6 US states consider harsher penalties for harming police K9 dogs
Lawmakers in at least six states are considering longer prison sentences or bigger fines for harming or killing police dogs, and the idea has bipartisan support despite questions about how the animals are used and a fraught history. In Kansas on Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House voted 107-4 to pass a bill sponsored by its top leader to allow judges to sentence first-time offenders to five years in prison and mandate a fine of at least $10,000 for killing dogs used by police, arson investigators, game wardens or search and rescue teams, and for killing police horses. Those crimes already are felonies, but the maximum prison sentence is one year; the maximum fine is $5,000, and the law does not specifically cover horses. Two days ago, Colorado’s Democratic-dominated House voted 52-12 for a measure that would require people convicted of aggravated cruelty to a law enforcement animal to also pay a minimum fine of $2,000 and reimburse an agency for its costs in caring for the animal or replacing it. They already face a prison sentence of up to six years. MASSACHUSETTS POLICE K9 TRACKS SCENT FOR OVER 2 MILES TO FIND MISSING 12-YEAR-OLD IN FREEZING COLD And Monday, the GOP-controlled Missouri House gave its initial approval to legislation that would increase the penalties for harming dogs and horses used by law enforcement, with a final vote expected next week. The penalty for severely injuring or killing an animal is up to four years in prison, and the bill would make it up to seven years. Similar bills have been filed this year in Democratic-led Hawaii and in GOP-leaning South Carolina and West Virginia. In South Carolina, GOP Gov. Henry McMaster mentioned Rico, a police dog who died along with fallen police, firefighters and paramedics, during his State of the State address after attending the dog’s funeral in October. “When Rico had his funeral, I’ve never seen so many people at the police academy. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place,” McMaster said, after becoming a little emotional when he paused at Rico’s name. But in Missouri, Black lawmakers have raised concerns about the legislation, suggesting it could be too broadly applied. “Historically, police animals have been used to affect and, quite frankly, harass marginalized communities,” Democratic Rep. LaKeySha Bosley of St. Louis said during Monday’s debate. A final vote in the Missouri House will determine whether the bill goes to the Senate. The measures in Colorado and Kansas went to their senates. The federal government and other states have acted on the issue. Under a 2000 federal law, a person who kills a police dog can be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. In 2019, the possible penalty in Florida increased from up to five years in prison to up to 15 years. Tennessee increased its penalties in 2022, and Kentucky did so last year. Supporters of the tougher penalties argue that the animals cost thousands of dollars to obtain and train, are vital to protecting the public and are like family both to the officers who work with them and their relatives. In a Kansas House committee hearing earlier this month, Tyler Brooks, a sheriff’s deputy in the Wichita area, paid tribute to Bane, an 8-year-old dog who died in November. “It’s kind of funny to me that this very large dog who frequently broke things and knocked everything over during a training session would be the one that would be the one that would break my 7-year-old autistic son of his crippling fear of dogs,” Brooks told the committee. Authorities say a suspect in a domestic violence case took refuge in a storm drain and strangled Bane when a deputy sent the dog in to flush out the suspect. The dog’s death inspired the Kansas measure, and House Speaker Dan Hawkins immediately dubbed it “Bane’s Law” after Wednesday’s vote. Hawkins is a Wichita Republican who is sponsoring the bill along with the House Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee’s chair. During the Colorado House debate Monday, rural Republican Rep. Ryan Armagost stood beside Majority Leader Monica Duran, a Denver-area Democrat, to promote that state’s measure. “It is a huge hit on every agency to lose an animal that’s part of their team. So, I encourage everyone to get behind this, support this, protect those that protect us,” Armagost said. But injuries caused by police dogs have made headlines. In rural Ohio in July 2023, a police dog bit a Black truck driver severely enough that he needed hospital treatment after the man was on his knees with his hands in the air. The Salt Lake City police department suspended its dog apprehension program in 2020 after a Black man was bitten and an audit found 27 dog bite cases during the previous two years. And the same year, a Black man in Lafayette, Indiana, was placed in a medically induced coma after police dogs mauled him as he was arrested in a battery case. During Tuesday’s debate in the Kansas House, Democratic Rep. Ford Carr, of Wichita, one of six Black members, mentioned the Ohio case and recalled how during the Civil Rights Movement, authorities turned dogs on peaceful Black protesters. Carr also suggested the Wichita suspect was defending himself. “I don’t think that there’s any one of us here who would sit idly by and let an animal maul you without fighting back,” Carr said.
