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    3 Men With White Supremacist Ties Sentenced in Plan to Attack Power Station

    Two of the men met through a neo-Nazi online forum and recruited other people to join their scheme, which was rooted in white supremacist ideology, prosecutors said.Three men with white supremacist ties, including two former U.S. Marines, were sentenced to prison last week after plotting to destroy a power station in the northwestern United States, the U.S. Department of Justice said.The men, Paul James Kryscuk, 38; Liam Collins, 25; and Justin Wade Hermanson, 25; received separate sentences on Thursday for charges related to what the Justice Department described as a racially motivated scheme to attack a power grid.The men gathered information on weapons and explosives, manufactured firearms and stole military gear, prosecutors said.Mr. Kryscuk, of Boise, Idaho, was found in October 2020 with a handwritten list of about a dozen places in Idaho and surrounding states that were home to components of the power grid for the northwestern United States, prosecutors said.The Justice Department did not disclose details about where the men wanted to carry out an attack or their ultimate goal. Sentencing documents on the public court system were not available.Mr. Collins, of Johnston, R.I., received the longest sentence of 10 years for aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of unregistered firearms. Mr. Kryscuk was sentenced to six years and six months for conspiracy to destroy an energy facility. Mr. Hermanson, of Swansboro, N.C., was sentenced to one year and nine months for conspiracy to manufacture firearms and ship interstate.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Supreme Court Allows, for Now, Emergency Abortions in Idaho

    A majority of the justices dismissed the case, reinstating a lower-court ruling that paused the state’s near-total abortion ban.The Supreme Court said on Thursday that it would dismiss a case about emergency abortions in Idaho, temporarily clearing the way for women in the state to receive an abortion when their health is at risk.The brief, unsigned opinion declared that the case had been “improvidently granted.” The decision reinstates a lower-court ruling that had halted Idaho’s near-total ban on abortion and permitted emergency abortions at hospitals if needed to protect the health of the mother while the case makes its way through the courts.The decision, which did not rule on the substance of the case, appeared to closely mirror a version that appeared briefly on the court’s website a day earlier and was reported by Bloomberg. A court spokeswoman acknowledged on Wednesday that the publications unit had “inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document” and said a ruling in the case would appear in due time.The joined cases, Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, focus on whether a federal law aimed at ensuring emergency care for any patient supersedes Idaho’s abortion ban, one of the nation’s strictest. The state outlaws the procedure, with few exceptions unless a woman’s life is in danger.The decision was essentially 6 to 3, with three conservative justices siding with the liberal wing in saying they would drop the case.It was the first time that the court was confronted with the question of statewide restrictions on abortion, many of which swiftly took effect after the court eliminated a constitutional right to the procedure two years ago.Tracking Abortion Bans Across the CountryThe New York Times is tracking the status of abortion laws in each state following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Supreme Court Will Hear Challenge to Tennessee Law Banning Transition Care for Minors

