UNITED STATES
FBI fakes AP story
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and The Associated Press (AP) sent separate letters to Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday expressing concerns that the FBI faked an AP story to catch a bomb threat suspect in 2007. The AP also asked the Department of Justice to account for other times it has posed as a media organization in an investigation. Documents obtained by the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation and publicized this week by American Civil Liberties Union principal technologist Christopher Soghoian revealed that the FBI’s Seattle office forged an AP story to help catch a 15-year-old suspect who had been making bomb threats at a high school.
COSTA RICA
Eruptions force alert
Authorities issued an emergency alert on Thursday after ash from the erupting Turrialba Volcano reached the capital San Jose and beyond. The alert came after a series of eruptions late on Wednesday and early on Thursday. The National Emergency Commission also ordered the closure of the national park around the volcano. In a statement, authorities said 11 people had been evacuated to temporary shelters around the town of Santa Cruz de Turrialba. Falling ash was seen as far away as Ciudad Colon, about 50km away. Authorities are also monitoring two other volcanoes — Rincon de la Vieja, in the northwest, and Poas, in the country’s center.
UNITED STATES
‘Satan’ seeks execution
A Texas death row inmate whose attorneys contend he is so delusional that he cannot understand why he was convicted and condemned has been scheduled for execution. Scott Panetti, 56, was set for lethal injection on Dec. 3, according to a judge’s order received this week by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Panetti has a history of mental problems and his case has been to the Supreme Court at least three times. State attorneys have argued he exaggerates some of his symptoms to avoid execution. Panetti was convicted of fatally shooting his in-laws, Joe and Amanda Alvarado, in their home 22 years ago in front of his estranged wife and young children. His trial judge assigned Panetti a standby attorney after he chose to be his own lawyer at his 1995 trial, where he wore a purple cowboy outfit, flipped a coin to select a juror and wanted to subpoena Jesus Christ and the assassinated former president John F. Kennedy as witnesses. He insisted that only an insane person could prove insanity. “He has a fixed delusion that Satan, working through the state of Texas, is seeking to execute him for preaching the Gospel,” his appeals attorney, Greg Wiercioch, said on Thursday.
UNITED STATES
‘Blurred Lines’ set for trial
The family of Marvin Gaye has won a round in a court battle over allegations that last year’s blockbuster hit song Blurred Lines plagiarized the late Motown legend’s work. A federal judge on Thursday denied a motion by singer Robin Thicke and songwriter Pharrell Williams, who wanted a court to reject the plagiarism accusations made by Gaye’s children. The ruling clears the way for the dispute to head to a celebrity trial that is scheduled to open in Los Angeles in February. The Gaye estate says that Blurred Lines copied elements of the singer’s 1976 track Got to Give It Up. The two sides brought in music experts who dissected the songs’ structures to debate the merits of the claim.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
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