Tag: criminal law

Two Russians claiming to be former Wagner commanders admit killing children and civilians in Ukraine | CNN

CNN
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Two Russian men who claim to be former Wagner Group commanders have told a human rights activist that they killed children and civilians during their time in Ukraine.

The claims were made in video interviews with Gulagu.net, a human rights organization targeting corruption and torture in Russia.

In the video interviews posted online, former Russian convicts Azamat Uldarov and Alexey Savichev – who were both pardoned by Russian presidential decrees last year, according to Gulagu.net – described their actions in Ukraine, during Russia’s invasion.

CNN cannot independently verify their claims or identities in the videos but has obtained Russian penal documents showing they were released on presidential pardon in September and August of 2022.

Uldarov, who appears to have been drinking, details how he shot and killed a five- or six-year-old girl.

“(It was) a management decision. I wasn’t allowed to let anyone out alive, because my command was to kill anything in my way,” he said.

According to Gulagu.net, the testimonies were given to founder and Russian dissident Vladimir Osechkin over the span of a week. It said Uldarov and Savichev were in Russia when they spoke.

“I want Russia and other nations to know the truth. I don’t want war and bloodshed. You see I’m holding a cigarette in this hand. I followed orders with this hand and killed children,” Uldarov said, describing his motivation for the interview.

The Wagner Group is a Russian private mercenary organization fighting in Ukraine, headed by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.

It has recruited tens of thousands of fighters from Russian jails, offering freedom and cash after a six-month tour. It’s estimated by Western intelligence officials and prison advocacy groups that between 40,000 and 50,000 men were recruited.

Uldarov said in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Soledar and Bakhmut – which have seen some of the fiercest fighting – Wagner mercenaries “were given the command to annihilate everyone.”

“There is a superior over all the commanders – it’s Prigozhin, who told us not to let anyone get out of there and annihilate everyone,” he added. CNN has previously reported on former Wagner fighters making similar claims.

Uldarov has since appeared to recant his account in a video call with Prigozhin-linked Russian news agency RIA-FAN.

At one point in the interview, Savichev described how they “got the order to execute any men who were 15 years or older.”

He also talked about getting orders to ‘sweep’ a house. “It doesn’t matter whether there is a civilian there or not. The house needs to be swept. I didn’t give a f**k who was inside,” he said.

“Whether a hut or a house, the point was to make sure that there wasn’t a single living person left inside,” he said. “You can condemn me for this. I will not object. It’s your right. But I wanted to live, too.”

Savichev said Wagner fighters who did not follow orders were killed.

Wagner Group chief Prigozhin confirmed on his Telegram channel that he had watched parts of the video, and threatened retribution against the two former Wagner fighters. “As for what (Osechkin) filmed, I looked at the pieces of video I managed to see,” he said. “I can say the following: if at least one of these accusations against me is confirmed, I am ready to be held accountable according to any laws.”

But Prigozhin said that “if none is confirmed, I will send a list of 30-40 people who are spitting at me like Osechkin (there is a whole list of them, including the scum that fled Russia) that the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine is obligated to hand over to me for a ‘fair trial,’ so to speak.”

“They will not be “civilians” for us, and especially not children, whom we have never touched and do not touch. This is a flagrant lie. These people (spreading the lies) are our enemies, and we will deal with them in a special way.”

Earlier, Prigozhin said on Telegram: “Regarding the execution of children, of course, no one ever shoots civilians or children, absolutely no one needs this. We came there to save them from the regime they were under.”

Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said in a tweet Monday that the group must be held accountable.

“Russian terrorists confessed to numerous murders of Ukrainian children in Bakhmut and Soledar. Confession is not enough. There must be a punishment. Tough and fair. And it will definitely be. How many more crimes like these have been committed?” he said.

In February, CNN spoke to two former Wagner fighters who described how recruited Wagner convicts are pushed to the front lines in a human wave, reminiscent of World War I charges. Deserters, or those who refuse orders are killed and there was no evacuation of the wounded, they said.

In January, US Treasury Department designated Wagner Group as a significant transnational criminal organization, and imposed a slew of fresh sanctions on a transnational network that supports it.

The US Department of State concurrently announced a number of sanctions meant to “target a range of Wagner’s key infrastructure – including an aviation firm used by Wagner, a Wagner propaganda organization, and Wagner front companies,” according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

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April 18, 2023
See pizza delivery guy take out suspect fleeing police | CNN

See pizza delivery guy take out suspect fleeing police

Pizza guy delivers more than a pie, taking out a fleeing suspect. CNN’s Jeanne Moos shows him putting his best foot forward.

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April 18, 2023
No words were exchanged before a White homeowner shot a Black teen who rang his doorbell, according to statements to police | CNN

CNN
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A White, 84-year-old homeowner charged with shooting Ralph Yarl after the Black teen went to the wrong Kansas City address to pick up his siblings told police they didn’t exchange words before he fired at him through a locked glass door – and that he did so because he thought the teen was trying to break in.

Homeowner Andrew Lester – who faces two felony charges, for assault in the first degree and armed criminal action – told police he fired immediately after answering the doorbell when he saw 16-year-old Ralph pulling on an exterior door handle, according to the probable cause document obtained by CNN.

Lester said he was “scared to death” due to the boy’s size, according to the document.

After the April 13 shooting, which left the teenage boy with gunshot wounds to his head and arm, Ralph told police while he was hospitalized that he did not pull on the door, according to the document.

It was “nothing short of a miracle” that Ralph was discharged from the hospital, but “he’s not out of the woods yet,” his attorney Ben Crump told CNN on Monday.

The shooting of the unarmed Black teenager captured national attention as it drew outrage online and fueled protests in Kansas City. Protesters have marched through the city chanting, “Justice for Ralph” and calling for the shooter’s arrest.

Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson has said that “there was a racial component to this case,” but did not elaborate.

Lester was not in custody as of Monday night, though a warrant has been issued for his arrest, according to authorities.

On the night of the shooting, the 84-year-old man was taken into custody but was released less than two hours later, two representatives at the Kansas City Police Department detention unit previously told CNN. Thompson said Lester was released because police recognized that more investigative work needed to be done.

Attorney Crump told CNN’s Jake Tapper Monday that it makes no sense the shooter hasn’t been arrested.

“Nobody can tell us if the roles were reversed, and you had a Black man shoot a White 16-year-old teenager for merely ringing his doorbell that he would not be arrested,” Crump said. “I mean, this citizen went home and slept in his bed at night after shooting that young Black kid in the head.”

“He merely rang the doorbell. That was it,” Crump said. “And the owner of the home shoots through the door, hitting him in the head and then shoots him a second time.”

CNN has not been able to reach the homeowner for comment. A lawyer was not listed in his previous booking report.

On the night of the shooting, Lester was lying down in bed when he heard the doorbell ring and picked up his .32 caliber revolver, Lester told police, according to a probable cause statement.

He then went to his home’s front entrance, which includes an interior door and a glass exterior door – both of which were locked.

Lester opened the interior door and “saw a black male approximately 6 feet tall pulling on the exterior storm door handle,” Lester told police.

“He stated he believed someone was attempting to break into the house, and shot twice within a few seconds of opening the door,” the probable cause statement reads.

“He believed he was protecting himself from a physical confrontation and could not take the chance of the male coming in,” the document reads.

Lester said he immediately called 911 after the shooting, according to the document.

Police spoke with Ralph while he was being treated at a hospital, where he told them his mother asked him to pick up his brothers at 1100 NE 115th Street, according to the document, which notes the actual address they were staying at was 1100 NE 115th Terrace.

When he arrived at the house on 115th Street, Ralph said he rang the doorbell and waited a while before a man eventually opened the door and immediately shot him in the head, causing him to fall, the document says.

While the teenager was still on the ground, the man then fired again, shooting him in the arm, Ralph told police.

Ralph said he got up and ran to keep from being shot, and he heard the man say, “Don’t come around here,” the document says. He then went to multiple nearby homes asking for help and telling people to call police.

The boy told police he did not pull on the door, according to the probable cause statement.

Officers responded to the scene just before 10 p.m. after receiving reports of a shooting. When they arrived, they found the boy wounded in the street.

Responding officers also found the front storm door glass at Lester’s home broken, with blood on the front porch and the driveway, according to the probable cause document.

A neighbor, who asked not to be identified, told CNN she called 911 after Ralph came to her door, bleeding.

Since the shooter’s location was unknown at the time, she was directed to stay inside her home by the emergency operator for her safety. She said she complied initially, then went outside with towels to help suppress the bleeding.

“This is somebody’s child. I had to clean blood off of my door, off of my railing. That was someone’s child’s blood. I’m a mom … this is not OK,” she said.

Crump said Ralph is still struggling with the trauma from the ordeal, but the family hopes for a full recovery because Ralph is young and strong.

“He and his family are just happy that he’s alive after being shot in the head,” Crump told CNN.

Ralph, a section leader in a marching band who could often be found with an instrument in hand, had been looking forward to graduating from high school and visiting West Africa before starting college, according to a GoFundMe started by Ralph’s aunt, Faith Spoonmore.

“Life looks a lot different right now. Even though he is doing well physically, he has a long road ahead mentally and emotionally. The trauma that he has to endure and survive is unimaginable,” the aunt wrote in the fundraiser.

The GoFundMe page, started to help the family with medical expenses, had garnered more than $2 million in donations by Monday night.

