TAIPEI, Aug 8 (Reuters) – China’s military announced fresh military drills on Monday in the seas and airspace around Taiwan – a day after the scheduled end of its largest ever exercises to protest against last week’s visit to Taipei by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
China’s Eastern Theater Command said it would conduct joint drills focusing on anti-submarine and sea assault operations – confirming the fears of some security analysts and diplomats that Beijing would continue to maintain pressure on Taiwan’s defences.
Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last week infuriated China, which regards the self-ruled island as its own and responded with test launches of ballistic missiles over Taipei for the first time, as well as ditching some lines of dialogue with Washington.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
The duration and precise location of the latest drills is not yet known, but Taiwan has already eased flight restrictions near the six earlier Chinese exercise areas surrounding the island.
Shortly before the latest drills were announced, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen met visiting St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, telling him she was moved by his determination to visit despite China’s military pressure. read more
“Prime Minister Gonsalves has expressed in recent days that the Chinese military drills would not prevent him from visiting friends in Taiwan. These statements have deeply touched us,” Tsai said at a welcome ceremony for Gonsalves in Taipei.
It was unclear if Tsai had invited Gonsalves before or after Pelosi’s visit. “We don’t disclose internal planning or communications between governments,” the Taiwanese foreign ministry said when asked by Reuters.
Beyond the firing of 11 short-range ballistic missiles during the four earlier days of exercises, Chinese warships, fighter jets and drones maneuvered extensively around the island.
Shortly before those drills ended on Sunday, about 10 warships each from China and Taiwan maneuvered at close quarters around the unofficial median line of the Taiwan Strait, according to a person familiar with the situation who is involved with security planning.
MILITARY TALKS SHELVED
Taiwan’s defense ministry said Chinese military ships, aircraft, and drones had simulated attacks on the island and its navy. It said it had sent aircraft and ships to react “appropriately”.
China’s defense ministry meanwhile maintained its diplomatic pressure on the United States, defending its shelving of military-to-military talks in protest at Pelosi’s visit.
“The current tense situation in the Taiwan Strait is entirely provoked and created by the US side on its own initiative, and the US side must bear full responsibility and serious consequences for this,” defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian said in an online post.
“The bottom line cannot be broken, and communication requires sincerity,” Wu said.
China called off formal talks involving theatre-level commands, defense policy co-ordination and military maritime consultations on Friday as Pelosi left the region.
Pentagon, State Department and White House officials condemned the move, describing it as an irresponsible over-reaction.
China’s cutting of some of its few communication links with the US military raises the risk of an accidental escalation over Taiwan at a critical moment, according to security analysts and diplomats. read more
One US official noted that Chinese officials had not responded to calls from senior Pentagon officials amid the tensions last week, but that they did not see this as a formal severing of ties with senior figures, such as US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Asked directly about those reports, defense ministry spokesman Wu said, “China’s relevant counter-measures are a necessary warning to the provocations of the United States and Taiwan, and a legitimate defense of national sovereignty and security.”
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Beijing Newsroom and Sarah Wu in Taipei; writing by Greg Torode. Editing by Gerry Doyle and Raju Gopalakrishnan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Aug 7 (Reuters) – Police in New Mexico on Sunday asked for the public’s help in locating a “vehicle of interest” in their probe of four fatal shootings of Muslim men whose slayings in Albuquerque over the past nine months are believed by investigators to be related.
Mayor Tim Keller said state authorities were working to provide an “extra police presence at mosques during times of prayer” as the investigation proceeds in New Mexico’s largest city, home to as many as 5,000 Muslims out of some 565,000 total residents.
The latest victim, police said, was gunned down on Friday night, in a killing that local Islamic leaders said occurred shortly after he had attended funeral services for two others slain during the past couple of weeks.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
All three of those men, as well as the very first victim who was shot dead in November, were Muslim men of Pakistani or Afghan descent who resided in Albuquerque.
Police have given few details of the latest murder but described the first three killings as ambush shootings. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has characterized them as “targeted killings of Muslim residents.”
