RICHMOND, Va. — Work to relocate Richmond’s final city-owned Confederate monument should start this week after a judge refused a request to delay the removal of the statue of Gen. A.P. Hill from its prominent spot in Virginia’s capital, an official said.

Richmond Circuit Court Judge David Eugene Cheek Sr. last week rejected a motion from four indirect descendants of Hill, who was killed in the final days of the Civil War, to stop the city’s removal plans.

Though the process of removing the monument from a busy intersection should start Monday, it’s unclear if it would be removed entirely by the end of the week, city deputy chief administrative officer Robert Steidel told WRIC-TV.

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The city, a onetime capital of the Confederacy, began removing its many other Confederate monuments more than two years ago amid the racial justice protests that followed George Floyd’s murder.Among the notable monuments removed was an imposing statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson, which was taken down from a concrete pedestal in 2020 along Richmond, Virginia’s famed Monument Avenue.

Richmond officials decided to convey the monuments to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia. But efforts to remove the Hill statue have been complicated because the general’s remains were buried beneath the monument in 1891.

The indirect descendants and the city have agreed that Richmond’s plan to move Hill’s remains to a cemetery in Culpeper should be allowed to move forward. But these descendants contend they have control over the statue and want it relocated to Cedar Mountain Battlefield, near the cemetery, instead of to the museum. Cheek ruled against them in October.

In the most recent hearing, Cheek denied their motion to stay the removal of the Hill monument while the descendants press an appeal with the Virginia Court of Appeals.

The city has spent at least $1.8 million removing other city-owned monuments, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. Cheek determined that delaying the removal would result in additional cost and retain a potential traffic hazard.

The monument will be kept in storage while the case goes through the expected appeal process, Steidel said in court last week.

Many Confederate statues in Virginia were erected decades after the Civil War, during the Jim Crow era, when states imposed new segregation laws, and during the “Lost Cause” movement, when historians and others tried to depict the South’s rebellion as a fight to defend states’ rights, not slavery.

Those seeking removal of the statues, particularly in Richmond — the onetime capital of the Confederacy — said that would service notice that the city is no longer a place with symbols of oppression and white supremacy.

LONDON — The number of people killed in an apartment building explosion and fire on the English Channel Island of Jersey has risen to five, and four others are still unaccounted for, police said Sunday.

Robin Smith, chief of Jersey Police, said specialist teams were continuing a painstaking search of the area in St. Helier, the island’s capital, and warned it was likely to be weeks before investigations are completed.

“There are still a number of residents, we are working on the assumption of four, that remain unaccounted for,” he said. “Their families were made aware of this announcement before other islanders. They continue to be supported by special officers.”

A blast destroyed a three-story apartment block in St. Helier at about 4 a.m. on Saturday. Smith said the fire was “likely” caused by a gas explosion, but that has not yet been confirmed.

Smith said the fire service had been called to the area the night before after residents reported smelling gas. He said police would investigate “whether or not there was a safety issue” with natural gas lines.

Authorities said Sunday that the search mission was now a “recovery operation” and they no longer expect to find anyone alive.

“We have moved to a recovery stage, it’s a moment to think about the families,” Smith said.

Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands, is a self-governing dependency of the United Kingdom located off the coast of northern France in the English Channel.

Gas supplier Island Energy said it is working with the fire service to “understand exactly what has happened.”

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LONDON (Reuters) -Jersey police said on Sunday the death toll from an explosion at an apartment building had risen to five, and that four people remained unaccounted for as emergency services indicated they were unlikely to find any more survivors.

The explosion early on Saturday morning at a block of flats on the island of Jersey, off the coast of northern France, completely destroyed the three-storey building in the island’s capital of St Helier.

“The number of Islanders confirmed to have been killed in the blast is now 5. There are a number of residents, we’re working on the assumption of 4, that are unaccounted for,” local police said on Twitter.

Jersey is a British Crown Dependency with a resident population of just over 100,000 people.