Crump likened Ralph’s shooting to the shootings of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida and 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia – two unarmed Black Americans who were fatally shot by assailants who later claimed self defense.

“We continue to fight to say you can’t profile and shoot our children, just because you have this ‘stand your ground’ law,” Crump said. “Unacceptable.”

“Stand your ground” laws allow people to respond to threats or force without fear of criminal prosecution in any place where a person has the right to be. It remains unclear whether this will play a role in Lester’s case.

Lee Merritt, another attorney representing Ralph and his family, told CNN Monday that the “stand your ground” action would not apply to Ralph’s case.

“The stand your ground action, under the laws of Missouri, are completely inapplicable to this case, because there has been no conversation, not from the suspect, not from the victim and not from law enforcement, that Ralph Yarl, at 16 years old, ever posed a threat to this shooter,” Merritt said.

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April 18, 2023
Arrests over alleged secret ‘police station’ deepen showdown between Washington and Beijing | CNN

CNN
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“We don’t need or want a secret police station in our great city,” said Breon Peace, the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York on Monday – expressing the likely feeling of many Americans at the news that the FBI has arrested two alleged agents for the Chinese government accused of working to harass and silence its critics in the US.

The Justice Department also charged 34 officers of China’s national police, all of whom are believed to live in China, with related offenses.

The revelations threaten to pitch already sour US-China relations into further crisis, and had the immediate effect of hardening bipartisan suspicion about Beijing on Capitol Hill in a way that will have serious diplomatic implications.

Prosecutors allege that China opened an “undeclared police station” in New York City that was used at least once to track down a pro-democracy activist of Chinese descent living in California.

The two men Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping — both US citizens — allegedly created the “first known overseas police station in the United States,” on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, according to the Justice Department.

The FBI also accused a group of Chinese officers of flooding an online video conference, screaming at and threatening Chinese dissidents in the US who were discussing democracy.

This is not unsurprising activity by a foreign intelligence agency on foreign soil; Washington’s penchant for engaging democracy activists in totalitarian countries has, for instance, long been seen as meddling by repressive governments.

And the FBI has outposts in many foreign embassies.

The bureau’s work, however, involves fighting organized crime, combating terrorism and drug trafficking, and forging links with local police and law enforcement. It isn’t designed to monitor US expats and police their political activity.

If proven, the two agents’ alleged activities represent an attempt by the Communist Party in Beijing to extend its crackdown on dissent and democracy outside the country and onto the soil of a nation where such freedoms are protected.

“The efforts of the PRC to export authoritarian methods to stifle free expression in the United States is a threat to America’s democracy that we will not abide,” said David Newman, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the National Security Division of the Department of Justice.

There has so far been no comment from Beijing on the charges.

But the notion that Beijing is operating foreign police stations is not new.

According to a new report by Madrid-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders shared with CNN last year, President Xi Jinping’s government set up more than 100 such posts to monitor the activity of large Chinese diasporas, using bilateral security arrangements as a cover.

Beijing has denied such allegations, arguing the offices help expat citizens with services like the issuing of new drivers licenses. Any activity that goes beyond consular services and targets Chinese exiles would infringe international law.

While China has police patrol agreements with several nations, including Italy and South Africa, reports of the undeclared police posts have prompted investigations in at least 13 other countries including Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain.

The revelations by authorities in New York on Monday are already having a detrimental impact on China’s already tarnished reputation in Washington and will further complicate efforts by the Biden administration to defuse spiraling tensions with Xi.

The alleged police station scheme is seen as another example of China’s growing global reach, perceived threat to the United States and its values, and willingness to curtail political enemies wherever they might be.

“This is absolutely absurd that the Chinese Communist Party thinks that they can set up their own police station in a place like New York City,” Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton, a member of the new House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, told CNN.

“The story out there that the Americans and Chinese are ratcheting up tensions is really not accurate. This is China ratcheting up tensions. This is the Chinese Communist Party trying to exact their repressive regime all over the globe.”

The arrests contribute to a sense in Washington that China is indulging in increasingly provocative behavior and is ever disdainful of American sovereignty.

They follow the flight of a suspected Chinese spy balloon across the North American mainland earlier this year that was viewed by many Americans as an insult and was a first tangible sign of how a potential new Cold War could unfold with a new superpower foe.

Monday’s developments are also likely to increase uncertainty — some might say paranoia — about the level of clandestine activity China might be conducting on US soil.

Every elevation of the standoff between Beijing and Washington takes a diplomatic toll.

The level of antipathy towards China is so strong on Capitol Hill that it makes it hard for President Joe Biden — who is ultimately in charge of managing this critical diplomatic relationship — not to toughen his stance. This in turn causes diplomatic and political after shocks in Beijing, whipping up more anti-US rhetoric and behavior.

To dispute the idea that the US and China are barreling towards a confrontation increasingly looks like heresy in Washington. This is a dangerous new reality since it narrows the room for sober, strategic reasoning about the implications of a potential generations-long showdown across the Pacific.

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April 17, 2023
Australian businessman accused of supplying suspected Chinese spies with AUKUS information | CNN

CNN
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An Australian man has been refused bail after being charged with a foreign interference offense for accepting cash from suspected Chinese intelligence agents, with a Sydney court saying his close ties to China made him a flight risk.

Magistrate Michael Barko said Alexander Csergo was a “sophisticated, worldly businessperson” who had been on the radar of Australian intelligence for some time before his arrest on Friday.

The prosecution had a strong case against Csergo, who had lived in China for decades, Barko said in refusing bail.

Csergo is alleged to have arrived back in Australia this year with a “shopping list” of intelligence priorities he had been asked for by two people he had suspected since 2021 to be agents for China’s Ministry of State Security, the court heard.

The pair, named in court only as “Ken” and “Evelyn,” first made contact with Csergo through LinkedIn.

This shopping list had been discovered by Australian intelligence authorities three weeks after Csergo returned to Sydney, the court was told.

Csergo had been allegedly asked to handwrite reports about Australia’s AUKUS defense technology partnership with the United States and Britain, the QUAD diplomatic partnership, iron ore and lithium mining, Barko said.

A marketing executive, Csergo, 55, was arrested in the beachside suburb of Bondi on Friday.

He is the second person charged under Australia’s foreign interference law, which criminalizes activity that helps a foreign power interfere with Australia’s sovereignty or national interest. It carries a maximum 15 year prison sentence.

Csergo appeared in court via video link from Parklea Prison where he is being held as a high security prisoner. His mother and brother were in court.

Csergo had told Australian intelligence agents in an interview that when he met Ken and Evelyn in Shanghai cafes and restaurants, the establishments had been empty and he suspected they had been cleared, Barko said.

He developed a high level of anxiety and was in “survival mode,” he had told the Australian authorities.

Csergo had exchanged around 3,300 WeChat messages with the pair, and had accepted cash payments in envelopes, Barko said.

Barko raised concerns for Csergo’s safety, saying some people may not want him to give evidence against China.

Csergo’s lawyer, Bernard Collaery, had sought bail, saying the reports Csergo had written were based on publicly sourced information and the case against his client was “shallow and unsubstantiated.”

Prosecutor Conor McCraith disputed this, saying it was not all open source because he had engaged covertly with two others to prepare reports. He also said Csergo had not come to Australian authorities with his concerns about Ken and Evelyn, and had instead invited Ken to come to Australia.

Collaery said making cash payments was a common business practice in China, and Csergo undertook the consulting work during the COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai as a source of income.

“Of course he believed Ken and Evelyn were keeping tabs on him. That’s how it works in China, he became very worried about it,” Collaery said.

Csergo had worked in China since 2002 in data marketing, including for a major international advertising agency.

Collaery said Csergo’s career had come “tumbling down” since his arrest and he had no intention to return to China and instead planned to pursue the Australian government for damages for ruining his career.

Collaery told media outside the court the case was a “civil liberties” issue and raised concerns about the scope of the foreign interference law introduced in 2018.

“If you work as a consultant in any foreign country… and you undertake consulting work that may relate to Australia’s foreign influences or national security… you can be guilty of foreign interference,” he told reporters.

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April 17, 2023
He was free for 2 years. Now Crosley Green is back in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit | CNN

CNN
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A Florida man who served three decades behind bars for a murder he says he didn’t commit returned to prison Monday after spending the past two years building a life outside prison walls.

Since his conditional release in 2021 amid appeals, Crosley Green, 65, had held a job at a machine grafting facility, attended church and spent time with his grandchildren. He even fell in love.

“I’ve been with this man for two years,” his fiancée, Kathy Spikes, told CNN. “To not be able to have a 5 o’clock phone call to say, ‘I’m home,’ for me to say, ‘What do you want for dinner,’ that’s what I’m anxious about.”

His return to prison came about two weeks after US District Judge Roy Dalton ruled he must turn himself in to the authorities by April 17 to resume his life sentence.

Green surrendered to Florida’s Department of Corrections at 5 p.m. Monday, according to his attorneys. He was accompanied by Spikes, family members and his lawyers Keith Harrison and Jeane Thomas, who have represented him pro bono for 15 years.

Green was allowed to leave prison on conditional release in 2021, about three years after a federal court in Orlando overturned his conviction. The state of Florida appealed that decision and won last year, and Green’s conviction was reinstated. Dalton allowed Green to remain free while he exhausted his legal options. Green’s legal team petitioned the US Supreme Court, but in late February the court declined to hear his case.

