Sunday, March 18, 2018

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, SUNDAY, MARCH 18, 2018







End U.S. Wars at Home and Abroad

Sunday, April 15, 2018

11:00 A.M. Meet at Lake Merritt Amphitheater

12:00 P.M. March to Oscar Grant Plaza

1:00 P.M. Rally at Oscar Grant Plaza

Join us as part of a weekend of united, nationally-

coordinated regional mobilizations to challenge the war makers and 

defend  humanity.




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Cindy Sheehan and the Women's March on the Pentagon

A movement not just a protest

By Whitney Webb
WASHINGTON—In the last few years, arguably the most visible and well-publicized march on the U.S. capital has been the "Women's March," a movement aimed at advocating for legislation and policies promoting women's rights as well as a protest against the misogynistic actions and statements of high-profile U.S. politicians. The second Women's March, which took place this past year, attracted over a million protesters nationwide, with 500,000 estimated to have participated in Los Angeles alone.
However, absent from this women's movement has been a public antiwar voice, as its stated goal of "ending violence" does not include violence produced by the state. The absence of this voice seemed both odd and troubling to legendary peace activist Cindy Sheehan, whose iconic protest against the invasion and occupation of Iraq made her a household name for many.
Sheehan was taken aback by how some prominent organizers of this year's Women's March were unwilling to express antiwar positions and argued for excluding the issue of peace entirely from the event and movement as a whole. In an interview with MintPress, Sheehan recounted how a prominent leader of the march had told her, "I appreciate that war is your issue Cindy, but the Women's March will never address the war issue as long as women aren't free."
War is indeed Sheehan's issue and she has been fighting against the U.S.' penchant for war for nearly 13 years. After her son Casey was killed in action while serving in Iraq in 2004, Sheehan drew international media attention for her extended protest in front of the Bush residence in Crawford, Texas, which later served as the launching point for many protests against U.S. military action in Iraq.
Sheehan rejected the notion that women could be "free" without addressing war and empire. She countered the dismissive comment of the march organizer by stating that divorcing peace activism from women's issues "ignored the voices of the women of the world who are being bombed and oppressed by U.S. military occupation."
Indeed, women are directly impacted by war—whether through displacement, the destruction of their homes, kidnapping, or torture. Women also suffer uniquely and differently from men in war as armed conflicts often result in an increase in sexual violence against women.
For example, of the estimated half-a-million civilians killed in the U.S. invasion of Iraq, many of them were women and children. In the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, the number of female casualties has been rising on average over 20 percent every year since 2015. In 2014 alone when Israel attacked Gaza in "Operation Protective Edge," Israeli forces, which receives $10 million in U.S. military aid every day, killed over two thousand Palestinians—half of them were women and children. Many of the casualties were pregnant women, who had been deliberately targeted.
Given the Women's March's apparent rejection of peace activism in its official platform, Sheehan was inspired to organize another Women's March that would address what many women's rights advocates, including Sheehan, believe to be an issue central to promoting women's rights.
Dubbed the "Women's March on the Pentagon," the event is scheduled to take place on October 21—the same date as an iconic antiwar march of the Vietnam era—with a mission aimed at countering the "bipartisan war machine." Though men, women and children are encouraged to attend, the march seeks to highlight women's issues as they relate to the disastrous consequences of war.
The effort of women in confronting the "war machine" will be highlighted at the event, as Sheehan remarked that "women have always tried to confront the war-makers," as the mothers, daughters, sisters and wives of the men and women in the military, as well as those innocent civilians killed in the U.S.' foreign wars. As a result, the push for change needs to come from women, according to Sheehan, because "we [women] are the only ones that can affect [the situation] in a positive way." All that's missing is an organized, antiwar women's movement.
Sheehan noted the march will seek to highlight the direct relationship between peace activism and women's rights, since "no woman is free until all women are free" and such "freedom also includes the freedom from U.S. imperial plunder, murder and aggression" that is part of the daily lives of women living both within and beyond the United States. Raising awareness of how the military-industrial complex negatively affects women everywhere is key, says Sheehan, as "unless there is a sense of international solidarity and a broader base for feminism, then there aren't going to be any solutions to any problems, [certainly not] if we don't stop giving trillions of dollars to the Pentagon."
Sheehan also urged that, even though U.S. military adventurism has long been an issue and the subject of protests, a march to confront the military-industrial complex is more important now than ever: "I'm not alarmist by nature but I feel like the threat of nuclear annihilation is much closer than it has been for a long time," adding that, despite the assertion of some in the current administration and U.S. military, "there is no such thing as 'limited' nuclear war." This makes "the need to get out in massive numbers" and march against this more imperative than ever.
Sheehan also noted that Trump's presidency has helped to make the Pentagon's influence on U.S. politics more obvious by bringing it to the forefront: "Even though militarism had been under wraps [under previous presidents], Trump has made very obvious the fact that he has given control of foreign policy to the 'generals.'"
Indeed, as MintPress has reported on several occasions, the Pentagon—beginning in March of last year—has been given the freedom to "engage the enemy" at will, without the oversight of the executive branch or Congress. As a result, the deaths of innocent civilians abroad as a consequence of U.S. military action has spiked. While opposing Trump is not the focus of the march, Sheehan opined that Trump's war-powers giveaway to the Pentagon, as well as his unpopularity, have helped to spark widespread interest in the event.

Different wings of the same warbird

Sheehan has rejected accusations that the march is partisan, as it is, by nature, focused on confronting the bipartisan nature of the military-industrial complex. She told MintPress that she has recently come under pressure owing to the march's proximity to the 2018 midterm elections—as some have ironically accused the march's bipartisan focus as "trying to harm the chances of the Democrats" in the ensuing electoral contest.
In response, Sheehan stated that: 
"Democrats and Republicans are different wings of the same warbird. We are protesting militarism and imperialism. The march is nonpartisan in nature because both parties are equally complicit. We have to end wars for the planet and for the future. I could really care less who wins in November."
She also noted that even when the Democrats were in power under Obama, nothing was done to change the government's militarism nor to address the host of issues that events like the Women's March have claimed to champion.
"We just got finished with eight years of a Democratic regime," Sheehan told MintPress. "For two of those years, they had complete control of Congress and the presidency and a [filibuster-proof] majority in the Senate and they did nothing" productive except to help "expand the war machine." She also emphasized that this march is in no way a "get out the vote" march for any political party.
Even though planning began less than a month ago, support has been pouring in for the march since it was first announced on Sheehan's website, Cindy Sheehan Soapbox. Encouraged by the amount of interest already received, Sheehan is busy working with activists to organize the events and will be taking her first organizing trip to the east coast in April of this year. 
In addition, those who are unable to travel to Washington are encouraged to participate in any number of solidarity protests that will be planned to take place around the world or to plan and attend rallies in front of U.S. embassies, military installations, and the corporate headquarters of war profiteers.
Early endorsers of the event include journalists Abby Martin, Mnar Muhawesh and Margaret Kimberley; Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly; FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley; and U.S. politicians like former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. Activist groups that have pledged their support include CodePink, United National Antiwar Coalition, Answer Coalition, Women's EcoPeace and World Beyond War.
Though October is eight months away, Sheehan has high hopes for the march. More than anything else, though, she hopes that the event will give birth to a "real revolutionary women's movement that recognizes the emancipation and liberation of all peoples—and that means [freeing] all people from war and empire, which is the biggest crime against humanity and against this planet." By building "a movement and not just a protest," the event's impact will not only be long-lasting, but grow into a force that could meaningfully challenge the U.S. military-industrial complex that threatens us all. God knows the world needs it.
For those eager to help the march, you can help spread the word through social media by joining the march's Facebook page or following the march's Twitter account, as well as by word of mouth. In addition, supporting independent media outlets—such as MintPress, which will be reporting on the march—can help keep you and others informed as October approaches.
Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News who has written for several news organizations in both English and Spanish; her stories have been featured on ZeroHedge, the Anti-Media, and 21st Century Wire among others. She currently lives in Southern Chile.
MPN News, February 20, 2018
https://www.mintpressnews.com/cindy-sheehan-and-the-womens-march-on-the-pentagon-a-movement-not-just-a-protest/237835/

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April 1-7: DRONE RESISTANCE WEEK at CREECH AFB
Mark your calendar:  Sept. 30-Oct. 6, SHUT DOWN CREECH: 
Mass Mobilization to STOP KILLER DRONES.


Join CODEPINK, Veterans for Peace, and other activists for a week of resistance in the "killer drone fields” of Creech Air Force Base!

With this week’s 50th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, where the U.S. military slaughtered over 500 villagers in Vietnam, it is a time to reflect.  The U.S. Killer Drone Program is as covert as ever, but continues to brutally kill people in the poorest communities of the world, as the they go about their daily lives, driving on a road, praying in a mosque, eating with their family, studying in school, attending a wedding party or funeral.  The ongoing U.S. drone attacks represent modern day mini-My Lai massacres…relentless and barbaric, “hunting" people who have no ability to defend themselves.  

As we approach the 50th anniversary of Martin L. King Jr.’s assassination, April 4, I am reminded of his words of truth:  “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world:  my own country...”  Sadly, it has only gotten worse.  We refuse to adapt to it.

Join us for all or part of the week of peaceful nonviolent resistance.  
Stay in the Goddess Temple guest house or bring your tent and gear and sleep under the beautiful Nevada desert skies.  Collaborate with activists, and join our daily am & pm vigils during rush hour commute, when thousands of military flood into and out of Creech AFB, a key command center of the U.S. killer drone program.  The day hours between vigils allow opportunities for desert walks, camaraderie with other peacemakers, and nature retreats in the beautiful desert….an opportunity for replenishing our souls and brainstorming inspirations for resistance.


Not too late to join us, and hope to see you there!

Maggie, Eleanor, Cecile, Ann Wright, GG, Michael Kerr, Pamela, Mary Dean, Renay, Susan Witka, and Toby



It is so beautiful to see young people in this country rising up to demand an end to gun violence. But what is Donald Trump's response? Instead of banning assault weapons, he wants to give guns to teachers and militarize our schools. But one of the reasons for mass school shootings is precisely because our schools are already militarized. Florida shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was trained by U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) program while he was in high school.
Yesterday, Divest from the War Machine coalition member, Pat Elder, was featured on Democracy Now discussing his recent article about the JROTC in our schools. The JROTC teaches children how to shoot weapons. It is often taught by retired soldiers who have no background in teaching. They are allowed to teach classes that are given at least equal weight as classes taught by certified and trained teachers. We are pulling our children away from classes that expand their minds and putting them in classes that teach them how to be killing machines. The JROTC program costs our schools money. It sends equipment. But, the instructors and facilities must be constructed and paid for by the school.
The JROTC puts our children's futures at risk. Children who participate in JROTC shooting programs are exposed to lead bullets from guns. They are at an increased risk when the shooting ranges are inside. The JROTC program is designed to "put a jump start on your military career." Children are funneled into JROTC to make them compliant and to feed the military with young bodies which are prepared to be assimilated into the war machine. Instead of funneling children into the military, we should be channeling them into jobs that support peace and sustainable development. 
Tell Senator McCain and Representative Thornberry to take the war machine out of our schools! The JROTC program must end immediately. The money should be directed back into classrooms that educate our children.
The Divest from the War Machine campaign is working to remove our money from the hands of companies that make a killing on killing. We must take on the systems that keep fueling war, death, and destruction around the globe. AND, we must take on the systems that are creating an endless cycle of children who are being indoctrinated at vulnerable ages to become the next killing machine.  Don't forget to post this message on Facebook and Twitter.
Onward in divestment,
Ann, Ariel, Brienne, Jodie, Kelly, Kirsten, Mark, Medea, Nancy, Natasha, Paki, Sarah, Sophia and Tighe
P.S. Do you want to do more? Start a campaign to get the JROTC out of your school district or state. Email divest@codepink.org and we'll get you started!

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DROP LWOP Town Hall
DateSaturday March 24
Time5:00 PM - 8:00 PM
iCal Import this event into your personal calendar.
Location Details
Red Bay Coffee Roastery, Bar & Garden, 3098 E 10th St, Oakland (Near Fruitvale Bart)
Event TypeTeach-In
Organizer/AuthorCalifornia Coalition for Women Prisoners
Emailinfo [at] womenprisoners.org
Phone415-255-7036 x 4
Drop LWOP Town Hall will feature a panel of formerly incarcerated women describing the injustice of the Life Without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP) sentence which condemns over 5,000 people in California prisons to a living death sentence. With food from Mamacitas Cafe, a raffle, and items for sale made by people living inside women's prisons. Donations Requested: $5-20. No one turned away for lack of funds.



Added to the calendar on Sunday Feb 25th, 2018 8:27 PM

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A Call for a National Conference to
Organize a Fightback to Defeat Austerity
Stop the war by the banks, corporations
and government on the workers and poor


Saturday March 24, 2018

Historic St. Matthews-St. Joseph's Church
8850 Woodward Avenue
(between Holbrook and King)
Detroit, MI 48202

10:00am-5:00pm

Special Conference Guest:
Ricardo Santos Ramos, former President,
Electrical Industry and Irrigation Workers Union (UTIER),
Puerto Rico.


To endorse, email defeatausterity@gmail.com

All progressive activists and organizations are invited to participate in the National Conference to Defeat Austerity taking place in Detroit on Saturday, March 24. The purpose of this gathering is to map out a strategy for defeating the war being waged by the banks, corporations and government against the workers and oppressed. Capitalism cannot continue unchallenged while our very lives are being jeopardized by the ruling elites who are determined to grow richer and more powerful at our expense while whipping up white supremacy, an anti-immigrant offensive, attacks on women and anti-LGBTQ bigotry to keep our class divided.

Detroit along with colonized Puerto Rico has been at the epicenter of bank-imposed austerity against the workers and oppressed in this hemisphere. But every U.S. city, from Chicago to Baltimore to Cleveland to Milwaukee, from New York City to Oakland and Seattle, has felt the brunt of this attack in the form of cutbacks, school closings, mass transit cuts, water shutoffs, gentrification and destruction of public service unions.

The Trump tax plan and Pentagon war build-up continue the massive transfer of wealth to the rich at the expense of the poor. This war by the banks and on the workers and poor is an international phenomenon spanning every continent. On March 24, we will hammer out a program on how to fight back against the corporations, the banks and their lackeys in government at all levels.

The Conference will discuss these issues in depth from the perspective of how they all are products of a capitalist system where profits are everything and people mean nothing. We will mobilize support for making May Day 2018 an anti-Austerity Day, as well as lending solidarity to the Poor Peoples Campaign. We will outline a program of action in solidarity with all movements working for social change and transformation.

