Explosive devices were detonated and a Molotov cocktail-style object was thrown outside three Washington, D.C., businesses early Sunday, police said.
All three incidents happened in a roughly 15-minute period in northeast Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Police Department said. No one was injured, but there was damage at each location.
Police said it’s believed the suspect was targeting commercial establishments and not members of the public. Each of the businesses were closed at the time.
In the first incident, the suspect detonated a device on the sidewalk outside of a Truist Bank ATM at about 4:30 a.m. and then drove away, police said. Just six minutes later, the suspect detonated an explosive device on the sidewalk in front of a Nike store.
The suspect then threw a Molotov cocktail-style object at a Safeway around 4:45 a.m. before again driving away, officials said.
Police released a surveillance image of a suspect and car they’re looking for. The car is a gold- or champagne-colored Acura TL with a Maryland plate of 17971CK.
Police are searching for a suspect accused of detonating explosive devices and throwing a Molotov cocktail in Washington on July 2, 2023.
Metropolitan Police Department
Each of the targeted businesses is at least a mile from the U.S. Capitol building.
The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating along with the Washington Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Police are offering a reward of up to $10,000 to anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest and conviction. The ATF is also offering a $10,000 reward.
There may be more than one suspect in the case, police said.
A Seattle man wanted in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection was arrested just blocks from former President Barack Obama’s Washington, D.C., home Thursday when authorities found guns and explosive materials in his van, officials said. Jeff Pegues has more.
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Over the weekend, residents in the Washington, D.C., area heard a sonic boom from military jets scrambling to intercept an unresponsive plane that had entered restricted airspace over the nation’s capital. The small plane eventually crashed into a mountain in Virginia. CBS News chief national affairs and justice correspondent Jeff Pegues reports from near the crash site.
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The National Transportation Safety Board was at the site of a plane crash in Virginia, trying to determine what caused the aircraft to go down. The pilot of the Cessna was not responsive and F-16s were scrambled when it flew over protected airspace in Washington, D.C. Jeff Pegues has the latest.
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Four people are dead after an unresponsive Cessna Citation airplane flew over Washington, D.C., and crashed in Virginia on Sunday, federal authorities said. The crash, which happened after the military scrambled fighter jets to intercept the plane once it entered restricted airspace around the nation’s capitol, left behind “highly fragmented” wreckage in a mountainous area that will take days to gather and sort, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA said that the pilot and three passengers were killed and that the plane was “destroyed” in the crash. Their identities weren’t immediately released.
The plane was registered to a Florida-based company owned by John and Barbara Rumpel. Speaking to The New York Times, John Rumpel said his daughter, 2-year-old granddaughter, her nanny and the pilot were aboard the flight. In a post on a Facebook page appearing to belong to Barbara Rumpel, she wrote, “My family is gone, my daughter and granddaughter” — changing her profile picture to one that seemed to include both.
The wreckage of the plane was found by Virginia State Police and other emergency personnel shortly before 8 p.m. Sunday. NTSB investigators were on site Monday and said they expect to be on the scene for at least three to four days.
Attention on the crash and its cause was heightened by its unusual flight path over Washington and a sonic boom caused by military aircraft heard across Washington, D.C. and parts of Maryland and Virginia.
Speaking at a briefing Monday morning, NTSB investigator Adam Gerhardt said the wreckage is “highly fragmented” and investigators will examine the most delicate evidence on the scene, after which the wreckage will be moved, perhaps by helicopter, to Delaware, where it can be examined, he said. In a briefing later on Monday, Gerhardt noted that the wreckage was so damaged that “it is no longer distinguishable as an aircraft.”
The plane is not required to have a flight recorder, commonly referred to as a black box, but it is possible that it had one. Investigators were still searching for it as of Monday evening. There are, however, other pieces of avionics equipment that will have data that investigators can examine, Gerhardt said.
Investigators will look at when the pilot become unresponsive and why the aircraft flew the path that it did, he said. They will consider several factors that are routinely examined in such probes including the plane, its engines, weather conditions, pilot qualifications and maintenance records, he said.
“Everything is on the table until we slowly and methodically remove different components and elements that will be relevant for this safety investigation,” he said.
