As former President Donald Trump’s Tuesday impeachment trial approaches, there is a growing body of evidence in criminal complaints and affidavits that the Jan. 6 Capitol breach had been pre-planned, undercutting the allegation leveled against Trump that he is guilty of “incitement to insurrection.”
A number of FBI affidavits filed in support of various charges—including conspiracy—against accused participants in the Capitol breach show evidence of pre-planning, reinforcing an argument made by critics of the impeachment trial against Trump, namely that participants couldn’t have been incited by the president to break into the building if they had earlier planned to do so.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said recently that parts of the Capitol incident had been coordinated well before Trump’s Jan. 6 speech. Trump’s accusers have described the speech as a call to storm the building.
While Trump said in his speech that “we fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” the former president appeared to be making a general reference to political activism, as he called on supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard during the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress.
Then-President Donald Trump greets the crowd at the “Stop The Steal” rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Graham, in a Feb. 1 interview on Fox News, said, “There’s mounting evidence that the people who came to Washington preplanned the attack before the president ever spoke.”
“If you open up that can of worms, we’ll want the FBI to come in and tell us about how people preplanned this attack and what happened with the security footprint of the Capitol. You open up Pandora’s box if you call one witness,” Graham added, in reference to calls for witnesses to testify at Trump’s impeachment trial.
The former president’s son Donald Trump Jr. argued in a tweet last month, “If these federal law enforcement agencies had prior knowledge that this was a planned attack then POTUS didn’t incite anything.”
A review of some of the affidavits in Capitol incursion cases shows evidence of pre-planning.
An affidavit (pdf) filed in the case against Thomas Caldwell, who is believed to have a leadership in the Oath Keepers group and who faces charges of conspiracy and conspiracy to impede or injure an officer, alleges that Caldwell and others planned parts of the incursion in advance.
“As described more fully herein, CALDWELL planned with DONOVAN CROWL, JESSICA WATKINS, and others known and unknown, to forcibly storm the U.S. Capitol,” the affidavit states.
“Evidence uncovered in the course of the investigation demonstrates that not only did CALDWELL, CROWL, WATKINS, and others conspire to forcibly storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021—they communicated with one another in advance of the incursion and planned their attack.”
Protesters at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (John Minchillo/AP Photo, File)
The document cites communication between Watkins and other suspected Oath Keepers during the Capitol incursion, noting that an individual whom the FBI believes to be Watkins said: “We have a good group. We have about 30-40 of us. We are sticking together and sticking to the plan.”
Charging documents (pdf) against Eric Munchel and his mother, Lisa Eisenhart, both of whom face conspiracy charges, cite a Jan. 10 article in The Times of London, in which Eisenhart expressed that the two had gone into the Capitol as “observers” but quotes Munchel’s characterization of the incursion as a “flexing of muscles.”
“We wanted to show that we’re willing to rise up, band together and fight if necessary. Same as our forefathers, who established this country in 1776,” Munchel told the outlet. “It was a kind of flexing of muscles.
“The intentions of going in were not to fight the police. The point of getting inside the building is to show them that we can, and we will.”
(JNS) – A new report has shed light on Hezbollah’s systematic use of civilian infrastructure to shield its missile storage and launch sites in Lebanon.
The report, produced by the Israeli Alma Research and Education Center for geopolitical affairs, highlights a social charity called the Islamic Shiite Waqf Committee in Burj al Barajneh foundation that has been cynically used by Hezbollah to store an array of medium-range Fateh 110 missiles in close proximity to sites such a high school in Beirut.
“This is a continuation of a report that we published in July 2020, which exposed 28 Fateh 110 missile sites in greater Beirut,” Maj. (res.) Tal Beeri, who directs Alma’s research department, told JNS.
“Following our publication, we continued extracting data from the information collected while discovering and uncovering new information. Within this framework, we acted to uncover the identities of the landowners and building owners [where] the Hezbollah sites are located,” he stated.
Alma was able to pinpoint seven compounds related to the foundation: its main compound (which includes offices, a conference hall and a religious gathering place) and six school compounds, some of which are suspected of being used to store missiles intended for future use against Israel.
It didn’t take long for the charity to emerge as the common denominator between the sites found to be storing missiles, said Beeri. Alma’s July report highlighted two compounds—a sports center and an education center—belonging to the charity.
Following that lead, “We said, OK, if we are talking about compounds that we know have Hezbollah launch sites, let’s search for more sites belonging to this charity that can be used by Hezbollah as missile sites with ‘civilian envelopes,’ ” said Beeri, describing the research process. “We know that this is how they work.”
The use of civilian associations for, among other objectives, human shielding, is a core pattern of Hezbollah, seen in past cases such as its use of the “Green Without Borders” environmental group used as a cover for activity on the Lebanese-Israeli border, as well as using a civilian demining organization for cover.
A general map of the six compounds belonging to the “Islamic Shiite Waqf Committee in Burj el Barajneh” in Beirut. Credit: Alma Research and Education Center.
“We also know that the Islamic Health Organization that deals with medical affairs throughout the Shi’ite community in southern Lebanon also smuggled weapons and operatives in ambulances during emergencies,” noted Beeri.
Based on this familiar pattern, Alma searched Beirut for additional Islamic Shiite Waqf Committee in Burj al Barajneh compounds, finding seven structures that are suspected to have been used for missile-attack uses.
“One is the charity’s central branch. We also found six educational facilities. We cross-referenced these with places we know to be launch sites and found that four of these sites are used as launch sites,” explained Beeri, who spent 20 years as an intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces specializing in Lebanon and Syria.
“We know with certainty that launch sites always appear near missile storage centers,” he added. “This enables rapid deployment-and-fire for Hezbollah.”
“Hence, this leads us to a very high degree of confidence in assessing that at least some of the charity’s structures are being used to hide Fateh 110-missiles in Beirut. These sites include launch sites and very likely storage centers near the launch sites. It is a case of classic human shielding,” said Beeri.
‘You only need one’
The Fateh 110 lies at the heart of Hezbollah’s ambitions to convert unguided projectiles into guided missiles. With a range of 300 kilometers, it can place most of Israel in its sights, said Beeri.
It is produced in Syrian weapons plants under Iranian auspices and in Iranian missile factories. The Syrian equivalent of the missile is known as the M600.
In recent years, Iran and Hezbollah have been attempting to set up industrial precision-guided missile factories on Lebanese soil, said Beeri.
“According to estimates, they still have ‘only’ tens of precise missiles. But you only need one to hit the IDF Central Headquarters in Tel Aviv to achieve a victory picture,” he cautioned.
Civilian populations ‘live among the targets’
In a recent speech, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi warned that terror armies located on Israel’s borders—made up of tens of thousands of combatants—are armed with industrial weapons. “They aim, openly and declaratively, their fire at Israeli civilians,” he warned. “The threat of rockets and missiles is the most significant. The scope has grown; the warheads have grown. They are trying to improve the accuracy. This issue reached significant dimensions.”
