Month: April 2023

FBI agents surrounded a Massachusetts home on Thursday in the arrest of 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, suspected of leading highly classified U.S. intelligence documents. U.S. officials had been searching for the source of the leak, which exposed potentially hundreds of pages of intelligence about Russian efforts in Ukraine and spying on U.S. allies.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced in brief remarks at the Department of Justice that FBI agents took Teixeira into custody Thursday afternoon without incident, adding: ‘Today, the Justice Department arrested Jack Douglas Teixeira in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified national defense information. Teixeira is an employee of the United States Air Force National Guard.’

The FBI bureau office in Boston said in a statement that agents arrested Teixeira at a residence in North Dighton, Mass., more than an hour away from the military base where he worked.  The statement said: “The FBI is continuing to conduct authorized law enforcement activity at the residence. Since late last week the FBI has aggressively pursued investigative leads, and today’s arrest exemplifies our continued commitment to identifying, pursuing, and holding accountable those who betray our country’s trust and put our national security at risk.”

According to military records, Teixeira holds the rank of airman first class and has been in uniform since entering the Air National Guard in September 2019. He has been based at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod and holds the title of cyber transport systems journeyman. The classified documents from the Department of Defense were found online last month, revealing details of U.S. spying on Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, secret assessments of Ukraine’s combat power, as well as intelligence gathering on America’s allies, including South Korea and Israel.

AG Garland said that Teixeira will have an initial appearance at the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, adding that the investigation is ongoing.

Editorial credit: Bob Korn / Shutterstock.com

Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday that the Justice Department will take an emergency dispute over medication abortion drugs to the Supreme Court. Garland’s announcement came after a federal appeals court froze parts of a Texas judge’s order on Wednesday, that would have suspended the FDA’s approval of a medication abortion drug, mifepristone. Mifepristone manufacturer Danco Laboratories also plans to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals only partially granted the request by the Justice Department and the drug’s manufacturer to put the ruling from US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on hold, effectively making the drug harder to obtain by leaving in place aspects of Kacsmaryk’s ruling that will reverse moves by the FDA that expanded access to medication abortion pills. A federal appeals court said Wednesday abortion drug can remain available but placed restrictions.

AG Garland indicated that the Justice Department will ask the Supreme Court to intervene now in the emergency dispute over how the FDA has approached mifepristone: “The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA to deny in part our request for a stay pending appeal … We will be seeking emergency relief from the Supreme Court to defend the FDA’s scientific judgment and protect Americans’ access to safe and effective reproductive care.”

The appeals court ordered a return to the stricter FDA regime around the drug, which prevents mailing the pill to patients who obtained it through telehealth, or virtual visits with their providers rather than traveling to a clinic or hospital in person to obtain the drug. The restrictions also affect the instructions on the label for the medication, shortening the window of obtaining the pill to seven weeks into pregnancy as opposed to 10. The 5th Circuit said the current FDA rules around the drug “chose to cut out doctors from the prescription and administration of mifepristone … in fact, as far as the record before us reveals, FDA has not structured the distribution of any comparable drug in this way.”

Editorial credit: Crush Rush / Shutterstock.com

On Wednesday, electronic cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs has reached an agreement to pay $462 million to settle multiple lawsuits alleging it marketed vapes to minors. New York Attorney General Letitia James said during a press conference (alongside attorneys general for Washington, D.C., California, Illinois and Massachusetts) that the settlement is the largest multistate settlement which includes the most “stringent restrictions on the company’s marketing and sales to protect and to prevent minors from vaping … JUUL’s lies lead to a nationwide public health crisis and put addictive products in the hands of minors who thought they were doing something harmless … There is no doubt that JUUL played a central role in the youth vaping epidemic. Today, Juul is paying for the widespread harm it caused and will undergo severe restrictions on its marketing and sales practice.”  Two other states, Colorado and New Mexico, are also recipients of the funds from the settlement.

The attorneys general said on Wednesday that JUUL’s decision to target underaged students was widespread, with James alleging that the e-cigarette company targeted middle and high school students in New York using “colorful ads featuring young models and flashing parties in New York City and the Hamptons, all while downplaying the harmful effects of vaping.” D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb claimed JUUL’s “online verification systems were riddled with flaws and loopholes that allow kids of any age to purchase the products it knew but did not care,” and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Cambell said JUUL’s “targeting of young people rolled back decades of progress in combating underage tobacco and nicotine use and has led to a nationwide public health crisis for young people all across this country.”

Juul released a statement about the settlement, saying in part it was a “total resolution of the company’s historical legal challenges … With this settlement, we are nearing total resolution of the company’s historical legal challenges and securing certainty for our future. We have now settled with 47 states and territories, providing over $1 billion to participating states, in addition to our global resolution of the U.S. private litigation. Since our company-wide reset in the fall of 2019, underage use of JUUL products has declined by 95% based on the National Youth Tobacco Survey. Now we are positioned to dedicate even greater focus on our path forward to maximize the value and impact of our product technology and scientific foundation.”

A substantial portion of the funds acquired in the settlement will be directed towards education to lessen the effect of JUUL’s vaping in the next generation. James said that New York’s $112 million will be used to “help government agencies and educational organizations to prevent young vaping to support community and school based anti vaping programs to help individuals quit vaping to help localities and counties enforce vaping laws and regulations and monitor and research efforts to read to reduce vaping.”

Editorial credit: Steve Heap/ Shutterstock.com

National Public Radio plans to shut down its official Twitter accounts, saying a recent decision by the platform to label it as “government-funded media” undermines its credibility. Being labeled as “government-funded media”  or “state-affiliated media” is a warning often applied to media outlets controlled by authoritarian governments such as Russia, China, and Iran.

NPR said in a statement that Twitter was “falsely implying that we are not editorially independent ..We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence.” 

In a separate statement, NPR CEO John Lansing said, “Actions by Twitter or other social media companies to tarnish the independence of any public media institution are exceptionally harmful and set a dangerous precedent.”  Lansing emailed NPR staff, saying, “It would be a disservice to the serious work you all do here to continue to share it on a platform that is associating the federal charter for public media with an abandoning of editorial independence or standards.”

The 52 official Twitter accounts associated with NPR will now fall silent as a result of the the company’s decision on Wednesday. On its website, NPR describes itself as “an independent, non-profit media organization” and says less than 1% of its budget comes from grants from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies and departments.

Editorial credit: Piotr Swat / Shutterstock.com