Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) told state Senate President Karen Fann (R) in a letter Monday that his office had closed its criminal investigation into allegations of widespread instances of dead people voting in the 2020 election.
Brnovich and his office had been investigating numerous assertions of dead voters during the election, including some handed over to state prosecutors last September after the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas completed its review of 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County. Fann and members of the GOP-controlled Senate launched the ballot review after President Donald Trump narrowly lost the 2020 election.
Brnovich’s office spent months examining allegations that 282 people who were dead before Oct. 5, 2020, voted in the Nov. 3 general election, his letter said. Only one was deceased, he wrote.
“After spending hundreds of hours reviewing these allegations, our investigators were able to determine that only one of the 282 individuals on the list was deceased at the time of the election,” he wrote.
The others were alive and were determined to be current voters.
“Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas reported as dead and many were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased,” he wrote.
Spokespeople for Cyber Ninjas and Fann did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Brnovich wrote that his election integrity unit also received reports of hundreds more dead voters from other sources. A separate report submitted to the attorney general’s office did not distinguish between dead voters and dead registrants.
“Once again, these claims were thoroughly investigated and resulted in only a handful of potential cases,” the letter said. “Some were so absurd the names and birthdates didn’t even match the deceased, and others included dates of death after the election.”
Though he supported the state Senate’s authority to conduct the ballot review, the allegations of “widespread deceased voters from the Senate Audit and other complaints … are insufficient and not corroborated.”
Brnovich’s letter comes a day before Arizona’s primary election, where he is vying for the Republican nomination for the US Senate. Trump, who did not endorse him, has blasted him for not doing enough to get to the bottom of his unfounded allegations of widespread fraud he claims led to his loss from him.
Brnovich served as a witness in certifying the 2020 election results and later blamed Trump’s loss on unpopularity. Brnovich’s GOP rivals have accused him of dragging out his inquiry in an attempt to curry favor with Trump supporters. Brnovich has maintained that he would take as much time as his office needed to investigate.
Zawahiri, 71, was a key architect behind multiple assaults on the US, and was “deeply involved” in the planning of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, Biden said.
“People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer. The United States continues to demonstrate our resolve and our capacity to defend the American people against those who seek to do us harm,” Biden said from the Blue Room Balcony of the White House.
Here’s what you need to know about Zawahiri and the US’ strike against him.
Born in 1951, Zawahiri grew up in an upper-class neighborhood in Cairo, Egypt, the son of a prominent physician and grandson of renowned scholars.
His grandfather, Rabia’a al-Zawahiri, was an imam at al-Azhar University in Cairo. His great-uncle of him, Abdel Rahman Azzam, was the first secretary of the Arab League.
Zawahiri was imprisoned for his involvement in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
“We want to speak to the whole world. Who are we? Who are we?” he said in a jailhouse interview.
By that time, Zawahiri, a young doctor, was already a committed terrorist who conspired to overthrow the Egyptian government for years and sought to replace it with fundamentalist Islamic rule. He proudly endorsed Sadat’s assassination after the Egyptian leader made peace with Israel.
What was his relationship with Osama bin Laden?
Zawahiri left Egypt in 1985 and made his way to Peshawar, Pakistan, where he worked as a surgeon treating the fighters who were engaged with Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
That is where Zawahiri met bin Laden, a prominent Mujahedeen leader and who also had left behind a privileged upbringing to join the fight in Afghanistan. The two became close, linked by their common bond as “Afghan Arabs.”
After reuniting in Afghanistan, bin Laden and Zawahiri appeared together in early 1998 announcing the formation of the World Islamic Front for the Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders — formally merging the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda.
At one point, I acted as bin Laden’s personal physician.
“We are working with brother bin Laden,” he said in announcing the merger of his terror group in May 1998. “We know him since more than 10 years now. We fought with him here in Afghanistan.”
Together, the two terror leaders signed a fatwa, or declaration: “The judgment to kill and fight Americans and their allies, whether civilians or military, is an obligation for every Muslim.”
What role did Zawahiri play in al Qaeda’s attacks against the US?
The attacks against the US and its facilities began shortly after bin Laden and Zawahiri’s fatwa, with the suicide bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people and wounded more than 5,000 others.
Then, there was the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000, when suicide bombers on a dinghy detonated their boat, killing 17 American sailors and wounding 39 others.
The culmination of Zawahiri’s terror plotting came on September 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center and Pentagon. A fourth hijacked airliner, headed for Washington, crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back.
Before and after the September 11 attacks, Zawahiri appeared on numerous video and audiotapes calling for attacks against Western targets and urging Muslims to support his cause.
Some Egyptians traced Zawahiri’s anger toward the United States to what many Afghan Arabs felt was the CIA’s betrayal to support their cause after the Soviets left Afghanistan and the country slipped into tribal anarchy.
Others date Zawahiri’s wrath to 1998, when US officials pushed for the extradition of a number of Egyptian Islamic Jihad members from Albania to stand trial in Egypt for terrorism.
