The Canadian Press – Sep 22, 2021 / 4:54 pm | Story: 346551
Photo: The Canadian Press
FILE – In this Sept. 14, 2021, file photo, a syringe is prepared with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a clinic at the Reading Area Community College in Reading, Pa. An influential panel of advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention met on Wednesday, Sept. 22, to decide who should get COVID-19 booster shots and when. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
The U.S. moved a step closer Wednesday to offering booster doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to senior citizens and others at high risk from the virus as the Food and Drug Administration signed off on the targeted use of the extra shots.
The FDA authorized booster doses for Americans who are 65 and older, younger people with underlying health conditions and those in jobs that put them at high-risk for COVID-19. The ruling represents a drastically scaled back version of the Biden administration’s sweeping plan to give third doses to nearly all American adults to shore up their protection amid the spread of the highly contagious delta variant.
However, more regulatory hurdles lie ahead before the dispensing of boosters can begin.
Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention opened a two-day meeting Wednesday to make their own, more specific recommendations about who should get the extra shots and when. And in their first day of discussions, some experts were so perplexed by the questions surrounding the rationale for boosters that they suggested putting off a decision for a month in hopes of more evidence.
The uncertainties were yet another reminder that the science surrounding boosters is more complicated than the Biden administration suggested when the president and his top aides rolled out their plan at the White House last month.
The FDA decision Wednesday was expected after the agency’s own panel of advisers last week overwhelmingly rejected the Biden plan. The panel instead recommended boosters only for those most vulnerable to severe cases of COVID-19.
The timing of the FDA decision was highly unusual given that the agency typically takes action before the CDC convenes its own experts.
The CDC panelists heard a series of presentations Wednesday outlining the knotty state of science on boosters. On one hand, the COVID-19 vaccines continue to offer strong protection against severe illness, hospitalization and death. On the other hand, there are signs of more low-grade infections among the vaccinated as immunity wanes.
Ultimately the committee must decide who is considered at high enough risk for an extra dose. Data provided by Pfizer and the Israeli government suggests a strong case for boosters in people 65 and older, but there is less evidence that extra shots provide much benefit for younger people with underlying health conditions.
Several CDC advisers agreed boosters are also important for keeping health care workers on the job.
“We don’t have enough health care workers to take care of the unvaccinated,” said Dr. Helen Talbot of Vanderbilt University. “They just keep coming.”
The CDC has already said it is considering boosters for older people, nursing home residents and front-line health care workers, rather than all adults.
The World Health Organization and other global health advocates are opposed to wealthy nations dispensing a third round of shots when poor countries don’t have enough vaccine for their first doses. And many independent scientists say that the vaccines continue to perform well against the worst effects of COVID-19 and that their ability to curb the overall trajectory of the epidemic is uncertain.
U.S. regulators will decide at a later date on boosters for people who have received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines. If Pfizer boosters are authorized this week, U.S. regulators indicated the shots would not be recommended for people who got a different brand of vaccine initially.
The across-the-board rollout of boosters proposed by the White House was supposed to have begun this week. Some questioned whether President Joe Biden had gotten ahead of the science by announcing his plans before government regulators had reached any conclusions.
Despite the resistance in recent days, some top U.S. health officials said they expect boosters to eventually win broader approval in the coming weeks or months. Dr. Anthony Fauci said over the weekend that “this is not the end of the story.”
Other administration officials noted that the FDA decision covers tens of millions of Americans and that seniors and other high-risk groups would have been the first to get boosters even if extra shots had been authorized for the entire population. Seniors were in the first group of Americans eligible for vaccination last December.
The U.S. has already authorized third doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for certain people with weakened immune systems, such as cancer patients and transplant recipients. Other Americans, healthy or not, have managed to get boosters, in some cases simply by asking.
The U.S. is dispensing around 760,000 vaccinations per day on average, down from a high of 3.4 million a day in mid-April. About 180 million Americans are fully vaccinated, or 64% of those who are eligible.
