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Tag: United States government

  • Organic livestock farmers, hit by rising prices, seek help

    Organic livestock farmers, hit by rising prices, seek help

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    WHITINGHAM, Vt. — Organic dairy and other livestock farmers are seeking emergency federal aid as they grapple with skyrocketing organic feed costs, steep fuel and utility expenses as well as the consequences of drought in many parts of the country.

    Two dozen U.S. senators and representatives wrote to U.S. Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack this week asking for emergency assistance for these farms. National and regional organic farming groups have also reached out to the department and the heads of the congressional committees.

    Organic dairy farmer Abbie Corse, whose more than 150-year-old family farm is located in the southern Vermont town of Whittingham, said she doesn’t know what the future of the farm will look like.

    “If a farm like ours is questioning how we’re going to keep going if something doesn’t change, I don’t know how we think there’s a future for anybody,” said Corse, 40, who farms with her mother and father.

    On top of the high feed, energy and fuel costs organic farmers are facing, labor is a pressing challenge for The Corse Farm Dairy, which has a herd of about 90 and sells its milk to Organic Valley, an international milk cooperative based in LaFarge, Wisconsin. If anyone is unable to work, the family doesn’t have backup to keep the farm running.

    “We are a medical emergency away from selling our herd,” she said.

    In May of this year, prices for organic soybeans in the U.S., used as feed on organic farms, soared to $40.52 per bushel, an increase of nearly 110% from January 2021, according to the letter the members of Congress sent to Vilsack on Monday.

    Feed costs normally average over half of organic dairy and poultry farmers’ total production costs “but dramatic increases year-over-year in organic feedstuffs are now creating unsustainable circumstances that could lead to farm closures, reduced competition and ultimately, limited consumer choice,” the letter said.

    The war in Ukraine and the Agriculture Department’s discontinuation of the National Organic Program recognition agreement with India has reduced imported grain supplies and pushed up prices, officials said.

    The drought in the West and other areas of the country has caused California, the country’s top dairy state, to have its driest three-year stretch on record and, this summer, challenged farmers in the Northeast. Western forages have been depleted and organic alfalfas, hays and sileages are in limited supply and nearly doubled in price, said Albert Straus, the founder and CEO of Straus Family Creamery in Marin County. The creamery has formed a crisis coalition of organic dairy farms, processors and brands in the West to petition for emergency drought relief.

    California has lost 10 organic dairies in the last several months and as many as 50 are projected to go out of business if no relief comes in the next couple of months, said Straus. Twelve farms had provided organic milk to the creamery until one recently went out of business, he said.

    “I’m concerned that the viability of these farms and the future of our communities is at risk,” Straus said.

    U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he’s heard from Vermont organic dairy farmers, companies that buy their milk and the state’s agriculture secretary about “the severe financial pressure” organic dairies are facing.

    While Leahy, a Democrat, said the longer term solution must be found in more stable markets and a risk management program that works for organic dairy, he’s confident “that the federal government will find an approach to provide temporary support to our struggling organic dairy farm families.”

    A spokesperson said the Agriculture Department “is exploring avenues to address the challenges faced by organic dairy farmers, while also pursuing ongoing work to support organic and transitioning farmers through USDA programs.”

    For Kathie Arnold, who farms with her son at Twin Oaks Dairy in the central New York town of Truxton, this is likely one of the most financially difficult periods she has seen since the farm became organic in 1998. They’re going to survive, but for other younger farmers, who bought their farms in recent years and have debt to pay off monthly, “they’re not going to be able to weather this storm,” Arnold said.

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  • House approves referendum to ‘decolonize’ Puerto Rico

    House approves referendum to ‘decolonize’ Puerto Rico

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    WASHINGTON — The U.S. House passed a bill Thursday that would allow Puerto Rico to hold the first-ever binding referendum on whether to become a state or gain some sort of independence, in a last-ditch effort that stands little chance of passing the Senate.

    The bill, which passed 233-191 with some Republican support, would offer voters in the U.S. territory three options: statehood, independence or independence with free association.

    “It is crucial to me that any proposal in Congress to decolonize Puerto Rico be informed and led by Puerto Ricans,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees affairs in U.S. territories.

    The proposal would commit Congress to accept Puerto Rico into the United States as the 51st state if voters on the island approved it. Voters also could choose outright independence or independence with free association, whose terms would be defined following negotiations over foreign affairs, U.S. citizenship and use of the U.S. dollar.

    Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has worked on the issue throughout his career, said it was “a long and torturous path” to get the proposal to the House floor.

    “For far too long, the people of Puerto Rico have been excluded from the full promise of American democracy and self-determination that our nation has always championed,” the Maryland Democrat said.

    After passing the Democrat-controlled House, the bill now goes to a split Senate where it faces a ticking clock before the end of the year and Republican lawmakers who have long opposed statehood.

    Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, traveled to Washington for the vote. He called it a historic day and said the 3.2 million U.S. citizens who live on the island lack equality, do not have fair representation in the federal government and cannot vote in general elections.

    “This has not been an easy fight. We still have work to do,” he said. “Our quest to decolonize Puerto Rico is a civil rights issue.”

    Members of his party, including Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González, cheered the approval of the bill, although reaction in the U.S. territory was largely muted and tinged with frustration since it is expected to be voted down in the Senate.

    The proposal of a binding referendum has exasperated many on an island that already has held seven nonbinding referendums on its political status, with no overwhelming majority emerging. The last referendum was held in November 2020, with 53% of votes for statehood and 47% against, with only a little more than half of registered voters participating.

    The proposed binding referendum would be the first time that Puerto Rico’s current status as a U.S. commonwealth is not included as an option, a blow to the main opposition Popular Democratic Party, which upholds the status quo.

    Pablo José Hernández Rivera, an attorney in Puerto Rico, said approval of the bill by the House would be “inconsequential” like the approval of previous bills in 1998 and 2010.

    “We Puerto Ricans are tired of the fact that the New Progressive Party has spent 28 years in Washington spending resources on sterile and undemocratic status projects,” he said.

    González, Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress, praised the bill and said it would provide the island with the self-determination it deserves.

    “Many of us are not in agreement about how that future should be, but we all accept that the decision should belong to the people of Puerto Rico,” she said.

    ———

    Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

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  • Report: Native Hawaiians hit by missing and murdered scourge

    Report: Native Hawaiians hit by missing and murdered scourge

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    HONOLULU — The average profile of a missing child in Hawaii: 15 years old, female, from the island of Oahu and Native Hawaiian. That’s according to a report released Wednesday that says much more disaggregated racial and gender data is needed to combat the scourge of missing and murdered Native Hawaiian women.

    Key findings of the report, the first of its kind released by a task force created by the state Legislature last year to investigate the issue, include that more than a quarter of missing girls in Hawaii are Native Hawaiian and that members of the U.S. military play an outsized role in the sexual exploitation of children in the state.

    Similar studies have shown that Indigenous women in Canada and the U.S. mainland are murdered or go missing at rates disproportionate to their size of the population. While the disturbing trend held for Native Hawaiian girls, a comparable, reliable statistic for Native Hawaiian women eluded the task force because of lacking data, said Nikki Cristobal, the report’s principal investigator. The task force was created amid renewed calls for people to pay more attention to missing and killed Indigenous women and girls and other people of color after the 2021 disappearance of Gabby Petito, a white woman, triggered widespread national media coverage and extensive searches by law enforcement. Petito’s body was later found in Wyoming.

    One of the difficulties in addressing the issue, is that determining the true scale can be difficult because many cases have gone unreported or have not been well-documented or tracked. Public and private agencies also don’t always collect statistics on race. And some data groups together Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, making it nearly impossible to identify the degree to which Hawaii’s Indigenous people are affected. About 20% of the state’s population is Native Hawaiian.

    Several states formed similar panels after a groundbreaking report by the Urban Indian Health Institute found that of more than 5,700 cases of missing and slain Indigenous girls in dozens of U.S. cities in 2016, only 116 were recorded in a Justice Department database.

