Less than two years ago, Liam Souliere was in the crease for Penn State as the Nittany Lions came within an overtime goal of the program’s first Frozen Four trip. Less than a year ago, he earned his finance degree after playing four years at Pegula Arena.

On Friday, Souliere is likely to hear boos when he skates out onto the Lions’ home ice wearing the maroon and gold of the Minnesota Gophers. Souliere faced his former team earlier this season, shutting out the Lions in Minneapolis.

“It adds to it, but I don’t think we view it any differently. It’s just another goalie at that point,” Penn State forward Matt DiMarsico said this week. “I think we know some of the tendencies, and hopefully that will help us out this time. Definitely motivated to not let that happen again.”

There seems to be motivation everywhere this weekend as the Gophers head to State College, where they will close out the Big Ten’s regular season with games Friday (7:30 p.m. CT) and Saturday (7 p.m.).

Last weekend, while Minnesota was sweeping Ohio State at home, the Nittany Lions went to first-place Michigan State and took five of six points from the Spartans. Those results vaulted the Gophers to the top of the conference standings, meaning that if Minnesota grabs five or six points this weekend, Minnesota will win the conference title for the third time in four years.

Gophers coach Bob Motzko said his team isn’t thinking much about that bigger picture, or paying any attention to the out-of-town scoreboard and instead are focused solely on what comes first.

“Win the series against the team you play. We can’t worry about what Michigan State does,” Motzko said this week. “All we had to do last week was worry about who we were playing. And right now it’s Friday night, Penn State, we’re up two on them. We have to win the series.”

Motzko added that his advice to Souliere, who has emerged as Minnesota’s every-night goalie, is to call on his 100-plus games of college hockey experience, and to remember that the net is 4 feet by 6 feet and the puck is the same size no matter who shoots it.

“Just keep your emotions in check. That’s it,” Motzko said. “We just had a speaker in today who said, ‘The moment doesn’t care about you. You care about the moment and just stay in it.’ ”

Minnesota swept a home series with the Nittany Lions in November, which seems like a long, long time ago now. Since January, when they got healthier, Penn State has won 12 of its last 13, backstopped by junior goalie Arsenii Sergeev — honored by the conference as their first star of the week on Tuesday — and led offensively by sophomore Aidan Fink, who is making a case to be a Hobey Baker Award finalist.

Penn State is a notably motivated team this weekend, as well, sitting one point behind Michigan for the final home ice slot in Round 1 of the conference playoffs.

Motzko’s teams have won either Big Ten regular season or tournament titles in three of the past four years, and the Gophers acknowledge that the opportunity to hang another championship banner is in their thoughts.

“We care. Two big wins and that comes with a title,” said Gophers forward Brody Lamb, who scored three times against Ohio State last weekend and was honored with the Big Ten’s second star of the week. “We’ve just got to focus on our game and not think about the stage it is. But we care.”

Last week, the Texas Observer reported that James “Jim” Joseph Rodden—an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) assistant chief counsel who acts as a prosecutor for ICE in immigration court in Dallas—operates a white supremacist X account named GlomarResponder, based on an overwhelming number of biographical details that the Observer matched through publicly available documents, other social media activity, and courtroom observation.

The GlomarResponder account has routinely posted hateful statements including that “America is a White nation,” “All blacks are foreign to my people,” and “‘Migrants’ are all criminals.” 

A weekly ICE court schedule obtained by the Observer Monday morning still listed Rodden as scheduled to appear at hearings throughout the week. Rodden represents the agency in proceedings that can decide whether an immigrant is deported from the country. But, when the Observer visited the courtrooms where Rodden was scheduled to appear on Monday afternoon and Wednesday morning, other ICE attorneys were present instead. 

In a statement for the Observer’s prior story, ICE said it “will not comment on the substance of this article pending further investigation.” ICE shared the same statement in response to a request for comment for this story and did not confirm whether Rodden was still representing the agency in immigration court.

Rodden’s possible continued ICE employment comes despite calls for an immediate investigation and swift disciplinary action if necessary from three members of Congress and a complaint from a Massachusetts lawyer to the District of Columbia Bar and ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

Democratic Congress members Marc Veasey, Bennie Thompson, and Jamie Raskin have called on officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE to investigate the Observer’s findings.