Zawahiri’s brother, Mohammad, told CNN in 2012, “Before you call me and my brother terrorists, let’s define its meaning. If it means those who are bloodthirsty merciless killers, then this is not what we are about,” he said.
“We only try to regain some of our rights that have been hijacked by Western powers throughout history.”
When did Zawahiri start leading al Qaeda?
Zawahiri became al Qaeda’s leader after US forces killed bin Laden in 2011.
He was constantly on the move once the US-led invasion of Afghanistan began after the September 11 attacks. At one point, he narrowly escaped a US onslaught in the rugged, mountainous Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, an attack that left his wife and children dead.
Zawahiri “was not a charismatic leader in the mold of bin Laden,” CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen said Monday. “He didn’t prove to be a very competent leader of al-Qaeda. But the reason I think that he was killed in Afghanistan over the weekend was he was beginning to take a lot more risks.”
“According to the United Nations, he’d released kind of an unprecedented number of videos. Every time you record a video, there’s the chain of custody of that video, getting it out there, somebody maybe taking the video,” Bergen continued.
“So he was becoming more prominent. And, I think, it seems to me that may well have been the reason that he was detected.”
In a briefing by a United Nations panel of experts last week it was noted that Zawahiri’s apparent increased comfort and ability to communicate has coincided with the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the consolidation of power of key al-Qaeda allies within their de-facto administration.
The last known public address by Zawahiri was an audio message released on July 13 by the media arm of al Qaeda.
How did the US kill Zawahiri?
The US undertook “a precision counterterrorism operation” in Afghanistan targeting Zawahiri, who was sheltering in a safehouse in Kabul, a senior administration told reporters Monday.
According to the official, “a precise tailored airstrike” using two hellfire missiles was conducted at 9:48 pm ET on Saturday, July 30 — 6:18 am Kabul time — via unmanned air strike and was authorized by Biden following weeks of meetings with his Cabinet and key advisers.
No American personnel were on the ground in Kabul at the time of the strike.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Kylie Atwood, Natasha Bertrand and Donald Judd contributed to this report.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Another round of rainstorms hit flooded Kentucky mountain communities Monday as more bodies emerged from the sodden landscape, and the governor warned that high winds could bring another threat — falling trees and utility poles.
Gov. Andy Beshear said the death toll rose to 37 while hundreds of people remained unaccounted for five days after one of the nation’s poorest regions was swamped by nearly a foot of rain. The water poured down hillsides and into valleys and hollows, engulfing entire towns. Mudslides marooned some people on steep slopes.
Beshear suggested many of the unaccounted for would be located when cellphone service resumes.
“When cell service gets back up, we do see a whole lot of people finding people they love and care about, so looking forward to those stories,” he said.
Radar indicated that up to 4 more inches (10.2 centimeters) of rain fell Sunday, and the National Weather Service warned that slow-moving showers and thunderstorms could provoke more flash flooding through Tuesday morning.
“If things weren’t hard enough on the people of this region, they’re getting rain right now,” Beshear said Monday at the Capitol in Frankfort. “Just as concerning is high winds — think about how saturated the ground has been.” The wind “could knock over poles, it could knock over trees. So people need to be careful.”
An approaching heat wave means “it’s even going to get tougher when the rain stops,” the governor said. “We need to make sure people are ultimately stable by that point.”
Chris Campbell, president of Letcher Funeral Home in Whitesburg, said he’s begun handling burial arrangements for people who died.
“These people, we know most of them. We’re a small community,” he said of the town about 110 miles (177 kilometers) southeast of Lexington. “It affects everyone.”
His funeral home recently buried a 67-year-old woman who had a heart attack while trying to escape her home as the water rose. Campbell knew her boyfriend of her well, he said.
On Monday, he met with the family of a husband and wife in their 70s, people he also knew personally. He said it’s hard to explain the magnitude of the loss.
“I don’t know how to explain it or what to say, to be completely honest,” he said. “I just can’t imagine what they’re going through. I don’t think there really are words for it.”
Campbell said his 90-year-old grandmother lost the entire home where she’s lived since 1958. She managed to escape to a neighbor’s house with only some photos. Everything else is gone, he said.
More than 12,000 utility customers remained without power. At least 300 people were staying in shelters.
The floods were unleashed last week when 8 to 10 1/2 inches (20 to 27 centimeters) of rain fell in just 48 hours in parts of eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia and western Virginia.
The disaster was the latest in a string of catastrophic deluges that have pounded parts of the US this summer, including St. Louis. Scientists warn that climate change is making such events more common.
Meanwhile, nighttime curfews were declared in response to reports of looting in two of the devastated communities — Breathitt County and the nearby city of Hindman in Knott County.
Breathitt County declared a countywide curfew from 10 pm to 6 am The only exceptions were for emergency vehicles, first responders, and people traveling for work.