For information on housing, please email Sharon at sfsharonfeldman@live.com 

If you need child care, please email your request to defeatausterity@gmail.com 

Please indicate your intent to participate in the conference by registering at CONFERENCE REGISTRATION.

Finally, donations are needed to cover the cost of the conference. Click here to donate online or write a check to Moratorium NOW, add #DefeatAusterity in the memo line, and mail the check to:

Moratorium NOW! Coalition
5920 Second Ave.
Detroit, MI 48202




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Tell the Feds: End Draft Registration

This morning, in a small community college classroom in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a newly formed federal commission  scheduled its first public hearing on the future of draft registration in the United States. "The bipartisan, 11-member Commission was created by Congress to review the military selective service process," notes their press release. In addition to eight more (yet to be scheduled) public hearings across the United States over the next two years, the commission has invited feedback via a webform here.

Courage to Resist Podcast: The Future of Draft Registration in the United States

We had draft registration resister Edward Hasbrouck on the Courage to Resistpodcast this week to explain what's going on. Edward talks about his own history of going to prison for refusing to register for the draft in 1983, the background on this new federal commission, and he addresses liberal arguments in favor of involuntary service. Edward explains: 
When you say, "I'm not willing to be drafted", you're saying, "I'm going to make my own choices about which wars we should be fighting", and when you say, "You should submit to the draft", you're saying, "You should let the politicians decide for you."
What's happening right now is that a National Commission … has been appointed to study the question of whether draft registration should be continued, whether it should be expanded to make women, as well as men register for the draft, whether a draft itself should be started, whether there should be some other kind of Compulsory National Service enacted.
The Pentagon would say, and it's true, they don't want a draft. It's not plan A, but it's always been plan B, and it's always been the assumption that if we can't get enough volunteers, if we get in over our head, if we pick a larger fight than we can pursue, we always have that option in our back pocket that, "If not enough people volunteer, we're just going to go go to the draft, go to the benches, and dragoon enough people to fight these wars."
[This] is the first real meaningful opportunity for a national debate about the draft in decades.

COURAGE TO RESIST ~ SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT!
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559



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PACK THE COURT FOR MUMIA



Tuesday, March 27, 8:00 A.M.
Court Hearing

Room 1108, Criminal Justice Center
1301 Filbert Street, Philadelphia

In a court case that could eventually lead to Mumia Abu-Jamal's freedom, Judge Leon Tucker has ordered the District Attorney's office to present new testimony in reference to Ronald Castille. A Status Hearing will take place Feb.26 followed by a court hearing on March 27.

Castille is a former PA Supreme Court

judge who refused to disqualify
Himself when Mumia's case came before the court despite having been the Philadelphia District Attorney during Mumia's prior appeals. The US Supreme Court has ruled such conduct unconstitutional.


The people's movement forced the courts to take Abu-Jamal off death row in 2011 but his freedom was not won. Despite his innocence he was re-sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

As an innocent man, Mumia must be freed! It is even more urgent that he gain his freedom because he is suffering from cirrhosis of the liver, severe itching and other ailments.

International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, International Action Center, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (NYC), Campaign to Bring Mumia Home, Educators for Mumia; Food Not Bombs Solidarity


What you can do:
 Call DA Larry Krasner at (215)686-8000.
Tell him to release all DA and police files on Mumia to the public.
Tell the DA to release Mumia because he's factually innocent.
 Pack the court on 2/26 and 3/27.



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International Letter in Support of Mumia Abu-Jamal


December 9, 2017
To:
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner From:
Concerned Members of International Community
A CALL TO RELEASE THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY AND POLICE FILES RELEVANT TO MUMIA ABU-JAMAL'S CASEAND TO FREE ABU-JAMAL NOW
We, the undersigned individual and organizational members of the international community concerned with issues of human rights, call your attention to an egregious example of human rights violations in your respective jurisdictions: the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Specifically, we call on you both, key officials with the power to determine Abu-Jamal's fate, to:
  1. Assure that all the District Attorney and police files relevant to Abu-Jamal's case, be released publicly as the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas is reviewing the potential involvement of retired Supreme Court Justice Ronald Castille in a conflict of interest when he reviewed Abu Jamal's case as a PA Supreme Court Justice.
  2. Release Abu-Jamal now from his incarceration. That given the mounds of evidence of Abu-Jamal's innocence and even more evidence of police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct, his unjust incarceration, including almost 30 years on death row, his twice near-executions, his prison-induced illness which brought him to the brink of death, and the lack of timely treatment for his hepatitis-C which has left him with a condition, cirrhosis of the liver, which poses a potential threat to his life ... we call for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal now.
Now, Abu-Jamal has a new legal challenge in the Pennsylvania courts on the grounds that PA Supreme Court Justice Ronald Castille had a conflict of interest when he denied Abu-Jamal's appeals from 1998-2014. The new action is based on a precedent setting U.S. Supreme Court decision, Williams v. Pennsylvania, that a judge who had been personally involved in a critical prosecutorial decision violates the defendant's right to an impartial judicial review if he then gets to rule on the case as a State Supreme Court Justice. Castille was the Philadelphia elected District Attorney during Abu-Jamal's first appeal process, after his conviction and death sentence, from 1986-1991. He was a PA Supreme Court Justice from 1994 to 2014, during which time Abu-Jamal's case came before him multiple times.
We demand: Public disclosure of the police and DA files! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!!
To sign onto this letter please email infomumia@gmail.com with the subject line "International Letter for Mumia." Submit your full name as you want it listed and your organizational or professional identification.This identification is critical in a letter of this sort, as names alone carry little leverage.
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frantzfanonfoundation@amail.com - 58. rue Daquerre, 75014 Paris. +336 86 78 39 20. frantzfanonfoundation-fondationfrantzfanon.com 


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Major George Tillery
A Case of Gross Prosecutorial Misconduct and Police Corruption
Sexual Favors and Hotel Rooms Provided by Police to Prosecution Fact Witness for Fabricated Testimony During Trial
By Nancy Lockhart, M.J.
August 24, 2016

Corruption in The State of Pennsylvania is being exposed with a multitude of public officials indicted by the US Attorney's office in 2015 and 2016.  A lengthy list of extortion, theft, and corruption in public service includes a former Solicitor, Treasurer and Veteran Police Officer  U.S. Department of Justice Corruption Prosecutions.  On Monday August 15, 2016 Pennsylvania State Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane was found guilty of all nine counts in a perjury and obstruction case related to a grand jury leak.  Pennsylvania's Attorney General Convicted On All Counts - New York Times
Although this is a small sampling of decades long corruption throughout the state of Pennsylvania, Major George Tillery has languished in prison over 31 years because of prosecutorial misconduct and police corruption. Tillery was tried and convicted in 1985 in a trial where prosecutors and police created a textbook criminal story for bogus convictions. William Franklin was charged as a co-conspirator in the shootings, he was tried and convicted in December of 1980, because he refused to lie on Tillery.  Franklin is 69 years old according to the PADOC website and has been in prison 36 years. 

Major Tillery Is Not Represented by an Attorney and Needs Your Assistance to Retain One. Donate to Major Tillery's Legal Defense FundMajor Tillery, PA DOC# AM9786, will turn 66-years-old on September 9, 2016 and has spent over three decades in prison for crimes he did not commit. Twenty of those 31 plus years were spent in solitary confinement. Tillery has endured many very serious medical issues and medical neglect.  Currently, he is plagued with serious illnesses that include hepatitis C, stubborn skin rashes, dangerous intestinal disorders and a degenerative hip. His orthopedic shoes were taken by prison administrators and never returned.

Tillery, was convicted of homicide, assault, weapons and conspiracy charges in 1985, for the poolroom shootings which left one man dead and another wounded. William Franklin was the pool room operator at the time. The shooting occurred on October 22, 1976.  
Falsified testimony was the only evidence presented during trial. No other evidence linked Tillery to the 1976 shootings, except for the testimony of two jailhouse informants. Both men swore that they had received no promises, agreements, or deals in exchange for their testimony. Barbra Christie, the trial prosecutor, insisted to the Court and Jury that these witnesses were not given any plea agreements or sentencing promises. That was untrue.

Newly discovered evidence is the sole basis for Tillery's latest Pro Se filing. According to the  Post Conviction Relief Petition Filed June 15, 2016, evidence proves that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania committed fraud on the Court and Jury which undermined the fundamentals of due process. The newly discovered evidence in sworn declarations is from two prosecution fact witnesses. Those two witnesses provided the entirety of trial evidence against Major Tillery. The declarations explain false testimonies manufactured by the prosecution with the assistance of police detectives/investigators. On August 19, 2016 Judge Leon Tucker filed a Notice of Intent to Dismiss Major's PCRA petition.  Notice to Dismiss

Emanuel Claitt Has Come Forth to Declare His Testimony as Manufactured and Fabricated by Police and Prosecutors. Claitt states that his testimony during trial was fabricated and coerced by Assistant District Attorney Barbara Christie, Detectives John Cimino and James McNeshy.  Claitt swore that he was promised a very favorable plea agreement and treatment in his pending criminal cases.  Claitt was granted sexual favors in exchange for his false testimony. Claitt states that he was allowed to have sex with four different women in the homicide interview rooms and in hotel rooms in exchange for his cooperation. 

Prosecution fact witness Emanuel Claitt states in his  Declaration of Emanuel Claitt, and Emanuel Claitt Supplemental Declaration that testimony against Major Tillery was fabricated, coerced and coached by Assistant District Attorney's Leonard Ross, Barbara Christie, and Roger King with the assistance of Detectives Larry Gerrad, Ernest Gilbert, and Lt. Bill Shelton.  Claitt was threatened with false murder charges as well as, given promises and agreements of favorable plea deals and sentencing. In exchange for his false testimony, many of Claitt's cases were not prosecuted. He received probation. Additionally, he was sentenced to a mere 18 months for fire bombing and was protected after his arrest between the time of Franklin's and Tillery's trials.  

Trial Lawyer Operated Under Actual Conflict of Interest. Tillery discovered that his trial lawyer, Joseph Santaguida, also represented the victim. In other words, the victim in this case was represented by trial lawyer Santaguida and Santaguida also represented Major Tillery.  The Commonwealth has concealed newly discovered evidence as well as, evidence which would have been favorable to Major Tillery in the criminal trial. That evidence would have exonerated him. In light of the new Declarations which prove manufactured testimony by prosecutors and police, Major Tillery needs legal representation. He is not currently represented by an attorney. 
Donate: Major Tillery's Legal Defense FundClick Here & Donate

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Art by Leonard Peltier

Free Leonard Peltier!

On my 43rd year in prison I yearn to hug my grandchildren.

By Leonard Peltier

I am overwhelmed that today, February 6, is the start of my 43rd year in prison. I have had such high hopes over the years that I might be getting out and returning to my family in North Dakota. And yet here I am in 2018 still struggling for my FREEDOM at 73.
I don't want to sound ungrateful to all my supporters who have stood by me through all these years. I dearly love and respect you and thank you for the love and respect you have given me.
But the truth is I am tired, and often my ailments cause me pain with little relief for days at a time. I just had heart surgery and I have other medical issues that need to be addressed: my aortic aneurysm that could burst at any time, my prostate, and arthritis in my hip and knees.
I do not think I have another ten years, and what I do have I would like to spend with my family. Nothing would bring me more happiness than being able to hug my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
I did not come to prison to become a political prisoner. I've been part of Native resistance since I was nine years of age. My sister, cousin and I were kidnapped and taken to boarding school. This incident and how it affected my cousin Pauline, had an enormous effect on me.
This same feeling haunts me as I reflect upon my past 42 years of false imprisonment. This false imprisonment has the same feeling as when I heard the false affidavit the FBI manufactured about Myrtle Poor Bear being at Oglala on the day of the fire-fight—a fabricated document used to extradite me illegally from Canada in 1976.
I know you know that the FBI files are full of information that proves my innocence. Yet many of those files are still withheld from my legal team. During my appeal before the 8th Circuit, former Prosecuting Attorney Lynn Crooks said to Judge Heaney: "Your honor, we do not know who killed those agents. Further, we don't know what participation, if any, Mr. Peltier had in it."
That statement exonerates me, and I should have been released. But here I sit, 43 years later still struggling for my freedom. I have pleaded my innocence for so long now, in so many courts of law, in so many public statements issued through the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, that I will not argue it here. But I will say again, I DID NOT KILL THOSE AGENTS!
Right now, I need my supporters here in the U.S. and throughout the world helping me. We need donations large or small to help pay my legal team to do the research that will get me back into court or get me moved closer to home or a compassionate release based on my poor health and age. Please help me to go home, help me win my freedom!
There is a new petition my Canadian brothers and sisters are circulating internationally that will be attached to my letter. Please sign it and download it so you can take it to your work, school or place of worship. Get as many signatures as you can, a MILLION would be great!
I have been a warrior since age nine. At 73, I remain a warrior. I have been here too long. The beginning of my 43rd year plus over 20 years of good time credit, that makes 60-plus years behind bars.
I need your help. I need your help today! A day in prison for me is a lifetime for those outside because I am isolated from the world.
I remain strong only because of your support, prayers, activism and your donations that keep my legal hope alive.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Doksha,
Leonard Peltier
If you would like a paper petition, please email contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info.
—San Francisco Bay View, February 6, 2018
Write to:
Leonard Peltier 89637-132 
USP Coleman I 
P.O. Box 1033 
Coleman, FL 33521

Donations can be made on Leonard's behalf to the ILPD national office, 116 W. Osborne Ave, Tampa, FL 33603




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More Artwork by Kevin Cooper



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SOLIDARITY with SERVERS — PLEASE CIRCULATE!
From Clifford Conner

Dear friends and relatives

Every day the scoundrels who have latched onto Trump to push through their rightwing soak-the-poor agenda inflict a new indignity on the human race.  Today they are conspiring to steal the tips we give servers in restaurants.  The New York Times editorial appended below explains what they're trying to get away with now.

People like you and me cannot compete with the Koch brothers' donors network when it comes to money power.  But at least we can try to avoid putting our pittance directly into their hands.  Here is a modest proposal:  Whenever you are in a restaurant where servers depend on tips for their livelihoods, let's try to make sure they get what we give them.

Instead of doing the easy thing and adding the tip into your credit card payment, GIVE CASH TIPS and HAND THEM DIRECTLY TO YOUR SERVER. If you want to add a creative flourish such as including a preprinted note that explains why you are doing this, by all means do so.  You could reproduce the editorial below for their edification.

If you want to do this, be sure to check your wallet before entering a restaurant to make sure you have cash in appropriate denominations.

This is a small act of solidarity with some of the most exploited members of the workforce in America.  Perhaps its symbolic value could outweigh its material impact.  But to paraphrase the familiar song: What the world needs now is solidarity, sweet solidarity.

