Category: Security

One of Haiti’s most controversial figures is back in his troubled homeland after being deported from the United States on Thursday.

Guy Philippe, the former Haitian police commander who led a rebellion in 2004 that overthrew President Jean Bertrand Aristide and then spent nearly a dozen years evading U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, arrived aboard a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement flight along with more than a dozen others deportees. The flight departed from Alexandria, Louisiana, at 5:57 a.m. and arrived in Haiti at 9:49 a.m.

Philippe’s presence was confirmed by the Office of National Migration, which is tasked with receiving deportees returned to Haiti. Upon landing, he was immediately taken into custody by the Haiti’s judicial police.

The ICE flight is the latest deportation trip by the Biden administration, which has been asked by immigration advocates and the United Nations to halt all deportations to Haiti, given the country’s ongoing armed gang and humanitarian crisis.

Tom Cartwright, a refugee advocate who tracks U.S. deportation flights, says despite the demands, Haiti has been averaging about one ICE flight per month since last December, usually with fewer than 50 people onboard.

Since President Joe Biden’s Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration, the U.S. has deported more than 27,200 Haitians back to their country, said Cartwright, who added that Thursday’s flight is the 289th ICE deportation flight under this administration.

Guerline Jozef, co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a San Diego-based immigrant rights group that works with U.S. asylum seekers, said Philippe’s deportation makes no sense in the current context, which includes the Biden administration’s support for an armed force from Kenya to be deployed to Haiti to help the Caribbean nation’s fragile police force combat gangs.

“It is in fact very contradictory to the U.S. government’s own narrative and will further destabilize Haiti,” she said. “This is a clear example of how U.S. foreign policies toward Haiti continue to be a major contributing factor to the destabilization of Haiti.”

Prior to this extradition to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges, Philippe was the subject of a Haitian police arrest warrant after being accused of involvement in a deadly 2016 attack on the police headquarters in the southern Haitian city of Les Cayes. At least six people were killed including one police officer.

Sources told the Miami Herald Philippe was being held on that warrant Thursday after he was taken to the headquarters of the Haitian judicial police. It was not immediately clear if he would be transferred to prison or allowed to go home.

Philippe’s return has been anticipated for months by his supporters and could well change the political dynamics in Haiti, where the government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry has failed to reach an agreement with opposition parties and civil society groups to move Haiti toward its first elections since 2016.

In 2017, Philippe was sentenced to nine years in prison by a Miami federal judge after pleading guilty to a money-laundering conspiracy charge involving allegations that he had pocketed more than $1 million from Colombian cocaine traffickers. Despite cutting a plea deal with federal prosecutors to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison, he continued to maintain his innocence and accused U.S. authorities of “kidnapping” him from Haiti, where he was on his way to being sworn in as a senator when he was arrested by Haitian police.

In September, Philippe, 55, was released from a federal prison in Atlanta and transferred to immigration custody after trying several times to get his sentence reduced while representing himself both before and during the pandemic era.

Several Haitian officials contacted by the Miami Herald ahead of the flight’s arrival said they had not been warned by the Department of Homeland Security of Philippe’s pending return. A manifest of the flight’s passengers, sent to Port-au-Prince, initially only had 17 names, all of whom were people being repatriated after violating U.S. immigration law, Haiti’s Office of National Migration said.

Philippe’s presence back in Haiti, a country still reeling from the 2021 assassination of its president and now seeing the steady expansion of armed gangs out of the capital and into its countryside, has raised concerns given the volatile landscape, the ongoing leadership void and Philippe’s popularity and political connections.

He was once accused by Human Rights Watch of participating in extrajudicial killings as he rose to prominence during the political turmoil that eventually led to the ouster of Aristide.

The head of Philippe’s National Consortium of Haitian Political Parties runs a service brigade, known by its French acronym BSAP, that is supposed to be in charge of Haiti’s environmentally fragile areas. Critics, however, say that the organization, which is part of the country’s security apparatus, has become more of a paramilitary group whose armed agents get into scuffles with the police and the public. Last year Haiti’s environment ministry announced that it had canceled Consortium agents’ badges due to reports about inappropriate behavior. The group, however, remains active.

