I got an invitation from Access Parkour in Edinburgh. Could I do something impressive with just one day’s training? Well …
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As the first week of 2023 comes to a close, some stocks are already outperforming. A mixed set of economic data released this week has prompted rocky trading as investors try to predict how the Federal Reserve will move interest rates this year. Friday’s closely-watched December jobs data showed employment growth was hotter than economists forecast, while hourly wage growth was lower than expected. Data earlier in the week on job openings and manufacturing was similarly mixed. That’s created a varied landscape for stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S & P 500 are on pace to add 0.8% and 0.5% this week. On the other hand, the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite is poised to shed 0.4%. Some individual stocks are lapping the Dow and S & P 500’s modest gains. The following chart shows some of the biggest advancers this week in terms of share value, according to FactSet. The data is current through Friday’s market open. Warner Bros. Discovery is the best performer this week, on track to advance 13.9%. The media company came out of the merger WarnerMedia and Discovery last year . Shares slumped about 60% in 2022. About two out of every five analysts rate the stock a buy. After last year drawdown, the average analyst expects WBD shares to rise about 82% in the next 12 months. If the average price target was met, the stock would more than double from where it closed 2022. WBD 1Y mountain Warner Bros Discovery over 1 year Runner-up Western Digital is posting about a 12.6% return. The stock rallied Thursday after Bloomberg reported the digital storage provider restarted merger discussions with competitor Kioxia. Western lost about 52% in 2022 as demand for memory storage technology fell. Like Warner Bros. Discovery, about two out of every five analysts rate WDC a buy, with an average upside of 20.4%. Wynn Resorts also gained big this week, rising 11.5% so far. Just about every other analyst rates the stock a buy, and the average analyst expects a 4.3% upside for the stock. Wynn lost about 3% in 2022, outperforming the S & P 500 as travel demand increased. Investors have grown optimistic over how a more robust rollback of Covid restrictions in China could help Wynn and other travel stocks with exposure to China. China announced it would scrap quarantine requirements for inbound travelers starting this month. Wells Fargo named Wynn a top tactical idea earlier this week, noting China’s move toward reopening as a catalyst. Further down the list, Lamb Weston added 10%. The french-fry maker posted better-than-expected earnings per share and revenue in the second quarter on Thursday. Lamb Weston also lifted its full-year guidance for earnings per share, revenue and EBITDA, which investors cheered given broader concerns that earnings will slide if the economy slows further in 2022. More than three out of every five analysts rate Lamb Weston a buy with an average price target reflecting upside of about 6%. The stock jumped 40% last year, avoiding the 2022 market downturn, reversing course after sliding during the first two years of the pandemic. General Electric is closely behind, with a 9.9% gain. On Wednesday, the company completed its spinoff of GE Healthcare, which now trades on Nasdaq under the ticker GEHC. More than 50% of analysts rate GE a buy, but the average price target shows it losing about 1% in the next 12 months. That would mark another year of losses, as General Electric fell more than 11% in 2022.
The Intercept
As the Texas National Guard cordons off a gap in the U.S. border wall, migrants wait on the banks of the Rio Grande on Dec. 20, 2022.
Photo: Morgan Lee/AP
“Cruelty is the point” — a phrase coined by The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer — became a popular liberal refrain to describe the motivations behind what, at the time, Democrats called intolerable Trump-era policies. President Donald Trump’s moves to detain and deport immigrants at the southern border, including tearing families apart as policy, were highlighted as key justifications for the catchphrase.
There’s no doubt that a gleeful viciousness attended the Trump administration’s decisions to round up, cage, and expel desperate, nonwhite migrants.
Cruelty is, however, more than an affect.
The United States border regime is cruel whether or not its maintenance is enforced by a president spewing racist slurs or a president appealing to the need for “safe and orderly processing” while he announces a plan to turn away thousands of migrants en masse — as President Joe Biden did on Thursday.
The Biden administration unveiled a blanket policy to immediately eject asylum-seekers from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua who cross the border from Mexico without having previously applied for asylum in a third country — which means obtaining a financial sponsor in the U.S. and going through a background check.
The same “transit ban” policy is already in place for migrants from Venezuela, an extension of the Title 42 measure deployed by the Trump administration in the first year of the pandemic as a way to turn away migrants under the guise of public health. In some nine months under Trump, nearly half a million people were removed under the law; keeping the law around for two years, the Biden administration has already used it to deport over 2 million.
