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  • Wyoming governor requests investigation into activity of Justice Department monitors during primary

    Wyoming governor requests investigation into activity of Justice Department monitors during primary

    FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Wyoming’s attorney general is investigating how two U.S. Department of Justice officials monitored poll workers and observed voters in the state’s most populous county during the Aug. 18 primary, a spokesperson for Republican Gov. Mark Gordon said Friday.

    Gordon called the monitors’ behavior “a bit aggressive” and “irregular” in an otherwise routine meeting to confirm the election results in the mostly rural and Republican state.

    “I feel very strongly about the federal government coming in and taking our guns. I don’t like that. I don’t like the federal government coming in and taking our votes, either,” Gordon said at the meeting Wednesday.

    Gordon spokesperson Amy Edmonds on Friday confirmed the investigation by Attorney General Keith Kautz, who was appointed by the governor.

    Voting rights groups have raised concern about President Donald Trump’s Justice Department shifting priorities away from enforcing civil rights laws with respect to voting. Trump instead has directed federal prosecutors to search for fraud in the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

    Trump has meanwhile been more assertive about influencing the department, including encouraging investigations of political opponents, in his second term.

    Approaching the end of his second and final term in office, Gordon has publicly expressed little if any previous criticism of federal polices under Trump.

    The monitoring happened in southeastern Wyoming’s Laramie County, home to the state capital, Cheyenne.

    The monitors arrived soon after polls opened at 7 a.m. on primary day and said they intended to interview voters while assessing compliance with federal civil rights and voting rights laws, Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee said in a statement.

    Lee said her office didn’t allow interviews to be conducted in polling places and denied the monitors permission to do so. The monitors questioned local officials about “the nature, length, and timing of poll worker training,” Lee said.

    “Monitors requested training guides, asked how our new election equipment was acquired, and wanted to examine our tabulators,” Lee said.

    Wyoming law allows only election observation by certified poll watchers who monitor registration and turnout, Lee said.

    “This was a poorly managed exercise and one that showed complete disregard for our state laws and administration of our elections,” Lee said in the statement.

    She said she hadn’t been notified the monitors would be in Laramie County. A Justice Department official in Washington told her the decision to send them was made on short notice and an email was sent to her but “may have gone to the wrong address,” Lee said.

    The Justice Department routinely sends monitors to observe polling places or election offices, but they are not supposed to interfere with voting or election administration.

    The DOJ did not answer questions about the monitors Friday but referred to a primary day statement by Darin Smith, the U.S. attorney for Wyoming. He said monitors would be in the state “to ensure transparency, ballot security, and strict compliance with federal voting rights statutes.”

    “Voters deserve absolute confidence that their ballots are secure and their voices are heard without interference,” Smith said in the statement. “We are working alongside local officials to ensure every lawful vote is protected.”

    Appointed by the governor, Wyoming’s attorney general works mainly in the service of the executive branch and is not politically independent as in other states.

    No one, including Gordon, is asserting the monitoring influenced the election outcome, Edmonds said.

    “It’s really a fact-finding mission just to sort of figure out exactly what did happen,” Edmonds said.

    Trump’s fraud claims about the 2020 election have been amplified by Wyoming’s Republican secretary of state, Chuck Gray, who successfully ran in 2022 in part by showing a discredited documentary about those claims at campaign rallies across the state.

    Gray told Gordon at the elections meeting that his office “got an email,” but that was all the communication it had with the Justice Department about the federal officials. Wyoming law allows election observers, Gray said.

    “Certainly happy to visit with the attorney general,” Gray told the governor during the meeting. “Transparency is so important, and accountability.”

    Gray is not seeking reelection as secretary of state and won the Republican nomination for Wyoming’s seat in the U.S. House during the primary.

  • Judge issues new block on Trump’s sweeping restrictions on mail-in voting

    Judge issues new block on Trump’s sweeping restrictions on mail-in voting

    A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday once again blocked major pieces of the Trump administration’s plan to impose sweeping restrictions on mail-in voting for November’s elections, but the legal fight will continue.

    U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a temporary restraining order halting parts of the effort that would bar the U.S. Postal Service from delivering mail-in ballots to voters not on a list of citizens created by federal agencies. It also requires mail-in ballot envelopes to have bar codes to thwart fraud.

    The judge’s move continues a week of intense legal action over the controversial executive order on mail-in voting issued by President Donald Trump. It is the subject of multiple legal challenges.

    Trump has claimed voting by noncitizens is rampant, while court records and independent studies have found it to be rare.

    Talwani said it would be impossible for many states to issue new envelopes for voting by mail, since some are supposed to send out ballots as early as next week. She also said the Trump administration had presented no evidence that noncitizen voting is a major issue.