“I can’t be angry at no one,” Green told CNN. “I don’t want no one else to be angry at no one. Anger isn’t going to take you nowhere. Ain’t going to do (anything) but harm you. I’m happy. I’m not happy about going back. I’ve got my future wife, I’ve got my friends that came up here with me. I’ve got my family.”

Green was convicted in the 1989 shooting death of 21-year-old Charles Flynn. Green, who is Black, was sentenced to death by an all-White jury, then resentenced to life in prison in 2009 due to a technicality related to the sentencing phase of his trial.

In 2018, Judge Dalton ruled prosecutors had improperly withheld evidence that police at one point suspected someone else was the shooter. But late last year, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and reinstated Green’s conviction, saying the withheld evidence was not material to the case.

Green’s only options for remaining out of prison now are clemency or parole, according to his legal team.

“We think he’s an outstanding candidate for parole,” Thomas said. “He’s demonstrated that in the last two years he’s been under supervised release. He’s been an incredibly successful person on the outside with his work, his church and his family.”

Thomas has pointed out that clemency is not the same as exoneration. She says it is just a mechanism through which the state decides someone has served enough time behind bars to be released.

Since his release, Green has worn an ankle monitor and been “a model citizen,” according to Thomas.

“For 15 years now, we have believed wholeheartedly, 100 percent in the innocence of our client,” Thomas said. “As lawyers, we have to believe that the justice system will get it right. We’re going to keep fighting. This is a grave injustice. And we just believe that eventually we will get it right.”

Despite the latest ruling, Green remains optimistic in his fight to prove his innocence. In a statement shared by his lawyers with CNN, he said, “To me, it’s just another part of what I’m going through now to get my freedom. That’s all it is.”

He further attributed his perseverance to his faith in comments to CNN.

“If everyone can just believe in themselves the way I believe in myself, with the Lord, then you can understand and say the things that I can say by not letting anything come between you and your faith,” he said.

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April 17, 2023
FBI arrests two alleged Chinese agents and charges dozens with working inside US to silence dissidents | CNN Politics

CNN
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The FBI has arrested two alleged Chinese agents and federal prosecutors have charged dozens of others with working to silence and harass dissidents within the United States – with some even operating an “undeclared police station” in New York City.

Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping allegedly operated the police station in New York City’s Chinatown. Both men are US citizens and have been charged with conspiring to act as agents of the Chinese government and obstructing justice. The police station has been shut down since a search warrant was executed at the location last fall, according to John Marzulli, a spokesman for the US Attorney in the Eastern District of New York.

The two men appeared in court Monday, with Lu being released on a $250,000 bond and Chen on a $400,000 bond. They are not permitted to travel within half a mile of the Chinese consulate nor mission or communicate with co-conspirators. Neither has entered a plea.

Lu retained counsel but was represented in the proceeding by a public defender, and a public defender was appointed to represent Chen. Both of the public defenders at the hearing declined to comment.

The Justice Department also announced charges against 34 officers of the national police of the People’s Republic of China with harassing Chinese nationals in the US critical of the Chinese government.

All 34 are believed to live in China and remain at large, according to Justice Department. The officers were part of an effort by the Chinese government called the “912 Special Project Working Group” to influence global perceptions of the People’s Republic of China, or PRC.

The agents allegedly used social media to post favorably about the PRC and to attack their “perceived adversaries,” including the United States and Chinese pro-democracy activists around the world, the Justice Department said. The illegal police operation is the “first known overseas police station in the United States” set up on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, or MPS, the Justice Department said.

The agents were allegedly directed by the MPS to create and maintain accounts that looked like they were run by American citizens. Topics of their propaganda machine include US foreign policy, human rights issues in Hong Kong, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Covid-19 and racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd, according to prosecutors.

Agents also posted videos and articles targeting Chinese pro-democracy advocates in the US, the Justice Department alleged, some of which included explicit death threats. In addition, the agents allegedly used threats to intimidate people into skipping pro-democracy protests within the United States.

“The PRC, through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in a statement. “The PRC’s actions go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct. We will resolutely defend the freedoms of all those living in our country from the threat of authoritarian repression.”

In another case, federal prosecutors allege that an executive at a videoconferencing company conspired with others to disrupt a meeting on the platform commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre at the direction of the Chinese government.

Though the videoconferencing company was not named in court documents, CNN has previously reported the company is Zoom.

The executive, Xinjiang “Julien” Jin, was previously charged by the Justice Department for the alleged plot. The new complaint adds charges against nine additional individuals, including six Ministry of Public Security officers and two officials with the Cyberspace Administration of China.

According to the Justice Department, the executive, who is based in China, and his codefendants repeatedly sought in 2018 to interfere with video calls organized by a Chinese dissident living in New York City after a request from the Chinese government to do so. Jin also tried to identify any other account associated with that dissident and place them in a server with lagging response times, prosecutors say.

In 2019, Jin and his codefendants allegedly worked with the Chinese government to block accounts seeking to commemorate the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

According to court documents, the secret police station was set up in early 2022 to identify, track and intimidate Chinese dissidents within the United States.

Prosecutors say one such victim was an unnamed person living in California who was a “PRC dissident and PRC pro-democracy advocate” who “reported to the FBI that he/she served as an adviser to a 2022 congressional candidate from New York State” who also was the target of a PRC pressure campaign.

That victim told the FBI that they have received threatening phone calls and social media messages from people they believe are associated with the Chinese government, and that person’s car was broken into immediately after that person gave a pro-democracy speech.

During an interview with the FBI, Lu said that he had established the office, which he called an “oversees service center,” to help Chinese nationals living in the United States “renew Chinese government documents.” Lu told investigators during the interview that Chen acted as the primary point of contact with officials back in China.

During a separate interview, Chen initially denied having any direct contact with the Chinese government, according to court documents, though he later recanted.

Investigators say that during that interview, Chen took a seven-minute bathroom break, during which an agent repeatedly warned him through the bathroom door not to delete anything on his phone. When agents later searched the phone, they found that chat logs with MPS officials had been cleared.

Both Lu and Chen later acknowledged deleting messages between themselves and their liaison in the MPS, according to court documents.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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April 17, 2023
Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza given 25 years in prison for condemning war in Ukraine | CNN

CNN
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Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent Russian human rights advocate and Kremlin critic, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after publicly condemning Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Kara-Murza was initially detained one year ago, hours after an interview with CNN in which he criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “regime of murderers.”

He was on trial for criminal offenses that included treason, spreading fake news about the Russian army, and facilitating activities of an undesirable organization. Russia criminalized criticism of the military following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. The court said he would serve his sentence “in a strict regime correctional colony.”

“Based on the results of the trial, for Vladimir Vladimirovich Kara-Murza, by partial addition of sentences, to be sentenced to a final sentence of imprisonment for a term of 25 years to be served in a strict regime correctional colony. The verdict of the Moscow City Court has not yet entered into force,” a statement from the court read.

Kara-Murza will appeal the sentence, his lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, told CNN on Monday.

The activist’s detention has been decried by international human rights organizations and prompted sanctions by the Biden administration last month.

Monday’s sentencing draws further attention on Putin’s brutal crackdown against freedom of expression, which has intensified since he invaded Ukraine last February.

Kara-Murza has long been critical of Putin and has survived two poisonings.

In March 2022, he spoke before the Arizona House of Representatives against the war, and in an interview with CNN in April 2022, the political dissident condemned Putin’s regime for targeting critics. He was arrested shortly afterwards for “failing to obey the orders of law enforcement,” according to his wife.

The sentencing quickly drew further international condemnation of Putin. Amnesty International called the decision a “chilling example of the systematic repression of civil society” under the Kremlin that is “reminiscent of Stalin-era repression,” and UN Human rights chief Volker Tuerk described it as a “blow to the rule of law and civic space in the Russian federation.”

“No one should be deprived of their liberty for exercising their human rights, and I call on the Russian authorities to release him without delay,” Tuerk said.

The British government criticized what it called the “politically motivated” sentencing. “Vladimir Kara-Murza bravely denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for what it was – a blatant violation of international law and the UN Charter. Russia’s lack of commitment to protecting fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, is alarming,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on Monday.

And German government spokesperson Andrea Sass said the trial showed “how the Russian justice system is instrumentalized against him and many of his compatriots and also shows what a shocking extent the repression has reached in Russia in the meantime.”

The charge of treason in Russia was broadened in 2012 to include consultations or any other assistance to a foreign state or international or foreign organizations. It was used against Kara-Murza over his condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In March, the United States imposed sanctions on a number of Russian individuals connected to what the Treasury Department called Kara-Murza’s “arbitrary detention” and called for his “immediate and unconditional release.”

In the final hearing of his trial last week, Kara-Murza said he was “proud” of his political views.

“I’m in jail for my political views; for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, for many years of struggle against Putin’s dictatorship, for facilitating the adoption of personal international sanctions under the Magnitsky Act against human rights violators. Not only do I not repent of any of this, I am proud of it,” Kara-Murza said.

The original Magnitsky Act, signed into law in December 2012, blocks entry into the US and freezes the assets of certain Russian government officials and businessmen accused of human rights violations. The law was subsequently expanded to give global scope to the Russia-focused legislation.

Kara-Murza said he blamed himself for not being able to convince enough of his “compatriots” and politicians of democratic countries of the danger that the current regime in the Kremlin poses for Russia and the world.

