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Showing posts with label THREATS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label THREATS. Show all posts

Sunday, February 13, 2022

HERSHEL WALKER: REPUBLICAN RUNNING IN GEORGIA

 

A Herschel Walker candidacy is a total nightmare for Senate Republicans


Updated 10:12 AM ET, Wed August 25, 2021


(CNN)The news that former NFL star Herschel Walker has registered to vote in Georgia is terrible news for Senate Republicans hoping to retake the majority next November.

Walker's move from Texas, where he has lived for decades, to Georgia preceded him announcing a run for the seat currently held by Sen. Raphael Warnock. And given Walker's high name ID -- primarily derived from his years of football stardom -- and the vocal support of former President Donald Trump for his candidacy, Walker immediately becomes the favorite for the GOP nomination.
And that is a MAJOR problem for Republicans.
    Walker has myriad potential problems as a Senate nominee, including:
    1. He hasn't lived in the state for a very long time. Moving back to the state to run for office opens Walker up to charges of carpetbagging -- and he has no ready answer for that.
    2. He's been accused of threatening behavior. Walker has been open about his diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder and the struggles it has caused him, including writing a book about his experiences. But a recent AP report that went through Walker's business and divorce records reveal troubling -- and previously unreported -- behavior. "The documents detail accusations that Walker repeatedly threatened his ex-wife, exaggerated claims of financial success and alarmed business associates with unpredictable behavior." (Walker didn't respond to the AP's request for comment on the report.)
    3. He's never been a candidate before. A Senate race is a very tough place to make a maiden campaign. And that goes double when you are talking about what will likely be one of the most closely watched and expensive Senate races in the country. Walker will now be under a very bright light from the second he made clear his candidacy -- and if past is prologue, he could struggle at times under such close scrutiny.
      While it's impossible to predict exactly how the campaign between Warnock and Walker would play out, what is clear is that the former NFL star enters the race from that starting point. That reality has already led some Republican strategists close to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to speak out about the dangers of nominating Walker.
      "This is about as comprehensive a takedown as I've ever read," tweeted Josh Holmes, a longtime McConnell adviser, earlier this month of the AP story. "My lord."
        McConnell himself has yet to speak out publicly against Walker but, according to sources cited by CNN, has made his reservations very clear privately. Wrote CNN's Manu Raju, Alex Rogers and Mike Warren earlier this month:
        "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has suggested to allies that former Georgia senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler should take another look at running again, according to three sources familiar with the matter, after their narrow losses in January flipped the Senate to Democratic control."
        The problem for McConnell is that -- as I noted above -- Walker has a very high likelihood of being the party's nominee given his celebrity and the likely strong backing he will have from the former president. (In March, Trump put out a statement that read in part: "He would be unstoppable, just like he was when he played for the Georgia Bulldogs, and in the NFL. He is also a GREAT person. Run Herschel, run!")
        Given the current power dynamic in the Republican Party, it's not at all clear that a McConnell-backed candidate like Loeffler or Perdue could overcome Walker -- even with the various issues I documented above surrounding him.
        Which would then mean that in one of the GOP's best pickup opportunities in the country, the party would put forward a candidate who is an opposition researcher's dream -- not to mention someone who has never run for any office prior to 2022.
        If that scenario does come to pass, it has implications well beyond Georgia. Republicans need to net just a single seat to retake control of the Senate in 2023. And Georgia, with the narrow victory margin for both Warnock and President Joe Biden in 2020, is at the top of the list of potential pickups. Lose Georgia, and Republicans need to find a pickup elsewhere -- in places like Arizona, where Sen. Mark Kelly looks very strong, or New Hampshire, where essentially all GOP hopes lie with the potential candidacy of Gov. Chris Sununu.
          In short, Senate Republicans are not in a place where they can simply write off one of their best pickup chances without feeling the impact elsewhere in the country. And while no one should say conclusively that Walker would lose to Warnock, it is quite clear that the former running back would have major challenges if he was the Republican nominee.
          The worst thing for McConnell and his fellow establishment Republicans? They know all of this. They just might not be able to stop it.

          Police records complicate Herschel Walker's recovery story

          Police in Irving, Texas, once confiscated a gun from Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker following a domestic disturbance — because, they said, the former football star talked about having “a shoot-out with police.”

          Officers took cover outside, noting later that Walker had "talked about having a shoot-out with police.” Then they ordered the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner and onetime Dallas Cowboy to step out of the home, according to a police report obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request.

          Much of what happened that day at the $1.9 million mansion remains shrouded from view because the report, which Irving police released to the AP only after ordered to do so by the Texas attorney general’s office, was extensively redacted.

          What is clear, though, is that Walker's therapist, Jerry Mungadze, a licensed counselor in Texas with a history of embracing practices that experts in the field say are outside the mainstream, played a pivotal role in extracting the former player from the situation.

          The incident adds another layer to Walker’s already turbulent personal history, which includes his acknowledged struggles with mental health, violent outbursts and accusations that he repeatedly threatened his ex-wife. And it will test voters’ acceptance of Walker’s assertion that he has long since been a changed person.

          After calling police to the gated subdivision where Walker's wife lived, Mungadze rushed to the scene and talked to Walker for at least 30 minutes to calm him down, according to the Sept. 23, 2001, report. In the end, police confiscated a 9mm Sig Sauer handgun from Walker's car and placed his address on a “caution list" because of his “violent tendencies.” But they declined to seek charges or make an arrest. Walker's wife filed for divorce three months later.

          Though causing some initial misgivings, Walker's past has done little to deter Republican support for his candidacy. He has been championed aggressively by former President Donald Trump, a longtime friend, with other top Republicans eventually joining the fold.

          Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his No. 2, Sen. John Thune, both endorsed Walker in October after early concerns about his history of domestic violence. Last week, Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, tweeted that Walker would be a champion of conservative values and is “living proof that hard work and determination pay off.”