    Wyoming’s task force determined that 710 Indigenous people disappeared in that state between 2011 and September 2020 and that Indigenous people made up 21% of homicide victims even though they make up only 3% of the population. In Minnesota, a task force led to the creation of a dedicated office to provide ongoing attention and leadership on the issue.

    Agencies such as the state, police departments and the military need to do better at collecting and retaining disaggregated data, Cristobal said.

    “Native Hawaiian women and girls are displaced not only through violence, but also through data collection across departments and across islands,” she said.

    One of the more disturbing findings of the report was the role of servicemembers in the abuse of children. Publicly available data in 2022 showed that 38% of those arrested for soliciting sex online from law enforcement posing as a 13-year-old during undercover operations were active-duty military personnel, the report said.

    In response to a request for comment on the findings, a Department of Defense duty officer said late in the day Wednesday that the message was being forwarded to the right person.

    Violence such as “selling and buying girls for sex on military bases, hotels, game rooms, massage parlors and in our own communities,” impact Native Hawaiians at much higher rates than other populations, Cristobal said.

    The findings are startling but not new, said Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director of the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women and the task force’s co-chair.

    “Instead, it vindicates and validates what Native Hawaiians, sex trafficking and gender-based violence service providers and feminist activists have been saying all along and have been told that they were exaggerating or manipulating facts or just simply providing an anecdote,” she said.

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  • Today in History: December 15, Bill of Rights takes effect

    Today in History: December 15, Bill of Rights takes effect

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    Today in History

    Today is Thursday, Dec. 15, the 349th day of 2022. There are 16 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Dec. 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, went into effect following ratification by Virginia.

    On this date:

    In 1890, Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull and 11 other tribe members were killed in Grand River, South Dakota, during a confrontation with Indian police.

    In 1939, the Civil War motion picture epic “Gone with the Wind,” starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, had its world premiere in Atlanta.

    In 1944, a single-engine plane carrying bandleader Glenn Miller, a major in the U.S. Army Air Forces, disappeared over the English Channel while en route to Paris.

    In 1967, the Silver Bridge between Gallipolis (gal-ih-puh-LEES’), Ohio, and Point Pleasant, West Virginia, collapsed into the Ohio River, killing 46 people.

    In 1978, President Jimmy Carter announced he would grant diplomatic recognition to Communist China on New Year’s Day and sever official relations with Taiwan.

    In 1989, a popular uprising began in Romania that resulted in the downfall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu (chow-SHEHS’-koo).

    In 2000, the long-troubled Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine was closed for good.

    In 2001, with a crash and a large dust cloud, a 50-foot tall section of steel — the last standing piece of the World Trade Center’s facade — was brought down in New York.

    In 2011, the flag used by U.S. forces in Iraq was lowered in a low-key Baghdad airport ceremony marking the end of a war that had left 4,500 Americans and 110,000 Iraqis dead and cost more than $800 billion.

    In 2013, Nelson Mandela was laid to rest in his childhood hometown, ending a 10-day mourning period for South Africa’s first Black president.

    In 2016, a federal jury in Charleston, South Carolina, convicted Dylann Roof of slaughtering nine Black church members who had welcomed him to their Bible study.

    In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration cleared the first kit that consumers could buy without a prescription to test themselves for COVID-19 entirely at home. After weeks of holding out, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Joe Biden on winning the presidential election.

    Ten years ago: A day after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, investigators worked to understand what led the 20-year-old gunman to slaughter 26 children and adults after also killing his mother and before taking his own life. In his Saturday radio address, President Barack Obama declared that “every parent in America has a heart heavy with hurt” and said it was time to “take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this.”

    Five years ago: Republicans revealed the details of their huge national tax rewrite; the 35 percent tax rate on corporations would fall to 21 percent, and the measure would repeal the requirement under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act that all Americans have health insurance or face a penalty. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the middle class would “get skewered” under the GOP tax measure, while the wealthy and corporations would “make out like bandits.”

    One year ago: Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin pleaded guilty to a federal charge of violating George Floyd’s civil rights, admitting for the first time that he held his knee across Floyd’s neck and kept it there even after Floyd became unresponsive, resulting in the Black man’s death. A federal appeals court panel lifted a nationwide ban against President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for health care workers, instead blocking the requirement in only certain states and setting the stage for patchwork enforcement across the country. New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams named Keechant Sewell, a Long Island police official, as the city’s next police commissioner, making her the first woman to lead the nation’s largest police force.

    Today’s Birthdays: Singer Cindy Birdsong (The Supremes) is 83. Rock musician Dave Clark (The Dave Clark Five) is 80. Rock musician Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge) is 76. Actor Don Johnson is 73. Actor Melanie Chartoff is 72. Movie director Julie Taymor is 70. Movie director Alex Cox is 68. Rock musician Paul Simonon (The Clash) is 67. Movie director John Lee Hancock is 66. Democratic Party activist Donna Brazile is 63. Country singer Doug Phelps (Brother Phelps; Kentucky Headhunters) is 62. Movie producer-director Reginald Hudlin is 61. Actor Helen Slater is 59. Actor Paul Kaye (TV: “Game of Thrones”) is 58. Actor Molly Price is 57. Actor Garrett Wang (wahng) is 54. Actor Michael Shanks is 52. Actor Stuart Townsend is 50. Figure skater Surya Bonaly is 49. Actor Geoff Stults is 46. Actor Adam Brody is 43. Actor Michelle Dockery is 41. Actor George O. Gore II is 40. Actor Camilla Luddington is 39. Rock musician and actor Alana Haim (HYM) is 31. Actor Maude Apatow (AP’-ih-tow) is 25. Actor Stefania Owen is 25.

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  • Lawmakers announce ‘framework’ on bill to keep gov’t open

    Lawmakers announce ‘framework’ on bill to keep gov’t open

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    WASHINGTON — Lawmakers leading the negotiations on a bill to fund the federal government for the current fiscal year announced late Tuesday they’ve reached agreement on a “framework” that should allow them to complete work on the bill over the next week and avoid a government shutdown.

    Congress faces a midnight Friday deadline to pass a spending bill to prevent a partial government shutdown. The two chambers are expected to pass another short-term measure before then to keep the government running through Dec. 23, which will allow negotiators time to complete work on the full-year bill.

    “Now, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will work around the clock to negotiate the details of final 2023 spending bills that can be supported by the House and Senate and receive President Biden’s signature,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the Democratic chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

    Earlier in the day, Senate leaders said lawmakers from the two parties were nearing an agreement, but Republicans warned Democrats that lawmakers would need to complete their work by Dec. 22 or they would only support a short-term extension into early next year. That would give House Republicans more leverage over what’s in the legislation, since they will be in the majority then.

    “We intend to be on the road going home on the 23rd. We intend not to be back here between Christmas and New Year’s, and if we can’t meet that deadline, we would be happy to pass a short-term (resolution) into early next year,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate.

    McConnell voiced confidence Republicans would be able to meet their priorities of increasing spending on defense without “having to pay a bonus above what President Biden asked for” on non-defense priorities. He said Democrats were willing to accept that because they had previously passed two bills on a party-line basis that allow for more government spending on various domestic priorities.

    Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said last week that the two parties were about $25 billion apart in what is expected to be about a $1.65 trillion package, not including mandatory spending on programs such as Social Security and Medicare. However, Democrats in their statements did not indicate what topline spending number had been reached in the framework announced Tuesday.

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  • US military creates space unit in SKorea amid NKorea threats

    US military creates space unit in SKorea amid NKorea threats

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    SEOUL, South Korea — The U.S. military formally launched a space force unit in South Korea on Wednesday, a move that will likely enable Washington to better monitor its rivals North Korea, China and Russia.

    The activation of the U.S. Space Forces Korea at Osan Air Base near Seoul came after North Korea test-fired a barrage of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles designed to strike the U.S. mainland and its allies South Korea and Japan in recent months.

    “Just 48 miles north of us exists an existential threat; a threat that we must be prepared to deter, defend against, and – if required – defeat,” Lt. Col. Joshua McCullion, chief of the new space unit, said during the activation ceremony at Osan. He apparently refered to North Korea, whose heavily fortified border with South Korea is just an hour’s drive from Seoul, the South’s capital.

