Month: August 2020

Bannon has called the charges “a political hit job.”

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s three co-defendants indicted in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering in connection to a crowdfunding campaign to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border each pleaded not guilty on Monday.

Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, 38, Andrew Badolato, 56, and Timothy Shea, 49, entered their pleas in U.S. federal court in New York during a hearing conducted via teleconference due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The three men, along with the 66-year-old Bannon, were charged with defrauding donors through the $25-million crowdfunding “We Build the Wall campaign” by allegedly making false representations to contributors.

Bannon pleaded not guilty earlier this month to allegedly using hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations made to the campaign to pay personal expenses.

Judge Annalisa Torres of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York set a trial date of May 24, 2021.

“I’m going to be optimistic and hope that we have courtrooms available,” Torres said, noting the curtailing of in-person proceedings due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Torres warned the defendants about statements they make outside of court that threaten “the court’s ability to conduct a fair trial.”

In court filings on Friday, federal prosecutors singled out Kolfage and asked Torres to warn him about his “steady stream of public statements via posts on his Facebook account” that could taint the jury pool.

Prosecutors said in court papers that Kolfage has repeatedly described the prosecution on social media as, among other things, “political,” a “witch hunt” and an assault on the freedom of every donor to the We Build the Wall campaign. Prosecutors say Kolfage has also claimed the case is an ‘”effort to take ‘political prisoners.'”

Kolfage’s attorney complained about the government’s filing and how prosecutors portrayed the indictment.

“Reminds me of a bully,” Kolfage’s defense attorney Harvey A. Steinberg said.

Bannon, who was President Donald Trump‘s former campaign CEO and later his chief strategist in the White House, has slammed the charges against him as “a political hit job” and “nonsense,” while vowing to fight the charges against him.

Prosecutors said Bannon and others defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors to the online campaign by falsely assuring them that the organizers were not taking a penny of donation money. Bannon had publicly stated, “we’re a volunteer organization.”

“Those representations were false,” the indictment said.

Bannon’s indictment makes him the sixth person associated with the top echelons of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to face federal charges — a list that includes Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.

According to the indictment, Bannon took at least $1 million from the “We Build The Wall” campaign to secretly pay Kolfage, the group’s founder, and cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses.

Bannon, Koflage, Badolato and Shea were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, the Justice Department said.

The indictment states that all four defendants allegedly defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with the crowdfunding campaign.

The ruling is a setback for the DOJ and Flynn’s attorneys.

A federal appeals court on Monday rejected an effort by Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump‘s former national security adviser, and the Justice Department to force a lower district judge to throw out Flynn’s criminal case.

In an 8-2 ruling, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said that D.C. District Judge Emmet Sullivan did not act improperly by not immediately accepting the Justice Department’s controversial push to dismiss Flynn’s case.

The court additionally said Sullivan’s appointment of an outside former judge to argue against the department was not improper, reversing the judgment of previous three-judge panel from the court which had argued Sullivan was overstepping his authorities.

Flynn pleaded guilty in late 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the former Russian ambassador before seeking to withdraw his plea early this year, alleging misconduct against the agents who investigated him.

The ruling paves the way for Sullivan to hold a hearing as he considers the DOJ’s request to dismiss Flynn’s case or reject it and move forward with sentencing, though it’s not clear whether Flynn’s attorneys or the DOJ will seek to appeal Monday’s order and prolong the case further.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

The ruling comes as at least a temporary setback for Flynn and yet another delay in a politically fraught legal battle that has dragged on since Flynn first agreed to plead guilty to charges from former special counsel Robert Mueller in December 2017.

Attorney General William Barr intervened in the case this past March as Flynn, under new legal representation, was seeking to withdraw his guilty plea.

Barr said that findings from a U.S. attorney he had tasked with reviewing the case led him to believe that Flynn’s lies during a January 2016 interview with the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador were not actually relevant to a legitimate investigation, and that the case should be dropped.

Sullivan, however, did not immediately accept the DOJ’s surprise reversal in the case, and appointed an outside former judge John Gleeson to present arguments against the DOJ, as well as determine whether Flynn may have committed perjury by reneging on his guilty plea.