A preliminary report will be released in 10 days and a final report will be released in 12 to 24 months, he said.
Police said Sunday night that rescuers had reached the crash site in a rural part of the Shenandoah Valley and that no survivors were found. Virginia State Police said officers were notified of the potential crash shortly before 4 p.m. and rescuers reached the crash site by foot around four hours later.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the Cessna Citation took off from Elizabethton, Tennessee, on Sunday and was headed for Long Island’s MacArthur Airport. The airplane overflew MacArthur Airport at 2:33 p.m. while at 34,000 feet, according to preliminary information from the NTSB. Inexplicably, the plane turned around over New York’s Long Island and flew a straight path down over D.C. before it crashed around 3:30 p.m.
Preliminary NTSB information also showed that the last air traffic control communication attempt with the Cessna was at approximately 1:28 p.m. At that time, the airplane was at 31,000 feet. The airplane eventually climbed to 34,000 feet, where it remained until it began to crash.
The plane flew directly over the nation’s capital, though it was technically flying above some of the most heavily restricted airspace in the nation.
According to the Pentagon, six F-16 fighter jets were immediately deployed to intercept the plane. Two aircraft from the 113th Fighter Wing, out of Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, were the first to reach the Cessna to begin attempts to contact the pilot. Two F-16 aircraft out of New Jersey and two from South Carolina also responded to the incident.
Flight tracking sites showed the plane suffered a rapid spiraling descent, dropping at one point at a rate of more than 30,000 feet per minute before crashing in the St. Mary’s Wilderness.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement that the military aircraft was authorized to travel at supersonic speeds, which caused a sonic boom that was heard in Washington and parts of Virginia and Maryland. The aircraft also used flares to try to get the pilot’s attention.
In Fairfax, Virginia, Travis Thornton was settled on a couch next to his wife, Hannah, and had just begun recording himself playing guitar and harmonica when they were startled by a loud rumble and rattling that can be heard on the video. The couple jumped up to investigate. Thornton tweeted that they checked in with their kids upstairs and then he went outside to check the house and talk to neighbors.
The plane that crashed was registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne Inc, which is based in Florida. John Rumpel, who runs the company, told The New York Times that his daughter, 2-year-old granddaughter, her nanny and the pilot were aboard the plane. They were returning to their home in East Hampton, on Long Island, after visiting his house in North Carolina, he said.
Rumpel, a pilot, told the newspaper he didn’t have much information from authorities but suggested the plane could have lost pressurization.
“It descended at 20,000 feet a minute, and nobody could survive a crash from that speed,” Rumpel told the newspaper.
A woman who identified herself as Barbara Rumpel, listed as the president of the company, said she had no comment Sunday when reached by The Associated Press.
The episode brought back memories of the 1999 crash of a Learjet that lost cabin pressure and flew aimlessly across the country with professional golfer Payne Stewart aboard. The jet crashed in a South Dakota pasture and six people died.
Eight people rescued after 6-story apartment building collapses in Davenport, Iowa; Children’s fife & drum corps greets veterans on Memorial Day in Washington, D.C.
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Linton Hall School’s Fife & Drum Corps, made up of musicians as young as 6, greeted veterans on Memorial Day at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., carrying on a tradition that goes back to the American Revolution. Jan Crawford reports.
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In Washington, D.C., we take a look at the challenges illegal guns pose to law enforcement. Then in Missouri, we meet a group of moms protesting gun violence after a string of shootings across the country. Watch these stories and more on Eye on America with host Michelle Miller.
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President Biden has arrived in Japan for the G7 summit, but his foreign trip will be cut short so he can return to Washington to broker a deal on raising the debt ceiling. With only two weeks until the U.S. could run out money to pay its bills, the president’s team continues negotiations with congressional leaders. Nikole Killion reports from Washington.
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“Consumer spending represents more than half of the economy,” said Curt Long, chief economist at the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions. “So if consumer spending is strong, that alone is, generally speaking, enough to keep the economy from slipping into a recession.”
In the first quarter of 2023, gross domestic product grew at a 1.1% rate compared to the previous quarter. This modest level of growth is an improvement from mid-2022 GDP figures, which initially brought recession fears to light.