US President Joe Biden posted a message on Twitter on Sunday expressing solidarity with the Muslim community, adding, “These hateful attack have no place in America.”
Albuquerque police officials told a news conference hours later that they were following a number of leads and issued a bulletin with photos of a four-door, dark gray Volkswagen sedan with tinted windows that they described as a “vehicle of interest” in the investigation.
It was left unclear how the car was tied to the case, and police said they had yet to determine whether they were seeking one or more suspects in the investigation.
Mayor of Albuquerque Tim Keller speaks to the public during an event to mark Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Albuquerque, New Mexico, US, October 11, 2021. REUTERS/Mostafa Bassim
Read More
The three latest victims belonged to the same mosque, according to Tahir Gauba, a spokesperson for the Islamic Center of New Mexico. Officials were withholding the identity of the man killed on Friday pending notification of next of kin.
But Gauba said he was killed shortly after attending the funeral for the two previous victims.
Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, a planning director for the city of Espanola who immigrated from Pakistan, was shot dead on Aug. 1 outside his apartment complex, less than a week after Aftab Hussein, 41, from Albuquerque’s large Afghan community, was found slain on July 26 near the city’s international district, police said. Hussain also worked on the campaign team for US Representative Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico.
Police said they were treating those two slayings, along with Friday’s killing, as linked to the Nov. 7 murder of 62-year-old Mohammad Ahmadi, also a Muslim from Afghanistan, who was shot to death in a parking lot outside a halal supermarket and coffee.
“There are several things in common with all four of the homicides,” city police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told reporters on Sunday.
Asked whether investigators consider the killings to be hate crimes, Gallegos said, “Hate is determined by motive, and we don’t know that motive at this point.”
Gauba estimated there are 3,000 to 5,000 Muslims living in and around Albuquerque, accounting for about 85% of the entire state’s Islamic population.
New Mexico State Police, the FBI and the US Marshals Service are among the agencies assisting in the investigation.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Edwina Gibbs
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Aug 7 (Reuters) – The Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general led a team that gained unauthorized access to voting equipment while hunting for evidence to support former President Donald Trump’s false election-fraud claims, according to a Reuters analysis of court filings and public records .
The analysis shows that people working with Matthew DePerno – the Trump-endorsed nominee for the state’s top law-enforcement post – examined a vote tabulator from Richfield Township, a conservative stronghold of 3,600 people in northern Michigan’s Roscommon County.
The Richfield security breach is one of four similar incidents being investigated by Michigan’s current attorney general, Democrat Dana Nessel. Under state law, it is a felony to seek or provide unauthorized access to voting equipment.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
DePerno did not respond to a request for comment.
The involvement of a Republican attorney general nominee in a voting-system breach comes amid a national effort by backers of Trump’s fraud falsehoods to win state offices that could prove critical in deciding any future contested elections.
In Arizona last week, three Trump-backed candidates who claim the 2020 election was stolen won Republican primary elections for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, the top official overseeing elections. In Pennsylvania, Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano has vowed to decertify any election he considers fraudulent through his appointed secretary of state. Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania are all presidential election battlegrounds.
Trump lavished praise on DePerno before a large audience this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas. “He’s going to make sure that you are going to have law and order and fair elections,” Trump said, pumping his fist as DePerno stood up in the audience and waved. “That’s an important race.”
Reuters established the connection between Michigan’s DePerno and the Richfield voting-system breach by matching the serial number of the township’s tabulator to a photograph in a publicly released report written by a member of DePerno’s team. The photograph showed a printed record of a vote-tabulator’s activity, which also included a string of ten digits. Reuters confirmed that those numbers matched the serial number of a Richfield vote tabulator through public records obtained from the township. State officials had previously identified Richfield as the site of a voting-equipment security breach.
DePerno had submitted the report as evidence in a failed lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in a different Michigan county, Antrim. The report claimed that Dominion and ES&S election equipment was vulnerable to hacking and vote-rigging.
Reuters asked an election-security expert to review the materials. Kevin Skoglund, president and chief technologist for the nonpartisan Citizens for Better Elections, an election-security advocacy organization, said the matching numbers indicate that DePerno’s team had access to the Richfield Township tabulator or its data drives.
