The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it has closed its civil rights investigation into the fatal 2014 shooting by Cleveland police of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black youth, and that no federal criminal charges would be brought in the case.

The announcement came five years after an Ohio grand jury cleared two Cleveland officers, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, of state charges of wrongdoing in the death of Rice, who was shot in a playground while holding a toy gun capable of shooting pellets.

The slaying occurred when Loehmann, then a rookie on the Cleveland force, rolled up to the park in a police cruiser with Garmback at the wheel, then sprung from the vehicle and fired his gun twice at the youth within seconds, killing the boy.

Both men are white.

The incident was one of a flurry of high-profile killings of African-American people at the hands of U.S. law enforcement in recent years that have fueled protests giving rise to the Black Lives Matter movement against racial injustice.

The two officers in the Rice case had been dispatched in response to a 911-emergency call reporting a suspect with a gun near a recreation center.

But crucial information the caller gave dispatchers – namely that the person in question was a juvenile and that the supposed weapon might be a toy – was never relayed to Loehmann and his partner before they reached the scene.

As a result, “the officers believed they were responding to a playground where a grown man was brandishing a real gun at individuals, presumably children,” the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in its six-page statement.

Moreover, security camera video of the November 2014 episode was found to be too grainy and taken from too great a distance to conclusively detail circumstances of the shooting, the statement said.

In closing the case without bringing charges, the department said it lacked sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that either officer had willfully broken the law, as opposed to making a mistake or exercising poor judgment.

“Although Tamir Rice’s death is tragic … both the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office concluded that this matter is not a prosecutable violation of the federal statutes,” the department said.

Although no criminal charges have been brought, the city agreed to pay $6 million to the boy’s family to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed in his death in April 2016.

Cuyahoga County prosecutors who previously investigated the killing have said Rice had either intended to hand over the toy weapon he was carrying – an Airsoft replica of a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun – or show officers it was not real, but that the two policemen had no way of knowing that.

The Airsoft normally comes with an orange tip on its barrel to distinguish it from an actual firearm, but the one Rice was holding at the time did not, prosecutors said.

The family’s attorney, Subodh Chandra, said Tamir’s mother is profoundly upset by news of Tuesday’s decision.

“Justice for the family would be to prosecute the officers who killed their child,” Chandra said.

Source: REUTERS

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday granted full pardons to former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former adviser Roger Stone, sweeping away the most important convictions made under the long-running Russia election probe.

Trump also issued a full pardon for Charles Kushner, a real estate developer and the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

It was the second wave of pardons Trump has issued in two days. The announcement came just after Trump arrived in Palm Beach, Florida, for the holiday season, with Jared Kushner on the Air Force One flight with him.

In total, Trump issued on Wednesday full pardons to 26 individuals and commuted part or all of the sentences of an additional three people.

Facing the end of his term on Jan. 20, Trump has now granted full pardons to four major figures from U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Besides Manafort and Stone, Trump has pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former adviser George Papadopoulos.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has been trying to prosecute Manafort in New York for mortgage fraud and other alleged crimes, said it would continue to pursue an appeal for its case, which was dismissed on double jeopardy grounds.

“This action underscores the urgent need to hold Mr. Manafort accountable for his crimes against the People of New York as alleged in our indictment, and we will continue to pursue our appellate remedies,” said Danny Frost, spokesman for the office.

The Manafort pardon spared the long-time Republican operative from serving the bulk of his 7-1/2-year prison term.

Manafort, 70, was among the first in Trump’s inner circle to face charges brought by Mueller as part of his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

In a statement relayed by his lawyer, Manafort expressed his appreciation to Trump.

“Mr. President, my family & I humbly thank you for the Presidential Pardon you bestowed on me. Words cannot fully convey how grateful we are,” he said.