“Who would have thought that terror organizations—what we today call terror armies—would be armed with precise missiles, or cruise missiles, or cyber capabilities, or electronic warfare? The technology changed the world,” he said. “When it is available, it is also available to radical Islam and fundamentalism. When they meet, the result is a challenge.”
IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi speaks during an event honoring outstanding reservists in the Israel Defense Forces at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on July 1, 2019. Photo by Hadas Parush/Flash90.
The chief of staff called for a paradigm shift to tackle these threats, both in Israel and the world, saying “the change in the battlefield is really deep. The enemy chose to locate itself, including its rockets and missiles, in urban areas. It deliberately ignores international law. It intends to fire all of this at Metula, Afula, Haifa and greater Tel Aviv. It is distributed in villages in southern Lebanon and Beirut. Hence, it is a must that we—the IDF, Israel and the international community—adapt ourselves to ways we must and are entitled to fight.”
While civilians would be given a chance to evacuate, the IDF will afterwards strike such targets, he said.
Civilian populations “live among the targets,” cautioned Kochavi. “They live on the battlefield. Every fifth home in Lebanon is a missile storage base or an anti-tank position or a command post.”
Referring to these warnings, Beeri noted that Kochavi identified these structures as military targets that must be struck in a future war to prevent harm to Israeli civilians.
“Hezbollah’s human shielding doctrine is well known, but each time we are surprised anew when we discover new ways that it does this. The way they use charities to serve their military activities,” said Beeri.
“Without a civilian infrastructure, Hezbollah’s military capabilities can’t live. We are peeling this layer by layer—every time we peel, we discover more.”
(VINnews) — For her 104th birthday, Shoshana (Reizel) Ovitz had a special dream. The Auschwitz survivor, who had seen Josef Mengele send her mother to her death, wished to gather all of her over 400 descendants at the Kotel Maaravi, the Western Wall in Jerusalem. After the Holocaust, Ovitz, who was already over 30 years old, married Dov, a survivor who had lost a wife and four daughters in the Holocaust. They settled in Haifa where she had four children and worked as a seamstress, at the same time assisting her husband in his poultry store. The family lived in Shikun Vizhnitz and were affiliated with the Saret-Vizhnitz rebbe in Haifa.
Ovitz’s wish was fulfilled as the family all gathered including children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-greatgrandchildren. She went up to the balcony overlooking the Western Wall to survey her entire family. The children all said Tehillim together and then came to receive a blessing from their illustrious ancestor.
It is fortunate that Ovitz gathered her family for her 104th birthday in August 2019, since in 2020 such a gathering would have presented a serious challenge with the COVID-19 lockdowns. Ovitz passed away Monday at the age of 105, attributing her long life to the way in which she honored her parents before and during the Holocaust. It is appropriate that she passed away the week after the reading of “Honor Your father and mother in order that your days be lengthened.”
Dottie Herman, CEO of Douglas Elliman. Photo Credit: Facebook
By Benyamin Davidsons
The real estate industry depends on its professionals and experts who have led the way in their fields and will be working to help New York City bounce back from its Coronavirus led fiscal woes. Crain’s NY has compiled its annual ‘Notable in Real Estate’ List.
Based on consultation with real estate industry sources and New York business world leaders, Crain’s 2021 list selected 83 honorees. Professionals named include developers, engineers, contractors, accountants, labor representatives, city planners, investors, lawyers, and brokers who helped shape the city, have helped buyers find homes and offices, and will help strengthened the Big Apple’s economy.
The list, which is in alphabetical order, includes profiles for each honoree. Among those named were Dottie Herman, CEO of Douglas Elliman, along with Scott Durkin, President and COO of Douglas Elliman. Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of CBRE was on the list, along with a handful of other top brass from the firm. Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel Inc. was named. From The Corcoran Group, CEO Pamela Liebman was named. From Cushman and Wakefield Ethan Silverstein, Tara Stacom, and Nadine Augusta were named. Andrea Olshan, CEO of Olshan Properties was listed. Robert Nelson, President of Nelson Management Group was named.
Eli Weiss, the Principal of Joy Construction Corp made the list for his work in multifamily, commercial and hospitality properties. Anchin’s Marc Wieder and Robert Gilman were named. From Silverstein Properties Jason Kaufman and Lisa Bevacqua were named. Renowned geotechnical engineer Andrew Ciancia of Langan Engineering was on the list.
A few of the others who were honored in the list included: Jamar Adams, VP of NY for Related Cos; Matthew Astrachan of JLL; Caroline Burton, VP of Zillow Group; Helena Rose Durst of the Durst Org; Sam Einhorn Director of Colliers Int.; Adam Gordon, President of Wildflower Ltd; Barry Gossin CEO of Newmark Group; Grant Greenspan of Kaufman Org.; Aaron Jungreis CEO of Rosewood Realty; Jonathan Kaufman Iger President of Sage Realty; Lena Johnson, head of Marketing at Compass; Andrew Kimball CEO of Industry City; Stephen Kliegerman of Brown Harris Stevens; James Nelson, Principal of Avison Young; CEO of The Raisner Group, Remy Raisner; Samantha Rudin, Senior VP of Rudin Management company; Morris Sabbagh, President of Kassin Sabbagh Realty; Abe Schlisselfeld partner and tax adviser at Marks Paneth; Mechanical Engineer Dana Robbins Schneider of Empire State Realty Trust; Belinda Schwartz of Herrick Feinstein; Joseph Taylor, President of Matric Development Group; David Walker CEO of Triplemint; Seth Weissman, President of Urban Capital; and Michael Werner from Fried Frank;
In the full Crain’s list, there were a total of 83 honorees, which can be found on their website.
Thousands of New Yorkers who were previously Republicans or independents have recently re-enrolled as Democrats, so as to be able to vote for the Democratic mayoral primary which will be held in June. As reported by the NY Post, some 15,000 New Yorkers switched or re-enrolled as Democrats recently, anticipating the party’s all-important primary, which may determine who the next New York City mayor will be.
In the city where the blue wave dominates, a group named Be Counted NYC has spent millions of dollars to persuade independents and Republicans to re-enroll as Democrats so that they can have more a say in the mayoral election. The group holds that a Republican candidate won’t stand a chance of winning the general election, so in essence, the Dem’s primary will decide the winner. By adding more moderates and conservatives into that pool of registered voters, the group hopes to affect the outcome of a close primary race, and prevent a candidate way to the left from being elected.
The city Board of Elections, related that 7,156 New York City voters switched to the Democratic Party between Jan. 2 and Feb. 4, 2021. Of those who switched, 2,426 were formerly registered as Republicans and 4,730 were formerly registered as “blank” or unaffiliated. The ‘Be Counted NYC’ group, however, maintains that the total tally will be much higher and that roughly 15,000 have switched over or enrolled as Democrats. “We are seeing a tremendous amount of momentum behind our effort to get people registered to vote in the Democratic primary, including a surge last week in a single day when thousands of voters returned their voter registration by mail,” said Be Counted NYC founder, founder, Lisa Blau, who is a wellness brand financier. Her husband is Jeff Blau, the CEO of Related Companies, a major real estate developer in NYC.