Despite a 2005 U.S. indictment on drug trafficking and money laundering charges, Philippe ran for the Haitian Senate in 2016 while openly campaigning alongside presidential candidate Jovenel Moïse. Philippe won a seat in the second round to represent the southwestern rural Grand’Anse region. His arrest came two months later, in early January 2017, as he was visiting a radio station in the capital ahead of his swearing-in for the six-year term. He was then turned over to the DEA.

Though Philippe tried to claim immunity from prosecution as a senator-elect in Haiti, he ended up pleading guilty in April 2017 in a Miami federal courtroom to the money-laundering conspiracy charge. The deal allowed him to avoid going to trial on a more serious trafficking charge that could have sent him to prison for the rest of his life.

Instead, he faced up to 20 years on the money-laundering conviction and got less than half that time from U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga.

Philippe’s sentencing culminated a federal investigation into drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption at the highest levels of Haiti’s government that began in the 2000s when the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the neighboring Dominican Republic, became a notorious hub for shipping South American cocaine into the United States.

For years, Aristide, who was ousted in 2004 in an armed revolt led by Philippe, had been investigated by a Miami federal grand jury on suspicion of accepting drug bribes, though charges were never filed.

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© 2023 Miami Herald

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Two Nevada State Troopers were struck and killed Thursday morning while conducting a motorist assist on northbound Interstate 15 near D street.

Las Vegas police provided some details about the incident at a press briefing at Metro HQ Thursday afternoon.

A suspect has been taken into custody, according to LMVPD Deputy Chief Branden Clarkson. Clarkson did not provide the name of the suspect due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.

The incident is being investigated by Metro’s homicide section, Clarkson said.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, who said he had visited the crime scene and been given a walk through of the events leading up to the crash.

“It’s a terrible, terrible tragedy to have these troopers lose their lives in the manner they did,” Wolfson said.

The I-15 northbound at Charleston and all ramps from U.S. Highway 95 to the I-15 northbound are closed. Please avoid the area.

“Our prayers are with the families and loved ones of our fallen Troopers,” troopers said in a news release.

Gov. Joe Lombardo also released a statement after the deaths.

“I’m profoundly saddened by the deaths of two of our brave Nevada State Troopers, who were killed early this morning in Las Vegas,” the statement read. “This is a devastating loss for Nevada law enforcement, the city of Las Vegas, and our entire state. As we mourn these troopers, we will never forget their bravery, courage, and sacrifice.”

Police had surrounded an apartment complex and law enforcement vehicles lined streets near H Street and Monroe Avenue in connection with the deaths, according to a police source, while a nearby school, Wendell P. Williams Elementary, had temporarily placed on a soft lockdown that was lifted by 10 a.m.

The troopers’ deaths occurred a little more than two years after another state trooper, Micah May, was killed on the interstate near Sahara Avenue.

May died in July 2021 after he was struck by a carjacking suspect driving on the freeway. May was struck by the suspect’s stolen vehicle while deploying stop sticks on I-15, in an attempt to halt a car chase that spanned portions of the freeway and surface streets. May later died at University Medical Center from crash injuries.

In September, a stretch of the highway was dedicated in May’s name with memorial signs installed in each direction of I-15 near Sahara.

At the time, May was only the second Nevada trooper to die in the line of duty in nearly three decades, according to data maintained by the FBI.

On March 27, 2020, Sgt. Ben Jenkins was fatally shot on U.S. Highway 93 after Jenkins pulled over to assist a driver. Ruth resident John Dabritz is charged with murder, third-degree arson, grand larceny of a motor vehicle and grand larceny of a firearm in connection with the death.

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© 2023 Las Vegas Review-Journal

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Craig Grossi is not sure what his life will be like without his dog, Fred, but he knows he can never stop talking about him.

“I owe that to everyone who has come to rely on Fred as a beacon of hope and possibility,” Grossi, 40, said from his Midcoast home near Damariscotta on Wednesday. “I’ll continue to speak at events and schools or wherever people want to hear a real-life story about a dog that taught a Marine to live again.”

Fred died of cancer at his and Grossi’s home on Nov. 22. He was 14. During his life, he survived war-torn Afghanistan then helped Grossi deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, a battlefield head injury and alcohol abuse. Grossi credits Fred with “saving” him by getting him to open up to others and ask for help.

