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From fugitive to shackled prisoner, ‘Fat Leonard’ lands back in US court and could face more charges

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:11 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — A defense contractor at the center of one of the biggest bribery scandals in U.S. military history is expected to face additional charges following his return to the United States from Venezuela as part of a broader prisoner swap between the two countries, a federal prosecutor said Thursday.Leonard Glenn Francis, who is nicknamed “Fat Leonard,” faced a federal judge for the first time since snipping off his ankle monitor last year and disappearing weeks before a sentencing hearing on charges that he offered more than $500,000 in cash bribes to Navy officials, defense contractors and others.He was later arrested in Venezuela and had been in custody there since, but was returned to the U.S. in a large swap that also saw the release of 10 American detainees by Venezuela in exchange for the Biden administration freeing Alex Saab, a Colombian-born businessman and close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was facing money laundering charges in Miami.Francis, shac...

Indictments on murder, robbery charges handed down in fatal Worcester State shooting case

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:11 GMT

A grand jury has handed down multiple indictments in the case of a shooting on Worcester State University’s campus that left a man dead and another paralyzed from the waist down.Massachusetts State Police announced this week that Kevin Rodriguez, 18, was indicted by a Worcester County Grand Jury on murder and firearms-related charges, months after the shooting death of Randy Armando Melendez Jr. of Southbridge.Both Melendez and a 21-year-old man were shot the morning of Oct. 28 after authorities said a confrontation took place between two groups who were visiting the campus at the time.State police said Rodriguez, a Lawrence resident, allegedly shot Melendez before fleeing to New York, where he was found and arrested in a Brooklyn apartment soon afterwards.Indictments were were also handed down for Richard Nieves, 19, of Spencer, and Kenneth Doelter, 20, of Southbridge. Before shots were fired, authorities say the suspects allegedly robbed the 21-year-old man who survived the ...

Special counsel stresses ‘gravity’ of Trump case, urges Supreme Court to immediately hear immunity dispute

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:11 GMT

(CNN) — Special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday reiterated his request for the Supreme Court to immediately decide whether Donald Trump has presidential immunity from alleged crimes he committed while in office.“The public interest in a prompt resolution of this case favors an immediate, definitive decision by this Court. The charges here are of the utmost gravity,” Smith told the justices in a new filing.The high court is currently considering whether to decide the immunity dispute before a federal appeals court weighs in. Trump on Wednesday urged the court to not skip over the appeals court.Trump, whose legal strategy in the case so far has largely revolved around attempts to delay the proceedings. Smith’s move to have the high court intervene is an attempt to cut short Trump’s approach.Smith said the high court should move to swiftly decide the issue just like it did in a Watergate-era case concerning then-President Richard Nixon.“Here, the stake...

New Hampshire man indicted for threatening three presidential candidates

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:11 GMT

(CNN) — A New Hampshire man was indicted Wednesday for allegedly threating to kill three presidential candidates in violent and graphic text messages.The presidential candidates are not named in charging documents. A spokesperson for Republican hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy previously told CNN that the tech entrepreneur’s campaign was a target of the threats.The man, 30-year-old Tyler Anderson, is accused of threatening the three candidates in a series of text messages in November and December.According to prosecutors, Anderson threatened to “impale” and “disembowel” one candidate, “blow” the head off a second, and “blow” the “brains out” of a third candidate. He also allegedly threatened to “kill everyone” at a campaign event.Anderson is charged with three counts of transmitting an interstate threat. He has not yet entered a formal plea, and his lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.He was ch...

Welcome Winter!

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:11 GMT

While many of us may dread the winter and what it brings with it (cold and snow), there are plenty of people who love what winter brings! And even if it’s not you, the first day of winter still brings things to look forward to! While temperatures continue to go down, the amount of daylight is now going up! We’ve hit the shortest day of the year and starting tomorrow days will begin to get longer (albeit seconds each day). Now, if you’re an early riser, you’ll actually notice the sunrises getting later. We’ll continue to get later sunrises until December 28th and we’ll do all of our daylight additions in the afternoon until that time.Winter, by the way, officially starts tonight at 10:27 pm!And like clockwork, the first day of winter is bringing colder air. It was cold today but the wind made it feel even worse — wind chills were in the 20s all afternoon. Tonight and tomorrow is cold but we’ll lose the wind so there won’t be as mu...