Since December, the group has been making phone calls, text massages, and mailing letters to Republicans and unregistered voters trying to persuade them to enroll as Democrats so as to vote in the June 22 Democratic primary. The deadline to enroll is Feb. 14.
Former Gov. George Pataki joined other Republican leaders who criticized the effort. “Don’t give in to those who say Republicans can’t win in New York,” said the former three-term GOP NYC Governor. “How did Bloomberg win? How did Rudy Giuliani win. How did I win,” he added.
NYC currently has 3,748,026 registered Democrats, and only 568,732 registered Republicans, with another 1,075,189 enrolled as “blank” or unaffiliated voters, as per the state Board of Elections.
A new analysis from a fiscal watchdog group claims City Hall is obscuring the scope of NYC’s budget crisis.
As reported by the NY Post, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s budget is counting on $1 billion in recurring savings from the Big Apple’s labor unions — but these concessions have not yet been agreed to. The Citizens Budget Commission (CBC) said that the city hasn’t even publicly presented a plan with which to reach this goal. “I look at this as a fake part of the budget. This $1 billion in labor savings is a fiction until they come up with a plan,” said Andrew Rein, head of the budget watchdog group. “Fictional savings in the budget is masking the depth of the problem.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio has listed the $1 billion in savings, which is not yet a reality, to keep the city’s explosive budget deficits in check, not just this year but for the next four years. For 2022, the labor savings keeps the $92.3 billion budget from dipping into the red, says the CBC. If the labor cuts don’t materialize, in 2023, City Hall’s deficit will expand to $5.3 billion, instead of the $4.3 billion currently projected. Without the $1 Billion gimmick, the budget for 2024 and 2025 similarly jump, and those budget gaps may surpass $5 billion, as per CBC’s analysis.
Amid the pandemic, which obliterated NYC’s revenue stemming from property taxes, Mayor Bill de Blasio has come under pressure to cut costs and payrolls to balance the budget. For months the mayor has been pining for Federal aid, which has been stalled. So, his administration’s simple solution was to defer $722 million in labor costs from the 2021 budget to 2022, which municipal unions agreed to in exchange for short-term promises from the mayor to stop laying off city employees.
The city’s fiscal woes are far from over, with heavy declines in property tax revenues to continue, and receipts slated to plunge by roughly $2.5 billion in 2022 alone. Critics have said that the plan is just a way to hold over the city’s fiscal problems for the year, until the mayor’s term ends.
“In the face of declining tax revenues and billions in unplanned spending to fight the pandemic, we balanced the budget, remained focused on saving taxpayer dollars, and reduced the City’s payroll without laying off a single employee,” said City Hall spokesman Mitch Schwartz, in a statement. “All the while, we’re expanding our vaccination efforts and proving that we’re going to rebuild this city with a recovery for all of us.”
Rendering of The Spirals cascading terraces (PRNewsfoto/Tishman Speyer)
By Ilana Siyance
The pandemic has led to what may turn out to be the city’s worst commercial leasing crisis in history.
As reported by the NY Post, Manhattan has close to 8 million square feet of prime office space begging for occupants in “trophy” towers which were recently opened or are slated to open by the end of 2022. According to figures by the Post and CBRE, three buildings’ worth of the Big Apple’s most expensive floors are awaiting tenants. Office space availability in Manhattan is at 15 percent, up from 11 percent early last year. Astoundingly though, physical occupancy is at just 15 percent, with employees still working remotely due to the pandemic.
The upcoming flush of new office space will be asking over $100 per square foot for rent, and the new buildings boast state-of the-art amenities and technology. The biggest available chunk is1.4 million square feet available at Two Manhattan West, the 58-story superstructure in Midtown West which has a total of two million sf of office space developed by Brookfield.
Another 1.2 million sf is up for grabs at Tishman Speyer’s The Spiral in Hudson Yards, which offers a total of 2.85-million-square-foot of office space, and at which pharmaceutical Pfizer has signed an early commitment to take on 800,000 square feet. About 500,000 square feet is available at Related’s mega project at 50 Hudson Yards, after 75 percent of the tower was pre-leased, with illustrious tenants including BlackRock. Other large openings also exist at 550 Madison Ave, and 660 Fifth Ave., both of which are undergoing major redesigns, as well as older buildings which are undergoing top-to bottom renovations including Three and Five Times Square.
“People have been talking about the death of cities since the Black Death,” said Real Capital Analytics senior vice president Jim Costello. “At some point, demand comes back. But at the same pace? That’s the big unknown. If it takes longer, then maybe some developers don’t have the wherewithal to get through it.”
Online research and operating platform VTS, in its VODI (VTS Office Demand Index), revealed that “demand [is] still 74 percent down from pre-COVID-19 levels,” adding that the new buildings are faring better with tenants seeking updated technological, sustainability and environmental amenities. “Leasing demand in New York City has shifted towards Trophy and Class A office space and away from Class B properties post-COVID-19.”
Harris Hill Nursing Facility in Erie County, outside of Buffalo. Photo Credit: McGuireGroup.com
By Ilana Siyance
On Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo finally released the complete list of New York State COVID-19 nursing home deaths. Following months of prodding, a Supreme Court judge ordered New York State’s Department of Health to comply with a Freedom of Information request. As reported by the Daily Mail, in compliance, the Governor’s updated list reveals 4,000 more deaths than the original released figure of 8,711.
The new COVID-19 death toll for NYS nursing home and assisted living residents is officially 12,743, which is 50 percent higher than the state had admitted till now. The new figure also includes those who died after being transferred from a nursing home to a hospital due to the novel Coronavirus. The new detailed list, with numbers for each nursing facility in the state, highlights that the highest number of deaths occurred in Suffolk County, which had 655 confirmed deaths and 267 presumed. The second highest number of COVID-19 nursing home casualties occurred in Erie County in Western New York, with 621 confirmed deaths and nine presumed.
The single nursing home that fared worse was Harris Hill Nursing Facility in Erie County, outside of Buffalo. As per the state’s figures, 117 residents from Harris Hill Nursing Facility were confirmed to have died of COVID-19, and 19 more died after being transferred to a hospital, and two more died presumably from COVID-19. Other homes with tragic results include the Father Baker Manor in Buffalo, the Absolut Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in East Aurora. In Queens, the Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehab had 83 residents who died of COVID-19, plus 32 who died in the hospital after transfer.
Thursday’s new tally puts the state of New York in 13th place, for the highest COVID-19 nursing home mortality rate in the U.S., as per an Empire Center analysis. With the previous numbers, NYS was at 35th place. The calculation is made by evaluating the number of deaths relative to the percentage of the nursing home population for 2019.
For six months, law makers have been trying to pry the number out of the state’s Health Commissioner Howard Zucker. In January, Attorney General Letitia James released a report blasting the state and finding that the Cuomo administration misled the public about the actual number of COVID fatalities in nursing facilities, and that the state figure was undercounting deaths by some 50 percent. The Daily Mail reported that days after the AG’s report, Albany Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O’Connor ruled, in a 16-page decision, that the DOH must submit the full records to the Empire Center within five business days and pay their legal costs.
Alex Kearns took his own life on June 12. Now his parents are suing stock trading app Robinhood for the circumstances leading to his suicide.