    The unit belongs to the U.S. Space Force, which was launched in December 2019 under then-President Donald Trump as the first new U.S. military service in more than 70 years.

    The Space Force was seen soberly as an affirmation of the need to more effectively organize for the defense of U.S. interests in space — especially satellites used for civilian and military navigation, intelligence and communication. A previous Pentagon report said China and Russia had embarked on major efforts to develop technologies that could allow them to disrupt or destroy American and allied satellites in a crisis or conflict.

    The U.S. Space Forces Korea is a subordinate of a bigger U.S. Space Force unit established within the Indo-Pacific command in Hawaii last month.

    Jung Chang Wook, head of the Korea Defense Study Forum think tank in Seoul, said the U.S. Space Force was created to bring together diverse surveillance assets including space-based satellites in one organization to manage and develop them in an effective, systemic manner. He said its unit in South Korea would work like a field unit while the other one in the Indo-Pacific Command would be its headquarters.

    “The U.S. Space Forces Korea would maintain, operate and asses related equipment. Simply speaking, I would say the actual U.S. space operations will be done at Osan Air Base,” Jung said. He said the main role of the U.S. Space Forces Korea would be receiving, processing and analyzing tremendous amount of data and information transmitted by U.S. satellites.

    “The U.S. military is faster, better connected, more informed, precise and lethal because of space,” Gen. Paul LaCamera, commander of the 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea, said during the ceremony. “Specifically, the activation here today, of U.S. Space Forces Korea … enhances our ability to defend the homelands and ensure peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.”

    Jung said the launch of a space unit in South Korea was primarily aimed at better monitoring North Korea, followed by China and then Russia.

    The United States and South Korea have expanded their regular military drills and pushed to further bolster their combined defense capability in the face of North Korea’s advancing nuclear program. North Korea has threatened to use nuclear weapons preemptively in potential conflicts with the United States and South Korea, and the U.S. military warned the North that the use of nuclear weapons “will result in the end of that regime.”

    ——

    Associated Press video journalist Kim Yong Ho in Osan, South Korea, contributed to this report.

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  • New FTX CEO says lax oversight, bad decisions caused failure

    New FTX CEO says lax oversight, bad decisions caused failure

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    WASHINGTON — Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, helped 1,500 Bahamian investors remove $100 million from their accounts while other customers around the world were locked out of the exchange, according to the company’s new CEO, who testified before a House committee Tuesday

    FTX CEO John Ray III, who has guided dozens of companies, including Enron, through bankruptcy restructuring, called FTX’s collapse one of the worst business failures he has seen — a “paperless bankruptcy,” fueled by an “unprecedented lack of documentation.”

    For nearly four hours, without a break, Ray told lawmakers about the lack of oversight and financial controls that he discovered since taking over FTX a month ago. He found a loan where Bankman-Fried was both the issuer and the recipient. There were expenses approved by emoji. FTX didn’t have accountants. For record-keeping, employees used QuickBooks, pre-packaged software typically used by small and medium-sized businesses, to manage FTX’s finances.

    “Nothing against QuickBooks,” Ray said. “It’s a very nice tool, just not for a multibillion-dollar company.”

    At its peak, FTX’s market value topped $30 billion.

    Notably absent from the hearing before the House Financial Services Committee was Bankman-Fried, who was arrested in the Bahamas just hours before he was scheduled to testify. The arrest was made at the request of the U.S. government, which on Tuesday announced criminal charges against Bankman-Fried including wire fraud and money laundering.

    The timing of Bankman-Fried’s arrest frustrated many committee members. Republican Rep. William Timmons, of South Carolina, called the timing “bizarre” and added that, as a former prosecutor, he couldn’t imagine why any prosecutor wouldn’t want “hours of congressional grilling for the target of an investigation” to help make a case.

    FTX filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11, when the firm ran out of money after the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run. The collapse of crypto’s second-largest exchange has garnered worldwide attention, and prompted worries in the crypto industry that the pain could become widespread. Ray estimated that about $8 billion of customer funds are missing.

    Some customers in the Bahamas, where FTX was based, were able to recover some money, Ray said. That’s because the Bahamian government and Bankman-Fried agreed to let them get their money out of FTX while customers in other countries were blocked from doing so, Ray said.

    Ray, who took over FTX on Nov. 11, told the committee that the problems at FTX were a cumulation of months or even years of bad decisions and poor financial controls.

    “This is not something that happened overnight or in a context of a week,” he said.

    However, Ray didn’t answer numerous questions about what regulations could have stopped the collapse of FTX. Instead, he focused on how unusual FTX was — having no board of directors, having no real structure that prohibited money invested by consumers in FTX to be shifted to Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund Alameda Research for other investments or lavish purchases, without the original investors’ knowledge.

    In his prepared remarks, Ray painted a picture of a company acting with little to no oversight.

    “FTX Group’s collapse appears to stem from the absolute concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals who failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls that are necessary for a company that is entrusted with other people’s money or assets,” Ray said.

    In interviews since FTX filed for bankruptcy protection, Bankman-Fried acknowledged that the company lacked proper financial controls and corporate governance, but denied any fraud had been committed.

    U.S. prosecutors and financial regulators disagreed with that assessment. An indictment unsealed Tuesday charged Bankman-Fried with a host of financial crimes and campaign finance violations, alleging he played a central role in the rapid collapse of FTX and hid its problems from the public and investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Bankman-Fried illegally used investors’ money to buy real estate on behalf of himself and family.

    Ray’s comments supported those allegations.

    “This is just old fashion embezzlement, taking money from others and using it for your own purposes,” he said. “This is not sophisticated at all.”

    A lawyer for Bankman-Fried, Mark S. Cohen, said Tuesday he is “reviewing the charges with his legal team and considering all of his legal options.”

    ————

    Reporter Ken Sweet contributed.

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  • FTX founder charged in scheme to defraud crypto investors

    FTX founder charged in scheme to defraud crypto investors

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    NEW YORK — The U.S. government charged Samuel Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, with a host of financial crimes on Tuesday, alleging he intentionally deceived customers and investors to enrich himself and others, while playing a central role in the company’s multibillion-dollar collapse.

    Federal prosecutors said Bankman-Fried devised “a scheme and artifice to defraud” FTX’s customers and investors beginning in 2019, the year it was founded. He illegally diverted their money to cover expenses, debts and risky trades at the crypto hedge fund he started in 2017, Alameda Research, and to make lavish real estate purchases and large political donations, prosecutors said in a 13-page indictment.

    Bankman-Fried, 30, was arrested Monday in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government, and remains in custody after being denied bail.

    He has been charged with eight criminal violations, ranging from wire fraud to money laundering to conspiracy to commit fraud. If convicted of all the charges, Bankman-Fried — referred to by crypto enthusiasts as “SBF” — could face decades in jail.

    At a press conference on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in New York called it “one of the biggest frauds in American history,” and said the investigation is ongoing and fast-moving.

    Bankman-Fried has fallen hard and fast from the top of the cryptocurrency industry he helped to evangelize. FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, when it ran out of money after the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run.

    Before the bankruptcy, he was considered by many in Washington and on Wall Street as a wunderkind of digital currencies, someone who could help take them mainstream, in part by working with policymakers to bring more oversight and trust to the industry.

    Bankman-Fried had been worth tens of billions of dollars — at least on paper — and was able to attract celebrities like Tom Brady or former politicians like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton to his conferences at luxury resorts in the Bahamas. One prominent Silicon Valley firm, Sequoia Capital, invested hundreds of millions of dollars in FTX.

    Sporting shorts and t-shirts to contrast himself with the buttoned-down world of Wall Street, he was the subject of fawning media profiles, a vocal advocate for a type of charitable giving known as “effective altruism,” and garnered millions of Twitter followers.

    But since FTX’s implosion, Bankman-Fried and his company have been likened to other disgraced financiers and companies, such as Bernie Madoff and Enron.

