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Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’
The Washington Post
Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show. The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case.
Leo, a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges, told Conway that he wanted her to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K,” the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.”
Clarence Thomas Had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition.
ProPublica
In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was far from home. For the previous decade, he had lived with the justice and his wife in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken legal custody of Martin when he was 6 years old and had recently told an interviewer he was “raising him as a son.”
Tuition at the boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month. But Thomas did not cover the bill. A bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court filings, shows the source of Martin’s tuition payment for that month: the company of billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow.
The payments extended beyond that month, according to Christopher Grimwood, a former administrator at the school. Crow paid Martin’s tuition the entire time he was a student there, which was about a year, Grimwood told ProPublica.
Four Proud Boys Convicted of Sedition in Key Jan. 6 Case
The New York Times
Four members of the Proud Boys, including their former leader Enrique Tarrio, were convicted on Thursday of seditious conspiracy for plotting to keep … Donald J. Trump in power after his election defeat by leading a violent mob in attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The fifth defendant in the case, Dominic Pezzola, was found not guilty on the sedition charges, although he was convicted of other serious felonies. […]
The sedition charge, which is rarely used and harks back to the Union’s efforts to protect the federal government against secessionist rebels during the Civil War, was also used in two separate trials against nine members of another far-right group, the Oath Keepers militia. Six of those defendants — including Stewart Rhodes, the organization’s founder and leader — were convicted of sedition; each of the others was found guilty of different serious felonies.
EuroNews
Ukraine's President Zelenskyy has used an unscheduled trip to the Dutch capital to predict that Vladimir Putin will one day pay for the consequences of his invasion by standing trial in the Hague.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took his campaign against Russia to the international war crimes court in the Netherlands on Thursday, saying he was certain Russian President Vladimir Putin would be convicted once his invasion of Ukraine is defeated.
In The Hague, where the International Criminal Court is based, Zelenskyy urged the global community to hold Putin accountable and told the ICC judges that Russia's leader: "deserves to be sentenced for [his] criminal actions right here in the capital of the international law".
Russian drones attack Ukrainian capital
Reuters
Russian drones attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Thursday evening, the fourth assault in as many days subjecting residents to spasms of gunfire and explosions, and at least one drone was shot down.
City authorities had declared an alert for Kyiv and the surrounding area. Residents who had gone to air raid shelters said the drones arrived more quickly than usual after the alerts were declared. Reuters witnesses heard gunfire and repeated heavier explosions near the city centre.
The attacks started just after 8 p.m. (1700 GMT) and lasted around 20 minutes. Ukraine's air force said in a statement that it had destroyed one of its own drones after the drone lost control over Kyiv region, probably because of a technical failure. It wasn't clear how many drones in total were destroyed.
White House dismisses ‘ludicrous’ Russian claims US planned Kremlin drone strikes
The Guardian
The White House has dismissed as “ludicrous” claims by Russia that Washington orchestrated drone strikes on Moscow, saying the US was not involved in the attack and accusing Russia of lying.
Asked about an accusation by the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, that Washington had ordered Wednesday’s strike, John Kirby, the US National Security Council spokesman, said: “One thing I can tell you for certain is that the US did not have any involvement with this incident, contrary to Mr Peskov’s lies, and that’s just what they are: lies.”
Army of hired guns: How Russia’s 'PMCs' are becoming the main invasion force
The Kyiv Independent
Private armies are illegal in Russia, so naturally, Moscow has been using them for decades. Now, it’s making them the main invasion force.
The rate at which Russia creates new private military company-like units sped up after 2014 but it really took off during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as Moscow needed more manpower to throw into the battle.
More oligarchs and officials are getting involved. After seeing how powerful Wagner Group was allowed to become and after its owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, flew too close to the sun by antagonizing the top brass, the scramble for new “private” formations kicked into high gear.
Despite renewed focus on Feinstein’s health, details of her condition are scarce
Los Angeles Times
[…] For years, Feinstein has swatted down growing concerns about her health, assuring constituents largely through statements to the press that she is still able to serve. But with her prolonged absence from the Capitol this spring, pressure is building on the 89-year-old senator and her staff to provide additional details about her condition.