Stone was convicted in November 2019 by a Washington jury of lying under oath to lawmakers also investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Trump commuted his sentence in July, a day before Stone was due to begin serving a term of three years and four months.  Stone, in a statement, thanked Trump for “completely erasing the criminal conviction to which I was subjected in a Soviet-style show trial on politically-motivated charges.”

Charles Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and making unlawful campaign donations.

In an unusual twist, the man who prosecuted Charles Kushner was Chris Christie, now the former governor of New Jersey, who also has served as an adviser to Trump.

Christie was quoted by CNN as saying Charles Kushner’s case was “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he prosecuted. During the case, Charles Kushner admitted to smearing his brother-in-law, who had cooperated with prosecutors, by hiring a prostitute to have sex with him in a motel room, then sending a secretly recorded video of the encounter to the man’s wife, Charles Kushner’s own sister.

Source: REUTERS

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday rejected reports that Russia’s security services were behind the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, saying that if they were, the opposition leader would not be alive.

Navalny, 44, fell violently ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow in August and was hospitalised in the Russian city of Omsk before being transported to Berlin by medical aircraft.

Experts of several Western countries concluded that the Kremlin critic was poisoned with the Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent — a claim that Moscow has repeatedly denied.

A joint media report this week revealed what it said were the names and photos of chemical weapons experts from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) that had tailed Navalny for years.

Speaking to reporters at his annual end-of-year press conference, Putin described the report as “the legalisation of materials from the American special services”, adding that the Kremlin critic “has their support”.

The Russian leader said that if Navalny was supported by US special services, then Russia should of course tail him.

“But this does not at all mean that it is necessary to poison him. Who needs him?” Putin said.

If the Russian special services had wanted to poison Navalny, “they would have taken it to the end,” he said.

‘Putin admitted to everything’

The joint report on Navalny led by the investigative website Bellingcat said that the FSB agents had shadowed the opposition leader on a regular basis since 2017.

Bellingcat said it had made the conclusion based on volumes of data, including phone logs and travel records.

The joint report with CNN, Der Spiegel and Russian outlet The Insider did not establish any direct contact between the 44-year-old opposition leader and the named agents.

Navalny said Thursday that Putin’s comments amounted to an admission.

“Putin admitted to everything,” the Kremlin critic wrote on Twitter. “That is, yes, the FSB tailed me for 4 years.”

Navalny had earlier said that Putin was behind his poisoning and that he will return to Russia once he has made a full recovery in Germany.

In response to the poisoning, the European Union has imposed entry bans and frozen the bank accounts of six people suspected of being responsible, including FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov.

Source: AFP

The United States on Wednesday widened its network for administering COVID-19 vaccines to doctors and nurses on the frontlines of a pandemic killing more than 3,000 Americans a day, even as a major storm threatened to slow progress on the East Coast.

While medical professionals at a growing number of hospitals rolled up their sleeves, lawmakers on Capitol Hill said they were nearing a long-elusive bipartisan deal on $900 billion in economic relief to pandemic-hit U.S. workers and businesses.

The aid package, to be attached to a massive spending bill that must pass by Friday to avert a federal shutdown, was not expected to include COVID-relief funds for state and local governments, as Democrats wanted, or protections for companies from pandemic-related lawsuits, as sought by Republicans.

Rollout of the first tranche of 2.9 million doses of a newly authorized vaccine from Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE was in its third full day, with shipments headed to 66 more distribution hubs nationwide.

A second vaccine from Moderna Inc could win emergency-use approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week.

Express delivery companies FedEx and United Parcel Service, sharing a leading role in vaccine shipments, said they were monitoring potential impacts of heavy ice and snow that began to disrupt transport along the Eastern Seaboard.

U.S. Army General Gustave Perna, overseeing the government’s Operation Warp Speed campaign, said FedEx and UPS have developed contingency plans to keep any delayed vaccine shipments secure until they can be “delivered the next day.”