The end of this tightening cycle may be coming into focus as consumers reach their breaking point. As the pandemic fades, historic levels of personal saving have taken a nosedive. Deposits at banks have crested as consumers keep spending amid continually rising prices.
Moderate-income Americans also are facing the significant headwind of less tax-refund money. The average refund this year is $2,777 through April 28, down 8% from the same period last year, according to IRS data.
“Because this is the same household that rely more on the tax refund to finance their spending, a lower refund really has some negative impact on their spending,” said Anna Zhou, an economist at the Bank of America Institute.
Still economists see the chance for a soft landing. “We don’t think … the slowdown process will be as dramatic as some people have feared,” said Zhou. “And it will be a gradual process.”
Watch the video above to learn how U.S. consumer spending has so far fended off a recession.
Washington – On its own, a Glock 17 is legal. But, a simple device can suddenly make it exponentially more dangerous and illegal.
“So these are actually referred to as machine gun conversion devices,” technician Nick Campbell with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives explained to CBS News at an ATF lab in Washington, D.C. “You can see some of these are mass-produced, metallic made. And then some of these are additive materials, 3D printed. And this is what you’ll hear referred to as a switch.”
The conversion devices are small and inexpensive. They cost as little as $20 but can change a handgun to fire 15 rounds in under two seconds. And these modified weapons are becoming more common, officials said.
“We’re seeing them with a degree of regularity, about 50% more than we saw last year,” said Metropolitan Police Department Cmdr. LaShay Makal, who previously ran the department’s gun recovery unit, but now oversees the Seventh District.
Makal said modified guns “increases the likelihood that we’re going to encounter multiple victims when these are used. And also, in those singular victim incidents, it increases the likelihood that those incidents will be fatal.”
The ATF has seen a 570% increase nationwide of seized modified weapons over the past five years. Last month, Metropolitan police recovered a 3D printer making illegal weapon parts.
“I think we understand, as a police department that, you know, this is a nationwide issue,” Makal said. “We understand that we can’t arrest our way out of this. We need assistance.”
Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee, who announced Wednesday that he is leaving the department to join the FBI, believes the justice ecosystem needs an overhaul in order to keep illegal guns from causing more harm.
“It’s something that’s on my mind every day, while we’re sitting here,” Contee said of the nation’s mass shooting crisis. “You take one person with one firearm that’s capable of shooting 100 rounds of ammunition very rapidly in a short period of time. That can happen anywhere at any time. And we see these … converter switches that are able to convert semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic firearms, those are the things that keep me up at night.”
D.C. police chief Robert Contee on Wednesday was tapped to join the FBI. Earlier, he spoke with “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell about the specific challenges facing the department.
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Washington – Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee will be leaving the department, officials announced Wednesday evening, and has been tapped to join the FBI.
Contee, who has served as chief since January of 2021, and with the department since 1989, will be departing, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed.
Sources told CBS News that Contee will be joining the FBI as assistant director of the Office of Partner Engagement.
The news comes just one day after Contee spent several hours with CBS News in an effort to understand the crime challenges facing American cities.
“There are a lot more guns are in communities now, a lot more guns than what we experienced over the course of my time here in the police department,” Contee told CBS News Tuesday.
Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee at a news conference about the spike in crime in Washington, D.C., on March 6, 2023.
Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Contee said he has been facing a shortage of officers, with D.C. police staffing at a half-century low.
“Whether it’s D.C., New York, L.A., Detroit, Chicago, it doesn’t matter, like, everybody is having this struggle when it comes to recruiting and retaining police officers,” Contee said.
He explained that the funding infrastructure is in place to add more officers, but “the challenge right now is really making sure that we have an environment that’s supportive of our police officers to make people want to be police officers.”
On April 21, eight people were wounded in shootings in the neighborhood of Southeast D.C., including a 12-year-old girl. None of the injuries were life-threatening, police said at the time. According to the latest city statistics, overall crime in the nation’s capital so far this year is up 25% compared to 2022. Homicides are up 20% and motor vehicle theft is up 106%, the numbers show.
Contee said that, often, violent crime can be linked to illegal firearms.
