Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz stays silent during second court appearance
February 20, 2018 by admin
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Accused Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz kept his head down and mouth shut Monday during his first live televised appearance in a Broward County circuit court.
Shackled and dressed in a bright red prison uniform, Cruz let his lawyers do the talking for him during a hearing in front of Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer.
Cruz’s court appearance came five days after he allegedly unleashed a bloodbath on Valentine’s Day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He is accused of killing 17 students and teachers with an AR-15 rifle.
Cruz, 19, sat at the defendant’s table with his hands cuffed and avoided looking at the cameras recording the proceedings in the courtroom. At one point, he appeared to sign some kind of document as one of his lawyers held up a legal pad to block the view of his signature.
Scherer had ordered that Cruz appear in court — over the objections of lead defense attorney Melissa McNeill, who had argued that his presence would just be “an opportunity for the media to have a circus with him.”
The judge ruled, however, that a document filed Friday by Cruz’s lawyers would remain sealed, even though the defense has already argued that the document was no longer relevant to the case.
“I don’t believe that the state has suffered any prejudice by these matters being kept confidential,” said Scherer, the daughter of high-profile Fort Lauderdale lawyer and Republican fundraiser Bill Scherer. “Going forward, all matters in this case are going to be heard by this court.”
The teenage suspect was not at a second hearing on Monday, where a different judge ruled that the Florida Department of Children and Families could publicly release any records it has pertaining to Cruz — yet allowed the agency redact the names, but not the titles, of any workers who handled the troubled teen’s case.
Neither prosecutors nor the defense team objected, largely because most of those records have already been obtained by NBC News and other news outlets.
Among other things, the records show that Cruz sent out a Snapchat video in which he cut his arms, wanted to buy a gun, suffered from depression and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
They also revealed that after speaking with Cruz in 2016, the staff at Henderson Behavioral Health, a South Florida mental health facility, chose not to hospitalize him.
McNeill, the defense attorney, has said that she will seek a plea deal in the case, where Cruz would agree to plead guilty to 17 counts of first-degree murder if prosecutors do not seek the death penalty.
Prosecutors have said it is too early to say whether or not they will be offering the teen any type of plea deal.
Cruz had already been ordered to be held without bail at the Broward County Main Jail, following his first court appearance on Thursday.
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Russian Curler Is Suspected Of Doping At Pyeongchang Winter Olympics
February 19, 2018 by admin
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Bronze medalist Aleksandr Krushelnitckii is under suspicion for a failed drug test at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. He’s seen here with his wife and Olympic Athletes from Russia curling teammate Anastasia Bryzgalova, as they received their bronze medals.
Sergei Bobylev/Sergei Bobylev/TASS
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Sergei Bobylev/Sergei Bobylev/TASS
Bronze medalist Aleksandr Krushelnitckii is under suspicion for a failed drug test at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. He’s seen here with his wife and Olympic Athletes from Russia curling teammate Anastasia Bryzgalova, as they received their bronze medals.
Sergei Bobylev/Sergei Bobylev/TASS
Aleksandr Krushelnitckii, who won a bronze medal in mixed doubles for the Olympic Athletes from Russia curling team, is under suspicion of doping, after reportedly failing a preliminary control test at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
The result hasn’t been confirmed; Russian news outlets are reporting that Krushelnitckii’s “A” sample had tested positive for meldonium in a preliminary test, and that his “B” sample would be tested to confirm or refute the result. That test is being carried out around midday Monday in South Korea — Sunday night in the continental U.S.
International Olympic Committee Communications Director Mark Adams said on Monday that he cannot comment on a specific athlete or sport under suspicion, as “the testing and sanctioning is independent of the IOC.”
Adams wasn’t sure when the next test results would be released, saying, “I’ve heard that the B sample will be opened today, around lunchtime.”
The testing is currently in the hands of the Doping-Free Sport Unit, which is part of the Global Association of International Sports Federations, an IOC-recognized group that’s based in Switzerland. World Curling Federation President Kate Caithness is a member of the GAISF Council.
If the result is confirmed, it would then be up to the OAR Implementation Group to report its findings to the IOC’s executive board at the end of the Winter Games — a little over one week from now.
The World Curling Federation says it learned of the preliminary test result through media reports; a spokesman said the governing body will not comment at this time.
The failed doping test was first reported by a Russian sports radio station; it was then confirmed to state-run Tass media by a spokesman from the Olympic Athletes from Russia delegation in South Korea.
Krushelnitckii won bronze in the new mixed-doubles tournament, along with his teammate and wife, Anastasia Bryzgalova. He’s suspected of using meldonium, which the World Anti-Doping Agency has prohibited as a “hormone and metabolic modulator.” It was formally put on the banned list in 2016, with WADA citing “evidence of clear abuse of the substance.”
Elite athletes had used meldonium, a prescription heart drug, for years before it was finally banned. It’s the drug for which Maria Sharapova tested positive, resulting in a lengthy ban from tennis.
Before it was banned, meldonium was seen as a “legal doping” substance — a prescription drug believed to boost performance but that for decades wasn’t prohibited, as NPR’s Jon Hamilton reported during the Sharapova case in 2016.
When asked if the incident might shake the confidence of other athletes in Pyeongchang, who had been reassured that all of their Russian rivals had been held to intense testing and standards, Adams said, “It’s extremely disappointing for us, if a case is proven.”
“On the other hand,” Adams said, it would also show that the doping control system is effective and reliable.
There are reports that Krushelnitckii has turned in his accreditation and left the site of the Winter Games; Adams said on Monday that he had heard those reports but had not received confirmation.
Even if a drug is banned, athletes can be cleared to take it, if they can prove a need for therapeutic use (to do so, they apply for a “Therapeutic Use Exemption” — or TUE). There is no sign that Krushelnitckii had such an exemption.
In the case of meldonium, toxicologist Olivier Rabin, WADA’s science director, told NPR in 2016 that when the drug was placed on a monitoring list, “it quickly came to our attention that there were clear patterns of use by entire teams, which usually suggests a drug isn’t being taken for medical purposes. How could every member of a team need the same medical treatment?”
“Among athletes, meldonium is used with the purpose of increasing recovery rate or exercise performance” the British Journal of Sports Medicine wrote last year. “The benefit of taking meldonium in view of performance enhancement in athletes is quite speculative and is discussed without sound scientific evidence.”
The IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee in December, over systematic doping. It then convened a panel to scrutinize Russian athletes who wanted to compete in South Korea; in the end, 168 Russians came to compete, under a neutral flag, in generic uniforms, and under the name Olympic Athlete from Russia.