He also expressed that he hoped “that the day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate.”
“Even today, even in the darkness surrounding us, even sitting in this cage, I love my country and believe in our people,” he added. “I believe that we can walk this path.”

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April 17, 2023
Tennessee Air National Guardsman applied to be a hitman online, the FBI says. It was a spoof website and now he’s facing charges | CNN

CNN
—

A Tennessee Air National Guardsman is facing charges after applying to be a hitman on a spoof “rent-a-hitman” website, according to the Department of Justice.

Josiah Ernesto Garcia, 21, was charged Thursday after submitting an employment inquiry to the website rentahitman.com, which is a parody site that includes “testimonials” from purportedly satisfied hit-man customers.

The website was originally created in 2005 to “advertise a cyber security startup company,” the Justice Department said in a news release. “The company failed and over the next decade it received many inquiries about murder-for-hire services.”

Garcia indicated in February that he had “military experience, and rifle expertise” and requested an “in depth job description,” according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday.

“Garcia followed up on this initial request and submitted other identification documents and a resume, indicating he was an expert marksman and employed in the Air National Guard since July 2021. The resume also indicated that Garcia was nicknamed “Reaper,” which was earned from his military experience and marksmanship, the Department of Justice said in the news release.

Garcia sent another follow-up email days later, saying he didn’t hear back after submitting a resume, according to the complaint.

According to investigators, Garcia wrote in the email, “Why I want this Job* Im looking for a job, that pays well, related to my military experience (Shooting and Killing the marked target) so I can support my kid on the way. What can I say, I enjoy doing what I do, so if I can find a job that is similar to it, (such as this one) put me in coach!”

After Garcia sent more follow-up emails, the website owner – at the direction of the FBI – responded with an email saying, “Josiah, a Field Coordinator will be in touch in the near future. You will receive a message when they are ready. Timing is based on client needs,” according to the complaint.

On April 5, an FBI undercover agent contacted Garcia for a phone interview, during which he asked, “How soon can I start?” and “What do the payments look like?” according to the complaint.

The undercover agent asked Garcia if he was comfortable with taking fingers or ears as trophies or performing torture at a client’s request.

“If it’s possible and in my means to do so, I’m more than capable,” Garcia said, according to the complaint.

In an in-person meeting with the undercover agent on Wednesday, Garcia “was presented with a ‘target package’ consisting of photographs and a description of a fictional target’s name, weight, age, height, address, and employment information,” the complaint said.

Garcia was told the target was the client’s husband, who was abusive to her, and that the client was paying $5,000 for the job with a down payment of $2,500, the complaint said.

“After agreeing to the terms of the murder arrangement, Garcia asked the agent if he needed to provide a photograph of the dead body,” according to the Justice Department release. “Garcia was then arrested by FBI agents, who in a subsequent search of his home, recovered an AR style rifle.”

Garcia is charged with the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted, the Justice Department said.

CNN has been unable to reach Garcia’s attorney for comment. Garcia is set to appear in court on Tuesday afternoon.

CNN has reached out to the Air National Guard for comment.

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April 17, 2023
A teenager was shot by a homeowner after going to the wrong house to pick up siblings, Kansas City police say | CNN

CNN
—

A teenager was shot and wounded by a homeowner after mistakenly going to the wrong home to pick up his siblings in Kansas City, Missouri, police said Sunday.

Officers responded to reports of a shooting on the evening of April 13 and arrived to find a teenager who had been shot by a homeowner outside of a residence, according to Kansas City Police.

The teen was taken to a local hospital, where he was in stable condition Sunday, police said.

Police learned that the teenager’s parents had asked him to pick up his siblings at an address on 115th Terrace, but he accidentally went to a home on 115th Street, where was shot, according to police.

The teen was identified as 16-year-old high school junior Ralph Yarl, according to a joint statement from civil rights attorneys S. Lee Merritt and Benjamin Crump, who have been retained by the victim and his family.

“Despite the severity of his injuries and the seriousness of his condition, Ralph is alive and recovering,” the attorneys said in the statement.

The homeowner – who has not been identified – was taken into custody and placed on a 24-hour hold, then released pending further investigation due to the need to obtain a formal statement from the victim and to gather additional forensic evidence, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said in a news conference Sunday.

Under Missouri state law, a person can be held for up to 24 hours for investigation of a felony, at which time they are required to be charged or released, Graves said at the press conference.

The shooting fueled a protest in Kansas City on Sunday, with hundreds gathering outside the home where Yarl was shot, according to CNN affiliate KSHB.

Protesters marched as they chanted, “justice for Ralph” and “Black lives matter,” and carried signs reading, “Ringing a doorbell is not a crime” and “The shooter should do the time,” footage from CNN affiliate KMBC shows.

“We demand swift action from Clay County prosecutors and law enforcement to identify, arrest and prosecute to the full extent of the law the man responsible for this horrendous and unjustifiable shooting,” the statement from the victim’s attorneys read.

Asked whether the shooting may have been racially motivated, the police chief said, “the information that we have now, it does not say that that is racially motivated. That’s still an active investigation. But as a chief of police, I do recognize the racial components of this case.”

Graves sought to assure the Kansas City community Sunday that the police department is committed to bringing justice to this case.

“We recognize the frustration this can cause in the entire criminal justice process. The women and men of the Kansas City Police Department are working as expeditiously and as thoroughly as we can, to ensure the criminal justice process continues to advance as quickly as all involved and our community deserve,” Graves said.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said there will be a thorough investigation and review by the prosecutor’s office.

“As a parent, I certainly feel for the mother of the victim and others in the family. My heart goes out to them,” the mayor added.

A GoFundMe started by Faith Spoonmore, who identified herself as Yarl’s aunt, to help the family raise money for medical expenses had garnered more than $529,000 in donations as of Sunday night.

Yarl had been looking forward to graduating high school and visiting West Africa before starting college, where he hopes to major in chemical engineering, his aunt wrote in the fundraiser.

The teen is a section leader in a marching band and could often be found with a musical instrument in hand, Spoonmore wrote. Most recently, Yarl earned Missouri All-State Band honorable mention for playing the Bass Clarinet, according to a North Kansas City Schools’ newsletter in February.

“Life looks a lot different right now. Even though he is doing well physically, he has a long road ahead mentally and emotionally. The trauma that he has to endure and survive is unimaginable,” the GoFundMe post reads.

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April 17, 2023
Opinion: Top secrets come spilling out | CNN

Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.

CNN
—

In 1917, British analysts deciphered a coded message the German foreign minister sent to one of his country’s diplomats vowing to begin “unrestricted submarine warfare” and seeking to win over Mexico with a promise to “reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona” if the US entered the world war. When it became public, the Zimmerman Telegram caused a sensation, helping propel the US into the conflict against Germany.

“Never before or since has so much turned upon the solution of a secret message,” wrote David Kahn in his classic 1967 history of secret communications, “The Codebreakers.” The Germans had taken great pains to keep their intentions confidential, and the codebreakers in London’s “Room 40” had to do a lot of work to decipher the telegram.

Their efforts stand in stark contrast to the ease with which secrets came tumbling out of a Pentagon intelligence network when 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard cyber specialist Jack Teixeira allegedly posted hundreds of documents on a Discord chatroom known as “Thug Shaker Central.” The disclosures likely won’t start a war, but they could prove extremely damaging to the US and several of its allies, including Ukraine.

Teixeira is one of more than one million people who have Top Secret clearance. “The Pentagon has already started taking steps to limit the number of people who have access to such sensitive information,” wrote Brett Bruen, a former US diplomat and Obama administration official. “But much more can be done. … Why do so many people, especially those working short stints in government, have access to information that can shape the fate of nations and their leaders?”

Writing in the Financial Times, Kori Schake saw “some good news.”

“While specific details will be incredibly valuable to Russia and other adversaries, these are not bombshell revelations: journalists had already reported Ukrainian ammunition running low; peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv were never likely; allies have long been aware that the US eavesdrops on them; and the disparaging assessment of Ukraine’s forthcoming offensive may prove no more accurate than previous predictions were.” These will not prove as damaging as the Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning disclosures.

But, she warned, “Technology making data ever more portable, distribution more global and communications more bespoke will make it easier to amass information and distribute it — either privately or publicly.”

In less than a week, the two Democrats expelled from the Tennessee House for their participation in a gun control protest were sent back to office by local officials.

Writing for CNN Opinion, Rep. Justin Pearson noted, “This should be a chastening moment for revanchist forces in Tennessee’s legislature and across the country. Over the long haul, the undemocratic machinations employed to oust us from office are destined to fail. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once famously said that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. Events this week demonstrated, more than ever, that this is indeed the case…”

“Over two-thirds of Americans — including four out of 10 Republicans — support the kind of common sense gun safety laws that Rep. Jones, Rep. Johnson and I were protesting in favor of, in the wake of the senseless March 27 Covenant School massacre.”

“And yet, calls for common sense gun reform measures fall on deaf ears in our legislature where a Republican supermajority is wildly out of step with most people’s values.”

The politics of gun control have shifted, argued Democratic strategist Max Burns. The NRA’s internal struggles have weakened its influence while Democrats in office, who once feared touching the issue of guns, are increasingly speaking out. And they are making some progress in enacting new state laws, Burns noted.

“The American people decisively support Democratic proposals for addressing the scourge of gun violence. Political watchers who criticized Democrats for talking too much about abortion during the 2022 midterm elections later ate crow after that once-dreaded culture war topic topped the list of voter concerns nationally…

“Biden and the Democrats have the rare opportunity to build yet another winning coalition out of an issue once viewed as political poison.”