“When you talk specifically about the violent crime, early in this year, we had a couple of cases where we saw individuals just shooting people, shooting each other for no reason,” Contee said. “Individuals who are unable to resolve disputes, simple arguments that turned into homicides. Why? Because people have access to illegal firearms. And when they have access to illegal firearms, they use them, unfortunately.”
He also argues that there has been a lack of prosecutions. Last year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia declined to prosecute about two-thirds of people arrested by Metropolitan police.
“When police officers enforce the law, that’s only one part of that criminal justice ecosystem,” Contee said. “It’s only one part of it, because that case, then again, has to be prosecuted. Like, people would assume that, yeah, bad guy got robbed somebody, bad guy goes to jail, bad guy is not back out in the community. That’s not necessarily the case.”
In a statement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. told CBS News that it “prosecutes violent crime, including gun violence, as aggressively as we ever have, charging over 90% of our most violent felonies, and prosecuting every firearms offense we believe we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.”
It went on to note that “with firearms offenses and non-violent felonies, our ability to prosecute has been hampered by recent changes in the law and the shutdown of the city’s forensics lab.”
Eight people were shot in multiple locations in a Washington D.C. neighborhood, including a 12-year-old girl, police said Friday night.
There were two scenes, which police believe are connected. The shootings happened around 10 p.m. in the southeast part of the city, Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Chief Andre Wright said in a news conference.
At the first scene, which police said was in the 500 block of Lebaum Street, seven men were shot, police said. All were adults. None of the injuries were life-threatening, Wright said, and “most of” the victims were able to transport themselves to local hospitals.
The second scene was in the 2900 block of Second Street, less than a mile from the first scene. Wright said police were at the Lebuam Street scene when they were notified of the second location.
Upon arrival at the Second Street scene, police found the 12-year-old girl. She had a gunshot wound on her lower extremities, Wright said.
“Thank God she’s also stable and (her injuries are) non-life-threatening,” Wright said.
Wright said that the information is still “very preliminary” and that the investigation is ongoing. It’s possible, he said, that the two scenes are not actually connected, but because of the proximity of the locations and the time that elapsed between the incidents, police currently believe them to be related.
“Because of the proximity, the time of events, I think that at this point, and I hate to speculate, but based on the proximity and time of events, the two scenes are most likely connected,” Wright said. “We’re still investigating both scenes, giving them both due diligence, and if information changes we’ll make sure that we get it out to you all.”
Wright said that there is no information yet about a possible motive in the shootings, and he could not say how many suspects may have been involved.
“Once thing we know for sure, and we’re asking for the community and the public’s health is we’re looking for a black sedan, possibly a Mercedes, who witnesses say drove through the block and indiscriminately fired upon individuals here in LeBaum,” Wright said, adding that investigators knew that everyone injured at the first scene was injured by gunfire from that car. “We have to shore up exactly what the look out is on the second scene.”
Wright asked the public for any information, and said the department was dedicated to solving the case.
“I think, like I said, it’s a beautiful night,” he said. “There were folks who were hanging out here and there were folks who were milling about on the second street scene, and for some reason you have some people that think it was OK to fire a firearm at multiple individuals at two different scenes and we’re not going to let that stand.”
Saturday marks the 16th annual “Record Store Day.” Several special-edition album releases are expected to mark the celebration — including from Taylor Swift, Billy Joel, Carole King, The Rolling Stones and Madonna. Neal Becton, the owner of Som Records in Washington, D.C., spoke with CBS News about the lasting popularity of vinyl.
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Washington — Hip-hop star and Fugees member Pras Michel picked up a different kind of microphone as he took the witness stand in Washington, D.C.’s federal courthouse to defend himself in a multimillion-dollar international fraud trial.
“Mic check 1,2. Mic check 1, 2,” he aptly said at the start of his testimony.
“After consulting with my attorneys and the universe, I have decided to testify,” Michel told the court Tuesday before answering questions from his defense team and prosecutors alike about the approximately $800,000 he said he paid to friends so they could donate to a political campaign.
Prosecutors allege the Grammy-winning artist immersed himself in American politics at the behest of a wealthy Malaysian financier to gain access, peddle influence, and make money. He was indicted in 2019 on federal charges that Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, paid him millions to help launder money Low had allegedly embezzled from a state-owned investment fund in his home country.
