CTV National News: U.S. lawmakers call for transparency on Epstein files
Currently, enough Republicans are joining Democrats to force a vote demanding the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Joy Malbon has more.
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CTV News
16 minutes ago
- CTV News
Texas county votes to release Uvalde school shooting records, ending legal battle
Reggie Daniels pays his respects at a memorial at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas created to honour the victims killed in the recent school shooting on June 9, 2022. (Eric Gay / AP Photo) HOUSTON — Leaders of the county where 19 students and two teachers were killed in the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, voted Monday to release records related to the massacre, ending a yearslong legal battle over disclosure of the information. Uvalde County commissioners voted 2-1 to release the records and to stop appealing a 2022 lawsuit that a group of media organizations, including The Associated Press, had filed seeking to make the information public. The decision by commissioners came a week after the Uvalde district's school board voted to release its records related to the deadly rampage, one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. The group of media organizations had sued both the county and the school district for the release of the records. County commissioners and the school district voted to release the records after a Texas appeals court on July 16 upheld a judge's ruling that had ordered the information be made public. Both the county and the school district have not said when the records will be released. 'For me, the appellate court's decision to uphold (the judge's) ruling to hand over the video coverage was just confirmation for me that … what are we hiding?' Uvalde County Commissioner Ronald Garza told AP after Monday's meeting. 'I'm very happy that we're gonna release the information.' One county commissioner, Mariano Pargas Jr., who was the acting police chief on the day of the school shooting, abstained from the vote. Family members of the victims had also pushed to make the records public. Jesse Rizo, the uncle of 9-year-old victim Jackie Cazares, asked commissioners on Monday to release the records. Rizo is also a member of the school board. During the board's July 21 meeting, he apologized for the delay in releasing the records. 'Will it answer everything? No. Will it give you closure? I don't think anything ever will give you that type of closure. Will it hopefully make you heal or allow you to heal? I pray that it does,' Rizo said last week. Records from the county that are expected to be released include incident and 911 reports concerning Robb Elementary and other locations; video footage; ballistics and evidence logs; and reports of law enforcement interactions with the shooter and his mother. Records from the school district expected to be released include body-worn and security camera footage from Robb Elementary; student files for the shooter; and records involving Pete Arredondo, the former Uvalde schools police chief who was later indicted over his role in the slow response to the shooting. Arredondo and former school officer Adrian Gonzales have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of child abandonment and endangerment. They are set to face trial on Oct. 20. Several officers involved, including Arredondo, were fired, and separate investigations by the Department of Justice and state lawmakers faulted law enforcement for botching their response to the massacre. Uvalde city officials released their records in August 2024. The Texas Department of Public Safety is still fighting a separate lawsuit filed by media organizations for the release of that agency's records related to the school shooting. Juan A. Lozano, The Associated Press
CTV News
16 minutes ago
- CTV News
U.S. to allow federal workers to promote religion in workplaces
U.S. and agency flags fly outside the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in Washington on Feb. 13, 2024. (Mark Schiefelbein / AP Photo) WASHINGTON - Federal employees may discuss and promote their religious beliefs in the workplace, the Trump administration said on Monday, citing religious freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution. Agency employees may seek to 'persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views' in the office, wrote Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, the U.S. government's human resources agency. Supervisors can attempt to recruit their employees to their religion, so long as the efforts aren't 'harassing in nature,' according to Kupor's statement. Agencies can't discipline their employees for declining to talk to their coworkers about their religious views. The statement represents the latest effort of the six-month-old Republican Trump administration to expand the role of religion in the federal workplace. Courts have long held that employers cannot suppress all religious expression in the workplace, but can lawfully curb conduct that is disruptive or imposes an undue hardship as long as it applies equally to members of any religion. The U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protects individuals' rights to practice their religion while preventing the government from favoring one religion or another or religion in general. OPM in mid-July said agency workers can get permission to work from home or adjust their hours to accommodate religious prayers, after previously demanding that workers report to offices fulltime. The new statement cites President Donald Trump's February executive order calling on agencies to eliminate the 'anti-Christian weaponization of government.' That order directs cabinet secretaries to identify federal actions hostile to Christians. Trump has embraced the conservative Christian world view and promoted policies that speak to concerns that their religious liberty is under attack. Federal employees can also set up prayer groups in the workplace, so long as they don't meet during work hours, Kupor's statement said. The memo references Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a law that prohibits workplace discrimination based on a person's religion or religious practices. Kupor in the memo said that means the law requires employers to allow workers to proselytize, organize prayer groups on non-working time, and display religious icons. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces Title VII, has said that proselytizing in the workplace can amount to unlawful religious harassment if it is unwelcome and is so severe or pervasive that it creates a hostile or abusive work environment. 'A consensual conversation about religious views, even if quite spirited, does not constitute harassment if it is not unwelcome,' the agency said in a 2008 guidance document. Kupor's memo is not legally binding, and any court that reviews it could disagree about the scope of Title VII's protections. But the memo could be difficult to challenge directly in court, as judges in many past cases have said they lack the power to review internal agency documents. (Reporting by Courtney Rozen; Editing by Howard Goller) Courtney Rozen and Daniel Wiessner, Reuters
CTV News
16 minutes ago
- CTV News
Harper says Carney team sought his trade advice, advises looking outside U.S.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper speaks ahead of the King delivering speech from the throne in the Senate in Ottawa on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Blair Gable-Pool Former prime minister Stephen Harper said Monday he's urging Ottawa to find new trading partners outside the United States. 'I think it's fair to say I'm probably the most pro-American prime minister in Canadian history,' Harper told Canadian and American legislators gathered for the annual Midwestern Legislative Conference meeting in Saskatoon. 'We've got to get something short-term worked out with the Trump administration. But this really is a wake-up call for this country to truly diversify its trade export markets. 'Just because we have that geographic proximity does not justify the degree of dependence that we have on a single market.' Harper said he was approached by the government two weeks ago for advice on dealing with U.S. trade policy. The Canadian Press has asked Prime Minister Mark Carney's office whether it approached the former Conservative prime minister for advice but has not yet received a response. Harper told the conference that Canada should no longer rely on Washington for its security. 'While the border is a shared responsibility, let's make sure we spend a lot more on defence so that we can be independently responsible for our own land, seas and skies, independent of the United States,' he said. Harper said that anyone who had asked for his trade advice a year ago would have been urged to deepen economic and security ties with Canada's southern neighbour. 'However, when the government did actually ask me a few weeks ago, my advice was the opposite,' he said. Harper said that while Washington is using a failed economic policy of pursuing economic growth through tariffs, the U.S. still needs trading partners. 'We just cannot be in a position in the future where we can be threatened in this way and not have that leverage,' he said. 'The current government does, you know, get it better than their predecessors.' He said he hopes Americans recognize that they can't take their international allies and trading partners for granted. 'I really do hope that a realization seeps into the United States,' he told the crowd of American lawmakers. 'Canadians are a combination of just angry and bewildered by what is happening here. And that is very real. And it is very deep and it is across the country, and it is across the political spectrum.' Harper also said China is undermining global trade through its use of World Trade Organization mechanisms. He said the Pacific Rim trading bloc created through the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership allows Canada to undertake trade with other countries that respect global rules. He also revealed that he told American officials during his time as prime minister that a military response would be needed to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. 'I have been saying for 15 years at least that the single biggest threat of nuclear war was Iran ever getting a nuclear weapon,' he said. 'And I had told American administrations confidentially for years it was my conclusion (that) the only way to ever stop that would be military action.' By Dylan Robertson. With files from Jeremy Simes in Saskatoon.
