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  • DOJ prosecutors in DC take over corruption probe into Texas attorney general | CNN Politics

    DOJ prosecutors in DC take over corruption probe into Texas attorney general | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Justice Department prosecutors in Washington, DC, have taken over the corruption investigation into Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

    State prosecutor Kent Schaffer, who is separately investigating Paxton, told CNN in an interview that the Justice Department notified him of the change. The yearslong corruption investigation had, until now, been under the control of federal prosecutors in Texas.

    The recent takeover by federal prosecutors at Justice Department headquarters in Washington is the most recent development in the investigation of the Texas attorney general, which was initiated after several aides accused Paxton of bribery, abuse of office and other potentially criminal offenses in 2020. It also comes just days after Paxton agreed to a tentative $3.3 million settlement with four of the aides who made the public accusation.

    Paxton has repeatedly denied allegations of wrongdoing. In a statement to CNN after the settlement was announced last week, Paxton said he had “chosen this path” to “put this issue to rest.”

    The investigation will now be handled by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, according to Schaffer. The Public Integrity Section handles high profile prosecutions of government officials, including in cases of bribery and corruption.

    It is not clear what prompted the move to replace the federal prosecutors in Texas on the case.

    A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.

    Paxton’s attorney Dan Cogdell told The Associated Press, which first reported the development, that he had previously asked for prosecutors from the Western District of Texas to be off the case because they had “an obvious conflict,” but that he had not personally been notified of the move. Cogdell did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN.

    CNN has also reached out to Paxton’s office for comment.

    In an interview with CNN, Schaffer said that “there is no reason in the world that [the Texas prosecutors] couldn’t have continued with the prosecution.” He said he worries “Ken Paxton has committed a crime … and he won’t have to answer for it.”

    He continued: “This cat’s got nine lives, and it looks like he’s used up about seven or eight of them.”

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  • Denver council member dragged himself onto stage before a political debate due to a lack of wheelchair accessibility | CNN

    Denver council member dragged himself onto stage before a political debate due to a lack of wheelchair accessibility | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A Denver city council member who uses a wheelchair faced a difficult situation this week when he participated in a political debate at a venue that did not have full accessibility, prompting him to drag himself onto its stage.

    Chris Hinds, who is running for reelection, said he has received apologies from the venue for the incident.

    “I felt like a circus monkey. I felt exploited,” Hinds told CNN Thursday.

    When Hinds arrived for the Monday debate, which was held at the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance facility’s theater in Denver, he was told organizers intended to carry him onto the stage. Hinds found the idea both humiliating and impractical.

    “My wheelchair weighs 400 pounds. I’m about 200 pounds. That’s 600 pounds they wanted to try to lift,” Hinds said.

    Organizers asked Hinds if he could raise himself onto the stage’s floor so they would only have to lift his chair, he said. Video shows Hinds, who is paralyzed from the middle of his chest down, shifting himself from the chair’s edge to the edge of the stage floor, and then using his arms to pull his legs onto the stage.

    He then struggles to sit upright until someone brings him a chair to lean on, the video, which Hinds provided, shows.

    Hinds was reluctant to try to get onstage without his wheelchair, he said, but felt he had no choice because candidates in Denver must forfeit public campaign funds if they decline to participate in an official debate.

    “My thought process was, I have to participate in this debate or end my campaign,” Hinds said.

    Eventually, organizers agreed to allow the debate to take place on the main floor of the theater at the foot of the stage, where he could sit in his wheelchair. Video shows him sliding himself back off the stage’s edge to his wheelchair.

    In a written statement, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance’s executive director Malik Robinson publicly apologized to Hinds.

    “I deeply regret it took this incident to elevate the urgency for this change and we are committed to ensuring that no one experiences lack of access to the stage again,” Robinson said.

    Hinds says he also received an apology from the office of the county clerk, who organizes the debates, and says he is satisfied with their response.

    Hinds pointed out that many people with disabilities continue to struggle with lack of access more than 30 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. When he became the first person in a wheelchair elected to the council, the chambers where they hold meetings were not wheelchair-accessible, nor were the restrooms at City Hall, he said. That was quickly rectified after he was elected, he said.

    “I sure hope that we can use this as a teaching moment to understand why it’s important for democracy to be representative of all the people, including people with disabilities,” he said.

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  • Another education fight over DEI emerges, this time at a conservative campus in Texas | CNN

    Another education fight over DEI emerges, this time at a conservative campus in Texas | CNN


    Lubbock, Texas
    CNN
     — 

    One of the largest universities in Texas is now reviewing its hiring procedures after one department closely scrutinized candidates over their knowledge of diversity, equity and inclusion, more commonly known as DEI.

    “We could see that this could be viewed as possibly exclusionary,” Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec said in an interview with CNN. “And so we wanted to step back and review the whole process.”

    The biology department at Texas Tech University – set in deeply conservative West Texas – asked faculty candidates in 2021 to submit statements on their commitment to DEI. Some candidates received negative notes if their answers were deemed insufficient, such as not knowing the difference between “equality” and “equity.”

    The process, which came to light earlier this month, prompted swift conservative backlash against the storied institution, with critics decrying such DEI screenings as litmus tests that discriminate based on ideology. The term DEI has become the latest target among conservative politicians in the recent era of racial reckoning, echoing the heated debates over critical race theory in schools.

    DEI programs have become commonplace in the worlds of business, government, and education to promote multiculturalism and to encourage success for people of all races and backgrounds. But they’ve also become a focal point of those who describe them as another example of extreme political correctness.

    In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said earlier this month he intends to ban state universities from spending money on DEI initiatives. “We want education, not indoctrination,” he said at an event in Jacksonville.

    And in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott this month issued a memo to state agencies and universities asserting that using DEI as a screening tool is illegal. “When a state agency adjusts its employment practices based on factors other than merit, it is not following the law. Rebranding this employment discrimination as ‘DEI’ does not make the practice any less illegal,” the memo said.

    Schovanec said the school’s lawyers insist the biology department’s actions were not illegal, but the university is ending efforts that use DEI as a screening tool for faculty while it undergoes a review of its hiring practices campuswide.

    A group called the National Association of Scholars first uncovered the situation at Texas Tech by obtaining DEI-specific notes and documents from the biology department’s hiring process through open records requests. The group published the roughly 100 documents online, along with an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, called “How ‘Diversity’ Policing Fails Science.”

    The DEI portion was just one component of screening candidates in the biology department, according to the university. Each applicant was asked to submit a curriculum vitae, three representative publications, separate statements of research and teaching interests, three potential referees, and “a diversity statement that addresses any past contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion and outlines plans and actions for advancing DEI” at Texas Tech. Finalists were also interviewed by a DEI committee.

    According to the documents, candidates were flagged for being “reluctant” to answer questions about DEI or not having a “good grasp” of the concept. Under the “weaknesses” for one candidate, it was noted the candidate repeatedly used the pronoun “he” when talking about professors. The same candidate was “red-flagged” and hiring committee members wrote they had “reservations about sending him into a large, diverse undergrad classroom with his current understanding and strategies.”

    Another candidate’s weakness was listed as: “Mentioned that DEI is not an issue because he respects his students and treats them equally.”

    While the names of the candidates in the documents were redacted, Texas Tech University confirmed to CNN that some of the candidates featured in the documents were hired and not all of the positions have been filled yet.

    Steve Balch is a former Texas Tech professor and founder of the National Association of Scholars, which has done considerable research on DEI efforts in universities to illustrate what it sees as an impediment to academic freedom.

    “My quarrel isn’t with people who think diversity, equity and inclusion are good things,” he told CNN. “My argument and the argument of the NAS is turning them into dogma and then using them to vet faculty members, graduate students, undergraduate students – creating aversive environment in which you feel you have to swear fealty to a particular creed. I think that’s wrong.”

    The issue at Texas Tech also came up in a state Senate hearing on February 8. Sen. Joan Huffman questioned Texas Tech’s chancellor Tedd Mitchell, saying she was “concerned and confused” over the incident.

    “I do not believe in litmus tests of any type,” Mitchell said. “It’s no more appropriate to ask somebody about their position on DEI than it is to ask them if they’re a Christian or a Muslim. When we find out something like that has occurred, we stop it.”

    Schovanec recognizes that Tech is in conservative part of a conservative state with many key conservative stakeholders, donors, and legislators involved in school funding.

    “We have to be pragmatic in acknowledging issues that are being raised,” he said. “Our legislators are responding to their constituents. And in this country right now, education has many challenges.”

    He stressed the importance of diversity at the school, which has its own DEI division. According to Texas Tech, 46% of this year’s incoming class are students of color, and 30% of faculty are faculty of color.

    “So we’re totally committed to a diverse campus community, but those hiring practices could present the perception that certain candidates would be excluded based on their ideological views, as opposed to the real excellence related to that discipline and the ability to address the priorities of our mission here,” he said.

    Schovanec said the school needs more diverse faculty, and he acknowledged that some prospective candidates might see the school’s recent move to end DEI screenings and question Tech’s commitment to diversity.

    “Faculty and students have to judge us by our actions. Do we support them? Do we create an environment here where they feel they belong and this is a place where they can thrive? That’s a much bigger issue than certain elements of a hiring process,” he said “But that is a challenge that we have.”

    Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said the political firestorm over the incident at Texas Tech is simply an “attempt to fuel the base” among those who don’t agree with longstanding efforts to increase diversity.

    She’s concerned that DEI will follow the same path as critical race theory, or CRT, and become a term that’s twisted and misrepresented for political purposes.

    “It’s demonizing efforts, not only within higher education, but I think within this country to create a more equitable, just United States,” she said. “On some levels it’s misappropriating the work that is being done and using it as a basis for saying we’re discriminating against others.”

    Granberry Russell said she wants people to understand the nuance of DEI and that it’s designed to increase opportunities for people who have been historically marginalized or not well represented in higher education or the workforce.

    “My hope would be that as we begin to think more broadly about inclusion, that people will better understand this is not a situation where some are intending to take access away, but to expand access,” she said.

