Author: CNN

CNN
 — 

The 19-year-old White man who killed 10 people in a racist mass shooting at a grocery store in a predominantly Black area of Buffalo last May apologized to the victims’ families and was sentenced to life in prison during an emotional court hearing Wednesday.

“I’m very sorry for all the pain I forced the victims and their families to suffer through. I’m very sorry for stealing the lives of your loved ones. I cannot express how much I regret all the decisions I made leading up to my actions on May 14,” Payton Gendron, wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles, said in court.

“I did a terrible thing that day. I shot and killed people because they were Black. Looking back now, I can’t believe I actually did it. I believed what I read online and acted out of hate. I know I can’t take it back, but I wish I could, and I don’t want anyone to be inspired by me and what I did.”

The statement came during the state sentencing hearing for Gendron, who pleaded guilty in November to one count of domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate, 10 counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder and a weapons possession charge for the mass shooting at Tops Friendly Markets on May 14, 2022.

A number of victims’ family members spoke emotionally Wednesday about how the mass shooting had changed their lives. At one point, Gendron took off his glasses and began crying during the testimony from the victims’ families.

At another point, a man in a gray sweatshirt rushed at Gendron in court but was quickly blocked by security, and Gendron was taken out of the courtroom.

After a short break, Gendron returned to the courtroom and Erie County Court Judge Susan Eagan restarted the hearing.

“We cannot have that in the courtroom,” Eagan said. “We must conduct ourselves appropriately because we are all better than that.”

In the end, the judge sentenced Gendron to life in prison on each of the terrorism and murder charges and offered a stern rebuke of him.

“There is no place for you or your ignorant, hateful and evil ideologies in a civilized society,” she said. “There can be no mercy for you, no understanding, no second chances. The damage you have caused is too great, and the people you have hurt are too valuable to this community. You will never see the light of day as a free man ever again.”

Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn said after court the sentence put legal closure on the case, but not on the broader issues.

“It certainly does not put any closure on what we need to do as a society and a community going forward,” Flynn said. “Justice was done with a small ‘j’ today, but we still have a big ‘J’ of Justice to do.”

The attempted attack on Gendron came during a particularly intense victim impact statement by Barbara Mapps, the sister of Katherine Massey, a 72-year-old who was killed in the attack.

“I want personally to choke you,” Mapps said in a loud voice. “Your little punk a** decided to come here to kill Black people.”

Flynn said the man will not be charged with a crime, explaining he did not want to compound the tragedy.

Other families of victims offered more somber memories of their loved ones and criticisms of Gendron’s violent actions and hateful ideology. Many of the victims’ family members voiced that they wish for Gendron to be sentenced to life in prison, rather than the death penalty, so the shooter will have to suffer with his thoughts for the rest of his life.

“One day I hope you find it in your heart to apologize to those families,” Wayne Jones, the son of Celestine Chaney, said in court.

“I pray to God they do not kill you,” said Brian Talley, family member of shooting victim Geraldine Talley. “You need to be known worldwide … I forgive you, but I forgive you not for your sake, but for mine and for this Black community.”

Christopher Braden, who said he was shot in his leg, said he saw dead bodies on the floor as he was led out of the supermarket to the hospital.

“The visions haunt me every day,” Braden said, adding he continues to suffer from night terrors and post-traumatic stress disorder from the shooting.

Zeneta Everhart, whose son Zaire Goodman was shot and injured, said her son has survivor’s guilt.

“He is dealing with the pain that I as a mother cannot bear,” Everhart said. “On that day this terrorist made the choice that the value of a Black human meant nothing to him … whatever the sentence is that [Gendron] receives, it will never be enough.”

Michelle Spight, who said she lost her aunt and her cousin in the shooting, said she hopes Gendron is haunted every day and every night.

“You came to Buffalo with hatred and anger in your heart,” Spight said, also speaking on behalf of her other family members.

Speaking after court, several Buffalo officials and families said they did not believe Gendron’s apology was genuine. Everhart said the gunman should be scared.

“Yes, somebody rushed at [Gendron] today in the courtroom, but that’s the emotion that all of these families feel on the inside,” Everhart said. “I feel like that every single day. We all feel like that every single day. I was happy to see him scared today. He should be able to feel what those families felt that day when he pointed that gun in their faces. That is how he should feel all day, every day.”

On the afternoon of May 14, Gendron turned the community’s source of necessities into a crime scene.

Gendron was heavily armed and wore tactical gear – including a tactical helmet and plated armor, police said at the time. He also livestreamed his actions using a camera.

Using an illegally modified semi-automatic rifle, the gunman shot four people outside the grocery store – three of whom died. He continued the massacre inside the store, fatally shooting an armed security guard and eight others, six of whom didn’t survive.

