Home

HOUSTON (AP) — A judge has declined to dismiss hundreds of lawsuits filed against rap star Travis Scott over his role in the deadly 2021 Astroworld festival in which 10 people were killed in a crowd surge. State District Judge Kristen Hawkins issued a one-page order denying Scott’s request that he and his touring and production company, XX Global, should be dropped from the case. The order was signed on Tuesday but made public on Wednesday. Scott’s attorneys had argued during an April 15 hearing that he was not responsible for safety planning and watching for possible dangers at the concert on Nov. 5, 2021. They argued Scott’s duties and responsibilities related to the festival only dealt with creative aspects, including performing and marketing. However, Noah Wexler, an attorney for the family of Madison Dubiski, 23, one of the 10 people killed, said Scott, whose real name is Jacques Bermon Webster II, had a “conscious disregard for safety” at the sold-out festival. Wexler argued Scott encouraged people who didn’t have tickets to break in and ignored orders from festival organizers to stop the concert when told to do so as people in the crowd were hurt or dying. Earlier this month, Hawkins dismissed lawsuits against Drake and several other individuals and companies involved in the show. The lawsuit filed by Dubiski’s family is set to be the first one to go to trial on May 6. The families of the 10 people who died, plus hundreds who were injured, sued Scott and Live Nation — the festival’s promoter — as well as dozens of other individuals and entities. After an investigation by Houston police, no charges were filed against Scott, and a grand jury declined to indict him and five other people on any criminal counts related to the deadly concert. Those killed, who ranged in age from 9 to 27, died from compression asphyxia, which an expert likened to being crushed by a car. Some of the lawsuits filed by the families of the dead and the hundreds who were injured have been settled, including those filed by the families of four of the dead. ___ Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70 Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

BOSTON (AP) — There has been no final decision on whether or not all U.S. troops will leave Niger and Chad, two African countries that are integral to the military’s efforts to counter violent extremist organizations across the Sahel region, a top U.S. military official told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Niger’s ruling junta ended an agreement last month that allows U.S. troops to operate in the West African country. The government of neighboring Chad in recent days also has questioned its agreement with the U.S., Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Adm. Christopher Grady, the nation’s second-highest-ranking military officer, said in an interview. The agreements allow the U.S. to conduct critical counterterrorism operations within the countries’ borders and have supported military partner training in both nations. The reversals have prompted concern that U.S. influence in Africa is losing ground to overtures from Russia and China. “We are all trying to establish ourselves as the partner of choice,” Grady said. “It’s up to us to establish why we think our partnership with them is important. We certainly want to be there. We want to help them, we want to empower them, we want to do things by, with and through (them).” While U.S. officials said Saturday that the military would begin plans to withdraw troops from Niger, they said discussions on a new military agreement were ongoing. “There’s still negotiations underway,” Grady said. “I don’t believe there is a final decision on disposition of U.S. forces there.” Relations have frayed between Niger and Western countries since mutinous soldiers ousted the country’s democratically elected president in July. Niger’s junta has since told French forces to leave and turned instead to Russia for security. Earlier this month, Russian military trainers arrived to reinforce the country’s air defenses and with Russian equipment to train Nigeriens to use. The government of Chad also recently requested that U.S. forces leave, and officials from the State Department, U.S. Africa Command and the Pentagon will work with Chad’s government to make the case for U.S. forces to stay, Grady said. “The team has got get on the ground there and work it through,” Grady said. He said that if both countries ultimately decide the U.S. cannot remain there, the military will have to look for alternatives to run counterterrorism missions across the Sahel, a vast region south of the Sahara Desert. “If we are asked to leave, and after negotiations that’s the way it plays out, then we are going to have to recalculate and figure out a new way to do it,” Grady said. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A form Pennsylvania voters must complete on the outside of mail-in ballot return envelopes has been redesigned, but that did not prevent some voters from failing to complete it accurately for this week’s primary, and some votes will not count as a result, election officials said. The primary was the first use of the revamped form on the back of return envelopes that was unveiled late last year amid litigation over whether ballots are valid when they arrive to be counted inside envelopes that do not contain accurate, handwritten dates. The most recent ruling was a 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel’s decision last month that upheld the date mandate. The groups and individuals who sued to challenge the requirement are currently asking the full 3rd Circuit to reconsider the matter. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt said at an election night news conference that his agency will be following the county-by-county vote tabulation to see how many ballots get thrown out as a result. That will help determine whether the new design did more harm than good. The new design provides blanks for the month and day and has voters complete the last two numbers of the year. The forms prompt voters with a preprinted “20” and requires them to complete the year by adding “24.” “I think we’ve received a lot of positive feedback” about the redesign, Schmidt said, “and I’m confident it will result in fewer voters making unintentional, minor errors that are, however, defective in nature.” The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which represents several voter groups in the federal litigation, has said more than 10,000 ballots in the state were disqualified in 2022 based on what opponents of the mandate consider to be a meaningless paperwork error. Older voters are disproportionately more likely to send in ballot envelopes with incorrect or missing dates. Democrats use mail-in voting far more than Republicans in Pennsylvania. Votebeat Pennsylvania reported Monday that a top state election administrator told counties in an email last week they should count ballots “if the date written on the ballot can reasonably be interpreted to be ‘the day upon which (the voter) completed the declaration.’” Lycoming County is not following that advice, and county Elections Director Forrest Lehman said his experience during the primary suggests the changes have not helped get more votes counted. “I’m sure there may be some counties out there that are choosing to count these, but there are also a lot that aren’t,” Lehman said. “And there’s simply no denying that the design of these envelopes has created a new way to record a date that instantly became a huge percentage of all the incorrect dates.” During the 2022 primary, Lycoming County set aside 49 mail ballots. This month, Lycoming set aside 48, among them 22 with incorrect dates. Half of those were invalidated because the voter did not write the last two digits of the year. “Whatever they thought this would accomplish in terms of changing voter behavior, it didn’t change a thing,” he said, except that counties had to buy new envelopes. Berks County set aside 91 mail-in primary ballots for having incorrect return envelope dates, 32 for lacking a date and 129 for not being signed or having someone — typically a spouse — sign another’s ballot. Berks saw nearly 52,000 total votes cast, including more than 16,000 by mail. By the time the outer envelope email from the Department of State arrived last week, Berks County spokesperson Stephanie Nojiri said, officials there had already decided to count those that lack the “24” for the year because the new envelopes were all printed in 2024. Allegheny County had already received nearly 1,400 incorrect ballots when officials there received the new advice from the state on Friday, said spokeswoman Abigail Gardner. The most common problem was a lack of the “24” year. Allegheny election workers had been contacting voters by mailing back their ballots with letters that explained why, and about 800 were corrected. After receiving the Department of State guidance, the county began simply counting those without the “24″ on the date portion of the envelopes. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