“We are on track with all the deliveries we said we were doing,” Perna told reporters at a briefing. He cited a minor glitch involving four trays of vaccine – two sent to California and two to Alabama – that arrived at temperatures lower than prescribed. The trays in question were shipped back to Pfizer and later replaced, Perna said.

Some 570 other vaccine distribution centers received the bulk of the initial batch of shipments on Monday and Tuesday, and an even larger wave was due for delivery to 886 additional locations on Friday, Perna said.

From each distribution site, vaccine doses were divided up among area hospitals and administered to healthcare workers, designated as first in line to be immunized. Some were also going to residents and staff of long-term care facilities. Later vaccine rounds will go to other essential workers, senior citizens and people with chronic health conditions.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who has said he would get the vaccine publicly to help instill confidence in its safety, is expected to receive his first injection as soon as next week, according to his transition team.

Biden, 78, is in a high-risk category for the coronavirus due to his age.

‘Not over yet’

It will take several months before vaccines are widely available to the public on demand, and opinion polls have found many Americans hesitant about getting inoculated.

Political leaders and medical authorities in the meantime have launched a media blitz assuring Americans that the vaccines are safe while urging them to avoid growing weary of social distancing and mask-wearing while the pandemic rages on.

“It is not over yet,” Dr Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told CBS News. “Public health measures are the bridge to get to the vaccine, which is going to get us out of this.”

Data shows surging infections and hospitalizations are driving healthcare systems to the breaking point across much of the country, with many intensive care units at or near capacity.

The United States reported at least 3,459 additional coronavirus deaths on Wednesday alone, a record that marks the fourth time in a week the daily toll has surpassed 3,000, according to a Reuters tally. The seven-day average has topped 2,500 lives lost every 24 hours for the first time this week.

To date, COVID-19 deaths total more than 304,000 nationally, while the mounting case load of 16.7 million known infections represents roughly 5% of the U.S. population.

With hospitalizations setting a record for the 19th day in a row – nearly 113,000 patients under treatment on Wednesday – health experts warn that fatalities will rise higher still in the weeks ahead, even as the vaccine campaign steadily expands.

Another 2 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 5.9 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine could be allocated next week, U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar told a conference call. Both require two doses, given three or four weeks apart, for each person inoculated.

In all, the United States has options to buy up to 300 million doses of those vaccines, Azar said, plus hundreds of millions more doses of vaccines yet to receive approval, including some single-dose drugs.

The United States could have a surplus supply of vaccines in the future, if all the vaccines it has secured are authorized for use, Azar said, which could eventually benefit other countries.

The Trump administration was also in talks to secure additional antibody treatment doses from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc and Eli Lilly and Co, Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Moncef Slaoui told the same conference call.

Source: REUTERS

The Trump administration on Thursday carried out its ninth federal execution of the year and the first during a presidential lame-duck period in 130 years, putting to death a Texas street-gang member despite calls for clemency and Covid-19 outbreaks behind bars.

Brandon Bernard, a 40-year-old African-American inmate, was put to death at a prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, for his role in a 1999 double murder in Texas committed when he was 18 years old.

Four more federal executions, including one Friday, are planned in the weeks before Joe Biden’s inauguration in January.

More than 500,000 people had signed petitions urging President Donald Trump to commute Bernard’s sentence to life in prison, citing his age at the time of the crime and his good behaviour as an inmate.

With witnesses looking on from behind a glass barrier separating them from a pale-green death chamber, the 40-year-old Bernard was pronounced dead at 9:27pm ET.

‘I’m sorry’

He directed his last words to the family of the couple he played a role in killing, speaking with striking calm for someone who knew he was about to die.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lifting his head and looking at witness-room windows. “That’s the only words that I can say that completely capture how I feel now and how I felt that day.”

As he spoke, he showed no outward signs of fear or distress, speaking lucidly and naturally. He spoke for more than three minutes, saying he had been waiting for this chance to say he was sorry – not only to the victims’ family, but also for the pain he caused his own family.