It should be obvious that no amount of anti-immigrant policy will be enough for the white supremacist right.
Biden’s border regime would be no more acceptable if it were a political ploy aimed at insulating Democrats from “law and order” attacks by the right, but it isn’t even that: Republicans have made clear that they will paint Biden as an “open border” president, regardless of how harshly Trumpian his border policies remain. It should be obvious that no amount of anti-immigrant policy will be enough for the white supremacist right.
Yet it would be misplaced to understand anti-immigrant moves made by the Biden White House as simply failed efforts to appease the right. Democratic presidents, particularly so-called deporter-in-chief Barack Obama, have long opted for hard-line border rule.
Democrats couch their border logics in the neoliberal language of management and order, rather than explicitly racist “America First” slogans. The maintenance of the border as a racist, spatial fix for capital, though, has the same disastrous, deadly effects no matter the rhetoric with which it’s justified.
On Thursday, Biden pitched his border plan as a way to bring order to chaos, with between 7,500 to 8,000 refugees crossing the U.S.-Mexico border every day in December. The wealthiest country in the world could respond to this mass movement by working with direct service providers on the ground and providing sufficient resources to swiftly resettle those fleeing political turmoil — turmoil for which the U.S. carries significant historic responsibility.
Instead, the burden of this order is being placed on those fleeing for their own survival, with the alleged right to claim asylum at port of entry reserved only for those with the ability to apply and secure a U.S. sponsor before they reach the border.
“The right to asylum should not hinge on your manner of flight from danger or your financial means,” said Mary Miller Flowers, the senior policy analyst at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, in a statement. “Yet, for far too long, seeking safety is treated as a privilege for a select few, and the Biden administration’s cherry-picking of who can and cannot access protection proves this.”
The White House’s latest policy does include some carrot alongside the stick of mass, immediate expulsions. The U.S. will offer humanitarian parole for up to 30,000 asylum-seekers per month from Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela who have already applied for asylum while crossing Mexico, before reaching the border; gone through a background check; and secured a U.S. fiscal sponsor.
As Jonathan Blazer, the American Civil Liberties Union’s director of border strategies, put it in a statement on Thursday: “There is simply no reason why the benefits of a new parole program for Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians must be conditioned on the expansion of dangerous expulsions.”
The Biden administration continues to claim to stand against Title 42. Within minutes of announcing his latest Title 42-based expulsion plan, Biden told reporters on Thursday, “I don’t like Title 42.” The government has also fought to end the measure in court — an effort that was most recently rejected by the Supreme Court at the end of December.
The danger in the administration’s border policy lies in what it serves: an ideological commitment to immigration deterrence.
At the same time, however, the administration has deployed and continued to expand Title 42’s use to expedite migrant expulsion.
“The Supreme Court’s decision on Title 42 last week did not direct the Biden administration to apply the Title 42 expulsions to more people,” noted immigrant rights group Freedom for Immigrants, calling out the administration’s “Title 42 hypocrisy.”
Such hypocrisy has been the modus operandi when it comes to Biden and his Democratic predecessors’ approach to the border, and hypocrisy in and of itself is not the problem here.
The danger in the administration’s border policy lies in what it serves: an ideological commitment to immigration deterrence — not a prevarication over legal process, but a choice to condemn millions of predominantly Black and brown people to suffering and proximity to death. Cruelty is the constant.
The post Biden’s Border Plan Drapes Trump Policies in Liberal Rhetoric appeared first on The Intercept.
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The full concert lineup for the 2023 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has been announced.
Every year, the rodeo each night is followed by a concert. This year, Zac Brown Band, Jason Aldean, Machine Gun Kelly, Kenny Chesney and Luke Bryan are all among those who will take the stage.
The first concert of the season will kick off Feb. 28 with country music artist Parker McCollum.
ZAC BROWN BAND ADDS FIRST FEMALE BAND MEMBER CAROLINE JONES: SHE’S A ‘BADA–MUSICIAN’
The 2023 rodeo and concerts will wrap up on March 19, with a show from Luke Bryan.
Brooks & Dunn, Walker Hayes, Jon Pardi, Ashley McBryde, The Chainsmokers and Brad Paisley are also acts that will be performing in March.
