Biden may support replacing OKs for use of force in Mideast
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday signaled support to replace decades-old authorizations for the use of military force in the Middle East, a little more than a week after he relied on the authorizations to carry out a retaliatory airstrike against Iranian-backed militia in eastern Syria.
The Biden administration announced its position after a bipartisan bill was introduced this week that would repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for the wars in Iraq that presidents from both parties have relied on for legal justification to carry out strikes in the region.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden was committed to working with Congress to “ensure that the authorizations for the use of military force currently on the books are replaced with a narrow and specific framework that will ensure we can protect Americans from terrorist threats while ending the forever wars.”
Biden spurred bipartisan backlash last week after he ordered the strikes against facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah. The strikes were in response to a rocket attack earlier in February targeting U.S. troops and civilian personnel in northern Iraq without first seeking congressional approval. The U.S. has blamed the militia for numerous attacks targeting U.S. personnel and interests in Iraq in the past.
Sen. Tim Kaine, a lead sponsor of the bill, said the reliance on the decades-old authorizations for use of military force “serve no operational purpose, keep us on permanent war footing, and undermine the sovereignty of Iraq.”
Administration officials defended the airstrikes as legal and appropriate, saying they took out facilities that housed valuable “capabilities” used by Iranian-backed militia groups to attack American and allied forces in Iraq.
But several leading members of Congress, including members in Biden’s own party, denounced the strikes — the first military action he has authorized. Cuomo on controversy: Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration insisted Friday that a quest for scientific accuracy, not political concerns, prompted members of his COVID-19 task force to ask the state health department to delete data last summer from a report on nursing home patients killed by the coronavirus.
The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, citing documents and people with knowledge of the administration’s internal discussions, reported late Thursday that aides including secretary to the governor Melissa DeRosa pushed state health officials to edit the July report so it counted only residents who died inside longterm care facilities, and not those who died later after being transferred to a hospital.
At the time, Cuomo was trying to deflect criticism that his administration hadn’t done enough to protect nursing home residents from the virus. About a third of the state’s nursing home fatalities were excluded from the report as a result of the change.
The revelations about the removal of the higher fatality number come as the Democrat also faces accusations he sexually harassed two former aides and a woman that he met at a wedding.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that the allegations that Cuomo aides manipulated public
reporting of nursing home deaths were “troubling” and said the White House “certainly would support any outside investigation.”
George Floyd case: The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Friday ordered a judge to reconsider adding a third-degree murder charge against a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death, handing a potential victory to prosecutors, but setting up a possible delay to a trial set to start next week.
A three-judge panel said Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill erred last fall when he rejected a prosecution motion to reinstate the third-degree murder charge against Derek Chauvin. The panel said Cahill should have followed the precedent set by the appeals court last month when it affirmed the third-degree murder conviction of former officer Mohamed Noor in the 2017 shooting death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond. The
unarmed Australian woman had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault.
The appeals court sent the case back to Cahill for a ruling consistent with its ruling in the Noor case, giving the judge some leeway to consider other arguments that the defense might make against reinstating the charge.
It was not immediately clear if Friday’s ruling would force a delay in jury selection for Chauvin’s case, which is due to start Monday. He’s currently charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter.
Dallas officer: The Dallas Police Department allowed an officer to continue patrolling for more than a year while investigating whether he ordered two people to be killed because it didn’t want to tip him off, the city’s former police chief said.
U. Renee Hall, who left the department at the end of 2020, said in a statement posted on Twitter late Thursday that police investigators,
in collaboration with the FBI, recommended not placing Officer Bryan Riser on administrative leave after he was identified as a person of interest in 2019.
Hall’s explanation came hours after Riser, 36, was arrested on two counts of capital murder. Riser was being held Friday on $5 million bond after a court appearance Thursday night.
Court records don’t list an attorney for Riser, who told the court he would hire one. Militants trial: A federal judge in Virginia has tentatively scheduled a January 2022 trial for two Britain militants charged with being part of an Islamic State group that tortured and beheaded American and European hostages in Syria.
A jury trial for El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey is set to start Jan. 18, 2022. U.S. District Judge T. S. Ellis III scheduled that “target” date during a hearing on Friday, saying it “seems more than reasonable to me.”
The two men, along with other British jihadis, allegedly made up the IS cell nicknamed “The Beatles” by surviving captives because of their English accents.
Kurdish forces captured them in January 2018 in eastern Syria amid the collapse of IS, as they tried to escape into Turkey.
Space station work: Spacewalking astronauts completed the first round of prep work Friday for new solar panels, part of a major power upgrade at the International Space Station.
NASA’s Kate Rubins and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi installed mounting brackets and struts for the improved solar wings due to arrive in June. They also tightened some sticky bolts that hampered Sunday’s spacewalk.
NASA is enhancing the space station’s power grid to accommodate more astronauts and experiments, now that SpaceX is launching crews.