Pras Michel, former member of the Fugees, center, exits federal court in Washington, D.C. on April 3, 2023.
Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Michel, who has pleaded not guilty, is accused of using Low’s money to make illegal contributions to former President Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, and pursuing a back channel with Trump administration officials to persuade them to both abandon a federal fraud investigation into Low’s business dealings, and send a Chinese dissident who is in the U.S. back to China to face criminal charges. Prosecutors do not allege Obama campaign officials were aware of the purported illegal payments.
But taking the stand on Tuesday, Michel said he viewed Low’s payment’s to him as “free money,” and accepted approximately $20 million over the course of nine months to help Low secure a photo-op with Obama, both before and after the 2012 presidential campaign.
Beginning in the spring of 2012, the rapper testified, Low approached him about getting then-President Obama to take a picture with the Malaysian financier – currently a co-defendant in the case, and who remains abroad. He was willing to pay lots of money for it, Michel said.
Low first paid Michel $1 million to consider the proposition and start planning, Michel said Tuesday. But by the end of the campaign season, Michel fell short and consistently required more money to get the job done.
Low ultimately got his photo with Obama — taken after the 2012 presidential election at the White House — but it was what transpired between Low’s initial request and the camera flashes that prosecutors say was the first illegal component of his alleged relationship with Low.
The indictment alleges Michel funneled money from Low to straw donors in order to surreptitiously fund Obama’s re-election campaign, and work around campaign finance laws. The Obama campaign was “duped” and “deceived,” prosecutors said during opening arguments earlier this month, after Michel allegedly helped Low disguise the donations as legitimate contributions that had come from the U.S.
Michel said Tuesday that he unsuccessfully tried to get the Malaysian businessman access to various 2012 campaign fundraisers across the country, including one in Miami in which Michel and Low’s father took pictures with Obama. Low, Michel said, was not allowed at the meetings at the campaign’s request due to his financial dealings.
Months later, according to court records and testimony, wealthy Democratic donor Frank White hosted a fundraiser at his Washington, D.C., home, and pressed Michel to fill a table with friends, each worth about $40,000 in donations.
During his testimony on Tuesday, Michel said he paid his friends money so they could donate to Obama’s campaign and attend the dinner, at one point telling the jury he was paid approximately $20 million to secure the photo for Low, and about 10% of that money went towards paying his friends so they could attend the fundraiser.
Michel testified under oath that no one told him such payments toward political donations could have been unlawful or violations of campaign finance laws.
“I thought I could just give my friends money,” he explained from the witness stand, adding some didn’t spend the funds on political donations as expected.
During cross-examination, prosecutors elicited from Michel that he was aware of other election money laws, like those that prevented Low, a foreign national, from donating to Obama’s campaign, and another that put a limit on how much Michel himself could donate. Still, he contended he was unaware his money moves could have been illegal.
The Fugees star said the funds he gave to his friends to donate were “my money,” not Low’s, adding once Low paid him to secure the photo, he was free to do what was needed to get the job done.
During the at-times contentious cross-examination, Michel and prosecutors argued over whether the funds in question belonged explicitly to Michel, as the defendant argued, or were still connected to Low’s international funds.
Michel testified he was “betrayed” and led astray by his outside advisers, confidants, and employees, who he claims did not advise him correctly on how to handle financial and legal matters in the U.S.
In one such instance, several years after the 2012 election, Michel said he had “heard through friends that they were getting visits from the FBI” about the campaign contributions. After consulting a lawyer, Michel said he was advised to send a letter to the individuals he paid to donate to Obama’s campaign and assert the money in question was not a gift, but a loan that needed to be repaid. Prosecutors say these letters — which also suggested legal action could follow — were threats to witnesses in the investigation. The idea was “stupid,” Michel admitted Tuesday, adding he regretted he followed the advice of his counsel in that matter.
Michel’s testimony on Tuesday also touched on his alleged efforts to push Trump administration officials to drop their investigations into Low and extradite a Chinese national living in the U.S. to China to face criminal charges.
Under cross-examination, Michel said “I took it upon myself” to go to the FBI about the dissident, Miles Guo, to work to connect interested parties with the U.S. government. Guo, a Steve Bannon associate, had since been indicted on fraud charges of his own.