On Friday, the Supreme Court issued an order that temporarily ensured access to a key drug used in many medication abortions. The move gave the justices more time to consider the issue after a Texas federal judge suspended the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill 23 years ago.

“If abortion opponents are successful, access to the pill — reportedly used in more than half of abortions in the United States — will be severely undercut,” wrote Michele Goodwin and Mary Ziegler.

“Beyond the dangerous precedent this sets for challenges to other important FDA-approved drugs that some political factions don’t like, the case is an alarming expression of the way right-wing activists are using junk science to bypass the will of the American public and restrict abortion…”

“There are no grounds for challenging mifepristone’s approval, especially 23 years after the fact. The drug received extensive review — more than four years — before FDA approval. Moreover, claims that mifepristone threatens the health of those who take it are unfounded. The drug has a better safety record for use than Viagra and penicillin. Notably, it was available and used for years without incident in Europe.”

In 1986, Nicholas Daniloff, the Moscow bureau chief for US News & World Report, was seized by Soviet authorities and locked up in Lefortovo prison. He was the last American journalist to be arrested in Russia before last month’s detention of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, who like Daniloff, speaks Russian fluently. Gershkovich has been charged with espionage but US officials have concluded that he was “wrongfully detained.”

As David A. Andelman noted, Daniloff’s detention in prison lasted for 13 days before he was put under house arrest and then eventually swapped for an accused Soviet spy. In a conversation with Andelman, Daniloff recalled his reaction when he was imprisoned. “I felt claustrophobic, and I felt like I wanted to get out of there immediately. Of course, there was no chance of that. The door slams, and you have all these thoughts and feelings that run through you, and then you settle down and you realize you’re going to be hanging around that cell for some time.”

Gershkovich’s family in Philadelphia received a letter, handwritten in Russian, from the reporter Friday.

“I want to say that I am not losing hope,” he noted. “I read. I exercise. And I am trying to write. Maybe, finally, I am going to write something good.”

The Amazon series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” returns this month for its fifth and final season — and David Perry is here for it. The series brings back memories of visiting his grandparents Irma and Mordy in their “tiny rent-controlled Greenwich Village apartment,” an experience that helped shape his Jewish identity.

“As a Jewish historian,” Perry wrote, “I worry about the tension between preserving the memory of past hardships while not locking our entire history into a tale of oppression. The moments of peace and joy are as vital as the moments of violence. In fact, it’s the periods of peace, of success, of interfaith community, that reveal the terrible truth about the violence: it wasn’t inevitable. People could have made different choices…”

“A show like ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ lets me revel in my personal New York Jewish heritage while also getting a little break from all the worry. It’s a warm, funny, sexy, extremely Jewish …. comedy that hits me straight in my glossy childhood memories. That isn’t to say the show isn’t also problematic — it most certainly is.”

In the latest installment of CNN Opinion’s “Little Kids, Big Questions” series, 10-year-old Ronan wonders if animals are capable of being smarter than humans. With the help of the John Templeton Foundation, which is partnering on the project, the answer came from Jane Goodall, world renowned for her work with chimpanzees.

“One of the attributes of intelligence is the ability to think and solve problems. In the early 1960s, I was told that this was unique to humans, and only we could use and make tools, only we had language and culture,” Goodall said. “But more and more research has proved that many animals are excellent at solving problems. Many use tools, and many show cultural differences. Some scientists believe that whales and dolphins are communicating with what may be a real language.”

“Although the difference between humans and other animals is simply one of degree, our intellect really is amazing. …bees can count and do math, and that just shows how much we still have to learn about animal intelligence. But humans can calculate the distance to the stars.”

Earlier this month, a Texas jury convicted Daniel Perry of murder for fatally shooting a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020. The jury deliberated for 17 hours and decided Perry’s action couldn’t be excused under the state’s “stand your ground” law. Prosecutors argued Perry had instigated the incident and they introduced into evidence messages that suggested the shooting was not a spur-of-the-moment act but a premeditated one.

On the evening of the jury verdict, Fox News host Tucker Carlson criticized the decision and told viewers he had invited Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on the show to ask if he would consider pardoning Perry. Others on the right called for Abbott to issue a pardon, and the governor soon responded with an announcement that he would do just that, as long as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended that Perry should be granted one.

“Trial verdicts are determined by judges and juries,” wrote Dean Obeidallah. “What Abbott is doing is not just wrong, it’s dangerous. His pardon, when it comes, is not what the rule of law looks like.”

Two of the likeliest candidates for president in 2024 haven’t officially committed yet.

President Joe Biden says he intends to run again but has delayed making a formal announcement. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is making all the moves a presidential contender usually makes, including hawking his new book and visiting New Hampshire, but he hasn’t joined fellow Republicans including former President Donald Trump, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson in declaring.

“DeSantis, who was neck and neck with the former president just a few months ago, may have lost a step or two in more recent polling. But his track record of successful governance in Florida should force GOP voters to think long and hard about what version of their party they want to put forward,” observed Patrick T. Brown.

“A third Trump presidential nomination would indicate that Republican primary voters may prefer style over substance. But if they are serious about not just making liberals mad but advancing actual policy, GOP voters should consider other names, starting with the Florida governor.”

Even without an official announcement by the president, wrote Julian Zelizer, the Biden-Harris campaign is very much under way. “By choosing to lie low while Republicans are gearing up for 2024, Biden is employing his version of what has become known as the ‘Rose Garden Strategy,’ whereby the incumbent campaigns by focusing on the business of being president and showing voters that he is the responsible figure in the race.”

“The president’s understated strategy makes room for Republicans to stoke chaos, tear each other apart and make unforced errors while he remains above the fray for as long as possible. This strategy makes the GOP the focus of the election, allowing Biden to reinforce his message from 2020: do voters want someone who will govern and act in a serious manner or do they want a circus?”

Gene Seymour: I am betting on Cousin Greg. But I am not a serious person (Spoiler alert)

Frida Ghitis: Amid fallout of Macron-Xi meeting, another world leader tries his luck

Michael Bociurkiw: How the battle for Bakhmut exposed Russia’s ‘meat-grinder’

Peggy Drexler: Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s dilemma is a reminder of this universal question

Christopher Howard: The overlooked problem with raising the retirement age for Social Security

Elliot Williams: The justice system Trump and other white-collar defendants see is different than what most accused criminals get

Phoebe Gavin: The hard lessons I learned the first time I was laid off

Meg Jacobs: ‘Air’ celebrates those who do the hard work and get rewarded

AND…

Jill Filipovic recently took a domestic flight in South Africa. “Passengers and airport staff alike were friendly and polite. The airplane seat offered enough room for both of my legs and both of my arms. We took off on time and landed early. My shoes stayed on the whole time I was at the airport.”

It was a vivid reminder of what’s possible in air travel — and of what’s usually lacking.

Take the security system: “More than 20 years after Sept. 11, 2001, only passengers who pay for the privilege can avoid removing their shoes and laptops from their bags by submitting their personal information ahead of time and undergoing background checks.”

Filipovic added, “Admittedly, I do pay — I don’t want to wait in a long security line, walk my stocking feet through a metal detector and have to un- and re-pack the MacBook I’ve carefully crammed into my carry-on. But the existence of pay-to-play shorter-line security options like Clear and TSA Pre-Check make clear that it is indeed possible to pre-screen a critical mass of passengers to avoid the morass of cranky people trying to pull on their shoes while re-packing their electronics.”

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April 16, 2023
A woman’s body was found in a bag at an abandoned bus stop. Malaysian police are investigating | CNN

Hong Kong
CNN
—

Police in Malaysia say they are investigating the death of a woman whose decomposing body was discovered in a travel bag at an abandoned bus station.

A passerby found the bag near a building belonging to the state electricity company Tenaga Nasional Berhad earlier this week in Kulai, a district in the southern state of Johor, state news agency Bernama reported.

Kulai district police chief Tok Beng Yeow said the highly decomposed state of the body – which he estimated at more than 50 per cent – had hampered initial identification efforts, according to Bernama.

However, a preliminary post-mortem report by Sultanah Aminah Hospital suggested the body belonged to a woman over 25 years of age, who had sustained a head injury and may have died around two weeks ago.

The district police chief said an investigation is ongoing as he appealed to local residents to come forward with information.

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April 16, 2023
New York man sentenced to life in prison for ordering murder-for-hire hit on his brother and mob-linked father | CNN

CNN
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A man convicted for ordering a murder-for-hire hit on his brother and Mafia-associated father in the Bronx, New York was sentenced to life in prison Friday, federal prosecutors said.

Anthony Zottola Sr., 45, and co-conspirator Himen Ross, 37, were each sentenced to mandatory life sentences plus 112 years in federal prison after a jury found them guilty in 2022 of hiring gang members to murder Zottola’s 71-year-old father, Sylvester, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. Sylvester Zottola was fatally shot in October 2018 as he waited for a cup of coffee at a McDonald’s drive-thru, authorities said.

Federal prosecutors say the shooting was the third attempt on Sylvester Zottola’s life as part of his son’s scheme to take control of the family’s real-estate business. Prosecutors had previously said Sylvester Zottola was an associate of the Luchese family, one of the five mob families that historically dominated New York, and worked with another known mobster, Vincent Basciano.