The shooting traumatized the predominantly Black neighborhood of Masten Park on Buffalo’s east side. The area was a food desert and the Tops Friendly Markets was the only supermarket in the neighborhood.

Gendron shot a total of 13 people, including 11 Black people and two White people, authorities said. All the victims killed were Black.

Prosecutors have argued the horror that unfolded both inside and outside the supermarket was rooted in Gendron’s racism toward Black people. Evidence included social media posts and a lengthy document written by Gendron, revealing he had planned the attack and visited the supermarket several times prior to the massacre.

Gendron posted he chose the Tops market as his target because it’s located in the 14208 ZIP code in Buffalo which is home to the highest percentage of Black people close enough to where he lived in Conklin, New York.

In the document, he attributed the internet for most of his beliefs and describes himself as a fascist, a White supremacist and an antisemite.

The shooter’s charges included the first use of New York’s terrorism motivated by hate charge since it became available in 2020 under state law.

On the federal level, Gendron faces 10 counts of hate crime resulting in death, three counts of hate crime involving bodily injury, 10 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a violent crime, and three counts of use and discharge of a firearm during a violent crime, according to a criminal complaint.

He has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, which carry the potential for the death penalty.

In December, Gendron’s attorneys said during a court hearing he would be willing to plead guilty to the federal charges if prosecutors agreed to remove the death penalty as punishment.

Correction: An earlier version of this story gave the wrong last name for Barbara Mapps.

CNN
 — 

The Arizona Department of Public Safety has reinstated a shelter-in-place order for a one-mile perimeter around a crash involving a commercial tractor truck hauling liquid nitric acid which resulted in a hazardous spill along Interstate 10 in Tucson.

The crash led to evacuation orders which were lifted Tuesday night, but reinstated Wednesday morning, authorities said.

“While crews were attempting to remove the load from the commercial vehicle, gassing occurred,” DPS said in a news release.

Interstate 10 remains closed in both directions between Kolb and Rita roads in Tucson, according to DPS.

“Unified Command advises anyone within the one-mile perimeter to turn off heaters and/or air conditioning systems that bring in outside air,” the news release said. “The public should avoid the area and motorists should seek an alternate route.”

DPS did not indicate when the shelter-in-place would be lifted.

The driver of the truck died in the crash, the department said, without identifying the person publicly.

Shawn Bilkey said the orange-colored gas that came from an overturned tractor-trailer carrying liquid nitric acid smelled like smoke, “but not fire smoke … just not pleasant.”

Bilkey was driving east along I-10 Tuesday near the Rita Road exit, shortly after the truck overturned.

“The traffic never stopped while we were there, it had to have just happened because there was only one cop there at the time,” he said.

He remembered traffic in front of him suddenly slowed, and then he began seeing the orange-colored gas in front of him.

“It was a color I’d never seen in vapor form before, so I decided to start recording,” he said. “Just in case Tucson were to turn into East Palestine y’know?”

In the video, a thick plume of gas is seen emanating from the overturned tractor trailer. It’s seen drifting northward, into and across the westbound Interstate 10 lanes.

“It didn’t smell like anything when we drove by, probably helped that the wind was taking it in the opposite direction,” Bilkey said. “But I was dropping off my friend who lives in Rita Ranch about half a mile north from where the spill was, in the direction the wind was blowing, and when he got out of the car it almost smelled like smoke but not fire smoke it’s hard to explain, just not pleasant.”

Nitric acid is a colorless liquid, has yellow or red fumes and acrid odor, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Exposure to it can cause irritation to the eyes, skin and mucous membranes.

Minneapolis
CNN
 — 

US retail sales surged in January by the most in almost two years, soaring by 3%, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

Economists had anticipated sales would rise by 1.8%, after the 1.1% decline in December when consumers pulled back on spending amid high inflation and concern about the direction of the economy.

January was the largest monthly sales bump since March 2021, with increases across all retail categories. Some of the largest jumps were at department stores (17.5%), food services and drinking places (7.2%), and auto dealers (6.4%).

The retail sales data is not adjusted for inflation. In January, the Consumer Price Index showed annual inflation moderating 0.1 percentage point to 6.4%.

On a year-over-year basis, retail sales were up 6.4% from January 2022, when the Omicron variant was surging. Favorable weather, a strong labor market and post-holiday discounting helped contribute to the rebound in sales.

January’s blowout report is likely to underscore the Federal Reserve’s resolve to keep raising interest rates to cool demand as it tries to rein in inflation.