Referring to his part in the killing, he said: “I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t.”

Bernard was 18 when he and four other teenagers abducted and robbed Todd and Stacie Bagley on their way from a Sunday service in Killeen, Texas, during which Bernard doused their car with lighter fluid and set it on fire with their bodies in the back trunk.

Federal executions were resumed by Trump in July after a 17-year hiatus despite Covid-19 outbreaks in US prisons.

Todd Bagley’s mother, Georgia, spoke to reporters within 30 minutes of the execution, saying she wanted to thank Trump, Attorney General William Barr and others at the Justice Department.

“Without this process,” she said, reading from a statement, “my family would not have the closure needed to move on in life.” She called the killings a “senseless act of unnecessary evil.”

But she stopped reading from the prepared text and became emotional when she spoke about the apologies from Bernard before he died Friday and from an accomplice, Christopher Vialva, the ringleader of the group who shot the Bagleys in the head before the car was burned. He was executed in September.

“The apology and remorse … helped very much heal my heart,” she said, beginning to cry and then recomposing herself. “I can very much say: I forgive them.”

Final moments of a death by lethal injection

Earlier inside the death chamber, Bernard lay on a cross-shaped gurney with IV lines running into both arms. He looked back when a US marshal picked up a phone and asked if there were any reasons not to proceed. Bernard reacted calmly as the marshall put down the phone and said the execution could proceed.

Bernard didn’t exhibit the laboured breathing and constant twitching of others executed previously had. A minute after the lethal injection, his eyes slowly closed and he barely moved again.

About 20 minutes later, faint white blotches appeared on his skin and someone entered from a chamber door, listened to his heart, felt for a pulse, then walked out. Seconds later, an official said Bernard was dead.

Alfred Bourgeois, a 56-year-old Louisiana truck driver, is set to die Friday for killing his 2-year-old daughter. His lawyers alleged he was intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty, but several courts said evidence didn’t support that claim.

‘Hardest call I’ve ever had,’ says Kim Kardashian West

Several high-profile figures, including reality TV star Kim Kardashian West, had appealed to Trump to commute Bernard’s sentence to life in prison.

Before Bernard’s execution, Kardashian West tweeted that she’d spoken to him earlier: “Hardest call I’ve ever had. Brandon, selfless as always, was focused on his family and making sure they are ok. He told me not to cry because our fight isn’t over.”

Just before the execution was scheduled, Bernard’s lawyers filed papers with the Supreme Court seeking to halt the execution, but the high court denied the request, clearing the way for the execution to proceed.

Bernard had been crocheting in prison and even launched a death-row crocheting group in which inmates have shared patterns for making sweaters, blankets and hats, said Ashley Kincaid Eve, an anti-death penalty activist.

Federal executions during a presidential transfer of power also are rare, especially during a transition from a death-penalty proponent to a president-elect like Biden opposed to capital punishment. The last time executions occurred in a lame-duck period was in the 1890s. during the presidency of Grover Cleveland in the 1890s.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)

President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday called for urgent action on the coronavirus pandemic as he introduced a health care team that will be tested at every turn while striving to restore the nation to normalcy.

Biden laid out three Covid-19 priorities for his first 100 days in office: a call for all Americans to voluntarily mask up during those 100 days, a commitment to administer 100 million vaccines and a pledge to try to reopen a majority of the nation’s schools.

“I know that out of our collective pain, we will find our collective purpose: to control the pandemic, to save lives, and to heal as a nation,” Biden said.

Topping the roster of picks was health secretary nominee Xavier Becerra, a Latino politician who rose from humble beginnings to serve in Congress and as California’s attorney general. Others include a businessman renowned for his crisis management skills and a quartet of medical doctors, among them Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease specialist.

The usual feel-good affirmations that accompany such unveilings were overshadowed by urgency, with new cases of Covid-19 averaging more than 200,000 a day and deaths averaging above 2,200 daily as the nation struggles with uncontrolled spread.

