Tag: Region US
Prosecutors file charges in set shooting by Alec Baldwin
Actor Alec Baldwin and a weapons specialist have been formally charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a New Mexico movie set, according to court documents filed by prosecutors Tuesday. Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies filed the charging documents naming Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who supervised weapons on the set of the Western “Rust.” The filing comes nearly two weeks after she first announced that Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed would be prosecuted for what authorities…
Gambit Matrix LLC: Former Florida CEO Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion (Jason Cory)
A former Jacksonville company CEO was sentenced yesterday to 32 months in prison for willfully attempting to evade the assessment of his federal income taxes. According to court documents and statements made in court, in 2015 and 2016, Jason Cory, 49, of Jacksonville, was a manager at a New York-based IT services company and from 2017 through 2019, he was the CEO of a different IT services company based in Jacksonville. From 2015 through 2018, Cory used his positions to cause more than $1.5 million to be deposited into the bank accounts of Gambit Matrix LLC, a shell company he controlled. As CEO, Cory caused transfers to Gambit Matrix under the false pretense that they were payments for consulting services that had never been provided.
World ‘dangerously unprepared’ for next crisis: Red Cross
All countries remain “dangerously unprepared” for the next pandemic, the Red Cross warned on Monday, saying future health crises could also collide with increasingly likely climate-related disasters. Despite three “brutal” years of the COVID-19 pandemic, strong preparedness systems are “severely lacking”, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said. The world’s largest humanitarian network said building trust, equity and local action networks were vital to get ready for the next crisis. “All countries remain dangerously unprepared…
Logan Square Aluminum Supply: Lead Violations
Today, the Justice Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a settlement with Logan Square Aluminum Supply Inc., resolving alleged violations of the federal Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting regulations, known as the RRP rule, at renovation projects Logan Square and its contractors performed in Chicago and Chicago suburbs.
Reports of drone attacks in Iran and Syria
Corruption Ledger does not not endorse or confirm the below content. Media is currently unverified. BREAKING MULTIPLE REPORTS: 🇬🇧UK-🇺🇲US-🇪🇺EU-armed military action targets 🇮🇷Iran humanitarian aid trucks loaded with flour and rice near Iraq-#Syria border as CIA boss arrives in Israel. (Video unverified) pic.twitter.com/tMy6YRB4WI — Afshin Rattansi (@afshinrattansi) January 29, 2023 Details on the #Iran Isfahan attack, which happened around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, remained scarce. A Defense Ministry statement described three drones being launched at the facility, with two of them…
AP: Ukraine Corruption Scandal; U.S. likely to OK sending Abrams tanks
Several senior Ukrainian officials, including front-line governors, lost their jobs Tuesday in a corruption scandal plaguing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government as it grapples with the nearly 11-month-old Russian invasion. Ukraine’s biggest government shake-up since the war began came as U.S. officials said Washington was poised to approve supplying Kyiv with M1 Abrams tanks, with international reluctance eroding toward sending tanks to the battlefront against the Russians. Zelenskyy was elected in 2019 on an anti-establishment and anti-corruption platform in a country…
Classified documents probe pushes Biden think tank into spotlight
As Joe Biden contemplated his next move in 2017 after decades in government, he considered a familiar path — creating a Washington-based think tank to focus on international affairs and diplomacy. It proved an easy sell and a lucrative one, too. Soft landings in the capital are common for officials with a resume like Biden’s, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement was born, with a grand view of the Capitol. The former vice president brought with…
Canada’s Supreme Court gives mixed rulings on gun crime penalties
Canada’s Supreme Court found one mandatory minimum sentence for a firearm offense unconstitutional and upheld two others in a pair of decisions published on Friday. Two of the three cases at issue used hypothetical scenarios that defense counsel argued could render these mandatory minimums unconstitutional because they would constitute cruel and unusual punishment in certain instances. Mandatory minimum sentences have come under fire in Canada from advocates and lawyers who say they take discretion from judges and disproportionately penalize Indigenous…
China, U.S. spar at WTO meeting over disputes
China and the United States exchanged sharp criticism at a World Trade Organization meeting on Friday, with Beijing calling Washington a “unilateral bully” and the U.S. accusing its rival of illegal retaliatory measures. China’s ambassador to the WTO Li Chenggang spoke at a meeting on trade disputes shortly after the United States lodged an appeal against a series of WTO rulings involving China, Turkey, Norway and Switzerland which found that U.S. metal tariffs breached global rules. “These troubling behaviors of…
David J. Miller and Minnesota Independent Cooperative, Inc., Convicted in Multi-Million-Dollar Prescription Drug Diversion Scheme
Department of Justice U.S. Attorney’s Office Northern District of California FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, January 27, 2023 After two-week trial, federal jury found Miller and his company both guilty of conspiracies involving racketeering, mail and wire fraud, and money laundering, in addition to substantive mail fraud and conspiracy against the United States. SAN FRANCISCO – A federal jury convicted David Jess Miller and his company, Minnesota Independent Cooperative (“MIC”), of a wide array of charges relating to the unlicensed and…
US NIST publishes AI Risk Management Framework 1.0
The U.S. took a big step in the development of a national artificial intelligence strategy with the release of the U.S. Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework 1.0, Jan. 26.
Required under the National AI Act of 2020, the framework is the product of 15 months of work by NIST scientists who compiled public comments from more than 240 AI stakeholders through multiple listening sessions and workshops, while producing two previous drafts of the document last year. The framework is voluntary but will help organizations deploying AI systems to enhance their trustworthiness and reduce biases, while protecting individuals™ privacy.
Along with the framework document, the NIST also released the AI RMF Playbook, which is expected to be updated every six months as best practices for navigating the framework develop, according to Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology and NIST Director Laurie Locascio.
Four Men Convicted of Engaging in a Child Exploitation Enterprise
A federal court convicted a Washington state man yesterday for engaging in a child exploitation enterprise. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Christopher William Kuehner, 38, of Bremerton, was a prominent member of the website “Rapey.su,” which was dedicated to, among other things, child sexual exploitation. After becoming a member of the website, Kuehner repeatedly induced and enticed minor girls to produce child sexual abuse material for both him and the other members of the website.
Justice Department Finds Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections Violates the Constitution By Incarcerating People Beyond Their Release Dates
The Justice Department announced today that it has concluded there is reasonable cause to believe that the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (LDOC) routinely confines people in its custody past the dates when they are legally entitled to be released from custody, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
AP: Twitter faces lawsuits over unpaid rent for HQ offices in U.S., UK
More landlords are taking Twitter to court over unpaid rent, this time at the social media company’s headquarters in San Francisco and its British offices — the latest sign that owner Elon Musk’s extreme cost-cutting strategy includes simply not paying the bills. Twitter is facing a lawsuit over allegations it failed to pay rent for its head office, according to California court documents. The owner of its premises in central London, meanwhile, said it’s taking the company to court over…
U.S. Justice Department sues Google over digital advertising dominance
The Justice Department and eight states filed an antitrust suit against Google on Tuesday, seeking to shatter its alleged monopoly on the entire ecosystem of online advertising as a hurtful burden to advertisers, consumers and even the U.S. government. The government alleges that Google’s plan to assert dominance has been to “neutralize or eliminate” rivals through acquisitions and to force advertisers to use its products by making it difficult to use competitors’ products. The antitrust suit was filed in federal…