    The League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups are challenging the administration’s initiative, saying the measure could inject chaos into pivotal races that will decide control of the House and Senate.

    Talwani echoed those concerns.

    “The USPS’s interest in correcting an unsubstantiated problem through likely unconstitutional means is dwarfed by the overwhelming risk of pervasive disenfranchisement of citizens who need access to mail ballots in order to vote,” Talwani wrote.

    The Associated Press reported that the White House plans to appeal the order.

    Spokesperson Lauren Bis said in statement Friday that the Trump administration will immediately appeal the order handed down late Thursday.

    In a separate challenge to the executive order brought by 23 states and the District of Columbia, the Supreme Court on Monday found the plaintiffs’ lawsuit was premature because the U.S. Postal Service had yet to issue final rules for how the order would be carried out.

    After those rules were finalized Wednesday, the states and D.C. filed a new lawsuit challenging the executive order.

    The injunction Talwani issued Thursday marked the second time she has blocked the executive order in the case brought by the voting rights groups. She lifted the earlier injunction after finding the Supreme Court’s logic applied to that case as well, but allowed the plaintiffs to ask for a new block.

    Ultimately, the issue could end up before the Supreme Court again, but even if the administration prevails it’s unclear whether there is enough time to implement the changes before November.

    Many states will begin sending out mail-in ballots by mid-September, and election administrators have said it would be exceedingly difficult to comply with the executive order in time for the fall contests since preparations have been going on for months.

  • Rescuers retrieve flood survivors caked in mud as death toll in Nepal-China border disaster climbs

    Rescuers retrieve flood survivors caked in mud as death toll in Nepal-China border disaster climbs

    KATHMANDU, Nepal — Rescuers pulled out survivors caked in dark brown mud and helicopters lifted stranded people to safety, as Nepal and China raced to respond to catastrophic flash floods that killed nearly 600 people and left almost 2,500 missing.

    The rescue efforts included a team that rappelled into a severely damaged checkpoint area on the Chinese side of the border between the two countries. Rescuers were on high alert for more flooding from a new lake that formed high up in the Himalayan mountains after the initial floods Wednesday. Experts warned that the lake, created after a glacier collapse that triggered the floods, was starting to overflow.

    Nepal’s army was deployed to help rescue more than 100 people believed trapped inside a tunnel at a hydropower plant located in the country’s worst-hit district. Like elsewhere in the disaster zone, their work was complicated by thick layers of mud that covered the site.

    The rappelling rescue team descended into the once-bustling border-crossing area from wooded mountain slopes, the state broadcaster China Central Television said.

    “As far as I can see, it’s nothing but debris,” rescue official Zou Mingqi told state media. The area where travelers went through border control to enter or leave China has been flattened to a muddy area, according to satellite images.

    The floods have killed 579 in Nepal, the country’s disaster-management authority said Friday. Nepali police later put the number of deaths at 553. There was little information on survivors on the Chinese side, where the death toll rose to five Friday as state media showed evacuations of villages and leaders’ efforts to direct the relief response.

    More than 3,700 people have been rescued in Nepal so far. Meanwhile, the number of people who were unaccounted for in the country nearly doubled to 1,924 as more local residents were added to the tally. China’s state media previously said 558 people were missing on the Chinese side. Hundreds of the missing are foreigners in the area to work, trek, or make a pilgrimage to a sacred peak.

    Authorities warn of flooding from a new lake

    Nepali police issued a fresh alert Friday after receiving information that a dam on the Tibet side had burst. Security personnel and rescue and relief workers were told to stay on high alert and move to a safe location if necessary.

    It was unclear if the dam bursting was related to flooding concerns over the lake that formed after the initial flash floods. Chinese broadcaster CCTV said the newly formed lake, located more than 6 miles from Gyirong Port, the hard-hit border crossing with Nepal, sits at an elevation of 9,680 feet.

    Nepali and Chinese authorities earlier warned of more flooding from the lake, which was already overflowing. Rescue workers heading to the disaster zone were ordered to stop temporarily Friday due to concern the lake would release more water and debris, and people in potentially affected areas were urged to move to safer ground.

    Monitoring data from the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources later showed that the lake had dwindled in size. The water level dropped by 32 feet from the high point on Thursday morning, the state broadcaster said.

    Some 680 rescuers eventually reached the Gyirong area by foot and via rafts. Some were dropped down from drones flown to the area, CCTV footage showed. “Anyone, anyone?” rescuers yelled, according to footage by the broadcaster.

    It was not immediately known how many people were at the border checkpoint building when the floods hit.

    Thousands have been evacuated while others await rescue

    In Nepal’s Rasuwa district, Nepali army rescuers struggled to help more than 100 people believed to be trapped by thick mud in a tunnel that’s part of the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project. The army said it had rescued 350 people from the tunnel so far.

