Latest news with #DavidBarnes
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
As Trump-Putin summit nears, family of Texan held in Russia seeks prisoner exchange
As President Donald Trump prepares to travel to Alaska on Friday to address the future of Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the family of the Texas man serving the longest prison sentence of any American currently being detained in Russia is hopeful that another prisoner exchange between the two nations will be on the agenda. "We hope for better relations between the U.S. and Russia that will hopefully lead to the release of my brother," Margaret Aaron, one of David Barnes' two sisters, told ABC News anchor Gio Benitez in an interview Wednesday. Barnes, who grew up in Alabama, has been detained in Moscow since January 2022 and is currently serving a 21.5-year sentence. MORE: Moscow court rejects American David Barnes' appeal to get out of Russian prison "He's hanging in there," Aaron said. "He has been extremely strong through the last three and a half years. We're extremely proud of him and he has continued to be hopeful that something will happen." Unlike other Americans who have been held in Russia, Barnes is accused by Russian prosecutors of crimes in the United States, not Russia. Yet American law enforcement had no involvement in Barnes' prosecution in Moscow. Barnes was convicted by a Russian judge of abusing his two sons years earlier in Texas, but prosecutors in Montgomery County, Texas, told ABC News that law enforcement in the Lone Star State investigated the claims after they were reported by Barnes' Russian ex-wife and did not find evidence to support them. "I do know that everyone that heard and investigated the child sexual abuse allegations raised by Mrs. Barnes during the child custody proceedings did not find them to be credible," Montgomery County District Attorney's Office Trial Bureau Chief Kelly Blackburn previously told ABC News. "He's been suffering," Aaron said Wednesday. "He's innocent." Barnes' ex-wife, Svetlana Koptyaeva, has maintained that Barnes abused their sons while the children were growing up in the Texas suburbs years ago. Koptyaeva was charged with felony interference with child custody after allegedly taking the children from Texas to Russia in 2019 while a child custody dispute between her and Barnes was playing out. In 2020, a Texas family court designated Barnes as the primary guardian of his sons, but since since Koptyaeva had taken them out of the country, Barnes' family says he decided to travel to Russia after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted to try to fight for similar custody or visitation rights in Moscow's court system. Barnes was arrested weeks after arriving in Russia and has been behind bars ever since. In April, a judge in Moscow denied Barnes' appeal of his conviction. MORE: American David Barnes enters 4th year of detention in Russia "We really, really need to have him designated as wrongfully detained," Aaron said. "Hopefully, to start that process, we need the help of Trump and Secretary [Marco] Rubio." The upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin on American soil comes four months after Russian officials released ballerina Ksenia Karelina to the U.S. through a prisoner exchange. Following Karelina's return to the U.S., she wrote a letter to Trump calling for the release of Barnes along with fellow Americans Robert Gilman and Andre Khachatoorian. Trump posted the letter on social media. "David Barnes, a Texas father of two sons, has been detained in Russia for far too long under charges already proven to be false, and it is past time for him to be released," U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas said in a statement at the time. "I urge President Trump and Secretary Rubio to prioritize efforts to bring David and all wrongfully-detained Americans throughout the world home." Other Americans who were previously held in Russia, like Paul Whelan, Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner, were transferred to penal colonies far from Moscow following their convictions -- but Barnes has been held in Russia's capital since he was taken into custody. "We have visited Mr. Barnes eight times since his arrest in January 2022," a U.S. State Department spokesperson told ABC News. "Our last visit to Mr. Barnes in detention was in May 2025." With all eyes on Anchorage ahead of this week's presidential summit, Barnes' family and friends in the U.S. will be paying close attention. "David's strength keeps us going," Aaron said.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
Council facing backlash over plans to close road
The South Wairarapa District Council is facing a growing backlash over plans to close a stretch of road along a piece of the region's coastline leading to a DOC reserve. Herenga a Nuku the Outdoor Access Commission regional field officer David Barnes spoke to Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
South Wales Argus
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- South Wales Argus
