Parkland jurors view crime scene of chilling destruction, frozen in time moments after bloodbath
PARKLAND, Fla. — Jurors in the Parkland mass shooting trial were taken to the crime scene Thursday, a scene that is as much a time capsule as it is a towering piece of evidence in a criminal case that decides whether mercy should be offered to a gunman determined to kill as many people as he could.
The building has stood on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School campus for more than four years, an eyesore to many, for one purpose — a purpose finally realized Thursday as 22 jury members retraced the steps of gunman Nikolas Cruz, over, past and through the results of his deadly rampage through the school.
Prosecutors say the exercise was necessary to prove what Cruz did was “heinous, atrocious and cruel,” that it was “cold, calculated and premeditated,” and that it caused and risked “great bodily harm” to the victims. Among other considerations, those are the factors that have to be proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt before the death penalty can be recommended, sentenced and carried out.
Defense lawyers have argued that the jury cannot render a fair verdict after being bombarded with so much emotional testimony,so many graphic pictures, and a harrowing firsthand look at the carnage of Feb. 14, 2018.
It took about 90 minutes for the jury to make its way through the building.
Later Thursday, prosecutors rested their case against Cruz.
—South Florida Sun Sentinel
At CPAC, Viktor Orban paints bleak picture of ‘war’ between progressives, Western culture
DALLAS — Frequently employing war-like rhetoric, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday told a crowd of conservatives in Dallas that the future of “Western civilization” is in peril — attacking progressives while imploring right-wing Americans and Hungarians to “know how to fight.”
“The West is at war with itself,” Orban said Thursday, opening the three-day Conservative Political Action Conference. “We have seen what kind of future the globalist voting bloc has to offer. But we have a different future in mind. The globalists can all go to hell, I have come to Texas.”
Orban’s speech came weeks after he drew heavy criticism from civil rights groups, Holocaust survivors and even members of his own inner circle after denouncing race-mixing and making light of the systemic killing of Jews and other groups deemed “undesirable” by Nazi Germany during World War II.
During his speech Thursday, Orban was unrepentant: “A Christian politician cannot be racist,” he said.
Making frequent attacks on progressives, communists and the “leftist media,” Orban said the horrors of World War II were the result of European countries abandoning Christian values.
“And today’s progressives are planning to do the same,” he said. “They want to give up on Western values and create a new world — a post-Western world. Who is going to stop them if we don’t?”
Orban, serving his fourth consecutive term as Hungary’s prime minister, has been described as increasingly autocratic and authoritarian by democracy groups. He’s taken control of Hungary’s media and courts system and painted himself as a defender of Christian values against migration from majority Muslim countries. He has also frequently demonized the LGBTQ community.
While the cavernous exhibit hall was only about half-full, Orban received a raucous welcome to the conference.
—The Dallas Morning News
Taliban say they were unaware of al-Qaida leader’s presence in Kabul
Top Taliban officials didn’t know al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri was hiding in Afghanistan, a spokesman said, and an investigation is underway to check the veracity of U.S. claims he was killed in an American airstrike in the capital Kabul over the weekend.
“The government and the leadership wasn’t aware of what is being claimed,” Suhail Shaheen, the head of the group’s political office in Doha, Qatar, said over WhatsApp messages. There was “no trace” of his presence, Shaheen added.
The Taliban government is investigating the matter, he added, and will share its findings. The group has already condemned the American airstrike, saying it violated Afghanistan’s sovereignty and the 2020 Doha agreement, which resulted in the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country after 20 years of war. The Taliban took over shortly before the exit was completed.
President Joe Biden announced al-Zawahri’s killing Monday evening. U.S. administration officials said the Taliban government was not notified in advance of the strike that involved several months of intelligence work.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week the Taliban had violated “repeated assurances to the world that they would not allow Afghan territory to be used by terrorists to threaten the security of other countries.”
The Taliban’s chief spokesman Thursday again refuted claims that Afghanistan posed a threat as a source of terror activity.
—Bloomberg News
