The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a sweeping order late Friday requiring the use of face masks on nearly all forms of public transportation from Tuesday as the country continues to report thousands of daily COVID-19 deaths.
The order, which takes effect at 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday, requires face masks to be worn by all travelers on airplanes, ships, trains, subways, buses, taxis, and ride-shares and at transportation hubs like airports, bus or ferry terminals, train and subway stations and seaports.
The CDC said people violating the order could potentially face criminal penalties, but suggested civil penalties would be more likely if needed.
WAUKESHA — Former Wauwatosa Police Officer Joseph Mensah who came under scrutiny for his role in officer-involved shootings is now a member of the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department.
In a statement Tuesday, Waukesha County Sheriff Eric Severson said he has “extended an employment offer to Mr. Joseph Mensah, which he accepted, for the position of Deputy Sheriff.”
Mensah resigned his position with the Wauwatosa Police Department last year months after he shot and killed a 17-year-old outside Mayfair Mall.
A Dane County dance studio is accused of ignoring local pandemic restrictions with an indoor performance of “The Nutcracker” last month, resulting in the largest number of violations issued by the health department against one business.
According to a complaint filed Monday in Dane County court, A Leap Above Dance Studio in Oregon, Wisconsin was holding classes in early December despite a prohibition at the time on indoor gatherings of any size following a November surge of COVID-19 cases.
“This was really concerning to us. Unfortunately, our numbers had risen, and we were trying to slow the spread of the virus,” said assistant city of Madison attorney Marcia Paulsen.
Then, on Dec. 13, Public Health Madison & Dane County officials say the studio recorded a performance of the holiday ballet with 119 individuals, despite a warning not to do so. The story was first reported by the Wisconsin State Journal.
The actual complaint really reveals the true scope of carnage left by the scofflaws.
Tse Chi Lop – a Chinese-born Canadian national – is said to be the head of The Company, which dominates a $70bn illegal drugs market across Asia.
Listed as one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, Mr Tse was detained at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.
Australia will now seek his extradition to face trial there.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) believe The Company, also known as the Sam Gor Syndicate, is responsible for up to 70% of all illegal drugs entering the country.
The 56-year-old has been compared to the Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman because of the scale of his alleged enterprise.
Left wing radicals went on the rampage in a number of cities just hours after President Biden’s inauguration — smashing up buildings, clashing with cops and burning American flags, according to police and reports.
Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington — the main flashpoint cities for riots last year — saw hundreds of militants trashing buildings, many expressing outright fury at Biden’s call for unity.
“WE DON’T WANT BIDEN — WE WANT REVENGE!” read a huge banner carried at the front of a rally in Portland, along with a threatening image of an assault rifle as well as Antifa’s logo.
Given what we have come to know about the FBI lately, how much do you trust this agency anymore? Is this real or is it just another effort to rile up people to support Democrats? I give three-to-one odds that we don’t see anything more than a couple of nutters.
Wray said the FBI was receiving a “significant” amount of information that it was pushing out to other law enforcement agencies ahead of the inauguration. Information-sharing is critical before any significant public event like the inauguration, but the issue is receiving particular scrutiny because of signs law enforcement was unprepared for the violent, deadly surge at the Capitol by loyalists of President Donald Trump.
Federal officials have warned local law enforcement agencies that the riot at the Capitol is likely to inspire others with violent intentions.
“We’re looking at individuals who may have an eye towards repeating that same kind of violence that we saw last week,” Wray said, adding that since January 6, the FBI has identified over 200 suspects.
“We know who you are. If you’re out there, an FBI agent is coming to find you,” he added.
The Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake seven times in August will not be criminally charged, Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley announced Tuesday.
The officer who fired the shots, Rusten Sheskey, could successfully argue self-defense before a jury because Blake had a knife, Graveley said during a Tuesday news conference. He also considered evidence that could not be seen on cellphone video of the incident, which showed Sheskey shooting Blake, 29, as he got into a vehicle with his children inside.
