Dr. Norman C. Francis hopes street named in his honor brings people together as 'one'

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Dr. Norman C. Francis hopes street named in his honor brings people together as 'one'

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  • Anti-Putin Campaigners: It’s Time to Sanction the Large Adult Sons of Oligarchs and Cronies

    ATTILA KISBENEDEKBack when he was still running Russia’s FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, a longtime Putin crony who now heads the Russian Security Council, famously referred to himself and his colleagues as representatives of the “new nobility.”Nepotism is now breeding a new generation of Russian “nobles,” who are poised to take over the Kremlin upon the retirement of their fathers. These princelings—some of whom already occupy exalted positions in the government and the corporate world—are accused of benefiting from their parents’ money, mostly stolen from the state, via offshore accounts. They also travel abroad and educate their children in America and Europe, while paying homage to the Kremlin leadership, which portrays the West as an enemy.Anti-corruption campaigners claim that the children of the officials and oligarchs who enable Putin’s repressive kleptocracy are effectively being used to evade Western sanctions, and must be targeted themselves in order to deter the Kremlin from future criminal behavior.European Union foreign ministers met in Brussels last week and reportedly decided to add four Russian officials responsible for the incarceration of Russian democrat Alexei Navalny to a list of six Russians already sanctioned in connection with Navalny’s August 2020 poisoning.The Daily Beast reported in January that the Biden administration was also considering imposing a fresh round of sanctions as part of its own response to the treatment of the opposition leader. On Monday, administration officials briefed a number of outlets that those sanctions would likely be announced this week.Team Biden Weighs Fresh Sanctions on Russia for Poisoning and Jailing NavalnyNavalny and his team are advocating for sanctions to be imposed on a wider range of Russian oligarchs, who form the backbone of Putin's regime, as well on the sons of Putin’s henchmen. Sanction-related travel bans and asset freezes for Putin’s siloviki—strongmen—have proved inconvenient but some appear happy to stay in Russia and sunbathe on the Black Sea instead of the Mediterranean so long as they can evade financial restrictions by transferring their assets to their adult children.After the West imposed sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Crimea, Navalny said: “If the meaning of the sanctions is to exert real pressure on the mafia that has seized power (and this is precisely what is declared), then their sons would be included… These little sons are calmly cruising on their yachts and eating crème brulée in cafes on the streets of European cities.”Navalny and Vladimir Ashurkov, the executive director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, have included two princelings on a suggested sanctions list that accompanied a letter Ashurkov sent to President Biden earlier this year: Denis Bortnikov, son of FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov, and Dmitry Patrushev, son of Bortnikov’s predecessor, Nikolai Patrushev, who now heads Putin’s National Security Council. The document claims that both sons act as “wallets” for their fathers’ “ill-gotten gains.”Ashurkov told the Daily Beast that these two men are deeply corrupt and senior enough within the government structure to be sanctioned in their own right. He insisted it was not his role to tell Western governments what to do but said it would be appropriate to widen the sanctions on further offspring of the siloviki. “I think it is logical that the immediate family of people involved in human rights abuses and corruption are also banned from Western countries,” he said.There is a precedent in Washington for sanctioning the sons of Putin’s enablers: Roman Rotenberg, son of Russian billionaire Boris Rotenberg, and Roman’s cousin Igor Rotenberg, son of Arkady Rotenberg, have both been sanctioned because of their financial ties to their fathers. In late 2017, the U.S. Treasury added Artem Chaika, son of Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika, to those sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act. And in April 2018, the Treasury designated Kirill Shamalov, Putin's former son-in-law, for sanctions. But these four represent only a fraction of the new generation of Russian elite that reaps the rewards of the corruption and repressive Putin regime.Retired U.S. diplomat Steven Pifer, currently a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, thinks it’s a finely balanced calculation. “While I'm not fully comfortable with targeting family members, perhaps it is time to sanction spouses and children along with the primary individual,” he told The Daily Beast. “If a Russian oligarch can’t travel, that’s one thing. If his spouse can’t make her shopping trips to London and kids can’t get to their colleges in the West, that would be a different degree of pressure.”There is no shortage of potential targets among Russia’s princeling class. Not surprisingly, both of Nikolai Patrushev's sons graduated from the FSB Academy, which trains its students to become spies against the West. Dmitry Patrushev, 43, is on the list of targets suggested by Navalny’s organization. He was appointed Minister of Agriculture in 2018 after heading the Russian Agricultural Bank and bringing it deeply and scandalously into debt (close to a billion dollars in 2016). (Despite, or maybe because of, Dmitry's much-publicized failures at the bank, that same year Putin personally awarded him the Order of Honor and the Association of Russian Bankers named him Banker of the Year.)Dmitry's brother, Andrei Patrushev, aged 39, worked for the FSB before becoming an advisor to Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin (one of Putin's oldest KGB buddies) in 2006, at age 25. The next year President Putin awarded him the coveted Order of Honor “for the achieved labor success and many years of conscientious work.” Later