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  • US strike kills 5 al-Shabaab fighters in Somalia, US Africa Command says | CNN Politics

    US strike kills 5 al-Shabaab fighters in Somalia, US Africa Command says | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    A US strike in Somalia killed five al-Shabaab fighters on Wednesday, US Africa Command said in a statement. The strike was carried out at the request of the Somali government and was a “collective self-defense strike,” according to AFRICOM.

    The strike was carried out approximately 300 miles north of the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

    No civilians were injured or killed, AFRICOM said, citing the remote location of the operation.

    The latest strike marks the second time in a week that the US has targeted al-Shabaab forces in Somalia. On Friday, the US carried out a strike that killed 12 al-Shabaab fighters northeast of Mogadishu.

    Since the beginning of the year, the US has conducted a total of five strikes aimed at al-Shabaab, according to AFRICOM, an indication of the increased partnership between the US and Somali government and Somali forces targeting the terrorist group. AFRICOM considers al-Shabaab the largest and most deadly al Qaeda network in the world with a demonstrated will to carry out attacks against Somalia, the US and others.

    In late January, the US also carried out a counterterrorism operation in Somalia that killed Bilal al-Sudani, an ISIS leader responsible for spreading ISIS ideology in Africa.

    The US has provided ongoing support to the Somali government since President Joe Biden approved a Pentagon request last year to redeploy US troops to the area in an attempt to counter al-Shabaab. The approval to send fewer than 500 troops was a reversal of former President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw all US troops from the country in 2020.

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  • Black man killed by Shreveport police had previously sued the same department for excessive use of force against him | CNN

    Black man killed by Shreveport police had previously sued the same department for excessive use of force against him | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    An unarmed Black man who was shot and killed by a Shreveport, Louisiana, police officer had previously sued the police department, alleging excessive force, according to a lawsuit obtained by CNN.

    Alonzo Bagley, 43, was killed earlier this month after officers responded to a domestic disturbance call at an apartment complex, according to Louisiana State Police. When police arrived, Bagley jumped down from an apartment balcony and fled, and after a brief foot chase, one officer fatally shot Bagley – who was later found to be unarmed, state police said.

    The officer is on paid administrative leave, and the state police are investigating the incident, which includes reviewing the officer’s body worn camera.

    Documents show Bagley had a previous run-in with Shreveport police, years before he was killed.

    Twelve months after Shreveport police allegedly assaulted Bagley during an arrest in January of 2018, he filed a federal lawsuit against the department.

    Bagley required “treatment of a broken occipital orbital eye-socket bones, contusions to the head and face, and a number of his front upper teeth knocked out,” the suit says.

    During the 2018 incident, officers responded to a domestic dispute between Alonzo and his wife, the complaint states.

    Bagley was put into handcuffs that “were placed too tightly” on him and he “maneuvered his hands to the front of his body due to the pain and discomfort of being handcuffed behind his back in the back passenger portion of an SPD (Shreveport Police Department) patrol car,” the suit says. According to the filing, he “was not attempting and did not attempt to escape but only rearranged himself out of the painful position he was in.”

    One police officer then opened the door and “delivered forceful and several close-fisted strikes to the head and face” and a second officer did not stop the assault, the suit says. Bagley was handcuffed the entire time and offered no resistance, the lawsuit says.

    In response to the complaint, the city said that one of its officers did open the door of the patrol car, but was assisting Bagley because he was “attempting to strangle or choke himself with the seatbelt.”

    The city went on to say the officer did strike Bagley’s “head and facial area when Plaintiff (Bagley) covered his head with his arms and prevented Officer Kolb from removing the seatbelt and removing Plaintiff from the vehicle.”

    It is unclear what the resolution was on the lawsuit.

    An attorney that represented Bagley in the case did not return calls from CNN seeking comment.

    Bagley was charged with domestic abuse battery and resisting an officer related to the incident. The domestic abuse charge was dismissed, and he pleaded guilty in February 2018 to the charge of resisting an officer, according to court records.

    CNN has requested comment from the police department, and filed an open records request with the city to find out more about the 2018 incident.

    Alexander Tyler – the officer who shot and killed Bagley this month – was not with the department when the 2018 incident occurred.

    Bagley’s family has sued Tyler, seeking more than $10 million in damages, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court. The lawsuit alleges that the office violated Alonzo Bagley’s Fourth Amendment rights.

    Louisiana State Police says the case is still under investigation.

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  • 1 dead, 3 injured in shooting at El Paso shopping mall | CNN

    1 dead, 3 injured in shooting at El Paso shopping mall | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Four people were shot Wednesday evening at the Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, Texas, according to police. One person died, said Sgt. Robert Gomez.

    “We have one person in custody. We do believe there could be one outstanding. That’s why the extensive search of the mall is being done right now,” Gomez said.

    Police did not comment on a possible motive and did not provide details on the conditions of the three victims who were hospitalized.

    “It was chaotic. People did flee. They were scared,” said Gomez.

    Earlier, police asked people to avoid Cielo Vista Mall after getting reports that shots have been fired in the food court.

    “Mall scene is still active please avoid the area. Multiple agencies responding to the area,” EPPD said in a tweet Wednesday afternoon.

    The mall is adjacent to a Walmart where a mass shooting in 2019 killed 23 and left nearly two dozen more injured.

    Robert Gonzalez was in the mall and told CNN he “saw people running to the exit.”

    Videos taken by Gonzalez show several mall storefronts closed with their security gates down and police parked outside. He said he was able to make it safely to his car, where he was waiting to leave as he spoke with CNN.

    Gonzalez recalled the 2019 mass shooting, saying today’s experience “just brought back bad memories.”

    This is a developing story and will be updated.

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  • Family of unarmed Black man sues the Louisiana officer who killed him while waiting for release of body-camera video | CNN

    Family of unarmed Black man sues the Louisiana officer who killed him while waiting for release of body-camera video | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The family of an unarmed Black man who was shot and killed by a Shreveport, Louisiana, police officer has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the officer.

    The lawsuit filed Saturday in the Western District of Louisiana alleges the officer violated Alonzo Bagley’s Fourth Amendment rights.

    Bagley, 43, was shot and killed earlier this month after police responded to a domestic disturbance call at an apartment complex, Louisiana State Police said in a statement. When two officers arrived around 10:50 p.m. on February 3, Bagley jumped down from an apartment balcony and fled, said the statement from state police, which is the agency investigating the shooting.

    After a short foot pursuit, an officer “located Mr. Bagley as he rounded a building corner and fired one shot from his service weapon, which struck Mr. Bagley in the chest,” state police said. Bagley later was pronounced dead at a hospital.

    Detectives did not find any weapons on or near Bagley when they processed the scene, Louisiana State Police Superintendent Col. Lamar Davis said.

    The “use of lethal force against an unarmed man who posed no threat is objectively unreasonable, excessive and wholly without justification,” the lawsuit alleges.

    The family is seeking more than $10 million in damages, according to the lawsuit.

    The officer who shot Bagley was identified by state police as Alexander Tyler.

    Tyler is currently on paid administrative leave pending results of the state police investigation, the Shreveport Police Department told CNN. The officer has been with the department since May 2021, Chief Wayne Smith said.

    The investigation into Bagley’s shooting death comes as police use of force against people of color, particularly Black Americans, is under intense scrutiny nationwide, including the brutal beating death of Tyre Nichols by Memphis officers conducting what police said was a traffic stop.

    In Louisiana, four state troopers and another law enforcement officer were indicted on charges last year stemming from the in-custody killing of 49-year-old Ronald Greene, a Black man violently beaten by officers during an arrest.

    “I am asking for the community to remain patient as we continue to conduct a very thorough investigation,” Davis said following Bagley’s death. “Transparency in the investigation is a priority for our agency.”

    Investigators are reviewing body-worn and dashboard camera videos and hope to release them to the public, Davis has said.

    “The family hopes to view the video before (Bagley’s) funeral,” Ronald Haley, the family’s attorney, told CNN, noting the funeral is scheduled for Saturday.

    State police declined Tuesday to say when the video would be released.

    “Further information will be released in coordination with the District Attorney’s Office. We do not have a timeline at this time,” Nick Manale, a spokesperson for state police, told CNN via email.

    The Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Office told CNN it has not received any investigative materials from investigators.

    “Louisiana State police has the case under investigation,” Laura Fulco, the first assistant district attorney for Caddo Parish, said. “It is still under investigation.”

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  • She was ‘everything you’d want your daughter or friend to be.’ Here’s what we know about the Michigan State University shooting victims | CNN

    She was ‘everything you’d want your daughter or friend to be.’ Here’s what we know about the Michigan State University shooting victims | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Alexandria Verner was kind, positive and “everything you’d want your daughter or friend to be,” a family friend said.

    “Her kindness was on display every single second you were around her,” Clawson Public Schools Superintendent Billy Shellenbarger told CNN. He is friends with the Verner family and has known Alexandria, or Alex, as he called her, since she was in kindergarten.

    Verner was one of three Michigan State University students killed in a mass shooting on campus Monday night, university police said Tuesday.

    The Michigan State University Department of Police and Public Safety identified the three students killed Monday night as junior Arielle Anderson, sophomore Brian Fraser and Verner, who was also a junior.

    Anderson and Fraser hailed from the same town of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, leaving their hometown with a double loss.

    Five other students remain in the hospital in critical condition, the release said.

    “We cannot begin to fathom the immeasurable amount of pain that our campus community is feeling,” the police release said.

    These are the stories of the victims.

    Verner touched a lot of people in the town of Clawson, Michigan, Shellenbarger said, which he described as a small, 2-mile by 2-mile community.

    “To lose her on this planet, let alone our small community, it’s tough,” he said. “And it’s going to take a while to recover, but to have known her for the duration of time that we all have, once again, is a gift to all of us,” he said.

    Verner’s family is “being about as strong as a human being can be in the face of this tragedy,” Shellenbarger said, adding that he spoke with them Tuesday.

    Shellenbarger was the principal at Clawson High School while Verner was a student there. She graduated in 2020.

    Verner was a fantastic three-sport athlete in volleyball, basketball and softball, as well as an excellent student who was active in many leadership groups at the school, Shellenbarger said.

    Shellenbarger sent a letter to families on Tuesday informing the community of her death and offering resources for students.