In a February 24 letter to ICE Acting Deputy Director Kenneth Genalo, citing the Observer’s reporting, Veasey—who represents part of Dallas—demanded an accounting of the agency’s investigation into Rodden and information about related policies. “These allegations raise serious questions about the integrity of ICE’s prosecutorial process and its commitment to impartial justice,” Veasey wrote.

In a separate February 24 letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Thompson—ranking member of the Homeland Security committee—and Raskin demanded that DHS investigate the Observer’s findings. The congressmen noted that “The ICE Code of Conduct prohibits personnel from engaging in behavior on or off duty that may ‘cause the public or ICE to question the reliability, judgement, or trustworthiness of its employees’ or that would ‘discredit the employee, embarrass or bring ICE into disrepute’ or ‘interfere with or adversely affect ICE’s mission.’ Anyone making racist statements and suggesting violence against immigrants is unfit to represent the United States government in immigration proceedings.” 

The Observer connected GlomarResponder, an X account with over 17,000 followers, to Rodden through an extensive review of GlomarResponder’s X posts, publicly available documents, and other social media profiles and posts, as well as courtroom observation. Two analysts with more than 20 years of combined experience in open-source intelligence reviewed the findings and found that “The depth of the investigation leaves little room for doubt.”

(Shutterstock, X)

In addition to the racist and xenophobic content the Observer previously reported, GlomarResponder has also posted apparent praise of Adolf Hitler on X. In August 2023, GlomarResponder wrote: “Based. Gott Mit Uns,” while sharing an image of and quote from Hitler. “Based” is a slang term signifying praise, and “Gott Mit Uns” is a phrase, used during various parts of German history including by the Nazi military, meaning “God is with us.” GlomarResponder has additionally posted that South Africa was “ruined by ending apartheid.” 

For the Observer’s prior story, Rodden did not respond to multiple requests for comment sent to his ICE email address. A call to a phone number associated with Rodden reached a man who declined to confirm his identity then hung up. When approached outside the Dallas immigration court and asked to confirm receipt of the emailed requests, Rodden said to “call [his] press office.” 

Rodden did not respond to an additional request for comment for this story.

J. Whitfield Larrabee, an attorney in Massachusetts, filed a complaint last week against Rodden with the District of Columbia Bar, through which a James J. Rodden holds a law license, which allows representation of ICE in immigration court in Texas. 

“As an assistant Chief Legal Counsel, Rodden functions as a prosecutor,” Larrabee’s complaint reads. “In exercising discretion to investigate or to prosecute, a prosecutor should not improperly favor or invidiously discriminate against any person. Because of Rodden’s explicit bigotry and racism, he cannot be trusted to properly exercise his discretion.”

Larrabee also sent a copy of the complaint to ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which “upholds the agency’s professional standards” and investigates possible employee and contractor misconduct.

The D.C. Bar, which declined to comment for the Observer’s prior story, would neither confirm nor deny for this story whether Rodden is under Bar investigation.

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a nonprofit that trains attorneys and advocates who work with immigrants across the country, also raised concerns regarding the Observer’s findings.

“With all of this clear racism and xenophobia on display, it begs the question — how many of our community members were mistreated and targeted by prosecutors like this?” the group posted on X. 

Editor’s Note: Exiting extremism can be a difficult process. If you or someone you love is caught up in hate or extremist politics, there are free resources that can help. Life After Hate and Parents for Peace are two non-profit organizations that operate help lines and provide support to help individuals and families recover from extremism.

The post Congressmen Demand Investigation of ICE Prosecutor Running Racist X Account appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Michelle Trachtenberg, who starred in “Gossip Girl” and “Harriet the Spy,” was found dead in her luxury Midtown Manhattan apartment early Wednesday, police sources said.

Trachtenberg, 39, was found unconscious by her mother inside her Columbus Place apartment at 8 a.m. and died a short time later, the sources said.

Her death is not considered suspicious, sources said.

Trachtenberg was a child actress who starred in “Harriet the Spy” and also starred in “Gossip Girl.”