    Video from the scene showed rescuers helping a man covered in mud out of the tunnel by pulling and pushing.

    “It is complicated to find the entry and exit points of the tunnel because everything has been covered by mud,” Army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet said.

    Nepal’s disaster-management authority said 3,253 people had been airlifted by helicopter from the disaster area.

    The search-and-rescue efforts have been supported by an outpouring of financial support from neighboring countries, including small, poorer countries like Sri Lanka, said Kanni Wignaraja, the United Nations development agency’s regional director for Asia and the Pacific.

    “Sri Lanka has its own huge fiscal problems, but it has just sent $1 million immediately to the Nepal government,” Wignaraja said. “So you can see that while this devastation is happening, it has also really brought together countries in that neighborhood, who have stepped in for each other.”

    Some felt the ground shake, then saw a ‘black storm’

    Scientists who studied satellite images said bedrock underneath a glacier high in the Himalayan region had collapsed, taking part of the glacier with it. The rockfall was so extreme that it registered as magnitude 5.2. The rocks and melted water then swelled the rivers in the valleys below, causing a torrent of water that swept buildings, bridges, and earth downstream in Tibet and Nepal.

    Customs officer Karbir Gaire was among some of the survivors in Timure, the closest Nepalese village to the border with China, where some 1,500 people had lived.

    Gaire reached his office around 8 a.m. Wednesday and was working on his computer when he first felt the ground shake.

    “Right after the shake, I noticed a black storm coming towards us,” he recalled from Kathmandu, where he is back with family. “We all immediately started running out, and within a few seconds, we were climbing uphill on the opposite side of our office building. I think those 10 or so seconds saved some of us.”

    Fifteen of Gaire’s colleagues are missing. “It was like a Hollywood movie scene. I don’t call it a flood. It was a tsunami.”

    Families around the world hope for news of loved ones

    Nepal’s tourism board has said that among the missing are more than 500 foreigners.

    While the Nepal government shared a public list of people they rescued, there was little information about victims on the Chinese side of the border.

    Chinese government officials stuck to their tight media controls. Information about major disasters is typically released with a delay and without personal stories of victims. State media has focused on stories of rescuers working to reach the disaster site or reporting on instructions from top leaders.

    About 90 Americans were unaccounted for.

    Some of the missing may have been on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists, and others.

    Vishnuram Ramaswamy, who works at a private company in the southern Indian city of Puducherry, said that he last spoke to his mother and two sisters who were on that pilgrimage Wednesday morning. It was a highly anticipated trip, something his mother had always wanted to do, he said.

    “My mother said they were on their way towards the border area and said they’ll reach their hotel and call us,” he said. He’s in touch with government officials and the travel agency, but there’s been no news.

    “This was the last we spoke to them. They have been unreachable since.”

  • Norway’s King Harald V, who fled Nazis as a child and modernized monarchy, dies at 89

    Norway’s King Harald V, who fled Nazis as a child and modernized monarchy, dies at 89

    Norway’s King Harald V, who fled Adolf Hitler’s invasion with his family to take refuge in the White House as a boy, and who later helped modernize the country’s monarchy during his popular 35-year reign, died Friday at a hospital in Oslo. He was 89.

    His death was announced by Norway’s royal family, which did not cite a cause.

    Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said the “whole nation is in mourning” in a statement Friday, adding that King Harald had “helped us to see the best in ourselves — and in one another.”

    “King Harald had a profound love for Norway. And Norway had a profound love for King Harald,” he said. Other ruling families from across Europe including the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands shared tributes, alongside political leaders.

    The Norwegian ruler was spirited to safety as a child while war gripped Europe. He spent his formative years in the United States before returning home at age 8, furnished with an American accent and a memory of standing behind President Franklin D. Roosevelt at his inauguration.

    As an adult, King Harald defied tradition by marrying commoner Sonja Haraldsen in 1968. Their marriage shocked the establishment and sparked warnings of the monarchy’s downfall but proved to be one of several ways he charted his own course as ruler. The couple were married more than five decades.

    The avid sportsman and nature lover represented his country in sailing at three Olympic Games — Tokyo in 1964, Mexico City in 1968, and in Munich 1972 — before finally declaring an end to his competitive days in 2022, at age 85. He led the Norwegian chapter of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for 20 years and is the first king to have a portion of the Arctic named after him.

    As leader of Norway’s constitutional monarchy, King Harald had a largely ceremonial role. But he endeared himself to the country of 5.6 million with his emotional openness and support of diversity and religious tolerance. He sought to modernize the monarchy and make it more transparent, engaging in media interviews and publishing annual financial reports.

