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Criminal justice postgrad charged with murdering 4 Idaho university students

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Dec 30 (Reuters) – A grad student seeking a criminal justice degree from Washington State University has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students more than six weeks ago, officials said on Friday.

Police in eastern Pennsylvania acting on a fugitive arrest warrant took Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, into custody on Thursday night, according to James Fry, chief of police in Moscow, Idaho, where the University of Idaho campus is located. Fry said Kohberger resides in Pennsylvania.

Kohberger was arraigned in Pennsylvania and remained jailed without bond awaiting a hearing on Tuesday to determine whether he will waive extradition and return voluntarily to Idaho to face charges in the high-profile case, said Latah County, Idaho, prosecutor Bill Thompson.

Thompson said Kohberger was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and felony burglary in a crime that unnerved the small college town in Idaho’s northwest panhandle where the four victims – three women and a man in their early 20s – were slain.

The four were all found fatally stabbed on the morning of Nov. 13 inside the off-campus house where the three women lived, two of them staying in one room, and one sharing her room with the fourth victim, her boyfriend.

Two other female roommates in the house at the time were unharmed, apparently sleeping through the killings. Police said the cellphone of one of the survivors was used to call emergency-911 when the bodies were first discovered.

“This is not the end of this investigation. In fact it is a new beginning,” Thompson told a news conference.

The victims – identified as Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho – all suffered multiple stab wounds, Fry said. Some of the bodies also showed defensive wounds, Fry said, suggesting they had tried to fend off their attacker.

NIGHT OUT BEFORE KILLINGS

[1/5] The Sigma Chi fraternity house, where victim Ethan Chapin was a member, is pictured after four University of Idaho students were found killed in their residence on November 13 in Moscow, Idaho, U.S., November 30, 2022. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

Chapin and his girlfriend, Kernodle, had attended a fraternity party the night before, while Mogen and Goncalves, who were best friends, had visited a local bar and food truck. Both pairs returned to the house shortly before 2 a.m. The two other roommates had gotten home about an hour earlier.

Authorities say they believe the slayings occurred between 3 and 4 a.m. on Nov. 13.

The victims appeared to have been killed with a knife or some other “edged” weapon, police have said. Fry said the murder weapon has not been recovered, though police had found a car they were searching for in connection with the killings.

Authorities said Kohberger was a graduate student at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, Washington, about 10 miles from the University of Idaho campus.

WSU issued a statement on Friday saying its police department and Idaho law enforcement officers searched both Kohberger’s apartment residence and his office on campus.

It said Kohberger “had completed his first semester as a PhD student in WSU’s criminal justice program earlier this month,” suggesting he had remained on campus, just miles away from the crime scene across the Idaho state line, for a number of weeks before returning to Pennsylvania.

Asked at the press conference in Moscow whether authorities there were seeking additional suspects, Fry said, “We have an individual in custody who committed these horrible crimes, and I do believe our community is safe.”

Fry said his department had received more than 19,000 tips from the public and had conducted more than 300 interviews as part of its investigation, assisted by state police and the FBI. He and Thompson urged anyone who knew anything about the accused killer to come forward.

He declined to offer a possible motive for the crime or to give any details about the investigation, such as how authorities traced Kohberger to Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, a small community in the Pocono Mountains resort region about 90 miles north of Philadelphia, where he was arrested.

Thompson said more details would emerge publicly from a probable-cause affidavit that summarizes the factual basis for the charges but remains under court seal until the suspect is physically back in Idaho to be served his arrest warrant.

Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by David Gregorio and Neil Fullick

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Conservative activist steers U.S. Supreme Court college race cases

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  • Edward Blum engineered cases against Harvard, UNC
  • Arguments set for Monday; ruling due by end of June

Oct 27 (Reuters) – When the U.S. Supreme Court next week considers ending policies used by many colleges and universities to increase their numbers of Black and Hispanic students, a conservative activist will be on hand to watch this fateful moment in his long quest to erase racial preferences intended to boost diversity in American life.

The challenges to race-conscious admissions policies used by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina were brought by a group called Students for Fair Admissions founded and headed by Edward Blum, a 70-year-old former stockbroker and unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the two cases on Monday, with rulings due by the end of June. The litigation gives its 6-3 conservative majority another chance to issue blockbuster decisions after rulings four months ago overturning abortion rights and expanding gun rights.

The conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – are expected to be receptive to arguments Blum has honed against affirmative action policies, crafted as a remedy to discrimination. As such, Blum may be on the verge of a huge legal victory as he fights race-based policies not only in higher education but in areas such as elections and diversity in corporate America.

“I’m a one-trick pony,” Blum said in an interview. “I hope and care about ending these racial classifications and preferences in our public policy.”

Blum, who is white, has cast his mission as one aimed at creating a colorblind society.

“An individual’s race or ethnicity should not be used to help them or harm them in their life’s endeavors,” Blum said.

His critics paint his work as a war on racial equity aimed at undercutting policies designed to help non-white Americans overcome racial obstacles persisting in U.S. life.

“He’s made it harder for corporations, boards and governments to make racial diversity an explicit goal,” said Kristin Penner, a co-founder of a group called the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard that supports affirmative action. “And thus people of color continue to be blocked out of positions of power.”

Blum’s goal is for the Supreme Court to overturn its own precedents allowing race as a factor in admissions.

Blum lost in a previous case challenging race-conscious student admissions when the court ruled 4-3 in 2016 against a white woman he recruited as a plaintiff suing the University of Texas after being denied admission. Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy provided the crucial vote. The court has moved rightward since then. Kennedy himself retired in 2018.

With Monday’s arguments, the court will have taken up eight race-related cases engineered by Blum. For instance, a Blum-backed challenge led to a 2013 Supreme Court ruling gutting a central part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that had forced nine states, mainly in the South, to obtain federal approval for voting rules changes affecting Black and other minority voters.

In addition, Blum last year launched a group called the Alliance For Fair Board Recruitment and filed lawsuits challenging Nasdaq rules and California laws mandating gender and racial diversity on corporate boards.

A 1978 LANDMARK

From his home in South Thomaston, Maine, Blum has orchestrated a 14-year legal campaign to challenge affirmative action in college and university admissions.

The Supreme Court first upheld such affirmative action in a landmark 1978 ruling in a case called Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, holding that race could be considered as one of several factors, along with academic and extracurricular criteria, but racial quotas were prohibited. The court reaffirmed that stance in 2003.

Blum in 2008 recruited Abigail Fisher, the daughter of an old friend, and through his first group, the Project for Fair Representation, helped fund her University of Texas suit that yielded the 2016 ruling he called a “grave disappointment.”

By then, Blum had shifted gears to the next generation of cases, forming Students for Fair Admissions in 2014 and turning his attention to Harvard and UNC. Those lawsuits accused UNC of discriminating against white and Asian American applicants and Harvard of discriminating against Asian Americans.

Boston University School of Law professor Jonathan Feingold said Blum was “transparent” in saying he needed Asian American plaintiffs this time around to sue the universities, allowing him to “spin a narrative that affirmative action is pitting students of color against one another.”

Blum raised more than $8 million from 2015 to 2020 for Students for Fair Admissions, most going to covering legal fees. Big checks came from conservative supporters including DonorsTrust and Searle Freedom Trust. Blum said 5,000 smaller donors also contributed.

Students for Fair Admissions has said it boasts 20,000 members. Its critics said it is not a true membership association at all. No Students for Fair Admissions members served as plaintiffs or testified in court in the Harvard and UNC cases as the group lost in lower courts. The Supreme Court in January agreed to hear appeals backed by Blum in both cases.

The Harvard lawsuit accused the university of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

The UNC lawsuit accused that university of violating the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law. Blum and his supporters argue that the 14th Amendment bars government entities including public universities like UNC from treating people differently due to race.

“His efforts and broader project are paying off because now because you have a court that is very receptive to the specific arguments that are being made here,” Feingold said.

For Blum, potential victories over Harvard and UNC may not be the final word in the fight against racial preferences in student admissions.

“It might be the beginning of the end,” Blum said. “More likely, it’s probably the end of the beginning.”

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nate Raymond

Thomson Reuters

Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.

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Biden forgives millions of student loans; critics fear inflation

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WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden said on Wednesday the U.S. government will forgive $10,000 in student loans for millions of debt-saddled former college students, keeping a pledge he made in the 2020 campaign for the White House.

The move could boost support for his fellow Democrats in the November congressional elections, but some economists said it may fuel inflation and some Republicans in the U.S. Congress questioned whether the president had the legal authority to cancel the debt.

Debt forgiveness will free up hundreds of billions of dollars for new consumer spending that could be aimed at homebuying and other big-ticket expenses, according to economists who said this would add a new wrinkle to the country’s inflation fight.

