The gun industry is holding its biggest annual trade show a few miles from where a gunman slaughtered 58 concertgoers outside his high-rise Las Vegas hotel room in October using a display case worth of weapons, many of them fitted with bump stocks that enabled them to mimic fully automatic fire, the Associated Press reports. What will be among the thousands of products crammed into the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s SHOT Show convention will be a bit of a mystery, shielded from the public and the general-interest media. Slide Fire, the leading manufacturer of bump stocks, a once-obscure product that attracted intense attention after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, won’t be among the exhibitors. The Texas-based company hasn’t said why it’s not on the roster of more than 1,700 exhibitors, although it was last year. The company also isn’t on the list of those attending this year’s National Rifle Association annual meeting or other prominent gun trade shows. “From purely from a public relations standpoint, it wouldn’t be a surprise at all if bump stocks just sort of disappeared this year,” said political scientist Robert Spitzer of the State University of New York at Cortland. “That’s a PR no-brainer.” Still, the convention floor is likely to have plenty of other devices that gun-control advocates have taken aim at in recent years: accessories that make it easier to carry a firearm, shoot it or reduce the noise it makes. On the list of products they oppose are “trigger cranks,” which, like bump stocks, make it easier to fire a long gun rapidly, and “assault pistols,” which look remarkably like short-barreled AR- and AK-style firearms but skirt federal restrictions because they aren’t designed to be shot from the shoulder. A Kentucky high school is secured and a suspect is in custody after a shooting Tuesday morning left one person dead and several people injured, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports. Around 8 a.m., police responded to a shooting at Marshall County High School in southwestern Kentucky. Two Air Evac helicopters have landed at the school to treat wounded. The high school is located in Benton, Ky, about 120 miles northwest of Nashville, Tennessee. Marshall County High School is about 35 miles southeast of Heath High School in West Paducah, where on Dec. 1, 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal opened fire on a group of praying students, killing three and injuring five more. The new school shooting occurred a day after a 15-year-old girl in Texas was shot and injured in her high school cafeteria, allegedly by a 16-year-old male student. Investigations have been launched into the property development business run by Charles Kushner, father of White House adviser and President Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Until now he has remained publicly silent as questions have been raised about Jared Kushner and whether the company, a property development business, benefited from his powerful job, the Washington Post reports. One reason for that silence may have stemmed from the 63-year-old Kushner’s background. He was convicted in 2005 of several federal crimes and spent 14 months in an Alabama federal prison, where his son visited him almost every weekend. In his first interview since his son entered the White House, Charles Kushner said the company has no concerns about the investigations and dismissed suggestions that his son’s work with Trump has made it harder to obtain financing for the family’s many real estate projects. The U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn subpoenaed information on Kushner Cos. projects that used a program in which foreigners can invest $500,000 in exchange for fast-track status for U.S. residency and possible citizenship. Jared Kushner’s work on what the Post calls a judicial overhaul plan is influenced by what he learned from his father’s imprisonment. After the elder Kushner’s prison term, he spent the rest of his two-year sentence in a halfway house in Newark. Kushner hired two men who had been inmates with him in Alabama. “I’m passionate about judicial reform as I have seen firsthand the injustice of long sentences and the destruction of human lives who have no hope,” Charles Kushner said. “I believe in second chances, when appropriate, as we are all human and we all make mistakes.” He said the issue is “close and personal to Jared and close and personal to our family because we have seen it from both sides.” FBI Director Christopher Wray has been resisting pressure from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to replace the bureau’s deputy director, Andrew McCabe, a frequent target of criticism from President Trump, the Washington Post reports. The tension over McCabe and other high-level FBI officials who served during James Comey’s tenure has reached the White House, where counsel Donald McGahn has sought to mediate the issue. As Sessions tried to push Wray to make personnel changes, Wray conveyed his frustration to the attorney general. Sessions then discussed the matter with McGahn, who advised him to ease off, which he did. In December, after the Post reported that McCabe planned to retire in March when he becomes eligible for his full pension benefits, Trump tweeted about his criticisms of McCabe, a target of his since the 2016 presidential campaign. Axios reported that Wray had threatened to resign if Sessions did not stop pressuring him to fire McCabe. Firing McCabe could be problematic because he has civil service protections as a government employee. Such a move, in the aftermath of public criticism from the president and others, could prompt litigation. A White House statement said that Trump “has enormous respect for