    In 1997, King Harald publicly apologized to the Arctic Sami people for government efforts to eradicate their culture over more than two centuries. In the aftermath of the 2011 massacre in which far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting rampage, he drew praise for a speech in which he struggled to contain his emotions while trying to console the nation. During the speech, he reiterated his belief in a strong, multicultural society.

    In 2016, he went viral for his passionate speech at a royal palace garden party in support of diversity, religious tolerance, and LGBTQ rights.

    “Norwegians are enthusiastic young people — and wise old people. Norwegians are single, divorced, families with children, and old married couples. Norwegians are girls who love girls, boys who love boys, and girls and boys who love each other. Norwegians believe in God, Allah, the Universe, and nothing,” he said at the time.

    “In other words,” he added, “Norway is you.”

    King Harald V was born Feb. 21, 1937, at Skaugum, outside Oslo, the first Norwegian-born prince in 567 years, after the country’s earlier union with Denmark and Sweden. His grandfather, King Haakon VII, became Norway’s sovereign in 1905, establishing a new independent monarchy. The family are relatives of Britain’s royals, and King Harald and Queen Elizabeth II were second cousins.

    He was the third child of Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Märtha, who already had two daughters. But at the time, only male heirs could inherit the throne, ensuring his place in the line of succession. (This was amended in 1990 so that the eldest child takes precedence, regardless of gender.)

    His peaceful early childhood was shattered when German troops invaded the country in April 1940. As members of the government and royal family sought to escape the capital by train, Princess Märtha fled to Sweden with her three children and sailed on to the United States at Roosevelt’s invitation.

    In the U.S., they stayed at the White House and at Roosevelt’s home in Hyde Park, N.Y., while King Harald’s father and grandfather escaped to London to set up a government in exile. Princess Märtha and the children eventually settled in a Tudor-style mansion north of Bethesda, Md.

    King Harald would speak of his time in the U.S. fondly, saying in a 1999 speech to President Bill Clinton that he clearly remembered “standing right behind President Roosevelt when he was sworn in.” Images show the Norwegian royal children standing on the White House steps at the time.

    In 2015, King Harald said in a speech in Seattle that he was “deeply grateful for the generosity and hospitality we felt throughout those five years in the United States.”

    “Your country has had a special place in my heart ever since,” he added.

    Upon returning home in 1945, King Harald attended school in Oslo before training at a military academy and studying at the University of Oxford in Britain.

    When Haakon died in September 1957, he became Crown Prince, working alongside his father, King Olav V, before ascending to the throne after his father’s death in 1991.

    Survivors include Queen Sonja; two children, Princess Märtha Louise and Crown Prince Haakon, who will succeed him as king; an elder sister, Princess Astrid; and two grandchildren.

    While initially controversial, King Harald and Sonja’s love story endeared them to the Norwegian public. In 2016, the couple shared unseen photos of their courtship with Norway’s national broadcaster, NRK, describing how they met in 1959, when Crown Prince Harald was 22, and quickly fell in love.

    Though filled with guilt over expectations he would marry a member of European nobility, King Harald said attempts to end their romance amid disapproval from the establishment and Norwegian press were not “entirely successful.” He ended up delivering his father an ultimatum: If he could not marry Sonja, he would remain unmarried. Olav relented, and the couple married at Oslo Cathedral.

    Crown Prince Haakon’s decision to marry a former server and single mother in 2001 would also draw controversy. King Harald supported their relationship, and the fairy-tale wedding drew thousands of flag-waving well-wishers.

    The royal family has faced controversy this year, with Crown Princess Mette-Marit under scrutiny for her friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Files released as part of a U.S. Justice Department investigation revealed more than 100 messages between Mette-Marit and the disgraced financier. Mette-Marit also came under the spotlight this summer after her eldest son, Marius, was convicted of rape and sentenced to four years in prison. King Harald said he had sympathy for “all those affected” by the trial, and declined to comment on his daughter-in-law’s ties to Epstein.

    Being a sovereign, he once said, was a “lifelong learning period.” But he said he believed the monarchy is in good hands with his son. In 2024, he announced a permanent reduction in duties, citing health issues, but ruled out abdicating as monarch, saying the oath he swore “lasts for life.

    “It’s that simple for me. We’re going to keep going until the bitter end.”

  • President Donald Trump loses again in bid to erase his hush money conviction

    President Donald Trump loses again in bid to erase his hush money conviction

    NEW YORK — A federal judge on Friday once again spurned Donald Trump’s effort to erase his hush money conviction, rejecting the president’s bid to move the state court case to federal court and have it dismissed on presidential immunity grounds.

    Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein reiterated his earlier finding against Trump, saying that the reasons Trump cited for renewing his request were “neither new nor legally sufficient.”

    The judge added: “He has failed to show good cause and diligence.”