Prosecutors say Michel, Low and their partners, including Republican lobbyist Elliott Broidy, met with leaders in the Chinese government and came up with what would ultimately be an unsuccessful plan to pay Broidy millions of dollars to use his political contacts to push Low’s agenda. Broidy’s plan included sending talking points to officials and pressuring Trump administration officials to put meetings on then-President Trump’s calendar.
Broidy pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to serve as an unregistered foreign agent, and Trump pardoned him shortly before leaving office in 2021.
Michel testified Tuesday that “no one I spoke to ever mentioned” the federal laws that required him to register as a foreign agent if doing work on China’s behalf, and that he would have done so if advised.
Still, government prosecutors elicited that the defendant was present at a gathering between Boidy and the Malaysian prime minister on the night before the prime minister was set to meet with Trump. Michel told the jury he had stopped by to “say hello” and nothing more.
Michel’s defense team — led by celebrity attorney David Kenner — has argued the rapper believed he had acted in the best interest of the U.S. at the time and did not act as a foreign agent of China. They have made numerous attempts to dismiss the charges on various grounds of selective and illicit prosecution and, as Michel’s testimony on Tuesday demonstrated, continue to maintain their client was unaware of the laws he is accused of breaking.
One former Trump official at the center of the alleged pressure campaign was then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who also took the stand as a defense witness on Tuesday.
Sessions, who said Tuesday he did not “recall” ever meeting Michel, told the jury under oath about various high-level meetings about potentially extraditing Guo to China, some involving other federal agencies. Those efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, and Sessions said he rebuffed attempts to get him to meet with Chinese security officials about the matter. Sessions said he viewed various meetings as “appropriate.”
Prosecutors from the Justice Department — which Sessions once led as the nation’s top law enforcement officer — declined to question him under cross-examination.
Low, according to the Justice Department, allegedly misappropriated over $500 million from the sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) with wire transfers to shell companies he and others owned, and some of the proceeds were used for the production of actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s hit film “The Wolf of Wall Street.“
The U.S. Department of Justice will seek the longest prison sentence in any January 6 riot case to date when it argues for more than 24 years in prison for Peter Schwartz of Pennsylvania at sentencing on May 5. If imposed, the sentence would be more than twice as long as any handed down so far in the approximately 450 cases related to the January 6, 2021, assault that have reached sentencing.
In a sentencing memo submitted Monday, federal prosecutors argue Schwartz already had a lengthy criminal history when he entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, where he then unleashed a series of violent assaults against groups of officers. He was convicted at trial in December on several charges, including four counts of felony assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement officers using a dangerous weapon.
In a request for a more lenient sentence, his defense argued Schwartz was the victim of political grifters and misinformation. A sentencing memo submitted on his behalf Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C., said, “There remain many grifters out there who remain free to continue propagating the ‘great lie’ that Trump won the election. Donald Trump being among the most prominent.”
In arguing for the lengthy prison sentence, the Justice Department said Schwartz “stole chemical munitions, including pepper spray… left behind by the fleeing officers and used that pepper spray as a weapon to attack those same officers as they desperately tried to escape.”
Prosecutors also argue Schwartz assaulted several groups of police officers and “did not back down. He then joined the larger mob inside of the tunnel in attempting to push through the police line and into the Capitol Building.”
“By Schwartz’s own admission, he viewed himself as being at ‘war’ that day, stating in a Facebook post on January 7, 2021, ‘What happened yesterday was the opening of a war. I was there and whether people will acknowledge it or not we are now at war,’” the Justice Department’s sentencing memo notes.
Schwartz’s wife, Shelly Stallings, was also charged for her role in the riot. She pleaded guilty last August and was sentenced to two years in prison earlier this year.
In requesting the 24-year sentence for Schwartz, prosecutors accused him of profiting from his arrest. Prosecutors allege, “As of April 17, 2023, Schwartz has raised $71,541 in an online campaign styled as a ‘Patriot Pete Political Prisoner in DC’ with an image of Peter Schwartz at the top.”