“I hate to have to impose a curfew, but looting will absolutely not be tolerated. Our friends and neighbors have lost so much. We cannot stand by and allow them to lose what they have left,” County Attorney Brendon Miller said in a Facebook post.
Breathitt County Sheriff John Hollan said the curfew decision came after 18 reports of looting. He said people were stealing from private property where homes were damaged. No arrest have been made.
Hindman Mayor Tracy Neice also announced a sunset-to-sunrise curfew because of looting, television station WYMT reported. Both curfews will remain in place until further notice, officials said.
Last week’s flooding extended to parts of West Virginia and Virginia. President Joe Biden declared a federal disaster to direct relief money to flooded counties, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was helping. Another relief effort came from the University of Kentucky’s men’s basketball team, which planned an open practice Tuesday at Rupp Arena and a charity telethon.
Coach John Calipari said players approached him about the idea.
“The team and I are looking forward to doing what we can,” Calipari said.
___
Associated Press writers Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky; Gary B. Graves in Lexington, Kentucky; Mike Pesoli airborne with the National Guard; Leah Willingham in Charleston, West Virginia; and Julie Walker in New York City contributed to this report.
That’s what Lake County Sheriff Don Bell told MTN News Monday afternoon after the Elmo Fire took off near Dayton.
The fire, which started Friday evening and has burned thousands of acres north of Highway 28 between Elmo and Hot Springs, forced dozens more to evacuate Monday, destroyed one structure, and shut down a portion of Highway 93.
The evacuation notices include the Lake Mary Ronan corridor and Chief Cliff Estates near Black Lake Road. That area was in the most danger, according to Bell.
“The houses in the fire line, where the fire is running, those folks are all evacuated,” he said.
Emergency shelters for evacuations have been established at Polson High School and Somers Middle School. You can call 800-272-6668 to request their services.
But it’s not just evacuations. The smoke from the fast-moving Elmo Fire forced officials to close the section of Highway 93 between Elmo and Dayton. Bell was urging drivers to use Highway 35 on the eastern side of Flathead Lake instead.
With winds driving the fire, Northern Rockies Team 7 public information officer, Sara Rouse, says conditions changed rapidly Monday.
“This afternoon we had some winds come out of the west pushing the fire east and northeast from what we saw yesterday, and along with those winds we were unable to have our aircraft up at that time so it just sort of created this perfect culmination for some pretty active fire.”
Fire crews are attacking the fire’s edge, Rouse said, utilizing aircraft as the number of personnel working the fire continues to grow.
“Yesterday evening we had 293 people,” she said. “Again, there are more resources rolling in throughout the day so that number will climb up tomorrow morning.”
On Monday night, a lightning holdover in the Mission Mountains started a new fire.
CT Camel with CSKT Division of Fire told MTN the Red Horn Fire is high in the Missions. While the fire is visible from St. Ignatius, it’s about an acre in size and not threatening any structures.
Camel, however, had a message for the public.
“We want people to be safe out there and make sure they’re safe with their outdoors and recreating,” he said. “We’re in very high fire danger. Very close to extreme. We’d like people to be careful.”
UPDATE 6:13 pm August 1, 2022
The Montana Department of Transportation reports Highway 93 is closed from Elmo to Dayton due to fire activity in the area.
It’s unknown how long the road closure will be in place.
Sheriff Don Bell tells MTN News contributor Maritsa Georgiou the fire is within 200 feet of Highway 93.
The Red Cross set up a shelter at Polson High School, 1712 2nd St. West.
Services are free.
People also can request Red Cross services by calling 800-272-6668.
——————————————————————————————————————————
UPDATE: 4:52 pm – August 1, 2022 At approximately 2 PM, Northern Rockies Incident Management Team 7 recommended the evacuation of the Lake Mary Ronan corridor to Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
The Team is working with the Montana Department of Transportation on the use of pilot cars on Highway 93 between Elmo to Rollins due to poor visibility.
The fire has turned and is running hard, according to Lake County Sheriff Don Bell.
Sean Wells
fire elmo
The new evacuations Monday afternoon include the Lake Mary Ronan area – about 30 to 40 homes.
Sheriff Bell tells MTN News Chief Cliff Estates is the most in danger – about eight homes in the area have been evacuated.
Lake County Sheriff Don Bell confirms they have Lake Mary Ronan Road closed and are doing more evacuation to the NE of the fire.
Residents in this area are strongly encouraged to evacuate.
———————————————————————————————————————- UPDATE: 4:15 pm – August 1, 2022
Lake County Sheriff Don Bell tells MTN News contributor Maritsa Georgiou that he is currently going door to door evacuating in Chief Cliff Estates.
He says the Elmo fire switched direction and is now burning very fast to the east.
The Montana Department of Transportation reports travelers can expect intermittent blockage until further notice between mile marker 77 and mile marker 81 on US Highway 93 near Dayton.
Rodney Sharkey
fire elmo
MDT says no parking is allowed along the highway for fire viewing. The roadway needs to remain open for emergency vehicles.
