AFP

An eight-year-old boy shot dead a baby and wounded her toddler sister while playing with his father’s gun in Florida last weekend, police said.

The father, 45-year-old Roderick Randall, was arrested and charged with culpable negligence, unlawful possession of a firearm and concealment of evidence, Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said. 

The tragedy — all too common in a country awash with firearms — took place in a motel where Randall, who has a criminal record that forbade him from owning a gun, met with his girlfriend.

He had brought his son, while his girlfriend had brought along her two-year-old twins and her one-year-old daughter.

At one point, Randall went out and left his weapon “in the closet,” said the sheriff during a press conference. Knowing where it was hidden, his son took it out and started playing with it while the girls’ mother was asleep.

“He pulls the gun from the holster, starts playing with it and fires a round into the one-year-old toddler, ultimately killing the one year old. The bullet then goes through and strikes one of the two year old toddlers who’s injured but is expected to recover.”

When the father returned, he took the gun and an unidentified substance that may have been drugs, out of the room before the police arrived. 

The baby girl’s death is the latest in a staggering series of similar accidents.

“Every year, hundreds of children in the United States gain access to unsecured, loaded guns in closets and nightstand drawers, in backpacks and purses, or just left out,” according to a recent report by Everytown For Gun Safety.

“With tragic regularity, children find these unsecured guns and unintentionally shoot themself or someone else.”  

The organization, which advocates for increased regulation of firearms, estimates that these “unintentional shootings” by minors cause an average of 350 deaths each year. 

More generally, firearms cause approximately 40,000 deaths a year in the United States, including suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.

Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a New York judge Tuesday for helping the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse girls.

The term, handed down in the Manhattan federal court, means the 60-year-old former socialite will spend much of the rest of her life in jail.

The Oxford-educated daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell was convicted late last year on five of six counts, the most serious for sex trafficking minors.

Her lawyers had argued for leniency, citing a traumatic childhood and claiming that Maxwell was being unfairly punished because Epstein escaped trial.

They had asked for a maximum of five years while prosecutors had called for between 30 and 55 years in jail.

In the end, judge Alison Nathan went with 20, the amount of time recommended by the US probation office.

During Maxwell’s high-profile trial in late 2021, prosecutors successfully proved that she was “the key” to Epstein’s scheme of enticing young girls to give him massages, during which he would sexually abuse them.

Two of Epstein’s victims, identified as “Jane” and “Carolyn,” testified that they were as young as 14 when Maxwell began grooming them.

Maxwell’s lawyers said their client had “a difficult, traumatic childhood with an overbearing, narcissistic, and demanding father.”

“It made her vulnerable to Epstein, whom she met right after her father’s death,” they wrote in submissions filed earlier this month.

Money manager Epstein killed himself in prison in 2019 aged 66 while awaiting his own sex crimes trial in New York.

“Ms Maxwell cannot and should not bear all the punishment for which Epstein should have been held responsible,” her attorneys pleaded.

-‘Devastating harm’ –

But the prosecution contended in its own court filing last week that Maxwell “was an adult who made her own choices.”

They argued that she had shown an “utter lack of remorse” for her crimes, committed between 1994 and 2004.

“Today’s sentence holds Ghislaine Maxwell accountable for perpetrating heinous crimes against children,” Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said.

“This sentence sends a strong message that no one is above the law and it is never too late for justice,” he added.

Maxwell has already been held in detention for some two years following her arrest in New Hampshire in the summer of 2020.

“Ghislaine must die in prison,” Maxwell and Epstein accuser Sarah Ransome told reporters outside court.

Maxwell’s sentencing caps a dramatic fall for the former international jetsetter who grew up in wealth and privilege as a friend to royalty.

Her circle included Britain’s Prince Andrew, former US president and real estate baron Donald Trump and the Clinton family.

In February, Prince Andrew settled a sexual abuse lawsuit with Virginia Giuffre, who said she had been trafficked to the royal by Epstein and Maxwell.

In April, Nathan rejected a request by Maxwell for a new trial. 

She unsuccessfully argued that a juror, who had boasted of helping convince fellow panelists to convict Maxwell by recalling his own experiences as a sex abuse victim, had biased the jury.

