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He has insisted that the 12 jurors were given “all of the evidence” and were free to pursue additional charges.

As is customary in the recording of Grand Jury proceedings, juror deliberations and prosecutor recommendations and statements were not recorded, as they are not evidence,

The audio files do not include statements or recommendations from prosecutors about which charges they think should be brought against the officers. Mr. Cameron has said that jurors were told that the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor were justified in their actions. Ultimately, the jurors indicted a former officer last week on three charges of endangering Ms. Taylor’s neighbors by firing into their home during a raid of her apartment in March, but did not charge either of the officers who shot her.

Grand jurors are given broad powers to request evidence, call witnesses and determine which charges to pursue, but prosecutors often closely guide the jurors, presenting them with certain charges and telling them about their own roles. The process almost always remains secret.

grand jurors indicted Brett Hankison, a former detective, on three counts of “wanton endangerment” last week, saying Mr. Hankison had recklessly fired his gun during the raid after Ms. Taylor’s boyfriend — who has said he thought intruders were entering the apartment — shot an officer in the leg.

Mr. Hankison’s rounds did not hit anyone, investigators have said, but some of them flew into an apartment behind Ms. Taylor’s, leading to the three charges.

Detective Myles Cosgrove, who the F.B.I. said fired the shot that killed Ms. Taylor, described a disorienting scene of flashing lights as officers breached the door and seemed to suggest uncertainty about exactly what happened.

But, he added, “It’s like a surreal thing. If you told me I didn’t do something at that time, I’d believe you. If you told me I did do something, I’d probably believe you, too.”

Detective Cosgrove said he also saw a shadow of a person, a “larger than normal human shadow,” when they raided the apartment and he saw flashing lights.

The first witness was an investigator for the Attorney General’s office, who presented photos and videos of the scene, including the body camera videos of three officers who arrived after the shots were fired

Grand jurors asked whether Kenneth Walker, Ms. Taylor’s boyfriend, had been named in the search warrant (he had not), what exactly the officers saw when the apartment door opened, and whether the officers executing the warrant were aware that the police had already found Jamarcus Glover, who was the target of an illegal drug investigation.

Mr. Glover was Ms. Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, and he was in custody by the time they raided her apartment. At times, the jurors’ questions suggested they were skeptical of what they were being shown: one asked about the time stamps on the video. Another asked why they had not seen the room where the gun was found; the investigator said that would be shown in a different video.

Grand jurors heard at least two Louisville police officers who were at the raid on Ms. Taylor’s apartment say the group knocked and announced their presence several times before breaking down the door, according to a recording of the proceedings released on Friday.Those accounts, which have been questioned by several of Ms. Taylor’s neighbors and her boyfriend, were included among roughly 15 hours of audio filed by the attorney general on Friday, which includes interviews heard by the grand jury over several days last week.

The unidentified neighbor yelled at them, “something about leave her alone, there was some girl there,” Detective Cosgrove said in an interview with police investigators last month that was played for the grand jury.

He said officers were outside knocking for 90 seconds, and that the volume escalated from “gentle knocking” to “forceful pounding” to pounding while yelling “police.”

Detective Nobles, who held the battering ram that broke through Ms. Taylor’s door, said he stood at the door, knocking and announcing himself as police for one or two minutes before he used the battering ram to force his way into Ms. Taylor’s apartment. His interview was also played for grand jurors. He said it took three knocks with the battering ram to break down the door completely.The first blow hit the handle, he said. The second broke the door, but left it still on the hinges. The third broke down the door completely. When he entered, Mr. Nobles said it was “pitch black,” and that Sgt. John Mattingly, one of the officers who shot Ms. Taylor, was quickly shot in the leg after the team entered the building.

In previous interviews with The Times, 11 of 12 of Ms. Taylor’s neighbors said they never heard the police identify themselves. One neighbor said he heard the group say “Police,” just once.

Grand jurors were played recordings of radio calls from Mr. Hankison, the detective who fired blindly from outside the apartment and has been charged with wanton endangerment, as well as 911 calls that came in after the shooting began.