Stay with KPAX for updates on this developing story. —————————————————————————————————————————-
ELMO- Evacuations have been ordered for areas near the Elmo wildfire Monday afternoon.
Evacuations have been ordered for Black Lake Road to US Highway 93.
The Elmo fire blew up Monday afternoon moving to the east.
The Elmo Fire has grown to nearly 13,000 acres as it burns in the Elmo area. It sparked late Friday night.
Officials say the cause of the fire is under investigation.
This is a developing story. Stay with KPAX for updates.
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Madison Underwood was lying on the ultrasound table, nearly 19 weeks pregnant, when the doctor came in to say her abortion had been canceled.
Nurses followed and started wiping away lukewarm sonogram gel from her exposed belly as the doctor leaned over her shoulder to speak to her fiancé, Adam Queen.
She recalled that she went quiet, her body went still. What did they mean, they couldn’t do the abortion? Just two weeks earlier, she and her fiancé had learned her fetus had a condition that would not allow it to survive outside the womb. If she tried to carry to term, she could become critically ill, or even die, her doctor had said. Now, she was being told she could n’t have an abortion she did n’t even want, but she needed it.
“They’re just going to let me die?” she remembers wondering.
In the blur around her, she heard the doctor and nurses talking about a clinic in Georgia that could do the procedure now that the legal risks of performing it in Tennessee were too high.
She heard her fiancé curse, and with frustration in his voice, tell the doctor this was stupid. She heard the doctor agree.
Just three days earlier, the US Supreme Court had overturned the constitutional right to abortion. A Tennessee law passed in 2020 that banned abortions at around six weeks of pregnancy had been blocked by a court order but could go into effect.
Ms. Underwood never thought any of this would affect her. She was 22 and excited to start a family with Mr. Queen, who was 24.
She and Mr. Queen had gone back and forth for days before deciding to terminate the pregnancy. She was dreading the abortion. She had cried in the car pulling up to the clinic. She had heard about the Supreme Court undoing Roe v. Wade but she thought that since she had scheduled her abortion before the decision, and before any state ban took effect, the procedure would be allowed.
Tennessee allows abortion if a woman’s life is in danger, but doctors feared making those decisions too soon and facing prosecution. Across the country, the legal landscape was shifting so quickly, some abortion clinics turned patients away before the laws officially took effect or while legal battles played out in state courts.
Century-old bans hanging around on the books were activated, but then just as quickly were under dispute. In states where abortion was still legal, wait times at clinics spiked as women from states with bans searched for alternatives.
It was into this chaos that Ms. Underwood was sent home, still pregnant, and reeling. What would happen now? The doctor said she should go to Georgia, where abortions were still legal up to 22 weeks, though that state had a ban that would soon take effect.
Read More on Abortion Issues in America
How would her fiancé get the time off work to make the trip? How would they come up with hotel and gas money? How long did she have her until she became herself ill? A new, more terrifying question hit her: What if she felt a kick?
‘I Want a Girl’
Mr. Queen said he realized his fiancée was pregnant before she did.
She had thrown up almost every morning for an entire week and had started asking for Chinese takeout, which she normally hated. One night in May, after her shift as manager at a Dollar General store, he brought home a pregnancy test for her. I have hoped and prayed it would come back positive.
“I was ready to start our little family together and get the ball rolling,” he said.
To save money, they lived with his mother, Theresa Davis, and his stepfather, Christopher Davis, in a family farmhouse in Pikeville, a town tucked into a green valley about an hour outside Chattanooga.
Ms. Underwood crept into the upstairs bathroom. It was her first ever pregnancy test for her, and she did not want to mess it up. She spent 15 long minutes staring at her bedroom television, waiting.
Her phone alarm went off and she glanced at the test, picking it up and shaking it. A line shot across it in the positive column. For a couple of seconds, she stopped breathing.
“I hope it’s a boy,” her fiancé said.
Her heartbeat sped up. She was smiling.
“I know you want a boy! You already have a girl,” she said, laughing. “But you know I want a girl.”
Mr. Queen had a child with a previous girlfriend, and some of his income went to child support. He and Ms. Underwood had dated for the last four years; he proposed on a trip to Virginia Beach early this year.
On Mother’s Day, the couple revealed the pregnancy to both sets of their parents through cleverly wrapped “Best Nana Ever” gift baskets. At first, they dealt with some blowback for getting pregnant before being married, but with their wedding date set for late June, and the thrill of a new baby, everyone got over it.
At her first checkup at a free local clinic, they learned she was 13 weeks pregnant and due Nov. 23. The couple left the appointment happy.
Mr. Queen worked full time, but his fiancée had no health insurance. They waited to be approved for Medicaid so she could schedule an appointment with a licensed obstetrician. Ms. Underwood went about her routines, taking care of her three cats, fish and other pets, and feeding the neighbor’s goats.