Andrei became a top official at Gazprom Neft. He now co-owns a marine geology firm, which in 2019 had an annual gross revenue of $155 million, and is on the board of the prestigious Russian Association of Arctic Explorers. Both Patrushev sons have large seaside vacation homes near Putin's infamous palace at Gelendzhik.Viktor Zolotov, who is on the U.S. sanctions list, has known Putin for years and is said to enjoy the Russian president's deepest trust. Zolotov heads the powerful 300,000-person Russian National Guard, which is used to brutally suppress street protests. (In 2018, after Alexei Navalny exposed illegalities in procurement contracts for the National Guard, Zolotov published a video message in which he challenged Navalny to a duel and promised to make “good, juicy mincemeat” of him.) Zolotov’s son-in-law, Yuri Chechikhin, 44, is a business partner of the oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who gave him a stake in his construction business, which earns several billion rubles a year, including through lucrative government contracts.Zolotov’s son Roman Zolotov, age 40, was educated at the FSB academy and worked at the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), where his dad served as deputy minister, for a number of years. He is co-owner of a Russian company called Quantum Technologies and serves on the boards of various state-owned companies. Roman, who has a vacation home in Gelendzhik along with the Patrushevs, is also deputy head of the Moscow Department of Sports and Tourism, an actor and a film producer. While Roman was still earning a modest salary at the MVD, he and his brother-in-law Yuri produced several low-grade Russian movies, one of which featured Roman in the cast. Both men own mansions outside Moscow that are valued at over $10 million each.Yuri Chaika, currently Russian representative to the Caucasus Region, was Russian prosecutor-general from 2006 to 2020 and presided over the Kremlin’s sustained campaign of persecution of civil society. During Chaika’s tenure as prosecutor-general, his sons, 45-year-old Artem Chaika and 33-year-old Igor Chaika, created huge business empires. A January 2020 article in Forbes Russia, drawing on an earlier, explosive investigation by Navalny, describes how the two Chaika brothers, beginning with Artem’s illegal seizure of a large shipping enterprise in 2002, each achieved staggering wealth. They accumulated countless companies—construction, shipping, refuse collection, property development, industrial products and food export—and through rigged auctions, massive government subsidies and uncompetitive state contracts made them profitable. All the while, their father prevented legal challenges to their dubious business practices.An investigation by Navalny’s FBK revealed that Artem Chaika bought a $3 million home near Lake Geneva in 2013 and has Swiss residence.The brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg are Putin's friends from childhood and former judo sparring partners of the Russian president. (Arkady recently to came to Putin’s rescue by claiming, unconvincingly, that he was the owner of “Putin’s palace,” exposed by Navalny.)Putin Says He Doesn’t Know Anything about the Billion-Dollar Palace Russia Built HimSince Putin became president in 2000, the pair have become billionaires, supplying pipelines to the state-controlled energy corporation Gazprom and landing exclusive contracts for the Sochi Olympics. In 2014 the EU and U.S. sanctioned both brothers as a result of the Crimea invasion. A 2020 U.S. Senate report accused the Rotenbergs of circumventing financial sanctions by buying expensive art through Barclays Bank, as well as by handing over assets to their sons.Roman Rotenberg, 39, is the son of Boris Rotenberg. He studied international business in London, is a British citizen and owns a £3.3 million home in London’s exclusive Belgravia district. Roman, who is first vice-president of the Russian Hockey Federation, is also the formal owner of many of his father’s companies, including those in Finland, where he and his father Boris have citizenship. Arkady’s son Igor Rotenberg, 47, has held numerous positions in the Putin government and also is on the boards of several gas and power companies. His net worth was recently estimated at $1.1 billion.These names represent the tip of a large iceberg. Anti-corruption campaigners believe Russia’s princelings are not only destined to continue the Kremlin's anti-democratic and corrupt governing practices; they also are likely to ensure that the huge gap between the haves and the have-nots in Russia continues to grow. In 2019, 10 percent of Russians owned 83 percent of the country’s wealth. Among the world’s leading economies, Russia is the country with the most striking material inequality.The Biden administration has yet to make any official announcement on Navalny-related sanctions, although Secretary of State Antony Blinken participated virtually in the Brussels meeting and “welcomed the EU’s decision to impose sanctions against Russia.” In a speech at the State Department on Feb. 4, President Biden urged the Kremlin to release Navalny from prison and emphasized that “we will not hesitate to raise the cost on Russia.” Biden also said that he told President Putin in a telephone call that “the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions—interfering with our elections, cyberattacks, poisoning its citizens—are over.” So perhaps the U.S. will consider the recommendations of Navalny’s team and include Russian oligarchs—and maybe some princelings—on its sanctions list.Before last week’s meeting in Brussels Russia warned that it would be “ready to react” to any new sanctions by the EU. But in fact there is not much Russia can do, beyond expelling a few more diplomats from Moscow or sanctioning specific Western officials, which would have little impact. In 2014, after being blacklisted by Russia in retaliation for U.S. sanctions, the late Senator John McCain joked: “I guess this means my spring break in Siberia is off, my Gazprom stock is lost, and my secret bank account in Moscow is frozen.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • Chinese vaccines sweep much of the world, despite concerns