          Walker's campaign dismissed the newly surfaced information and blamed the media for highlighting it.

          “The very same media who praised Herschel for his transparency nearly two decades ago are now running ... stories, stereotyping, attacking, and going so far as to question his diagnosis," Mallory Blount, a Walker spokesperson, said in a statement. "It’s shameful and is why people don’t trust the media.”

          The campaign declined to offer an updated health assessment or grant a request for an interview. There have been no reports of violence involving Walker in the past decade.

          Walker and Mungadze first met in the early 1980s when both ran college track. They didn't become friends until after Mungadze, who holds a doctorate of philosophy in counselor education, diagnosed Walker with dissociative identity disorder following a separate 2001 episode in which Walker says he sped around suburban Dallas, hearing voices and fantasizing about executing a man who was late delivering a car he had purchased. Psychologists and counselors generally do not have medical degrees.

          A former pastor, Mungadze has held a counselor's license in Texas for over three decades and offers himself as an expert in treating dissociative identity disorder, which was once known as multiple personality disorder.

          His professional and academic writings lean heavily into the occult, exorcism and possession by demons, which he called a “theological and sociological reality" in a 2000 article “Is It Dissociation or Demonization?” that was published in the Journal of Psychology and Christianity.

          In one method of analysis he has pioneered, which experts have singled out as unscientific, patients are asked to color in a drawing of the brain, with Mungadze drawing conclusions about their mental state from the colors they choose. In 2013, he told the televangelist Benny Hinn that he can use the drawings to tell whether someone has been “demonized.”

          “I can tell them what spirit they have and what it’s doing in their life,” he said on Hinn’s television show.

          His 1990 doctoral thesis for the University of North Texas argues that traditional healers in his native Zimbabwe are better positioned to treat those who claim to be possessed by “ancestral spirits” than providers of Western medicine.

          And he was also featured in a 2014 British TV documentary as a practitioner of gay conversion therapy, a scientifically discredited practice that attempts to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ people.

          “It’s really disturbing that a prominent individual like Walker would be seeing someone who just looks like the most dubious caregiver in terms of using methods that I’ve never heard of and never seen any published literature on,” Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, said while referring to Mungadze's practice of diagnosing patients based on how they colored in a drawing of the brain.

          Walker has at times been open about his struggle with mental illness, writing at length about it in his 2008 book, “Breaking Free." Mungadze, whom Walker has called “one of my best friends," wrote the book's foreword.

          The book details years of struggle before an eventual diagnosis by Mungadze. Walker describes himself dealing with as many as a dozen personalities — or “alters” — that he had constructed as a defense against bullying he suffered as a stuttering, overweight child.

          The National Alliance on Mental Illness describes the disorder as “alternating between multiple identities,” leaving a person with “gaps in memory of everyday events.” It notes that men with the disorder often “exhibit more violent behavior rather than amnesia.”

          “It’s very intensive treatment,” said Bethany Brand, a clinical psychologist and professor at Towson University, who helped write guidelines for diagnosing the disorder. “They are often quite symptomatic and can relapse, even after a successful course of treatment, if they are under enough stress.”

          Comparing his condition to a “broken leg,” Walker wrote that Mungadze assured him “it was possible to achieve emotional stability based on the approach and methods he had developed.”

          By Mungadze's account it wasn't easy. In a 2011 Playboy Magazine profile of Walker, Mungadze said he had to call police to his office during one therapy session with Walker and his wife.

          “He threatened to kill her, myself and himself. I called 911, and the police came," Mungadze said. According to the article, the incident ended with Walker hitting a door and breaking his fist.

          A review of court records and police reports documents a far more turbulent path than portrayed in Walker's book, which was framed as a turnaround story.

          About a year into his treatment, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader told Irving police in May 2002 that she believed Walker had been lurking outside her house. The woman said she had a “confrontation” with him roughly a year earlier, which led to Walker making threatening phone calls and “having her house watched,” according to a police report. The threats subsided, but after Walker spotted her outside a Four Seasons resort in Irving, she told police that he followed her as she drove home. The woman told police she was “very frightened” of Walker, but asked them not to contact him because it would “only make the problem worse.” She declined to comment for this story.

          Walker's ex-wife has said that she was a repeated target of his abuse.

          Now going by the name Cindy Grossman, she described violent outbursts in their divorce proceedings, telling of “physically abusive and threatening behavior.” When his book was released, she told ABC News that at one point during their marriage, her husband pointed a pistol at her head and said, “I’m going to blow your ... brains out.”

          Mungadze served as a court approved mediator after Grossman filed for divorce in December 2001.

          She returned to court in 2005 for a protective order after Walker repeatedly voiced a desire to kill her and her boyfriend, according to court records.

          Walker “stated unequivocally that he was going to shoot my sister Cindy and her boyfriend in the head,” her sister later said in an affidavit, which the AP first reported last July. Not long after making the threat, Walker confronted Grossman in public, according to court filings, which indicate he “slowly drove by in his vehicle, pointed his finger at (Grossman) and traced (her) with his finger as he drove.”

          A judge granted the protective order and stripped Walker of his right to carry firearms for a period of time. Grossman did not respond to a request for comment at a number currently listed for her.

          In 2012, a woman named Myka Dean told Irving police that Walker "lost it" when she tried to end an “on-off-on-off” relationship with him, which she said had lasted for 20 years. Walker, she told officers, threatened to wait outside her apartment and “blow her head off,” according to a January 2012 police report.

          Dean, who died in 2019, told police she didn't want to get Walker in trouble. But the officer decided to document the incident because of the “extreme threats.”

          Records filed with the federal Securities Exchange Commission show she was once part of a business venture with Walker, holding an ownership stake in a company he led called Renaissance Man Inc., which sold an aloe-based health drink. Her mother and stepfather also served on the company's board.

          Walker's campaign said that he “emphatically denies these false claims" and is on good terms with Dean's parents, who support his campaign.