Fire services had been called to the property on Friday evening after residents had reported the smell of gas. The explosion occurred just before 0400 GMT on Saturday.

In a news conference on Sunday, emergency services said the search and rescue operation had moved to a recovery operation, indicating there was little hope of finding survivors.

Robin Smith, Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police, said the investigation would be independent and he would “rule nothing in and rule nothing out” when asked if he was treating the incident as a possible criminal matter.

He added that the recovery operation and the identification of bodies would take some time.

“We are not going to be here for days. We are likely to be here for weeks,” he told reporters.

Editor’s Note: With Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes convicted of seditious conspiracy, the group he founded is at a crossroads. The University of Albany’s Sam Jackson, author of a recent book on the group, explains how the conviction is creating disarray in the group’s ranks but notes that other so-called Patriot movements might benefit and that the overall cause will remain strong.

Daniel Byman

***

The verdict is in. After weeks of evidence and three days of deliberation, a jury has found Stewart Rhodes guilty of seditious conspiracy in the first of several trials for members and affiliates of Oath Keepers involved in the Jan. 6 attack on Congress. Prosecutors didn’t get a clean sweep of all the charges for the five defendants in this case, but every defendant was found guilty of at least one felony charge.

From the Oath Keepers’ founding, it has walked along the edge of violence. Since its first public event on April 19, 2009, the group has consistently asserted that the U.S. government has gone rogue, become increasingly tyrannical, violated the rights of Americans, and even been complicit with international actors seeking to destroy the country. As I’ve written in my book, the group’s leaders regularly urged those they considered to be patriotic Americans to prepare to fight back against the government—and to get their friends and neighbors involved in those preparations, even if that required a bit of misdirection, for example, by drawing parallels between the organization’s Community Preparedness Teams program and FEMA’s Community Emergency Response Teams program. At the same time, the group has engaged in “strategic ambiguity,” keeping much of the discussion of tyranny, violation of rights, and proper responses to tyrannical government abstract (and thus legal) and letting individuals fill in the blanks, deciding for themselves when their rights are being violated and whether violence is a justified response.

The group has also used historical analogies to think about violence. Oath Keepers frequently point to moments of conflict and crisis in U.S. history that (supposedly) illustrate government gone bad and the successful resistance to that government mounted by patriotic citizens. Primarily, this means talking about the American Revolution, the founders, and the “long train of abuses” that those founders argued justified a violent response to the British government. Oath Keepers leaders have said, time and again, that contemporary America faces the same kind of situation experienced by the residents of the British colonies of North America in the late 18th century, and that contemporary Americans can follow the model provided by those who fought against the British and won America’s independence in order to defeat America’s domestic enemies now.

The Oath Keepers organization has experienced infighting and fractures in recent years, even since before Jan. 6. Some state groups with “Oath Keepers” in their name have stated that they have no affiliation with the national organization, though this merits skepticism given the surge of bad publicity for the organization. Some of these groups claim they are unaffiliated, while others say that they were formerly affiliated. Without direct evidence, it seems unlikely that truly independent organizations with no ties to this prominent national group would use the “Oath Keepers” name. But even before the insurrection, there were periodic public statements from former Oath Keepers that Rhodes was a poor leader whom they couldn’t work with anymore.

As right-wing extremism has received more public attention in the past few years, much of the focus has been on discrete groups like Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. But all of these extremist groups are embedded in larger movements and networks. Many individuals in this ideological space support groups without becoming formal members. For example, the Oath Keepers claim around 40,000 dues-paying members (and watchdog estimates suggest that the real number is perhaps 10 percent of that), but before the group’s primary Facebook page was removed in August 2020 for violating community guidelines, the page had more than 500,000 followers. The group has also tapped into other movements to build support: For example, Rhodes spent time in 2009 speaking at Tea Party events, even leading a crowd in Knoxville, Tennessee, in an oath-swearing ceremony. As the organization faces challenges and bad publicity related to the Jan. 6 convictions and other ongoing cases, these unaffiliated supporters might rethink their support—or at least their public support—for the group.