the thousands of rank-and-file F.B.I. agents who make up the world’s most professional and talented law enforcement agency. He believes politically motivated senior leaders, including former Director Comey and others he empowered, have tainted the agency’s reputation for unbiased pursuit of justice.” House Republicans are refusing to share with the Justice Department a memo alleging misconduct by federal officials investigating the 2016 Trump campaign’s Russia ties. However, they are building a case that President Trump should authorize the memo’s release, reports Politico. Both the main Justice Department and the FBI have requested access to the document but have been denied. The memo, compiled by aides to House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), contends that FBI officials abused the FISA surveillance program to target the Trump campaign. It suggests that FBI agents seeking a warrant to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page concealed the role a controversial private dossier alleging Kremlin influence over Trump played in their decision. An Intelligence Committee member said withholding the memo makes sense given its charges of misconduct among senior federal law enforcement officials. “They’re the ones that have the problem,” said Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX). “I think given the seriousness of this one and the players, this should go to the president first.” Democrats denounced the memo as a misleading political assault designed to distract from and undermine the investigations into Russian election meddling and contacts between Trump associates and the Kremlin. Conaway said that lawmakers would share their memo with Trump, who can then decide whether to provide it to the Justice Department. Asked why the committee wouldn’t share the memo with FBI Director Christopher Wray, whom Trump appointed, Conaway said Wray is surrounded by Obama administration holdovers who could not be trusted. Attorney General Jeff Sessions acknowledged that the FBI’s information system failed to preserve five months of text messages between two bureau officials who had disparaged candidate Donald Trump in 2016, USA Today reports. The discovery of the communications prompted the removal of Peter Strzok, a senior counter-intelligence agent, from the staff of Russia special counsel Robert Mueller. Sessions was questioned for several hours last week by Mueller’s investigators about the overall Russia issue, the New York Times reports. It was the first time that a member of Trump’s cabinet was interviewed. Strzok had been communicating by text message for months with colleague Lisa Page, who also had been assigned to Mueller’s team but returned her duties at the FBI before the text messages were found. The Justice Department turned over a tranche of communications between the two to Congress covering August 2015 to December 2016. In those contacts, Strzok, who also helped run the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, referred to Trump as an “idiot” and the two expressed a clear preference for the Democratic candidate. In all, Justice identified about 50,000 messages between the two. Sessions said the FBI had not retained messages between the two from Dec. 14, 2016 to May 17, 2017, when Mueller was appointed to lead Justice’s inquiry into Russia interference in the 2016 election. Sessions said, “I have spoken to the inspector general and a review is already underway to ascertain what occurred and to determine if these records can be recovered in any other way. If any wrongdoing were to be found to have caused this gap, appropriate legal disciplinary action measures will be taken.” Harris County’s pretrial system in Houston provides little supervision for indigent defendants who are most at risk of failing to appear in court, while offering support to those at lower risk, the Houston Chronicle reports. The result is a criminal justice system clogged with a growing number of failures to appear, months after a federal judge ordered the release of indigent defendants who can’t afford to post bail. Officials said the releases pose a threat to public safety. Critics say the county is deliberately withholding pretrial supervision that could help defendants stay out of trouble. Chief U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal required most indigent misdemeanor defendants be released from jail within 24 hours, setting up a system that requires the sheriff’s office to release defendants on unsecured bonds if magistrates refuse to give them personal bonds. Personal bonds do not require cash up front and include pretrial services and assistance. Judges grant or deny them based on their assessment of the defendants’ criminal history and the likelihood they will appear in court. Defendants who do not receive personal bonds will be transferred to jail, where the sheriff will determine if they can afford to post bail. If not, they are released on unsecured bonds, which do not include supervision. Since Rosenthal’s ruling in June, 8,000 misdemeanor defendants have been released on unsecured bonds, yet more than 40 percent failed to appear for subsequent court hearings. The rate is nearly double that of defendants with personal bonds and far higher than the 8 percent failure rate for those with bail bondsmen providing surety bonds. Defense attorneys say the county could fix the problem by expanding the use of personal bonds. “These people on unsecured bonds are the people who need the most help, and they’re getting the least,” said attorney Franklin Bynum. CNN reported that the FBI is looking into Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, but the governor’s personal attorney has called on the cable network to retract the report, the