The calls suggest that Mr. Hankison, who was fired after the shooting for violating department procedure, believed that Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly had been wounded by someone with an “A.R.” who was “barricaded” inside the apartment. Mr. Hankison’s reference to an “A.R.” on the call appears to be a reference to either an assault rile or the AR-15, a type of a military-style semiautomatic rifle.

The only charges brought by the grand jury were three counts of “wanton endangerment in the first degree” against Mr. Hankison for his actions during the raid.

Under Kentucky law, a person commits that crime when he or she “wantonly engages in conduct which creates a substantial danger of death or serious physical injury to another person,” and does so “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.” Other states may use terms like “reckless endangerment” for an equivalent offense.

But the charges against Mr. Hankison are not for killing Ms. Taylor. None of the 10 shots he fired are known to have struck her. Instead, the Kentucky attorney general said the former detective was charged by the grand jury because the shots he fired had passed through Ms. Taylor’s apartment walls into a neighboring apartment, endangering three people there.

The crime is a Class D felony in Kentucky, which means it can carry a sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine on conviction for each count.

A person can be guilty of wanton endangerment even if they did not intend to harm anyone or to commit a crime; it is sufficient to recklessly disregard the peril that one’s actions create.

Mr. Hankison was fired from the force. During the raid, he fired into her apartment from outside, through a sliding glass patio door and a window that were covered with blinds, in violation of a department policy that requires officers to have a line of sight.

The name Breonna Taylor has echoed across the nation for months as demonstrators demanded the police be held accountable for her death.

The police killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died in May after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a white police officer’s knee, brought renewed attention to deadly episodes involving the police, including Ms. Taylor’s death, and fueled Black Lives Matter protests that persisted throughout the summer.

In September, when the grand jury announced no charges against the officers who killed Ms. Taylor, protesters poured into the streets of Louisville with renewed strength and anger, demanding stronger charges. The protesters called for all three officers, who are white, to be held to account for Ms. Taylor’s death. Ms. Taylor’s family, too, has pleaded for justice, pushing for criminal charges against the officers. Ms. Taylor’s case has also been the center of campaigns from several celebrities and athletes, some of whom have dedicated their seasons to keeping a spotlight on her case.

Some advocates are calling for Kentucky's Republican-controlled legislature to pass "Breonna's Law," which would ban no-knock warrants statewide. The Kentucky Senate passed a bill late last month restricting such warrants in certain situations, which many activists and Democratic lawmakers say does not go far enough. They had introduced a similar bill in the House in August, called "Breonna's Law," but the House Judiciary Committee voted on Wednesday to move forward with the Republican-sponsored proposal, according to WFPL.

But many advocates believe justice has not been done, citing the lack of criminal charges and saying they want to see broader criminal justice reform. Demonstrators plan to gather in downtown Louisville on Saturday to mark the anniversary of Taylor's death, member station WFPL reported. Activists say they hope to keep her memory alive and renew calls for justice, after the winter dampened on-the-ground protests.

In September, the city of Louisville announced a $12 million settlement in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Taylor's family, which also included several police reforms.

Louisville Democratic Rep. Attica Scott, the primary sponsor of Breonna's Law, told NPR's All Things Considered on Friday that committee officials have said they will consider proposed amendments that would bring the two bills further into alignment.She also said she had written a letter to newly-confirmed Attorney General Merrick Garland this week, asking him to fully investigate Taylor's killing.

Ju'Niyah Palmer, Taylor's sister, wrote on Instagram earlier this year that her heart was "heavy because we are only 2 months away from me not hearing, seeing or cuddling you for a whole year." Her mother, Tamika Palmer, recently filed complaints with the police department's professional standards unit against six officers for their role in the investigation that included the raid. In an Thursday interview with a Louisville CBS affiliate, Palmer expressed her frustration with the lack of accountability in the case and called on the community to continue demanding justice.

Last September, after months of protests in and around Louisville, the city was braced to hear whether a grand jury would hand down criminal indictments for LMPD officers Brett Hankison, Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove. At a press briefing Sept. 23, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced no charges directly tied to Taylor's death. The grand jury handed down three criminal counts of wanton endangerment to Hankison, over shooting through Taylor's apartment into a neighboring residence.