    The move comes as states around the country have pushed to curtail transgender rights.The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether a Tennessee law that bans certain medical treatments for transgender minors violates the Constitution.The move means the court will for the first time hear arguments on the issue of medical care for transgender youth.The Biden administration had asked the justices to take up the case, United States v. Skrmetti, arguing that the measure outlaws treatment for gender dysphoria in youths and “frames that prohibition in explicitly sex-based terms.”In the government’s petition to the court, Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar wrote that the law bans transgender medical care but that it “leaves the same treatments entirely unrestricted if they are prescribed for any other purpose.”Federal courts have splintered over laws aimed at blocking transition care, intensifying pressure on the Supreme Court to intervene. The justices have considered whether to take up the appeals at their private conference each week, but they had repeatedly postponed making a decision.The move comes as states around the country have pushed to curtail transgender rights. Conservative lawmakers have prioritized legislation in recent years that targets gender-transition care and at least 20 Republican-led states have enacted measures restricting access to such medical care for minors.It is also part of a broader effort at legislation aimed at regulating other parts of life, including laws about which bathrooms students and others can use and which sports teams they can play on.This spring, the justices temporarily allowed Idaho to enforce a state ban that limited medical treatment for transgender youth. The law, passed by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature, makes it a felony for doctors to provide transgender medical care for minors, including hormone treatment.The decision in that case, which came to the justices as an emergency application, appeared to split largely along ideological lines, with the court’s liberals dissenting.Along with Idaho, the justices had been asked to weigh in on legislation in Kentucky and Tennessee.The Tennessee measure bans health care providers from offering transition care to minors, including puberty blockers and hormone treatments.The Kentucky law, known as S.B. 150, bans doctors from providing gender-transition surgery or administering puberty blockers or hormone therapy to people under 18.In June 2023, federal judges in both states, in separate rulings, temporarily blocked the laws days before key parts of the laws were set to go into effect.Shortly after, a divided panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned the lower court decision, reinstating the bans. Plaintiffs in Kentucky and Tennessee appealed to the Supreme Court. More

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    Mountain Landslide Destroys Section of Highway to Jackson, Wyo.

    The road, linking Idaho with Wyoming, is a key route to Jackson Hole, a tourism hub. It had been closed to traffic before the landslide.A landslide in the Teton mountains destroyed part of a highway that links Idaho to Jackson, Wyo., forcing the authorities to close the road indefinitely on Saturday just as the area was entering its summer tourism season.No one was injured when a section of the Teton Pass “catastrophically failed,” the Wyoming Department of Transportation said in a statement on Saturday. The highway west of Jackson had been closed to traffic before the road gave way, and crews were working to build a detour around a section where a crack had appeared in the surface days earlier.The department said it expected a long-term closure. Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming said in a separate statement that geologists and engineers would “develop a long-term solution to rebuild the roadway.”Even a short closure would pose major logistical challenges for the area, in part because the road serves Jackson Hole, a major tourism hub in Teton County. Travel and tourism is Wyoming’s second-largest industry, according to the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board, and the county took in about $1.7 billion in travel-related spending in 2022.“We understand this highway is a lifeline for commuters, deliveries, medical care access and tourism, especially with limited alternatives and the summer season upon us,” Darin Westby, the director of the state’s Transportation Department, said in a separate statement.The department’s “engineers, surveyors and geologists mobilized quickly to try to maintain highway viability as long as possible, but catastrophic failure could not be avoided,” Mr. Westby said.The Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce said on its website that travelers could still reach the Jackson area from the west by taking two other roads through the Snake River Canyon. But that detour adds more than an hour of driving time, the local news outlet WyoFile reported.The section of Wyoming State Highway 22 that collapsed was initially closed earlier in the week after cracks appeared in the surface. It reopened after crews patched the cracks but was closed again after a separate mudslide a few miles away sent mud and debris spilling over the road, the Transportation Department said.The department said in its statement on Saturday that its crews were still working to clear that mud and debris. More

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    Chad Daybell Sentenced to Death in ‘Doomsday’ Killings

    Chad Daybell was convicted on Thursday in the murders of his first wife and two children of his current spouse, Lori Vallow Daybell. The couple’s extreme beliefs drew attention to the case.An Idaho judge on Saturday sentenced a man to death, two days after he was found guilty of first-degree murder and other charges in the 2019 killings of his first wife and two of his current wife’s children, capping a case that drew scrutiny because of the couple’s “doomsday” religious beliefs.The decision came after jurors took more than a day to deliberate during the special sentencing proceeding in the case against the man, Chad Daybell, 55, in Ada County District Court in Boise, Idaho.Earlier on Saturday, the jury had recommended the death penalty before the judge ordered a short recess to make a final sentencing decision.As the judge, Steven W. Boyce of the Seventh Judicial District, read his decision, Mr. Daybell sat with his hands in his lap, expressionless at the defense table. Defense lawyers did not have any questions when asked by the judge.“The court typically would address the defendant further,” Judge Boyce said. “But in this special sentencing proceeding, the victim-impact statements and the evidence has already demonstrated on the record, I think, the seriousness of what’s occurred.”“I don’t find any reason to further delve into the court’s rationale, other than what was listed in the statute,” he added.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Idaho Drag Performer Wins Over $1.1 Million in Defamation Suit Against Blogger