DePerno led the “Michigan Antrim County Election Lawsuit & Investigation Team,” which included himself, Detroit attorney Stefanie Lambert, private investigator Michael Lynch, and James Penrose, a former analyst for the National Security Agency, according to promotional material for a July 2021 fundraising event in California sponsored by a conservative group that advertised appearances by DePerno’s team members Penrose, who had assisted other prominent Trump allies in their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, authored the report that Reuters tied to a tabulator involved in the Richfield Township security breach.
Lambert, Lynch and Penrose did not respond to requests for comment.
The previously unreported link to GOP attorney general candidate DePerno and his associates comes as Democratic incumbent Nessel advances her probe, which she launched in February 2022. Nessel is seeking re-election, which would create a conflict of interest if her political opponent became a suspect in her office’s investigation.
The attorney general’s office declined to comment on the specifics of its investigation but said Nessel would “take appropriate steps to remove herself and her department should a conflict arise.”
Those steps include requesting a special prosecutor to look into the election breaches, according to a letter from the attorney general advising the secretary of state of the request. The request was sent to the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, an autonomous entity within the attorney general’s office that would decide whether a special prosecutor is warranted.
Nessel’s office started investigating the voting-system security breaches after a request from Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. In a February statement, Benson said that “at least one unnamed third party” had gained access to tabulation machines and data drives from Richfield Township and Roscommon County.
Jake Rollow, a spokesperson for the secretary of state, said the office does not believe DePerno’s team had legal approval to access ES&S voting equipment. Rollow declined to comment further on the attorney general’s investigation but emphasized its importance. “To ensure Michigan’s elections are secure in the future, there must be consequences now for the people who illegally accessed the state’s voting machines,” he said.
ES&S did not respond to requests for comment.
SEIZING ON A GLITCH
Voting and vote-counting equipment is subject to strict chain-of-custody requirements to ensure accuracy and guard against fraud. Access to tabulators is tightly restricted, and any machine compromised by an unauthorized person is typically taken out of commission.
The four cases being investigated by Nessel are among at least 17 incidents identified by Reuters nationwide in which Trump supporters gained or attempted to gain unauthorized access to voting equipment. Michigan accounts for 11 of them, reflecting how conspiracy theorists sought to capitalize on an error in the initial reporting of 2020 results in Antrim County to allege widespread fraud in the state, without evidence.
A state review of the Antrim County incident found that a failure to properly update software caused a computer glitch that resulted in county officials initially reporting Joe Biden as the winner of the reliably Republican county. The officials quickly acknowledged and corrected the mistake, and Trump’s victory was affirmed by a hand tally of every vote cast.
DePerno seized on the confusion, filing a lawsuit making the unfounded claim that tabulators made by Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems had been rigged to flip votes from Trump to Biden in Antrim County.
“No evidence of machine fraud or manipulation in the 2020 election has ever been presented in Michigan or any other state, and courts in Michigan and elsewhere have dismissed such claims as baseless,” Dominion spokesman Tony Fratto said.
In early December 2020, 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer granted DePerno’s legal team permission to take forensic images of Antrim County voting equipment to search for evidence of election fraud. The court order was limited to Antrim, where only Dominion equipment was used. The order did not extend to other jurisdictions or machines made by other voting-system providers.
Yet DePerno’s team submitted two reports in April 2021 to the court that revealed they had also examined equipment made by Election Systems & Software (ES&S).
The report written by Penrose, dated April 9, contained a photograph of a “summary tape” with information about a tabulator’s activity on election night, such as when results were submitted to the county. Among other things, the tape showed a sequence of figures: 0317350497.
That is the serial number for one of two ES&S DS200 tabulators Richfield Township used during the 2020 vote, according to copies of documents obtained by Reuters through a public-records request.
Skoglund, the election-security specialist consulted by Reuters, said the matching numbers indicate that the report’s author had access to either Richfield’s tabulator or a data drive containing the results and other information on the machine.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the Penrose photograph is output from that same DS200 — that he had physical hands-on access,” Skoglund told Reuters.