The grand jury did not charge Mattingly, who shot six times, and Cosgrove, who fired a total of 16 rounds, including what federal investigators determined to be the round that ultimately killed Taylor.

Cameron, whose office took over as special prosecutor in the case in May, said at the press conference that both Mattingly and Cosgrove "were justified in their use of force."After the two officers forced their way into Taylor's apartment, her boyfriend Kenneth Walker fired on them. Walker, a licensed gun owner, has maintained that he did not hear the officers announce themselves before entering and mistook them for intruders. He fired a shot, which hit Mattingly in the leg.

Cameron, Kentucky's first Black attorney general, told reporters that "evidence shows that officers both knocked and announced their presence at the apartment." He cited the officers' statements and one additional witness as evidence, but also acknowledged there is no video or body camera footage of the officers executing the search warrant.

Cameron's announcement sparked fresh outrage and demonstrations in Louisville, Atlanta, Denver, and Portland, among other cities. It added fuel to an already tense period in American society, where national protests focusing on racial justice inequities became a near-daily occurrence following high-profile police incidents with Black Americans, including George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Jacob Blake, Daniel Prude and others who were killed or seriously injured.

Days after Cameron's press conference, Taylor's mother, Palmer, said she was "reassured ... of why I have no faith in the legal system, in the police, in the law. ... They are not made to protect us Black and brown people."

In that same press conference, Crump raised questions about what evidence Cameron presented on behalf of Taylor to the grand jury. He also publicly called for the release of the transcripts of the proceedings, something that is extremely rare in grand jury cases. The court did so several weeks later, after some jurors took issue with Cameron's explanation for why no officer was directly charged in Taylor's death.

Hankison was terminated from LMPD in June, after the department found he fired "wantonly and blindly" into Taylor's apartment. In January, some nine months after Taylor's killing, the department formally terminated Cosgrove and another officer connected to the incident.

Both Cosgrove and Detective Joshua Jaynes, who secured the warrant for the raid on Taylor's home, were found to have violated department protocols, according to the termination letters made public on Jan. 6.

LMPD officials said that for Jaynes, "the evidence in this case revealed a sustained untruthfulness violation based on information included in an affidavit completed by you and submitted to a judge."LMPD said Cosgrove violated the department's protocols on use of deadly force and failed to activate his officer-worn body camera.

In that same batch of documents, LMPD also said that Mattingly, who was shot during the raid, was exonerated on both counts of violating department procedures on use of deadly force and de-escalation. It added, "no disciplinary action taken and the complaint will be dismissed." The disciplinary documents were released the same day Fischer, the Louisville mayor, formally announced that Erika Shields would be the city's next permanent police chief.

Shields resigned her post as Atlanta's police chief in the immediate aftermath of the killing of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man who was shot in the back during an encounter with white officers in a Wendy's parking lot in June.

Popular myth tends to compartmentalize elements of the German air campaign into neat boxes, namely the so-called “Battle of Britain” and the “Blitz.” In reality, the campaign consisted of a seamless escalation that did not end until May 10, 1941. 

What we think of as the Battle of Britain resolved nothing, though it did lodge the RAF and its fighter pilots forever in the pantheon of British heroes. The Blitz followed soon afterward, with the first deliberate German raid on London, on Sept. 7, 1940, which was followed by another 56 consecutive nights of raids against the city. The British endured this phase, but even then the raids did not end. Winter weather forced interruptions, but the raids that did occur were even more severe, with possibly the worst of the war taking place on May 10, 1941. Over the winter the risk of invasion waned, because of weather, but with the advent of spring, the threat once again seemed grave—though intelligence began detecting a shift in Hitler’s attention toward the East. It was that shift, and Churchill’s staunch defiance, that ultimately ended the invasion threat, and caused the Luftwaffe to suspend its raids against London. 

