Michigan
Priest has license revoked after mimicking Musk’s straight-arm gesture
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan priest had his license revoked by the Anglican Catholic Church after he mimicked a straight-arm gesture performed by Elon Musk during a speech earlier this month that some have interpreted as a Nazi salute.
Calvin Robinson, who is listed as the priest-in-charge of St. Paul’s Anglican Catholic Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, performed the gesture at the end of a Jan. 25 speech at the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, D.C.
On Wednesday, the Anglican Catholic Church posted a statement that said Robinson’s “license in this Church has been revoked” after he made a “gesture that many have interpreted as a pro-Nazi salute.”
“While we cannot say what was in Mr. Robinson’s heart when he did this, his action appears to have been an attempt to curry favor with certain elements of the American political right by provoking its opposition,” the statement read.
“We believe that those who mimic the Nazi salute, even as a joke or an attempt to troll their opponents, trivialize the horror of the Holocaust,” it continued.
Musk’s gesture that Robinson was mimicking came in a Jan. 20 speech during celebrations of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration. Musk slapped his hand on his chest, extended his arm straight out and up with his palm facing down and said, “My heart goes out to you.”
At the close of Robinson’s Jan. 25 speech, he quoted Musk, saying “my heart goes out to you,” before mimicking his straight-arm motion.
In a statement posted to his Facebook page, Robinson said “in case it needs saying: I am not a Nazi,” and that the gesture was a “joke.”
Robinson is from England and in the past has been outspoken about his conservative views, according to a biography on St. Paul’s Anglican Catholic Church’s website.
Alabama
Sundance documentary shows horrifying conditions in state prisons
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Incarcerated men in the Alabama prison system risked their safety to feed shocking footage of their horrifying living conditions to a pair of documentary filmmakers. The result is “The Alabama Solution,” which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City.
Filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman became interested in Alabama prisons in 2019.
Jarecki, the filmmaker behind “The Jinx” and “Capturing the Friedmans,” and Kaufman first gained access to the restricted grounds through a visit with a chaplain during a revival meeting held in the prison yards. There men pulled them aside and whispered shocking stories about the reality of life inside: forced labor, drugs, violence, intimidation, retaliation and the undisclosed truths behind many prisoner deaths.
The Associated Press has written extensively about the problems in the state’s prison system, including high rates of violence, low staffing, a plummeting parole rate and the use of pandemic funds to build a new supersized prison.
This process eventually led them to incarcerated activists Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council (also known as “Kinetik Justice”) who had for years been trying to expose the horrifying conditions and deep- seated corruption across the system. They helped feed dispatches to the filmmakers with contraband cellphones.
“We’re deeply concerned for their safety, and we have been since the first time we met them,” said Kaufman. “They’ve been doing this work for decades and as you see in the film, they’ve been retaliated against in very extreme ways. But there are lawyers who are ready to do wellness checks and visit them and respond to any sort of retaliation that may come.”
Several family members of their incarcerated subjects were also in the audience, including Sandy Ray, the mother of Steven Davis, who died in 2019 at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, his face beaten beyond recognition. Prison officials said Davis was killed in self-defense because he didn’t put down his weapons. The prisoners tell a vastly different story.
Alelur “Alex” Duran, who spent 12 years in prison in New York, also helped produce the film. Jarecki said they wouldn’t have taken on the subject without the expertise of someone who had been incarcerated.
Also embedded in the story is Alabama’s long history of contracting prisoners to do work at private companies from Burger King to Best Western, an issue that the AP investigated for over two years. The cheap, reliable labor force has generated more than $250 million for the state since 2000 — money garnished from prisoners’ paychecks, the AP wrote in December. Parole numbers have also plummeted in recent years.
“We want to show viewers the truth about a system that has been cloaked in secrecy,” Jarecki said. “We hope the film sparks an effort to allow access for journalists and others so the public can have transparency into how incarcerated citizens are treated and how our tax dollars are being spent. We hope to inspire Alabama’s leadership to acknowledge the crisis and to overhaul its prison system and its use of forced labor.”
The film will have a theatrical release before it debuts on HBO sometime this year, but the specific dates and details are still being worked out. And while it is in its early days, the impact, Jarecki said, has already been seen, including in a class action labor lawsuit.
West Virginia
Pharmacist serving fraud sentence convicted in husband’s killing
BECKLEY, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia pharmacist already serving a federal prison sentence in a fraud case was convicted Wednesday in state court in the killing of her husband.
A jury found Natalie Cochran guilty of first-degree murder in Raleigh County Circuit Court, news outlets reported. The jury now must determine whether Cochran would be eligible for parole after serving 15 years. The charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Cochran’s husband, Michael Cochran, 38, died in February 2019. Prosecutors said Natalie Cochran poisoned him with insulin so that he wouldn’t find out about a $2 million Ponzi scheme that she admitted to operating from 2017 to 2019.
Natalie Cochran was sentenced in March 2021 to 11 years for pretending to be a government contractor and defrauding investors out of millions of dollars. Federal prosecutors said she tricked investors into thinking she owned two successful businesses with government contracts. Authorities said she never invested the money, instead using some of it to buy a 1965 Shelby Cobra classic car, two properties and jewelry.
