Jury convicts ex-Tennessee House speaker and his aide in legislative mail scheme
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal jury on Friday convicted a former Tennessee House speaker and his onetime chief of staff in a scheme to win taxpayer-funded mail business from state lawmakers even after scandals drove the two out of political power.
Former Republican Rep. Glen Casada was found guilty of all 19 charges, while his then-chief of staff, Cade Cothren, was found guilty of 17 of 19 charges in a public corruption trial that began in late April.
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Winnipeg Free Press
28 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
A Virginia Democrat hunts for votes in rural pockets where MAGA has strengthened its grip
CULPEPER, Va. (AP) — Democratic politics in rural Virginia are not of a bygone era, according to Abigail Spanberger. The former congressional representative, now the Democratic nominee in the race to be Virginia's next governor, posts videos online of herself sitting in a car on an interstate highway that goes up and down the Appalachian Mountains. She has toured a small, family-owned oyster shucking and packaging operation along a quiet boat haven on the northern neck of Virginia. And last month, the nominee held a news conference at a small pharmacy in an agrarian hamlet outside of Richmond. In 2020, Spanberger narrowly ran ahead of former President Joe Biden in her congressional district, and she posted her best results by comparison in rural counties that heavily favored President Donald Trump, including Nottoway, Powhatan, Amelia and Louisa, according to an Associated Press analysis. It's a challenge that might be growing more formidable with each passing election cycle. Trump made gains in those counties in 2024, data show, and Republicans think they have solidified a shift in their direction in rural areas. In Virginia, rural residents made up about 2 in 10 voters last November, according to AP VoteCast. About 6 in 10 small-town or rural voters voted for the Republican candidate in the last two presidential elections and the last two midterm congressional elections. Spanberger became the nominee when no other Democrats ran for governor. Her opponent in the general election, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, was the only Republican who gathered enough signatures to qualify for the top of the GOP ticket, leaving both parties with no contested race at the top of their June 17 primary ballots. A spokesperson for Earle-Sears said in an email that Spanberger's efforts to portray herself as an advocate for small-town Virginians would fall short. 'Rural voters see right through the rhetoric,' said press secretary Peyton Vogel. 'Democrats consistently push policies that hurt energy jobs, raise costs, and grow Washington DC's overreach. That's not a winning message in communities that value freedom, faith, and hard work.' Still, Spanberger seems determined to campaign beyond known Democratic strongholds, vying to winnow down conservative votes in ruby-red parts of Virginia. From the rolling hills of the Piedmont, where Trump won last year by some 20 points, to the Roanoke valley out west, Spanberger is seeking voters in the districts where Democrats once were competitive but Republicans now rule. 'We have to show how we govern,' Spanberger said in explaining her messaging. 'And the governing isn't just standing up to Donald Trump. It is clear and consequential, right?' Last month, Spanberger sat in a booth by the window of Frost Cafe in downtown Culpeper, Virginia, in the Piedmont region between Washington and Charlottesville. As she drank her coffee in the small town that was once part of her congressional district, constituents tapped on the window, pressing their noses to the glass and making hearts with their hands. A young boy hid behind a newspaper stand, peeking up at Spanberger as if she were a celebrity. When his family began to walk away, he knocked on the window and waved. Spanberger's presence in Trump territory comes as Democrats have nationally shown renewed interest in small-town America, launching listening tours in Kentucky, courting Minnesota farmers and looking for other ways to connect. In some ways, rural Virginia feels like Spanberger's home turf. Once a member of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, she has built a legacy tethered to touring farms and strolling through small towns where everybody knows everybody. She focused on low-profile, bucolic-minded bills such as expanding broadband, which was incorporated into the bipartisan infrastructure law passed by Congress in 2021. She helped pass another law making it easier for farmers and forestry professionals to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Some analysts say Trump's pillaging of federal contracts and volatile tariffs have given Spanberger and the Democrats an opening. 'If you look at the trade, if you look at Trump's tariffs, those have a huge impact on the price of agricultural products,' said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington. 