If this idea should catch on, be prepared for news stories about restaurant owners demanding that servers empty their pockets before leaving the premises at the end of their shifts.  The fight never ends!

Yours in struggle and solidarity,

Cliff

The Trump Administration to Restaurants: Take the Tips!
The New York Times editorial board, December 21, 2017
Most Americans assume that when they leave a tip for waiters and bartenders, those workers pocket the money. That could become wishful thinking under a Trump administration proposal that would give restaurants and other businesses complete control over the tips earned by their employees.
The Department of Labor recently proposed allowing employers to pool tips and use them as they see fit as long as all of their workers are paid at least the minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour nationally and higher in some states and cities. Officials argue that this will free restaurants to use some of the tip money to reward lowly dishwashers, line cooks and other workers who toil in the less glamorous quarters and presumably make less than servers who get tips. Using tips to compensate all employees sounds like a worthy cause, but a simple reading of the government's proposal makes clear that business owners would have no obligation to use the money in this way. They would be free to pocket some or all of that cash, spend it to spiff up the dining room or use it to underwrite $2 margaritas at happy hour. And that's what makes this proposal so disturbing.
The 3.2 million Americans who work as waiters, waitresses and bartenders include some of the lowest-compensated working people in the country. The median hourly wage for waiters and waitresses was $9.61 an hour last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Further, there is a sordid history of restaurant owners who steal tips, and of settlements in which they have agreed to repay workers millions of dollars.
Not to worry, says the Labor Department, which argues, oddly and unconvincingly, that workers will be better off no matter how owners spend the money. Enlarging dining rooms, reducing menu prices or offering paid time off should be seen as "potential benefits to employees and the economy over all." The department also assures us that owners will funnel tip money to employees because workers would quit otherwise.
t is hard to know how much time President Trump's appointees have spent with single mothers raising two children on a salary from a workaday restaurant in suburban America, seeing how hard it is to make ends meet without tips. What we do know is that the administration has produced no empirical cost-benefit analysis to support its proposal, which is customary when the government seeks to make an important change to federal regulations.
The Trump administration appears to be rushing this rule through — it has offered the public just 30 days to comment on it — in part to pre-empt the Supreme Court from ruling on a 2011 Obama-era tipping rule. The department's new proposal would do away with the 2011 rule. The restaurant industry has filed several legal challenges to that regulation, which prohibits businesses from pooling tips and sharing them with dishwashers and other back-of-the-house workers. Different federal circuit appeals courts have issued contradictory rulings on those cases, so the industry has asked the Supreme Court to resolve those differences; the top court has not decided whether to take that case.
Mr. Trump, of course, owns restaurants as part of his hospitality empire and stands to benefit from this rule change, as do many of his friends and campaign donors. But what the restaurant business might not fully appreciate is that their stealth attempt to gain control over tips could alienate and antagonize customers. Diners who are no longer certain that their tips will end up in the hands of the server they intended to reward might leave no tip whatsoever. Others might seek to covertly slip cash to their server. More high-minded restaurateurs would be tempted to follow the lead of the New York restaurateur Danny Meyer and get rid of tipping by raising prices and bumping up salaries.
By changing the fundamental underpinnings of tipping, the government might well end up destroying this practice. But in doing so it would hurt many working-class Americans, including people who believed that Mr. Trump would fight for them.

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Working people are helping to feed the poor hungry corporations! 
Charity for the Wealthy!

GOP Tax Plan Would Give 15 of America's Largest Corporations a $236B Tax Cut: Report

By Jake Johnson, December 18, 2017



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Addicted to War:

And this does not include "…spending $1.25 trillion dollars to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and $566 billion to build the Navy a 308-ship fleet…"



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Kaepernick sports new T-shirt:



Love this guy!


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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A) EVENTS, ACTIONS 
AND ONGOING STRUGGLES

B) ARTICLES IN FULL


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A) EVENTS, ACTIONS AND ONGOING STRUGGLES


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We are extremely disappointed to share yesterday's ruling of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals which has upheld the indefinite imprisonment of Reality Leigh Winner. Ms. Winner has been jailed without bail since June 6, 2017 for helping expose Russian hacking that targeted US election systems.
"I am beyond heartbroken" shared Winner's mother, Billie Davis-Winner. "The trial, originally scheduled in October 2017 and then reset to March 2018, will once again be reset to a much later date, but as of now we do not have a new setting. There is so much going on with the evidence and discovery and there are a few active appeals not yet ruled on. It's gonna be a long journey."
Winner, a decorated Air Force veteran with no criminal record, who has already served eight months in jail despite being convicted of no crime, and displaying every intention to face the single charge against her in court, will now be jailed for another year, regardless of the jury's eventual verdict.

SUPPORTERS RESPOND

Government transparency advocate Rainey Reitman adds that "Reality Winner is facing an unjust and unconstitutional prosecution under the Espionage Act. This 100 year old law, created to prosecute spies during World War I, isn't designed to be used on whistleblowers. Under this law, the judge won't consider her motives or the public benefits of her actions as a whistleblower. It makes it impossible for her to receive a fair trial."

Jeff Paterson, who managed the successful campaign to free Chelsea Manning, notes that, "By the time Reality's trial starts, she'll have spent a full year and half behind bars. Meanwhile the actual Russiagate indicted criminals, including Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn, haven't spent a day in jail."
"Winner's case has precedent setting implications for whistleblowers trying to do the right thing, press freedom, election suppression, and the government's escalating war on dissent. Reality took a risk to share something that Americans had a right to know," Paterson added.

TIMELINE

January 2017 - After serving six years in the Air Force, Winner takes a job as an NSA intelligence contractor.

May 9, 2017 - President Trump fires FBI Director James Comey. Winner allegedly finds and prints a classified report entitled, "Russia/Cybersecurity: Main Intelligence Directorate Cyber Actors."

May 10, 2017 - Trump celebrates with Russian officials in the White House, bragging that he had fired "nut job" Comey in order to end any "Russiagate" investigation.

May 11, 2017 - Winner allegedly sends NSA report to the media outlet "The Intercept."

May 17, 2017 - Special counsel Robert Mueller appointed to investigate "Russiagate."

June 5, 2017 - Winner arrested. During interrogation, she allegedly states, "Why do I have this job if I'm just going to sit back and be helpless … I just thought that was the final straw … I felt really hopeless seeing that information contested … Why isn't this out there? Why can't this be public?"

US v. WINNER INSIGHT

Contrary to a focus on citizens' right to know of attacks against election infrastructure, Winner's Espionage Act charge actually requires the government to prove that the leak itself caused harm rather than exposed it. Joe Whitley, attorney for Reality Winner, recently explained.
     "This is not a simple case. 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) -- the charged offense here -- is a notoriously complicated statute that has numerous elements the Government must prove, including ... that the classified intelligence reporting referenced ... constitutes "national defense information" (meaning the Document could actually threaten the national security of the US if disclosed, and that the information in the classified intelligence reporting was "closely held") and that the Defendant knew the Document contained this type of information." (Case document #203)
Winner has a top notch defense team determined to prove her innocence in court, despite the prosecution's ongoing campaign to deny her the right to a fair and open trial.
And we are the primary source of fundraising for Winner's legal defense team as well as leading public education efforts regarding this precedent setting First Amendment vs. Espionage Act case.

SOLIDARITY STEP: Make a donation today in honor of Reality's courage to do the right thing and to support her legal defense.
And tell others. BOOST THE SIGNAL!