Vaccines are expected soon. Scientific advisers to the government meet Thursday to make a recommendation on the first one, a Pfizer shot already being administered in the United Kingdom.

Indeed, President Donald Trump held his own event Tuesday, to take credit for his administration’s work to speed vaccine development.

But having an approved vaccine is one thing, and getting it into the arms of 330 million Americans something else altogether. Biden will be judged on how well his administration carries out the gargantuan task.

On Tuesday, the president-elect warned that his team’s preliminary review of Trump administration plans for vaccinations has found shortcomings. And he called on Congress to pass legislation to finance administration of vaccines as they become more widely available next year. That would effectively close the loop, from lab to patient.

The rest of Biden’s extensive health care agenda, from expanding insurance coverage to negotiating prices for prescription drugs, will likely hinge on how his administration performs in this first test of competence and credibility.

Becerra, Biden’s pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, will be backed in the White House by businessman Jeff Zients, who will assume the role of coronavirus response coordinator. Running complex, high-risk operations is his specialty.

Alongside Fauci, the other medical doctors selected include infectious-disease specialist Rochelle Walensky to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Vivek Murthy as surgeon general and Yale epidemiologist Marcella Nunez-Smith to head a working group to ensure fair and equitable distribution of vaccines and treatments.

Participating by video, Fauci called Biden’s 100-day plan “bold but doable, and essential to help the public avoid unnecessary risks and help us save lives.”

Ever the straight talker, he admonished: “The road ahead will not be easy. We have got a lot of hard and demanding work ahead.”

HHS is a $1 trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans.

In choosing Becerra to be his health secretary, Biden tapped a prominent defender of the Affordable Care Act. But Becerra, 62, will face questions in his Senate confirmation about whether he possesses sufficient health care and management experience.

Becerra as a congressman played an insider role helping steer “Obamacare” to passage, and as California attorney general he leads a coalition of Democratic states trying to block the Trump administration’s latest attempt to overturn it. He has been less involved in the day-to-day work of combating the coronavirus.

Becerra would be the first Latino to serve as U.S. health secretary. In announcing his pick Tuesday, Biden initially stumbled on the Spanish pronunciation of Becerra’s name.

But Biden was drawn to Becerra’s working-class roots, his longtime effort to increase access to health care and his willingness to work with Republicans to solve problems like getting patients access to COVID-19 treatments.

Accepting his nomination via video link, Becerra called it a “breathtaking opportunity” to help shape the future of health care.

“I share the president-elect and vice-president-elect’s determination to rebuild unity and civility in America,” he added.

Biden is under pressure from fellow Democrats to ensure that his Cabinet is diverse. Black and Asian American groups are pressing for more representation.

Biden’s choice of Becerra smooths, but does not end, the concerns of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus about Latino representation. Becerra’s mother emigrated from Mexico, and his U.S.-born father spent his formative years in that country.

Then-California Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Becerra as California’s top prosecutor in late 2016. Becerra instantly struck a combative tone toward the incoming Trump administration.

Defending California’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act was a key priority, but he also focused on protecting young immigrants from deportation and defending California’s climate change laws.

As HHS secretary, Becerra would be responsible for overseeing the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for unaccompanied minors who enter the U.S. illegally. Becerra has helped lead a coalition of fellow state attorneys general who sued over the Trump administration’s child separation policies.

Republicans immediately made clear their attack lines. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas argued that Becerra was unqualified because he lacked ties to the health care or pharmaceutical industries. Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana blasted his support for “Medicare for All,” which is not Biden’s policy. Abortion opponents have called Becerra “unacceptable.”

The HHS secretary’s job requires political connections, communications skills, managerial savvy, a willingness to learn about complex medical issues and a creative legal mind to use vast regulatory powers without winding up on the losing end of lawsuits.