House Republican who oversaw Mayorkas impeachment won’t run for re-election
House Homeland Security Chair, Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., announced Wednesday he will not run for re-election, citing Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachment as a reason to retire from Congress and return to his home district after serving three terms in Washington, D.C. “At the start of the 118th Congress, I promised my constituents to pass legislation to secure our borders and to hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable. Today, with the House having passed H.R. 2 and Secretary Mayorkas impeached, it is time for me to return home,” Green said in a statement. “In the last few months, in reading the writings of our Framers, I was reminded of their intent for representatives to be citizen-legislators, to serve for a season and then return home. Our country – and our Congress – is broken beyond most means of repair. I have come to realize our fight is not here within Washington, our fight is with Washington.” “As I have done my entire life, I will continue serving this country – but in a new capacity,” Green continued Wednesday, not disclosing if he will run again for governor in 2026, where the seat will up for grabs because Republican Gov. Bill Lee is prohibited from running under Tennessee’s gubernatorial term limits. “I am grateful to my wife, Camie, and my family, for standing beside me and for their service to our nation,” he continued, announcing his retirement. MAYORKAS FIRST CABINET OFFICIAL TO BE IMPEACHED SINCE 1876, SUOZZI WINS SANTOS’ SEAT AND MORE TOP HEADLINES “During my time in the Army, they sacrificed dad and husband to multiple deployments – and as I have served here in Congress, they have supported me as I’ve been away most weeks,” he said. “I also want to thank the constituents of Tennessee’s 7th District for the unbelievable honor to serve them in Congress – whose vote of confidence was not only evident in the wide margins in each election, but also without ever having a single primary opponent in my three elections. And finally, I want to thank my staff, whose unmatched hard work, dedication, and talent have resulted in our many victories and one of the lowest turnover rates in Congress.” Green is the fifth Republican committee chair to forgo re-election. The others are House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger, R-Texas, Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick T. McHenry, R-N.C., and House Select Committee on China Chair Mike Gallagher, R-Wis. Gallagher was one of just three Republican House members to vote against the impeachment of Mayorkas, joining with all House Democrats and preventing an initial measure from going forward. After that bid failed, a second attempt succeeded Tuesday, making Mayorkas the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached since 1876. As chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, Green spearheaded a months-long investigation of Mayorkas, his policies and his management of the department, ultimately concluding Tuesday that his conduct in office amounted to “high crimes and misdemeanors” worthy of impeachment. At the beginning of the 118th Congress, Green was selected as Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, becoming the only member of Congress to be selected at the start of his or her third term to chair a major legislative committee this century, his office said. Green previously served as an Army surgeon and in the state Senate and is from Montgomery County. USER’S MANUAL TO WHAT’S NEXT NOW THAT THE HOUSE IMPEACHED MAYORKAS Green flirted with running for governor in 2017, but suspended his campaign after he was nominated by former President Trump to become the Army secretary. He later withdrew his nomination amid criticism over his remarks about Muslims and LGBTQ+ Americans, including saying that being transgender is a disease, according to the Associated Press. He also urged that a stand be taken against “the indoctrination of Islam” in public schools and referred to a “Muslim horde” that invaded Constantinople hundreds of years ago. After winning his congressional seat in 2018, Green once again made headlines after hosting a town hall where he stated that vaccines cause autism. He later walked back his comments. Last April, the Trump campaign announced Green would be a part of the Trump 2024 Tennessee Federal Leadership team. In 2022, Green’s middle Tennessee congressional seat was among seats that Republicans drastically carved up during redistricting. The 7th Congressional District was redrawn to include a significant portion of Nashville. The congressional map is now facing a federal lawsuit, but that case is not scheduled to go to trial until April 2025. The GOP primary to replace Green is on Aug. 1, and candidates have primary ballot acces until the April 4 deadline, according to the Federal Elections Commission. So far on the Republican side, Caleb Stack has pulled petitions to run for the congressional district Green will vacate at the end of his term. In a brazen attempt at a political comeback, former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, who stepped down about five years ago amid now-dismissed criminal charges linked to her using taxpayer dollars to carry on an extramarital affair with her city-employed bodyguard, announced in December that she would run for Green’s U.S. House seat as a Democrat. “I expect candidates who agree with Mark Green or are even more extreme will announce campaigns, and I look forward to taking on whoever makes it through that primary,” Barry said in a statement. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Trump to appear in New York City court for hearing in criminal case from DA Alvin Bragg’s investigation