In November 2017, Sylvester Zottola was menaced at gunpoint by a masked person, and in December 2017, three men invaded his home, struck him on the head with a gun, stabbed him and slashed his throat. He survived the first two attempts on his life, prosecutors said.

In the final murder attempt – which led to Sylvester Zottola’s death – a tracking device had been placed on his car that allowed Ross, who carried out the shooting, to track him to the McDonald’s restaurant, prosecutors said.

“Over the course of more than a year, the elderly victim, Sylvester Zottola, was stalked, beaten, and stabbed, never knowing who orchestrated the attacks. It was his own son, who was so determined to control the family’s lucrative real estate business, that he hired a gang of hit men to murder his father,” US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. “For sentencing his father to a violent death, Anthony Zottola and his co-defendant will spend the rest of their lives in prison.”

Separately, the defendant’s brother, Salvatore Zottola, was shot in the head, chest and hand in front of his home in July 2018, authorities said. He survived the attack and testified at the trial, CNN previously reported.

One of Anthony Zottola’s attorneys previously placed blame for the attacks on the Bloods gang.

“A violent street gang preyed upon Anthony and his family and caused their tragic ruin. We will appeal this verdict to prevent Anthony from becoming another victim of the Bloods gang. He is not guilty of these violent crimes,” defense attorney Henry E. Mazurek said in October.

Sylvester Zottola held a residential real estate portfolio valued at tens of millions of dollars, and prosecutors said Anthony Zottola, who helped manage the properties, plotted to kill his father and brother to take control of the business.

The additional 112 years of imprisonment added to Zottola and Ross’ sentences represents the combined ages of Zottola’s father, 71, and brother, 41, when they were shot, the US Attorney’s Office said.

Ilana Haramati, another of Zottola’s attorneys, said her client will “vigorously pursue an appeal to vindicate his innocence.”

“Anthony Zottola is a loving father and husband,” Haramati told CNN Saturday. “His sentence to death by incarceration will only compound the trauma that the Zottola family has already suffered.”

Lawyers for Ross have not yet responded to CNN’s request for comment.

Six other defendants have pleaded guilty for their roles in the murder-for-hire conspiracy, the US Attorney’s Office said.

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April 15, 2023
Top Trump attorney recused himself from handling Mar-a-Lago case | CNN Politics

Washington
CNN
—

Attorney Evan Corcoran recused himself from representing former President Donald Trump in the special counsel investigation related to the Mar-a-Lago documents given that he testified for investigators, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Corcoran’s exit, which was first reported by The Washington Post, was an expected development after special counsel Jack Smith’s office forced him to testify without the shield of attorney-client privilege in front of the grand jury and prosecutors accused Trump of using his attorney to advance a crime.

Despite recusing himself from the Mar-a-Lago probe weeks ago, Corcoran continues to represent Trump on other matters, including the January 6, 2021, investigation. He appeared in court on behalf of the former president for sealed proceedings related to that part of Smith’s probe just days after his testimony in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

Corcoran could still resume representing Trump in the documents case now that he has testified.

It’s not known how valuable the evidence and testimony he provided to the grand jury will be for prosecutors. He testified twice to the grand jury and turned over documents.

Corcoran’s own defense attorney declined to comment. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said Saturday, “These unnamed sources have no idea what’s actually going on and are peddling disinformation.”

Corcoran had a window into many of the moments in which Trump and his team were responding to the federal government’s efforts to get classified documents back.

He first appeared before the grand jury in January but refused to answer questions that would have divulged his advice to Trump and their conversations, citing attorney-client privilege, a source previously told CNN. Prosecutors were then prompted to take the unusual step of fighting in court to force him to respond, and a federal court ruled prior to his reappearance in front of the grand jury in March that he could not withhold information any longer about communications he’d had with Trump leading up to the search.

Prosecutors sought to ask Corcoran about his direct interactions with Trump regarding a May 2022 subpoena for all classified records in the former president’s possession, the subsequent search for classified records, and about conversations they’d had when the Trump Organization received a separate subpoena for surveillance video of the club.

Corcoran drafted a statement in June that claimed Trump’s team had done a diligent search for boxes and were handing over classified records they found in response to the May subpoena. Then, months later, the FBI found hundreds more pages with classified markings in its search of Mar-a-Lago, a pivotal development in the records mishandling and obstruction of justice probe.

In recent weeks, the grand jury activity, including Corcoran’s forced testimony, has made clear that prosecutors are nailing down evidence from scores of sources that could be used in a case against Trump.

The former president has not been charged with any federal crime.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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April 15, 2023
‘Part of my soul’: 4 takeaways from Biden’s trip to Ireland | CNN Politics

Dublin, Ireland
CNN
—

Like so many Americans do each year, President Joe Biden returned to Ireland this week in search of his roots, seeking some connection and some answers in the land his people left so many years ago.

He found it in pubs, priests and Parliament, which he said (in the Irish language) felt like home: “Tá mé sa bhaile.” The reception was more rapturous than anything he could hope for from Congress.

A day later, Biden capped his four day visit to his ancestral homeland with a serendipitous encounter and a prime time speech to thousands that served as a forum to thread together the deeply personal – and familiar – anecdotes that have animated his political career.

“Being here does feel feels like coming home. It really does. Over the years stories of this place has become part of my soul,” Biden said during his remarks, which were preceded by Irish music and a laser light show.

The rally, delivered to an audience the White House said numbered around 27,000 people, was one of the largest of Biden’s entire political career.

Offering a vibe break from divided and bitter Washington – if not necessarily all of its difficulties, like a massive leak of classified information that preoccupied White House aides but which he sought to downplay – Biden’s four-day trip left such an impression he said repeatedly he did not want to leave.

“I’m not going home,” he said. “I’m staying here.”

With a nostalgic eye that sometimes blurred history, Biden wondered why his ancestors left this island in the first place (answer: a famine). He found connections in the people and the landscape. Scranton, he said, was a dead ringer for the Boyne Valley.

And in a tearful moment of serendipity, he came across the priest who administered his dying son’s last rites.

“It seemed like a sign,” he said.

Biden suddenly found himself identifying more with local traditions than those from America. “I’d rather have my children playing rugby now for health reasons than I would have them playing football,” he declared.

He tried not to get too lost in the past, insisting modern-day Ireland would write its own story. For Biden the president, the Ireland of 2023 is exactly the type of progressive, advanced democracy that can act as a bulwark against a global tide of populism.

But for Biden the man, Ireland sometimes seems more like a set of concepts: a loose yet somehow specific kind of destiny; a blend of future and past; an immigrant identity.

“As my mother would say, ‘That’s the Irish of it,’” he told a group of his cousins on Wednesday. “That’s the Irish of it. Whenever we’d say something was unusual, she said, ‘Joey, that’s the Irish of it.’ And it is the Irish of it.”

The nostalgia was matched only by a tangible sense of awe at the heights he has now reached. As Biden spoke in Ballina on Friday, the backdrop was a cathedral built by the bricks provided by one of his forefathers.

“I doubt he ever imagined that his great, great, great grandson would return 200 years later as president of the United States of America,” Biden said in a particularly poignant moment.

Perhaps caught in a sentimental moment, Biden seemed to drop his guard in his speech to the joint houses of Ireland’s parliament. He made reference to a topic mostly off-limits back home: his advanced age.

“I’m at the end of my career, not the beginning,” he said toward the end of his speech to lawmakers. “The only thing I bring to this career after my age – and you can see how old I am – is a little bit of wisdom.”

In Ireland, his remark seemed to suggest, a lifetime of memories was an asset instead of a liability.

Biden’s trip came as he nears a decision on running again for president. He said the day before he left he planned on running but wasn’t prepared to announce it.

If enthusiasm levels among Americans for a second Biden term appear low, even among Democrats, there was a more palpable sense of excitement for the 80-year-old president here.

Crowds four or five deep waited for hours in cold drizzle to greet him in Dundalk. Local organizers of his final speech in Ballina replicated the configuration of their vaunted Salmon Festival to welcome Biden into town.

His speech Friday night carried all the markers of a campaign rally, albeit in Ireland instead of the United States. The crowd waved American and Irish flags in front of the dramatically lit St. Muredach’s Cathedral, which was built using bricks sold by Biden’s great great great grandfather.

In theory, images of a president embraced abroad could be useful to a presidential campaign, particularly to the 36 million Americans who identify as Irish-American.

In practice, an increasingly isolationist Republican Party may use Biden’s popularity abroad against him.

“I own property in Ireland, I’m not going to Ireland,” former President Donald Trump said during Biden’s trip. “The world is exploding around us, you could end up in a third world war, and this guys is going to be in Ireland.

White House officials made little attempt at ascribing major policy objectives to Biden’s trip. The most robust piece of background provided ahead of time was a five-page genealogical table tracking the various branches of his family tree.

If there was a goal, it was the one Biden described as he departed Washington for Belfast on Tuesday: ensuring the 25-year-old Good Friday Agreement, a product of intensive American diplomacy, remains in place.

“Keep the peace, that’s the main thing,” he said before boarding Air Force One.

Heavy violence between Nationalists and Unionists has been mostly left to another era. But as Biden acknowledged, the peace is fragile and the politics in Northern Ireland are broken.

Tight security surrounded Biden’s trip amid flare-ups of political violence, though his 15-hour visit to Belfast went without incident (aside from a sensitive security document found lying in the street).

