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Former Spokesman-Review editor arrested and accused of paying girls for sexually explicit images

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A former Washington state newspaper editor was arrested on allegations of paying girls in exchange for sexually explicit images.Steve Smith, 73, was executive editor of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane from 2002 to 2008. Washington State Patrol detectives arrested Smith Thursday on 10 counts of first-degree possession of depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, KHQ reported.He declined a jail interview with The Spokesman-Review Thursday evening. At a hearing Friday, he was ordered held on $25,000 bond. The Associated Press was unable Friday evening to locate an attorney who could speak for Smith.An account in Smith’s name for a mobile cash payment service was linked to an investigation into children using social media to send sexually explicit photos of themselves in exchange for money sent to them via the app, according to court documents. The victims, 10-to-14-year-old girls, sent images to an Instagram account and received money throug...

A Nevada woman who hired a hitman using bitcoin to kill her ex-husband gets five years in prison

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada woman who admitted to hiring a hitman on the internet for $5,000 in bitcoin to kill her ex-husband “and make it look like an accident” was sentenced to five years in prison.Kristy Lynn Felkins, 38, of Fallon, Nevada, pleaded guilty in March to a charge of murder-for-hire as part of a deal with federal prosecutors that avoided trial, court records show.A U.S. District Court judge in California also ordered on Thursday that Felkins be released under supervision for three years after she serves her prison sentence.Felkins began communicating with someone in 2016 on a dark web hitman website that claimed to offer murder-for-hire services, according to her September 2020 indictment. Felkins wanted her ex-husband killed while he was traveling in Chico, California, the indictment said.Authorities described the website as a scam that simply took money from unsuspecting customers.In a statement admitting her guilt that was entered into the court record as part of h...

Tornado damage to Pfizer plant unlikely to cause major drug supply shortages, FDA says

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Most of the destruction from a tornado that tore through eastern North Carolina Wednesday and struck a large Pfizer pharmaceutical plant affected its storage facility, rather than its medicine production areas, the company said Friday.The drugmaker’s ability to salvage production equipment and other essential materials could mitigate what experts feared would be a major blow to an already strained system as the United States grapples with existing drug shortages.“We do not expect there to be any immediate significant impacts on supply given the products are currently at hospitals and in the distribution system,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf said Friday.An EF3 tornado touched down Wednesday near Rocky Mount, ripping the roof off a Pfizer factory responsible for producing nearly 25% of the American pharmaceutical giant’s sterile injectable medicines used in U.S. hospitals, according to the drugmaker.Pfizer said Friday that a w...

Developer who paid $500,000 bribe to Los Angeles councilman sentenced to 6 years in federal prison

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A real estate developer was sentenced Friday to six years in federal prison for paying $500,000 in bribes to a Los Angeles city councilman for help with a downtown project.Dae Yong Lee, also known as “David Lee,” also was fined $750,000 and a company that he controlled was fined $1.5 million plus prosecution costs, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.Prosecutors said that in 2017, Lee bribed José Huizar and the councilman’s special assistant to help resolve a labor organization’s appeal that was blocking approval of a planned development that was to include more than 200 residences and some 14,000 square feet (1,300 square meters) of commercial space.At the time, Huizar chaired the city’s powerful Planning and Land Use Management Committee.In 2017, Lee made three cash payments totaling $500,000 to Huizar’s assistant, George Esparza, prosecutors said.Last year, Lee and the company were convicted of bribery, honest services w...

UN agency that governs international waters mired in grueling debate over deep sea mining

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Members of a U.N. agency that governs international waters were locked in a fierce debate late Friday over whether to allow deep sea mining and set a new deadline for proposed regulations still stuck in draft mode.The U.N. International Seabed Authority, which is based in Jamaica, began its two-week conference on the issue July 10 but discussions behind closed doors dragged on during the last day of the meeting.“It’s quite a marathon,” Michael Lodge, the agency’s secretary general, said at a press briefing Friday. “There are still loose ends to tie up.”The agency has yet to issue any provisional mining licenses, and it missed a July 9 deadline to approve a set of rules to govern such activity. Companies and countries can now apply for a mining license as demand surges for precious metals that are found in the deep sea and are used in electric car batteries and other green technology.The U.N. agency has issued more than 30 exploration licenses but none fo...

