In Brief: August 27, 2021

Capitol Police officers sue Trump, allies over insurrection

WASHINGTON — U.S. Capitol Police officers who were attacked and beaten during the Capitol riot filed a lawsuit Thursday against former President Donald Trump, his allies and members of far-right extremist groups, accusing them of intentionally sending a violent mob on Jan. 6 to disrupt the congressional certification of the election.

The suit in federal court in Washington alleges Trump “worked with white supremacists, violent extremist groups, and campaign supporters to violate the Ku Klux Klan Act, and commit acts of domestic terrorism in an unlawful effort to stay in power.”

The suit was filed on behalf of the seven officers by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. It names the former president, the Trump campaign, Trump ally Roger Stone and members of the extremist groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were present at the Capitol and in Washington on Jan. 6.

Two other similar cases have been filed in recent months by Democratic members of Congress. The suits allege the actions of Trump and his allies led to the violence siege of the Capitol that injured dozens of police officers, halted the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral victory and sent lawmakers running for their lives as rioters stormed into the seat of American democracy wielding bats, poles and other weapons.

A House committee has started in earnest to investigate what happened that day, sending out requests Wednesday for documents from intelligence, law enforcement and other government agencies. Their largest request so far was made to the National Archive for information on Trump and his former team.

100,000 more COVID deaths seen unless US changes its ways

The U.S. is projected to see nearly 100,000 more COVID-19 deaths between now and Dec. 1, according to the nation’s most closely watched forecasting model. But health experts say that toll could be cut in half if nearly everyone wore a mask in public spaces.

In other words, what the coronavirus has in store this fall depends on human behavior.

“Behavior is really going to determine if, when and how sustainably the current wave subsides,” said Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium. “We cannot stop delta in its tracks, but we can change our behavior overnight.”

That means doubling down again on masks, limiting social gatherings, staying home when sick and getting vaccinated. “Those things are within our control,” Meyers said.

The U.S. is in the grip of a fourth wave of infection this summer, powered by the highly contagious delta variant, which has sent cases, hospitalizations and deaths soaring again, swamped medical centers, burned out nurses and erased months of progress against the virus.

Virus surge breaks hospital records amid rising toll on kids

Kentucky and Texas joined a growing list of states that are seeing record numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in a surge that is overwhelming doctors and nurses and afflicting more children.

Intensive care units around the nation are packed with patients extremely ill with the coronavirus — even in places where hospitalizations have not yet reached earlier peaks.

The ICU units at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Georgia typically have room for 38 patients, and doctors and nurses may have only two or three people who are very sick, said Dr. Jyotir Mehta, medical director of the ICU. On Wednesday, the ICU had 50 COVID-19 patients alone, roughly half of them relying on ventilators to breathe.

“I don’t think we have experienced this much critical illness in folks, so many people sick at the same time,” Mehta said.

From wire sources

He said talking to family members is difficult. “They are grasping for every hope and you’re trying to tell them, ‘Look, it’s bad,’” he said. “You have to tell them that your loved one is not going to make it.”

Gunmen release students in northern Nigeria 3 months later

LAGOS, Nigeria — Gunmen have released some of the children kidnapped from a school in northern Nigeria back in May, some of whom were as young as 5 years old, the school’s head teacher said late Thursday.

Abubakar Garba Alhassan told The Associated Press that the freed students were on their way to the state capital, Minna, but added he could not confirm the exact number freed.

Authorities have said that 136 children were abducted along with several teachers when gunmen on motorcycles attacked the Salihu Tanko Islamic School in Niger state. Other preschoolers were left behind as they could not keep pace when the gunmen hurriedly moved those abducted into the forest.

Alhassan did not provide details of their release, but parents of the students have over the past weeks struggled to raise ransoms demanded by their abductors. There was no immediate comment from police of the Niger governor’s office.

The release, though, came a day after local media quoted one parent as saying six of the children had died in captivity.

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Time’s Up CEO Tina Tchen resigns in wake of Cuomo scandal

NEW YORK — The chief executive of the sexual harassment victims’ advocacy group Time’s Up resigned Thursday amid outrage over revelations that its leaders advised former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration after he was first accused of misconduct last year.

Time’s Up CEO and president Tina Tchen said in a statement that she’s “spent a career fighting for positive change for women” but was no longer the right person to lead the #MeToo-era organization.

“I am especially aware that my position at the helm of TIME’S UP has become a painful and divisive focal point, where those very women and other activists who should be working together to fight for change are instead battling each other in harmful ways,” she wrote.

The group’s chief operating officer, Monifa Bandele, will serve as interim CEO.

Tchen’s resignation comes after the Aug. 9 departure of the organization’s chair, Roberta Kaplan. Both women had been the target of ire from Time’s Up supporters over the idea they had offered any help to Cuomo, who resigned Monday, three weeks after an investigation overseen by New York’s attorney general concluded he sexually harassed at least 11 women.

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US closing troubled NYC jail where Epstein killed himself

NEW YORK — The U.S. government said Thursday it is shutting down a federal jail in New York City after a slew of problems that came to light following disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide there two years ago.

The federal Bureau of Prisons said the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan will be closed at least temporarily to address issues that have long plagued the facility, including lax security and crumbling infrastructure.

The facility, which has held inmates such as Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán and Mafia boss John Gotti, currently has 233 inmates, down from a normal population of 600 or more. Most are expected to be transferred to a federal jail in Brooklyn.

The decision to close the MCC — billed as one of the most secure jails in America — comes weeks after Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco toured it and saw the conditions firsthand.

Until recently, the facility had been recruiting new staff. Now, employees are being sent letters notifying them of a force reduction.

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RFK assassin Sirhan seeks parole; DA won’t challenge release

SAN DIEGO — Sirhan Sirhan faces his 16th parole hearing Friday for fatally shooting U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and for the first time no prosecutor will be there to argue he should be kept behind bars.

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, a former police officer who took office last year after running on a reform platform, says he idolized the Kennedys and mourned RFK’s assassination but is sticking to his policy that prosecutors have no role in deciding whether prisoners should be released.

That decision is best left to California Parole Board members who can evaluate whether Sirhan has been rehabilitated and can be released safely, Gascón told The Associated Press earlier this year. Relitigating a case decades after a crime should not be the job of prosecutors, even in notorious cases, he said.

“The role of a prosecutor and their access to information ends at sentencing,” Alex Bastian, special advisor to Gascón, said in a statement Thursday.

The 77-year-old Sirhan has served 53 years for the first-degree murder of the New York senator and brother of President John F. Kennedy. RFK was a Democratic presidential candidate when he was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after delivering a victory speech in the pivotal California primary.