The Canadian Press – Sep 22, 2021 / 9:17 am | Story: 346470
Photo: The Canadian Press
The man last seen with Kristin Smart before she vanished from a college campus 25 years ago on the Central California coast will stand trial on a murder charge in her suspected death and his father will face a charge as an accomplice for allegedly helping bury her body, a judge ruled Wednesday.
San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen said there was probable cause Paul Flores, 44, killed Smart and that Ruben Flores, 80, helped him dispose of her body.
Paul Flores was the last person seen with a very intoxicated Smart on May 25, 1996, as he helped walk her to her dorm at California Polytechnic State University after a party, witnesses said. Prosecutors said he killed Smart while trying to rape her in his dorm room.
Prosecutors presented evidence that showed Smart’s body may have been buried under a deck behind Ruben Flores’s home. Prosecutors said the body had been moved from that location and it’s never been found.
Defense attorneys said prosecutors did not present enough evidence during a 22-day preliminary hearing to support the criminal charges.
Both men have pleaded not guilty.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (AP) — When the sheriff of San Luis Obispo County hailed the arrests in April of a father and son in the 25-year-old disappearance of college student Kristin Smart, he said he was confident they had the evidence needed to convict them.
A judge on Wednesday will determine if they have enough evidence to proceed to trial after a 22-day preliminary hearing.
Paul Flores, 44, a former California Polytechnic State University student, is charged with murder and his father, Ruben Flores, 80, is charged as an accessory for allegedly helping to bury her body. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Attorneys for the two men say prosecutors did not present enough evidence during a preliminary hearing to support the criminal charges.
Paul Flores was the last person seen with a very intoxicated Smart on May 25, 1996, as he helped walk her to her dorm after a party off campus, witnesses said. Prosecutors said he killed Smart while trying to rape her in his dorm room.
During the preliminary hearing, prosecutors presented evidence from handlers who said their cadaver dogs stopped at Flores’ room and alerted to the scent of death near his bed.
Archaeologists who used ground penetrating radar and dug up the soil beneath Ruben Flores’ back deck, said they found indications the soil had been disturbed in a way similar to a gravesite.
Cindy Arrington, an archaeologist with Natural Investigations, Inc., said she found a “clear subsurface disturbance” and “a large anomaly” that was “large enough to fit human remains into,” the Tribune of San Luis Obispo reported.
Under cross-examination, she said there were no bones or teeth. Arrington said that she had never examined a burial site where no remains were found. Prosecutors have said the body was moved.
Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen prevented prosecutors from presenting evidence at the hearing that Paul Flores allegedly drugged and raped four women and engaged in dozens of acts including stalking, unwanted touching and aggressive sexual behavior.
Some women who spoke with police said Flores was referred to as “Chester the molester” and “psycho Paul.”
The judge said the evidence had limited relevance to the murder case and risked creating greater prejudice against Flores.
When Flores first spoke with police, he downplayed his interactions with Smart at the party and on the walk home. He said she walked to her dorm under her own power, though other witnesses said Flores was helping hold her up and she had been passed out earlier in the night.
William Hanley, head of the district attorney’s investigative bureau in 1996, said Flores eventually stopped cooperating with authorities.
When Hanley asked Flores what he thought happened to Smart, he said she had left with somebody and “he thinks she’s dead,” Hanley said.
Defense lawyer Robert Sanger, who represents Paul Flores, said there was no real evidence in the case.
Defense attorney Harold Mesick, who represents the father, said prosecutors tried to paint “lipstick on a pig,” KSBY-TV reported.
The Canadian Press – Sep 22, 2021 / 7:42 am | Story: 346462
Photo: The Canadian Press
Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday sued his estranged niece and The New York Times over a 2018 story about his family’s wealth and tax practices that was partly based on confidential documents she provided to the newspaper’s reporters.
