• “The toll is likely to reduce certain congestion, particularly from daily commuters who could switch to public transportation, which is often more cost-effective. However, essential traffic—like delivery trucks and vehicles traveling to JFK and LaGuardia—will still need to traverse these areas, so the impact on overall congestion may be more nuanced.”

Does this add funds needed for the MTA?

• “Yes. This revenue stream will help the MTA to fund critical infrastructure upgrades, like modernizing signals and adding accessibility features. Given potential uncertainties in federal funding for transportation, this local funding source becomes even more vital.”

Are there examples of cities that have benefited from congestion pricing?

• “London and Stockholm are prominent success stories. Both cities saw significant drops in traffic congestion and improved air quality. They implemented flexible, income-sensitive pricing models, and their gradual rollouts allowed time for public transit adjustments. San Francisco has also utilized congestion pricing, particularly on bridges, to manage traffic flow effectively. This is part of a broader trend often called ‘pay-as-you-go’ funding for infrastructure, which has historical precedence in how NYC’s Bridge and Tunnel Authority funded highway connections. Actually, it is also how the Erie Canal was built.��Tolls generated by early segments paid for the completion and upgrade of the system.”

In this article, Prof. Germain summarizes the status of all of the cases and discusses what happens next. If you’d like to schedule an interview, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ejmbuqe@syr.edu.

Criminal Cases

1. Falsifying Business Records, New York Law.�� Trump has been convicted and is scheduled to be sentenced for a Class E felony for falsifying business records in the criminal case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and pending before Judge Juan Merchan.�� He faces potential prison time in the case.
2. Election Interference, Georgia Law.�� Trump has been indicted in Georgia by District Attorney Fani Willis for election interference.�� The case has been mired in controversy following revelations that Willis had an affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.�� Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee allowed Willis to continue with the prosecution if Wade resigned, which he did, but the case has been derailed by an appeal from Trump and the other defendants.
3. Classified Documents – Federal Law.�� Trump has been indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith on federal charges for stealing, retaining, and making false statements about classified documents that he took from the White House after losing the 2020 election.�� The case was assigned to District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, and was reversed by the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals for earlier rulings improperly taking jurisdiction and appointing a special master during the investigation of the document theft.�� Judge Cannon dismissed the charges against Trump on a technicality, by finding that Jack Smith’s appointment under the Department of Justice’s special counsel regulation, and the regulation itself, violated the appointments clause of the Constitution.�� Cannon did not give the government an opportunity to remedy the election clause deficiency, such as by appointing a Senate approved United States Attorney to supervise the case.�� Cannon’s decision is on appeal to the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals.
4. Election Interference – Federal Law.�� Trump has been indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith for election interference in the 2020 election.�� The case was delayed because of controversy concerning the standard for presidential immunity.�� The trial court and the D.C. Circuit ruled that a former president has no immunity for crimes committed while in office.�� The Supreme Court reversed that in , ruling that a president has broad immunity for actions taken even in bad faith and for personal gain broadly connected with his official duties.�� Prosecutor Jack Smith has attempted to limit the indictment to address the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, but serious immunity questions remain.�� The case is pending before Judge Tanja Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee.

Civil Cases

1. Defamation – New York Law.�� E. Jean Carroll recovered an $83,300,000 civil judgment against Trump in Manhattan for defamation.�� Carroll claimed that Donald Trump sexually attacked her in a department store in the 1990s, and claimed that Trump’s denials and attacks constituted defamation.�� Trump posted a bond and obtained a stay pending appeal, and the case is on appeal.
2. Financial Statement Fraud – New York Law.�� New York Attorney General Letitia James, who campaigned for election on promises to “get Trump,” brought civil claims against Trump for disgorgement of gains realized by using an inflated personal financial statement used when seeking insurance policies and obtaining secured claims for his subsidiary corporations from sophisticated lenders.�� State court judge Arthur F. Engoron awarded the Attorney General $363,800,000 in damages, which now amounts to over $450,000,000 with interest.�� The court also barred Trump and other executives from being officers of a New York corporation, and appointed a receiver to liquidate Trump’s company.�� The Court of Appeals granted a special stay pending appeal upon the posting of a reduced $175,000,000 bond.�� The liberal 1^st Department Appellate Division raised questions about the propriety of the judgment.

There seems little doubt that the federal cases brought by Jack Smith will be terminated.

Gregory Germain

What happens to the Criminal Cases?

The Department of Justice has issued two detailed memorandum opinions, one in 1973 and another in , discussing a sitting president’s scope of immunity from criminal and civil actions.�� In both opinions, the Department determined that a sitting president cannot be indicted, prosecuted or jailed for a criminal claim while in office.�� The Department based both decisions on the principles of separation of powers – holding that the indictment, prosecution or jailing of a sitting president would allow one branch of government (the judiciary) to interfere with another branch of government (the executive).�� No other executive officers (including the Vice President – a matter of contemporaneous concern for Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1973) would enjoy such immunity.�� The opinions apply equally to federal and state prosecutions.

So it’s clear that the federal prosecutions brought by Jack Smith will not continue, even if Trump did not pardon himself or cause Smith to be removed from office and replaced with a loyal alternative.�� And there is every indication from Trump that he will attempt to remove Smith or accept his resignation, or more likely will pardon himself.�� While the Department has another opinion rejecting the President’s power to self-pardon, the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling stated that a President’s pardon power is unlimited – even suggesting that the corrupt sale of pardons would not affect the validity of the pardons.�� So I have no doubt that the Supreme Court majority would uphold a self-pardon.�� So there seems little doubt that the federal cases brought by Jack Smith will be terminated.

The President’s pardon power does not extend to state prosecutions.�� However, the Justice Department’s separation of powers rulings apply to all criminal prosecutions, state and federal.�� Under the Justice Department’s opinion, it seems clear that the state criminal prosecutions must be stayed while President Trump is in office.�� There is even an argument under those opinions that the cases must be dismissed, because the opinions held that an indictment of a sitting president that was stayed from further prosecution while in office would interfere with the functioning of the presidency.�� The same could be argued for a stayed sentence.�� I also have no doubt that the current Supreme Court would agree with the separation of powers arguments made in the Justice Department’s rulings.�� In its immunity decision, the Supreme Court adopted the broadest possible view of presidential immunity, and even the dissenting justices expressed concern about politically-based state prosecutions interfering with the functioning of the president.�� So in all likelihood, the state criminal cases will be put on hold during Trump’s presidency.�� If they try to continue with the prosecutions, or even to impose a stayed sentence, I suspect the decisions will be reversed on appeal.�� It is even possible that the cases will be dismissed.

What Happens to the Civil Cases?

The continuation of the civil cases is far more uncertain.�� There are two important civil precedents from the Supreme Court:�� , and .�� In Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the Court recognized that the sitting president is broadly immune from liability in civil actions for official conduct, both while in office or afterward.�� The case has limited applicability to the three civil actions discussed above, because all of the alleged acts (defamation, falsifying business records, and inflating financial statement) had nothing to do with his official acts, not did the acts occur primarily while he was in office.

The second case, Clinton v Jones, involved civil charges by Paula Jones for alleged misconduct before Clinton was in office and completely unrelated to his official duties.�� The Supreme Court held that the civil charges could continue, but that the court would have to make special arrangements from the president’s participation in the action so as not to interfere with the performance of his presidential duties, suggesting that any depositions would have to be taken in the White House, and that the president could not be compelled to testify live).�� So the Clinton case suggests that the appeals in the civil cases can continue, because they are unlikely to require President Trump’s personal participation.�� If, as I think likely because of legal errors and excessive awards, the civil cases are reversed on appeal and remanded for new trials, the courts on remand would have to be very careful to conduct a fair trial without interfering with the president’s official functions.

If the election shows anything, it shows that the public does not like politically motivated prosecutions and impeachments.

Gregory Germain

Thoughts on the Future of Politically Motivated Prosecutions

The Democratic Party and its politically motivated government prosecutors also need to reconsider their actions.�� If the election shows anything, it shows that the public does not like politically motivated prosecutions and impeachments.�� The argument that Trump was a convicted felon backfired, as the public saw him as a victim of biased and politically motivated prosecutions brought in Democratic strongholds.�� Now the ball is in Trump’s court to see if he will carry through on his threats to “do unto others as they did unto him.”�� If he does carry through on his threats, I suspect his support will quickly fade.

• “The precautionary measures by governors – activating or placing on alert members of their state National Guard – are reasonable in the same way that similar callups would precede a major storm that threatens a state. The governors would order the Guard personnel to quell any violent disturbances, but not to interfere in any way with voting or counting. In some circumstances monitoring that line up to election interference can be challenging, but that’s the task presented,” said Banks.

• “I think that there are high levels of anxiety about this election because the stakes of the election are very high. Anxiety comes from the sense of uncertainty about the future and here that anxiety is what is the nature of the US government and society going forward,” said Gadarian.

• “Harris and Trump have very different visions for who has power and who benefits from government in the future. Trump’s vision is of a future where the federal government deports immigrants, takes revenge on enemies foreign and domestic, and keeps ‘America for Americans’. This is a vision that appeals to a part of the electorate who feels left behind, but it is not one that is widely shared even among people who may ultimately support Trump at the ballot box.

• “Harris’s vision is more about using the federal government to broaden who shares in power and who benefits from programs like Medicare. The uncertainty and anxiety that she is focusing on is about Trump’s unique threat to the democratic institutions of government and that the future might bring a diminished democracy or no real democracy under a second Trump term with fewer guardrails than in the first term,” said Gadarian. “Anxiety alone is not a motivator for action, in fact, it can lead to avoidance in very high levels.”

• “But pairing anxiety with a solution and telling people how to resolve it can allow people to feel efficacious. Importantly, the best antidote for anxiety at this point is the same no matter which candidate’s vision you subscribe to and it’s to vote,” said Gadarian.

While previous research has focused more on lactic acid bacteria and yeast in sourdough bread, acetic acid bacteria (AAB) and its the ecology, genomic diversity, and functional contributions remain largely unknown.

Researchers from ���ϲ����� and Tufts University sequenced 29 acetic acid genomes from a collection of over 500 sourdough starters and constructed synthetic starter communities in the lab to define the ways in which AAB shape emergent properties of sourdough. The team’s work was supported by a����awarded to ���ϲ����� Professor����earlier this year.

“While not as common in sourdough as lactic acid bacteria, acetic acid bacteria are better known for their dominant roles in other fermented foods like vinegar and kombucha,” says Beryl Rappaport, a Ph.D. student at ���ϲ����� and lead author of the report along with Oliverio. “For this study, we were interested in following up on previous findings which stated that when present in sourdough, AAB seems to have a strong impact on key properties including scent profile and metabolite production, which shape overall flavor formation.”

To assess the consequences of AAB on the emergent function of sourdough starter microbiomes, their team tested 10 strains of AAB, some distantly related and some very closely related. They set up manipulative experiments with these 10 strains, adding each one to a community of yeast and lactic acid bacteria.

“Since we can manipulate what microbes and what concentrations of microbes go into these synthetic sourdough communities, we could see the direct effects of adding each strain of AAB to sourdough,” says Rappaport. “As we expected, every strain of AAB lowered the pH of the synthetic sourdough (associated with increasing sourness) since they release acetic acid and other acids as byproducts of their metabolic processes. Unexpectedly, however, AAB that were more closely related did not release more similar compounds. In fact, there was high variation in metabolites, many related to flavor formation, even between strains of the same species.”

According to Rappaport, strain diversity is often overlooked in microbial communities, in part because it is difficult to identify and manipulate levels of diversity due to the vastness of microorganisms within a given community. By zooming into the diversity among closer relatives in the lab, researchers can start to understand key interactions in the microbiome.

The impact of this research is two-fold. ��When it comes to baking, she says their findings offer bread makers a new direction to shape sourdough flavor and texture.

“Since AAB reliably acidified the starters we worked with and released a large variety of flavor compounds, bakers who want their sourdough to be more sour or to create new flavors may try sourcing a starter with AAB or attempt to capture AAB themselves,” says Rappaport. “We hope that this study helps to shine a light on the diversity of microbes found in sourdough and their important functional roles.”

Their research could also have implications on the health benefits of sourdough bread.

During the fermentation process, AAB generates acetic acid, which significantly aids in breaking down gluten and complex carbohydrates, enhancing the digestibility of sourdough. By examining the genetic diversity of AAB and its influence on acetic acid production, researchers can develop strains that optimize this process.

The team uses sourdough primarily for its use as a model system because the sourdough microbiome is relatively simple to culture and use for repeated experiments in the lab. But their results stretch far beyond baking.

“Our findings will be relevant to people interested in more complex microbial communities, like the human gut or soil,” says Rappaport. This is because the sourdough system can be used to ask questions about ecology and evolution which would be more difficult to ask with more complex systems.

When it comes to the human gut, microbial communities can help build resilience to infections and improve efficiency in breaking down complex carbohydrates, fiber, proteins and fats. In the case of soil, microbes help to break down organic matter and maintain overall soil ecosystem stability. There are many unknowns, however, about how multiple levels of genetic diversity impact these processes.

By recognizing how strain diversity can have community-wide consequences on a microbiome, the team’s insights could have wide-ranging benefits for human health, wellness and environmental sustainability.

To arrange interviews with the researchers, please contact executive director of media relations Ellen James Mbuqe, ejmbuqe@syr.edu.

1. “Focus on what you can control – the antidote to helplessness is taking action. Channel your energy into constructive activities that can provide a sense of accomplishment.
2. Practice self-care – adequate sleep, regular physical activity and healthy eating habits are important for all of us, yet especially important during stressful times.
3. Obtain adequate social support offline – online discussions can become flame wars and unproductive. Meaningfully connect with others offline daily. Set boundaries around news consumption and social media use.
4. Stay grounded and keep your perspective – try to not allow dark feelings and events to take up all your mental space. Make room to see the good and experiences that give you hope and purpose.”

• “The current state of aviation, even in the wealthiest countries in the world, is too often punishing to passengers who rely on mobility devices or have disabilities. Air travel remains unique in its inaccessibility, as it still requires wheelchair users to forfeit their mobility devices in order to board planes, unlike, bus, subway, trains, boats or taxi transport. Airlines have not invested sufficiently in ensuring the safety of disabled passengers,” said True-Frost.

Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu to schedule an interview.

• “An estimated 2.2 million Americans live in long-term care facilities in the United States. Many of these Americans—perhaps the majority—would vote if voting were accessible to them. Unfortunately, as we show, long-term care residents face systemic disenfranchisement. Specifically, based on our systematic review of nursing home investigation reports, we present disturbing new empirical evidence that demonstrates how burdensome election procedures, profound isolation, and widespread failure by facilities to provide required assistance prevent long-term care residents from voting. Noting that entities traditionally enforcing voting rights have largely ignored these problems, we call for a new wave of voting rights litigation aimed at dismantling barriers to long-term care voter participation and provide a roadmap for how existing law could be employed in such litigation. Finally, continued disenfranchisement of long-term care residents has profound implications not only for older adults and people with disabilities but also for democratic legitimacy.”

������, Professor of Law, ���ϲ����� College of Law.

Donald Trump’s legal woes have been the center of international attention throughout this 2024 presidential election year. In less than two months before the Presidential election, here is a summary of where all those cases currently stand.