“The economy remains strong, unemployment is low, and that is what is going to keep inflation elevated. The Fed is going to need to raise rates higher — and hold them higher for longer — than people currently expect, and this is going to cause markets to go through some significant volatility as stock and bond markets are priced for benign scenarios and not the more difficult one that we are headed towards,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance, in a note Wednesday morning.

Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst for LendingTree, told CNN: “What we’ve seen is a lot of resilience among consumers. Generally, Americans overall have done a pretty good job of managing through some challenging times.”

This story is developing and will be updated.

CNN
 — 

A little more than five years ago, an Amish dairy farmer in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, welcomed a nervous, fidgeting man onto his property to discuss the sale of puppies that the farmer breeds as a side business.

“He says, ‘We are going to take that puppy and that puppy,’” said the farmer, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity. “And his assistant grabs the two puppies, takes them out the door, and he pulls out a check. I was like, ‘Oh no, is this guy going to pay me with a check?’ I was very suspicious.”

His instinct was right. The check bounced. The name on it: George Santos, better known today as a recently elected and increasingly scandal-plagued Republican congressman from New York.

Not long after his interaction with the Amish farmer, Santos was charged with theft in Pennsylvania after several bad checks were written in his name to dog breeders in the region, according to a former lawyer friend who helped him navigate the case. The case was confirmed as “theft by deception” by the York County District Attorney’s Office, which told CNN it was later dismissed.

The charges centered on a series of nine checks totaling more than $15,000 that went to the dog breeders, according to Tiffany Bogosian, a childhood friend of Santos and personal-injury lawyer who said she assisted Santos in February 2020 after he was served with an extradition warrant.

Bogosian said she sent an email to a Pennsylvania state trooper, a copy of which she provided to CNN, on Santos’ behalf, outlining his contention that one of his four checkbooks had gone missing before the bad checks had been written. Speaking about the episode more recently, Bogosian said she no longer believes Santos’ story

In the farmer’s account, Santos was accompanied by an unnamed woman, described as an assistant, and asked to purchase a pair of German shepherds. A deal was struck, in principle, inside the farmer’s milk house. The assistant quickly grabbed the dogs and left for the car.

By then, the farmer told CNN, he began to realize he was “stuck,” hoodwinked by a stranger he thought he’d never see or hear of again.

“I told him I don’t take checks. All I can take is cash. And he said, ‘You expect me to carry that much cash to buy a bunch of puppies on a trip like this? I do not have cash. The only thing I can give you is a check,’” the farmer recounted. “I thought to myself, it looks like I am done!”

As he expected, the check bounced – leaving the farmer on the hook for a bank fee. He was never repaid.

Neither Santos nor his lawyers responded to requests for comment on the details of the allegations.

Days after the exchange, Santos participated in an adoption event at a pet supply store in Staten Island, New York, according to the business’ former owner, Daniel Avissato.

Avissato told CNN that he wrote a check to Santos’ charity supporting pets after the event, but when he viewed the bank transaction online saw that the organization’s name had been crossed and replaced with the name Anthony Devolder, a version of Santos’ full name he often used as a pseudonym.

CNN
 — 

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the trailer for Celine Dion’s new feature film debuted on Tuesday.

“Love Again” stars Dion, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and “Outlander” star Sam Heughan and follows Mira (Chopra Jonas), who is grieving the death of her fiancé by texting love notes to his old cell phone number. That number now belongs to Rob (Heughan), who is a journalist, and a romantic connection begins to form.

Naturally, Dion stars as herself in the rom-com and appears to help guide Rob toward love in the trailer.

Dion’s uber hit “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” is played as the Grammy winner can be heard saying, “Love has a plan for each and everyone one of us.”

The trailer also mentions that new music from Dion is featured in the film.

“It’s a wonderful feel-good story, and I hope that people will like it and like the new songs too,” Dion told People magazine in an article published on Tuesday.

Chopra’s husband, Nick Jonas, also makes a hilarious cameo in the trailer. The singer appears in the back the of a taxi with a less-than-pleased-looking Chopra Jonas, awkwardly trying to make a move on her.

“Love Again” is the American film adaptation of Sofie Cramer’s 2009 novel, “SMS für dich (Text for You),” and will premiere in theaters on May 12.

Can you feel the power of love yet?

CNN
 — 

Alexandria Verner was kind, positive and “everything you’d want your daughter or friend to be,” a family friend said.

“Her kindness was on display every single second you were around her,” Clawson Public Schools Superintendent Billy Shellenbarger told CNN. He is friends with the Verner family and has known Alexandria, or Alex, as he called her, since she was in kindergarten.

Verner was one of three Michigan State University students killed in a mass shooting on campus Monday night, university police said Tuesday.