    It is the third time Hellerstein has blocked Trump from having the U.S. District Court in Manhattan seize control of the case from the New York court where he was tried and convicted.

    And, like before, Trump will appeal, according to a spokesperson for his legal team who called Hellerstein’s ruling “baseless and lawless.”

    “The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be removed to federal court, and immediately overturned and dismissed,” a statement issued on behalf of the legal team said. “President Trump will be filing a powerful appeal, and will continue defeating Democrat weaponization at every turn.”

    The guilty verdict, reached in May 2024 while Trump was between terms, made him the first former — and now current — U.S. president to be convicted of a crime. Trump is also challenging his conviction through the state court appellate process, which is pending.

    Hellerstein’s decision came after a federal appeals court last year ordered him to reconsider his prior denial. The judge previewed his ruling during oral arguments in February, slamming Trump’s lawyers for legal maneuvers that amounted to taking “two bites at the apple.”

    State prosecutors did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Case centered on a payment to Stormy Daniels

    Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose claim of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier had threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign.

    Trump was sentenced to an unconditional discharge, which left his conviction intact but spared him any punishment. He had long denied Daniels’ claim and said he did nothing wrong. He has sought to get the conviction overturned both by attempting to move the case to federal court and through the appeals process in state court, which is pending.

    Hellerstein rejected Trump’s requests to move the case twice before. The first was after Trump’s March 2023 indictment. The second was after Trump’s trial, as his lawyers sought to nix his conviction in the wake of the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling that presidents and ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for official acts and prosecutors can’t use official acts as evidence that unofficial actions were illegal.

    Trump appealed Hellerstein’s posttrial ruling and, last November, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the judge to reconsider his decision, finding that he had failed to consider “important issues relevant” to the president’s request to move the case.

    A three-judge appellate panel said it expressed no view on how he should rule but instructed Hellerstein to closely review evidence that Trump claimed was related to official acts and whether Trump could argue those actions were taken as part of his White House duties.

    The judges also instructed Hellerstein to determine if Trump had “diligently sought” to have the case moved to federal court and whether the case can even be moved to federal court now that Trump has been convicted and sentenced in state court.

    Judge questioned the Trump legal team’s strategy

    During oral arguments in February, Hellerstein took issue with the Trump legal team’s decision-making after the Supreme Court ruling.

    Instead of immediately seeking to move the case to federal court, he noted, Trump’s lawyers first asked the trial judge in state court, Juan Merchan, to throw out the verdict on immunity grounds. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment, but a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. has ruled that exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown.

    Trump, a Republican, did not attend the arguments.

    Trump lawyer Jeffrey Wall argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision and that Trump’s legal team was crunched for time after the high court’s ruling because his sentencing was scheduled for just 10 days later.

    Trump’s lawyers did not ask Hellerstein to intervene until nearly two months later, while their request to Merchan was still pending. The judge called that a “strategic decision” and suggested that by going to the state court first, Trump’s lawyers cost him the right to pursue remedies in federal court.

    “No, your honor,” Wall replied. “It is what any sensible litigant would do” in that situation.

    “Not so,” Hellerstein replied.

    “That is a decision on your part,” the judge added. “You didn’t have to do that. You could have come right to the federal court. Just by filing a notice of removal, there would be no sentencing.”

    Trump’s lawyers “made a choice,” Hellerstein said, “and you sought two bites at the apple.”

    In his written ruling Friday, Hellerstein said Trump was asking for a “‘second bite at the apple,’ a result the law disfavors.”

    The judge added that “Trump’s delay in filing for removal constitutes a ‘quintessential strategic decision,’ and the ‘fact that he later came to view that decision as a poor one is not sufficient, by itself, to establish cause.’”

  • Judge excludes key confession in Sept. 11 case

    Judge excludes key confession in Sept. 11 case

    In a major blow to the U.S. case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, a military judge ruled Friday that the prisoner’s confessions to FBI agents were not voluntary and cannot be used against him at trial.

    Prosecutors have described Mohammed’s interrogations in 2007 at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as the government’s most crucial evidence in the long-running death penalty case.

    The ruling, just before the 25th anniversary of the attacks, could further delay the start of a trial if prosecutors decide to appeal to reinstate it. Aging survivors and families of victims have said they worry they may never see a final resolution to the case.

    Just this week, the judge set a trial date of June 5, 2028.

    Mohammed is accused of being the mastermind of the hijacking attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon.

    He was brutally interrogated by the CIA in secret overseas prisons after his capture in 2003 and held incommunicado until his transfer to Guantánamo in 2006. Prosecutors excluded statements from those interrogations from the case.

    But the trial judge, Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, went further, concluding that Mohammed’s subsequent interrogations in 2007 at Guantánamo were also inadmissible.

