Archives for February 2021

Report: Italy’s mobsters well-poised to exploit pandemic aid

ROME (AP) — Italy’s organized crime investigators raised alarm Wednesday that the nation’s mobsters are well-positioned to exploit pandemic recovery projects worth billions of euros and, awash in drug trafficking revenues, to gobble up struggling businesses.

In its twice-yearly report to Parliament, the national anti-Mafia investigative agency particularly cited potential opportunities for the Camorra, saying the Naples-area crime syndicate could expand its influence toward northern and central Italy.

The Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate (DIA) reported “an increase of cases of money-laundering and re-investing illicit money” in those areas.

Agency director Maurizio Vallone told RAI state TV that mobsters increasingly are investing in businesses weakened by COVID-19 lockdowns, with the goal of ultimately take them over.

“We are witnessing less of the extortion, property damage, pressures” that mobsters traditionally inflict on businesses to make them pay ‘’protection money” and to bolster crime syndicates’ influence on their territory, Vallone said. Instead, he said, some mobsters are “presenting themselves as investors” willing to pump money into foundering businesses.

In separate comments to Italian news program TG5, Vallone referred to the 209 billion euros ($250 billion) Italy expects to receive in European Union pandemic recovery funds. The money is intended to help shore up Italy’s health care system and to boost economic recovery through investment in digitalization, ecological transition and other projects.

Italy’s mobsters are, “today, financiers, tomorrow, surely, exploiters, predators,” of the new companies the EY funds will make possible, Vallone said.

Investigators noted the speed in which Italy has been doling out recovery relief to compensate businesses for losses aggravated by government-imposed restrictions during the pandemic, such as restaurant, cafe, gym and theater closures. While Italy for years has had a complex process of scrutiny in awarding public works contracts aimed at discouraging organized crime infiltration, the sheer amount of new projects could put those safeguards at risk.

“All this will constitute serious risks of mafia infiltration in the legal economy, especially in the health sector that represents an area of interest of enormous amount” and is “thus appetizing even for the social control that this can offer” in the territory of crime syndicates, the report states.

Vallone suggested that Parliament might need to enact legislation to further reduce the possibility of Mafia infiltration.

With Italy’s economy largely flat for a good decade even before the pandemic ravaged Italy, south-based crime syndicates, in particular the ‘ndrangheta, a global cocaine broker, have invested ill-earned revenues in “clean” businesses such as hotels and restaurants.

With tourism pummeled by the pandemic, crime syndicates could be looking for other revenue streams.

Italy’s various mafias have taken on “the very characteristics of a business enterprise, if not actually those of a holding company that is constantly looking to expand, even while maintaining unchanged its very criminal essence,” DIA said.

Farm lobby Coldiretti said the agency’s concerns were substantiated by various police investigations that revealed mobsters’ keen interests in eateries, including franchised outlets, cafes, trattorias, trendy aperitif bars and luxury restaurants.

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Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

Jill Biden says health inequities have lasted ‘far too long’

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — During a visit to a cancer center Wednesday, first lady Jill Biden said health disparities have hurt communities of color “for far too long” and “it’s about time” the country got serious about ending those inequities.

Jill Biden’s visit to Virginia Commonwealth University’s Massey Cancer Center in Richmond was her first public trip outside Washington since her husband’s inauguration last month.

She has been a longtime advocate for cancer patients and their families. Her and President Joe Biden’s son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46. Her parents also died of cancer.

During her visit, Jill Biden recounted how four of her friends were diagnosed with breast cancer within a one-year period in the 1990s.

“Cancer touches everyone,” she said.

Biden praised the work of doctors and researchers at the Massey center, which has been nationally recognized for its work to study the socioeconomic and cultural factors that contribute to disparities in cancer outcomes. The center focuses on community engagement as part of a strategy to better reach underserved communities and to address health disparities, particularly in the Black community. It also works to expand minority participation in cancer research.

Biden cited “Facts and Faith Fridays,” a weekly conference call started at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic by Dr. Robert Winn, director of the Massey center, and Black clergy, to provide pastors and their congregations with key updates on pandemic-related issues, including personal protective equipment, social distancing, and rent and mortgage relief.

Recently, the calls have included information about COVID-19 vaccinations, with a focus on addressing vaccine hesitancy. Guest have included Dr. Anthony Fauci, as well as state and local health officials.

Biden said the initiative has helped build trust between communities and the Massey center, which she said has made strides to reduce health disparities.

“It’s about time that we started getting really serious about this,” she said, adding that the pandemic has put a spotlight on the problem.

She said churches have been key players in bringing everything from food to vaccinations to people of color during the pandemic.

”I think that the communities of color, they trust you, and now, I think it’s important that they learn to trust the federal government again,” she said.

The Massey center, founded in 1974, is one of two centers in Virginia designated by the National Cancer Institute to help lead the country’s cancer research efforts.

Biden toured the center’s research laboratory with Winn and Dr. Ned Sharpless, director of the National Cancer Institute. She also received briefings from several doctors on their research.

Goodell: NFL learnings from 2020 technology here to stay

One of the major benefits of playing a full season pretty much on schedule during a pandemic is what the NFL learned technologically from 2020.

Commissioner Roger Goodell says the league has found new avenues of communication that will be common in future seasons.

