By Sklar Laird
COLUMBIA — Death row inmate Freddie Owens will die by lethal injection, his attorney decided Friday.
That is, if the execution is carried out as scheduled. His attorneys filed another petition Thursday night seeking to stop it.
Owens’ execution, scheduled for Sept. 20, is set to be the first in the state since 2011. Five more executions could follow in five-week intervals.
By Jacob Fischler and Ashley Murray
Former President Donald Trump said Thursday he would protect American industries if he is reelected by increasing tariffs on imports while cutting other taxes and regulations, in a speech to the Economic Club of New York.
The GOP presidential candidate’s remarks came as the economy has taken center stage in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. Both Trump and the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, have criticized a ballooning national deficit, high housing costs and increasingly expensive groceries.
In a wide-ranging speech that also framed his hardline immigration position in economic terms and blasted Harris for what he said were the policy shortcomings of the Biden administration, Trump laid out several planks of an economic platform focused on corporate tax cuts and protectionist policies that he predicted would boost domestic manufacturing.
“Some might say it’s economic nationalism,” he said. “I call it common sense. I call it America First … We have to take care of our own nation and our industries first.”
Trump’s speech came one day after Harris delivered new proposals to cut taxes on small businesses during a speech at a brewery in New Hampshire.
While Trump would cut corporate taxes and extend the tax cut for high earners that he signed during his first term, he said he would raise tariffs, which are taxes on foreign goods. Doing so would compel U.S. companies to keep their production jobs in the country, he said.
Tariffs would also seed a new “sovereign wealth fund” that would “return a gigantic profit,” he said.
He told the economists and business professionals in the room that he would lean on them to advise on the fund, and that it would be flush with cash from tariffs on foreign imports.
The “greatest sovereign wealth fund,” he said, would also pay for infrastructure, defense capabilities and “cutting-edge medical research,” as well as pay down the nation’s debt.
“We’ll create America’s own sovereign wealth fund to invest in great national endeavors for the benefit of all of the American people,” he said. “Why don’t we have a wealth fund? Other countries have wealth funds. We have nothing. We have nothing. We’re going to have a sovereign wealth fund or we can name it something different.”
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“Unbelievably, she will seek a tax on unrealized capital gains,” he said.
Trump would lower the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, he said, while Harris would raise it to 28%.
He also said he would appoint Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X who has endorsed Trump and regularly posts about the election, to lead a government efficiency commission.
Trump would seek to make permanent the tax cuts he signed into law in 2017. Taxes have featured prominently on the campaign trail ahead of the 2025 expiration of the law that cut individual tax rates, reduced the corporate tax rate and doubled the child tax credit.
In her remarks in New Hampshire, Harris promised to increase deductions tenfold on business start-up costs, up to $50,000 from $5,000. She also vowed to simplify the tax filing process for entrepreneurs by allowing them to claim a standard deduction, similar to what’s available for individual income taxpayers.
Harris also drew attention to her New Hampshire speech when she broke with President Joe Biden’s tax plan for capital gains, promising “a rate that rewards investment in America’s innovators, founders and small businesses.”
Harris told the crowd that anyone earning $1 million or more would see a 28% rate on long-term capital gains under her administration, if elected. The proposal deviates from Biden’s plan to raise revenue by taxing capital gains over $1 million at 39.6%. Biden also proposed a 5% Medicare surcharge on long-term capital gains for high earners.
The current rate for high earners is 20%.
A long-term capital gain tax is applied to any profit made on the sale of an asset, like stocks, bonds, or real estate, held by the owner for more than a year.
Trump also sought to make his signature policy issue — an ultra-hardline immigration stance — an economic one.
An increasing number of migrants entering the country through the border with Mexico are taking jobs from Americans, he said, singling out Americans of color.
“Hispanic American jobs are under massive threat from the invasion taking place at our border,” Trump said. “They’re taking jobs from Hispanic Americans, African Americans.”
He added, falsely, that all jobs created during the Biden administration were filled by immigrants in the country illegally.
Trump has called for an unprecedented deportation program of undocumented immigrants and has placed the blame for record migrant crossings on Biden and Harris.
Trump promised “tremendous growth,” mostly attributing that growth to a yet unnamed percentage tariff on foreign imports. He signaled his target for tariffs will be higher than any percentage floated so far.
“We’re gonna grow like nobody’s ever grown before,” he said. “We will be bringing in billions and billions of dollars, which will reduce our deficit.”
He also suggested during the question-and-answer portion that funds raised through tariffs could help families reduce the cost of child care, but offered little detail.