    “Alex was and is incredibly loved by everyone. She was a tremendous student, athlete, leader and exemplified kindness every day of her life!” he wrote in the letter. “Her parents, Ted and Nancy, and sister Charlotte and brother TJ are equally grieving but are certainly already feeling the uplifting support of this tremendous community.”

    “If you knew her, you loved her and we will forever remember the lasting impact she has had on all of us,” he wrote.

    Brian Fraser

    Fraser served as the president of the Michigan Beta Chapter of Phi Delta Theta, the fraternity said in a statement.

    He was a leader and a great friend to his brothers, the Greek community and the people he interacted with on campus, the fraternity said.

    “Phi Delta Theta sends its deepest condolences to the Fraser family, the Michigan Beta Chapter, and all those who loved Brian as they mourn their loss,” the statement reads.

    Fraser was a sophomore who hailed from Grosse Pointe, which is in the Detroit area, university police said.

    He graduated in 2021 from Grosse Pointe South High School, according to district superintendent Jon Dean.

    Arielle Anderson

    Anderson, a junior at Michigan State, was also from Grosse Point, university police said.

    She graduated in 2021 from Grosse Pointe North High School, according to Dean.

    “How is it possible that this happened in the first place, an act of senseless violence that has no place in our society and in particular no place in school?” Dean said. “But then, it touched our community not once, but twice.”

    Four of the five injured students from the shooting required surgery and some immediate intervention, Dr. Denny Martin, Interim President and Chief Medical Officer at Sparrow Hospital, said Tuesday.

    “Without going into the specifics of their injuries, I will say that it took a team of numerous anesthesiologist(s), trauma surgeons, general surgeons, cardiothoracic surgery and a neurosurgery team to handle the full extent of the injuries,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

    One student who was injured “did not require immediate surgical intervention” and they were taken directly to the ICU, he said.

    Martin said it’s too early to give a long-term prognosis on their conditions.

    “They’re all under the care of trauma and critical care teams here,” Martin said. “Some are more critical than others, but again, it’s quite early…in their recovery from this event.”

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  • Man who allegedly drove U-Haul truck into people in New York City will face murder and attempted murder charges, police say | CNN

    Man who allegedly drove U-Haul truck into people in New York City will face murder and attempted murder charges, police say | CNN


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    A man who allegedly drove a U-Haul truck into pedestrians in New York City on Monday will face one charge of second-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder, New York Police Chief of Detectives James Essig said at a Tuesday news conference.

    Weng Sor, a 62-year-old man from Las Vegas, allegedly was driving the U-Haul on Monday and hit people as he fled to evade a car stop, according to police.

    A 44-year-old died as a result of his injuries, and eight others including a police officer were injured, according to Essig. One person is in critical but stable condition, and injuries for the others ranged from broken bones to cuts and bruises, Essig said.

    CNN was not able to immediately identify an attorney for Sor. It’s unclear what formal charges Sor will face when he is arraigned in Kings County Criminal Court.

    “He’s still in police custody so no arraignment any time soon,” an email response from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office said. “Still sorting out charges.”

    The incident began when police pulled over the rented truck at about 10:49 a.m. in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, the New York Police Department said. The driver evaded police and was taken into custody a few blocks away after hitting the victims.

    Sor lives in Las Vegas with his mother and traveled to Florida on February 1 where he rented a U-Haul, Essig said.

    Sor was arrested in South Carolina while driving to New York for reckless driving and possession of marijuana, he added.

    The suspect’s ex-wife and son live in Brooklyn, Essig said, and Sor stopped at their residence twice before Monday’s incident to shower. The second time, he had “an altercation with his son,” Essig told reporters.

    “Based on interviews with his family members and confirmed when interrogated by members of the New York City detective bureau, we believe Mr. Sor was suffering from a mental health crisis,” Essig said. “At this time, there is no nexus to terrorism.”

    It appears Sor was living in the U-Haul, according to a law enforcement source. Boxes of his clothes and other items were found in the van, the source said.

    According to Essig, Sor told investigators that when was driving the rental truck Monday, he saw “an invisible object come towards the car.”

    “And at that point, he says, ‘I’ve had enough’ and he goes on his rampage,” Essig said.

    Sor told police officers they should have shot him when he was arrested, he said.

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  • GOP lawmakers escalate fight against gender-affirming care with bills seeking to expand the scope of bans | CNN Politics

    GOP lawmakers escalate fight against gender-affirming care with bills seeking to expand the scope of bans | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A flurry of bills seeking to restrict access to gender-affirming care for trans youth have been introduced by Republican state lawmakers this year, with debates around the issue reaching new heights thanks to proposals that would dramatically expand the scope of bans on such care.

    More than 80 bills seeking to restrict access to gender-affirming care have been introduced around the country through February 9, according to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union and shared with CNN.

    Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender – the one the person was designated at birth – to their affirmed gender – the gender by which one wants to be known.

    Though many of the bills introduced so far this year target trans youth and their access to gender-affirming care, at least four states saw bills introduced this session that would restrict such care for individuals over the age of 18, including at least two states where proposed bans covered people under the age of 26.

    Legislation aimed at trans adults has alarmed LGBTQ advocates, who worry that even if those measures don’t become law, they will make future bills exclusively targeting minors seem like sensible compromises.

    The slew of new bills underscores the shifting policy goals of some conservatives seeking to politicize the lives of transgender Americans by imposing restrictions on a small and vulnerable group that, LGBTQ advocates say, are largely misunderstood, making their existence ripe for attacks. A number of GOP-led states have in recent years been successful in banning trans youth from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity, but now it appears the focus has largely turned to gender-affirming care.

    “It’s really, I think, a big but important, notable moment that they’re no longer pretending that this is about caring about young folks, and making it very clear that all that they really want to do is prevent trans folks from being able to receive medically necessary, life-saving care basically at any age,” said Cathryn Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights groups.

    “They have abandoned women’s sports entirely but doubled down on trying to hurt trans kids,” she added. “So, you know, the through line here is about hurting trans people. And yes, they’re looking for the next discriminatory measure that they can get passed.”

    In pushing the health care bans, Republicans have argued that decisions around such care should be made after an individual becomes an adult – a position that is facing intense scrutiny as some lawmakers have moved the age goalpost this year.

    Many of the bills likely won’t get far in the legislative process. An HRC report released last month said that of the 315 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in 2022, only 29 – or less than 10% – became law. Still, the influx of bills this session is already helping to grow the small group of states that previously enacted bans on gender-affirming care.

    Last month, Utah became the first state this year to enact a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth, joining Arkansas, which enacted its ban in 2021, and Alabama, which put a similar ban on its books last year. Arizona also enacted restrictions on gender-affirming care in 2022, though its ban was less sweeping than the others.

    Two of those laws have already brought forth a complicated legal landscape around the issue. The ACLU sued Arkansas over its ban and a federal judge temporarily blocked it in 2021, and Alabama’s law was partially blocked by a federal judge last May.

    As states consider the dozens of health care bans introduced this year, they’ll do so under threat of federal legal action, with the legislative efforts having caused the US Department of Justice to take notice.

    Last year, DOJ’s Civil Rights Division sent a stern warning to state attorneys general on the matter, saying in a letter that it “is committed to ensuring that transgender youth, like all youth, are treated fairly and with dignity in accordance with federal law.”

    “Intentionally erecting discriminatory barriers to prevent individuals from receiving gender-affirming care implicates a number of federal legal guarantees,” the letter read in part.

    Major medical associations agree that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria, which, according to the American Psychiatric Association, is psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align.

    Though the care is highly individualized, some children may decide to use reversible puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. Surgical interventions, however, are not typically done on children and many health care providers do not offer them to minors.

    LGBTQ advocates have long argued that the health care bans further marginalize a vulnerable community and could cause serious harm to a group that suffers from uniquely high rates of suicide.

    “LGBTQ youth are not inherently prone to mental health challenges and suicide. They are placed at higher risk by the hostility and discrimination they face because of who they are,” said Kasey Suffredini of the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that works to prevent suicide among LGBTQ youth. “It is on adults to carry young people through this period until we get to the place where lawmakers aren’t attacking these young people anymore.”

    At least four states saw bills introduced this year that would restrict gender-affirming care for individuals over the age of 18, dramatically raising the bar in Republicans’ efforts to regulate such care.

    Among those bills was one in Mississippi that would have criminalized people who provided or aided in the provision of gender-affirming care for individuals under the age of 21, with violators of the ban facing “the felony crime of ‘gender disfigurement.’” If convicted, a violator could have been sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison and face a fine of at least $10,000. That bill, however, died in committee in late January.

    A Kansas bill would prohibit medical professionals from “knowingly performing … or causing to be performed” gender-affirming care on an individual under the age of 21 and would make violations of the ban a felony under state law. The bill makes some exceptions, including in the case of someone born intersex.

    A bill in South Carolina, meanwhile, would impose similar restrictions. But the measure, among other things, would require someone older than 21 who is seeking gender-affirming care to first get a referral from their “primary care physician and a referral from a licensed psychiatrist who must certify that the person has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria or a similar condition by the psychiatrist and that the psychiatrist believes that gender transition procedures would be appropriate for the person.”

    Two near-identical bills in South Carolina and Oklahoma go a step further, providing that a “physician or other healthcare professional shall not provide gender transition procedures” to anyone under the age of 26. Medical professionals convicted of violating the act would be guilty of a felony, with a conviction in Oklahoma carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The bills also prohibit public funds from being used “directly or indirectly” at organizations that provide such care.

    “Surgical and chemical genital mutilation has been occurring in our great state, and it must be stopped,” the bill’s sponsor, Oklahoma GOP state Sen. David Bullard, said in a statement, using incendiary language to describe the clinically appropriate health care he’s trying to restrict.

    The statement said Bullard “chose the age of 26 to account for scientific findings that the brain does not fully develop and mature until the mid- to late 20s with the prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for critical skills like planning and controlling urges, developing last.”

    Bullard’s bill was later gutted by a Senate committee, with the changes removing the ban on care but maintaining the public funds prohibition.

    “These are people who are old enough to enlist in the military, buy guns, buy alcohol, buy tobacco, get married, do a variety of other things that we leave to adults to do,” Oakley said. “And yet we would be forbidding them from being able to receive gender affirming care, as if that is in some way a more permanent decision.”