'The potential reduction in Medicaid, that's another area where there's going to be a disproportionate impact on rural areas.' Cue Spanberger's eight-point plan to make healthcare coverage more affordable in Southwest Virginia, which was published just as Congress weighs a budget bill that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates could reduce the number of people with health care by 8.6 million over a decade. Neal Osborne, a Bristol councilman representing the nearly 18,000-person city along the border with Tennessee, said Medicaid expansion and healthcare are top of mind for many people there. He pointed out that 150 people showed up when Spanberger visited Bristol back in January. 'We are a Republican stronghold,' said Osborne, who already has endorsed the Democrat. 'But if you do 2% better with southwest Virginia, that could be your margin of victory in a statewide. … I am willing to go on a limb to say she will be back in southwest between now and before the election.' It's a strategy Spanberger has tapped before. After winning a tea party district in 2018, which had been represented by Republicans for decades, the moderate Democrat made a point of working on behalf of conservative strongholds in her district. Her ability to connect with farmers, fishermen and agricultural interests helped her keep her seat for three terms. Michael Carter Jr., of Carter Farms, said he was one of those rural constituents. A Black farmer in Orange County, he said that while Spanberger was in office, there was a continual back-and-forth between her staff and his family, which has owned their farm since 1910. He and his father would see her staff at community events. Spanberger's office asked for his feedback on legislation, he said. It was a meaningful relationship he had with a politician, and that meant something to him. 'It's not always the case that small farmers or even African Americans really feel like we get our voices heard,' Carter said. ___ Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. ___ The Associated Press' women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Winnipeg Free Press
36 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
The 911 presidency: Trump flexes emergency powers in his second term
WASHINGTON (AP) — Call it the 911 presidency. Despite insisting that the United States is rebounding from calamity under his watch, President Donald Trump is harnessing emergency powers unlike any of his predecessors. Whether it's leveling punishing tariffs, deploying troops to the border or sidelining environmental regulations, Trump has relied on rules and laws intended only for use in extraordinary circumstances like war and invasion. An analysis by The Associated Press shows that 30 of Trump's 150 executive orders have cited some kind of emergency power or authority, a rate that far outpaces his recent predecessors. The result is a redefinition of how presidents can wield power. Instead of responding to an unforeseen crisis, Trump is using emergency powers to supplant Congress' authority and advance his agenda. 'What's notable about Trump is the enormous scale and extent, which is greater than under any modern president,' said Ilya Somin, who is representing five U.S. businesses who sued the administration, claiming they were harmed by Trump's so-called 'Liberation Day' tariffs. Because Congress has the power to set trade policy under the Constitution, the businesses convinced a federal trade court that Trump overstepped his authority by claiming an economic emergency to impose the tariffs. An appeals court has paused that ruling while the judges review it. Growing concerns over actions The legal battle is a reminder of the potential risks of Trump's strategy. Judges traditionally have given presidents wide latitude to exercise emergency powers that were created by Congress. However, there's growing concern that Trump is pressing the limits when the U.S. is not facing the kinds of threats such actions are meant to address. 'The temptation is clear,' said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program and an expert in emergency powers. 'What's remarkable is how little abuse there was before, but we're in a different era now.' Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who has drafted legislation that would allow Congress to reassert tariff authority, said he believed the courts would ultimately rule against Trump in his efforts to single-handedly shape trade policy. 'It's the Constitution. James Madison wrote it that way, and it was very explicit,' Bacon said of Congress' power over trade. 'And I get the emergency powers, but I think it's being abused. When you're trying to do tariff policy for 80 countries, that's policy, not emergency action.' The White House pushed back on such concerns, saying Trump is justified in aggressively using his authority. 