Kansas City Star reports. Citing information from two unnamed U.S. officials, CNN reported that the FBI recently opened an inquiry into the governor. Jim Bennett, the governor’s attorney, said he and his colleagues have “seen no indication of an FBI investigation, see no matter that is worthy of such an investigation, and do not believe that one exists … Governor Greitens has not been contacted at any time by the FBI and we are not aware of any interest by the FBI.” A spokesman for CNN said the network stands by its reporting. CNN said it interviewed Eli Karabell, 22, who volunteered to help with Greitens’ transition team in December 2016. Karabell said he was interviewed by two FBI agents in November. It’s unclear when the FBI might have opened an inquiry into Greitens. CNN did not say whether the reported federal inquiry is linked to allegations of blackmail that led to spurred a criminal investigation in St. Louis. Karabell has retained Albert Watkins, the same attorney who is also representing the ex-husband of the governor’s lover, who first brought the blackmail allegations to light. A federal jury sided with former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke in a dispute over whether Clarke’s Facebook posts violated the free speech rights of a man who had shared a flight with Clarke, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Dan Black, 25, was detained by deputies when the flight landed in Milwaukee last year because he had shaken his head at Clarke before the plane left Dallas. After Black filed a complaint over how he was treated, Clarke put up two posts on the agency’s Facebook page that Black found threatening and intimidating. Black’s lawsuit claimed the posts dissuaded him from ever again seeking redress of a grievance against a powerful government official. The jury found Black had failed to prove the posts suppressed his willingness to make such a complaint in the future. Black’s attorney, Anne Sulton, asked jurors to impose punitive damages because Clarke “believes he’s unaccountable, above the law.” Clarke did not appear at the trial. The county would have been liable for paying any damages the jury might have awarded Black. Defense attorney Charles Bohl argued that Black and Clarke had a simple “internet spat” with no civil rights implications. He said Black himself was the first to mention the airport incident on social media, seemingly mocking Clarke in one tweet, and gave multiple TV news interviews about his encounter with Clarke and Clarke’s reactions. “Did the posts chill his exercise of his First Amendment rights?” Bohl asked. “It’s a resounding no. He exercised those rights abundantly.” Black testified he hasn’t been able to land a new job because any internet search of his name turns up almost nothing but the dispute with Clarke. Louise and David Turpin were married 33 years ago but have renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas at least three times. After hearing that the couple were accused of starving their 13 children and chaining them to their beds, Kent Ripley, the Elvis impersonator who presided over their ceremonies, pulled up videos where the siblings, in matching outfits and similar haircuts, smiled and danced. “Watching them now it’s kind of haunting and disturbing,” Ripley told the Associated Press. “They all looked young and thin but I figured it was just their lifestyle. Maybe the activities they did, maybe because of their religious beliefs … I knew they were a fun family.” Since the Turpin parents were charged with multiple felony counts of torture, child abuse, abuse of dependent adults and false imprisonment, the people who knew or met them are trying to figure out how the siblings’ alleged abuse went undiscovered for so long, reports the Washington Post. The siblings, who range in age from 2 to 29, were severely malnourished when they were rescued from the Turpin’s Perris, Ca., home on Jan. 14. When they weren’t chained they were fed very little food on a schedule. Louise Turpin’s sister, Teresa Robinette, recalls how the nature of her video calls with her nieces and nephews changed over time, until she was no longer allowed to speak with them. “They were very friendly, but it was a very weird conversation every time because they weren’t real talkative,” she told NBC’s “Megyn Kelly Today.” “When she let me video-Skype to them, it got to where instead of having them all together like we did years and years ago … she would bring in one or two or three at a time, and then she would send them out and tell them to send down so-and-so.” Nine members of a CNBC crew were arrested at Newark Liberty International Airport last week on charges of trying to smuggle a fake bomb through airport security, reports NJ.com. Companies that employed the men — Left Hook Media and Endemol Shine North America — described the arrest as a “misunderstanding,” and suggested airport security personnel had misidentified vacuum compression luggage, an invention meant to provide travelers with more room for clothing, as a fake bomb. The men were filming the reality show “Staten Island Hustle,” which is scheduled to debut in the spring. The new show follows a group of friends looking for ideas for products and investments. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has accused the men of covertly filming what authorities said was an attempt to smuggle through security a fake improvised explosive device, which officials said included a motor, wires, and pipes. They were charged with creating a false public alarm, interference with transportation and conspiracy. A former prosecutor said the men “were purposefully trying to incite widespread fear and hysteria and hoping to capture that on camera, assuming the state’s allegations are true.” |
