The Memphis Fire Department said on Monday it had dismissed two emergency medical technicians and a lieutenant who responded to the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols, after investigators found that a patient assessment was not conducted in a timely manner at the scene.

The three fire department employees “violated numerous (fire department) policies and protocols,” the agency said in a statement issued by Fire Chief Gina Sweat.

The terminations came as the Memphis Police Department disclosed that a total of seven of its officers were relieved of duty for their roles in the confrontation that led to the Jan. 10 death of Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man. That tally included five officers who previously were dismissed from the force and were charged last week with murder.

A sixth officer – identified as Preston Hemphill – was suspended with pay pending a hearing, and a seventh officer who was not immediately identified was relieved of duty without pay, the police department said. No criminal charges have been filed against Hemphill, 26, who joined the force in 2018, or against the seventh, unnamed officer.

A police department spokesperson declined to comment on why suspensions were not announced earlier.

Police Chief Cerelyn Davis has previously said that an unspecified number of officers besides the five initially implicated remained under investigation for policy infractions stemming from the arrest of Nichols during a Jan. 7 traffic stop.

The five officers dismissed on Jan. 20 – all of them Black – were charged Thursday with second-degree murder, assault, kidnapping, official misconduct and oppression in the fatal beating of Nichols.

Hemphill, who is white, wore the body-camera that captured the first of four videos released by authorities on Friday of the traffic stop and violent confrontation that followed, according to the officer’s attorney, Lee Gerald.

Nichols arrived at a hospital in critical condition after he was repeatedly pummeled with punches, kicks and blows from a baton, and he died three days later.

EMTs Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge “failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment” upon seeing the injured Nichols a few minutes after police stopped beating him. Instead, after an initial “interaction” with Nichols the EMTs called for an ambulance, which arrived on the scene about 23 minutes after the EMTs had first been dispatched, Sweat said in her statement.

She said the ambulance unit “initiated patient care” upon its arrival and transported Nichols to a hospital a short time later.

Fire Department Lieutenant Michelle Whitaker, who drove Long and Sandridge to the scene, remained in her vehicle after the three arrived, the statement said.

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A New York federal court ruled that the identities of two anonymous sponsors who helped secure Sam Bankman-Fried’s release on bail should be public.

Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

• A federal judge agreed to unseal the names of Samuel Bankman-Fried’s two anonymous bail sponsors.
• But he paused his own decision for a week to allow for appeals.
• The judge pointed out that the sponsors waded into a highly public criminal case.

The federal judge overseeing Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal case said there was no justifiable reason to keep secret the names of the disgraced cryptocurrency mogul’s two anonymous bail sponsors, ordering to unseal their names in court documents.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said that the sponsors, whose identities Bankman-Fried argued should be kept secret for their safety, knew what they were getting into. 

“The non-parental bail sureties have entered voluntarily into a highly publicized criminal proceeding by signing the individual bonds,” Kaplan wrote in his ruling on Monday.

At the same time, Kaplan paused on his own decision until February 7, giving Bankman-Fried and the sponsors an opportunity to appeal because of the “novel” legal issues at stake, he wrote.

Bankman-Fried’s bail package includes a $250 million bond secured by his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California, and also involves the two additional sponsors who put up a combined $700,000, according to a court filing this month. According to the rules of their bail agreement, one of those additional sponsors couldn’t be a family member, according to court filings.

Bankman-Fried’s attorneys have sought to keep the names and addresses of the two non-parent sponsors under seal. They’ve argued in court filings that Bankman-Fried’s parents have been subject to harassment, and that the two other sureties would be as well if they were publicly identified.

A group of media organizations, including Insider, argued that the public had a right to know who was bankrolling Bankman-Fried’s bail.

“Given Mr. Bankman-Fried’s relationships and access to some of the most wealthy, powerful, and politically connected individuals, including elected officials, access to the identity of the bond sureties will bolster trust in the judicial process here,” the news organizations, represented by Jeremy A. Chase and Alexandra Settelmayer at the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, argued in a filing earlier this month. 

In December, federal prosecutors in New York unveiled 8 counts against Bankman-Fried, including wire fraud and conspiracy charges, in what they characterized as an effort to “misappropriate billions of dollars” of FTX customer funds. 

Prosecutors have also pursued others in his orbit, and secured plea deals in December with Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Bankman-Fried’s separate firm Alameda Research, and with FTX co-founder Gary Wang. 