    The push to restrict gender-affirming care has been a central focus for a number of well-funded national right-wing groups, including the conservative American Principles Project.

    The group’s president, Terry Schilling, told CNN that it works with states to introduce and pass such bans, saying their overall goal is to eliminate gender-affirming care for all Americans, regardless of age. “The movement to oppose (gender-affirming care) has never said, ‘we only care about children.’ We’ve said, ‘we want to protect children,’” he said.

    “And so, we want to protect who we can as quick as possible. And the group of people that we can protect as quick as possible is children,” Schilling added. “And so that’s the thrust of the strategy – is we want to protect everyone from this stuff. But ultimately, we have to start with children because that’s where the vast majority of the American people are right now.”

    Lawmakers in Texas have introduced a number of bills that would outlaw gender-affirming care for trans youth, with most of them setting up blanket bans similar to ones being floated elsewhere.

    But the state is also attempting to approach the issue in a unique way, with lawmakers there having introduced at least four bills that would expand the definition of child abuse to include providing gender-affirming care to minors.

    The bills are seeking to codify a non-legally binding opinion released last year by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that said providing gender-affirming surgical procedures and drugs that affect puberty should be considered child abuse under state law.

    Paxton’s move prompted the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to begin investigating parents who provide their children with such care. But LGBTQ advocates sued, and a district judge ruled last September that the state cannot pursue investigations into parents providing such care if their children and those families are part of one of the groups suing the state.

    One of the bills states in part that abuse “includes the following acts by a medical professional or mental health professional for the purpose of attempting to change or affirm a child ‘s perception of the child’s sex, if that perception is inconsistent with the child ‘s biological sex.”

    When Republican state Rep. Bryan Slaton pre-filed the bill last year, he said in a statement that it “will designate genital removal surgeries, chemical castration, puberty blockers, and other sex change therapies as child abuse.”

    Elsewhere, states are pushing ahead with bans similar to the ones in Arkansas and Alabama that are currently in legal jeopardy.

    In Utah, the Republican-controlled legislature moved a ban on gender-affirming care for minors through the statehouse in under a month, with Republican Gov. Spencer Cox giving it his stamp of approval in late January.

    “More and more experts, states and countries around the world are pausing these permanent and life-altering treatments for new patients until more and better research can help determine the long-term consequences,” Cox said in a statement explaining his decision to sign the bill into law.

    “This is a devastating and dangerous violation of the rights and privacy of transgender Utahns, their families, and their medical providers,” said Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU, in a statement. “Claims of protecting our most vulnerable with these laws ring hollow when lawmakers have trans children’s greatest protectors – their parents, providers, and the youth themselves – pleading in front of them not to cut them off from their care.”

    LGBTQ advocates hoped Cox would veto the ban, pointing to the governor’s decision last year to veto an anti-trans sports bill in the state. At the time, he questioned the need for it and stressed that it targets a marginalized group that suffers from high rates of suicide. Lawmakers, however, quickly overrode his veto, with the drama underscoring how Republicans are not always in lockstep on matters pertaining to the LGBTQ community.

    Last month, Mississippi’s House passed a bill that similarly makes it illegal to “knowingly provide gender transition procedures to any person under” the age of 18. Physicians and other medical professionals found to have violated the ban would have their license to practice health care in the state revoked.

    “I just believe a child needs to wait until they’re 18-years-old, then they can make their own decision,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Gene Newman, told CNN. Decisions about the type of care Newman’s bill seeks to limit, however, are made by a mix of people, including a child’s parents and the medical provider.

    A South Dakota bill would also prohibit health care professionals in the state from providing gender-affirming care to minors. Like the Mississippi bill, providers found to be in violation of the ban by a professional or occupational licensing board would get their license to practice medicine revoked, according to the bill. The bill cleared South Dakota’s Senate on Thursday and is now headed to Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, who is supportive of the legislation.

    South Dakota has been especially hostile to trans youth in recent years, with Noem having signed a bill last year banning transgender women and girls in the state from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender at accredited schools and colleges. That legislation codified an executive order the governor signed in 2021.

    As lawmakers continue to debate these bans, advocates like Strangio, who is involved in the ACLU’s legal fight against some of the bans, are vowing to take states to court over any enacted restrictions.

    “It will be the government’s burden to defend it in court,” he told a Tennessee House committee last month that went on to approve a ban there. “And Tennessee, like Alabama, like Texas, like Arkansas, will not be able to do so.”

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  • Memphis firefighters union defends EMTs in Tyre Nichols case, says they weren’t given ‘adequate information’ | CNN

    Memphis firefighters union defends EMTs in Tyre Nichols case, says they weren’t given ‘adequate information’ | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The president of the firefighters union in Memphis, Tennessee is defending the actions of EMTs involved in the Tyre Nichols case.

    In a letter to the Memphis City Council, Thomas Malone, president of the Memphis Fire Fighters Association, said his members “were not given adequate information upon dispatch or upon arrival on the scene” where Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, had been repeatedly punched and kicked by police after a traffic stop on January 7.

    “Quite frankly, there was information withheld by those already on the scene which caused our members to handle things differently than they should have,” Malone suggested.

    Three Memphis Fire Department personnel were fired for failing to render emergency care during the January 7 incident.

    CNN obtained the letter from Memphis City Council member Dr. Jeff Warren. CNN has reached out to both Malone and Ben Crump, an attorney for the Nichols family, and has yet to hear back.

    Malone also said he was “disheartened” to see some members of the 1,600-employee department criticizing fellow members during a city council meeting last week.

    “Our members respond to hundreds of calls over and over, without fail. One incident should not define the good work being done by these dedicated public servants and some have taken that position, unfortunately,” he said.

    Memphis Fire Chief Gina Sweat told the council that training issues and the failure of EMTs to take personal accountability on a call were to blame for her department’s handling of the Nichols case.

    Emergency medical technicians Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge and fire Lt. Michelle Whitaker were fired, the fire department announced last month.

    An investigation concluded that the two EMTs “failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment of Mr. Nichols” after responding based on both the initial call – in which they heard a person was pepper-sprayed – and information they were told at the scene, Sweat said in a news release.

    Whitaker had remained in the fire truck, according to the chief’s statement.

    The truck carrying the EMTs arrived at about 8:41 p.m. when Nichols was on the ground leaning against a police vehicle, the fire department said. An ambulance was called at 8:46 p.m. the department said. The ambulance arrived at 8:55 p.m. and left with Nichols 13 minutes later, according to the fire department.

    Pole-camera video shows that between the time the EMTs arrived and the ambulance arrived, first responders repeatedly walked away from Nichols, with Nichols intermittently falling onto his side.

    Since the incident, six officers have been fired, including five who are facing murder charges in Nichols’ death. On Monday, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office spokesperson told CNN another of the fired officers involved in the incident would have his case’s reviewed.

    The former officer, Preston Hemphill, was also fired for violating multiple police department policies, including personal conduct and truthfulness. He has not been charged in the case.

    Last week, the district attorney’s office announced it would investigate all prior and pending cases involving the five officers who were criminally charged.

    The officers were also added to a Giglio list, also known as a Brady list which documents law enforcement members who have been charged criminally or involved in incidents of untruthfulness or other issues that may undermine their credibility, according to the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

    “The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office will add former Memphis Police Department Officer Preston Hemphill to the Giglio list. Additionally, the Office will investigate all prior and pending cases of Hemphill,” spokesperson Erica Williams said.

    Hemphill’s attorney, Lee Gerald, declined to comment about the investigation or his client’s addition to the Giglio list.

    Hemphill was seen on body camera video using his Taser on Nichols and later could be heard saying, “I hope they stomp his ass.”

    After Nichols’ beating, Hemphill provided conflicting statements about the case, first saying on a form that Nichols tried to grab a fellow officer’s weapon, but later telling investigators he did not see that occur, according to a police department document obtained by CNN.

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  • College Board hits back at Florida’s initial rejection of AP African American Studies course and admits it made mistakes in rollout | CNN

    College Board hits back at Florida’s initial rejection of AP African American Studies course and admits it made mistakes in rollout | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The testing organization behind a new college-level African American studies course for high schoolers is hitting back at Florida officials’ comments about the Advanced Placement class, accusing the state Education Department of “slander” and spreading misinformation about it for political gain.

    The College Board also admitted it “made mistakes in the rollout” of the course framework “that are being exploited,” according to a lengthy statement published Saturday. And it disputed how Florida officials – who have asked that the course be resubmitted for consideration after initially rejecting it – have characterized their dialogue and influence with the testing non-profit.

    “There is always debate about the content of a new AP course. That is good and healthy; these courses matter. But the dialogue surrounding AP African American Studies has moved from healthy debate to misinformation,” the statement said, citing the administration of Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

    “We deeply regret not immediately denouncing the Florida Department of Education’s slander, magnified by the DeSantis administration’s subsequent comments, that African American Studies ‘lacks educational value,’” it said. “Our failure to raise our voice betrayed Black scholars everywhere and those who have long toiled to build this remarkable field.”

    The College Board’s statement comes after the Florida Education Department asserted the AP African American Studies course “lacks educational value” and violates state law amid a national debate over how topics like racism and history are taught in public schools. Under DeSantis, Florida has banned the teaching of critical race theory and passed new legislation barring instruction that suggests anyone is privileged or oppressed based on their race or skin color.

    DeSantis last month said the state was rejecting the course because it imposed a “political agenda,” with a preliminary framework that included the study of “queer theory” and political movements that advocate for “abolishing prisons.”

    “That’s the wrong side of the line for Florida standards,” the governor said at a news conference. “We believe in teaching kids facts and how to think, but we don’t believe they should have an agenda imposed on them when you try to use Black history to shoehorn in queer theory, you are clearly trying to use that for political purposes.”

    DeSantis doubled down Monday in response to a reporter’s question about the College Board’s statement.

    “Our Department of Education looked at that and said: In Florida, we do education not indoctrination, and so that runs afoul of our standards,” he said at a news conference in Naples. “We were just the only ones that had the backbone to stand up and do it – because they call you names and they demagogue you when you do it.

    “But look, I’m so sick of people not doing what’s right because they’re worried that people are going to call them names. We’re doing what’s right here.”