    The criminal indictment against Bankman-Fried and “others” at FTX is on top of civil charges announced Tuesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The SEC alleges Bankman-Fried defrauded FTX customers by making loans to himself and other FTX executives, and illegally using investors’ money to buy real estate for himself and his family.

    No other FTX executives were named in the indictment, nor was the CEO of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison. Also not named in the indictment: Bankman-Fried’s father, Joseph Bankman, a Stanford University law professor who was considered an adviser to his son.

    U.S. authorities said they will try to claw back any of Bankman-Fried’s financial gains from the alleged scheme.

    A lawyer for Bankman-Fried, Mark S. Cohen, said Tuesday he is “reviewing the charges with his legal team and considering all of his legal options.”

    At a congressional hearing Tuesday that was scheduled before Bankman-Fried’s arrest, the new CEO brought in to steer FTX through its bankruptcy proceedings leveled harsh criticism. He said there was scant oversight of customers’ money and “very few rules” about how their funds could be used.

    John Ray III told members of the House Financial Services Committee that the collapse of FTX, resulting in the loss of more than $7 billion, was the culmination of months, or even years, of bad decisions and poor financial controls.

    “This is not something that happened overnight or in a context of a week,” he said.

    He added: “This is just plain, old-fashioned embezzlement, taking money from others and using it for your own purposes.”

    Before his arrest, Bankman-Fried had been holed up in his luxury compound in the Bahamas. U.S. authorities are expected to request his extradition to the U.S.

    Bankman-Fried was denied bail at a court hearing in the Bahamas on Tuesday after prosecutors argued he was a flight risk, according to Our News, a broadcast news company based there.

    Bankman-Fried’s was previously one of the world’s wealthiest people on paper; at one point his net worth reached $26.5 billion, according to Forbes. He was a prominent personality in Washington, donating millions of dollars to Democrats and Republicans. U.S. Attorney Williams said Tuesday that Bankman-Fried made “tens of millions of dollars” in illegal campaign donations.

    His wealth unraveled quickly last month, when reports called into question the strength of FTX’s balance sheet. As customers sought to withdraw billions of dollars, FTX could not satisfy the requests: their money was gone.

    “We allege that Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

    The SEC complaint alleges that Bankman-Fried had raised more than $1.8 billion from investors since May 2019 by promoting FTX as a safe, responsible platform for trading crypto assets.

    Instead, the complaint says, Bankman-Fried diverted customers’ funds to Alameda Research without telling them.

    “He then used Alameda as his personal piggy bank to buy luxury condominiums, support political campaigns, and make private investments, among other uses,” the complaint reads.

    In the weeks after FTX’s collapse, but before his arrest, Bankman-Fried gave interviews to several news organizations in which he grasped for ways to explain what happened.

    For example, Bankman-Fried said he did not “knowingly” misuse customers’ funds, and that he believes angry customers will eventually get their money back.

    At Tuesday’s congressional hearing, the new FTX CEO bluntly disputed those assertions: “We will never get all these assets back,” Ray said.

    Jack Sharman, an attorney at Lightfoot, Franklin & White, said Bankman-Fried’s recent comments to the media could be damaging, admissible evidence in court. “Those statements in that speaking tour were in no way helpful to his cause,” Sharman said.

    In its complaint, the SEC challenged Bankman-Fried’s recent statements that FTX and its customers were victims of a sudden market collapse that overwhelmed safeguards that had been in place.

    “FTX operated behind a veneer of legitimacy,” said Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s enforcement division. “That veneer wasn’t just thin, it was fraudulent.”

    The collapse of FTX — which followed other cryptocurrency debacles earlier this year — is adding urgency to efforts to regulate the industry.

    Yesha Yadav, a law professor at Vanderbilt University who specializes in financial and securities regulation, said U.S. lawmakers and regulators have been too slow to act, but that is likely to change.

    “Lawmakers are clearly under pressure to do something, given that so many people have lost their money,” she said.

    ——————

    Hussein contributed to this report from Washington.

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  • SEC charges former FTX CEO with defrauding crypto investors

    SEC charges former FTX CEO with defrauding crypto investors

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    NEW YORK — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the former CEO of failed cryptocurrency firm FTX with orchestrating a scheme to defraud investors.

    An SEC complaint filed Tuesday alleges that Sam Bankman-Fried raised more than $1.8 billion from equity investors since May 2019 by promoting FTX as a safe, responsible platform for trading crypto assets.

    The civil complaint says Bankman-Fried diverted customer funds to Alameda Research LLC, his privately-held crypto fund, without telling them. The complaint also says Bankman-Fried commingled FTX customers’ funds at Alameda to make undisclosed venture investments, lavish real estate purchases, and large political donations.

    “Bankman-Fried placed billions of dollars of FTX customer funds into Alameda. He then used Alameda as his personal piggy bank to buy luxury condominiums, support political campaigns, and make private investments, among other uses,” the complaint reads. “None of this was disclosed to FTX equity investors or to the platform’s trading customers.”

    Alameda did not segregate FTX investor funds and Alameda investments, the SEC said, using that money to “indiscriminately fund its trading operations,” as well as other ventures of Bankman-Fried.

    “We allege that Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. “The alleged fraud committed by Mr. Bankman-Fried is a clarion call to crypto platforms that they need to come into compliance with our laws.”

    Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government, U.S. and Bahamian authorities said.

    The arrest was made after the U.S. filed criminal charges that are expected to be unsealed Tuesday, according to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. Bankman-Fried had been under criminal investigation by U.S. and Bahamian authorities following the collapse last month of FTX, which filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, when it ran out of money after the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run.

    The SEC charges are separate from the criminal charges expected to be unsealed later Tuesday.

    A spokesman for Bankman-Fried had no comment Monday evening. Bankman-Fried has a right to contest his extradition, which could delay but not likely stop his transfer to the U.S.

    Bankman-Fried’s arrest comes just a day before he was due to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., chairwoman of the committee, said she was “disappointed” that the American public, and FTX’s customers, would not get to see Bankman-Fried testify under oath.

    That hearing, however, will be held Tuesday despite the arrest of Bankman-Fried.

    Bankman-Fried was one of the world’s wealthiest people on paper, with an estimated net worth of $32 billion. He was a prominent personality in Washington, donating millions of dollars toward mostly left-leaning political causes and Democratic political campaigns. FTX grew to become the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.

    That all unraveled quickly last month, when reports called into question the strength of FTX’s balance sheet. Customers moved to withdraw billions of dollars, but FTX could not meet all the requests because it apparently used its customers deposits to cover bad bets at Bankman-Fried’s investment arm, Alameda Research.

    Bankman-Fried said recently that he did not “knowingly” misuse customers’ funds, and said he believes his millions of angry customers will eventually be made whole.

    The SEC challenged that assertion Tuesday in its complaint.

    “FTX operated behind a veneer of legitimacy Mr. Bankman-Fried created by, among other things, touting its best-in-class controls, including a proprietary ‘risk engine,’ and FTX’s adherence to specific investor protection principles and detailed terms of service. But as we allege in our complaint, that veneer wasn’t just thin, it was fraudulent,” said Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “FTX’s collapse highlights the very real risks that unregistered crypto asset trading platforms can pose for investors and customers alike.”

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  • Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas

    Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas

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    NEW YORK (AP) — The former CEO of failed cryptocurrency firm FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has been arrested in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government, U.S. and Bahamian authorities said Monday.

    The arrest was made Monday after the U.S. filed criminal charges that are expected to be unsealed Tuesday, according to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. Bankman-Fried had been under criminal investigation by U.S. and Bahamian authorities following the collapse last month of FTX. The firm filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, when it ran out of money after the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run.

    “We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” Williams said.

    Bahamian Attorney General Ryan Pinder said the Bahamas would “promptly” extradite Bankman-Fried to the U.S. once the indictment is unsealed and U.S. authorities make a formal request. FTX is headquartered in the Bahamas and Bankman-Fried has largely remained in his Bahamian luxury compound in Nassau since the company’s failure.

    A spokesman for Bankman-Fried had no comment Monday evening. Bankman-Fried has a right to contest his extradition, which could delay but not likely stop his transfer to the U.S.

    Bankman-Fried’s arrest comes just a day before he was due to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., chairwoman of the committee, said she was “disappointed” that the American public, and FTX’s customers, would not get to see Bankman-Fried testify under oath.

    Bankman-Fried was one of the world’s wealthiest people on paper, with an estimated net worth of $32 billion. He was a prominent personality in Washington, donating millions of dollars toward mostly left-leaning political causes and Democratic political campaigns. FTX grew to become the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.

    That all unraveled quickly last month, when reports called into question the strength of FTX’s balance sheet. Customers moved to withdraw billions of dollars, but FTX could not meet all the requests because it apparently used its customers deposits to cover bad bets at Bankman-Fried’s investment arm, Alameda Research.

    Bankman-Fried said recently that he did not “knowingly” misuse customers’ funds, and said he believes his millions of angry customers will eventually be made whole.

    The House Financial Services Committee is still expected to hear testimony Tuesday from current CEO John Ray III. Ray, who took over FTX on Nov. 11 and is a long-time restructuring specialist, has said in court filings that the financial conditions at FTX were worse than at Enron.

    Bahamian authorities plan to continue their own investigation into Bankman-Fried.

    “The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law,” said Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis, in a statement.

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it had authorized separate charges related to alleged violations of securities laws and would file them publicly Tuesday.

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  • Mexico to make last-ditch effort to solve US corn dispute

    Mexico to make last-ditch effort to solve US corn dispute

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    MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s foreign secretary has announced he will travel to Washington, D.C., on Friday in a last-ditch effort to resolve a dispute over imports of U.S. corn before a scheduled visit next month by U.S. President Joe Biden.

    Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said Monday that he will travel to the U.S. capital with other Mexican officials to try to find “points of agreement on genetically modified corn and other issues.”

    The leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States are scheduled to meet in Mexico City on Jan. 9-10.

    Mexico sparked the dispute when it announced plans to ban imports of GM corn for human consumption and perhaps eventually for animal feed as well.

    Mexico cites health concerns, but such a trade restriction could violate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement. Mexico has been importing U.S. GM feed corn for years, buying about $3 billion worth annually, and is the single biggest export market for U.S. corn.

    Mexico hopes to stave off a full-fledged trade complaint under the agreement on that issue as well as a dispute over Mexico’s energy sector.

    The United States says Mexico is unfairly favoring its state-owned electricity and oil companies over American competitors and clean-energy suppliers. Canada also has joined in that complaint.

    The U.S. initially requested talks in July, but they have so far not yielded any solution. The United States could demand an arbitration panel, and the dispute could end in trade sanctions against Mexico.

    López Obrador exchanged letters with Biden on Monday, to mark the 200th anniversary of the two nations establishing diplomatic relations in 1822, following Mexico’s independence from Spain.

    In his letter, López Obrador proposed that both nations agree on a “plan for import replacements, so that in the whole continent of North America, we produce everything we consume.”

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  • Asian markets extend Wall St losses; China COVID cases rise

    Asian markets extend Wall St losses; China COVID cases rise

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    BANGKOK — Shares slipped in Asia on Monday after last week’s decline on Wall Street, while signs of a surge in coronavirus infections in China suggested progress may be bumpy as it rolls back its “zero-COVID” pandemic restrictions.

    Attention was turning to an update on U.S. consumer prices and the Federal Reserve’s last meeting of the year.

    The last big piece of data on inflation before the Fed’s next decision is due Tuesday, when economists expect the consumer price index to show inflation slowed to 7.3% last month from 7.7% in October.

    Meetings of major central banks including the Fed mean “there is potential for a whole load of volatility in markets; especially given the palpable tensions between inflation risks and fears of policy-induced recession,” analysts at Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.

    A survey of Japanese manufacturers showed a sharp deterioration in the outlook, with recession a growing possibility in the U.S. and other major markets. The business survey index fell to minus 3.6% in October-December from 1.7% in the previous quarter as manufacturers grappled with high prices for energy and other raw materials.

    Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sank 2.1% to 19,484.88 and the Shanghai Composite index shed 0.7% to 3,186.05.

    Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index gave up 0.2% to 27,835.63 while the Kospi in Seoul lost 0.6% to 2,375.27.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.4% to 7,181.40.

    China was setting up more intensive care facilities and trying to strengthen hospitals as it rolls back anti-virus controls that confined millions of people to their homes, crushed economic growth and set off protests.

    The precautions come as the number of cases appeared to be rising, though a sharp reduction in the number of tests makes measuring any changes uncertain.

    President Xi Jinping’s government is officially committed to stopping virus transmission, the last major country to try. But the latest moves suggest the ruling Communist Party will tolerate more cases without quarantines or shutting down travel or businesses as it winds down its “zero-COVID” strategy.

    A choppy day of trading on Wall Street ended with stocks broadly lower Friday.

    The S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite each fell 0.7%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.9%. Smaller company stocks fell even more, pulling the Russell 2000 index 1.2% lower. The indexes marked their first losing week in the last three.

    The S&P 500 finished 3.4% lower for the week and is now down 17.5% this year.

    The U.S. government reported that prices paid at the wholesale level were 7.4% higher in November than a year earlier. That’s a slowdown from October’s wholesale inflation rate of 8.1%, but it was still slightly worse than economists expected.

    The Fed has been battling inflation by aggressively raising interest rates to raise the cost of borrowing and slow economic activity. The central bank has already hiked its key overnight rate to a range of 3.75% to 4%, up from basically zero as recently as March.

    It generally is expected to raise rates by another half percentage point on Wednesday as it wraps up a two-day meeting.

    Stocks have recovered some of their losses recently, as inflation has slowed since hitting a peak in the summer. But it remains too high, raising the risk the Federal Reserve will have to keep hiking interest rates sharply to get it fully under control.

    In other trading Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 54 cents to $71.56 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 44 cents to $71.02 on Friday.

    Brent crude, the pricing basis for international trading, added 40 cents to $76.50 per barrel.

    The U.S. dollar rose to 137.03 Japanese yen from 136.60 yen. The euro slipped to $1.0516 from $1.0537.

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  • Asian markets extend Wall St losses; China COVID cases rise

    Asian markets extend Wall St losses; China COVID cases rise

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    BANGKOK — Shares slipped in Asia on Monday after last week’s decline on Wall Street, while signs of a surge in coronavirus infections in China suggested progress may be bumpy as it rolls back its “zero-COVID” pandemic restrictions.

    Attention was turning to an update on U.S. consumer prices and the Federal Reserve’s last meeting of the year.

    The last big piece of data on inflation before the Fed’s next decision is due Tuesday, when economists expect the consumer price index to show inflation slowed to 7.3% last month from 7.7% in October.

    Meetings of major central banks including the Fed mean “there is potential for a whole load of volatility in markets; especially given the palpable tensions between inflation risks and fears of policy-induced recession,” analysts at Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.

    A survey of Japanese manufacturers showed a sharp deterioration in the outlook, with recession a growing possibility in the U.S. and other major markets. The business survey index fell to minus 3.6% in October-December from 1.7% in the previous quarter as manufacturers grappled with high prices for energy and other raw materials.

    Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sank 2.1% to 19,484.88 and the Shanghai Composite index shed 0.7% to 3,186.05.

    Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index gave up 0.2% to 27,835.63 while the Kospi in Seoul lost 0.6% to 2,375.27.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.4% to 7,181.40.

    China was setting up more intensive care facilities and trying to strengthen hospitals as it rolls back anti-virus controls that confined millions of people to their homes, crushed economic growth and set off protests.

    The precautions come as the number of cases appeared to be rising, though a sharp reduction in the number of tests makes measuring any changes uncertain.

    President Xi Jinping’s government is officially committed to stopping virus transmission, the last major country to try. But the latest moves suggest the ruling Communist Party will tolerate more cases without quarantines or shutting down travel or businesses as it winds down its “zero-COVID” strategy.

    A choppy day of trading on Wall Street ended with stocks broadly lower Friday.

