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Key US Senator Sinema agrees to $430 billion drug, energy bill

Key US Senator Sinema agrees to $430 billion drug, energy bill

WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Democratic US Senator Kyrsten Sinema said on Thursday she agreed to “move forward” on a $430 billion drug pricing, energy and tax bill, subject to a Senate arbitrator’s approval of the bill, which Democrats intend to pass over Republican objections.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said earlier on Thursday the chamber would convene on Saturday to vote on a motion to proceed and then begin debate on the bill.

The bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act, introduced last week by Schumer and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, is a key priority for Democrats and President Joe Biden ahead of November’s election battle for control of the US Congress.

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The act will help people save money on prescription drugs and health premiums, Biden said in a statement on Thursday.

“It will make our tax system more fair by making corporations pay a minimum tax,” he said.

With the 100-seat Senate split 50-50, Democrats plan to pass the bill without Republican support through a parliamentary process known as reconciliation.

But they cannot afford to lose support from a single lawmaker. Sinema’s agreement was a critical breakthrough. Another worry is COVID-19 – senators can only vote in person, so Schumer will need his full caucus to be present and healthy to pass the measure if Republicans remain unified in opposition.

Sinema said she had reached an agreement with other Democrats to remove a provision that would impose new taxes on carried interest. Without the provision, private equity and hedge fund financiers can continue to pay the lower capital gains tax rate on much of their income, instead of the higher income tax rate paid by wage-earners.

She cautioned that her agreement to “move forward” was subject to the review of the Senate parliamentarian. The parliamentarian has to approve the contents of the bill to allow it to move forward through the “reconciliation” process that Democrats plan to use to bypass the chamber’s normal rules requiring 60 Senators to agree to advance most legislation.

Schumer, in a statement, said, he believed he now had the votes to pass the bill.

“The agreement preserves the major components of the Inflation Reduction Act, including reducing prescription drug costs, fighting climate change, closing tax loopholes exploited by big corporations and the wealthy, and reducing the deficit by $300 billion,” Schumer said.

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Reporting by Scott Malone, Additional reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Shri Navaratnam and Tom Hogue

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US charges four Kentucky police officers in Breonna Taylor killing

US charges four Kentucky police officers in Breonna Taylor killing

WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) – US prosecutors on Thursday charged four current and former Louisville, Kentucky, police officers for their roles in the botched 2020 raid that killed Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was in her home, in a case that sparked nationwide protests.

The charges represented the Justice Department’s latest effort to crack down on abuses and racial disparities in policing, following a wave of controversial police killings of Black Americans.

Former Louisville Metropolitan Police Department Detective Joshua Jaynes and current Sergeant Kyle Meany were charged with civil rights violations and obstruction of justice for using false information to obtain the search warrant that authorized the botched March 13, 2020, raid that killed Taylor in her home, the Justice Department said. Current Detective Kelly Goodlett was charged with conspiring with Jaynes to falsify the warrant and then cover up the falsification.

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A fourth officer, former Detective Brett Hankison, was charged with civil rights violations for allegedly using excessive force, US Attorney Merrick Garland said.

“Breonna Taylor should be alive today,” Garland told a news conference. “The Justice Department is committed to defending and protecting the civil rights of every person in this country. That was this department’s founding purpose, and it remains our urgent mission.”

The death of Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was one in a trio of cases that fueled a summer of protests against racial injustice and police violence two years ago, in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Today was a huge step toward justice,” lawyers for the Taylor family said in a statement following the news.

Louisville police on Thursday began the process of firing Meany and Goodlett, the department said in a statement. Hankison and Jaynes were previously fired by the department.

The Justice Department is also conducting an investigation into whether the Louisville Metro Government and Louisville police engaged in a pattern or practice of abusing residents’ civil rights.

Protesters celebrate after the announcement that the FBI arrested and brought civil rights charges against four current and former Louisville police officers for their roles in the 2020 fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, in Louisville, Kentucky, US, August 4, 2022. REUTERS/Amira Karaoud

NO KNOCK RAID

Louisville police were investigating alleged drug trafficking when they broke down the door of Taylor’s home in a “no-knock” raid, leading her boyfriend, who was carrying a legally owned firearm, to shoot at the officers, who then fired 22 shots into the apartment, killing Taylor, prosecutors said.

Hankison, prosecutors said, moved away from the door, firing 10 shots into Taylor’s apartment through a window and a glass door that were covered with blinds and curtains.

Hankison told a Kentucky grand jury that he opened fire once the shooting started. As he saw flashes light up the room, he said, he mistakenly believed one of the occupants was firing an assault-style rifle at his colleagues from him. Instead, mostly what he heard was other police firing their weapons. read more

Prosecutors said Jaynes and Goodlett met in a garage days after the shooting to agree on a false story to cover for the false evidence they had submitted to justify the botched raid.

Lawyer Stew Mathews, who represented Hankison at a trial in Jefferson County Circuit Court where he was acquitted in March of wanton endangerment, said he had spoken Thursday morning with the former detective as he was on his way to surrender to the FBI.

Mathews said the federal charges looked similar to the previous state charges Hankison had faced. Until Thursday, Hankison had been the only officer to face charges in connection with the raid.

“I’m sure Brett will be contesting this just like he did the other indication,” Mathews said.

Lawyer Thomas Clay, who represents Jaynes, could not be immediately reached for comment. It was not immediately clear if Meany and Goodlett had attorneys.

The killing of Taylor, along with other high-profile 2020 killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, sparked nationwide protests.

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Reporting by Scott Malone in Washington and Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Marla Dickerson

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Mistrial denied as jury weighs damages against Alex Jones in Sandy Hook defamation trial

Mistrial denied as jury weighs damages against Alex Jones in Sandy Hook defamation trial

Aug 4 (Reuters) – A Texas judge denied Alex Jones’s motion for a mistrial on Thursday as jury deliberations summarized in a defamation case over the US conspiracy theorist’s false claims about the Sandy Hook mass shooting.

The mistrial request followed the disclosure during the two-week-long trial that Jones’s lawyer accidentally sent two years of the US conspiracy theorist’s text messages to the plaintiffs.

Federico Andino Reynal, an attorney for Jones, told Judge Maya Guerra Gamble that attorneys for the plaintiffs should have immediately destroyed the records. An attorney for the parents, Mark Bankston, used the texts to undercut Jones’ testimony during cross-examination on Wednesday.

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Jones, founder of the Infowars radio show and webcast, is on trial to determine the amount of damages he owes for spreading falsehoods about the killing of 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012 .

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of slain six-year-old Jesse Lewis, are seeking as much as $150 million from Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems LLC, for what their lawyer has called a “vile campaign of defamation.”

Heslin told jurors on Tuesday that Jones’ falsehoods had made his life “hell” and led to a campaign of harassment and death threats against him by people who believed he lied about his son’s death.

Jones previously claimed that the mainstream media and gun-control activists conspired to fabricate the Sandy Hook tragedy and that the shooting was staged using crisis actors.

Jones, who later acknowledged that the shooting took place, told the Austin jury on Wednesday that it was “100% real.”

Gamble issued a rare default judgment against Jones in the case in 2021.

Free Speech Systems declared bankruptcy last week. Jones said during a Monday broadcast of Infowars that the filing will help the company stay on the air while it appeals.

Jones faces a similar defamation suit in Connecticut state court, where he has also been found liable in a default judgment.

The Sandy Hook gunman, Adam Lanza, 20, used a Remington Bushmaster rifle to carry out the massacre. It ended when Lanza killed himself with the approaching sound of police sirens.

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Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Amy Stevens and Howard Goller

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