Author: CNN

CNN
 — 

Two funeral home operators in Colorado were sentenced Wednesday for illegally selling bodies and body parts without the families’ consent, the US Attorney’s Office said.

Megan Hess was sentenced to 20 years in prison and her mother, Shirley Koch, received 15 years for their involvement in the scheme to sell the human remains to body broker services, according to federal prosecutors. They each pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and aiding and abetting.

“These two women preyed on vulnerable victims who turned to them in a time of grief and sadness. But instead of offering guidance, these greedy women betrayed the trust of hundreds of victims and mutilated their loved ones,” Leonard Carollo, the acting special agent in charge at the FBI in Denver, said in a news release.

“Without knowledge or consent, the women disrespected the wishes of the grieving victims and degraded the bodies of their family members to sell them for profit,” Carollo said.

The women ran Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado. From 2010 through 2018, they would meet with people seeking cremation services either for themselves or their loved ones, according to the plea agreement.

“In many instances, Koch and Hess neither discussed nor obtained authorization for donation of decedents’ bodies or body parts for body broker services,” the news release said. “In other instances, the topic of donation was raised by Hess or Koch, and specifically rejected by the families. In such circumstances, despite lacking any authorization, Koch and Hess recovered body parts from, or otherwise prepared entire bodies of hundreds of decedents for body broker services.”

Even when families agreed to donation, the news release said, Hess and Koch sometimes sold the remains beyond what the family had authorized.

The two women also delivered cremated remains to families that did not belong to the families’ loved ones, the news release said.

In some cases, the pair would ship bodies and body parts that tested positive for or belonged to people who had died from infectious diseases – such as Hepatitis B and C and HIV – after certifying to buyers that the remains were disease-free, the news release said.

The shipments went through the mail or on commercial air flights in violation of Department of Transportation regulations regarding the transportation of hazardous materials,the news release said.

“The defendants’ conduct was horrific and morbid and driven by greed, US Attorney Cole Finegan said. “They took advantage of numerous victims who were at their lowest point given the recent loss of a loved one. We hope these prison sentences will bring the victim’s family members some amount of peace as they move forward in the grieving process.”

An attorney for Koch, Thomas E. Goodreid, declined to comment.

CNN has reached out to an attorney for Hess for comment.

CNN
 — 

Mexican authorities have arrested Ovidio Guzmán, son of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, a source from the federal government of Mexico told CNN, in a dramatic operation in the northern state of Sinaloa on Thursday that led to clashes around the city of Culiacán.

Guzmán is described as “a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel” in a press release issued by the United States State Department on December 16, prior to his arrest.

He was previously arrested by federal authorities in October 2019, but was released on the orders of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to avoid further bloodshed.

Chaos broke out in the city around Guzmán’s arrest on Thursday, with local officials telling citizens to shelter at home amid clashes with cartel members in various parts of Culiacán.

Social media videos appear to show trucks on fire and intense shooting near the airport, which was closed for most of the day due to the violence. CNN has not yet verified these videos.

Passengers appeared to crouch for cover in an Aeromexico plane according to video shared on social media, which was hit by a bullet while grounded in Culiacán.

No injuries were reported, said Aeromexico, which has canceled all its operations to and from the Sinaloan cities of Culiacan, Los Mochis and Mazatlan.

Culiacán International Airport closed after Guzmán’s arrest for security reasons, airport authorities said on their Twitter account.

In a morning address on Thursday, President López Obrador said the operation in Culiacán had been underway since dawn.

As the arrest unfolded, Sinaloa Secretary of Public Security Cristóbal Castañeda said that vehicles were being looted and blockades “are taking place in different parts of the city” as he asked the public not to leave the city.

The state’s education secretary also announced that school and administrative activities had been suspended in Culiacán and urged those who are in a risk area to take refuge in a safe place.

The state of Sinaloa is home to the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world’s most powerful narcotics trafficking organizations. “El Chapo” was the leader of the cartel before he was sentenced to life in prison in 2020.

The arrest comes days before US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visit Mexico City to attend the North American Leaders Summit.

Capturing Guzmán could be a way for López Obrador to show the US that he is “in control of the armed forces and Mexico’s security situation,” Gladys McCormick, a associate professor at Syracuse University who focuses on Mexico-U.S. relations, told CNN in an email.