'President Trump is rightfully enlisting his emergency powers to quickly rectify four years of failure and fix the many catastrophes he inherited from Joe Biden — wide open borders, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, radical climate regulations, historic inflation, and economic and national security threats posed by trade deficits,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Trump frequently sites 1977 law to justify actions Of all the emergency powers, Trump has most frequently cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to justify slapping tariffs on imports. The law, enacted in 1977, was intended to limit some of the expansive authority that had been granted to the presidency decades earlier. It is only supposed to be used when the country faces 'an unusual and extraordinary threat' from abroad 'to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.' In analyzing executive orders issued since 2001, the AP found that Trump has invoked the law 21 times in presidential orders and memoranda. President George W. Bush, grappling with the aftermath of the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil, invoked the law just 14 times in his first term. Likewise, Barack Obama invoked the act only 21 times during his first term, when the U.S. economy faced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. The Trump administration has also deployed an 18th century law, the Alien Enemies Act, to justify deporting Venezuelan migrants to other countries, including El Salvador. Trump's decision to invoke the law relies on allegations that the Venezuelan government coordinates with the Tren de Aragua gang, but intelligence officials did not reach that conclusion. Congress has ceded its power to the presidency Congress has granted emergency powers to the presidency over the years, acknowledging that the executive branch can act more swiftly than lawmakers if there is a crisis. There are 150 legal powers — including waiving a wide variety of actions that Congress has broadly prohibited — that can only be accessed after declaring an emergency. In an emergency, for example, an administration can suspend environmental regulations, approve new drugs or therapeutics, take over the transportation system, or even override bans on testing biological or chemical weapons on human subjects, according to a list compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice. Democrats and Republicans have pushed the boundaries over the years. For example, in an attempt to cancel federal student loan debt, Joe Biden used a post-Sept. 11 law that empowered education secretaries to reduce or eliminate such obligations during a national emergency. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually rejected his effort, forcing Biden to find different avenues to chip away at his goals. Before that, Bush pursued warrantless domestic wiretapping and Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the detention of Japanese-Americans on the West Coast in camps for the duration of World War II. Trump, in his first term, sparked a major fight with Capitol Hill when he issued a national emergency to compel construction of a border wall. Though Congress voted to nullify his emergency declaration, lawmakers could not muster up enough Republican support to overcome Trump's eventual veto. 'Presidents are using these emergency powers not to respond quickly to unanticipated challenges,' said John Yoo, who as a Justice Department official under George W. Bush helped expand the use of presidential authorities. 'Presidents are using it to step into a political gap because Congress chooses not to act.' Trump, Yoo said, 'has just elevated it to another level.' Trump's allies support his moves Conservative legal allies of the president also said Trump's actions are justified, and Vice President JD Vance predicted the administration would prevail in the court fight over tariff policy. 'We believe — and we're right — that we are in an emergency,' Vance said last week in an interview with Newsmax. 'You have seen foreign governments, sometimes our adversaries, threaten the American people with the loss of critical supplies,' Vance said. 'I'm not talking about toys, plastic toys. I'm talking about pharmaceutical ingredients. I'm talking about the critical pieces of the manufacturing supply chain.' Vance continued, 'These governments are threatening to cut us off from that stuff, that is by definition, a national emergency.' Republican and Democratic lawmakers have tried to rein in a president's emergency powers. Two years ago, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced legislation that would have ended a presidentially-declared emergency after 30 days unless Congress votes to keep it in place. It failed to advance. Similar legislation hasn't been introduced since Trump's return to office. Right now, it effectively works in the reverse, with Congress required to vote to end an emergency. 'He has proved to be so lawless and reckless in so many ways. Congress has a responsibility to make sure there's oversight and safeguards,' said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who cosponsored an emergency powers reform bill in the previous session of Congress. He argued that, historically, leaders relying on emergency declarations has been a 'path toward autocracy and suppression.'