Can you donate a few hours this month to help? We have a small list of a few well-defined volunteer tasks which we can send you to consider if they match with your interest and skills. Please email us at connect@standwithreality.org
~~~
For complete campaign information and case documents:

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B) ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) After West Virginia, Teachers in Oklahoma, Arizona, Rise Against Low Wages
By teleSUR, March 11, 2018
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/48905-after-west-virginia-teachers-in-oklahoma-arizona-rise-against-low-wages

The Oklahoma state capitol building. (photo: Getty Images)



n Arizona, thousands of teachers showed up wearing red to schools in solidarity to show their frustration with the government and lack of labor laws.

fter the mass mobilization of teachers in West Virginia that moved the lawmakers to action for the overdue pay raise, teachers in Arizona and Oklahoma are rising up to address the issue of low wages and underfunded schools.
Oklahoma Public Employees Association board of directors said the if the lawmakers won't approve over US$213 million in state employee pay raises, the teachers will walk-out, according to the Hill. Oklahoma state employees on Saturday said they would join the planned teachers strike scheduled for April 2. 
Alicia Priest, president of the Oklahoma Education Association, a professional collective representing nearly 35,000 educators in the state, told Vox, "Everything we have tried has failed ... What [happened] in West Virginia is giving teachers hope, myself included, that we can be change agents."
The Oklahoma Public Employees Association's communications director, Tom Dunning, said: "We are going to have to design different plans for different types of (a state agency) work sites, and that's what we are going to be doing over the next week," the Hill reported. 
The Oklahoma teachers' collective petitioned and created a Facebook group to mobilize teachers in the state. The Facebook group "Oklahoma Teacher Walkout – The Time Is Now!" has, so far, garnered a little over 50,000 members. 
In an online petition, the Oklahoma educators demanded better and higher pay to retain current teachers. "Teachers in Oklahoma need a raise of $10,000 per year to be competitive regionally. Our neighbor states are paying much more and luring away our best talent. Current compensation levels eliminate new college graduates entering the profession," the petition read
"Frustration levels are high, so a strike is not a touchy word anymore," Molly Jaynes, an Oklahoma City teacher told KTUL, a local Oklahoma news channel. "I think we have surpassed the point of conversations, and I don't think that there's anything the legislators have provided us recently to give us any sort of hope that they're going to take actual actions this time." 
In Arizona, thousands of teachers showed up wearing red to schools in solidarity to show their frustration with the government and lack of labor laws. "West Virginia teachers walked out — and they make more than us," a teacher said at a school board meeting on February 28 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Vox reported.


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2) Who Profits from Nuclear War?
By Andrea Germanos, March 7, 2018
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/03/07/trump-threats-stir-global-arms-race-new-report-details-nuclear-war-profiteers  
The new report "names those that are still okay with trying to make a profit from producing nuclear weapons." (Photo: ippnw Deutschland/flickr/cc)  


A new report offers a comprehensive look at who's profiting from the new nuclear arms race.
"If you have been wondering who benefits from Donald Trump's threats of nuclear war, this report has that answer," said Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

ICAN, along with Netherlands-based peace group Pax, released the report, entitled, "Don't Bank on the Bomb," on Wednesday, March 7, 2018. It shows that 329 financial institutions in 24 countries invested $525 billion into the top 20 companies involved in the production, maintenance, and modernization of nuclear weapons from January 2014 through October 2017

The good news is that the number of investors marks 30 fewer institutions than in last year's report. Yet despite the shorter list, the institutions are investing about $81 billion more in these companies that make weapons of mass destruction. The increased funds, added with the fact that the nuclear-armed states are "modernizing" their arsenals as well as bellicose rhetoric from world leaders like Trump, make clear the need for the global public to campaign for divestment, the groups argue.

The report's "Hall of Shame" shows the top ten financial institutions with the biggest investments in nuclear weapons manufacturing—all U.S. firms—are: BlackRock, Capital Group, Vanguard, State Street, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Evercore, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs.

These institutions accounted for nearly half ($253 billion) of the total investments made.
The top three nuclear weapons producers, by investments, are also all based in the U.S.: Boeing, Honeywell International, and Lockheed Martin.

Those corporations, and the 17 others that are most heavily involved in nuclear weapons making, stated Fihn, "are the companies that stand to profit from indiscriminate mass murder of civilians. We grow less safe while they cash in on chaos by banking on Armageddon."

The report offers more than doom-and-gloom, however, as it describes the landmark Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as being a catalyst for positive change. Since its adoption last year, ABP, the fifth largest pension fund, and the Norwegian Government Pension Fund, globally the second largest pension fund, announced they would no longer put their assets into nuclear weapons-making companies. 

Another sign of hope, the report states, are the 22 institutions listed on the "Hall of Fame" that have policies preventing investments in nuclear weapon producers. The list includes for the first time a U.S.-based institution called Green Century, a sustainability-geared investment firm that has roughly $525 million in assets under management. All the other hall-of-famers are based in Europe.

According to report author Susi Snyder, the "Nuclear Ban Treaty has sparked momentum towards divestment, shown by ten percent fewer investors in nuclear weapon producers, and an increase in financial institutions comprehensively prohibiting any investment. Investments are not neutral, these companies should be congratulated for standing on the side of humanity."

The big picture from all the data, the report says, is this: "By divesting from nuclear weapon producers, we can make it harder for those that profit from weapons of mass destruction and encourage them to cut the production of nuclear weapons from their business strategies. Producing, possessing, and modernizing nuclear weapons is not something to be proud of and 'Don't Bank on the Bomb' names those that are still okay with trying to make a profit from producing nuclear weapons, our job is to shame them."

The report urges the public to take action, whether by just raising public awareness of financial institutions' role in abetting nuclear arms production or by organizing protests.

"When the world is closer to nuclear war than ever, " Fihn writes, "we need to make sure that no one should profit from this terror."
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3) Trump Picks 'Actual Torturer' Gina Haspel as Next CIA Director
By Jessica Corbett, March 13, 2018
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/03/13/trump-picks-actual-torturer-gina-haspel-next-cia-director

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump nominated Gina Haspel, deputy director the of Central Intelligence Agency, to take over for Mike Pompeo, who will now serve as Secretary of State. (Photo: Speak Freely/ACLU)



Human rights advocates are expressing outrage on Tuesday after President Donald Trump nominated deputy director Gina Haspel—"an actual torturer"—to be the next CIA director despite her leading role in running an agency black site where detainees were systematically and gruesomely abused.

Haspel is slated to replace current CIA director Mike Pompeo, who Trump has tapped to be the next Secretary of State now that Rex Tillerson has been fired.

"This appointment should be a warning to allies of the U.S. in the U.K., Europe, and around the world," declared Maya Foa, director of the London-based Reprieve. "Haspel was one of President Bush's torturers-in-chief and she is simply not fit to hold an office that requires, at its very heart, a commitment to uphold the values of the Constitution. This is another example of Donald Trump's backward-looking reliance on people and methods that have failed."

Several critics pointed to a profile published by the New Yorker last year—after Trump appointed her as deputy director—which detailed how, in the early 2000s, "Haspel was a senior official overseeing a top-secret CIA program that subjected dozens of suspected terrorists to savage interrogations, which included depriving them of sleep, squeezing them into coffins, and forcing water down their throats."

In Thailand, Haspel oversaw the "brutal interrogations" of at least two detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. "Zubaydah alone was waterboarded 83 times in a single month, had his head repeatedly slammed into walls, and endured other harsh methods before interrogators decided he had no useful information to provide," the New York Times reports.

ProPublica investigation published last year detailed how Haspel "was more deeply involved in the torture of Abu Zubaydah than has been publicly understood, according to newly available records and accounts by participants." In one exchange described in a book written by an interrogator, Haspel accused Zubaydah of "faking symptoms of physical distress and psychological breakdown," and supposedly said to him: "Good job! I like the way you're drooling; it adds realism. I'm almost buying it. You wouldn't think a grown man would do that."

Haspel also played a role in the destruction of video evidence that depicted U.S. agents torturing detainees at the CIA's secret prisons. In 2005, as the Times notes, "Haspel was serving at CIA headquarters, and it was her name that was on the cable carrying the destruction orders."

ProPublica investigation published last year detailed how Haspel "was more deeply involved in the torture of Abu Zubaydah than has been publicly understood, according to newly available records and accounts by participants." In one exchange described in a book written by an interrogator, Haspel accused Zubaydah of "faking symptoms of physical distress and psychological breakdown," and supposedly said to him: "Good job! I like the way you're drooling; it adds realism. I'm almost buying it. You wouldn't think a grown man would do that."

Haspel also played a role in the destruction of video evidence that depicted U.S. agents torturing detainees at the CIA's secret prisons. In 2005, as the Times notes, "Haspel was serving at CIA headquarters, and it was her name that was on the cable carrying the destruction orders."

Some critics who weighed in on the appointment noted that last year, the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights filed a legal intervention with German authorities, hoping to obtain an arrest warrant for Haspel, based on her role in facilitating and attempting to conceal torture at CIA black sites.

The president, meanwhile, expressed excitement over his nomination of Haspel.
"Gina, by the way, who I know very well, who I've worked very closely with, will be the first woman director of the CIA," Trump said Tuesday. "She's an outstanding person."
To officially take over the agency, Haspel will need to undergo a confirmation hearing with the U.S. Senate, where she'll likely face some tough questions. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who was critical of Haspel's appointment as deputy director, released a statement opposing her new appointment on Tuesday:

"Ms. Haspel's background makes her unsuitable to serve as CIA director. Her nomination must include total transparency about this background, which I called for more than a year ago when she was appointed deputy director. If Ms. Haspel seeks to serve at the highest levels of U.S. intelligence, the government can no longer cover up disturbing facts from her past."
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4)  Having a Torturer Lead the C.I.A.
 MARCH 13, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/opinion/cia-torture-gina-haspel.html?action=
click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=
opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region


President Trump has displayed enthusiasm for brutality over the past year. He has told the police to treat suspects roughlypraised President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines for murdering people suspected of drug ties and called for the execution of drug dealers.
But one of his most unsettling beliefs is still his acceptance of the value of torture. "In my opinion, it works," he told Sean Hannity of Fox News early last year.
Previously, anyone alarmed by Mr. Trump's cavalier embrace of government-sanctioned cruelty was reassured by his vow to accept the advice of his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, who opposes torture and promised at his Senate confirmation hearing that he would uphold American and international laws against it.
Now we have reason to be uneasy yet again.
When it comes to torture, no American officials have been more practiced in those heinous dark arts than the agents and employees of the Central Intelligence Agency who applied it to terrorism suspects after 9/11. Few American officials were so directly involved in that frenzy of abuse, which began under President George W. Bush and was ended by President Barack Obama, as Gina Haspel.

On Tuesday, in announcing that he had dismissed Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and was replacing him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Pompeo's successor would be his deputy, Ms. Haspel.
As an undercover C.I.A. officer, Ms. Haspel played a direct role in the agency's "extraordinary rendition program," under which suspected militants were remanded to foreign governments and held at secret facilities, where they were tortured by agency personnel.
Ms. Haspel ran the first detention site in Thailand and oversaw the brutal interrogations of two detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Mr. Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 times in a single month; his C.I.A. torturers bashed his head into walls and subjected him to other unspeakable brutalities. This cruelty stopped when investigators decided he had nothing useful to tell them.
The sessions were videotaped and the recordings stored in a safe at the C.I.A. station in Thailand until they were ordered destroyed in 2005. And who did that? By then, Ms. Haspel was at C.I.A. headquarters, and while the agency said the decision to destroy evidence was made by her boss at the time, Jose Rodriguez, Ms. Haspel's name was on the cable with the destruction orders.
In 2013, these activities were of such concern that Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, blocked Ms. Haspel's promotion to be head of the agency's clandestine service. Since then the two have spent time together, leading Ms. Feinstein on Tuesday to describe Ms. Haspel as a "good deputy" and to say she would wait until the confirmation hearing to make a judgment on the appointment.
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a former prisoner of war, insisted that during the confirmation process, Ms. Haspel must "explain the nature and extent of her involvement" in the interrogation program. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said her roles overseeing the waterboarding of detainees and the destruction of tapes were troubling. He and the American Civil Liberties Union called for Ms. Haspel's C.I.A. records to be declassified as part of her nomination.
The use of torture and secret foreign prisons — think of the deeply disgraceful events at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq — was a boon to terrorist groups, helping their propaganda and recruitment efforts. Such activities were also an irritant to key allies and even put American forces and personnel at risk of legal liability and being subjected to harsh treatment when they are detained.
Ms. Haspel is reportedly respected by many C.I.A. agents. But she effectively ran an illegal program, and her promotion to such a top administration position, unless she forcefully renounces the use of torture during her confirmation hearing, would send an undeniable signal to the agency, and the country, that Mr. Trump is indifferent to this brutality, regardless of what Secretary Mattis believes. Members of Congress and public interest groups need to stand up and make clear that, otherwise, the appointment is wrong.

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5) We Stand With the Students
March 13, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/opinion/students-walkout-gun-protest.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region



Adults are supposed to take care of children — not only keep them safe, but make them feel safe. Schools are essentially an extension of the home, in that sense, providing sanctuaries of learning, of nurturing and care. But after years of attacks by people with weapons of war, students cannot feel safe and are demanding that adults end years of complaisance and act. They are not asking for their schools to become armed garrisons. Rather, they want those weapons to be brought under control. And unlike too many adults, the young people leading Wednesday's walkout at schools around the country — inspired by angry, motivated students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people were killed by a former student with an assault weapon — have had the courage to take on the industry responsible for blocking every reasonable measure to limit access to guns, including those that make it all too easy to commit mass murder.
As Stoneman Douglas junior Florence Yared said in front of the Florida State Capitol late last month, "You adults have failed us by not creating a safer place for your children to go to school. So we, the next generation, will not fail our own kids. We will make this change happen. If not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, next year. Take it from us. You created a mess for us, but we will make this world safer for our children."
With Wednesday's demonstration, and their March for Our Lives movement on March 24 in Washington, young voices are being heard. How will the nation's adults respond? Hopefully, by amplifying their demand: Never again.

"No kid should be afraid to go to school, no kid should be afraid to walk outside, and no kid should have to worry about being shot. Now that's why I'm marching."

— Alfonso Calderón, Junior

"The 'children' you pissed off will not forget this in the voting booth. Don't doubt the power of the younger generation, because we are a force to be reckoned with."

—Aly Sheehy, Senior

"Maybe the adults have gotten used to saying 'it is what it is,' but if us students have learned anything, it's that if you don't study, you will fail. And in this case if you actively do nothing, people continually end up dead, so it's time to start doing something. We are going to be the kids you read about in textbooks. Not because we're going to be another statistic about mass shooting in America, but because...we are going to be the last mass shooting."

— Emma González, Senior

"High schools shouldn't be hashtags every other day"

—Jaclyn Corin, Junior

"More prayer, Jesus, god, and compassion won't bring back the victims that sadly lost their lives. It won't bring back the sense of security that my fellow peers and I lost. The only way to get that back is through gun control starting now."

—Jose Iglesias, Senior

"The children will become leaders as the leaders have become children."

—Madison Leal, Junior

"We march for Parkland, Newtown, Chicago, St. Louis, Columbine, and every other town in America affected by gun violence."

—Nikhita Nookala, Senior

"On March 24th, #IWillMarch so no child ever has to worry about texting their parents a final "I love you.'"

—Alex Wind, Junior

"Our trauma isn't going away, but neither are we. We will fight everyday because we have to, because change is the only thing that makes any of this bearable."

—Leonor Munoz, Senior

"The fact that some of the students at Stoneman Douglas high school ... are showing more maturity and political action than many of our elected officials is a testament to how disgusting and broken our political system is right now in America. But we're trying to fix that."

—David Hogg, Senior

