In Brief: April 23, 2021

Panel recommends commanders’ power to block military sex cases should end

WASHINGTON — A Pentagon panel is recommending that decisions to prosecute service members for sexual assault be made by independent authorities, not commanders, in what would be a major reversal of military practice and a change long sought by Congress members, The Associated Press has learned.

The recommendation by an independent review commission created by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin goes against decades of vehement Pentagon arguments to keep cases within the chain of command. It was among a number of initial recommendations delivered to Austin on Thursday, according to two senior defense officials.

Austin expects to seek input from military service leaders before making any final decision, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal reports not yet made public. But combating sexual assault in the military is a top priority for Austin, and the fact that this recommendation was made so directly and quickly suggests it will carry a lot of weight.

The proposed changes outlined in the report represent Austin’s effort to leave his mark on a problem that has long plagued the department, triggered widespread congressional condemnation and frustrated military leaders struggling to find prevention, treatment and prosecution efforts that work.

The review panel said that for certain special victims crimes, designated independent judge advocates reporting to a civilian-led office of the Chief Special Victim Prosecutor should decide two key legal questions: whether to charge someone and, ultimately, if that charge should go to a court martial, the officials said. The crimes would include sexual assault, sexual harassment and, potentially, certain hate crimes.

High court moves away from leniency for minors who murder

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court made it easier Thursday to sentence minors convicted of murder to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a ruling that reflects a change in course driven by a more conservative group of justices.

In a dissent, a liberal justice accused her colleagues of gutting earlier decisions that said life without parole sentences for people under age 18 should be rare.

The current case, which involved a Mississippi inmate and a crime committed when he was 15, asked the justices whether a minor has to be found to be “permanently incorrigible,” incapable of being rehabilitated, before being sentenced to life without parole.

From wire sources

In a 6-3 decision that split the justices along ideological lines, the court said no. The ruling followed more than a decade in which the court moved gradually toward more leniency for minors convicted of murder.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, said previous decisions only require a judge to consider “an offender’s youth and attendant characteristics” before imposing a sentence of life without parole. Kavanaugh rejected a more demanding standard.

COVID-19 hospitalizations tumble among US senior citizens

WASHINGTON — COVID-19 hospitalizations among older Americans have plunged more than 70% since the start of the year, and deaths among them appear to have tumbled as well, dramatic evidence the vaccination campaign is working.

Now the trick is to get more of the nation’s younger people to roll up their sleeves.

The drop-off in severe cases among Americans 65 and older is especially encouraging because senior citizens have accounted for about 8 out of 10 deaths from the virus since it hit the U.S., where the toll stands at about 570,000

COVID-19 deaths among people of all ages in the U.S. have plummeted to about 700 per day on average, compared with a peak of over 3,400 in mid-January.

“What you’re seeing there is exactly what we hoped and wanted to see: As really high rates of vaccinations happen, hospitalizations and death rates come down,” said Jodie Guest, a public health researcher at Emory University.

Sharpton decries ‘stench of racism’ in Daunte Wright’s death

MINNEAPOLIS — Daunte Wright, the young Black man shot by an officer during a traffic stop in suburban Minneapolis, was not “just some kid with an air freshener,” but a “prince” whose life ended too soon at the hands of police, the Rev. Al Sharpton said Thursday during an emotional funeral.

Hundreds of people wearing COVID-19 masks packed into Shiloh Temple International Ministries to remember Wright, a 20-year-old father of one who was shot by a white police officer on April 11 in the small city of Brooklyn Center. The funeral was held just two days after former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted in the death of George Floyd and amid a national reckoning on racism and policing.

“The absence of justice is the absence of peace,” Sharpton said. “You can’t tell us to shut up and suffer. We must speak up when there is an injustice.”

The civil rights leader’s thundering eulogy included a stinging rebuke of the possibility that Wright was pulled over for having air fresheners dangling from his mirror. Wright’s mother has said her son called her after he was stopped and told her that was the reason. Police said it was for expired registration.

“We come today as the air fresheners for Minnesota,” Sharpton said, vowing changes in federal law. “We’re trying to get the stench of police brutality out of the atmosphere. We’re trying to get the stench of racism out of the atmosphere. We’re trying to get the stench of racial profiling out of the atmosphere.

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Senate OKs bill to fight hate crimes against Asian Americans

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a bill that would help combat the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, a bipartisan denunciation of such violence during the coronavirus pandemic and a modest step toward legislating in a chamber where most of President Joe Biden’s agenda has stalled.