With Democrats holding a bare-bones majority in the Senate, they need Feinstein’s vote to confirm judges, approve Biden Cabinet nominees and potentially avert a debt ceiling default. Senators must be at the Capitol to vote, and are not allowed to do so remotely. The predicament has put into stark relief the challenge of balancing a lawmaker’s privacy against the public’s right to know about the health of their representatives. […]
On Thursday, Feinstein released a statement pushing back on the criticism that she is impeding the confirmation of judges, pointing out that the Judiciary Committee has approved most of those that have come forward during her absence.
NC legislature passes abortion bill. Governor will veto, but GOP has supermajority
The Charlotte Observer
The Republican-written bill that prohibits abortions after 12 weeks in North Carolina passed the General Assembly on Thursday with a vote in the Senate after hours of debate.
With a supermajority in both the House and Senate, Republicans have the votes to override a veto from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who said earlier this week he would veto it, calling the bill “extreme.”
The bill passed the Senate 29-20, along party lines with all Republicans in favor and Democrats against. Sen. Todd Johnson had to leave before the vote. There are 30 Republican senators, which is a three-fifths supermajority. The House passed Senate Bill 20 along a party-line vote on Wednesday night.
After the Senate vote around 5 p.m. Thursday, the bill was sent to Cooper.
Gianforte signs 5 anti-abortion bills, plans to sign more
The Missoulian
Gov. Greg Gianforte signed into law five bills aimed at restricting abortion access in Montana on Wednesday, triggering a legal request from Planned Parenthood of Montana later in the day to block one of the bills.
“Today we’re protecting the lives of the most vulnerable amongst us — unborn children,” Gianforte, a Republican, told a crowd of activists and lawmakers gathered outside the Capitol during a bill-signing ceremony the morning after the 68th Legislature adjourned.
The bills include Senate Bill 154, which attempts to override the Montana Supreme Court’s longstanding recognition of abortion rights in the state. Known as the “Armstrong decision,” it holds that the state Constitution’s right to privacy protects access to abortions in Montana up to the point of viability.
Republican boycott in Oregon Senate extends to second day
Oregon Public Radio / AP
Republican members of the Oregon Senate on Thursday extended their boycott of Senate proceedings into a second day, delaying action by the majority Democrats on bills on gun safety, abortion rights and gender-affirming health care.
The stayaway prevented a quorum, with Senate President Rob Wagner calling for another try on Friday. Republican lawmakers have used walkouts in the past, but this time — if they continue to stay away — they’ll be testing a law approved overwhelmingly in a ballot measure last November that bans lawmakers with 10 unexcused absences from running for reelection. […]
Republicans say they are protesting over bill summaries not being written in plain language, citing a 1979 state law requiring summaries of bills to be readable by those with an eighth or ninth-grade education — measured by a score of at least 60 on the Flesch readability test, GOP Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp told a news conference Wednesday. […]
The existence of the readability law, passed by the Legislature in 1979 with bipartisan support, was discovered in April by a Republican caucus staffer. Knopp said he does not know when the law was last employed to make bill summaries easy to read.
Houston Chronicle
Since Democrats won political control of Harris County in 2018, the GOP-controlled Texas Legislature has trained its crosshairs on the state’s largest county, cracking down on elections, bail and other policies adopted by the new leadership.
This year, Republican lawmakers have ramped up their effort to rein in County Judge Lina Hidalgo and other county leaders, proposing numerous bills that would apply only to Harris County or that respond directly to something that happened there.
As in 2021, much of the Harris County-targeted legislation again centers on voting and elections, with a focus on giving the state more oversight over future elections. But that’s far from the only area. Republicans are also advancing bills that would, for instance, limit the county’s use of toll revenue and put its flood control district under state control.
Kemp to sign bill granting state new power to remove prosecutors
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Brian Kemp is set to sign a measure Friday to create a state commission with powers to investigate, sanction or remove local prosecutors.
The governor’s office said Kemp will sign the measure in Savannah, despite backlash from Democrats and prominent prosecutors who see it as a power grab that usurps the will of local voters.
The second-term governor is one of the chief advocates for the measure, which was approved mostly along party lines by state legislators who cited embarrassing examples of wayward prosecutors they say neglected their duties or violated the law.
It comes as a wave of district attorneys who represent left-leaning areas have said they won’t seek charges against low-level drug offenders or those who violate Georgia’s anti-abortion law. […]
One of the most ardent critics of the measure is Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who has framed the proposal as racist and retaliatory after voters elected a diverse bloc of prosecutors in 2020.
Variety
The organization that represents major Hollywood studios issued its first detailed response on Thursday to a series of issues raised by the Writers Guild of America in its three-day-old strike.