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The actions are “for families that need them the most – working and middle class people hit especially hard during the pandemic,” Biden said during remarks at the White House. He pledged no high-income households would benefit, addressing a central criticism of the plan.

“I will never apologize for helping working Americans and middle class, especially not to the same folks who voted for a $2 trillion tax cut that mainly benefited the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations,” Biden said, referring to a Republican tax cut passed under former President Donald Trump.

Borrower balances have been frozen since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, with no payments required on most federal student loans since March 2020. Many Democrats had pushed for Biden to forgive as much as $50,000 per borrower.

Republicans mostly opposed student loan forgiveness, calling it unfair because it will disproportionately help people earning higher incomes.

“President Biden’s student loan socialism is a slap in the face to every family who sacrificed to save for college, every graduate who paid their debt, and every American who chose a certain career path or volunteered to serve in our Armed Forces in order to avoid taking on debt,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday.

The administration has yet to determine the price tag for the package, which will depend on how many people apply for it, White House domestic policy adviser Susan Rice told reporters. Student loans obtained after June 30 this year are not eligible, she said.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters the administration has legal authority to forgive the debt under a law allowing such action during a national emergency such as a pandemic. Earlier, Republican U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik had called the plan “reckless and illegal.”

American university tuition fees are substantially higher than in most other rich countries, and U.S. consumers carry $1.75 trillion in student loan debt, most of it held by the federal government. Biden said other countries could bypass the United States economically if students are not offered economic relief.

PANDEMIC PAUSE, PELL GRANTS

FILE PHOTO – Graduating students stand during Harvard University’s 371st Commencement Exercises in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., May 26, 2022. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

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The administration will extend a COVID-19 pandemic-linked pause on student loan repayment to year end, while forgiving $10,000 in student debt for single borrowers with annual income under $125,000 a year or married couples who earn less than $250,000, the White House said.

Some 8 million borrowers will be affected automatically, the Department of Education said; others need to apply for forgiveness.

The government is also forgiving up to $20,000 in debt for some 6 million students from low-income familieswho received federal Pell Grants, and proposing a new rule that protects some income from repayment plans and forgives some loan balances after 10 years of repayment, the Education Department said.

A New York Federal Reserve study shows that cutting $10,000 in federal debt for every student would amount to $321 billion and eliminate the entire balance for 11.8 million borrowers, or 31% of them.

INFLATION IMPACT

A senior Biden administration official told reporters the plan could benefit up to 43 million student borrowers, completely canceling the debt for some 20 million.

After Dec. 31, the government will resume requiring payment on remaining student loans that were paused during the pandemic. The official said this would offset any inflationary effects of the forgiveness. Payment resumptions could even have a dampening effect on prices, the official said.

Former U.S. Treasury secretary Larry Summers disagreed. He said on Twitter that debt relief “consumes resources that could be better used helping those who did not, for whatever reason, have the chance to attend college. It will also tend to be inflationary by raising tuitions.”

Similarly Jason Furman, a Harvard professor who headed the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration, said debt-cancellation would nullify the deflationary powers of the Inflation Reduction Act. “Pouring roughly half trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless,” he said.

Moody’s analytics chief economist Mark Zandi sided with the White House, saying the resumption of billions of dollars per month in student loan payments “will restrain growth and is disinflationary.”

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Reporting by Nandita Bose in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Alexandra Alper and Dave Lawder in Washington and Moira Warburton in Vancouver; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Heather Timmons and David Gregorio

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Taser maker halts drone project; most of its ethics panel resigns

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The headquarters for Axon Enterprise Inc, formerly Taser International, is seen in Scottsdale, Aizona, U.S., May 17, 2017. Picture taken May 17, 2017. To match Special Report USA-TASER/EXPERTS REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo

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June 5 (Reuters) – Taser-maker Axon Enterprise Inc (AXON.O) said on Sunday it was halting work on a project to equip drones with stun guns to combat mass shootings, a prospect that a member of its AI ethics board told Reuters was prompting an exodus from the panel.

The May 24 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 children and two teachers, prompted an announcement by Axon last week that it was working on a drone that could be operated remotely by first-responders to fire a Taser at a target about 40 feet (12 m) away.

“In light of feedback, we are pausing work on this project and refocusing to further engage with key constituencies to fully explore the best path forward,” Chief Executive Rick Smith said in a statement on Sunday.

