Biden administration asks court to block plea deal for alleged mastermind of 9/11 attacks

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Biden administration asks court to block plea deal for alleged mastermind of 9/11 attacks

2025-01-08 09:16 Last Updated At：09:21

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to block a plea agreement for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that would spare him the risk of the death penalty in one of the deadliest attacks ever on the United States.

The Justice Department argued in a brief filed with a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia that the government would be irreparably harmed if the guilty pleas were accepted for Mohammed and two co-defendants in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

It said the government would be denied a chance for a public trial and the opportunity to “seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world.”

The Defense Department negotiated and approved the plea deal but later repudiated it. Attorneys for the defendants argue the deal is already legally in effect and that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who began the administration's efforts to throw it out, acted too late.

When the appeal was filed Tuesday, family members of some the nearly 3,000 people killed in the al-Qaida attacks already were gathered at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hear Mohammed's scheduled guilty plea Friday. The other two men, accused of lesser roles in 9/11, were due to enter them next week.

Family members have been split on the deal, with some calling it the best resolution possible for a prosecution mired for more than a decade in pretrial hearings and legal and logistical difficulties. Others demanded a trial and — they hoped — execution.

Some legal experts have warned that the legal challenges posed by the case, including the men’s torture under CIA custody after their capture, could keep the aging detainees from ever facing verdicts and any possible sentences.

Military prosecutors this summer notified families of the victims that the senior Pentagon official overseeing Guantanamo had approved a plea deal after more than two years of negotiations. The deal was “the best path to finality and justice,” military prosecutors said.

But some family members and Republican lawmakers condemned the deal and the Biden administration for reaching it.

Austin has fought unsuccessfully since August to throw out the agreement, saying that a decision on death penalties in an attack as grave as the Sept. 11 plot should only be made by the defense secretary.

A military judge at Guantanamo and a military appeals panel rejected those efforts, saying he had no power to throw out the agreement after it had been approved by the senior Pentagon official for Guantanamo.

Defense attorneys say the plea agreement was approved by Austin's own officials and military prosecutors and that his intervention was unlawful political interference in the justice system.

The Justice Department brief Tuesday said the defendants would not be harmed by a short delay, given that the prosecution has been ongoing since 2012 and the plea agreements would likely result in them serving long prison sentences, potentially for the rest of their lives.

"A short delay to allow this Court to weigh the merits of the government’s request in this momentous case will not materially harm the respondents,” the government argued.

The Justice Department criticized the military commission judge for a ruling that it said “improperly curtailed” the defense secretary’s authority in a “case of unique national importance.” Preserving that authority "is a matter of critical importance warranting the issuance of extraordinary relief,” the government’s filing said.

The polar vortex sets its sights on Texas and neighboring states, with snow expected

2025-01-09 03:29 Last Updated At：03:33

DALLAS (AP) — An area stretching from Texas to Tennessee braced Wednesday for the possible arrival of freezing rain and snow even as some other parts of the U.S. hit by the plunging polar vortex this week began to shake off its icy effects.

Arkansas' capital, Little Rock, closed schools on Thursday and Friday in preparation for the storm, which could dump heavy snow on the region starting Thursday. Although conditions improved in some places affected by the frigid Arctic air that escaped its usual climes last weekend, Kansas City-area classes were canceled Wednesday for a third-straight day and Virginia's capital, Richmond, was still under a weather-related water-boil advisory through at least Friday.

The cold snap coincided with rare January wildfires that were tearing through the Los Angeles area on Wednesday, forcing residents to flee from burning homes through flames, ferocious winds and towering clouds of smoke.

A mix of sleet, snow and freezing rain is expected to fall on a stretch of the U.S. from New Mexico to Alabama starting Wednesday night and early Thursday, with the heaviest amounts likely in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas, according to the National Weather Service. In the most southern locations, the snow could turn into sleet and freezing rain, which meteorologists warn could cause hazardous driving conditions.