A second person familiar with the workings of ES&S voting equipment examined the records obtained by Reuters and concurred that the tabulator tape shown in the Penrose report matches the machine with the same serial number.
MORE MACHINES
The Penrose report was part of a series of submissions from DePerno’s team that failed to convince Judge Elsenheimer. At an April 12, 2021 hearing, the judge shut down DePerno’s attempt to subpoena several Michigan counties for access to election data and equipment.
DePerno gave an interview later the same day to two right-wing websites, Gateway Pundit and 100 Percent Fed Up. DePerno said that Penrose had examined an ES&S machine. I added that the team had also looked at Dominion equipment “outside of Antrim County.” The attorney said he didn’t consider Elsenheimer’s ruling a dead-end.
“Maybe there will be some county somewhere that decides to come forward and cooperate. That would be nice,” DePerno told the websites.
In reality, DePerno’s associates had already taken possession of voting machines from local officials in Richfield Township in Roscommon County and Lake Township in Missaukee County, according to police records and text messages acquired through public records requests.
Lynch, the private investigator who worked with DePerno on his Antrim county case, exchanged texts with Lake Township clerk Korinda Winkelmann on March 20, 2021. Lynch asked for help accessing a Dominion device she had provided to him, according to the messages, obtained by Reuters through a public-records requests. Winkelman shared with Lynch an operational manual and a password for the device, while also speculating on how election systems might be rigged.
Lynch had no authorization to examine the machine, and the incident remains under state investigation. Winkelmann did not respond to requests for comment.
Elsenheimer dismissed the Antrim suit in May 2021, a decision that was affirmed this year by the Michigan Court of Appeals. DePerno’s fraud claims have been widely debunked. A Republican-led Michigan Senate committee issued a scathing report in June 2021 that called DePerno’s various allegations “demonstrably false.”
In September 2021, Trump endorsed DePerno as the Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general, praising his pursuit of “fair and accurate elections” and his ongoing effort to “reveal the truth about the Nov. 3 presidential election scam.”
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Nathan Layne; additional reporting by Peter Eisler; edited by Brian Thevenot
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Reuters) – The US Senate on Sunday passed a sweeping $430 billion bill intended to fight climate change, lower drug prices and raise some corporate taxes, a major victory for President Joe Biden that Democrats hope will aid their chances of keeping control of Congress in this year’s elections.
After a marathon, 27-hour weekend session of debate and Republican efforts to derail the package, the Senate approved the legislation known as the Inflation Reduction Act by a 51-50 party line vote Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking ballot.
The action sends the measure to the House of Representatives for a vote expected Friday that could forward it, in turn, to the White House for Biden’s signature. In a statement, Biden urged the House to act as soon as possible and said he looked forward to signing the bill into law.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
“The Senate is making history,” an elated Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, after pumping his fists in the air as cheered Democrats and their staff members responded to the vote with a standing ovation.
“To Americans who’ve lost faith that Congress can do big things, this bill is for you,” he said. “This bill is going to change America for decades.”
Schumer said the legislation contains “the boldest clean energy package in American history” to fight climate change while reducing consumer costs for energy and some medicines.
Democrats have drawn harsh attacks from Republicans over the legislation’s $430 billion in new spending and roughly $740 billion in new revenue. read more
Nevertheless, Democrats hope its passage, ahead of an August recess, will help the party’s House and Senate candidates in the Nov. 8 midterm elections at a time when Biden is suffering from anemic public approval ratings amid high inflation.
The legislation is aimed at reducing carbon emissions and shifting consumers to green energy, while cutting prescription drug costs for the elderly and tightening enforcement on taxes for corporations and the wealthy.
Because the measure pays for itself and reduces the federal deficit over time, Democrats contend that it will help bring down inflation, an economic liability that has also weighed on their hopes of retaining legislative control in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
US Vice President Kamala Harris reacts as she speaks to the media about the passing of the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US August 7, 2022. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
Read More
Republicans, arguing that the bill will not address inflation, have denounced the measure as a job-killing, left-wing spending wish list that could undermine growth when the economy is in danger of falling into recession.