Former US president Donald Trump tried to take the steering wheel from his Secret Service limousine driver in a bid to join the crowd marching on the US Capitol, a top aide in his administration testified Tuesday.

Trump got into his car after addressing his supporters at a rally near the White House on January 6, 2021, Cassidy Hutchinson told a congressional panel, and was told he couldn’t be with his supporters who were gathering ahead of the protest that turned into a deadly insurrection. 

“I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now,” Trump said, according to Hutchinson, who said the story was relayed to her by another administration official.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone had voiced legal concerns about Trump marching to the Capitol alongside his supporters, Hutchinson said. 

“We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that happen,” Hutchison recalled Cipollone warning.

Hutchinson, a former top White House aide with unique access to Trump and the inner workings of the West Wing, was testifying at the sixth June hearing of the House committee probing the attack on the US Capitol.

An executive assistant to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, she was a central figure in the White House around the period of the insurrection on January 6 last year.

In some of the most explosive testimony from the hearings so far, Hutchinson said Trump and some of his top lieutenants were aware of the possibility of violence ahead of the attack — contradicting claims that the assault was spontaneous and had nothing to do with the administration.

– ‘Things might get real’ –

Hutchinson said she recalled her boss saying four days before the insurrection: “Things might get real, real bad on January 6.”

Hutchinson had sought out Meadows, she said, after a White House meeting involving Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. 

As they were heading to Giuliani’s car, he asked her if she was “excited” for January 6, she testified. 

When she asked what was happening on that day, Hutchinson testified that Giuliani “responded something to the effect of, ‘We’re going to the Capitol,'” Hutchinson said.

“‘It’s going to be great. The president’s going to be there. He’s going to look powerful. He’s going to be with the members. He’s going to be with the senators. Talk to the chief about it. Talk to the chief about it. He knows about it.'”

She told Meadows what Giuliani had said, she testified.

“He didn’t look up from his phone and said something to the effect of, ‘There’s a lot going on, Cass, but I don’t know. Things might get real, real bad on January 6,'” Hutchinson told the hearing.

“When hearing Rudy’s take on January 6, and then Mark’s response, that was the first moment that I remember feeling scared and nervous for what could happen on January 6,” she added.

Hutchinson told the committee that she heard the names of far right groups the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys discussed in the White House as January 6 approached.

Meadows and Trump were aware of the possibility of violence, including that members of the pro-Trump mob were armed when they gathered on the Ellipse that day, Hutchinson said.  

– ‘Lack of reaction’ –

When she told Meadows violence had erupted, Meadows “almost had a lack of reaction,” Hutchinson said.

Vice chair Liz Cheney said the committee had obtained police reports that people at the Trump rally on the Ellipse had knives, Tasers, pepper spray and blunt objects that could be used as weapons.

Police transmissions played at the hearing showed that others outside the rally had firearms including AR-15 semi-automatic rifles.

Hutchinson has already been the source of several blockbuster revelations, appearing in videotaped depositions at two previous hearings and memorably naming a group of House Republicans who sought pardons from Trump following the violence.

She was also in contact with officials in the battleground state of Georgia, where Trump infamously pressured officials to “find” enough votes to overcome Biden’s victory margin in a phone call that is the subject of a criminal probe.

It was Hutchinson, according to CNN, who told the select committee that Trump voiced approval for the “hang Mike Pence” chants from rioters at the Capitol — an allegation that was among the many eye-popping claims to come out of the opening hearing on June 9.

Meadows himself has refused to testify before the panel since handing over thousands of text messages and other documents in the early stages of the investigation.

The House of Representatives held Meadows in contempt in December but the Justice Department decided not to charge him.

The US economy will slow this year as intended and is expected to avoid a downturn, but the Federal Reserve will have to raise borrowing rates quickly, a top central bank official said Tuesday.

“Recession is not my base case right now. I think the economy is strong,” New York Fed President John Williams said on CNBC.

But he said policymakers need to hike rates “expeditiously” to tamp down inflationary pressures and get the key policy interest rate to 3.0-3.5 percent by later this year.

With American families struggling in the face of soaring gas and food prices, the Fed has shifted into high gear, implementing the biggest rate hike in nearly 30 years earlier this month to try to cool the economy and rein in inflation.

