On Monday, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch ruled that the police shooting of 1-year-old boy Kohen Wiley was a "justified" use of force. ​Kohen was fatally shot in June, outside of a Walmart, as cops investigated his mother and her friend for stealing diapers. Fitch didn't explain the reasoning behind the decision or what evidence was considered in a case that has sparked national backlash.

According to a June 14 statement from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI), officers from the Senatobia Police Department (SPD) and Tate County Sheriff's Office were responding to a shoplifting call when "officers encountered two subjects and a juvenile child fleeing from the store into a vehicle." They "attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one," and the officer then "discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene." The family went to a local hospital, where 1-year-old Kohen Wiley was pronounced dead.​

Kohen's mother, Vellesiya Wiley, has a different version of events, which she outlined in a video on X following the tragedy. She said that after police tried to stop her friend (the driver) outside the Walmart, Wiley continued to go to her car, saying the interaction had "nothing to do" with her. Once she got into the car, her friend arrived and began to back out of the parking spot. Then officers came over to the car, drawing their guns. She says that after she raised Kohen to show him to the officers and try to defuse the situation, they opened fire. "[The police] tried to say that [my friend] forcefully was trying to drive and hit them, but they was all on the right side, and she was driving towards the left….They personally just shot at the car," she said. In the months since the incident, the family held several rallies, demanding justice for Kohen's death.​ 

The tragedy of the shooting has been compounded by a lack of transparency from the SPD, as well as alleged expert analysis that counteracts the MBI's statement. According to reporting from Mississippi Today, Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney who is representing the Wiley family, claims that an independent autopsy conducted by forensic pathologist Robert Mitchell indicates that the bullets entered through the front passenger door, rather than the windshield, suggesting that the officer wasn't in the vehicle's path when he discharged his gun.​

In response to Fitch's announcement on Monday, Crump released a statement asking, "How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen's family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body-camera footage?" 

"If the footage supports the state's decision, release it. We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth," he added. To this point, the SPD has declined to release the footage, saying it's standard procedure during an ongoing investigation.

Crump was also keen to point out complaints of racism in the SPD: "This is a department whose chief was fired after reports of racial slurs in his text messages, and whose officer faced a complaint alleging a racially offensive remark two days before he shot Kohen."​

The SPD's chief at the time, Harold Vanderford, was unceremoniously fired after journalists from Mississippi Today, The New York Times, and Verite News revealed a slew of racist text messages he sent. According to reporting from Verite News, in one of the messages he said he "almost beat a nigger and white woman's ass a few minutes ago." Senatobia's Board of Aldermen rejected his attempted resignation and voted to fire him instead on September 1.

Crump also cited a complaint filed by Officer Dexter Smith, who claimed that Sergeant Hunter Foster, the officer who shot Kohen referred to him as "a black motherfucker" on June 12, just two days before the incident. According to reporting from Mississippi Today, Smith's complaint states that he was filling out paperwork in the booking room when he heard Foster say, "Who is this Black motherfucker back there?" to his colleagues. Smith claims to have had almost no relationship with Foster prior to the encounter.​

It's hard not to feel outraged considering that this little boy lost his life over something as trivial as shoplifting—a misdemeanor in Mississippi that does not justify use of lethal force, as Reason's Joe Lancaster wrote in June—and for diapers no less. With the bodycam footage yet to be released, all the public is left with is the state's word that the investigation found no wrongdoing. Given the multiple instances of racism within the department, it shouldn't come as a surprise if the public isn't content to take them at their word.

The post Mississippi A.G. Says Killing of 1-Year-Old Boy Over Stolen Diapers Was 'Justified' appeared first on Reason Magazine.

The idea behind a federal anti-fraud task force is not inherently absurd. Independent estimates show billions of dollars are lost every year to fraud and abuse, and if officials have a credible idea about how to combat the problem, more power to them.

Seven months after the launch of the White House’s anti-fraud task force, however, the list of problems is not short.

From the outset, there was ample reason for skepticism. The effort, Donald Trump said, would be led by JD Vance, who was an unfortunate choice. Not only was the vice president unqualified for such a task, but the administration also made little effort to hide its partisan political motivations, which meant it was eager to target blue states.

