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Ex-Mississippi prison guard pleads guilty to federal charge in 2019 inmate beating

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:16 GMT

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A former Mississippi prison guard pleaded guilty to a federal charge Thursday in the 2019 beating of an inmate, the U.S. Justice Department said.Jessica Hill pleaded guilty to deprivation of an inmate’s rights by using excessive force when she was a corrections officer at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. Hill beat an inmate with a pepper spray canister and repeatedly punched the inmate in the head, the indictment said. The inmate was not resisting and was on the ground in the fetal position while being beaten and kicked.Hill faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, authorities said. Her sentencing is set for Oct. 25. A second officer indicted in the case pleaded guilty earlier this year and is set for sentencing in September.The Associated Press

Public Safety department says Liberal law did not factor into Bernardo’s transfer

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:16 GMT

OTTAWA — Serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo would have been transferred to a medium-security prison even if a previous version of the corrections law were been in place, according to the federal Public Safety department. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said the transfer would not have happened if the Liberal government hadn’t changed the law with Bill C-83 in 2019.  Bernardo is serving a life sentence for the kidnapping, sexual assault and murders of teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy in the early 1990s and has been designated a dangerous offender. His transfer in late May triggered widespread outrage and the families of French and Mahaffy have asked for him to return to maximum security. The Liberal government’s 2019 legislation was meant to end the use of solitary confinement, and amended the corrections law to say officials should ensure inmates are held in the “least restrictive environment.”Poilievre has repeatedly pointed to that l...

Victim identified, man charged in targeted Etobicoke shooting

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:16 GMT

Toronto police have identified the victim of a targeted shooting in Etobicoke and charged a man with second-degree murder.Officers were called to The Queensway and Kipling Avenue around 7:30 p.m. on Monday, July 24, for reports of a shooting.Authorities located one victim with life-threatening injuries. They were transported to a local hospital via an emergency run, police confirmed, where the victim was later pronounced dead.On Thursday, police identified the man as 24-year-old Sophonias Haile of Toronto. Investigators arrested 44-year-old Kenneth Grant of Toronto. He’s been charged with second-degree murder.The accused was scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.Insp. Jeff Bangild said two male suspects entered a residential building and opened fire.“This appears to be a targeted shooting,” Insp. Bangild said. “Given that the individuals entered the apartment [and] selected a precise location where this individual was essentially murdered.”It’s ...

Five homes in Northwest Territories lost in wildfire, road closed: fire agency

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:16 GMT

YELLOWKNIFE — An out-of-control wildfire in the Northwest Territories has destroyed five homes in a community about 100 kilometres northwest of Yellowknife. Mike Westwick, who is the fire information officer for the territory, says the fire has reached the community of Behchoko in Rae.He says three homes were lost Wednesday, while two more burned down Thursday.Westwick says the same wildfire is about 45 kilometres northwest of Yellowknife.He says the capital is not at risk at this time, but crews are preparing to address future threats.Westwick says a portion of Highway 3, which connects Behchoko to Yellowknife, has been closed and crews are focusing on dousing spot fires and protecting homes in the community of Behchoko.He says visibility remains an issue for the 64 firefighters responding to the fire in the area.This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 27, 2023.The Canadian Press

Judge questions FBI’s role in post-9/11 sting and orders 3 of ‘Newburgh Four’ freed from prison

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:16 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Three men ensnarled in an infamous post-9/11 terrorism sting have been ordered freed from prison by a judge who deemed their lengthy sentences “unduly harsh and unjust” and decried the FBI’s role in radicalizing them in a plot to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down National Guard planes.Onta Williams, David Williams and Laguerre Payen — three of what’s known as the “Newburgh Four” — were “hapless, easily manipulated and penurious petty criminals” caught up in a scheme driven by overzealous FBI agents and a dodgy informant, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said in her ruling Thursday.“The real lead conspirator was the United States,” McMahon wrote in a 28-page decision granting the men’s request for compassionate release, effective in three months.The judge, citing concerns for the men’s health and her own qualms about the case, cut the 25-year mandatory minimum sentences she imposed on the men in 2011 to time served plus ...