The E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case.�� Trump’s year of litigation started in January with author E. Jean Carroll recovering�� an $83.3 million judgment for defamation against Trump for accusing Carroll of lying when she claimed publicly in 2019 that Trump had sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room more than 20 years earlier, in 1995 or 1996.�� Trump posted a bond to obtain a stay while he appeals the judgment.

The NY Attorney General Financial Statement Fraud Case.�� In February, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil fraud case against Trump for overstating the current market value of his properties in the personal financial statements he had submitted to lenders and insurance companies, came to trial without a jury before Judge Arthur Engeron.�� Normally, civil fraud requires a plaintiff to prove that a victim believed and relied on the truth of the statements, and suffered damages as a result.�� But the Attorney General successfully argued that a special anti-fraud statute, New York Executive Law § 63(12), allows her to recover disgorgement of benefits received without showing that anyone relied on or was harmed by the false statements.�� Judge Arthur Engeron entered a judgment against Trump in February for $354 million in disgorgement, plus interest, which would have required him to post a $464 million bond to obtain a stay pending appeal.�� The appellate division allowed Trump to post a reduced bond of $175 million to stay enforcement of the judgment pending appeal.

The Georgia Election Interference Case.�� On June 5, the Georgia Court of Appeals issued an order staying District Attorney Fani Willis’s election interference case against Trump to consider Trump’s motion to disqualify the District Attorney for having an undisclosed relationship with her special prosecutor, Nathan Wade.�� The trial judge, Scott McAffee, had previously allowed the case to continue if Nathan Wade resigned to prevent the appearance of impropriety.�� The defendants appealed McAffee’s well reasoned order, and the case has been on hold by the appellate court since that time.�� Frankly, I thought McAffee’s opinion was sound, and I never understood why Willis’s relationship with Wade in any way harmed Trump or the other defendants.

The New York Falsified Business Records Case.�� Next came New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s convoluted criminal case against Trump for falsifying his business records to hide a $175,000 hush money payment made to Stormy Daniels through Trump’s then attorney Michael Cohen in the waning days of the 2016 election.�� I have .�� On May 30, 2024, the jury found Trump guilty under NYPL § 175.10 of falsifying business records to commit fraud and to conceal another crime, although the jury did not have to indicate who was defrauded or what other crime Trump was trying to conceal.�� Trump was supposed to be sentenced on September 18, but Judge Merchan granted Trump’s request to postpone sentencing until after the election.�� Sentencing is currently scheduled for November 26.

The Federal Cases.�� The two federal court cases brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith are the most serious cases Trump faces, and both cases have been stuck in the mud for months.

The Federal Election Interference Case.�� The federal election interference case before District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington DC has been delayed by questions about presidential immunity, and now also by technical issues around special prosecutor Jack Smith appointment.�� These preliminary issues will need to be resolved before the case can proceed on the merits.

On July 1, 2024, the Judge Chutkan’s and the DC Circuit Court’s rulings that Donald Trump, as a former president, had no immunity from prosecution.

Frankly, I expected that the Supreme Court would reverse those decisions, and recognize that a president has immunity from criminal prosecution for “core” presidential activities.�� In fact, at the hearing before the Supreme Court, both the government and Trump’s lawyers agreed that an ex president is immune from prosecution for “official” presidential matters, and that there is no immunity for “private” matters.�� Trump’s team even agreed that many matters alleged in Smith’s complaint sounded like “private” not “official” matters.�� The disagreement was on how far “official” matters would go.

I was fairly confident that the Supreme Court would draw the official /private distinction by focusing on the president’s motives – was the president acting to further what he believed to be in the interests of the country, or did he have personal, corrupt, motives to benefit himself at the expense of the country?

I was wrong. Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion granted immunity far beyond what the Trump lawyers sought at the hearing. The Court held, first, that a president’s motives are entirely irrelevant to whether his activities are “official” and subject to immunity, or “private” and not subject to immunity.�� Under the Court’s ruling, a president has absolute immunity for anything plausibly connected to his presidential functions, including the most blatant kinds of corruption (such as selling presidential pardons to the highest bidder, or directing the military to assassinate a political rival).�� While it is difficult to imagine that the founders intended the Constitution to provide broad immunity from prosecution to a President Benedict Arnold, who sold out his country for personal gain, that was essentially the Court’s holding.

In an attempt to redraw the official/private distinction, Prosecutor Jack Smith has filed a superseding indictment eliminating the allegations that Trump conspired with his governmental advisors, and has labeled his allegations that Trump conspired with non-governmental advisors to be “private.”�� But the labels do not matter.�� Under the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump is immune from activities that fall within a very broad sphere of presidential activity, even if he had false, improper and corrupt motives for his actions. Given the extremely broad way that the Supreme Court defined “official” activities and rejected motive, it is difficult to see how any of Trump’s attempts to overturn the election would qualify as purely “private” activities.

Nevertheless, Judge Chutkan and the DC Circuit will likely try to read the immunity ruling more narrowly than the Supreme Court wrote it, and allow the case to proceed.�� And if the case does proceed, and Jack Smith is able to prove his allegations that Trump knew he lost the election, knew that his election interference claims were false, and nevertheless sought corrupt motives to overturn the election, then surely a jury would convict him. ��But would the case survive another visit to the Supreme Court?�� Judge Chutkan set a briefing schedule for the parties to argue the immunity question, with Trump’s reply brief due on October 29.�� Since the case cannot move forward before the court rules on the immunity question, the only thing that could happen before the election is the filing by Jack Smith of evidence that support his arguments that Trump’s activities were “private” and not immune.

The second preliminary issue is whether Jack Smith’s appointment as special prosecutor was constitutional, and if not whether the case should be dismissed.�� As discussed below, Judge Eileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case against Trump on the grounds that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.�� That decision is currently on appeal, and Chutkan stated on the record that she did not find Judge Cannon’s ruling to be “very persuasive.”�� Judge Chutkan will likely decide that special prosecutor Jack Smith can proceed with the prosecution, but the process may be delayed further for briefing on that issue, and the ultimate ruling on Judge Cannon’s dismissal could derail the election interference case.

The Classified Documents Case.

In my view, the strongest case against Donald Trump is the classified documents case, which has been stymied at every turn by Judge Eileen Cannon.�� Cannon, a Trump appointee, was previously and harshly , in an unusual unanimous per curium opinion, for improperly exercising equitable jurisdiction over the government’s investigation into the classified documents taken by Trump while leaving office.

After months of slow walking the case, on July 15, 2024, Judge Cannon , determining that the Justice Department regulation under which Special Prosecutor Jack Smith was appointed was unconstitutional under the appointments clause of the Constitution.

The Constitution’s appointments clause requires the President to appoint, and the Senate to confirm, all “Officers of the United States,” except for “inferior Officers” who can be appointed by Officers without Senate approval if the Officers are authorized by law to make the appointment.�� .�� The courts have recognized that mere “officials” and “employees” can be hired without authorizing legislation, presidential appointment, Senate approval, or direct appointment by authorized Officers.�� The distinctions between “Officers,” “Inferior Officers,” “Officials” and “Employees” is not defined in the Constitution, and depends on factors like power, authority, control, and permanency.�� By tradition, cabinet officers and the heads of agencies are Senate-approved “Officers,” including the Attorney General and all 93 US Attorneys running the district offices of the Justice Department.�� The thousands of assistant US Attorneys and all of their staff are inferior officers, officials or employees, and are not appointed by the President or confirmed by the Senate.

The technical issue is whether Special Counsel Jack Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland under the Department of Justice’s special counsel regulation, is an “Officer” who must be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, an inferior officer who was appointed by an authorized Officer, or an official or employee who could be hired without Senate approval or congressional authorization.

The legal firepower behind Judge Canon’s decision comes from a law review article by Professors Steven G. Calabresi and Gary Lawson, Why Robert Mueller’s Appointment As Special Counsel Was Unlawful, 95 Notre Dame L. Rev. 87,115–16 (2019).�� Calabresi and Lawson also filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court in the Trump immunity case, and before Judge Cannon.�� Even though it was not an issue the Supreme Court agreed to hear, Justice Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in the election interference case throwing his support behind questioning Jack Smith’s appointment.

While Calabresi and Lawson’s technical legal arguments, and Judge Cannon’s adoption of those arguments, are plausible, they fly in the face of 50 years of practice, including the Supreme Court’s famous Watergate tapes decision in , brought by special counsel Leon Jaworski, who was appointed under a similar justice department regulation, and whose appointment was not questioned by the Supreme Court.

There are legitimate criticisms of the Special Counsel Regulations.�� If the Justice Department has a conflict of interest, should they be the ones to select the special counsel?�� In 1978, after Watergate, Congress created a Special Prosecutor Act, later called the Independent Counsel Act, which allowed majorities of either party within the House or Senate Judiciary Committee to request that the Attorney General appoint a special prosecutor.�� If the Attorney General made the appointment, a three judge panel of appellate judges, rather than the conflicted Attorney General, would select the special prosecutor.�� This process provided some assurance that the special prosecutor would be independent from the conflicted justice department.�� The Supreme Court upheld the Act in , but the Clinton administration did not seek its renewal, preferring instead to control the process through agency regulation, which has created the issue.

There is really no way to know if the current Special Counsel Regulations are constitutional until the Supreme Court rules on them.�� But even if they are not constitutional, there is no reason for dismissing the indictment against Trump.�� Instead, the courts should allow the government to fix the problem by appointing a senate-approved “Officer,” such as the Attorney General or another United States Attorney to supervise the prosecution.�� Professors Calabresi and Lawson have recognized that this is a technical constitutional issue that can be cured by appointing an approved “Officer” to supervise the case.�� The technical defect in Smith’s appointment, which is easily curable, did not prejudice the defendants.�� There is no reason that a United States Attorney appointed to supervise the case now could not ratify Smith’s past work, and allow Smith to proceed with the prosecution under supervision.�� A case prosecuted by Jack Smith under the supervision of the United States Attorney would be like the thousands of cases brought by Assistant United States Attorneys every day in every jurisdiction.

What Happens Next?

The presidential election will take place on November 5, 2024.

If Trump wins the election, there is little doubt that he will cause the federal election interference and classified documents cases to be dismissed, either by appointing loyalists to take over the prosecution in the Justice Department, or by issuing himself a presidential pardon.�� The Supreme Court has signaled in its immunity decision that a self-pardon is within the President’s absolute authority.

However, a presidential pardon only applies to federal crimes, so it would not prevent any of the state prosecutions or cases from continuing.�� It is not clear whether a state prison sentence could be implemented against a sitting president, or how it could be implemented, or whether some sort of federal supremacy would prevent the states from interfering with the activities of an elected president.�� Another constitutional crisis is likely if either of the state criminal cases results in a prison sentence.

If Trump loses the election, he will likely face years of trials and appeals before the legal issues will be finally determined.

• “Former Governor Cuomo has been much criticized for directing nursing homes to accept COVID-19 positive patients.��While, especially in retrospect this was a bad policy decision, it is unclear to what extent it had an impact on resident deaths.��The reality is many facilities would have accepted these individuals without a mandate because it was financially advantageous to do so,” said Kohn.

• “Nevertheless, the direction signaled a lack of concern for the fate of nursing home residents—which was made even more evident by the breathtaking immunity the Governor supported for nursing homes and their owners.��Under Cuomo’s leadership, nursing homes and their corporate owners were granted immunity from liability for harm to residents amid the pandemic.��While many states provided some immunity for healthcare providers at the height of the pandemic, none were more expansive than New York.��Indeed, New York’s measure was so extreme that it even limited the ability of the state’s Attorney General to hold institutions and executives liable for false or fraudulent claims, or from prosecuting certain acts that could otherwise result in criminal charges,” said Kohn.

• ��(Georgetown Law Journal)
• ��(William and Mary Law Review).

• “This propaganda, pervasive and multipronged, has spread across social media platforms since (President) Hasina fled. The false narratives have been so widespread that international media, pundits, intellectuals, influencers, and the general public have unwittingly propagated them.”
• “One of the primary focuses of this campaign has been�������Ի�����claims of widespread persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh. While there have been��, many of those targeted were affiliated with Hasina’s now-disgraced Awami League party, suggesting a political, not communal, motive. Specific instances of supposed attacks on Hindu homes and temples have been��.”

Scott Landes

Earlier this month, Associate Professor of Sociology published a new study entitled “” in the��August edition of Health Affairs journal.

The report is the first of its kind to address the substantial knowledge gap on health disparities in the United States between disabled people and non-disabled people. Landes answered questions from SU News about his latest research.

Tell me about the new research that you just published.

Between 2008 and 2019, all-cause mortality risk was nearly two times higher for disabled than nondisabled adults. This mortality disparity was not just present for some disabled people, but persisted for disabled people across age, gender, race-ethnicity, socioeconomic status and health status groups.

Additionally, a mortality disparity was present for all of the 28 disability status combinations examined in the study (e.g., vision only; vision, hearing and mobility; etc.). While all disability status combinations were associated with a higher mortality risk compared to nondisabled adults, the degree of this disparity was more severe for people with a self-care (activities of daily living) disability.

In finding that disabled adults have a mortality rate that is twice as high as nondisabled adults, what does that tell you about the state of healthcare for people with disabilities?

Research provides substantial evidence that disabled people experience ongoing barriers to accessing quality care, ranging from problems with reliable transportation to challenges accessing often inaccessible physicians’ offices or medical settings. In addition, research from Dr. Lisa Iezzoni reveals that even when disabled people are able to access health care, physicians are biased in thinking that they will necessarily be less healthy than non-disabled people. This bias likely impacts course of treatment and care. So whether via challenges accessing care or challenges receiving the best care once accessed, medical care persists as an area of disparity for disabled people.

This research is the first time that mortality rates of disabled adults as compared to non-disabled was investigated. What led you to explore this issue?

At the 64th Meeting of the National Advisory Council on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) on Sept. 1, 2023, a working group examining health disparities recommended that the “entire disabilities population NOT [emphasis added] . Fortunately, and largely in response to continued advocacy from the U.S. disability community, the NIMHD Director did not heed this advice, instead designating disabled people as a health disparities population on Sept. 26, 2023.

When making their recommendation to not designate disabled people as a health disparities population, the working group expressed concern, with no supporting evidence, that disabled people may have higher prevalence of all-cause mortality, but that they were not sure that all disabled people experience this and other health disparities. The dangerous precedent set here is assuming health disparities do not exist among a minority population known to experience a multiplicity of inequities. Fortunately, the Director of the NIMHD did not heed the advice of this working group, .

After hearing the working group’s suggestion to not designate due to insufficient evidence of disparities among disabled people, I decided to examine whether a mortality disparity was present among disabled adults in the U.S., and if present, whether it persisted across the disabled population.

What are the big takeaways from this research, and who needs to know about it (public policy officials, medical professionals, etc.)?

In sum, disabled people experience a substantial mortality disparity that extends across this population. This really needs to be an all-hands-on-deck moment, especially as we know that disabled people were also more likely to experience more severe COVID-19 outcomes during the height of the pandemic. All medical providers need to be aware of the increased risk of mortality among disabled people, but in being aware, should not assume that this is simply an inherent outcome of disability. Instead, it needs to be viewed as a disparity that can likely be reduced with higher quality care, both preventive and emergent care. In addition, policymakers need to continue working to ensure accessibility among medical providers, a goal that will be more enforceable in light of the recent Final Rule Implementing .

What is next? Does this research lead to more questions that need to be investigated?