Blake, who was shot four times in the back and three in the side, according to Graveley, was left paralyzed. The video, which was widely shared on social media, sparked protests, vandalism and arson.
A jury would be required to examine the evidence from the officer’s point of view, Graveley said.
“It’s really evidence about the perspective of Officer Sheskey at each moment and what would a reasonable officer do at each moment,” Graveley said.
“Almost none of those things are answered in that deeply disturbing video that we’ve all seen. … Officer Sheskey felt he was about to be stabbed.”
Blake admitted he had a knife, according to the prosecutor.
“All the discussion that he was unarmed contradicts what he himself has said to investigators,” Graveley said.
Blake was an armed felon, armed with a knife, fleeing police, and trying to get into a car with innocent children. What would you want the police to do? Let him go? Let him possibly kill those kids? Run down someone in the car as he was fleeing? It is easy to make decisions with the benefit of hindsight. It is far more difficult in the moment.
After two decades of gradually reducing all seven major felony offenses in the city, killings in the city jumped 41% from 319 in 2019 to nearly 450 as of Tuesday, according to WNBC 4 — the largest single-year increase in 20 years and the most killing since 2011, when the city reported 515.
December alone has seen more than 100 shootings across the city in 2020, according to data from the New York Police Department — in 2019, there were 49. 2020’s figures pale in comparison to figures from decades past. In 1990, there were more than 2,600 murders in the Big Apple.
In September, when the city surpassed 1,000 shootings for the first time since 2015, a Brooklyn police officer said it was time for Mayor Bill de Blasio “to stop calling New York the safest big city.”
Officials cited the coronavirus pandemic as a key factor driving violent crime and protests against both police violence against black people and lockdown restrictions.
The suspected Lockerbie bombmaker is said to have told investigators how he avoided detection by airport scanners by positioning his explosive device near metal in a suitcase that was timed to go off 11 hours later.
Abu Agila Masud reportedly told Libyan law enforcement in 2012 how he was also given $500 by Libyan intelligence officials to fill the suitcase containing the explosive with clothes, which traveled on an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt before being transferred with luggage onto Pan Am Flight 103.
The United States on Monday unsealed criminal charges against Masud, the third alleged conspirator in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, mostly Americans.
Former Libyan intelligence officer Masud’s alleged confession was made after being taken into custody following the collapse of the regime of the country’s leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi. US officials received a copy of the interview in 2017.
Donald Trump ousted Bill Barr as attorney general Monday after a face-to-face White House meeting – having raged at the chief law enforcement officer keeping the Hunter Biden probe secret.
Trump announced the departure in a tweet which presented Barr’s decision to go as his own.
‘Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!’ Trump said, then said Barr would ‘spend the holidays with his family.’
[…]
The departure came the afternoon after it emerged Barr used the force of his office to instruct prosecutors investigating Hunter Biden not to take any steps that might cause the probe to be publicly revealed in the run-up to the election.
Trump publicly complained about Barr over the weekend. He told Fox News Barr ‘should have stepped up.’
‘All he had to do is say an investigation’s going on,” Trump said. ‘When you affect an election, Bill Barr, frankly, did the wrong thing.’
Barr did a disservice for the American people in keeping the investigation of Hunter Biden a secret. I don’t know if Hunter is guilty, but the fact that someone so close to a presidential candidate is being seriously investigated for illegal dealings with foreigners and corruption is something that the American people should have been able to weigh in the balance when making their choice.
By and large, Barr did a decent job as AG, but in the end, he is, has been, and always will be, a creature of Washington.
Hunter Biden put out a statement Wednesday saying he is under federal investigation over his taxes.
‘I learned yesterday for the first time that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware advised my legal counsel, also yesterday, that they are investigating my tax affairs,’ Biden said.
The statement was put out by President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris‘ transition office.
