15 January 21
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14 January 21
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Charles Pierce | The Catalogue of Deadly Weaponry Among Capitol Insurrectionists Is Astonishing
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Piece writes: "A fcking crossbow? Did these clowns think they were facing off against the Saxons at Hastings?"
There is something visceral in the crossbow that makes this litany from the Book of Armaments feel deadlier.
NBC News has the 411 on the personal arsenals that the insurrectionists brought along with them to Washington in order to express their economic anxiety and defend the Constitution through the ancient art of vandalism. And, yes, I know there are modern crossbows that people use in their pursuit of the ferocious white-tailed deer, and I am aware that the primary weapons of the mob included metal barricades, an American flag, and a fire extinguisher, but this catalogue of deadly weaponry does not fail to astonish, and there is something visceral in the crossbow that makes this litany from the Book of Armaments feel deadlier.
Only 75 people were arrested on the day of the Capitol siege, and police were not stopping and frisking random protesters. Yet the authorities still turned up a wide array of weapons among the tiny slice of protesters who were arrested before and after the Capitol invasion. The haul included an assault rifle, a crossbow and 11 Molotov cocktails — all found in the car of an Alabama man. Others had brass knuckles and pocket knives, stun guns and "stinger whips. "In all, police recovered a dozen guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition from seven people who were arrested before and after the Capitol riot, according to a review of court documents. One man, Lonnie Coffman of Alabama, was found with a massive arsenal that included five guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, federal prosecutors say.
Then, there was this guy.
Another man, Cleveland Grover Meredith, drove to Washington from Colorado with an assault-style Tavor X95 rifle with a telescopic sight, a Glock 9 mm with high-capacity magazines and more than 2,500 rounds of ammunition, including at least 320 rounds of "armor-piercing bullets," according to federal prosecutors.
As one does, if one is planning to seize the Crimea.
We can safely say that even larger arsenals got away cleanly and are now laying around dens and family rooms next to the Bibles and back copies of National Review. The startling thing—outside, of course, of the fact that we somehow didn't have an absolute bloodbath on the Capitol steps—is that I believe that a lot of these people did arm themselves for self-defense, except that they were "defending" themselves against the Washington in their heads, the one that had been carefully constructed there by their favorite radio and TV stars, and by a lot of the politicians inside the Capitol, the same ones who now are deploring the violence and asking for healing and reconciliation.
They brought their firepower to "defend" themselves against big-government liberals, and the many members of antifa and Black Lives Matter who now sit in places of power in the federal government. What if AOC and the rest of The Squad showed up on the National Mall with grenade-launchers? What then, huh? These people have more monsters rattling around in their heads than you can find in a Japanese horror film. The problem is that, sooner or later, they're going to open fire on some of these phantoms and hit some real people. I don't know what happens then.
Members of a pro-Trump mob breach the U.S. Capitol building on January 6. (photo: John Minchillo/AP)
"No One Took Us Seriously": Black Cops Warned About Racist Capitol Police Officers for Years
Joshua Kaplan and Joaquin Sapien, ProPublica
Excerpt: "Allegations of racism against the Capitol Police are nothing new: Over 250 Black cops have sued the department since 2001. Some of those former officers now say it's no surprise white nationalists were able to storm the building."
hen Kim Dine took over as the new chief of the U.S. Capitol Police in 2012, he knew he had a serious problem.
Since 2001, hundreds of Black officers had sued the department for racial discrimination. They alleged that white officers called Black colleagues slurs like the N-word and that one officer found a hangman’s noose on his locker. White officers were called “huk lovers” or “FOGs” — short for “friends of gangsters” — if they were friendly with their Black colleagues. Black officers faced “unprovoked traffic stops” from fellow Capitol Police officers. One Black officer claimed he heard a colleague say, “Obama monkey, go back to Africa.”
In case after case, agency lawyers denied wrongdoing. But in an interview, Dine said it was clear he had to address the department’s charged racial climate. He said he promoted a Black officer to assistant chief, a first for the agency, and tried to increase diversity by changing the force’s hiring practices. He also said he hired a Black woman to lead a diversity office and created a new disciplinary body within the department, promoting a Black woman to lead it.
“There is a problem with racism in this country, in pretty much every establishment that exists,” said Dine, who left the agency in 2016. “You can always do more in retrospect.”