Trump’s lawsuit, filed in state court in New York, accuses Mary Trump of breaching a settlement agreement by disclosing tax records she received in a dispute over family patriarch Fred Trump’s estate. It accuses the Times and three of its investigative reporters, Susanne Craig, David Barstow and Russell Buettner, of relentlessly seeking out Mary Trump as a source of information and convincing her to turn over documents. The suit claims the reporters were aware the settlement agreement barred her from disclosing the documents.
The Times’ story challenged Trump’s claims of self-made wealth by documenting how his father, Fred, had given him at least $413 million over the decades, including through tax avoidance schemes.
Mary Trump identified herself in a book published last year as the source of the documents provided to the Times.
Trump’s lawsuit — which seeks $100 million in damages — alleges Mary Trump, the Times and its reporters “were motivated by a personal vendetta” against him and a desire to push a political agenda.
The defendants “engaged in an insidious plot to obtain confidential and highly-sensitive records which they exploited for their own benefit and utilized as a means of falsely legitimizing their publicized works,” the lawsuit said.
In a statement to NBC News, Mary Trump said of her uncle, “I think he is a loser, and he is going to throw anything against the wall he can. It’s desperation. The walls are closing in and he is throwing anything against the wall that he thinks will stick. As is always the case with Donald, he’ll try and change the subject.”
A Times spokesperson, Danielle Rhoads Ha, said the lawsuit “is an attempt to silence independent news organizations and we plan to vigorously defend against it.”
The Canadian Press – Sep 22, 2021 / 6:57 am | Story: 346452
Photo: The Canadian Press
Morning smog on the outskirts of New Delhi, India.
The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the harmful health effects of air pollution kick in at lower levels than it previously thought and it is setting a higher bar for policymakers and the public in its first update to its air quality guidelines in 15 years.
The U.N. health agency released its revised Air Quality Guidelines as climate change is a leading topic at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Chinese President Xi Jinping announced Tuesday that China will no longer fund power plants fired by coal, which generates several of the pollutants covered by the guidelines.
Since the last update of the WHO recommendations, better monitoring and science have cleared up the global picture about the effects of six major air pollutants on human health. According to the agency, 90% of the world’s people already live in areas with at least one particularly harmful type of pollutant.
The revisions also highlight another – and often parallel – aspect to environmental concerns beyond widespread worries about global warming and the impact of burning fossil fuels.
Exposure to air pollution is estimated to cause 7 million premature deaths and affect the health of millions more people each year, and air pollution “is now recognized as the single biggest environmental threat to human health,” said Dr. Dorota Jarosinska, WHO Europe program manager for living and working environments.
Air pollution is now comparable to other global health risks like unhealthy diet and tobacco smoking, WHO said.
The guidelines, which are not legally binding and intended as a reference for policymakers, advocacy groups and academics, lower the advised concentrations of six pollutants known to have impacts on health: two types of particulate matter known as PM 2.5 and PM 10, as well as ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide.
The guidelines could also send a message to the wider public about lifestyle and business choices – whether it’s driving cars and trucks, disposing of garbage, working in industrial jobs or farming.
WHO says the main human-generated sources of air pollution can vary geographically but include the energy and transportation sectors, as well as waste dump sites and home cooking and heating.
“We hope the tighter standards will draw attention to just how critical clean air is for human and ecosystem health, Jessica Seddon, global lead for air quality at the World Resources Institute, said. “The difficulty will come in making the WHO guidelines meaningful for the average person going about their day.”
While wealthy countries in Europe, Asia and North America have made strides in improving air quality in recent years, WHO says globally more than 90% of the world population breathes air with PM 2.5 concentrations that exceed the recommended levels in its last guidelines, published in 2006.
Such particles can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, resulting in both respiratory and cardiovascular impacts. Air pollution has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and early death, and recent evidence has suggested negative effects on pregnancy, cognitive development in kids, and mental health, experts say.