          “This is the first any of us knew about this. We are very proud of the man Herschel Walker has become," Diane McKnight, Dean's mother, said in a statement provided by Walker's campaign. "We love him, pray for him and wish we lived in Georgia so we could vote him into the United States Senate.”

          ———

          This story was first published on Feb. 10, 2022. It was updated on Feb. 11, 2022, to make clear that U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s therapist, Jerry Mungadze, holds a doctorate of philosophy in counselor education.

          LINK

          MUST READ: 

          Will Hershel Walker's Troubled Past Keep Him Out of Georgia's Senate Race? 

          LINK


          Herschel Walker guaranteed he’d repay $600k in pizza franchise loans. So far, he hasn’t 

          BY NICK WOOTEN UPDATED FEBRUARY 12, 2022 2:42 PM 

          Play VideoDuration 3:09 

          Herschel Walker speaks at the 2020 RNC Former NFL, USFL and University of Georgia running 

          Herschel Walker gave a speech for his friend and former boss, Donald Trump, on. the first night at the 2020 Republican National Convention, Aug. 24, 2020. 

          BY REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION 

          U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker and a business partner have failed to repay $625,000 in loans used to fund a pizza franchise, court records reviewed by the Ledger-Enquirer and McClatchy News show. 

          The former NFL star and Brandon Scrushy, president of Zoner’s Pizza, Waffles and Wings, personally guaranteed the repayment of two loans issued by a Texas bank. Two Georgia counties used a Texas court judgment to place a lien of more than half a million dollars against Walker, Scrushy and the business to try to get them to pay. Fulton County Superior Court filed the lien in December, and Johnson County, where Walker’s hometown of Wrightsville is located, recorded the lien later that month. The lien will remain in the counties’ records until the loans are paid off, and the Texas bank could seek further action to collect the debt. The ruling is the latest in a series of issues for Walker, who hopes to unseat incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, in this year’s midterm election. Recent polling from Quinnipiac University shows him leading Warnock, 49% to 48%. Attempts to reach D. Woodard Glenn P.C, the Dallas attorneys who handled the Texas loans lawsuits, were unsuccessful. An Atlanta attorney who handled proceedings in Fulton and Johnson counties said he was not permitted to comment on the matter.

          In a statement to the Ledger-Enquirer and McClatchy News, Walker’s communications director Mallory Blount did not say if Walker would pay off the debt. “Herschel is a minor investor and supplier for Zoners Pizza who allowed his likeness to be used in marketing materials. Like many other small businesses across America, Zoners was hit hard by the pandemic. Herschel is not a decision-maker in the company, but trusts that they are resolving this issue.” Walker’s legal issues with Zoner’s were first reported by the Associated Press as part of an investigation into the Republican’s business dealings and personal life. The AP found that Walker exaggerated his business success and alarmed business partners with unpredictable behavior. Walker also threatened the life of his ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, AP reported. THE LAWSUITS AND COURT RULINGS Both Walker and Scrushy agreed to repay the loans, which were issued in 2018 and amended in 2019 by Veritex Community Bank, according to two lawsuits filed in the 14th District Court in Dallas County.

          Veritex filed the first lawsuit over a roughly $500,000 loan in September 2020. A second suit over a roughly $100,000 loan was filed in June 2021. Vertex accused Zoner’s of defaulting on both loans and said Walker, Scrushy and Zoner’s declined to repay despite agreeing to do so. Walker avoided involvement in the Texas lawsuits. Security guards would not allow legal documents to be personally delivered to Walker, who lives in a gated community in Westlake, a town northwest of Fort Worth. Attempts to contact Walker by phone were unsuccessful, court records show. Court documents state Walker and his co-defendants failed to appear in court to answer the charges in the lawsuits. The courts ruled in favor of the bank in both cases, and ordered Walker, Scrushy and Zoner’s Restaurant Group LLC to pay back the loans as well as attorney fees and other related costs. Atlanta attorney Michael F. Hanson filed a civil case in Fulton County Superior Court in November 2021 to enforce the judgment on the $500,000 loan case. Judge Rachelle Carnesale enacted a lien against Walker, Scrushy and Zoner’s Restaurant Group. The same lien was filed in Johnson County in late December. Veritex has not asked Fulton or Johnson County courts to enforce the second Texas ruling. WALKER’S OTHER BUSINESS TROUBLES Zoner’s Restaurant Group also owes just over $6,000 in unpaid taxes in Montgomery County, Texas, north of Houston. Other Zoner’s franchise groups haven’t paid taxes in other Texas and Georgia counties. The largest owed amount is just over $10,000 in Gwinnett County. Walker’s name is not mentioned in those documents. Walker’s exact role in the business was not outlined in the Texas lawsuits, though documents and Walker’s previous public statements suggest the relationship is close. A December 2021 financial disclosures report Walker filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission states that he owns non-public Zoner’s stock worth an “unascertainable” amount. He earns less than $201 a year in income from the stock, according to the report. Zoner’s has 15 locations in four states, more than half of them in Georgia. Each location serves Walker’s chicken and waffles, according to the company’s website. Walker owns a chicken business that distributes its products nationwide. Walker is referred to as an owner and majority stockholder in several news stories about various Zoner’s locations. He identified himself as an owner of more than “two dozen restaurants across the country, including Zoner’s Pizza, Wings and Waffles” during a speaking event in Fort Irwin, Calif., in 2019. The statement from Walker’s campaign about his arrangement with Zoner’s mirrors the relationship business associates described to the Associated Press in July about Walker and his chicken processing plants. The associates claimed that Walker is just a licensing partner who lends his name to the enterprise — much like former President Donald Trump did with many products. Walker and the former president maintain a close relationship, dating back to the short-lived United States Football League of the 1980s. Walker, a 1980 College Football National Champion and 1982 Heisman Trophy Winner as the star running back for the University of Georgia, played for the New Jersey Generals. The team came under Trump’s ownership after the 1983 season. Trump endorsed Walker’s Senate bid in September 2021.


