RFK Jr. apologizes for Anne Frank comment at anti-vaccine rally
Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apologized Tuesday for suggesting things are worse for people today than they were for Anne Frank, the teenager who died in a Nazi concentration camp after hiding with her family in a secret annex in an Amsterdam house for two years.
Kennedy’s comments, made at a Washington rally Sunday put on by his anti-vaccine nonprofit group, were widely condemned as offensive, outrageous and historically ignorant.
It’s the second time since 2015 that Kennedy has apologized for referencing the Holocaust during his work sowing doubt and distrust about vaccines.
“I apologize for my reference to Anne Frank, especially to families that suffered the Holocaust horrors,” Kennedy said in a Tuesday tweet. “My intention was to use examples of past barbarism to show the perils from new technologies of control. To the extent my remarks caused hurt, I am truly and deeply sorry.”
Kennedy’s wife, the actress Cheryl Hines of HBO’S “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” later distanced herself from her husband in her own tweet. She called the reference to Anne Frank “reprehensible and insensitive.”
Kennedy, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of his slain brother, former U.S. attorney general, civil rights activist and Democratic presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy, on Sunday had complained that the nation’s leading infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci, was orchestrating “fascism.”
“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps to Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” he told the crowd.
Kennedy apologized in 2015 after he used the word “holocaust” to describe children whom he believes were hurt by vaccines.
Russia crackdown: Russian authorities have added imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny and some of his top allies to the country’s registry of terrorists and extremists, the latest move in a multipronged crackdown on opposition supporters, independent media and human rights activists.
Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, and eight of his allies — including top aides Lyubov Sobol and Georgy Alburov — were on Tuesday added to the registry by Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service.
The law requires that the bank accounts of those on the list be frozen.
The move comes just a over a year after Navalny’s arrest, which triggered a wave of the biggest mass protests across the country in years.
The politician was detained upon his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have denied any involvement.
Navalny was ordered to serve 2 ½ years in prison for violating the terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a 2014 fraud conviction.
2nd NYPD officer dies: A New York City police officer gravely wounded last week in a shooting that killed his partner has also died of his injuries, the city’s police commissioner said Tuesday.
Officer Wilbert Mora, 27,
was taken off life support at a Manhattan hospital four days after a gunman shot him and Officer Jason Rivera, 22, as they responded to a domestic disturbance call. Rivera died Friday.
The two officers were called Friday to a Harlem apartment by a woman who said she needed help with her adult son. Lashawn Mcneil threw open a bedroom door and shot the officers as they walked down a narrow hall, authorities said.
A third officer, Sumit Sulan, a rookie who was shadowing Mora and Rivera — shot Mcneil as he tried to flee. The gunman, 47, died Monday, authorities said.
Mora’s funeral arrangements have not been announced.
Rivera’s funeral is scheduled for Friday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan.
Nkorea weapons test:
North Korea on Tuesday test-fired two suspected cruise missiles in its fifth
round of weapons launches this month, South Korean military officials said.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department rules, said South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials were analyzing the launches, but didn’t provide further details.
Tuesday’s launches could have been follow-up tests of a weapon North Korea has described as a longrange cruise missile and first tested in September, said Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies.
State media in reports at the time said the missiles were fired from launcher trucks and could strike targets 932 miles away. It described those missiles as a “strategic weapon of great significance” — wording that implies they were developed to carry nuclear weapons.
Iran nuclear talks: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Tuesday an agreement
with the United States over its nuclear deal with world powers is possible if sanctions on Iran are lifted, state TV reported.
Raisi’s comments came a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian signaled a willingness by Iran to engage directly with the U.S. in discussions over the deal if necessary to reach a satisfactory agreement.
“If the parties are ready to lift the oppressive sanctions, it is quite possible any agreement can be reached,” Raisi said in a live broadcast.
Iran and world powers have begun another round of nuclear talks in Vienna, Austria aimed at salvaging the tattered 2015 nuclear deal.
The meetings include all the deal’s remaining signatories — Iran, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.
The U.S. has participated only indirectly in the ongoing talks because it withdrew from the accord in
2018 under then-president Donald Trump.
Avenatti-daniels case: Once-prominent California attorney Michael Avenatti took over representation of himself Tuesday at his latest criminal trial.
The move sets the stage for Avenatti to directly confront former client and porn star Stormy Daniels over her claims that he stole some of the money she was owed for her autobiography.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman granted Avenatti’s request at his Manhattan trial on wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges after he cited a “breakdown” with his lawyers over trial strategy.
Daniels was expected to take the witness stand at the trial as early as Wednesday.
Avenatti has asserted his innocence on the claims that he pocketed nearly $300,000 of the $800,000 advance paid to Daniels for her 2018 book “Full Disclosure.”