Feds raid Giuliani’s home, office, escalating criminal probe
NEW YORK — Federal agents raided Rudy Giuliani’s Manhattan home and office Wednesday, seizing computers and cellphones in a major escalation of the Justice Department’s investigation into the business dealings of former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.
Giuliani, the 76-year-old former New York City mayor once celebrated for his leadership after 9/11, has been under federal scrutiny for several years over his ties to Ukraine. The dual searches sent the strongest signal yet that he could eventually face federal charges.
Agents searched Giuliani’s Madison Avenue apartment and Park Avenue office, people familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press. The warrants, which required approval from the top levels of the Justice Department, signify that prosecutors believe they have probable cause that Giuliani committed a federal crime — though they do not guarantee that charges will materialize.
A third search warrant was served on a phone belonging to Washington lawyer Victoria Toensing, a former federal prosecutor and close ally of Giuliani and Trump. Her law firm issued a statement saying she was informed that she is not a target of the investigation.
The full scope of the investigation is unclear, but it at least partly involves Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, law enforcement officials have told the AP.
China launches space station core module
BEIJING — China on Thursday launched the main module of its first permanent space station that will host astronauts long-term, the latest success for a program that has realized a number of its growing ambitions in recent years.
The Tianhe, or “Heavenly Harmony,” module blasted into space from the Wenchang Launch Center on the southern island province of Hainan. The launch begins the first of 11 missions necessary to construct and provision the station and send up a three-person crew by the end of next year.
China’s space program also recently brought back the first new lunar samples in more than 40 years and expects to land a probe and rover on the surface of Mars later next month.
India grieves 200,000 dead with many more probably uncounted
NEW DELHI — Three days after his coronavirus symptoms appeared, Rajendra Karan struggled to breathe. Instead of waiting for an ambulance, his son drove him to a government hospital in Lucknow, the capital of India’s largest state.
But the hospital wouldn’t let him in without a registration slip from the district’s chief medical officer. By the time the son got it, his father had died in the car, just outside the hospital doors.
“My father would have been alive today if the hospital had just admitted him instead of waiting for a piece of paper,” Rohitas Karan said.
Stories of deaths tangled in bureaucracy and breakdowns have become dismally common in India, where deaths on Wednesday officially surged past 200,000. But the true death toll is believed to be far higher.
In India, mortality data was poor even before the pandemic, with most people dying at home and their deaths often going unregistered. The practice is particularly prevalent in rural areas, where the virus is now spreading fast.
Judge won’t release videos of deputies shooting Black man
ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — A judge refused Wednesday to release body camera video showing North Carolina deputies shooting and killing a Black man, ruling that making the video public at this stage could jeopardize the investigation into Andrew Brown Jr.’s death.
However, the judge did order authorities to allow Brown’s family to privately view five videos from body cameras and one from a dashboard camera within 10 days, with some portions blurred or redacted. Family members had previously been allowed to view only a 20-second clip from a single body camera.
Judge Jeffery Foster said he believed the videos contained information that could harm the ongoing investigation or threaten the safety of people seen in the footage. He said the video must remain out of public view for at least 30 days, but he would consider releasing it after that point if investigations are complete.
“The release at this time would create a serious threat to the fair, impartial and orderly administration of justice,” Foster said.
While one attorney for Brown’s family, Wayne Kendall, initially said it was a “partial victory” for the family to view more video, the legal team later issued a statement condemning the decision not to make the video public.
US indicts 3 on hate crime charges in death of Ahmaud Arbery
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department brought federal hate crimes charges Wednesday in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, charging a father and son who armed themselves, chased and fatally shot the 25-year-old Black man after spotting him running in their Georgia neighborhood.
Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory, were charged along with a third man, William “Roddie” Bryan, with one count of interference with civil rights and attempted kidnapping. The McMichaels are also charged with using, carrying and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence.
The case is the most significant civil rights prosecution undertaken to date by the Biden administration Justice Department and comes as federal officials have moved quickly to open sweeping investigations into troubled police departments as civil rights takes center stage among the department’s priorities.
The indictment charges that the McMichaels “armed themselves with firearms, got into a truck and chased Arbery through the public streets of the neighborhood while yelling at Arbery, using their truck to cut off his route and threatening him with firearms.” It also alleges that Bryan got into a truck and then chased Arbery, using the vehicle to block his path.
Arbery, 25, was killed on Feb. 23, 2020, by three close-range shotgun blasts after the McMichaels pursued him in a pickup truck as he was running through their neighborhood. Arbery had been dead for more than two months when a cellphone video of the shooting was leaked online and a national outcry erupted.
In new Electoral College map, shifting battleground dynamics
ATLANTA — The 2020 census is shifting states’ clout in presidential politics. And while the changes won’t upend the parties’ basic strategies for securing the votes needed to win the White House, they do hint at new paths emerging.
The 2020 census population counts announced this week will result in 13 states seeing a change in their number of votes in the Electoral College, the body that formally elects the president. The overall pattern was clear: Rust Belt and upper Midwestern states will hand some of their votes to Sun Belt and Western states in 2024 and 2028.
Democratic bastions California and New York also lost electoral votes along with a swath of the Great Lakes region. Beneficiaries include Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, Colorado and Montana.
The changes wouldn’t have done much to President Joe Biden’s Electoral College majority in 2020. If Biden ran under the new count he’d have defeated then-President Donald Trump by 68 electoral votes, rather than a 74-vote margin.
But the new numbers show a clear transition afoot. Gone are the days when Republicans held a near-absolute advantage across the southern half of the United States, forcing Democrats to secure victories in the “Blue Wall” throughout the industrial north.