Mr. Queen’s mother, Ms. Davis, hung up the ultrasound photos in her bedroom. She was staring at them when she noticed something.
“I called Madison and said, ‘Is your baby a cat?’” she said. “Because her head looked like it had ears.”
olivia
At Ms. Underwood’s next appointment, a nurse promised more ultrasound pictures for the family to take home. The nurse asked questions, took measurements and confirmed her due date. But then she got “real quiet,” Ms. Underwood said.
“She said it’ll be a few minutes, and the nurse practitioner is going to be in and she’s going to talk to you and ‘see what we’re going to do from here,’” she said.
For Ms. Davis, who accompanied Ms. Underwood to the appointment, and had experienced seven miscarriages, the words “set off alarm bells” in her head. “It doesn’t sound good,” she told her future daughter-in-law.
At first, the nurse practitioner said there was a mild case of encephalocele, or a growth along the back of the fetus’s neck because of neural tubes failing to close during the first month of pregnancy. Encephalocele occurs in about 1 in every 10,500 babies born in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The nurse practitioner told the family it would be able to be fixed through surgery, and that there might be an intellectual disability or developmental delay, possibly seizures. Ms. Underwood and her fiancé were “OK with that,” she said. But she was concerned the baby would have to have surgery just after birth. “I was just so scared,” she said.
They also learned they were having a girl. They decided to name her Olivia, after Ms. Underwood’s grandfather, Oliver.
The doctors referred the family to Regional Obstetrical Consultants, a chain of clinics that specializes in high-risk pregnancy treatments. The practice declined to comment for this article.
There, the family said they learned more devastating news: The fetus had not formed a skull. Even with surgery, doctors said, there would be nothing to protect the brain, so she would survive at most a few hours, if not minutes, after birth.
Even then, Ms. Underwood hoped to carry the pregnancy to term so at the very least, she could meet her baby and donate the organs if possible.
“It just felt like the only option,” she said. “Everything happens for a reason.”
But doctors told her that the fetus’s brain matter was leaking into the umbilical sac, which could cause sepsis and lead to critical illness or even death. Doctors recommended she terminate the pregnancy for her own safety from her.
“We were debating on it because I thought, maybe I can beat the odds,” she said. “But then I got scared.” She added that, “I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to regret it. Because me and Adam, we’re going to have to be the ones dealing with it our whole life.”
They postponed their wedding and scheduled the abortion at the Chattanooga location of Regional Obstetrical Consultants for Monday, June 27.
Caught in a Nationwide Battle
Before June 24, the day of the Supreme Court ruling, Tennessee allowed abortion up until 24 weeks into pregnancy, but clinics rarely performed any after the 20-week mark, said a spokeswoman for the Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health, one of the largest abortion clinics in Tennessee.
Outside of abortion-specific clinics, only a few medical centers in the state provided the procedure. The Knoxville Center said it stopped providing abortions the Friday that Roe was overturned in anticipation of Tennessee law changing.
That day, Herbert Slatry III, the state attorney general, filed a motion for the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to lift a nearly two-year-old injunction that had blocked an attempt to ban abortions after about the sixth week of pregnancy . The injunction was lifted one day after Ms. Underwood’s abortion was canceled.
Her parents and grandparents, who opposed abortion, took it as a sign to reconsider. They had prayed for God to stop the abortion if it wasn’t supposed to happen, and when it didn’t, they were convinced she should try to carry the pregnancy to term.
“We were just hoping for a miracle,” said her mother, Jennifer Underwood.
They said she should give birth so she could see Olivia, say goodbye and bury her.
She told them no. “I’m doing what I think I can handle,” Ms. Underwood would say later, sobbing in between words.
Mr. Queen’s mother said she supported the couple’s decision from the start. At age 12, she was raped and ended up giving birth to a stillborn baby.
“Religion has nothing to do with it. Sometimes your body just does things to you, and if you have to have an abortion, don’t feel guilty about it,” she said.
As stress on the couple mounted, Mr. Queen quit his job to take care of Ms. Underwood. His mother raised $5,250 to help with travel costs from the crowd funding website GoFundMe. The cash would also help pay for the fetus’s cremation.
‘Our Baby Is Going to Die’
Two cars left Pikeville at 2 am in early July for a four-hour drive across state lines and time zones to make the 8 am appointment at an abortion clinic in Georgia. Ms. Underwood, Mr. Queen and his mother were in one car; Ms. Underwood’s parents of her and one of her brothers of her followed.
When they stopped at the third Circle K of the night, she squeezed her own mother tight and cried. Her parents de ella had made a last-minute decision to accompany her, even if they did not fully agree.
At sunrise, the couple sat in a corner booth at a Waffle House, his hand massaging her back.
She would have a two step-procedure known as a D&E, a dilation and evacuation, over two days. First, she would be given medication to induce dilation, and sent to her hotel room to wait. The next day, she would return to the clinic to finish the procedure. The Georgia clinic’s staff warned the family about protesters outside. As they pulled into the parking lot, they drove by a man with signs showing dead fetuses.