What’s more, this is a delicate issue for the president, given his unfortunate record on committing fraud, benefiting from fraud and issuing pardons to those who have been convicted of fraud.

Making matters worse is the task force’s actual performance. Vance insists he and his team have uncovered more than $260 billion in fraud, but those claims have largely unraveled under scrutiny.

With this in mind, the White House is apparently trying a new tack: crowdsourcing.

On Tuesday afternoon, Trump and Vance announced a $25 million whistleblower program, to be administered by the Department of Justice, which is designed to offer cash rewards to those who uncover and report cases of fraud.

I suppose it’s possible that this will be an amazing success, and Americans will succeed in identifying the kind of systemic problems that the Republican administration has struggled to identify. (Trump specifically said at the Oval Office announcement, “People will make millions of dollars by turning others in.”)

But it’s probably best to keep expectations low.

First, the mechanism is a mess. People are supposed to submit tips to fraud.gov, with the promise of up to $30,000 to those who uncover cases that lead to criminal convictions or “significant federal enforcement” actions. What’s to stop scores of people from submitting baseless allegations, each of which investigators would be expected to review? Nothing. (I’ll be especially interested in seeing how many Americans report instances of alleged fraud involving Trump and his team.)

Second, the first recipient of a taxpayer-funded check is Nick Shirley, a right-wing YouTube influencer, who’s undeserving of such a reward, and whose payout reinforces concerns that this endeavor is little more than a political gambit.

Third, the White House staff doesn’t appear to have done its homework. The president said, under his plan, tipsters will be eligible for 1% of the cost of the disclosed fraud, prompting a reporter to remind him that under the False Claims Act, which has been on the books for more than 150 years, Americans are eligible to collect between 10% and 25%.

Fourth, given the way this administration has mistreated whistleblowers, it’s rather ironic to see the White House launch a whistleblower program like this one.

Finally, there’s Trump’s vision of his hands-on role in the program.

“When you do these things, sometimes there’s a dispute about who turned them in, who didn’t turn them in and who is supposed to get what and when,” the president said. “So I am going to do something which I think people will like: I will be the arbitrator of all of these decisions. In other words, I’ll determine whether or not the person is deserving.”

In other words, the Justice Department is administering the program, but Trump expects to personally intervene, taking time from the day job he’s supposed to be doing, to adjudicate certain cases and approve payouts.

What could possibly go wrong?

The post White House’s new fraud whistleblower program suffers from some glaring flaws appeared first on MS NOW.

Vice President JD Vance said he isn't sure if he'd receive President Donald Trump's endorsement "right out the gate" if he were to run for president in 2028.

Vance expressed that uncertainty during a Monday interview with journalist Mark Halperin on his platform 2Way. The interview aired just weeks before the midterm elections, as Republicans and the White House are focused on maintaining control of Congress.

Vance emphasized that his top priority was the midterms and said he wasn't certain that a 2028 presidential run was in his future.

However, he said, "I think if I run, the president will endorse me."

VANCE CONFRONTED ABOUT 2028 AMBITIONS AFTER TRUMP TEASES 'DREAM TEAM' RUBIO TICKET

"Right away?" Halperin asked.

"I would think so, but I don’t know, man," Vance said. "I haven’t talked to him about it."

Halperin suggested it might be "weird" if Vance were to share with Trump his 2028 ambitions and for Trump to sit on an endorsement, a characterization that Vance pushed back on.

"No, I don’t think it’d be weird," Vance said. "Again, I think I would get his endorsement, but I also think there’s something to be said for people actually running their own race, and because the president’s endorsement is so dispositive, you could absolutely see a scenario where the president says, ‘You know what? We need to let, like, this race play out and not, like, preemptively prejudge the results.'"

Earlier in the conversation, Halperin brought up previous remarks by Vance in which he said that "whoever the president endorses for the Republican nomination will ultimately win the Republican primary."