Former President Trump will appear in a New York City courtroom Thursday morning for a hearing related to the trial stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation. Bragg indicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in April. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges. The trial is scheduled to begin in New York City March 25. But Bragg has said he can be flexible on that date, pending the decision on trial timing in special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 case. COURT DATES AND PRIMARIES: TRUMP FACES COMPETING CALENDARS IN 2024 If the trial does begin March 25, court proceedings will take place just after the Louisiana primary and ahead of April 2, when Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island and Wisconsin voters hit the polls to select a GOP nominee. Bragg alleged Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.” TRUMP SLAMS BRAGG AFTER PLEADING NOT GUILTY: ‘I NEVER THOUGHT ANYTHING LIKE THIS COULD HAPPEN IN AMERICA’ The charges are related to alleged hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign. In 2019, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. The Federal Election Commission also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021. TRUMP PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO 34 FELONY COUNTS OF FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS LINKED TO 2016 HUSH MONEY PAYMENTS The Bragg indictment was the first against Trump last year. He was then charged in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into classified records, Smith’s investigation into 2020 election interference and Jan. 6 and in Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges. After the hearing Thursday morning, Trump is expected to travel back to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
Another blow to INDIA bloc: Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference to go solo in Lok Sabha polls
Speaking to reporters in Srinagar on seat sharing, the National Conference chief said, ‘As far as seat sharing is concerned, NC will contest alone and there’s no doubt about it.’
Mimi Chakraborty announces resignation as TMC MP
Mimi Chakraborty is a member of Parliament from Jadavpur.
Rescued Gulf of Mexico coral in a Galveston aquarium could help the species’ survival
A new report found that coral off Texas’ coast could die off by 2040 because of climate change.
Texas and Biden administration lawyers face off in court over new law making illegal border crossing a state crime
An Austin will decide whether Senate Bill 4 will go into effect on March 5. The new law allows police to arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the border.
Biden, Harris call for gun control in separate comments after deadly shooting at Kansas City Chiefs’ parade
President Biden and Vice President Harris called on Congress to pass stronger gun control measures in separate comments Wednesday night hours after a deadly shooting at a Super Bowl victory parade in Kansas City, Missouri. Biden issued a statement specifically recommending that lawmakers ban assault weapons among other gun control laws, and asked that Americans across the country join him in his stance. “It is time to act. That’s where I stand. And I ask the country to stand with me. To make your voice heard in Congress so we finally act to ban assault weapons, to limit high-capacity magazines, strengthen background checks, keep guns out of the hands of those who have no business owning them or handling them,” Biden said. The president said the shooting at the victory parade “cuts deep in the American soul,” and claimed that “we know what we have to do, we just need the courage to do it.” KANSAS CITY SHOOTING AT CHIEFS SUPER BOWL PARADE LEAVES AT LEAST 1 DEAD, 22 WOUNDED Biden addressed the gun violence epidemic – naming a few shootings that took place elsewhere in the country on Wednesday – and said Americans have the right to go to school, church, walk on the street and attend Super Bowl celebrations without the fear of being shot and killed. “The epidemic of gun violence is ripping apart families and communities every day. Some make the news. Much of it doesn’t. But all of it is unacceptable. We have to decide who we are as a country,” he said. He offered prayers for the victims and asked that Americans “find the resolve to end this senseless epidemic.” KANSAS CITY RADIO DJ, MOM OF 2 KILLED IN SHOOTING AFTER CHIEFS’ SUPER BOWL CELEBRATION Before departing for Munich, Germany, Harris told reporters on the tarmac that Wednesday was supposed to be a celebratory day in Kansas City, but it became “another day where American has experienced senseless gun violence.” “The reality of it is a lot of this can be prevented if members of legislatures, including the United States Congress, just had the courage to act on reasonable gun safety laws,” Harris said. “And I think it’s incredibly important for everyone to understand that it doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way.” The vice president also offered her prayers for the families of the victims and the community before boarding Air Force 2. Gunshots rang out during the Chiefs’ victory parade at about 2 p.m. local time near the Union Station parking garage in Kansas City, killing one woman and injuring 22 others. The woman has been identified as Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a mother of two and local radio DJ. Eleven children were also wounded during the shooting, but were expected to recover as of Wednesday night. Nine of them were shot, while two sustained other injuries. Three people were taken into custody and at least one weapon was recovered by police, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said Wednesday evening.