Whether the Capitol Police managed to root out racist officers will be one of many issues raised as Congress investigates the agency’s failure to prevent a mob of Trump supporters from attacking the Capitol while lawmakers inside voted to formalize the electoral victory of President-elect Joe Biden.
Already, officials have suspended several police officers for possible complicity with insurrectionists, one of whom was pictured waving a Confederate battle flag as he occupied the building. One cop was captured on tape seeming to take selfies with protesters, while another allegedly wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat as he directed protesters around the Capitol building. While many officers were filmed fighting off rioters, at least 12 others are under investigation for possibly assisting them.
Two current Black Capitol Police officers told BuzzFeed News that they were angered by leadership failures that they said put them at risk as racist members of the mob stormed the building. The Capitol Police force is only 29% Black in a city that’s 46% Black. By contrast, as of 2018, 52% of Washington Metropolitan police officers were Black. The Capitol Police are comparable to the Metropolitan force in spending, employing more than 2,300 people and boasting an annual budget of about a half-billion dollars.
The Capitol Police did not immediately respond to questions for this story.
Sharon Blackmon-Malloy, a former Capitol Police officer who was the lead plaintiff in the 2001 discrimination lawsuit filed against the department, said she was not surprised that pro-Trump rioters burst into the Capitol last week.
In her 25 years with the Capitol Police, Blackmon-Malloy spent decades trying to raise the alarm about what she saw as endemic racism within the force, even organizing demonstrations where Black officers would return to the Capitol off-duty, protesting outside the building they usually protect.
The 2001 case, which started with more than 250 plaintiffs, remains pending. As recently as 2016, a Black female officer filed a racial discrimination complaint against the department.
“Nothing ever really was resolved. Congress turned a blind eye to racism on the Hill,” Blackmon-Malloy, who retired as a lieutenant in 2007, told ProPublica. She is now vice president of the U.S. Capitol Black Police Association, which held 16 demonstrations protesting alleged discrimination between 2013 and 2018. “We got Jan. 6 because no one took us seriously.”
Retired Lt. Frank Adams sued the department in 2001 and again in 2012 for racial discrimination. A Black, 20-year veteran of the force, Adams supervised mostly white officers in the patrol division. He told ProPublica he endured or witnessed racism and sexism constantly. He said that before he joined the division, there was a policy he referred to as “meet and greet,” where officers were directed to stop any Black person on the Hill. He also said that in another unit, he once found a cartoon on his desk of a Black man ascending to heaven only to be greeted by a Ku Klux Klan wizard. When he complained to his superior officers, he said he was denied promotions and training opportunities, and suffered other forms of retaliation.
In an interview, he drew a direct line between racism in the Capitol Police and the events that unfolded last week. He blamed Congress for not listening to Black members of the force years ago.
“They only become involved in oversight when it’s in the news cycle,” said Adams, who retired in 2011. “They ignored the racism happening in the department. They ignored the hate.”
The department’s record in other areas of policing have drawn criticism as well.
In 2015, a man landed a gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn — top officials didn’t know the airborne activist was coming until minutes before he touched down. In 2013, when a lone gunman opened fire at the nearby Navy Yard, killing 12 people, the Capitol Police were criticized for standing on the sidelines. The force’s leadership board later determined its actions were justified.
Last month, days after a bloody clash on Dec. 12 between militant Trump supporters and counterprotesters, Melissa Byrne and Chibundu Nnake were entering the Capitol when they saw a strangely dressed man just outside the building, carrying a spear.
He was a figure they would come to recognize — Jacob Chansley, the QAnon follower in a Viking outfit who was photographed last week shouting from the dais of the Senate chamber.
They alerted the Capitol Police at the time, as the spear seemed to violate the complex’s weapons ban, but officers dismissed their concern, they said.
One officer told them that Chansley had been stopped earlier in the day, but that police “higher ups” had decided not to do anything about him.
We don’t “perceive it as a weapon,” Nnake recalled the officer saying of the spear.
Chansley told the Globe and Mail’s Adrian Morrow that Capitol Police had allowed him in the building on Jan. 6, which would normally include passing through a metal detector, although he was later charged with entering a restricted building without lawful authority, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. As of Tuesday, he had not yet entered a plea.
For Byrne and Nnake, their interactions with the “QAnon Shaman” on Dec. 14 highlighted what they perceive as double standards in how the Capitol Police interact with the public.