"Our nation's leaders are baffled and surprised that a bunch of 17 year olds are planning a nationwide movement but haven't even blinked that we'll also be able to purchase weapons of war in the same year."

—Adam Alhanti, Junior

"The faces you see all over the media are not the only members of this movement. If you are willing to help to make a change, you are also a member. Simple as that."

—Morgan Williams, Junior

"We may be young but our voices are louder than you can imagine."

—Sarah Chadwick, Junior

"I blame the government for what happened and the people that are sending prayers and condolences but aren't doing anything. It's just heartbreaking to know that the people that are representing you are failing you."

—Lina Crisostomo, Junior

"This isn't red versus blue. This is life or death. And we refuse to ever allow any other student or human being to endure what we endured."

—Liz Stout, Senior

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6)  Stephen Hawking Dies at 76; His Mind Roamed the Cosmos
By Dennis Overbye, March 14, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/obituaries/stephen-hawking-dead.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Dr. Hawking pushed the limits in his professional and personal life. In 2007, when he was 65, he took part in a zero-gravity flight aboard a specially equipped Boeing 727. CreditZero Gravity Corp., via Associated Press



Stephen W. Hawking, the Cambridge University physicist and best-selling author who roamed the cosmos from a wheelchair, pondering the nature of gravity and the origin of the universe and becoming an emblem of human determination and curiosity, died early Wednesday at his home in Cambridge, England. He was 76.
His death was confirmed by a spokesman for Cambridge University.
"Not since Albert Einstein has a scientist so captured the public imagination and endeared himself to tens of millions of people around the world," Michio Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York, said in an interview.
Dr. Hawking did that largely through his book "A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes," published in 1988. It has sold more than 10 million copies and inspired a documentary film by Errol Morris. The 2014 film about his life, "The Theory of Everything," was nominated for several Academy Awards and Eddie Redmayne, who played Dr. Hawking, won the Oscar for best actor.
Scientifically, Dr. Hawking will be best remembered for a discovery so strange that it might be expressed in the form of a Zen koan: When is a black hole not black? When it explodes.
What is equally amazing is that he had a career at all. As a graduate student in 1963, he learned he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neuromuscular wasting disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He was given only a few years to live.
The disease reduced his bodily control to the flexing of a finger and voluntary eye movements but left his mental faculties untouched.
He went on to become his generation's leader in exploring gravity and the properties of black holes, the bottomless gravitational pits so deep and dense that not even light can escape them.
That work led to a turning point in modern physics, playing itself out in the closing months of 1973 on the walls of his brain when Dr. Hawking set out to apply quantum theory, the weird laws that govern subatomic reality, to black holes. In a long and daunting calculation, Dr. Hawking discovered to his befuddlement that black holes — those mythological avatars of cosmic doom — were not really black at all. In fact, he found, they would eventually fizzle, leaking radiation and particles, and finally explode and disappear over the eons.
Nobody, including Dr. Hawking, believed it at first — that particles could be coming out of a black hole. "I wasn't looking for them at all," he recalled in an interview in 1978. "I merely tripped over them. I was rather annoyed."
That calculation, in a thesis published in 1974 in the journal Nature under the title "Black Hole Explosions?," is hailed by scientists as the first great landmark in the struggle to find a single theory of nature — to connect gravity and quantum mechanics, those warring descriptions of the large and the small, to explain a universe that seems stranger than anybody had thought.
The discovery of Hawking radiation, as it is known, turned black holes upside down. It transformed them from destroyers to creators — or at least to recyclers — and wrenched the dream of a final theory in a strange, new direction.
"You can ask what will happen to someone who jumps into a black hole," Dr. Hawking said in an interview in 1978. "I certainly don't think he will survive it.
"On the other hand," he added, "if we send someone off to jump into a black hole, neither he nor his constituent atoms will come back, but his mass energy will come back. Maybe that applies to the whole universe."
Dennis W. Sciama, a cosmologist and Dr. Hawking's thesis adviser at Cambridge, called Hawking's thesis in Nature "the most beautiful paper in the history of physics."
Edward Witten, a theorist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, said: "Trying to understand Hawking's discovery better has been a source of much fresh thinking for almost 40 years now, and we are probably still far from fully coming to grips with it. It still feels new."
In 2002, Dr. Hawking said he wanted the formula for Hawking radiation to be engraved on his tombstone.
He was a man who pushed the limits — in his intellectual life, to be sure, but also in his professional and personal lives. He traveled the globe to scientific meetings, visiting every continent, including Antarctica; wrote best-selling books about his work; married twice; fathered three children; and was not above appearing on "The Simpsons," "Star Trek: The Next Generation" or "The Big Bang Theory."
He celebrated his 60th birthday by going up in a hot-air balloon. The same week, he also crashed his electric-powered wheelchair while speeding around a corner in Cambridge, breaking his leg.
In April 2007, a few months after his 65th birthday, he took part in a zero-gravity flight aboard a specially equipped Boeing 727, a padded aircraft that flies a roller-coaster trajectory to produce fleeting periods of weightlessness. It was a prelude to a hoped-for trip to space with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic company aboard SpaceShipTwo.
Asked why he took such risks, Dr. Hawking said, "I want to show that people need not be limited by physical handicaps as long as they are not disabled in spirit."
His own spirit left many in awe.
"What a triumph his life has been," said Martin Rees, a Cambridge University cosmologist, the astronomer royal of England and Dr. Hawking's longtime colleague. "His name will live in the annals of science; millions have had their cosmic horizons widened by his best-selling books; and even more, around the world, have been inspired by a unique example of achievement against all the odds — a manifestation of amazing willpower and determination."
Stephen William Hawking was born in Oxford, England, on Jan. 8, 1942 — 300 years to the day, he liked to point out, after the death of Galileo, who had begun the study of gravity. His mother, the former Isobel Walker, had gone to Oxford to avoid the bombs that fell nightly during the Blitz of London. His father, Frank Hawking, was a prominent research biologist.
The oldest of four children, Stephen was a mediocre student at St. Albans School in London, though his innate brilliance was recognized by some classmates and teachers.
Later, at University College, Oxford, he found his studies in mathematics and physics so easy that he rarely consulted a book or took notes. He got by with a thousand hours of work in three years, or one hour a day, he estimated. "Nothing seemed worth making an effort for," he said.
The only subject he found exciting was cosmology because, he said, it dealt with "the big question: Where did the universe come from?"
Upon graduation, he moved to Cambridge. Before he could begin his research, however, he was stricken by what his research adviser, Dr. Sciama, came to call "that terrible thing."
The young Hawking had been experiencing occasional weakness and falling spells for several years. Shortly after his 21st birthday, in 1963, doctors told him that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. They gave him less than three years to live.
His first response was severe depression. He dreamed he was going to be executed, he said. Then, against all odds, the disease appeared to stabilize. Though he was slowly losing control of his muscles, he was still able to walk short distances and perform simple tasks, though laboriously, like dressing and undressing. He felt a new sense of purpose.
"When you are faced with the possibility of an early death," he recalled, "it makes you realize that life is worth living and that there are a lot of things you want to do."
In 1965, he married Jane Wilde, a student of linguistics. Now, by his own account, he not only had "something to live for"; he also had to find a job, which gave him an incentive to work seriously toward his doctorate.
His illness, however, had robbed him of the ability to write down the long chains of equations that are the tools of the cosmologist's trade. Characteristically, he turned this handicap into a strength, gathering his energies for daring leaps of thought, which, in his later years, he often left for others to codify in proper mathematical language.
"People have the mistaken impression that mathematics is just equations," Dr. Hawking said. "In fact, equations are just the boring part of mathematics."
By necessity, he concentrated on problems that could be attacked through "pictures and diagrams," adopting geometric techniques that had been devised in the early 1960s by the mathematician Roger Penrose and a fellow Cambridge colleague, Brandon Carter, to study general relativity, Einstein's theory of gravity.
Black holes are a natural prediction of that theory, which explains how mass and energy "curve" space, the way a sleeping person causes a mattress to sag. Light rays will bend as they traverse a gravitational field, just as a marble rolling on the sagging mattress will follow an arc around the sleeper.
Too much mass or energy in one spot could cause space to sag without end; an object that was dense enough, like a massive collapsing star, could wrap space around itself like a magician's cloak and disappear, shrinking inside to a point of infinite density called a singularity, a cosmic dead end, where the known laws of physics would break down: a black hole.
Einstein himself thought this was absurd when the possibility was pointed out to him.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope and other sophisticated tools of observation and analysis, however, astronomers have identified hundreds of objects that are too massive and dark to be anything but black holes, including a supermassive one at the center of the Milky Way. According to current theory, the universe should contain billions more.
As part of his Ph.D. thesis in 1966, Dr. Hawking showed that when you ran the film of the expanding universe backward, you would find that such a singularity had to have existed sometime in cosmic history; space and time, that is, must have had a beginning. He, Dr. Penrose and a rotating cast of colleagues went on to publish a series of theorems about the behavior of black holes and the dire fate of anything caught in them.
Dr. Hawking's signature breakthrough resulted from a feud with the Israeli theoretical physicist Jacob Bekenstein, then a Princeton graduate student, about whether black holes could be said to have entropy, a thermodynamic measure of disorder. Dr. Bekenstein said they could, pointing out a close analogy between the laws that Dr. Hawking and his colleagues had derived for black holes and the laws of thermodynamics.
Dr. Hawking said no. To have entropy, a black hole would have to have a temperature. But warm objects, from a forehead to a star, radiate a mixture of electromagnetic radiation, depending on their exact temperatures. Nothing could escape a black hole, and so its temperature had to be zero. "I was very down on Bekenstein," Dr. Hawking recalled.
To settle the question, Dr. Hawking decided to investigate the properties of atom-size black holes. This, however, required adding quantum mechanics, the paradoxical rules of the atomic and subatomic world, to gravity, a feat that had never been accomplished. Friends turned the pages of quantum theory textbooks as Dr. Hawking sat motionless staring at them for months. They wondered if he was finally in over his head.
When he eventually succeeded in doing the calculation in his head, it indicated to his surprise that particles and radiation were spewing out of black holes. Dr. Hawking became convinced that his calculation was correct when he realized that the outgoing radiation would have a thermal spectrum characteristic of the heat radiated by any warm body, from a star to a fevered forehead. Dr. Bekenstein had been right.
Dr. Hawking even figured out a way to explain how particles might escape a black hole. According to quantum principles, the space near a black hole would be teeming with "virtual" particles that would flash into existence in matched particle-and-antiparticle pairs — like electrons and their evil twin opposites, positrons — out of energy borrowed from the hole's intense gravitational field.
They would then meet and annihilate each other in a flash of energy, repaying the debt for their brief existence. But if one of the pair fell into the black hole, the other one would be free to wander away and become real. It would appear to be coming from the black hole and taking energy away from it.
But those, he cautioned, were just words. The truth was in the math.
"The most important thing about Hawking radiation is that it shows that the black hole is not cut off from the rest of the universe," Dr. Hawking said.
It also meant that black holes had a temperature and had entropy. In thermodynamics, entropy is a measure of wasted heat. But it is also a measure of the amount of information — the number of bits — needed to describe what is in a black hole. Curiously, the number of bits is proportional to the black hole's surface area, not its volume, meaning that the amount of information you could stuff into a black hole is limited by its area, not, as one might naïvely think, its volume.
That result has become a litmus test for string theory and other pretenders to a theory of quantum gravity. It has also led to speculations that we live in a holographic universe, in which three-dimensional space is some kind of illusion.
Andrew Strominger, a Harvard string theorist, said of the holographic theory, "If it's really true, it's a deep and beautiful property of our universe — but not an obvious one."
The discovery of black hole radiation also led to a 30-year controversy over the fate of things that had fallen into a black hole.
Dr. Hawking initially said that detailed information about whatever had fallen in would be lost forever because the particles coming out would be completely random, erasing whatever patterns had been present when they first fell in. Paraphrasing Einstein's complaint about the randomness inherent in quantum mechanics, Dr. Hawking said, "God not only plays dice with the universe, but sometimes throws them where they can't be seen."
Many particle physicists protested that this violated a tenet of quantum physics, which says that knowledge is always preserved and can be retrieved. Leonard Susskind, a Stanford physicist who carried on the argument for decades, said, "Stephen correctly understood that if this was true, it would lead to the downfall of much of 20th-century physics."
On another occasion, he characterized Dr. Hawking to his face as "one of the most obstinate people in the world; no, he is the most infuriating person in the universe." Dr. Hawking grinned.
Dr. Hawking admitted defeat in 2004. Whatever information goes into a black hole will come back out when it explodes. One consequence, he noted sadly, was that one could not use black holes to escape to another universe. "I'm sorry to disappoint science fiction fans," he said.
Despite his concession, however, the information paradox, as it is known, has become one of the hottest and deepest topics in theoretical physics. Physicists say they still do not know how information gets in or out of black holes.
Raphael Bousso of the University of California, Berkeley, and a former student of Dr. Hawking's, said the present debate had raised "by another few notches" his estimation of the "stupendous magnitude" of Dr. Hawking's original discovery.
In 1974, Dr. Hawking was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the world's oldest scientific organization; in 1979, he was appointed to the Lucasian chair of mathematics at Cambridge, a post once held by Isaac Newton. "They say it's Newton's chair, but obviously it's been changed," he liked to quip.
Dr. Hawking also made yearly visits to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which became like a second home. In 2008, he joined the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, as a visiting researcher.
Having conquered black holes, Dr. Hawking set his sights on the origin of the universe and on eliminating that pesky singularity at the beginning of time from models of cosmology. If the laws of physics could break down there, they could break down everywhere.
In a meeting at the Vatican in 1982, he suggested that in the final theory there should be no place or time when the laws broke down, even at the beginning. He called the notion the "no boundary" proposal.
With James Hartle of the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, Calif., Dr. Hawking envisioned the history of the universe as a sphere like the Earth. Cosmic time corresponds to latitude, starting with zero at the North Pole and progressing southward.
Although time started there, the North Pole was nothing special; the same laws applied there as everywhere else. Asking what happened before the Big Bang, Dr. Hawking said, was like asking what was a mile north of the North Pole — it was not any place, or any time.
By then string theory, which claimed finally to explain both gravity and the other forces and particles of nature as tiny microscopically vibrating strings, like notes on a violin, was the leading candidate for a "theory of everything."
In "A Brief History of Time," Dr. Hawking concluded that "if we do discover a complete theory" of the universe, "it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists."
He added, "Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of why it is that we and the universe exist."
"If we find the answer to that," he continued, "it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God."
Until 1974, Dr. Hawking was still able to feed himself and to get in and out of bed. At Jane's insistence, he would drag himself, hand over hand, up the stairs to the bedroom in his Cambridge home every night, in an effort to preserve his remaining muscle tone. After 1980, care was supplemented by nurses.
Dr. Hawking retained some control over his speech up to 1985. But on a trip to Switzerland, he came down with pneumonia. The doctors asked Jane if she wanted his life support turned off, but she said no. To save his life, doctors inserted a breathing tube. He survived, but his voice was permanently silenced.
It appeared for a time that he would be able to communicate only by pointing at individual letters on an alphabet board. But when a computer expert, Walter Woltosz, heard about Dr. Hawking's condition, he offered him a program he had written called Equalizer. By clicking a switch with his still-functioning fingers, Dr. Hawking was able to browse through menus that contained all the letters and more than 2,500 words.
Word by word — and when necessary, letter by letter — he could build up sentences on the computer screen and send them to a speech synthesizer that vocalized for him. The entire apparatus was fitted to his motorized wheelchair.
Even when too weak to move a finger, he communicated through the computer by way of an infrared beam, which he activated by twitching his right cheek or blinking his eye. The system was expanded to allow him to open and close the doors in his office and to use the telephone and internet without aid.
Although he averaged fewer than 15 words per minute, Dr. Hawking found he could speak through the computer better than he had before losing his voice. His only complaint, he confided, was that the speech synthesizer, manufactured in California, had given him an American accent.
His decision to write "A Brief History of Time" was prompted, he said, by a desire to share his excitement about "the discoveries that have been made about the universe" with "the public that paid for the research." He wanted to make the ideas so accessible that the book would be sold in airports.
He also hoped to earn enough money to pay for his children's education. He did. The book's extraordinary success made him wealthy, a hero to disabled people everywhere and even more famous.