“It also defuses the power behind any ask from the Biden administration to stem the tide of fentanyl and other narcotics across the border,” she added.

The State Department, which was offering a $5 million reward for information leading to Guzman’s arrest, wrote that law enforcement investigations indicated that Guzmán and his brother, Joaquín Guzmán-López, “inherited a great deal of the narcotics proceeds” following the death of another brother, Edgar Guzmán-López.

They “began investing large amounts of the cash into the purchasing of marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia. They also began purchasing large amounts of ephedrine from Argentina and arranged for the smuggling of the product into Mexico as they began to experiment with methamphetamine production,” the State Department said.

The brothers are also alleged to oversee an estimated 11 “methamphetamine labs in the state of Sinaloa,” the State Department says.

Their father “El Chapo” Guzmán was convicted in the US in 2019 of 10 counts, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, drug trafficking and firearms charges. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years and ordered to pay $12.6 billion in forfeiture.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct Justin Trudeau’s title.

Washington
CNN
 — 

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is planning to release a memoir on her life titled “Lovely One,” the book’s publisher announced Thursday.

In the memoir, Jackson, who made history last year as the first Black woman to join the court, will chart her personal history, from her upbringing in Miami and her years at Harvard to her early legal career, marriage and motherhood, and ascension to the Supreme Court, according to a statement from Random House.

“Mine has been an unlikely journey,” Jackson said in the statement. “This memoir marries the public record of my life with what is less known. It will be a transparent accounting of what it takes to rise through the ranks of the legal profession, especially as a woman of color with an unusual name and as a mother and a wife striving to reconcile the demands of a high-profile career with the private needs of my loved ones.”

The memoir will be Jackson’s first book. Random House did not say in its statement when the memoir would be released nor did it note how much the justice would make from her book deal with the publisher.

Random House did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for more details on its book deal with Jackson.

The Associated Press first reported Jackson’s book plans.

It’s not uncommon for Supreme Court members to secure lucrative book deals, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett having received a $425,000 payment from the literary agency Javelin Group to pen her own book, according to financial disclosures released last year. Barrett’s book has not yet been released.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, meanwhile, authored a broad-audience book called “A Republic, If You Can Keep It” in 2019. He received $250,000 from the publishing company HarperCollins in 2021, according to his 2022 financial disclosures. The income is listed as “book royalties.” Politico reported last year that the amount was an advance for a new book about judicial and regulatory policy.

And Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s disclosures last year revealed she had received more than $115,000 in book royalties in 2021 from Penguin Random House, which has published several children’s books by the justice

Of her forthcoming book, Jackson said in her statement Thursday: “My hope is that the fullness of my journey as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, litigator, and friend will stand as a testament for young women, people of color, and dreamers everywhere … especially those who nourish outsized ambitions and believe in the possibility of achieving them.”

Jackson was sworn in as a justice on June 30, 2022. President Joe Biden nominated her earlier that year to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement from the bench after serving for nearly three decades.

This story has been updated with additional details.

Washington
CNN
 — 

The House’s inability to select a speaker is impacting US national security, Republican and Democratic lawmakers and staffers say, as members who can’t yet be sworn in are being locked out of classified briefings and the Biden administration is effectively operating without House oversight.

At a minimum, House members are not staying informed of day-to-day national security developments because they cannot receive a security clearance until they are sworn in. But at its most extreme, the impasse also means that the current Congress is not in a position to either authorize or stop a war, staffers and experts told CNN.

“I’m a member of the House (Intelligence) Committee. I’m on the Armed Services Committee, and I can’t meet in the (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) to conduct essential business” Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Republican, said in a press conference on Wednesday, referring to the place that is used by military and national security officials to process sensitive and classified information. He added that he was denied entry to a meeting with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley because he does not yet have a security clearance.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, also said he is concerned about the national security implications of the impasse on Thursday afternoon, as McCarthy failed in a seventh vote.

“It’s bad. It’s really bad,” Fitzpatrick said. “I don’t have access to the SCIF right now, because I’m not sworn in. I can’t get my China briefing, my Ukraine briefing, my Iran briefing.”

Fitzpatrick added, “A third of our government’s offline right now. It’s very dangerous.”

Not only are those members barred from briefings, the key national security committees they would normally sit on cannot even be formed yet – including the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees, which oversee the intelligence community and the Pentagon, respectively.