That system is expected to push northeastward by Friday with a mix of heavy snow and freezing rain forecast from southeastern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas all the way to the Virginia and North Carolina coasts.

The polar vortex of ultra-cold air usually spins around the North Pole, but it sometimes ventures south into the U.S., Europe and Asia. Some experts say such cold air outbreaks are happening more frequently, paradoxically, because of a warming world.

In the Dallas area, crews treated the roads ahead of the expected arrival of 2 to 4 inches (about 5 to 10 centimeters) of snow on Thursday, along with sleet and rain. Up to 5 inches is expected farther north near the Oklahoma state line, the weather service said.

Mark Reid said Wednesday that he has been very busy delivering groceries for Instacart.

“I'm going to be done probably about 5 or 6 (p.m.) today and then tomorrow I'm going to be in the house," Reid said outside of a Dallas grocery store as he loaded his fourth order of the day into his car.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that the state had deployed several emergency agencies and opened hundreds of warming centers ahead of the storm.

“The lives of our fellow Texans are by far the most important thing,” he said, warning affected residents to avoid driving if possible.

Abbott also expressed confidence in the state's power grid, which failed during an unusually cold storm in 2021, leaving more than 3 million residents without power and resulting in the deaths of more than 200 people. He said that if an outage occurs this week, it's likely due to a downed power line.

“If there is a loss of power, it’s not going to be because of the power grid,” the governor said.

The storm could make the roads slick on Friday as 75,000 fans head to AT&T Stadium in Arlington to see Texas play Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. Arlington spokesperson Susan Shrock said crews will be ready to address any hazardous road conditions around the stadium.

“They’re going to have the salt brine, they’ll have sand and they’ll have equipment on standby,” she said.

Some parts of Kansas have received nearly an entire year's average of snow over the past few days, hitting farmers and ranchers “in ways that we haven't seen in this area for a very, very long time, potentially a lifetime,” said Chip Redmond, a meteorologist at Kansas State University.

The risk is real: Calves, especially, can die when temperatures slip below zero. And so much snow in rural areas can keep farmers from reaching herds with food and water

In northern Florida, growers were most concerned about the ferns grown for floral arrangements, with Valentine's Day only a month away.

Major damage to citrus trees, which typically occurs when temperatures drop to 28 degrees (minus 2 degrees Celsius) or below for several hours, is less likely. Most of Florida’s commercial citrus groves are far south enough that they haven't been affected by this week's recent cold snap.

Richmond will remain under a boil-water advisory until at least Friday as officials work to restore the city’s water reservoir system, which malfunctioned after a storm this week caused a power outage, Mayor Danny Avula said.

The city of more than 200,000 residents is distributing bottled water at 11 sites, and is delivering it to older residents and others who are unable to get to those sites, officials said.

Due to the problems in Richmond, the first working day of the legislative session was postponed, as the state Capitol and General Assembly buildings remained closed on Wednesday.

More than 50,000 customers were without power on Wednesday in Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Virginia and West Virginia, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us.

More than 2,000 flights in the U.S. were delayed or canceled before midday on Wednesday, according to tracking platform Flight Aware. More than 5,000 flights into or out of the U.S. were delayed Tuesday.

Hundreds of car accidents were reported in Virginia, Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky earlier this week, and a state trooper was treated for injuries after his patrol car was hit.

Three people died in vehicle crashes in Virginia, according to state police. Other weather-related fatal accidents occurred Sunday near Charleston, West Virginia, and Monday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Kansas, where over a foot (30 centimeters) of snow fell in places, had two deadly weekend crashes.

And in In Birmingham, Alabama, where temperatures fell below freezing, the Jefferson County coroner’s office said Wednesday that it was investigating three possible deaths from hypothermia that had occurred over the past 24 hours.

Murphy reported from Oklahoma City. Associated Press reporters Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City; Nadia Lathan in Austin, Texas; Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Kimberly Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama; Chris O’Meara in Tampa, Florida; in John Raby in Cross Lanes, West Virginia; Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky; Julie Walker in New York; contributed.

Read more of the AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment