U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday declined to say whether he would consider pardoning any of his associates amid the ongoing Russia probe, declaring it was too early to consider such action and noting that so far no one has been convicted.
An investigation by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. president election and possible collusion by Trump’s campaign has led to several indictments and multiple guilty pleas.
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is among those who have been indicted and is facing a range of charges from money laundering to making false statement to federal investigators. He has pleaded not guilty and will go on trial later this year in two federal courts.
Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and Rick Gates, a longtime Manafort business partner, are among those who have entered guilty pleas.
The Mueller probe helped spur a separate case in New York that led law enforcement authorities to raid the home and office of Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has yet to face any charges.
Asked if he would pardon Manafort or Cohen, Trump waived off the question.
“I haven’t even thought about it ... It’s far too early to be thinking about it,” he told reporters at the White House before he departed for a summit of the G7 rich nations in Canada.
“They haven’t been convicted of anything. There’s nothing to pardon,” he said.
Trump has said there was no collusion with Moscow and has repeatedly blasted the Russia probe as a “witch hunt,” while Moscow has denied U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that it worked to interfere in the presidential election.
Trump has issued multiple pardons in recent days, and said he was considering a number of other high-profile cases including lifestyle maven Martha Stewart.
On Friday, he said he was weighing 3,000 other pardon cases, including the late heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, whose conviction was ultimately overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
On May 24 Trump issued a posthumous pardon to boxer Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight champion, who was jailed a century ago due to his relationship with a white woman.
Reporting by James Oliphant; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Jeffrey Benkoe
From the widely panned Super Mario Bros. movie (1993) to Netflix’s Resident Evil (2022) releasing to decidedly mixed reviews, game adaptations have historically been cursed on both big and small screens.
HBO’s series based on the hugely successful PlayStation game The Last of Us, is the latest entry into this genre. Early indications from critics and viewers suggest it has broken the dreaded video game curse.
The series occupies a unique position. In 2013, when the game was released, post-apocalypses were incredibly popular science fiction worlds. In 2023, such pandemics, as we’ve discovered, hue closer to science fact.
The scene in which protagonists Joel and Ellie encounter a mass grave has a distinctly different impact when humanity has so recently had to grapple with such tragedies in the real world.
Trailer for HBO’s The Last of Us.
In the series, a child’s blanket links this scene to a flashback of mass evacuation in the wake of the Cordyceps (the fungus that evolves to infect humans) outbreak foreshadowing the series’ continuing exploration of the values of family, connection and community.
This “dadification” was driven partly by maturing technology that allowed more complex stories to be told. Also, developers who had grown up playing games were maturing and starting families, including The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann.
The kinds of stories they wanted to tell matured too, resulting in games addressing parent-child relationships, including The Walking Dead (2012) and God of War (2018).
The theme of parenthood is prevalent in The Last of Us too. While Joel and Ellie’s relationship makes this clear, this theme extends to other characters including Joel’s brother Tommy, an expectant father. HBO’s adaptation takes this a step further by also briefly exploring Ellie’s connection to her mother.
Creators of HBO The Last of Us explain the role of fatherhood in the show.
The value of parenthood in the game unfurls into the show’s focus on family. Dialogue throughout the series reflects its importance: Joel reminding Tommy of their familial bond, a scientist who just wants to be with their family, the dying teenage bandit pleading to be returned to his mother.
The value of family extends to supporting characters who are exclusive to, or expanded upon in, the series. Brothers Henry and Sam share a bond in the series compared with the game’s portrayal of a surrogate parent-child relationship that complements Joel and Ellie’s.
The series further extends the game’s exploration of family by having Henry and Sam’s story intersect with new character Kathleen. The leader of the Kansas Quarantine Zone resistance movement, Kathleen has her own motivations surrounding her brother.
A gamechanging adaptation
While family is a core concern of the show, the theme of connection is also explored. This can be seen in its many “found” families. Joel and smuggling partner Tess’ relationship gets more screen time than in the game, as does the short-lived Joel-Tess-and-Ellie family dynamic.
Sarah and Joel, played by Nico Parker and Pedro Pascal.
This extends to the series’ other couplings, from episode-length explorations of Joel’s friends and existing game characters Bill and Frank, to Ellie’s relationship with school friend Riley, to Firefly leader Marlene’s connection to Anna – a best friend with a pivotal story role.
Even the Cordyceps is not immune to the rhetoric of connection. The spores by which the fungus spreads in the game have been changed to fungal tendrils in the show. These tendrils connect all the Infected – the series’ version of zombies.