The measure would expedite the review of hate crimes at the Justice Department and provide support for local law enforcement in response to thousands of reported violent incidents in the past year. Police have seen a noted uptick in such crimes, including the February death of an 84-year-old man who was pushed to the ground near his home in San Francisco, a young family that was injured in a Texas grocery store attack last year and the killing of six Asian women in shootings last month in Atlanta.

The names of the six women killed in Georgia are listed in the bill, which passed the Senate on a 94-1 vote. Biden applauded the measure, tweeting, “Acts of hate against Asian Americans are wrong, un-American, and must stop.” The House is expected to consider similar legislation in the coming weeks.

Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, the legislation’s lead sponsor, said the measure is incredibly important to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, “who have often felt very invisible in our country, always seen as foreign, always seen as the other.” She said the message of the legislation is as important as its content and substance.

Hirono, the first Asian American woman elected to the Senate, said the attacks are “a predictable and foreseeable consequence” of racist and inflammatory language that has been used against Asians during the pandemic, including slurs used by former President Donald Trump.

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Mexico’s drought reaches critical levels as lakes dry up

MEXICO CITY — Drought conditions now cover 85% of Mexico, and residents of the nation’s central region said Thursday that lakes and reservoirs are simply drying up, including the country’s second-largest body of fresh water.

The mayor of Mexico City said the drought was the worst in 30 years, and the problem can be seen at the reservoirs that store water from other states to supply the capital.

Some of them, like the Villa Victoria reservoir west of the capital, are at one-third of their normal capacity, with a month and a half to go before any significant rain is expected.

Isaías Salgado, 60, was trying to fill his water tank truck at Villa Victoria, a task that normally takes him just half an hour. On Thursday he estimated it was taking 3 1/2 hours to pump water into his 10,000-liter tanker.

“The reservoir is drying up,” said Salgado. “If they keep pumping water out, by May it will be completely dry, and the fish will die.”

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Man killed by deputy recalled as storyteller, jokester

ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — Andrew Brown Jr.’s easy smile, which belied hardship, loss and troubles with the law, was memorable for his dimples, his relatives said. He was quick to crack a joke at the family gatherings he tried not to miss after losing both of his parents. He encouraged his children to make good grades even though he dropped out of high school himself. Above all, he was determined to give them a better life than he had.

The 42-year-old Black man from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, was shot to death Wednesday by one or more deputy sheriffs trying to serve drug-related search and arrest warrants. An eyewitness said Brown tried to drive away, but was shot dead in his car. The shooting has prompted protests and demands for accountability in the eastern North Carolina city of about 18,000. The sheriff said deputies involved have been put on leave pending a state investigation.

Despite his hard life — Brown was partially paralyzed on his right side by an accidental shooting, and he lost an eye when he was stabbed, according to aunt Glenda Brown Thomas — “Drew,” as he was called, looked for the humor in things.

“He had a good laugh, a nice smile. And he had good dimples,” Thomas said in an interview Thursday, a day after her nephew was killed. “You know, when he’s talking and smiling, his dimples would always show. And he was kind of like a comedian. He always had a nice joke.”

His cousin Jadine Hampton said Brown often entertained relatives with his humorous stories at family gatherings, including a socially distanced celebration in October of their grandmother’s 92nd birthday, the last time Hampton saw Brown. Photos that Thomas shared with an AP reporter show him smiling at a church ceremony held to honor his grandmother as woman of the year.

Gold-medal project: Judo seeks solutions in police training

DOUGLAS, Wyo. — The stakes were clear to the two dozen police officers who gathered for a workshop with an ambitious and increasingly urgent mission — recalibrating the way police interact with the public in America.

The class took place the same week as jury selection for the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer who was convicted Tuesday of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.

No one attending the conference would deny that the profession failed the day Floyd died with Chauvin’s knee on his neck. They came to the classes with the idea that judo, the martial art with a deep global history and an imprint at the Olympics, but still shallow roots in the United States, might be able to help fix it.

“The social contract between police officers and the public is degrading a bit,” said Joe Yungwirth, a trainer at the workshop who built his career doing counterterrorism work for the FBI and now runs a judo academy in North Carolina. “All law-enforcement officers I know, we feel we need to bring that back in line somehow.”

That’s been a common refrain over a year’s worth of police shootings and protests, all of which have been underscored by calls for police reform.