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Humboldt County Coroner Dave Parris said Monday that investigators don’t want to release more details of how the Rev. Eric Freed was beaten, pending further investigation.
But at his arraignment, Gary Lee Bullock, 44, of Humboldt County, was charged with murder with a special allegation of torture. He is also charged with burglary, arson and auto theft.
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“The impacts of climate change — including an increase in prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures, more heavy downpours, an increase in wildfires, more severe droughts, permafrost thawing, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise — are already affecting communities, natural resources, ecosystems, economies, and public health across the Nation. These impacts are often most significant for communities that already face economic or health-related challenges, and for species and habitats that are already facing other pressures.”
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CNN reporter Peter Hamby recounted a recent conversation with the Democratic official and quoted him as saying, “He’s really good at campaigning. Maybe not governing.”
“I talked to a former Obama White House person, just before Christmas, when Obama was sort of adrift, figuring out what to do, his poll numbers were pretty low…
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“What happened in the last year that changed?” asked Kel McClanahan, a Washington-based national security lawyer.
McClanahan noticed the change last month while reviewing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the agency. The FBI fact sheet accompanies every FOIA response and highlights a variety of facts about the agency. After noticing the change, McClanahan reviewed his records and saw that the revised fact sheets began going out this summer. “I think they’re trying to rebrand,” he said. “So many good things happen to your agency when you tie it to national security.”
Although a spokesman with the agency declined to weigh in on the timing of the change, he said the agency is just keeping up with the times. “When our mission changed after 9/11, our fact sheet changed to reflect that,” FBI spokesman Paul Bresson told Foreign Policy. He noted that the FBI’s website has long-emphasized the agency’s national security focus. “We rank our top 10 priorities and CT [counterterrorism] is first, counterintel is second, cyber is third,” he said. “So it is certainly accurate to say our primary function is national security.” On numerous occasions, former FBI Director Robert Mueller also emphasized the FBI’s national security focus in speeches and statements.
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Johnson, of Wisconsin, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the Obama administration exceeded its legal authority by arranging federal subsidies for members of Congress and their staff under the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
“The president and his congressional supporters have also broken their promise to the American people that Obamacare was going to be so good that they would participate in it just like everyone else,” Johnson wrote. “In truth, many members of Congress feel entitled to an exemption from the harsh realities of the law they helped jam down Americans’ throats in 2010.”
Unlike millions of Americans, he wrote, lawmakers and their staffs can receive employer contributions to help pay for their health insurance.
Johnson said the lawsuit, to be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, would challenge an October ruling by the Office of Personnel Management “that ignores the clear intent and language of the law.”
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The court issued a brief order Monday blocking any new same-sex unions in the state. The ruling comes after a Dec. 20 ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates gay and lesbian couples’ constitutional rights.
The decision, in one of the country’s most conservative states, touched off a flurry of court filings as some jurisdictions started issuing marriage licenses.
More than 900 gay and lesbian couples have married since the Dec. 20 ruling.
The high court order will remain in effect until the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decides whether to uphold Shelby’s ruling.
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Robert Freniere, who at the peak of his storied military career worked as a special assistant to McChrystal as vice director of operations of the Joint Staff, is living out of a van in the Philadelphia suburbs after hitting a sustained run of bad luck following his retirement from the Air Force in 2006, Philly.com reported.
Throughout his 30 years in the military, Freniere, 59, worked his way to the rank of colonel and earned three graduate degrees. But despite his varied accomplishments, he couldn’t even find work as a janitor.
“Well, I’ve tried that,” Freniere told Philly.com about being turned down for even the most low-level custodial jobs.
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Cheney, 47, had been staging a primary campaign to represent the Republican Party in November Senate elections in the western state of Wyoming, challenging long-time Republican Senator Mike Enzi.
‘Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign,’ she said in a statement on Monday, without elaborating on the health concerns.
‘My children and their futures were the motivation for our campaign and their health and well being will always be my overriding priority.’
The campaign had prompted a public spat within the Cheney family after Liz Cheney spoke out against gay marriage, drawing outrage from her lesbian sister Mary and her wife.
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Keith Vidal, 18, of Boiling Springs Lakes, was shot and killed Sunday afternoon, authorities said.
At least three law enforcement agencies responded after the family called for help just after noon, saying Vidal was in the midst of a schizophrenic episode.
Vidal was declared dead of a gunshot wound at a hospital.
Jerry Dove, chief of the Southport police, one of the responding agencies, said at a news conference that Detective Byron Vassey, a nine-year veteran of the department, had been placed on administrative leave. He wouldn’t say whether Vassey was believed to be the officer who fired the shot.
Vidal’s family showed up at the news conference — to which they said they weren’t invited — carrying placards, demanding justice and insisting that their son posed no threat when he was shot.
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One of the Senate’s first votes upon returning to Washington from its holiday break Monday will be on a bill reviving emergency unemployment benefits that lapsed at the end of 2013.
The vote marks the first concrete step by Democrats toward a populist economic platform ahead of the November elections. The inequality campaign will intensify later in the year with a push in the Senate to raise the federal minimum wage that will be synced with President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech, which is expected to dig heavily into the issue of economic disparity.
The focus on income inequality builds on the economic themes Obama successfully harnessed to beat Mitt Romney in 2012. Democrats believe they can win again by spotlighting the growing divides between the rich and poor and daring Republicans to oppose legislation aimed at benefiting low-income Americans.
“Our Republican colleagues should take note. Certainly we’re going to build on the progress we’ve made to reduce the deficit, but it is no longer the most important issue that we face,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in laying out Senate Democrats’ agenda for the coming year. “Issues like job creation, minimum wage and unemployment insurance are going to weigh on the minds of voters far more than Obamacare by the time the 2014 elections roll around.”
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