          Read more at: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/article258250315.html#storylink=cpy




          Saturday, February 5, 2022

          RSN: Paul Krugman | More Thoughts on America's Feel-Bad Boom

           

           

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          Paul Krugman. (photo: MasterClass)
          Paul Krugman | More Thoughts on America's Feel-Bad Boom
          Paul Krugman, The New York Times
          Krugman writes: "By the numbers, 2021 was a boom year for the U.S. economy."

          By the numbers, 2021 was a boom year for the U.S. economy. Back in 2020, many forecasters expected a sluggish recovery, with unemployment staying high for years. Instead, unemployment has already come down almost to pre-pandemic levels, and a record percentage of Americans say that this is a good time to find a quality job.

          It’s true that inflation has eroded the purchasing power of wages, but new estimates indicate that despite this, real income has gone up for most adults.

          Oh, and while the spread of omicron may cause a bad month or two for jobs, rapidly falling cases in New York and elsewhere suggest that the good economic news will resume soon.

          Yet consumer sentiment has plunged: Americans’ assessments of the economy are worse now, on average, than they were in the early months of the pandemic recession. Why?

          Regular readers know that I’ve been speculating about this issue for some time, wondering in particular why people say that the economy is bad even when they’re fairly upbeat about their personal finances. At this point, however, I think I’m closing in on an answer.

          Poor assessments of the economy, I’d now argue, mainly reflect two things. First is a long-standing issue: People react more negatively to inflation than textbook economics would have predicted. Second is extreme partisanship, fed by right-wing media.

          About inflation: Consider two imaginary economies. In one, the typical family’s income rises 2% a year, but consumer prices are rising at the same rate. In the other, inflation is running at 6%, but family incomes are rising 7% a year. Which economy is better?

          Economists would, I’m pretty sure, overwhelmingly vote for Economy No. 2, in which real incomes are going up. But the public might disagree: People are bothered by inflation, even when their own incomes are more than keeping up. Maybe that’s because inflation conveys a sense that things are out of control.

          Whatever the psychology involved, inflation aversion is simply a fact of life. It was a Democratic economist, Arthur Okun, who first suggested evaluating the economic situation using the “misery index,” the sum of unemployment and inflation. As an economic concept, this index doesn’t make much sense: The costs of unemployment are huge and real, while the costs of inflation are subtle and surprisingly elusive. But the misery index works pretty well as a predictor of economic sentiment.

          And since U.S. inflation has risen a lot over the past year, it’s not surprising that economic sentiment has declined despite falling unemployment.

          But my analysis of the data says that economic sentiment is considerably worse than you’d expect even given inflation; the Times’ Nate Cohn, using a more elaborate model, finds the same thing. What’s that about?

          The dispiriting persistence of COVID is one possible answer. But let’s not ignore the elephant — and I do mean elephant — in the room: extreme right-wing partisanship.

          These days, partisanship shapes almost everything in America. For example, you can’t talk sensibly about lagging rates of COVID vaccination without acknowledging that Republicans are four times as likely as Democrats to be unvaccinated. And the partisan gap in perceptions of the economy has exploded in recent years.

          Let’s not bothsides this. Yes, Democrats may have been reluctant to acknowledge good economic news under Donald Trump. But right-wing negativity right now is absurd, with Republicans assessing the current economy as worse than the economy in June 1980, when unemployment was almost twice as high and the inflation rate was 14%. My back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that this craziness might explain a large part of the shortfall in consumer sentiment.

          But where’s the craziness coming from? Even mainstream media have accentuated the negative; one liberal think tank analysis found that CNN and MSNBC devoted 50% more screen time in November to inflation than to all other economic developments combined.

          But Fox News has devoted almost three times as much screen time to inflation as CNN over the past two years, while, among other things, illustrating its reports with photos of empty shelves taken in other countries and other years. No wonder the GOP base says that the economy is in terrible shape.

          What does this say about the future, in particular the political future? If and when inflation comes down, as forecasters, the bond market and even consumers expect it to do eventually, overall consumer sentiment should start to reflect the economy’s real strength. But as we’ve seen, a substantial part of the electorate has economic perceptions quite far from reality; even if things improve, they probably won’t hear about the good news or will be regaled with other negative stories.

          So Democrats will need more than an improving economy to survive the midterms. They’ll need to get receptive voters to perceive that improvement and then get enough of those voters to the polls to match the sizable minority determined to believe that Joe Biden’s America is a Mad Max-type wasteland.

          READ MORE


          Apparently Innocent Black Man, Amir Locke Shot to Death by Minneapolis Police Demonstrators hold up signs in solidarity with Amir Locke, who was shot and killed by Minneapolis police's SWAT team. (photo: Renée Jones Schneider/Star Tribune)


          Apparently Innocent Black Man, Amir Locke Shot to Death by Minneapolis Police
          CBS News
          Excerpt: "A Black man who was fatally shot by Minneapolis police as they executed a search warrant in a homicide investigation was wrapped in a blanket on a couch when SWAT officers entered the apartment, and displayed a handgun as they shouted at him to show his hands and get on the ground, police body camera video shows."

          ALSO SEE: An Ex-Officer in Breonna Taylor's Shooting Is Going to Trial.
          To Some Activists, 'It Means Nothing.'

          A Black man who was fatally shot by Minneapolis police as they executed a search warrant in a homicide investigation was wrapped in a blanket on a couch when SWAT officers entered the apartment, and displayed a handgun as they shouted at him to show his hands and get on the ground, police body camera video shows.

          Police identified the man on Thursday as 22-year-old Amir Locke.

          Public information documents released Thursday evening confirm that Officer Mark Hanneman fatally shot him Wednesday morning, CBS Minneapolis reports, adding that police said a loaded handgun was recovered at the scene.

          The Minneapolis Police Department said in a statement Wednesday that Locke pointed a loaded gun "in the direction of officers." An incident report said he had two wounds in the chest and one in the right wrist.