Tickets for the event in Houston will be going on sale Jan. 12 in two waves. The first wave at 10 a.m. will be for performances taking place between Feb. 28 and March 9. The second wave will be at 2 p.m. for shows happening between March 10 and March 19.
2023 RodeoHouston Lineup:
Tuesday, February 28: Parker McCollum
Wednesday, March 1: Brooks & Dunn
Thursday, March 2: Lauren Daigle
Friday, March 3: Bun B
Saturday, March 4: Walker Hayes
Sunday, March 5: Zac Brown Band
Monday, March 6: Jason Aldean
Tuesday, March 7: New Kids on the Block
Wednesday, March 8: Jon Pardi
Thursday, March 9: Ashley McBryde
Friday, March 10: The Chainsmokers
Saturday, March 11: Turnpike Troubadours
Sunday, March 12: La Fiera de Ojinaga
Monday, March 13: Cody Jinks
Tuesday, March 14: Machine Gun Kelly
Wednesday, March 15: Kenny Chesney
Thursday, March 16: Chris Stapleton
Friday, March 17: Cody Johnson
Saturday, March 18: Brad Paisley
Sunday, March 19: Luke Bryan
BBC News world
Image caption,
Brazilian surfing legend Márcio Freire has died while surfing the huge waves in Nazaré off the coast of Portugal.
The 47-year-old fell while practising on Thursday.
Freire was one of three pioneering Brazilian surfers featured in the 2016 documentary, Mad Dogs, about an attempt to conquer the giant “Jaws” wave in Hawaii.
He had moved to the US state to surf the biggest and most dangerous waves in the world.
According to reports, Freire was practising tow-in surfing – where surfers use artificial assistance, such as a Jet Ski, to catch faster moving waves than they would be able to if they were paddling by hand – when he fell.
Image caption,
He was taken back to the beach; there, rescuers found him in cardio-respiratory arrest, but he was unable to be revived and was pronounced dead at the scene, Portugal’s National Maritime Authority said in a statement.
Freire was seen as a big-wave pioneer in the surfing community, who travelled the world to surf giant waves.
“We didn’t have any safety. It was pure courage guided by the desire to go down a huge wave,” he is quoted as saying in Mad Dogs by Surfer Today.
“The risks were many without proper safety. If an accident happened, it would be the end of the journey.
“Nothing forced us to do what we did. It was all for ourselves, for our personal satisfaction.”
Tributes have been pouring in on social media, starting with fellow big-wave professional surfer Nic von Rupp, who paid tribute to Freire in an Instagram story:
“Today we lost one of ours. Always had loads of respect for Márcio as one of the paddle pioneers at jaws. Today I saw him surf all day in Nazare with a huge smile.
“With that smile is how I’m going to remember him.”
Fellow Brazilian surfer Thiago Jacare also paid tribute to his friend on Instagram, calling him “more than an idol” and “a true hero”.
The area where Freire died boasts some of the biggest and most terrifying waves in the world, caused by the Nazaré Canyon on the seabed off the coast of Portugal.
It was in Nazaré where German surfer Sebastian Steudtner set the world record for the biggest wave ever surfed in October 2020.
Several accidents have occurred there but until Thursday, none had ever been fatal.
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A newly unsealed filing in the murders of four University of Idaho students includes several pieces of a puzzle that depict a blurry picture of what happened inside an off-campus house in Moscow on Nov. 13.
Police believe Bryan Kohberger fatally stabbed Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Kernodle’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin between 4 and 4:25 a.m., according to a probable cause affidavit that was released Thursday.
That time frame can be narrowed down to a 16-minute window between 4:04 a.m. and 4:20 a.m.
The first time is when police see what they believe is Kohberger’s white Hyundai Elantra driving into the area, and the second time is when the same car is seen on a security camera speeding away.
IDAHO MURDERS: BRYAN KOHBERGER HELD WITHOUT BOND IN STUDENT SLAYINGS AMID CHILLING NEW DETAILS
By about 4 a.m. on Nov. 13, the occupants of the King Road house that night – the four victims and two survivors identified in the affidavit as D.M. and B.F. – were asleep, except for Kernodle, who received a DoorDash delivery around that time, according to the affidavit.
A 2015 white Hyundai Elantra, believed to be driven by Kohberger, is seen driving into the area, according to the affidavit. Police said it was the fourth time he passed by the house that morning, starting at 3:29 a.m.
