A criminology student who crept into a shared house and murdered four young people in their beds as they slept was told Wednesday he would die in prison, in a case that has gripped and baffled the United States.Bryan Kohberger has never explained his motive for carrying out the murders and sat passively in an Idaho court as he heard heart-wrenching statements from families of the four students he stabbed to death in 2022 in the small town of Moscow.But in a deal that took the death penalty off the table earlier this month, he agreed to plead guilty to the horrific killings of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.At an emotional sentencing hearing in Boise, Kohberger again refused to offer any justification when offered the chance to speak, telling Judge Steven Hippler: “I respectfully decline.”Handing down four life sentences without the possibility of parole, Hippler said the heartbroken families may never know why Kohberger killed their loved ones.”The need to know what is inherently not understandable makes us dependent upon the defendant to provide us with a reason, and that gives him the spotlight, the attention and the power he appears to crave,” he said.”In my view, the time has now come to end Mr Kohberger’s 15 minutes of fame.”It’s time that he been consigned to the ignominy and isolation of perpetual incarceration.Kohberger was studying for a doctorate degree in criminology at Washington State University in 2022 when he drove to the small town of Moscow in the neighboring northwestern US state of Idaho.There, he broke into a shared student house and went from room to room stabbing four of the six occupants to death.The investigation that followed was a national and international sensation, attracting lurid speculation from all corners of the internet, fuelled by a police policy of refusing to release details on the probe.Then, on December 30, Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ house in Pennsylvania thousands of miles (kilometers) away, after DNA found on a knife sheath was traced to him.He continued to deny the charges, despite mounting evidence, and appeared set to go to trial until this month when a shock plea deal was announced.Not all families were happy with the agreement, with the Goncalves family saying it was “shocking and cruel” that he would not face a firing squad.”After more than two years, this is how it concludes with a secretive deal and a hurried effort to close the case without any input from the victims’ families on the plea’s details,” the family wrote in a statement when the deal was announced.”Bryan Kohberger facing life in prison means he would still get to speak, form relationships, and engage with the world. Meanwhile, our loved ones have been silenced forever,” they said.Friends and family of the victims attending the sentencing on Wednesday paid tribute to their loved ones, while many dismissed Kohberger as a “failure” or said they hoped fellow prisoners would mete out justice.Others said they had faith that God would punish him.”Man, you’re going to go to hell,” Kernodle’s stepfather Randy Davis told Kohberger, shaking with rage.”You’re evil. There’s no place for you in heaven. You took our children. You are going to suffer, man.”

The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives on Wednesday sent lawmakers home early for a six-week summer break to avoid being forced into awkward votes on the probe into the late, politically connected sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.The furor around the disgraced financier, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for trafficking minors, is still roiling Donald Trump’s administration two weeks after his Justice Department effectively closed the case, announcing there was no more information to share.Democrats in the House — keen to capitalize on the simmering controversy — have been trying to force a vote that would compel the publication of the full Epstein case files.Desperate to avert the effort, the Republican leadership canceled votes scheduled for Thursday, sending lawmakers home for the August recess a day early.House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Trump loyalist, sought to frame the early finish as business-as-usual, insisting that many lawmakers would be continuing committee work rather than heading back to their districts, and denying claims of a cover-up.  “Democrats said nothing and did nothing — absolutely nothing — about bringing transparency for the entire four years of the Biden presidency,” Johnson told reporters at the US Capitol.”Now, all of a sudden, they want the American people to believe that they actually care. Their actions belie their words.”But Democrats accused the majority Republicans of running scared of their own voters, many of whom have been demanding more transparency.”As it relates to releasing the Epstein files that every single one of the top leaders of the Trump Justice Department — and the Trump FBI and the vice president and the president himself — promised to release, Republicans are on the run,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters.In a July 7 memo, the Justice Department said the Epstein “client list” that Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed to have been reviewing did not in fact exist, and reaffirmed that he died by suicide in his prison cell. It sparked a furious backlash from Trump’s “MAGA” support base, who have for years been told by their leaders that a “deep state” cover-up was protecting figures in the Democratic Party whom they accuse of being Epstein’s clients.