The most pressing questions that remain are what are the exact mechanisms informing the disability mortality disparity, specifically how much of this disparity is due to health care access, socio-economic status, bias among health care providers as well as structural ableism. We need to know more about these exact mechanisms in order to better target interventions aimed at reducing this disparity.

• “Just like with a Nikki Haley or Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket, I don’t think that we are likely to see women voters cross over to vote for Kamala Harris because of her gender. Partisanship remains the strongest determinant of vote choice among those who have a partisan identity or lean toward a party,” said Gadarian. “That doesn’t mean that gender does not matter at all and that it won’t affect the Harris campaign. The first way that gender is already reshaping the race is that Harris is already advocating for women’s health, reproductive freedom and abortion access more vocally and more powerfully than Biden did and than the Trump/Vance ticket is. She ties access to reproductive care to a theme of progress and freedom in ways that Biden did not.”

• “Harris is also energizing young women and women of color in ways that are going to make these important constituencies of the Democratic party easier to mobilize in the fall. Harris’s connection to Black Greek life has already won support and significant fundraising dollars from members of the Divine Nine who are a group that can be activated themselves and have strong community connections to help rally others. Last night, there was a Zoom meeting of 9,000 South Asian Women for Harris that raised $250,000,” said Gadarian.

• “Harris is also leaning into young culture on social media with a neon green banner on her social media paying homage to the ‘brat summer’ and amassing significant views on TikTok with memes,” said Gadarian. “This embrace of feminine, fun ways to talk about serious policy issues makes space for young women to participate in politics and shows them that they have a stake in this election.

• “The last way that gender matters here is that having a woman of color at the top of the ticket further normalizes that women belong in politics, can be trusted with the highest responsibility and are to be taken seriously,” said Gadarian.

• “Brat is comprised of memetic qualities such as authenticity and a fun persona. Even if you don’t like her you can’t deny that she can take up and create new space in politics which is clearly needed and brings fresh viral memes,” said Grygiel.

Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe at ejmbuqe@syr.edu to arrange an interview with any of them.

Associate Professor of Political Science :

• “A political party’s job is to win elections. Joe Biden became the nominee in 2020 because Democratic voters, Democratic officials and liberal activist groups thought he was the best candidate to beat Trump now they don’t – electability giveth and electability taketh away.”
• “Democratic voters, not party elites, drove Biden’s exit. Polls showed it, constituents demanded it at townhalls, and representatives listened. Biden told voters this is the most important election of our lifetimes, voters believed him and acted like it in demanding a change – this wasn’t top-down – it was a grassroots revolt against Joe Biden.”
• “Nancy Pelosi, Harold Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer coordinated this change because Biden’s presence at the top of the ticket was becoming too dangerous for down-ballot Democrats. Safe seats turned shaky, toss-ups tipped Republican – both House and Senate control were slipping away and making a Republican trifecta more likely.”

• “Biden’s age issue was insurmountable. A majority of voters, including many Democrats, believe he’s too old for a second term. This perception can’t be fixed through campaign strategies or messaging and increased public appearances risk deepening that perception among voters. Democrats hope that Vice President Harris or another candidate can appeal to voters who dislike both major party options.”

���ϲ����� Associate Professor of Communications Joshua Darr commented on the timing of the announcement:

• “It certainly pushes back on some traditional press logic, but it makes sure the next week launches with a discussion entirely about Democrats – which is probably not what Republicans wanted after their week-long convention united around Trump. We’re in uncharted territory – I don’t think there is a “right” time to do something that monumental,” said Darr.

Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations, via ejmbuqe@syr.edu to arrange interviews with any of these experts.

Political Science Professor�� researches and teaches about American politics and political theory, democracy and citizenship. Reeher said the Democrats would need to replace President Biden very soon if they hope to regain ground.

• “In order to give the new candidate enough time to generate enthusiasm, and for the party’s national campaign to adjust its strategy and messaging.��The problem for the Democrats is, how do they avoid what appears to be a somewhat weak national candidacy by Kamala Harris without spilling a lot of internal party blood and creating deep internal divisions.��They’d have to step over a woman of color.��Not a good look for the Democrats.��There are some other prominent Democrats who might be more appealing in a national general election; I just don’t see how the Democrats get to them without creating a lot of chaos and bitterness,” said Reeher.

How can this current unrest in the Democratic Party impact congressional races?

• “If enthusiasm among Democrats drops, either through dissatisfaction with Biden and concerns over his health, or concerns about a Harris presidency, that could lead some potential voters to just sit it out,” said Reeher. “And on the other side, sensing a victory, it could energize the Republicans. So, while the issue at the top of the ticket won’t change a lot of minds about who to choose in a congressional race, it could have impact on who is voting in the first place.”

���ϲ����� Associate Professor of Communications����teaches about political communication in the Newhouse School. His comments below reference Biden’s press conference after attending NATO meeting.

• “It’s hard for me to see how tonight’s press conference at the NATO meeting could reverse Biden’s slide – his campaign clearly hopes it can, since they’ve been promoting it relentlessly. Combined with the Republican National Convention next week, this might be the most critical 10 days in the entire campaign,” said Darr.

• “The murmurs against Biden in the party are becoming a roar, just days after it seemed like Biden had his support secured. Nancy Pelosi’s appearance on Morning Joe on Wednesday very clearly left the door open for Democrats to continue to voice their desire for Biden to step aside,” said Darr.

���ϲ����� political science professor����is the author of��“”�����Ի���“.” She studies political psychology and American politics. She has commented that the issue of abortion has been a powerful motivator for voters.

• “In every state where abortion has been on the ballot since the end of Roe v. Wade, abortion access has won with significant majorities even in conservative states. This means that there are voters in places like Kansas, Ohio, and Kentucky who normally support Republican candidates who turned out in off-year elections to support abortion access as a single issue,” said Gadarian.

Donald Trump and his associates were charged with stealing, mishandling, concealing, and lying about classified government documents taken by Trump on his way out of the White House.�� Judge Eileen Cannon dismissed the case, claiming that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.�� Cannon may well be right in holding that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional, but she was not right to dismiss the case.

Jack Smith was appointed to be Special Prosecutor by Attorney General Merrick Garland under a Justice Department regulation that has been in effect since 1999, and is substantively identical to regulations that were in effect for decades and during the Nixon Watergate case, which was prosecuted by outside Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski.�� The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decision in United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 694 (1974), noting that Jaworski had been appointed under the DOJ’s regulation.�� No prior court has taken seriously a challenge to a special counsel’s appointment under the special counsel regulations.

In 2019, two law professors published a law review article arguing that it was unconstitutional under the appointments clause for the Attorney General to appoint an outside special counsel, in that case Robert Muller, who had not been confirmed by the Senate.�� See Steven G. Calabresi and Gary Lawson, Why Robert Mueller’s Appointment as Special Counsel was Unlawful, 95 Notre Dame L. Rev. 87, 115–16 (2019).�� These law professors gave Judge Cannon the legal firepower to argue that Jack Smith’s appointment violated the appointments clause of the Constitution.

Is Judge Cannon right that Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional when so many other courts have turned a blind eye to the argument?�� Calabresi, Lawson and Cannon have a colorable argument that Smith’s appointment violated the appointments clause of the Constitution.�� The appointments clause requires the President to appoint, and the Senate to confirm, all “Officers of the United States,” except for “inferior Officers” who can be appointed by others without Senate approval if they are authorized by law to make the appointment.�� .��

The Courts have recognized, however, that mere “officials” and “employees” can be hired without authorizing legislation, presidential appointment or Senate approval.�� The distinctions between “Officers,” “Inferior Officers,” “Officials” and “Employees” is not defined in the Constitution, and depends on factors like power, authority, control, and permanency.

Jack Smith claimed to be an “Inferior Officer” appointed under law by Attorney General Garland, who is an Officer appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.�� Judge Cannon held that the legislation cited for Smith’s appointment does not apply, and suggests that the broad unsupervised powers given to the Special Counsel might make him a “Superior Officer” who must be appointed by the President and approved by the Senate.�� The legality of Smith’s appointment turns on the uncertain characterization of his role, and the application of the laws authorizing his employment as an “inferior officer.”

So will the appellate courts agree with Judge Cannon’s determination that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional?�� Ultimately, until the Supreme Court decides the case there is no way to know.�� There are good arguments on both sides, and the issues are clouded by vague language and a long and inconsistent practice history.

However, there is good reason to suspect that the current Supreme Court will affirm Judge Cannon’s conclusion that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.�� Justice Clarence Thomas asserted as much in his concurrence in the presidential immunity case, , and the breath of that immunity decision suggests that this Court will take an extremely broad view in separation of powers cases, and will likely demand Senate approval for government agents, like the Special Counsel, who are given broad unsupervised authority to exercise government power.

If the Court accepts Judge Cannon’s argument, does that mean all of the prior special counsel cases will now be invalid?������ While it would mean that all of those decisions brought by outside special counsel were wrongly decided, it does not mean that those wrongly decided cases are now invalid.�� In general, court decisions that become final (by not being appealed, or by affirmance on appeal) are valid and enforceable, even if the decisions are later proved to have been wrong.�� Court decisions must be attacked on appeal, and can generally not be “collaterally attacked” in another court, even if the decisions were wrong.�� See .

An exception to the rule prohibiting collateral attacks applies when the court lacked jurisdiction to issue the decision, but the problem here is not the court’s lack of jurisdiction but the prosecutor’s lack of authority.�� The jurisdiction exception should not apply.�� So no, Richard Nixon would not be able to get his Watergate tapes back if Judge Cannon’s decision is affirmed.�� Sorry Richard.

But even if Judge Cannon’s reasoning is upheld, her disposition of the case was wrong.�� Dismissal is an extreme remedy that should not be used when well-settled law, that has been reasonably relied on for decades, is overturned, and where the defendants’ rights would not be materially harmed by the technical deficiency that previously occurred.�� Rather than dismissing the case, the Court should allow the Justice Department to fix the technical problem.

Professors Calabresi and Lawson argued in their law review article that the appointments clause defect could be easily cured by appointing another “Officer,” like one of the United States Attorneys, who has been appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, to supervise Jack Smith’s work on the case.

If that was done, dismissal would only be appropriate if the defendants were somehow prejudiced by Smith’s wrongful appointment.�� Everything that was done by Jack Smith in the case could have been done by Jack Smith under the supervision of a United States Attorney.�� The technical defect in Smith’s appointment, which was easily curable, did not prejudice the defendants.�� There is no reason that a United States Attorney appointed to supervise the case now could not ratify Smith’s past work, and allow Smith to proceed with the prosecution.�� A case prosecuted by Jack Smith under the supervision of the United States Attorney would be like the thousands of cases brought by Assistant United States Attorneys every day in every jurisdiction.�� Without proof that the defendants were severely prejudiced by this technical appointments issue, the extreme remedy of dismissal was totally unwarranted and should be reversed on appeal.

• “The bans would pose an immediate risk to people with disabilities who need to wear masks to protect themselves—from airborne illnesses like COVID-19, for example. It is difficult to imagine how a disabled person would be able to convincingly defend their mask-wearing to a police officer,” said Macfarlane. “Even if an exception to the bans were created for people with disabilities, the bans would still��force people to disclose a disability they would rather keep confidential. And if an officer doesn’t believe them (as so often happens to people with invisible disabilities), what happens—they’re arrested?”

, professor of political science at the Maxwell School at ���ϲ�����, said he will be evaluating how Biden and Trump can overcome perceptions around age and mental acuity.

• “For the debate, I’ll be looking for whether former President Trump tries to become more ‘presidential’ in any respect, though the campaign trail would suggest the answer to that is no.��I’ll also be looking, as will every media source, for some indication on the age and mental competence issue, as it concerns both of them,” said Reeher.

• “I’d be interested in which candidate will use humor most effectively. This is not an election that the country is excited about; neither candidate is particularly popular; both candidates are older. The classic similar moment is Reagan in 1984 saying that he when the moderator brought up age. Can Biden get in some good lines? Will Trump be willing to say some of the trash talk he says at his rallies to Biden’s face, and can Biden come back if he does? Humor—intentional or not (see Romney/Obama 2012)—often defines how these debates are perceived and what sticks with people,” said Darr.

• “The decision by the Southern Baptist Convention may hurt Donald Trump’s campaign for a second term. Democrats will paint conservative Christians, and by extension Trump, as out of step with a strong majority of Americans who support IVF access. But what is bad for Trump’s electoral prospects may be good for the SBC, and good for the movement that successfully overturned nationwide access to abortion. Contrary to common perception, the SBC did not come out against abortion until the mid-1970s. Their position against abortion, like their position against IVF, has little to do with deep-rooted religious theology and is instead a strategic move to leverage an important issue for political and social gain. It creates a false history and false fundamentalism around the abortion issue, making the SBC look like the protectors of ‘traditional Christian values’ and American morality. It is this invented moral authority that is at the heart of Trump’s appeal inside and outside of the SBC, even in the face of his waning popularity with some religious leaders who previously supported him. Trump’s perceived position as the defender of American morality and Christianity may supersede the IVF and abortion issue to deliver him the presidency in 2024.”

• “The new recordings of Justice Alito and his wife will not really change the debate over the propriety or trustworthiness of the Supreme Court. Critics of Alito will emphasize the Justice’s agreement with the claim that people need to fight ‘to return our country to a place of godliness.’ Defenders of Alito will re-direct attention by criticizing the means by which the recordings were obtained and by lambasting the media for publishing the recordings’ content. Defenders will also argue that much of what Alito said is unobjectionable, noting, for example, that Alito’s characterization of the Court’s work (‘It’s our job to decide cases as best we can,’) is very conventional. Rather than decisively changing the debate, the disagreement between critics and defenders will simply provide another opportunity to do what Americans have long done: to defend the Justices we like as being impartial arbiters of law and to criticize the Justices we don’t like as being politicians in robes. It is by selectively criticizing the Justices for being political and praising the Justices for being legal that we maintain the Court’s position as a powerful actor in public affairs,” said Bybee.

• “A woman was elected president in Mexico and the runner-up was also a woman. Neither of them focused heavily on their gender on the campaign trail. How is this possible? Since the 1990s, legislative reforms have been in place to increase the number of women representatives in Congress. The most decisive of these steps came in 2014 when the government passed a constitutional amendment mandating 50% gender parity in the nominations for candidates for all electoral offices. These steps socialized the presence of women in Mexican elections at all levels and guaranteed the creation of a pipeline of strong, effective, and prepared female political candidates to steadily run for more and more offices.

• “The election of a woman does not mean that gender issues will loom large in the platform of President Sheinbaum. Mexico has one of the highest rates of violence against women in the Western Hemisphere, with ten women killed every day. Nevertheless, the election of a woman is a clear signal of how far women have come as political actors since they received the right the vote 70 years ago,” said McCormick

• “Come October when the new president steps into her office at the National Palace, she will confront several urgent issues. These include what to do with increasing deficit spending, unsustainable subsidies for the government’s oil company (PEMEX), and a security crisis afflicting the lives of most Mexicans. This last one – security – is perhaps the most worrisome because of the complexity surrounding how the country has arrived at a moment where voters indicated that extortion, kidnapping, and impunity are the number one concern for them, where Mexican cities dominate the top-ten most dangerous places in the world, where 98% of crimes go unpunished, and the latest tally has over 200 organized criminal groups active in Mexico today,” said McCormick.