CRUZ-VANCE RIVALRY HEATS UP AS TEXAS SENATOR SUGGESTS VP IS 'FEELING INSECURE'

Vance said this is typically true of both the Democratic and Republican parties, but that Trump's endorsement is much more consequential because he first won the trust of everyday voters while Republican Party elites rejected him. Vance said Trump's endorsement signals to voters that a candidate is not beholden to the party's elite.

"That’s the person they say, ‘Okay, if Trump is with a guy, that must mean that the elites are against that guy," Vance said. "I think that Trump’s endorsement just carries more weight than any political endorsement in history because of that. Obviously, the voters are gonna decide. Donald Trump is only one vote of many, but I think his endorsement is still the most powerful."

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Vance's uncertainty over winning Trump's blessing comes after Trump previously teased pitting Vance against Secretary of State Marco Rubio for his endorsement in the 2028 presidential race. Trump called Vance and Rubio the "dream team," at a May Rose Garden Club event but has refused to say who would be at the top of the ticket.

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Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

The 36-year-old father who took out the Silver Rail Elementary attacker called his mom afterward and told her he had killed the gunman. 

The post Man Who Took Out Elementary School Attacker Called His Mom Afterward, Told Her He’d Killed the Gunman appeared first on Breitbart.

Ana Vázquez, la diputada del PP que el 23 de septiembre exhibió en el Congreso de los Diputados durante un pleno un espray de gas pimienta, será la candidata del Partido Popular al Congreso por la provincia de Ourense en las elecciones generales del 29N, según ha anunciado este martes la formación que lidera Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

Un juez de Madrid ha tomado recientemente la decisión de abrir diligencias previas para investigar una denuncia contra esta parlamentaria por un delito de lesiones en relación a ese incidente.

El secretario general del PP, Miguel Tellado, será el candidato del PP al Congreso por la provincia de A Coruña, como ya había comunicado el partido por X; y Julio García Comesaña lo será por Pontevedra, mientras que Francisco Conde será el cabeza de lista por la provincia de Lugo.

"Todos ellos trabajarán sin descanso para que Galicia sea el motor del cambio que llevará a Alberto Núñez Feijóo a la presidencia del Gobierno de España", han indicado fuentes de esta organización política.

Sen. Roger Marshall’s re-election campaign is struggling for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest problems for the Kansas Republican is the recent reporting on how he treated patients who couldn’t afford their bills during his time in private practice.

That Donald Trump is trying to defend his loyal congressional ally is not surprising. What’s notable, however, is how the president is rallying to the senator’s defense.

At a campaign rally in Kansas, Trump acknowledged the controversy but said news organizations had been unfair to the senator, since Marshall was “mandated by law” to “go after those people.” That wasn’t even close to being true — there was no legal requirement for Marshall to garnish paychecks, seek arrest warrants or charge punitive interest rates — although the president didn’t stop there.

“They made it like, oh, he was some kind of a Shylock-type guy,” the president said.

As NBC News reported, the word is widely recognized as “an antisemitic slur.”

In fairness, one might note that, in 2014, then-Vice Presiden Joe Biden used the same word, though the Delaware Democrat apologized shortly after.

Trump, in contrast, has publicly used the word more than once, and he has never apologized.

Making matters worse is the broader pattern, which makes it impossible to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. Last year, for example, the Republican president declared that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish lawmaker in the history of the U.S. Congress, is “not Jewish anymore” because the New York Democrat opposed the White House’s foreign policy agenda.

The inherent antisemitism was unavoidable. It’s not up to Trump to declare himself the arbiter of who the “real” Jews are based on his personal whims or any officials’ willingness to go along with his policies.

A year earlier, as the 2024 race neared its end, Trump publicly suggested that he intended to blame Jews, at least in part, if he lost. A month earlier, after seeing Gov. Josh Shapiro’s remarks at the Democratic National Convention, the former president decided to take a rhetorical shot at his critic. The Pennsylvania Democrat, Trump wrote online, is a “highly overrated Jewish Governor.” In context, there was no reason for the Republican to reference Shapiro’s faith. Trump did it anyway.

Months earlier, he similarly invoked the familiar “dual loyalty” trope by claiming that Jewish voters who support Democrats hate Israel.

All of this was offensive but familiar. During his 2016 campaign, the future president spoke to the Republican Jewish Coalition and said, “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money. You want to control your politicians.” He added, “I’m a negotiator — like you folks.”