Fred also was the subject of two books by Grossi, “Craig & Fred,” published in 2017, and “Second Chances” in 2021. The books got national attention and made the pair in-demand speakers at schools, libraries, prisons and many other places. Fred became a social media star, with 94,000 followers on his Instagram account, fredtheafghan.

Since Fred’s death, Grossi has been heartened by the outpouring of support and sympathy from people all over the country, on Instagram and Facebook, who wrote about how Fred had inspired or helped them in some way.

“You made the world a brighter place with the thousands of paw prints you left on so many of our hearts,” one commenter wrote on the Fred The Afghan Facebook page. “In this sometimes dark world, you were a shining star for those of us who were able to read about your amazing journey. Thanks to the incredible human that saved you.”

Grossi was planning to write a third book tentatively titled “Expedition Fred,” about a trip they took to Alaska in September and October. That third book will now be more about Fred’s life, with the Alaska trip a part of it, and probably will have a different title.

Grossi said he likely will plan some sort of event in Fred’s memory in the spring. Not only did thousands of people know Fred from social media posts, but many also got to meet him in person, since he and Grossi were constantly being invited to speak all over the country.

“He was such a lovely creature, watching the kids with him was always so beautiful,” said Jacqui Davison, a farmer from Hillsboro, Wisconsin, who organized a townwide reading of “Craig & Fred” and then invited the pair to speak at a local school. “The kids thought Craig was cool, but Fred was like a movie star. He’d find a kid to sit next to and that kid would be floating on air the rest of the day.”

While Grossi knows now that Fred’s story can inspire and help people, he didn’t want to tell it, at first.

Grossi stumbled upon Fred in an Afghanistan combat zone in 2010, just after Grossi and his fellow Marines had held off a much larger Taliban force for a week. Grossi sensed something special in the dog, a “stubborn positivity” in the face of constant gunfire and bloodshed.

While other wild dogs in the area snarled and growled at the soldiers, Fred wagged his tail and accepted treats of beef jerky and happily approached the Marines. When another soldier took a bullet to the helmet, sustaining a traumatic brain injury, Fred came to his bedside every hour or so for a snuggle.

When it was time to leave Afghanistan, Grossi couldn’t bear to leave Fred, so he smuggled him aboard a military flight and took him in. He moved to Washington, D.C., where he’s from originally, and worked for the federal Defense Intelligence Agency.

Grossi struggled with the transition and spent too much time in bars. He didn’t talk to anyone about what he was going through or seek help. But he’d take Fred to dog parks where other dog owners would always ask about the perky, friendly dog. His looks are unique — a face sort of like a Lab, short legs like a Corgi — so they’d always ask: “What breed is he?”

Grossi did not want to relive his experiences in Afghanistan, where he saw friends die. So he’d make up a breed, like “Pocket Wolf,” to avoid telling Fred’s real story and relive the trauma of combat. (Grossi had Fred’s DNA tested years later and found out he’s a West Asian Village Dog.)

People continued to ask about Fred. One day at the dog park, Grossi finally decided to talk about how Fred came into his life and what he had meant.

“Something in me just said, ‘Tell the story.’ So I told the story, and people I met encouraged me to tell it to others,” said Grossi. “We’d be at the park, Fred chasing squirrels, and people would be waiting for me to tell Fred’s story. The more I told it, the more connected I felt, the more confident I began to feel. “

It was while telling the story of Fred at a dinner in Boston that he met his wife, Nora Parkington.

One of the many places where Fred and Grossi shared their story over the years was at the Maine State Prison in Warren, where they made regular visits with inmates, including veterans, who trained service dogs. Grossi also led a writing group at the prison, with Fred by his side. Both inmates and guards were inspired by their story, said Randall Liberty, commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections, who helped arrange Grossi and Fred’s prison visits.

“I think the powerful relationship between Fred and Craig and their backstory — Craig saving Fred and then Fred saving Craig — is something that speaks to a lot of people,” said Liberty. “It shows how people can heal together by talking about the past.”

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(c) 2023 the Portland Press Herald

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

A shootout in central Myanmar between junta forces and locals killed four men, residents said on Wednesday. 

Junta security in Sagaing region’s Shwebo township entered Nya Hmwe Pan, a karaoke bar and restaurant, in Thuzar neighborhood on Monday night. As soldiers began to inspect the bar’s premises, a gunfight broke out, locals told Radio Free Asia. 