    The jury unanimously sided with the performer in a case against a blogger who made false claims that the artist had exposed himself to a crowd at a pride event in 2022.A drag performer in Idaho won more than $1.1 million in damages on Friday in a defamation lawsuit against a blogger who falsely claimed that he had exposed himself to a crowd that included children at an event two years ago.The jury unanimously decided that the blogger, Summer Bushnell, had defamed the artist, Eric Posey, when she claimed in videos and comments online that Mr. Posey exposed his genitalia while dancing onstage during a pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, even though he had not. It awarded Mr. Posey $926,000 in compensatory damages for defamation and another $250,000 in punitive damages, according to his lawyer, Wendy J. Olson.“Can this guy be arrested for exposing his genitals to minors?” Ms. Bushnell wrote in one Facebook post, according to Mr. Posey’s complaint. Mr. Posey claimed that Ms. Bushnell’s online viewership soared as a result of those posts, while he “was exposed to hatred, contempt and ridicule.”In an interview, Ms. Olson said that Ms. Bushnell’s false claims about Mr. Posey had a profound effect on his social life, employment prospects and mental health. “He was called names and racial slurs. He was harassed. He really shut down, emotionally,” she said.Ms. Olson added in a statement that the verdict and the damages sent “the clear message that truth matters, that facts matter, and that you can’t dehumanize and damage someone to suit your own purposes.”In recent years, far-right activists have increasingly targeted drag shows across the country. Protesters and conservative commentators have accused drag performers of targeting children, which has in many cases prompted angry demonstrations, harassment, abuse and threats of violence against drag artists. Some Republican-led states, including Florida and Tennessee, have sought to restrict the performances, though federal judges have not always been receptive to those efforts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What to Watch in Primaries in Georgia, Kentucky, Idaho and Oregon

    Voters are headed to the polls on Tuesday in several states. In California’s 20th Congressional District, the most conservative in the state, two Republicans will face off in a special election to determine who will temporarily fill the seat of Representative Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as House speaker last year and then resigned. The winner will serve until January, when the next Congress is sworn in. Vince Fong, a state lawmaker and onetime aide to Mr. McCarthy, had a significant lead in the primary. He will face Mike Boudreaux, the longtime sheriff of Tulare County. (They will face each other again in the fall in the quest for a full term.)Georgia, Kentucky, Oregon and Idaho have primary contests today. In Kentucky and Oregon, voters will also weigh in on the presidential primaries, raising the possibility of protest votes against both President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.Here is what else to watch.The Trump prosecutor Fani Willis will be on the ballot in Georgia.Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, will face a challenger in the Democratic primary for her position. Her opponent is Christian Wise Smith, a lawyer who placed third in the primary against Ms. Willis in 2020 and was defeated in the 2022 Democratic primary for attorney general in Georgia.Scott McAfee, the judge overseeing Mr. Trump’s trial in Georgia, is also in a competitive race against Robert Patillo II, a civil rights lawyer and radio host. A third candidate, Tiffani Johnson, was disqualified and is fighting that decision.A progressive vies for a rematch in a swing district in OregonJamie McLeod-Skinner, a progressive challenger, knocked out a moderate seven-term Democratic representative in Oregon’s Fifth Congressional District during the 2022 primaries, but ultimately lost to her Republican opponent, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, by a two-point margin — a result that contributed to Republicans’ taking a thin majority in the House that year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘We don’t have a democracy’: why some Oregonians want to join Idaho