Flynn’s lawyers, later with support from the Justice Department, then appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals requesting an emergency order to force Sullivan to dismiss the case.

Flynn secured a temporary victory when a three-judge panel from the court moved to overrule Sullivan, though the case was then taken up by the full court which heard arguments from the DOJ, Flynn’s attorney and an attorney for Sullivan earlier this month.

Sullivan’s attorney, Beth Wilkinson, has noted that Sullivan has not decided one way or the other on whether to sign off on the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss Flynn’s case, and that his motivation in appointing an outside judge was to simply hear all relevant arguments.

The French-Gabonese MP is a vocal denunciator of systemic racism.

Paris — Politicians from across the spectrum have denounced the publication of the cartoon depicting a French MP and anti-racism activist as a slave under the title “Obono, the African.”

On Friday, Black MP Danièle Obono posted one of the drawings from French publication Valeurs Actuelles, in which she is portrayed wearing chains around her neck, on Twitter and described it as an “odious” but typical far-right move. Obono, a French-Gabonese MP for the far-left party, “La France Insoumise,” is vocal in her denunciation of systemic and structural racism.

On the same day, French Prime Minister Jean Castex tweeted his support to Obono, saying “this shocking publication calls for an unambiguous condemnation.”

Already condemned in 2015 for inciting hatred against Roma communities, Valeurs Actuelles, which caters to a right-wing and far-right readership, describes itself as anti-conformist and politically incorrect.

Well-established in the French mediasphere, the weekly paper landed interviews with members of the government including President Emmanuel Macron himself in the past, but not without stirring controversy each time.

Macron called Obono on Saturday to inform her of his “clear condemnation of any form of racism,” the Elysee told news agency AFP.

The magazine said the fictitious cartoon was intended to bring to light the responsibility of Africans in the slave trade, “terrible truth that indigenous people don’t want to see and apparently, dear @Deputee_Obono, you don’t want to read.”

To discuss the racist cartoon, a member of the anti-racist organization Black African Defense League went to the publication’s headquarters to meet with its writers and later called for a protest in front of the building. Valeurs Actuelles announced their decision to press charges against the organization for “the illegal intrusion into our premises.”

Over the weekend, condemnation continued, from socialist Premier Secretary Olivier Faure on the one side to the far-right treasurer of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party, Wallerand de Saint Just, who called the cartoon “a humiliating and hurtful representation of an elected official of the Republic”.

While denying that the cartoon was racist, the magazine eventually issued an apology to MP Obono on Saturday.

Denouncing the cartoon as “an insult to (her) ancestors, her family” and “to the Republic”, Danièle Obono said Saturday evening on local TV channel BFMTV she would “think” about filing a complaint.

On Monday, Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz opened an investigation on the counts of “racist insult”, Heitz announced in a statement.

Both the Biden and Trump campaigns are aiming to turn out LGBTQ voters.

Calling him a “champion for inclusion,” the national chamber of commerce representing LGBTQ business announced Monday that it is backing former Vice President Joe Biden, just the second presidential endorsement in the group’s over 20-year history.

The National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), which describes itself as the “only national advocacy organization dedicated to expanding economic opportunities for the LGBT business community,” cited Biden’s support for LGBTQ rights during the Obama administration, and his push to pass the Equality Act, a bill that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity across many facets of American society, through the U.S. Congress, as part of the rationale for their public endorsement.

“We need to elect a president with a commitment to LGBTQ equality, ending racism and racial violence, promoting small businesses and entrepreneurship, and ensuring a safe and equitable society for every American. Joe Biden is that candidate,” NGLCC Co-Founder and President Justin Nelson wrote in a statement provided to ABC News.

The group also praised Biden’s economic agenda and highlighted the need to provide support to small businesses that have been severely impacted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“Our campaign is deeply honored to receive the endorsement of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. LGBTQ+ businesses add $1.7 trillion to the economy each year, making LGBTQ+ business owners central to Vice President Biden’s plans to build a stronger, more equitable economy, promote entrepreneurship, tackle structural racism, fight systemic injustice, and end discrimination against LGBTQ+ people once and for all,” Reggie Greer, the Biden campaign’s LGBTQ+ Vote Director wrote in a statement reacting to the endorsement.