Democrats approved the bill by using a parliamentary maneuver called reconciliation, which allows budget-related legislation to avoid the 100-seat chamber’s 60-vote threshold for most bills and pass on a simple majority.
After several hours of debate, the Senate began a rapid-fire “vote-a-rama” on Democratic and Republican amendments on Saturday evening that stretched into Sunday afternoon.
Democrats repelled more than 30 Republican amendments, points of order and motions, all intended to scupper the legislation. Any change in the bill’s contents wrought by an amendment could have unraveled the Democrats’ 50-senator coalition needed to keep the legislation on track.
NO CAP ON INSULIN COSTS
But they were unable to muster the votes necessary to retain a provision to cap soaring insulin costs at $35 a month on the private health insurance market, which fell outside the reconciliation rules. Democrats said the legislation would still limit insulin costs for those on Medicare.
In a foreshadowing of the coming fall election campaign, Republicans used their amendment defeats to attack vulnerable Democrats who are seeking reelection in November.
“Democrats vote again to allow chaos on the southern border to continue,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement that named Democratic Senators Mark Kelly of Arizona, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Raphael Warnock of Georgia. All four are facing tight contests for reelection.
The bill was more than 18 months in the making as Biden’s original sweeping Build Back Better plan was whittled down in the face of opposition from Republicans and key legislators from his own party.
“It required many compromises. Doing important things almost always does,” Biden said in a statement.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Richard Cowan, Rose Horowitch, David Morgan and Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone, Mary Milliken, Lisa Shumaker and Cynthia Osterman
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
WASHINGTON, Aug 6 (Reuters) – The US Senate on Saturday began debating a Democratic bill to address key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda – tackling climate change, lowering the costs of medication for the elderly and energy, while forcing corporations and the wealthy to pay more taxes.
The debate began after the Senate voted 51-50 to move ahead with the legislation. Vice President Kamala Harris broke a tie vote, with all 50 Republicans in opposition.
The Senate was set to debate the bill for up to 20 hours before diving into an arduous, time-consuming amendment process called a “vote-a-rama.”
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Democrats and Republicans were poised to reject each other’s amendments, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer maneuvered to keep a his 50-member caucus united behind a bill that was negotiated over several months. If even one Democrat were to peel off, the entire effort would be doomed in the evenly split 50-50 Senate. read more
Earlier in the day, the Senate parliamentarian determined that the lion’s share of the healthcare provisions in the $430 billion bill could be passed with only a simple majority, bypassing a filibuster rule requiring 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to advance most legislation and enabling Democrats to pass it over Republican objections.
Democrats hope that the legislation will give a boost to their candidates in the Nov. 8 midterm elections in which Biden’s party is in an uphill battle to retain its narrow control of the Senate and House of Representatives. The Democrats cast the legislation as a vehicle to combat inflation, a prime concern of US voters this year.
“The bill, when passed, will meet all of our goals: fighting climate change, lowering healthcare costs, closing tax loopholes abused by the wealthy and reducing the deficit,” Schumer said in a Senate speech.
There are three main parts to the bill’s tax provisions: a 15% minimum tax on corporations and the closing of loopholes that the wealthy can use to avoid paying taxes; tougher IRS enforcement; and a new excise tax on stock buybacks.
The legislation has $430 billion in new spending along with raising more than $740 billion in new revenues. read more
Democrats have said the legislation by 2030 would result in a 40% reduction in US carbon emissions, blamed for climate change.
‘PRICE-FIXING’
The measure would also allow the Medicare government health insurance program for the elderly to begin negotiating in 2026 with the pharmaceutical industry over prices on a limited number of prescription drug prices as a way of reducing costs. It also would place a $2,000-per-year cap on out-of-pocket medication costs under a Medicare drug program.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell attacked the provision involving negotiating drug prices, comparing it to past “price-fixing” attempts by countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and the former Soviet Union.