The news media followed his movements and activities over the years, from visiting the White House to meeting the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, and reported his opinions on everything from national health care (socialized medicine in England had kept him alive) to communicating with extraterrestrials (maybe not a good idea, he said), as if he were a rolling Delphic Oracle.
Asked by New Scientist magazine what he thought about most, Dr. Hawking answered: "Women. They are a complete mystery."
n 1990, Dr. Hawking and his wife separated after 25 years of marriage; Jane Hawking wrote about their years together in two books, "Music to Move the Stars: A Life With Stephen Hawking" and "Traveling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen." The latter became the basis of the 2014 movie "The Theory of Everything."
In 1995, he married Elaine Mason, a nurse who had cared for him since his bout of pneumonia. She had been married to David Mason, the engineer who had attached Dr. Hawking's speech synthesizer to his wheelchair.
In 2004, British newspapers reported that the Cambridge police were investigating allegations that Elaine had abused Dr. Hawking, but no charges were filed, and Dr. Hawking denied the accusations. They agreed to divorce in 2006.
A complete list of survivors was not immediately available, but on Wednesday morning, his children, Robert, Lucy and Tim, released the following statement:
"We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today. He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humour inspired people across the world. He once said, 'It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love.' We will miss him forever."
Among his many honors, Dr. Hawking was named a commander of the British Empire in 1982. In the summer of 2012, he had a star role in the opening of the Paralympics Games in London. The only thing lacking was the Nobel Prize, and his explanation for this was characteristically pithy: "The Nobel is given only for theoretical work that has been confirmed by observation. It is very, very difficult to observe the things I have worked on."
Dr. Hawking was a strong advocate of space exploration, saying it was essential to the long-term survival of the human race. "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of," he told an audience in Hong Kong in 2007.
Nothing raised as much furor, however, as his increasingly scathing remarks about religion. One attraction of the no-boundary proposal for Dr. Hawking was that there was no need to appeal to anything outside the universe, like God, to explain how it began.
In "A Brief History of Time," he had referred to the "mind of God," but in "The Grand Design," a 2011 book he wrote with Leonard Mlodinow, he was more bleak about religion. "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper," he wrote, referring to the British term for a firecracker fuse, "and set the universe going."
He went further in an interview that year in The Guardian, saying: "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."
Having spent the best part of his life grappling with black holes and cosmic doom, Dr. Hawking had no fear of the dark.
"They're named black holes because they are related to human fears of being destroyed or gobbled up," he once told an interviewer. "I don't have fears of being thrown into them. I understand them. I feel in a sense that I am their master."
Matthew Haag, Matt Stevens and Gerald Jonas contributed reporting.



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7)  A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn't Pay the Same Fine for Speeding
 MARCH 15, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/opinion/flat-fines-wealthy-poor.html?action=
click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=
opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region



If Mark Zuckerberg and a janitor who works at Facebook's headquarters each received a speeding ticket while driving home from work, they'd each owe the government the same amount of money. Mr. Zuckerberg wouldn't bat an eye.
The janitor is another story.
For people living on the economic margins, even minor offenses can impose crushing financial obligations, trapping them in a cycle of debt and incarceration for nonpayment. In Ferguson, Mo., for example, a single $151 parking violation sent a black woman struggling with homelessness into a seven-year odyssey of court appearances, arrest warrants and jail time connected to her inability to pay.
Across America, one-size-fits-all fines are the norm, which I demonstrate in an article for the University of Chicago Law Review. Where judges do have wiggle room to choose the size of a fine, mandatory minimums and maximums often tie their hands. Some states even prohibit consideration of a person's income. And when courts are allowed to take finances into account, they frequently fail to do so.
Other places have saner methods. Finland and Argentina, for example, have tailored fines to income for almost 100 years. The most common model, the "day fine," scales sanctions to a person's daily wage. A small offense like littering might cost a fraction of a day's pay. A serious crime might swallow a month's paycheck. Everyone pays the same proportion of their income.
For a justice system committed to treating like offenders alike, scaling fines to income is a matter of basic fairness. Making everyone pay the same sticker price is evenhanded on the surface, but only if you ignore the consequences of a fine on the life of the person paying. The flat fine threatens poor people with financial ruin while letting rich people break the law without meaningful repercussions. Equity requires punishment that is equally felt.
Flat fines also fail to meet basic goals of punishment, like retribution and deterrence. Punishment is partly an expression of a society's desire to inflict pain on those who break the law. But giving wealthy offenders a mere slap on the wrist makes a mockery of that objective. And while punishment is supposed to prevent undesirable conduct from happening in the first place, flat fines deter the wealthy less than everyone else. Some evidence shows the rich are more likely to break the law while driving.
Plus, scaled fines might encourage more equitable prosecution. That's particularly true in cities like Ferguson that went easy on wealthier residents but treated poor people like cash cows. After all, the city would get more bang for its buck pulling over a rich driver with a blown blinker.
For the poor, change can't come soon enough. The problem isn't just that low-level offenses like littering can impose insurmountable debts and destabilize lives. Serious crimes, where prison is on the table, also carry fines. As a result, those released from prison often carry debts far in excess of their annual incomes, complicating any hope of effective re-entry.
Progressive fines might even help address America's addiction to incarceration. No one really thinks fines are an adequate substitute for prison. That's because a fine high enough to punish wealthy people would devastate a poor person. But allowing fines to have real bite for everyone can make them a viable alternative to detention. After Germany moved toward income-based fines, the use of short-term prison sentences declined, even for crimes like larceny and assault.
Does this mean we should slap Mr. Zuckerberg with a $1 million speeding ticket? Finland would. In 2015, it handed a businessman a $67,000 speeding ticket for going 14 miles per hour above the limit. But the United States doesn't need to go that far. Other countries typically cap the size of fines to guard against astronomical sanctions. We should do the same.
America's limited experience with day fines suggests that making fines more progressive will work. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a small number of areas, the first in Staten Island, experimented with this idea. That experience suggests that progressive fines could increase debt collection rates and reduce the attendant costs of nonpayment, like warrants, arrests and court appearances. Government revenue could even rise, all while the lowering the burden of criminal justice debt on the poor. Unfortunately, these experiments happened at precisely the wrong time, just as a wave of tough-on-crime sentiment washed over the country. Despite their successes, each was short lived.
This moment is different. Amid a flourishing national movement to reform our criminal justice system and tackle income inequality, the progressive fine is an idea whose time may finally have come.
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8)  Crack on Florida Bridge Was Discussed in Meeting Hours Before Collapse
 MARCH 17, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/florida-bridge-collapse-crack.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=
rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

Whether the cracking contributed to the collapse, which killed at least six people in their cars below the bridge, remains a key question in the investigation.



MIAMI — Hours before the collapse of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University on Thursday, the engineering company for the bridge met with the construction manager and representatives from the university and the Florida Department of Transportation to discuss a crack on the structure, according to a statement from the university released early Saturday.
The engineering company, Figg Bridge Engineers, delivered a technical presentation on the crack, the statement said, and "concluded there were no safety concerns and the crack did not compromise the structural integrity of the bridge."
The meeting was held two days after Figg's lead engineer on the project left a voice mail message for the Transportation Department about "some cracking that's been observed on the north end" of the bridge, according to a statement from the department. The engineer, W. Denney Pate, also said the cracking did not present any safety issues.
The Transportation Department said in the statement the message was not heard until Friday, but did not mention that the crack was discussed at the meeting its representative attended the day before.
At no point during their communications, the department said, "did Figg or any member of the F.I.U. design-build team ever communicate a life-safety issue."
Whether the cracking contributed to the collapse, which killed at least six people in their cars on the eight-lane street below the bridge, remains a key question in the investigation.
Construction crews were working on a diagonal beam at the north end of the structure at or about the time of the collapse, according to information the National Transportation Safety Board provided to local members of Congress. Workers were adjusting cables that ran inside the beam.
Early on Saturday, recovery crews extracted the first two crushed vehicles from under the rubble.
"We've discovered three bodies within those two vehicles," Juan J. Perez, director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, said at a news conference on Saturday. "Currently we are working on the removal of two more vehicles."
Mr. Perez said he hoped to finish that process in the next 12 hours.
"It's going to be a long process," he said.
Six vehicles remain trapped under the bridge, with four of them very difficult to extract, Maurice Kemp, deputy mayor of Miami-Dade County, said.
Only one of the six victims died at the hospital; the other five remained under the bridge, unreachable until their vehicles could be freed from the debris.
The number of known victims has not changed, Mr. Kemp said. "We anticipated that we would have three victims in those two vehicles," he said.
Workers covered the vehicles in black sheeting and towed them to the medical examiner to identify the remains of any victims inside.
The first vehicle appeared to be a silver Jeep, nearly flattened but still distinguishable by its front grill, according to videos by The Miami Herald and local television news outlets.
The second vehicle, crumpled almost beyond recognition, appeared to be a dark Chevrolet pickup truck. Cranes lifted the vehicles onto flatbed trucks, which were escorted to the medical examiner by a police motorcade.
"Please keep all the affected families and victims in your thoughts and prayers as we continue in our recovery efforts," the Miami-Dade Police Department posted on Twitter shortly after the extraction.
The crews placed a white tent with black sheets along three sides to shield the vehicles from view while they were being pulled from under the concrete, according to the Herald video.
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9)  Jersey City Teachers Go on Strike Over Health Insurance
 MARCH 16, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/16/nyregion/jersey-city-teachers-strike.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&region=
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Teachers picketing outside the Academy I Middle School in Jersey City on Friday.CreditJulio Cortez/Associated Press

 

Teachers in Jersey City went on strike Friday after they and the school district failed to reach an agreement over the cost of health insurance.
Members of the Jersey City Education Association, who teach 28,000 students just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, had been working under an expired contract since Sept. 1. The union also represents other school employees like paraprofessionals.
The strike was called on Thursday night after negotiations between the union and school board failed to bring about a deal. The two sides have met to negotiate more than 20 times. On Friday afternoon, a judge ordered the teachers to return to work on Monday.
"My 4,000 members have been disregarded and disrespected by the board," Ronald Greco, the union president, said in a statement. "They are outraged by the board's behavior, and they refuse to give up or accept it. My members are fighters. They fight for their students every day."
Teachers gathered in front of their schools at 5 a.m. on Friday and rallied through most of the morning, moving to the Board of Education's central office at 11 a.m. to continue their protest, a union representative said. Students were dismissed after a half day.

"We greatly hope that we can resolve issues around the contract quickly," the district said in a statement. "While teachers are asking for salary increases and a reduction in what they pay for their health insurance, the district is facing a $70 million shortfall."
On Twitter, Mayor Steven Fulop called the strike "unfortunate + avoidable."
The protest comes just weeks after teachers across West Virginia went on strike over their pay and health care costs. That strike shut schools down for almost two weeks, and ended when teachers were given a 5 percent pay raise.
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10) COLIN KAEPERNICK ALL SMILES After Legal Showdown with Texans Owner
TMZ Sports, March 16, 2018
http://www.tmz.com/2018/03/16/colin-kaepernick-bob-mcnair-houston-texans-collusion-nfl/



Colin Kaepernick sure seemed to be in a good mood in Houston on Friday -- after personally attending the deposition of Texans owner Bob McNair in his collusion case against the NFL. 
TMZ Sports obtained a photo of Kaep after the depo with his attorney, Ben Meiselas -- with some extra pep in their step. 
As we previously reported, Kaepernick had filed a grievance against the league claiming owners and other high-ranking NFL officials were in cahoots to blackball Colin after his national anthem demonstration. 
Kaepernick had arrived in Houston earlier this week -- and even knocked out a QB workoutwith his trainer. 
As far as the case goes ... McNair isn't the only big name on the witness list -- Kaep's legal team from Geragos & Geragos also subpoenaed Seahawks owner Paul Allen and coach Pete Carroll along with Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft
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11) Offshore Oil and Gas Operators Want Less Regulation, but Surprise Inspections Find 
"Serious Safety Problems
"Public Citizen, a nonprofit group, compiled a database of campaign contributions to Mr. Angelle, who ran for governor in Louisiana in 2015, and compared it with a list of the companies fined by his agency in the last five years. The group found that Mr. Angelle had accepted more than $140,000 in campaign contributions from companies his agency has regulated."




An oil rig worker in 2006. An increase in lift-related accidents in the offshore drilling industry last year led to surprise inspections from Interior Department officials. CreditAlex Brandon/Associated Press

 

Faced with questions about its commitment to safety, the Interior Department sent teams to the Gulf of Mexico last week to inspect giant cranes used in offshore oil and gas operations that are a significant source of accidents.
More than 50 inspectors, traveling on helicopters, conducted surprise inspections on about 40 offshore platforms and drilling rigs, said Jason Mathews, the head of offshore safety management for the Gulf of Mexico at the department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
The results were still being compiled, he said, but the inspectors found serious problems, including some that were potentially life threatening. “There are still some major incidents that are occurring, and we need to figure out why,” Mr. Mathews said on Friday.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had discussed plans for the inspection push this month after the safety bureau issued an alert to offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf. It warned about a series of “potentially catastrophic crane and lifting incidents” that occurred late last year on platforms and drilling rigs.

No one was killed or injured in those crane incidents, but lifting-related accidents are the second-largest cause of offshore fatalities, outnumbered only by fires and explosions, agency records show. The cranes are used to move workers and supplies from the Gulf up to the decks of the platforms.
The Interior Department and its offshore safety bureau have been under a spotlight since the agency was ordered by President Trump to re-evaluate regulations enacted during the Obama administration in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010, which killed 11 offshore workers and created the largest marine oil spill in drilling history. Many offshore oil and gas operators, and other Gulf Coast businesses that serve them, complained that the regulatory response to the accident had been excessive.
The focus of the regulatory review has been two safety rules that govern offshore drilling and the production of oil and gas. But the deregulatory push has also meant that progress has slowed, if not stopped, on finalizing other safety rules, including a 2015 proposal to enact new standards for offshore crane safety.
The New York Times reported this month that several of the independent companies seeking the regulatory rollbacks had been cited for workplace safety violations in recent years at a rate much higher than the industry average.
The recent crane accidents included one on Nov. 29, when the 110-foot arm of a crane made a “loud pop” and then “fell uncontrollably” to the side of the rig, according to an internal agency incident report. The crane had just been used to lift four workers between a supply ship and a drilling rig working 50 miles offshore. Before the arm came to a rest, it punched a hole in a fuel tank and caused a diesel fuel spill that left a 50-yard-wide sheen for five miles, the report said.
In another incident in mid-December, a bundle of tubing weighing hundreds of pounds fell as it was being lifted by a crane. A large pipe slipped out and dropped 120 feet, missing workers who were on a ship below, the agency said.
One worker did die in December on a drilling ship in a lift-related accident when a pipe-moving device — not a crane — crushed him.
“No one wants to face the family of a worker who dies or is severely injured because we didn’t do our jobs correctly, or because we failed to recognize that the risks present on site were beyond acceptable bounds,” Brian Salerno, then the head of the offshore safety agency, said in remarks to industry officials in July 2015 after the new crane safety rules were proposed.
“So let’s see what we can do to reverse those trends,” he said.
But the problem has only worsened since then, according to Interior Department records released to The Times. The rate of lift-related offshore accidents last year increased by more than 4 percent, reaching the second-highest annual level in the past decade. On average, there was one incident for every 13.5 offshore platforms or drilling rigs, according to agency data.
Arena Offshore was among the companies that had multiple lift-related accidents. In one, a worker was severely injured when he was pinned against a handrail as crews were using a crane to lift a 10,000-pound construction tool house. The operator of the crane could not see the area where the offshore worker was standing, investigators found.
In another case, involving Energy XXI, a motor failed, making it impossible to control the crane. A basket carrying four workers swung out of control, injuring three of them, an incident report says.