In a small but revealing detail, the House Armed Services and GOP Foreign Affairs Committee websites were still offline as of Thursday.

“The committees don’t technically exist in this Congress until they convene, vote on the rules of the committee and basically vote themselves into existence,” said former House Armed Services Committee staffer Jonathan Lord, who now serves as director of the Middle East Security program at the Center for a New American Security. “So all of the oversight work that those committees do on a day-to-day basis can’t officially go on.”

The White House told agencies and departments earlier this week that the administration would continue its work with Congress as usual, people familiar with the matter said, and there have been some informal briefings for still-cleared staffers even amid the uncertainty of the speakership race. In a strange twist, however, if the information is classified, those staffers cannot then brief their bosses on the intelligence since they don’t yet have a security clearance.

On a more formal level, if the State Department wanted to officially notify the House Foreign Affairs Committee of a foreign military sale, for example, “there technically isn’t a committee yet to receive it,” Lord said.

The world is taking notice, too. One Western diplomat called it “a s*** show.”

“Honest to God this is what we wrote yesterday” in a cable to their capital, the diplomat said. They said there is agreement from their capital on that assessment.

This diplomat said they’re “concerned because it has implications for how the House can address pressing issues around the world and the United States’ bilateral relations with its global partners.”

Another foreign diplomat said they “are just waiting to see what happens,” noting that “this is an exceptional situation but the US is not the only Western country with political deadlocks.”

“What I’m personally looking at is the policy concessions (prospective House Speaker Kevin) McCarthy has to make, and if they are going to affect US role in the world,” the diplomat told CNN.

More drastically, if the president were to enter US forces into hostilities, the War Powers Act requires that he notify Congress within 48 hours, and the Congress then has 60 days to determine its legality. But as it stands now, Congress would not be in a position to either immediately stop or authorize that use of force. “That is something that the Congress can not determine its current state,” Lord said.

A congressional staffer echoed those concerns to CNN.

“​Nothing can happen until leadership is decided, then committee chair elections happen,” this person said. “Then, after that, they select members for committees and subcommittee chairs. Only after that can anything substantive – like hearings, legislation or member-level briefings – happen. Otherwise it is all still on hold. Soon, it will be a national security issue. Committees like Armed Services and Intelligence are also affected, and it is concerning to us all.”

Some believe the concerns are overblown – at least for now. Former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who is now a CNN senior political commentator, told “CNN This Morning” that while the situation is “serious,” he does not believe that “a few days of not finding a speaker is really the end of the world.”

“Because keep in mind there are governments, like parliaments, that go months without forming a government,” he said.

But Kinzinger noted that more broadly, the situation is hugely problematic because the House in its current form exists for “only one reason – to elect a Speaker … that includes things like coming in and getting briefings, having discussions about the next round of aid to Ukraine. A few days we can handle. Even a few weeks we can handle. If this thing goes on, it starts to have dangerous impacts.”

New York
CNN
 — 

New York City public schools will ban students and teachers from using ChatGPT, a powerful new AI chatbot tool, on the district’s networks and devices, an official confirmed to CNN on Thursday.

The move comes amid growing concerns that the tool, which generates eerily convincing responses and even essays in response to user prompts, could make it easier for students to cheat on assignments. Some also worry that ChatGPT could be used to spread inaccurate information.

“Due to concerns about negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content, access to ChatGPT is restricted on New York City Public Schools’ networks and devices,” Jenna Lyle, the deputy press secretary for the New York public schools, said in a statement. “While the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success.”

Although the chatbot is restricted under the new policy, New York City public schools can request to gain specific access to the tool for AI and tech-related educational purposes.

Education publication ChalkBeat first reported the news.

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research lab behind the tool, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

New York City appears to be the first major school district to crack down on ChatGPT, barely a month after the tool first launched. While there are genuine concerns about how ChatGPT could be used, it’s unclear how widely adopted it is among students. Other districts, meanwhile, appear to be moving more slowly.

Peter Feng, the public information officer for the South San Francisco Unified School District, said the district is aware of the potential for its students to use ChatGPT but it has “not yet instituted an outright ban.” Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the School District of Philadelphia said it has “no knowledge of students using the ChatGPT nor have we received any complaints from principals or teachers.”

OpenAI opened up access to ChatGPT in late November. It is able to provide lengthy, thoughtful and thorough responses to questions and prompts, ranging from factual questions like “Who was the president of the United States in 1955” to more open-ended questions such as “What’s the meaning of life?”

