Random News and Notes 6 November

On this Date:

• 1429 – Henry VI is crowned King of England.
• 1528 – The Spanish conquistador Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca runs aground on a low sandy island off the coast of Texas. Starving, dehydrated and desperate, he is the first European to set foot on the soil of the future Lone Star state.
• 1812 – The first winter snow falls on the French Army as Napoleon Bonaparte retreats form Moscow.
• 1860 – Abraham Lincoln is elected 16th president of the United States.
• 1861 – Jefferson Davis is elected to a six-year term as president of the Confederacy.
• 1863 – A Union force surrounds and scatters defending Confederates at the Battle of Droop Mountain, in West Virginia.
• 1869 – Rutgers beats Princeton, 6-4, in the first college football game. The game, played with a soccer ball before roughly 100 fans in New Brunswick, New Jersey, resembles rugby instead of today’s football.
• 1891 – Comanche, the only 7th Cavalry horse to survive George Armstrong Custer’s “Last Stand” at the Little Bighorn, dies at Fort Riley, Kansas.
• 1911 – Maine becomes a dry state.
• 1917 – The Bolshevik “October Revolution” (October 25 on the old Russian calendar), led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, seizes power in Petrograd.
• 1917 – After more than three months of bloody combat, the Third Battle of Ypres effectively comes to an end, with a hard-won victory by British troops at the Belgian village of Passchendaele. The British Empire forces suffered roughly 275,000 to 310,000 casualties, while German forces sustained about 200,000 to 260,000 casualties during the 3+ month offensive.
• 1923 – As European inflation soars, one loaf of bread in Berlin is reported to be worth about 140 billion German marks.
• 1945 – The first landing of a jet on a carrier takes place on USS Wake Island when an FR-1 Fireball touches down.
• 1962 – The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution condemning South Africa’s apartheid policies and calling on all its members to end economic and military relations with the country.
• 1977 – The Toccoa Falls Dam in Georgia gives way and 39 people die in the resulting flood.
• 1985 – Guerrillas of the leftist 19th of April Movement seize Colombia’s Palace of Justice in Bogata; during the two-day siege and the military assault to retake the building over 100 people are killed, including 11 of the 25 Supreme Court justices.
• 1986 – A British International Helicopters Boeing 234LRR Chinook crashes 2.5 miles east of Sumburgh Airport; 45 people are killed, the deadliest civilian helicopter crash to date.
• 1986 – The Iran arms-for-hostages deal is revealed, damaging the Reagan administration.
• 1995 – The Rova of Antananarivo, home of Madagascar’s sovereigns from the 16th to the 19th centuries, is destroyed by fire.
• 1999 – Australia’s voters reject a referendum to make the country a republic with a president appointed by Parliament.

We start with a story that will reinforce most people’s opinions of lawyers.

Nancie Givens, ex-executive director of the Arkansas Supreme Court’s Office of Professional Programs, faces 65 felony counts of tampering with public records after altering the scores on hundreds of bar exams. Prosecutors say she shifted points between examinees’ scores across eight exams from July 2020 to July 2025, sometimes turning passes into fails. The irregularities came to light after her February 2026 resignation when a review uncovered deleted files among 11,400 records. An FBI and state police probe followed that review.

The Arkansas Supreme Court called it an unprecedented breach if proven, promising notifications to those affected and new security measures already in place.

The US Attorney for the Southern DIstrict of Florida, Jason Reding Quiñones, is resigning. Attorney General Todd Blanche praised Quiñones for his leadership against violent crime, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and transnational cases, including the indictment of Raúl Castro over the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown that killed four Americans. Quiñones called public service the honor of his lifetime and thanked President Trump and his staff.

His resignation, the second senior DOJ departure after the midterms, drew links to a faltering probe into claims of a conspiracy against Trump by former officials like James Comey and John Brennan. AG Blanche highlighted Quiñones traditional crime-fighting achievements in his statement.

I wouldn’t put too much thought into this round of departures. The midterms are typically a time of change in any administration. I won’t deny the Dhillon resignation didn’t hurt some though.

The El Salvadoran deployment to Haiti continues to bear fruit. The Salvadoran troops captured gang leader “Kenken” (Jean Saint-Louis) as he was trying to escape to the Bahamas. The arrest came during El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s rapid deployment of over 2,000 troops to Haiti after a gang ambush killed four Salvadoran soldiers near Port-au-Prince in mid-October. Many Haitians have welcomed the forces, marching alongside them, handing out water, and chanting Bukele’s name after years of violence that killed thousands and displaced over a million.

Translation: HAITI. Gang leader “Kenken” (Jean Saint-Louis) was captured this Thursday morning while trying to flee to the Bahamas, in an operation carried out by the Haitian Coast Guard and Salvadoran military personnel.
He will be prosecuted for extortion, homicide, kidnapping and illegal trafficking

It should be noted that the Salvadoran troops are using an interesting mix of weapons. There are a couple of Korean Daewoo K1 variants and a Colt’s 619 ( the export variant of the XM-177/609). I know that doesn’t mean anything to most of you, but trust, it’s based AF.

Missouri State Rep. Anthony Ealy (D) was arrested just hours after winning re-election. Ealy, a 32-year-old Democrat from House District 36 in Grandview, beat Republican Dave Thomas with 68% of the vote on Tuesday. The next morning, police responded to reports of yelling and threats during a family’s funeral arrangements on East Capitol Avenue, where witnesses said Ealy trespassed, referenced a gun, lunged at a man, and repeatedly threatened to kill him.

Officers arrested him at his nearby home on misdemeanor charges of fourth-degree assault and disturbing the peace, noting signs of a possible mental health crisis; he denied the threats after being read his rights. House Democratic leaders had previously removed his committee assignments over personal issues and confirmed no plans to restore them.