The new guidelines set or revise downward recommended air pollution levels for nearly all of the six particles both on a daily and annual basis. For example, they slashed the PM 2.5 recommendation on an annual basis to 5 micrograms per cubic meter, down from 10 previously.
“That is just a huge change,” said Susan Anenberg, associate professor of environmental and occupational health and global health at George Washington University. “This annual average for PM 2.5 in the guidelines is going to be extremely difficult to meet….There’s very few people on the planet right now that have exposures that are that low.”
The 2016 guidelines prompted many countries to take action even though they voluntary, WHO insists. Since then, evidence has grown about the negative impacts of air pollution on health based on improved pollution measurement systems and exposure assessments, leading to the update.
“In order for major countries around the world to achieve that is going to require major changes to our human systems.” Anenberg said. “They have to stop burning fossil fuels and what the world decides to do about climate change in the coming weeks will have major impacts on whether or not we’re able to follow a guideline like that.”
The Canadian Press – Sep 22, 2021 / 6:49 am | Story: 346450
Photo: Family photo
A Kotzebue man was sentenced to 99 years in prison Tuesday in the death of Ashley Johnson-Barr, a 10-year-old Alaska girl whose 2018 disappearance captured national attention.
Peter Vance Wilson, 44, had earlier pleaded guilty to charges of murder and sexual abuse as part of an agreement with prosecutors.
Jenna Gruenstein, an attorney with the state Office of Special Prosecutions, argued for the sentence Tuesday, Alaska’s News Source reported.
“This is one of the most serious cases that I’ll probably see in my career,” she said.
Wilson’s attorney, Jessica Toft, cried while agreeing with the sentence. She said visiting the playground named in honor of Johnson-Barr showed how the girl’s death had affected the community.
Utqiagvik Superior Court Judge Nelson Traverso said the circumstances of the crime were “grave and cannot be diminished.”
Traverso said he hoped resolution of the case would provide relief for family, friends and the community of Kotzebue.
“I know it concludes this in one sense, but it doesn’t conclude it in another,” Traverso said.
Relatives of Johnson-Barr spoke at the hearing. Her father, Scotty Barr, and other family members wore purple shirts with her face on them.
Barr said the epidemic of sexual abuse in Alaska needs to end, along with the rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Mona Norton, an aunt to Johnson-Barr, described the trauma of reliving Ashley’s death each time friends or family celebrate a birthday.
Wilson apologized: “I wish I could take back what I did to Ashley. I am very, very sorry.”
The Alaska Department of Law said Wilson was sentenced to 198 years, with 99 years suspended. State Attorney General Treg Taylor in a statement said the sentencing “shows that law enforcement in this state will bring to justice those who commit violent crime and sexual abuse in rural Alaska by working collaboratively and with the community. Hopefully this result brings some sense of closure to Ashley Johnson-Barr’s family and the people of Kotzebue.”
Johnson-Barr disappeared on Sept. 6, 2018. Her remains were found days later in rugged tundra accessible only by a four-wheeler or on foot.
Mourners filled a school gymnasium for Johnson-Barr’s funeral and food and other supplies were flown in from across Alaska and donated for a community potluck.
The Canadian Press – Sep 22, 2021 / 6:44 am | Story: 346449
Photo: The Canadian Press
Who should represent Afghanistan at the United Nations this month? It’s a complex question with plenty of political implications.
The Taliban, the country’s new rulers for a matter of weeks, are challenging the credentials of their country’s former U.N. ambassador and want to speak at the General Assembly’s high-level meeting of world leaders this week, the international body says.
The question now facing U.N. officials comes just over a month after the Taliban, ejected from Afghanistan by the United States and its allies after 9/11, swept back into power as U.S. forces prepared to withdraw from the country at the end of August. The Taliban stunned the world by taking territory with surprising speed and little resistance from the U.S.-trained Afghan military. The Western-backed government collapsed on Aug. 15.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres received a communication on Sept. 15 from the currently accredited Afghan Ambassador, Ghulam Isaczai, with the list of Afghanistan’s delegation for the assembly’s 76th annual session.