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Earlier, ethics board member Wael Abd-Almageed told Reuters he and eight colleagues were resigning from the 12-member panel, in a rare public rebuke by one of the watchdog groups that some companies have set up in recent years.

The aim behind such groups is to gather feedback on emerging technologies, such as drones and artificial intelligence (AI) software.

Smith said it was unfortunate that some members “have chosen to withdraw from directly engaging on these issues before we heard or had a chance to address their technical questions.”

He said Axon “will continue to seek diverse perspectives to challenge our thinking and help guide other technology options that we should be considering.”

Axon, which also sells body-worn cameras and policing software, said in February that its clients include about 17,000 out of the roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States.

It has explored the idea of a Taser-equipped drone for police since at least 2016, and Smith depicted how one could stop an active shooter in a graphic novel he wrote.

The company first approached its ethics board more than a year ago about running a limited police pilot with Taser-equipped drones, which members voted eight to four against, said Abd-Almageed, an engineering research associate professor at University of Southern California.

Axon last Thursday announced it was working on the technology anyway, hoping to spur discussion after the Uvalde shooting. read more Its shares rose nearly 6% on the announcement.

“In the aftermath of these events, we get stuck in fruitless debates” about guns, Smith said. “We need new and better solutions.”

Ethics board members had concerns that the system could be used in circumstances beyond shootings and exacerbate racial injustice, undermine privacy through surveillance and become more lethal if other weapons were added, Abd-Almageed said.

“What we have right now is just dangerous and irresponsible, and it’s not very well thought of and it will have negative societal consequences,” he said.

Fellow member Mecole Jordan-McBride, advocacy director at New York University law school’s Policing Project, last week said that the board needed more time to weigh the idea. The board had not evaluated non-police use of the drones, it said.

Formed in 2018, the panel has guided Axon productively on sensitive technologies such as facial recognition. But the company’s drone announcement prior to a formal report by the board broke with practice, according to Jordan-McBride and fellow member Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor.

Chair Barry Friedman was resigning as well, said Abd-Almageed. Friedman, reached by telephone, said he would be available to comment on Monday.

CEO Smith acknowledged limitations and uncertainties around the project, noting a drone without a Taser may be enough on its own to distract a shooter.

In response to questions on the social media service Reddit on Friday, Smith wrote that drones could be stationed in hallways and move into rooms through special vents. A drone system would cost a school about $1,000 annually, he said.

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Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, Calif., and Paresh Dave in Oakland, Calif.; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Robert Birsel

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Investigators question delayed police response in Texas school shooting

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UVALDE, Texas, May 28 (Reuters) – Investigators in Texas were seeking to determine on Saturday how critical mistakes were made in the response to the deadly Uvalde shooting, including why nearly 20 police officers remained outside a grade school classroom as children placed panicked 911 calls for help.

Why the officers waited in the hallway nearly an hour before entering and fatally shooting the gunman is at the heart of an ongoing probe by the Texas Department of Public Safety into the massacre of 19 children and two teachers in the deadliest U.S. school shooting in nearly a decade.

Investigators are also still searching for a motive for the attack. Salvador Ramos, a high school dropout, had no criminal record and no history of mental illness.

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At least two children placed 911 calls from a pair of adjoining fourth-grade classrooms after 18-year-old Ramos entered on Tuesday with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, Colonel Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said earlier this week.

“He’s in room 112,” a girl whispered on the phone at 12:03 p.m., more than 45 minutes before a U.S. Border Patrol-led tactical team stormed in at 12:51 p.m. and ended the siege at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a town of 16,000 people west of San Antonio.

The same girl had implored the 911 operator to “please send the police now” at 12:43 p.m. and again four minutes later.

The on-site commander, the chief of the school district’s police department, believed at the time that Ramos was barricaded inside and that children were no longer at immediate risk, giving officers time to prepare, McCraw said.

“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision,” McCraw said. “It was the wrong decision, period.”

Standard law enforcement protocols call for police to confront an active school shooter without delay, rather than wait for backup or more firepower, a point McCraw acknowledged.

McCraw described other moments when Ramos might have been thwarted. A school officer, responding to calls about an armed man who crashed a car at the funeral home across the street, drove past Ramos as he crouched beside a vehicle on school property. Police have said Ramos fired at two people standing outside before scaling a fence onto school grounds.

The door that gave Ramos access to the building had been left propped open by a teacher, McCraw said, in violation of school district security policies.

As criticism of the response by law enforcement grew, police officers from cities as far away as Houston and Dallas began arriving in Uvalde to help support local authorities, in some cases providing protection to Uvalde’s own police, the mayor and the gun shop where Ramos purchased his arsenal.