Like many people who regularly encounter the force, Nnake and Byrne said they were accustomed to Capitol officers enforcing rules aggressively — later that day, Nnake was told that he would be tackled if he tried to advance beyond a certain point. “As a Black man, when I worked on the Hill, if I forgot a badge, I couldn’t get access anywhere,” he told ProPublica.
Congress, which controls the agency and its budget, has a mixed record of oversight. For the most part, Congress has been deferential toward the force, paying attention to its workings only after serious security failures, and even then, failing to meaningfully hold its leaders accountable.
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from D.C. who is a nonvoting member of Congress, told ProPublica she believes a national commission should be formed to investigate what occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, similar to what followed 9/11.
“Congress deserves some of the blame,” she told ProPublica. “We have complete control over the Capitol Police. ... Long-term concerns with security have been raised, and they’ve not been dealt with in the past.”
The force has also suffered a spate of recent, internal scandals that may prove pertinent as Congress conducts its investigation.
Capitol Police officers accidently left several guns in bathrooms throughout the building in 2015 and 2019; in one instance, the loaded firearm was discovered by a small child.
The agency has been criticized for a lack of transparency for years. Capitol Police communications and documents are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act and, unlike many local law enforcement agencies, it has no external watchdog specifically assigned to investigate and respond to community complaints. The force has not formally addressed the public since the riot last week.
“All law enforcement is opaque,” said Jonathan M. Smith, executive director of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. “At least most local police departments are subject to some kind of civilian oversight, but federal police agencies are left to operate in the shadows.”
The agency’s past troubles have rarely resulted in reform, critics said.
After the April 2015 gyrocopter incident, Congress held a hearing to examine how 61-year-old postal worker and activist Doug Hughes managed to land his aircraft after he livestreamed his flight. Dozens of reporters and news cameras assembled in front of the Capitol to watch the stunt, which was designed to draw attention to the influence of money in politics. Capitol Police did not learn of the incoming flight until a reporter reached out to them for comment, minutes before Hughes landed.
Dine defended the force’s response to the incident, pointing out that Hughes was promptly arrested and no one was hurt.
Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, then the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, harshly criticized the department and other federal agencies for what he perceived as an intelligence failure.
“The Capitol Police is terrible and pathetic when it comes to threat assessment,” Chaffetz told ProPublica in an interview. “They have a couple people dedicated to it, but they’re overwhelmed. Which drives me nuts. ... It’s not been a priority for leadership, on both sides of the aisle.” He said he is not aware of any serious changes to the force’s intelligence gathering following the debacle.
Norton, who also pressed Dine at the hearing, told ProPublica the intelligence lapses surrounding the gyrocopter landing should be considered a “forerunner” to last week’s riot.
“For weeks, these people had been talking about coming to the Capitol to do as much harm as they can,” Norton said. “Everyone knew it. Except the Capitol Police.” Reports show the force had no contingency plan to deal with an escalation of violence and mayhem at last week’s rally, even though the FBI and the New York Police Department had warned them it could happen.
Law enforcement experts said that the agency is in a difficult position. While it has sole responsibility for protecting the Capitol, it must work with other nearby federal law enforcement agencies, Washington’s Metropolitan Police and the National Guard in case of emergencies.
In an interview, Nick Zotos, a former D.C. National Guard commander who now works for the Department of Homeland Security, said that the roughly two dozen agencies responsible for public safety in Washington can cause territorial disputes, finger-pointing and poor communication.
“This is not a D.C. thing, necessarily, although it’s probably the worst in D.C.,” Zotos said. “Police departments just don’t play with each other nicely.”
Blackmon-Malloy told ProPublica that divisions within the Capitol Police could be just as dangerous, not only for Congress but for Black officers themselves. “Now you got to go to work on the 20th,” she told ProPublica, alluding to the inauguration. “And stand next to someone who you don’t even know if they have your back.”
U.S. Capitol Police officers scuffle with insurrectionists after they breached security fencing on Jan. 6. (photo: Graeme Sloan/Getty)
'Stop the Steal' Organizer Ali Alexander Says 3 GOP Congressmen Helped Him Plan the Capitol Riot
Sarah Al-Arshani, Business Insider
Al-Arshani writes: "Ali Alexander, the organizer of the 'Stop the Steal' movement, said three Republican representatives helped him plan the rally on January 6 that preceded the armed insurrection at the Capitol that left five people dead."