Five days later, Guterres received another communication with the letterhead “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” signed by “Ameer Khan Muttaqi” as “Minister of Foreign Affairs,” requesting to participate in the U.N. gathering of world leaders.
Muttaqi said in the letter that former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani was “ousted” as of Aug. 15 and that countries across the world “no longer recognize him as president,” and therefore Isaczai no longer represents Afghanistan, Dujarric said.
The Taliban said it was nominating a new U.N. permanent representative, Mohammad Suhail Shaheen, the U.N. spokesman said. He has been a spokesman for the Taliban during peace negotiations in Qatar.
Senior U.S. State Department officials said they were aware of the Taliban’s request — the United States is a member of the U.N. credentials committee — but they would not predict how that panel might rule. However, one of the officials said the committee “would take some time to deliberate,” suggesting the Taliban’s envoy would not be able to speak at the General Assembly at this session at least during the high-level leaders’ week.
In cases of disputes over seats at the United Nations, the General Assembly’s nine-member credentials committee must meet to make a decision. Both letters have been sent to the committee after consultations with General Assembly President Abdulla Shahid’s office. The committee’s members are the United States, Russia, China, Bahama, Bhutan, Chile, Namibia, Sierra Leone and Sweden.
Afghanistan is scheduled to give the last speech on the final day of the high-level meeting on Sept. 27. It wasn’t clear who would speak if the committee met and the Taliban were given Afghanistan’s seat.
When the Taliban last ruled from 1996 to 2001, the U.N. refused to recognize their government and instead gave Afghanistan’s seat to the previous, warlord-dominated government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who eventually was killed by a suicide bomber in 2011. It was Rabbani’s government that brought Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11, to Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996.
The Taliban have said they want international recognition and financial help to rebuild the war-battered country. But the makeup of the new Taliban government poses a dilemma for the United Nations. Several of the interim ministers are on the U.N.’s so-called blacklist of international terrorists and funders of terrorism.
The Canadian Press – Sep 22, 2021 / 6:42 am | Story: 346448
Photo: Flickr/Josh Rushing
Oklahoma scheduled seven executions Monday in what would be the first lethal injections for the state since putting them on hold six years ago following a series of mishaps.
Among the men scheduled to die is Julius Darius Jones, even though the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board just last week recommended that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison. The case that drew national attention after it was featured in 2018 on the ABC television documentary series “The Last Defense.”
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals scheduled six other executions — one a month from October through March, with two in January.
Oklahoma once had one of the busiest death chambers in the nation. Executions were put on hold following a botched lethal injection in 2014 that left an inmate writhing on the gurney, followed by drug mix-ups in 2015.
Its first execution since that is set for Oct. 28. The man scheduled to die — John Marion Grant, 60 — was initially set to be executed in October 2018, but his lethal injection was among those delayed by the concerns over the execution drugs.
Grant was convicted of killing prison employee Gay Carter in 1998 while serving sentences for four armed robberies. According to evidence submitted at trial, Grant dragged Carter into a small closet and stabbed her 16 times with a homemade knife after she removed him from a job in the kitchen of Dick Conner Correction Center in Hominy.
Jones’ execution is set for Nov. 18. He was convicted in the 1999 slaying of Edmond businessman Paul Howell. Any commutation is ultimately up to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Archbishop Paul Coakley of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, who opposes the death penalty, said the state seemed to be in a rush to execute people after seven years.
“We have an opportunity to support the God-given dignity of every human person, protect society, and seek justice for victims and their families by using other available means to hold criminals accountable,” Coakley said.
The other men scheduled to die are:
-Bigler Stouffer on Dec. 9 for a 1985 attack on his girlfriend’s ex-husband in Oklahoma City that left the man’s schoolteacher girlfriend, Linda Reaves, dead.