The young actress earned cult status by playing Buffy’s sister in the last few seasons of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

By LEA SKENE

BALTIMORE (AP) — Despite documented problems with the evidence against him and an earlier request from prosecutors to clear his record, Adnan Syed will remain convicted of murder, according to court papers filed Tuesday night.

The decision from Baltimore prosecutors comes ahead of a scheduled hearing Wednesday morning where a judge will consider whether to reduce Syed’s sentence, but this means the conviction itself is no longer in question.

It’s the latest wrinkle in an ongoing legal odyssey that garnered a massive following after being featured in the “Serial” podcast over a decade ago.

Syed’s attorneys recently filed the request for a sentence reduction under Maryland’s Juvenile Restoration Act, a relatively new state law that provides a potential pathway to release for people serving long prison terms for crimes committed when they were minors. That request is supported by prosecutors.

Meanwhile, Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates announced Tuesday that his office is withdrawing a previously filed motion to vacate Syed’s conviction in the 1999 killing of his high school ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, who was found strangled to death and buried in a makeshift grave.

“I did not make this decision lightly, but it is necessary to preserve the credibility of our office and maintain public trust in the justice system,” Bates said in a statement.

Syed’s attorney Erica Suter issued a statement late Tuesday, criticizing the move and reasserting Syed’s innocence.

“Tonight, the state’s attorney got it wrong,” Suter said. “His decision to withdraw his office’s motion to vacate Adnan’s conviction ignores the injustices on which this conviction was founded. We will continue to fight to clear his name through all legal avenues available to him.”

The original motion to vacate — which was filed by Bates’ predecessor Marilyn Mosby — won Syed his freedom in 2022. But his conviction was reinstated following a procedural challenge from Lee’s family. The Maryland Supreme Court ordered a redo of the conviction vacatur hearing after finding that the family didn’t receive adequate notice to attend in person.

Since the prosecutor’s office changed hands in the meantime, the decision of whether to withdraw the motion fell to Bates.

Instead of asking a judge to again consider Syed’s guilt or innocence, Bates chose a different path. He supported Syed’s motion for a reduced sentence — without addressing the underlying conviction.

Bates said that since his release in 2022, Syed has demonstrated he is a productive member of society whose continued freedom is “in the interest of justice.” He said the case “is precisely what legislators envisioned when they crafted the Juvenile Restoration Act.”

The legislation was passed amid growing consensus that such defendants are especially open to rehabilitation, partly because brain science shows cognitive development continues well beyond the teenage years. Syed was 17 when Lee was killed.

Now 43, he has been working at Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative and caring for aging relatives since his release, according to court filings. His father died in October after a long illness.

Bates was facing a Friday deadline to decide on the motion to vacate.

After reviewing the motion filed by his predecessor, Bates concluded that it contained “false and misleading statements that undermine the integrity of the judicial process,” he said in a statement Tuesday.

Bates wrote in an executive summary released Tuesday that his decision “does not preclude Mr. Syed from raising any new issues that he believes will support his innocence in the proper post-trial pleadings.”

“However, properly shifting this burden back to Mr. Syed will re-instill the adversarial nature of proceedings that are the hallmark of the truth-seeking function of our criminal justice system,” the summary says.

Attorneys for the victim’s family had argued that prosecutors should address the integrity of Syed’s conviction before the court considered reducing his sentence. Prosecutors “should not be allowed to duck the issue by hiding behind” his motion for a reduced sentence, attorneys wrote in a recent filing.

Syed has maintained his innocence from the beginning, but many questions remain unanswered even after the “Serial” podcast combed through the evidence, reexamined legal arguments and interviewed witnesses. The series debuted in 2014 and drew millions of listeners who became armchair detectives.

Rife with legal twists and turns, the case has recently pitted criminal justice reform efforts against the rights of crime victims and their families, whose voices are often at odds with a growing movement to acknowledge and correct systemic racism, police misconduct and prosecutorial missteps.

When prosecutors sought to vacate Syed’s conviction in 2022, they cited numerous problems with the case, including alternative suspects and unreliable evidence presented at trial. A judge agreed to vacate the conviction and free Syed. Prosecutors in Mosby’s office later chose not to refile charges after they said DNA testing excluded Syed as a suspect.

Even though the appellate courts reinstated his conviction, they allowed Syed to remain free while the case continued.