Chicago to open new shelter in Uptown for migrants

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

CHICAGO — A new migrant shelter is set to open next week in Chicago and will house between 500 and 600 migrants.46th Ward Ald. Angela Clay announced to her constituents a few days ago that the site is set to open on July 28. See where you can help migrants arriving in Chicago The new site will join more than a dozen shelters that have opened citywide to temporarily house migrants.In the announcement to constituents on Tuesday, Clay said the plan is to transform the former site of the American Islamic College at Irving Park and Marine Drive into a temporary shelter.It will be run by the Department of Family and Social Services and include case workers, coordinated healthcare efforts with the Chicago Department of Public Health and onsite security.Three meals will be served daily to the people staying there, Clay said. On Friday night. residents of the 43rd ward are invited to a public meeting to hear from the departments involved and learn more about the plan, which is showing mixe...

Harris: Florida is ‘pushing propaganda’ on children 

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

(The Hill) – Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Florida on Friday to address the state’s new education guidelines that limit how Black history is taught in public schools. Harris accused “extremists in Florida” of trying to instill fear in teachers through book bans, restrictions on teaching about gender or sexuality and lying about slavery. “They dare to push propaganda to our children,” Harris said in Jacksonville. “Adults know what slavery really involved. It involved rape. It involved torture. It involved taking a baby from their mother.""It involved some of the worst examples of depriving people of humanity in our world," she continued. “So in the context of that, how is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities, that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?” Floridians on the hook for DeSantis’ legal bills Florida's new guidelines, which passed on Wednesday, require lessons on race to be taught in an ...

August forecast: Any break from the dog days of summer?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- So far July is running neck and neck as the hottest July-to-date with LAST July (2022). This week, the Climate Prediction Center released its August forecast.August OutlookThis year the August forecast favors a hotter-than-normal month. Typically, August is our hottest month of the year anyway, so hotter than that is the opposite of what you wanted to hear.August temperature forecast (CPC)The best news about the forecast for next month is the rainfall forecast, which is looking "near-normal" for a change.August rainfall forecast (CPC)What's 'normal' in August in Austin?Typically, the hottest days of the year come in August with normal highs at the beginning of the month near 99º with lows in the mid 70s. By the end of the month, our average high drops into the mid 90s. It's typically a wetter month than July with a little less than 3" of rain.August normals for Austin (Camp Mabry)How was last August?Last August was hotter than normal too! In fact, it was the 10th ho...

HCSO: registered sex offender engaged in this behavior 'shortly after bonding out'

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

HAYS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) --- A 24-year-old man in the Hays County jail facing several charges for sex crimes involving children has a history of those types of attacks, police said. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Registered sex offender receives new charges, HCSO finds evidence of additional victim Registered sex offender, Diego Alejandro Cortez, was recently charged with harboring a runaway, trafficking a child to engage in sexual conduct, 10 counts of possession of child pornography and continuous sex abuse of a child under 14.Criminal history Hays County Sheriff Deputy Anthony Hipolito said this isn't Cortez's first run-in with the law for a similar type of offense."He was arrested up in the Abilene Parker County area," Hipolito said. In December 2021, our sister station in Abilene, KTAB/KRBC, reported about the parents of a 15-year-old girl finding out that a man had been in their daughter’s bedroom. RELATED COVERAGE: Dyess airman accused of sexually assaulting 15-year-old girl "Accor...

Fire near Jarrell drops to 300 acres, 75% contained

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) -- Officials are responding to a large grass fire between Georgetown and Jarrell in Williamson County. The Texas A&M Forest Service is helping respond to the fire, named the Cobb Creek Fire, and estimates the fire is about 300 acres and is 75% contained as of 7 p.m. Friday.The forest service initially estimated the fire to be about 100 acres on Wednesday but said in an updated tweet Thursday morning that it was an estimated 500 acres. The service said the increase in acreage is a result of more accurate mapping. On Thursday afternoon, the forest service said crews built a containment line "closer to the fire's edge," dropping the estimated size of the fire to 300 acres. "Aviation and ground crews are making good progress," the Texas A&M Forest Service wrote on social media.The grass fire started Wednesday afternoon at 1001 Cobb Creek Road shortly after 4:30 p.m., according to a news release from Williamson County. Shortly before 9 p.m., Willia...