          The body camera video shows the footage at slow speed and then at regular speed. It shows an officer using a key to unlock the door and enter, followed by at least four officers in uniform and protective vests, time-stamped at about 6:48 a.m. As they enter, they repeatedly shout, "Police, search warrant!" They also shout "Hands!" and "Get on the ground!" The video shows an officer kicking a sectional sofa, and Locke beginning to emerge from under a blanket, holding a pistol. Three shots are heard, and the video ends.

          The city also included a still from the video showing Locke holding the gun, his trigger finger laid aside the barrel. The top of Locke's head is barely visible.

          Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and prominent community activist whom the mayor appointed last year as co-chair on a community safety work group, said Locke's family told her Locke was a licensed gun owner with a concealed carry permit, that he didn't live in the apartment, that police had not been looking for him and that he wasn't one of three suspects named in the warrant.

          Interim Chief Amelia Huffman said the city had both knock and no-knock warrants.

          She said in a news conference after the video was released that Locke isn't named in the warrants. She said it isn't clear how or whether Locke is connected to the homicide investigation, which she said is under the control of the St. Paul Police Department. That agency has released few details so far and the warrants weren't publicly available Thursday.

          Mayor Jacob Frey said the video "raises about as many questions as it does answers" and said the city was pursuing answers "as quickly as possible and in transparent fashion" through investigations including one by the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

          CBS News has reached out to the Minneapolis Police Department for comment.

          Huffman said at the news conference that Hanneman was in a difficult position.

          "The still shot shows the image of the firearm in the subject's hands, at the best possible moment when the lighting was fully on him. That's the moment when the officer had to make a split-second decision to assess the circumstances and to determine whether he felt like there was an articulable threat, that the threat was of imminent harm, great bodily harm or death, and that he needed to take action right then to protect himself and his partners," she said.

          Hanneman was hired in 2015. Records released by the city showed three complaints, all closed without discipline, but gave no details. Data on the website of the citizen group Communities United Against Police Brutality showed a fourth complaint, in 2018, that remains open. No details were given.

          Levy Armstrong posted a link to the video on social media "for those who can stomach the murderous conduct of the Minneapolis Police Department." She added: "The mother in me is furious and sick to my stomach. Amir never had a chance to survive that encounter with police."

          She and other activists angrily confronted the mayor and interim chief at their news conference, with Levy Armstrong calling the city's release of information "the anatomy of a cover-up." Another activist blasted the pair for a news release Wednesday that referred to Locke as a "suspect."

          Locke's mother, Karen Locke, declined to comment to The Associated Press earlier Thursday, referring questions to the family's attorney, Ben Crump.

          The civil rights lawyer has won huge settlements for the families of several people killed by police, including $27 million for the family of George Floyd. Crump and the family, who were shown the video before it was publicly released, planned a news conference Friday.

          In a statement, Crump compared Locke's shooting to the botched raid in which officers killed Breonna Taylor in her home in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2020, which led to calls for change nationwide.

          "Like the case of Breonna Taylor, the tragic killing of Amir Locke shows a pattern of no-knock warrants having deadly consequences for Black Americans. This is yet another example of why we need to put an end to these kinds of search warrants so that one day, Black Americans will be able to sleep safely in their beds at night," Crump said.

          Huffman said the city had both knock and no-knock warrants.

          Several state lawmakers from Minneapolis had joined Levy Armstrong and others in calling for body camera footage to be made public. In a letter to Huffman and Frey, they insisted that "one path to establishing trust between the police department and the community is greater transparency and accountability of police actions."

          The city released some reports and photographs of the gun recovered from the scene on its website Wednesday.

          Minneapolis city leaders and law enforcement officials typically withhold police body camera and dashboard camera videos for weeks or even months, citing ongoing investigations as justification.

          But not always.

          In December 2020, after an officer shot Dolal Idd at a gas station on Minneapolis' south side, the city released video the next day, saying it showed that the man had fired at officers first. And last April, police in suburban Brooklyn Center released video the day after the shooting of Daunte Wright, saying it showed that Officer Kim Potter apparently intended to use her Taser but drew her gun by accident. Potter was convicted of manslaughter in December.


          READ MORE


          Over 900,000 Americans Have Died of COVID in 2 Years of the Global PandemicDr. Joseph Varon comforts a patient in the Covid-19 intensive care unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Nov. 26, 2020. (photo: Go Nakamura/Getty Images)

          Over 900,000 Americans Have Died of COVID in 2 Years of the Global Pandemic
          Jonathan Franklin and Rob Stein, NPR
          Except: "The U.S. has crossed yet another tragic landmark in the battle against COVID-19. On Friday, the country surpassed 900,000 deaths from the disease, two years after the first COVID-19 cluster was reported in Wuhan, China."

          The U.S. has crossed yet another tragic landmark in the battle against COVID-19. On Friday, the country surpassed 900,000 deaths from the disease, two years after the first COVID-19 cluster was reported in Wuhan, China. Public health experts say coming close to the 1 million death mark from the coronavirus is "inevitable."

          "It's absolutely staggering," said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, which has tracked the number of COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic. "It's unreal, frankly. And what makes it an even ... greater heartbreak — as if the loss of 900,000 souls weren't enough of a heartbreak — is the fact that it's probably an undercount of the number of people that we've lost."

          University of Texas at Austin professor and epidemiologist Lauren Ancel Meyers said the "horrible milestone" didn't have to happen.

          "It was not inevitable. There are things that we could have done and should have done ... to protect those who were most vulnerable," she said. "It's a very sad day."

          President Joe Biden marked the "tragic milestone," recognizing the "emotional, physical and psychological weight of this pandemic" and urged Americans to do their part.

          I urge all Americans: get vaccinated, get your kids vaccinated, and get your booster shot if you are eligible," Biden said in a statement. "It's free, easy, and effective — and it can save your life, and the lives of those you love."