    The plane laden with vaccines had just rolled to a stop at Santiago’s airport in late January, and Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, was beaming. The source of that hope: China – a country that Chile and dozens of other nations are depending on to help rescue them from the COVID-19 pandemic. China’s vaccine diplomacy campaign has been a surprising success: It has pledged roughly half a billion doses of its vaccine to more than 45 countries, according to a country-by-country tally by The Associated Press.

  • Chinese vaccines sweep much of the world, despite concerns

    The plane laden with vaccines had just rolled to a stop at Santiago’s airport in late January, and Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, was beaming. The source of that hope: China – a country that Chile and dozens of other nations are depending on to help rescue them from the COVID-19 pandemic. China’s vaccine diplomacy campaign has been a surprising success: It has pledged roughly half a billion doses of its vaccines to more than 45 countries, according to a country-by-country tally by The Associated Press.

  • In rough start, Richards rescued by 20-pitch mercy rule

    Garrett Richards had gotten only one out during his first spring training start, loading the bases and walking in one run against the Atlanta Braves before the Red Sox stopped the inning after 23 pitches. “It’s building blocks, man,” Richards said after being rescued by the new rule this spring training that allows managers to end an inning after a pitcher has thrown 20 pitches, regardless of how many outs or runners on base there are. Richards told reporters in Fort Myers, Florida, that his pitches were moving well, but he just struggled to keep them in the strike zone.

  • Canada vaccine committee advises against use of AstraZeneca COVID-19 shots for 65 years and above

    Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization released new guidelines on Monday that advise against vaccinating people who are 65 years and older with AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, citing lack of information about efficacy in that age group. The vaccine was authorized for people who are 18 and older by drug regulator Health Canada on Friday. Health Canada's decision noted that available clinical trial data was too limited to reliably estimate how well the vaccine worked in people 65 and older.

  • Federer out of Miami Open; will train to 'work his way back'

    Roger Federer is withdrawing from this month's Miami Open so he can spend extra time preparing to “work his way back out on tour,” his agent told The Associated Press on Monday. Federer, who turns 40 in August, is scheduled to make his return to the tour next week in a hard-court tournament at Doha, Qatar. Federer also had been on the entry list for the Masters 1000 stop in Miami, where play starts on March 24.

  • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shoots back at Ted Cruz, saying he treated storm-hit Texas as a 'layover' between trips to Cancun and CPAC

    "It appears Texas was just a layover stop for him between Cancun and Orlando to drop a pack of water into someone's trunk," Ocasio-Cortez said.

  • Letters to the Editor: Trump's CPAC speech was just about the only thing that could make me thankful for Twitter

    If it were not for Twitter's ban we would be getting a daily dose of these juvenile, bitter and toxic tirades.

  • Senate panel to vote Wednesday on three Biden nominees, including trade pick Tai

    The Senate Finance Committee said its members will vote on Wednesday on three Biden administration nominees, including Katherine Tai as trade czar and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as U.S. health secretary. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden will convene the business meeting at 10 a.m. to vote on the nominations of Tai, Becerra and Wally Adeyemo, who was nominated as to be deputy Treasury secretary, the committee said. All three candidates are expected to win approval by the committee, a congressional aide said, which would clear the way for their consideration by the full Senate.

  • Jane Fonda highlights ‘I May Destroy You’ at Golden Globes despite snub

    This year’s Golden Globe nominations were controversial the second they were announced. Filled with many snubs, specifically of Black TV and film from the past year, it was the beginning of the very public critique of the HFPA, and served as a precursor to the #TimesUpGlobes movement we are seeing now. In a speech from last night, Jane Fonda used her moment to highlight one of the biggest snubs from the Globes this year: I May Destroy You.

  • Georgia House passes GOP bill rolling back voting access

    Republican lawmakers in Georgia muscled legislation through the state House on Monday that would roll back voting access, over the objection of Democrats and civil rights groups gathered at the Capitol to protest. The bill comes after record turnout led to Democratic wins in Georgia’s presidential election and two U.S. Senate runoffs. House Bill 531 passed the lower legislative chamber by a vote of 97-72.