    Under a large tent at the Crook county fairgrounds in Prineville, Oregon, six people stand in a neat line, each clutching the gun in their holster. “Shooters, set,” a man to the side yells. They wait. A light turns on in the centre of the target. They fire. A clock above records how long it took them to draw, shoot and, if they managed to, hit the target. They’re playing in pairs. Best two out of three wins.Welcome to Oregon’s Cowboy Fast Draw State Championship, a sport organisers say is “dedicated to the romance and legend of the Old West”.The residents of Prineville are voting on 21 May on a fundamental question: “Should Crook county represent that its citizens support efforts to move the Idaho state border to include Crook county?” If a majority votes yes, the county will become the 13th to vote in favor of leaving the state of Oregon and joining next-door Idaho instead. Polarisation breeds frustration which creates secession. America’s past and present.Calvin Foster, who competed under the name of Scrub Brush, is the man in charge of affairs at the Fast Draw, and he sums up his political frustration.The cities “don’t understand the life that we have out on this side of the state”, he says.View image in fullscreenThe majority of Oregon’s just over 4 million residents live on the western side of the Cascade Mountains, which run down the centre of the state. To the west lie high-density cities like Portland, Salem and Eugene, which in past years have voted largely Democratic. To the east are sparsely populated counties that have reliably voted Republican. Democrats have held the governorship since 1987.The presidency of Donald Trump and the Covid pandemic have heightened divisions – with different groups starkly diverging on how they think the state should move forward. Crook county voted for Donald Trump, a Republican governor, against decriminalising drugs and against restrictions on gun ownership. The state went the other way every time.Foster explains what he sees as the difference between west and east: that the culture out here is about family and guns. “I’ve grown up with guns, been shooting guns since I was probably five,” he said as we sat on the bleachers and watched the competition. “It’s a right that we’ve had and hopefully we keep forever.”That life is one of farmers and ranchers, said Jim Bunch (competing as Jabberin’ Jim, a nickname his wife chose), a livelihood that he says city folk don’t appreciate. “People that think that livestock is bad, that cutting timber is bad, that farming is bad. They want to get rid of agriculture. They want to get rid of us being able to control our own lives.”People here believe the other side is forcing their ideals on them. One thing that comes up again and again is not just “family” values, a nod to Oregon’s progressive stance on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, but the green economy. Foster said electric cars were what really irk him. Larry Lansdowne, a shooter from Idaho, said he understood his neighbours’ frustration.“We really don’t want you to come here and start telling us about why you can’t carry that gun or you need to drive an electric car,” he said. “We’ve been living this lifestyle for hundreds of years and we really just don’t want to change.”View image in fullscreenThe most extreme stance I heard was from Bunch. “We don’t have a democracy, we are a constitutional republic,” he said. I asked him what he meant by that distinction.“We have a constitution that lays down the laws for us. As a republic, the individual is protected. So the minority can be protected. It’s not just majority rules.”“So you feel at the moment that democracy, especially within Oregon, isn’t working for you?”“Oh, democracy doesn’t work,” he said, emphatically.If democracy does not work for supporters of annexation, they are pursuing democratic means to change it.The Greater Idaho movement was set up in 2019 and has campaigned to put its measures on the ballot. Its current proposal would see 14 counties move states, along with sections of three others. Originally, the plan included five more counties in south-western Oregon, but after two voted against the proposal, the movement scaled back its ambitions.Moving the state lines is a tall order, given that both Oregon and Idaho legislatures would have to agree, along with the respective governors, and then for Congress to approve the matter. But the movement argues history shows this can happen. West Virginia was formed after separating from Virginia in 1863, and Maine was created by cutting itself off from Massachusetts in 1820.View image in fullscreenI spoke with Matt McCaw, the group’s executive director. He and his wife lived in Portland, Oregon’s largest city, for 20 years before moving east because on “almost every issue”, abortion, LGBTQ+, guns, drugs, McCaw was opposed to the progressive measures enacted by state legislators. He said that while there had always been this urban-rural divide, it had become worse recently.