Alexander said Reps. Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, and Paul Gosar helped him plan the rally, which happened as Congress was getting ready to certify the electoral votes and cement President-elect Joe Biden's victory, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
"We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting," Alexander said in a Periscope video that has since been deleted, The Post reported.
According to The Post, he added that the plan was to "change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside."
A spokeswoman for Gosar told Insider, "The Congressman has no comment at this time."
Daniel Stefanski, a representative for Biggs, told Insider that Alexander's claims were "absolutely false."
"Congressman Biggs is not aware of hearing of or meeting Mr. Alexander at any point — let alone working with him to organize some part of a planned protest on January 6. He did not have any contact with protesters or rioters, nor did he ever encourage or foster the rally or protests on January 6," Stefanski said.
Insider could not reach Brooks for comment, but his office told The Post that he "has no recollection of ever communicating in any way with whoever Ali Alexander is." Another statement from his office said he did not know that the Capitol siege would occur after he spoke at the rally.
"Further, I spoke very early in the political rally. There was music, there was my speech, there was more music, then there was some number of speakers, then a couple hours or so later, President Trump began speaking," Brooks said.
He added: "I ask this question, if my remarks were as inspirational as the Socialist Democrats and their Fake News Media allies want the public to believe, why didn't the Trump rally participants, after my remarks, immediately get up and storm the Capitol?"
On January 6, supporters of President Donald Trump breached the Capitol and clashed with law enforcement, halting the joint session of Congress as lawmakers were debating challenges to electoral votes. Five people died, including a Capitol Police officer and a woman who was shot by law-enforcement officials.
On Wednesday, the House impeached Trump on a charge of "incitement of insurrection."
Trump had made false and baseless accusations of voter fraud and assertions that Vice President Mike Pence, who oversaw the certification in the joint session of Congress, could "decertify" the votes and give him a second term.
Republicans including Biggs, Brooks, and Gosar have been accused of helping to perpetuate Trump's false narrative.
The Daily Beast reported that Alexander, a felon who became more popular for supporting Trump's voter-fraud claims, had been barred from Twitter after suggesting that Trump supporters would resort to violence on January 6 if the electoral votes were certified.
"We're going to convince them to not certify the vote on January 6 by marching hundreds of thousands, if not millions of patriots, to sit their butts in DC and close that city down, right?" Alexander said during a rally in Arizona on December 19, according to The Daily Beast. "And if we have to explore options after that ... 'yet.' Yet!"
Alexander participated in a rally the night before the certification and led a chant of "victory or death!"
On the morning of January 6, Gosar tagged Alexander in tweets calling for Biden to concede the election that he won by 7 million votes.
The Post reported that Gosar and Alexander also spoke at the event on December 19 and that Gosar had called Alexander a "true patriot." Biggs said in a video message at the event that he and Brooks would challenge the certification on January 6. Alexander had called Biggs a "friend" and a "hero," according to The Post.
A representative for Biggs told CNN that he appeared in the video after a request from Gosar's staff.
Alexander told The Post that he had "remained peaceful" and that his speeches had "mentioned peace" but were being misrepresented.
However, in a video after the siege, he said: "I don't disavow this. I do not denounce this."
E Jean Carroll in New York on 21 October 2020. The journalist and advice columnist sued Trump in November 2019. (photo: John Minchillo/AP)
Revealed: White House Liaison Sought Derogatory Info on E Jean Carroll From DOJ Official
Murray Waas, Guardian UK
Waas writes: "The White House liaison to the Department of Justice (DoJ), Heidi Stirrup, sought out derogatory information late last year from a senior justice department official regarding a woman who alleges she was raped by Donald Trump, according to the person from whom Stirrup directly sought the information."
The revelation raises the prospect that allies of the US president were directly pressing the justice department to try to dig up potentially damaging information on a woman who had accused Trump of sexually attacking her.
E Jean Carroll, a journalist and advice columnist, sued Trump in November 2019, alleging he had defamed her when he denied her account of having been raped by him. Carroll alleges Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman, a high-end Manhattan department store, in either late 1995 or early 1996.
Trump at the time responded to her allegations by claiming Carroll was “totally lying” and attempted to ridicule her by saying “she’s not my type”. Those and similar comments led Carroll to sue him.