          Daily deaths remain high even as overall case numbers dip

          The rolling seven-day average for daily COVID-19 deaths has been above 2,000 since Jan. 23, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's nearly three times higher than in November, when the agency was reporting a seven-day average of 700 daily deaths.

          Vaccines are preventing most severe disease and death

          As COVID-19 vaccines have become widely available for Americans, the number of those who have received at least one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine continues to increase.

          However, the percentage of fully vaccinated Americans is still relatively low at approximately 64%. Amid the most recent surge of the now dominant omicron variant, unvaccinated people were 97 times more likely to die compared with those who were boosted, according to data cited this week by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.

          Public health experts note that broader vaccination and boosting would have reduced the number of deaths. "We would have at least 300,000 fewer deaths. Probably more ... than that," if the early pace of vaccination had been sustained, said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. "But at least 300,000 Americans who have perished would still be with us. It's tragic."

          According to the latest CDC data, 42% of eligible Americans have received a booster.


          READ MORE


          Whoopi Goldberg: 'That's What I Was Trying to Explain'Whoopi Goldberg on "The View." (photo: Heidi Gutman/Disney/Getty Images)

          Whoopi Goldberg: 'That's What I Was Trying to Explain'
          Nyam Daniel, Atlanta Black Star
          Daniel writes :"Facing backlash for her comments on the Holocaust, Whoopi Goldberg said her interpretation of race is skin deep, and as a Black person, her perspective of racism is different, leading to a misrepresentation of her intentions."

          Facing backlash for her comments on the Holocaust, Whoopi Goldberg said her interpretation of race is skin deep, and as a Black person, her perspective of racism is different, leading to a misrepresentation of her intentions.


          "The View” host and moderator said she has been receiving hate mail since saying the Holocaust was not about race on the show Monday. Goldberg has apologized and explained her comments. She was suspended from the show for two weeks following the outrage.

          “It upset a lot of people, which was never ever, ever my intention,” Goldberg said during an interview on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” late Monday. “I feel, being Black when we talk about race, it’s a very different thing to me. So I said I thought the Holocaust wasn’t about race.”

          Goldberg made the comments on “The View” in response to a Tennessee school district vote to remove a book about the Holocaust from shelves because of “inappropriate language” and nudity.

          “The View” co-host Ana Navarro argued that the Holocaust was “about white supremacists going after Jews.”

          However, Goldberg did not back down, adding that Nazis and Jews are “two white groups of people.”

          “The minute you turn it into race, it goes down this alley. Let’s talk about it for what it is. It’s how people treat each other,” Goldberg said Monday. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Black or white, Jews. It’s each other.”

          Several Jewish organizations slammed Goldberg’s comments on Twitter and accused the TV host of minimizing their suffering.

          Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted: “No @WhoopiGoldberg, the #Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race. They dehumanized them and used this racist propaganda to justify slaughtering 6 million Jews. Holocaust distortion is dangerous. #ENOUGH.”

          Greenblatt also suggested that a Jewish co-host be added to the show’s cast.

          Goldberg issued an apology with a statement on Twitter Monday night.

          “I stand corrected. I’m sorry for the hurt I have caused.”

          Goldberg told Colbert in the interview, which aired later that night, that she didn’t intend to upset anyone. As a Black person, Goldberg said she thought race is “something” that can be seen, and she never considered Jews a race but instead an ethnic group. Colbert agreed that racism in America tends to be centered around skin color.

          According to Britannica, the modern meaning of the term “race” is based on the categorization of people “primarily by their physical differences.” Britannica said in the United States, the term “generally refers to a group of people who have in common some visible physical traits, such as skin color, hair texture, facial features, and eye formation.”

          Goldberg said she is upset that people misunderstood her, and she has been labeled anti-Semitic and a Holocaust denier when she was making a point about skin color.

          The actress said the issue the Nazis had was with ethnicity. She said Nazis were white and most of the people they targeted were white people.

          “When you talk about being a racist, you can’t call this racism. This was evil. This wasn’t based on skin,” she told Colbert “You couldn’t tell who was Jewish. You had to delve deeply and figure it out.”

          When the [Ku Klux] Klan is coming down the street, and I’m standing with a Jewish friend — I’m going to run. But if my friend decides not to run, they’ll get passed by most times because you can’t tell most times. … That’s what I was trying to explain,” Goldberg also said. “I understand not everybody sees it that way, and I did a lot of harm to myself and people decided I was all these other things that I’m not. I get it, folks are angry, I accept that, and I did it to myself, and I’ll work hard to not think that way again.”

          The Daily Beast reported some of the other co-hosts are “furious” over ABC’s decision to suspend Goldberg. Navarro defended Goldberg in an interview with the Daily Beast on Tuesday.

          “I love Whoopi Goldberg. I love ‘The View,’” Navarro said on Tuesday evening. “This was an incredibly unfortunate incident. Whoopi is a lifelong ally to the Jewish community. She is not an antisemite. Period. I am sad. And I have nothing else to say.”

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          Polar Bears Move Into Abandoned Arctic Weather Station - Photo EssayHouse of bears: polar bears living in an abandoned weather station in Kolyuchin. (photo: Dmitry Kokh/Guardian UK)

          Polar Bears Move Into Abandoned Arctic Weather Station - Photo Essay
          Dmitry Kokh, Guardian UK
          Excerpt: "Photographer Dmitry Kokh discovered polar bears living in an abandoned weather station in Kolyuchin, in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation, while on a trip to Wrangel Island, a Unesco-recognised nature reserve that serves as a refuge to the animals."

          I had dreamed about photographing polar bears for a long time. Some time ago my hobby, wildlife photography, ceased to be just a hobby and turned into a large part of my life. And if you devote so much time to an activity then your goals should be ambitious. Most of all I like to take pictures of large marine animals, whether on land or under water. Not everyone knows, but zoologists classify polar bears as marine mammals since they spend most of their time on ice floes away from land. And their paws even have webbing.

