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(11/06/17 10:52pm)
By Zach Sobol
Staff Writer
The independent investigation led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller charged three Trump campaign officials on Monday, Oct. 30, according to The New York Times.
Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and campaign adviser Rick Gates were indicted of 12 counts of financial crimes, according to CNN. Both pleaded not guilty.
“Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign,” President Donald Trump tweeted in response to the news.
Manafort and Gates are accused of receiving tens of millions of dollars for their work in Ukraine, then hiding that income by laundering money through domestic and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts, according to CNN.
More than $75 million went through offshore accounts, according to CNN.
Manafort and Gates were in charge of a campaign lobbying for the United States on behalf of the Ukraine government and were legally required to report their income, according to CNN. Both failed to comply and allegedly lied to the Justice Department about it.
Manafort and Gates were also charged with lying about millions in payments from foreign governments, tax fraud and conspiracy against the United States, according to TIME.
“These are incredibly serious charges, and suggest a longstanding and pervasive pattern of reckless illegality on the part of someone who was instrumental in the Trump campaign, and who should’ve known better,” said Steve Vladeck, a CNN legal contributor and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.
Many legal experts see the indictment of Manafort and Gates as a warning for others who have lied to the special counsel, according to CNN.
The charges of Manafort and Gates do not imply collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The same is not true of Trump’s former foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos.
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his connection to Joseph Mifsud, a London-based professor linked to Russian government officials. Mifsud promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton, according to The New York Times.
“(The Russians) have dirt on her … they have thousands of emails,” Mifsud said, according to The Guardian.
Over the course of two months, Papadopoulos met with Mifsud four times, according to The Guardian.
Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to Ivan Timofeev, a Russian official that connects western academics with Putin.
“George didn’t understand the Russian internal political landscape well,” Timofeev told The Guardian.
Instead of contacting the FBI, Papadopoulos communicated with the Trump campaign about his progress with Mifsud.
An unnamed Trump campaign supervisor had told Papadopoulos that Trump’s campaign wanted a better relationship with Russia, according to The Guardian.
The FBI interviewed Papadopoulos twice, The Guardian reported.
Papadopoulos downplayed his connections to the Russian government to the FBI, according to The Guardian. He hid extensive email threads, changed his cellphone number and deleted his Facebook account.
Papadopoulos pleading guilty is the closest thing to proof that the Trump campaign was involved with the Russian government to affect the 2016 election to come out of the investigation thus far.
(10/24/17 12:46am)
By Zachary Sobol
Staff Writer
More than 300 people were killed, and hundreds of others wounded by a truck bomb on Oct. 15 in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, according to The Guardian.
This is the deadliest terror attack in Somalia in the last 10 years, according to BBC.
Mogadishu alone goes through two explosions every month on average, according to The New York Times.
The Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group, Al-Shabaab, is suspected to have been behind the attack due to its history of vehicular bomb attacks, according to Al Jareeza.
A Toyota Noah minivan and a larger truck were carrying 350 kilograms worth of homemade and military grade explosives, The Guardian reported.
The larger truck was stopped at a military checkpoint, where it was detonated at the highly populated crossroads, according to The Guardian. The detonation caused an explosion vast enough to ignite a fuel tanker nearby, which caused a large fireball.
The minivan was also stopped at a checkpoint, The Guardian reported. The driver was detained, and no one was killed by the bomb.
The intended target was an airport compound in Mogadishu, where many embassies, the African Union Mission in Somalia headquarters and the United Nations are located, according to The Guardian.
The Guardian reported that an expert said it was probable that Al-Shabaab didn’t anticipate that the bomb would explode next to a fuel tanker, calling it “just very, very bad luck.”
BBC reported Somalia does not have a public health record database or ability to test DNA, which makes the identification of lost loved ones difficult.
“May Allah give patience to all families who lost their loved ones in the tragic blast. … And I pray that one day Allah will bring justice to the perpetrators of that evil act,” said Muna Haj, a 36-year-old who lost a son in the explosion, according to The Guardian.
Mohamed declared three days of national mourning, according to Al Jazeera.
The United States stands with Somalia. A U.S. military aircraft with medical supplies was sent to Mogadishu, according to ABC.
Kenyans are also donating blood to help victims, according to BBC.
Al Jazeera reported that Mayor Thabit Abdi Mohammed of Mogadishu entreated “the Somali people to visit the city’s hospitals and donate blood. Please, come to the rescue of your brothers.”
Maryam Abdullahi, a victim, was going to graduate medical school a day after the attack, according to BBC.
"She was planning to start training at a mother and baby clinic after her university graduation. She had ambition," said Anfa'a Abdullahi Mohamed, Abdullah’s sister, as reported by BBC Somali Service.
Abdiaziz Omar Ibrahim looked for over 48 hours for his older brother Ahmed, according to Al Jazeera.