    “The prosecution has failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Mohammad’s statements to the FBI were voluntarily given,” Schrama wrote in the conclusion of his 45-page ruling, which was not immediately released to the public but whose unclassified contents were confirmed by several lawyers who had seen it.

    Schrama cited several factors, including an “unbroken continuation of the CIA’s psychological conditioning and severe coercion” at the time of Mohammed’s questioning at Guantánamo in 2007.

    He also found that FBI agents intentionally failed to explicitly tell Mohammed that he had a right to be silent and to consult a lawyer, and that what he told them could be used against him at a trial.

    The chief prosecutor, Rear Adm. Aaron C. Rugh, said his team would review the ruling “and will make a decision on whether to appeal in the near future.”

    The judge gave prosecutors five days to decide but said they could request an additional five days.

    The question of the taint of torture has hung over the case for years.

    Defense lawyers had argued that Mohammed was essentially conditioned by the CIA through torture coupled with years of isolation and solitary confinement to later tell the FBI what it wanted to hear. He was not allowed to consult a lawyer until long after he had confessed and was charged.

    Schrama has yet to rule on the confessions of two other defendants in the Sept. 11 case, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. An earlier judge, Col. Matthew McCall, threw out the confessions of Mohammed’s nephew, Ammar al-Baluchi, who is accused of helping some of the 19 hijackers with finances and travel arrangements.

    A different judge, Col. Lanny Acosta, suppressed the confession of the defendant in the USS Cole bombing case, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, in an explicit finding that he had been tortured by the CIA. His death penalty trial in the 2000 attack, which killed 17 U.S. sailors, is scheduled to start in October.

    The Sept. 11 case has been mired in pretrial proceedings since arraignment in 2012. Over the years, four other judges gathered evidence on the question Schrama decided Friday. An earlier judge found a fifth man, Ramzi Binalshibh, mentally incompetent to stand trial, a condition the defendant’s lawyer blamed on torture.

    This article originally appeared in the New York Times.

  • Judge will hear recantation of sexual abuse claim against ex-Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky

    Judge will hear recantation of sexual abuse claim against ex-Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky

    BELLEFONTE, Pa. — A judge has granted a hearing to explore claims that a man wants to recant allegations of sexual abuse years ago by Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

    Sandusky, 82, has been serving a decades-long prison sentence since he was convicted of 45 counts of sexual abuse involving multiple boys in 2012. He has repeatedly lost efforts to get a new trial.

    A man identified in court documents as R.R. said he was coached extensively by authorities.

    “I was told — both directly and indirectly — that trauma may have fragmented my memory, and that I could safely affirm details I did not fully recall. I was assured this was common and even expected,” R.R. said in an affidavit filed by Sandusky’s attorneys.

    A court hearing in Centre County has been scheduled for Sept. 8. Messages left with attorneys were not immediately returned Friday. State prosecutors said Sandusky’s petition is untimely.

    Sandusky coached the defense at one of the country’s top football programs under Hall of Fame head coach Joe Paterno. The scandal led to Paterno’s firing, and the university paid more than $100 million to people who said they had been abused by Sandusky. He has repeatedly declared his innocence.

    “I apologize that I’m unable to admit remorse for this because it’s something that I didn’t do,” Sandusky said during a 2019 court appearance.

    Authorities said Sandusky found and groomed victims at the Second Mile, a charity that he started for at-risk youth. Eight young men testified against him.

    At trial, R.R. was 25 years old. He testified that he was 11 when Sandusky performed oral sex in the coach’s basement in 1998, a transcript shows.

    “He told me that if I told anybody that I would never see my family again,” said R.R., who was in foster care at the time.

    Sandusky later apologized and said “he loved me,” R.R. testified.

  • Judge once again bars Postal Service from restricting mail-in vote

    Judge once again bars Postal Service from restricting mail-in vote

    WASHINGTON — A federal judge Thursday once again temporarily prohibited the U.S. Postal Service from implementing a plan to restrict mail-in voting, put in place after a directive from President Donald Trump.

    U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani had cleared the way for the Postal Service to move forward just the day before, but Thursday, she issued a new order concluding that the agency’s plan, released late last week, appeared to overstep its legal mandate and could lead to chaos by changing rules fewer than 70 days before an election.

    She wrote that a group of Democratic-led states that had sued “face irreparable harm where they are required to comply with a likely unconstitutional regulation for which compliance is practically impossible as to the 2026 midterm elections, now little more than two months away.”

    “Most plaintiff states have already ordered their mail ballots, and some are required by state law to send them to eligible voters as early as next week,” she added.

    She wrote that while the Supreme Court had “admonished” her Monday that the Postal Service had not finalized any changes when the groups sued initially, making court action premature, the stakes had changed since then because of the step the agency took late last week to formalized its plan.