I relied on intelligence reports and diaries, in particular the diary of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s chief of propaganda. Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels simply could not understand why Churchill didn’t give up and seek some sort of peace. To them, he seemed like some kind of crazy person. Goebbels in his diary expresses surprise time and again at his unwillingness to seek a negotiated end to the war. 

my goal, strange as it sounds, is not to inform, though anyone who wishes can quote my books in their PhD theses. Rather, I’m drawn by story. My goal is to create as rich a historical experience as I possibly can—all true of course—in the hope that readers will be able to descend into the past and linger there a while as if they were part of whatever saga is unfolding

Robin Lindley: Who are some historians or other writers that you see as inspirations or influences? Erik Larson: David McCullough. Barbara Tuchman. Dava Sobel—her “Longitude” was one of the books that made me start thinking about writing narrative history. More recently I’ve become a huge fan of Andrew Roberts, a foremost Churchill scholar

I think the main parallel is that these times require us all to pull together, just as Londoners had to do. For us, the noblest thing is to stay home, and if we do go out, wear a mask. My home city of New York has millions of heroes, now, staying home, losing jobs, going nuts—figuratively and literally—all to help prevent the deaths of countless other souls whom they do not know and will never meet.

“We’ve been clear that counterterrorism operations remain a part of our mission in Afghanistan,” Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said on Thursday. “We’ve also been clear that we will conduct these operations in partnership with the Afghans to eliminate threats to our forces, our partners and our interests.”

More than 10 police personnel arrived at the house in the Sydney suburb of Gordon at about 1.30pm. Two police staff wearing white gloves could be seen from the street searching the cupboards and surfaces of the garage. At least three more were seen from the front door.

The Australian Federal police said in a statement that the raids were not related to the bitcoin claims. “The AFP can confirm it has conducted search warrants to assist the Australian Taxation Office at a residence in Gordon and a business premises in Ryde, Sydney. This matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin.”

"These Agents were working to protect the most vulnerable in our society," the association's president, Brian O'Hare, said in a statement. He pledged his organization's support for the agents' families.

The Belgian counterterrorism official said indications of ISIS ordering attacks in Europe mark an apparent significant shift by the terrorist group. Before the air campaign against it, the official said, there was little indication ISIS leaders were directly plotting attacks in the West. Instead, the group prioritized its project to create an Islamic caliphate.

has not been given final approval by DHS

violence that was a key factor in driving people to flee Central America last year has surged again

"It would be an outrage if the administration subjected Central American families to even more aggressive enforcement tactics,"

Sviatlana Tikhanouvskaya, a Belarusian opposition leader and a 2020 presidential candidate, said in a tweet that Protasevich faced the death penalty.

Protasevich's detention came soon after the May 18 raid and shutdown of another major online media outlet, Tut.by. and detentions of at least 10 of its staff, including three journalists

Belarusian authorities raided the studios of another prominent media outlet -- Belsat, a Poland-based satellite broadcaster, which has also been reporting on anti-Lukashenko protests.

Now, Pratasevich's life could be in danger and the survival of independent media as a whole is at stake. Many journalists who are not in jail fled Belarus and are trying to find ways and funding to continue journalism from abroad.

Belarus has strong political, economic and security ties with Russia, and some observers believe Russia's FSB helped Belarus' KGB in the operation to arrest Pratasevich.

Providing support to in-country and exiled media outlets, journalists, press freedom and human rights organizations is the only way to guarantee we can continue to receive objective information about media crackdowns and human rights violations in Belarus.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were notified about Baghdadi's possible location "earlier in the week" and told Thursday that there was a high probability he was in the compound.

g: "Something big has just happened."

"Russia treated us great. They opened up. We had a fly over certain Russia areas, Russia-held areas. Russia was great. Iraq was excellent. We really had great cooperation," the President told reporters Sunday.

"world's number one terrorist leader" is dead.

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi "blew himself up"

He formed ISIS in 2014, he led to establishing the physical caliphate throughout the region, so this is a major blow to them,

The Islamic Prophet Muhammad started preaching a monotheistic faith called Islam in his hometown of Mecca from 610 CE onwards.

Equality, egalitarianism, equal rights for women (who had been hitherto considered “property” by the Meccans), and the prospect of heaven attracted many towards Islam.