Shorter pitch clock among new MLB rule changes approved for 2024

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:11 GMT

This past season Major League Baseball saw tremendous improvement in pace of play thanks to the introduction of the pitch clock. Now with a season’s worth of data, the league is set to implement additional tweaks it hopes can speed things up even more.Thursday afternoon MLB announced numerous rule changes had been approved by the league’s joint Competition Committee, the most notable being a shortened pitch clock for when runners are on base. Now, instead of pitchers having 20 seconds to deliver a pitch with men on, pitchers must start their delivery within 18 seconds.In addition, umpires will now restart the pitch clock after a dead ball when the pitcher has the ball and play is ready to resume. Previously the clock didn’t start until the pitcher was back on the mound, but the rule change was made to prevent pitchers from delaying the start by walking around the edge of the mound.Along with the pitch clock tweaks, teams will now have one fewer mound visit starting...

A lone gunman opens fire in a Prague university, killing 14 people and injuring 25

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:11 GMT

By KAREL JANICEK (Associated Press)PRAGUE (AP) — A lone gunman opened fire Thursday in a university building in downtown Prague, killing at least 14 people and injuring more than 20 in the Czech Republic’s worst mass shooting, police and the city’s rescue service said.The bloodshed took place in the philosophy department building of Charles University, where the shooter was a student, Prague Police Chief Martin Vondrasek said. The gunman also died, authorities said. His name has not been released.Vondrasek said in the evening that 14 people had died and 25 were injured, after earlier reporting that 15 had died and 24 were hurt. He didn’t explain the change. Authorities warned that the death toll could rise. Police gave no details about the victims or a possible motive for the shooting at the building located near the Vltava River in Jan Palach Square. Czech Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said investigators do not suspect a link to any extremist ideology or gro...

Used car dealer sold wheelchair-accessible vans but took his disabled customers for a ride, feds say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:11 GMT

A Philadelphia used car dealer took disabled customers’ money but failed to deliver the wheelchair-accessible vehicles they had paid for, victimizing more than 100 people across the nation, federal prosecutors said Thursday.Edward Scott Rock, 47, defrauded customers of more than $2.5 million between 2019 and this year, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Philadelphia. In one case, he sold the same 2017 Ford wheelchair-accessible van to 13 buyers over the course of nearly a year, collecting $260,000 along the way — and when he finally did deliver the vehicle to one of those buyers, it came without the proper title, prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed Thursday.A message was left at a phone number associated with Rock seeking comment, and an email was sent to an attorney who represented him before his indictment.Some 120 customers in 36 states fell victim to the alleged scam. About two-thirds of Rock’s victims were “persons with a physical or mobility disabili...

Large St. Louis-area urgent care chain to pay $9.1 million settlement over false claims allegations

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:11 GMT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — One of the largest urgent care chains in Missouri will pay $9.1 million to settle allegations that the company submitted false claims for medical services, including COVID-19 testing.The U.S. Attorney’s office in St. Louis on Thursday announced the settlement with Total Access Urgent Care, which operates more than two dozen clinics in the St. Louis area.“This settlement will fully repay three federal health care programs for TAUC’s overbilling for COVID tests and office visits,” U.S. Attorney Sayler A. Fleming said in a news release.Federal prosecutors said Total Access Urgent Care submitted false insurance claims for COVID-19 testing between April 2021 and December 2021, using improper billing codes that resulted in the company getting reimbursements at a rate that was too high.From 2017 to 2021, TAUC was accused of falsely claiming that doctors participated in some office visits that were actually overseen by non-physician practitioners. The reimbursem...

‘Dedication to serving Canadians’: PM pays tribute to former MP John Godfrey

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:31:11 GMT

OTTAWA — The late John Godfrey, a former university president, newspaper editor and Liberal MP, made meaningful and lasting contributions to public life, recalled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.“His dedication to serving Canadians will continue to be an inspiration to me and many others,” Trudeau said in a statement Wednesday, following Godfrey’s death.The Toronto-born Godfrey founded the School of Journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax, was editor of the Financial Post and served as an MP from 1993 to 2008.“The son of a senator, Mr. Godfrey understood the importance of public service and spent much of his life advocating for members of his community and for all Canadians,” Trudeau said in his statement.Godfrey studied at the University of Toronto and later the University of Oxford, where he earned a master’s degree and a doctorate of philosophyBy that time, he was teaching history at Dalhousie University, noted King’s College vi...