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Highest French Court Rules Killer of Jewish Woman Cannot Stand Trial
To the alarm of Jewish leaders, Sarah Halimi’s killer will go unpunished because of his mental state, brought on by cannabis, at the time of the crime.
PARIS — The highest court in France has ruled that the man who killed a Jewish woman in 2017 in an anti-Semitic frenzy cannot stand trial because he was in a state of acute mental delirium brought on by his consumption of cannabis.
Kobili Traoré, who has admitted to the killing and is in a psychiatric institution, beat Sarah Halimi, 65, before throwing her out the window of her Paris apartment to cries of “Allahu akbar,” or God is great, and “I killed the devil.”
Michigan: ‘Strongest public health order in the Midwest’ now requires masks for 2-year-olds
The Michigan state government this week directed state residents as young as two years old to begin wearing masks in the hopes that doing so will help bring down the state’s coronavirus numbers.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said in a press release on Friday that the state will expand its COVID-19 response — what the state DHHS calls “the strongest public health order in the Midwest” — to apply its masking requirement “to children ages 2 to 4” in order to “further protect the state’s residents.”
“Expanding the mask rule to children ages 2 to 4 requires a good faith effort to ensure that these children wear masks while in gatherings at childcare facilities or camps,” the announcement says, adding that the order “follows recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.”
Maryland adds 1,500 COVID cases while positivity ticks up, hospitalizations decline
Maryland health officials reported 1,500 new coronavirus cases Saturday, marking five days in a row where the state has recorded at least 1,000 new infections.
Worldwide COVID-19 death toll tops 3 million
The global death toll from the coronavirus topped a staggering 3 million people Saturday — a number bigger than the population of Chicago and equivalent to Philadelphia and Dallas combined.
RIO DE JANEIRO — The global death toll from the coronavirus topped a staggering 3 million people Saturday amid repeated setbacks in the worldwide vaccination campaign and a deepening crisis in places such as Brazil, India and France.
The number of lives lost, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Kyiv, Ukraine; Caracas, Venezuela; or metropolitan Lisbon, Portugal. It is bigger than Chicago (2.7 million) and equivalent to Philadelphia and Dallas combined.
And the true number is believed to be significantly higher because of possible government concealment and the many cases overlooked in the early stages of the outbreak that began in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019.
When the world back in January passed the bleak threshold of 2 million deaths, immunization drives had just started in Europe and the United States. Today, they are underway in more than 190 countries, though progress in bringing the virus under control varies widely.
While the campaigns in the U.S. and Britain have hit their stride and people and businesses there are beginning to contemplate life after the pandemic, other places, mostly poorer countries but some rich ones as well, are lagging behind in putting shots in arms and have imposed new lockdowns and other restrictions as virus cases soar.
Worldwide, deaths are on the rise again, running at around 12,000 per day on average, and new cases are climbing too, eclipsing 700,000 a day.
“This is not the situation we want to be in 16 months into a pandemic, where we have proven control measures,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, one of the World Health Organization’s leaders on COVID-19.
US Army Prepares for Possible Global Land Conflict with China
The classic assumptions surrounding a possible war between the United States and China focus on regional naval battles in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, but U.S. Army Major General Richard Coffman recently stated that Americans must be and are already preparing for a worldwide ground conflict with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The development of the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) under his leadership is one technology and piece of equipment being prepared for such a conflict. Chinese General Xu Qiliang, vice chairman of the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission and second-in-command besides Xi Jinping, called for increased military spending in early March, in part because he judged that a military conflict between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States was inevitable. It was the first time such a statement was made publicly at the highest level of the PLA. A few days later, on …
Bannon’s War Room | Saturday Edition | Recorded April 17, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 49 Seconds
“In any major disaster the most obvious thing to do is to figure out how the disaster occurred,” he said. “You can’t let the Russians investigate Chernobyl and take their word for it.” Guest is: Josh Rogin
U.S. Intel Walks Back Claim Russians Put Bounties on American Troops
It was a huge election-time story that prompted cries of treason. But according to a newly disclosed assessment, Donald Trump might have been right to call it a “hoax.”
‘Mysterious headless beast’ spotted in a tree in Poland turns out to be a CROISSANT
- The Krakow Animal Welfare Society received a panicked call from a local describing a mysterious creature that had been lurking in a tree for days
- The woman said that people had been frightened to open their windows in case the beast came into their homes
- Inspectors headed to the scene, only to discover that the creature in the tree, which appeared to have no head or legs, was actually a croissant
Schiff and Swalwell Went All in on the Dubious Russia Bounty Story
by Chuck Ross
Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, hyped reports last year that the Russian government paid bounties to kill American soldiers, an allegation that the Biden administration now says is based on inconclusive intelligence.
Schiff and Swalwell, along with other Democrats, used reports of the alleged bounty payments to accuse President Donald Trump of turning a blind eye to Russian aggression against the U.S.
Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence panel, accused Trump and other Republicans of refusing to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin over the alleged bounties. In a tweet on Aug. 27, Schiff said that their silence put U.S. troops “in danger.”
“Americans are outraged by reports that Russia offered bounties on U.S. troops,” Schiff tweeted on July 2.
“The only American who isn’t? Donald Trump. Trump is again taking the Kremlin’s side and calling it a hoax.”
Swalwell accused Trump of not supporting U.S. troops, saying that the Republican “hasn’t said shit about serious allegations Russia is paying bounties to kill them.”
The two Democrats, who also pushed since-debunked theories of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, were responding to reports first published by The New York Times.
On June 26, The Times reported that U.S. officials believed that Russian intelligence had paid Taliban operatives to kill American troops in Afghanistan. What’s more, according to the initial Times report, Trump had been briefed on the intelligence but done nothing in response.
Cracks soon emerged in the story. For one, Trump was not directly briefed on any intelligence regarding bounty payments, The Times subsequently reported. Some intelligence was included in a presidential daily brief that was reportedly not communicated to Trump.
Some U.S. officials, including military officials, also doubted the credibility of the intelligence. The Biden administration appears to broadly concur with the Trump administration’s interpretation of the intelligence.
On Thursday, U.S. officials told reporters that the intelligence community has “low to medium” confidence in the allegations.
“The United States intelligence community assesses with low to moderate confidence that Russian intelligence officers sought to encourage Taliban attacks U.S. and coalition personnel in Afghanistan in 2019 and perhaps earlier,” a U.S. official told reporters Thursday.
Progressive group ramps up pressure on Justice Breyer to retire
Demand Justice, an advocacy group led by a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), is pressing longtime liberal stalwart Justice Stephen Breyer to retire from the Supreme Court….