Seattle is preparing to slash the city’s police budget just as homicides in the city climb to their highest level in more than a decade.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan is set to sign a city budget that includes an 18 percent cut to the Seattle Police Department, a move that comes after police reform activists demanded the police budget be reduced by half. Calls for police reform have abounded in cities across the country since May, when George Floyd died at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
The city council voted last week to slash about $69 million in funding for officer training, salaries and overtime, and get rid of vacant positions in the police department as well as transfer parking officers, mental health workers, and 911 dispatchers out of the department. The goal is to ultimately reinvest in alternatives to police in situations such as mental health crises.
According to the petition, the teen and a friend were in the mall Friday when the friend confronted a group of people descending an escalator, yelling then punching one person in the group. Witnesses told police the teen was farther back and “took a shooter’s stance.” He began firing with a handgun drawn from his waistband, the petition says.
The teen fled and was arrested Sunday in a car with Illinois plates, with a packed bag and the handgun police said was used in the shooting, the petition says. Police have said two others were also arrested but have not described their roles in the shooting.
Apple’s head of global security has been charged with bribery after allegedly promising 200 iPads worth $70,000 to police in exchange for four concealed-weapon permits for the company’s security officers.
[…]
Carrying concealed firearms in California is illegal without a permit, and county sheriffs have broad discretion over their issuance, which can cost between $200 and $400.
Santa Clara County have alleged that Sung did not issue the permits until Moyer agreed to donate the iPads.
Whenever we give government bureaucrats a great deal of discretionary power over our lives, it opens the door to corruption and graft. Things like liquor licenses, building permits, etc. have always been a ripe vine for corruption. In this case, the discretionary power that sheriffs have over issuing a permit opened the door.
Now think about the health commissars who are closing down businesses, restricting movements, and mandating behavior? Do you think that some people might be illegally throwing some money or muscle into influencing those decisions? “C’mon, I’ll let you eat at my restaurant for free if you allow me to have more tables…” “Here’s a $1,000 to walk away from this wedding with 200 guests…”
Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride says the Mayfair Mall mass shooting wouldn’t have happened if the shooter had “complied” with the mall’s “strict no-gun policy.”
McBride made the comment in a press release. “Guns have no place in shopping malls or other places in which crowds of people gather. Mayfair has a strict no-gun policy. If the shooter had complied with that policy, no one would have been hurt yesterday,” he wrote.
He added, “On behalf of the community, I thank the officers of the WPD and nearby police departments for their protection of shoppers, employees, and other members of the greater Milwaukee community. ”
The mayor returned to the issue of guns in a Sunday news conference where the chief revealed a 15 year old Milwaukee teenager was in custody in connection with the mass shooting, which injured eight. McBride reiterated that Mayfair has a no-gun policy. “Mayfair has that rule and people should follow that rule. Unfortunately, there are people who break rules and laws,” he said.
“I see a deeper problem in society. Children shouldn’t have guns. Mayfair has a strict no gun policy. People should not bring guns to malls,” said the mayor.
Unfortunately, Mayfair Mall has begun its slide into desertion. After a wave of crime there several years ago, the city and mall authorities responded with aggressive measures to quell the violence. The result has been several years of the mall flourishing.
Now the City of Wauwatosa has decided to neuter its police force. They just publicly forced an officer to resign after that officer, coincidentally, shot a kid who was brandishing a gun at Mayfair.
The crooks got the message and they are back roving Mayfair Mall. Why? Because it’s a convenient place to gather where nobody will bother them too much. With the crooks back, violence will become more common and the suburban families who might spend a few hundred dollars at the mall on a nice evening will choose other destinations.
And Mayfair Mall will go the way of Northridge. It’s coming. There are a few short months for Wauwatosa to stop the slide before it gathers too much momentum. Once a reputation is gained, it is quite difficult to reverse it.