Florida woman who stole nearly $3 million from Holocaust survivor gets over four years in prison

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:16 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A Florida woman who drained an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor’s life savings by posing as a love interest and then lived lavishly off the $2.8 million she got was sentenced Thursday to over four years in prison.Peaches Stergo, 36, of Champions Gate, Florida, was described by U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos as “unspeakably cruel” and motivated by greed as he announced the sentence in Manhattan federal court.Given a chance to speak, Stergo said: “I’m sorry.” She pleaded guilty in April to wire fraud, admitting that she drained the life savings of a man she met on a dating website seven years ago.Stergo began asking the once successful businessman for money in May 2017, claiming she needed money to pay a lawyer who was refusing to release the payout from a bogus injury settlement, prosecutors said. He paid her $25,000. Over the next four years, she used lies to coax the man to write 62 checks totaling over $2.8 million until he was broke, they added.She got him ...

As cyclists ride across Iowa, they are seeing craft breweries driving small-town tourism

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:16 GMT

RIPPEY, Iowa (AP) — On a long stretch of road just outside the small Iowa town of Rippey, where thousands of cyclists were passing through during a 100-plus mile day on the world’s longest and oldest recreational ride, five men and two women rode single-file down the left side, each wearing a jersey worth remembering.If you’re a beer connoisseur.There was one from Toppling Goliath with images from its flagship Pseudo Sue pale ale. Another from Exile Brewing Company, based in the state capital of Des Moines. And another from Big Grove Brewery.Hundreds of other breweries also can be seen on the backs of the estimated 50,000 riders taking part in RAGBRAI, the annual bike ride across Iowa. And together, the small- and medium-sized breweries are a testament to not just how rapidly the craft beer industry has expanded but to its fast-growing importance in rural America.“The state is littered with great breweries. Fantastic breweries,” says Clark Lewey, who along with his wife,...

Black lawmakers press Justice and Education Departments to investigate Florida’s race curriculum

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:16 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Congressional Black Caucus is pushing the White House, Justice Department and the Department of Education to adopt an “aggressive legal strategy” to scrutinize recent changes to Florida’s Black history curriculum.The caucus wants the federal agencies to examine whether Florida school districts are violating federal discrimination law following changes to the curriculum in the state — from banning books covering racial themes to a recent decision to add language about the positive impacts of slavery.Caucus Chairman, Nevada Rep. Steven Horsford said at a Thursday press conference he met with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona this week to discuss actions that might be taken. He added that “we have discussed with the White House the need to have a very aggressive legal strategy to want to uphold the law.” However, lawmakers did not lay out the specifics on how the departments might use use their resources.The departments have a number of tools. In June, the ...

Angels say they won’t trade Shohei Ohtani. He celebrates with a 1-hitter, 2 homers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:16 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — Shohei Ohtani looked his manager in the eye and in just a few words, left no doubt of his intentions.“I’ll finish it,” Los Angeles Angels manager Phil Nevin recalled Ohtani telling him after the eighth inning of what became his first complete game in Major League Baseball. “He wanted it. I could see it, too.”Ohtani polished off his one-hit shutout of the Detroit Tigers, then continued his extraordinary day in the second game of Thursday’s doubleheader, hitting two homers to increase his major league-leading total to 38 before leaving the game with cramps.The two-way superstar became the first player in major league history to throw a shutout in one half a doubleheader and hit one homer — much less two — in the other.Hours before Ohtani delivered the message to his manager, the Angels delivered one of their own.The franchise, desperate to make the playoffs for the first time since 2014, made a win-now trade to bolster its pitching staff and confirmed that Ohtani ...

Biden dispatches top adviser for talks with Saudi crown prince on normalizing relations with Israel

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:16 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden dispatched his national security adviser Jake Sullivan to Saudi Arabia on Thursday for talks with the kingdom’s de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the White House pushes for a normalization of relations between the country and Israel. The White House in a brief statement said that Sullivan arrived in Jeddah on Thursday for talks with the crown prince, who is often referred to by his initial MBS, and other Saudi officials. The wide-ranging talks covered initiatives to “advance a common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous, and stable Middle East,” and efforts to find a permanent end to the years-long conflict between the Saudis and Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen, according to the White House.Sullivan and MBS also discussed the Biden administration’s hopes to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to a White House National Security Council official familiar with the matter. The off...