    The state Education Department had concerns about six topics of study in the yearlong course, such as the Movement for Black Lives, Black feminism and reparations, it earlier told CNN. Many of the objections were tied to the inclusion of texts from modern Black thought leaders and history teachers, whose writings the DeSantis administration believes violate state laws, it said.

    The College Board later released the official framework for the course with many of the topics DeSantis objected to removed. Under the official framework, students can study those topics as part of a required research project.

    The Florida Education Department last week said it had met several times and exchanged emails over months with the College Board to discuss the course and was “grateful” to see the changes, according to a letter it wrote to the testing organization. The department asked the board to resubmit the class for consideration and indicated it had not yet decided whether to approve it.

    The College Board, however, denied that characterization of the exchanges, calling it “a false and politically motivated charge,” according to its statement Saturday.

    “In Florida’s effort to engineer a political win, they have claimed credit for the specific changes we made to the official framework,” the College Board said. “In their February 7, 2023, letter to us, which they leaked to the media within hours of sending, Florida expresses gratitude for the removal of 19 topics, none of which they ever asked us to remove, and most of which remain in the official framework.”

    The College Board reached out to Florida officials for details about how the proposed course framework violated state law but didn’t receive any of that information in subsequent phone calls with the department, the testing organization said.

    “These phone calls with FDOE were absent of substance, despite the audacious claims of influence FDOE is now making,” the College Board’s statement reads. “In the discussion, they did not offer feedback but instead asked vague, uninformed questions like, ‘What does the word ‘intersectionality’ mean?’ and ‘Does the course promote Black Panther thinking?’”

    “We had no negotiations about the content of this course with Florida or any other state, nor did we receive any requests, suggestions, or feedback,” the statement said.

    In the wake of the debate, Florida’s relationship with the College Board – which also administers the SAT college admissions test – may change, DeSantis said Monday.

    “I think the legislature is going to look to reevaluate, kind of, how Florida” selects vendors for college-credit courses, he said. “Of course, our universities can or can’t accept College Board courses for credit, and maybe they’ll do others.

    “And then also just whether our universities do the SATs versus the ACT. I think they do both, but we’re gonna evaluate kind of how all that, that process goes. But at the end of the day, we highlighted things that were very problematic.”

    The College Board stressed its commitment to AP African American Studies is “unwavering” and admitted it should have spoken up sooner to counter statements from Florida officials, its statement reads.

    The College Board also should have made clear the course framework is an outline meant to be filled in with scholarly articles and video lectures, it said. “This error triggered a conversation about erasing or eliminating Black thinkers. The vitriol aimed at these scholars is repulsive and must stop,” the non-profit said.

    The statement praised the work of teachers and students involved in piloting the course and noted teachers in some states have more room to maneuver in their studies than others.

    “But we must resist the narrative that teachers in states with restrictions are not doing exceptional work with their students, introducing them to so much and preparing them for so much more,” the statement said.

    “By filling the course with concrete examples of the foundational concepts in this discipline, we have given teachers the flexibility to teach the essential content without putting their livelihoods at risk.”

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  • ‘Don’t let another sister suffer’: Alleged gang rape in Pakistan’s ‘Central Park’ sparks protests | CNN

    ‘Don’t let another sister suffer’: Alleged gang rape in Pakistan’s ‘Central Park’ sparks protests | CNN


    Islamabad, Pakistan
    CNN
     — 

    The alleged gang rape of a woman in a park in Pakistan has enraged women’s rights activists who are protesting against what they see as “increasing sexual barbarism” in the country.

    The woman, 24, was with a male colleague in the capital Islamabad’s Fatima Jinnah park – known locally as F9 park and the largest in the city – last Thursday when they were allegedly attacked by two armed men, according to a statement she filed with the police, seen by CNN.

    The woman alleged the men forced the pair toward a “jungle area” of the park where they ripped off her clothes and raped her.

    She said the men told her she should not have been in the park at night and asked about her connection to her colleague.

    “When I responded, I was slapped. My hair was pulled and I was thrown on the floor,” the woman said in her police statement.

    The incident has sparked outrage in the country of 220 million, which is highly patriarchal and where violent attacks against women and girls frequently make headlines.

    Scores of protesters have tied their dupattas – scarves worn by South Asian women – to the railings of the park, alongside messages imploring change.

    “Please don’t let another sister suffer,” one note read. “Save the women and kids of Pakistan,” read another.

    The rights group, Aurat Azadi March (Women’s Freedom March), said in a statement, “There is an increasing sexual barbarism in Pakistan, and criminal silence on it by the state and society is unacceptable.”

    “We are enraged. We are in pain. And we will not let this be forgotten.”

    A spokesperson for Islamabad police told CNN no arrests had been made in the case so far.

    Fatima Jinnah park is a sprawling oasis spread across the center of Islamabad in an affluent part of the city, and has a high security presence. It is often likened to New York’s Central Park as families often gather for festivals and children play at the park throughout the day.

    The government on Sunday ordered domestic television channels not to report on the alleged assault, citing the need to protect the woman’s identity.

    In a statement, Pakistan’s Electronic Media Regulatory Authority said any broadcast of news reports was “prohibited with immediate effect.”

    More than 5,200 women reported being raped in the country in 2021, according to Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission, but experts believe the actual number is much higher as many women are afraid to come forward due to social stigma and victim blaming.

    Fewer than 3% of sexual assault or rape cases result in a conviction in Pakistan, Reuters reported in December 2020, citing Karachi-based non-profit War Against Rape.

    In December 2020, Pakistan toughened its rape laws to create special courts to try cases within four months and provide medical examinations to women within six hours of a complaint being made. But activists say Pakistan continues to fail its women and does not have a nationwide law criminalizing domestic violence, leaving many vulnerable to assault.

    In 2021, the beheading of Noor Mukadam, a Pakistani ambassador’s daughter, sent shockwaves through the country with protesters calling on the government to do more to protect women.

    Her killer, Zahir Jaffer, the 30-year-old son of an influential family and a dual Pakistan-US national who knew Mukadam, was sentenced to death by an Islamabad judge last February.

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  • 6 North Carolina officers are on administrative leave after man dies in police custody | CNN

    6 North Carolina officers are on administrative leave after man dies in police custody | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Six Raleigh, North Carolina, police officers are on administrative leave and an investigation is underway after a man died in their custody last month, according to statements and newly released videos from the Raleigh Police Department.

    Darryl Tyree Williams, 32, died in a Raleigh hospital in the early hours of January 17 after a scuffle with police during which he was tased multiple times by police officers and arrested.

    The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is conducting an independent criminal investigation and will present its findings to the Wake County District Attorney, Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said in a memo to City Manager Marchell Adams-David several days after Williams’ death.

    A Wake County judge authorized Friday’s release of footage from the officers’ body cameras, as well as area surveillance footage and patrol vehicle dash camera videos connected to the incident.

    According to the memo and body camera footage, officers were conducting “proactive patrols” of businesses in an area that police said has a history of criminal violations, at roughly 1:55 a.m.

    In the video, officers J.T. Thomas and C.D. Robinson are seen pulling into the parking lot before approaching a vehicle and speaking to its occupants.

    Robinson then walks across the parking lot to another vehicle occupied by two people, including Williams, who was in the driver’s seat.

    The officer then opens the passenger door and questions what the occupants are doing before asking Williams and the passenger to exit the vehicle. According to the memo, Robinson allegedly saw an open container of alcohol and marijuana in the car.

    In the video, Williams and the unidentified passenger can be heard repeatedly asking Robinson why they were being removed from the car.

    “What’s going on?” Williams asked several times as Robinson positioned him against his car to conduct a full body search.

    “Keep both of your hands on the car. If you can’t listen to my instructions, I’m going to put you in handcuffs,” Robinson says in the video. “I’m not trying to put you in handcuffs.”

    By that point – about a minute into the encounter – Robinson had not told Williams why he was being searched.

    Moments later, Robinson is seen pulling a folded dollar bill out of Williams’ side pocket, and indicates in the video he has detected a white powdery substance folded into the bill.

    According to the memo, Robinson decided to arrest Williams for possession of a controlled substance, based upon his findings at the scene.

    Williams is heard asking “why” and “what’s going on” as Robinson attempts to place him in handcuffs. Another officer attempts to help Robinson and Thomas detain Williams, as they yell at him to “get on the ground” while another officer calls for back-up.

    Robinson then deployed his taser, which contacted Williams as he attempted to flee, while the other officers continue to yell at him to put his hands behind his back.

    Another taser was deployed but did not make contact, according to police.

    After a physical scuffle, Williams tried to escape the officers again but lost his balance and fell while attempting to run across the parking lot.

    A taser was deployed again at this point, which police said also did not contact Williams.

    An officer is heard yelling at Williams to “get on the f***king ground” while officers appeared to put their body weight on top of him to prevent the man from getting up.

    Robinson and Thomas deployed two separate tasers in “drive stun mode” which both contacted Williams in about a 50-second time span, police said.

    According to the memo, the taser deployed by Thomas contacted Williams’ side while Robinson’s taser contacted the left side of Williams’ back.

    Williams appeared to be audibly and visibly in distress as the officers continued yelling at him to stay on the ground with his hands behind his back, the video shows.

    “Put your hands behind your back or you’re gonna get tased,” one of the officers said.

    At this point, Williams is heard saying he has “heart problems” as he begged for officers to stop.

    An officer then counted down from three before deploying his taser again.

    Williams is then heard screaming and seen wriggling underneath the officers who were still yelling at him to put his hands behind his back.

    At that point, officers put Williams in handcuffs as an “unintended Taser activation” is heard but did not make contact, according to police.

    Robinson is heard telling the other officers to pat down Williams as officers attempt to reposition him into a “recovery” position.

    Another officer is heard telling Williams to “relax.”

    Police then requested EMS response at 2:02 a.m., which is in accordance with policy, the memo said.

    Moments later, an officer is heard asking if Williams is “still good” and if he’s “still breathing.”

    An officer is heard saying he doesn’t feel Williams’ pulse as other officers attempted to wake him.

    “He’s breathing,” one officer is heard saying. “He’s good.”

    Officers then removed the taser probes from Williams’ body before asking again if he was breathing.