    Her ruling marked the third court decision on the issue in less than a week, a whipsaw of action that threatened to confuse voters. But each delay has reduced the administration’s chances of clearing the legal hurdles to execute its logistically complicated mail-in ballot plan before the November election. She blocked the rule from taking effect for 14 days, and she had previously scheduled a hearing to discuss the legality of the rule on Sept. 3.

    In her order, Talwani explained that the prospect of the new rule suddenly taking effect carried “significant risk of their members’ disenfranchisement” for voting rights organizations, which had also sued, along with the states.

    She ticked through a list of requirements that state election officials would be required to meet to ensure delivery of ballots, including receiving the agency’s approval for new envelope designs and submitting voters’ information into an online portal run by the Postal Service.

    “Where a state or local election official does not obtain envelope and return envelope design approval, or does not upload voter information, or does not include unique intelligent mail bar codes on ballot envelopes, the U.S.P.S. will not mail ballots to voters,” she concluded.

    In March, Trump issued an executive order that required the Department of Homeland Security to create and circulate state-by-state citizenship lists to state officials. It further urged states to provide the U.S. Postal Service with their own lists of voters eligible to cast ballots by mail.

    Multiple lawsuits were filed challenging the order, arguing that Congress and the states set rules for elections, not the executive branch. The challengers also argued that no federal law gives the Postal Service the power to make those kinds of election-related rules.

    On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that one suit, brought by a group of Democratic-led states, was premature because the administration had not started implementing its plans.

    But late Friday, just before the court ruled, the Postal Service formally published a new plan to comply with the executive order. Under that plan, the service would not deliver mail ballots in states that do not share voter data with the agency and would only deliver ballots that meet certain criteria.

    Lawyers for the Trump administration and the groups challenging the rule continue to clash over a straightforward issue: Whether or not the Postal Service’s plan would mean the agency would be taking on a new role verifying voters and potentially rejecting ballots in the midterm election in November.

    In a filing Thursday, the Postal Service denied that its proposal left room for the service to second-guess states on which voters were eligible to cast a ballot.

    “U.S.P.S. will not scrutinize those decisions or alter that information in any way — instead leaving it entirely up to the states to accurately and lawfully identify its residents who are eligible to vote by mail,” the filing said. “The Postal Service will not determine voter eligibility, ballot content, mailing or receipt deadlines, or ballot-counting procedures.”

    Instead, it described the changes as minor logistical improvements and streamlining, such as requiring voters to submit their addresses ahead of time to improve processing. It said the changes were designed “as a matter of the Postal Service’s own judgment.” Lawyers for the service argued it is authorized to adopt mail rules under statutes adopted by Congress.

    The challengers argue that the Postal Service rule is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers, allowing the executive branch to intrude into elections. They say that no federal law permits such action by the agency, and they assert that the Trump administration’s actions are likely to sow confusion among voters and to lead to disenfranchisement.

    The agency has repeatedly said that it would not attempt to impose the new requirements, unless it was explicitly allowed to by the courts.

    A series of lawsuits in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia by different groups have challenged Trump’s effort to discredit and erect obstacles to mail-in voting. The lawsuits have challenged both Trump’s executive order and the Postal Service rule, focusing on their implementation this year and beyond.

    This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

  • Death toll rises in Nepal-China border disaster as a lake poses new flood threat

    Death toll rises in Nepal-China border disaster as a lake poses new flood threat

    KATHMANDU, Nepal — Rescuers pulled out survivors caked in dark brown mud and helicopters lifted stranded people to safety Friday as Nepal and China raced to respond to catastrophic flash floods that killed more than 500 people and left more than 1,500 missing.

    Nepal’s disaster management authority said the death toll there rose to 538, and that more than 3,700 people have been rescued. Nepali police later put the number of deaths higher at 547.

    Meanwhile there was little information on survivors on the Chinese side, where the death toll rose to five Friday as state media showed evacuations of villages and leaders’ efforts to direct the relief response.

    China’s state media previously said 558 people were missing. Across the border, Nepal’s disaster management authority said Friday that 977 people were still unaccounted for. Hundreds of them were foreigners in the area to work, trek or make a pilgrimage to a sacred peak.

    Authorities warn of further flooding from a new lake

    Nepali police issued a fresh alert Friday after receiving information that a dam on the Tibet side has burst. Security personnel and rescue and relief workers were told to stay on high alert and immediately move to a safe location if necessary.

    It is unclear if the dam bursting is related to flooding concerns over a barrier lake that formed after the initial flash floods, high up in the Chinese side of the Himalayan mountains. Chinese broadcaster CCTV said the lake was at an elevation of 2,950 meters (9,680 feet.)

    Nepali and Chinese authorities earlier warned of further flooding from the barrier lake, which was already overflowing. They urged people in potentially affected areas to move to safer ground.