Junta authorities have since arrested around 20 people, including employees from the restaurant and other customers. The four victims were all men in their 20s, according to eyewitnesses. RFA has been unable to confirm the names of the victims or why some customers were carrying weapons.  

“The junta council’s security forces came to check. Those who were singing karaoke fired back so they couldn’t be inspected when forces came to check [that area],” one local said, declining to be named for fear of reprisals.

“Four young people from the group singing karaoke died on the spot during the exchange of fire.”

Calls by RFA to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson Sai Naing Naing Kyaw to learn more about the incident went unanswered on Wednesday.

The bodies of the four men were taken to the Shwebo Hospital in ambulances an hour after the shooting, locals said, adding that junta troops took away the bodies in the process. 

They said since the shooting, almost all the restaurants and karaoke bars in Shwebo city have stopped accepting guests after 7 p.m.

As of November 28, over 4,200 people across the country have been killed since the military seized power nearly three years ago, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.

Another Russian Army general has died in Ukraine, according to Ukrainian and Russian media reports on November 29.

Russian Major General Vladimir Zavadsky died on November 28, according to the reports, which say his death was confirmed by an organization of graduates of his military school.

The Russian research group Conflict Intelligence Team also confirmed Zavadsky’s death, citing Russian military sources.

The Russian Defense Ministry has not confirmed his death.

The Russian media website Important Stories says Zavadsky is the seventh Russian general whose death in the war in Ukraine has been confirmed by Russian sources. 

The two men in blue jeans and T-shirts were strangers but entered the governor’s gym in the Venezuelan city of Maturín looking as if they owned the place. They asked the front-desk attendant if the governor was in. He was.

A guard, spotting their weapons, grabbed his two-way radio and blurted: “Armed men just walked in.”

They were his last words before a burst of 9mm gunfire tore into him and sent gym goers, including Gov. José Gregorio “El Gato” (The Cat) Briceño, diving to the floor.

Not 10 minutes later, Briceño, shaken, breathless but alive, received a call from President Hugo Chávez.

“Gato, what happened?” Chávez asked,

“I have no doubt that it was ordered by Diosdado,” Briceño said.

That would be Diosdado Cabello, the close Chávez aide who was fast becoming one of the richest and most powerful men in Venezuela. The same Diosdado Cabello who, according to Drug Enforcement Administration records, interviews with exiled colleagues, and a U.S. indictment, today juggles jobs as a captain in the military and member of the national assembly while simultaneously running the Cartel or the Suns, the connective tissue between Colombian drug producers and the Venezuelan regime.

Cabello, who graduated second in his class at the military academy, has allegedly consolidated power through connections with current President Nicolás Maduro and his late predecessor, Chávez. He enforces his will by maintaining a firm grip on the nation’s security forces. Aided by partners, most of them fellow military officers, he also runs a network of companies that monopolize government contracts, usually submitting grossly overinflated invoices.

Although garden-variety corruption is a major source of his wealth, drug trafficking has gained greater importance following the decline of the country’s oil income, the U.S. alleges.

Finally, his control over the nation’s main ports allows Cabello’s drug operations to flourish, sources claim. Ill-gotten gains must be laundered. Here he holds another trump card: his brother, who runs the Venezuelan equivalent of the IRS.

Cabello’s pivotal role is underscored in the “NarcoFiles: The New Criminal Order,” a transnational journalistic investigation into global organized crime, its innovations, its tentacles, and those who fight it.

The project, led by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in partnership with Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística, began with a massive leak of documents from the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office. The leak was shared with the Miami Herald and 40 other media outlets around the world.

The leaked Colombian documents lay out Cabello’s personal involvement in the drug trade, indicating that Cabello has a number of partners who own cattle ranches in the Venezuelan lowlands (Llanos) that receive drug shipments coming out of Colombia through the Arauca River.

Along with exclusive interviews with cartel members in exile and DEA documents, the Colombian leak provides the clearest portrait yet of the man allegedly overseeing Venezuela’s transformation from a nation buoyed by oil profits into a narco-state.

