assault involving a man, Walls and Walls’ wife, Sharon.

Troopers believed they were responding to an assault on the Wallses but saw the chief outside, apparently uninjured, and the man bleeding from his head, the documents said.

Witnesses told investigators the man was intoxicated and causing disturbances throughout the evening. The man intentionally bumped into the chair of the chief, who was off-duty at the time, and apologized. The two men shook hands, according to the indictment.

An hour later, the man stumbled into Sharon Walls’ bar chair. Her husband got up from his seat, ran after the man and pushed him head-first into a stone wall and put him in a chokehold, the indictment said.

“Chief Walls is a veteran law enforcement officer who was enthusiastically hired by the City of Ketchikan last year. He has dedicated his career to public safety, and he most certainly did not commit an assault as the state has alleged,” Hochberg said in a statement.

“In fact, he was simply detaining an individual who had committed a crime — and using reasonable force to do so. The allegation of excessive force in this case is simply false. Chief Walls did absolutely nothing wrong, and I look forward to seeing him vindicated in court.”

Trial is scheduled for March. If convicted, Walls would face up to five years in prison.

Ketchikan Daily News previously reported that Walls was hired at an annual salary of $132,761.

Walls worked in law enforcement for 25 years and was commander of several districts of the New Orleans Police Department before arriving in Ketchikan, which is located on an island in southeast Alaska and is a major cruise ship port for city-sized cruise ships coming to Alaska.

City Manager Delilah Walsh said Friday that city officials don’t comment on personnel matters. She said Walls remains police chief while the city conducts an internal investigation. He’s currently on personal leave, she said. —— AP journalist Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska contributed to this report.

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December 31, 2022
Another woman files sex abuse lawsuit against Cosby, NBC

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A woman who alleges Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1986 sued the comedian-actor, NBCUniversal and other companies Friday in New York, where five other women filed a similar lawsuit earlier this month.

Stacey Pinkerton says she was a 21-year-old flight attendant and model that year when she claims Cosby drugged her at a restaurant in Illinois and took her back to a hotel room in Chicago. The lawsuit alleges Cosby “engaged in forced sexual intercourse” with her while she was incapacitated from the drugs.

The lawsuit comes more than a year after Cosby left prison after his 2018 sexual assault conviction in Pennsylvania was overturned. Earlier this year, a Los Angeles jury awarded $500,000 to a woman who said Cosby sexually abused her at the Playboy Mansion when she was a teenager in 1975.

Pinkerton says the alleged assault came after she had met Cosby in New York and he promised to help her career. She says she had a role in an episode of “The Cosby Show” on NBC, but did not appear in the final edit.

Months after the alleged assault, Pinkerton said Cosby invited her to his show at a Chicago theater, where she claims he forcefully kissed and touched her.

“Cosby engaged in the same or similar pattern of conduct with his victims,” Pinkerton’s lawsuit says, “including expressing interest in advancing their careers, giving them roles on The Cosby Show, using The Cosby Show and its filming locations as a means to access, isolate, sexually harass, and sexually assault women, using drugs to incapacitate his victims, and forcibly engaging in sexual acts with them without their consent.”

The lawsuit alleges that NBC, Kaufman Astoria Studios and Carsey-Werner Television should have known Cosby was a danger to women and failed to protect Pinkerton from him.

Cosby spokesperson Andrew Wyatt said Friday night that Cosby “continues to vehemently deny all allegations waged against him and looks forward to defending himself in court.”

“As we have always stated, and now America can see, this isn’t about justice for victims of alleged sexual assault, it’s ALL ABOUT MONEY,” Wyatt wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “We believe that the courts, as well as the court of public opinion, will follow the rules of law and relieve Mr. Cosby of these alleged accusations.”

Representatives of NBCUniversal, Kaufman Astoria Studios and Carsey-Werner Television did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday night. All three companies were involved in the production of “The Cosby Show,” Pinkerton’s lawsuit said.

The lawsuits by Pinkerton and the five other women were filed under New York’s one-year window for adults to file sexual abuse complaints for allegations that had fallen outside the statute of limitations to sue.

