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Jury selection to begin in trial of fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 01:09:12 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Sam Bankman-Fried, a tech wunderkind who once promoted his FTX digital coin exchange as a safe way for regular people to get into cryptocurrency, faces the start of a criminal trial over allegations that he cheated thousands of customers.Jury selection begins Tuesday in New York in a case in which the 31-year-old crypto mogul, once a billionaire, faces the possibility of a long prison term.Prosecutors say he defrauded thousands of people who deposited cryptocurrency on the FTX exchange by illegally diverting massive sums of their money for his personal use, including making risky trades at his cryptocurrency hedge fund, Alameda Research. He’s also accused of using customer money to buy real estate and make big political contributions as he tried to influence government regulation of cryptocurrency.U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who is overseeing the prosecution, has called it one of the biggest frauds in the country’s history.In interviews and social medi...

DeSantis said he would support a 15-week abortion ban, after avoiding a direct answer for months

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 01:09:12 GMT

When Ron DeSantis seemed to say during last week’s Republican presidential debate that he would support a federal ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy, some anti-abortion activists called it the news they had been waiting months to hear. The president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a leading anti-abortion advocacy group, issued a statement thanking DeSantis “for his commitment to support minimum federal protections for babies.”But DeSantis’ campaign insisted his comment, which was the candidate’s most direct answer regarding an abortion ban, wasn’t anything new. And millions of voters probably missed the moment entirely. DeSantis’ pledge came during one of many chaotic exchanges on the debate stage, when Sen. Tim Scott — who has made a nationwide ban on abortion at 15 weeks a central focus of his campaign — shouted a question, asking if the Florida governor also would support it. In a bit of barely audible crosstalk, DeSantis responded: “Yes, I wi...

Florida man who murdered women he met in bars set to die by lethal injection

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 01:09:12 GMT

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man is scheduled to die by lethal injection over 25 years after he killed women het met in north Florida bars during a dayslong spate of crimes.Michael Zack III is set to die at 6 p.m. Tuesday for the murder of Ravonne Smith, a bar employee he befriended and later beat and stabbed with an oyster knife in June 1996. He was also convicted and separately sentenced to life in prison for murdering Laura Rosillo, who he met at a bar in a nearby county. Zack’s nine-day crime run began in Tallahassee, where he was a regular at a bar. When Zack’s girlfriend called and said he was being evicted, the bartender offered to loan him her pickup truck. Zack left with it and never returned, according to court records.Zack drove to a Niceville bar in the Florida Panhandle, where he befriended a construction company owner. The man learned Zack was living in the pickup truck and offered to let him stay at his home. Zack later stole two guns and $42. He pawned the guns,...

Opening statements to begin in Washington officers’ trial in deadly arrest of Black man Manuel Ellis

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 01:09:12 GMT

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — Opening statements are set to begin Tuesday in the trial of three police officers in Tacoma, Washington, accused in the death of Manny Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man who was punched, shocked with a Taser, put in a chokehold and held face down on the sidewalk as he pleaded, “can’t breathe, sir.”Officers Matthew Collins and Christopher Burbank, both white, are charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. Officer Timothy Rankine, who is Asian American, is charged with manslaughter for kneeling on Ellis’ back as the man struggled to breathe with his face on the ground. It’s the first trial under a 5-year-old Washington state law designed to make it easier to prosecute police who wrongfully use deadly force. All three officers have pleaded not guilty. The court completed two weeks of jury selection on Monday.The Pierce County Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide and said it was caused by a lack of oxygen during the physical restraint.Lawyers for t...

Which students get into advanced math? Texas is using test scores to limit bias

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 01:09:12 GMT

DALLAS (AP) — When Tha Cung looked over his sixth-grade class schedule, he took notice of the math block. He had been placed in an advanced class. “I didn’t know ‘honors’ even existed,” he said.Tha was little when his family immigrated from Myanmar and, for much of his time in Dallas schools, he took courses designed for children who are learning English. In fifth grade, his standardized test scores showed he was a strong math student — someone who should be challenged with honors classes in middle school.Under the Dallas school system’s policy, Tha’s parents didn’t need to sign him up for advanced math. A teacher or counselor didn’t have to recommend him, either. In many schools, those are the hoops a student must get through to join honors classes. But Tha was automatically placed in the advanced course because of his scores on Texas’ STAAR test.A version of this approach will soon be replicated statewide as part of an effort to remove barriers that can stand between bright ...