The Province
an hour ago
- The Province
Campgrounds closed along Pacific Crest Trail in search for man wanted in daughters' deaths
The girls' mother reported them missing the night of May 30 when Decker failed to return them to her home in Wenatchee Published Jun 06, 2025 • 3 minute read This undated photo provided by the Wenatchee Police Department shows Travis Caleb Decker who the police are asking the public for help in locating the Washington state father who is wanted for murder after his three young daughters were reported missing and then found dead. (Wenatchee Police Department via AP) AP SEATTLE — Authorities have closed a wide swath of popular campgrounds and backpacking areas along the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington as they search for a former Army soldier wanted in the deaths of his three young daughters. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Dozens of additional law enforcement officers from an array of agencies joined the investigation and search Friday for Travis Caleb Decker, 32, four days after the girls — 9-year-old Paityn Decker, 8-year-old Evelyn Decker and 5-year-old Olivia Decker — were found dead at a remote campsite outside Leavenworth. The girls' mother reported them missing the night of May 30 when Decker failed to return them to her home in Wenatchee, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Seattle, after a scheduled visit. The Chelan County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that there were more than 100 officers involved in the search, which covered rugged terrain in the Cascade Mountains of central Washington, and more than 500 tips had poured in from the public. Essential reading for hockey fans who eat, sleep, Canucks, repeat. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Out of an abundance of caution, we have been given notice to, and are working in conjunction with our surrounding counties in the event Mr. Decker moves through the forest into their jurisdiction,' the statement said. Decker was an infantryman in the Army from March 2013 to July 2021 and deployed to Afghanistan for four months in 2014, according to Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Ruth Castro. From 2014 to 2016, he was an automatic rifleman with the 75th Ranger Regiment at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington. Last September his ex-wife, Whitney Decker, wrote in a petition to modify their parenting plan that his mental health issues had worsened and that he had become increasingly unstable, often living out of his truck. She sought to restrict him from having overnight visits with the girls until he found housing. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'He has made huge sacrifices to serve our country and loves his girls very much but he has got to get better,' she wrote. 'I do not want to keep Travis from the girls at all. … But I cannot have our girls staying in what is essentially a homeless shelter, at times unsupervised, with dozens of strange men, or staying in a tent or living in his truck with him both in extreme temperatures and unknown areas for their safety.' Authorities warned people to be on the lookout for Decker and asked those with remote homes, cabins or outbuildings to keep them locked, to leave blinds open so law enforcement can see inside and to leave exterior lights on. It was unclear if Decker was armed, but the Chelan County Sheriff's Office said he should be considered dangerous. A reward of up to $20,000 was offered for information leading to his arrest. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. An online fundraiser for Whitney Decker raised more than $1 million, and friends Amy Edwards, who taught the girls in a theater program called 'Short Shakespeareans,' and Mark Belton thanked supporters during a news conference Thursday. 'Their laughter, curiosity and spirit left a mark on all of us,' Edwards said. 'They were the kind of children that everyone rooted for, looked forward to seeing and held close in their hearts.' Edwards and Belton said Whitney Decker hopes the tragedy prompts changes to the state's Amber Alert system as well as improvements in mental health care for veterans. The night the girls were reported missing, Wenatchee police asked the Washington State Patrol to issue an Amber Alert but it declined, saying that as a custody matter without an imminent threat, the case did not meet the criteria for one. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The patrol did issue an 'endangered missing person alert' the next day, but those do not result in notifications being sent to mobile phones. As searches expanded for the girls last weekend, a sheriff's deputy found Decker's pickup in the area of Rock Island Campground, northwest of Leavenworth. There were two bloody handprints on the tailgate. The girls' bodies were discovered down an embankment nearby with evidence that they had been bound with zip ties, according to an affidavit filed in support of murder and kidnapping charges against Decker. County Coroner Wayne Harris said Friday that his office was awaiting pathology results to determine when and how the girls were killed. Authorities issued closure notices the previous day for that camping area, which lies in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, as well as for a large swath of rugged territory to the north. That included trails and campgrounds along the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from the Canadian border to Mexico, and around Stehekin, at the northern end of Lake Chelan. Vancouver Canucks Vancouver Canucks News Business Vancouver Canucks