The Michigan State University Department of Police and Public Safety identified the three students killed Monday night as junior Arielle Anderson, sophomore Brian Fraser and Verner, who was also a junior.

Anderson and Fraser hailed from the same town of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, leaving their hometown with a double loss.

Five other students remain in the hospital in critical condition, the release said.

“We cannot begin to fathom the immeasurable amount of pain that our campus community is feeling,” the police release said.

These are the stories of the victims.

Verner touched a lot of people in the town of Clawson, Michigan, Shellenbarger said, which he described as a small, 2-mile by 2-mile community.

“To lose her on this planet, let alone our small community, it’s tough,” he said. “And it’s going to take a while to recover, but to have known her for the duration of time that we all have, once again, is a gift to all of us,” he said.

Verner’s family is “being about as strong as a human being can be in the face of this tragedy,” Shellenbarger said, adding that he spoke with them Tuesday.

Shellenbarger was the principal at Clawson High School while Verner was a student there. She graduated in 2020.

Verner was a fantastic three-sport athlete in volleyball, basketball and softball, as well as an excellent student who was active in many leadership groups at the school, Shellenbarger said.

Shellenbarger sent a letter to families on Tuesday informing the community of her death and offering resources for students.

“Alex was and is incredibly loved by everyone. She was a tremendous student, athlete, leader and exemplified kindness every day of her life!” he wrote in the letter. “Her parents, Ted and Nancy, and sister Charlotte and brother TJ are equally grieving but are certainly already feeling the uplifting support of this tremendous community.”

“If you knew her, you loved her and we will forever remember the lasting impact she has had on all of us,” he wrote.

Fraser served as the president of the Michigan Beta Chapter of Phi Delta Theta, the fraternity said in a statement.

He was a leader and a great friend to his brothers, the Greek community and the people he interacted with on campus, the fraternity said.

“Phi Delta Theta sends its deepest condolences to the Fraser family, the Michigan Beta Chapter, and all those who loved Brian as they mourn their loss,” the statement reads.

Fraser was a sophomore who hailed from Grosse Pointe, which is in the Detroit area, university police said.

He graduated in 2021 from Grosse Pointe South High School, according to district superintendent Jon Dean.

Anderson, a junior at Michigan State, was also from Grosse Point, university police said.

She graduated in 2021 from Grosse Pointe North High School, according to Dean.

“How is it possible that this happened in the first place, an act of senseless violence that has no place in our society and in particular no place in school?” Dean said. “But then, it touched our community not once, but twice.”

Four of the five injured students from the shooting required surgery and some immediate intervention, Dr. Denny Martin, Interim President and Chief Medical Officer at Sparrow Hospital, said Tuesday.

“Without going into the specifics of their injuries, I will say that it took a team of numerous anesthesiologist(s), trauma surgeons, general surgeons, cardiothoracic surgery and a neurosurgery team to handle the full extent of the injuries,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

One student who was injured “did not require immediate surgical intervention” and they were taken directly to the ICU, he said.

Martin said it’s too early to give a long-term prognosis on their conditions.

“They’re all under the care of trauma and critical care teams here,” Martin said. “Some are more critical than others, but again, it’s quite early…in their recovery from this event.”

Editor’s Note: Issac Bailey is a longtime journalist based in South Carolina and the Batten Professor for Communication Studies at Davidson College. His latest book is “Why Didn’t We Riot? A Black Man in Trumpland.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN
 — 

I first met Nikki Haley during her initial run for governor of South Carolina in 2010 at a luncheon at Magnolia’s, a Myrtle Beach buffet-style restaurant popular with the locals. Though she had served in the state’s House of Representatives for several years, I didn’t know her well – and neither did most people in the state.

The luncheon was being hosted in the aftermath of the scandal plaguing South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who had snuck out of the country to see his mistress but told his staff he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail. After listening to Haley give a fairly routine stump speech, I asked Haley, if she won, would she resign as governor if she made as big a misstep as Sanford had.

“I won’t mess up like him,” she said without hesitation.

As governor of South Carolina, she never messed up like Sanford, who also had strong presidential prospects before his escapades. But she messed up when she decided to embrace Donald Trump – rather than keeping him at arm’s length – providing further proof that even the most talented Republicans were willing to bend the knee to the former president.

Though she released a video on Tuesday announcing her intention to run against Trump for president in 2024, Haley has lost the moral high ground she once had over him.

To be clear, Haley never really had the moral high ground; she just created the illusion of having it. She is as politically ambitious as any man or woman who has considered themselves qualified enough to lead the world’s most powerful nation. However, her principles have often seemed an afterthought or conditional on circumstance.