Jefferson County deputies find missing boy

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 01:09:12 GMT

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office has found a boy who ran away from his home on Monday night after several hours of being missing.At 9:18 p.m., the sheriff’s department posted on X that he had been “returned home safe.”Related ArticlesColorado News | AI project imagines adult faces of children who disappeared during Argentina’s military dictatorship Colorado News | Two missing Indigenous children in Colorado Springs found safe Colorado News | 12-year-old Jefferson County boy reported missing has been found Colorado News | Missing Boulder teen found safe Colorado News | Missing 12-year-old El Paso County boy found safe Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.

Pursuit suspect in custody after wild multi-county pursuit and barricade

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 01:09:12 GMT

Officers with the La Habra Police initiated the pursuit of a driver in a possibly stolen vehicle in that has made its way across county lines into San Bernardino and Riverside counties on Monday. The suspect was seen driving what appears to be a work truck with a ladder on top of the vehicle northbound on Carbon Canyon Road into the Chino area earlier in the chase. The driver has also been seen going through red lights and stop signs with several police cruisers trailing behind. It is unclear if there is more than just the driver inside of the truck. Just before 9:30 p.m., the suspect got on the southbound 15 Freeway and accelerated up to speeds of around 70 miles per hour before moving onto the westbound 91 Freeway. After driving the wrong way on the 91 Freeway, the female suspect exited the vehicle, ran across lanes of traffic and barricaded herself in a Denny's restaurant in Corona. Just before 10 p.m., officers exited the restaurant with the suspect in custody. Suspect being tak...

Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York to get down to business after fiery first day

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 01:09:12 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — After a fiery first day of opening arguments, lawyers in Donald Trump’s business fraud trial in New York will move on Tuesday to the more plodding task of going through years of his financial documents in what’s expected to be a weekslong fight over whether they constitute proof of fraud.An accountant who prepared Trump’s financial statements for years was expected to be back on the witness stand for a second day.Trump, who spent a full day Monday as an angry spectator at the civil trial, was contemplating a return to court as well. After denouncing the judge and New York’s attorney general, who brought the lawsuit, Trump said in a courtroom hallway that he “may” be back for a second day, though he noted, “I’d love to be campaigning instead of doing this.”The trial is the culmination of a lawsuit in which Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, has accused Trump of deceiving banks, insurers and others for years by giving them papers that m...

Hunter Biden returns to court in Delaware and is expected to plead not guilty to gun charges

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 01:09:12 GMT

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Hunter Biden is due back in a Delaware courtroom Tuesday, where he’s expected to plead not guilty to federal firearms charges that emerged after his earlier deal collapsed. The president’s son is facing charges that he lied about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days.He’s acknowledged struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine during that period, but his lawyers have said he didn’t break the law. Gun charges like these are rare, and an appeals court has found the ban on drug users having guns violates the Second Amendment under new Supreme Court standards. Hunter Biden’s attorneys are suggesting that prosecutors bowed to pressure by Republicans who have insisted the president’s son got a sweetheart deal, and the charges were the result of political pressure. He was indicted after the implosion this summer of his plea agreement with federal prosecutors on tax and gun charges. The deal devolved a...

Fuller picture emerges of the 13 federal executions at the end of Trump’s presidency

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 01:09:12 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — A day before the federal government executed a Texas man for the killing of an Iowa couple when he was 18, celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz pleaded with then-President Donald Trump — a former client — to call the execution off.During a Dec. 9, 2020, call to the White House, Dershowitz told Trump that Brandon Bernard, at 40, wasn’t the man he was when Todd and Stacie Bagley were killed in 1999 and that he deserved to have his sentence commuted to life in prison.Trump sounded sincere when he said he wished he could spare Bernard’s life, but he added apologetically that he’d already promised the victims’ relatives that Bernard would be put to death, Dershowitz said about the 20-minute call.“‘They’re on their way. They’re on their way,’” Trump kept saying, Dershowitz recalled. The relatives, Trump explained, were on the road to the prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where federal executions are carried out and it was “’too late to pull them back.’”Bernard was exe...