Chepstow Agricultural show 2025: Pictures as sun shines
Staged at Chepstow Racecourse, the show displays by sheep dogs, working dogs and South Wales Fire and Rescue Service. (Image: David Barnes) A procession of vintage tractors and Land Rovers, the Woolaston Bassett Hounds and demonstration of carriage driving were also among the entertainment put on throughout the day in the main ring. New this year was a live music stage and a circus workshop which ran throughout the day and proved popular with all ages. (Image: David Barnes) Among those performing on the music stage were Ron King's Hot Four Jazz Band, Chepstow Rock Choir, Buskuleles of Usk, Macey Clark Duo and Singing for Soul Choir. Visitors could wander around the livestock, mainly many varieties of sheep, and watch the judging and there were also homecraft and horticulture tents, which were open to the public once the judges had made their decisions. (Image: David Barnes) Another very popular attraction was the fun dog show - enjoyed by owners, dogs and spectators alike. Gareth Price, chairman of Chepstow Agricultural Society, which stages the annual event each summer, said: "No show would be able to take place without the volunteers who run it and I would like to thank each and every one who puts time and effort into organising the show - it simply would not happen without them." (Image: David Barnes) Mr Price also thanked the sponsors, who included Archway Veterinary Centre, Chepstow Garden Centre, David James, Moon and Co, Green and Co Accountants and United Trades. He said the society gave particular thanks to Frank Sutton of Raglan for the loan of tractors, trailers and other agricultural equipment.
Boston Globe
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
New Orleans pushes to legalize police use of ‘facial surveillance'
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up In an emailed statement, a police spokesperson said the department 'does not surveil the public,' and that surveillance is 'not the goal of this ordinance revision.' But the word 'surveillance' appears in the proposed ordinance dozens of times, including explicitly giving police authority to use 'facial surveillance.' Advertisement Many police departments use AI to help them identify suspects from still images taken at or near the scene of a crime, but New Orleans police have already taken the technology a step further. Over the past two years, the department relied on a privately owned network of cameras equipped with facial recognition software to constantly monitor the streets for wanted people and automatically ping an app on officers' mobile phones to convey the names and locations of possible matches, The Post reported last month. Advertisement In April, after The Post requested public records about this system, New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick paused the automated alerts and ordered a review into how officers used the technology and whether the practice violated local restrictions on facial recognition. David Barnes, a New Orleans police sergeant overseeing legal research and planning, who wrote the proposed ordinance, said he hopes to complete the review and share his findings before the City Council vote. The facial recognition alerts are still paused, he said Wednesday. There are no federal regulations around the use of AI by local law enforcement. New Orleans was one of many cities to ban the technology during the policing overhauls passed in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, with the City Council saying it had 'significant concerns about the role of facial recognition technologies and surveillance databases in exacerbating racial and other bias.' Federal studies have shown the technology to be less reliable when scanning people of color, women, and older people. New Orleans partly rolled back the restrictions in 2022, letting police use facial recognition for searches of specific suspects of violent crimes, but not for general tracking of people in public places. Each time police want to scan a face, they must send a still image to trained examiners at a state facility and later provide details about these scans to the city council — guardrails meant to protect the public's privacy and prevent software errors from leading to wrongful arrests. Advertisement Now, city leaders want to give police broad access to the technology with fewer limitations, arguing that automated surveillance tools are necessary for fighting crime. Violent crime rates in New Orleans, like much of the country, are at historic lows, according to Jeff Asher, a consultant who tracks crime statistics in the region. But facial recognition-equipped cameras have proven useful in a few recent high-profile incidents, including the May 16 escape of 10 inmates from a local jail and the New Year's Day attack on Bourbon Street that left 14 dead. 'Violent crime is at an all-time low but mass murders and shootings are at an all-time high,' Oliver Thomas, one of two council members sponsoring the ordinance, said in an interview this week. 