Step on a tendril in one place and you’ll wake a dozen Infected in another. The fungal spores in the game are an impersonal, environmental hazard. The series’ tendrils instead actively seek out new victims and in one unsettling scene, defile a fundamental act of human connection and love to achieve this.
What it means to be human in a world ravaged by a pandemic is also explored. The politics of peaceful communities is examined, from the militaristic Quarantine Zone where Joel first meets Ellie, to Tommy’s settlement – jokingly but truthfully derided as “communism” by Joel.
More important, perhaps, is the exploration of hostile communities that game players would typically shoot their way through. Kathleen’s control of the Kansas resistance group is given a two-episode arc that ends with Joel and Ellie burying Henry and Sam – a humanising end to their story the game did not afford.
The notion of burial as a human ritual is unearthed again a few episodes later when a girl asks in-game antagonist David, the leader of a group at Silver Lakes Resort, if her father can be buried – a request he denies.
The episode explores David and his group, humanising them more than in the game. This further humanisation then stands in stark contrast to a reveal that poses the ultimate question of where the tipping point is between human and monster.
These values are framed in relation to the show’s ultimate theme: love. Joel loved Sarah. Bill loved Frank. Kathleen loved her brother. David’s community loved him. This love, derived from the personal relationships found and strengthened amid chaos, breeds hope not only for the world portrayed in the show but also for our own.
A repeated motif in the series is the motto of the resistance group, the Fireflies: “When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light.” In a world all too familiar with pandemics in 2023, this masterful adaptation of The Last of Us is something bright indeed.
Four days after an ice storm left hundreds of thousands of Texans without power, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for seven counties impacted by the severe weather.
Subfreezing temperatures combined with rain to produce a nasty storm that coated much of the Texas Hill Country in ice, toppling tree limbs and downing electric lines. As of Saturday evening, more than 60,000 households were still without power.
"The State of Texas has provided all assistance requested throughout the severe weather this week, and we continue to ensure that communities across our state have the resources and support they need to recover from the winter weather event," Abbott said in a statement.
Abbott issued the declaration for Denton, Hays, Henderson, Milam, Smith, Travis and Williamson counties, all of which experienced significant damage over the last week. Abbott said more counties may be added based on damage assessments still in progress.
Abbott said the declaration would enable the state to provide assistance to people and communities with property damage. He encouraged residents to report damage, with details and photos if possible, through the Individual State of Texas Assessment Tool survey.
The declaration came after Austin officials faced criticism for fumbling communication about the storm and falling short on early promises of a quick resolution to the outages.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson and Austin Energy officials waited more than 24 hours after people began losing power to hold the first press conference. And hours after they spoke Thursday, the electricity provider walked back its estimate that power would be restored by the end of the third day of outages, extending the sense of uncertainty. Eventually, the city-owned utility said it could no longer promise when electricity would be fully restored.
Despite frustration about the initial slow pace, progress has been made. Between Thursday and Saturday, almost 100,000 Austin customers had their power restored.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
The man accused of the brutal murders of four University of Idaho students last November has apparently been receiving passionate love letters from a Kentucky single mom, multiple outlets are reporting.
Murder suspect Bryan Kohberger is described as “my divine masculine (sic)” and “my perfect man,” according to Fox News and the New York Daily News, among others.
Kohberger also received photos from the woman, “who goes by Brittney J. Hislope on Facebook and claims to have a 16-year-old son.” Fox News reported that she “has written about her feelings for Kohberger nearly every day, sometimes multiple times a day since early January.” And it quoted this:
“’I know that the last I had heard weeks ago is that Bryan is being kept isolated from other inmates, and so I know that we do both likely sleep alone as I mentioned in a past post,’ Hislope wrote in her most recent post, which was dated shortly after midnight Friday.”
“In a series of love letters posted to social media, a woman named Brittney Hislope gushes over Kohberger, declaring him her “love interest” and a “perfect man,” it reported. ‘I don’t know if Bryan is or was single when he supposedly committed the murders, but I wonder if he and I ever would’ve met if he would’ve like me and if we could’ve connected well,’” Hislope wrote in one lengthy note.”
The Daily News reported that the woman “acknowledged some of her commenters, who compared her romantic feelings to women who swooned over Ted Bundy, the notorious 1970s serial killer who confessed to 30 murders.”
As Raw Story reported, University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kernodle’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, were found stabbed to death in their beds on November 13 at their off-campus dormitory.
Kohberger is being held without bail in a jail in Latah County, Idaho. He has been charged with four counts of felony murder along with one count of felony burglary in connection with their killings.
