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February 16, 2019 at 8:08 pm
Prosecutors working in special counsel Robert Mueller’s office are recommending a federal judge in Virginia sentence President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort to at least 19 years in prison.
Manafort was convicted on eight counts of bank and tax fraud in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia last summer. Prosecutors have recommended that Manafort, 69, serve a sentence of 19.5 to more than 24 years in prison for the crimes.
Mueller’s office is also recommending a fine range of $50,000 to $24.4 million, a term of supervised release of up to five years, restitution in the amount of $24.8 million and forfeiture in the amount of $4.4 million.Read more at The Hill.
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February 16, 2019 at 8:06 pm
Under thin sunshine, Vice President Mike Pence stood silently before a specially reinforced wall against which Nazis executed some of the estimated 1.1 million people slaughtered at Auschwitz.
The long moment of reflection Friday was part of a somber walking tour of the world’s most infamous former Nazi death camp and the remnants of a satellite camp, Birkenau, that are now a Polish state museum.
Shortly before, Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, had walked through the iconic Auschwitz camp gate, under crude metal letters spelling out the cruelly ironic Nazi motto “Arbeit Macht Frei,” or “work makes you free.”
His visit was the emotional heart of a four-day European diplomatic trip focused on what the Trump administration calls Iran’s threatening postur...
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February 16, 2019 at 8:04 pm
Tehran - Iran’s foreign minister says sabotage by the U.S. is a possible reason for Tehran’s failed attempts to launch two satellites in recent months.
Mohammad Javad Zarif said Friday in an interview with NBC News in Munich, Germany, that it’s possible there is a U.S. sabotage campaign against Iranian satellite launches. He confirmed that Iran suffered two failed attempts to launch satellites over the past two months.
“It’s quite possible. We don’t know yet,” he said. “We need to look into it very carefully.”
Both attempts took place despite U.S. criticism that Iran’s space program helps the country develop ballistic missiles. Iran denies the charge.
In January, the country launched a satellite, but authorities said it ...
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February 16, 2019 at 8:03 pm
Kansas City, MO - Another winter blast hit Missouri on Friday, causing more than 100 accidents, closing schools and leaving highway experts to warn motorists to avoid travel unless absolutely necessary.
Several sections of Interstate 70 between Kansas City and Columbia were particularly treacherous. The Missouri State Highway Patrol said on Twitter that one person died in a crash involving at least 15 vehicles near Oak Grove, 27 miles east of Kansas City. The patrol did not immediately provide further information on the wreck.
Several tractor-trailers were involved in a crash on I-70 near Concordia. I-70 was closed at Columbia because of several crashes.
A wreck on U.S. 54 in central Missouri involved about 50 vehicles, the patrol said. Not all of the cars were part of the accident &mda...
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February 16, 2019 at 7:46 pm
State Dept.: Trump nominee for U.S. ambassador to U.N., Heather Nauert, withdraws.
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February 16, 2019 at 7:46 pm
A man who was dubbed "Baltimore’s No. 1 trigger puller" by city police will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Montana Barronette, 23, received two life sentences Friday for racketeering and narcotics distribution.
"Mr. Barronette's crimes speak for themselves," U.S. Attorney Robert Hur said.
Judge Catherine Blake said she considered the senseless gun violence in which Barronette was involved, the six people whose lives he participated in taking and many more lives lost by the drugs Barronette and others sold.
In her victim impact statement, the mother of one of the victims said "Barronette is the devil's child" and "nobody could be that evil."
"It's difficult for me, and I think it's difficult for anyone, to really get inside the head of someone else and ...
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February 16, 2019 at 7:34 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — In early November, word began to leak that Amazon was serious about choosing New York to build a giant new campus. The city was eager to lure the company and its thousands of high-paying tech jobs, offering billions in tax incentives and lighting the Empire State Building in Amazon orange.
Even Governor Andrew Cuomo got in on the action: "I'll change my name to Amazon Cuomo if that's what it takes," he joked at the time.
Then Amazon made it official: It chose the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens to build a $2.5 billion campus that could house 25,000 workers, in addition to new offices planned for northern Virginia. Cuomo and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Democrats who have been political adversaries for years, trumpeted the decision as a major coup...