Cosby served nearly three years in prison before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction, finding that he gave incriminating testimony in a deposition about the encounter only after believing he had immunity from prosecution. The trial judge and an intermediate appeals court had found no evidence of such immunity.

Seven other accusers received a settlement from Cosby’s insurers in the wake of the Pennsylvania conviction over a defamation lawsuit they had filed in Massachusetts. Their lawsuit said that Cosby and his agents disparaged them in denying their allegations of abuse.

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December 31, 2022
UN seeks court opinion on ‘violation’ of Palestinian rights

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UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly has asked the U.N.’s highest judicial body to give its opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

The Assembly voted by a wide margin, but with over 50 countries abstaining, on Friday evening to send one of the world’s longest-running and thorniest disputes to the International Court of Justice, a request promoted by the Palestinians and opposed vehemently by Israel.

While the court’s rulings are not binding, they influence international opinion. It last addressed the conflict in 2004, when the Assembly asked it to consider the legality of an Israeli-built separation barrier.

Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour thanked countries that backed the measure.

“We trust that regardless of your vote today, if you believe in international law and peace, you will uphold the opinion of the International Court of Justice, when delivered,” Mansour said, going on to urge countries to “stand up” to Israel’s new, hard-line government.

Israel didn’t speak at the Assembly, which voted during the Jewish Sabbath. In a written statement beforehand, Ambassador Gilad Erdan called the measure “outrageous,” the U.N. “morally bankrupt and politicized” and any potential decision from the court “completely illegitimate.”

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for an independent state.

Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory and has built dozens of settlements that are now home to roughly 500,000 Jewish settlers.

It also has annexed east Jerusalem and considers the entire city to be its capital. An additional 200,000 Israelis live in settlements built in east Jerusalem that Israel considers to be neighborhoods of its capital. Palestinian residents of the city face systematic discrimination, making it difficult for them to build new homes or expand existing ones.

The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements to be illegal. Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most sensitive holy sites, also is not internationally recognized.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Two years later, the Hamas militant group seized control of the territory from the forces of internationally recognized President Mahmoud Abbas.

Friday’s resolution asked the International Court of Justice, commonly known as the world court, to issue an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of

It also asked the court to look at the legal consequences of Israeli measures it said are “aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem.”

And it asks for an opinion on how all Israeli policies affect the legal status of its occupation, “and what are the legal consequences that arise for all states and the United Nations from this status.”

The vote was 87-26, with 53 abstentions. It followed approvals of the draft resolution in the assembly’s budget committee earlier Friday and in the Special Political and Decolonization Committee on Nov. 11.

Israel carried out widespread behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts against the measure and decried the Assembly for voting after the Sabbath began Friday evening.

Ahead of the vote, outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid personally contacted about 60 world leaders while figurehead President Isaac Herzog spoke to many counterparts, according to an Israeli diplomatic official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing private diplomatic efforts.

The United Nations has a long history of passing resolutions critical of Israel, and Israel and the U.S. accuse the world body of being unfairly biased.

Israel has accused the Palestinians, who have nonmember observer state status at the United Nations, of trying to use the U.N. to circumvent peace negotiations and impose a settlement.

The Palestinians say that Israeli officials, especially incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are not serious about seeking peace as they continue to expand settlements on occupied lands. The last round of substantive peace talks broke down in 2009.

Before the Nov. 11 committee vote, Erdan told U.N. diplomats that approving the resolution would destroy “any hope for reconciliation” with the Palestinians and perpetuate the conflict.

He warned that involving the court “in a decades-old conflict only to dictate one side’s demands on the other ensures many more years of stagnation” and give the Palestinians “the perfect excuse to continue boycotting the negotiating table to perpetuate the conflict.”

After that committee vote, Mansour said “our people are entitled to freedom,” stressing that “nothing justifies standing with Israeli occupation and annexation, its displacement and dispossession of our people.”

The court is expected to solicit opinions from dozens of countries before issuing its opinion months from now. Israel has not said whether it will cooperate.

It is not the first time the world court has been asked to weigh in on the conflict.

In 2004, the court said that a separation barrier Israel built was “contrary to international law” and called on Israel to immediately halt construction.