          There are only a few places on the planet where polar bears can be found in large numbers. One of them is Russia’s Wrangel Island, a nature reserve under Unesco protection that is often called a polar bear maternity ward. The place is very inaccessible, which may be bad for tourists but is great for the animals.


          Polar bears living in an abandoned weather station in Kolyuchin, in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation


          Preparations for the expedition to Wrangel took nearly two years, and last August we finally set off for the north of Chukotka on a small ice-class sailing yacht. We proceeded about 2,000km (1,200 miles) along the coast, stopping in deserted bays and photographing grey and humpback whales. We met an incredible number of different birds, several brown bears, sea lions and seals. We went scuba diving in the waters of the Chukchi Sea, which turned out to be full of life. I felt as if I was in a parallel universe. Days and weeks passed. Landscapes changed dozens of times: sunny pebble beaches, steep cliffs, mountains and tundra. Finally, after passing Cape Dezhnev and heading for Wrangel Island, we began to encounter floating sea ice, which was unusual for the time of year. It had been assumed that the ice edge would be much farther north.


          One day, bad weather was expected and the captain approached a small island, Kolyuchin, to take shelter from the storm. Kolyuchin is known for the polar weather station that operated on it in Soviet times. Though the station was closed in 1992, the abandoned village still stands on the island.

          The stormy wind and rain and the neglected buildings on the rocky shores all served to make everything happening seem surreal. Suddenly we noticed movement in the windows of the houses.

          Someone took out some binoculars and we saw the heads of polar bears. Fog, a place long deserted by people, polar bears – it was the perfect setting.



          The bears walked around the houses and among barrels left on the island a long time ago. There were about 20 animals in sight at the same time, mostly males. The females kept to the side with their cubs, closer to the shores of the island. Barrels are a well-known problem in the Russian Arctic. Back in the days of the USSR, fuel was delivered to the station in them, but it was very expensive to take the barrels back, so they were simply discarded.

          It was too dangerous to land on the island that day, so I took pictures from a drone equipped with special low-noise propellers. I also used certain tricks of the trade that allowed me to shoot the animals without disturbing them. After a while, the bears practically ignored the unusual buzzing.


          Later I asked one of Russia’s top polar bear experts, Anatoly Kochnev, what causes the animals’ behaviour – why do they love to sit in the buildings? The biologist, who worked in Chukotka and on the island of Kolyuchin for many years, told me that, first of all, polar bears are very curious by nature, so they always attempt to get through any unlocked window or door. And secondly, unfortunately, these animals were traditionally hunted, and so they use these houses as a form of protection from humans.


          But then he told me something even more interesting. It turns out that bears very rarely appear on the island in such numbers. No one knows why, but once every nine years the floating ice remains near the shore in summer. Consequently, the bears do not travel far to the north with the ice, as usual, and take up residence in the abandoned polar station. We saw proof of this later on when we met almost no bears on Wrangel Island to the north.

          Though several months have passed since the expedition, I still sometimes see polar bears in decaying windows before my eyes when falling asleep. And looking at the main photo in my life at the moment, the one named House of Bears, I think that sooner or later all human-made things on Earth will cease to exist – buildings, cars and computers will all meet their end. But life is eternal. These bears will continue to hunt, swim among ice floes and explore islands even when civilization ceases to exist. But life will remain eternal only if we humans finally begin to take care of the planet and the living creatures that need our protection.


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          What's Behind the Spike in Journalist Murders in Mexico?A vigil for slain journalists in Mexico. (photo: Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images)

          What's Behind the Spike in Journalist Murders in Mexico?
          Hilary Beaumont, Al Jazeera
          Beaumont writes: "Against a backdrop of increasing violence, human rights violations and impunity in Mexico, attacks against journalists are spiking, with four killed last month alone."

          Four journalists were killed in January, highlighting a dangerous culture of impunity in the country, rights groups say.

          Against a backdrop of increasing violence, human rights violations and impunity in Mexico, attacks against journalists are spiking, with four killed last month alone.

          On January 31, three armed men reportedly shot Robert Toledo, a videographer for Monitor Michoacan, as he prepared to film an interview west of Mexico City.

          Days earlier, reporter Lourdes Maldonado Lopez was shot dead in Tijuana – the same city where freelance photographer Margarito Martinez, who documented crime scenes, was fatally shot on January 17.

          And earlier last month, Jose Luis Gamboa Arenas, director of the news site Inforegio in Veracruz, a notoriously violent and corrupt region, died from stab wounds.

          Two more journalists in Mexico had close calls in January: One reporter was shot at and escaped, and another was wounded in a knife attack, according to Jan-Albert Hootsen, the Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

          “We’ve seen what’s very likely the most violent month in terms of violence against journalists in a decade,” Hootsen told Al Jazeera.

          And media freedom groups warn the violence shows no sign of abating: “Every year, it’s getting worse and worse,” Paula Maria Saucedo Ruiz of Article 19, a group that defends freedom of expression, told Al Jazeera.

          No consequences

          While there is little data on the history of violence against journalists before the 1980s, Hootsen said, the current trend can be traced back to 2006, when the Mexican government declared war on organised crime and deployed the military. This led to an explosion in violence across the country, including against journalists who dared to report on the conflict.

          With organised criminal groups fighting each other and the Mexican state, the country’s justice system has eroded, while corruption has proliferated at the local and state levels, resulting in near-total impunity.

          About 99 percent of crimes against journalists are not prosecuted, Ruiz said, “Anyone can decide, ‘I’m just going to silence this journalist, because there are not going to be consequences.’”

          Hootsen visited Tijuana last week after Martinez and Lopez were killed. He called the city “the murder capital of Mexico”, as it now averages about five homicides a day.

          According to a GoFundMe set up by Martinez’s colleagues on behalf of his wife and teenage daughter, he knew the risks, but still continued to cover the rising violence in the border city.