In his Monday decision, Kaplan weighed whether the bail documents qualified as “judicial documents” that normally have a presumption of public access, and considered whether the sponsors had countervailing privacy interests.

“If the names of the non-parental sureties are disclosed, it is reasonable to assume that those individuals would become subject to publicity that they would prefer not to attract,” Kaplan wrote. “That is entitled to some consideration, especially in a case which has the notoriety that this one has attracted.”

“But that alone does not do the trick,” Kaplan continued.

ALBANY, Ga. (AP) — Jessie Blanchard started small nearly five years ago, just trying to get enough of the rescue drug naloxone that reverses opioid overdoses to keep her daughter from dying from an overdose.

She pleaded with colleagues at the college where she’s an adjunct teacher in Albany, Georgia, to use their prescription benefits to get two doses every six months.

Now she loads her Jeep every week and heads out with a few other volunteers to bring the antidote — commonly known by its brand name Narcan — to hundreds of others in the town of 70,000.

At parking lots and intersections she also supplies clean needles, fentanyl test strips and a nonjudgmental sounding board — an effort now partly funded by a state government grant. At least nine times in December alone, Blanchard said, rescue drugs she provided were used to reverse overdoses.

“I’ve got story-after-story, story-after-story of people coming up to me,” said Blanchard, a nurse whose organization is called 229 Safer Living Access, a reference to the Albany area code the group’s work covers. “They say, ‘Miss Jessie, they had to Narcan me the other day and I’d have died if it wasn’t for you.’”

Naloxone, available as a nasal spray and in an injectable form, is a key tool in the battle against a nationwide overdose crisis linked to the deaths of more than 100,000 people annually in the U.S. State and federal policy changes have removed some major obstacles to getting it into the hands of police, firefighters, people who use drugs and their loved ones. But it’s still often frustratingly inaccessible in the moments when overdoses happen.

Stephen Murray, an overdose survivor and former paramedic who researches overdoses at Boston Medical Center, is so committed to naloxone access that he proclaims it on his personalized license plate: NARCAN.

“My vision for it is to be in every 24-hour gas station in the state, free or 25 cents a dose,” he said. “It’ll be between the Tylenol and the condoms. … It has to be just as easy as buying heroin, basically.”

There’s more naloxone than ever thanks to federal and state policies, and groups like Blanchard’s that distribute it in their communities. It’s available free in old newspaper vending boxes in Michigan, which now hold naloxone kits, and in a vending machine in Philadelphia. One group, NEXT Distro, mails it nationwide for free. But Murray’s vision is not close to being realized in most places.

An influx of money is on the way, intended to help deal with the national overdose crisis that killed 107,000 people in 2021 — the highest tally ever — most involving fentanyl and other powerful illicit synthetic opioids.

Drug makers, distribution companies and pharmacies have settled lawsuits with state and local governments, and the first funding totaling more than $50 billion is going out. Most of it must be used to address the opioid epidemic, though exactly how will be up to governments receiving the money. Some settlements are being delivered partly in doses of naloxone.

In a 2021 report, public health experts convened by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health listed expanding naloxone access as the first strategy for using settlement funds, noting that 40% of overdose deaths happen when someone else is present and possibly able to administer the life-saving drug.

As with other harm-reduction strategies, there’s been pushback from those who believe making naloxone available enables drug use. But Jeff Breedlove, policy chief for the Georgia Council for Recovery, said he no longer sees that as much of an issue.

Instead, he said, funding and distribution programs remain spotty because they don’t have enough support from government and private groups such as chambers of commerce. “Until they treat it like an epidemic,” Breedlove said, “we will continue to have more and more funerals.”

Since 2016, the federal government has allowed and encouraged federal funds to be used to buy naloxone.

Officials in every state have given standing orders to pharmacies allowing people to buy it, even without prescriptions.

That’s a major factor for the massive increase in how much has been distributed through retail pharmacies. A report by the American Medical Association and IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science found there were just over 1,000 orders filled in 2012. By 2021, it was nearly 1.2 million.

But not all pharmacies carry it. And it comes at a cost: For those without insurance coverage, it can be around $50 for two doses.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering allowing some forms of naloxone to be sold over-the-counter without a prescription, a move that could lower the cost.

Randy Anderson, who is in recovery himself and works as a recovery consultant, said he’s handed out some 100,000 doses of naloxone in Minnesota. He believes from his time using drugs that pharmacy availability doesn’t do much to help people who need it most.