Arena Offshore, Energy XXI and Fieldwood Energy, which has also been cited in recent crane accident investigations, had joined with other offshore companies in 2016 to lobby the Interior Department to weaken certain offshore federal regulations, records show.
Last week’s inspections, conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, resulted in noncompliance notices for some offshore operators, which could result in fines, Mr. Mathews said. Among the serious and potentially life-threatening problems detected was a crane on a Fieldwood facility in the Gulf’s shallow waters that was being used in a way that exceeded its design specifications.
Arena Offshore and Energy XXI did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Fieldwood, which last month filed for bankruptcy, said, “We are constantly evaluating and enhancing our safety program and culture to ensure the safety of our employees and the environment.”
The crane inspections are part of a broader effort to make safety inspections more focused on risks rather than routine scheduling, meaning inspectors concentrate on known hazards like gas leaks, or on companies that have a history of safety violations. The risk-based approach has been suggested to the Interior Department for several years by the Government Accountability Office.
Mr. Zinke and Scott Angelle, who now leads the offshore safety agency, announced this month that a risk-based program was formally in place, but questions remain about the agency’s commitment to safety.
Last month, a group of 19 Senate Democrats wrote to Mr. Zinke questioning why the agency had issued a stop-work order for a study by the National Academy of Sciences that was looking at ways to reduce offshore accidents.
“The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill demonstrated how devastating a leak can be from an improperly inspected and managed offshore rig,” the senators, led by Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, wrote.
Public Citizen, a nonprofit group, compiled a database of campaign contributions to Mr. Angelle, who ran for governor in Louisiana in 2015, and compared it with a list of the companies fined by his agency in the last five years. The group found that Mr. Angelle had accepted more than $140,000 in campaign contributions from companies his agency has regulated.
“What are the penalties now going to be for these companies where the agency finds violations?” asked Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “The contributions and closeness between Mr. Angelle to the industry suggest they will get a slap on the wrist at best.”
Mr. Angelle rejected the criticism as unfounded, through a spokesman, and said his agency was committed to safe operations in the Gulf.
“Scott Angelle has been adamant and quite vocal in his communications to both staff and industry that any Outer Continental Shelf exploration, development and production must be done safely and in an environmentally sustainable manner,” Guy Hayes, an agency spokesman, said in a statement.
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12) ‘Rewilding’ Missing Carnivores May Help Restore Some Landscapes
By  




The gray wolf's reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s has been a success story of a carnivore's rewilding helping an entire ecosystem.CreditJohn and Karen Hollingsworth/United States Fish and Wildlife Service

If you’re lucky, you can spot a gray wolf in Yellowstone National Park. But a century ago, you’d have been hard pressed to find any there. Poisonings and unregulated hunting obliterated nearly all of these majestic canines from Canada to Mexico, their original home range.
Then the rewilding began.
Since their reintroduction to Yellowstone and Idaho in the 1990s, gray wolves have done so well that they’re reclaiming other parts of the northern Rockies.
In the places where they returned, wolves tidied up explosive deer and elk populations, which had eaten valleys barren. That helped bring back trees and shrubs. Birds and beavers, as well as the animals that live in dams, also returned. The wolves ate coyotes, freeing up their prey for others. Bears and raptors came back for carrion. With more trees controlling erosion, the flows of some rivers were less chaotic, forming pools that became new habitats.
“We’re just uncovering these effects of large carnivores at the same time their populations are declining and are at risk,” said William Ripple, an ecologist at Oregon State University. He’s found that if you rewild some carnivores, or return them back to lost ranges, a cascade of ecological bounty may follow.

But not always. Nearly half of carnivore reintroductions fail, and understanding where rewilding may or may not work is critical to getting it right.
Lions and tigers and bears — along with gray wolves and 21 other species of large, terrestrial carnivores — roam this planet. Extinction and declining populations threaten most of them. Recently, scientists and conservationists have been hoping that rewilding will result in ecological benefits like those seen with gray wolves.
So, Dr. Ripple and Christopher Wolf, a postdoctoral researcher in his lab, analyzed hundreds of potential rewilding sites from a database of protected areas around the planet where large carnivores have disappeared. They focused on big places with small human footprints, available prey and buffer zones where animals may traverse safely. Their analysis revealed 130 potential sites suitable for rewilding and an additional 150 spots with little human activity to consider preserving. Their results, published Wednesday in Royal Society Open Science, suggest that with proper attention and care to ensure these carnivores’ survival, rewilding programs could restore lost ecosystems worldwide.
But it won’t be as simple as finding a dot on a map.
Their paper mentions just two specific reintroduction sites where rewilding would likely work out as planned. They suggest it could be possible to put gray wolves in Olympic National Park in Washington and sending endangered red wolves, which once roamed the southeast, into Everglades National Park. These places have space for reproduction and development, prey and humans who may tolerate them.
But for many other locations, especially in developing countries, people still hunt some animals for bushmeat or body parts used in traditional medicine. Fences limit range. Humans compete for prey or kill carnivores that threaten their lives, agriculture or livestock. Not all corridors are safe. These places may better serve as guideposts, directing researchers to spots for further investigations into what’s really happening on the ground.
The biggest hurdle will be finding humans willing to live alongside and support efforts to keep big carnivores around, said Thomas Newsome, an ecologist studying human-predator interactions at the University of Sydney who was not involved in this study. That would mean supporting efforts to stop the activities that killed many large carnivores in the first place. And even for gray wolves, that hasn’t been easy: Some people don’t want them, and others still hunt wolves outside park boundaries in Yellowstone and in Alaska.
Perhaps the solution is rethinking what it means to be humans in a natural world, said Layla AbdelRahim, an anthropologist who has studied human understanding of wilderness. We must recognize our role as partners with the environment, rather than dominators, to maintain functioning ecosystems, she said.
Rewilding will be a significant trend in preserving ecosystems where all species matter, said Dr. Ripple. “Humans are just figuring out what the interconnectedness in nature is all about.”


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13)  "Killed, Shovel in Hand’: Afghan Farmers Are Latest Victims of a Chaotic War





A protest on Saturday in Chaparhar against the killing of civilians during an operation by Afghan security forces. CreditGhulamullah Habibi/EPA, via Shutterstock

CHAPARHAR, Afghanistan — There was no military curfew in the villages, but, as a precaution, the farmers still informed the local police outpost that they would be in their fields before dawn, with lanterns and shovels, to channel water to their crops.
In a chaotic war of many players on both sides and with civilians bearing the brunt, the advance notice did not save their lives.
On Saturday morning, an elite unit of the Afghan intelligence agency descended on two villages in Chaparhar district in the eastern province of Nangarhar, killing as many as eight farmers in their fields, local elders said.
Provincial officials at first denied that civilians had been killed in the raid. But when villagers carried the bodies to the district center hours later, with nearly 200 protesters accompanying them and chanting, “Death to the government” and “Death to America,” senior officials privately acknowledged that government forces had caused the casualties.

Making things worse, the police guarding the district compound opened fire on the protesters, killing one and wounding two others.
Afghanistan has experienced a rise in violence in recent weeks even before the official start of what is expected to be another bloody fighting season, when violence intensifies as the cold weather relents. In two weeks, 170 security forces have been killed, according to local news reports. The government says more than 500 insurgents were killed in about the same period.
Fighting has raged across the country, with some of the heaviest coming in the western province of Farah, where insurgents are once again at the gates of its capital city and in the northern Faryab Province, where dozens of local militia fighters have surrendered to the Taliban. More than 100 advisers from the American-led NATO coalition have arrived in Faryab to help.
The increase in violence is bound to once again test the resolve of the country’s government, which recently presented an extensive peace offer to the Taliban. Even as President Ashraf Ghani and his international allies prepare mechanisms for what they see as an opening for talks, with American officials reporting signals of willingness from some Taliban leaders, they are wary of another bloody year ahead.
Last year, 3,438 civilians were killed and 7,015 wounded, according to the United Nations. As the war spreads across the country, often deep into populated villages, the effects are taking a heavy toll on civilians. When the violence is perpetuated by friendly forces, it highlights the deadly bind in which civilians find themselves.
“It was 4 a.m. My two brothers were out to channel the water, and we had informed the security post that we would be out watering our plots,” said Mohammed Israr, whose two brothers were killed in Mano, one of the villages attacked. “I was upstream, and the helicopters came and fired at my brothers. They were killed, shovel in hand.”
Mr. Israr said that a bit farther from their plot, five others who were taking a break for morning prayer, putting their lanterns by the mosque, had also been targeted. They had also informed the local security forces before going to the fields, he said.
Capt. Tom Gresback, a spokesman for the American-led NATO coalition, said, “As a result of our alignment of air power, we will maintain relentless pressure on the Taliban using a variety of aircraft to conduct daily strikes, including B-52s” and other aircraft. “These strikes continue to support a capable Afghan ground force,” he added.



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14)  Chris Hayes: What ‘Law and Order’ Means to Trump







Donald Trump is not subtle. While normal political language functions through implication and indirection, Mr. Trump luxuriates in saying the quiet part loud. But in doing so, Mr. Trump exposes what drives the politics of the movement he commands. That is most evident in the way he talks about crime and punishment.
No president since Richard Nixon has embraced the weaponized rhetoric of “law and order” as avidly as Mr. Trump. “When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country,” he said during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in 2016. “I will work with, and appoint, the best prosecutors and law enforcement officials in the country to get the job properly done. In this race for the White House, I am the law and order candidate.”
Time and again, the president denounces “illegals” and “criminals” and the “American carnage” they wreak on law-abiding Americans. He even advised an audience of police officers to rough up suspects they were arresting.
Yet this tough-guy stance disappears when the accused are in the president’s inner circle. In defending Rob Porter, the White House senior aide accused of abuse by both of his ex-wives, the president wondered whatever happened to due process while praising a man accused of giving his wife a black eye. (Mr. Porter denies the abuse.)
It’s no surprise that Mr. Trump’s critics pounced. Where was this concern for due process, they asked, when the president and his supporters chanted “Lock her up” about Hillary Clinton, who hadn’t even been formally accused of a crime? Where was his devotion to due process when he called for the Central Park Five to be executed, and then, after their exoneration, still maintained that they were guilty?
As tempting as it is to hammer Mr. Trump for his epic hypocrisy, it is a mistake. The president’s boundless benefit of the doubt for the Rob Porters and Roy Moores of the world, combined with off-with-their-heads capriciousness for immigrants accused of even minor crimes, is not a contradiction. It is the expression of a consistent worldview that he campaigned on and has pursued in office.
In this view, crime is not defined by a specific offense. Crime is defined by who commits it. If a young black man grabs a white woman by the crotch, he’s a thug and deserves to be roughed up by police officers. But if Donald Trump grabs a white woman by the crotch in a nightclub (as he’s accused of doing, and denies), it’s locker-room high jinks.
This view is also expressed by many of the president’s staff members, supporters and prominent allies. During the same week that the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, repeatedly vouched for Rob Porter’s integrity, Mr. Kelly also mused that hundreds of thousands of unauthorized immigrants who did not fill out the paperwork for DACA protections had refused to “get off their asses.”
A political movement that rails against “immigrant crime” while defending alleged abusers and child molesters is one that has stopped pretending to have any universalist aspirations. The president’s moral framework springs from an American tradition of cultivating fear and contempt among its white citizens against immigrants, indigenous people and people of color, who are placed on the other side of “the law.” It’s a practice that has taken on new strength at a time when many white people fear they may be outnumbered, outvoted and out of time.
This is the opposite of what we like to tell ourselves is the traditional American civic creed: one symbolized by a blindfolded Lady Justice who applies the law without fear or favor to whoever may come before her. It is one of Mr. Trump’s most insidious victories that he has given his supporters permission to drop any pretense of insisting that their actions and views should conform to this principle.
If all that matters when it comes to “law and order” is who is a friend and who is an enemy, and if friends are white and enemies are black or Latino or in the wrong party, then the rhetoric around crime and punishment stops being about justice and is merely about power and corruption.
And this is what “law and order” means: the preservation of a certain social order, not the rule of law. It shouldn’t have taken this long to see what has always been staring us in the face. After all, the last president to focus so intensely on law and order, Richard Nixon, the man who helped usher in mass incarceration, was also the most infamous criminal to occupy the Oval Office. The history of the United States is the story of a struggle between the desire to establish certain universal rights and the countervailing desire to preserve a particular social order.
We are now witnessing a president who wholly embraces the latter. America can have that kind of social order, or it can have justice for all. But it can’t have both.
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15)  Testilying’ — a Stubborn Police Problem
Police lying persists, even amid an explosion of video
evidence that has allowed the public to test officers’ credibility.
"Yet interviews with officers suggest the prevalence of cameras alone won’t end police lying. That’s because even with cameras present, some officers still figure — with good reason — that a lie is unlikely to be exposed. Because plea deals are a typical outcome, it’s rare for a case to develop to the point where the defendant can question an officer’s version of events at a hearing."





Kimberly Thomas was arrested on gun charges in the Bronx that were later dropped. “For 396 days I have been fighting for my life, my freedom and my sanity,” she said. CreditHilary Swift for The New York Times

Officer Nector Martinez took the witness stand in a Bronx courtroom on Oct. 10, 2017, and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God.
There had been a shooting, Officer Martinez testified, and he wanted to search a nearby apartment for evidence. A woman stood in the doorway, carrying a laundry bag. Officer Martinez said she set the bag down “in the middle of the doorway” — directly in his path. “I picked it up to move it out of the way so we could get in.”
The laundry bag felt heavy. When he put it down, he said, he heard a “clunk, a thud.”
What might be inside?
Officer Martinez tapped the bag with his foot and felt something hard, he testified. He opened the bag, leading to the discovery of a Ruger 9-millimeter handgun and the arrest of the woman.

But a hallway surveillance camera captured the true story: There’s no laundry bag or gun in sight as Officer Martinez and other investigators question the woman in the doorway and then stride into the apartment. Inside, they did find a gun, but little to link it to the woman, Kimberly Thomas. Still, had the camera not captured the hallway scene, Officer Martinez’s testimony might well have sent her to prison.
When Ms. Thomas’s lawyer sought to play the video in court, prosecutors in the Bronx dropped the case. Then the court sealed the case file, hiding from view a problem so old and persistent that the criminal justice system sometimes responds with little more than a shrug: false testimony by the police.
“Behind closed doors, we call it testilying,” a New York City police officer, Pedro Serrano, said in a recent interview, echoing a word that officers coined at least 25 years ago. “You take the truth and stretch it out a little bit.”
An investigation by The New York Times has found that on more than 25 occasions since January 2015, judges or prosecutors determined that a key aspect of a New York City police officer’s testimony was probably untrue. The Times identified these cases — many of which are sealed — through interviews with lawyers, police officers and current and former judges.
In these cases, officers have lied about the whereabouts of guns, putting them in suspects’ hands or waistbands when they were actually hidden out of sight. They have barged into apartments and conducted searches, only to testify otherwise later. Under oath, they have given firsthand accounts of crimes or arrests that they did not in fact witness. They have falsely claimed to have watched drug deals happen, only to later recant or be shown to have lied.
No detail, seemingly, is too minor to embellish. “Clenched fists” is how one Brooklyn officer described the hands of a man he claimed had angrily approached him and started screaming and yelling — an encounter that prosecutors later determined never occurred. Another officer, during a Bronx trial, accused a driver of recklessly crossing the double-yellow line — on a stretch of road that had no double-yellow line.
In many instances, the motive for lying was readily apparent: to skirt constitutional restrictions against unreasonable searches and stops. In other cases, the falsehoods appear aimed at convicting people — who may or may not have committed a crime — with trumped-up evidence.
In still others, the motive is not easy to discern. In October 2016, for example, a plainclothes Brooklyn officer gave a grand jury a first-person account of a gun arrest. Putting herself in the center of the action, the officer, Dornezia Agard, testified that as she approached a man to confront him for littering, he suddenly crouched behind a van, pulled from his waistband a dark object — later identified as a gun — and threw it on the ground.
“P.O. Agard testified that she heard a hard metal object hit the ground,” according to a letter the Brooklyn district attorney’s office wrote summarizing her testimony.