Prelude to a fusillade

Cabello had reason to harbor a grudge. Briceño — then governor of Monagas state, now living in exile in Spain — told the Herald he had sent detailed reports to Chávez alleging that Cabello and his brother, José David, were running a sprawling drug-trafficking and money-laundering operation. Briceño reported that cocaine shipments coming out of Colombia were transported to large cattle ranches purchased by Cabello’s strawmen in Monagas, a state in northeastern Venezuela, and from there taken by boat or small plane out of the country.

Assembled by intelligence agents with the state’s police department, the reports ran several pages long, replete with photos, organizational charts and detailed descriptions of the operation, Briceño told the Herald.

None of this should have surprised Chávez since, according to interviews and documents reviewed by the Herald, the president not only knew of the drug trafficking operation but had handpicked Cabello to help lead it. Sounding the alarm cost Briceño control of the state’s police. A month after the gymnasium attack, units from the National Guard, supported by light tanks and carrying assault weapons, took over the police headquarters.

Things only got worse for Briceño. The governor clashed with Chávez after refusing to comply with the president’s order to reestablish water service in Maturin following a massive oil leak that contaminated the city’s main supply, the Guarapiche River. Had he obeyed, Briceño said, the city’s 600,000 inhabitants would have been exposed to deadly toxins.

Briceño, along with several other former high-ranking regime members, told the Herald in separate interviews that Cabello stands at the apex of the Cartel de Los Soles, the Spanish name for the drug-trafficking organization, which is interwoven with the socialist regime.

DEA documents obtained by the Miami Herald and its parent company, McClatchy, underscore his involvement. Cabello was present at the birth of the cartel, according to those documents. He was among a group of Chávez lieutenants who participated in a series of brainstorming sessions orchestrated by the then-president in 2005.

“Chávez urged the group … to promote his political objectives, including fighting the United States by flooding the country with cocaine,” one DEA document said. According to DEA records, Chávez ordered Cabello, Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal, then-Defense Minister Henry Rangel Silva and others to coordinate with the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia’s main rebel army, stipulating that law enforcement should be ordered not to intervene.

Carvajal’s lawyer denied his client, Chávez’s spy chief, attended any such meetings.

One DEA document was sent by the U.S. State Department to Spain to try to secure Carvajal’s extradition after he was arrested when he tried to enter that country. It took years — highlighted by Carvajal’s escape from Spanish custody and almost two years on the lam — but he was finally extradited this year.

While Cabello was only one of several Chávez aides assigned to set up a state-sponsored drug trafficking enterprise in partnership with Colombia’s leftist guerrillas, he would rise to the top soon enough, sources formerly affiliated with the regime told the Miami Herald.

“Diosdado is the boss of everything,” a former cartel member told the Miami Herald.

Cabello’s “direct” involvement in the drug trade prompted the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, aka OFAC, to sanction him, claiming he used his control over the country’s security forces to further an array of criminal rackets, including extortion, money laundering and mineral smuggling in addition to drug trafficking.

Sanctions can involve travel restrictions and freezes on assets.

Beside running his own routes with drugs provided by FARC, Cabello had an additional cocaine connection, according to OFAC. The U.S regulator said his organization commandeered drug loads seized from small-fry traffickers and exported them through a Venezuelan government-owned airport.

“Cabello, along with President Maduro and others, divided proceeds from these narcotics shipments,” OFAC said.

On March 26, 2020, following up on OFAC’s sanctions, the U.S. issued an indictment charging Cabello and 14 other high-ranking regime officials, including Maduro, with turning Venezuela into a state-sanctioned drug- trafficking hub. The State Department announced a $10 million reward for information leading to Cabello’s arrest.

The reward is unclaimed.

Cabello’s control over the nation’s ports is all but absolute, sources said, due in part to the restructuring of Bolipuertos, the oversight authority.

The “restructuring“ allowed the cartel, “particularly the faction of Cabello, to take almost total control over the entry to and exits from the ports and the products — licit or illicit — that moved through them,” said a recent report by IBI Consultants, a security consulting firm specializing in transnational organized crime in Latin America. The report was produced for a U.S. law enforcement agency.

At those same ports, Cabello has military officers loyal to him who facilitate the drug shipments, the report said.

“Cabello relies on both family members in key positions and military and former military officers, particularly those close to his 1987 graduation class from the military academy. Most of those in key positions to control critical infrastructure and cocaine flows are from the military academy classes of 1986-1988, who are personal friends and comrades of Cabello’s,” the report added.