“There was no way I would spend $10 for something to save my life when I needed that money to buy drugs,” he said.

Aside from cost, there are other barriers to getting naloxone to drug users.

In Alabama, for instance, a pharmacist, physician or public health nurse must be involved in the distribution. But the state does have a program to mail the antidote to anyone who requests it.

Maya Doe-Simkins, a co-director of Remedy Alliance/For The People, which helps provide naloxone to groups working to prevent overdose deaths, said programs don’t always prioritize getting the antidote to people who use drugs.

“If they’re not matched up and directed where they should be, we’re going to see more and more naloxone sitting on the shelves of church basements, expiring,” she said.

Colin Dwyer, a former social entrepreneur-in-residence at the Stanford School of Business, founded the Overdose Crisis Response Fund to try to boost small distribution efforts across the country, including Blanchard’s in Albany.

“All I actually care about is what has the probability of saving the most lives the fastest,” Dwyer said.

One of his grantees, Talia Rogers, distributes naloxone and other supplies in Kirksville, Missouri, through a one-person operation, Show Me Harm Reduction, which she initially funded with money she made working as a nanny.

She’s now a consultant for the Missouri Institute of Mental Health and gets naloxone through the state’s use of a federal grant.

“If they’re not getting Narcan or naloxone through me, they’re not getting it,” Rogers said.

Ron Stewart, an emergency preparedness planner for Adair County, which includes Kirksville, said it provides naloxone only to first responders now, but he’s hopeful a state program will soon make it available to the public, too.

In Albany, Blanchard gets naloxone through Georgia Opioid Prevention, which receives a state grant.

In 2022, she handed out more than 1,800 doses — far more than the public health district for Southwest Georgia, which gave out 280 doses to people who showed up at health department offices in an isolated corner of Albany and to community organizations.

One of her clients, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Jomo, because he uses illegal drugs, said he’s glad for the supplies. “Because this is something we’re going to do anyway,” he said.

Blanchard said 26 people have come to her group for help getting into treatment programs, and 19 are currently not using.

She recalled her desperation in 2018, trying to help her daughter, then a teenager. Now 22, her daughter is still using.

“She’s so beautiful and so perfect,” Blanchard said. “And because of harm reduction, she’s still alive and she’s healthy and she’s thriving.”

.___

Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content

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Legendary former CIA officer Jim Lawler, celebrated for taking down the infamous A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network, is fond of telling audiences he had to be a sociopath to succeed in his line of work.

He’s not entirely kidding.

In a recent interview, I asked him why he said that. After all, sociopaths have “a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience,” according to one definition. “Symptoms may include disregard for others, a lack of empathy, and dishonest behavior.”

Dishonesty, of course, is a highly regarded attribute in the spy game, which requires intelligence officers to live under false identities and recruit foreigners to commit treason. Think The Americans, the TV drama about a family of Russian spies just outside Washington, D.C. CIA officers do the same in foreign countries.

But what about those other nasty personality traits?

“Well, my psychiatrist friends argue with me about whether I’m truly a sociopath or not,” Lawler told me. Maybe “dark empath,” as another shrink put it, is more accurate, he said, “because I do go to dark places but I have a high degree of empathy when I’m recruiting people.”

An author of spy thrillers himself now, Lawler says his own favorite genre of novels “are thrillers that involve hit men. So, you know, maybe I was a hit man for the CIA—not a violent hit man, but a recruiting hit man.”

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A successful CIA recruiter places him or herself is a position to meet foreigners of interest to the agency, such as Russian, Chinese, Iranian or North Korea officials, military officers, scientists or business people. The opportunity often comes at international conferences or gatherings where their targets are far from home, under less scrutiny, a little more relaxed. Operators like Lawler look for cracks in their lives or personalities to exploit.

“I was looking for stresses in their lives,” Lawler related. “I always tell folks, you know, I never recruited a happy person. Not once in my life. You don’t recruit happy people. You recruit people under stress.”

Needless to say, foreigners from hostile nations are on guard when they meet an American of any kind, especially when they suss out that he’s up to no good. But some also saw a welcome opportunity. Most of those say they want to defect—now.

“Our job is to try and convince them, if possible, to stay in place and work in place as a clandestine source,” Lawler said. But the mortality rate for spies can be very high in police states like China.

Lawler says he’s never lost one of his.