And despite Haley’s ambitions, former President Donald Trump is still the top contender for the nomination. His most loyal supporters, which still number in the millions, won’t abandon him just because of a loss in 2020 – which many of them falsely believe was stolen from him – and a bad 2022 midterm cycle for Trump-backed candidates.

But if, for some reason, he stumbles or gets embroiled in too many legal battles, Haley should be considered a serious contender. After all, you don’t get elected twice as governor of Deep South, Bible Belt South Carolina as a woman with dark skin and a Sikh background by happenstance.

And though Haley’s embrace of Trumpism was undoubtedly a mistake, there were early indications from her time as governor that her priority was not always the people of South Carolina, but her own political aspirations.

In 2013, then-Gov. Haley and a Republican-dominated General Assembly denied the expansion of Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act to hundreds of thousands of low-income South Carolinians. She even opposed creating a statewide health care exchange under that law.

Health officials in her administration told me at the time that there were simply better options, but it was clear to close observers in the state it was primarily about political expedience – especially when Haley declared that she would not expand Medicaid on President Barack Obama’s watch.

About 40% of the state’s uninsured adults would have received health coverage under an expansion, as well as low-wage workers in retail and hospitality who are concentrated in Horry County, home to resort destination Myrtle Beach, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

A White House study said expansion could have saved about 200 lives in the state every year through early detection and treatment. And a University of South Carolina study estimated the state could have seen an additional 44,000 jobs added by 2020 with the multibillion dollar federal investment from a Medicaid expansion.

Indeed, Haley, a self-avowed “pro-life” advocate, stood in the way of life-saving Obamacare – exposing her hypocrisy on an issue that has come to define the modern-day Republican Party.

Her stance on taxes wasn’t much better. Haley adhered to the tax cuts today, tax cuts tomorrow, tax cuts forever boilerplate conservative talking point while in the governor’s mansion. She wanted to cut income taxes in the state, even when fellow Republicans said the cuts would be too steep.

Haley proposed a tax swap, a lowering of the top marginal income tax rate for the wealthiest South Carolinians in exchange for an increase in the gas fee that everyone pays. And she kept pushing for tax cuts even in her final budget proposal. She did not get her way often.

Of course, many of her supporters point to her handling of the Confederate flag as a sign of her sincere commitment to the people of South Carolina, and particularly the Black community.

But even that is questionable at best. The blood of Black South Carolinians had to be spilled before that flag would be removed.

After White supremacist Dylann Roof massacred innocent Black churchgoers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston in 2015, Haley took the lead on the decision to take the Confederate battle flag off the South Carolina State House.

But for years prior to the mass shooting, Haley had dodged the issue, claiming – falsely – that there was no push in South Carolina for the flag to come down.

“What I can tell you is over the last three and a half years, I spent a lot of my days on the phones with CEOs and recruiting jobs to this state,” she said during a debate as she ran for re-election in 2014 against Democratic challenger Vincent Sheheen. “I can honestly say I have not had one conversation with a single CEO about the Confederate flag.”

Haley had not taken any steps to get the flag lowered, or even hinted that she would try, before that ugly night in Charleston. And just a few years ago, she claimed Roof had “hijacked” the meaning of the flag that some South Carolinians embraced as part of a proud heritage.

Still, by making the decision to remove the flag at the time she did, Haley successfully sold the idea that she cared. That decision, paired with her actions on key GOP priorities – from health care to taxes – positioned her well within the party. Haley was even tasked with giving the response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union in 2016, a sign of the party’s faith in her abilities and ambitions.

But when Trump first declared, Haley was an early critic. In February 2016, she said she would not endorse Trump, explaining that he is “everything a governor doesn’t want in a president.” She continued to criticize him as she campaigned with Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, whom she had endorsed for president.

Then Haley reversed course when Trump became the nominee, and she landed the type of position in his administration that would provide her with the foreign policy experience she’d need for a presidential run: US ambassador to the United Nations. She could plausibly claim to have taken the position to serve her country – not Trump.

Her approach seemed to work. She had good standing among staunch Trump supporters but had not alienated those who considered themselves moderates and Never Trumpers when she left her position at the UN. As a South Carolina voter who had sworn off the Republican Party, I was even intrigued by what she had pulled off.

All of these strategic decisions make her a contender worth watching in the primary season. But they are also an important reminder of where so many of the leaders of the Republican Party are today – comfortable with embracing leaders who traffic in bigotry and racism when it’s beneficial in an election cycle, but equally comfortable using race and gender to protect the GOP against barbs from Democrats and others about White supremacy and misogyny.

That’s precisely how Haley defended South Carolina against accusations that the flying of the flag of traitors who tried to establish a new country built on the premise of permanent black enslavement was harming the state’s image. It’s a heads I win-tails you lose version of identity politics.