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February 16, 2019 at 7:30 pm
Attorneys for the family of Korryn Gaines say they will likely appeal after a judge ruled the family should not receive the award of $37 million awarded to them by a jury last year.
Gaines died in an officer-involved shooting in Randallstown in 2016.
A jury found a gunshot fired by Ofc. Royce Ruby that killed Gaines and injured her then 5-year-old son, Kodi Gaines, was not reasonable.
Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Mickey Norman dismissed the family's claim, writing in an opinion that Ruby was entitled to qualified immunity.
That protects law enforcement and government officials from civil liability in the course of their duties.
Ken Ravenell, the attorney for Kodi, said: "The judge's opinion is factually wrong and legally flawed in many respects. Justic...
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February 16, 2019 at 7:29 pm
MUNICH, Germany (AP) — The top Pentagon official said Friday he foresees a "bigger and stronger" American-led international coalition combatting the Islamic State group globally as the U.S. withdraws its troops from Syria.
Pat Shanahan, on his first trip abroad as the acting secretary of defense, made his comment after meeting in Munich with representatives of the dozen or so countries that provide troops in Iraq and Syria.
"While the time for U.S. troops on the ground in northeast Syria winds down, the United States remains committed to our coalition's cause, the permanent defeat of ISIS, both in the Middle East and beyond," Shanahan said in remarks to reporters.
The U.S. has about 2,000 troops in Syria and about 5,200 in Iraq.
President Donald Trump said on Feb. 6 that the...
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February 16, 2019 at 7:29 pm
On Erev Shabbos, President Donald Trump insisted that his biggest right-wing media boosters including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter had no impact on his controversial decision to declare a national emergency to fund his Mexico border wall, the Daily Beast reports.
“Sean Hannity has been a terrific, terrific supporter of what I do, not of me,” Trump told reporters at the Rose Garden after announcing the national emergency. “If I changed my views he wouldn’t be with me.” And although he lavished praise on Limbaugh, Trump then claimed that neither of the conservative commentators influence his policy decisions. “They don’t decide policy,” he said.
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February 16, 2019 at 7:29 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — Police arrested a man Friday suspected of being the lookout during a robbery that led to the friendly fire death of a New York City police detective, an official briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press.
The man was taken into custody in Queens hours after NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill revealed on a radio show that police were looking for a second suspect in Tuesday night's stick-up, the official said.
The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. The suspect's name wasn't immediately available Friday night.
Detective Brian Simonsen was hit once in the chest by crossfire as he and six other officers fired 42 shots at robbery suspect Christopher Ransom, who police say charg...
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February 16, 2019 at 7:29 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — White House press secretary Sarah Sanders has been interviewed as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
Sanders says in a statement released Friday that she was "happy to voluntarily" sit for the interview. It was unclear when Sanders was interviewed but she says her boss, President Donald Trump, urged her to "fully cooperate."
CNN was first to report on Sanders' interview.
Mueller is believed to be close to wrapping up his investigation into possible collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government. Trump has denied collusion and has denounced the investigation as a political "witch hunt." Sanders has also used the "witch hunt" language to describe Mueller's inquiry.
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February 16, 2019 at 7:13 pm
AURORA, Ill. (AP) — The man who opened fire and killed five co-workers including the plant manager, human resources manager and an intern working his first day at a suburban Chicago manufacturing warehouse, took a gun he wasn’t supposed to have to a job he was about to lose.
Right after learning Friday that he was being fired from his job of 15 years at the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora, Gary Martin pulled out a gun and began shooting, killing the three people in the room with him and two others just outside and wounding a sixth employee, police said Saturday.
Martin shot and wounded five of the first officers to get to the scene, including one who didn’t even make it inside the sprawling warehouse in Aurora, Illinois, a city of 200,000 about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west o...
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February 16, 2019 at 7:12 pm
AURORA, Ill. (AP) — The Latest on a shooting at a business in Aurora, Illinois (all times local):
9:50 p.m.
Police say the gunman who killed five people at a suburban Chicago business was a 15-year employee who was being fired.
Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman says 45-year-old Gary Martin "was being terminated" Friday afternoon before he opened fire at the Henry Pratt Co. warehouse in Aurora.