In a four-page document, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers pushed back on the guild’s claim that the studios are seeking to force writers into a “gig economy.” The AMPTP argued that writers enjoy fringe benefits and guaranteed employment terms that have “almost nothing in common” with standard gig jobs.
The AMPTP also rejected the need for a “hiring quota” for TV writers, saying it is “incompatible with the creative nature of our industry.” The guild is proposing a staffing mandate that, for most shows, would require a writers room of at least six to 12 writers.
CNN
Fox said in a court filing Wednesday that it settled the monster defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million to “buy peace,” and strongly opposed motions to unseal additional redacted material in the case.
“Fox agreed to settle this case, with this Court’s encouragement, in large part to bring to an end the continued media spectacle, and chill on First Amendment rights, that this case had become,” Katharine Mowery, an attorney for Fox, wrote in a letter to Judge Eric Davis.
“It would create profoundly perverse incentives the next time parties are encouraged to settle a high-profile trial,” Mowery added. “After all, if $787.5 million is not enough to buy peace, parties will certainly think twice before settling in the future.”
Donald Trump’s hostile deposition played for jurors as E. Jean Carroll NYC rape case wraps up
New York Daily News
As writer E. Jean Carroll wrapped up her civil rape case against Donald Trump Thursday, a Manhattan jury saw dramatic footage of [him] disparaging her in his videotaped deposition.
Trump, who was golfing in Ireland as his bombshell trial drew to a close, is seen calling Carroll a “nut job” and other insults in the October deposition with the columnist’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan.
Video of Trump confusing E. Jean Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples shown during lawsuit trial
CBS News
Jurors in the trial stemming from writer E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit against … Donald Trump watched video Thursday of the moment Trump confused Carroll for his ex-wife, Marla Maples.
During the October deposition, Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan showed Trump a late-1980s photo of him, his then-wife Ivana, Carroll and her ex-husband John Johnson. Referring to Carroll, Trump said, "It's Marla," referring to his second wife, Marla Maples.
"That's Marla, yeah. That's my wife," he said, before being corrected, and told it was Carroll. The writer sued Trump for defamation and battery after he said she "made up" allegations that he raped in her a New York City department store in the mid-1990s. Trump has adamantly denied the allegations and claimed Carroll "is not my type."
Trump should not be subject to 'muzzle' regarding indictment, his attorneys say
ABC News
Donald Trump should have no "muzzle" on him while he defends himself against a criminal indictment in Manhattan, his attorneys plan to argue during a hearing Thursday. […]
The district attorney's office had asked the judge to impose a protective order that would give Trump and his legal team access to evidence "subject to safeguards," in order to prevent Trump from posting about the materials on social media.
"Defendant Donald J. Trump has a longstanding and perhaps singular history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, trial jurors, grand jurors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him, putting those individuals and their families at considerable safety risk," assistant district attorney Catherine McCaw said in a court filing asking for the protective order.
Jordan Neely’s chokehold death on NYC subway denounced by politicians as protesters demand justice
NBC News
Politicians and lawmakers are demanding accountability after a 24-year-old New York City subway rider was seen on video putting a homeless man in a fatal chokehold, and protesters are gearing up for another round of demonstrations Thursday.
Jordan Neely, 30, was a subway busker who performed dance routines in costume as Michael Jackson and was struggling with mental illness. He was homeless when he was killed Monday after an altercation on a northbound F train, police said.
"Jordan Neely was a New Yorker, a son, and a performer, and he should still be alive," City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said in a statement Wednesday.
Adams, a Democrat, said Neely's death is another reminder of how far Black people "remain from an equitable and just society."
Air Force chaplain in Texas sentenced to 10 years for soliciting sex from a teenager
Stars and Stripes
An Air Force Reserve chaplain was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday for attempting to meet a minor for sex, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Maj. Jesse McKee Howard, 43, was convicted by a federal jury in January of attempted enticement of a minor. In addition to prison, Howard also received 10 years of probation and a $5,000 fine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas. He also must register as a sex offender.
The San Antonio Police Department arrested Howard on Nov. 12, 2020, as the chaplain thought he was meeting up with a 16-year-old transgender girl, according to court records. Howard had spent the previous days sending messages and sexually explicit photos and videos of himself from his on-base office to undercover agents posing as a teenager.