The tool stunned users, including academics and some in the tech industry. ChatGPT is a large language model trained on a massive trove of information online to create its responses. It comes from the same company behind DALL-E, which generates a seemingly limitless range of images in response to prompts from users.

ChatGPT went viral just days after its launch. Open AI co-founder Sam Altman, a prominent Silicon Valley investor, said on Twitter in early December that ChatGPT had topped one million users.

But many educators fear students will use the tool to cheat on assignments. One user, for example, fed ChatGPT an AP English exam question; it responded with a 5 paragraph essay about Wuthering Heights. Another user asked the chat bot to write an essay about the life of William Shakespeare four times; he received a unique version with the same prompt each time.

Darren Hicks, assistant professor of philosophy at Furman University, previously told CNN it will be harder to prove when a student misuses ChatGPT than with other forms of cheating.

“In more traditional forms of plagiarism – cheating off the internet, copy pasting stuff – I can go and find additional proof, evidence that I can then bring into a board hearing,” he said. “In this case, there’s nothing out there that I can point to and say, ‘Here’s the material they took.’”

“It’s really a new form of an old problem where students would pay somebody or get somebody to write their paper for them – say an essay farm or a friend that has taken a course before,” Hicks added. “This is like that only it’s instantaneous and free.”

Feng, from the South San Francisco Unified School District, told CNN that “some teachers have responded to the rise of AI text generators by using tools of their own to check whether work submitted by students has been plagiarized or generated via AI.”

Some companies such as Turnitin – a detection tool that thousands of school districts use to scan the internet for signs of plagiarism – are now looking into how its software could detect the usage of AI generated text in student submissions.

Hicks said teachers will need to rethink assignments so they couldn’t be easily written by the tool. “The bigger issue,” Hicks added, “is going to be administrations who have to figure out how they’re going to adjudicate these kinds of cases.”

– CNN’s Abby Phillip contributed to this report.

CNN
 — 

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced he is expanding a program to accept up to 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela – along with a plan to expel as many migrants from those countries who circumvent US laws – as his administration confronts a surge of migrants at the southern border.

In a speech from the White House, Biden also unveiled plans to visit the US southern border on Sunday, stopping in El Paso, Texas, to meet local officials and address border security issues. It will be his first stop at the border as president.

Biden renewed calls on Congress to pass new immigration laws, arguing his powers to address a growing crisis are limited. He said the politics around border policy and migration often cloud discussions around how to handle migration and crossings at the border.

“It’s important to step back and see the bigger picture,” Biden said, citing the migrants’ desire to seek their own version of the American dream.

The announcements and border visit amount to a surge in presidential attention on an issue that’s increasingly become a political liability for Biden. He has been relentlessly criticized by Republicans and even some border-district Democrats for failing to address record levels of border crossings.

“If the most extreme Republicans continue to demagogue this issue, and reject solutions, I’m left with only one choice … do as much as I can on my own to try to change the atmosphere,” he said.

He said the process he unveiled “is orderly, it’s safe and humane, and it works,” Biden said.

Immigrant advocates, though, immediately denounced the plans, arguing that it risks leaving more migrants in harm’s way in Mexico and is likely to exclude people with no connections to the US.

“Opening up new limited pathways for a small percentage of people does not obscure the fact that the Biden administration is illegally and immorally gutting access to humanitarian protections for the majority of people who have already fled their country seeking freedom and safety,” International Refugee Assistance Project Policy Director Sunil Varghese said in a statement.

The president acknowledged in his remarks the steps he was taking were not enough to remedy the problem but framed them as an effort to use his executive powers to manage the swelling crisis.

“These actions alone that I’m going to announce today aren’t going to fix our entire immigration system, but they can help us a good deal in better managing what is a difficult challenge,” he said.

The announcements come ahead of Biden’s first visit as president to Mexico, where he will discuss migration issues with the country’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The Biden administration is leaning on Mexico and other countries in the Western Hemisphere to provide temporary protections to migrants who have fled their home countries.

“We should all recognize that as long as America is the land of freedom and opportunity, people are going to try to come here,” Biden said in his remarks. “And that’s what many of our ancestors did. And it’s no surprise that it’s happening again today. We can’t stop people from making the journey, but we can require them to come here in an orderly way.”