“Jim,” a CIA friend once told him, “you know you’re not doing these people any favors when you recruit them.” He responded that he’d quit “if I actually thought that I couldn’t do that in good conscience.”

Listen to Lawler and I talk more about how the espionage trade is really plied on the SpyTalk podcast, on Apple or wherever you listen. And do leave a comment. We love talking with our listeners and readers.

The defence chiefs of the United States and South Korea will hold talks on Tuesday in Seoul as Washington seeks to reassure a key Asian ally over its nuclear commitment amid growing threats from North Korea.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Seoul on Monday and is set to meet South Korean Defence Minister Lee Jong-sup on Tuesday, following their annual security talks in November in Washington.

The latest meeting comes as South Korea pushes to bolster confidence in American extended deterrence – its military capability, especially nuclear forces, to deter attacks on its allies.

Nuclear-armed North Korea launched an unprecedented number of missiles last year, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. Officials from both sides have also warned Pyongyang could be preparing for its first test of a nuclear device since 2017.

The North’s evolving threats had also revived calls from some politicians and experts in South Korea for bringing back U.S. tactical nuclear weapons or even developing its own nuclear programmes, though Seoul officials dismissed such a possibility.

Austin said his trip was aimed at deepening cooperation to tackle shared security challenges and reaffirm the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to South Korea is “ironclad” at a “time of heightened tension and provocation.”

“That’s why the United States and the ROK are taking clear, meaningful steps to modernise and strengthen our alliance,” Austin said in a special op-ed release on Tuesday by Yonhap news agency, referring to South Korea by the initials of its official name, the Republic of Korea.

“So our adversaries and competitors know that if they challenge one of us, they are challenging the U.S.-ROK alliance as a whole,” he added.

Lee has said the two countries will hold nuclear tabletop exercises in February under the scenario of North Korea’s nuclear attacks, as part of efforts to improve joint nuclear planning and implementation and boost information sharing.

Austin said the exercises are in line with the allies’ talks to expand extended deterrence activities and mechanisms on the peninsula and in the region.

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A U.S. judge on Monday said the names of two people who helped guarantee bail for indicted FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried should be made public, but put his ruling on hold pending an expected appeal.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ruled in favor of several media outlets including Reuters that sought the names.

The judge said that while the public had only a “weak” right to know who Bankman-Fried’s guarantors were, it outweighed Bankman-Fried’s arguments for confidentiality, including that the guarantors’ safety could be imperiled.

Kaplan also said the names will remain under seal until at least Feb. 7, because “the question presented here is novel and an appeal is likely.”

A spokesman for Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell, who represent Bankman-Fried, declined to comment.

Bankman-Fried, 30, has been confined at his parents’ home in California, after pleading not guilty to fraud for allegedly looting billions of FTX customer dollars.

His parents, both professors at Stanford Law School, had co-signed a $250 million bond for their son, with two other guarantors required to sign $500,000 and $200,000 bonds.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers said the parents had been harassed and received physical threats since FTX’s November collapse and bankruptcy, and there was “serious cause for concern” the additional guarantors might suffer similar treatment.

Kaplan disagreed, noting that long before bail was posted, the parents had faced “intense public scrutiny” over their relationship with their son, who was once worth an estimated $26 billion.

“The amounts of the individual bonds–$500,000 and $200,000–do not suggest that the non-parental sureties are persons of great wealth or likely to attract attention of the types and volume of that to which defendant’s parents appear to have been subjected,” Kaplan wrote.

Media outlets distinguished the case from another judge’s decision not to reveal who guaranteed a bond for Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

They said there was less “stigma” from being associated with Bankman-Fried than from being associated with the late sex offender. Maxwell was later convicted.

Other media seeking to identify Bankman-Fried’s guarantors included the Associated Press, Bloomberg, CNBC, CoinDesk, Dow Jones, the Financial Times, Insider, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

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A U.S. appeals court on Monday shot down Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ.N) attempt to offload tens of thousands of lawsuits over its talc products into bankruptcy court. The ruling marked the first major repudiation of an emerging legal strategy with the potential to upend U.S. corporate liability law.

J&J is among four major companies that have filed so-called Texas two-step bankruptcies to avoid potentially massive lawsuit exposure. The tactic involves creating a subsidiary to absorb the liabilities and to immediately file for Chapter 11.

The court ruled the healthcare conglomerate improperly placed its subsidiary into bankruptcy even though it faced no financial distress. J&J’s two-step sought to halt more than 38,000 lawsuits from plaintiffs alleging the company’s baby powder and other talc products caused cancer. The appeals court ruling revives those lawsuits.