“The stakes have never been so high for the future of our country and the LGBT business community. Joe Biden is the champion our businesses and our families need to thrive,” NGLCC Co-Founder and CEO Chance Mitchell added.

The NGLCC backed then-Democratic candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, its first official presidential endorsement since its founding.

The endorsement comes as President Donald Trump‘s campaign has attempted to up its outreach to the LGBTQ community, launching a “Trump Pride” coalition last week headed by Richard Grenell, the former acting director of U.S. national intelligence, who is openly gay and spoke at the Republican National Convention last week, claiming that Trump is the “most pro-gay president in American history.”

In a video released earlier this month by the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s most prominent GOP organization representing LGBTQ Americans, Grenell asserted that Trump “is the most pro-gay president in American history,” a claim undercut by several policies he has implemented during his time in office, including a ban on transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military.

The Biden campaign launched “Out for Biden,” a national get-out-the-vote initiative aimed at turning out LGBTQ voters, in early June. A number of prominent LGBTQ lawmakers, including Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Kansas Congresswoman Sharice Davids and Virginia state Del. Danica Roem are involved in the effort.

Over 100,000 protesters again marched against Alexander Lukashenko

MINSK — Huge crowds of protesters flooded Belarus’ capital Minsk again on Sunday calling for President Alexander Lukashenko to step down, defying a heavy deployment of security forces and threats of a crackdown.

The protest appeared to be as large if not larger than the historic crowds that have filled Minsk the past two Sundays, the biggest in Belarus’ history and have numbered well over 100,000 people.

Hundreds of riot police and armored vehicles attempted to block protesters from reaching Minsk’s main Independence Square, the usual site of the protests. Masked officers with steel shields and trucks with water cannons moved up to block the long avenue leading to the square.

Protesters didn’t seek to push past the police, instead turning and marching through the city center out towards a complex that includes one of Lukashenko’s formal residences. Thousands more people demonstrated in a number of other cities and towns in Belarus, including Brest, Gomel and Vitebsk.

The demonstrators came out despite a week where authorities had increased efforts to stop the protests and amid a warning from Russia President Vladimir Putin that he might send Russian security forces into Belarus if there is a violent attempt to topple Lukashenko.

Sunday’s protests, like the previous weekends, were determinedly peaceful. There was a carnival atmosphere with people wearing costumes and carrying joke signs mocking Lukashenko. Sunday was Lukashenko’s birthday and protesters themed the demonstration as a party for the 66-year-old leader, with some carrying “presents” for him that they dumped in front of a police line outside the residence. Some protesters chanted “Happy Birthday” and one group brought a giant model of mustachioed cockroach that they laid down in front of riot police.

In Minsk, hundreds of troops in camouflage were gathered in side streets around the city center, as well as dozens of riot vans and army trucks. Masked troops stood with guns behind bails of razor wire blocking access to a war monument that had been a key site for the protests. Later in the day, videos appeared on social media showing military armored personnel carriers and anti-infantry vehicles moving into Minsk, seeming to drive towards the Palace of Independence, where one of Lukashenko’s formal residences is located. On Sunday evening, ABC News saw some of the APCs parked inside the complex.

Despite the intimidating security, authorities did not move to violently disperse the crowds and the protesters peacefully left by mid-evening. Belarus’ interior ministry said it had arrested at least 140 people during the protests.

Lukashenko, who last week appeared in front of cameras brandishing an assault rifle, on Sunday did not make an appearance. His press service handed out a photo it said was from the afternoon showing Lukashenko again walking around the Palace of Independence carrying an assault rifle.

The protest underlined the continuing huge opposition to Lukashenko that has ballooned since the contested election on Aug. 9 and the crackdown that followed it. The Sunday protests have become the focal point for that opposition; during the week, demonstrations are much smaller and authorities have used the pauses to ratchet up pressure, detaining dozens of people. This week they jailed two opposition leaders for 10 days and ahead of Sunday the foreign ministry revoked press accreditation for many journalists working for foreign media organizations in an apparent attempt to hinder coverage.