Administration officials have repeatedly stressed unprecedented migration across the Western Hemisphere as deteriorating conditions were exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, prompting thousands of people to move north.

In Texas on Sunday, Biden will arrive at the epicenter of the issue. El Paso began seeing record levels of migrant arrivals beginning a few weeks ago, when anxiety about the scheduled end of the Trump-era pandemic public health rule known as Title 42 prompted thousands of migrants to turn themselves in to border authorities or to cross into the United States illegally in a very short period of time.

Title 42 allows immigration authorities to swiftly return some migrants to Mexico. The policy was scheduled to lift last month, but a Supreme Court ruling kept the rule in place while legal challenges play out in court.

Biden said he wanted to wait until he knew an outcome in the Title 42 legal machinations before traveling to the border, but accused Republicans calling for him to travel there of playing political games.

“They haven’t been serious about this at all,” he said.

Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents El Paso, said in a tweet she’s “excited” to welcome Biden to the city. While she didn’t place a big emphasis on Biden visiting the border, she made clear she welcomed it in recent weeks and urged the federal government to provide assistance to the city.

The announcements Biden made Thursday reflect the administration’s effort to prepare for the end of Title 42, along with putting in place programs to manage the surge of migrants that have coincided with the anticipated end of the rule.

The administration will now accept up to 30,000 migrants per month from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela under a humanitarian parole program geared toward those nationalities. Those who do not come to the US under that program may be expelled to Mexico under Title 42.

Officials said they would return 30,000 migrants per month who circumvent the legal processes to Mexico.

Migrants from those countries who wish to come to the United States must apply from their home countries first – including through a phone app – before traveling to the US. They must have a US sponsor, and, if they are approved, can travel by plane.

Administration officials previously touted the parole program for Venezuela following its rollout late last year, attributing a drop in border crossings of Venezuelans to the policy. For months, officials have been considering expanding the program to other nationalities to try to manage the flow of migration to the US southern border, culminating in Thursday’s announcement.

The Department of Homeland Security also announced it will propose a new rule placing additional restrictions on migrants seeking asylum in the United States. If approved, the new rule will target asylum seekers who unlawfully entered the US and failed to seek protection in a country through which they traveled on their way to the US.

Those asylum seekers will be subject to a “rebuttable presumption of asylum ineligibility,” except in certain circumstances, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said during a press conference.

Officials said the announcements are meant to send a message to migrants that they should apply for entry to the United States before leaving their home countries, and that circumventing the process will result in expulsion.

“My message is this: If you’re trying to leave Cuba, Nicaragua or Haiti, have agreed to begin a journey to America, do not – do not – just show up at the border,” Biden said. “Stay where you are and apply legally. Starting today, if you don’t apply through the legal process, you will not be eligible for this new parole program.”

In addition, Biden announced new humanitarian assistance to Mexico and Central America.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

Editor’s Note: Michael Fanone, a former Washington, DC police officer who was injured during the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, is the author of a memoir, “Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul.” He is a CNN law enforcement analyst. The opinions expressed here are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.

CNN
 — 

If Republicans can finally agree on a speaker, the same GOP leaders who spread former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election – and who have consistently downplayed the grave threat to the nation posed by the January 6, 2021 insurrection carried out in his name – will take the reins of power in the House.

Whoever assumes the role will be the leader of what the last few days have shown is likely to be a fractious, even ungovernable, Republican caucus.

But they’ll be getting no sympathy from me: This week marks two years since the most violent day of my law enforcement career, when I almost died defending the US Capitol from armed insurrectionists who tried to overthrow our government – the same violent uprising that House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and many others in his party continue to downplay. The violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol two years ago, almost taking my life, ignored my pleas that I have kids.

Unfortunately, the nation faces as great a risk from political violence as ever, fueled by inflammatory speech and a refusal by many politicians on the right to acknowledge the ongoing spasms of extremism and conspiracy.

And the conspiracists have a sizable swath of the public on their side: Politically-motivated attacks are on the rise across the nation and millions of Americans now believe that the use of force would be justified to restore Trump to the presidency. It’s important to reverse this dangerous trend.

McCarthy once told me that he couldn’t control the “fringe members” of the party on January 6. But these members are no longer the fringe: they are on the cusp of taking control of the House, and will have unprecedented influence in the 118th Congress. Whoever takes over the top spot, House leadership has a duty to reject the dangerous rhetoric that has led, and will continue to lead, to political violence here at home.