“But we really kind of fixed all that when you elected the first Indian-American female governor,” Haley said during that 2014 debate in South Carolina. “When we appointed the first African-American U.S. senator [Tim Scott], that sent a huge message.”

On that count, Haley is in a strong position. She embodies the party well. But her embrace of Trump made him look stronger and her weaker. She’ll have to climb a mountain of her own making to win the nomination against him.

A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

CNN
 — 

Former President Donald Trump’s attempt to clear the field has officially failed.

Nikki Haley – a former member of his Cabinet who had served as US Ambassador to the United Nations and was previously governor of South Carolina – officially announced she’s running for the GOP presidential nomination with a video on Tuesday and a speech planned in her home state on Wednesday.

In her announcement video, Haley emphasized her background as the child of immigrants from India who found success in South Carolina. She promised to stand up for what she sees as American values, but did not use some of the abrasive language about “wokeness” employed by people like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another likely presidential candidate.

Haley called for a generational shift in the GOP and argued the party must reach across the aisle since Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections.

“It’s a call for the new way of thinking and presenting the Republican Party,” CNN political director David Chalian said Tuesday.

“Her goal here is to carve out a space that is clearly not the space that Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are currently occupying, which is really playing only to the base.”

Haley is not the only Republican candidate expected to challenge Trump. She’s not even the only big-name Republican from South Carolina expected to challenge Trump. Sen. Tim Scott is also seriously considering a run.

She’s also not the only former Trump administration official who could challenge their old boss. Former Vice President Mike Pence has been courting social conservatives. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently released a memoir and is attacking President Joe Biden’s foreign policy in interviews this week.

Haley, Pompeo, Pence and Scott will face an uphill climb since none of them are currently particularly strong in surveys of Republican primary voters – which suggest the majority of those voters currently either support Trump or DeSantis.

CNN’s Harry Enten recently wrote about how while top candidates can frequently flame out and there is precedent for a candidate with little name recognition to win the primary (and the White House!), those are the exceptions.

“While Trump or DeSantis are the odds-on favorites for the nomination, there is enough history of low-polling candidates later gaining traction to at least be open to the idea that a Haley, Pence or somebody else could, if nothing else, make things interesting come voting time,” Enten wrote this month.

I asked CNN’s polling editor Ariel Edwards-Levy if these candidates who jump into a presidential race at single digits in polls have any real chance of winning. She looked at pre- and post-announcement polling for each of the major party candidates since George H.W. Bush announced his candidacy in October 1987.

What she found is not good news for relative unknowns. Most winning candidates have a solid double-digit base of support among primary voters when they officially become candidates:

“It’s hard to know precisely how much predictive value to assign to these historical precedents,” Edwards-Levy told me. “Obviously, it’s better for a candidate to start with a broad base of support than without any backing, but every election carries its own degree of idiosyncrasy. If the past few election cycles have taught us anything, it’s to be modest about assuming which past principles will hold – or break.”

CNN’s Eric Bradner has published a list of potential Republican presidential candidates and what they’ve said about whether they’ll run. The quotes from these potential candidates range from very interested and not hiding it, to clearly interested but still being cagey, to not admitting any interest at all.

Read Bradner’s report, but I’ve done something a little different, which is to take his list of potential candidates and note their most recent memoir (most of them have one) and what it could say about their potential campaign. I’ve left off Trump here, since his “The Art of the Deal” is now decades old.

The Florida governor’s memoir – “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival” – is set to be released in late February.

DeSantis frequently talks about how he’s standing up for freedom, often by placing restrictions on school districts and local governments. He’s not afraid of being divisive, and he wants you to know it.

The former UN ambassador’s memoir – “With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace”– suggests Haley sees no reason to be as combative as DeSantis even if she wants to appear just as committed.

While she has at times sought distance from Trump, in her memoir, she wrote about rebuffing an effort by Trump’s aides to recruit her to undermine him.

The former vice president’s memoir – “So Help Me God” – details Pence’s fractures with Trump.

The title flicks at the optional coda public servants may add to the oath of office. Pence is both invoking the importance of God to him and his politics – he is a committed evangelical – and pointing out he kept his oath when he refused to turn the 2020 election for Trump.

In the former secretary of state’s memoir – “Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love” – Pompeo alleges that Haley plotted with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner to try to become vice president. And the title suggests a candidate who will be dismissive of anyone who questions him.

Scott is the only Black Republican in the Senate, and his memoir has an inspiring story. He shorthands his family’s journey as going from “cotton to Congress.” He tells it in the memoir – “America, a Redemption Story: Choosing Hope, Creating Unity” – which also has a theme of second chances.