What’s more, Cabello now has direct control of the country’s intelligence service, the feared SEBIN, which gives him the upper hand in the cartel’s infighting.

A key cog in his consolidation of power is Cabello’s brother, José David, who, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, facilitates the cartel’s money-laundering operations through his control of Venezuela’s revenue service, Seniat.

Brothers, collaborators

The brothers have allegedly accumulated a vast business and real estate empire through a wave of expropriations conducted over the years by the regime. Some of those expropriated properties ended up in the hands of the Cabello clan, sources said.

Despite the enormous wealth and power they have accumulated, there is one goal that has eluded them. It is said to be a source of the enmity between the brothers and Briceño, which dates back more than a decade ago.

“The confrontation with Diosdado began when I became governor, because he wanted to impose José David Cabello, his brother, in the position,” Briceño said.

Why?

“It was his mother’s dream to have one of his sons become the governor of Monagas state,” Briceño said. “That’s when the confrontation began, and the guy used all his power to keep me from winning the election, and then from staying in the post.”

Their mother’s wish didn’t come true, but the desire to turn Monagas — and Venezuela — into a drug haven has turned into reality.

Experts believe the cartel, using Monagas as a jumping-off point, exports between 250 and 350 tons of cocaine per year, with a street value of between $6.25 billion and $8.75 billion.

Much of it is ticketed for the United States.

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© 2023 McClatchy Washington Bureau

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Navy men’s basketball had nine days between games during the Thanksgiving break, giving coach Ed DeChellis and his staff time to develop a young squad and address the issues that led to four straight losses to start the season.

Navy returned to action following the long layoff against Virginia Military Institute, an opponent it has dominated over the years, except for last season. Having plenty of preparation time and motivation to get payback from last year’s loss to the Keydets proved a winning combination for the Mids.

Sophomore point guard Austin Benigni had a strong all-around floor game with 15 points, eight rebounds and three assists and Navy used suffocating defense to defeat VMI, 67-47, before a sparse crowd at Alumni Hall on Wednesday night.

Sophomore forward Donovan Draper had a breakout performance with 15 points, nine rebounds and five steals for the Mids, who led from start to finish. Junior forward Mitch Fischer chipped in 10 points for Navy (1-4), which now leads the all-time series with VMI 24-2.

Freshman swingman Koree Cotton scored 18 points to lead VMI (2-6), which was harassed into 33% (17-for-51) field goal shooting and 26 turnovers by an aggressive Navy defense.

DeChellis said the coaching staff went back to basics during the layoff. Defense and rebounding, the hallmarks of any DeChellis-coached team, were the primary focus. Through four games, opponents were shooting 62% on two-point attempts, which seriously displeased the veteran coach.

“Teams were getting way too many shots in the paint and we were getting soft in the last eight minutes,” he said. “We really worked on guarding the ball, being in our gaps and trying to play five guys versus the ball and helping each other. We were leaving each other on islands I thought.”

Navy showed improvement on the defensive end with Draper’s effort helping the team total 14 steals. The Mids pressured the ball, provided solid help defense and contested shots.

“I thought defensively we had to be really, really good tonight and I thought we were for 30 to 35 minutes,” DeChellis said.

Inactivity hasn’t helped the development process for the Midshipmen, who played only five games in November, their fewest in the opening month of the season since the 2005-06 season.

Meanwhile, it was just the second home game for Navy, which was back in Alumni Hall for the first time since falling to Temple in the Veterans Classic.

Junior guard Mac MacDonald chipped in nine points for Navy, which scored 34 points in the paint and another 22 points off turnovers. Draper and Kam Summers (seven points) did most of the damage as the Mids scored 27 bench points.

Draper was recruited to play basketball and football at Navy and chose the gridiron over the hardwood. He was on the football roster as a plebe, but elected to play basketball instead as a sophomore.

It has taken time to knock off the rust as Draper had not played in a competitive basketball game since his senior season in high school. The long and athletic 6-foot-5 forward came in averaging 5.8 points and 6.5 rebounds.

“[Draper] rebounds the ball, plays hard and is an active guy. He’s still learning,” DeChellis said. “He’s a sophomore class-wise, but he’s a freshman because he hasn’t played in two years. It’s all the little nuances that Donovan doesn’t really understand yet.”

