General News
Meropi Kyriacou Honored as TNH Educator of the Year
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
WASHINGTON — Jurors deliberated on Monday in the federal trial of a New York Police Department veteran charged with assaulting an officer who tried to protect the Capitol from an attacking insurrectionist mob last year.
Thomas Webster, a 20-year NYPD veteran, is the first Capitol riot defendant to be tried on an assault charge and the first to present a jury with a self-defense argument.
Jurors heard attorneys’ closing arguments on Friday and went home for the weekend about 30 minutes after getting the case. They returned to court on Monday morning.
Webster’s jury trial, which started April 26, is the fourth for a Capitol riot case. The first three defendants to get a jury trial were convicted of all charges in their respective indictments. A judge decided two other cases without a jury, acquitting one defendant and partially acquitting the other after bench trials.
Webster, 56, is charged with assaulting Metropolitan Police Department Officer Noah Rathbun with a dangerous weapon, a metal flagpole, during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
Videos show Webster swing his metal flagpole at police, charge at Rathbun and then grab the officer’s gas mask with both hands.
Webster testified on Thursday that he was trying to protect himself from Rathbun after the officer punched him in the face. Webster also accused Rathbun of making a hand gesture that Webster perceived as an invitation to fight.
Rathbun testified that he didn’t punch or pick a fight with Webster. Rathbun’s body camera captured Webster shouting profanities and insults before they made any physical contact. Rathbun said he was trying to move Webster back from a security perimeter that he and other officers were struggling to maintain.
Prosecutors urged jurors to reject Webster’s self-defense argument and convict him of all six charges in his indictment.
Webster, who lives near Goshen, New York, retired from the NYPD in 2011. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1985 to 1989 before joining the NYPD in 1991.
The violent Jan. 6 mob, loyal to then-President Donald Trump, stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, undercut the nation’s democracy and keep Democrat Joe Biden from replacing the Republican in the White House.
More than 780 people have been charged with riot-related federal crimes. The Justice Department says more than 245 of them have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Filipino villager has been nailed to a wooden cross for the 35th time to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a brutal Good Friday tradition he said he would devote to pray for peace in Ukraine, Gaza and the disputed South China Sea.
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S.
LOS ANGELES – The UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture presents a captivating evening with acclaimed singer-songwriter Alkinoos Ioannidis, who will perform at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall on Saturday, April 27, 7:30 PM, in a solo concert.
ATHENS - The "OLYMPOS - Global Spiritual Center" Association presents on Saturday, April 6, at 6:00 pm, at the "Antonis Tritsis" Amphitheatre of the Cultural Center of the Municipality of Athens, 50, Acadimias Street, the truly ingenious funding proposal for the construction of Heptapolis in the wider area of Delphi, entitled "World Green Taxation Fund".
ATHENS - Disregarding the recommendation of a prosecutor who said there wasn’t enough evidence, an Athens Mixed Jury Court found a 55-year-old man guilty of raping a 12-year-old girl but found her mother innocent of pornography.