A 20-year-old college student, waiting out the coronavirus pandemic with his family, killed himself under the mistaken impression that he had turned his roughly $5,000 savings into $730,000 in debt. Alex Kearns had come home from college early, to stay with his parents under quarantine, in what his father, Dan Kearns, called a “joyful household” despite the grim global situation at the time.
Dorothy Kearns remembered Alex, the “love of her life,” as the boy who would spend his evenings helping her in the kitchen. During one of those evenings, her son expressed both doubt and determination toward his future. “One night he says to me, he’s like, ‘Mom, I don’t — I don’t know what I want to do with my life yet. But I do know I want to help people,’” she remembered.
Alex wanted to try his hand as an investor in the stock market, and, like millions of others, chose to do so through a free app called “Robinhood,” whose stated mission is to “democratize finance” by providing a platform for anyone to trade without commissions or fees. As they said during their contentious Super Bowl ad: “You don’t need to become an investor; you were born one.”
At the time, Dan could not have anticipated the consequences of the experience. “I didn’t see the harm in doing that.” Dan Kearns said, explaining that he spoke with his son about the idea and understood he had “limited exposure.” What neither parent realized is that Robinhood had approved their son for options trading — a significantly more risky endeavor.
On June 11, Alex was alerted to restrictions on his account, due to what appeared to be a negative balanced of $730,000. The company sent him an automated e-mail demanding “immediate action,” and giving him just a few days to pay $170,000. “He thought he blew up his life. He thought he screwed up beyond repair,” Dan Kearns said.
Alex reached out to customer service with a simple plea for help. “I was incorrectly assigned more money than I should have, my bought puts should have covered the puts I sold,” he wrote. “Could someone please look into this?” The automated reply assigned him a case number, saying the response could be “delayed.” A few hours later, at 3:23 a.m. on June 12, the local sheriff arrived Dan and Dorothy’s residence to tell them their son was dead.
A day later, another automated e-mail arrived from Robinhood. “Great news!” it said, “We’re reaching out to confirm that you’ve met your margin call and we’ve lifted your trade restrictions. If you have any questions about your margin call, please feel free to reach out. We’re happy to help!”
The Kearns family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Robinhood, accusing them of both negligent infliction of emotional distress, and unfair business practices, along with a failure to provide “meaningful customer support” they believe could have saved their son from the despair that motivated him to take his own life.
“The information they gave him was just incredibly skewed. And possibly completely wrong, because they make it look like you owe $730,000 when you really don’t owe anything,” said Benjamin Blakeman, a Kearns family attorneys. “That could panic just about anybody.” Worse, “they provide no mechanism through a telephone call, through live email service, to get live answers to questions,” fellow Kearns family attorney Ethan Brown said.
William Galvin, Massachusetts secretary of the commonwealth and the chief financial regulator in the state of Massachusetts, is also eyeing Robinhood, as well as other apps for amateur investors. He believes situations like the one leading to Alex’s suicide point to a need for better regulation.
“I think it demands some sort of national standard for this behavior,” he said. “There was a very deliberate effort on the part of Robinhood to particularly entice younger, inexperienced investors.” His office filed a formal complaint against Robinhood in December. “They have not acted in the best interests of their customers. So the idea that they’re caring for the poor,” he said, “is simply not true.”
For Alex, any justice will come too late. Dan believes his son was trying to save his family from “what he thought was impending financial disaster” and simply needed “a little help.” He said his son mistakenly believed “he blew up his life” and he had “screwed up beyond repair.”
The family is still reeling from the loss. “I lost the love of my life. I miss him more than anything,” Dorothy said. “I can’t tell you how incredibly painful it is. It’s the kind of pain that I don’t think should be humanly possible for a parent to overcome.”
(NEWSMAX) Veteran journalist Rob Finnerty has been named anchor of Newsmax TV’s new morning show “Wake Up America,” a fast-paced 2.5 hours of news, analysis, and commentary, airing weekdays, beginning at 6:30 a.m. ET.
“I couldn’t be more excited to join the network, especially at this moment in our history,’’ Finnerty said. “Not only is Newsmax TV growing at an unbelievable pace, but with everything happening in our country politically, I don’t think there is a better place to be right now.’’
Christopher Ruddy, founder and CEO of Newsmax, said: “Rob has the rock-solid journalistic credentials we look for here at Newsmax. Our viewers will be well-served by his honest, accurate reporting.’’
Prior to joining Newsmax TV, Finnerty served as an anchor and reporter at the CBS affiliate in Tampa, Florida, covering everything from politics to hurricanes, and brings over a decade of experience to the network.
Finnerty studied communications at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, and was hired out of college by a sports radio station in Boston. After that, he made the transition to television as a sports anchor and reporter at New England Cable News, where he covered the World Series and the NBA Finals.
With his real passion being news and politics, Finnerty was tapped as morning anchor at KBAK/KBFX in Bakersfield, California, in 2013 and he quickly became the go-to anchor for political coverage.
Finnerty was the only local reporter allowed into the Santa Monica, California apartment where notorious South Boston gangster James “Whitey’’ Bulger lived while he was on the run from the FBI.
In addition, he worked as morning anchor and host of KCTV’s daily talk show “Better Kansas City.” Rob joins the growing lineup of must-watch media pros on Newsmax TV, including Greg Kelly, Sean Spicer, Michelle Malkin, Tom Basile, Heather Childers, John Bachman, Bob Sellers, and Rob Schmitt.
(AP) — A hacker gained unauthorized into a remote access software shared by workers at a Florida city’s water treatment plant in an unsuccessful attempt to fill the water supply with a potentially harmful chemical, authorities said.
An unknown suspect breached a computer system for the city of Oldsmar’s water treatment plant on Friday and briefly increased the amount of sodium hydroxide from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a news conference Monday.
Sodium hydroxide, also called lye, is used to treat water acidity but the compound is also found in cleaning supplies such as soaps and drain cleaners. It can cause irritation, burns and other complications in larger quantities.
A supervisor saw the chemical being tampered with — as a mouse-controlled by the intruder moved across the screen changing settings — and was able to intervene and reverse it, Gualtieri said. Oldsmar, a city of 15,000 residents, is about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of Tampa.
“At no time was there a significant adverse effect on the water being treated,” Gualtieri said. “Importantly, the public was never in danger.”
Oldsmar officials have since disabled the remote-access system, and say there were other safeguards to prevent the increased chemical from getting into the water. Officials told other city leaders in the region about the incident and suggested they check their systems.
Experts say municipal water and other systems have the potential to be easy targets for hackers because local governments’ computer infrastructure tends to be underfunded.
Robert M. Lee, CEO of Dragos Security, and a specialist in industrial control system vulnerabilities, said remote access to industrial control systems such as those running water treatment plants has become increasingly common.
“As industries become more digitally connected we will continue to see more states and criminals target these sites for the impact they have on society,” Lee said.
The leading cybersecurity firm FireEye attributed an uptick in hacking attempts it has seen in the last year mostly to novices seeking to learn about remotely accessible industrial systems. Many victims appear to have been selected arbitrarily and damage was not caused in any of the cases, it said in a statement.
