Top general drops opposition to change in sex assault policy
WASHINGTON — In a potentially significant shift in the debate over combating sexual assault in the military, the nation’s top general says he is dropping his opposition to a proposal to take decisions on sexual assault prosecution out of the hands of commanders.
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stopped short of endorsing the changes recommended by an independent review panel. But in an interview with The Associated Press and CNN, Milley said he is open to considering them because the problem of sexual assault in the military has persisted despite other efforts to solve it.
“We’ve been at it for years, and we haven’t effectively moved the needle,” he said. “We have to. We must.”
The comments by Milley, as arguably the most influential officer and as the senior military adviser to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and to President Joe Biden, are likely to carry considerable weight among the service chiefs and add to momentum for the change.
The review commission submitted its initial recommendations to Austin late last month. Officials have said they expect him to give service leaders about a month to review and respond.
The most recent of the Defense Department’s biennial anonymous surveys, done in 2018, found that more than 20,000 service members said they experienced some type of sexual assault, but only a third of those filed a formal report. Formal reports of sexual assaults have steadily gone up since 2006, including a 13% jump in 2018 and a 3% increase in 2019, according to Pentagon data. The 2020 data is not yet available.
Census fight: The fight over whether the U.S. Census Bureau can use a controversial statistical technique to keep people’s information private in the numbers used for drawing political districts Monday went before a judicial panel which must decide if the method provides enough data accuracy.
A panel of three federal judges heard arguments on whether the method known as “differential privacy” meets the federal legal requirement for keeping private the personal information of people who participated in the 2020 census while still allowing the numbers to be sufficiently accurate for the highly partisan process of redrawing congressional and legislative districts. Differential privacy adds mathematical “noise,” or intentional errors, to the data to obscure any given individual’s identity while still providing statistically valid information.
Because a panel of three federal judges will decide the matter, any appeal could go straight to the Supreme Court.
This first major challenge to the Census Bureau’s use of differential privacy comes in the lawsuit filed by the state of Alabama and three Alabama politicians over the statistical agency’s decision to delay the release of data used for drawing congressional and legislative districts. Normally, the redistricting data is released at the end of March, but the Census Bureau pushed the deadline to sometime in August, at the earliest, because of delays caused by the pandemic.
At least 16 other states back Alabama’s challenge,
which is asking the judges for a preliminary injunction to stop the Census Bureau from implementing the statistical technique. Alabama also wants the agency to release the redistricting data by July 31.
The three-judge panel did not indicate when it would rule.
Oktoberfest canceled: Bavarian officials Monday canceled Oktoberfest festivities for a second year in a row due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19, saying there are too many risks in hosting the celebrations — which bring in visitors from around the world — during a pandemic.
Germany is in the middle of a coronavirus lockdown that includes a ban on large gatherings.
Oktoberfest typically attracts about 6 million visitors from around the world and had been scheduled from Sept. 18 to Oct. 3.
Child porn: German prosecutors announced Monday they have busted one of the world’s biggest international darknet platforms for child pornography, used by more than 400,000 registered members.
Frankfurt prosecutors said that in mid-April three German suspects, said to be the administrators of the “Boystown” platform, were arrested along with a German user. One of the three main suspects was arrested in Paraguay.
A German police task force investigated the platform, its administrators and users for months in cooperation with Europol and law enforcement authorities from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States, the statement said.
Subway service: New York City’s subway will begin rolling all night again and existing capacity restrictions for houses of worship and most types of businesses will lift statewide in mid-May as COVID-19 infection rates continues to decline, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday.
City subway service will return to 24-hour operation May 17 after being closed for cleaning during overnight hours since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic last year, Cuomo said.
Current capacity restrictions on houses of worship and businesses — including restaurants, offices, beauty salons, gyms and hair salons — will be lifted in New York and its neighboring state of New Jersey on May 19, Cuomo said.
But businesses will still have to limit how many people can enter their doors, according to Cuomo.
Getting divorced: Bill and Melinda Gates announced Monday that they are divorcing.
The Microsoft co-founder and his wife, who launched the world’s largest charitable foundation, said they would continue to work together at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In tweets, they said they had made the decision to end their marriage of 27 years. “We have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives,” they said in a statement. “We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.”
Bear mauling: Human remains were found in two of the three black bears euthanized after they were suspected of killing a Colorado woman in an apparent attack, state wildlife officials said.
The woman, 39, was found dead north of Durango on Friday, her body mauled.
A dog team found a 10-year-old female black bear and two yearling cubs nearby. The human remains were found inside the stomachs of the sow and one of the cubs during a necropsy.