Will Israel release Marwan Barghouti, the ‘Palestinian Mandela’?
Marwan Barghouti’s supporters call him the Palestinian Mandela. Like the South African leader who was imprisoned by the apartheid regime for 28 years, the Fatah politician has been in jail for more than two decades. Now, despite growing calls for his release — including from Hamas, a longtime rival of Fatah — his incarceration appears poised to continue. On Wednesday, Israel’s extreme right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, announced that Barghouti had been placed in solitary confinement. Al Jazeera has independently confirmed this. Barghouti was a prominent leader in the first and second Intifadas and was convicted by an Israeli court on five counts of murder in 2004, two years after he was jailed. His imprisonment by Israel has been among the most high profile and his release has long been a key aim of several of the groups opposing Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Protesters wave banners of Marwan Barghouti under a statue of Nelson Mandela, at a rally supporting hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, in Ramallah, May 3, 2017 [Nasser Nasser/AP Photo] Israel accused Barghouti of having founded the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in the early 2000s and indicted him on 26 charges of murder and attempted murder attributed to the Brigades. He was sentenced by an Israeli court to five cumulative life sentences, plus 40 years for attempted murder and membership in a terrorist organisation. Barghouti offered no defence, refusing to recognise the authority of the Israeli court and saying only that he supported the armed resistance but opposed the targeting of civilians. Israeli reluctance Barghouti’s absence from Palestinian politics has done little to dampen his popularity. According to a wartime poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, Barghouti is the most popular Palestinian leader, with support for him outstripping Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and the Western-backed Mahmoud Abbas, whose resignation 90 percent of those polled called for. His son, Arab Barghouti, and those around him have heard nothing to suggest the elder Barghouti’s release might be imminent, but he remains optimistic, especially with Hamas demanding his release early in February. “Hamas wants to show to the Palestinian people that they are not a closed movement. They represent part of the Palestinian social community,” Qadoura Fares, who heads the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs in the occupied West Bank told The Associated Press. “From a Palestinian perspective, the timing for his return is especially auspicious,” Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute said. “Barghouti is a highly respected figure by all sides. Moreover, he’s a unifying figure and that’s what the Palestinians need. That, or even the promise of that,” he added. Hamas understands that, in the wake of October 7, it cannot be the public face of the Palestinian national movement, Elgindy added. But, analysts have said, Israel will be very reluctant to release a man who can mobilise so many people. Barghouti, his son Arab tells Al Jazeera, “knows he can be the guarantee for unifying the Palestinian people and political partnerships, and that’s what Israel is scared of.” Ironically, it may well be Barghouti’s commitment to a two-state solution that presents the most significant threat to an Israeli government seemingly determined to backtrack upon the agreements it undertook in Oslo in the 1990s, analysts have suggested. Barghouti was one of the authors of the 2006 Palestinian Prisoners’ Document, an extraordinary achievement that not only recognised Israel but had a broad range of signatories whose factions lent their names to the document. In it, members of Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine called for the establishment of two states, with resistance to Israeli occupation limited to military targets within the territory seized by Israel in the 1967 war. “Israel has every reason to keep him in prison,” Elgindy said, “It’s the old colonial strategy of divide and rule … Netanyahu is going to be very keen on keeping the West Bank separate from Gaza and Abbas, with all his shortcomings, in place,” he added. Pragmatism Allied to the potential difficulties of having to deal with a unified Palestinian front is Barghouti’s reputation as a noted resistance fighter and someone Israel convicted for his past actions. “Releasing Barghouti is going to take a degree of pragmatism that appears beyond Netanyahu’s right-wing cabinet, or Netanyahu himself for that matter,” Elgindy said. “From what we’ve seen, they have no interest beyond playing to their base, and their base’s basest instincts.” International support for Barghouti’s release may also be uncertain. “For the Biden administration, it’s an option,” Elgindy cautioned, “but I don’t know if there’s enough pragmatism in that government to deal with Barghouti,” a man routinely lambasted in the Israeli media and convicted on five counts of murder. Retaining his seat on