Several months later, in the run-up to Election Day 2016, the Republican promoted antisemitic imagery on social media. In the closing days of the campaign, Trump again faced accusations of antisemitism, claiming Hillary Clinton met “in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers.”

During his first term, Trump continued to use highly provocative rhetoric about Jews and what he expected of their “loyalties.” In 2019, he spoke at the Israeli American Council’s national summit, where he suggested Jewish people are primarily focused on wealth, which is why he expected them to support his re-election campaign.

After his 2020 defeat, Trump kept this going, whining that Jewish voters “don’t love Israel enough,” dining with prominent antisemites at Mar-a-Lago, and arguing that Jews need to “get their act together” and “appreciate” Israel “before it is too late.”

In late 2022, he went so far as to declare that Jewish leaders “should be ashamed of themselves” over their “lack of loyalty.”

Trump occasionally expresses bewilderment over his lack of support among Jewish voters. Why he finds this confusing is a mystery.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump’s latest example of antisemitic rhetoric was hardly his first appeared first on MS NOW.

MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow described what she called the “presidential snowflake factor” that’s weighing down Republicans ahead of the midterms, as President Donald Trump continues to campaign for GOP candidates in red states while his party fights to hold onto Congress.

Maddow said Trump has spent his second term “pursuing things that make him feel good about himself” instead of focusing on policies that could give Republicans issues to tout to voters.

“You get all the vanity projects and him naming everything, and all the gold gewgaws everywhere that make him feel wealthy, all the pointless and feckless revenge investigations and attempted prosecutions of his perceived enemies,” she said. “It’s all stuff that’s designed to make him feel powerful and to feel good about himself.”

The “Rachel Maddow Show” host said Trump’s approval rating is “deep, deep, deep down in the political toilet” and argued that his preoccupation with praise has left little room for a strategy focused on actually helping Republicans in November.

“I think it’s obvious that he’s not going to pursue a midterm strategy that is based on propping up vulnerable Republican candidates other than himself,” she said.

Maddow said Trump had become such a “wuss” and a “snowflake” that he could only “bear hearing happy stories about himself.” She added, “He can only go to places where he gets adulation, and he only can stand ever hearing ‘Yes.’”

“He’s only going to go to places that still like him, and there are vanishingly few of those left,” she said.

You can watch Maddow’s full comments in the clip above.

The post Rachel Maddow: Trump’s ‘presidential snowflake factor’ could leave GOP in the cold appeared first on MS NOW.

Tassa sulle banche, Messina: “Dubbi di costituzionalità se si colpisce solo una categoria”

“Non c’è un solo settore che deve pagare in un momento di difficoltà, anche a fronte di accordi già presi. Noi l’anno scorso abbiamo raggiunto un accordo per un contributo triennale che sarebbe stato quello richiesto alle banche per i prossimi tre anni. Io ci ho creduto”. Queste le parole dell’amministratore delegato di Intesa Sanpaolo Carlo Messina durante il Forum internazionale dell’agricoltura e dell’alimentazione.

“Noi avevamo proposto di farlo solo annuale, ma ci hanno detto di farlo triennale perché così si sarebbe data stabilità al bilancio pubblico e anche alle banche – ha dichiarato -. Per questo oggi è necessario fare squadra“. 

“L’interesse del governo è l’interesse delle banche, io la vedo così. Poi se devono essere valutati interventi diversi allora tutte le aziende che hanno utili superiori a 500 milioni, quelle aziende che guadagnano tanto, potranno contribuire”, ha aggiunto Messina, ribadendo però l’aspetto di costituzionalità. “C’è anche un elemento infatti – ha affermato – che riguarda la costituzionalità. Perché non puoi andare contro un settore, contro una categoria. Per questo ci deve essere un’attenzione a fare in modo che sia generalizzata la visione su questi interventi”. 