• “Claudia Sheinbaum has promised to continue AMLO’s approach to security, including the ‘hugs not bullets’ approach to social welfare spending to counteract the effects of organized crime. Analysts have used the phrase ‘there is little light between AMLO and Sheinbaum.’ Yet, the issue of security will put this to the test for several reasons: President Sheinbaum will have to deliver on some new policy or measure to counteract growing rates of insecurity to meet some of her promises on the campaign trail,” said McCormick.

• “Even more worrisome will be what AMLO’s relationship with the military will be going forward. He has had increasingly close ties to the military and has given the military broad control over public infrastructure and enforcement of duties outside the scope of the military, such as in immigration enforcement. This is likely to continue because President Sheinbaum will be loath to antagonize her predecessor with his closest ally. If this is the case, we are likely to see the military exercise its muscle further to assert its dominance in the governing of Mexico,” said McCormick.

By , Professor of Law, ���ϲ����� College of Law.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Donald Trump with a “Class E” felony (the lowest felony in New York) under New York Penal Law § 175.10, for reimbursing his prior attorney, Michael Cohen, the $130,000 Cohen paid to Stormy Daniels to sign a non-disclosure agreement in the waning days before the 2016 election, and disguising those payments as attorney fees.�� What does the District Attorney have to prove under NYPL § 175.10?

The case requires peeling an onion containing multiple layers of legal doctrine leading nowhere.

First, NYPL § 175.10 requires proof that the defendant committed a misdemeanor under NYPL § 175.05 (“A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree [175.10] when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree [175.05], and . . . ”).�� So the first step is for the District Attorney to prove the misdemeanor under Section 175.05.

Section 175.05, in turn, provides that the defendant is guilty of a misdemeanor “if, with the intent to defraud, you make, or even cause through other means, a false entry in an enterprise’s business records.”

So the District Attorney must first prove that Trump made the false business records “with the intent to defraud” in order to satisfy the misdemeanor under Section 175.05 that is a predicate to the felony under Section 175.10.�� The District Attorney has not explained who Trump intended to defraud by falsifying the business records.

There are some appellate division cases that have suggested that a showing of intent to mislead is sufficient to satisfy the “defraud” requirement, although that loose reading of a criminal statute is dubious because criminal statutes are normally strictly interpreted, and “defraud” has a well-defined legal meaning.�� Why would the legislature use the word “defraud” if they intended to criminalize an intent to mislead someone without the usual additional requirements for fraud, like proving that a victim suffered damages by relying on the truth of the misrepresentation.

In addition, the two year statute of limitations on the misdeamenor (New York law, CPL § 30.10(2)(a)) expired long ago, and the District Attorney did not charge Trump with the misdemeanor.�� It is not clear whether the felony can stand when the misdemeanor is time barred.�� The felony statute requires showing that the misdemeanor was committed, since the felony is really a penalty enhancement on the misdemeanor.

Second, in order for the business records misdemeanor to be bumped up to a Class E felony under Section 175.10, “his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”�� So, in addition to proving that the business records were falsified to “defraud” someone, the District Attorney must show that Trump falsified the records to commit “another crime” separate from the fraud.

Judge Marshan allowed the District Attorney to proceed with the criminal prosecution without detailing exactly what the “fraud” or “other crime” was.�� The District Attorney merely suggested that Trump may have committed state tax fraud, or violated the federal election laws, or violated New York election laws, but was not required to spell out the violations, or to pick which of them applied to each of the two separate crimes that must be proven under Section 175.10.

Well, now the District Attorney has told the court which horse he intends to ride in the case. It’s New York Election Law § 17.152. What is that?

New York Election Law § 17.152 makes it a misdemeanor to “conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to public office by unlawful means.”�� There are very few cases applying this rather obscure statute, but on its face it requires showing an “unlawful” conspiracy.�� So the misdemeanor requires proof of intent to “defaud,” the felony requires proof of intent to commit or cover up an independent crime, and the independent crime requires proof of a conspiracy by “unlawful means.”�� What is the “fraud” or “unlawful means?”

Oh, and that Election Law misdemeanor is also barred by the two year statute of limitations on misdemeanors.

The District Attorney and many pundits have suggested that these three statutory requirements can be met merely by showing that Trump made the false records intending to influence the election.�� But everything that every candidate does is an attempt to influence an election.�� To constitute a felony, the acts to falsify records must have been “fraudulent” and “unlawful,” and that’s the catch.�� What makes paying hush money “fraudulent” and “unlawful?”�� Running for office is not like selling securities to the public.�� There is no statute requiring full disclosure of all material facts.�� Politicians have the highest level of free speech protection for their campaigns.

Some experts have suggested that the District Attorney does not need to prove that the underlying payment to Stormy Daniels was a crime, only that Trump thought it was a crime.�� I disagree.�� One cannot “intend” to commit or cover up a crime if what one intended to do was not a crime.�� Yes, there are cases saying that the prosecutor need not charge and convict the person of the independent crime, but that does not excuse the prosecutor from proving that the intended act was in fact a crime.�� If someone created false business records to cover up what they thought was a crime, but what they thought was a crime was in fact legal, then they would not be guilty under the statute.�� Cases like People v. Taveras, 12 NY 3d 21 (2009), which held that the Section 175.10 only requires a showing of intent to commit the crime, even if the person did not go through with the crime, or People v. Thompson, 124 A.D. 3d 448 (NY App Div. 2015), which held that the person does not have to be charged with or convicted of the separate crime, are not on point.�� What was intended must be a crime, and the District Attorney must prove that it was or would have been a crime if the defendant followed through, in order to meet the statutory requirement.�� Falsifying business records with intent to commit a legal act is not a crime under the statute.

The District Attorney will be able to prove the facts that he has alleged.�� Despite Trump’s denials, the argument that Michael Cohen paid $175,000 to Stormy Daniels on his own does not seem credible.�� There surely was an understanding that Trump would reimburse Cohen for the payments.�� We do not know why the payments to Stormy Daniels were made by Michael Cohen.�� I suspect that someone (maybe Michael Cohen) suggested structuring the payments that way to prevent a paper trail back to Trump, so that he could plausibly deny paying hush money to a porn actress if the payment became public.

But why were those payments “unlawful” or “fraudulent?”�� Who even knew about and could have been misled by the false business records at the time of the election?�� How would Trump even know about the obscure New York Election Law § 17.152 provision that he is being accused of intentionally concealing?�� These are fundamental problems with the legal theory underlying the case.

But if it would have been legal for Trump to have paid Stormy Daniels directly, then disguising the payments through Michael Cohen did not show an “intent to . . . conceal another crime,” nor a conspiracy to “unlawfully” influence an election.�� The District Attorney’s case is now based on three criminal statutes all of which depend on separate frauds or crimes that have not been clearly alleged or proven.

Where does the case go from here.�� The outcome of the trial will likely depend on Judge Merchan’s jury instructions.�� Will Judge Merchan’s instructions require the jury to identify the specific fraud and independent unlawful act made to influence the election separate from the business records falsification, or will the instructions only require proof that Trump tried to hide his hush money payments to influence the election, ignoring the requirement to clearly identify a separate fraud and unlawful act.

If Trump is convicted, will Judge Merchan sentence him to prison on a first-time non-violent Class E felony, creating a constitutional crisis in the middle of the election?�� Or merely give him probation and leave him free to rail against the corrupt judicial process while appealing his conviction.�� If the judge sentences Trump to prison, will it be upheld on appeal?�� And if Trump goes to prison, what happens to the election?

If the Democratic Party thought that this prosecution would benefit their election, I think they blundered badly.�� Trump is benefitting from the publicity, successfully portraying himself as the victim of a political witch hunt.�� Ultimately, the election will not be decided by the courts.�� Trump could run for and be elected president whether he’s convicted and sent to jail or not.�� And the greater the penalty, the more likely he will win the election.�� Knowing that they can’t knock Trump out of the race, what is the prosecution’s end game?

By , Professor of Law

To request an interview with Professor Germain, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu.

Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York begins today with jury selection.�� The following is a summary and legal analysis of this very complicated case.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges that, shortly before the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, Trump made several arrangements to prevent the public disclosure of allegations against him that might negatively affect his election.

First, Trump arranged with American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, to “catch and kill” stories that might be embarrassing to Trump.�� The National Enquirer paid for and killed two potential stories:�� one from a doorman who alleged that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock, which proved to be untrue, and a second from a former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed to have had an affair with Trump during his marriage.

Second, and more importantly, for the actual charges in the indictment, Trump arranged with his then-lawyer and now chief nemesis, Michael Cohen, to pay $130,000 in “hush money” to Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, who is described by Wikipedia as “an American pornographic film actress, director and former stripper,” to prevent her from disclosing a sexual relationship with Trump.

Trump disguised the hush money payments by having Cohen make the payments, and then reimbursing him using business entries that called the payments “attorney fees”.

Trump has never been charged with a crime for making the hush money payments or arranging with AMI to catch and kill stories.�� The underlying charges were investigated by the US Attorney General’s office, and they decided not to bring criminal charges against Trump.

There has been some suggestion that the hush money payments might somehow violate federal election laws, although I have never understood how using one’s own money to pay for the non-disclosure of embarrassing allegations would violate the election laws, which are primarily concerned with the solicitation and use of campaign contributions by third parties.�� Even if the government wanted to charge Trump now for violating the election law in 2016, those charges would likely be barred by the applicable statute of limitations.

The underlying case is somewhat like the criminal charges brought against former presidential candidate John Edwards, who was charged in 2011 with receiving more than $900,000 in illegal campaign contributions from friends in 2007-08 to make hush money payments to disguise his extramarital relationship and child from becoming public.�� The Edwards case involved money from third parties, so the election law connection makes some sense.�� Nevertheless, the jury found Edwards not guilty of violating the campaign finance laws, and the government decided not to further pursue the remaining charges that the jury was unable to decide.�� Ironically, Jack Smith, the current special prosecutor in the federal classified documents and election interference cases, had directed the Edwards prosecution.

Instead of charging Trump with an underlying crime, District Attorney Bragg is charging Trump only with covering up an underlying crime.

NY penal law 175.05 makes it a “class A misdemeanor” to falsify business records with “intent to defraud.” Falsifying business records to commit a fraud becomes a Class E felony “when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”�� NY Penal Law § 175.10.

District Attorney Bragg’s indictment charges Trump with 34 felony counts, each of which relates to a business record disguising a payment made to Cohen as attorney fees.�� The indictment alleges that Trump disguised the payments with intent to cover up another crime.�� But the indictment does not say what that other crime is.

There are several layers that I believe District Attorney Bragg must show to convict Trump of committing a felony under Penal Law § 175.10.

First, Bragg must show that Trump made the false business records with intent to commit “fraud,” otherwise Trump would not be guilty of a crime at all, because falsifying business records for non-fraudulent purposes is not a crime under the statute.

It is not clear who Bragg believes Trump intended to defraud by falsifying these entries.�� Presumably, Trump was trying to hide the allegations and/or the relationships from his family and/or the public to prevent the disclosure of embarrassing allegations or facts, but traditional “fraud” requires, among other things, showing an intent to receive financial benefits by misleading a victim, and the misrepresentations must cause an actual victim to suffer damages.�� Fortunately for politicians, not all lies, misrepresentations, or nondisclosures constitute “fraud.”

The District Attorney has made public statements suggesting that Trump may have been hiding the payments as attorney fees to commit tax fraud, but neither that nor any other specifics regarding an intent to commit fraud is stated in the indictment.

Second, the District Attorney must show that the reason for Trump’s false entries was to commit or cover up a separate crime, presumably separate from the fraud.�� If the separate crime is the election law violation, Trump would have had to know that the payment was an election law violation, and to have falsified the records to cover it up that crime.�� It seems to me that the election law violation would be stronger, not weaker, by making it look like Cohen was the one making the payments for Trump.�� Disguising the payments through Cohen made it look more like an election law violation by a supporter, not less.���� Or was Trump trying to disguise the payments to prevent his family or the public from knowing about the embarrassing allegations, rather than covering up an independent crime?

I believe the District Attorney must show (1) that the payments were disguised as attorney fees to commit a fraud on someone, (2) that the underlying payments constituted an independent crime, (3) that Trump knew that the underlying payments constituted a crime, and (4) that the reason he covered up the payments was to disguise that crime.�� Those are going to be hard things to prove.

Judge Merchan’s summary of the case for the jury glosses over all of these difficult statutory questions.�� After being unable to get the parties to agree on the language of a statement to be read to the jurors to describe what the case is about, Judge Merchan decided to read the following statement to the jurors to summarize the case:

“The allegations reflect in substance, that Donald Trump falsified business records to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election. Specifically, it is alleged that Donald Trump made or caused false business records to hide the true nature of payments made to Michael Cohen, by characterizing them as payment for legal services rendered pursuant to a retainer agreement. The People allege that in fact, the payments were intended to reimburse Michael Cohen for money he paid to Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, in the weeks before the presidential election to prevent her from publicly revealing details about a past sexual encounter with Donald Trump.”

Judge Juan Merchan’s statement fails to explain when it is a crime to “unlawfully influence” an election?�� Obviously, all politicians attempt to influence voters to vote for them.�� Politicians regularly misstate facts and fail to disclose facts during their campaign.�� The law has never allowed members of the public or the government to bring claims for fraud against politicians who make misleading or even downright false statements; indeed our laws broadly protect campaign speech under the First Amendment.

Neither the Court nor the District Attorney has made it clear who was defrauded, what the independent crime is, or when an attempt to influence voters becomes “unlawful” and constitutes an independent crime.

There is also a question regarding the statute of limitations applicable to these claims.�� The statute of limitations on a misdemeanor in New York is 2 years, and would have expired long ago.�� NY Crim Proc 30.10(2)(c).�� The statute of limitations on “other felonies” is 5 years.�� NY Crim Proc. § 30.10(2)(b).�� The acts occurred in 2016 and 2017, and the District Attorney delayed filing the charges for several years.�� The District Attorney has argued that the statutes of limitations were tolled during COVID, or that they were extended when Trump left the state.�� These issues need to be addressed by the court clearly.

So while there is very strong evidence that Trump created false business record entries to cover up his hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the District Attorney needs to show multiple difficult elements to establish that the entries were made to commit “fraud,” and for the purpose of covering up a separate crime.

Finally, what is the penalty if Trump is convicted of this Class E felony? He would be subject to a fine of up to $5,000 under NY Pen § 80.1.�� If he received some financial benefit, he might have to disgorge three times the amount of the benefit.�� It is difficult to see how these minor penalties would justify such an expensive investigation and prosecution.

So the goal must be to impose imprisonment.�� For a first time offender, the court could impose a prison term of up to one year under NY Penal law § 70(4), but it would be very unusual to impose prison time for a first time Class E felony, especially where no victim suffered financial harm.

This case is an important test for our legal system.�� District Attorney Alvin Bragg was under intense political pressure to bring these charges, even after his predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., decided not to do so.�� Trump is very unpopular in Manhattan, and has acted boorishly and foolishly in verbally attacking parties, judges, court clerks and their families.�� But the law must be applied fairly and evenly to all parties, even those who are locally unpopular, and it is the District Attorney’s responsibility to assure equal treatment under the law.

