The CIA has "high confidence" that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, officials first told The Washington Post.
The CIA reportedly drew its evidence from, among other things, a phone call between Khashoggi and bin Salman's brother Khalid bin Salman, in which Khalid told Khashoggi to visit the Saudi consulate where he was killed. The crown prince told Khalid to make the call, per the Post. A team of 15 Saudi operatives then reportedly flew via government airplane to Istanbul for the murder.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned 17 Saudis it said were "involved in" Khashoggi's murder earlier this week. But this is furthest the U.S. has gone toward implicating Saudi Arabia for the crime, per reports from multiple sources.
Khashoggi was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, and Turkey has long maintained the Saudi government was responsible. Saudi Arabia once said the murder was a predetermined rogue operation, but shifted to say it was a random killing when announcing charges against 11 alleged perpetrators earlier this week. Bin Salman is close with President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and some have suggested the Trump administration avoided implicating Saudi Arabia to preserve an alliance with the country.
A spokeswoman for America's Saudi consulate told the Post that the CIA's claims in its "purported assessment are false." Kathryn Krawczyk
It's not something you see every day, or year, or even decade: Snow in Los Angeles.
An exceptionally chilly storm system from Alberta, Canada, brought snow on Thursday to cities across Southern California, including Malibu, West Hollywood, Pasadena, San Bernardino, and Rancho Cucamonga. The snow level dropped to as low as 1,000 feet in some areas, with flakes falling in cities that haven't seen snow in several decades. "This is probably the coldest storm system I've seen in my time in California," meteorologist David Sweet with the National Weather Service in Oxnard told the Los Angeles Times.
The Los Angeles Public Library Archives says that it hasn't snowed in the city since January 1962, when snow dusted downtown L.A. Much of Thursday's snow melted as soon as it hit the ground, but it's definitely sticking up in the mountains across Southern California, which have already seen a lot of powder this winter. Catherine Garcia
Peter Tork, bassist and keyboardist for The Monkees, died on Thursday. He was 77.
In 2009, Tork was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma, a rare cancer affecting his head and neck. Known for their hits "Daydream Believer" and "I'm a Believer," The Monkees had four No. 1 albums and a television show that ran from 1966 to 1968. The group, comprised of Tork, Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith, released the movie Head in 1968, and later that year, Tork left the band. He participated in several reunion tours, both before and after Jones died in 2012. Tork's last solo record, "Relax Your Mind," came out in 2018.
Dolenz tweeted on Thursday that his heart is "broken," and Nesmith said he is "clinging to the idea that we all continue," but the "pain that attends these passings has no cure." Catherine Garcia
North Carolina's elections board has called for a new congressional election to finally fill its 9th District seat.
Republican candidate Mark Harris narrowly beat Democrat Dan McCready in November's elections, but the board had refused to call the election amid widespread allegations of fraud committed by Harris' campaign. After a weeklong series of hearings on the issue — and after Harris called for a new election — the board decided Thursday to hold a do-over, per The Washington Post.
After November's elections, dozens of voters filed affidavits saying people came to their house and illegally asked for their absentee ballots, even if they weren't filled out, signed, or sealed. Witnesses have since testified to collecting those ballots after being paid by McCrae Dowless, a political operative who consulted for Harris.
The uncertainty prompted a series of hearings on the issue, during which state investigators and the board said they had "evidence" that proved "a coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme operated during the general election," per NBC News. Harris has long denied knowledge of any illegal activities, and repeated that claim Thursday. Still, he called for a new election because "the public's confidence... has been undermined." Less than an hour later, the board voted to hold a new election, the Post says. Kathryn Krawczyk
#RogerStoneDidNothingWrong will have to carry on without Roger Stone's help.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a full gag order on Stone's case on Thursday, telling him she would revoke his bail and have him detained if he violated the order. Stone, President Trump's former adviser, appeared in court to apologize for sharing an inflammatory post about Jackson on Instagram.
He called the post "an egregious, stupid error" and blamed the decision on stress, but Jackson barred stone from publicly commenting on his case, "period."
"What concerns me is the fact that he chose to use his public platform and chose to express himself in a manner that can incite others that feel less constrained," said Jackson, per BuzzFeed News. She didn't buy his claim that he didn't realize the picture he shared contained a crosshairs next to her face, saying there was "nothing ambiguous" about the imagery. "Thank you, but the apology rings quite hollow," she said.
Jackson previously issued a partial gag order, telling Stone he couldn't comment on his case outside the Washington, D.C. courthouse but could gripe about his witness tampering and obstruction charges on InfoWars to his heart's content. On Thursday, she determined he needed a little more rigidity, condemning his quick "abuse" of the "liberty he was afforded."
He will be allowed to maintain his innocence, and can ask for donations to his legal fund, but that's it. "I'm not giving you another chance," Jackson told Stone. He'll remain out on bail, but as former U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance pointed out, "if you're Roger Stone, being told you can't talk to the media is probably a worse punishment than being sent to jail." Summer Meza
The federal prosecutors who signed a plea agreement with Florida millionaire Jeffrey Epstein broke the law, a judge said Thursday, reports The Miami Herald.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra ruled that the prosecutors involved in the sex-trafficking case, including then-Florida prosecutor and current Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act by not keeping Epstein's victims informed about the agreement, per Politico. After the deal, which resolved a case in which Epstein was accused of building a "cult-like network" of girls coerced into sexual acts, Epstein ultimately served 13 months in prison. The deal, which Acosta agreed to seal, was kept secret from dozens of women who alleged abuse.
“Particularly problematic was the government's decision to conceal the existence of the [agreement] and mislead the victims to believe that federal prosecution was still a possibility," the judge said. "When the government gives information to victims, it cannot be misleading. While the government spent untold hours negotiating the terms and implications of the [agreement] with Epstein's attorneys, scant information was shared with victims."
Marra also said he has reviewed evidence that Epstein violated sex trafficking laws and abused at least 30 girls between 1997 and 2007, per NBC News. "Epstein worked in concert with others to obtain minors not only for his own sexual gratification, but also for the sexual gratification of others," Marra said. The Labor Department did not comment on the ruling. Brendan Morrow