Becerra will need to establish ties with governors who will play outsize roles in distributing the coronavirus vaccine.

Source: AP

Lloyd Austin, who led US troops into Baghdad in 2003 and rose to head the US Central Command, has been chosen by President-elect Joe Biden to be the first African-American secretary of defence, US media reported Monday.

A veteran of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the retired four-star army general, 67, beat out the favourite for the job, former under-secretary of defence Michele Flournoy, amid pressure on Biden to nominate more minorities for positions in his cabinet.

CNN, Politico and the New York Times cited unnamed sources familiar with the decision, after Biden said earlier Monday that he had made his choice and would announce it on Friday. Austin would require Senate confirmation to take up the post.

He spent four decades in the army, graduating from the West Point Military Academy and following a career with a wide range of assignments, from leading platoons to running logistics groups and overseeing recruiting, to senior Pentagon jobs.

In March 2003 he was the assistant division commander of the 3rd Infantry Division when it marched from Kuwait into Baghdad in the US invasion of Iraq.

From late 2003 to 2005, he was in Afghanistan commanding the Combined Joint Task Force 180, the principle US-led operation seeking to stabilise the security situation in the country.

In 2010 he was made commanding general of US forces in Iraq, and two years later became the commander of the Central Command, in charge of all Pentagon operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Few African-Americans in command jobs

Austin retired from the military in 2016, and joined the board of directors of Raytheon Technologies, one of the Pentagon’s largest contractors.

He would require special approval from the Senate due to federal law that requires military officers to wait seven years after retirement before serving as the Pentagon chief.

The waiver has happened twice — most recently for general Jim Mattis, the first defence secretary in the administration of President Donald Trump.

But members of the Senate agreed begrudgingly, amid concerns over Trump’s views on the military, and several said at the time that they wouldn’t want to do it again.

“He shouldn’t be considered for the same reason that Sec. Mattis shouldn’t have been,” said Congressman Justin Amash in a tweet.

“The law prohibits recently retired members of the Armed Forces from serving in this civilian capacity. Biden would be the second president in a row to violate this norm.”

Austin would take responsibility for the 1.2 million active service members, of which about 16 percent are Black.

But Blacks serve disproportionately in the lower ranks and few have achieved high command positions.

The issue became more clear over the past year when African-American servicemen and women expressed support for the national Black Lives Matter movement against police racism and abuse.

Former defence secretary Mark Esper said he held numerous listening sessions to make White soldiers understand what their Black colleagues felt.

Source: AFP

The United States notched a record number of coronavirus cases in 24 hours for the third day running, as it was reported that Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will get a vaccine within weeks.

A tally by Johns Hopkins University showed the world’s worst-hit country — which has seen a dramatic virus resurgence in recent weeks — reached nearly 230,000 new infections and 2,527 Covid-related deaths on Saturday alone.

For two weeks, the US has regularly topped 2,000 deaths per day, as it had in the spring at the height of the first wave of the country’s outbreak.

Source: AFP

Humanity is facing a new war, unprecedented in history, the Secretary General of the United Nations has warned. The stark message from António Guterres follows a year of global upheaval, with the coronavirus pandemic causing governments to shut down whole countries for months at a time, while wildfires, hurricanes and powerful storms have scarred the globe.

“To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken. Dear friends, humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal. Nature always strikes back and it is already doing so with growing force and fury,” Guterres said.

Guterres said “biodiversity is collapsing. One million species are at risk of extinction. Ecosystems are disappearing before our eyes. Human activities are at the root of our descent toward chaos. But that means human action can help to solve it”.

The Earth continued to endure a period of significant heating in 2020 according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Its provisional assessment suggests this year will be one of the three hottest, just behind 2016 and 2019.

The warmest six years in global records dating back to 1850 have now all occurred since 2015. The most notable warmth was in the Siberian Arctic, where temperatures were 5C above average.

Source: Africa News