The incoming GOP House leadership must find the backbone to condemn political violence and hateful rhetoric incited by members of their own party. And that starts with finally denouncing Trump, who remains to this day the Republican Party’s de facto leader. The incoming Speaker and the House leadership must demand that members of their party never again amplify language or take actions that put the lives of their constituents, their peers or law enforcement at risk.

There has been no shortage of such reprehensible behavior in recent months, starting with McCarthy himself. As GOP leader, McCarthy once vehemently condemned then-President Trump for his role in ginning up the rioters who stormed the Capitol – and then swallowed those words of condemnation several days later. He traveled to Mar-a-Lago – presumably with one eye on the speaker’s gavel he had coveted for so long – pandering both to the defeated president and election deniers in his own caucus.

Since then, influential GOP House members have called the January 6 assault a “normal tourist visit.” Some have called for former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s execution for treason and shared antisemitic messages on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

And that’s just to name a few examples. Without long overdue intervention by Republican top brass, the frightening trend towards violent rhetoric seems certain to continue.

Our leaders’ statements and actions have consequences. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has said that the insurrection on January 6 “would’ve been armed” if she had planned it – the same kind of heated rhetoric Trump used to rile up his supporters before they stormed the Capitol. (She later claimed that she was being sarcastic, and that the comment had been made in jest.)

Many of her rightwing allies in the House have promoted the baseless, unhinged conspiracy theory around “grooming.” Small wonder, in the wake of such outlandish statements, that irate protesters are overrunning story hour at their local libraries, and calling for the banning of books from neighborhood schools.

The examples of recent acts of violence that appear to have been instigated by right-wing rhetoric are almost too numerous to name. MAGA rhetoric fueled the attack at the home of former Speaker Pelosi and the vandalization last month – allegedly by anti-LGBTQ activists – of the homes of three New York council members over opposition to drag queen story hour at libraries in the city.

Rep. Matt Gaetz encouraged voters to arm themselves at polls, and armed intimidation did take place as voters cast their ballots. Research has even shown that MAGA Republicans are more likely than others – including GOP moderates – to endorse violence as usually or always justified to advance their political objectives. And after agents searched Mar-a-Lago, Twitter posts threatening the FBI saw a dramatic spike.

Over-the-top rhetoric by GOP lawmakers is troubling enough. Unfortunately their extremist views also have been all-too-evident in their voting records. That includes the 147 members of Congress who voted against the results of 2020’s free and fair election and the 35 House Republicans who voted against the creation of the January 6th Commission.

And – what was for me a personal affront – there were 21 Republican members who, in an unconscionable action, voted against DC and Capitol Police officers like me receiving the presidential medal of freedom for our role defending the Capitol during the insurrection.

It might surprise some people who didn’t know me before January 6, but I’ve never considered myself to be a political person. Yes, I voted for Trump in 2016, after being turned off by the anti-police rhetoric on the left.

And sure, I dipped my toe into the last election, to oppose a few Trump-inspired candidates who I thought posed a danger to democracy. But I’ve never believed in politicians; I believe in people. And that is why I’m supporting two new groups demanding sanity and accountability from our elected politicians.

This week, at an event calling on lawmakers to ramp up the fight against political violence, I’ll join veterans, members of Congress, and the group Courage for America, (which I’ve helped to found and have a leadership role in). Courage for America is joining forces with another, new group Common Defense to call for a renewed effort to combat the kind of right-wing violence that almost ended my life. The planned venue for the event is the Capitol reflecting pool, where just two years ago, MAGA supporters erected a noose which they threatened they’d use to hang the nation’s Vice President, amid chants by the rioters of ”

hang Mike Pence.”

As a kid growing up, I was always a bit of a troublemaker; law enforcement turned out to be the perfect landing spot for a rambunctious kid without a clear sense of direction. Becoming a cop taught me to stand up for what’s right, and being an investigator taught me to keep revising and refining the conclusions I drew, as I gathered additional information.

In the past couple of years since leaving policing, some of the conclusions I’ve drawn have had to do with the former president who set the disastrous riot on January 6 in motion. And a lot of my now-negative opinions about him, not surprisingly, have to do with the emotional and physical trauma that I and my brother and sister officers suffered that day. Values I’d always lived by as an officer – like “back the blue” – were literally hurled back at me by the same mob that was viciously trying to cut us down.