Priest has license revoked after mimicking Musk’s straight-arm gesture
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan priest had his license revoked by the Anglican Catholic Church after he mimicked a straight-arm gesture performed by Elon Musk during a speech earlier this month that some have interpreted as a Nazi salute.
Calvin Robinson, who is listed as the priest-in-charge of St. Paul’s Anglican Catholic Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, performed the gesture at the end of a Jan. 25 speech at the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, D.C.
On Wednesday, the Anglican Catholic Church posted a statement that said Robinson’s “license in this Church has been revoked” after he made a “gesture that many have interpreted as a pro-Nazi salute.”
“While we cannot say what was in Mr. Robinson’s heart when he did this, his action appears to have been an attempt to curry favor with certain elements of the American political right by provoking its opposition,” the statement read.
“We believe that those who mimic the Nazi salute, even as a joke or an attempt to troll their opponents, trivialize the horror of the Holocaust,” it continued.
Musk’s gesture that Robinson was mimicking came in a Jan. 20 speech during celebrations of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration. Musk slapped his hand on his chest, extended his arm straight out and up with his palm facing down and said, “My heart goes out to you.”
At the close of Robinson’s Jan. 25 speech, he quoted Musk, saying “my heart goes out to you,” before mimicking his straight-arm motion.
In a statement posted to his Facebook page, Robinson said “in case it needs saying: I am not a Nazi,” and that the gesture was a “joke.”
Robinson is from England and in the past has been outspoken about his conservative views, according to a biography on St. Paul’s Anglican Catholic Church’s website.
Alabama
Sundance documentary shows horrifying conditions in state prisons
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Incarcerated men in the Alabama prison system risked their safety to feed shocking footage of their horrifying living conditions to a pair of documentary filmmakers. The result is “The Alabama Solution,” which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City.
Filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman became interested in Alabama prisons in 2019.
Jarecki, the filmmaker behind “The Jinx” and “Capturing the Friedmans,” and Kaufman first gained access to the restricted grounds through a visit with a chaplain during a revival meeting held in the prison yards. There men pulled them aside and whispered shocking stories about the reality of life inside: forced labor, drugs, violence, intimidation, retaliation and the undisclosed truths behind many prisoner deaths.
The Associated Press has written extensively about the problems in the state’s prison system, including high rates of violence, low staffing, a plummeting parole rate and the use of pandemic funds to build a new supersized prison.
This process eventually led them to incarcerated activists Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council (also known as “Kinetik Justice”) who had for years been trying to expose the horrifying conditions and deep- seated corruption across the system. They helped feed dispatches to the filmmakers with contraband cellphones.
“We’re deeply concerned for their safety, and we have been since the first time we met them,” said Kaufman. “They’ve been doing this work for decades and as you see in the film, they’ve been retaliated against in very extreme ways. But there are lawyers who are ready to do wellness checks and visit them and respond to any sort of retaliation that may come.”
Several family members of their incarcerated subjects were also in the audience, including Sandy Ray, the mother of Steven Davis, who died in 2019 at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, his face beaten beyond recognition. Prison officials said Davis was killed in self-defense because he didn’t put down his weapons. The prisoners tell a vastly different story.
Alelur “Alex” Duran, who spent 12 years in prison in New York, also helped produce the film. Jarecki said they wouldn’t have taken on the subject without the expertise of someone who had been incarcerated.
Also embedded in the story is Alabama’s long history of contracting prisoners to do work at private companies from Burger King to Best Western, an issue that the AP investigated for over two years. The cheap, reliable labor force has generated more than $250 million for the state since 2000 — money garnished from prisoners’ paychecks, the AP wrote in December. Parole numbers have also plummeted in recent years.
“We want to show viewers the truth about a system that has been cloaked in secrecy,” Jarecki said. “We hope the film sparks an effort to allow access for journalists and others so the public can have transparency into how incarcerated citizens are treated and how our tax dollars are being spent. We hope to inspire Alabama’s leadership to acknowledge the crisis and to overhaul its prison system and its use of forced labor.”
The film will have a theatrical release before it debuts on HBO sometime this year, but the specific dates and details are still being worked out. And while it is in its early days, the impact, Jarecki said, has already been seen, including in a class action labor lawsuit.
West Virginia
Pharmacist serving fraud sentence convicted in husband’s killing
BECKLEY, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia pharmacist already serving a federal prison sentence in a fraud case was convicted Wednesday in state court in the killing of her husband.
A jury found Natalie Cochran guilty of first-degree murder in Raleigh County Circuit Court, news outlets reported. The jury now must determine whether Cochran would be eligible for parole after serving 15 years. The charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Cochran’s husband, Michael Cochran, 38, died in February 2019. Prosecutors said Natalie Cochran poisoned him with insulin so that he wouldn’t find out about a $2 million Ponzi scheme that she admitted to operating from 2017 to 2019.
Natalie Cochran was sentenced in March 2021 to 11 years for pretending to be a government contractor and defrauding investors out of millions of dollars. Federal prosecutors said she tricked investors into thinking she owned two successful businesses with government contracts. Authorities said she never invested the money, instead using some of it to buy a 1965 Shelby Cobra classic car, two properties and jewelry.