While Noem has said she’s not sure she needs to run for president, she did write a memoir: “Not My First Rodeo: Lessons from the Heartland.”

Cruz checked the memoir box before he ran unsuccessfully for president in 2016 with, “A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America.”

Cruz has written two books since then, including a political salvo against liberals and the law: “Justice Corrupted: How the Left Weaponized Our Legal System.”

It’s not at all clear that Abbott will run, but he wrote a memoir in 2016 before his second run for governor: “Broken But Unbowed: The Fight to Fix a Broken America.”

Hogan’s seriously considering a campaign, and his memoir suggests a middle path – which could be compelling in a general election, but might be more difficult as a way to convince Republican primary voters. Its title: “Still Standing: Surviving Cancer, Riots, a Global Pandemic, and the Toxic Politics that Divide America.”

Christie lost to Trump in the 2016 primary and was then pushed out of Trump’s administration before it began.

His memoir from the Trump years, “Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics,” torches Kushner.

His more forward-looking recent book is, “Republican Rescue: Saving the Party from Truth Deniers, Conspiracy Theorists, and the Dangerous Policies of Joe Biden.”

Others who are viewed as potential candidates, like New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, do not appear to have memoirs at this point – which may or may not say something about whether they will ultimately run.

CNN
 — 

In the 12 months since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine, one of the biggest surprises has been the willingness with which Western countries, especially in Europe, have handed over increasingly sophisticated military equipment for Ukrainian use.

At times the debates around sending certain types of weapons, most notably tanks, have been testy and caused high-level diplomatic spats. But given the scale of the challenge and how long it’s dragged on, the generosity of European leaders – often cast as cynical and self-interested – and their publics has been a surprise to some observers.

It’s all the more surprising for the fact that the donating of this military equipment – and crucially, ammunition – has left the stock cupboards of European militaries looking rather bare, according to defense officials and experts.

It’s hard to get exact numbers on exactly what weapons individual nations currently hold in their arsenals due to the sensitivity of the information.

However, since the start of the war, European nations have donated a wide range of weapons, from antitank missiles to artillery rounds and tank shells.

As Richard Shirreff, a retired British Army general and NATO’s former deputy supreme allied commander Europe, told CNN: “This is critical to national and European security. You don’t want to demonstrate your vulnerabilities to any potential aggressor. But at the same time people need to understand that this is serious, something has to be done urgently.”

Multiple European defense and security sources have told CNN that there are serious concerns at just how much of Europe’s ammunition has been used on the battlefield and not replaced.

One senior government official of a major European military power said that “it’s something we all know about, but don’t know what to do about it.” Another Western defense source explained that senior figures in the armed forces have “repeatedly raised concerns with me about it.”

Even the biggest supplier of weapons to Ukraine and the world’s top military exporter, the United States, is having trouble keeping up with the demand. CNN reported late last year that defense officials were worried that the US was running low on some high-end weapons systems and ammunition available to ship to Ukraine.

Last month, Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander of US Fleet Forces Command, called on the nation’s defense industries to step up their game, saying “you’re not delivering the ordnance we need.”

“It’s so essential to winning. And I can’t do that without the ordnance,” Caudle said at a symposium in Washington last month, adding that the US is “going against a competitor here, and a potential adversary, that is like nothing we’ve ever seen.”

On Monday night, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters ahead of a meeting of alliance officials that “the current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production – this puts our defense industries under strain.”

“For example, the waiting time for large-caliber ammunition has increased from 12 to 28 months. Orders placed today would only be delivered two-and-a-half years later. So we need to ramp up production, and invest in our production capacity.”

Stoltenberg said NATO had completed a survey of the alliance’s munitions and planned to increase targets for stockpiles. He noted that some progress had been made among NATO allies, citing the example of the US and France signing new contracts with defense firms. Germany also announced Tuesday that it had agreed new deals with ammunition manufacturers for air defense systems it has delivered to Ukraine.

But the issue might prove more difficult than simply instructing private companies to produce more ammo or placing large orders.

Decades of budget cuts across Europe have led to policy makers keeping a deliberately low stock on the assumption that there would not be a land war that could swallow up ammunition at similar levels to World War I or II, experts said.

Trevor Taylor, professorial research fellow in defense management at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London, points as far back as decisions that were made during the Cold War.

“NATO’s ‘Flexible Response’ stance during the Cold War was that its members should have the forces in being and stocks to hold all its territory for a period of about three weeks in the event of a ‘Warsaw Pact’ attack,” he said, referring to the military alliance between the Soviet Union and several satellite Soviet states in eastern Europe that ended shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“The costs of maintaining that capability for any longer period were unacceptable, and so NATO stressed that it would also have to be ready eventually to initiate the use of nuclear weapons.”