Reuters last year detailed the secret planning of Texas two-steps by Johnson & Johnson and other major firms in a series of reports exploring corporate attempts to evade lawsuits through bankruptcies.

Monday’s decision by the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia dismissed the bankruptcy filed by the J&J subsidiary in 2021. Before the filing, J&J had faced costs of $3.5 billion in verdicts and settlements.

J&J shares closed down 3.7% – the biggest one-day percentage decline in two years. The company said in a statement that it would challenge the ruling and that its talc products are safe.

Plaintiffs attorneys and some legal experts have argued the two-step could set a dangerous precedent, providing a blueprint for any corporation to easily avoid undesirable litigation. The appeals court decision could force companies considering the strategy to more carefully consider its risks, two legal experts said.

“It is a push back on the notion that any company anywhere can use the same tactic to get rid of their mass tort liability,” said Lindsey Simon, a professor at University of Georgia School of Law.

Bankruptcy filings typically suspend litigation in trial courts, forcing plaintiffs into often time-consuming settlement negotiations while leaving them unable to pursue their cases in the courts where they originally sued.

The 3rd Circuit ruling does not directly impact three other Texas two-step bankruptcies, filed by subsidiaries of Koch Industries-owned Georgia Pacific, global construction giant Saint-Gobain(SGOB.PA), and Trane Technologies (2IS.F). Those cases fall under the jurisdiction of the 4th Circuit appeals court. 3M (MMM.N) attempted a similar maneuver, which is currently pending in the 7th Circuit.

Those companies did not comment on the 3rd Circuit ruling or did not immediately respond to inquiries. All have previously defended the bankruptcies as the best way to fairly compensate claimants. Plaintiffs’ attorneys have countered that the Texas two-step is an improper manipulation of the bankruptcy system. The strategy uses a Texas law to split an existing company in two, creating the new subsidiary meant to shoulder the lawsuits.

New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson, valued at more than $400 billion, said its subsidiary’s bankruptcy was initiated in good faith. J&J initially pledged $2 billion to the subsidiary to resolve talc claims and entered into an agreement to fund an eventual settlement approved by a bankruptcy judge.

“Resolving this matter as quickly and efficiently as possible is in the best interests of claimants and all stakeholders,” J&J said.

A three-judge panel on the appeals court rejected J&J’s argument, finding the company’s subsidiary, LTL Management, was created solely to file for Chapter 11 protection but had no legitimate need for it. Only a debtor in financial distress can seek bankruptcy, the panel ruled. The judges pointed out that J&J assured that it would give LTL plenty of money to pay talc claimants.

“Good intentions – such as to protect the J&J brand or comprehensively resolve litigation – do not suffice alone,” the judges said in a 56-page opinion. “LTL, at the time of its filing, was highly solvent with access to cash to meet comfortably its liabilities.”

The decision could force J&J to fight talc lawsuits for years in trial courts. The company has a mixed record fighting the suits so far. While the firm was hit with major judgments in some cases before filing bankruptcy, more than 1,500 talc lawsuits have been dismissed and the majority of cases that have gone to trial have resulted in verdicts favoring J&J, judgments for the company on appeal, or mistrials, according to its subsidiary’s court filings.

A December 2018 Reuters investigation revealed that J&J officials knew for decades about tests showing that the company’s talc sometimes contained traces of carcinogenic asbestos but kept that information from regulators and the public. J&J has said its talc does not contain asbestos and does not cause cancer.

Facing unrelenting litigation, J&J enlisted law firm Jones Day, which had helped other companies execute Texas two-step bankruptcies to address asbestos-related lawsuits.

J&J’s effort, as Reuters reported last year, was internally dubbed “Project Plato,” and employees working on it signed confidentiality agreements. A company lawyer warned them to tell no one, including their spouses, about the plan.

Jones Day did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Texas two-step has garnered criticism from Democratic lawmakers in Washington, and inspired proposed legislation that would severely restrict the practice.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, cheered Monday’s appeals court decision. Whitehouse chaired the first congressional hearing scrutinizing two-step bankruptcies in February of last year.

“Bankruptcy is meant to give honest debtors in unfortunate circumstances a fresh start,” he said, not to allow “large, highly profitable corporations” to avoid accountability for wrongdoing with a legal “shell game.”