Stirrup apparently believed the justice department had information that might aid the president’s legal defense in the suit. The attorney who Stirrup sought information from regarding Carroll said that Stirrup approached them not long after a judge had ruled the justice department could not take over Trump’s defense.
Stirrup asked if the department had uncovered any derogatory information about Carroll that they might share with her or the president’s private counsel. Stirrup also suggested that she could serve as a conduit between the department and individuals close to the president or his private legal team.
Stirrup also asked the official whether the justice department had any information that Carroll or anyone on her legal team had links with the Democratic party or partisan activists, who might have put her up to falsely accusing the president.
Earlier, Trump himself, without citing any evidence, suggested that his political opponents were behind the allegations: “If anyone has information that the Democratic party is working with Ms Carroll or New York Magazine [to whom Carroll first told her story], please notify us as soon as possible,” Trump said.
The official from whom Stirrup sought information admonished Stirrup, telling her that her request was inappropriate.
The official recalled “conveying to her in the strongest possible terms” that it was wrong in the first place to seek out such information, and instructed her not to do so in the future.
When it was learned Stirrup had later sought out non-public information from other justice department officials about other ongoing investigations, including around election fraud, and non-public information in regards to matters of interest to the White House, Stirrup was told she was unwelcome at the justice department and banned from the building.
On 3 December the Associated Press, citing three sources, reported Stirrup’s banning “after trying to pressure staffers to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters she could relay to the White House”. It has not been previously reported, however, that one of the issues that led to Stirrup’s banning was her seeking out information about the Carroll case.
It is unclear whether Stirrup was acting on her own or at the direction of the White House when it comes to the Carroll case.
But many see it as unlikely that Stirrup was making her inquiry entirely independently. Stirrup served as the liaison to the justice department during a period when the White House was removing its liaisons to virtually every major federal agency who they believed might be disloyal – while informing their replacements that they would no longer reporting to the agencies they were assigned to but rather directly to the White House.
A justice department spokesperson declined to comment, saying that they had been unsuccessful in uncovering more information.
The outcome of the Carroll defamation case may have immense political and legal consequences for Trump.
Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, said that if the case comes to trial, Trump will have to “provide evidence and give testimony about the underlying rape allegation” and he could run the risk of perjury.
Not testifying truthfully during a civil case can have severe consequences for a president or other high-profile political figure. When former president Bill Clinton was sued for sexual harassment, and later admitted to giving misleading testimony in that case, he was impeached by the House of Representatives, acquitted by the US Senate after a trial, and voluntarily surrendered his license to practice law for five years.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, of the southern district of New York, who considered the justice department’s attempt to take over Trump’s legal counsel, noted in a 26 October ruling, that any finding that Trump defamed Carroll would probably be considered an implicit finding by a jury that Trump indeed raped Carroll.
“The question as to whether Mr Trump in fact raped Ms Carroll appears to be at the heart of her lawsuit. That is so because the truth or falsity of a defendant’s alleged defamatory statements can be dispositive of any defamation case,” Kaplan said.
In early September, the justice department, at the direction of the then attorney general, William Barr, sought to replace Trump’s private legal counsel with department attorneys, to defend him from Carroll’s lawsuit. Justice officials contended that while accusing Carroll of lying and further attacking her, Trump was acting in his official capacity as the president of the United States.
Kaplan ruled that the justice department could not take over Trump’s defense, concluding Trump’s alleged defamation of Carroll had nothing to do with his official duties as president or “the operation of government” or “within the scope of his employment”.
The justice department pledged to appeal Kaplan’s decision. But it is unlikely the justice department of Joe Biden will move forward with any such appeal.
Justice officials and outside legal observers say the department’s position that the president was acting in official capacity while allegedly defaming his alleged rape victim – from about 20 years earlier – is a position that would be unlikely to prevail with most judges.
Last week, while announcing that he was nominating the federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland to be his new attorney general, the president-elect said he would end Trump’s practice of “treating the attorney general as his personal lawyer and the department as his personal firm”.
Former attorney general Jeff Sessions. (photo: Shutterstock)
Trump's 'Zero Tolerance' Border Policy Was Pushed Aggressively by Jeff Sessions, Despite Warnings, Justice Department Review Finds
Nick Miroff and Matt Zapotosky, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The Trump administration and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions barreled forward with their 'Zero Tolerance' border crackdown in 2018 knowing that the policy would separate migrant children from their parents and despite warnings that the government was ill-prepared to deal with the consequences, according to a long-awaited report issued Thursday by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General."