Tarah Wheeler, a Harvard Cybersecurity Fellow, said communities should take every precaution possible when using remote access technology on something as critical as a water supply.
“The systems administrators in charge of major civilian infrastructure like a water treatment facility should be securing that plant like they’re securing the water in their own kitchens,” Wheeler told the Associated Press via email. “Sometimes when people set up local networks, they don’t understand the danger of an improperly configured and secured series of internet-connected devices.”
A plant worker first noticed the unusual activity at around 8 a.m. Friday when someone briefly accessed the system but thought little of it because co-workers regularly accessed the system remotely, Gualtieri told reporters. But at about 1:30 p.m., someone accessed it again, took control of the mouse, directed it to the software that controls water treatment and increased the amount of sodium hydroxide.
The sheriff said the intruder was active for three to five minutes. When they exited, the plant operator immediately restored the proper chemical mix, he said.
Other safeguards in place — including manual monitoring — likely would have caught the change before it reached the water supply, the sheriff said.
Investigators said it wasn’t immediately clear where the attack came from. The FBI, along with the Secret Service and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office are investigating the case.
Russian state-backed hackers have in recent years penetrated some U.S. industrial control systems, including the power grid and manufacturing plants while Iranian hackers were caught seizing control of a suburban New York dam in 2013. In no case was damage inflicted but officials say they believe the foreign adversaries have planted software boobytraps that could be activated in an armed conflict.
— Stephanie Buffamonte FOX 35 (@StephBuffamonte) February 8, 2021
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor described the Covid-flaunting festivities as, “frustrating.”
“It is a little frustrating because we have worked so hard,” Castor said during a Monday morning news conference. “At this point in dealing with COVID-19, there is a level of frustration when you see that.”
Castor had even gone so far as to issue executive orders mandating mask-wearing during all Super Bowl events, even those taking place outdoors.
Clearly, those orders were not followed.
Dr. Anthony Fauci had warned against large Super Bowl parties and gatherings earlier in the week. But of course, people stopped listening to him a long time ago.
Is there a chance the Bucs celebration will turn into a “super-spreader” event? Sure, but if history is any guide, it’s unlikely. Notre Dame students were quickly chastised by the media and school administration for storming the field after the Irish’s victory over Clemson in November. However, no significant coronavirus outbreak occurred following that celebration.
The Black Lives Matter protests and riots in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death could certainly have been another super-spreader event. Though, testing and tracing efforts at those events were largely ignored or restricted at those events because the pandemic takes the day off when social justice is happening, apparently.
In any event, no one should is really in a position to judge the state of Florida when it comes to handling the coronavirus. Under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida has embraced far less restrictive mask and social distancing protocols and lags behind more restrictive states such as California, in infections and deaths.
Does California have more people than Texas and Florida? Sure. But, if lockdowns and severe social distancing were the answer, wouldn’t California’s numbers be better?
Fans have been rocking this tree back and forth for the last hour. This on South Howard in Soho. BE SAFE out there if you’re celebrating tonight. @FOX13Newspic.twitter.com/p7kinGo09f
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Sunday claimed she did not encourage people to commit violence when she said three years ago that people were going to “absolutely harass” members of the Trump administration.
“As a matter of fact, if you look at the words that I used, the strongest thing I said was tell them they’re not welcome, talk to them, tell them they’re not welcome,” Waters said on MSNBC. “I didn’t say go and fight. I didn’t say anybody was going to have any violence. And so they can’t make that stick.”
Waters in separate remarks in 2018 encouraged people to confront government officials.
“Already you have members of your Cabinet that are being booed out of restaurants, who have protesters taking up at their house, who say, ‘No peace, no sleep. No peace, no sleep,’” Waters told a crowd in Los Angeles.
“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up, and if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. Tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!”
Appearing on MSNBC after the rally, she added that she had “no sympathy” for people working for then-President Donald Trump.
“The people are going to turn on them. They’re going to protest. They’re going to absolutely harass them until they decide that they’re going to tell the president, ‘No I can’t hang with you,’” she said.
Trump at the time said Waters “just called for harm to supporters” and Republicans have pointed to Waters’s comments when defending Trump against the current impeachment effort. The former president was impeached last month for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol.
Bruce Castor, one of Trump’s impeachment lawyers, was asked whether he’d show senators during the upcoming trial the comments made by Waters and other Democrat officials.
“I think you can count on that,” Castor said last week. “If my eyes look a little red to the viewers, it’s because I’ve been looking at a lot of video.”
“Many of them in Washington are using really the most inflammatory rhetoric possible to use. And certainly there would be no suggestion that they did anything to incite any of the actions,” he added, referring to the raucous riots that took place in major U.S. cities last year.
“But here, when you have the president of the United States give a speech and says that you should peacefully make your thinking known to the people in Congress, he’s all of a sudden a villain. You better be careful what you wish for.”
Waters responded that the tactic wouldn’t work.
“No matter what he says about me or [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi or [Sen.] Cory Booker, or anybody they’re going to point to, it won’t work,” she said on Sunday. “It won’t work at all, because nothing matches the way this president has tried to destroy this democracy.”
A new and rapidly growing journalistic “beat” has arisen over the last several years that can best be described as an unholy mix of junior high hall-monitor tattling and Stasi-like citizen surveillance. It is half adolescent and half malevolent. Its primary objectives are control, censorship, and the destruction of reputations for fun and power. Though its epicenter is the largest corporate media outlets, it is the very antithesis of journalism.
I’ve written before about one particularly toxic strain of this authoritarian “reporting.” Teams of journalists at three of the most influential corporate media outlets — CNN’s “media reporters” (Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy), NBC’s “disinformation space unit” (Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny), and the tech reporters of The New York Times (Mike Isaac, Kevin Roose, Sheera Frenkel) — devote the bulk of their “journalism” to searching for online spaces where they believe speech and conduct rules are being violated, flagging them, and then pleading that punitive action be taken (banning, censorship, content regulation, after-school detention). These hall-monitor reporters are a major factor explaining why tech monopolies, which (for reasons of self-interest and ideology) never wanted the responsibility to censor, now do so with abandon and seemingly arbitrary blunt force: they are shamed by the world’s loudest media companies when they do not.
Just as the NSA is obsessed with ensuring there be no place on earth where humans can communicate free of their spying eyes and ears, these journalistic hall monitors cannot abide the idea that there can be any place on the internet where people are free to speak in ways they do not approve. Like some creepy informant for a state security apparatus, they spend their days trolling the depths of chat rooms and 4Chan bulletin boards and sub-Reddit threads and private communications apps to find anyone — influential or obscure — who is saying something they believe should be forbidden, and then use the corporate megaphones they did not build and could not have built but have been handed in order to silence and destroy anyone who dissents from the orthodoxies of their corporate managers or challenges their information hegemony.