But prosecutors lost faith in her account in July 2017, after learning from other officers that she was not among the first officers on the scene. Officer Agard had arrived later as backup, according to the letter, which noted that the gun charges against the man were later dismissed. The prosecutors did not address why Officer Agard claimed to be a witness, or why the other officers present seem to have allowed her to process the arrest.
Police lying raises the likelihood that the innocent end up in jail — and that as juries and judges come to regard the police as less credible, or as cases are dismissed when the lies are discovered, the guilty will go free. Police falsehoods also impede judges’ efforts to enforce constitutional limits on police searches and seizures.
“We have 36,000 officers with law enforcement power, and there are a small handful of these cases every year,” said J. Peter Donald, a spokesman for the Police Department, the nation’s largest municipal force. “That doesn’t make any of these cases any less troubling. Our goal is always, always zero. One is too many, but we have taken significant steps to combat this issue.”

Shrouded, but Persistent

The 25 cases identified by The Times are almost certainly only a fraction of those in which officers have come under suspicion for lying in the past three years. That’s because a vast majority of cases end in plea deals before an officer is ever required to take the witness stand in open court, meaning the possibility that an officer lied is seldom aired in public. And in the rare cases when an officer does testify in court — and a judge finds the testimony suspicious, leading to the dismissal of the case — the proceedings are often sealed afterward.
Still, the cases identified by The Times reveal an entrenched perjury problem several decades in the making that shows little sign of fading.
So far in 2018, a Queens detective has been convicted of lying in a drug case and a Brooklyn detective has been arrested amid accusations that he fabricated the results of a photo lineup. These cases returned the phenomenon of police lying to the public eye, leaving police officials to defend the integrity of honest officers.
Kevin Richardson, the Police Department’s top internal prosecutor, said he believes so-called testilying is nearing its end. “I think it’s a problem that’s very much largely on its way out,” he said.
Indeed, it’s tempting to think about police lying as a bygone of past eras: a form of misconduct that ran unchecked as soaring street violence left the police overwhelmed during the 1980s and early 1990s and that re-emerged as police embraced stop-and-frisk tactics and covered up constitutional violations with lies.
But false testimony by the police persists even as crime has drastically receded across the city and the Police Department has renounced the excesses of the stop-and-frisk years.
Some policing experts anticipate that the ubiquity of cameras — whether on cellphones, affixed to buildings or worn by officers — will greatly reduce police lying. For the moment, however, video seems more capable of exposing lies than vanquishing them.

Memory and Manipulation

In two recent cases, The Times found, officers appear to have given false accounts about witness identifications. These cases are particularly troubling because erroneous identifications by witnesses have been a leading cause of wrongful convictions.
After a 2016 mugging near a Brooklyn subway station, the police arrested a group of four people, one of whom was found to be in possession of the victim’s wallet. In preparing the case, prosecutors sought to pin down a few basic facts. Had the police brought the victim, who was punched and had his wallet taken, to positively identify the four suspects after they were taken into custody? If so, what had the victim said?
Getting a straight answer from the arresting officer, Chedanan Naurang, proved nearly impossible. It had been Officer Naurang’s quick thinking that had made the arrest possible: Having lost the suspects at one subway station, he followed a hunch and drove one stop down the line, where he caught up with the four men after they got off the train.
But certain details Officer Naurang gave prosecutors kept shifting over the next year, according to a February 2017 letter that prosecutors wrote in which they summarized his fluid story.
Officer Naurang said at one point that the identification had occurred inside a police station when the victim passed by the holding cells, saw the men and confirmed their involvement in the crime.
A few weeks later, he backtracked. No, the victim had actually never gotten to see the suspects at the police station, Officer Naurang explained. Instead, the victim had gotten a chance to view them on the street, shortly after their arrest. That’s when the victim got out of the police vehicle in which he had been waiting, Officer Naurang said, and pointed to one of the four men, identifying him as an attacker.
This version of events, however, was at odds with the recollection of the police officer who had driven the victim to the scene of the arrest. That officer, Christopher McDonald, told prosecutors that the victim had remained in the back seat while viewing the four suspects. And Officer McDonald said that the victim couldn’t say whether they were his assailants. He thought he recognized their clothing, but wasn’t sure.
Because of Officer Naurang’s changing story, prosecutors dropped the case against the men as part of a deal in which all four pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a second mugging they were accused of the same night.
Another case in which the police gave false information about a witness identification came after a carjacking in Brooklyn in 2015. In that case, the police began to focus on two suspects based on an anonymous tip and a fingerprint. A detective, Michael Foder, testified that he had then prepared two photo lineups — one for each suspect.
Each consisted of the suspect’s photograph printed on a sheet of paper, alongside the mug shots of “fillers” — people of vaguely similar appearance with no connection to the crime. The hope was that the victim, a livery cabdriver, might recognize the suspect’s photo and pick him out — an outcome that prosecutors regard as a strong indicator of a suspect’s guilt.
That’s what happened, Detective Foder testified, when the victim came to the precinct to view the photo lineup for one suspect in November 2015 and returned in February 2016 to view one for the second suspect.
But the photo lineups that Detective Foder had prepared — and were submitted as evidence in federal court — were fabrications. It was a federal prosecutor who first realized that many of the mug shots used in the lineups were not yet available at the time Detective Foder claimed to have shown them to the victim. The reason? The mug shots of some of the fillers had yet to be taken.
The lineup that was said to be from November 2015 included filler photographs that were not taken until December. And the one he claimed to have administered in February featured photos that were taken in March.
Last month, Detective Foder was indicted on federal perjury charges. The indictment accuses him of lying to “conceal the fact that he had falsified documentation” related to the photo lineups. Detective Foder’s lawyer entered a plea of not guilty on the detective’s behalf.

Justifying a Search

Detective Foder’s actions appear to be aimed at tilting the scales toward guilt.
But more often, The Times found, false statements by the police seem intended to hide illegal searches and seizures, such as questionable car stops or entries into apartments that result in officers finding guns or drugs. If the truth were to emerge that the case began with an illegal police search, the evidence would likely be thrown out and the case dismissed.
The story that Christopher Thomas, a plainclothes police officer, told a grand jury in December 2014 sounded plausible enough. As he approached a parked car with a flashlight in hand, he said, he saw a man in the driver’s seat pull a firearm out of his waistband and stick it between the car’s center console and the front seat. The driver was indicted on gun-possession charges.
But by July 2015, as video of the encounter was about to emerge, Officer Thomas started backtracking. In conversations with the assistant district attorney on the case, Officer Thomas acknowledged that he had not seen the driver pull the gun from his waistband. In fact, he said, he had never seen the driver with his hand on the gun.
“He stated to the A.D.A. that he did not know why he had testified to those facts before the grand jury,” according to an email prosecutors later sent to a defense lawyer. This email, as well as several similar letters that prosecutors sent in other cases, were provided to The Times by Cynthia Conti-Cook, a Legal Aid Society lawyer who has been compiling a database of police misconduct allegations.
The video undermined Officer Thomas’s original claim of having seen the gun at the outset. It shows Officer Thomas and his partner approach the car and shine their flashlights inside. Their demeanor on the video suggests that they had seen nothing so far to cause alarm. One of the two officers — either Officer Thomas or his partner — is so unconcerned that he bends down for about seven seconds, and appears to tie his shoe.
Brooklyn prosecutors dismissed the gun case and, according to the prosecutors’ email, informed the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau about the problems with Officer Thomas’s account. An internal police disciplinary process led to Officer Thomas losing 30 vacation days and being placed on dismissal probation for a year, according to a person familiar with the case.
He is now a sergeant in a narcotics unit.
Officer Thomas is not the only officer to have tried to withdraw earlier testimony as soon as video of an encounter emerged, or was about to.
“I misspoke when I was in grand jury,” Sean Kinane, an officer with the 52nd Precinct in the Bronx, testified in federal court in 2016. That was all the explanation he gave, or was asked to give, for why he was recanting his earlier testimony about witnessing what appeared to be narcotics transactions in the moments before he stopped a heroin dealer in the street.
That claim, if true, would have given the police justification to stop the man, who was discovered to be carrying 153 glassine envelopes of heroin and eight bags of crack cocaine. But after the drug dealer managed to get a video recording of the encounter, Officer Kinane’s story changed. He had misspoken.
Reached by telephone for comment, Detective Kinane — he was promoted in 2017 — hung up.

‘No Fear of Being Caught’

Many police officials and experts express optimism that the prevalence of cameras will reduce police lying. As officers begin to accept that digital evidence of an encounter will emerge, lying will be perceived as too risky — or so the thinking goes.
“Basically it’s harder for a cop to lie today,” the Police Department’s top legal official, Lawrence Byrne, said last year at a New York City Bar Association event, noting that there were millions of cellphones on the streets of New York, each with a camera. “There is virtually no enforcement encounter where there isn’t immediate video of what the officers are doing.”
As more police encounters are recorded — whether on the cellphones of bystanders or the body-worn cameras of officers — false police testimony is being exposed in cases where the officer’s word might once have carried the day. That is true for run-of-the-mill drug cases as well as for police shootings so notorious that they are seared into the national consciousness.
Yet interviews with officers suggest the prevalence of cameras alone won’t end police lying. That’s because even with cameras present, some officers still figure — with good reason — that a lie is unlikely to be exposed. Because plea deals are a typical outcome, it’s rare for a case to develop to the point where the defendant can question an officer’s version of events at a hearing.
“There’s no fear of being caught,” said one Brooklyn officer who has been on the force for roughly a decade. “You’re not going to go to trial and nobody is going to be cross-examined.”
The percentage of cases that progress to the point where an officer is cross-examined is tiny. In 2016, for instance, there were slightly more than 185 guilty pleas, dismissals or other non-trial outcomes for each criminal case in New York City that went to trial and reached a verdict. There were 1,460 trial verdicts in criminal cases that year, while some 270,304 criminal cases were resolved without a trial.
To be sure, officers are sometimes called to testify before trial at so-called suppression hearings in which the legality of police conduct is evaluated. But those are rare. In Manhattan, about 2.4 percent of felony criminal cases have a suppression hearing, according to data from the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The rate for non-felony cases is slightly more than one-tenth of 1 percent.

From ‘Dropsy’ to ‘Testilying’

Several officers, all working in the Bronx and Brooklyn, candidly described in interviews how the practice of lying runs like a fault line through precincts. “You’re either a ‘lie guy’ or you’re not,” said the Brooklyn officer. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he described how he avoided certain officers and units in his precinct based on his discomfort with the arrests they made.
Earlier in his career, he said, a supervisor and a detective had each encouraged him to lie about the circumstances of drug arrests. Another time, he said, he had worked with an officer who, after discovering drugs while searching a suspect without cause, turned to the other officers present with a question — “How did we find this?” — and sought their help devising a false story.
Countless police officers have struggled with that question — “How did we find this?” — ever since 1961, when the Supreme Court ruled, in Mapp v. Ohio, that state judges must throw out evidence from illegal searches and seizures. Before this ruling, New York City officers could stop someone they thought might be dealing or using drugs, search their pockets and clothing, describe the encounter truthfully, and not worry that a court would throw out the drugs that they had discovered, even though the stop and search had been, strictly speaking, illegal. That changed with the Mapp decision, which greatly expanded the reach of the Fourth Amendment.
Immediately following the Mapp case, police officers saw many narcotics cases get dismissed. Then they made what one judge called“the great discovery.” If they testified that the suspect had dropped a bag of drugs on the ground as the police approached, courts would generally deem those arrests legal.
Within a year of the Mapp decision, courts in New York City were seeing a marked increase in what became known as “dropsy” testimony — in some units “dropsy” cases increased more than 70 percent, according to one 1968 study.
There was little reason to think drug users had grown more skittish. Rather, the influx of these cases was understood to be a sign that police officers were lying in a substantial number of cases. Ever since, courts in New York have been plagued with officers lying about how they came to discover that a suspect was carrying drugs or guns.
By 1994, a commission appointed to investigate police corruption noted that lying to make cases stick was common enough for “testilying” to become a well-known portmanteau.
The report by the Mollen Commission noted a few established patterns of falsehoods. Officers who illegally searched a car might later say they discovered contraband in “plain view.” Or an officer who found a gun or drugs in someone’s clothing during an illegal search, might falsely claim to have seen “a bulge in the person’s pocket.”
Just like the dropsy testimony a few decades earlier, these stories of “plain view” and “suspicious bulges” became scripts that many police officers stuck to. They were rarely challenged, not even as officers in New York City began repeating them tens and then hundreds of thousands of times as police stops of mainly black and Latino men skyrocketed during the years Michael Bloomberg was mayor.

Embellished Narratives

In recent years, the number of times police stopped and frisked pedestrians has declined precipitously. But certain plainclothes units, such as the so-called anti-crime teams, still engage in an aggressive style of policing that relies heavily on stop-and-frisk tactics. These teams make a disproportionate number of gun arrests, but they are also responsible for a substantial number of dubious stops of pedestrians and drivers, police officers and legal experts said in interviews.
Several uniformed patrol officers said they have long suspected that the track record of plainclothes anti-crime teams for making weapons and drug arrests was bolstered by illegal searches and a tolerance for lying about them.
These officers described a familiar scene: a group of black men ordered out of a vehicle for little reason and made to sit on the curb or lean against the bumper, as officers search the vehicle for guns and drugs.
“Certain car stops, certain cops will say there is odor of marijuana. And when I get to the scene, I immediately don’t smell anything,” said Officer Serrano, one of the few officers interviewed who was willing to speak on the record. “I can’t tell you what you smelled, but it’s obvious to me there is no smell of marijuana.”
Mr. Serrano’s testimony about a secret station-house recording he made was crucial evidence in a landmark stop-and-frisk trial in 2013. He and nearly a dozen other current and former officers are currently suing the Police Department over what they describe as arrest quotas.
“It’s the anti-crime teams, the plainclothes officers, everyone knows they will violate the law, get what they want and then write it to fit the narrative,” said Edwin Raymond, a police sergeant who is also a plaintiff in the arrest-quota case. “The narratives will be embellished to fit the parameters of probable cause, if need be.”

‘A Surreal Journey’

To be sure, there are other motives for lying, other than to cover up illegal searches.
Some police officers have said they faced pressure from commanders to write more tickets or make more arrests. A decade ago, narcotics detectives were found to have falsely accused people of dealing drugs in order to meet arrest quotas.
And there is pressure to solve — or at least close — cases. That may have motivated Officer Martinez’s gun-in-the-laundry-bag-in-the-doorway story.
What appears to have actually happened is that Officer Martinez and other officers searched inside the apartment for evidence from a nearby shooting. They had good reason to focus on that apartment. The victim, after being shot, had rushed there, along with others. Crime-scene photos taken by the department’s Evidence Collection Team suggest that a gun was found inside the apartment, in or near a laundry bag on the floor.
But whose gun was it? That was not clear. A number of people had been in the apartment in the preceding hours. And Ms. Thomas, who lived more than a mile away and arrived about an hour after the shooting, was one of the few people there when Officer Martinez showed up.
There is little, if any, evidence tying Ms. Thomas to the gun other than Officer Martinez’s false testimony that placed her in the doorway with the laundry bag in her arms. Prosecutors acknowledged that DNA testing indicates that Ms. Thomas did not handle the gun. Moreover, court papers that prosecutors filed after the case fell apart noted that the police appear to have focused on Ms. Thomas while ignoring other potential suspects. Several other people had entered the apartment shortly before Ms. Thomas — “none of whom are questioned by the police,” the prosecutors’ papers noted.
As for Officer Martinez’s false story of the laundry bag in the doorway, the prosecution’s legal papers noted only that “there are clear inconsistencies” between Officer Martinez’s “recollection of events and the video.”
“At no time in this video is there a laundry bag in the defendant’s hands,” the prosecution’s legal papers noted. “Neither is there a bag in the doorway of the apartment, and at no time is the arresting officer observed moving a bag before entering the apartment.”
By the time prosecutors officially dropped the case in November 2017, Ms. Thomas had already appeared in court 16 times, according to a tally of appearances kept by one of her lawyers, Alexandra Conlon, of the Bronx Defenders. On the last appearance, Ms. Thomas, 39, asked to address the court. “For 396 days I have been fighting for my life, my freedom and my sanity,” she said. “This has been such a surreal journey that I don’t wish on anyone.”
Officer Martinez remains in good standing at the 41st Precinct. Shortly after the case was dismissed, he was promoted to detective and given his gold shield. When a reporter attempted to interview him in January about his testimony in the case, he declined to comment, saying, “That’s not something I can speak about directly with you.”
Nate Schweber contributed reporting. Susan Beachy, Doris Burke and Jack Begg contributed research.

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