“Their policy would bring about a world where many fewer new drugs and treatments get invented in the first place as companies cut back on R&D,” McConnell said in a floor speech, referring to research and development.
While senators debated the policies embedded in the bill, its political ramifications were also on display.
In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Saturday, former President Donald Trump predicted fallout for Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, two key Democratic senators: “If this deal passes, they are both going to lose their next elections.”
But Manchin and Sinema are not up for re-election until 2024 and many of the provisions of the bill are popular with voters.
The legislation is a scaled-down version of a far broader, more expensive measure that many Democrats on the party’s left had hoped to approve last year. That measure stalled when Manchin, a centrist, balked, complaining that it would exacerbate inflationary pressures.
The bill calls for billions of dollars to encourage the production of more electric vehicles and foster clean energy, though automakers say sourcing rules will sharply limit how many electric vehicles qualify for tax credits.
It would also set $4 billion in new federal drought relief funds, a provision that could help the re-election campaigns of Democratic Senators Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada and Mark Kelly in Arizona.
One provision cut from the bill would have forced drug companies to refund money to both government and private health plans if drug prices rise more quickly than inflation.
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, a leading progressive, has criticized the bill for failing to go far enough and said he planned to offer amendments that would revive a series of social programs he pushed last year, including broadening the number of prescription drugs Medicare could negotiate prices on and providing government-subsidized dental, vision and hearing aid.
His amendments were expected to fail.
Republicans have signaled that they will offer amendments touching on other issues, including controlling immigrants coming across the US border with Mexico and enhancing policing to curtail rising crime rates in American cities since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Richard Cowan and Makini Brice; additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici, David Shepardson and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Will Dunham, Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Aug 5 (Reuters) – Scientists say that climate change is increasing the likelihood of lightning strikes across the United States, after lightning struck at a square near the White House, leaving three people dead and one other in critical condition.
The hot, humid conditions in Washington, DC, on Thursday were primed for electricity. Air temperatures topped out at 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34 degrees Celsius) – or 5F (3C) higher than the 30-year normal maximum temperature for Aug. 4, according to the National Weather Service.
More heat can draw more moisture into the atmosphere, while also encouraging rapid updraft – two key factors for charged particles, which lead to lightning. A key study released in 2014 in the journal Science warned that the number of lightning strikes could increase by 50% in this century in the United States, with each 1 C (1.8 F) of warming translating into a 12% rise in the number of lightning strikes.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Fast-warming Alaska has seen a 17% rise in lightning activity since the cooler 1980s. And in typically dry California, a siege of some 14,000 lightning strikes during August 2020 sparked some of the state’s biggest wildfires on record.
Beyond the United States, there is evidence that lightning strikes are also shooting up in India and Brazil.
But even as lightning strikes increase, being hit by one is still extremely rare in the United States, experts say. Roughly 40 million lightning bolts touch down in the country every year, according to the Center for Disease Control – with the odds of being struck less than 1 in a million.
A lightning strike hits a tree in Lafayette Park across from the White House, killing two people and injuring two others below, during an August 4 evening thunderstom as seen in this framegrab from a Reuters TV video camera mounted on a nearby rooftop in Washington, US August 4, 2022. REUTERS/REUTERS TV
Read More
Among those who are hit, about 90% survive the order, the CDC says. The country counted 444 deaths from lightning strikes from 2006 through 2021.
The two men and two women struck by lightning on Thursday while visiting Washington’s Lafayette Square, just north of the White House, were among the unlucky few – struck by a bolt that hit the ground during a violent, afternoon thunderstorm.
The lightning hit near a tree that stands yards (meters) away from the fence that surrounds the presidential residence and offices across from the square, which is often crowded with visitors, especially in the summer months.
All four victims sustained critical, life-threatening injuries, and were taken to area hospitals. read more Two of them later died: James Mueller, 76, and Donna Mueller, 75, from Janesville, Wisconsin, the Metropolitan Police Department said.
“We are saddened by the tragic loss of life,” the White House said in a statement on Friday. “Our hearts are with the families who lost loved ones, and we are praying for those still fighting for their lives.”