Kristina, a young protester, told ABC News that the Sunday protests helped revive her belief in the demonstrations.

“I feel great today. We don’t give up, we’re still here and we’re going to fight again and again in our peaceful way,” she said.

But the scenes on Sunday of the vast crowd of celebratory protesters flowing past the unmoving lines of masked troops and police also seemed to embody the current stalemate in Belarus. Despite the massive peaceful opposition, so far no cracks appeared in the security forces or the elite around Lukashenko and it’s unclear how the protests might force him to step down.

Opposition leaders have sought to put forward plans to increase the pressure on Lukashenko, suggesting last week that people begin a process of recalling their MPs from parliament. There have also been calls for economic boycotts and protesters are still pushing for strikes that early on rocked the government.

The protests are still largely leaderless and those leaders that have emerged are still mostly seen as figureheads. Lukashenko’s main rival in the election, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, remains in Lithuania where she was forced to flee

Another leader, Maria Kolesnikova — the only one of the three key female leaders still in Belarus — on Sunday marched with the demonstrators. Kolesnikova told ABC News that the opposition would continue not just the demonstrations but other types of protests in order win.

“We are ready to go the victory. And it takes a lot of time and energy but we are ready,” she said. “We are ready to live a free democratic country. And it’s worth to fight for it.”

Denis Kitin, 32, an ornithologist, said the protesters did not want to fight with the police and that he hoped Lukashenko would take a message from the scale of the demonstration.

“I hope he understands what it means why this 100,000 people came from all over the country,” Kitin said. “The people of Belarus just want to be free.”

The MORE Act would remove marijuana as a Schedule I substance.

A landmark bill that would decriminalize marijuana use at the federal level is up for vote soon.

The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on the legislation in September, according to an email sent out on Friday by Majority Whip James Clyburn. Politico first reported on the pending vote.

The “Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2019” — also called the MORE Act — would officially remove cannabis from the list of federally controlled substances. It would also expunge federal marijuana convictions and arrests, and approve the allocation of resources for communities affected by the war on drugs, according to the bill’s text.

“A floor vote on the bill would be the greatest federal cannabis reform accomplishment in over 80 years,” the Global Alliance for Cannabis Commerce said in a statement Friday.

The House Judiciary Committee passed the bill, introduced by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and co-sponsored by more than 50 lawmakers, by a vote of 24-10 in November.

“These steps are long overdue. For far too long, we have treated marijuana as a criminal justice problem instead of a matter of personal choice and public health,” Nadler, the committee’s chairman, said in a statement at the time. “Whatever one’s views on the use of marijuana for recreational or medicinal purposes, arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating users at the federal level is unwise and unjust.”

The MORE Act would remove marijuana as a Schedule I substance, a category that also features other drugs, such as heroin, LSD, ecstasy and peyote, and leave states to regulate it.

Eleven states and the District of Columbia have already legalized cannabis for adult recreational use, and 33 states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical cannabis.

“States have led the way — and continue to lead the way — but our federal laws have not kept pace with the obvious need for change,” Nadler said. “We need to catch up because of public support and because it is the right thing to do.”

Pew Research Center and Gallup polls last year both found that about two-thirds of Americans support legalizing marijuana, with Democrats more supportive of the move than Republicans.

The issue has gotten “greater urgency,” one Democratic lawmaker said, amid calls for social justice reform during the recent Black Lives Matter protests.

“As people across the country protest racial injustices, there’s even greater urgency for Congress to seize this historic opportunity and finally align our cannabis laws with what the majority of Americans support, while ensuring restorative justice,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said in a social media post Friday sharing news on the upcoming vote.

If the bill passes the House, it would move to the Senate, where its lead sponsor is Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., the Democratic nominee for vice president. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has previously noted he does not plan to endorse the legislation.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, has spoken out in favor of decriminalizing marijuana and expunging criminal records for possession charges. Like Nadler, he thinks each state should decide whether or not to legalize it.