“Virtual meetings have now become standard in the NFL; we are not going to have as much (in-person) meetings when we get back,” Goodell said Wednesday at the NFL Women’s Careers in Football Forum. “I think technology is something we have embraced and will make us better.”

The previous standard before the COVID-19 pandemic was hour upon hour of meetings at team facilities, whether involving the entire roster in an auditorium or breaking into smaller groups on offense, defense, special teams or by specific positions. While in-person gatherings won’t entirely disappear, the NFL found the ability to meet virtually is a positive development.

“We got together as a coaching team,” said Callie Brownson, Cleveland’s chief of staff, “and our coaches said we got better at teaching because we had to find a way to get better. The eagerness to adapt and learn and change is such a valuable commodity as a coach.”

Brownson became the first woman to handle NFL in-game sideline coaching duties last season.

At a time when so many other sports endured massive delays and restructured schedules because of the pandemic, the NFL made it to the finish line without any major disruptions, largely by embracing technology. The league in essence used the draft last April as a proving ground, and when that worked so well — Goodell even was widely praised for his emcee role — being remote was not a hindrance during offseason programs and onward.

“The draft is an example” of the effectiveness of the technology the NFL used, Goodell noted. “When I told the teams what we were planning to do, to say there was outcry would be an understatement. That had not been done before.

“They had to adapt, to use technology properly.

“It also gave us a chance to go inside people’s homes. The number of notes I got about being at home with their families and having them experience it (with the players). … And there was not one complaint from a club, which is almost impossible to do. They didn’t feel they were unprepared for the draft.”

From there, it was full speed on all levels, from Zoom meetings and texting to the creation of workout programs and, once the season began, putting together game plans.

Browns co-owner Dee Haslam said the team has used virtual town halls to coordinate efforts between the business and football sides of the organization.

“One of the things we talked about throughout the last year was how do we learn from what we are going through?” Goodell said. “What are we going to take forward? It also gave us opportunities to find new ways of doing things that actually are quite popular.”

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More AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

The Latest: West Coast Conference tourneys won’t have fans

The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world:

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The West Coast Conference men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will be held without fans due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Clark County in Nevada would have allowed a limited number of fans, but the conference decided it would be safer for athletes and staff with no one else in the arena.

The tournaments are March 4-9 at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

The WCC has played its postseason basketball in Las Vegas for 13 years, selling out every time.

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More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

White nationalist gets prison over rape threat, extortion

CONCORD, N.H (AP) — A self-proclaimed white nationalist was sentenced Wednesday to nearly three-and-a-half years in federal prison for threatening to rape the wife of a man who was part of a separate racist group that he believed was harassing him.

Christopher Cantwell, a 40-year-old New Hampshire resident and radio host, was found guilty in September of extortion and threatening to injure property or reputation, but not guilty of cyberstalking related to a series of threats he made toward a Missouri man over the Telegram messaging app.

Cantwell previously pleaded guilty to assault in 2018 after he was accused of using pepper spray during the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017. He didn’t serve additional jail time but was barred from Virginia for five years.

Judge Paul Barbadoro acknowledge that Cantwell has faced harassment but said the 41-month sentence reflected the nature of the threat against the woman.

“The threats made here by the defendant are abhorrent, shocking and extremely damaging,” Barbadoro said before handing down the sentence that also includes two years of supervised release.

Cantwell told his defense team that he wanted to appeal the sentence.

Dressed in a prison shirt and wearing a mask, Cantwell briefly spoke before the sentencing. He apologized to the woman for his comments and said his actions were driven by the months of harassment he endured at the hands of the Bowl Patrol, of which her husband was a member.

The group’s name is inspired by the haircut of Dylann Roof, sentenced to death for fatally shooting nine Black church members during a Bible study session in Charleston, South Carolina.

Members disrupted his radio show for months with pranks and defaced his website with pornography and violent content, Eric Wolpin said during the trial.

“The Bowl Patrol were constantly harassing me and threatening me and trying to destroy my business,” Cantwell said, adding that he went to law enforcement with his complaints.

Authorities say Cantwell used the Telegram messaging app to convey a threat in 2019 that he would rape the man’s wife if he didn’t give up information about the leader of a white supremacist group of which the man was a member, authorities said.

The Associated Press is not naming the man to protect the identify of his wife.

Cantwell was arrested in January 2020 and has remained in jail ever since.

Cantwell is also accused of threatening to expose the man’s identity and warning “you will lose everything you have” if he didn’t provide the personal details about the leader of the Bowl Patrol.

Cantwell followed through on another threat to report the Missouri man, who has several children, to the state’s child welfare services division for drug use and racist views. But an agency official testified at the trial that it did not feel the complaint justified further investigation.

Cantwell’s defense attorneys requested his client be sentenced to time served and argued he had already suffered enough.

“He has lost his house. He’s sat in jail. He got COVID. This has been seriously impactful on his life,” Wolpin told the court.

But prosecutors, who requested a sentence of 51 months, said Barbadoro had to take into consideration how Cantwell’s threats impacted the victim’s family and how it was part of a long-running effort by the defendant to use threats against Bowl Patrol members to get personal details on their leader.

“The court should consider the lasting implications for her and her children,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Anna Krasinski told the court. “Even now, it’s too painful for her.”

Archives for February 2021

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