Schwartz’s defense recommends a sentence of 54 months in prison. The defense argues, “Mr. Schwartz travelled to Washington D.C. with his wife to listen to former President Trump’s speech and walked to the Capitol Building alongside hundreds of other protestors. Mr. Schwartz did not come prepared to incite violence, attack the Capitol Building or any officers that day—none of his actions on January 6th were planned in anticipation of his travels.”
The defense also wrote that “Although his conduct is indeed serious, it is significant to note that Mr. Schwartz’s actions were not motivated by any desire for personal financial gain or any other type of benefit.”
The memo states that Schwartz knew “next to nothing to nothing about the 2020 election and listened to sources of information that were clearly false. Mr. Schwartz has learned valuable life lessons from this incident, and he will never repeat the actions that bring him before the Court in this case.”
But as recently as February 2023, Schwartz made jailhouse phone calls to a widely-streamed protest outside the Washington, D.C., jail where he is being held, claiming to have been “entrapped” by the U.S. government and referring to government officials as traitors.
In previous January 6 cases in which federal prosecutors have sought multi-year or higher-end sentences, federal judges have opted for more moderate sentences, lower in range or below federal sentencing guidelines.
More than 1,000 defendants have thus far been charged with federal crimes in connection with the U.S. Capitol attack, according to the Justice Department. Hundreds more arrests are expected.
Beginning this summer, the National Park Service will begin a nearly $70 million renovation below the 19-foot, 175-ton statue of America’s 16th president. Scott MacFarlane has the details.
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Washington — The Lincoln Memorial, a towering monument to a towering figure in U.S. history, lures eight million visitors a year, and since it opened in 1922 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., has been one of America’s most iconic landmarks.
Beginning this summer, the National Park Service will begin a nearly $70 million renovation below the 19-foot, 175-ton statue of America’s 16th president. The renovation will involve transforming a giant, hidden underground chamber located beneath the statue into a 15,000 square-foot interactive exhibit.
Much of the project is funded by charitable donations and will only require the closure of a small visitor space located below ground. The Memorial chamber will remain accessible as crews add interactive displays of the Memorial’s iconic moments, from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, to a landmark 1939 performance by Marian Anderson.
“Imagine hearing Marian Anderson singing in there, projected into this space,” said Jeff Reinbold, superintendent for the National Mall and Memorial Parks. “And the beautiful thing about it is, when that production is done and the lights dim, it goes back to the very raw, unfinished space.”
When complete, the NPS expects the new exhibit to draw about one million visitors per year. It will also spotlight the underground architecture itself, which in 1922 was erected to give Lincoln his lofty perch above much of the nation’s capital.
NPS has slated July 4th, 2026, as the prospective opening date for the new museum, which will also mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
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Scores of luxury homes are coming to major cities across the United States.
Analysts at Yardi Matrix projected that more than 400,000 units were completed in 2022, and they expect another strong showing in 2023. Experts believe much of this new stock is built with upper-tier customers in mind.
“You often see new housing branded as ‘luxury,’ in part because it’s new,” said Ethan Handelman, deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. “When you get to affordable housing, we need to be providing some additional capital and/or rental assistance to help make that housing affordable to the people who need it most.”
Market-rate rents for new apartments can easily be multiple thousands of dollars monthly. For many high-wage earners in cities, this is achievable. But for moderate-income Americans, the sky-high prices appear disconnected from reality.
“The marketplace is structured not to house certain people. We need to admit that,” said Dominic Moulden, a resource organizer at Organizing Neighborhood Equity DC.
Builders say the high cost of housing in the U.S. is related to the large amount of regulation in the housing sector. For example, they say, many U.S. cities are short on land due to restrictive zoning codes.
“Currently, 40% of the cost of multifamily development is in regulation,” said Sharon Wilson Géno, president at the National Multifamily Housing Council. “We have to do something about that if we’re going to build more housing.”
In 2022, the Biden administration announced a housing action plan that aims to shore up housing supply within five years. But these efforts may not have a material impact on prices for some time.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to see rents going down a whole lot over the next one to two years,” said Al Otero, a portfolio manager at Armada ETF Advisors. “Developers cannot make a profit at those more affordable price points. Therefore, we see the development and the new construction at the much higher, higher end of the spectrum.”
Watch the video above to see why the United States is awash in new luxury apartments.