“It can be seen driving eastbound on King Road, stopping and turning around in front of 500 Queen Road #52 and then driving back westbound on King Road. When Suspect Vehicle I is in front of the King Road Residence, it appeared to unsuccessfully attempt to park or tum around in the road,” the affidavit says.
“The vehicle then continued to the intersection of Queen Road and King Road where it can be seen completing a three-point tum and then driving eastbound again down Queen Road.”
UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO MURDERS TIMELINE: WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE SLAUGHTER OF FOUR STUDENTS
The filing didn’t include a specific time when Kohberger allegedly entered the house, but it included three major actions during this time frame.
The first was D.M. waking up at about 4 a.m. to what sounded like Goncalves playing with her dog, but a “short time later, D.M. said she heard who she thought was Goncalves say something to the effect of ‘there’s someone here,'” the affidavit says.
“A review of records obtained from a forensic download of Kernodle’s phone showed this could also have been Kernodle as her cellular phone indicated she was likely awake and using the TikTok app at approximately 4:12 a.m,” according to the affidavit.
D.M. looked out of her bedroom but didn’t see anyone. She opened her door again when she heard crying from Kernodle’s room and “a male voice say something to the effect of, ‘it’s ok, I’m going to help you,'” the affidavit says.
READ THE AFFIDAVIT BELOW. APP USERS: CLICK HERE
Finally, D.M. opened her door a third time and saw “a male figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose walking towards her,” according to the affidavit.
“D.M. described the figure as 5’10” or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows. The male walked past D.M. as she stood in a ‘frozen shock phase.’ The male walked towards the back sliding glass door. D.M. locked herself in her room after seeing the male.”
She told police that she didn’t recognize him.
A security camera located less than 50 feet from Kernodle’s bedroom picked up “distorted audio of what sounded like voices or a whimper followed by a loud thud” and a dog can be heard barking. Goncalves’ dog was found in her bedroom when police responded later that day.
The white Elantra, which hadn’t been seen since 4:04 a.m., drives from King Road “at a high rate of speed,” the affidavit says.
Kohberger was ultimately arrested in late December in his parents’ Pennsylvania home and then extradited to face charges in Moscow that include four counts of murder and felony burglary.
The Moscow Police Department continues to urge the public to submit any images or information that they think could be important or useful to their investigation. They can do so by calling 208-883-7180, submitting tips through [email protected] and sending digital media here.
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The West continues to get hammered with more rain, wind and mountain snow, with another batch moving on Friday and more of the same forecast on Monday.
PHOTOS SHOW HAWAII’S KILAUEA VOLCANO ERUPTING AGAIN
Heavy snow will pile up across the intermountain West and the Rockies.
The rest of the country is fairly quiet, with showers and some snow moving out of the Northeast.
Temperatures remain above average for the East and the South.
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Wet weather was continuing on Friday in California, where a dangerous atmospheric river storm damaged piers, flooded homes and contributed to the deaths of at least two people.
Tracker PowerOutage.Us showed more than 70,000 customers were still without power on Friday around noon ET.
The National Weather Service cautioned that impacts would still bring strong winds into the weekend, as well as scattered instances of flash flooding for the coastal ranges.
The excessive rainfall was forecast to shift southward toward the central portions of the state, although more rain in northern California was expected to exacerbate flooding concerns due to over-saturated soil.
PHOTOS SHOW HAWAII’S KILAUEA VOLCANO ERUPTING AGAIN
The high elevations of the Sierra Nevada will also experience more heavy snow as the system edges eastward.
The agency’s Bay Area office said that, in addition to flooding, residents could anticipate gusty winds, downed trees and more power outages.
In Sacramento, the office there warned of the risks of mud and rock slides over the weekend, with hazardous travel conditions.
“Light-moderate showers will be possible today, before widespread precipitation returns this weekend and next week,” it tweeted.
On Friday night, the California Highway Patrol in South Lake Tahoe said that SR-88 was closed for an “undetermined amount of time due to heavy snow, limited visibility and extreme avalanche danger.”
Some evacuation orders were lifted on Thursday and crews worked to assess the damage and restore power.
Two historic piers were casualties of raging seas as the “Pineapple Express” storm lashed the West Coast, pulled by a rotating area of rapidly falling air pressure known as a “bomb cyclone.”