But economists and critics say Trump’s major economic plans to raise tariffs and extend his signature tax cuts will put additional costs on consumers and add trillions to the deficit.
Trump’s plan to extend the 2017 tax cuts would add between $4.1 and $5.8 trillion to the national deficit over the next decade, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Budget Model.
Trump said the country has suffered economically under Biden and Harris because of his legal issues.
Trump has faced four criminal prosecutions, including two federal cases related to his mishandling of classified documents following his presidency and his conduct to provoke the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
He was also convicted of New York state felonies related to an illegal hush money arrangement during his first White House campaign and is charged in Georgia with election interference related to the 2020 campaign.
He said Thursday the prosecutions were politically motivated, making investors lose faith in the country’s governance. He hinted that he would retaliate and said that he would eliminate political prosecutions.
“They always have to remember that two can play that game,” he said. “Nobody ever thought this was possible. This is how you create massive capital flight and turn once prosperous nations into absolute ruins. I will have no higher priority as president than to restore the fair, equal and impartial rule of law in America. We have lost the rule of law.”
By Vibru Mishra
The updated Global Report on Food Crises reveals that nearly two million people are now grappling with the most critical level of food insecurity, classified as Phase 5 on the global IPC scale, which tracks acute hunger.
This level represents an “extreme lack of food and exhaustion of coping capacities,” with a sharply increased risk of acute malnutrition and death.
“As well as causing widespread acute malnutrition and death in the short term, it has major human, social and economic impacts in the long term,” the report noted.
By Jay Waagmeester
Florida’s college and university students are starting the academic year greeted by friends and professors — and by warnings from administrators and Attorney General Ashley Moody about how to express their views on campus.
The directives follow nationwide protests over Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza. While the scale of protests has varied nationwide, some led to arrests, including at the University of Florida, Florida State University, the University of South Florida, and the University of North Florida.
Last week, Moody sent a letter to all 40 Florida public college and university presidents reminding them “of the zero-tolerance policy for antisemitism in the State of Florida.” Most Florida students started classes during the last two weeks of August.
“As we begin this new school year, let us renew our commitment to making Florida the best State in the nation for education and the safest State for Jewish students. Thank you for your service to our State and your commitment to fighting discrimination,” Moody wrote.
As protests popped up nationwide, events at UCLA, for example, led Jewish students to file a lawsuit against that university, claiming it had enforced a “Jew Exclusion Zone.”
A federal judge last month instructed the university not to obstruct access to activities and programs for Jewish students. Moody addressed the UCLA episode in her message to Florida schools.
“I also want to advise you that failing to protect Jewish students would create significant legal risk for Florida colleges and universities,” Moody wrote, warning that failing to do so “may also put federal funding at risk.”
At the University of South Florida, President Rhea Law emphasized safety to students and faculty in the new year, calling on “everyone to do their part” to treat each other with respect.
Law enforcement broke up an April protest at USF’s Tampa campus with tear gas, The Oracle reported. The protest, according to The Oracle, saw 10 people arrested as some 100 people participated in a pro-Palestine encampment.
“We condemn hate speech, and will not tolerate discrimination, antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, or bigotry,” Law wrote in a welcome note to students.
Law’s letter included a reminder that the university had updated its policy on campus activities and discrimination over the summer. USF now requires approval to erect tents, canopies and signs and to use audio amplifiers. The university addressed overnight protests, too, by prohibiting actions later than 5 p.m.
The discrimination policy update includes a prohibition on antisemitism and Islamophobia, specifically, and any other forms of hate based on religion or cultural heritage.
“USF values the right to free speech, expression, and the open exchange of ideas, which we recognize are central to the mission of a university, even if we strongly disagree or find some of what is said to be offensive,” Law wrote. “However, we will not allow violent, disruptive, or aggressive acts that do not comply with university policy or the law.”
Deans of students on USF’ three campuses sent a statement to students to start the school year, updating them on the new policies.
“Constitutionally protected views or ideas expressed may be objectionable or offensive to some,” the deans wrote. “Just because it is occurring on our campus, does not mean that USF supports the content being expressed. To be clear: USF condemns antisemitic expression, along with all other instances of hateful expression targeting individuals because of their shared ancestry or cultural heritage. This includes USF’s condemnation of Islamophobic expression.”
Additional Florida universities — FSU, the University of West Florida, University of Central Florida, and UF — have seen tighter protest rules since October.
University of Florida interim President Kent Fuchs said in an interview with WCJB that he wants to make clear to students that “we have policies, there are laws, and we’re going to enforce those.”