Fatah’s Central Committee, Barghouti is understood to retain his belief in drawing the various Palestinian factions together and ending much of the factionalism that has held since Hamas’s 2006 election victory and fighting between the group and Bargouthi’s own Fatah party. That Barghouti has retained his influence on the Palestinian population was apparent in December when Quds Press published a statement it said it received from him, calling on all the Palestinian factions in the occupied West Bank to rise up and fight the Israeli occupation. The purported call spread like wildfire and the prisoner was thrown into solitary confinement where, lawyers say, prison authorities removed his mattress and bedding, blocked his access to basic hygiene facilities and subjected Barghouti to speakers blasting out the Israeli anthem for 12 hours a day. “No one’s been able to visit him since October,” Arab said, “How anyone could claim to have got a statement out of him I don’t know. It’s been a full-time job to get him a new lawyer.” Since October 7, there have been numerous reports and testimonies by prisoners about the mistreatment and abuse they faced from Israeli prison authorities. Questioned by British
World leaders warn Israel against ‘catastrophic’ Rafah ground offensive
Australia, Canada, New Zealand say ‘there is nowhere else for civilians to go’ and urge Israel to ‘listen to its friends’. World leaders are ratcheting up pressure on Israel to abandon its plans for a ground offensive in Rafah as an exodus from the southern Gaza city once declared a “safe zone” which shelters more than half the enclave’s population is under way. As Israel stepped up its air strikes and artillery fire, Australia, Canada and New Zealand issued a joint statement on Thursday, calling for an “immediate” humanitarian ceasefire”, warning that Israel’s planned operation would have a “devastating” impact on the Palestinians taking refuge in the area. “There is simply nowhere else for civilians to go,” said the prime ministers of the three countries, Anthony Albanese, Justin Trudeau and Christopher Luxon, adding that Israel “must listen to its friends”. The leaders pointed out that many of their own citizens and families were among the estimated 1.4 million displaced Palestinians, who have been driven into makeshift camps in Gaza’s southernmost city by Israel’s relentless bombardment across the Strip. Joint statement with @JustinTrudeau and @chrisluxonmp. pic.twitter.com/Egqy6ZyrtZ — Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) February 15, 2024 Spain and Ireland also applied pressure on Israel on Wednesday, asking the European Commission to urgently review whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations in Gaza. In a joint letter, Pedro Sanchez and Leo Varadkar, the prime ministers of Spain and Ireland respectively, said that attacking Rafah posed “a grave and imminent threat that the international community must urgently confront”. ‘Stop and think seriously’ On Monday, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Israel should “stop and think seriously” before launching its ground invasion of Rafah. Asked whether Israel had breached international law, he said: “We think it is impossible to see how you can fight a war amongst these people. There’s nowhere for them to go.” Alexander De Croo, the prime minister of Belgium, said any Rafah operation could generate an “unmitigated humanitarian catastrophe”, as did Annalena Baerbock, the foreign minister of Germany, one of Israel’s staunchest allies. Displaced Palestinians stand outside their tents in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on February 14, 2024 [Said Khatib/AFP] United States President Joe Biden, who faces widespread condemnation for his unconditional support of Israel’s war on Gaza, is reportedly expressing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu behind closed doors. Recalling Biden’s comments last week that Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas attacks that triggered the current conflict had been “over the top”, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Washington should cut arms supplies to Israel. “Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed,” Borrell told reporters after a meeting of EU development aid ministers in Brussels. Despite pressure from foreign governments and aid agencies to halt its planned Rafah operation, Israel insists it must push into the city near the border with Egypt and eliminate Hamas battalions. “We will fight until complete victory and this includes a powerful action also in Rafah after we allow the civilian population to leave the battle zones,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday. Should the assault go ahead, the risk of atrocities is “serious, real and high”, said the United Nations’ special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu. Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed at least 28,576 Palestinians and wounded 68,291 since October 7, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. The death toll in Israel from the Hamas-led attacks stands at 1,139. Adblock test (Why?)