'This is a tool to deal with some of this mass violence and mass murders and attacks.' After The Post informed Thomas there were 310 fatal and nonfatal shootings in New Orleans last year — by far the lowest number in the 14 years the city council has published these statistics on its online crime data dashboard — he acknowledged that shootings are down and partly attributed the decline to his work with young people and ex-offenders. Nora Ahmed, the legal director for the ACLU of Louisiana, said council members are using public concern over recent news to justify the widespread adoption of facial recognition technology, or FRT — a powerful technology with the potential to strip people of their rights. 'In the name of making FRT available for a once-in-a-decade jail break, this bill opens up FRT to being used by federal and state entities, and enterprising local police departments,' Ahmed said in a text message. 'This type of surveillance should not exist in the United States period.' Advertisement The new ordinance would give police the ability to use 'facial surveillance' and 'characteristic tracking' systems to actively monitor the streets looking for people with warrants or people under investigation. It would require them to continue sharing data about facial searches to the City Council and begin reporting details about the software they use and its accuracy. While the ordinance says police cannot use facial surveillance tools to target abortion seekers or undocumented immigrants, Ahmed says those protections are 'paper thin' and worries officers would find ways around them. It's not clear whether New Orleans plans to keep working with Project NOLA, a privately funded nonprofit group that has provided automated facial recognition alerts to officers despite having no contract with the city. Barnes, the police sergeant, said Project NOLA would need to come into a formal data-sharing agreement with the city if it wanted to continue sending automated alerts to officers who have logged into a Project NOLA system to receive them. Under the new ordinance, Project NOLA could also be required to publish information about all of its searches to the city council. Such data reporting could be complicated with a live facial recognition system, in which cameras are constantly scanning every face in their vicinity. With hundreds of cameras potentially scanning thousands of faces a day, Project NOLA, or the city, could theoretically need to report information about millions of facial recognition scans in each of its quarterly data reports the department is required to provide to the City Council. Bryan Lagarde, Project NOLA's founder, declined to comment this week, saying he was on vacation. Advertisement New Orleans's embrace of the term 'surveillance' — which appears 40 times in the text of the proposed ordinance — appears at odds with statements made by Kirkpatrick, the city's top police official. In an interview last month, Kirkpatrick said she believes governments should be prevented from surveilling their citizens, especially when they are in public exercising their constitutional rights. 'I do not believe in surveilling the citizenry and residents of our country,' Kirkpatrick said at the time. 'Surveilling is an invasion of our privacy.'
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US Sen. Cornyn calls for release of Texas father detained in Russia
TEXAS (KXAN)– On Monday, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called for the release of Texan David Barnes, who was wrongfully detained in Russia for more than four years, according to a press release. The call comes after recently-freed Russian prisoner Ksenia Karelina's letter to President Donald Trump, urging the safe return of Barnes and two other Americans who were being held by Russia. 'David Barnes, a Texas father of two sons, has been detained in Russia for far too long under charges already proven to be false…' said Sen. Cornyn. 'I urge President Trump and Secretary Rubio to prioritize efforts to bring David and all wrongfully-detained Americans throughout the world home. The release stated, in 2015 Barnes was accused by his ex-wife of sexually abusing his two sons in Texas, one of whom has Russian nationality. Details further said the actuation was found not credible and no charges were filed against Barnes in the United States. During an ongoing child custody battle in 2019, his ex-wife fled to Russia with the children and a Texas court designated Barnes as the primary guardian of his sons, said the release. According to the release, Barnes' ex-wife was indicted for interference with child custody and a warrant was issued for her arrest in Texas. The release further detailed when Barnes traveled to Russia to rekindle with his son's in 2022, he was arrested by Russian police who were informed by his ex-wife of the child sexual abuse accusations in Texas. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison by a Russian judge in 2024. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