Messina ha continuato sostenendo che “la disponibilità delle banche a sostenere anche progetti diversi di dismissione del patrimonio pubblico, questa è una disponibilità assoluta. Le banche sono pronte a fare di tutto per far funzionare correttamente questo Paese, ma noi abbiamo degli azionisti, siamo degli amministratori per conto dei nostri azionisti, e non possiamo prendere delle responsabilità per delle cose che vengono fatte in modo non trasparente e non coerenti con quelli che erano gli accordi presi”. “Noi abbiamo sempre aiutato il governo e continueremo a farlo, ma deve esserci rispetto reciproco”, ha chiarito Messina. 

“Oggi si parla moltissimo degli utili delle banche, che erano gli utili che si sapevano l’anno scorso che si sarebbero realizzati. Ma quello che non si dice è che a fronte dei 50 miliardi di utili lo Stato Incasserà 25 miliardi di imposte. Gli utili, se ci sono, è perché sono state pagate le imposte. Quest’anno 25 miliardi di euro di spesa pubblica sarà finanziata dalla banche, quindi mi piacerebbe che quando si parla di utili si dicesse anche dei 25 miliardi”, ha concluso. 

LEGGI LE NOTIZIE DEL CANALE ECONOMIA

L'articolo Banche e manovra, Messina: “Non si penalizzi un solo settore. Sugli utili paghiamo 25 miliardi di tasse” proviene da Affaritaliani.it.

• Ukrainian forces said Monday that they pulled off a "first-ever" air evacuation using a heavy drone.
• Deploying large aerial drones for battlefield casualty evacuation is a high-risk operation.
• A Ukrainian official involved in the development of such drones called them a last-resort tool.

Several Ukrainian companies have developed heavy-lift drones that can evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefield, but the risks mean they should be used only as a last resort, an official involved in these efforts told Business Insider.

Denys Lohvynenko, the drone chief at Brave1, Ukraine's state-backed innovation platform, said that heavy-lift drones provide a time-sensitive means of rescuing wounded troops in highly dangerous situations where they cannot walk on their own and other evacuation methods are unavailable.

Ukraine began developing heavy-lift drones two years ago, but the complex technical requirements took time to iron out.

On Monday, a Ukrainian military unit said that it had used a heavy drone to save a wounded soldier from the front lines, carrying out what it described as a "first-ever air evacuation."

The presence of land mines and Russian drones rendered the use of ground robots — for Kyiv, an increasingly common method of casualty evacuation — too challenging.

"In these situations, heavy-lift aerial evacuation serves as a lifeline of last resort," Lohvynenko explained in remarks shared by Brave1, which has supported the development of these drones and other war technology.

Ukraine's 92nd Separate Assault Brigade said Monday that soldiers used a six-rotor hexacopter made by the Ukrainian company Gurzuf Defense to carry out the mission. Other defense companies are working on similar technology; SkyFall, for instance, recently unveiled its own hexacopter for evacuations.

Ukrainian forces also use heavy-lift drones for logistics missions, as they can typically carry more cargo than smaller variants.

A challenge is that big drones are big targets. Samuel Bendett, a drone warfare expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, a US research organization, told Business Insider on Monday that certain elite Russian military units are focused on downing such aircraft.

Lohvynenko said Ukraine understands the risk of using large drones in and around contested airspace, as is the case along most of the front lines. So they are "reserved only for high-risk, high-priority emergencies," he said.

The heavy-lift drones have also been equipped with what he described as "additional survivability systems," including electronic warfare and alternative communications. Active protection systems could be installed in the future.

"We maintain a realistic view of the technological and operational challenges associated with aerial extraction of personnel via heavy-lift drones," Lohvynenko said.

"However, establishing this technical capability is essential," he continued, arguing that a "single life saved on the battlefield justifies every engineering hour and resource invested in this program."

Combat casualty evacuation has become increasingly robotic for Ukraine as the country's officials, companies, and military units look to replace soldiers with machines in dangerous front-line missions wherever possible.

Ground robots, in particular, are seen as crucial tools for casualty evacuation and logistics. Ukraine's defense ministry said last month that the number of these kinds of missions carried out by robots has jumped more than threefold since January.

The deployment of a heavy-lift drone for an evacuation, an unusual mission, underscores Ukraine's growing efforts to use uncrewed systems in unconventional battlefield roles.