Yeminis collecting their families' aid rations in the port city of al-Hudaydah. The UN is warning that the cost of food is likely to rise by as much as 400%. (photo: Yahya Arhab/EPA)
US Blacklisting of Houthis 'Could Tip Yemen Into Huge Famine'
BBC
Excerpt: "The US plan to designate Yemen's rebel Houthi movement as a terrorist group is likely to trigger a 'famine on a scale that we have not seen for nearly 40 years,' the UN's aid chief has said."
ark Lowcock told the UN Security Council issuing licences for imports of key supplies for rebel-controlled areas would not prevent such a disaster.
About 50,000 Yemenis are already "starving to death in what is essentially a small famine", he warned.
Five million more are near starvation.
The executive director of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, said: "We are struggling now without the designation. With the designation, it's going to be catastrophic."
"It literally is going to be a death sentence to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocent people in Yemen."
Yemen has been devastated by a conflict that escalated in 2015, when the Iran-aligned Houthis seized control of large parts of the country and a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states supported by the US launched a military operation to restore President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi's rule.
The fighting has reportedly left more than 110,000 people dead and triggered what the UN says is the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with 80% of the population in need of aid or protection.
On Sunday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified Congress of his intention to designate the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) on 19 January - the day before President Donald Trump leaves office.
Mr Pompeo said the aim was to hold the group accountable for "its terrorist acts, including cross-border attacks threatening civilian populations, infrastructure and commercial shipping".
Houthi leader Mohammed Ali al-Houthi accused the Trump administration of terrorism and said the movement reserved the right to respond to any designation.
Mr Pompeo said the US recognised the concerns of aid groups operating in areas under Houthi control, where the bulk of the population lives, and would work to reduce the impact on what he called "certain humanitarian activity and imports into Yemen" by issuing licences and exemptions.
But before Thursday's UN Security Council briefing, Mr Lowcock tweeted: "The US designation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organisation could be the final straw that tips Yemen into not just a small famine, but a truly huge one."
The under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs told the 15-member body that the measures outlined by Mr Pompeo would not prevent a famine in a country that imported 90% of its food and where an estimated 16 million people were already going hungry.
"What would prevent it? A reversal of the [US] decision," he said.
Mr Lowcock noted that almost all of Yemen's food was brought in through commercial channels, and that aid agencies gave people vouchers or cash to buy it in the market.
"Aid agencies cannot - they simply cannot - replace the commercial import system."
Some suppliers, banks, shippers and insurers were already telling their Yemeni partners that they "now plan to walk away from Yemen altogether", according to Mr Lowcock.
"They say the risks are too high. They fear being accidentally or otherwise caught up in US regulatory action which would put them out of business or into jail."
Traders hoping to continue operating estimate that costs could go up by 400%, which would make the food too expensive for many Yemenis.
US President-elect Joe Biden could reverse the decision after he takes office next week. However, it would require a lengthy legal review and could be blocked by Congress.
A Biden transition official told Reuters news agency that it was reviewing "last-minute manoeuvres" by the Trump administration and would "render a verdict based exclusively on one criterion: the national interest".
Northern spotted owls live in forests with dense, multi-layered canopies that take 150 to 200 years to develop. (photo: Gerry Ellis/Minden Pictures)
Trump Opens Habitat of a Threatened Owl to Timber Harvesting
Lisa Friedman and Catrin Einhorn, The New York Times
Excerpt: "The Trump administration on Wednesday removed more than 3 million acres of Pacific Northwest land from the protected habitat of the northern spotted owl, 15 times the amount it had previously proposed opening to the timber industry."
The plan, issued by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, grew out of a legal settlement with a lumber association that had sued the government in 2013 over 9.5 million acres that the agency designated as essential to the survival of the northern spotted owl. The federal protections restricted much of the land from timber harvesting, which companies claimed would lead to calamitous economic losses.
But rather than trim about 200,000 acres of critical habitat in Oregon, as the agency initially proposed in August, the new plan will eliminate protections from 3.4 million acres across Washington, California and Oregon. What is left will mostly be land that is protected for reasons beyond the spotted owl.
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