While the Midshipmen made improvement defensively Wednesday night, they continue to struggle offensively. DeChellis just shook his head after looking at the final box score and seeing his squad shot 3-for-28 from 3-point range.

“Offensively, we’re still not shooting the ball very well. We’ve got to start making some shots,” he said. “I thought we had open shots, we just couldn’t make them. We manufactured points off turnovers, but in the free-flowing offense we didn’t make shots we need to make.”

Benigni heavily struggled shooting, finishing 5-for-18 from the field, including 0-for-6 from beyond the arc. DeChellis said the point guard needs to focus on distributing and be more judicious in terms of shot selection.

“You’ve got to pass the ball more. He’s open, but that was part of their plan — to go under ball screens and let him shoot,” DeChellis said.

DeChellis shortened the bench on purpose against VMI with only four reserves (Draper, Summers, Jack Medale and Jinwoo Kim) seeing action for most of the game. The 13th-year coach said it may be a while before he settles on a regular rotation.

“It’s still a work in progress because we haven’t had a whole lot of consistency,” DeChellis said. “I’m going to play the guys who play well in practice. I think we’ve got good young players, but they don’t know what they’re doing yet. When these freshmen and sophomores figure it out I think we have a chance.”

Fisher and MacDonald combined for 15 points on 7-for-10 field goal shooting to help Navy take a 31-20 halftime lead. The Midshipmen, who led by as much as 16 points in the first half, were powered by a 16-4.

Aggressive defense fueled the crucial stretch with VMI making just 1 of 14 field goals during a nearly eight-minute stretch. The Keydets shot just 8-for-24 (33%) and committed 14 turnovers in the first half.

The Midshipmen took full advantage of the sloppy ball-handling by the visitors, scoring 15 points off turnovers.

Navy maintained the defensive pressure to start the second half and quickly delivered the knockout blow. Draper started the second half and was very active on both ends of the floor as the Mids opened with a 16-5 run to take its largest lead of 22 points (47-25) at the 12:22 mark.

Draper sparked the second half onslaught with a steal and layup and scored seven points during the decisive run.

The Midshipmen continued to pull away with Draper delivering the exclamation point by driving the baseline and throwing down a vicious one-hand dunk to make it 62-37 with just under five minutes left.

Coppin State at Navy

Sunday, 1:30 p.m.

Stream: ESPN+

Radio: 1430 AM

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(c) 2023 The Capital

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a lawsuit against Pfizer Thursday for “unlawfully misrepresenting” the company’s COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness and engaging in efforts to “censor public discussion” of the vaccine.

In a press release announcing Thursday’s lawsuit against the vaccine-making company, the Texas Attorney General’s Office stated, “Pfizer’s widespread representation that its vaccine possessed 95% efficacy against infection was highly misleading from day one. That number was only ever legitimate in a solitary, highly technical, and artificial way—it represented a calculation of the so-called ‘relative risk reduction’ for vaccinated individuals in Pfizer’s then-unfinished pivotal clinical trial.”

The press release claimed that the Food and Drug Administration’s publications note that relative risk reduction is a “misleading statistic” that can “unduly influence” the choice of the consumer.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office claimed that Pfizer violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by engaging in “false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices” through “unsupported claims” regarding the effectiveness of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine.

“We are pursuing justice for the people of Texas, many of whom were coerced by tyrannical vaccine mandates to take a defective product sold by lies,” Paxton stated. “The facts are clear. Pfizer did not tell the truth about their COVID-19 vaccines. Whereas the Biden Administration weaponized the pandemic to force illegal public health decrees on the public and enrich pharmaceutical companies, I will use every tool I have to protect our citizens who were misled and harmed by Pfizer’s actions.”

READ MORE: Vaccine-maker Pfizer sued by red state’s attorney general

According to the lawsuit, Pfizer claimed that its COVID-19 vaccine was 95% effective based on information obtained during a two-month clinical trial, during which, only 162 out of 17,000 placebo patients received the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Based on those numbers, vaccination status had a negligible impact on whether a trial participant contracted COVID-19,” the lawsuit states. “The risk of acquiring COVID-19 was so small in the first instance during this short window that Pfizer’s vaccine only fractionally improved a person’s risk of infection.”