I believe that the use of our legal system for political purposes will backfire with the electorate.�� Every time a politically motivated case is decided, the polls show Trump becoming more popular.�� Alvin Bragg sits in the chair once occupied by one of my legal heroes, Robert Morgenthau, who refused to use his office for political purposes, and had the courage to admit when his office made mistakes.�� Bragg has a lot to live up to.�� This old case, with all of its legal difficulties, should not have been brought

• “In every state where abortion has been on the ballot since the end of Roe v. Wade, abortion access has won with significant majorities even in conservative states. This means that there are voters in places like Kansas, Ohio, and Kentucky who normally support Republican candidates who turned out in off-year elections to support abortion access as a single issue,” said Gadarian.

• “As in other states, I would anticipate that there are a lot of conservative voters in Florida who ultimately support more access to abortion than the 6-week ban that is going to go into effect and abortion access is a popular issue. Two things make this ballot measure more challenging for abortion access than the previous ballot measures:
  • “1. the threshold for victory for this constitutional amendment that would enshrine access is 60% which is more than the threshold that Ohio’s constitutional amendment won by (57%), and
  • 2. being during a presidential election cycle means that you will see higher turnout generally which will include more Republicans voters who may be more skeptical of a constitutional amendment,” said Gadarian.

• “That doesn’t mean that it will lose – this constitutional amendment will likely drive more Democrats to the polls, but in my mind, the election timing does make it more challenging. What you are likely to see is that there will be cross-over conservative voters who vote for abortion access and Trump for president so I wouldn’t anticipate that even this salient issue is enough to swing Florida toward Biden even if people support a policy that is more aligned with Democrats,” said Gadarian.

• ������,��
• ������,��
• Christian Science Monitor��
• NBC News,��
• Agence France-Presse,��
• Newsweek,��
• WBUR’s On Point,��
• Axios,��
• US News and World Report,��

• “Trump’s comments at a political rally this last weekend that he would not defend a NATO ally that wasn’t supposedly ‘paying their bill’ and would let Russia ‘do whatever the hell they want’ are dangerous to the national security of the United States,” said Williams.
• “First, no ally pays any bill. All allies contribute what they can based on the size of their economy to the collective defense and all have substantially increased spending since the 2014 Wales pledge,” said Williams. “More importantly, however, Russia is deterred from attacking any NATO ally because of a belief that the US and other allies will come to the defense – Trump’s comments dangerously undermine the US deterrence posture in Europe and invite Russian aggression against NATO allies, including the United States.”

Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu to schedule an interview.

The (PJP) offers insight into people’s lives and experiences from May 2020 to 2022 in 55 countries through nearly 27,000 online journal entries of text, images, and audio.

The publication of the data is the result of a multi-year collaboration between the PJP team, led by anthropologists Associate Professor Sarah S. Willen of the University of Connecticut and Associate Professor Katherine A. Mason of Brown University, and the (QDR) at the Maxwell School of ���ϲ�����.

The resulting collection is unique in its breadth and potential for use and re-use by researchers in anthropology, sociology, history and public health, among other fields.

“There are several large quantitative surveys in the social sciences that are broadly used,” says Sebastian Karcher, Associate Director of QDR. “But qualitative datasets that are large enough to be analyzed from so many different angles are very, very rare. The PJP data are going to be a treasure for social scientists for years to come, and we at QDR couldn’t be more excited to be the permanent home for them.”

To ensure that the data from the Pandemic Journaling Project would be accessible to future researchers, the team regularly consulted with QDR’s experts on questions ranging from file organization to ethics.

“We knew from the very beginning that we wanted to share these data widely and archive them for the future,” says Mason. “We were so lucky to be able to connect with Sebastian and the QDR team early in the process so that we could make sure that we were able to do so as ethically and effectively as possible.”

The PJP empowers people to chronicle their own experiences in order to create a record for the future. The resulting archive can help researchers understand how people lived — and reflected on their lives—during this time.

“Each journal, and each person’s story, matters on its own terms,” Willen says. “Taken together, this collection of materials offers an extraordinary real-time window onto how the pandemic challenged us and changed us, not just as individuals but also as members of broader communities.”

Already the data have been used to explore a wide variety of questions, ranging from the impact of the pandemic on different groups’ mental health, to students’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic around the globe, to the human rights dimensions of the project itself, which the PJP team describes as a form of “archival activism.”

Associate Professor of Anthropology Michelle Parsons at Northern Arizona University, one of the earliest outside scholars to work with the data, said that the “PJP data—thousands of journal entries through time—are unique, offering a window into people’s changing experiences and emotions during a turbulent time. Also, it has been such a pleasure collaborating with the PJP team and with other scholars analyzing the data.”

To protect participants, access to the full PJP data on QDR requires prior approval—requests can be submitted directly from the once the website goes live on Feb. 15.

A significant subset of more than 2,000 entries also are publicly available for searching and browsing by anyone on the Featured Entries page of the PJP website: .

For reporters looking for experts to help explain the issues when the ruling comes out, please consider ���ϲ����� Professor of Law Gregory Germain. He is an expert on taxation, commercial law, bankruptcy and corporate law.

To give you a sense of his point of view and his expertise, here is what he has said in the past about the hearing and the laws involved.

• “Trump supporters see this case as a political witch hunt brought by a partisan democratic attorney general against the former Republican president for doing what real estate promotors have always done – exaggerating the value of their properties in unaudited financial statements that are based on opinion rather than verifiable, audited, generally accepted accounting principles.��On the other side, Trump’s opponents can tout the brazenness with which he lied about the size and value of his properties, which is amply supported by evidence identified in the Court’s opinion,” said Germain.
• “But behind the political theater is a genuine legal question about the proper interpretation of the extraordinarily broad statute at issue in the case:��New York Executive Law Section 63(12).��This statute was enacted in 1956, and was designed primarily to protect consumers and investors.��But It is being used here for financial statements given to sophisticated lenders and insurance companies.��And, frankly, it is difficult to imagine any sophisticated lender or insurance company relying on a real estate promotors’ unverified statements of value, let alone statements from a well known blusterer like Donald Trump,” said Germain.
• “The statute gives the Attorney General broad power to prohibit people (which includes entities) from committing fraud. The definition of fraud in the statute is similar to the definition in the securities fraud statutes – ‘any��device,��scheme or artifice to defraud and any deception, misrepresentation, concealment, suppression, false pretense,��false promise or unconscionable contractual provisions.’��On its face, the statute does not require proof that someone relied to their detriment on the false statements.��But courts traditionally have required a showing of reliance before punishing false statements in securities fraud statutes that use very similar language.��Normally, a private lie is not actionable if no one believed or relied on it,” said Germain.
• “The question that higher courts will need to address is whether the Attorney General can dissolve and liquidate a company for expressing false valuation opinions to sophisticated lenders and insurers who may not have believed or relied upon the opinions.��While the Attorney General may not need to prove reliance to stop companies from issuing false statements to the public in consumer or securities offerings, the statute is being used here to punish a private fraud on sophisticated parties without showing the essential element of reliance and harm,” said Germain.

Li, a health economist who is part of the public administration and international affairs department in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, wanted to see if Medicare’s Quality of Patient Care home health star ratings have an impact on patient care.

Critics have argued that these ratings are inaccurate. But since Medicare’s ratings provide the only source of systematically and publicly available information on home health agency quality, it is important for patients to have access to valid ratings in order to find high-quality care.

In the paper “” and published in the journal Medical Care, Li studied more than 1.8 million Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries who used home health care from July 2015 to July 2016 in the United States and evaluated whether patients treated by higher-rate agencies had better health outcomes.

Li looked at how many days patients were able to live independently at home after receiving home health care as well as if they needed hospitalization, visited an emergency department, had to be institutionalized, or died in the short-term.

In the study, Li found that patients treated by higher-rate agencies did better both in the short-term and long-term outcomes.

“Rates of hospitalization, emergency department use, institutionalization generally decreased,” said Li. “Patients treated by higher-rate agencies spent more time at home.”

With these findings, policymakers should work to increase awareness and use of the ratings by patients and their caregivers said Li.

The star rating was created in 2015 with the aim of distinguishing high from low-quality home health agencies. Home health care plays an important role in caring for the elderly. For both the government and patients, Medicare’s home health visits are one of the least expensive ways to provide care, but assessing quality is often challenging for patients and their doctors, who must select an agency, often just as patients are leaving the hospital. Furthermore, many people tend to be less familiar with the reputation of home health agencies than they are with hospitals and other institutions within their communities.

While the rating system works, there are still issues with patients in rural areas who don’t live near highly-rated agencies.

“While this study shows that the rating systems helps connect patients with effective home health agencies, there are still issues for some patients in accessing high-quality home health care, especially in rural settings,” said Li. “For example, 15% of patients live in zip codes where the best-rated home health options was only average. Knowing that the star ratings provide valuable signals of quality only means that we need to work harder at making sure that all people have access to high-quality care.”

, associate professor of political science and researcher and writer on Middle East affairs and politics said diplomacy must still be considered during this deadly time.

“The escalating conflict between Hamas and Israel has the potential to become a broader regional conflagration. While the Biden administration has publicly supported Israel and promised additional military assistance, it also needs to emphasize high-level diplomacy with the goal of de-escalating the conflict,” said Khalil.

“U.S. partners and allies in the region, in particular Turkey, Egypt, and Qatar, can play an important role in coordinating with Washington. Even though a short-term cease-fire will prevent the further loss of innocent lives, it will only maintain the untenable status quo,” said Khalil. “The Biden administration needs to commit to robust diplomacy and renewed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. This would include Hamas as a party to any talks and participation in a Palestinian national unity government. Otherwise, the increasing cycles of violence will continue without a political horizon for a solution.”

Khalil is a historian of U.S. foreign relations and the modern Middle East. He is the author of “” (Harvard University Press, 2016), which examines the influence of U.S. foreign policy on the origins and expansion of Middle East studies from World War I to the Global War on Terror. .

Robert Murrett

is a professor of practice at ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School and deputy director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law. He writes:

“The USS Gerald R. Ford strike group, which is comprised of the aircraft carrier, a cruiser and three guided missile destroyers, has been in the Mediterranean since June. The decision to shift this strike group to the eastern Mediterranean is a prudent and sensible move in response to unfolding events in the Levant. While the scope of the conflict between Israel, Hamas and other actors in the region remains to be seen, relocating the battle group and other U.S. military assets in the region will provide additional response options to U.S. and allied decision-makers in the days and weeks ahead.”

William C. Banks

is a professor emeritus at ���ϲ����� College of Law and the founding director of ���ϲ����� Institute for Security Policy and Law. His expertise focuses on constitutional law and national security and counterterrorism law; laws of war and asymmetric warfare; drones and targeted killing; cybersecurity, cyberespionage, and cyber conflict; emergency powers; emergency preparedness and response; civilian-military relations; and government surveillance and privacy.

He writes:��“The Hamas attacks in Israel are horrific, and they have committed countless war crimes, as they refuse to distinguish civilian from military targets and brutalize or murder their captives. Israel will reciprocate, but largely with the bounds of law,” said Banks.

“The winner so far is Iran, which gains more proxy clout among Palestinians and manages to scuttle at least for now the Israel/Saudi Arabi diplomacy,” said Banks.

“Americans have been killed in this assault, so U.S. security is threatened directly. We will aid Israel, of course, although they have the resources to fight this war on their own. The most surprising aspect so far is that Israel was caught completely by surprise, and they were unprepared to respond to the attacks for several hours after they were first launched. The intelligence sector and PM’s office will be sorely tested, whatever happens next,” said Banks.

Sean McFate

is a professor at ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School and author of The New Rules of War: How America Can Win — Against Russia, China, and Other Threats. McFate is an expert on 21st century war and changing international relations, and is one of the world’s leading expert on mercenaries. He can discuss military strategy, national security, and future warfare. In regards to the war in Israel, he was recently interviewed by the Die Presse for the article titled ““.

Germain is a law professor at ���ϲ����� College of Law and director of the school’s Bankruptcy Clinic. His research and teaching focus on taxation, commercial law, bankruptcy and corporate law.

Professor Germain is available to speak to reporters about the legal issues happening within this case. Please see his comments for a sense of his POV and expertise. Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, ejmbuqe@syr.edu, to schedule an interview.

• “A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald J. Trump persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets, and stripped the former president of control over some of his signature New York properties. The latest ruling by Judge Arthur Engoron in the New York Attorney General’s case against the Donald Trump organization makes for great political theater, but will not do much to change the minds of his supporters or opponents, or to define the proper scope of the law at issue in the case.
• “Trump supporters see this case as a political witch hunt brought by a partisan democratic attorney general against the former Republican president for doing what real estate promotors have always done – exaggerating the value of their properties in unaudited financial statements that are based on opinion rather than verifiable, audited, generally accepted accounting principles. On the other side, Trump’s opponents can tout the brazenness with which he lied about the size and value of his properties, which is amply supported by evidence identified in the Court’s opinion.
• “But behind the political theater is a genuine legal question about the proper interpretation of the extraordinarily broad statute at issue in the case: New York Executive Law Section 63(12). This statute was enacted in 1956, and was designed primarily to protect consumers and investors. But It is being used here for financial statements given to sophisticated lenders and insurance companies. And, frankly, it is difficult to imagine any sophisticated lender or insurance company relying on a real estate promotors’ unverified statements of value, let alone statements from a well-known blusterer like Donald Trump.

• “The statute gives the Attorney General broad power to prohibit people (which includes entities) from committing fraud. The definition of fraud in the statute is similar to the definition in the securities fraud statutes – ‘any��device,��scheme or artifice to defraud and any deception, misrepresentation, concealment, suppression, false pretense,��false promise or unconscionable contractual provisions.’��On its face, the statute does not require proof that someone relied to their detriment on the false statements.��But courts traditionally have required a showing of reliance before punishing false statements in securities fraud statutes that use very similar language.��Normally, a private lie is not actionable if no one believed or relied on it.
• “The question that higher courts will need to address is whether the Attorney General can dissolve and liquidate a company for expressing false valuation opinions to sophisticated lenders and insurers who may not have believed or relied upon the opinions.��While the Attorney General may not need to prove reliance to stop companies from issuing false statements to the public in consumer or securities offerings, the statute is being used here to punish a private fraud on sophisticated parties without showing the essential element of reliance and harm.
• “At trial, the Attorney General will be seeking an order requiring the Trump organization to disgorge any enrichment they received by using these false statements.��It is not clear how the Attorney General will quantify the gains attributable to the false statements when they are not contending that the lenders and insurance companies relied on the statements in entering into transactions with the Trump organization.”

The lead researchers — Professors Brendan Nyhan from Dartmouth University, Jaime Settle from William & Mary, Emily Thorson from ���ϲ����� and Magdalena Wojcieszak from University of California, Davis – ran a study for three months in 2020 that reduced the volume of content from politically like-minded sources in the Feeds of consenting participants.

The researchers found that the majority of Facebook users’ News Feeds consists of posts from politically like-minded sources, while political information and news represent only a small fraction of their feeds.

In addition to decreasing exposure to content from like-minded sources, the experimental intervention also resulted in a decrease in exposure to uncivil language and an increase in exposure to posts from sources with politically dissimilar views.

However, the researchers found that these changes to a person’s Facebook feed had no impact on a variety of beliefs and attitudes, including affective polarization, ideological extremity, and beliefs in false claims.

“These results underscore how hard it is to change political opinions,” said Emily Thorson, an assistant professor of political science in the Maxwell School at ���ϲ�����. “In addition, it’s important to emphasize that social media still comprises a relatively small part of most people’s information diets. As a result, even drastic changes to what they see on platforms may not have downstream effects on their attitudes.” Thorson’s research focuses on political misperceptions and political knowledge.