These broader movements and ideological networks provide different options for individuals who are looking to join up with others who share their beliefs about the threats faced by themselves and the nation. For example, consider the Three Percenters, another sub-movement within the broader antigovernment militia movement. There is little ideological difference between Oath Keepers and “Threepers”: The decision to join an Oath Keepers chapter rather than a Threeper group might come down to which one has more members that a person knows or which one has more convenient meetings. Now, to the extent that the guilty verdicts make the Oath Keepers brand toxic to other antigovernment extremists, members and supporters might choose to reorient around a Threeper group or another entity in this movement.

All of this complexity makes it difficult to forecast what effects these initial guilty verdicts will have on the Oath Keepers, its members, and its supporters. Some will likely denounce the verdict as political persecution, perhaps even arguing that it is further evidence of the tyranny that the group has been talking about since its founding. More pragmatically, though, it is unclear who will now lead the group’s day-to-day operations, assuming that it doesn’t collapse and that Rhodes will face substantial prison time. After Rhodes was arrested, Kellye SoRelle, the general counsel for the organization, announced that she would be the group’s interim president, but when Rhodes was denied bail, she stated that she wouldn’t continue in that interim role but didn’t indicate who would take her place. SoRelle was later arrested on charges related to the insurrection and its aftermath.

Others in the movement might see this as Rhodes and other defendants getting what has been coming to them. As seen with the Oath Keepers chapters that denounced the insurrection, some in this ideological space think that the events at the U.S. Capitol were foolish and disastrous, even if they do not necessarily disagree with the ideas that motivated that attack on democracy. For example, the leader of the former North Carolina chapter of the group described the insurrection as “an ugly stain on our nation’s history” but defended the “innocent people that were there to hear the speeches.” The Oath Keepers’ central leadership also took this position previously: During the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which was organized by other antigovernment extremists, the group repeatedly said that it disagreed with those actions, primarily for tactical reasons, but did not contest the underlying idea that motivated the occupation—that the federal government was acting illegitimately. Those who have this reaction to the guilty verdict might continue their activity and retain their ideological proclivities with little change.

For individuals who might be amenable to antigovernment extremism but aren’t current supporters of this form of extremism, this conviction could have larger ramifications. Aside from the prison time Rhodes and the other defendants now face, being found guilty of seditious conspiracy could make it harder for the group to persuade a broad American public audience with a compelling message of patriotism and pro-constitutionalism: Now, that message will have to compete with the message that the group engaged in sedition. It’s difficult to know how significant this will be, though, given the numerous other actors in this space who don’t have the stigma of sedition attached to them.

It will take time to understand the full consequences of these convictions. Though the Department of Justice was able to obtain convictions against these individuals who so brazenly attacked American democracy, it is far too early to declare victory against those who directly participated in the insurrection, much less the broader set of Americans who invoke patriotism and wrap themselves in the flag to justify violence against the government. The effort against false patriotism did not start with this prosecution, nor will it end with it.  

NASA picked a very good morning to return from the moon. It was 50 years ago today that the crew of Apollo 17 landed in the Taurus Littrow Valley on the lunar surface, where they planted the last of six flags Apollo crews would leave behind to mark their moments in history. Today, the space agency planted a new, if symbolic flag, when the Artemis 1 mission’s Orion crew capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean 320 km (200 mi.) off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, at 9:40 a.m. Pacific Time. The safe return marked the end of a 25-day lunar orbital mission, proving the flight-worthiness of the Orion spacecraft, which is expected to carry a crew of astronauts on a circumlunar journey during Artemis 2, in 2024.

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“Splashdown,” NASA tweeted, seconds after the spacecraft hit the water. “After traveling 1.4 million miles through space, orbiting the Moon, and collecting data that will prepare us to send astronauts on future #Artemis missions, the @NASA_Orion spacecraft is home.