CALIFORNIA STORM LEAVES AT LEAST 1 DEAD, BRINGS DANGEROUS FLOODING AND POWERFUL WINDS
In Sonoma County, 2-year-old Aeon Tocchini was killed when a redwood tree fell on his family’s mobile home.
County authorities issued an evacuation warning for several towns along the Russian River, where greater flooding was expected by Sunday.
In Fairfield, police said a 19-year-old woman died after her vehicle hydroplaned on a flooded road and hit a utility pole.
In Capitola, waves forecast to top 25 feet crashed into homes and restaurants.
In south San Francisco, hurricane-strength gusts as high as 101 mph sent trees toppling and blew the roof off a gas station.
A California Highway Patrol officer responding to a crash on Highway 17 in San Jose was injured after a tree fell on him, officer Ross Lee said. The officer was expected to survive.
Sections of Highway 101 were closed due to trees and rockfall shuttered parts of Highway 1.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Latest & Breaking News on Fox News
Prince Harry lost his virginity in a field behind a pub, to an older woman who treated him like “a young stallion.”
The claim was made by the Duke of Sussex in his explosive memoir, “Spare,” which will be released on Jan. 10. The book has already been available for sale in Spain, where several outlets obtained a Spanish language copy.
In the book, the 38-year-old says the open-air tryst occurred when he was a student at Eton in 2001. The youngest son of King Charles III would have been 17 at the time.
“Inglorious episode,” wrote Harry, as quoted by Page Six. “She liked horses, quite a lot, and treated me not unlike a young stallion.”
ELIZABETH HURLEY SPEAKS OUT ON RUMORS THAT SHE TOOK PRINCE HARRY’S VIRGINITY WHEN HE WAS A TEENAGER
“Quick ride, after which she’d smacked my rump and sent me to grace,” he shared. “Among the many things about it that were wrong. It happened in a grassy field behind a busy pub.”
The British prince didn’t identify the mystery woman. For years, it was suspected that he lost his virginity to Elizabeth Hurley, who is 19 years older than him. However, the British model and actress, now 57, has vehemently denied the speculation.
In November, “Real Housewives” alum Catherine Ommanney claimed she had a month-long-fling with Harry when she was a 34-year-old mother of two. She noted that he was 21 at the time.
“A relationship was the furthest thing from my mind,” she added.
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Harry dated Zimbabwean businesswoman Chelsy Davy, 37, on and off from 2004 to 2011. He was also romantically linked to Caroline Flack, an English TV presenter who passed away in 2020 at age 40, as well as Camila Romestrand and Ellie Goulding, before he embarked on a relationship with Meghan Markle in 2016.
Markle, an American actress who starred in the legal drama “Suits,” became the Duchess of Sussex when she married Harry in 2018.
The sexual encounter wasn’t the only memory the father of two recalls from his partying years. In the book, Harry says he took cocaine several times at age 17 in order “to feel” and “to be different.” He also acknowledged using cannabis and magic mushrooms, which made him hallucinate that a toilet was talking to him.
In addition, Harry makes some revelations from the time he served in the military. He spent a decade in the British Army, serving twice in Afghanistan. He claims that on his second tour, as an Apache helicopter co-pilot and gunner in 2012 and 2013, he killed 25 Taliban militants. Harry says that he felt neither satisfaction nor shame about his actions, and in the heat of battle regarded enemy combatants as pieces being removed from a chessboard, “Baddies eliminated before they could kill Goodies.”
Veterans have criticized the comments, which they suggest could increase the security risk for Harry. Retired Col. Richard Kemp said it was “an error of judgment,” and regarding enemy fighters as chess pieces is “not the way the British Army trains people.”
“I think that sort of comment, that doesn’t reflect reality, is misleading and potentially valuable to those people who wish the British forces and British government harm,” he told the BBC.
The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi called the Western invasion of Afghanistan “odious” and said Harry’s comments “are a microcosm of the trauma experienced by Afghans at the hands of occupation forces who murdered innocents without any accountability.”
While Harry’s many revelations have electrified the British media, Buckingham Palace has put up a wall of silence.
Palace officials have declined to comment on any of the allegations made by Harry. A spokesperson for Charles, 74, didn’t immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. A spokesperson for Kensington Palace, which represents Prince William and Kate Middleton, told Fox News Digital they don’t have a comment.