“Our whole country got more polarised with Donald Trump,” he said as we chatted at Smith Rock State Park. “And then Covid just drove a wedge through all of it. Oregon was very heavy on lockdowns. They closed schools. They forced masks on people. People in western Oregon wanted that. The people in eastern Oregon were opposed to those policies.”McCaw and his wife are evangelical Christians, and faith is “first and foremost in every decision we make”, he said. “They were telling us, ‘You can’t go to church.’ Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that my government would say, ‘You can’t go to church.’” He said Covid showed him you need a government that aligns with your values. Idaho, McCaw said, fits that bill.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe problem, I put to McCaw, is that this would lead to a nation where democracy is redundant. Everyone would split into their Democratic and Republican states and just stick with it. The divided states of America.“You’re saying we shouldn’t divide up, because that will cause things to be more polarised. But if you leave these people together, it’s not going to change. The two cultures are drifting further apart and want different things. If you continue to force people that want polar opposite things together, that is not a productive or healthy way to run a society.”In a flip of the state-wide picture, it is progressives who are in the minority in Crook county. Outside the courthouse one Sunday, I chatted with Priscilla Smith, chair of the county’s Democrats, who was leading a small rally against the Greater Idaho movement. About 20 people were holding banners that said “We Love Oregon … all of it” or “Oregon, Yes, IdaNo”. One person was wearing a pro-Ukraine T-shirt.For Smith, this is also about family values. “My concern is for my granddaughters,” she said, wearing a bright blue hoodie bearing Oregon’s state seal. “What happens to their health if we become part of Idaho?” Idaho has a near-total ban on abortions.One sign at the protest read “Oregon values are my values.” I asked Priscilla what those were. “My values are that we treat everyone equally. Especially because I have a trans grandson. That we care about everyone. The proponents [of Greater Idaho] think our values in this part of the state align more closely with Idaho. Well, mine don’t. So they don’t speak for everyone.”View image in fullscreenTom Andersen a Democratic, represents a district on the western side in the state legislature. I asked him whether his party was at fault for allowing a movement like Greater Idaho to emerge.“I think fault is a pretty strong word, but I say part of the responsibility is that the Democrats have not listened to the other side,” he said.“We could do better. We need to listen to them. They feel that their needs have not been addressed by the whole state of Oregon.”Andersen warned that while it was worth engaging with the Greater Idaho movement, the idea of splitting the state was a concern, given it may send a message to other states to do the same. “That would open a Pandora’s box, a slippery slope,” Andersen said, and one that could lead to a situation where “democracy does fall apart”.“Dear Father, we thank you for the opportunity and the freedom in this country to come together and to discuss issues like this.”Mike McCarter, the president of the Greater Idaho movement, was leading a prayer at the start of a question-and-answer session hosted by McCaw at the Crook county library in Prineville. About two dozen people turned up. On one side, a few men sat silently with “Trump” hats on. Across the aisle sat Priscilla Smith alongside some people from the rally.She took the microphone. “My first concern is the fact that Idaho has one of the strictest abortion rights laws in the nation,” Smith asked, adding, “The other thing I have a real angst about with Idaho is their position on LGBTQ. I have a grandchild who’s trans. How is their life going to be affected?”McCaw and Smith then bickered over the details of Oregon’s abortion laws, before McCaw summarised: “The bigger point of all that is that people have very different, very strong opinions on abortion. And the same thing is true with trans kids.” He said these were the two hottest topics that spoke to the great divide.After that, the debate was cordial. One older man in a cowboy hat did call the politicians in Salem “heathens”. Yet there were no heated back-and-forths, just a few mutters and murmurs in agreement or disagreement.As people began to get up and leave amid a smattering of applause, McCaw ended the proceedings: “There’s no easy way out of it. I wish there was,” he said.Oregon’s Border Battles from Kiran Moodley of Channel 4 News is available via Channel 4 News here. More