At that moment, even though I was surrounded by violent, shouting protesters, all I could see were my kids’ faces: My four daughters are the ones I’m speaking out for.

I want them to be able to live in a country where elected officials are accountable to the people they serve. Condemning political violence isn’t a partisan issue. It’s a moral one.

I had hoped, as many others did, that outrage and horror over the insurrection would encourage Americans to unify around what should be a shared belief – that political violence has no place in our society. It’s up to Republican leaders to join other Americans who disavow such behavior and the despotic former president who inspired it.

CNN
 — 

Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin is awake in a Cincinnati hospital, is neurologically sound and is moving his hands and feet, doctors said Thursday, news that has drawn relief and joy from supporters nationwide days after the 24-year-old’s in-game cardiac arrest.

And his first question upon awakening?

“Did we win?” Hamlin scribbled on a clipboard, according to Dr. Timothy Pritts, vice chair for clinical operations at UC Health.

“Yes, Damar, you won. You’ve won the game of life,” Pritts said at a news conference in Cincinnati Thursday afternoon, paraphrasing the response of one of his medical partners.

Hamlin remains on a ventilator, and has been communicating with yes and no answers by shaking his head, nodding or writing brief notes, according to Pritts.

“So, we know that it’s not only that the lights are on, we know that he’s home. And that it appears all cylinders are firing within his brain,” Pritts said.

FOLLOW LIVE UPDATES

Hamlin has been treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center since Monday night, when he collapsed in the first quarter of Monday night’s Bills game against the host Cincinnati Bengals, stunning the packed stadium and leading to the contest’s postponement.

Associates of Hamlin, who had been sedated and intubated, spread news Thursday morning that he had awoken, though details about precisely when he awoke wasn’t immediately available. He has been holding hands with family in the hospital, his agent Ron Butler told CNN Thursday.

Hamlin still is critically ill, Pritts said, but his condition has improved substantially in the last 24 hours, and “it appears his neurological condition and function is intact,” Pritts said.

“This marks a really good turning point in his ongoing care,” Pritts said. “There are many, many steps still ahead of him. From our standpoint, we would like to see him continue to improve, to be completely breathing on his own and to be ready to be discharged from the hospital.”

Hamlin was resuscitated and intubated on the field, according to Dr. William Knight IV, a professor with the University of Cincinnati’s department of emergency medicine. It is still unclear what caused Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, and the NFL will investigate what could have led to it, its Chief Medical Officer Dr. Allen Sills said Wednesday.

Thursday’s news drew tweets of celebration from around the league and beyond, including from President Joe Biden.

“Great news. Damar, like I told your mom and dad yesterday, Jill and I – along with all of America – are praying for you and your family,” Biden posted on Twitter.

Details about Hamlin’s condition come as NFL players contemplate an emotional return to the field this weekend, with all 32 teams set for their final scheduled regular-season games this Saturday and Sunday.

The Bills, scheduled to host the Patriots on Sunday, met Wednesday and were set to hold their first practice of the week Thursday. Players – already reeling from last year’s racist mass shooting and the recent deadly blizzard in their hometown – felt encouraged and emotional when Hamlin’s father, Mario Hamlin, did a Zoom call with the team Wednesday and said his son was making progress, a source in the Bills organization told CNN on Thursday.

The Bills on Thursday afternoon plan to hold their first news conference since Hamlin was injured, the team posted on Twitter.

No decision has been made on whether to resume Monday’s game – halted with the Bengals leading 7-3 – NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy told CNN on Thursday.

Some of this weekend’s games – and perhaps the postponed Bills-Bengals game, if it is ever made up – will have implications for the approaching NFL playoffs. The Bills (12-3) and Bengals (11-4) in particular have already clinched playoff spots but are jockeying for higher seeds in the American Football Conference.

Since his hospitalization, Hamlin has gotten a nationwide outpouring of support from fans and players across pro sports, including more than $7 million donated to his foundation’s toy drive GoFundMe as of Thursday morning. Several athletes have donned Hamlin’s No. 3 or his jersey while teams have honored him through Jumbotron messages and light displays at their stadiums.

Hamlin collapsed shortly after a collision in which a Bengals receiver tried to power past Hamlin, who’d approached for a tackle, with about six minutes remaining in the first quarter of Monday’s game. Hamlin still twisted the receiver to the ground and stood up – but within seconds fell and lay motionless.