Harry’s story is dominated by his rivalry with his elder brother, who is heir to the throne, and the death of their mother, Princess Diana, in 1997. Harry, who was 12 at the time, has never forgiven the media for Diana’s death in a car crash while being pursued by photographers. She was 36 at the time of her death.
The loss of his mother haunts the book, which Harry dedicates to his wife, 41, as well as his two children “and, of course, my mother.”
The opening chapter describes how then-Prince Charles broke the news of Diana’s accident to his son. Harry claims that his father didn’t hug him.
PRINCE HARRY’S ‘SPARE’ IS ‘NOTHING SHORT OF A BETRAYAL’ FOR THE ROYAL FAMILY, EXPERT CLAIMS
Harry reveals that years later, he asked his driver to take him through the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris, the site of the fatal crash, hoping in vain that it would help end a “decade of unrelenting pain.” He also writes that he once consulted a woman who claimed to have “powers” and to be able to pass on messages from Diana.
Harry notes that he and William, 40, “begged” their father not to marry his long-term paramour, Camilla Parker-Bowles, worried that she would become a “wicked stepmother.” Charles and Camilla said “I do” in 2005. Camilla is now Queen Consort.
Harry is also tormented by his status as royal “spare” behind William. He recounts a longstanding sibling rivalry that worsened after he began dating Markle. He alleges that during an argument in 2019, William called Meghan “difficult” and “rude,” and then grabbed him by the collar and knocked him down. Harry suffered cuts and bruises from landing on a dog bowl.
Harry wrote that Charles implored the brothers to make up, saying after the funeral of Prince Philip in 2021, “Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex reside in Montecito, California. Since his split from the royal family in 2020, Harry has launched a new career with his wife as a U.S.-based charity campaigner and media personality.
Just In | The Hill
Federal investigators have arrested a Central Florida man accused of threatening to carry out a mass shooting against at least 100 LGBTQ people at Florida State University.
Sean Michael Albert, 19, was arrested Tuesday by the FBI on charges of sending interstate communication of a threat to injure another person. An Orlando judge on Wednesday ordered the resident of Winter Park, Fla. to be detained until trial.
A criminal complaint filed Jan. 2 by the FBI’s Tampa Field Office alleges the department received a tip on December 16 that an “imminent threat to life” had been posted on the instant messaging and social media platform Discord three days prior by someone using the moniker “BloodStainedSand#0088.”
In a post that included a photo of an AR-15 style rifle and an anti-LGBTQ slur, the user wrote that 100 LGBTQ people “will die” on Dec. 17 at Florida State University.
“Cya there!,” the post read.
Discord provided investigators with the IP address information for the post, which linked to the address listed on Albert’s Florida driver’s license, according to the complaint.
Federal authorities said they learned in interviews with Albert’s apartment manager, roommate and security officer at Full Sail University, where Albert is currently enrolled as a student, that Albert has a “history of violence and a pattern of concerning behavior.”
“In particular, it is assessed that Albert has rapidly progressed from making controversial statements online, to confrontation with classmates and peers in online spaces, as well as direct confrontation with people outside of his university,” the complaint states.
Albert’s Discord username was also tied to previous threats made against Black and Jewish people and had previously written that a “genocide” on LGBTQ people “needs to happen not even a question.”
On Dec. 17, the date on which Albert had threatened to carry out a mass shooting at Florida State University, Albert was hundreds of miles away from Tallahassee in Washington, D.C., according to the complaint.
Investigators approached him upon his return to Orlando International Airport, where Albert during a voluntary interview said he had likely been detained because he “made a post online that may be perceived as a mass shooting threat.”
Albert said the image of the rifle attached to his Discord threat was copied from a Reddit post and he was not in possession of the weapon. He said he made the threat against Florida State University – with a student body topping 33,000 – because he believed the post would get the most attention from others on the Discord server.
In response to inquiries about his motivation and whether he understood that posting violent threats online was a violation of federal law, Albert said he did not believe his Discord post to be illegal, stating that it was meant to be “ironic,” “satirical” and “a joke.”
According to the complaint, Albert had been interviewed by the FBI at least once before, in April 2021, though no additional details were provided.
Online threats made against LGBTQ people in the U.S. have surged over the past year, culminating in real-world violence.
In December, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform held a first-of-kind hearing that examined the connection between anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and policies and increasing violence against the community.
This story was updated at 12:16 p.m.
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