    Officers did not detect a pulse and began performing CPR on Williams.

    They then made another call to dispatch requesting expedited EMS response at 2:06 a.m.

    Raleigh Fire Department responders then arrived on scene and took over performing CPR, according to the video.

    The video footage ends before the ambulance arrived on scene.

    It’s unclear if police were able to locate the passenger of the vehicle, who appeared to flee the scene.

    “Mr. Williams was transported by EMS to a local hospital where he was later pronounced deceased at 3:01 a.m. The cause of Mr. Williams’ death, including toxicology results, will be part of the ongoing investigations,” according to the memo.

    Police recovered two firearms, marijuana and suspected controlled substances from Williams’ vehicle, the memo reads.

    Officers Robinson, Thomas, D.L. Aquino, J.R. Scott, D.L. Grande and B.L. Ramge have been placed on administrative leave, according to the memo.

    In a statement to CNN, Dawn Blagrove, the executive director of Emancipate NC, a legal advocacy group representing Williams’ family, said the family “demands undelayed justice.”

    “That’s what his mother wants the world to know. Justice, not just for Darryl Tyree Williams but, for all the victims of state sanctioned violence across the nation,” Blagrove said.

    “Now is the time for the city of Raleigh and all of America to reckon with the trauma and harm that policing causes to Black, Brown and marginalized communities,” Blagrove told CNN.

    CNN has reached out to the Raleigh Police Department, the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation, and the Wake County Medical Examiner’s Office on Saturday.

    The Raleigh Police Protective Association, which represents two of the officers involved in the incident, told CNN in a statement its “prayers and thoughts are with the Williams family,” and that it has reviewed the video of the “tragic incident.”

    “At this point we could not determine any criminal actions or policy violations of the officers involved. We respect the process and recognize this incident is currently under investigation by the SBI,” RPPA Vice President Rick Armstrong said in the Saturday statement.

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  • After recent student fentanyl overdoses in Texas community, court documents reveal drug supplier lived blocks away from schools | CNN

    After recent student fentanyl overdoses in Texas community, court documents reveal drug supplier lived blocks away from schools | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Parents across the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District (CFBISD), located in a Dallas, Texas, suburb, are reeling following a string fentanyl overdoses by nine students who attend schools in the district.

    The students, who range in age from 13 to 17 and are not identified by name in court documents, overdosed between September 18, 2022 and February 1, 2023. Three of the students died, and one of the students, a 14-year-old girl, overdosed twice, according to a statement by the US Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Texas.

    Law enforcement officers traced the drugs the students overdosed on to a house within walking distance from a middle school and a high school, court documents say.

    “First with all the school shootings, now this with drugs,” Lupe Rebadan, who has two children, as well as nieces and nephews, attending schools in the district told CNN. “Our kids are not safe at school… When is this all going to stop?”

    Luis Eduardo Navarette and Magaly Mejia Cano have been charged with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, according to the US Attorney’s Office.

    “To deal fentanyl is to knowingly imperil lives. To deal fentanyl to minors – naive middle and high school students – is to shatter futures. These defendants’ alleged actions are simply despicable,” US Attorney Leigha Simonton said in the statement.

    The complaint illuminates a network of drug dealers and users, most of them teenagers who attend R.L. Turner High School, Dan Long Middle School and Dewitt Perry Middle School, and traced the proliferation of fentanyl tainted “M30” pills to Navarette and Cano’s residence.

    International drug trafficking organizations often produce M30 pills by mixing highly addictive fentanyl with acetaminophen “and other binder type substances and pressed into various tablets/pills,” says an affidavit by a Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer included in the criminal complaint.

    Many fake pills are made to look like prescription opioids such as oxycodone (Oxycontin, Percocet), hydrocodone (Vicodin), and alprazolam (Xanax); or stimulants like amphetamines (Adderall),” according to the DEA’s “One Pill Can Kill” website.

    Criminal organizations, according to the DEA officer’s affidavit, sell M30 pills for $1 to $2 dollars per pill when the purchasers buy in bulk amounts. Those are later sold to “street level dealers” for $3 to $5 per pill, and later sold to consumers for $10 per pill.

    Law enforcement tracked multiple teenagers engaging in “hand-to-hand transactions” with Navarette and Cano outside of their house, which is approximately five blocks from R.L. Turner High School and two blocks from DeWitt Perry Middle School, the court documents reveal.

    On January 12, a Carrollton Street Crimes Unit detective observed a 16-year-old obtain M30 pills from Navarette and Cano’s residence.

    The teenager appeared to crush and snort a pill on their front porch, “possibly package” the drugs, then walk toward the high school, where he was enrolled, according to the complaint.

    The school was notified by law enforcement, and later that day a school resource officer located the teenager in a bathroom making a “snorting sound” and appearing intoxicated.

    Navarette and Cano made their initial appearances in court on Monday, Erin Dooley of the US Attorney’s Office in Northern Texas told CNN. Naverette waived his right to a detention hearing and was ordered detained pending trial, and Cano had her detention hearing on Friday, she added. Attorneys for Navarette and Cano haven’t responded to CNN’s requests for comment.

    Days after the complaint outlining the 10 overdoses became available to the public, CFBISD released a statement expressing sorrow and concern over “the loss of young lives.”

    The district explained how it has educated the community about the threat from fentanyl over the past several months.

    “We will continue to work cooperatively with local law enforcement agencies to address this issue and to maximize safety on our campuses in every way possible. We believe if we work together as a community, we can avoid these tragedies,” the district said.

    The district said Narcan, or naloxone, an emergency drug used to treat fentanyl overdoses, had been obtained for all district facilities in October and random canine searches were being conducted on secondary campuses.

    Drug awareness presentations for parents will also resume this year, according to the district.

    “The fentanyl crisis is claiming far too many young Texans,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted Wednesday. Abbott launched the #OnePillKills campaign in October 2022 to “combat the growing national fentanyl crisis plaguing Texas.”

    In the first week of school in 2022, four students died from “fentanyl poisoning, or suspected poisoning” in Hays County Independent School District (HCISD), located in a suburb of Austin. This prompted the district to create “Fighting Fentanyl,” an informational campaign warning students and faculty about the deadly drug.

    Tim Savoy, the chief communication officer at HCISD, noted that the district has spent tens of millions of dollars for preventative measures against school shootings and Covid-19, two issues that have affected schools nationwide. The fentanyl crisis on school campuses deserves the same level of concern and response, he said.

    “This is a threat. We’re losing students, too. And so we made the decision that we have to get this equal attention and resources and do what we can,” Savoy told CNN.

    Despite the district’s awareness-raising campaign, an email from the superintendent on January 9 informed parents of “three more suspected accidental fentanyl poisonings” and one death in which fentanyl may have been to blame.

    “Our students are dying from this, and we have to do what we can,” Savoy said. “This is not just something that you’re seeing elsewhere. This is really happening in our community.”

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, median monthly overdose deaths among 10- to 19-year-olds across the United States involving illicitly manufactured fentanyl surged 182% from December 2019 to December 2021.

    Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to fentanyl exposure due to the “proliferation of counterfeit pills resembling prescription drugs containing IMFs (illicitly manufactured fentanyls), and the ease of purchasing pills through social media,” according to the CDC.

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  • Harvey Weinstein sued by woman who he was convicted of raping in Los Angeles criminal trial | CNN

    Harvey Weinstein sued by woman who he was convicted of raping in Los Angeles criminal trial | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A woman has filed a civil lawsuit against disgraced former film producer Harvey Weinstein for sexual battery, false imprisonment and other claims after he was convicted of raping her last December in Los Angeles.

    The model and actress, who is identified as Jane Doe 1 in court documents, was the first to testify in Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial in 2022.

    The three charges Weinstein was convicted of last December – rape, sexual penetration by a foreign object and forcible oral copulation – were all tied to Jane Doe 1, who testified the movie mogul assaulted her in a Beverly Hills hotel room in 2013.

    But the jury deadlocked on the alleged aggravating factors attached to the charges, which could have increased his sentence and the judge declared a mistrial on those allegations.

    Weinstein is set to be sentenced on February 23, at which time the judge will consider a motion from defense attorneys asking for a new trial.

    The new lawsuit, filed February 9 in the Superior Court of California for Los Angeles County, alleges Weinstein met Jane Doe 1 briefly at a film festival and then showed up at her hotel room later that evening and assaulted her in February 2013.

    The plaintiff is suing Weinstein for sexual battery, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence. She is also seeking an undisclosed amount in punitive and other damages.

    “Harvey has always denied the allegations, and even more, has maintained that he was never together with her in Mr. Cs hotel at all and that these events never happened. Certain witnesses lied about crucial evidence that could have exonerated Mr. Weinstein, and it was deemed unnecessary by the court for the jury to hear or know about these facts,” Juda Engelmayer, a representative for Weinstein, told CNN in a statement.

    Engelmayer added that Weinstein’s attorneys have “submitted a motion detailing those facts and contend that the jury would not have convicted him had they known the specifics…”

    The assault happened after Weinstein allegedly showed up at the hotel and asked a front desk staffer to connect him with the victim, the lawsuit said. After the front desk called Jane Doe, Weinstein ended up talking on the phone with the victim and asked her for her room number. She declined to offer her room number and hung up.

    Minutes later, Weinstein showed up outside her room, and when the woman refused to let him inside, he “bullied his way into her room,” the lawsuit says.

    “Once in the room, he engaged in small talk with Plaintiff but in an arrogant and intimidating manner. He quickly made his real intentions clear. He wanted to have sex with her,” the lawsuit says. “He sat on her bed and then forcibly grabbed Plaintiff and made her sit down next to him.”

    After telling her that she was “pretty,” he commented on her breasts and “grabbed” at them, the lawsuit says.

    Jane Doe repeatedly asked Weinstein to leave her hotel room, but he ignored her and became aggressive verbally and physically, according to the lawsuit.

    “He then forced Plaintiff to orally copulate him and then he forcibly moved her into the bathroom, where he blocked her from leaving and then raped her,” the lawsuit says. “After he was done raping her, he acted as if nothing out of the ordinary happened, and left.”