Police cruisers were parked outside the home of Pedro Arredondo, the school district’s police chief. The police response to the shooting has been sharply criticized by McCraw and Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, among others.

Questions about police efforts to stop Ramos came as the United States’ leading gun-rights advocacy group, the National Rifle Association, held its annual convention 275 miles (443 km) away in Houston.

Abbott, a Republican and staunch gun rights proponent who addressed the meeting in a pre-recorded video, seized on apparent police lapses in Uvalde, telling a news conference later he was misled and “livid about what happened.”

Abbott denied newly enacted Texas gun laws, including a controversial measure removing licensing requirements for carrying a concealed weapon, had “any relevancy” to Tuesday’s bloodshed. He suggested state lawmakers focus renewed attention on addressing mental illness.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat who has urged Congress to approve new gun restrictions, will visit Uvalde on Sunday to comfort families and pay respects to the young victims. read more

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Reporting by Brad Brooks and Gabriella Borter; Writing by Nathan Layne; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Daniel Wallis

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Texas school shooting: Police ‘wrong’ for waiting to storm gunman as students pleaded for help

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UVALDE, Texas, May 27 (Reuters) – Frantic children called 911 at least half a dozen times from the Texas classrooms where a massacre was unfolding, pleading for police to intervene, as some 20 officers waited in the hallway nearly an hour before entering and killing the gunman, authorities said on Friday.

At least two children placed several emergency calls from a pair of adjoining fourth-grade classrooms after 18-year-old Salvador Ramos entered on Tuesday with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, according to Colonel Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Ramos, who had driven to Robb Elementary School from his home after shooting and wounding his grandmother there, went on to kill 19 children and two teachers in the deadliest U.S. school shooting in nearly a decade.

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“He’s in room 112,” a girl whispered on the phone at 12:03 p.m., more than 45 minutes before a U.S. Border Patrol-led tactical team finally stormed in and ended the siege.

The on-site commander, the chief of the school district’s police department in Uvalde, Texas, believed at the time that Ramos was barricaded inside and that children were no longer at immediate risk, giving police time to prepare, McCraw said.

“From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision,” McCraw said. “It was the wrong decision, period.”

The disclosure of local law enforcement’s delay in pursuing the teenaged gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle came as the nation’s leading gun-rights advocacy group, the National Rifle Association, opened its annual convention 275 miles away in Houston.

Governor Gregg Abbott, a Republican and staunch gun rights proponent who addressed the meeting in a pre-recorded video, seized on apparent police lapses in Uvalde, telling a news conference later he was misled and “livid about what happened.”

Abbott denied newly enacted Texas gun laws, including a controversial measure removing licensing requirements for carrying a concealed weapon, had “any relevancy” to Tuesday’s bloodshed. He suggested state lawmakers focus renewed attention on addressing mental illness.

‘SEND THE POLICE NOW’

Even as the shooting reopened the intractable, long-running national debate over easy access to military-style weapons in the United States, the latest chronology of the Uvalde school attack stirred public dismay, including among the very officials reporting it.

McGraw, whose voice choked with emotion at times, said, “We’re here to report the facts, not to defend what was done or the actions taken.”

Some of the mostly 9- and 10-year-old students trapped with the gunman survived the massacre, including at least two who called 911, McCraw said. He did not offer a specific tally.

There were at least eight calls from the classrooms to 911 between 12:03 p.m., a half hour after Ramos first entered the building, and 12:50 p.m., when Border Patrol agents and police burst in and shot Ramos dead.

It was unclear whether officers at the scene were aware of those calls as they waited, McCraw said.

Children run to safety during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School where a gunman killed nineteen children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas, U.S. May 24, 2022. Picture taken May 24, 2022. Pete Luna/Uvalde Leader-News/Handout via REUTERS

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A girl whom McCraw did not identify called at 12:16 p.m. and told police that there were still “eight to nine” students alive, the colonel said. Three shots were heard during a call made at 12:21 p.m.

The girl who made the first call implored the operator to “please send the police now” at 12:43 p.m. and again four minutes later.

Officers went in three minutes after that final call, according to McCraw, when the tactical team used a janitor’s key to open the locked classroom door.

Several officers had an initial exchange of gunfire with Ramos shortly after he entered the school at 11:33 a.m., when two officers were grazed by bullets and took cover. There were as many as 19 officers in the hallway by 12:03 p.m., when the first 911 call from inside the classroom was received, McCraw said.