Oliver Darcy has built his CNN career by sitting around with Brian Stelter petulantly pointing to people breaking the rules on social media and demanding tech executives make the rule-breakers disappear. The little crew of tattletale millennials assembled by NBC — who refer to their twerpy work with the self-glorifying title of “working in the disinformation space”: as intrepid and hazardous as exposing corruption by repressive regimes or reporting from war zones — spend their dreary days scrolling through 4Chan boards to expose the offensive memes and bad words used by transgressive adolescents; they then pat themselves on the back for confronting dangerous power centers, even when it is nothing more trivial and bullying than doxxing the identities of powerless, obscure citizens.
But the worst of this triumvirate is the NYT’s tech reporters, due to influence and reach if no other reason. When Silicon Valley monopolies, publicly pressured by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other lawmakers, united to remove Parler from the internet, the Times’ tech team quickly donned their hall-monitor goggles and Stasi notebooks to warn that the Bad People had migrated to Signal and Telegram. This week they asked: “Are Private Messaging Apps the Next Misinformation Hot Spot?” One reporter “confess[ed] that I am worried about Telegram. Other than private messaging, people love to use Telegram for group chats — up to 200,000 people can meet inside a Telegram chat room. That seems problematic.”
These examples of journalism being abused to demand censorship of spaces they cannot control are too numerous to comprehensively chronicle. And they are not confined to those three outlets. That far more robust censorship is urgently needed is now a virtual consensus in mainstream corporate journalism: it’s an animating cause for them.
“Those of us in journalism have to come to terms with the fact that free speech, a principle that we hold sacred, is being weaponized against the principles of journalism,” complained Ultimate Establishment Journalism Maven Steve Coll, the Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and a Staff Writer at The New Yorker. A New Yorker and Vox contributor who runs a major journalistic listserv appropriately called “Study Hall,” Kyle Chayka, has already begun shaming Substack for hosting writers he regards as unacceptable (Jesse Singal, Andrew Sullivan, Bari Weiss). A recent Guardian article warned that podcasts was one remaining area still insufficiently policed. ProPublica on Sunday did the same about Apple, and last month one of its reporters appeared on MSNBC to demand that Apple censor its podcast content as aggressively as Google’s YouTube now censors its video content.
Thus do we have the unimaginably warped dynamic in which U.S. journalists are not the defenders of free speech values but the primary crusaders to destroy them. They do it in part for power: to ensure nobody but they can control the flow of information. They do it partly for ideology and out of hubris: the belief that their worldview is so indisputably right that all dissent is inherently dangerous “disinformation.” And they do it from petty vindictiveness: they clearly get aroused — find otherwise-elusive purpose — by destroying people’s reputations and lives, no matter how powerless. Whatever the motive, corporate media employees whose company title is “journalist” are the primary activists against a free and open internet and the core values of free thought.
The profound pathologies driving all of this were on full display on Saturday night as the result of a reckless and self-humiliating smear campaign by one of The New York Times’ star tech reporters, Taylor Lorenz. She falsely and very publicly accused Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen of having used the “slur” word “retarded” during a discussion about the Reddit/GameStop uprising.
Lorenz lied. Andreessen never used that word. And rather than apologize and retract it, she justified her mistake by claiming it was a “male voice” that sounded like his, then locked her Twitter account as though she — rather than the person she falsely maligned — was the victim.
But the details of what happened are revealing. The discussion which Lorenz falsely described took place on a relatively new audio app called “Clubhouse,” an invitation-only platform intended to allow for private, free-ranging group conversations. It has become popular among Silicon Valley executives and various media personalities (I was invited onto the app a few months ago but never attended or participated in any discussions). But as CNBCnoted this week, “as the app has grown, people of more diverse backgrounds have begun to join,” and it “has carved out a niche among Black users, who have innovated new ways for using it.” Its free-speech ethos has also made it increasingly popular in China as a means of avoiding repressive online constraints.
These private chats have often been infiltrated by journalists, sometimes by invitation and other times by deceit. These journalists attempt to monitor the discussions and then publish summaries. Often, the “reporting” consists of out-of-context statements designed to make the participants look bigoted, insensitive, or otherwise guilty of bad behavior. In other words, journalists, desperate for content, have flagged Clubhouse as a new frontier for their slimy work as voluntary hall monitors and speech police.
Fulfilling her ignoble duties there, Lorenz announced on Twitter that Andreessen had said a bad word. During the discussion of the “Reddit Revolution,” she claimed, he used the word “retarded.” She then upped her tattling game by not only including this allegation but also the names and photos of those who were in the room at the time — thus exposing those who were guilty of the crime of failing to object to Andreessen’s Bad Word:
Numerous Clubhouse participants, including Kmele Foster, immediately documented that Lorenz had lied. The moderator of the discussion, Nait Jones, said that “Marc never used that word.” What actually happened was that Felicia Horowitz, a different participant in the discussion, had “explained that the Redditors call themselves ‘retard revolution’” and that was the only mention of that word.
Rather than apologizing and retracting, Lorenz thanked Jones for “clarifying,” and then emphasized how hurtful it is to use that word. She deleted the original tweet without comment, and then — with the smear fully realized — locked her account.
Besides the fact that a New York Times reporter recklessly tried to destroy someone’s reputation, what is wrong with this episode? Everything.
The participants in Clubhouse have tried to block these tattletale reporters from eavesdropping on their private conversations precisely because they see themselves as Stasi agents whose function is to report people for expressing prohibited ideas even in private conservations. As Jones pointedly noted, “this is why people block” journalists: “because of this horseshit dishonesty.”
One reporter, Jessica Lessin, recently complained she was blocked by Andreessen from his Clubhouse discussions — as if she has the divine right to monitor people’s communications. And Lorenz herself has been obsessed with monitoring Clubhouse discussions in general and Andreessen in particular for months, mocking him just last week when she obtained a fake credential to enter:
Just take a second to ponder how infantile and despotic, in equal parts, all of this is. This NYT reporter used her platform to virtually jump out of her desk to run to the teacher and exclaim: he used the r word! This is what she tried for months to accomplish: to catch people in private communications using words that are prohibited or ideas that are banned to tell on them to the public. That she got it all wrong is arguably the least humiliating and pathetic aspect of all of this.
Beyond all this, what if he had used the word “retarded”? What would it mean? If someone uses that term maliciously, as a slur against others to mock their intellect, it is certainly reasonable to condemn that. Used with that intent and in that context, it is unnecessarily hurtful for people who suffer diseases of cognitive impairment.
But that is not remotely what happened here. Anyone who spent any time at all on the sub-Reddit thread of r/WallStreetBets knows that “retards” was the single most common term used by those who short-squeezed the hedge funds invested in the collapse of GameStop. It is virtually impossible to discuss the ethos of that subculture without using that term. This was one of their most popular battlecries:
“We can stay retarded longer than you can stay solvent.”
And the use of that term in the sub-Reddit was not just ubiquitous but fascinating: layered with multiple levels of irony and self-deprecation. Sociologists could, and should, study how that term was deployed by those Redditors and what role it played in forming the community that enabled them to strike a blow against these hedge funds. It reflected their self-perceived place at the bottom of social hierarchies, expressed the irony that they as unsophisticated investors were defeating self-perceived financial wizards, and marked their culture and community as transgressive. Did some use it with malice? Maybe. But there was vast complexity to it.