    California law allows adult victims of sexual assault to file a civil action within ten years of the alleged assault and within one year of the defendant being convicted of a felony, according to the lawsuit.

    The victim’s attorney, Dave Ring, said in a statement to CNN that they “look forward to have Weinstein finally testify under oath in this case.”

    “Harvey Weinstein has been convicted of raping Jane Doe 1,” Ring said. “Her lawsuit seeks to recover compensation from him for the horrific rape she endured and all of the issues she has suffered through for the past ten years because of that rape.”

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  • ‘A recipe for disaster.’ Deadly encounter in Memphis comes at a critical time in American policing | CNN

    ‘A recipe for disaster.’ Deadly encounter in Memphis comes at a critical time in American policing | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Since the night Tyre Nichols was kicked, pepper-sprayed, punched and struck with a baton by Memphis police officers, six cops have been fired and five of them charged with murder. Seven others face internal disciplinary charges.

    Nichols died three days after the January 7 traffic stop and subsequent fatal encounter captured on video and principally involving five officers with two to six years on the job.

    The death of the 29-year-old Black man comes at a critical juncture in American law enforcement, as departments across the country – including the Memphis PD – struggle to recruit qualified officers and fill shifts, lure candidates with signing bonuses worth thousands of dollars, and at times curtail standards and training in a desperate bid to strengthen patrols amid rising gun violence, according to law enforcement experts.

    “That is a recipe for disaster,” said Kenneth Corey, a retired NYPD chief who once ran the training division. “We’ve seen it happen before. You couldn’t fill seats. You lowered standards. And now you’ve got scandal and use of force. And when you look at the individuals involved you say, we never would have hired this guy once upon a time.”

    In the weeks since authorities released video of Nichols’ brutal beating, little information has come out about the recruitment and training of the five former officers facing murder charges – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr.

    The five men were part of a now disbanded specialized street crime unit formed just over a year ago as part of the city’s strategy to combat rising violence. The SCORPION unit focused on homicides, robberies, assaults and other felonies.

    Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, said Nichols’ killing raises questions about “how those officers were trained and supervised and selected.”

    “Over time you always want to look at the backgrounds of those officers – that will be important. The hiring process – that will be important,” he said. “In this case we don’t know enough yet.”

    Bean, 24, was commissioned as an officer in January 2021, personnel records show. His attorney has not responded to CNN’s requests for comment.

    Haley, 30, was commissioned as an officer in January 2021, the records show. He is a former correctional officer. His attorney has not respond to requests for comment.

    Martin, 30, joined the department in 2018, according to the records. He will plead not guilty, according to his attorney, William Massey, who said: “No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die.”

    Mills, 32, a former jailer in Mississippi and Tennessee, joined the department as a recruit in March 2017, the records show. He, too, plans to plea not guilty, said Blake Ballin, his attorney, who described Mills as “devastated” and “remorseful.”

    Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis told CNN last month that Nichols’ death was indicative of “a gap somewhere” in the specialized street crime unit.

    “We train and we retrain these officers, just like specialized units around the country,” she said. “These officers working in specialized units, you always need to make sure that the supervision is there and present.”

    On January 28, one day after the release of the video, Memphis PD announced that it had permanently disbanded the unit.

    Davis said the department was unaware of any evidence the unit had previously engaged in misconduct but added that an investigation is ongoing.

    The five former Memphis officers charged in Nichols’ death also are accused of assaulting another young Black man just three days before the fatal police encounter, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.

    The suit accuses the city of failing to prevent or address an alleged pattern of policing abuses by the SCORPION unit, which it claims operated like a “gang of vigilantes” without adequate training or supervision. Police declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing ongoing litigation.

    The Shelby County District Attorney’s office in Memphis said it will review all cases involving the five officers charged with Nichols’ death.

    Davis, speaking at a Memphis city council meeting Tuesday, said training was not an issue with the unit. Instead, she said, “egos” and a “wolf pack mentality” contributed to the killing.

    “Culture is not something that changes overnight. You know, there is a saying in law enforcement that ‘culture eats policy for lunch.’ We don’t want to just have good policies because policies can be navigated around,” she said. “We want to ensure that we have the right people in place to ensure our culture is evolving.”

    Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn

    In this still from video released by the City of Memphis, officers from the Memphis Police Department beat Tyre Nichols on a street corner.

    These are the moments that led to Tyre Nichols’ death

    Nichols’ death comes as many police departments in the US have been reeling from an exodus of officers due to resignations and retirements and scrambling to attract new recruits. The staffing crisis has been exacerbated by high-profile cases such as the 2020 murder of George Floyd that have put policing under scrutiny and made it a frequent target of protests and moves to decrease funding.

    “The pandemic impacted recruiting and then George Floyd’s murder really was a moment in time that made prospective police applicants think twice – Is this a job for me?” Wexler said.

    “And now, unfortunately, with the Tyre Nichols killing you simply compounded what was already arguably a challenging environment to hire a police officer.”

    Wexler’s group, in a 2021 survey, found that retirements had risen 45% that year since 2019. Resignations had jumped 18% in that two-year period.

    The number of officers on the Memphis Police Department dropped by more than 22% since 2011 – from 2,449 in September 2011 to a low of 1,895 officers last December, according to the Memphis Data Hub website.

    The department was budgeted for 2,300 officers last year, CNN affiliate WMC reported. In 2015, nearly 200 Memphis police officers resigned over changes to pension and benefit plans, according to WMC.

    “It had gotten to the point that we were having sergeants as acting lieutenants,” said Alvin Davis, a former Memphis police lieutenant and recruiter who retired last year. “Hundreds of people did it over a period of time because we didn’t have enough supervisors. So many people were running out the door.”

    In this still from video released by the City of Memphis, officers stand around as Tyre Nichols leans up against a car after being detained and beaten on January 7.

    Like other departments around the country, the Memphis PD in 2021 began offering $15,000 signing bonuses and $10,000 in relocation assistance. Additionally, requirements on college credits, military experience and employment history have been loosened, WMC reported.

    “Departments around the country … are offering between $25,000 and $30,000 signing bonuses,” Wexler said. “You’ve got a national shortage of applicants which has forced police departments to do unprecedented things like offering signing bonuses and, in some cases, modifying the standards for hiring.”

    Greg Umbach, associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said there is a direct correlation between higher standards for new recruits and lower incidents of bad behavior.

    “We know from decades of research that the number of cops meeting higher qualifications, most notably a college degree, matters far more than anything else, for the number of civilian complaints a department gets,” Umbach said.

    And if the pipeline of good officers is low, Umbach said, then so is the quality of supervision – a reality that has plagued the Memphis Police Department and other agencies nationwide.

    “Any police sergeant watching that video, their first thought is, ‘My God, where was the supervision and why did they think this was okay,’” Umbach said.

    The Memphis Police Department urges recruits to

    Davis, the former lieutenant and recruiter, asked a similar question about supervision.

    “If you pepper-spray someone or you tase someone, you’re supposed to call a supervisor,” said Davis, who spent 22 years on the job. “That’s just policy. Why they didn’t, I can’t say.”

    But, Davis said, the behavior of the former officers who beat Nichols did not entirely surprise him – given the curtailed training and standards, shortage of skilled supervisors and growing number of officers lured by monetary incentives and without the requisite experience being deployed on the city’s streets.

    “The standards kept dropping and dropping to bring people in,” said Davis, who was in charge of recruiting. “And then they start throwing money out to lure people in and this is what you got.”

    He added, “Just about everybody who came, the first thing they asked us was about was the money. How long did they have to stay on the job? Do I have to do a year? Two years? Nobody is trying to make a career out of it. It was the money.”

    The Memphis PD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on training, recruitment and staffing issues.

    “It’s not the job that it used to be, when you felt like you’re the ‘best in blue’ and you have your head up because you really feel like you accomplished something,” said Davis, referring to the Memphis Police Department’s longtime “Join the best in blue” recruitment campaign. “It’s not that kind of job anymore.”

    It’s too early to tell exactly what factors contributed to the behavior of the former officers who beat Nichols to death on January 7, law enforcement experts said.

    Wexler and others pointed to previous policing scandals that were preceded by periods of hiring under lax standards and curtailed training.

    In the late 1980s, nearly 10% of the officers in the Miami Police Department were suspended or fired after a corruption scandal involving rogue officers who became known as the “River Cops.” Nearly 20 former officers were convicted on various state and federal charges, including using their police powers as a racketeering enterprise to commit murder.

    Atlanta police officers keep an eye on marchers during a rally on January 28 protesting the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols.

    In 1990, an investigation into the hiring and training of police officers in Washington, DC by the General Accounting Office found that a hiring rush during the previous decade – prompted by a wave of drug and gun violence – led to cutting corners on recruiting, background checks and training.

    Eight years later, another report by the GOA, the investigative arm of Congress, examined drug-related police corruption and said “rapid recruitment initiatives” coupled with loosening education requirements and inadequate training and supervision “might have permitted the hiring of recruits who might not otherwise have been hired.”

    “These are all lessons of history,” said Corey, the former NYPD chief. “You have to make the profession attractive to the type of people you want to recruit. It’s not that people have lost interest in policing. They just don’t see it as a viable occupation.”

    He added, “What we ask of our cops is that they think like lawyers, speak like psychologists, and perform like athletes but we pay them as common laborers. A starting officer in New York City makes $42,000 a year, which means about $20 dollars an hour. It also means that at McDonald’s they could be making $15 dollars an hour with none of the stress, trauma or risk.”

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  • What to know about the lawsuit aiming to ban medication abortion drug mifepristone | CNN Politics

    What to know about the lawsuit aiming to ban medication abortion drug mifepristone | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge may rule later this month on a lawsuit seeking to block the use of medication abortion nationwide, in the biggest abortion-related case since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

    The lawsuit, filed in November by anti-abortion advocates against the US Food and Drug Administration, targets the agency’s 20-year-old approval of mifepristone, the first drug in the medication abortion process

    Medication abortion, which now makes up a majority of abortions obtained in the US, has become a particularly acute flashpoint in the fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade.

    US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, has extended the briefing deadline in the case until February 24.

    Reproductive rights advocates say that if Kacsmaryk sides with the plaintiffs, “it would eliminate the most commonly used method of abortion care,” according to NARAL Pro-Choice America.

