The assailant who tried to stab a would-be New York governor has been hit with a federal charge after his release in a state case
The man who was quickly released from jail after trying to stab New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin during a speech is now facing federal prosecution and a potentially long prison term.
The suspect, David Jakubonis, was arrested by federal authorities on Saturday and charged with assaulting a member of Congress using a dangerous weapon, according to an announcement by US Attorney Trini Ross in Rochester, New York. If convicted, he could be sentenced to as many as 10 years in prison.
The arrest came one day after Jakubonis was released from jail on a state assault charge without even being required to pay bail. He had been jailed for only about six hours before being let go under a 2020 state law that prohibits New York judges from imposing bail requirements on suspects charged with nonviolent crimes.
Apparently because Jakubonis didn’t succeed in stabbing Zeldin – he was pulled to the ground and apprehended after approaching the candidate on stage with a double-pronged weapon – he was charged with attempted assault, which is categorized as a nonviolent offense under New York law.
Zeldin’s supporters, such as state Republican Party Chairman Nick Langworthy, pointed to the case as an example of how public safety has been shrugged off in New York under Democratic Party leadership, including incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul. “Only in Kathy Hochul’s New York could a maniac violently attack a candidate for governor and then be released without bail,” Langworthy said.
The story might have ended there, except Zeldin also happens to be a sitting member of Congress, representing much of Long Island in the House of Representatives since 2015. While trying to stab a garden-variety politician would be a matter left exclusively to state law enforcement authorities, it’s a federal felony to assault a member of Congress.
Jakubonis, a 43-year-old US Army veteran, will be kept in federal custody until at least next Wednesday, when his bail hearing is scheduled to be held.
Beijing has touted its jabs by noting that Xi Jinping and all other top leaders received domestically produced inoculations
China has made a renewed push to promote the safety and effectiveness of its Covid-19 vaccines by pointing out that they were good enough for the country’s entire leadership, including President Xi Jinping, to fully rely on them.
“All China’s incumbent party and state leaders have completed vaccination against the coronavirus with domestically developed vaccines,” Zeng Yixin, deputy director of the National Health Commission (NHC), told reporters on Saturday. He added that Chinese leaders have demonstrated a high level of trust in the Covid-19 inoculations developed by their own country.
The statement comes as China tries to crack down on flareups of the virus by imposing lockdowns or mass testing programs in such cities as Shanghai. More than 92% of China’s population has received at least one Covid-19 shot, while nearly 90% is considered fully vaccinated. Just under 71.7% have had a booster shot.
Like vaccines developed in other countries, the Chinese jabs haven’t fully halted the spread of the virus. However, the homegrown vaccines protect well against severe illness and death caused by Covid-19’s Omicron variants, said Feng Zijian, secretary general of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association.
Research and development work is proceeding on new vaccines to deal with Omicron sub-variants, and some of those jabs are already undergoing clinical trials, Chinese officials added.
With China achieving high inoculation rates in its own population, the world’s largest, and providing billions of jabs to low- and middle-income countries, Beijing’s Sinopharm and CoronaVac have been among the most heavily used vaccines globally. China leads the world by far in doses administered domestically, at more than 3.4 billion, nearly six times the US total.
Monkeypox is an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly, through new modes of transmission about which we understand ‘too little’, and which meets the criteria of an emergency under International Health Regulations.
The UN Secretary-General ‘unequivocally’ condemned the reported strikes this Saturday in the port of Odesa. The attack took place less than 24 hours after the signing of the Black Sea agreements on the export of grain from Ukrainian ports.
The UN Secretary-General ‘unequivocally’ condemned the reported strikes this Saturday in the port of Odesa. The attack took place less than 24 hours after the signing of the Black Sea agreements on the export of grain from Ukrainian ports.
The UN Secretary-General ‘unequivocally’ condemned the reported strikes this Saturday in the port of Odesa. The attack took place less than 24 hours after the signing of the Black Sea agreements on the export of grain from Ukrainian ports.
The number of tigers in the wild has gone up dramatically since 2015 — largely because of improvements in monitoring them, but the species remains endangered.
A couple and their six-year-old daughter were gunned down in their tent, reportedly by a stranger with no apparent motive
A nine-year-old boy was the lone survivor after his parents and younger sister were shot dead while camping at a state park in Iowa. The alleged shooter then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.
The shooting at Maquoketa Caves State Park in eastern Iowa occurred early Friday morning, according to police. The victims – identified as Cedar Falls residents Tyler and Sarah Schmidt, both 42, and their 6-year-old daughter, Lula Schmidt – were found dead in their tent. The couple’s son, Arlo Schmidt, survived the attack, Cedar Falls Mayor Rob Green said in a Facebook post.
“Like many of you just hearing the news, I’m devastated,” said Green, who offered no details on how Arlo Schmidt escaped injury. “I knew Sarah well, and she and her family were regular walkers here in the Sartori Park neighborhood.”
Officers investigating the shooting found that one of the campers at the park was missing and was known to be armed, state police said. That person, 23-year-old Anthony Orlando Sherwin, was found dead a few hours later about one mile west of the park, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Police don’t believe the shooting suspect, who was from the neighboring state of Nebraska, had any relationship with the Schmidts, the New York Times reported. Investigators haven’t determined a possible motive for the attack.
“We don’t know what led up to this, what precipitated it,” Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of criminal investigations for the state police, told the Associated Press. So far, he added, “the investigation has not revealed any early interaction between the Schmidt family and [Sherwin].”
The triple-homicide comes amid a wave of mass shootings in the US, which has spurred a renewed push by Democrat lawmakers to impose new restrictions on gun ownership. Last month, President Joe Biden signed the first major gun control legislation to be passed by Congress in nearly three decades.
Ankara summoned Sweden’s top diplomat in the country to vent chagrin over a Kurdish group’s protest in Gothenburg
The top Swedish diplomat in Ankara has reportedly been called on the carpet to hear out the Turkish government’s “strong reaction” to a Kurdish group’s protest in Gothenburg, raising tensions between the countries at a time when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to veto Sweden’s accession to NATO.
Turkey’s foreign ministry summoned Sweden’s interim chief of mission in Ankara to voice its displeasure over this week’s Kurdish protest, which it considered to be “terrorist propaganda,”according to reports by Reuters and multiple Turkish media outlets. The reports cited unidentified diplomatic sources.
The latest flareup in Stockholm’s relationship with Turkey comes at a time when Erdogan has threatened to block approval for Sweden and Finland to join NATO on concern that the Nordic countries are hosting Kurdish militants. Last month in Madrid, the countries signed a tripartite memorandum under which Sweden and Finland pledged to end their embargo on arms sales to Turkey and crack down on individuals and groups that Ankara has branded terrorists.
“In this context, our expectations for identifying the perpetrators of the action, taking the necessary legal and judicial measures and taking concrete steps in light of the commitments recorded in the tripartite memorandum were emphasized,” the diplomatic officials said of the Gothenburg protest. The demonstration involved supporters of the PKK and other Kurdish groups that Turkey has designated as terrorist organizations.
Erdogan warned this week that Turkey may still “freeze” the NATO applications of Sweden and Finland if they don’t fulfill conditions of the Madrid agreement. “Sweden, in particular, does not have a good image on this issue,” he said.
The Gothenburg protest occurred on Wednesday, with pictures and videos posted on social media showing demonstrators carrying pro-Kurdish banners, including PKK flags. The group’s flags were also reportedly hoisted on several poles in the center of the city, according to Turrkish media reports, while some of the marchers carried a banner saying, “We are all PKK.”