Israel has said the barrier is a security measure meant to prevent Palestinian attackers from reaching Israeli cities. The Palestinians say the structure is an Israeli land grab because of its route through east Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank.

Israel has ignored the 2004 ruling, and Friday’s resolution demands that Israel comply with it, stop construction of the wall and dismantle it. It says Israel should also make reparations for all damage caused by the wall’s construction, “which has gravely impacted the human rights” and living conditions of Palestinians.

The request for the court’s advisory opinion is part of a wide-ranging resolution titled “Israeli practices and settlement activities affecting the rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories.”

———

Associated Press journalists Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed.

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December 30, 2022
Court: Abortion doctors can’t be charged under Arizona law

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PHOENIX — An Arizona court has ruled that abortion doctors cannot be prosecuted under a pre-statehood law that criminalizes nearly all abortions yet was barred from being enforced for decades.

But the Arizona Court of Appeals on Friday declined to repeal the 1864 law, which carries a sentence of two to five years in prison for anyone who assists in an abortion and provides no exceptions for rape or incest.

Still, the court said doctors can’t be prosecuted for performing abortions because other Arizona laws passed over the years allow them to perform the procedure, though non-doctors are still subject to be charged under the old law.

“The statutes, read together, make clear that physicians are permitted to perform abortions as regulated” by other abortion laws, the appeals court wrote.

The pre-statehood law, which allows abortions only if a patient’s life is in jeopardy, had been blocked from being enforced shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing women a constitutional right to an abortion.

But after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark decision in June, Attorney General Mark Brnovich asked a state judge to allow the law to be implemented.

The Arizona Court of Appeals said it wasn’t viewing the pre-statehood law in isolation of other state abortion laws, explaining that “the legislature has created a complex regulatory scheme to achieve its intent to restrict — but not to eliminate — elective abortions.”

In a statement, Brittany Fonteno, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Arizona, said the decision means a state law limiting abortions to 15 weeks into a pregnancy will remain in place.

“Let me be crystal clear that today is a good day,” Fonteno said. “The Arizona Court of Appeals has given us the clarity that Planned Parenthood Arizona has been seeking for months: When provided by licensed physicians in compliance with Arizona’s other laws and regulations, abortion through 15 weeks will remain legal.”

The appeals court rejected Brnovich’s claim that doctors could be prosecuted under the pre-statehood law, saying the attorney general’s argument ignores the Legislature’s intent to regulate but not eliminate abortions and violates due process by promoting arbitrary enforcement.

“Brnovich’s interpretation would not merely invite arbitrary enforcement, it would practically demand it,” the appeals court wrote.

The attorney general’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision, which was released late Friday afternoon.

Abortion providers stopped providing the procedure in the state after Roe was struck down, restarted in mid-July after a “personhood” law giving legal rights to unborn children was blocked by a court, and stopped them again when a Tucson judge allowed the 1864 law to be enforced.

Planned Parenthood Arizona, the state’s largest provider of abortions, restarted abortion care across the state again after Brnovich’s office agreed in another lawsuit not to enforce the old law at least until next year.

A Phoenix physician who runs a clinic that provides abortions and the Arizona Medical Association also had filed a separate lawsuit that sought to block the territorial-era law, arguing that laws enacted by the Legislature after the Roe decision should take precedence and abortions should be allowed until 15 weeks into a pregnancy.

Brnovich sought to place that lawsuit on hold until the Court of Appeals decides the Planned Parenthood case. In an agreement with the abortion doctor and the medical association, he said he would not enforce the old law until at least 45 days after a final ruling in the original case.

A law enacted by the Legislature this year limits abortions to 15 weeks into a pregnancy, well before the 24 weeks generally allowed under the Roe decision that was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in June.

After the Roe decision was overturned and the issue of abortion was left up to the states, bans went into effects in some states.

Abortion is considered illegal at all stages of pregnancy, with various exceptions, in 13 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota , Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Bans in Arizona, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming are also not in effect, at least for now, as courts decide whether they can be enforced.