    The S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite each fell 0.7%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.9%. Smaller company stocks fell even more, pulling the Russell 2000 index 1.2% lower. The indexes marked their first losing week in the last three.

    The S&P 500 finished 3.4% lower for the week and is now down 17.5% this year.

    The U.S. government reported that prices paid at the wholesale level were 7.4% higher in November than a year earlier. That’s a slowdown from October’s wholesale inflation rate of 8.1%, but it was still slightly worse than economists expected.

    The Fed has been battling inflation by aggressively raising interest rates to raise the cost of borrowing and slow economic activity. The central bank has already hiked its key overnight rate to a range of 3.75% to 4%, up from basically zero as recently as March.

    It generally is expected to raise rates by another half percentage point on Wednesday as it wraps up a two-day meeting.

    Stocks have recovered some of their losses recently, as inflation has slowed since hitting a peak in the summer. But it remains too high, raising the risk the Federal Reserve will have to keep hiking interest rates sharply to get it fully under control.

    In other trading Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 54 cents to $71.56 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 44 cents to $71.02 on Friday.

    Brent crude, the pricing basis for international trading, added 40 cents to $76.50 per barrel.

    The U.S. dollar rose to 137.03 Japanese yen from 136.60 yen. The euro slipped to $1.0516 from $1.0537.

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  • Today in History: December 12, Paris climate accord adopted

    Today in History: December 12, Paris climate accord adopted

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    Today in History

    Today is Monday, Dec. 12, the 346th day of 2022. There are 19 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Dec. 12, 2015, nearly 200 nations meeting in Paris adopted the first global pact to fight climate change, calling on the world to collectively cut and then eliminate greenhouse gas pollution but imposing no sanctions on countries that didn’t do so.

    On this date:

    In 1787, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

    In 1870, Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina became the first Black lawmaker sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives.

    In 1913, authorities in Florence, Italy, announced that the “Mona Lisa,” stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1911, had been recovered.

    In 1915, singer-actor Frank Sinatra was born Francis Albert Sinatra in Hoboken, New Jersey.

    In 1917, during World War I, a train carrying some 1,000 French troops from the Italian front derailed while descending a steep hill in Modane (moh-DAN’); at least half of the soldiers were killed in France’s greatest rail disaster. Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha, Nebraska.

    In 1977, the dance movie “Saturday Night Fever,” starring John Travolta, premiered in New York.

    In 1985, 248 American soldiers and eight crew members were killed when an Arrow Air charter crashed after takeoff from Gander, Newfoundland.

    In 1995, by three votes, the Senate killed a constitutional amendment giving Congress authority to outlaw flag burning and other forms of desecration against Old Glory.

    In 2000, George W. Bush became president-elect as a divided U.S. Supreme Court reversed a state court decision for recounts in Florida’s contested election. The Marine Corps grounded all eight of its high-tech MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft following a fiery crash in North Carolina that killed four Marines. (The Osprey program was revived by the Pentagon in 2005.)

    In 2010, the inflatable roof of the Minneapolis Metrodome collapsed following a snowstorm that had dumped 17 inches on the city. (The NFL was forced to shift an already rescheduled game between the Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants to Detroit’s Ford Field.)

    In 2019, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson led his Conservative Party to a landslide victory in a general election that was dominated by Brexit.

    In 2020, thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump gathered in Washington for rallies to back his desperate efforts to subvert the election that he lost to Joe Biden; sporadic fights broke out between pro-Trump and anti-Trump demonstrators after sundown, and four people were taken to the hospital with stab wounds. Charley Pride, the son of sharecroppers in Mississippi who became the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, died in Dallas at 86 from what a spokesman said were complications from COVID-19. John le Carre, the former spy whose novels defined the Cold War espionage thriller, died in England at the age of 89.

    Ten years ago: North Koreans danced in the streets of their capital, Pyongyang, after the regime of Kim Jong Un succeeded in firing a long-range rocket in defiance of international warnings. Pope Benedict XVI sent his first tweet from his new account; it read, “Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.”

    Five years ago: Democrat Doug Jones won Alabama’s special Senate election over Republican Roy Moore, who had denied accusations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls that allegedly took place when he was in his 30s; it was the first Democratic Senate victory in Alabama in a quarter-century, and came despite an endorsement of Moore by President Donald Trump. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, the city’s first Asian-American mayor, died at the age of 65 after collapsing while grocery shopping.

    One year ago: Despite critical acclaim and two years-worth of anticipation, Steven Spielberg’s lavish “West Side Story” revival made little noise at the box office, with just $10.5 million in ticket sales on its opening weekend. Veteran anchor Chris Wallace announced at the end of his “Fox News Sunday” program that he was leaving Fox News after 18 years; CNN then announced that he was joining its new streaming service.

    Today’s Birthdays: Former TV host Bob Barker is 99. Basketball Hall of Famer Bob Pettit is 90. Singer Connie Francis is 85. Singer Dionne Warwick is 82. Rock singer-musician Dickey Betts is 79. Hall of Fame race car driver Emerson Fittipaldi is 76. Actor Wings Hauser is 75. Actor Bill Nighy (ny) is 73. Actor Duane Chase (Film: “The Sound of Music”) is 72. Country singer LaCosta is 72. Gymnast-turned-actor Cathy Rigby is 70. Singer-musician Sheila E. is 65. Actor Sheree J. Wilson is 64. Pop singer Daniel O’Donnell is 61. International Tennis Hall of Famer Tracy Austin is 60. Rock musician Eric Schenkman (Spin Doctors) is 59. Author Sophie Kinsella is 53. News anchor Maggie Rodriguez is 53. Actor Jennifer Connelly is 52. Actor Madchen Amick is 52. Actor Regina Hall is 52. Country singer Hank Williams III is 50. Actor Mayim Bialik is 47. Model Bridget Hall is 45. Actor Lucas Hedges is 26. Actor Sky Katz is 18.

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  • Democratic lawmakers visit Havana, meet with Cuban president

    Democratic lawmakers visit Havana, meet with Cuban president

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    HAVANA — A delegation of at least three U.S. lawmakers visited Havana and met with Cuba’s government this week, American and Cuban officials confirmed.

    Reps. James McGovern (D-MA), Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Troy Carter (D-LA) met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, leaders in Cuba’s congress and its foreign minister, the U.S. Embassy in Cuba told The Associated Press on Sunday.

    It’s one of just a handful of such visits to the island in recent decades. While officials provided few details about what was discussed, Díaz-Canel and Cuba’s Congress tweeted photos of the meetings.

    One photo shows Rep. McGovern shaking hands with the Cuban leader and another shows the politicians meeting with other Cuban officials.

    “We addressed our differences and topics of shared interest. We affirmed our willingness to improve bilateral relations,” tweeted Díaz-Canel Saturday, also noting he expressed the importance of ending the U.S. government’s six-decade trade embargo on the island.

    The meeting comes following a number of visits in past months by Biden administration officials to discuss migration. The talks mark a gradual easing of tensions, which were relaxed during the Obama administration and tightened under the Trump administration.

    Cuba is facing the greatest exodus from the island in a decade, fueled by compounding economic, energy and political crises.

    In the past year, Cuban arrivals to the U.S.-Mexico border have skyrocketed, and a growing number of boats packed with migrants have been found off of Florida’s coast.

    In October, Cubans replaced Venezuelans as the second most numerous nationality after Mexicans arriving at the border. U.S. authorities stopped Cubans 28,848 times, up 10% from the previous month, the latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows.

    It also comes weeks before the U.S. plans to resume visa and consular services on the island, which had been stalled after a series of health incidents involving American diplomats in 2017.

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  • Confederate monument set to be removed from Virginia capital

    Confederate monument set to be removed from Virginia capital

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    RICHMOND, Va, — Work to relocate Richmond’s final city-owned Confederate monument should start this week after a judge refused a request to delay the removal of the statue of Gen. A.P. Hill from its prominent spot in Virginia’s capital, an official said.