“This was acceptable to Europeans because the envisaged Warsaw Pact effort was to overrun the whole of Western Europe. After 1990, the apparent need for large stocks obviously diminished.”

As the Cold War became a distant memory, so too did the threat of a land war in Western Europe and, in turn, the priorities of European governments shifted.

“The combination of no immediate threat and the financial pressures on European governments over the past couple of decades led to a conspiracy of dressing the shop window while letting the stockroom empty out,” said Nick Witney, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

This “dressing the shop window” approach helps us understand why European countries had low ammunition stocks going into the Ukraine conflict, but doesn’t explain why things haven’t dramatically improved in the year that has followed.

Experts point to a range of factors. “There are limits to production increases that can be done quickly. More significant boosts to output will be expensive and take time to implement,” said Tom Waldwyn, research associate for defense procurement at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“No private company that is answerable to shareholders will have kept staff and maintained large capacity to produce equipment that people are not buying, so it will be difficult to meet a sudden surge in demand in the short to medium term,” Waldwyn added.

A senior European defense source echoed Stoltenberg’s assessment, telling CNN that they knew of at least one major ammunition company that had gone from giving customers lead times in months to quoting years. “It’s a mix of supply chain issues, sudden increased demand and, unfortunately, protectionism from companies in other countries, including allies,” the source said.

Complicating things further, governments are also concerned about the interests of the companies that could hypothetically help with a sudden surge in munitions production.

In the UK, a parliamentary report published in 2021 said that a “country-agnostic approach” to investment had led to companies critical to the defense supply chain becoming exposed to foreign governments “who are known to engage in intellectual property theft.” The report listed seven companies operating within UK defense that had been acquired by Chinese companies.

The picture European defense officials paint is a grim one. No one wants publicly to say that supporting Ukraine has caused problems, but the ammo crunch is coming and it will take major intervention to put right.

“All of the NATO countries must take a serious strategic look at this. We might be at the stage where we need to tell bicycle manufacturers to pivot and start making ammunition. The only way we are going to get back on track is to prepare for the worst case, which means relearning lessons from the Cold War to avoid another world war,” said Shirreff.

Of course, the vast majority of people involved in European defense at any serious level stand firmly by the support they have provided to Ukraine.

The looming ammunition crisis has, however, revealed that policymaking is often based on convenient assumptions of the best-case scenario. After all, taking no action, in the short-term at least, is often cheaper than taking action.

CNN
 — 

An Atlanta-area police officer has been fired and arrested on suspicion of concealing the death of a 16-year-old girl whose remains were found last week, some six months after her family last saw her, authorities say.

Miles Bryant, a 22-year-old Doraville, Georgia, police officer, was arrested on preliminary charges of falsely reporting a crime and concealing the death of another in connection with the death of Susana Morales, the Gwinnett County Police Department said in a news release Monday.

Bryant was employed as a police officer in Doraville, an Atlanta suburb and DeKalb County city that neighbors Gwinnett County, police said.

Bryant was being held Monday in county jail without opportunity for bond, Gwinnett County police said. Details about what precisely he is accused of doing and what led investigators to him weren’t immediately available.

Bryant was fired from the Doraville Police Department Monday after officials were made aware of the charges against him, a city official said. He was with the department for nearly two years, having started in May 2021, the official said.

CNN was unable to determine whether Bryant has an attorney.

The remains of Morales, a resident of Norcross – a city some 20 miles northeast of Atlanta – were found February 6 near a highway in eastern Gwinnett County, after a passerby reported seeing what looked like human remains in the woods, police said.

Investigators still are trying to determine the teen’s manner and cause of death, the Gwinnett police release said.

Morales had been missing since the night of July 26, 2022, when she texted her mother that she was walking home from a nearby friend’s house. She never made it home, according to police.

The teen’s cell phone and video footage showed Morales walking toward her home that night, police said, citing, in part, a location application. Investigators believe she may have gotten into a vehicle, Gwinnett County police said in late January.

“Our prayers rest with the family and friends of Susana Morales and everyone else affected by this tragedy,” the city of Doraville said in an online statement.

Doraville was notified Monday afternoon “that a now former police officer was being served felony arrest warrants” by Gwinnett County police in connection with the Morales case, the city’s statement reads.

“The city of Doraville and its police department are fully cooperating with the Gwinnett (County) Police Department in its investigation of Mr. Bryant,” the statement adds.

Authorities are encouraging anyone with information related to the case to contact Gwinnett County police or submit an anonymous tip through CrimeStoppers.