US intelligence chief sees ‘protracted’ fighting in Sudan
Al Jazeera
The United States expects the fighting between two military chiefs in Sudan to continue as neither has an incentive to seek peace, US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has said.
“The fighting in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is, we assess, likely to be protracted as both sides believe that they can win militarily and have few incentives to come to the negotiating table,” Haines told a US Senate hearing on Thursday.
“Both sides are seeking external sources of support, which, if successful, is likely to intensify the conflict and create a greater potential for spillover challenges in the region,” she said.
The complex alliances shaping Sudan's conflict
Deutsche Welle
The conflict in Sudan has seen two generals, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, fight for control over Africa's third-largest country and its vast resources.
Analysts believe the relationship between the warring men is so bad that fighting will only cease when one has defeated the other.
Al-Burhan leads the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) — while Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, controls the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group.
The pair united to oust strongman President Omar al-Bashir in 2019, and briefly rode a wave of popular support — as it seemed to Western eyes at least — that Sudan was taking tentative steps towards democracy.
This hope evaporated when Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dissolved the Transitional Sovereignty Council in 2021.
US-controlled ‘empire of hackers’ attacking China, other countries: report
South China Morning Post
The CIA has used powerful cyberweapons to attack other countries including China, according to a report released on Thursday in China.
The report, jointly released by China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre (CVERC) and cybersecurity company 360, accused the US Central Intelligence Agency of secretly orchestrating “peaceful evolution” and “colour revolutions” around the world with the use of superior technology.
According to the report, which was focused on numerous cyberattacks within China, investigators captured and extracted a large number of Trojan programs, functional plug-ins, and attack platform samples that they said were closely associated with the CIA, revealing an “empire of hackers” under US control.
Reuters
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan could potentially halt production by the world's largest advanced semiconductor chip maker, wiping out up to $1 trillion per year from the global economy per year in the first few years, the top U.S. intelligence official said on Thursday.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines presented what she called a "general estimate" during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
She noted that the advanced semiconductor chips produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd (TSMC) are used in 90 percent of "almost every category of electronic device around the world."
CBC News
But the MP at the centre of the case, Michael Chong, said Trudeau's response raises serious concerns about his grip on intelligence and security matters.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he directed Canada's spy agency to share more information with the federal government about threats to members of Parliament in response to reports that the Chinese government was looking to target a Conservative MP's family.
On Monday, the Globe and Mail, citing a 2021 Canadian Security Intelligence Service top-secret document and an anonymous national security source, reported that China's intelligence agency was seeking information about an unnamed Canadian MP's relatives "who may be located in the PRC, for further potential sanctions."
Intermodal ‘Continues to Suffer’
Railway Age
According to AAR, U.S. Class I railroads in April 2023 hauled 1,881,950 carloads and intermodal units, comprising 936,637 carloads (up 1.8%) and 945,313 containers and trailers (down 12.7%).
“Intermodal continues to suffer because of significantly lower trade activity at ports, weaker consumer demand, and continued excess retail inventories from the pandemic era,” said AAR Senior Vice President John T. Gray. “These headwinds won’t last forever. When they dissipate, railroads will be prepared to meet their customers’ needs safely and reliably.”
In April 2023, seven of the 20 carload commodity categories tracked by the AAR each month saw carload gains compared with April 2022. These included: coal, up 10,098 carloads or 4.1%; crushed stone, sand and gravel, up 7,901 carloads or 9.7%; and motor vehicles and parts, up 6,483 carloads or 12.3%. Commodities that saw declines in April 2023 from April 2022 included: chemicals, down 4,677 carloads or 3.4%; grain, down 3,294 carloads or 3.7%; and nonmetallic minerals, down 2,263 carloads or 14.9%.
A space station fell to Earth. An Australian boy brought it to San Francisco
SF Gate
For a surreal week in the summer of 1979, the world was watching the skies.
NASA’s abandoned space station, Skylab, was about to fall back down to the Earth that launched it, and no one knew where it might land.
An agency report estimated that the chances of part of the nearly 80 tons of molten metal hitting a major city were about 1 in 5, and the likelihood of the falling spacecraft hitting a human, 1 in 152.Panic ensued.
On the British coast, tourists took cover in caves. A Brazilian woman named her baby “Skylab” in the hopes that NASA would help raise it. In Brussels, the city readied air horns to warn residents to shelter. In the Philippines, a man reportedly died of a heart attack while waking from a nightmare screaming, “Skylab, Skylab.”