    Richmond Circuit Court Judge David Eugene Cheek Sr. last week rejected a motion from four indirect descendants of Hill, who was killed in the final days of the Civil War, to stop the city’s removal plans.

    Though the process of removing the monument from a busy intersection should start Monday, it’s unclear if it would be removed entirely by the end of the week, city deputy chief administrative officer Robert Steidel told WRIC-TV.

    The city, a onetime capital of the Confederacy, began removing its many other Confederate monuments more than two years ago amid the racial justice protests that followed George Floyd’s murder. Among the notable monuments removed was an imposing statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson, which was taken down from a concrete pedestal in 2020 along Richmond, Virginia’s famed Monument Avenue.

    Richmond officials decided to convey the monuments to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia. But efforts to remove the Hill statue have been complicated because the general’s remains were buried beneath the monument in 1891.

    The indirect descendants and the city have agreed that Richmond’s plan to move Hill’s remains to a cemetery in Culpeper should be allowed to move forward. But these descendants contend they have control over the statue and want it relocated to Cedar Mountain Battlefield, near the cemetery, instead of to the museum. Cheek ruled against them in October.

    In the most recent hearing, Cheek denied their motion to stay the removal of the Hill monument while the descendants press an appeal with the Virginia Court of Appeals.

    The city has spent at least $1.8 million removing other city-owned monuments, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. Cheek determined that delaying the removal would result in additional cost and retain a potential traffic hazard.

    The monument will be kept in storage while the case goes through the expected appeal process, Steidel said in court last week.

    Many Confederate statues in Virginia were erected decades after the Civil War, during the Jim Crow era, when states imposed new segregation laws, and during the “Lost Cause” movement, when historians and others tried to depict the South’s rebellion as a fight to defend states’ rights, not slavery.

    Those seeking removal of the statues, particularly in Richmond — the onetime capital of the Confederacy — said that would service notice that the city is no longer a place with symbols of oppression and white supremacy.

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  • With suspect in custody, spotlight returns to 1988 bombing

    With suspect in custody, spotlight returns to 1988 bombing

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    The announcement Sunday that a Libyan man suspected in the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet has been taken into U.S. custody put the spotlight back on the notorious terrorist attack and longstanding efforts to pursue those responsible.

    The suspect, Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, is accused of building the bomb that destroyed a Pam Am flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. The attack killed all 259 people aboard the plane and 11 on the ground. The majority of those killed were Americans.

    Thirty-four years later, the public’s memories of the attack have largely faded, despite developments in the case that have intermittently returned it to the headlines. Here’s a look back:

    HOW DID THE LOCKERBIE ATTACK HAPPEN?

    On Dec. 21, 1988, a bomb planted aboard Pam Am Flight 103 exploded less than half an hour after the jet departed London’s Heathrow airport, bound for New York.

    The attack destroyed the jet, which was carrying citizens of 21 countries. Among the victims were 190 Americans. They included 35 students from Syracuse University in upstate New York who were flying home after a semester abroad. To this day, the bombing remains the deadliest terrorist attack ever carried out on British soil.

    Investigators soon tied the bombing to Libya, whose government had engaged in long-running hostilities with the U.S. and other Western governments. About two years before the attack, Libya was blamed for the bombing of a Berlin disco that killed three, including two U.S. soldiers, and injured dozens of others.

    WHO WAS HELD RESPONSIBLE?

    In 1991, the U.S. charged two Libyan intelligence officers with planting the bomb aboard the jet. But the country’s leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, refused to turn them over. After long negotiations, Libya agreed in 1999 to surrender them for prosecution by a panel of Scottish judges sitting in the Netherlands.

    One of the men, Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, was convicted and given a life sentence. The other, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was found not guilty. Scottish officials released Al-Megrahi on humanitarian grounds in 2009 after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He died in Libya in 2012.

    The families of those killed, meanwhile, brought suit against the Libyan government, demanding they be held accountable. In 2003, Libya agreed to a settlement, formally accepting responsibility for the bombing, renouncing terrorism and paying compensation to the families.

    Despite a rapprochement with the U.S. government, the pursuit of others responsible for the bombing largely stalled, until after Ghadafi was ousted from power in 2011.

    WHAT LED INVESTIGATORS TO MASUD?

    After Ghadafi’s fall, Masud, a longtime explosives expert for the country’s intelligence service, was taken into custody by Libyan law enforcement. In 2017, U.S. officials received a copy of an interview with Masud done by Libyan authorities soon after his arrest.

    In that interview, U.S. officials said, Masud admitted to building the bomb used in the Pan Am attack and working with the two men charged earlier to plant it on the plane. He said the operation had been ordered by Libyan intelligence and that Ghadafi had thanked him and others after the attack, according to an FBI affidavit.

    In late 2020, the U.S. Justice Department announced charges against Masud. With Masud in Libyan custody, though, his prosecution remained largely theoretical. U.S. and Scottish officials pledged to work for his extradition, so that he could be tried.

    It was not clear Sunday how Masud was taken into U.S. custody. He would be the first to appear in an American courtroom for prosecution of the attack.

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  • Special envoy gives details of Griner’s homecoming

    Special envoy gives details of Griner’s homecoming

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    WASHINGTON — WNBA star Brittney Griner didn’t want any alone time as soon as she boarded a U.S. government plane that would bring her home.

    “I’ve been in prison for 10 months, listening to the Russians. I want to talk,” Griner said, according to Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, who helped secure the basketball star’s release and bring her back to the U.S. last week.

    She walked throughout the plane, introducing herself to every member of the flight crew, shaking their hands, and “making a personal connection with them,” Carstens recalled.

    Ultimately, Griner spent about 12 hours of an 18-hour flight talking with others on the plane, Carstens said. The two-time Olympic gold medalist and Phoenix Mercury pro basketball star spoke about her time in the Russian penal colony and her months in captivity, Carstens recalled, although he declined to go into specific details.

    “I was left with the impression this is an intelligent, passionate, compassionate, humble, interesting person, a patriotic person,” Carstens said. “But above all, authentic. I hate the fact that I had to meet her in this manner, but I actually felt blessed having had a chance to get to know her.”

    Although Griner is undergoing a full medical and mental evaluation, Carstens said she appeared “full of energy, looked fantastic.”

    Griner, who also played pro basketball in Russia, was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February after Russian authorities said she was carrying vape canisters with cannabis oil. The U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained” — a charge that Russia has sharply rejected.

    Carstens spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

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  • Today in History: December 11, King Edward VIII abdicates

    Today in History: December 11, King Edward VIII abdicates

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    Today in History

    Today is Sunday, Dec. 11, the 345th day of 2022. There are 20 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Dec. 11, 1936, Britain’s King Edward VIII abdicated the throne so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson; his brother, Prince Albert, became King George VI.

    On this date:

    In 1816, Indiana became the 19th state.

    In 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the U.S. responded in kind.

    In 1946, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.

    In 1972, Apollo 17’s lunar module landed on the moon with astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt aboard; they became the last two men to date to step onto the lunar surface.

    In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation creating a $1.6 billion environmental “superfund” to pay for cleaning up chemical spills and toxic waste dumps. “Magnum P.I.,” starring Tom Selleck, premiered on CBS.

    In 1997, more than 150 countries agreed at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth’s greenhouse gases.

    In 1998, majority Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee pushed through three articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, over Democratic objections.

    In 2001, in the first criminal indictment stemming from 9/11, federal prosecutors charged Zacarias Moussaoui (zak-uh-REE’-uhs moo-SOW’-ee), a French citizen of Moroccan descent, with conspiring to murder thousands in the suicide hijackings. (Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2005 and was sentenced to life in prison.)

    In 2002, a congressional report found that intelligence agencies that were supposed to protect Americans from the Sept. 11 hijackers failed to do so because they were poorly organized, poorly equipped and slow to pursue clues that might have prevented the attacks.

    In 2008, former Nasdaq chairman Bernie Madoff was arrested, accused of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that wiped out the life savings of thousands of people and wrecked charities. (Madoff died in April 2021 while serving a 150-year federal prison sentence.)