One of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s oldest and most trusted confidants was among four people charged Wednesday with orchestrating an elaborate bribery scheme with utility giant Commonwealth Edison that allegedly funneled money and do-nothing jobs to Madigan loyalists in exchange for the speaker’s help with state legislation.
Michael McClain, 73, of downstate Quincy, was charged in a 50-page indictment returned by a federal grand jury with bribery conspiracy and bribery.
Also charged were former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, 62, of Barrington; lobbyist and former ComEd executive John Hooker, 71, of Chicago; and Jay Doherty, 67, a consultant and former head of the City Club of Chicago.
The indictment alleged that beginning in 2011, the defendants “arranged for various associates” of Madigan — including his political allies and campaign workers — to “obtain jobs, contracts, and monetary payments” from ComEd even in instances where they did little or no actual work. Madigan is referred to in the charges only as Public Official A.
Under the new ordinances passed Tuesday night, people 18 and older will be allowed to use or possess up to 28 grams, or about an ounce, of marijuana on public and private property, as long as they have the permission of the property owner, landlord or tenant. Possessing paraphernalia also will not be punished.
Citation fines are being reduced from $50 plus court costs to $1 plus court costs. Heavier penalties still apply for those charged with intent to deliver cannabis.
“It’s been decriminalized even further,” Assistant City Attorney Marci Paulsen said. “You’re permitted to possess and consume marijuana in public places, which before you were not allowed to do that. You have to comply with the smoking ordinance, so it’s not like you can smoke marijuana in a restaurant or a bar, but you could walking down the street now.”
In practice, Paulsen said that could lead to some pretty significant changes.
“Before, the Madison Police Department would write citations for individuals possessing marijuana if they arrested individuals with marijuana on them or if they came across a vehicle with people smoking marijuana,” she said. “Now, they won’t be unless it rises to the level of a state statute violation where it’s a significant possession amount or significant crimes are involved in it.”
A Portland City Commissioner who is currently pushing to carry out a $18million cut to the city’s police department and said most 911 calls are unnecessary called the cops on her Lyft driver earlier this month following a dispute about an open window.
Jo Ann Hardesty was allegedly angered when the driver, Richmond Frost, refused to roll the windows up, despite it being recommended policy from the company to keep them down due to the coronavirus.
It followed annoyance over a mix-up about where she was being picked up, all culminating in the driver cancelling the ride and saying Hardesty could find another car.
He attempted to leave the commissioner at a Chevron gas station but she refused to leave the vehicle and placed the call to the cops.
Frost also made a 911 call and officers were forced to arrive at the gas station shortly before 10pm, in spite of the fact that Hardesty has argued that many 911 calls are unnecessary and a police response often not needed, according to the Portland Tribune.
Well, if you take cops off the street and tell the rest that you won’t support them, there will be consequences. If I were a citizen in a neighboring community, I would be calling my mayor/alderman and insisting that we don’t send our officers to Minneapolis to risk their lives.
Minneapolis is scrambling to draft in cops from outside the city’s force to help fight a wave of violent crime just months after it began moves to defund its police.
The city is pleading for reinforcements from the sheriff’s office and the transit authority to help respond to a surge in violent 911 calls.
It comes after dozens of officers quit the force in protest at a $1million budget cut and promises from city leaders to scrap the entire department following the death of George Floyd in May.
Since then, violent crime in the city has soared – with homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft and arson all up on last year’s figures.
The proposal to fund the reinforcements – which will cost almost $500,000 – is due to be voted on by the City Council before going to the mayor approval, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
[…]
At the start of the year, the Minneapolis police force employed 1,053 staff – 877 of them officers and 176 civilian staff.
That number had dropped to 987 as of last month – 844 officers and 143 civilians.
In July, the city council voted to move $1.1million from the police department’s budget and fund ‘civilian violence interrupters’ instead.
The ‘well-trained and unarmed’ staff are designed to ‘mediate violent conflicts and help prevent further trouble’.