The lawsuit also raises allegations that some regions experienced “negative vaccine efficacy” toward the end of 2021, with more vaccinated individuals infected with COVID-19 than unvaccinated individuals. Additionally, the lawsuit claims that some COVID-19 rates increased despite higher numbers of the population being vaccinated.

“How did Pfizer respond when it became apparent that its vaccine was failing and the viability of its cash cow was threatened? By intimidating those spreading the truth, and by conspiring to censor its critics. Pfizer labeled as ‘criminals’ those who spread facts about the vaccine,” the lawsuit states. “It accused them of spreading ‘misinformation.’ And it coerced social media platforms to silence prominent truth-tellers.”

Earlier in November, Paxton announced another lawsuit against Pfizer and Tris Pharma, which is a drug manufacturing company owned by the vaccine manufacturer, for allegedly “defrauding the Texas Medicaid program” by providing children with “adulterated pharmaceutical drugs,” which the company knew were ineffective.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who is a doctor, performed the Heimlich maneuver Thursday on Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) during a Senate lunch as the GOP senator was reportedly choking on food.

In a Thursday post on X, formerly Twitter, Burgess Everett, POLITICO’s congressional bureau chief, wrote, “Whoa: Rand Paul used the Heimlich maneuver on Joni Ernst at Senate lunch today, she was choking on some food, per attendees. She’s OK, senators say.”

Sharing Everett’s post on her X page, Ernst later joked, “Can’t help but choke on the woke policies Dems are forcing down our throats. Thanks, Dr. @RandPaul!” 

According to CNN, one of Ernst’s aides confirmed that the Iowa senator was doing alright after the incident.

CNN reported that Ernst was responsible for hosting Thursday’s Senate luncheon, which is hosted each week by a member of the Senate and often features food from the home state of whichever senator is hosting the meal.

READ MORE: Sen. Rand Paul’s office damaged in massive fire day after announcing Fauci investigation

Prior to the meal, Ernst was pictured with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) with some of the food that was featured at the luncheon, which included pork chops and ribeyes.

Grassley tweeted pictures from Thursday’s lunch alongside the caption, “Yummm an Iowa chop from Sen Ernst & the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association for lunch.”

According to CNN, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) noted that after Paul performed the Heimlich removal during Ernst’s choking incident, both Paul and Ernst addressed the incident, prompting a discussion regarding how to notice the signs of a person choking and how senators can be trained to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

In a statement obtained by CNN, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said, “I didn’t actually see it. We’ve had that happen one other time to one of our members. It’s kind of scary.”

Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), who was not at Thursday’s lunch when the choking incident occurred, told a Washington Post reporter, “God bless Rand Paul. I never thought I would say that.”

During a recent television interview, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of having over 200 FBI agents “embedded” in the crowd that stormed Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

“The FBI was not only involved in the actions on January 6 from within,” Higgins told Newsmax during a recent interview. “They had, I suspect, over 200 agents embedded within the crowd including agents or as they would call human assets inside the Capitol dressed as Trump supporters before the doors were opened.”

Newsmax shared a clip from a video that featured the Louisiana congressman during a previous hearing where he questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray regarding the agency’s involvement with the Jan. 6 protest. As part of his questioning, Higgins accused the FBI of sending “ghost busses” to Capitol Hill that were filled with FBI informants dressed to look like supporters of former President Donald Trump.

Asked by Higgins if he could confirm that the FBI had “that sort of engagement” with agents “embedded” in the crowd of Trump supporters on Jan. 6, Wray responded, “If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and or agents the answer is emphatically no.”

READ MORE: FBI secretly targeting Trump supporters: Report

In addition to claiming that the FBI had over 200 agents embedded in the crowd at the storming of Capitol Hill, Higgins told Newsmax that the FBI had “infiltrated” websites, social media accounts, and online chat groups related to people who discussed “objections to COVID oppression.”

“And when you track the text threads and the communications within those groups, and find the origins of suggestions of potential violence or an act of occupation of the Capitol on January 6, you’ll find that those messages were led by members of the groups and ended up to be the FBI agents that had infiltrated the group,” Higgins said. “So the FBI’s involvement was deep not just on J6, but on the days and weeks and months prior.”