Despite putting forth strict persecution of the new religion and its preacher, Meccans failed to contain the Muslim community.

Medina offered Prophet Muhammad sovereignty over the city, making him the first ruler and king (r. 622-632 CE) of what was later to become the Islamic or Muslim Empire. The city-state of Medina soon came into conflict with Mecca, and the latter was conquered, after years of warfare, in 629/630 CE.

At the morrow of Prophet Muhammad’s death, the Islamic Empire slid to the brink of disintegration, as many advocated pre-Islamic home-rule system. This threat, however, was averted when Abu Bakr (r. 632-634 CE) proclaimed himself the Caliph of the Prophet and the first supreme ruler of the Islamic realm.

Abu Bakr now sought to expand his realm beyond the Arabian Peninsula. The Muslim Empire bordered two superpowers: the Byzantine Empire (330-1453 CE) and Sassanian Empire (224-651 CE) to the north-west and north-east respectively. These two colossal powers often clashed violently in prolonged wars, had exhausted their resources, and severely repressed Arabian tribes living in the Middle East in the course of pursuing ultimate power. For Abu Bakr, this was an opportune moment, although he may not have known that.

Never content with wasting an opportunity, the Caliph sent Khalid, who had now distinguished himself as a war hero, to raid Iraq (633 CE). The duo stuck to the western side of the Euphrates, where they enjoyed much success, employed eager locals in their ranks, and countered Sassanian advances towards the conquered territory.

Abu Bakr died in 634 CE, and his successor Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634-644 CE) took charge as the second caliph of the Islamic Empire and the "commander of the faithful". Caliph Umar reinforced the Iraqi front with fresh troops under the command of a reputable companion of the Prophet: Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas (l. 595-674 CE).

With this defeat, Sassanian control over Iraq was shattered, the Rashidun troops soon swept over the land and even took Ctesiphon – the Persian capital, ironically located far off from their power base in Khorasan, the eastern province – located in modern-day Iran.

Umar’s successor Uthman (r. 644-656 CE) continued the military expansion undertaken by his predecessors. Yazdegerd III, who had escaped to the eastern parts of his kingdom, was murdered by a local at Merv in 651 CE.

Abu Bakr sent four divisions under Shurahbil ibn Hasana (l. 583-639 CE), Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan (d. 640 CE), Amr ibn al-As (l. c. 573-664 CE), and Abu Ubaidah (l. 583-639 CE) to raid Syria and the Levant.

The Rashidun forces continued to advance northwards in the Levant and Syria. They took Damascus in 634 CE, either through an assault or treason, defeated the Palestinian imperial division in the Battle of Fahl (Pella; 635 CE).

Honed for their shipbuilding skills, the Syrians were employed to create a formidable Rashidun fleet to challenge Byzantine authority in the Mediterranean. After defeating the Byzantine fleet attempting to retake Alexandria (646 CE), the Muslims went on the offensive. Cyprus fell in 649 CE, followed by Rhodes in 654 CE, and in 655 CE, the Byzantine naval authority was crushed with a victory at the Battle of the Masts. Muslims held uncontested control over the Mediterranean and sent raiding parties as far as Crete and Sicily.

At its peak, the realm of the Rashidun Caliphate spread from parts of North Africa in the west to parts of modern-day Pakistan in the east; several islands of the Mediterranean had also come under their sway.

The Byzantines and Sassanians were superpowers of their time but years of warfare had weakened the two colossal titans

Moreover, Arabs were never expected to pose any threat to them, these disunited desert dwellers did not have the numbers or the will to face an empire. This, however, changed as the Arabian Peninsula was united under the banner of Islam by 633 CE. Freed from the infighting that had plagued them for centuries, the Arabs directed their potential towards their neighbors. They considered a just war as a holy struggle and if death was to embrace them, they would be immortalized as martyrs.

Such a strong resolve, however, was lacking in their foes. Both empires employed mercenaries, and these men did not feel similar passion for their client state as the Arabs did for the Caliphate. Moreover, a multiethnic army lacked the coherence imparted by a single faith and unified national sentiment, but perhaps the most destructive penalty that these empires faced was because of how they treated their people in their provinces.