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December 30, 2022
Suspect in deaths of Idaho students arrested in Pennsylvania

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HARRISBURG, Pa. — Authorities in Pennsylvania arrested a suspect in the killings of four University of Idaho students who were found stabbed to death in their beds more than a month ago, a law enforcement official said Friday.

Arrest paperwork filed in Monroe County Court said Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was being held for extradition to Idaho on a warrant for first degree murder.

A law enforcement official confirmed the arrest to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the official could not publicly discuss details of the investigation ahead of a formal announcement expected later Friday.

A Ph.D. student by the same name is listed in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University, which is a short drive across the state line from the University of Idaho. Messages seeking more information were left for officials at WSU.

The Idaho students — Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin — were stabbed to death at a rental home near campus sometime in the early morning hours of Nov. 13. The slayings initially mystified law enforcement, with investigators unable to name a suspect or locate a murder weapon for weeks.

But the case broke open after law enforcement asked the public for help finding a white sedan seen near the home around the time of the killings. The Moscow Police Department made the request Dec. 7, and by the next day had to direct tips to a special FBI call center because so many were coming in.

Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; and Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington, were members of the university’s Greek system and close friends. Mogen, Goncalves and Kernodle lived in the three-story rental home with two other roommates. Kernodle and Chapin were dating and he was visiting the house that night.

Autopsies showed all four were likely asleep when they were attacked. Some had defensive wounds and each was stabbed multiple times. There was no sign of sexual assault, police said.

Police said Thursday the rental home would be cleared of “potential biohazards and other harmful substances” to collect evidence starting Friday morning. It was unclear how long the work would take, but a news release said the house would be returned to the property manager upon completion.

The stabbing deaths shook the small town of Moscow, Idaho, a farming community of about 25,000 people — including roughly 11,000 students — tucked in the rolling hills of the northern Idaho’s Palouse region.

The case also enticed online sleuths who speculated about potential suspects and motives. In the early days of the investigation, police released relatively few details publicly.

Fears of a repeat attack prompted nearly half of the University of Idaho students to switch to online classes for the remainder of the semester, abandoning dorms and apartments in the normally bucolic town for the perceived safety of their hometowns. Safety concerns also had the university hiring an additional security firm to escort students across campus and the Idaho State Police sending troopers to help patrol the city’s streets.

Kohberger was arrested in Monroe County, located in eastern Pennsylvania in the Pocono Mountains. The county seat, Stroudsburg, is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Philadelphia.

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Boone reported from Boise, Idaho, and Balsamo reported from Washington. News Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York, and reporter Mark Scolforo contributed from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

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December 30, 2022
Algerian journalist jailed and his media offices shut down

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ALGIERS, Algeria — A prominent Algerian journalist is behind bars and the offices of his website and radio station were shut down based on accusations that they threaten state security, according to a defense lawyer.

Ihsane El-Kadi was detained Dec. 23 at his home and held in a police facility until Thursday, when he appeared in an Algiers court. An investigating judge ordered him kept in custody, according to Zoubida Assoul, a lawyer who is part of a collective that is defending the journalist.

El-Kadi, who was active in Algeria’s Hirak pro-democracy protest movement in 2019, appears to be the latest target of an encroaching crackdown on dissenting voices in the North African country.

The case against him is linked to the crowdfunding used to finance his media outlets, Maghreb Emergent and Webradio, Assoul said. The website and radio station operated in Algeria for years but did not have government recognition as official media organizations.

El-Kadi is accused of violating an article in the criminal code targeting anyone who receives funds aimed at “inciting acts susceptible to threaten state security,” stability or Algeria’s fundamental interests, the lawyer said. If convicted, he could face five to seven years in prison.

His supporters view El-Kadi’s arrest as punishment for articles that angered Algerian authorities.

His outlets were seen by many as outposts of free debate in Algerian media that provided journalists and opposition politicians a platform to point out contradictions or shortfalls in the government’s policies.

Police questioned El-Kadi in the past then released him. the past then released. His family and friends expected that to happen again Thursday, but instead were disappointed and indignant at the decision to hold him.

“Algeria is sliding dangerously into an Orwellian universe,” Madjid Madhi, who is also a journalist, said.

Algerians expressed dismay online, including some who said they disagreed with El-Kadi’s views.

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December 30, 2022