-Wade Greely Lay on Jan. 6 for shooting Tulsa bank teller Amber Rogers dead during a 2004 holdup.
-Donald Anthony Grant on Jan. 27 for the 2001 fatal shooting of the manager and desk clerk of a Del City motel where he had applied for a job the day before.
-Gilbert Ray Postelle on Feb. 17 for the 2005 revenge killings of four people at an Oklahoma City mobile home park, including one man he held responsible for hitting the motorcycle Postelle’s father was riding, leaving him incapacitated.
-James Allen Coddington on March 10 for the 1997 hammer killing in Choctaw of co-worker Albert Hale, who had refused to lend Coddington $50 to buy drugs.
Jones has perhaps the the highest-profile case. It has drawn the attention of reality television star Kim Kardashian West and numerous professional athletes with ties to Oklahoma, who have appealed for clemency.
Jones, 41, has consistently maintained that he is innocent of the killing and alleged that he was framed by the actual killer, a high school friend and former co-defendant who was a key witness against him.
District Attorney David Prater of Oklahoma County, where the killing occurred, and Oklahoma’s former attorney general, Mike Hunter, have said the evidence against Jones is overwhelming.
Information from trial transcripts shows that witnesses identified Jones as the shooter and placed him with Howell’s stolen vehicle. Investigators found the murder weapon and a bandanna with Jones’ DNA in an attic space above his bedroom, but Jones claims in his commutation filing that the gun and bandanna were planted there by the actual killer.
“Given the setting of a November 18 execution date, it is our hope the Governor adopts the Board’s recommendation and commutes Julius’s death sentence,” Jones’ attorney, Amanda Bass, said in a written statement. “Oklahoma must not allow an innocent man to be executed.”
The Canadian Press – Sep 22, 2021 / 6:24 am | Story: 346445
Photo: The Canadian Press
A former Massachusetts mayor, once a rising Democratic star after being elected at just 23 years old, was sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday after being convicted of extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from marijuana businesses that wanted to operate in his city.
Former Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia showed no emotion as the judge handed down his punishment after tossing several convictions stemming from allegations that the now 29-year-old swindled investors who backed a smartphone app he created.
U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock assailed Correia’s actions as old-style corruption that eviscerates a community. Under Correia’s watch, ”City Hall was for sale,” said the judge, who also criticized his “absolute lack of remorse.”
“If we can’t trust each other, if we can’t trust our government, where are we?” the judge asked.
Correia, who has insisted that he’s innocent and that the “real truth” will eventually come out, did not make a statement during the hearing in Boston federal court because he’s still challenging his remaining convictions.
The defense had sought three years, telling the judge that while there’s no “sugarcoating” the case, Correia also did much good for Fall River.
“None of that excuses what happened here, but I think it’s required to have a fuller picture of the man and to understand how somebody might get derailed but still have hope to contribute in a future chapter of life,” Attorney William Fick said.
Correia is expected to report to prison at a later date that has yet to be decided.
Correia was convicted in May of a slew of charges including fraud and extortion after a trial that shone a light on his meteoric rise to become mayor as a recent college graduate. Correia portrayed himself to voters as a successful entrepreneur who could breathe new life into the struggling, old mill city.
Prosecutors told jurors that in reality Corriea funded his lavish lifestyle with money he stole from investors who pumped cash into his app called “SnoOwl,” which was designed to help businesses connect with consumers. Prosecutors said Correia took nearly two-thirds of the almost $400,000 he got from investors and spent it on things like fancy hotels and a Mercedes and to pay down his student loans.
After becoming mayor in 2016, prosecutors say Correia started a pay-to-play scheme involving bribes from marijuana vendors in exchange for letters of approval from the city they needed in order to get a license. Prosecutors have called the corruption scheme particularly galling because much of it occurred when the former mayor knew he was already under investigation for the allegations of investor fraud.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Zach Hafer — who asked for 11 years behind bars — questioned how anything other than greed and hubris could explain Correia’s actions, noting that the former politician had a supportive family and was making good money as mayor.