DETROIT (AP) — A state investigator testified Wednesday that he considers former President Donald Trump and his White House chief of staff to be uncharged co-conspirators in a scheme to claim that he won Michigan in the 2020 election, despite Democrat Joe Biden’s clear victory. Trump and Mark Meadows were among the names mentioned during the cross-examination of Howard Shock, whose work led to forgery charges against more than a dozen people in Michigan. A judge in the state capital is holding hearings to determine if there is enough evidence to order a trial. A defense attorney, Duane Silverthorn, offered a series of names and asked Shock if they were “unindicted co-conspirators,” which means they weren’t charged but could have been part of an alleged plot to put Michigan’s electoral votes in Trump’s column. Prosecutors from the attorney general’s office didn’t object. Shock responded “yes” to Trump, Meadows, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and some high-ranking state Republicans. Silverthorn then moved on to other questions. “I’m surprised the question was even answered,” said Detroit-area attorney Margaret Raben, former head of a statewide association of defense lawyers. “It’s irrelevant — legally and factually irrelevant — that there are other people who could have been charged or should have been charged,” said Raben, who is not involved in the case. Meadows’ lawyer, George Terwilliger, had a similar reaction when reached by The Associated Press. He declined further comment. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung referred to the Michigan case as an “ongoing witch hunt,” and Giuliani political adviser Ted Goodman said the former New York mayor was proud to stand up for people with concerns about the election. In Georgia, Trump, Giuliani and others are charged with conspiracy related to the filing of a Republican elector certificate in that state following the 2020 election. Meadows is also charged in Georgia but not in relation to the elector scheme. They have pleaded not guilty. An indictment by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith charging Trump with plotting to overturn the election also accuses the former president in a fake elector scheme and identifies six unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators, including Giuliani. In Michigan, authorities said more than a dozen Republicans sent certificates to Congress falsely declaring they were electors and that Trump was the winner of the 2020 election in the state, despite results showing he had lost. Attorney General Dana Nessel said the scheme was hatched in the basement of the state Republican Party headquarters. ___ Follow Ed White at https://twitter.com/edwritez Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

GUYMON, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma prosecutors charged a fifth member of an anti-government group on Wednesday with killing and kidnapping two Kansas women. Paul Jeremiah Grice, 31, was charged in Texas County with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder. Grice told an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent that he participated in the killing and burial of Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, of Hugoton, Kansas, according to an arrest affidavit filed in the case. Grice is being held without bond at the Texas County Detention Center in Guymon, a jail official said. Court and jail records don’t indicate if Grice has an attorney who could speak on his behalf. Four others have been charged in connection with the deaths and are being held without bail: Tifany Adams, 54, and her boyfriend, Tad Cullum, 43, of Keyes, and Cole, 50, and Cora Twombly, 44, of Texhoma, Oklahoma. Butler and Kelley disappeared March 30 while driving to pick up Butler’s two children for a birthday party. Adams, who is the children’s grandmother, was in a bitter custody dispute with Butler, who was only allowed supervised visits with the children on Saturdays. Kelley was authorized to supervise the visits, according to the affidavits. A witness who spoke to Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents said all five suspects were part of “an anti-government group that had a religious affiliation,” according to the affidavit. Investigators learned the group called themselves “God’s Misfits” and held regular meetings at the home of the Twomblys and another couple. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com