Later on Friday a third victim, a 29-year-old male, was pronounced dead, the Metropolitan Police Department said. Further details on the victim were being held until the next-of-kin were notified.
Because heat and moisture are often needed to make lightning, most strikes happen in the summer. In the United States, the populous, subtropical state of Florida sees the most people killed by lightning.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Gloria Dickie in London; Additional reporting by Frank McGurty in New York and Chris Gallagher in Washington; Editing by Louise Heavens, Mark Porter & Shri Navaratnam
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott holds a news conference with state agencies and local officials at Uvalde High School, three days after a gunman killed nineteen children and two adults in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas, US May 27, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
NEW YORK, Aug 5 (Reuters) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Friday he has started to send buses carrying migrants to New York City in an effort to push responsibility for border crossers to Democratic mayors and US President Joe Biden, to Democrat.
The first bus arrived early on Friday at the city’s Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan. Volunteers were putting groups of migrants in taxis headed to a nearby intake center, where they said some would be processed for admission to city homeless shelters.
Abbott, who is running for a third term as governor in November elections, has sent more than 6,000 migrants to Washington since April in a broader effort to combat illegal immigration and call out Biden for his more welcoming policies. read more
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Abbott said New York City Mayor Eric Adams could provide services and housing for the new arrivals.
“I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief,” Abbott said in a statement.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, another Republican, has followed Abbott’s lead and bused another 1,000 to Washington.
US border authorities have made record numbers of arrests under Biden although many are repeat crossers. Some migrants who are not able to be expelled quickly to Mexico or their home countries under a COVID-era policy are allowed into the United States, often to pursue asylum claims in US immigration court.
New York City Mayor Adams’ office has in recent weeks criticized the bussing efforts to Washington, saying some migrants were making their way to New York City and overwhelming its homeless shelter system.
On Friday the mayor’s Press Secretary Fabien Levy said Abbott was using “human beings as political pawns,” calling it “a disgusting, and an embarrassing stain on the state of Texas.”
Levy said New York would continue to “welcome asylum seekers with open arms, as we always have, but we are asking for resources to help do so,” calling for support from federal officials.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has also said her city’s shelter system has been taxed by migrant arrivals and last month called on the Biden administration to deploy military troops to assist with receiving the migrants, a request that has frustrated White House officials. read more
A US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had declined a request for the DC National Guard to help with the transportation and reception of migrants in the city because it would hurt the troops’ readiness.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Sofia Ahmed in New York and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Daniel Wallis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Aug 5 (Reuters) – Lawyers for parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting began presenting evidence on Alex Jones’s wealth as they seek punitive damages on top of $4.1 million awarded by a Texas jury for the US conspiracy theorist’s false claims that the massacre was a hoax.
Forensic economist Bernard Pettingill on Friday testified on behalf of the parents of slain 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, who say they suffered years of harassment after Jones spread falsehoods about the killing of 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012.
“He promulgated some hate speech and some misinformation but he made a lot of money and he monetized that,” Pettingill said, describing Jones as a “very successful man.”
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
A 12-person jury on Thursday said Jones must pay the parents $4.1 million in compensatory damages for spreading conspiracy theories about the massacre. That verdict followed a two-week trial in Austin, Texas, where Jones’ radio show and webcast Infowars are based.
Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis testified that Jones’ followers harassed them for years in the false belief that the parents lied about their son’s death.
Jones sought to distance himself from the conspiracy theories during his testimony, apologizing to the parents and acknowledging that Sandy Hook was “100% real.”
Jones’ company, Free Speech Systems LLC, declared bankruptcy last week. Jones said during a Monday broadcast that the filing will help the company stay on the air while it appeals.
The bankruptcy declaration paused a similar defamation suit by Sandy Hook parents in Connecticut where, as in Texas, he has already been found liable.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Howard Goller and Mark Porter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
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.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Scott Malone, Additional reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Shri Navaratnam and Tom Hogue
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
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
Read More
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.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Register
Reporting by Scott Malone in Washington and Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Marla Dickerson
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