The recovery of Orion was expected to be smooth and without incident—“nominal,” as NASA puts these things. The Navy’s USS Portland was in the splashdown site—just 8 km (5 mi.) away; after the capsule hit the water, a five-hour process got underway in which a recovery team left the ship aboard small boats, headed for Orion. There, the plan calls for them to attach cables to the spacecraft and tow it back to the Portland, where, a winch line and four supporting cables were waiting to lift Orion up to the deck of the ship.

“Last week, we completed our final rehearsal with the USS Portland,” said Melissa Jones, NASA’s landing and recovery director, in a Dec. 5 statement. “We had a great three days working with them to refine our procedures and integrate our teams.”

The mission the spacecraft flew was an ambitious one, beginning with the Nov. 16 launch of NASA’s much-delayed Space Launch System (SLS) moon rocket—a machine that, with its 4 million kg (8.8 million lbs) of thrust, is the most powerful rocket ever launched. The Orion spacecraft took five days to reach the vicinity of the moon, then fired its engine to brake its speed slightly and enter lunar orbit. It spent the next two weeks making two wide, looping circuits around the moon, twice passing as close as 129 km (80 mi.) from the surface. At its most distant remove, the ship was more than 431,000 km (268,000 mi.) from Earth, and 69,000 km (43,000 mi.) above the far side of the moon. That broke the 400,000 km (250,000 mi.) distance record for a crew-rated spacecraft set by Apollo 13 during its one pass around the far side of the moon in 1970.

On Dec. 5, with its two lunar orbits complete, Orion fired its main engine for 3 minutes and 27 seconds, increasing its speed by 1,054 km/h (655 mph), which gave it enough propulsive muscle to pull away from the moon’s gravitational influence and head for home. The coast back to Earth was entirely nominal too. It was only when the spacecraft approached the planet that things got more complicated.

Orion was flying at about 40,000 km/h (25,000 mph) when it slammed into the atmosphere, beginning a plunge that would ultimately cause its heat shield to withstand temperatures of 2,760º C (5,000º F). During its descent it successfully pulled off a never-before-tried maneuver known as a “skip entry.”

The spacecraft initially plunged to an altitude of 61,000 m (200,000 ft.)—or about 61 km (38 mi.). Then it rolled 180 degrees—so that future astronauts who were sitting straight up inside would now be upside down—changing its center of gravity. That caused the ship to skip off the atmosphere and bounce back up to 99,000 m (325,000 ft)—or 99 km (61 mi)—essentially back into space. After that parabolic maneuver, Orion resumed its descent, with its guidance system pointing it straight for the waters off Baja California.

The skip entry served two key purposes. For one thing, the Apollo astronauts had to endure forces of 6.8 g’s (or 6.8 times Earth’s gravity) during their reentries, before their speed slowed, their parachutes opened, and they hit the water. The skip entry’s gentle parabolic flight will reduce the g-forces for future astronauts to just 4.

Just as important, taking a bead on the ground from that 99 km altitude during the skip part of the maneuver allows the spacecraft’s guidance system to direct the capsule to a pretty much pinpoint landing anywhere within an 8,890 km (5,524 mi) range. That means a closer-to-home, daylight landing like the one Orion made, as compared to the splashdowns of the Apollo crews, who were much more limited in the choice of landing sites and times. Apollo 8, for example, landed in the Pacific Ocean in pre-dawn darkness, in an area where sharks were known to feed before sun-up. The crew had to wait in their stultifyingly warm spacecraft in choppy Pacific waters until it was light enough for Navy frogmen to arrive on the scene for the recovery.

With Artemis 1 successfully in the books, NASA can set about selecting a crew and beginning their training for Artemis 2—just two years away. After that, likely no earlier than 2026, Artemis 3 will return astronauts to the lunar surface—adding a seventh flag to the half dozen still standing there.