Biden did not paper over the tensions. He made a direct call for the political parties in Northern Ireland to return to a power-sharing government – between those who want to remain part of the United Kingdom and those who favor a united Ireland – that was a central pillar of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

He tried to avoid being drawn directly into the feud over Brexit trade rules, recognizing the perception he is less-than-evenhanded when it comes to the Irish-British divide.

He even sought to emphasize his English ancestors rather than his Irish ones when he spoke at Ulster University (the English roots hadn’t made it onto the White House genealogical chart).

It wasn’t convincing to some Unionist leaders. The former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Arlene Foster, told a local radio station that Biden “hates the United Kingdom.” She asked why his limo flew the Irish flag in the South but not the British one in the North.

By the time Biden made it to Dublin, he was more candid at where he believed responsibility for the problem rests.

“I think that the United Kingdom should be working closer with Ireland in this endeavor,” he said.

The Ireland Biden visited is a distant cry from the place his ancestors left so long ago. It doesn’t even look much like the country John F. Kennedy – the last Irish Catholic president – toured in 1963.

Now a thriving European economy, with a major technology sector and among the highest per capita GDP figures in the entire European Union, Ireland hardly resembles the country many Irish Americans (including, at times, Biden himself) still hold onto in the popular imagination.

Biden acknowledged the hazy lens through which his ancestral homeland is sometimes viewed. He noted his own early impressions of the island were passed down from grandparents who’d never actually visited themselves.

“For too long, Ireland’s story has been told in the past tense,” he said.

Yet for much of his trip, it was the past he was looking for. Peering out from the tower of Carlingford Castle toward Newry, he saw the port his great-great-grandfather Owen Finnegan sailed from in 1849. The bricks at St. Muredach’s Cathedral, where he spoke late Friday, were sold by his great-great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt to fund his family’s passage to the US.

The Irish identity Biden explored this week is intrinsically linked to his own Catholicism. Aside from the cathedral, he also visited the Our Lady of Knock shrine, the site of an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1879.

Yet today, Catholicism may be more entwined with the Irish-American identity than the Irish one. In 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote; the current Taoiseach, or prime minister, Leo Varadkar is gay. Three years later, Ireland voted decisively to end what, at the time, was one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the world.

Taken together, the two votes swept aside decades of church authority in Ireland, once a stronghold of conservative Catholicism. The church found its credibility badly weakened after a series of scandals, including abuses of unwed mothers in the so-called Magdalene laundries and abuse of children by pedophile priests.

More than anything, Biden’s trip this week had the feeling of a family spring break. He brought along his sister Valerie and son Hunter, with whom he toured ancestral sites on Wednesday and Friday. His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, remained in Washington to attend to her college teaching job.

Hunter Biden has been subject to investigations by House Republicans, who allege he was involved in shady foreign business practices. Hunter Biden denies the allegations. And on the trip this week, he acted as a steadying presence for his father, helping him at moments to navigate the enthusiastic crowds.

“I’m proud of you,” Biden told his son during a meeting with family members in Dundalk, asking him to stand for a round of applause.

His other son was on his mind as well. Throughout the sometimes-rainy trip, Biden kept his head dry with a baseball cap from the Beau Biden Foundation.

When he visited the Knock Shrine, he reconnected with the priest who gave last rites to Biden’s dying son 2015. He is now the chaplain at the site.

The moment brought Biden to tears, the priest later told the Irish Times.

“It was incredible to see him,” Biden said later.

Speaking to parliament, he said it was Beau, who died in 2015, who should be standing where he was.

“He should be the one standing here giving this speech to you,” Biden said.

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April 14, 2023
Suspect charged in Pentagon documents leak case | CNN Politics

CNN
—

The suspect in the leak of classified Pentagon documents posted on social media has been charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal of classified information and defense materials.

Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old airman with the Massachusetts Air National Guard, made his first appearance in federal court in Boston Friday morning following his arrest by the FBI in North Dighton, Massachusetts, on Thursday.

According to charging documents, Teixeira held a top secret security clearance and allegedly began posting information about the documents online around December 2022, and photos of documents in January.

Teixeira’s arrest came a week after the initial public disclosure that the classified material had been posted online to a small Discord group, a social media platform popular with gamers. The documents, some of which have been reviewed by CNN, included a wide range of highly classified information, including eavesdropping on key allies and adversaries and blunt assessments on the state of the Ukraine war.

Teixeira is believed to be the head of an obscure invite-only Discord chatroom called Thug Shaker Central, multiple US officials told CNN, where information from the classified documents was first posted months ago.

Magistrate Judge David Hennessy informed Teixeira of the charges he’s facing and scheduled a detention hearing for Teixeira on Wednesday. He will remain detained until then. Teixeira did not enter a formal plea.

Teixeira entered the courtroom wearing a tan shirt and pants from the detention center, as well as hiking boots. He entered the courtroom in shackles, though his hands were uncuffed before he sat down at the defense table.

The Boston courtroom was full, including three people sitting on a bench reserved for family. When Teixeira entered the courtroom, he did not look at his family members.

Teixeira spoke quietly during the hearing, whispering “yes” as the judge informed him of his rights as a criminal defendant.

As the hearing ended, a man in the courtroom shouted, “Love you, Jack.” Teixeira did not look back, but responded, “you too, Dad.”

Teixeira has held a Top Secret clearance since 2021, according to the affidavit unsealed Friday. He also “maintained sensitive compartmented access (SCI) to other highly classified programs,” the affidavit says. Many of the leaked documents posted on the online server Discord were marked Top Secret.

At least one of the documents he allegedly posted was accessible to him by virtue of his employment with the Air National Guard, the affidavit says.

According to a user of the Discord served interviewed by the FBI, Teixeira began posting information in December 2022, according to the affidavit, and began posting photos of documents around January 2023.

The unnamed individual who spoke to the FBI said that Teixeira told him that he was concerned about making the transcription at work so “he began taking the documents to his residence and photographing them.”

Teixeira also allegedly searched a classified government database for the word “leak” on April 6, when reports began emerging publicly of classified information being posted online.

“Accordingly, there is reason to believe that TEIXEIRA was searching for classified reporting regarding the U.S. Intelligence Community’s assessment of the identity of the individual who transmitted classified national defense information, to include the Government Document,” the affidavit says.

Investigators narrowed in on the potential members of the chat group with evidence collected following the discovery of the classified documents online. Teixeira was under surveillance for at least a couple of days prior to his arrest by the FBI on Thursday, according to a US government source familiar with the case.

Four Discord users active in a different Discord chatroom where the documents later appeared told CNN the documents began circulating on Thug Shaker. Another user who was in the Thug Shaker chatroom told CNN they saw the original posts of classified documents but declined to speak further about them.

Discord, which is not named in the affidavit but was previously identified by CNN, gave the FBI information on Wednesday about the account that had allegedly been posting the documents.

Teixeira used his real name and home address in North Dighton, Massachusetts, for the billing information associated with his Discord account, the affidavit says.

Teixeira was an Airman First Class in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, where he worked as a low-ranking IT official.

In his role as a Cyber Transport Systems journeyman, Teixeria would have been working on a network that carried highly classified information, according to a defense official, which is why he needed a security clearance.

Several former high school classmates of Teixeira’s told CNN Thursday that he had a fascination with the military, guns and war. He would sometimes wear camouflage to school, carried a “dictionary-sized book on guns,” and behaved in a way that made some fellow students feel uneasy.

“A lot of people were wary of him,” said Brooke Cleathero, who attended middle school and high school with Teixeira. “He was more of a loner, and having a fascination with war and guns made him off-putting to a lot of people.”

Teixeira grew up in the suburbs of Providence, Rhode Island, according to public records. He attended Dighton-Rehoboth High School where he graduated in 2020, according to the superintendent of the regional school district.

Teixeira didn’t behave in a manner that rose to the level where “people felt the need to report him,” another former classmate said, but “he made me nervous.”

The same student said she took his fascination with the military as a form of American nationalism, and was therefore surprised by the allegations against him. “I didn’t think he would be capable of doing something like this,” she said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday that he is directing a review of intelligence access following Teixeira’s arrest.

The Pentagon is still conducting a damage assessment of the disclosure of the classified material, which could be used as evidence against Teixeira.

President Joe Biden, who hinted at the coming arrest while in Ireland on Thursday, was briefed regularly on the investigation as it proceeded over the past week, according to a US official.

Biden was also briefed regularly on the efforts by his top officials to engage with allies who have been identified within, or unsettled by, the content of the leaked information, one official said.

Before the arrest on Thursday, Biden downplayed the impact of the leaked documents. “I’m concerned that it happened, but there is nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence,” he told reporters.

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April 14, 2023
Village of Oregon mother arrested for child neglect after 4-year-old ODs on marijuana gummies – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

Village of Oregon police arrested the mother of a 4-year-old Wednesday after the child was taken to the emergency room the day before because the child had overdosed on marijuana gummies.

Police said they were called to Stoughton Hospital just before 5 p.m. Tuesday because the child’s mother and another adult were having difficulty getting the child to respond.

Police later determined that the overdose had occurred at a home in Oregon. In a search of the home at about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, they found drug paraphernalia and arrested the child’s mother on a tentative child neglect charge. Police did not release the mother’s name.

The child was treated at the hospital and released.

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April 13, 2023
FBI arrests suspect in connection with intelligence leaks | CNN Politics

CNN
—

A member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard was arrested by the FBI on Thursday in connection with the leaking of classified documents that have been posted online, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday.