- ‘Dirtbags’ -Trump’s MAGA lieutenants — including two allies who have since been hired to run the FBI — made careers of fanning the conspiracy theories, including that Epstein’s suicide was actually a murder ordered by his powerful clients.Prominent online influencers and media figures in the movement — as well as ordinary voters — have spoken of feeling betrayed after Trump began publicly castigating them for wanting answers. Further complicating the issue for Republicans, Trump’s own ties to Epstein are extensive.The pair were frequently pictured partying together during a 15-year friendship before they fell out in 2004 over a property deal.The White House has been furiously pushing back against a Wall Street Journal report that said Trump had contributed a “bawdy” letter with his signature for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. Under the biggest political pressure in the first six months of his second presidential term, Trump has authorized Bondi to release “credible” Epstein information and has asked courts to unseal grand jury transcripts in the case. Bondi’s deputy Todd Blanche said this week he was seeking a meeting with Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, 63, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking and other crimes.With a Republican rebellion in the House gathering pace, the Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee had already voted to subpoena Maxwell to talk with lawmakers at her Florida prison.”We’ve got to send a message to these dirtbags that do this, that this is not acceptable behavior,” said Republican Tim Burchett, who introduced the motion.Epstein admitted two state felony prostitution charges in 2008 as part of a plea deal — arranged by a prosecutor who would go on to serve in Trump’s cabinet — that was widely criticized as being too lenient. 

President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled an aggressive, low-regulation strategy on Wednesday boosting big tech’s race to stay ahead of China on artificial intelligence and cement US dominance in the fast-expanding field.The 25-page “America’s AI Action Plan” outlines three aims: accelerating innovation, building infrastructure, and leading internationally on AI. Overall, the administration frames AI advancement as critical to maintaining economic and military supremacy. Environmental consequences in the planning document are sidelined.”We believe we’re in an AI race…and we want the United States to win that race,” said the White House’s AI point person David Sacks in a call with reporters.Trump was expected to formally announce the plan at an event later Wednesday and sign a series of executive orders to give key components of the strategy additional legal weight.In its collection of more than 90 government proposals, the plan calls for sweeping deregulation, with the administration promising to “remove red tape and onerous regulation” that could hinder private sector AI development.Much of that work has already been carried out through a Trump executive order repealing the AI policies of the Biden administration. The plan also asked the Federal Communications Commission to find ways to legally stop US states from implementing their own AI regulations and threatened to rescind federal aid to states that did so.The American Civil Liberties Union warned this would thwart “initiatives to uphold civil rights and shield communities from biased AI systems in areas like employment, education, health care, and policing.” The Trump action plan also calls for AI systems to be “free from ideological bias” and designed to pursue objective truth rather than what the administration calls “social engineering agendas.”This criterion would apply to AI companies wanting to do business with the US government.A senior White House official said the main target was AI models that gave attention to diversity and inclusion concerns in programming their model output — reflecting the Trump administration’s anti-“woke” agenda.A major focus in the plan involves building AI infrastructure, including streamlined permitting for data centers and energy facilities that would overlook environmental concerns to build as swiftly as possible.AI “challenges America to build vastly greater energy generation than we have today,” the plan said.The administration, which largely rejects international science showing a growing climate crisis, proposes creating new environmental review exemptions for data center construction and expanding access to federal lands for AI infrastructure development.- Job replacement -Addressing fears that AI will replace humans and create mass job losses across entire sectors, the administration’s plan says instead that “AI will improve the lives of Americans by complementing their work — not replacing it.”The strategy calls for efforts to “counter Chinese influence in international governance bodies” and strengthen export controls on advanced AI computing technology.The plan also proposes evaluating Chinese AI models “for alignment with Chinese Communist Party talking points and censorship.”At the same time, the strategy calls on the government to champion US technology in conquering overseas markets.These plans will help “ensure America sets the technological gold standard worldwide, and that the world continues to run on American technology,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.Critics of the plan said the policies were a gift to US tech giants that were scaling back their goals for zero carbon emissions in order to meet the acute computing needs for AI.”The AI Action Plan is yet another gift to Big Tech that clearly shows the Trump administration is again placing corporate interests ahead of the needs of everyday Americans,” said Alan Butler of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.