Fungal attacks threaten global food supply, say experts
The Guardian
Fast-rising fungal attacks on the world’s most important crops threaten the planet’s future food supply, scientists have said, warning that failing to tackle fungal pathogens could lead to a “global health catastrophe”.
Fungi are already by far the biggest destroyer of crops. They are highly resilient, travel long distances on the wind and can feast on large fields of a single crop. They are also extremely adaptable and many have developed resistance to common fungicides.
The impact of fungal disease is expected to worsen, the researchers say, as the climate crisis results in temperatures rising and fungal infections moving steadily polewards. Since the 1990s, fungal pathogens have been moving to higher latitudes at a rate of about 7km a year. Wheat stem rust infections, normally found in the tropics, have already been reported in England and Ireland.
Drought parches America’s breadbasket
E&E News
Usually by early March, the hard red winter wheat on Pat Janssen’s farm is green and high enough to cover his ankles. This year, he had to bend down to see it sprouting, six months after planting.
“This is embarrassing,” Janssen said as he pulled a sprout from the pale, dusty ground for a closer look. The skimpy, poorly developed roots tell the story, he said, of a crop that’s failed so far in just about every way — no good for grazing cattle, and questionable for harvesting grain later in the year.
“You shouldn’t be able to see the ground between the rows. It should look like a really lush lawn just now,” said Janssen, who would typically have around 400 cattle grazing on his fields. As March arrived, he didn’t have any out.
Janssen’s farm in southwest Kansas is one piece of a landscape that’s bone dry to the horizon in four directions, the heart of one of the worst droughts to hit this part of the Plains in decades.
Wuhan market samples fail to shed further light on COVID origins
Nature
Samples collected at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic are of limited value for pinpointing which animal species — if any — infected people at the market, according to a new analysis.
Two previous analyses of the data described genetic material from various wild animals, suggesting it was possible that these animals could have passed the virus to people at the market. The new analysis attempts to identify the specific animal responsible for the spillover — but comes up empty.
“I would basically describe this as a negative result,” says Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington, who conducted the latest analysis, which has not yet been peer reviewed. “It doesn’t say either way whether there were ever any infected animals in the market,” he says. “It doesn’t say what the origin of the virus is.”
EVs Are Clearing the Air in California, but Only for Rich Neighborhoods
Gizmodo
Electric vehicles are a popular pollution reduction strategy, but vulnerable communities are being left behind. A new study published in PLOS Climate analyzed California’s electric vehicle rebate program and found that EVs are indeed reducing pollution—but only for already affluent areas.
The researchers analyzed data from California’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project from 2010 to 2021. They mapped the geographic distribution of more than 400,000 rebates issued for electric vehicles through the program during those years. They also modeled carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide emissions and PM 2.5 emissions in those Census tracts. Overall net emissions related to vehicle tailpipes did go down with more EVs on the road, but wealthier areas reaped most of those benefits. Those areas saw much higher air pollution reductions compared to disadvantaged communities.
Biden’s plan to win back Latino voters is built off his 2020 mistakes
Vox
One of the biggest challenges that President Joe Biden and his campaign will face as they embark on his fourth presidential campaign has been obvious for years: rebuilding support from Latino voters. Republican gains in Latino communities have been a major political story, a growing insecurity for Democratic politicians and donors, and a big liability for the Biden administration. […]
But speaking to Latino civil rights leaders and activists now, I got a sense of anxious optimism about how Biden’s campaign, and Democratic candidates in general, will approach their Latino voter operations this year. The recent hire of Julie Chávez Rodríguez as Biden’s 2024 campaign manager is one sign that the Biden campaign is learning from 2020. Chávez Rodríguez is a White House aide, former Kamala Harris and Biden 2020 campaign staffer, and granddaughter of the labor icon Cesar Chavez, and she is largely credited for reviving the 2020 campaign’s Latino voter efforts.
“In 2020 and 2022, Latinos were critical to Democratic wins, and that requires real, sustained investment in the community,” Kevin Munoz, spokesperson for the Biden-Harris campaign, told Vox. Munoz also touted the wins the Biden administration has delivered, including near-historic low levels of unemployment for Latinos. “We won’t take any support for granted. The campaign will build on the progress that’s been made to earn Latinos’ votes and expand our winning coalition,” he said.
But after two election cycles’ worth of missteps and challenges, Biden and Democrats have time to correct past mistakes and 2020 should give them all the lessons they need.