President Donald Trump has openly opposed changing federal marijuana laws. Earlier this month, he also suggested that if Republicans wanted to win elections, they should not put marijuana legalization on the ballot.

“The next time you run please don’t put marijuana on the ballot at the same time you’re running,” Trump said at an Aug. 17 rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. “You brought out like a million people that nobody ever knew were coming out.”

States with initiatives to legalize marijuana on the November ballot include Arizona and New Jersey.

This is an Inside Science story.

On Aug. 25, the National Hurricane Center classified the tropical storm Laura as a hurricane, and later announced that it might rapidly intensify over the next 24 hours. On Aug. 26, just 15 hours after that announcement, that forecast came true: Laura was a Category 4.

In the early morning of Aug. 24, 2017, the tropical cyclone Harvey was upgraded from a tropical depression to a tropical storm. Just five hours later, the National Hurricane Center announced Harvey would likely undergo rapid intensification before hitting land. This was also an accurate prediction: Harvey was classified a Category 4 hurricane just the next day. It became one of the most devastating natural disasters to hit the Gulf coast.

But if Laura or Harvey had occurred just a few years earlier, the NHC wouldn’t have made those predictions, and the storms’ strength at landfall would have taken the U.S. by surprise.

“When I started my career at the NHC in 2005, there’s no way we would forecast rapid intensification,” said John Cangialosi, a researcher at the NHC. “It didn’t matter what the models suggested; the confidence in the models wasn’t there. Today, our confidence in analyzing the models is much higher. And if we’ve seen that great improvement in 15 years, where will we be in another 50?”

Tropical cyclones — a category of storms that includes tropical storms, tropical depressions, typhoons and hurricanes — are massive, extremely complex systems of air and water. Forecasters’ ability to predict the path a storm will take has consistently improved over the past few decades, since it depends on large and easy-to-measure variables such as the ocean water temperatures or strong wind currents. But for predicting a tropical cyclone’s intensity, or strength, the little details matter.

“When it comes to intensity, the small things matter way more than the track,” Cangialosi said. “If you’re going to get the intensity right, you have to resolve the storm’s structure correctly. How tight is the eye, or the eye wall? Is it circular? Is it asymmetrical? You’ve got to get those details, and it wasn’t until just this past decade that the models have really turned the corner on that.”

Rosimar Rios-Berrios, a scientist who develops computer models of tropical cyclones at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said predicting intensity is a particularly gnarly problem.

“Intensity is a more complicated problem that we do not fully understand,” she said. “A storm’s strength may be driven by multiple processes, like the amount or organization of clouds at multiple levels, or how the water vapor changes from liquid to ice. These tiny processes are difficult to capture in our models, and difficult to observe.”

But over the past decade, tropical cyclone models have drastically improved, reducing the size of each pixel or cell down to 4 kilometers (about 2.5 miles), from 12 kilometers (some hurricanes can have eyes as small as 10 kilometers in diameter). This increase in resolution is crucial, both Rios-Berrios and Cangialosi said, since accurate intensity predictions hinge so heavily on smaller-scale variables. This could mean the difference between preparing for a hurricane’s rapid intensification and being surprised by it — a difference that could save lives.

Tropical cyclone models have also grown better at incorporating observational data, which improves intensity predictions. Early models would rely on nothing but statistics, basing forecasts on storms that had happened before. Modern, dynamical models update their predictions as data comes in.

Modeling at smaller resolutions and incorporating real data are not necessarily brand-new developments in the field of tropical cyclone research, but advancements in computing power have finally started to make them accessible to forecasters.

“We could have done these things years ago, but it would have taken two days for that model to run,” Cangialosi said. “For forecasting, our timeline has always been: ‘Give me the best you can give me in a few hours.’ And now, in a few hours, we can do tenfold better than we could have done 20 years ago.”

Providing faster and more accurate predictions of rapid intensification can allow coastal cities to better prepare for storms like Laura and Harvey. As climate change worsens, experts believe the effects will contribute to more frequent and stronger hurricanes and make accurate forecasts even more crucial.