    In 2018, a Virginia jury called for a sentence of life in prison plus 419 years for the man who killed a woman when he rammed his car into counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. (James Alex Fields Jr. received that sentence in July, 2019.)

    In 2020, the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit backed by President Donald Trump to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory, ending a desperate attempt to get legal issues that were rejected by state and federal judges before the nation’s highest court. The Food and Drug Administration authorized an emergency rollout of the nation’s first COVID-19 vaccine, developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech; the decision came as the U.S. recorded a new daily high in the number of coronavirus deaths. (Hours before the FDA action, according to two administration officials, a high-ranking White House official told the FDA’s chief that he could face firing if the vaccine was not cleared by day’s end.)

    Ten years ago: The Michigan Legislature gave final approval to a pair of right-to-work bills that were quickly signed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder amid angry protests by union members and their supporters. Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue (TAG’-lee-uh-boo) overturned the suspensions of four New Orleans Saints players in the league’s bounty investigation but said three of the players had engaged in conduct detrimental to the league.

    Five years ago: A Bangladeshi immigrant set off a crude pipe bomb in a New York City subway passageway in a botched suicide bombing; it did not fully detonate and Akayed Ullah was the only one seriously hurt. (Ullah was convicted on terrorism charges in federal court and sentenced to life in prison.) A Southern California wildfire exploded in size again, becoming the fifth largest in state history; officials handed out masks to those who stayed behind in an exclusive community where Oprah Winfrey and other stars had homes. Chef Mario Batali stepped away from his restaurant empire and his cooking show “The Chew” as he conceded that reports of sexual misconduct “match up” to his behavior. French President Emmanuel Macron awarded millions of dollars in grants to 18 climate scientists from the U.S. and elsewhere, allowing them to relocate to France for the remainder of Donald Trump’s presidential term. The Pentagon said transgender recruits would be allowed to enlist in the military beginning Jan. 1; a ban ordered by Trump had suffered a series of legal setbacks.

    One year ago: Anne Rice, author of best-selling gothic novels including “Interview With the Vampire,” died at 80 due to complications from a stroke. Alabama’s Bryce Young won the Heisman Trophy, beating out Michigan defensive end Aidan Hutchinson to give the Crimson Tide consecutive winners of college football’s most famous individual award. Football star and TV celebrity Michael Strahan (STRAY’-han) was among the latest to ride into space aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, sharing the trip with Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of Alan Shepard, who was America’s first astronaut.

    Today’s Birthdays: Actor Rita Moreno is 91. Pop singer David Gates (Bread) is 82. Actor Donna Mills is 82. Former Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is 81. Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is 79. Singer Brenda Lee is 78. Actor Lynda Day George is 78. Music producer Tony Brown is 76. Actor Teri Garr is 75. Movie director Susan Seidelman is 71. Actor Bess Armstrong is 69. Singer Jermaine Jackson is 68. Rock musician Mike Mesaros (The Smithereens) is 65. Rock musician Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue) is 64. Rock musician Darryl Jones (The Rolling Stones) is 61. Actor Ben Browder is 60. Singer-musician Justin Currie (Del Amitri) is 58. Rock musician David Schools (Hard Working Americans, Gov’t Mule, Widespread Panic) is 58. Actor Gary Dourdan (DOOR’-dan) is 56. Actor-comedian Mo’Nique is 55. Actor Max Martini is 53. Rapper-actor Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) is 49. Actor Rider Strong is 43. Actor Xosha (ZOH’-shah) Roquemore is 38. Actor Karla Souza is 36. Actor Hailee Steinfeld is 26.

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  • Today in History: December 10, Mandela is mourned

    Today in History: December 10, Mandela is mourned

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    Today in History

    Today is Saturday, Dec. 10, the 344th day of 2022. There are 21 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Dec. 10, 2013, South Africa held a memorial service for Nelson Mandela, during which U.S. President Barack Obama energized tens of thousands of spectators and nearly 100 visiting heads of state with a plea for the world to emulate “the last great liberator of the 20th century.” (The ceremony was marred by the presence of a sign-language interpreter who deaf advocates said was an impostor waving his arms around meaninglessly.)

    On this date:

    In 1817, Mississippi was admitted as the 20th state of the Union.

    In 1861, the Confederacy admitted Kentucky as it recognized a pro-Southern shadow state government that was acting without the authority of the pro-Union government in Frankfort.

    In 1898, a treaty was signed in Paris officially ending the Spanish-American War.

    In 1958, the first domestic passenger jet flight took place in the U.S. as a National Airlines Boeing 707 flew 111 passengers from New York to Miami in about 2 1/2 hours.

    In 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. received his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, saying he accepted it “with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind.”

    In 1967, singer Otis Redding, 26, and six others were killed when their plane crashed into Wisconsin’s Lake Monona; trumpeter Ben Cauley, a member of the group the Bar-Kays, was the only survivor.

    In 1994, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin received the Nobel Peace Prize, pledging to pursue their mission of healing the anguished Middle East.

    In 1996, South African President Nelson Mandela signed the country’s new constitution into law during a ceremony in Sharpeville.

    In 2005, actor-comedian Richard Pryor died in Encino, California, at age 65.

    In 2006, former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet died at age 91.

    In 2007, former Vice President Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize with a call for humanity to rise up against a looming climate crisis and stop waging war on the environment.

    In 2019, House Democrats announced two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, declaring that he “betrayed the nation” with his actions toward Ukraine and an obstruction of Congress’ investigation; Trump responded with a tweet of “WITCH HUNT!” At an evening rally in Pennsylvania, Trump mocked the impeachment effort and predicted it would lead to his reelection in 2020.

    Ten years ago: President Barack Obama told auto workers in Michigan that he would not compromise on his demand that tax rates go up for the top 2 percent of American earners to help reduce the deficit. A judge announced that former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a New York City hotel maid had signed a settlement of her sexual-assault lawsuit stemming from a May 2011 encounter. Marijuana for recreational use became legal in Colorado.

    Five years ago: Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz suffered a torn ACL during the team’s win over the Rams; backup Nick Foles rallied the Eagles to a victory that secured the NFC East title. (Foles and the Eagles would go on to win the Super Bowl.) Wearing a face mask, actor Rob Lowe live-streamed the evacuation of his family from one of the homes threatened by a massive Southern California wildfire.

    One year ago: Tornadoes slammed into Kentucky, Arkansas and three neighboring states, killing more than 90 people, including 81 in Kentucky. Bob Dole was mourned at Washington National Cathedral and the World War II monument he helped create as leaders from both parties saluted the Republican Kansas senator’s ability to practice bare-knuckle politics without compromising his civility. The Supreme Court left in place Texas’ ban on most abortions. The government reported that prices for U.S. consumers jumped 6.8% in November compared with a year earlier as Americans faced their highest annual inflation rate since 1982. Reigning world chess champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway successfully defended his title in Dubai. Michael Nesmith, the wool-hatted, guitar-strumming member of the 1960s, made-for-television rock band The Monkees, died at 78.

    Today’s Birthdays: Actor Fionnula Flanagan is 81. Actor-singer Gloria Loring is 76. Pop-funk musician Walter “Clyde” Orange (The Commodores) is 76. Country singer Johnny Rodriguez is 71. Actor Susan Dey is 70. Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is 66. Jazz musician Paul Hardcastle is 65. Actor John York (TV: “General Hospital”) is 64. Actor-director Kenneth Branagh (BRAH’-nah) is 62. Actor Nia Peeples is 61. TV chef Bobby Flay is 58. Rock singer-musician J Mascis is 57. Rock musician Scot Alexander (Dishwalla) is 51. Actor-comedian Arden Myrin is 49. Rock musician Meg White (The White Stripes) is 48. Actor Emmanuelle Chriqui is 47. Actor Gavin Houston is 45. Actor Alano Miller is 43. Violinist Sarah Chang is 42. Actor Patrick John Flueger is 39. Country singer Meghan Linsey is 37. Actor Raven-Symone is 37. Actor/singer Teyana Taylor is 32. Actor Kiki Layne is 31. NFL quarterback Joe Burrow is 26.

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