These findings are part of a broader research project examining the role of social media in U.S. democracy. Known as the, the project is the first of its kind providing social media scientists with access to social media data that previously has been largely inaccessible.

Seventeen academics from U.S. colleges and universities, including ���ϲ�����, teamed up with Meta to conduct independent research on what people see on social media and how it affects them. The project built in several safeguards to protect the researchers’ independence. All the studies were preregistered, and eta could not restrict or censor the findings. The academic lead authors had final authority on all writing and research decisions.

The research for “” was divided into two parts.

From June to September 2020, the researchers measured how often all adult Facebook users saw content from politically aligned sources. The results showed that for the median Facebook user, slightly over half the content they saw was from politically like-minded sources, and just 14.7% was from sources with different political leanings.

In September to December 2020, the researchers conducted a multi-wave experiment with 23,377 consenting adult users of Facebook in the US. The study reduced the volume of content from like-minded sources to gauge the effect on political attitudes. People in the treatment group saw about one-third less content from like-minded sources. In the treatment group,�� total engagement with content from like-minded sources decreased, but their rate of engagement increased: when they did see content from like-minded sources, they were more likely to click on it. This pattern illustrates human behavior compensating for algorithmic changes.

Additional studies that are part of this project are “,” “,” and “,”

��

“The dedication of the national monuments to Emmett Louis Till and his mother Mamie Till Mobley are essential to inscribing their memories and legacies into the American landscape.�� There are many lives and chapters that make up the entire history of the United States.�� Some of them are horrid, such as the brutal murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, a Black youth who fell prey to the racist and gender norms of American society based on lies – the lie of his alleged sexual affront against a White woman, the lie that his death was justified based on his race and his refusal to deny his own humanity, the lie that the perpetrators of this crime could not be held legally accountable, and the lie that the truth of these events would ever be forgotten.�� President Biden’s declaration of these monuments ensures that their sacrifices and contributions will be included in the whole telling of America,” said Johnson.

“A society can only advance and become just if it faces the glorious and inglorious realities of its history.�� Ms. Mobley knew this and pulled back the curtain and insisted that the world see the grotesqueness of racism that was brutally leveled against her son. ��Her challenge to us then, as now, is to see, to know, and to confront these truths of her son’s murder and the many others who were violated, disappeared and killed for racist motivations with impunity.�� This country owes so much to the Till family for insisting that what was always known to be wrong someday would be made right.�� But individuals, officials, and institutions repeatedly failed them.�� There was no justice for them in 1955 with the farcical trial acquitting Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam nor as recently as 2023 with the refusal to serve the discovered arrest warrant against Carolyn Bryant Donham.�� Yet, the Till family turned disappointment, anger and grief into a catalyst to spur a movement for civil rights and change.�� As James Baldwin recognized, ‘Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced,'” said Johnson.

“Today, as we witness disgraceful attempts to erase, diminish and distort the histories and experiences of diverse Americans based on race, gender, sexuality or identity, the Till family reminds us that the struggle for truth and justice continues.�� It is so with these monuments.�� These national monuments are a testament that efforts to quash truth will not succeed and that memory, legacy and the never-ending demand for justice will prevail.�� As the nation pays honor and gratitude to the Till family through these monuments, we are reminded that we must face all that we are if we ever hope to be all that we can be,” said Johnson.

Reporters who want to interview Johnson on this story, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ���ϲ�����, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu or 412-496-0551.

, ���ϲ����� history professor at the Maxwell School, said the coronation is a “historical oddity.”

• “The fact that British monarchs still undergo a coronation at all is a historical oddity. None of the other European kings or queens bother to do it. It’s not legally necessary to take the British Crown. Charles’ great uncle Edward VIII wanted to skip the fuss entirely and as it turned out was never crowned, but we still consider him a (briefly ruling) king. So it’s a ceremony in search of a purpose. And it is reinvented on each occasion to serve whatever seems to be the needs of the moment,” said Allport.

Allport specializes in the history of Britain and his most recent book is “.”

Reporters who would like to schedule an interview with Professor Allport, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, ���ϲ�����’s executive director of media relations, at��ejmbuqe@syr.edu��or 412-496-0551.

, a professor at ���ϲ�����. Dima has taught classes about soccer and popular culture for the course “Soccer and Africa,” offers some thoughts about what it will take for Americans to bring the same level of enthusiasm to soccer as they do to watching Ted Lasso.

• “Given the series’ immense popularity, it is fair to wonder if��Ted Lassohas changed the perception/reality that Americans do not know or care about soccer. It must be said that, ever since the US last hosted the World Cup in 1994, this has cyclically become a modish question. The short answer is…marginally so. Yes, the Premier League has respectable TV ratings in the US; yes, MLS has become bigger and more fun; yes, the US Women’s national team continues to dominate the world and we should all care about that much more; yes, the US men’s national team continues to show good promise for the future, as talented young players—Pulisic, Reyna, Adams, McKennie—will all be in their prime at the next World Cup, co-hosted by the US along with Canada and Mexico; but, no, this is still a sport that barely cracks the top five of main US sports. Ted Lasso cannot make Americans care more about soccer, because only consistent winning can do that in the US,” said Dima.

• “The series became a hit by relying on the excessive American fascination with everything British. It is also funny, well-written, really well-acted, and, most importantly, almost obnoxiously optimistic. Is there a more typically American quality than obnoxious optimism? I believe in ‘Believe,’” says Ted in the first season finale. Optimism, belief, hope, and ridiculousness are all wrapped into this one motto that also represents a distillation of the American spirit—one that does not break when coming face to face with the (stereotypically) stern, stoic, and undemonstrative English philosophy of life,” said Dima.

• “Ted, unabashedly, is who is he—he does not change. If anything, it feels like it is Ted who is meant to change everyone else. His unfailing ethic of care positively affects those around him, but he himself does not change. This means that in essence, he is still an American football��coach. It is not soccer, then, that wins the hearts of the viewers, it is American exceptionalism, sugarcoated with a double dose of “believe.” And whenever this exceptionalism translates into the US men’s national team regularly winning on the world stage, it will be then and only then that soccer will gain in popularity,” said Dima.

For reporters looking to connect with Professor Dima, please contact Ellen James Mbuqu, executive director of media relations, ejmbuqe@syr.edu or 412-496-0551.

���ϲ����� associate professor and social media researcher�� (they/them) is available to speak to the media about this issue. They said this is less about national security and more about censorship:

• “This is how statecraft takes place in the digital era—the United States has a habit of framing its efforts as benevolent and in the national interest. But the world is bigger than individual nations. People everywhere should be concerned about sovereigns controlling public opinion through nationalistic mechanisms. The threat to freedom of information in the United States is bigger than TikTok,” said Grygiel.

You can see their full bio on their website:����and here is a sample of some of their interviews:

• CBS News,
• Washington Post,
• CNN,
• Forbes,
• Wall Street Journal,
• Time,
• The Conversation, (opinion)
• Associated Press,
• Quartz, ?
• ZDNet,
• The Associated Press,��
• The Guardian,

Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu or 412-496-0551 to set up an interview.

, associate professor at ���ϲ����� with a research focus on the international politics of money and finance. He studies and writes about sanctions, whether it is against individuals or entire nations. His book (Oxford) comes out this month.

In regards to the newest phase of Task Force KleptoCapture, he had this to say:

• “The theory behind targeting Russia’s economic elite is that they are powerful voices within the political system, and they will respond to the economic pain of sanctions by pressing Putin to revise his war aims. In other words, sanctioning oligarchs is a way to apply coercive pressure on important actors within Russia which, in turn, could help change Putin’s behavior,” said McDowell.

• “However, Western policymakers now acknowledge that the end game of the sanctions regime is less about coercion than it is about weakening the Russian economy to diminish its capacity to wage war. Sanctioning Russian billionaires does little to degrade Russian military capabilities, and so they are minimal consequences at this stage of the conflict,” said McDowell.

To schedule an interview with Prof. McDowell. Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu 412-496-0551.

Prof. Keck has been closely following the developments around anti-drag and anti-trans bills that have been proliferating across state legislatures.

• “Across a wide range of fronts, we’re seeing an escalating series of state legislative threats to free expression, and it’s an open question whether the federal courts will serve as an adequate guardrail in defense of the First Amendment,” said Keck.

Keck’s research focuses on constitutional courts and the use of legal strategies by movements for social change, on both the left and the right. He teaches courses about LGBT rights and the major constitutional conflicts that have shaped American political development from the framing of the Constitution in 1787 up through the most recent decisions of the Roberts Court.

, ���ϲ����� professor of political science and author of , is an expert on Russian politics and international relations.

• “It’s obviously great news that Brittney Griner is coming home. But there will be reasonable questions about the swap, given Viktor Bout’s crimes as one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers and his obvious value to Russia. It is unfortunate that Paul Whelan, who was arrested on what look like trumped-up espionage charges and has been held for four years, was not included in this deal. The prospects for his return now look bleak, given Russia’s position,” said Taylor

is a distinguished scholar in residence at ���ϲ����� College of Law and former founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone. Viktor Bout was investigated by the UN for supplying small arms and ammunition to fighters in the Sierra Leone civil war.

Crane’s reaction to the prisoner swap:

• “The release of Britney Griner from the clutches of Russian tyranny is important and necessary. To achieve that goal sometimes the political environment requires that we ‘dance with the devil’. That ‘devil’��was Viktor Bout, the infamous lord of war who caused so much pain and suffering by selling arms to very dark corners of the world,” said Crane.

• “As Chief Prosecutor of the international war crimes tribunal in West Africa, called the Special Court for Sierra Leone, I uncovered the insidious acts of Victor Bout in the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia. In large measure, he is individually criminally responsible for the murder, rape, maiming, and mutilation of tens of thousands of human beings in West Africa. Convicted to 25 years in a U.S. Federal Prison, he has languished there for numerous years even now refusing to admit culpability. Justice has been done and he will go down in history as the merchant of death,” said Crane.

To schedule an interview with either Crane or Taylor, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe at ejmbuqe@syr.edu or Vanessa Marquette at vrmarque@syr.edu.

For , ���ϲ����� associate professor of communications at the Newhouse School, said that the increased demand for diverse Santas that reflect the society is because:

• “Santa is bigger than the narrow narratives that have been previously constructed,” said Corsbie-Massay. “But the opportunity to put characters in different bodies to tell different stories helps us��understand the diversity of humanity.”

Corsbie-Massay, mother to a young son, says that she makes Black Santas part of her home decoration for the holidays.

• “I like to have our house filled with Black Santas because I need my son to know that Santa was from Myra, formerly Asia Minor. and now present-day Turkey. We do go see Santa but Santa does not come to our house because the historical Santa of Myra helped those in need. So that is an easy way to focus on the narrative of Santa without the expectations of Santa leaving you presents under the tree,” said Corsbie-Massay.

Corsbie-Massay, was recently interviewed on the topic by ABC News for the digital story: .

• In the news piece, she said ‘”Santas that are Black or other minorities meets the community’s needs for self-representation.��Santa as an idea is valuable. We can talk about Santa in different types of bodies can add value to us as a society,’ she said.”

In addition to her teaching and research, Corsbie-Massay is the co-host of the podcast .

She is also the author of “” (2022) that examines how satire in both traditional media and new spaces reinforces or disrupts issues of marginalization in the United States.��Her previous book “”��(2021), bridges media theory, psychology, and interpersonal communication by describing how our relationships with media emulate the relationships we develop with friends and romantic partners through their ability to replicate intimacy, regularity and reciprocity.

To schedule an interview, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at 412.496.0551 (cell) or .

Steven White, an associate professor of political science at the Maxwell School at ���ϲ����� who studies Southern politics and race and politics, had this reaction to the news:

• “Moving South Carolina to the front of the Democratic primary calendar will give Black voters more influence in early media coverage, but I don’t think the change will have a big impact on who actually gets the nomination. Biden easily won the nomination in 2020 despite doing terribly in Iowa and New Hampshire. I think we’re probably already past the days when early momentum from those states could carry an underdog to the nomination,” said White.

To schedule an interview with Prof. White, please reach out to Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ���ϲ����� at either or 412-496-0551 (cell)

Also this week, the European Union’s top official on Wednesday proposed the creation of a United Nations-backed court to investigate and prosecute possible Russian crimes in the war in Ukraine, reflecting growing calls in Kyiv and the West for holding Moscow accountable for atrocities committed since its invasion. ()

Reporters looking for expert insight on ongoing issues with war crimes and the Ukraine invasion, please see comments from ���ϲ����� scholar-in-residence and former war crimes prosecutor David Crane.

• “The criminal acts by the Russian Federation upon a fellow member state of the United Nations demand accountability, particularly for the crime of aggression.��This aggression is a direct affront to the international community and the United Nations.��The rule of law has been ignored by the Russian Federation, a permanent member of the UN Security Council. This cannot stand.��The world’s tyrants and dictators watch like crocodiles as to what the international community does about Putin’s aggression.��If we do nothing it will be a signal to them that they can act in other parts of the world.��We are at a historic and seminal moment in international history, what we decide to do about Russian aggression will set the geo-political tone for the rest of the 21st Century,” said Crane.

Crane recently co-authored a white paper, “,” written with ���ϲ����� College of Law students that offers in-depth accounting and accusations of crimes committed by the Russian Federation and President Vladimir Putin during the invasion of Ukraine.

Crane is the co-founder of , an online student-run law review and public service blog and the����(SAP), an internationally-recognized effort among students, activists, journalists and non-governmental organizations to document war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Syrian Civil War.

In 2014, Crane co-authored the “” that detailed the systematic killing of thousands of people in Syria and����at the UN Security Council. Crane also has testified to the����and its����on the Syria crisis and��. In 2016, Crane����a UN resolution “to establish a special team to ‘collect, consolidate, preserve and analyze evidence’ as well as to prepare cases on war crimes and human rights abuses committed during the conflict in Syria.” Subsequently, he assisted the UN in setting up the����mandated by the resolution.

When he was chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Crane was the first American to be a chief prosecutor of an international war crimes tribunal since 1945 when Justice Robert Jackson and Telford Taylor were prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials.

���ϲ����� Professor of Law Arlene Kanter said these policies have never been an adequate solution.

• “In the 1980s when homelessness entered the national consciousness, calls for increased use of involuntary institutionalization echoed throughout the nation. Out of sight out of mind. Here we are again. It did not work then, and it will not work now,” said Kanter.

• “As a young lawyer in Washington DC, my first case was to represent homeless people who sought to sleep in Lafayette park as their means of protest that they had nowhere else to go. The US Supreme Court reversed the lower court that had said their right to protest by sleeping in a public park was protected under the first amendment,” said Kanter. Then, there were a handful of homeless people in DC. Today there are many more in most cities across the country.”

• “The research then and now shows that most homeless people need first and foremost permanent housing. Pathways, an organization in New York City and a model for other cities, provides housing and support services. Their model works but is underfunded. Institutions are not homes. They will not solve the problem of homelessness, only homes will,” said Kanter.

Professor Kanter is the founder and director of ���ϲ����� College of Law’s����which houses the nation’s most extensive disability law program.