The arrest of Jack Teixeira, 21, comes following a fast-moving search by the US government for the identity of the leaker who posted classified documents to a social media platform popular with video gamers.

Teixeira was arrested in Massachusetts without incident, Garland said, and will be arraigned in federal court there.

“This investigation is ongoing. We will share more information at the appropriate time,” Garland said, declining to answer questions.

Teixeira was first identified by The New York Times ahead of his arrest Thursday as the leader of the group where a trove of classified documents had been posted.

The leaked documents posted to social media, some of which have been obtained by CNN, include detailed intelligence assessments of allies and adversaries alike, including on the state of the war in Ukraine and the challenges Kyiv and Moscow face as the war appears stuck in a stalemate.

The FBI had narrowed the number of people who they believe could be responsible for the leaks and have been conducting interviews in recent days, two people briefed on the matter said earlier. While there’s a large number of people who had access to the documents, investigators have been able to home in on a small number for closer scrutiny thanks to the forensic trail left by the person who posted the documents. Investigators are working on building a case for prosecution, people familiar with the matter say.

Earlier Thursday, President Joe Biden appeared to suggest that the US government was close to identifying the leaker.

“There’s a full-blown investigation going on, as you know,” Biden said when asked for comment about the leaks. “The intelligence community and the Justice Department. And they’re getting close. I don’t have an answer for you.”

Biden was speaking in Dublin, where he is meeting the Irish president. It was the first time he commented on the leak.

CNN has previously reported that the Army Criminal Investigation Division is also “assisting the DoD in their investigation” of the leak, Jeffrey Castro, a spokesman for the division, told CNN.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that the person, whom the story did not name, behind the leak worked on a military base and posted sensitive national security secrets in an online group of acquaintances.

The leaker was described in the Post story as a lonely young man and gun enthusiast who was part of a chatroom of about two dozen people on Discord – a social media platform popular with video gamers – that shared a love of guns and military gear, according to a friend of the alleged leaker the Post interviewed who was also part of the group.

Biden said he was concerned about the fact the leaks happened, but not necessarily about their content.

“I’m not concerned about the leak. I’m concerned that it happened, but there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of any consequence.”

The Pentagon has begun to limit who across the government receives its highly classified daily intelligence briefs following the leak.

Some US officials who used to receive the briefing materials daily have stopped receiving them in recent days, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, as the Pentagon’s Joint Staff continues to whittle down its distribution lists.

The Joint Staff, which comprises the Defense Department’s most senior uniformed leadership that advises the president, began examining its distribution lists immediately after learning of the trove of leaked classified documents – many of which had markings indicating that they had been produced by the Joint Staff’s intelligence arm, known as the J2.

Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder confirmed Thursday that the Defense Department is taking steps to tighten the community of people who receive classified intelligence.

Ryder said the Pentagon continues “to review a variety of factors as it relates to safeguarding classified materials. This includes examining and updating distribution lists, assessing how and where intelligence products are shared, and a variety of other steps.”

Ryder also emphasized that there are already “stringent guidelines” in place to safeguard classified intelligence.

“This was a deliberate criminal act,” he said, “a violation of those guidelines.”

The criminal investigation is being led by the FBI’s Washington field office, including a team of counterintelligence investigators experienced in hunting leaks.

Those investigators are also working with Pentagon officials on the damage assessment, which would become part of the evidence to be used in any potential prosecution that results.

This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.

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April 13, 2023
Biden basks in Ireland’s welcome as he highlights personal and political ties | CNN Politics

Dublin, Ireland
CNN
—

President Joe Biden is spending most of his trip to Ireland this week exploring his family’s roots, from the shoemaker who sailed from Newry in 1849 in search of a better life in America to the brick-seller in Ballina who sold 28,000 bricks to pay for his own family’s passage to the US.

Yet as his official meetings Thursday demonstrate, the Ireland he is visiting this week is a distant cry from the place his ancestors left so long ago. It’s even far removed from the place President John F. Kennedy – the last Catholic president – visited 60 years ago, when the Church remained at the center of power in the country and economic development was only beginning to take hold.

Now a thriving European economy, with a major technology sector and among the highest per capita GDP figures in the entire European Union, Ireland hardly resembles the country many Irish Americans still hold in the popular imagination.

At moments, that has appeared to include Biden himself.

“You hear about all these stories about what it was like back in Ireland,” he said Thursday after meeting the Irish president, referring to his own grandparents and great-grandparents who relayed memories passed on to them of Ireland, despite never visiting themselves.

A day earlier, Biden jokingly questioned why his predecessors left Ireland for a better life as he visited a local market and deli in Dundalk.

“I don’t know why the hell my ancestors left here. It’s beautiful,” he said.

Of course, they left because of a devastating famine in the 1840s, a fact Biden acknowledged later during the first of two stops on a search for his family’s ancestry.

Welcomed enthusiastically to the town of Dundalk, Biden basked in the welcome of his people, many of whom waited for hours in cold drizzle to catch a glimpse of the most Irish of American presidents.

Bagpipers wrote a song specially for his arrival, and played it as he toured a stone castle from which he could see the port where his great-great-great-grandfather departed for America in 1849.

“It feels like I’m coming home,” Biden told reporters as he looked out over the water. Later, he spoke to a collection of distant cousins at a pub.

Biden’s four-day visit to Ireland is hardly heavy with policy, though he did spent a night in Belfast commemorating 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement.

Instead, his trip has the feeling of a family spring break. He has brought along his sister Valerie and son Hunter, with whom he toured ancestral sites on Wednesday.

Hunter Biden has been subject to investigations by House Republicans, who allege he was involved in shady foreign business practices. Hunter Biden denies the allegations. On the trip this week, however, he has acted as a steadying presence for his father, helping him at moments to navigate the enthusiastic crowds.

Much of Biden’s time in Ireland will be spent looking to the past. The White House distributed a multi-page genealogical table detailing his ancestry on the island. And Biden has sought to identify an essential Irishness as he connects with his roots.

“The Irish are the only people in the world, in my view, who are actually nostalgic about the future,” he said Tuesday. “Think about it. It’s because, more than anything in my experience, hope is what beats in the heart of all people, particularly in the heart of the Irish. Hope. Every action is about hope.”

Still, for at least a day, he will be focused on present-day Ireland.

In his talks with Irish leaders Thursday, Biden is expected to discuss a number of global issues, including the war in Ukraine. Ireland has remained officially neutral in foreign conflicts since the 1930s, but the war in Europe has tested that stance. The country has taken in more than 75,000 Ukrainian refugees and condemned Russia for its invasion.

He’s also likely to continue discussions that began Wednesday in Belfast about the Good Friday Agreement, as leaders work to restore the power sharing government that’s been paralyzed for more than year over a dispute related to Brexit trade rules.

Over the course of the day, he’s also planning to participate in a tree planting ceremony and ring the Peace Bell, which was unveiled at the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday accord and symbolizes reconciliation between the warring factions from The Troubles. The bell is suspended between two oak trunks, one from Northern Ireland and one from Dublin.

Later, Biden will address the Irish Parliament in a speech expected to touch on the close ties between the US and Ireland, both political and personal. And he’ll end the day at a banquet dinner held at Dublin Castle, once the seat of the British government’s administration in Ireland.

Through all of his formal engagements, Biden will engage a country that has become an unexpected stalwart of progressive liberalism, even as right-wing populism has been on the rise elsewhere.

In 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote; the current Taoiseach, or prime minister, Leo Varadkar is gay. He is also Ireland’s first ethnic minority to become head of government.

Three years later, Ireland voted decisively to end what, at the time, was one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the world. For decades, Irish women seeking to end a pregnancy were forced to travel to England or risk an illegal, often unsafe abortion in Ireland.

Taken together, the two votes swept aside decades of church authority in Ireland, once a stronghold of conservative Catholicism. The church found its credibility badly weakened after a series of scandals, including abuses of unwed mothers in the so-called Magdalene laundries and abuse of children by pedophile priests.

The Irish identity Biden is exploring this week with visits to two ancestral hometowns is intrinsically linked to his own Catholicism. Later in the week, he’s expected to visit the Our Lady of Knock shrine, the site of an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1879, and deliver a speech in front of St. Muredach’s Cathedral, which his great-great-great-grandfather sold bricks to in order to fund his family’s passage to the United States.

Biden pairs his Irishness and Catholic faith frequently when referencing his roots and upbringing in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

“Every time I walk out of my Irish Catholic grandfather’s home up in Scranton, Pennsylvania – his name was Ambrose Finnegan – and he’d yell, ‘Joey, keep the faith,’” Biden said last month, repeating a memory he often recalls about his childhood.

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April 13, 2023
Keokuk woman charged with delivering marijuana | Daily Democrat, Fort Madison, Iowa – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

The Lee County Narcotics Task Force reports the arrest of a Keokuk woman on felony drug charges.

Montana Gracey Lamma, 25, was arrested Monday by the Keokuk Police Departement for an outstanding warrant that was issued by the Lee County Narcotics Task Force.

Lamma is charged with delivery of marijuana, a class D felony.

The charges stemmed from an investigation where Lamma was alleged to have been delivering marijuana to others in the Lee County area.

The Lee County Narcotics Task Force was assisted by the Fort Madison Police Department, the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement, the Keokuk Police Department, and the Lee County Attorney’s Office.

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April 13, 2023