“Are all of you OK with killing babies?” I have shouted into a megaphone.
He approached Ms. Underwood’s parents’ car, and her mother rolled down the window.
“We’re on the same side of this as you,” her mother said. “We don’t support abortion, but the doctors said our baby is going to die.”
“Do you trust doctors more than God?” I replied.
The couple walked side-by-side up a steep hill to the clinic entrance. She wore headphones to drown out the protesters.
Six hours later, they came back out. The parking lot was quiet.
“It smelled electrical, you know you can smell that,” said Christina Lawlor, who was in the building Friday.
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — The fire that destroyed Jim’s Steaks on South Street was caused by an issue with the electrical wiring, fire officials said Monday.
The fire was first reported around 9:15 am Friday at the popular Philadelphia cheesesteak shop on the 400 block of South Street.
The fire reached two alarms before it was brought under control. Officials say it was a difficult battle because the flames were moving through the heating and air conditioning system.
Christina Lawlor was in the building Friday morning, opening Jim’s Steaks for the day.
“I knew it when I walked in (Friday) morning something wasn’t right because it was too hot,” she said.
“I started smelling something. It smelled electrical, you know you can smell that,” she continued. “So I’m like, ‘something’s not right.’ We looked up and saw smoke coming down from where the walk-in is and it was smoke pouring down.”
In all, the fire department says more than 125 personnel responded to the scene, along with nearly 60 vehicles.
“With us not being here it’s hard on everybody,” said Kenneth Silver, owner of Jim’s Steaks.
Silver vows to rebuild.
“We won’t know exactly what started the fire until the actual electrical investigators get in here,” said Silver. “Structurally, we know the building is sound so at least we know we can rebuild.”
Jim’s Steaks South St. just celebrated its 46th year at the beginning of July, opening its doors for the first time in 1976.
DENVER (AP) — A wealthy dentist accused of fatally shooting his wife at the end of an African safari was found guilty of murder and mail fraud Monday.
The verdict for Lawrence “Larry” Rudolph’ came from a jury in a Denver federal court following a trial that lasted three weeks.
Rudolph was charged with murder and mail fraud for cashing in $4.8 million in life insurance claims in what prosecutors describe as a premeditated crime.
Rudolph maintained his innocence. His attorney suggested his wife of 34 years, Bianca Rudolph, shot herself while trying to pack a shotgun in a hurry as they prepared to return from Zambia to the United States in 2016.
But prosecutors countered that evidence showed that it was impossible because the wound to her heart came from a shot fired from 2 to 3.5 feet (1 meter) away.
Prosecutors also accused Rudolph’s girlfriend and manager of his Pittsburgh-area dental franchise, Lori Milliron, of lying to a federal grand jury about the case and her relationship with Rudolph.
She was found guilty by the same jury of being an accessory after the fact to murder, obstruction of a grand jury and two counts of perjury before a grand jury. She was found not guilty on two other counts of perjury.
Prosecutors alleged that Rudolph decided to kill his wife to regain control over his life after Bianca Rudolph asked for more say in the couple’s finances and demanded that Milliron be fired. Rudolph’s attorneys called that a false narrative.
KABUL/WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) – The United States killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a “precision” strike in the center of Kabul, the Afghanistan capital, President Joe Biden said, the biggest blow to the militant group since its founder Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011.
Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon who had a $25 million bounty on his head, helped coordinate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Zawahiri was killed when he came out on the balcony of his safe house in Kabul on Sunday morning and was hit by “hellfire” missiles from a US drone.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
“Now justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said in remarks from the White House on Monday. “No matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”
He said he had authorized the precision strike in downtown Kabul and that no civilians were killed.
Three spokespeople in the Taliban administration in Kabul declined comment on Zawahiri’s death.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid had previously confirmed that a strike took place in Kabul on Sunday and strongly condemned it, calling it a violation of “international principles.”
A spokesperson for the interior ministry said a house was hit by a rocket in Sherpoor, an upscale residential neighborhood of the city which also houses several embassies.
“There were no casualties as the house was empty,” Abdul Nafi Takor, the spokesperson, said.
Taliban authorities threw a security dragnet around the house in Sherpoor on Tuesday and journalists were not allowed nearby.
A senior Taliban official told Reuters that Zawahiri was previously in Helmand province and had moved to Kabul after the Taliban took over the country in August last year.
US intelligence determined with “high confidence” through multiple intelligence streams that the man killed was Zawahiri, one senior administration official told reporters.
“Zawahiri continued to pose an active threat to US persons, interests and national security,” the official said on a conference call. “His death of him deals a significant blow to al Qaeda and will degrade the group’s ability to operate.”
Zawahiri succeeded bin Laden as al Qaeda leader after years as its main organizer and strategist, but his lack of charisma and competition from rival militants Islamic State hobbled his ability to inspire devastating attacks on the West. read more
There were rumors of Zawahiri’s death several times in recent years, and he was long reported to have been in poor health.
