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Arizona judge rules election vendor Runbeck not subject to public records law, ignores precedent set in Cyber Ninjas case

boxes
© Unknown'Stepping over the lines' • Ballot boxes in Maricopa County, Arizona
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bradley Astrowsky issued a ruling Friday dismissing a complaint filed by We the People AZ Alliance (WPAA) that requested video surveillance from Runbeck Election Services. Although another judge ruled previously that the private company Cyber Ninjas was subject to public records requests due to conducting a partial audit for the Arizona Senate of the 2020 election, Astrowsky refused to apply the same reasoning to Runbeck, the vendor that processed all of Maricopa County's mail-in ballots prior to signature verification.

The judge, appointed by Gov. Jan Brewer in 2012, has served on the bench for a little more than a decade. A court insider familiar with Judge Astrowsky's decisions told The Arizona Sun Times he is well-known as a moderate in legal circles.

Abe Hamadeh War Room account posted their disappointment on X. Hamadeh is still appealing his election loss by 280 votes in the attorney general's race, citing evidence of votes that were not counted which emerged after his trial.

Sherlock

Family of five killed in apparent Hawaii murder-suicide, 'state's worst mass killing in over 2 decades'

Hawaii
© GettyThe incident took place in Manoa, a residential area of Honolulu.
Authorities in Hawaii are investigating the apparent murder-suicide of a family of five, including three children in a Honolulu home.

The father, who has not been identified, is believed to have stabbed to death his wife and three children - aged 10, 12 and 17 - before taking his own life, police said.

Witnesses reported an argument at the home on early Sunday morning.

The deaths mark Hawaii's worst mass killing in over two decades.

Comment: See also: At least 55 killed with 1,000 people still missing as fire devastates Lahaina town in Hawaii (UPDATE)


Handcuffs

Andrew Tate and brother Tristan arrested in Romania on UK warrant

tate brothers
© Credit: lcv/Alamy Stock Photo
Andrew Tate has been detained in Romania after an arrest warrant was issued by UK authorities following an investigation by Bedfordshire police, the Guardian understands.

The social media influencer, 37, and his brother Tristan Tate, 35, face charges including "sexual aggression" dating to 2012-15, according to a statement by his representative.

The representative said the pair were due before the Bucharest court of appeal on Tuesday for a decision on whether the European arrest warrant should be executed.

The Tate brothers were charged with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women in a separate case in Romania after being arrested in the country's capital in December 2022 alongside two Romanian women. All four deny the allegations.

Comment: Unfortunately, it's not illegal to be manipulative sleazeballs. But maybe there's some justice yet to come for these "men". See also:


Cross

Ukrainian secret police raids Christian church-aligned journalists

Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) agents
© SBUFile photo: Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) agents
Several employees of the Union of Orthodox Journalists (UOJ) have been subjected to raids by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the group said on Tuesday.

The UOJ has reported on the ongoing persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by Kiev, which favors the government-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).

"UOJ employees were approached by the SBU agents, who seized their computer equipment and phones," the group said on its Telegram channel, adding that no one had been charged with any offenses.

SBU agents have also visited participants in prayer vigils, the UOJ added. The union could not comment any further, but said it would offer more information as it becomes available.

The SBU has yet to comment on the raids. It has previously tried to have the UOJ's website blocked inside Ukraine.

Comment: Previous cases of Ukrainian thugs bullying the UOC:


Megaphone

Russia's top MP calls out Western hypocrisy on Assange

Volodin
Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin Sputnik / Vladimir Fedorenko
Nations that support the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US will no longer be states based on the rule of law if the handover eventually happens, Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin argued in a Telegram post on Monday.

The situation around the detained whistleblower is an example of the lies, double standards, and spite on display from Washington, London, and Brussels, Volodin added.

Assange, now in his fifth year in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London despite having been convicted of no crime, faces 175 years in prison in the US for publishing documents via WikiLeaks that detailed alleged illegal US actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere. The files were leaked to him by former US soldier Chelsea Manning.

The published records and documents prove Washington's involvement in coups and the instigation of wars, Volodin pointed out in his post. The leaked documents also purported to show that the US National Security Agency (NSA) wiretapped several European heads of state, including former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Fire

US airlifts embassy staff out of Haiti as gangs besiege political area

Police Port-au-Prince Haiti
© Ralph Tedy Erol/ReutersPolice on patrol in Port-au-Prince on Friday.
Officials say marines deployed for night-time evacuation amid intense fighting in Port-au-Prince, while German and EU representatives also leave.

The US military has carried out an operation in Haiti to airlift non-essential embassy personnel from the country and added US forces to bolster embassy security, after dozens of heavily armed gang fighters tried to seize the political quarter of its capital, Port-au-Prince.

The German foreign ministry meanwhile said its ambassador joined other EU representatives in leaving for the Dominican Republic on Sunday.

Comment: More from Newsweek:
Earlier this month, armed gangs orchestrated jailbreaks from Haiti's two largest prisons and demanded the resignation of the Caribbean nation's prime minister, Ariel Henry. The Haitian leader is not currently in the country, and is petitioning the international community for a United Nations-backed security force to step in.

More than 4,500 inmates have escaped, including senior gang leaders, the United Nations said last week, adding that the jailbreak was the result of "coordinated gang action against national institutions."


Haitian authorities extended a state of emergency and a curfew on Thursday as fierce battles for power continued to grip Port-au-Prince. The capital's international airport and main port are closed, and the country's national police — along with other state apparatus — have teetered on the edge of collapse.

Gangs have targeted and torched police stations, and in late January, Reuters reported that Haiti's national police had lost nearly 3,300 officers in around three years, citing trade union figures.

Estimates suggest armed gangs control upwards of 80 percent of the capital city.