The Fed since March has raised the benchmark borrowing rate 1.5 percentage points, from zero where it had been since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and is expected to announce another three-quarter-point increase at its July policy meeting, with further hikes coming.

That has raised fears the campaign to quell the highest inflation in four decades will tumble the world’s largest economy into recession.

But Williams echoed the cautiously optimistic view of Fed chief Jerome Powell, saying there is a path forward that avoids a contraction.

“I’m expecting growth to slow this year quite a bit relative to what we had last year,” with GDP expanding by 1.0 to 1.5 percent, he said.

“It’s not a recession, it’s a slowdown that we need to see in the economy to reduce the inflationary pressures and bring inflation down.”

However, other economists are not as sanguine.

Dana Peterson, chief economist of The Conference Board, said the United States will likely face a short downturn.

“We are anticipating a brief yet shallow recession starting in the fourth quarter of this year and extending into the first quarter of next year,” she said during a Politico event on Tuesday.

Williams noted that the main risks to the US economy “are coming from abroad.”

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been a major factor contributing to rising food and oil prices worldwide.

He said it was “perfectly reasonable” to expect the Fed to raise the policy rate to 3.5-4.0 percent next year, but that the final path will depend on the economic data.

“We need to raise interest rates quite a bit this year and into next year,” he said. “We’ve got to get interest rates higher and we have to do that expeditiously.”

The leaders of Finland and Sweden met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid in a bid to get him to drop objections to them joining.

Erdogan has stubbornly refused to greenlight the applications from the Nordic pair — lodged in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine — despite calls from his NATO allies to clear the path for them to enter.

He was expected to meet with US President Joe Biden on Wednesday on the sidelines of the gathering focused on responding to the Kremlin’s invasion of its pro-Western neighbour.

Turkey can essentially veto Finland and Sweden from joining NATO since all members must agree to taking on new members.

Ankara has accused Finland and especially Sweden of offering a safe haven to Kurdish militants who have been waging decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.

The Turkish leader has also called on the two countries to lift arms embargoes imposed on Turkey in 2019 over Ankara’s military offensive in Syria.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who is mediating the talks, said he hoped to make “progress” on the issue at the summit which ends on Thursday.

The talks would continue after a dinner on Tuesday for the national leaders taking part in the summit, the Turkish government said.

Sweden and Finland went into the NATO meeting open to the possibility that Turkey might only lift its objections after the summit concludes on Thursday.

“We have made progress. That is definitely the case,” said Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said he was neither “optimistic nor pessimistic at this stage”.

But Erdogan said on Monday before flying to Madrid that Turkey does “not want empty words. We want results”.

– ‘Interest of the alliance´-

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Biden and Erdogan would “at some point” meet on Wednesday on the sidelines of the summit.

But he stressed the United States was not adopting a “brokering role” and would leave the NATO secretary general in charge.

“Rather, we’re going to do what many other allies have done which is indicate publicly and privately that we believe it is in the interest of the alliance to get this done,” he added.

“And we also believe that Finland and Sweden have taken significant steps forward in terms of addressing Turkey’s concerns.”

Analysts believe the meeting between Erdogan and Biden could play a crucial role in breaking down Turkey’s resistance to bids by Sweden and Finland to join the Western defence alliance in response to the war.

The two leaders have had a chilly relationship since Biden’s election because of US concerns about human rights under Erdogan.

Biden and Erdogan last met briefly in October on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Rome.

– Fighter jet talks –

Erdogan’s ability to maintain a close working relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin while supporting Ukraine’s war effort has made him an important player in the conflict.

But those ties have also complicated his relations with Biden and NATO.

Washington has sanctioned Ankara for taking delivery of an advanced Russian missile defence system in 2019.

The purchase saw the United States drop Turkey from the F-35 joint strike fighter programme and impose trade restrictions on its military procurement agency.

But Washington has signalled it may be willing to move past the dispute.

Biden’s administration has dangled the possibility of supplying Ankara with older-generation F-16 jets that could replenish Turkey’s ageing air force fleet.

“The most important issue is the F-16 issue. It is still on the table,” Erdogan said of his upcoming talks with Biden.

burs-ds/raz