“The cash in clipboards and in envelopes and sheds. … Fall River under Jasiel Correia was like Atlantic City during Prohibition in terms of the crudeness of the corruption,” Hafer said.
Correia told reporters outside the courthouse after his conviction that “the justice system failed us” and that he had turned down a plea deal because, he said: “I’m not guilty.” Both the prosecutor and Correia’s trial attorney said Tuesday that Correia was never offered a plea agreement.
Correia was supposed to have been sentenced Monday, but the judge instead agreed with new lawyers hired by Correia after the trial to overturn the jury’s guilty verdict on several counts they said the government failed to prove.
The judge agreed to toss six counts of wire fraud because of what he described as a lack of evidence about how the checks were processed. He also tossed two tax fraud counts because he said prosecutors didn’t prove that Correia willfully filed false returns.
Correia remains convicted of several counts of wire fraud, extortion and extortion conspiracy. The jury acquitted him on three counts, including accusations that he forced his chief of staff to give him half of her salary in order to keep her city job.
For months after his arrest, Correia resisted calls to leave office and survived a bizarre election in March 2019 during which he was recalled by voters and reelected the same night. But after federal agents arrested him a second time — this time for the extortion scheme — he agreed in October 2019 to take a leave of absence. He was ousted by voters the next month.
The Canadian Press – Sep 22, 2021 / 1:14 am | Story: 346443
Photo: The Canadian Press
Emergency workers survey damage in Melbourne, Australia, where debris is scattered on a road after part of a wall fell from a building during an earthquake, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021. A magnitude 5.8 earthquake caused damage in the city of Melbourne in an unusually powerful temblor for Australia, Geoscience Australia said. (James Ross/AAP Image via AP)
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake caused some damage in suburban Melbourne on Wednesday in an unusually powerful temblor for Australia.
The quake hit about 130 kilometres northeast of Australia’s second-most populous city near the town of Mansfield at a depth of 10 kilometres, Geoscience Australia said.
Victoria state Deputy Premier James Merlino cited some damage reports, including a hospital that lost power. Media showed images of fallen bricks from a building in Melbourne’s inner suburb of South Yarra.
Seismology Research Centre Chief Scientist Adam Pascale said it was the largest onshore quake in Victoria’s recorded history.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said there were no reports of serious injury.
The earthquake was the largest to rattle Australia since a magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck 210 kilometres off the northwest coastal town of Broome in 2019.
The Canadian Press – Sep 21, 2021 / 3:09 pm | Story: 346419
Photo: Twitter
Brooke East Boston Charter School
A group of high school students in Massachusetts had to ride on a party bus complete with a stripper pole and neon lights during a recent field trip — an experience their teacher said highlights problems with the education system.
Jim Mayers, an 11th grade Advanced Placement language and composition teacher at the Brooke Charter School in Boston, said in the since-deleted tweet that the original charter bus had fallen through, Masslive.com reported Monday.
“It is a funny story, but there actually is a real bus shortage and it speaks to major flaws in our education system,” he said, adding that the field trip was a success.
He is now using the attention he’s getting because of the original tweet to urge people to better understand educational inequities and other problems facing the nation’s schools.
“I’m worried that there is too much attention being paid to the tweet itself, or simply the fact that it went viral, instead of attending to the many systemic issues that are facing not just my students, but students all across the country,” he wrote in a followup tweet.
For example, districts across the nation are struggling to hire enough drivers to shuttle kids to school, and some states have become creative, including Massachusetts, which is enlisting National Guard members to drive school transport vans.
His original tweet, he wrote, was just meant give his fellow teachers a laugh.
“If it’s gotten people to talk about the overall infrastructure of our education system, and the different ways schools are prioritized, then that’s good too,” he wrote.