SANCTUARY
Osama bin Laden sits with his adviser Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian linked to the al Qaeda network, during an interview with Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir (not pictured) in an image supplied by Dawn newspaper November 10, 2001. Hamid Mir/Editor/ Ausaf Newspaper for Daily Dawn/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
The drone attack is the first known US strike inside Afghanistan since US troops and diplomats left the country in August 2021. The move may bolster the credibility of Washington’s assurances that the United States can still address threats from Afghanistan without a military presence in the country.
His death also raises questions about whether Zawahiri received sanctuary from the Taliban following their takeover of Kabul in August 2021. The official said senior Taliban officials were aware of his presence in the city and said the United States expected the Taliban to abide by an agreement not to allow al Qaeda fighters to re-establish themselves in the country.
“The Taliban will have to answer for al-Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul, after assuring the world they would not give safe haven to al-Qaeda terrorists,” Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Taliban had “grossly violated” the Doha Agreement between the two sides by hosting and sheltering Zawahiri.
Former President Barack Obama joined lawmakers in praising the operation.
“Tonight’s news is also proof that it’s possible to root out terrorism without being at war in Afghanistan,” Obama said in a Twitter message. “And I hope it provides a small measure of peace to the 9/11 families and everyone else who has suffered at the hands of al Qaeda.”
ReutersGraphics
Republican US Senator Marco Rubio said: “The world is safer without him in it and this strike demonstrates our ongoing commitment to hunt down all terrorists responsible for 9/11 and those who continue to pose a threat to US interests.” said
Until the US announcement, Zawahiri had been rumored variously to be in Pakistan’s tribal area or inside Afghanistan.
A video released in April in which he praised an Indian Muslim woman for defying a ban on wearing an Islamic head scarf dispelled rumors that he had died.
The senior US official said finding Zawahiri was the result of persistent counter-terrorism work. The United States found out this year that Zawahiri’s wife, daughter and her children had relocated to a safe house in Kabul, then identified that Zawahiri was there as well, the official said.
“Once Zawahiri arrived at the location, we are not aware of him ever leaving the safe house,” the official said. He was identified multiple times on the balcony, where he was ultimately struck. He continued to produce videos from the house and some may be released after his death, the official said.
In the last few weeks, Biden agreed to officials to scrutinize the intelligence. He was updated throughout May and June and was briefed on July 1 on a proposed operation by intelligence leaders. On July 25 I received an updated report and authorized the strike once an opportunity was available, the administration official said.
With other senior al Qaeda members, Zawahiri is believed to have plotted the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole naval vessel in Yemen which killed 17 US sailors and injured more than 30 others, the Rewards for Justice website said.
He was indicted in the United States for his role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and wounded more than 5,000 others.
Both bin Laden and Zawahiri eluded capture when US-led forces toppled Afghanistan’s Taliban government in late 2001 following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Idrees Ali and Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Alexandra Alper, Eric Beech, Jonathan Landay, Arshad Mohammed, Patricia Zengerle, Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar and Reuters staff in Kabul; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Stephen Coates
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
One of two men accused of masquerading as federal agents in a multiyear scheme has pleaded guilty to federal charges, admitting that he duped Secret Service agents and others in Washington to secure leases to apartments that he never paid for and promote his bogus security company, the Justice Department said on Monday.
The man, Arian Taherzadeh, 40, of Washington, pleaded guilty on July 20 in US District Court in the District of Columbia to one count of federal conspiracy, one count of unlawful possession of a large-capacity ammunition device and one count of voyeurism, the Justice Department said. The latter charge is related to his unauthorized recording of women having sex in his apartment, federal prosecutors said.
A sentencing date has not been set. The Justice Department said that Mr. Taherzadeh has agreed to cooperate with the government’s investigation. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the conspiracy charge.
The guilty plea came nearly four months after Mr. Taherzadeh and another Washington man, Haider Ali, 35, were charged with impersonating United States officers in a case that appeared to expose shortcomings within the Secret Service, the agency charged with protecting the president and the president’s family. Four members of the agency, who did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Monday, have been placed on administrative leave while the case is investigated.
From December 2018 to April 2022, Mr. Taherzadeh “falsely assumed and pretended to be officers or employees” of several government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, federal prosecutors said.
He recruited people to his security company, United States Special Police, under the guise that it was a “covert federal law enforcement task force,” prosecutors said. He then defrauded three apartment complex owners in Washington by saying he needed their units for supposed operations, prosecutors said.
While the apartments lost more than $800,000 in unpaid rent combined, Mr. Taherzadeh ingratiated himself with at least three Secret Service officers — buying them gifts, such as a drone, a doomsday survival pack and, more luxuriously, several rent-free apartments including a penthouse for a year, prosecutors said. He had also offered to buy a $2,000 assault rifle for an agent assigned to Jill Biden’s protective detail, according to an affidavit.