“So indeed this coming year we won’t allow encampments, we won’t allow masks that are intended to disguise identities of people, and we won’t allow protesters or others to limit the activities of others, you know, to close down classrooms or occupy buildings, no indoor protests,” Fuchs said. “That we’ll be pretty strict about.”
He added that he wants to avoid arrests.
FSU passed a policy this summer prohibiting camping, building shelters and barriers, use of amplified sound, concealing or covering identity when protesting, and failure to observe reasonable adherence to university policy.
The FSU changes came less than two months after students protesting the war on campus were arrested and had water sprinklers turned on them.
The response from the university was “absolutely political repression,” according to Joelle Nuñez, president of the Tally Students for a Democratic Society. Nuñez told the Phoenix she felt her organization was being “targeted” by the new policy.
The University of North Florida will consider changes to its protest policy on Sept. 30, including a definition of “time, place, and manner” detailing prohibited acts and clarification of “obligations to comply with directives of University officials,” according to a UNF statement sent to News4Jax.
University of West Florida trustees are set to vote on changes to its speech, assembly, and public expression policy during their Sept. 12 meeting. The changes include revising and clarifying definitions for “expressive activities,” “outdoor areas,” “restricted areas,” and the “University Community.”
The new rules would prohibit overnight camping without authorization, picketing indoors, using fire, audio amplification, and expressive activities that “create a material and substantial disruption of university functions.”
In June, UCF approved a ban on camping on campus. The board voted to prohibit events from taking place later than 8 p.m. from Sunday through Thursday and they cannot last longer than five consecutive days.
During the meeting in which the decision was made, audience members spoke only in opposition to the measure, Central Florida Public Media reported.
UCF released a policy proposal last week that, if approved, would prohibit blocking walkways, doors, roadways, parking structures, windows, or any entrance to a university facility or space, and face coverings “with the intent to intimidate any person or group, or for the purposes of evading or escaping discovery, recognition, or identification in connection with or during the commission of a violation of law, regulation, or policy.”
Photo credit: Jackie Llanos
By Skylar Laird
Freddie Owens asked his attorney to make the decision because of his religious beliefs
COLUMBIA — A death row inmate’s attorney can decide how he will die, the state Supreme Court decided.
Freddie Owens is scheduled for execution Sept. 20. He has three options for how his execution will be carried out — lethal injection, firing squad or electrocution — under a state law the high court upheld last month.
But he signed his decision-making powers over to his attorney Emily Paavola before the state scheduled his execution, allowing her to choose for him.
By Ashley Murray
The Democratic presidential candidate will stump in Portsmouth for expanding the tax deduction to $50,000 on business start-up costs, up from $5,000, a campaign official said on background Tuesday. Harris will also propose a standard deduction for businesses as a way to simplify tax filing for entrepreneurs.
By Mitch Perry
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“My crime is my absolutely belief in free speech,” said Omali Yeshitela, 81, who founded the African People’s Socialist Party in 1972 and the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement in 1991. He didn’t comment much beyond the direct charges on advice of his attorney, but he has previously claimed that charges that he worked for or took money from the Russian government are completely false.
"Netanyahu has been citing Biden's ironclad support of him as the *reason* he does not have to work harder to get a hostage deal," said one observer.
By Wendy Fry, Alexei Koseff and Sameea Kamal
In summary
Down to the wire: After years of study, two historic reparations bills are stalled in the Assembly. Is it sparing Gov. Gavin Newsom a tough political call?
Years of effort went into making California the first state in the nation to get reparations laws to the governor’s desk to be signed into law. But now, in the final hours, two historic bills aimed at repairing harm for Black Californians — those that are specifically written for the African American descendants of people enslaved in the United States – are stalling in the Assembly.
In January the Legislature’s Black Caucus introduced a slate of 14 reparations bills, but Sen. Steven Bradford, a member of the caucus and a state reparations task force, also introduced his own more ambitious bills.
By Sklar Laird
Owens’ execution is scheduled for Sept. 20, set to be the state’s first in 13 years
Freddie Owens’ execution, scheduled for Sept. 20, is set to be the state’s first in 13 years. But his attorneys say they have evidence that solicitors prosecuting his 1999 trial made a secret deal with the key witness in his case, undermining Owens’ conviction, according to Friday’s motion.
Owens was convicted of shooting and killing gas station clerk Irene Graves as part of a string of burglaries in 1997. The single mother of three was shot in the head after saying she didn’t know how to unlock the safe.