Since the start of 2024, just under 1,200 people have been killed and nearly 700 others injured in the gang violence, according to the UN. In 2023, almost 4,000 people were killed and another 3,000 kidnapped in the fighting.

Haiti is "on the cusp of even greater chaos and violence," campaign group Human Rights Watch said on Friday. "The situation on the ground remains dire," added CARICOM, a regional bloc that includes Haiti.

The political and economic crisis is powering a looming humanitarian emergency. "The health system is on the brink of collapse," the UN said in a statement. "Hospitals often do not have the capacity to treat those arriving with gunshots wounds. Schools and business are closed, and children are increasingly used by gangs."

Drinkable water is running out, and more than 313,000 people have been internally displaced, the UN said.

"If Ariel Henry doesn't resign, if the international community continues to support him, we'll be heading straight for a civil war that will lead to genocide," influential Haitian gang leader Jimmy Chérizier — also known as Barbecue — said early last week.

"In the past week, the political crisis in Haiti, combined with escalating violence and civil unrest, has created an untenable situation which threatens the country's citizens and security," U.S. State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said on Friday.
See also:


Airplane

Best of the Web: Boeing whistleblower found dead in carpark ahead of legal deposition against corporation's corrupt practices

john barnett
© John BarnettJohn Barnett was a former quality control manager at Boeing.
A former Boeing employee known for raising concerns about the firm's production standards has been found dead in the US.

John Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement in 2017.

In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.

Comment: While the controversy around Boeing's lax production standards is being spun as a diversity issue, it seems there's little in Barnett's complaints about diversity-hires being the root of the problem. It more appears that the age-old issue of penny-pinching and corner-cutting.

See also:


Star of David

Israel's anti-Zionist fringe is taking a stand: 'I don't want to be a pawn in this sick game'

idf soldiers israel patrol gaza border
© Mostafa Alkharouf / Anadolu via Getty ImagesIsraeli soldiers patrol near the Gaza border
The number of people willing to serve in the IDF is decreasing every year, but will this change the militaristic nature of the country?

Over the years, the number of people who have exempted themselves from service in the Israeli military, or Israel Defense Forces (IDF), has gone up. In 2021 it reached more than 31%. Reports suggest that by 2050 more than 50% of Israeli youth will evade conscription. Roughly 10% of those will do so due to ideology and their reluctance to support Israeli policy and actions.

Israel's war on Hamas, which was declared shortly after the group's deadly attacks on communities in the southern part of the country in October last year, has seen a surge in the number of volunteers for the military.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are typically exempt from serving, have enrolled in the army. Hundreds of Jewish young people from around the world have come to Israel to join the IDF, and the country has registered a total of 300,000 reservists determined to protect their nation.

Headphones

Book admits Fani Willis' Trump investigation was launched using an illegal recording

fani willis
© 11Alive/YoutubeEmbattled Georgia DA Fani Willis at her hearing March 2, 2024
With Fani Willis repeatedly saying the entire investigation into Republicans was the result of an illegally recorded phone call, defendants might pursue legal recourse.

Democrat Fani Willis' legal troubles extend beyond recent revelations that she deceptively hired her otherwise under-qualified, secret, married lover to run the political prosecution of former President Donald Trump and other Republicans in Georgia. A new book from Mike Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman admits that a widely misunderstood phone call, on which Willis' political prosecution rests, was illegally recorded. That means the entire prosecution could crumble with defendants having a new avenue to challenge Democrat lawfare.

Find Me the Votes: A Hard-Charging Georgia Prosecutor, a Rogue President, and the Plot to Steal an American Election is a fawning political biography of Willis. For context on the bias of the authors, Isikoff was an original Russia-collusion hoaxer, and his articles to that end were used to secure warrants for the FBI to spy on innocent Republican presidential campaign advisers such as Carter Page.

Boat

Charity loads food aid onto barge in Cyprus headed for Gaza

Ship
© Proactiva Open Arms AFP/Getty ImagesHandout showing the vessel 'Open Arms' docked in Larnaca
Charity workers loaded relief supplies bound for Gaza on to a barge in Cyprus on Saturday as part of an international effort to launch a maritime corridor to a Palestinian population on the brink of famine.

The European Commission had said a maritime aid corridor between Cyprus and Gaza could start operating as early as this weekend in a pilot project run by an international charity and financed by the UAE.

The Open Arms, a salvage vessel owned by a Spanish NGO and more accustomed to rescuing migrants at sea, was moored at a port in the coastal Cyprus town of Larnaca, 210 miles northwest of Gaza.

It will tow a barge with 200 tonnes of food sourced by charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) and mostly funded by the UAE. The timing of its departure from Cyprus was unclear.
packages
© Yiannis Kourtoglou/ReutersHumanitarian aid for Gaza is loaded on a platform next to the Spanish NGO Open Arms rescue vessel

Comment: Too little too late for 2.4M Palestinians...
Spokeswoman Laura Lanuza said: "Israeli authorities, which have welcomed the Cypriot sea corridor initiative, were inspecting the cargo of '200 tonnes of basic foodstuffs, rice and flour, cans of tuna'."

The United Nations World Food Programme has warned that the volume of aid that can be delivered by sea will do little if anything to stave off famine in Gaza.

Humanitarian workers and UN officials say that easing the entry of trucks to Gaza would be more effective than aid airdrops or sea shipments.

With ground access limited, countries have also turned to airdropping aid, although a parachute malfunction turned one delivery on Friday deadly.

Another 82 people were killed in strikes over the previous day, the ministry said, bringing the number of fatalities in Israel's bombardment and ground offensive of Gaza to 30,960, mostly women and children.

Canada has since become the latest country to say it would join aerial aid delivery missions.