    Nepal police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle told The Associated Press that the rescue operation was continuing but with high alert. “It hasn’t stopped,” he said.

    Although the new lake is located more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Gyirong Port, the hard-hit border crossing with Nepal, rescue workers heading to the disaster zone were ordered to stop temporarily Friday morning owing to concern the lake would overflow.

    Some 680 rescuers eventually reached the hardest-hit area at Gyirong by foot and via rafts after much effort. Some were dropped down from drones flown to the area, CCTV footage showed.

    Thousands of people have been evacuated, others await rescue

    Nepali Army rescuers were working to help people trapped in a hydropower tunnel in Rasuwa, part of the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project.

    Video from the scene show rescuers helping the man, covered in dark brown mud, out of the tunnel by pulling and pushing. He was one of likely dozens trapped in the tunnel.

    Army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet told the AP the focus was on survivors.

    “It is complicated to find the entry and exit points of the tunnel because everything has been covered by mud,” Basnet said. “Our first priority is rescuing the stranded people.”

    Nepal’s disaster management authority said 3,253 people had been airlifted by helicopter from the disaster area. Survivors, including injured people, were taken to Kathmandu and other locations.

    Some felt the ground shake, then saw a ‘black storm’

    Scientists who’ve studied satellite images said bedrock underneath a glacier high in the Himalayan region had collapsed, taking part of the glacier with it. The rockfall was so extreme that it reached a magnitude 5.2 seismic measurement. The rocks and melted water then swelled the rivers in the valleys below, causing a torrent of water that swept buildings, bridges and earth downstream in Tibet and Nepal.

    Customs officer Karbir Gaire was among some of the survivors in Timure, the closest Nepalese village to the border with China, where some 1,500 people had lived.

    Gaire reached his office around 8 a.m. Wednesday and was working on his computer when he first felt the ground shake.

    “Right after the shake, I noticed a black storm coming towards us,” he recalled from Kathmandu, where he is back with family. ”We all immediately started running out, and within a few seconds, we were climbing uphill on the opposite side of our office building. I think those 10 or so seconds saved some of us.”

    Gaire doesn’t remember exactly how many people were in the office when the disaster struck, but 15 colleagues have gone missing. “It was like a Hollywood movie scene. I don’t call it a flood, it was a tsunami.”

    Families around the world hope for news of loved ones

    Nepal’s tourism board has said that among the missing are more than 500 foreigners.

    About 90 Americans were unaccounted for. U.S. President Donald Trump said the flooding was terrible to see, and he told reporters in the Oval Office he offered to provide Nepalese leaders “anything they want.”

    Rajan Tamang, a restaurant owner in New York City, said he learned from family in Kathmandu that his mother and sister were among those who died, while many other relatives and friends remained missing.

    “My family was just waking up, and they didn’t even get any information, and suddenly this flood came. Some of them are missing, some of them lost their life and only a few is alive,” he told the AP after a vigil in New York.

    Some of the missing may have been on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists and others.

    Vishnuram Ramaswamy, who works at a private company in the southern Indian city of Puducherry, said that he last spoke to his mother and two sisters who were on that pilgrimage Wednesday morning. It was a highly anticipated trip, something his mother had always wanted to do, he said.

    “My mother said they were on their way towards the border area and said they’ll reach their hotel and call us,” he said. While he’s in touch with government officials, and the travel agency, there’s been no news.

    “This was the last we spoke to them. They have been unreachable since.”

  • Letters to the Editor | Aug. 28, 2026

    Letters to the Editor | Aug. 28, 2026

    Bright future

    A recent article described how a former dump site in Voorhees is now going to become a site for a community solar project on land unsuitable for other buildings. When complete, it will power about 4,000 households who cannot otherwise access solar power. It will join the current roster of 209 community solar projects now running in New Jersey, with more than 51,000 households subscribed, with a current capacity of 291 megawatts. There are now 392 more projects in development or under construction. The law in New Jersey for community solar requires that at least 51% goes to low- and moderate-income households. There has been a bill in Pennsylvania’s General Assembly, HB 504, which has passed the House, but the Republican majority in the Senate refuses to bring it to a vote. Pennsylvania is so much larger geographically than New Jersey. Imagine if we had community solar in Pennsylvania; how many homes could be served here?

    Peter Handler, Philadelphia

    Don’t blame AI

    A Russian drone guided by artificial intelligence has killed three civilians at a gas station in Ukraine, but the blame for their deaths still belongs to the humans who launched the drone. The endless wars in the Mideast and the pointless war in Ukraine are current chapters in a book as old as humanity itself. AI may make mistakes in wars, but humans start them in the first place.

    Allen N. Smith, Philadelphia

    Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.