    Here’s what to know about the lawsuit:

    The lawsuit, filed last year by a coalition of anti-abortion national medical associations under the umbrella of the “Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine” and several doctors, is seeking a number of actions by the court, chief among them a preliminary and permanent injunction ordering the FDA “to withdraw mifepristone and misoprostol as FDA-approved chemical abortion drugs and to withdraw defendants’ actions to deregulate these chemical abortion drugs.”

    “After two decades of engaging the FDA to no avail, plaintiffs now ask this court to do what the FDA was and is legally required to do: protect women and girls by holding unlawful, setting aside, and vacating the FDA’s actions to approve chemical abortion drugs and eviscerate crucial safeguards for those who undergo this dangerous drug regimen,” the complaint reads.

    The FDA responded to the lawsuit last month by asking the judge to deny the motion for a preliminary injunction, arguing that issuing one in the matter “would upend the status quo and the reliance interests of patients and doctors who depend on mifepristone, as well as businesses involved with mifepristone distribution.”

    The agency also says a ruling against it would set a dangerous precedent.

    “More generally, if longstanding FDA drug approvals were so easily enjoined, even decades after being issued, pharmaceutical companies would be unable to confidently rely on FDA approval decisions to develop the pharmaceutical-drug infrastructure that Americans depend on to treat a variety of health conditions,” the FDA wrote.

    “A preliminary injunction would interfere with Congress’s decision to entrust FDA with responsibility to ensure the safety and efficacy of drugs. In discharging this role, FDA applies its technical expertise to make complex scientific determinations about drugs’ safety and efficacy, and these determinations are entitled to substantial deference.”

    Danco, which makes mifepristone, also made a similar request to the FDA’s in a court filing, stressing that the lawsuit could decimate the company’s business.

    “Danco is a small pharmaceutical company. It sells one drug: Mifeprex,” lawyers for the company wrote in court papers. “Entering the mandatory preliminary injunction plaintiffs seek would force FDA to withdraw approval for Danco’s only product, effectively shuttering Danco’s business.”

    “Congress entrusts decision-making like this with the FDA. And they’re coming in trying to overrule that, saying this medication is unsafe because women bleed. Well, that’s part of having an abortion. It’s also part of having a pregnancy,” said Ryan Brown, an attorney representing Danco in the case. “The bottom line being that they just want to do away with abortion across the board and for any reason.”

    Kacsmaryk was appointed to the court in 2017 by then-President Trump and was confirmed by a 52-46 vote in 2019.

    Since then, he’s helped make Texas a legal graveyard for policies of President Joe Biden’s administration, presiding over 95% of the civil cases brought in Amarillo, Texas.

    In December, Kacsmaryk put on hold the Biden administration’s most recent attempt to end the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program. And he has overseen Texas cases challenging vaccine mandates, the gender identity guidance issued by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the administration’s limits on the use of Covid-19 relief funds for tax cuts.

    Before joining the court, Kacsmaryk served as deputy general counsel at the First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit religious liberty legal group, where he worked mainly on “religious liberty litigation in federal courts and amicus briefs in the US Supreme Court,” according to his White House biography.

    The case is being closely watched by a number of interested parties, including Republican and Democratic state attorneys general. On Friday, two different multi-state coalitions filed amicus briefs with the court urging them to act one way or another in the matter.

    A coalition of 22 Democratic attorneys general urged Kacsmaryk to deny the motion for a preliminary injunction, writing in court papers that “annulling – or even merely limiting – any of the FDA’s actions relating to medication abortion would result in an even more drastic reduction in abortion access across the entire nation, worsening already dire outcomes, deepening entrenched disparities in access to health care, and placing a potentially unbearable strain on the health care system as a whole.”

    And a coalition of 22 Republican attorneys general asked the court to issue the preliminary injunction, arguing the FDA exceeded its authority when it approved the medication.

    “State laws on chemical abortion thus account for the public interests at issue – and they do so with the benefit of democratic legitimacy (and legal authority). The FDA’s actions can make no such claim. By obstructing the judgments of elected representatives, the agency has undermined the public interest,” they wrote.

    Abortion rights advocates have sounded the alarm on the case, stressing that a ruling by Kacsmaryk in favor of the plaintiffs would affect every corner of the country since the lawsuit is targeting a federal agency.

    “If FDA approval of mifepristone is revoked, 64.5 million women of reproductive age in the US would lose access to medication abortion care, an exponential increase in harm overnight,” NARAL said in a statement on Friday, pointing to internal research.

    “This research reveals the high stakes of this lawsuit, and we can only expect the worst from this Trump-appointed federal judge. Americans want access to abortion, but anti-choice bad actors are dead set on restricting reproductive freedom by any means possible,” said Angela Vasquez-Giroux, the group’s vice president of communications and research.

    And activists are mobilizing in Texas around the issue, with the Women’s March planning to hold a rally at the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas, on Saturday.

    “We’ve said it before: the fight for reproductive rights now lies in the states, and legal challenges like these are just the latest example of how our fight is bigger than Roe,” said Rachel Carmona, the executive director of Women’s March.

    On Thursday, Kacsmaryk told the plaintiffs that they had until February 24 to respond to a recent filing by the Danco, writing in an order that following the deadline, “briefing will then be closed on the matter, absent any ‘exceptional or extraordinary circumstances.’”

    On Friday, the plaintiffs in the case submitted one response to the FDA’s filing. But the deadline extension means that after the plaintiffs submit a separate response to Danco, the case is ripe for judgment since all required briefings will have been filed.

    Kacsmaryk can rule at any time after that, though he could also call for a hearing, or ask for additional responses as well.

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  • South Dakota is set to ban nearly all forms of gender-affirming care for minors | CNN

    South Dakota is set to ban nearly all forms of gender-affirming care for minors | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    South Dakota is set to prohibit nearly all forms of gender-affirming treatment for transgender minors after a proposed law gained sweeping approval through its state legislature.

    The state Senate passed a House bill banning surgical and non-surgical gender-affirming treatment for minors on Thursday in a 30-4 vote, advancing the legislation to Gov. Kristi Noem’s desk. Noem will sign the bill into law, a spokesperson for the Republican governor told CNN on Friday.

    The legislation bars puberty blocking medication in patients under the age of 18, as well as sex hormones and surgery related to gender transition.

    Opponents of the measure say it would be harmful to transgender children and is an intrusion by the government into medical decisions.

    “Surgeries-gone-wrong are simply not happening in South Dakota,” said Democratic state Sen. Liz Larson while announcing her opposition. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t need the state Legislature when I’m in the doctor’s office.”

    Susan Williams, who heads of the transgender advocacy group Transformation Project Advocacy Network in South Dakota, decried the measure.

    “Our community is sad. Our community is angry. Worst of all, our community is scared,” Williams wrote in a post on her group’s Facebook page. “I feel betrayed by the elected officials who are supposed to protect my family that just voted against us.”

    State Sen. Tim Reed, a Republican, offered an amendment that would have removed the ban on puberty blockers, arguing some minors need them for reasons other than gender transition. But his amendment failed on a voice vote.

    “Puberty blockers can calm a child’s anxiety so that counseling can begin,” Reed said. “Blockers have a place helping families navigate through an extremely difficult situation.”

    Supporters of the legislation say treatment for minors should be limited strictly to mental health counseling. Republican state Sen. Al Novstrup, a sponsor of the legislation, said, “We care deeply about children who are struggling with their identities and want to provide them with true meaningful help, not permanent physical damage.”

    South Dakota is among several Republican-led states that have been proposing – and advancing – anti-trans measures in recent years. Last February, South Dakota became the first state to disallow transgender women and girls from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender at accredited schools and colleges.

    More recently, Utah passed a law last month that bans hormone treatment and surgical procedures for minors seeking gender-affirming care.

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  • California state agencies investigating conditions at the two sites of the Half Moon Bay mass killing | CNN

    California state agencies investigating conditions at the two sites of the Half Moon Bay mass killing | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Two California state agencies are investigating whether there were potential labor and workplace safety and health violations at the two Half Moon Bay, California, farms where seven people were fatally shot last month.

    The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health and the state’s Labor Commissioner’s Office “want to ensure that employees are being afforded all the protections of California labor laws,” a state official told CNN in an emailed statement.

    The statement did not offer further details about the probe, saying neither agency comments on ongoing investigations.

    The suspect worked on one of the mushroom farms where he is suspected of fatally shooting four of his coworkers. The site, owned by California Terra Garden, is a mushroom farm where the suspected gunman worked and lived on for at least seven years, according to officials and a spokesperson for that company. A California Terra Garden spokesperson has said there were several mobile homes and trailers for employees on the property.

    The suspect was also a former employee of another nearby farm where he’s accused of killing three former colleagues, San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus previously said.

    In a news conference the day after the massacre, California Gov. Gavin Newsom highlighted the living conditions the farm workers faced.

    “Some of you should see where these folks are living, the conditions they’re in. Living in shipping containers,” the governor said. “Folks getting nine bucks an hour … no healthcare, no support, no services, but taking care of our health, providing a service to each and every one of us every single day.”

    And in a statement several days later, the governor’s office called the workers’ living conditions “deplorable.”

    “California is investigating the farms involved in the Half Moon Bay shooting to ensure workers are treated fairly and with the compassion they deserve,” according to a January 26 statement posted on Twitter by Daniel Villaseñor, the governor’s deputy press secretary.

    At the time, a California Terra Garden spokesperson responded to the accusations, saying the governor’s comments did not reflect the living conditions of farm workers.

    “The salary of all employees range from $16.50 to $24,” the spokesperson said, adding that workers receive “vacation days, company-sponsored health insurance, life/disability insurance, workman’s compensation insurance, and access to a 401(k) plan.” CNN has reached out to California Terra Garden for further details on how its employees are paid and for comment on the state agencies’ investigations.

    The spokesperson said last month that the eight families who lived on the property lived in “mobile homes and large recreational vehicles” equipped with kitchens, bathrooms, showers and “standard living amenities.”

    “No one lives in anything like shipping containers or tents as was erroneously reported. The families pay approximately $300 a month to rent these living spaces, well below market rate,” the company spokesperson said.

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