Iran’s Team Refuses To Sing National Anthem at World Cup Opener

Members of Iran’s national soccer team made a statement to millions across the globe on Monday, as they refused to sing the national anthem during their match against England in Qatar’s World Cup.

The players’ dissent is the latest act of resistance against the government, amid monthslong nationwide  protests following the mid-September killing of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini. Amini was arrested by the country’s morality police for allegedly not wearing a hijab in accordance with government standards, and was killed in police custody.

While Iran’s players remained silent during the anthem, fans could be heard throughout the stadium booing and whistling to drown out the song. Spectators were seen sporting banners and clothes styled in the Iranian flag’s colors, reading “women, life, freedom,” which has become the main rallying cry for these protests.

During a press conference Sunday, Iranian team captain Ehsan Hajsafi expressed support for the anti-government protests, sharing condolences to families mourning lost loved ones.

Hajsafi began his comments saying “In the name of the God of rainbows,” in reference to a sentence said by nine-year-old Kian Pirfalak, who was killed last week amid protests in Izeh, Khuzestan, Iran.

Since the protests began, more than 380 people have been killed, including at least 58 children, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran.

The Iranian team’s statement comes against a government that has not only violently suppressed public protest, but also stifled dissent from public figures. Actresses, athletes, musicians, and others have all been targeted and even arrested for acts of solidarity with the protestors. Such pressure had forestalled the Iranian team from speaking out until now, fostering discontent from many Iranians.

Nevertheless, as they took to perhaps the world’s largest stage—where the risks of disobedience couldn’t be higher—the players of Iran’s national team spoke out anyway.

The gunman who opened fire in a queer club in Colorado Springs over the weekend is the grandson of a California MAGA Republican lawmaker, multiple media outlets reported Monday.

Anderson Lee Aldrich has been arrested for entering Club Q and shooting at clubgoers Saturday night, killing five people and wounding at least 25 others. Two patrons managed to stop him, taking his gun and hitting him with it to subdue him.

“It has the trappings of a hate crime, but we are going to have to see what the investigation shows…to make a clear determination exactly what the motive was,” Colorado Springs mayor John Suthers said Monday.

Early reports indicate that Aldrich is the grandson of outgoing MAGA Republican California Assemblyman Randy Voepel.

Voepel drew serious condemnation last year, including calls for his removal from office, over his support for the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. “This is Lexington and Concord. First shots fired against tyranny,” Voepel told The San Diego Union-Tribune three days after the riot. “Tyranny will follow in the aftermath of the Biden swear-in on January 20th.”

This is not Aldrich’s first instance of violence. A year and a half prior to the shooting, he allegedly threatened his mother, Voepel’s daughter, with a homemade bomb. Neighbors had to evacuate while the bomb squad and crisis negotiators talked him down.

But there is no public record that he was charged with anything, nor that police or relatives tried to trigger Colorado’s “red flag” law that would have allowed authorities to seize any weapons or ammunition he had.

Had that law been triggered, it might have helped prevent Saturday night’s tragedy.

Aldrich is reportedly also a Mormon, a community with a long and fraught history of prejudice against LGBTQ people. Although the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints recently backed the marriage equality bill—which is headed to a final vote in the Senate—that support may be too little, too late.

It comes only a year after senior apostle Jeffrey R. Holland gave an inflammatory speech urging the Brigham Young University faculty and staff to take up metaphorical muskets in defense of their faith—including against same-sex relationships and marriage.

Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, a fraudulent health technology company, was sentenced to 11.25 years in prison on Friday. The sentence will be followed by 3 years of supervised release. Holmes faces the sentence for deceiving investors and endangering patients as she peddled fraudulent blood-testing technology.

Holmes’ sentence comes after being convicted on four counts of investor fraud and conspiracy in January. Holmes’ company, Theranos, purported itself to be creating revolutionary technology that could scan for hundreds of diseases with just a few drops of blood. But it was all a ruse.

