Trump Adds Cautious Support to Changes to Background Checks for Gun Buyers
February 20, 2018 by admin
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The bill was also backed by the National Rifle Association, which spent tens of millions of dollars on supporting Mr. Trump in the presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton.
But the legislation would have done little to stop the shooting last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 people. The suspect, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, had no criminal record. He bought at least seven guns legally, including an AK-47 he had purchased in the past month, a federal law enforcement official said on Monday.
Mr. Cruz, who has confessed to investigators, appeared on Monday in a Fort Lauderdale courtroom in shackles and a red jumpsuit as lawyers argued over whether a defense motion filed last week should be kept confidential. Mr. Cruz did not look up during the brief hearing.
Several other Republicans have expressed a willingness since the shooting to discuss a change in gun laws, though they have given few specifics. On Monday, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida announced he would hold meetings with state and local leaders, focusing on ways to improve school safety, expand mental health care and keep guns out of the hands of people with mental illness.
Gov. John Kasich of Ohio said on Sunday that some “small steps” should be taken on gun control, addressing background checks and mental illness. Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont said in a statement that his administration would review its procedures and policies on gun safety.
Neither suggested that change was imminent. Their remarks recalled other murmurings of change that ultimately fizzled. Congress has been marked by intransigence on gun legislation, including a failure last year to ban so-called bump stocks, an accessory that the gunman in the October shooting in Las Vegas used to transform his semiautomatic rifles to mimic automatic weapon fire. That shooting left 58 people dead and wounded hundreds.
Students from Parkland and across the country have organized protests and marches to urge Mr. Trump and lawmakers to act. About 100 people gathered in front of the White House on Monday to rally for stricter gun control. Seventeen students, representing the number of people killed in Florida, lay on the ground in protest. Parents, teachers and friends joined them on the pavement, and high school students stood in clusters in 40-degree temperatures, chanting “Enough is enough!” and waving signs that read “Am I next?”
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“I’ve been afraid to go to school since the shooting in Florida,” said Maya Galanti, a 12-year-old from Bethesda, Md., who attended the rally with her mother and two siblings. “Those students thought they were having a normal day, and we have the same chances of getting shot as they did.”
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Students from the Parkland area have also lashed out at Mr. Trump on Twitter, and some were incensed when he suggested in a tweet that the shooting had occurred because the F.B.I.’s resources had been diverted to the Russia investigation.
“Seventeen innocent people were brutally murdered at my school, a place where they should have felt safe,” one student wrote. “Their lives were gone in an instant. You are the president of the United States, and you have the audacity to put this on Russia as an excuse.”
The legislation last fall was considered a modest step toward a bipartisan compromise on gun safety.
The lead senators behind the bill — Mr. Cornyn and Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut — have seen some of the worst mass shootings in United States history unfold in their states. A shooting that killed 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012 came near the start of Mr. Murphy’s time in office, and gun restrictions became a defining issue for him. The shooting deaths of over two dozen people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in November prompted Mr. Cornyn to be a co-sponsor of the bill.
After the Texas shooting, Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked the F.B.I. to conduct an extensive review of the database because, as he said in a statement at the time, “relevant information may not be getting reported.”
In a tweet on Monday, Mr. Murphy said that the bill alone would do little to stop the what he called an “epidemic” of violence.
The president, who has spoken favorably about gun rights over the years, has held wavering views on gun restrictions. He had a concealed weapon permit in New York when Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor, but it is not clear whether he maintained it.
In 2000, as he considered an earlier run for president, Mr. Trump wrote in his book “The America We Deserve” that “I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.”
He added, “With today’s internet technology we should be able to tell within 72 hours if a potential gun owner has a record.”
In 2016 on CNN, Mr. Trump said guns should not be allowed in classrooms, and then followed up moments later by saying that some teachers should have access to firearms.
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“You look at some of our schools, unbelievable what’s going on, but I’m not advocating guns in the classroom,” Mr. Trump said at the time. “Remember in some cases, a lot of people admit this, trained teachers should be able to have guns in classrooms.”
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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.