To declare any discussion of that term off-limits — as Lorenz tried to do — is deeply anti-intellectual. To pretend that there is no difference in the use of that term by the Redditors and its discussion in Clubhouse on the one hand, and its malicious deployment as an insult to the cognitively disabled on the other, is dishonest in the extreme. To publicly tattle on adults who utter the term without any minimal attempt to understand or convey context and intent is malicious, disgusting and sociopathic.
But this is now the prevailing ethos in corporate journalism. They have insufficient talent or skill, and even less desire, to take on real power centers: the military-industrial complex, the CIA and FBI, the clandestine security state, Wall Street, Silicon Valley monopolies, the corrupted and lying corporate media outlets they serve. So settling on this penny-ante, trivial bullshit — tattling, hall monitoring, speech policing: all in the most anti-intellectual, adolescent and primitive ways — is all they have. It’s all they are. It’s why they have fully earned the contempt and distrust in which the public holds them.
The same stunted mentality just resulted in the destruction of the career and reputation of Lorenz’s far more accomplished colleague, science reporter Donald McNeil. On a 2019 field trip for rich high school kids to Peru, he used the “n-word” after a student asked him whether he thought it was fair that one of her classmates was punished for having used it in a video. McNeil used it not with malice or as a racist insult but to inquire about the facts of the video so he could answer the student’s question.
After New York Times senior editors — including African-American editor-in-chief Dean Baquet — investigated and concluded that “only” a reprimand was appropriate — “it did not appear to me that his intentions were hateful or malicious,” said Baquet — dozens of McNeil’s colleagues wrote a furious letter demanding far more severe punishment. “Our community is outraged and in pain,” said the 150 Times employee-signatories, adding: “intent is irrelevant.” Intent is irrelevant when judging how harshly to punish this storied journalist for uttering this word.
They got what they wanted. McNeil wrote a grovelling, abject apology, and then the Times announced he was gone from his job after forty-five years with the paper, including for COVID reporting over the last year that the paper had submitted for a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Just think about that: New York Times employees, who are unionized, demanded that management punish a fellow union member more harshly than management wanted to. In 2002, McNeil won the 1st place prize from the National Association of Black Journalists for excellence in his reporting on how the AIDS crisis was affecting Africa. Now his forty-five-year career and reputation are destroyed — at the hands of his own colleagues — because “intent is irrelevant” when using off-limit words.
The overarching rule of liberal media circles and liberal politics is that you are free to accuse anyone who deviates from liberal orthodoxy of any kind of bigotry that casually crosses your mind — just smear them as a racist, misogynist, homophobe, transphobe, etc. without the slightest need for evidence — and it will be regarded as completely acceptable. That is the rubric under which the most famous lawyer of the ACLU, an organization once devoted to rigid precepts of due process, decided on Saturday to brand two of his ideological opponents as “closely aligned with white supremacists.” Fresh off being named by Time Magazine as one of the planet’s 100 most influential human beings — this is someone with a great deal of power and influence — trans activist and ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio decided to spew this extremely grave accusation about J.K. Rowling and Abigail Shrier, both of whom oppose the inclusion of trans girls in female sports:
As I’ve written before, I’m not in agreement with those who advocate this absolute ban. I’m open to a scientific consensus that develops hormonal and other medicinal protocols for how trans girls and women can fairly compete with CIS women in sporting competitions. But that does not entitle you — especially as an ACLU lawyer — to just go around casually branding people as “closely aligned to white supremacists” who have never remotely demonstrated any such affinity, just because you feel like it, because you crave the power to destroy your adversaries, or are too slothful to engage their actual views.
But this is absolutely acceptable behavior in mainstream and liberal circles. I just spent the week being widely branded by these kinds of people as a “misogynist” — someone who hates women — because I criticized and mocked Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez for her scornful rejection of the offer from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to work with her to investigate Robinhood’s conduct in the GameStop affair. I particularly critiqued her ludicrous accusation to Cruz that “you almost had me murdered” — a claim that even CNN’s “fact-checker” Daniel Dale, who would rather poke out his own eyes than conclude that a popular Democrat has lied — said was without evidence because “Cruz did not advocate violence against Ocasio-Cortez, much less call for her murder.”
AOC is a popular and powerful politician, and journalists are allowed to criticize and mock such people. It’s our job. Yet for doing mine, I was casually and widely cast as a sexist hater of women (ironically, an old homophobic trope long deployed against gay men) by the likes of Ashley Reese (“just baldly misogynistic”) of Jezebel (which really ought to just change its name to You’re a Misogynist, since it has no other content) and long-time Media Matters and David Brock smear artist Eric Boelhert (“Greenwald’s hatred of women knows no bounds”).
That I was one of AOC’s first and most active supporters back in 2018 when she ran against incumbent Joe Crowley — when people like Reese and Boelhert had not even heard of her — and that I have defended her more times than I can count, while also criticizing her on occasion, obviously goes unmentioned and does not matter (for those asking why I supported her, I interviewed AOC during her primary run and she gave impressive answers now unrecognizable from her politics). My support of AOC in 2018 was simultaneous with my misogynistic support for Cynthia Nixon for New York Governor and Zephyr Teachout for Attorney General. Was my misogyny hidden then, or did it just recently develop? There’s no reason to interrogate any of this. It does not deserve that. There’s zero rationality let alone evidence to this tactic. It’s just driven by spite and stupidity and vindictiveness.
I can ignore these kinds of accusatory smears, or scorn and ridicule them and their practitioners — and I do — because they have no power over me. But consider how many people in journalism or other professions whose positions are less secure are rightly terrorized by these lowlife tactics, intimidated into silence and conformity. They know if they express views these Stasi agents and their bosses dislike, their reputations can be instantly destroyed. So they remain silent or pliant out of necessity.
That’s the purpose, the function, of these lowly accusatory tactics: to control, to coerce, to dominate, to repress. The people who engage in these character-assassinating, censorship-fostering games — especially those who call themselves “journalists” — deserve nothing but intense scorn. And those who are free from their influence and power have a particular obligation to heap it on them. Aside from being what it deserves, that scorn is the only way to neutralize this tactic.
(Jerusalem, February 4, 2021) In diagnostic medicine, biopsies, where a sample of tissue is extracted for analysis, is a common tool for the detection of many conditions. But this approach has several drawbacks – it can be painful, doesn’t always extract the diseased tissue, and can only be used in a sufficiently advanced disease stage, making it, in some cases, too late for intervention. These concerns have encouraged researchers to find less invasive and more accurate options for diagnoses.
Professor Nir Friedman and Dr. Ronen Sadeh of the Life Sciences Institute and School of Computer Engineering have published a study in Nature Biotechnology that shows how a wide range of diseases can be detected through a simple blood test. The test allows lab technicians to identify and determine the state of the dead cells throughout the body and thus diagnose various diseases including cancers and diseases of the heart and liver. The test is even able to identify specific markers that may differ between patients suffering from the same types of tumorous growths, a feature that has the potential to help physicians develop personalized treatments for individual patients.