  • China manufacturing weakens for third month in February

    China’s manufacturing recovery weakened for a third month in February as exports and new orders declined, according to two surveys released Monday. A monthly purchasing managers’ index issued by a prominent business magazine, Caixin, declined to 50.9 from January’s 51.5 on a 100-point scale on which numbers above 50 show activity accelerating. A separate PMI issued by the Chinese statistics agency and an official industry group, the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing, retreated to 50.6 from 51.3.

  • A week after Alex Smith said Washington didn't want him during his incredible return from a scary leg injury, the team is expected to cut him

    Alex Smith is reportedly set to hit the free agent market this offseason and keep his career going over two years after suffering an injury that some thought was career-ending.

  • Report: US wasted billions on cars, buildings in Afghanistan

    The United States wasted billions of dollars in war-torn Afghanistan on buildings and vehicles that were either abandoned or destroyed, according to a report released Monday by a U.S. government watchdog. The agency said it reviewed $7.8 billion spent since 2008 on buildings and vehicles. Only $343.2 million worth of buildings and vehicles “were maintained in good condition,” said the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, which oversees American taxpayer money spent on the protracted conflict.

  • Victims of anti-Asian attacks reflect a year into pandemic

    Nearly a year after they were almost stabbed to death inside a Midland, Texas, Sam's Club, Bawi Cung and his two sons all have visible scars. On a Saturday evening in March, when COVID-19 panic shopping gripped the nation, Cung was in search of rice at a cheaper price. The family was in the Sam's Club meat section when Cung suddenly felt a punch to the back of his head.

  • 6 healthy foods rich in vitamin D and easy ways to add them to your diet

    Foods that have vitamin D include salmon, rainbow trout, mushrooms, and egg yolks.

  • Prince Harry tells Oprah he worried history would repeat itself

    Prince Harry, who shocked Britain last year when he and his wife Meghan stepped back from royal duties, told U.S. interviewer Oprah Winfrey that he had worried about history repeating itself, according to excerpts released on Sunday. The CBS broadcast network released two brief clips from Winfrey's interview of the couple, which is scheduled to air on March 7. "My biggest concern was history repeating itself," Harry said, apparently referring to his mother Princess Diana, who was hounded by the British press and died at age 36 in a car crash in Paris after her divorce from Prince Charles.

  • Biden’s Saudi ‘Announcement’ Is a Major Letdown

    FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty ImagesAfter teasing an announcement that promised to detail “what we are going to be doing with Saudi Arabia generally,” the Biden administration addressed the Kingdom at a Monday press conference—and delivered nothing new.The announcement followed the declassification of a much-anticipated intel report on the assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Released on Friday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the report squarely concluded that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”But instead of announcing any new measures against the Kingdom, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday reiterated previously announced measures, including the introduction of a new visa restriction policy dubbed the “Khashoggi Ban” on “individuals who, acting on behalf of a foreign government, are believed to have been directly engaged in serious, extraterritorial counter-dissident activities.”Saudi Crown Prince Is Directly to Blame for Khashoggi Killing: U.S. Intel“Our objective is to recalibrate the relationship, prevent this from ever happening again, and find ways, as there are still, to work together with Saudi leadership while still making clear where we feel action is unacceptable,” said Psaki in Monday’s press briefing.The United States has barred 76 Saudi nationals from entering the U.S. under the Khashoggi Ban so far, including Ahmed al-Asiri, the former deputy Saudi intelligence chief who has been accused of leading the operation to assassinate Khashoggi, and the Saudi Royal Guard’s Rapid Intervention Force (RIF), which was also singled out in the Friday report.But in an apparent effort to preserve the United States’ relationship with the Kingdom, the administration has failed to impose sanctions on the crown prince himself, prompting widespread criticism from human rights activists.“The aim is a recalibration (in ties)—not a rupture. That’s because of the important interests that we do share,” a senior Biden administration official told Reuters on Monday.Responding to the release of the report, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry released a statement categorically denying the assessment.“It is truly unfortunate that this report, with its unjustified and inaccurate conclusions, is issued while the Kingdom had clearly denounced this heinous crime,” the ministry said on Twitter. “The ministry notes that the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia completely rejects the negative, false and unacceptable assessment in the report pertaining to the Kingdom’s leadership, and notes that the report contained inaccurate information and conclusions."During his campaign, Biden had made repeated pledges to hold the Kingdom accountable for its human-rights abuses, promising his administration would make Riyadh “pay the price” for its actions that would make them “in fact the pariah that they are.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has mic muted at CPAC for spouting vaccine and election conspiracies

    Lindell equates getting coronavirus vaccine to receiving ‘mark of the beast’ pledging allegiance to the devil

  • The lawyer for the 'QAnon Shaman' wants to use Trump's speech before the insurrection as part of his defense

    "QAnon Shaman" Jacob Chansley's lawyer has blamed Donald Trump for inciting his client to storm the Capitol building on January 6.