Professor Kanter is an internationally acclaimed expert in international and comparative disability law. She publishes and lectures extensively on domestic and international human rights and disability law and policy. Her recent book,�� traces the development of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. She is a co-author of��. She also co-authored the first law casebook on international and comparative disability law, and has published over 100 articles and book chapters on topics related to international human rights and comparative disability law, US disability and special education laws, inclusive education, violence against women with disabilities, mental health law, legal personhood, and alternatives to guardianship.

To schedule an interview, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu or 412-496-0551 (cell).

Additionally, the New York attorney general announced that the state will receive up to $524 million from Teva, a drugmaker, that is believed to have contributed to the drug epidemic as well.

As these settlements and others are announced, one of the greatest questions is how the money will be distributed and used to adequately address the destruction left by opioid addiction.

Dessa Bergen-Cico is a Professor in the Department of Public Health, Coordinator of the Addiction Studies program and faculty in the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at ���ϲ�����. She said the issue of who gets money and how much is multifaceted but in brief, she said:

• “In short, the money should be used for a.) evidence-based prevention; b.) treatment costs and expansion of treatment availability; and c.) education and training of a workforce to be able to effectively meet these demands,” said Bergen-Cico.

Professor Bergen-Cico’s research and teaching focus on alcohol, other drugs, and addictive behaviors; traumatic stress, the use of mindfulness-based practices for prevention and recovery from trauma and addictions, and complementary health practices. She is the author of more than 40 scholarly publications and the book “.”

She holds a Research Appointment at the ���ϲ����� Veterans Administration Medical Center and Fellow of the American Academy of Health Care Providers in the Addictive Disorders. Professor Bergen-Cico is a Certified Addiction Specialist (CAS), Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) and a Certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher.

Past interviews include:

• Al jazeera, “.”
• USA Today, “ “
• ���ϲ�����.com “ “
• San Diego Tribune, “ .”
• S. News & World Report, “ .”

To schedule an interview with Prof. Bergen-Cico, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ���ϲ�����, at or 412-496-0551.

• ‘We have one thing further to say, and that is We heartily recommend Union and a Good Agreement between you our Brethren. Never disagree, but preserve a strict Friendship for one another, and thereby you as well as we will become the Stronger. Our wise Forefathers established Union and Amity between the Five Nations; this has made us formidable, this has given us great weight and Authority with our Neighboring Nations. We are a powerful confederacy, and, by your observing the same Methods our wise Forefathers have taken, you will acquire fresh Strength and Power; therefore, whatever befalls you, never fall out with one another.’ (Indian treaties printed by Benjamin Franklin, 1736-1762, edited by Julian Boyd, 1938)

The paper, “,” was released earlier this year and published in the academic journal .

The researchers—, Assistant Professor, ���ϲ�����, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and , an independent scholar based in New York City—evaluated if learning about historical events, and especially the roots of racist politics and practices in America, impact people’s beliefs about systematic racial inequality.

They analyzed data from two key studies that surveyed adults who were randomly assigned to learn about the effects of systematic housing, education, and job discrimination that has negatively impacted Black communities throughout the United States.

According to Fang and White, they “find compelling evidence that such arguments can increase beliefs in the existence of Black-white racial inequality and increase beliefs in structural causes of racial inequality, particularly among white Republicans and Independents.” They also find evidence that such information can reduce racial resentment among these groups.

The researchers say this demonstrates that exposure to historical information can induce more nuanced thinking about contemporary racial inequalities in the United States.

The researchers conclude that more study is needed for more questions arising from the research. First, they did not observe consistent effects, especially among white Republicans, of historical information on both beliefs about racial inequality’s existence and beliefs in various structural causes of racial inequality.

“We suspect this reflects differences between acknowledging a problem, acknowledging the causes of a problem, and agreeing on the solution. This suggests that even if more Americans acknowledge that racial inequality exists, agreeing on solutions to meaningfully redress it may be more difficult,” the researchers write in the paper.

The complete paper, and its supporting materials, .

Reporters looking to connect with the authors of the report, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ���ϲ�����, at 412-496-0551 or ejmbuqe@syr.edu.

Professor Ray, who specializes in the art and architecture of the British Empire in India and teaches European art and architecture of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.

She is currently working with students to examine and discuss the different aspects of Queen Elizabeth II’s official coronation portrait.

“It is fascinating to see how, in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s demise, the iconography of the British royal family has now been extended through the image of King Charles III,” said Ray. “The power of royal iconography relies on the endurance of royal portraits—those visual representations laden with emblems like the crown and scepter. The Royal Mint recently unveiled a commemorative coin adorned with the head of King Charles. The word ‘Rex,’ meaning ‘reigning king,’ sits just above Charles’s head, standing in for the crown that the late queen wore and with which he too will be coronated.”

Reporters who want to interview Professor Ray, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ���ϲ�����, at 412-496-0551 or ejmbuqe@syr.edu.

This week, two hotly-contested senate races in Georgia and Pennsylvania were the subject of shocking reports, only four weeks before election day. In Georgia, an article came out by the Daily Beast that Republican candidate, Herschel Walker, paid for a former girlfriend’s abortion. Walker has run on an anti-abortion platform.��In Pennsylvania, a report by Jezebel accused Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz of leading a research team that conducted research that resulted in the death of more than 300 dogs.

But in the current political climate where people are so divided based on political affiliation, do these claims actually influence voters?

,��a political psychologist, professor at ���ϲ�����, and the author of��, said it comes down to a host of reasons why or why not a scandal resonates.

“The empirical work on scandals is mixed. What matters is the type of scandal, whether it receives sufficient media coverage, how in line the scandal is with the beliefs about the candidate, how relevant it is to the image of the politician, and the timing right before an election” said Gadarian.

“So, that’s not to say that scandals can never undermine voters’ choices close to an election. Even in a polarized electorate, there are a lot of independent voters and partisan voters who have to make the decision to actually turn out,” said Gadarian. “But we shouldn’t overstate the effect that scandals can have on voters because there are still a large number of people who don’t pay attention to politics.”

“For the Walker case in Georgia, just because national media is covering it, it’s less likely to matter unless it is covered by local media and framed as relevant to policy and not just to his character,” said Gadarian.

“That said, Walker is likely to underperform rather than a more traditional Republican candidate because of the scandals, but also because he’s inexperienced as a candidate. What we might see is another pathway by which the scandal matters indirectly – donors and the national party might take their resources and put it in other races where they are more sure that the candidate has a stronger shot,” said Gadarian.

A judge overturned his murder conviction in the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee after an investigation by prosecutors uncovered information pointing to the possible involvement of two “alternative suspects,” as well as “significant reliability issues regarding the most critical pieces of evidence” used to convict Mr. Syed, including cellphone tower data.

In the motion, prosecutors questioned the cellphone data used to place Mr. Syed near the burial site of Lee, citing a notice on the cellphone records specifically stating that billing locations for incoming calls “would not be considered reliable information for location.”

, the executive director of the ��at ���ϲ�����, offers insight on the case and how the investigation can now proceed using advanced DNA analysis that was not available more than 20 years ago.

“At this time the prosecutors are not asserting that Mr. Syed is innocent, but rather that they no longer have confidence in the integrity of the conviction,” said Corrado. “They are currently awaiting DNA analysis in the hopes that new DNA technology may shed some light on whether Mr. Syed’s or a different individual’s DNA is found associated with the victim.”

“Advances in forensic DNA analysis have enabled scientists to re-examine evidence that previously did not provide probative information. These advances include an increased sensitivity in DNA analysis that allow for DNA profiles to be generated from small amounts of cellular material that could be deposited for example by someone merely grabbing or touching clothing of the victim, new methods for collecting DNA and cellular material from clothing such as the use of a wet-vacuum (M-VAC®) collection system, and lastly, the use of probabilistic genotyping software that enables better interpretations of mixtures of more than one person’s DNA profile in samples with low amounts of DNA arising from touching an object rather than from a the presence of a body fluid such as blood or saliva,” said Corrado.

“Since many of these techniques were not available 10-20 years ago, we are seeing instances where they are being used to solve current cold cases as well as provide new, sometimes exculpatory results, in older cases that may have had limited forensic evidence providing probative information at the time of the original conviction,” said Corrado

“In this particular case, there was little forensic evidence that tied Mr. Syed to the crime and in particular, much of the prosecution’s case relied on a co-operating co-defendant. It is hoped that current cases in the judicial system would have the benefit of using these newer technologies to provide probative information to link or exclude an individual from evidence up-front during the initial investigation and thereby reducing the chance of potentially innocent persons spending a lifetime in prison,” said Corrado.

To schedule an interview with Corrado, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ���ϲ�����, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu or 421-496-0551.

The study, “COVID-19 Mortality Burden and Comorbidity Patterns Among Decedents with and without Intellectual and Developmental Disability in the US”, looked at 2020 death certificate data to examine death patterns for people with or without IDD. They found that those without an IDD, COVID was the third leading cause of death, following heart disease and cancer. But for those with IDD, COVID was the number one cause of death.

IDD are conditions characterized by life-long impairments in mobility, language, learning, self-care, and independent living. Examples include Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, and intellectual disabilities.

���ϲ����� Associate Professor and lead author of the paper, published by the , said that this study had confirmed earlier predictions that COVID-19 would be deadlier among people with IDD.

“Even when we adjusted for age, sex, and racial-ethnic minority status, we found that COVID-19 was far deadlier for those with IDD than those without,” said Landes. “Furthermore, people with IDD were dying at much younger ages.”

The research team for the study includes Landes, a faculty associate for the����at ���ϲ�����’s��;��, a graduate student in the sociology department at the Maxwell School at ���ϲ�����; and , Distinguished Service Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at SUNY����in ���ϲ�����, N.Y.

In understanding why the COVID-19 burden is greater for people with IDD, the researchers feel that more attention needs to be given to comorbidities as well as living arrangements.

“People with IDD are living in congregate settings at a higher percentage than those without an IDD,” said Landes. “Group living situations, especially with close-contact personal care support, is associated with the spread of COVID-19. For the estimated 13 to 20 percent of adults with IDD living in these settings, the risk cannot be overstated.”

“While it is important to attend to differences in comorbidity patterns, it is also necessary to realize that the increased COVID-19 burden among people with IDD may at least partly be due to social factors such as a higher proportion of this population living in group care settings, insufficient attention to care needs on a public and private level, and inequities in access to quality healthcare,” said Landes.

Additionally, the researchers noted the higher occurrences of hypothyroidism and seizures among all IDD statuses, and obesity among decedents with intellectual disability and Down syndrome. “Out of an abundance of caution, medical providers should carefully monitor symptoms among COVID-19 patients with IDD diagnosed with hypothyroidism and/or seizures.”

But the researchers say that more research is needed to explore these social factors in better understanding the COVID-19 death rates for people with IDD.

Furthermore, the authors note that the study is focused on the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. A current data inequity that permits IDD to be reported as the cause of death prevents understanding whether people with IDD continue to experience a disproportionate COVID-19 burden.

“This is preventing adequate surveillance of the health of this marginalized population during the ongoing pandemic. While changes are needed to the death certificate coding and revision process to address this data inequity in the long-term, in the immediate, the CDC will need to recognize this inequity and take necessary action to allow for analysis of current death certificate data at the decedent level for this population,” said Landes.

Reporters looking to connect with the authors of the report, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ���ϲ�����, at 412-496-0551 or ejmbuqe@syr.edu

###

Allport specializes in the history of Britain in the period of the two world wars. His most recent book is “.”

In regards to the legacy of Queen Elizabeth, he said:

“She was one of the last living connections with the wartime generation, and her death not only brings that link with a key episode from the past to a close but also raises the question of where the United Kingdom as a state goes from here. It may be necessary to develop a new kind of post-Elizabethan national identity,” said Allport.

Reporters who would like to schedule an interview with Professor Allport, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, ���ϲ�����’s executive director of media relations, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu or 412-496-0551.

Reporters covering this report and issues around food insecurity, please see insight from , ���ϲ����� professor and a national expert on food insecurity, nutrition and welfare policy, and the well-being of vulnerable populations.

“It is likely that rising food prices are hitting older adults on fixed incomes hard, resulting in increased levels of food insecurity. Unfortunately, negative health effects are likely not far behind. More needs to be done to protect older Americans in the months ahead,” said Heflin.

by Heflin and colleagues suggests that cognitive decline may pose a barrier to SNAP participation for older adults, particularly for older adults living alone and female older adults due to the complexity of the application process.

by Heflin and colleagues indicates that 1 in 4 older adults experiences a break in their SNAP benefits, termed administrative churn, in which older adults have access to fewer resources to support food consumption. , Heflin and colleagues found evidence that older adults on SNAP with diabetes and hypertension, two illnesses that require regular treatment to maintain adequate control, were making trade-offs between food and medicine, sometimes called the “eat or treat” problem.

However, households with children experienced significant declines in food insecurity during 2021, likely as a result of the Child Tax Credit. This decrease in food insecurity occurred across a variety of household types with children including married and single mother households and those with young child. This is important because the risk of food insecurity is highest during childhood and a host of studies have shown the negative consequences associated with exposure to food insecurity in terms of physical health, mental health, cognitive development, and behavioral outcomes, according to Heflin.

In addition, other groups that are often left behind when food insecurity declines saw significant improvements in 2021, including households headed by Black individuals, low-income households and those in the South.

Heflin is the chair and professor of public administration and international affairs and associate dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at ���ϲ�����. She is also a faculty affiliate at the Center for Policy Research and the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion. As a research and policy scholar for nearly twenty years, Heflin is regarded as a national expert on food insecurity, nutrition and welfare policy, and the well-being of vulnerable populations. Heflin’s research has helped document the causes and consequences of food insecurity, identify the barriers and consequences of participation in nutrition programs, and understand the changing role of the public safety net in the lives of low-income Americans.

Heflin has published over 70 research articles and her work has appeared in leading journals and her research is regularly funded by the National Institutes for Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation. From 2012-2017, Heflin was supported by a five-year award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service as a family self-sufficiency and stability research scholar to explore how multiple program participation affects vulnerable families’ well-being.

Heflin has experience engaging with federal policymakers, recently providing expert testimony before Congress, providing technical assistance to states working to improve access to food and nutrition assistance programs, and working with county agencies to redesign their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) application process.

This week, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed supervised injection sites in the state. The legislation would have allowed supervised injection sites to operate in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland through the end of 2027, “providing a hygienic space supervised by trained staff where people who use drugs can consume preobtained drugs.”

Newsom said in a letter to the state Senate that he was concerned about “the unlimited number of safe injection sites that this bill would authorize,” as they “could induce a world of unintended consequences.”

For reporters covering stories about supervised injection sites and the ongoing addiction epidemic, please see comments from ���ϲ����� professor and addiction expert��.

Bergen-Cico is a Professor in the Department of Public Health, Coordinator of the Addiction Studies program and faculty in the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at ���ϲ�����.��She has also been studying and teaching about addiction and supervised injection sites for many years.

Bergen-Cico provided some answers to common questions on the issue

Q: As someone who has studied addiction, what have you seen with the supervised drug-use sites?

A: I have quite a bit of experience with safe injection sites and safe drug consumption facilities. I’ve been studying these facilities and programs since 2007 across Europe and used to teach an SU Abroad course that took students to visit these facilities in the Netherlands.

Q: Can they be part of a public health plan to reduce overdoses?

A: ��Yes these are based in public health harm reduction. These sites not only save lives but they greatly reduce public nuisance, open drug scenes, used needles and disease spread and perhaps most importantly they provide a point of contact between chronic drug users and healthcare staff and social workers.