He then urged readers to attend their next local school board meeting or read up on the topic.
The Canadian Press – Sep 21, 2021 / 9:33 am | Story: 346357
Photo: The Canadian Press
Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah
Libyan lawmakers on Tuesday passed a vote of no confidence in the country’s transitional government, an official said, a move that throws long-waited elections late this year into further uncertainty.
The vote took place in the parliament’s headquarters in the eastern city of Tobruk, said Abdullah Ablaihig, a spokesman for the legislature.
He said 113 lawmakers attended the session, with 89 of them voting in favour of withdrawing confidence in the government of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah.
Ablaihig said Dbeibah’s government would work as a caretaker government without giving a timeframe for the appointment of another government three months before parliamentary and presidential elections on Dec. 24.
There was no immediate comment from the prime minister. A spokesman for the government said Dbeibah would issue a speech to the nation shortly.
Tuesday’s vote of confidence is another challenge to holding the December elections and impedes efforts to unite the oil-rich North African nation after a decade of turmoil.
Dbeibah, a powerful businessman from the western city of Misrata, was appointed last month to lead the executive branch of an interim government that also includes a three-member Presidential Council chaired by Mohammad Younes Menfi, a Libyan diplomat from the country’s east.
The transitional government replaced two rival administrations — one based in the country’s east and another in the west — that had ruled Libya for years.
Oil-rich Libya was plunged into chaos after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
The Canadian Press – Sep 21, 2021 / 9:31 am | Story: 346356
Photo: The Canadian Press
Yulia Skripal
British police said Tuesday they are charging a third Russian suspect in the 2018 nerve agent attack on a former Russian agent in England.
Scotland Yard said prosecutors believe there is sufficient evidence to charge Denis Sergeev, who went by the alias “Sergey Fedotov,” with conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, possessing and using a chemical weapon, and causing grievous bodily harm.
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were targeted in a nerve agent attack in March 2018 in the English city of Salisbury that British authorities said had almost certainly approved been “at a senior level of the Russian state.” Moscow has vehemently denied the allegations.
The Skripals survived, but the attack later claimed the life of a British woman and left a man and a police officer seriously ill.
Police previously charged two other Russian military intelligence agents, known by their aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, saying they traveled to the U.K. for the poisoning operation then flew back to Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed the suspects were civilians, and the two suspects later appeared on Russian television claiming they had visited Salisbury as tourists.
Police said Tuesday they have evidence that the third suspect, Sergeev, was also a member of the Russian military intelligence service known as the GRU.
Arrest warrants have been issued for all three men. Police said they will apply for Interpol notices for Fedotov on Tuesday, but British prosecutors said they will not apply to Russia for Sergeev’s extradition because the Russian constitution does not permit extradition of its own nationals.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, which the GRU is part of, did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, a senior counter-terrorism officer who has been leading the investigation, said the case has been one of the most complex ever undertaken by the counter-terror team. He appealed for anyone who had seen the three men in the U.K. in March 2018 to come forward.
Investigators have pieced together evidence suggesting that all three suspects “previously worked with each other and on behalf of the Russian state as part of operations carried out outside of Russia,” Haydon said.
“All three of them are dangerous individuals,” he added. “They have tried to murder people here in the U.K, and they have also brought an extremely dangerous chemical weapon into the U.K. by means unknown.”
Online investigative website Bellingcat previously reported that Sergeev was suspected of involvement in the poisoning of an arms manufacturer, his son and a factory manager in Bulgaria in 2015.
Skripal, a Russian military intelligence officer turned double agent for Britain, and his daughter Yulia, who was visiting him, spent weeks in critical condition after the attack.
Three months later, two local residents who apparently picked up a discarded perfume vial that contained the nerve agent fell ill. One recovered, but the other died. A police officer who was investigating the case also fell ill; he recovered but later quit the force.
The case ignited a diplomatic confrontation in which hundreds of envoys were expelled by both Russia and Western nations.
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