Man severely injured protecting wife from early morning polar bear ambush
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(NEW YORK) — A man has sustained serious injuries after leaping to the rescue of his wife who was ambushed by a polar bear in an early morning attack, police said.
Members of the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service working out of the Fort Severn First Nation detachment in Ontario, Canada, were dispatched to a residential address in the early morning hours of Tuesday to reports of gunfire, according to a statement from the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service.
When authorities arrived, they discovered during their investigation that an adult male and adult female “had exited their home before 5 a.m. to find their dogs. While in the driveway of their home, a polar bear lunged at the woman,” police said.
“The woman slipped to ground as her husband leapt onto the animal to prevent its attack. The bear then attacked the male, causing serious but non-life-threatening injuries to his arm and legs,” Nishnawbe Aski Police Service continued.
During the attack, a neighbor reportedly arrived with a firearm and was able to shoot the bear several times before it retreated to a nearby wooded area and subsequently died from its injuries.
When police arrived on scene, they located the deceased polar bear and learned “an adult male had been transported to the community nursing station to have his injuries assessed and treated,” police said.
Officials continued to patrol the area to ensure no other bears were roaming the community following the attack.
The unnamed man is now recovering from serious injuries to his arm and legs, but is expected to survive.
(ATLANTA) — The state prosecution of Donald Trump on election interference charges in Georgia may be able to continue despite his impending inauguration, a lawyer for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis signaled in a court filing that urged an appeals court to reject the president-elect’s request to throw out the case based on presidential immunity.
The filing argued that Trump’s lawyers failed to demonstrate why a state prosecution would be subject to the Department of Justice memorandum prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting presidents — which was cited by special counsel Jack Smith when he wound down his federal cases against Trump — or impede Trump’s duties as president.
“Appellant does not specify or articulate how the appeal — or indeed, any other aspect of this case — will constitutionally impede or interfere with his duties once he assumes office,” Fulton County Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney F. McDonald Wakeford wrote.
“The notice makes mention of these concepts without actually examining them or applying them to the present circumstances. In other words, Appellant has not done the work but would very much like for this Court to do so,” the filing said.
According to the filing, state prosecutors are not bound by the Department of Justice’s policies, and past court decisions have not clearly established a precedent for state cases proceeding against a sitting president.
“Given these vague statements, to simply invoke the phrase ‘federalism and comity concerns,’ without more, offers nothing of substance,” the filing said, accusing Trump’s lawyer of making “sweeping legal generalizations which are either misleading or oversimplified” and providing “a smattering of quotations that are alternately mischaracterized or stripped of context.”
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty last year to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia. Four defendants subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
Wakeford, in his filing, urged the Georgia Court of Appeals to reject or ignore Trump’s request to order the dismissal of the case, describing Trump’s recent filing as nothing more than a “decree.”
“The notice thus fails to adequately notify this Court of anything except for the outcome that Appellant would prefer — and expects — to see,” the filing said. “Such a filing is best understood as a decree. Appellant has provided this Court with half a thought and gestured toward a smattering of constitutional principles, and as a result, he feels entitled to instruct this Court as to what its conclusions are expected to be.”
The Georgia Court of Appeals took up Trump’s case after trial Judge Scott McAfee declined to disqualify Willis over her romantic relationship with a fellow prosecutor, who was forced to resign from the case. Earlier this month, Trump’s lawyer sent the court a notice requesting they order the trial judge to dismiss the case based on Trump’s presidential immunity, which they argued applied to him as president-elect.
Wakeford, in his filing, categorically denied the existence of president-elect immunity.
“While the courts’ understanding of presidential immunity continues to evolve, ‘president-elect immunity’ obviously does not exist,” the filing said.
Wakeford also defended the integrity of the case against Trump, accusing the president-elect of using a “familiar tactic” when he argued the case is politically motivated.
“This case is thus the result of two separate grand juries and years of investigation, and any suggestion it is motivated by ‘possible local prejudice’ remains utterly unfounded,” the filing said.
(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump is asking a federal appeals court to reconsider overturning a jury’s verdict that found he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and awarded her $5 million in damages.
After the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit determined last month that Trump failed to prove he deserved a new trial, lawyers for Trump on Tuesday requested an en banc hearing, in which the full court would hear the case rather than a select panel.
A New York jury in 2023 awarding Carroll $5 million in damages after it found Trump liable for sexually abusing her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s, and for defaming her in 2022 when he denied the allegations.
Last year, another jury ordered Trump to pay an additional $83 million in damages for his defamatory statements about Carroll.
Trump argued the trial court in 2023 erred when it allowed two women to testify about Trump allegedly assaulting them, as well as permitting Carroll’s lawyers to show the jury part of the now-infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted about grabbing women.
“To have any chance of persuading a jury, Carroll’s implausible, unsubstantiated allegations had to be — and repeatedly were — propped up by the erroneous admission of highly inflammatory propensity evidence,” wrote Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, and D. John Sauder, who have all been picked by Trump for top Justice Department posts in his incoming adminstration.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial court’s decisions, if left uncorrected, could set a damaging precedent of allowing “inflammatory propensity evidence in a wide range of future cases.”
Trump’s request for an en banc hearing is his final appellate option before possibly turning to the Supreme Court.
Eva Marie Uzcategui Trinkl/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The former leader of the Proud Boys — a group prosecutors say was central to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — is asking President-elect Donald Trump for a pardon, according to a letter from his lawyer on Monday.
Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years behind bars for his role in helping rally members of the far-right group to come to Washington in advance of Jan. 6, prosecutors say, with the goal of stopping the peaceful transition of power, that he monitored their movements and egged them on as they attacked the Capitol, and continued to celebrate their actions in the days after the insurrection.
“Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio was portrayed throughout the government’s case as a right-wing extremist that promoted a neo-fascist militant organization,” Tarrio’s lawyer, Nayib Hassan writes in a letter obtained by ABC News. “Henry is nothing more than a proud American that believes in true conservative values.”
His lawyer writes that Tarrio is a “young man” with an “aspiring future” and that he wasn’t even in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6.
During his sentencing, prosecutors pointed to a nine-page strategic plan to “storm” government buildings in Washington on Jan. 6 that was found in Tarrio’s possession after the riot, as well as violent rhetoric they say he routinely used in messages with other members of the group about what they would do if Congress moved forward in certifying President Joe Biden’s election win.
Tarrio, his lawyer argues, has been moved from various private and federal prisons and is often remanded to the Special Housing Unit which only allows someone to leave their cell once a day.
“Granting this pardon would allow Henry to reintegrate into a family that is extremely supportive and would further demonstrate commitment to lawful, peaceful and constructive contributions,” according to the letter. “It would also enable him to support his family fully and contribute meaningfully to the community.”
During his sentencing hearing in September 2023, Tarrio apologized profusely for his actions and heaping praise on members of law enforcement who he said have been unfairly mistreated and maligned after the Jan. 6 attack — which he called a “national embarrassment.”
“I will have to live with that shame and disappointment for the rest of my life,” Tarrio said. “We invoked 1776 and the Constitution of the United States and that was so wrong to do. That was a perversion. The events of Jan. 6 is something that should never be celebrated.”