“I went to all the hospitals in Mogadishu. I looked through every — all the wards, but we haven’t found him,” Ibrahim told Al Jazeera. “He has seven children. The youngest is four years old. He is the family’s only breadwinner. We don’t know if he’s dead or alive. I spoke to him one hour before the explosion. Now there is no trace of him.”
(10/01/17 9:43pm)
By Zachary Sobol
Staff Writer
As of Monday, Oct. 2, protests in St. Louis have lasted 17 consecutive days, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Protesters first took to the streets on Sept. 15, after an ex-police officer, Jason Stockley, was not found guilty of the first-degree murder of Anthony Lamar Smith, a 24-year-old black man who was shot by police in 2011, according to Rolling Stone.
Stockley and his partner stopped Smith and another man for suspicion of drug dealing on Dec. 20, 2011, according to Rolling Stone.
“We’re going to kill this motherfucker, don’t you know it,” Stockley said during the ensuing car chase caught by the dashboard camera.
Once the chase ended, Stockley approached the driver-side window of Smith’s vehicle with his gun drawn. Stockley then strongly gestured in front of the window, before pulling away from the window to unleash several gunshots into the car.
Stockley claimed in his testimony that he believed Smith had turned to his right to grab a gun, and that he fired in defense, according to Rolling Stone.
Protests began peacefully and silently on Sept. 18, CNN reported.
“We want to achieve one goal — an end to the disparate killings of black citizens at the hands of police,” Bryan McClellan, a demonstrator, said on Sept. 18 according to CNN.
The peace broke by late evening that day. Protesters started to use pieces of broken concrete flowers pots as projectiles against police officers, according to CNN. Over 120 protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct that night.
“I'm proud to tell you the city of St. Louis is safe and the police owned tonight,” said Acting Police Commissioner Lt. Col. Lawrence O'Toole the following day, according to Rolling Stone.
Rolling Stone also reported that in a separate statement, O’Toole said, “We’re in control. This is our city and we’re going to protect it.”
As law enforcement was dealing with the protesters on Sunday night, David Carson, a photographer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, caught the police officers echoing a similar message, according to CNN.
“Whose streets? Our streets!” officers chanted while making arrests, CNN reported.
The Washington Post reported that John Ziegler, an activist and videographer who was at the protests, saw police officers taking pictures of arrestees and saying things including “They’re communists and socialists” and “They’re here to destroy America.”
Citizens made hundreds of recommendations and proposals to the state, asking it to address how the police can be fairer. However, no requests have been met, according to The Washington Post.
Since the death of Michael Brown in 2014, Kayla Reed, a local activist with the St. Louis Action Council, said there has not been enough action taken by city officials to bridge the racial divide in St. Louis, according to The Washington Post.
“I think what we are seeing is a real reluctance to listen to the community, to step into leadership about ushering in a new era of progress,” Reed said to The Washington Post. “And that, plus continued repression and brutality at the hands of the police, have ignited once again, feelings like, ‘We have to take to the streets, we have to shut things down, we have to show we’re not going anywhere.’”
(04/24/17 7:29pm)
By Zachary Sobol
Staff Writer
Around 94 ISIS fighters were killed when the U.S. military used the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb to destroy an ISIS-controlled cave and tunnel system in Afghanistan on April 13, CNN reported.
The weapon is considered to be the most powerful bomb that is not nuclear and is often referred to as the “mother of all bombs,” according to Vox. The weapon weighs 21,600 pounds, is 30 feet long and has the power to destroy an area the size of nine city blocks. It was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft at 7:32 p.m. local time, CNN reported.
According to the same source, the destroyed ISIS cave and tunnel system is located in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, which is considered to be a rural part of the country that borders with Pakistan.
The Achin District is a center of activity for ISIS-Khorosan, which is the name ISIS uses for its Afghanistan sector, according to Vox.
“Don’t be fooled by the claim circulating in some quarters that the explosive yield of the MOAB rivals that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The reported yield of the MOAB is approximately 11 tons. The Hiroshima bomb was approximately 15 Kilotons,” said Kingston Reif, the director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, according to Vox.
General John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, approved the use of the bomb. This is the first time the MOAB has been used in the battlefield, CNN reported.
According to the same source, MOAB was designed in 2003 to be used in the Iraq War for “psychological operations” in the hope that the blast would scare the Iraqi troops into surrender.
“As ISIS-K’s losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defense,” Nicholson said, according to CNN. “This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K. U.S. forces took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike. U.S. Forces will continue offensive operations until ISIS-K is destroyed in Afghanistan.”
ISIS’s forces have dropped by 75 percent since 2015 and has lost a tremendous amount of its territory, according to Vox.
U.S. military officials believe that ISIS-K has 600 to 800 fighters located in Afghanistan, but is primarily located in two to three districts in southern Nangarhar, according to CNN.
Military officials also believe that ISIS-K is made up of terror groups like the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, CNN reported.
According to the same source, three thousand families have fled the area since ISIS established itself in the region just last year.