Inside Science is an editorially independent nonprofit print, electronic and video journalism news service owned and operated by the American Institute of Physics.

The coin-sized device could help a paralyzed person operate technology.

Tech mogul Elon Musk unveiled his latest foray into science fiction Friday night: a brain chip implant to allow people who are paralyzed to operate technology, such as smartphones or robotic limbs, with their thoughts.

“I think it’s going to blow your minds,” Musk said. “It’s like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires.”

But the coin-sized chips, developed by Musk’s secretive startup Neuralink, are a ways off from being useful to humans. Friday’s livestreamed YouTube demonstration was on a pig named Gertrude, who Musk said had a brain chip implanted two months earlier.

As the pig shuffled around its pen sniffing hay, a computer beeped and blue wavelengths on the screen jumped up and down. Musk said the computer was measuring Gertrude’s brain activity. “The beeps you are hearing are real-time signals,” he said. “The future’s going to be weird.”

But the “move fast and break things” ethos that defines Silicon Valley has not always been kind to inventors who try their luck in bio technology. Medical innovation is notoriously slow. Conducting clinical trials to prove the safety and efficacy of medical devices can take years.

Perhaps the most notorious example of the tension between innovation and safety is blood diagnostics startup Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes. In a rush to get her product to market, Holmes took shortcuts and made exaggerated and false claims about her company’s technology, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which charged Holmes with raising money from investors in an “elaborate, years-long fraud.” Holmes now faces up to 20 years in prison.

Musk nodded to the regulatory hurdles that Neuralink must clear on Friday. “We’re making good progress toward clinical studies,” he said. “I’m excited to announce that we received a breakthrough device designation from the FDA in July.”

“I want to be clear,” he continued. “We’re working closely with the FDA. We’ll be extremely rigorous. We’ll significantly exceed the FDA guidelines for safety. We will make this as safe as possible.”

Musk’s track record on safety and science has been mixed.

The recent successes of SpaceX came after federal regulators examined fatal crashes linked to autopilot systems in Teslas.

In March, Musk dismissed the seriousness of COVID-19, claiming on Twitter that there would probably be close to zero new infections in the U.S. by the end of April. In May, Musk defied local stay-at-home orders and opened his California car factory in the midst of a pandemic.

As of late August, infections in the U.S. had topped 5.9 million and deaths had exceeded 182,000.

The outreach includes a series of conversations called “Shop Talk.”

With a backdrop of civil unrest after the shooting of Jacob Blake and thousands descending on the nation’s capital on the anniversary of the March on Washington in a show of support for racial equity, the Biden campaign is beefing up its efforts to engage Black men.

The campaign’s strategy includes a series of conversations called Shop Talk, meant to simulate the raw conversations had in Black barber shops. The events could be an opportunity to increase turnout. Only 54% of eligible Black men voted in 2016 compared to 64% of eligible white men, according to Pew Research.

The Biden campaign’s first virtual stop was in Wisconsin and the campaign has plans for similar events in other battleground states.

“To have that space is an example of how our campaign is bringing likeminds together to stand up for the issues they care about the most,” said Biden strategic communications director Kamau Marshall in a statement to ABC News. “By selecting a state to anchor the conversation each week, we’re confident that these gatherings will energize more Black men to support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — the candidates that will undoubtedly champion their safety, economic prosperity and physical and mental well-being.”

For its first event on Thursday, the campaign enlisted rapper and producer Jermaine Dupri to participate in a panel discussion with community leaders from the state and Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.

“Before a person goes to prison they’re in a courtroom, before their courtroom, they have an encounter with a police officer and too often that encounter is deadly,” Barnes told participants. “We see people charged, getting these trumped up charges, or stuff that so many people are able to get away with in a neighborhood three miles away, right? And these are experiences that most of us have had.”

After speaking with the Blake family and other community members in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Barnes called the situation in the town where Blake was shot, “challenging.” He said that the issues surrounding racial inequity and injustice predate the Trump administration, but still urged Black men to support the Biden-Harris ticket, saying Joe Biden’s policy shifts since the presidential primary are a signal that former vice president is willing to listen to the concerns of voters and evolve.