WASHINGTON — A Libyan intelligence official accused of making the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 in an international act of terrorism has been taken into U.S. custody and will face federal charges in Washington, the Justice Department said Sunday.

The arrest of Abu Agela Masud Kheir Al-Marimi is a milestone in the decades-old investigation into the attack that killed 259 people in the air and 11 on the ground. American authorities in December 2020 announced charges against Masud, who was in Libyan custody at the time. Though he is the third Libyan intelligence official charged in the U.S. in connection with the attack, he would be the first to appear in an American courtroom for prosecution.

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The New York-bound Pan Am flight exploded over Lockerbie less than an hour after takeoff from London on Dec. 21, 1988. Citizens from 21 different countries were killed. Among the 190 Americans on board were 35 Syracuse University students flying home for Christmas after a semester abroad.

The bombing laid bare the threat of international terrorism more than a decade before the Sept. 11 attacks. It produced global investigations and punishing sanctions while spurring demands for accountability from victims of those killed. The university’s current chancellor, Kent Syverud, said in a statement that the arrest was a significant development in the long process “to bring those responsible for this despicable act to justice.”

The announcement of charges against Masud on Dec. 21, 2020, came on the 32nd anniversary of the bombing and in the final days of the tenure of then-Attorney General William Barr, who in his first stint as attorney general in the early 1990s had announced criminal charges against two other Libyans intelligence officials.

The Libyan government initially balked at turning over the two men, Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, before ultimately surrendering them for prosecution before a panel of Scottish judges sitting in the Netherlands as part of a special arrangement.

The Justice Department said Masud would appear soon in a federal court in Washington, where he faces two criminal counts related to the explosion.

U.S. officials did not say how Masud came to be taken into U.S. custody, but late last month, local Libyan media reported that Masud had been kidnapped by armed men on Nov. 16 from his residence in Tripoli, the capital. That reporting cited a family statement that accused Tripoli authorities of being silent on the abduction.

In November 2021, Najla Mangoush, the foreign minister for the country’s Tripoli-based government, told the BBC in an interview that “we, as a government, are very open in terms of collaboration in this matter,” when asked whether an extradition was possible.

Torn by civil war since 2011, Libya is divided between rival governments in the east and west, each backed by international patrons and numerous armed militias on the ground. Militia groups have amassed great wealth and power from kidnappings and their involvement in Libya’s lucrative human trafficking trade

A breakthrough in the investigation came when U.S. officials in 2017 received a copy of an interview that Masud, a longtime explosives expert for Libya’s intelligence service, had given to Libyan law enforcement in 2012 after being taken into custody following the collapse of the government of the country’s leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

In that interview, U.S. officials said, Masud admitted building the bomb in the Pan Am attack and working with two other conspirators to carry it out. He also said the operation was ordered by Libyan intelligence and that Gadhafi thanked him and other members of the team after the attack, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.

That affidavit said Masud told Libyan law enforcement that he flew to Malta to meet al-Megrahi and Fhimah. He handed Fhimah a medium-sized Samsonite suitcase containing a bomb, having already been instructed to set the timer so that the device would explode exactly 11 hours later, according to the document. He then flew to Tripoli, the FBI said.

Al-Megrahi was convicted in the Netherlands while Fhimah was acquitted of all charges. Al-Megrahi was given a life sentence, but Scottish authorities released him on humanitarian grounds in 2009 after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He later died in Tripoli, still protesting his innocence.

In announcing charges against Masud in 2020, Barr said the U.S. and Scotland would use “every feasible and appropriate means” to bring him to trial.

“At long last, this man responsible for killing Americans and many others will be subject to justice for his crimes,” Barr said at the time.

Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service on Sunday announced the arrest as well, saying in a statement that “the families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have been told that the suspect is in U.S. custody.”

The statement added that “Scottish prosecutors and police, working with U.K. government and U.S. colleagues, will continue to pursue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing those who acted along with al-Megrahi to justice.”