Holmes had founded the company in 2003, beginning her quest to raise millions of dollars in funding for the idea. By the end of 2010, Holmes reportedly raised $92 million in venture capital.

After years of selling promises—putting together what was referred to as “the most illustrious board in U.S. corporate history”—Holmes took her product public. Partnering with Walgreens, Holmes began piloting the needles said to be able to test for afflictions including diabetes and HIV.

By 2014, Theranos was valued at $9 billion, having raised more than a whopping $400 million in venture capital. Her board included names such as former Defense Secretary James Mattis, and two former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger and the late George Shultz.

And then came the bombshells. The Wall Street Journal revealed Theranos’ devices were giving inaccurate testing results, and that the company was using already-available technologies manufactured by other companies for its supposedly revolutionary testing. Thereafter, the dominoes fell.

In 2016, the government found one of Theranos’ labs to have faulty procedures and equipment—banning Holmes from operating a blood-testing service for two years. In 2017, Arizona filed suit against Theranos for selling over one million blood tests to Arizonans while misrepresenting information about them. In 2018, the SEC charged Holmes and the company’s former president Ramesh Balwani with fraud for taking over $700 million from investors while selling their faulty product.

Holmes’ lawyer had tried arguing for leniency, painting her client as a well-meaning entrepreneur and mother. Her efforts were bolstered by 130 letters submitted by family, friends, and colleagues—and even Senator Cory Booker.

Jack Smith, the newly appointed special counsel to investigate Donald Trump, has a long history of investigating criminal cases.

Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday to investigate Trump’s role in the January 6 attack and his handling of classified documents, has promised to “exercise independent judgment” in the case.

He started his career in the 1990s, first as a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office and then in a similar position at the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn.

After almost two decades there, Smith moved to the Netherlands, where he oversaw war crimes investigations at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

He has also worked with the U.S. Department of Justice before, from 2010 to 2015, when he served as chief of the Public Integrity Section overseeing public corruption and elections-related investigations.

In 2018, he became the chief prosecutor at the special court in the Hague investigating war crimes committed during the Kosovo War.*

During his previous tenure at the Justice Department, Smith and his team won two notable corruption cases. First, they won a conviction against former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell, but the Supreme Court overturned it.

They also won a conviction against former Arizona Representative Rick Renzi, who was sentenced to three years in prison. Trump pardoned Renzi in January 2021, part of a slew of eleventh-hour pardons during his last days as president.

* This piece misstated when Smith investigated war crimes committed during the Kosovo War.

On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of a special counsel to oversee investigations into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, and his illegal possession of classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.

Trump, for his part, says he’s not going to “partake” in the special counsel inquiry—as if it’s up to him.

“I have been going through this for six years—for six years I have been going through this, and I am not going to go through it anymore,” Trump told Fox News.

The twice-impeached, twice-popular-vote-losing former president’s comments come just days after his announcement for a third consecutive presidential run. “It is so unfair. It is so political,” he said about the inquiry.

Garland said he appointed a special counsel knowing that Trump would be seeking another term as president.

Jack Smith, a former assistant U.S. attorney and chief to the DOJ’s public integrity section, will guide the investigation into Trump’s possession of classified documents after leaving the White House, and whether he obstructed the government’s initial investigation into the case. Smith will also look into Trump and his allies’ efforts to interrupt the transfer of power following the 2020 election.

Smith said in a statement Friday that he intends to “conduct the assigned investigations, and any prosecutions that may result from them, independently,” and that “the pace of the investigations will not pause or flag” under his watch.

The case provides further kindling to the sparks burning within the Republican party.  “I hope the Republicans have the courage to fight this,” Trump warned, giving everyone in his party a chance to prove their loyalty or commit to distancing themselves from the former president. Republicans including Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene have already jumped in to defend Trump and attack President Joe Biden and the Justice Department.