          Criminal groups are at war across Tijuana, willing to go to extreme lengths to defend their interests, while the local government is unwilling or unable to act, Hootsen said: “It creates an extremely dangerous, toxic environment for journalists to work.”

          Manuel Ayala, a freelance journalist who covers missing persons, human trafficking, migration and organised crime in Tijuana, says he is careful who he talks to, as sources can also be informants for criminal organisations. After publishing, he keeps a low profile.

          While no one has directly threatened him on the job, Ayala has heard warnings. In one case, a local police patrol recorded his personal information and told him to stay away from a certain area, he said; another time, a source suggested he stop investigating a trafficking story.

          “Our bosses do not protect us. We protect ourselves,” Ayala told Al Jazeera in Spanish over WhatsApp, noting that Tijuana journalists are in constant communication about where they are going and whether there’s a risk.

          In this tight-knit community, Ayala and Martinez were friends: “Since I arrived in Tijuana, he always welcomed me. I saw him as an older brother, because he used to guide me on the dynamics of the city, on how to make things easier for me when doing my job. Margarito used to do that a lot with everyone.”

          Security ‘woefully insufficient’

          About 500 journalists are enrolled in a federal mechanism to protect journalists, with protections ranging from home surveillance systems to bodyguards. Similar programmes exist in some states, but members of the media are highly sceptical of their efficacy.

          Of the four journalists killed in January, only Lopez was enrolled for protection, Hootsen said.

          “The security she received from the Baja California authorities was woefully insufficient,” he said.

          While Martinez was in the process of being enrolled in the federal scheme, at the time of his death he had no protection, Hootsen added.

          Days before she was killed, Lopez called out state corruption, dedicated her broadcast to Martinez, and said she was under state protection.

          “They take good care of you, but no one can avoid – not even under police supervision – getting killed outside your house in a cowardly manner,” she said, according to a report from the AP news agency.

          Ayala, who is not enrolled in a protection mechanism, said journalists do not trust the state apparatus, “There are many flaws and it needs to be improved.”

          Such systems are reactive instead of preventive, Ruiz said, noting that in order to get protection, a journalist must have experienced a direct threat or attack.

          The mechanisms are also under-resourced, she added.

          While Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador regularly berates journalists, he told a news conference after Lopez’s killing, “We are obliged to investigate this crime and prevent the murders of journalists and citizens from continuing.”

          Yet, despite coming to power on promises of peace, Obrador has shown no inclination towards solving the problem, Hootsen said, while Mexican states have “an almost unreal indifference” to the plight of their own citizens.

          While it is hard to find hope, Ruiz and Hootsen say they are encouraged by the solidarity among Mexican journalists, who held demonstrations across 65 cities in response to the deaths of their colleagues.

          Ruiz also pointed to groups of reporters collaborating across borders to reveal corruption in Mexico. By co-publishing, local journalists face less risk of being singled out.

          Every significant change in human rights in Mexico is a direct result of activists, academics and journalists speaking out and placing pressure on authorities, Hootsen said, “That’s where I get my optimism from.”


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          Butterfly Sanctuary That Stood Up to Trump's Border Wall Closes After Right-Wing ThreatsA Gulf fritillary butterfly perches on a flower at the National Butterfly Center, which is home to several endangered plants and threatened animals. (photo: Claire Harbage/NPR)

          Butterfly Sanctuary That Stood Up to Trump's Border Wall Closes After Right-Wing Threats
          Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch
          Rosane writes: "The National Butterfly Center in Texas that stood up to former President Donald Trump's border wall is now shuttering indefinitely because of harassment from right-wing conspiracy theorists."

          The National Butterfly Center in Texas that stood up to former President Donald Trump’s border wall is now shuttering indefinitely because of harassment from right-wing conspiracy theorists.

          The 100-acre nature preserve in Mission, Texas has been in an ongoing legal battle with the former Trump administration and non-profit We Build a Wall in order to prevent wall construction on its doorstep, as HuffPost reported. Because of this, it has been targeted by right-wing groups that have falsely accused the center of being involved in human trafficking.

          “The safety of our staff and visitors is our primary concern,” North American Butterfly Association president and founder Dr. Jeffrey Glassberg said in a statement announcing the closure. “We look forward to reopening, soon, when the authorities and professionals who are helping us navigate this situation give us the green light.”

          The center’s current plight began in 2017, when it sued the Trump administration over its proposed border wall, according to HuffPost. The center argued that wall construction would destroy habitat for birds and butterflies and cut off migration routes for low-flying species. It also said that the Trump administration began cutting down trees on center property without permission, according to NPR. If the wall were completed, it would divide the property and threaten endangered species.

          The center later sued We Build the Wall, a nonprofit that supports border wall construction, saying it had defamed the center, leading to “targeted harassment,” according to HuffPost.

          This harrassment already prompted the center to shut down from January 28 to January 30 of this year because of “credible threats” connected to the Pro-Trump We Stand America event that weekend, as the center said in an earlier statement.

          Before the event, Virginia congressional candidate Kimberly Lowe attempted to film the Rio Grande to find proof of illegal border crossings, as My RGV News reported. She attempted to access the river via a private road on National Butterfly Center property. When center executive director Marianna Treviño Wright asked her to leave, an altercation took place during which Lowe allegedly assaulted Treviño Wright. Lowe denied Treviño Wright’s account, but video and audio recordings support the latter’s version of events.

          The center said that Lowe also attempted to run over Treviño Wright’s son when leaving the property. Treviño Wright was then advised by a former state official to be either out of town or armed for the duration of the We Stand America event, prompting the center’s decision to close.

          “We still cannot believe we are at the center of this maelstrom of malevolence rising in the United States,” the center wrote in its statement.

          Most center employees are hourly workers, and they were paid both during the three-day closure and now during the indefinite closure.

          “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may cause to members and visitors, many of whom plan trips months in advance, to experience this truly exceptional place,” Treviño Wright said in the most recent statement.


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