Videos that emerged on Thursday showed anguished parents outside the school, urging police to storm the building during the attack, with some having to be restrained by police.

Standard law enforcement protocols call for police to confront an active school shooter without delay, rather than waiting for backup or more firepower, a point McCraw acknowledged on Friday.

Medical experts also stress the importance of evacuating critically wounded gunshot patients to a trauma center within 60 minutes – what emergency physicians call “the golden hour” – in order to save lives.

McCraw described other moments when Ramos might have been thwarted. A school officer, responding to calls about an armed man who crashed a car at the funeral home across the street, drove right past Ramos as he crouched beside a vehicle on school property. Police have said Ramos fired at two people standing outside before scaling a fence onto school grounds.

The door that gave Ramos access to the building had been left propped open by a teacher, McCraw said, in violation of school district security policies.

NRA CONVENTION

The attack, coming 10 days after a shooting in Buffalo, New York that left 10 people dead, has intensified the long-standing national debate over gun laws.

At the NRA meeting, prominent Republicans, including former President Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, doubled-down on arguments that tighter gun laws would do little or nothing to allay the rising frequency of U.S. mass shootings. read more

About 500 protesters holding crosses, signs and photos of victims from the Uvalde shooting gathered outside the convention, shouting, “NRA go away.”

President Joe Biden, a Democrat who has urged Congress to approve new gun restrictions, on Sunday will visit the community of 16,000 people about 80 miles (130 km) west of San Antonio. read more

Investigators are still seeking a motive for the attack. Ramos, a high school dropout, had no criminal record and no history of mental illness.

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Reporting by Gabriella Borter and Brad Brooks in Uvalde, Texas; additional reporting by Maria Caspani in New York, Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Doina Chiacu in Washington; writing by Joseph Ax; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman

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Harvard professor convicted by U.S. jury of lying about China ties

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BOSTON, Dec 21 (Reuters) – A Harvard University professor was convicted on Tuesday of U.S. charges that he lied about his ties to a China-run recruitment program in a closely-watched case stemming from a crackdown on Chinese influence within U.S. research.

A federal jury in Boston found Charles Lieber, a renowned nanoscientist and the former chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department, guilty of making false statements to authorities, filing false tax returns and failing to report a Chinese bank account.

Prosecutors alleged that Lieber, in his quest for a Nobel Prize, in 2011 agreed to become a “strategic scientist” at Wuhan University of Technology in China and through it participated in a Chinese recruitment drive called the Thousand Talents Program.

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Prosecutors say China uses that program to recruit foreign researchers to share their knowledge with the country. Participation is not a crime, but prosecutors contend Lieber, 62, lied to authorities inquiring about his involvement.

Defense lawyer Marc Mukasey had countered that prosecutors had “mangled” evidence, lacked key documents to support their claims and relied too heavily on a “confused” FBI interview with the scientist after his arrest.

Lieber, who is battling cancer, sat emotionless the verdict was announced following nearly three hours of jury deliberations and a six-day trial.

“We respect the verdict and will keep up the fight,” Mukasey said.

Lieber was charged in January 2020 as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s “China Initiative,” which launched during former President Donald Trump’s administration to counter suspected Chinese economic espionage and research theft.

President Joe Biden’s administration has continued the initiative, though the Justice Department has said it is reviewing its approach.

Critics contend the initiative harms academic research, racially profiles Chinese researchers and terrorized some scientists. A Tennessee professor was acquitted by a judge this year following a mistrial, and prosecutors dropped charges against six other researchers.

Prosecutors said Lieber lied about his role in the Thousand Talents Program in response to inquiries from the U.S. Defense Department and the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which had awarded him $15 million in research grants.

During an interview with FBI agents following his arrest, Lieber said he was “younger and stupid” when he linked up with the Wuhan university and believed his collaboration would help boost his recognition.

That school agreed to pay him up to $50,000 per month plus $158,000 in living expenses, and he was paid in cash and deposits to a Chinese bank account, prosecutors said.

Lieber told the FBI he was paid between $50,000 and $100,000 in cash and that the bank account at one time contained $200,000.

But prosecutors said Lieber failed to report his salary on his 2013 and 2014 income tax returns and for two years failed to report the bank account.

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Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston
Editing by Bill Berkrot, David Bario, Aurora Ellis and Sonya Hepinstall

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nate Raymond

Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.

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