The test relies on a natural process whereby every day millions of cells in our body die and are replaced by new cells. When cells die, their DNA is fragmented and some of these DNA fragments reach the blood and can be detected by DNA sequencing methods. However, all our cells have the same DNA sequence, and thus simply sequencing the DNA can not identify from which cells it originated. While the DNA sequence is identical between cells, the way the DNA is organized in the cell is substantially different. The DNA is packaged into nucleosomes, small repeating structures that contain specialized proteins called histones. On the histone proteins, the cells write a unique chemical code that can tell us the identity of the cell and even the biological and pathological processes that are going on within it. In recent years, numerous studies have successfully developed a process where this information can be identified and thus reveal abnormal cell activity.
A new approach advanced by Hebrew University researchers, Professor Friedman and Dr. Ronen Sadeh is able to precisely read this information from DNA in the blood and use it to determine the nature of the disease or tumor, exactly where in the body it’s found and even how far developed it is.
The approach relies on analysis of epigenetic information within the cell, a method which has been increasingly fine-tuned in recent years. “As a result of these scientific advancements, we understood that if this information is maintained within the DNA structure in the blood, we could use that data to determine the tissue source of dead cells and the genes that were active in those very cells. Based on those findings, we can uncover key details about the patient’s health,” Professor Friedman explains. “We are able to better understand why the cells died, whether it’s an infection or cancer and based on that be better positioned to determine how the disease is developing.”
Along with the clear diagnostic benefits of this process, the test is also non-invasive and far less expensive than traditional biopsies. Dr. Ronen Sadeh said, “We hope that this approach will allow for earlier diagnosis of disease and help physicians to treat patients more effectively. Recognizing the potential of this approach and how this technology can be so beneficial for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes, we set up the company Senseera which will be involved with clinical testing in partnership with major pharmaceutical companies with the goal of making this innovative approach available to patients.”
# # #
Sadeh, R., Sharkia, I., Fialkoff, G. et al. ChIP-seq of plasma cell-free nucleosomes identifies gene expression programs of the cells of origin.
(NEWSMAX) Rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory did so of their own accord, former President Donald Trump’s lawyers argued in a brief filed Monday ahead of his impeachment trial.
A speech made by Trump in the hours before the riot “was not an act encouraging an organized movement to overthrow the United States government,” his lawyers said.
In a brief filed on the eve of the impeachment trial, Trump’s lawyers denounced the impeachment as an act of “political theater” by House Democrats seeking to gain an advantage for their party.
The brief foreshadows the claims they intend to present when arguments begin Tuesday on the same Senate floor that was invaded by rioters last month.
They suggest that Trump was simply exercising his First Amendment rights when he disputed the election results and argue that he explicitly encouraged his supporters to have a peaceful protest and therefore cannot be responsible for the actions of the rioters.
They also say the Senate is not entitled to try Trump now that he has left office, an argument contested by even some conservative legal scholars, and they deny that the goal of the case is justice.
“Instead, this was only ever a selfish attempt by Democratic leadership in the House to prey upon the feelings of horror and confusion that fell upon all Americans across the entire political spectrum upon seeing the destruction at the Capitol on Jan. 6 by a few hundred people,” the lawyers wrote.
“Instead of acting to heal the nation, or at the very least focusing on prosecuting the lawbreakers who stormed the Capitol, the Speaker of the House and her allies have tried to callously harness the chaos of the moment for their own political gain,” they added.
The trial will begin in Tuesday with a debate and vote on whether it’s even constitutional to prosecute the former president, an argument that could resonate with Republicans keen on voting to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior.
Under a draft agreement between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the proceedings will break Friday evening for the Jewish Sabbath at the request of Trump’s defense team and resume Sunday. There will likely be no witnesses, and the former president has declined a request to testify.
Trump’s second impeachment trial is opening with a sense of urgency — by Democrats who want to hold him accountable for the violent Capitol siege and Republicans who want it over as quickly as possible.
The proceedings are expected to diverge from the lengthy, complicated trial that resulted in Trump’s acquittal a year ago on charges that he privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on a Democratic rival, Joe Biden, now the president.
Trump very well could be acquitted again, and the trial could be over in half the time.
Under the terms of the trial being negotiated, it would launch first with a debate over its constitutionality, a key argument of the former president’s defense. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., forced a vote on the issue last month, and senators will again be confronted with a debate and vote.
Opening arguments would begin Wednesday at noon, with up to 16 hours per side for presentations.
Trump is the first president to be twice impeached, and the only one to face trial after leaving the White House. The Democrat-led House approved a sole charge, “incitement of insurrection,” acting swiftly one week after the riot, the most violent attack on Congress in more than 200 years. Five people died including a woman shot by police inside the building and a police officer who died of injuries the next day.
So far, it appears there will be few witnesses called, as the prosecutors and defense attorneys speak directly to senators who have been sworn to deliver “impartial justice” as jurors. Most are also witnesses to the siege, having fled for safety that day as the rioters broke into the Capitol and temporarily halted the electoral count certifying Biden’s victory.
Instead, House managers prosecuting the case are expected to rely on the trove of videos from the siege, along with Trump’s rhetoric refusing to concede the election, to make their case.
His new defense team has said it plans to counter with its own cache of videos of Democrat politicians making fiery speeches.
“We have the unusual circumstance where on the very first day of the trial, when those managers walk on the floor of the Senate, there will already be over 100 witnesses present,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led Trump’s first impeachment. “Whether you need additional witnesses will be a strategic call.”
Democrats argue it’s not only about winning conviction, but holding the former president accountable for his actions, even though he’s out of office. For Republicans, the trial will test their political loyalty to Trump and his enduring grip on the GOP.
Initially repulsed by the graphic images of the siege, Republican senators including Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell denounced the violence and pointed a finger of blame at Trump. But in recent weeks GOP senators have rallied around Trump arguing his comments do not make him responsible for the violence. They question the legitimacy of even conducting a trial of someone no longer in office.
On Sunday, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi described Trump’s impeachment trial as a “meaningless messaging partisan exercise.” Paul called the proceedings a farce with “zero chance of conviction” and described Trump’s language and rally words as “figurative” speech.
Senators were sworn in as jurors late last month, shortly after Biden was inaugurated, but the trial proceedings were delayed as Democrats focused on confirming the new president’s initial Cabinet picks and Republicans sought to put as much distance as possible from the bloody riot.
At the time, Paul forced a vote to set aside the trial as unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office, drawing 44 other Republicans to his argument.
A prominent conservative lawyer, Charles Cooper, rejects that view, writing in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece Sunday that the Constitution permits the Senate to try an ex-official, a significant counterpoint to that of Republican senators who have looked toward acquittal by advancing constitutional claims.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s ardent defenders, said he believes Trump’s actions were wrong and “he’s going to have a place in history for all of this,” but insisted it’s not the Senate’s job to judge.
But 45 votes in favor of Paul’s measure suggested the near impossibility of reaching a conviction in a Senate where Democrats hold 50 seats but a two-thirds vote — or 67 senators — would be needed to convict Trump. Only five Republican senators joined with Democrats to reject Paul’s motion: Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