Q: Do they encourage drug use?

A: No they do not encourage drug use data does not indicate this – these are not social clubs and are more akin to a medical facility.

Q: What do politicians need to understand about these places?

A: Site visits to existing facilities by law enforcement, politicians, and public health professionals are essential for understanding how these programs work. In the Netherlands, where these were first implemented, they were proposed by police because otherwise the police spent all their time rearresting people who were chronically addicted and using drugs in public spaces and causing problems for public health and safety. Establishing these facilities keeps people who are homeless and chronically using drugs in a safe centralized location and the quality of life for the surrounding communities greatly increased; overdoses declined; HIV and Hepatitis C dropped significantly.

To schedule an interview with Prof. Bergen-Cico, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe at��ejmbuqe@syr.edu��or 412-496-0551.

The paper, “” and published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Nexus, offers insight into the obstacles for fire science and provides guidance for investing in future research. The research was authored by 86 researchers from across disciplines.

���ϲ����� researchers��, professor of geography and the environment and senior research associate for the Center for Environmental Policy and Administration, and��, assistant professor of earth and environmental Sciences, who studies climate and ecological change in the Arctic, both contributed to the report.

“The fire-related headlines each summer and fall serve to remind us that wildfire presents some of the most dramatic and consequential challenges in our warming world. The new paper in PNAS-Nexus is important because it represents the combined insights of several dozen of the most active wildfire researchers in the world,” said Bendix. “The collaboration brought together a dazzling array of expertise on topics including fire behavior, ecological impacts of fire, socioeconomic impacts of fire, wildfire smoke and public health, flooding, erosion and landslides resulting from fire, the varied human impacts on fire frequency and behavior, fire history over timeframes from years to millennia, and the changes in fire regimes as climate changes. The outcome is a paper that identifies the key areas and approaches for fire research that will help to meet the challenges of what has been termed a global wildfire crisis.”

The paper provides a suggested roadmap whereby scientists can cross disciplinary boundaries to synthesize both traditional and innovative data sources in developing fire science that can guide fire planning and management while advancing fundamental scientific understanding.

“Fire is a fundamental ecological and societal force on our planet. Although we have coexisted with fire throughout our human history, we are currently dealing with fire regimes of the Anthropocene — which essentially means a world where fire ignition and spread are exacerbated by human ignitions and global warming, ecosystems are increasingly flammable because of activities such as fire suppression causing the build-up of fuels, and fire risks are more severe because there are more people living in areas susceptible to burning,” said Chipman. “Thus, there are several key challenges associated with how to study and manage fire in these increasingly human-dominated landscapes.”

The five challenges outlined in the paper are:

• Integrate across disciplines by promoting coordination among physical, biological, and social sciences.��Fire research currently is siloed within disciplines such as forestry, atmospheric chemistry, and others, but wildfire is a biophysical and social phenomenon that cannot be understood with any single disciplinary lens.
• Embrace different ways of knowing and knowledge generation to identify resilience pathways.��Humans from diverse groups and perspectives, including indigenous peoples of tribal nations, can provide scientists with invaluable insights into fire.
• Use fire as a lens to address fundamental science questions.��Fire is such an ancient and pervasive phenomenon that it can be used to help gain new insights into a range of sciences, including ecology and evolutionary biology, the evolution of Homo sapiens, and social dynamics.
• Capitalize on the “firehose” of data to support community values.��With more data now available to study fire in the biosphere than ever before, scientists need funding to harness the data revolution and aid our understanding of fire.
• Develop coupled models that include human dimensions to better anticipate future fire.��To better anticipate future fire activity and its impacts, scientists need to develop more advanced computer modeling systems that incorporate both the human and non-human dimensions of fire.

“One of the major themes of the paper is that we need to develop holistic and integrated approaches to studying fire. This means greater collaboration amongst scientists of different disciplines to really understand the multifaceted causes and consequences of fire. But there is a lot more to it than that.” said Chipman.

“If we want to promote resilience to fire on this planet, it is absolutely critical to focus on the co-production of knowledge between western and Indigenous scholars. Many Indigenous peoples have a long and rich history of living with and utilizing fire to promote healthy ecosystems and are also often at the forefront of dealing with rapidly changing environments. So this paper attempts to highlight key knowledge gaps and offers a perspective on how to create better communication and promote the sharing of knowledge. In a nutshell, fire is physical, fire is ecological, but most importantly, because it is something that humans both affect and are affected by, fire is human,” said Chipman.

To schedule an interview with Bendix or Chipman, reporters should contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ���ϲ����� at��ejmbuqe@syr.edu��or 412-496-0551.

For reporters covering this ongoing story, ���ϲ����� architecture professor����offers a unique perspective due to her work researching the physical structures of abortion clinics and how the debate has shaped access to reproductive healthcare.

She is the author of “,” and the article “.”

There are currently 16 states and the District of Columbia that have laws protecting access to abortion. Brown says that there will be increased visitations to these clinics from people living in places where state governments have completely outlawed abortion.

“The clinics could operate seven days a week and would still not be able to provide the care that will be in high demand. This means that additional clinics or other spaces will need to be constructed, which takes a lot of time,” Brown said.

“Furthermore, it takes funding and finding space where landlords will rent to abortion clinics,” said Brown. “There are many communities and spaces where they won’t rent to clinics offering abortion services. Importantly, zoning laws can be manipulated where clinics can’t operate at all.”

In her book “Contested Spaces” Brown conducted in-depth research on abortion clinics in America and found that many clinics were operating out of spaces that were not originally designed to be health clinics because of the expense of new construction and that landlords were unwilling to rent to them. In a 2014 interview with Fast Company she said:

“Architecture is absent in these types of spaces, they can’t afford architects or architectural services, they believe architects won’t work with them, and they are often in existing spaces that have been re-appropriated as a medical facility,” she says in the article��.

Additionally, Brown has worked with the Jackson Women’s Health Organization – which is at the heart of the Supreme Court draft opinion that was leaked to the press. Along with the architecture non-profit she co-founded and leads, ArchiteXX, Brown created a����to rethink the clinic’s privacy fence.

To schedule an interview with Prof. Brown, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations, at��ejmbuqe@syr.edu��or 412-496-0551.

For additional background, here are some recent articles and profiles of Prof. Brown:

• , Through research and design, Lori A. Brown emphasizes the ties between women’s reproductive decisions and broader social forces. Architectural League
• , LA Times
• , Salon
• , Feministing

Justice Roberts said the leak was “a singular and egregious breach,” and a “betrayal of the confidences of the Court.”

“To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed,” Chief Justice Roberts said in a statement. “The work of the Court will not be affected in any way.”

But two researchers say that these sorts of leaks from the Supreme Court aren’t the issue.�� It is the content of the decisions.

, a PhD candidate in political science at ���ϲ�����’s Maxwell School, and , an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Purdue University, wrote the paper (currently under peer review) “.”

“The thread through our research is that it is the outcome of the case, not the leaked material, that will influence how the public views the court,” said Carrington. “If the leak harms the institution, it is because it overturns a popular decision not because it was leaked in advance.”

The paper, “Plugging the Pipe” directly addresses the Dobbs leak as well as other historical leaks such as Dred Scott deliberations and questionable extrajudicial activities taken by the justices, like Justice Fortas’s support for the Vietnam War.

From the paper:

“The data we present here offer no evidence that legitimacy (measured as diffuse support, support for court curbing, and felt obligation) is harmed by leaks, even if those leaks reveal information that the public views as unbecoming of Supreme Court justices. Contrary to some expectations in existing theories, we also find that the Court’s legitimacy is not enhanced by leaks. Instead, it seems that legitimacy afforded to the Court is unaffected.”

“Our research suggests that what matters is not whether the information is obtained via leaks or official channels but instead the substance of that information. In other words, it is the content that people respond to, not the manner by which the information made it to press. These findings have clear implications for the current public controversy surrounding the leak of the draft opinion in Dobbs: the public will react to that decision-based in large part on policy agreement with the Court’s decision to overturn Roe. Any impact the Politico story has on the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is not because of the leak per se but because of the content contained within the leak.”

To schedule an interview with the researchers, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ���ϲ�����, at��ejmbuqe@syr.edu, or 412-496-0551.

Wagner is a free speech researcher and teaches at the����at SU on topics about freedom of speech and the relationship between communication and human behavior.

“I caution anyone who thinks that Elon Musk buying Twitter will be good for free speech online. This still keeps the forum in private hands, so still, there’s no free speech guarantees. And all it takes is Elon changing his mind (as he does) and it won’t be an ‘absolutist’ free speech space – and to that point, what definition of ‘absolutism’ is Elon relying on? Something tells me it’s all going to be about what Elon wants, not what’s best for all,” said Wagner

To schedule an interview with Wagner on issues related to free speech, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations, at��ejmbuqe@syr.edu��or 412-496-0551.

The paper lays out an indictment of numerous war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression from Feb. 24, 2022, to April 1, 2022, during the invasion of Ukraine. The report includes a sample draft (Appendix A, page 47) of a criminal indictment against President Vladimir Putin for his war crimes. The white paper was created by the Ukraine Task Force, comprising law students and legal scholars, with the goal to create a non-partisan, high-quality analysis of open-source materials.

“Because of his aggressive acts and his intentional targeting of Ukrainian civilians, Vladimir Putin has lost all political legitimacy and has made Russia a pariah state. This white paper catalogs the horror he has unleashed and lays out a pathway for holding him accountable for aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity,” said David Crane L’80, the project leader of the white paper and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at ���ϲ����� College of Law.

Crane is the founding chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, an international war crimes tribunal where he indicted Liberian President Charles Taylor, the first sitting African head of state in history to be held accountable in this way.

According to the report on Ukraine:

“Since the invasion, Ukrainian citizens have been forced to endure kidnappings, property destruction, starvation, terror,�� shellings, and murder at the hands of the Russian Federation. As is consistent with the complex and intricate history of Ukraine, Russia once again seeks to assert its dominance and control of the territory in wanton violation of international law and Ukrainian sovereignty. As of the writing of this document, President Zelenskyy continues to lead his country and seek peace for its citizens, while the Russian Federation continues its campaign of atrocities meant to terrorize Ukraine and strip it of its national identity.

“There is no clearer violation of the laws of humanity. At its most basic elements, international law and the laws of humanity establish self-determination and self-expression of a people as fundamental rights free from infringement by foreign powers. President Putin, and the rest of his Russian Federation political and military command seek to upend these values and establish a new world order with authoritarianism, terror, and oppression at its center. The international community cannot remain silent, and the road does not end at sanctions—it begins.” (page 40)

The 276-page report lays out the history of Russian aggression in Ukraine, the legal framework of accountability, individuals who bear the responsibility for crimes and the specific violations of international law.

“The Ukraine Task Force established by the Global Accountability Network (GAN) was an incredible and unique experience that allowed law students to take an active part in international legal discourse,” said Christopher Martz, a third-year ���ϲ����� Law student, the taskforce director and one of the lead writers of the white paper. “The Ukraine Task Force encountered serious difficulties in documenting war crimes in real time, especially considering the fact that GAN pulled students from all across the country. However, the leadership of Professor Crane and the commitment of GAN volunteers helped overcome these difficulties, resulting in an important living document that creates a framework of accountability moving forward.”

Additionally, the appendix of the report offers exhaustive details of how the researchers documented their evidence:

• Appendix B (page 68) is a crime narrative detailing date and cities where crimes were committed and the responsible party. Appendix B is a grim summary of the civilian deaths suffered during the invasion from bombings and attacks on residences, hospitals, schools, grocery stores, public buses and many more.
• Appendix C (page 102) expands on the crime narrative and provides a more detailed breakdown of the violations of International Humanitarian Law, as well as documenting violations of the Ukrainian Penal Code. Appendix C gives a day-by-day and detailed accounting of the atrocities and war crimes committed and specific articles of the Rome Statute, Geneva Convention and Ukrainian Penal Code they violate.
• Appendix D (page 124) is a comprehensive profile detailing the command-and-control structure of the Russian political and military senior leadership. This “dossier” lists the individuals responsible for the atrocities in Ukraine, and documents relevant information surrounding their responsibility and complicity.

“We have done this once before and we can do it again with the International Criminal Court prosecuting the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity and a United Nations-backed Special Court for Ukraine, the world’s second hybrid international war crimes tribunal, the Special Court for Ukraine the crime of aggression,” Crane said. “Its mandate will be to prosecute those who bear the greatest responsibility for the aggression against Ukraine and must include President Vladimir Putin,”

Members of the media, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at ���ϲ�����, at 412.496.0551 or ejmbuqe@syr.edu��for interviews.

More about David Crane and ���ϲ�����

David Crane was a professor of practice in the ���ϲ����� College of Law from 2006 until his retirement in 2018. During that time, he taught international criminal law, international humanitarian law, military law and national security law. While at ���ϲ�����, Crane founded , an online student-run law review and public service blog and the�� (SAP), an internationally-recognized effort among students, activists, journalists and non-governmental organizations to document war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Syrian Civil War. Crane later returned to the College of Law as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence.

In 2014, Crane co-authored the “” that detailed the systematic killing of thousands of people in Syria and��testified about the report��at the UN Security Council. Crane also has testified to the��US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs��and its����on the Syria crisis and��related human security and humanitarian issues. In 2016, Crane�� a UN resolution “to establish a special team to ‘collect, consolidate, preserve and analyze evidence’ as well as to prepare cases on war crimes and human rights abuses committed during the conflict in Syria.” Subsequently, he assisted the UN in setting up the ��mandated by the resolution.

When he was chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Crane was the first American to be a chief prosecutor of an international war crimes tribunal since 1945 when Justice Robert Jackson and Telford Taylor were prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials.

• “As the Ukraine saga continues to unfold, in what may well be one of the most consequential weeks for Europe in three decades, many questions remain unanswered,” said Williams “It is unclear whether Putin intends to invade, or if he is leveraging military forces to press for diplomatic talks to lead to the changes in the European order he desires.”
• “His initial proposals to NATO were non-starters for the Alliance. There is no way that the US or NATO will officially back down on NATO’s open-door policy and the possibility of Ukraine one day becoming a member,” said Williams. “But the allies also know that there is no chance of Ukraine joining NATO whilst conflict in the Donbass festers, not to mention that Ukraine needs to make a lot of domestic progress before membership is possible.”
• ‘Regardless, Putin wants something in writing which he cannot have. This leaves Europe, the US, and Russia searching for a compromise position on issues related to missile placement, military exercises, and perhaps nonproliferation treaties – but whether this is enough to satisfy the Kremlin is unknown. The extent of troop redeployments in Russia, including from the eastern-most parts of the country to Ukraine’s border, indicates serious preparation for military advances,” said Williams. “Putin could probably have pressured NATO without such a drastic build-up, which is why military analysts are increasingly worried that these moves portend a full-on invasion. But, to invade Ukraine in such a manner would result in Russian ostracization, steep economic sanctions, and perhaps serious military escalation. The more likely outcome is Russian meddling via hybrid war, but the only man who knows how this will play out is Russian President Putin.”

Williams is currently completing a textbook on international security for Cambridge University Press and preparing for another project examining the concept of the citizen soldier. He is also the co-editor of International Politics. His full bio is here: http://www.mjwilliams.com/

To schedule an interview, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, director of media relations, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu or at 412-496-0551.