His heartbeat was restored on the field, the Bills have said, before he was ferried from the stadium in an ambulance while stunned and visibly emotional players and fans looked on.

Hamlin not only was sedated but was on a ventilator and also was “flipped over on his stomach” in the hospital to help relieve some of the strain on his lungs, which were damaged, his uncle Dorrian Glenn told CNN on Tuesday. Details about what ailed Hamlin’s lungs weren’t available.

Before news spread Thursday that Hamlin was alert, some in the league had been openly assessing their readiness to play this weekend.

Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow told reporters Wednesday he “probably wants to play” Sunday’s Bengals-Ravens game, but there may be others who don’t.

“I’m sure if you polled the locker room, there’d be mixed votes on that,” Burrow said. “Personally, I think playing is going to be tough … I think getting back to as normal as you can as fast as you can is personally how I kind of deal with these kinds of things. But … everyone has a different way of dealing with it.”

Among those who rushed to the Cincinnati hospital after Hamlin collapsed was Indianapolis Colts safety Rodney Thomas II, one of Hamlin’s childhood friends. Thomas visited while Hamlin was sedated and intubated this week, he said.

There is “no doubt in my mind” Hamlin will recover, Thomas told reporters Wednesday.

“I know he could hear me,” Thomas said, adding he held Hamlin’s hand. “Even if he couldn’t hear me, it didn’t matter. I said what I had to say.”

“Just basically (I said) that I love him, and I’ve got his back, and I’ll see him in a little bit,” Thomas added Thursday to “CNN This Morning” before news circulated that Hamlin was awake.

Hamlin and Thomas, who became close friends as high school teammates in Pittsburgh, spoke daily and had talked Monday before Hamlin’s collapse. Seeing his friend soon after the in-game incident “calmed me way down,” Thomas said Wednesday. “It made the trip home a lot easier. I could go home and know he’s gonna be straight. I got him. We all got him. Everybody’s behind him.”

Thomas, whose Colts host the Texans on Sunday, said each team needs to “trust that everybody would just make the best decision moving forward, whether that’s playing, whether that’s not playing.”

“Player-wise … just the world in general, we’re all just one heartbeat right now … all waiting for Damar just to get healthy,” Thomas told CNN Thursday.

Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, on Wednesday addressed theories that Hamlin’s cardiac arrest could have been caused by commotio cordis, which occurs when severe trauma to the chest disrupts the heart’s electrical charge, causing dangerous fibrillations.

“You have to have the right type of blow hitting at the right spot on the chest with the right amount of force at just the right time in that cardiac cycle,” he said in Wednesday’s call with reporters. “So, a lot of things have to line up for that to happen,” he said, emphasizing that while it is possible, investigators will consider all options.

Any time a player is evacuated from the field, the NFL and its medical experts perform a detailed review of what happened, Sills said. They also examine the role protective equipment may have played, he said.

In some cases, the medical team will not be able to determine what caused the problem, Sills said.

Sills attributed the “transformational response” of medical personnel when Hamlin collapsed to a “60-minute meeting” that is held among medical teams and NFL officials before every game. During the meeting, teams identify the location of medical equipment and nearby medical centers, and establish a chain of command in case of an emergency, including cardiac arrest, among other things.

Hamlin’s collapse is the latest in a string of recent tragedies to have struck the community of Buffalo and its beloved football team, including a racist mass shooting and a historic blizzard that left at least 41 people dead in Erie County, New York.

A high-ranking official within the Bills organization told CNN’s Coy Wire that they broke down in tears after day and night-long meetings on Tuesday, sobbing because of the heaviness of the situation.

The series of difficult blows to Buffalo have emotionally piled up within the organization, the source said, adding that through it all, the team has tried to be a source of strength for the city.

The performance of Buffalo Sabres hockey forward Tage Thompson on Tuesday night was a “glimmer of hope” at a time when the team needs inspiration, the source said.

Hamlin’s jersey No. 3, was a recurring motif throughout the game, played on January 3. Thompson’s three goals during overtime brought the Sabres a win. It was Thompson’s third hat trick of the season and his third goal came fortuitously in the third minute of overtime.

The Sabres also wore “Love for 3” T-shirts honoring Hamlin before the game.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Hamlin’s agent Ron Butler’s first name.