“I know we have a much better chance of holding [Biden] accountable than we do with the current occupant of the White House, and that means a whole lot because at least, Joe Biden has been responsive to the things that people have been calling out for,” Barnes said.

The Trump campaign, in contrast, is moving to open up community centers for voter outreach in communities of color with plans to register voters and pitch them on Trump’s passage of the criminal justice reform legislation, the First Step Act.

Though criminal justice reform remains a significant issue, the Biden campaign seeks to engage Black men on issues beyond that, highlighting the aspects of Biden’s “Build Back Better” economic plan designed to strengthen educational and economic opportunities for Black people.

“I think that Black men are very strong-willed,” said Chuck Creekmur, the CEO of hip-hop news site AllHipHop, who participated in the panel discussion. “I think that we are looking for an opportunity and a fair opportunity to make our own way and to create our own power within our own communities.”

Jermaine Dupri, in an interview with ABC News, urged the Biden campaign to be explicit and unapologetic in explaining how their policy proposals will improve Black communities.

“Something needs to happen where they say ‘we’re doing this to for Black people’ and not feeling bad about saying that,” said Dupri.

The discussions will also open the floor for participants to address potential sore spots for the campaign, including Biden’s role in the 1994 Crime Bill and Sen. Kamala Harris’ records as a prosecutor and as California’s attorney general. The pair’s record on criminal justice reform and Biden’s previous “you ain’t black” comments, which Biden later apologized for, are points the GOP seized on during the Republican National Convention.

“We’re going to have honest conversations,” said political commentator and longtime Harris supporter Bakari Sellers, who is assisting in the effort.

“I feel like she does have to address some of that stuff and I can’t say that it’s gonna win everybody, but I think that it will turn heads,” said Dupri. “A lot more than it will if she doesn’t address it.”

“Operation Not Forgotten” was behind the rescues.

Nearly 40 children who had been missing were found in Georgia as part of a two-week mission dubbed “Operation Not Forgotten,” the U.S. Marshals Service announced Thursday. Many of these children were at risk for chid sex trafficking, abuse and exploitation, the law enforcement agency said.

Twenty-six children were rescued and 13 others were safety located in the mission, which also involved the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Office of the Georgia Attorney General and other state and local agencies. The children ranged in age from 3 to 17.

The operation also led to the arrest of nine people for alleged charges of sex trafficking, parental kidnapping, registered sex offender violations or other related crimes.

“When we track down fugitives, it’s a good feeling to know that we’re putting the bad guy behind bars. But that sense of accomplishment is nothing compared to finding a missing child,” Darby Kirby, chief of the Marshals Service Missing Child Unit, said in a statement. “It’s hard to put into words what we feel when we rescue a missing child, but I can tell you that this operation has impacted every single one of us out here. We are working to protect them and get them the help they need.”

Children were found in 20 counties around metro Atlanta area, ABC affiliate WSB reported, including Gwinnett, Fulton, Clayton and Forsyth counties.

In a press conference Thursday, Donald Washington, director of the United States Marshals Service, said a similar operation in Cleveland has recovered 15 children so far and led to the arrest of two people. Another operation to find missing children called “Operation Summer Rescue” just began in New Orleans.

“There is no more meaningful work that law enforcement does than rescuing children,” Washington said Thursday. “Our children are not for sale and they are not ever forgotten.”

More than 421,000 missing child reports were sent to the FBI in 2019, according to the NCMEC. Washington said 91% of those are considered endangered runaways, of which one in six, or about 60,000, are likely to become a victim of sex trafficking.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp applauded the operation in a tweet Thursday, saying the state will “continue to work around the clock to bring an end to human trafficking and ensure the perpetrators of this evil industry know they have no place in our state.”

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said his office has helped place these victims in rehabilitation centers.

“Sex trafficking can be in many ways a hidden crime, one that lives in the shadows,” he said at Thursday’s press conference. “I always go back to the fact that if we can save one child from a life of abuse or sex trafficking, we’ve done our job. And this operation did that for many, many children.”