Michelle Peterson, a federal public defender who is representing Mr. Taherzadeh, declined to comment on Monday. The Department of Homeland Security referred questions to the Secret Service. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
It is unclear exactly how the men financed their impersonation scheme. Court records state that Mr. Ali had helped fund the United States Special Police and other general expenses by paying large amounts of cash that he carried. But prosecutors did not specify how Mr. Ali had obtained his money from him.
Mr. Ali told witnesses that he had connections to the Inter-Services Intelligence in Pakistan — a claim that the Pakistani Embassy denied and described in April as “totally fallacious.” Mr. Ali also held several visas that had been issued by Pakistan and Iran, prosecutors said.
Mr. Ali had also made other eccentric claims about his background, prosecutors said: That he had participated in the capture of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo; that his family of him was Middle-Eastern royalty; and that he was a Calvin Klein model.
Mr. Taherzadeh similarly made up his back story to agents, prosecutors said, telling them that he had been an Army Ranger, a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security, a US air marshal and an undercover officer who had once killed someone in a shootout.
When apartment complex workers confronted Mr. Taherzadeh, Mr. Ali and an unidentified person about their failure to pay rent, the men would blame it on issues with a fictitious management at United States Special Police and a slow-moving federal bureaucracy, prosecutors said. In his unpaid apartment, Mr. Taherzadeh installed surveillance cameras to record women having sex and kept an unlicensed gun that was fully loaded with large-capacity ammunition, prosecutors said.
In one apartment named The Crossing, Mr. Taherzadeh and Mr. Ali used their personas as law enforcement officials to obtain parking spots for themselves and Secret Service members, prosecutors said.
One apartment, The Sonnet, eventually evicted Mr. Taherzadeh for not paying rent.
The recruitment efforts of Mr. Taherzadeh and Mr. Ali for the United States Special Police largely hinged on their portrayal as federal officers, prosecutors said. In one instance, Mr. Taherzadeh instructed a recruit to conduct weapons-handling drills. In another, he showed a separate recruit a fake Homeland Security investigative file labeled “confidential.”
And much of their impersonation scheme, prosecutors said, was rooted in attention to details: They had a machine to create and program “personal identification verification” cards; a black SUV with police lights in it; scores of guns; law enforcement tactical gear; clothing with police badges; a fingerprinting kit; and equipment used to breach doors. The authorities also found about 30 hard drives, hard drive copying equipment and other surveillance gear.
The investigation into Mr. Taherzadeh and Mr. Ali began after a letter carrier with the United States Postal Service was assaulted in March at an apartment complex where the men had been living. A US postal inspector went to the complex to interview witnesses, including the two men.
The men told the inspector that they were investigators with the US Special Police Investigation Unit, according to the affidavit. They said they were part of an undercover investigation into gang-related activity as well as an inquiry into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
The inspector reported the information to the Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General, which referred the case to the FBI
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Monday his investigators found just one dead voter after thoroughly reviewing findings from a partisan review of the 2020 election that alleged 282 ballots were cast in the name of someone who had died.
The finding by the Republican attorney general, who is running for the US Senate in Tuesday’s primary, further discredits the review conducted last year. The review was led by an inexperienced firm, Cyber Ninjas, and conducted largely by supporters of Donald Trump who falsely believe the election was stolen from him.
“Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas reported as dead, and many were very surprised to learn that they were allegedly deceased,” Brnovich wrote in a letter to state Senate President Karen Fann, who used her subpoena power to obtain ballots, tabulators and election data and hired Cyber Ninjas for what she called a “forensic audit.”
For the one substantiated incident, “the facts of the case did not support prosecution,” said Ryan Anderson, a spokesman for Brnovich. He said the dead person’s ballot was not counted. None of the three criminal cases the attorney general has filed over dead voters was connected to the Cyber Ninjas investigation, he said.
Brnovich did not say whether any charges had been filed in connection with the one substantiated incident, and his spokesman, Ryan Anderson, did not respond to a phone call and text message. All other people listed by Cyber Ninjas as deceased “were found to be current voters,” Brnovich wrote.
Combined with other reports of dead voters, Brnovich’s Election Integrity Unit investigated a combined 409 names and produced “only a handful of potential cases.”
Brnovich vouched for the legitimacy of the election immediately after President Joe Biden’s victory but later publicized his investigation of the Cyber Ninjas allegations as he sought Trump’s endorsement for his Senate campaign. Trump ultimately released a scathing statement saying Brnovich wasn’t doing enough to advance his claims of fraud and endorsed businessman Blake Masters.
Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the election was tainted. The former president’s allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by courts, including by judges Trump appointed.
The Cyber Ninjas review looked at data, machines and ballots from Maricopa County, the state’s largest. It produced a report that experts described as riddled with errors, bias and flawed methodology. Still, even that partisan review came up with a vote tally that would not have altered the outcome, finding that Biden won by 360 more votes than the official results.