Five police officers also were shot and wounded before Martin was located in the warehouse. Ziman says Martin was shot and killed.
Aurora is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Chicago.
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7:10 p.m.
Police have taped off a suburban Chicago apartment unit where the suspect in the fatal shootings of five people in an industrial warehouse was believed to have lived.
Aurora, Illinois, ...
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February 16, 2019 at 7:12 pm
AURORA, Ill. (AP) — The Latest on the mass shooting at a warehouse in Aurora, Illinois (all times local):
5 p.m.
The chief executive of the company that owns the warehouse where an employee gunned down five co-workers says a background check on him when he joined Henry Pratt Co.15 years ago did not turn up a 1995 felony conviction for aggravated assault in Mississippi
Scott Hall, president and CEO of Mueller Water Products Inc, which owns Henry Pratt in Aurora, Illinois, told a news conference Saturday that Gary Martin was being fired from his job when he started shooting and killed five co-workers including the human resources manager, plant manager and an intern.
He says: "We can confirm that the individual was being terminated Friday for a culmination of a various workplace ru...
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February 16, 2019 at 7:12 pm
AURORA, Ill. (AP) — A 15-year employee being fired from a suburban Chicago manufacturing company started shooting Friday, killing five co-workers and wounding five police officers before he was killed by police, authorities said.
Aurora, Illinois, Police Chief Kristen Ziman said 45-year-old Gary Martin "was being terminated" before he started shooting at the Henry Pratt Co. — which makes valves for industrial purposes — in the city about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Chicago.
She told a news conference that in addition to the five employees killed, a sixth worker was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life threatening. A sixth police officer suffered a knee injury while officers were searching the building.
Ziman said officers arrived within four minute...
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February 15, 2019 at 4:56 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — The compensation fund for victims of 9/11 is running out of money and will cut future payments by 50 to 70 percent, officials announced Friday.
September 11th Victim Compensation Fund special master Rupa Bhattacharyya said she was “painfully aware of the inequity of the situation” but stressed that awarding some funds for every valid claim would be preferable to sending some legitimate claimants away empty-handed. “I could not abide a plan that would at the end of the day leave some claimants uncompensated,” Bhattacharyya said.
Nearly 40,000 people have applied to the federal fund for people with illnesses potentially related to being at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon or Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the 2001 terror attacks ther...
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February 15, 2019 at 4:55 pm
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — As Ilhan Omar’s political star was rising last year on her way to becoming one of the first Muslim women in Congress, several Minnesota Jewish leaders invited her to talk privately about past statements they considered anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. Gathering at a state senator’s home, they hoped to get a better sense of her views while expressing their concerns.
Most came away dissatisfied by what they heard.
Those concerns were confirmed this week when Omar suggested on Twitter that members of Congress support Israel for money, igniting a bipartisan uproar in Washington that included criticism from President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“There seems to be a pattern developing which indicates more of an attitude than m...
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February 15, 2019 at 4:48 pm
AURORA – Police say they have stopped the suspect in a shooting that occurred Friday afternoon at the Henry Pratt plant in the 400 block of HIghland Avenue on the city's near west side.
Police were called to the plant at approximately 1:30 p.m. to a report of an active shooter.
As of 3:04 p.m. the plant remained on lockdown. However, witnesses outside the plant reported hearing gunfire coming from inside the building about 2:55 p.m.
Clayton Muhammad, director of communications for the City of Aurora, announced at 3:15 p.m. the shooter had been "neutralized" by police inside the plant.
A Henry Pratt employee reached by Shaw Media inside the plant said she believed the shooter was an employee at the plant who had been laid off Friday morning.
The employee said the shoo...
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February 15, 2019 at 4:32 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday barred longtime Donald Trump confidant Roger Stone from making public comments that could influence potential jurors in the criminal case brought by the special counsel in the Russia probe.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said the gag order was necessary to ensure Stone’s right to a fair trial and “to maintain the dignity and seriousness of the courthouse and these proceedings.” The order is narrowly tailored to comments about his pending case and does not constrain Stone from discussing other topics publicly.
The ruling, which applies to Stone and lawyers on both sides in the case, comes after a string of media appearances by the attention-seeking political consultant since his indictment and arrest las...
