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The Latest: Ex-officer could face charges, chief says

Fort Worth's interim police chief says he expects a "substantial update" by Tuesday on whether a former police officer will be criminally charged in the shooting death of a black woman inside her home. Interim Chief Ed Kraus said Monday that Officer Aaron Dean would have been fired had he not resigned following Saturday's shooting death of 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson. Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price called for "justice and closure" for Jefferson's family.

Real estate developer, wife donate $100M to University of Virginia to help first-generation students

A man who was the first in his family to attend college and went on to become a successful real estate developer has made a $100 million contribution to help other first-generation students. David Walentas and his wife Jane are donating $100 million of their fortune to Walentas’ alma mater the University of Virginia. $75 million of the donation will go towards creating scholarships and fellowships for first-generation students, according to the university.

Woman's missing laptop story restored her faith in humanity

When Anna Sproul-Latimer left her laptop on an Amtrak, like most people, she thought she might never see it again. Are you ready for a story that has single-handedly restored my faith in humanity, ending in a shameless plug for this local IT business owner, Imran Moorad of Dotsight Solutions, everybody please hire him? The literary agent from Arlington, Virginia, didn’t realize until she got home that she had left her laptop on the Amtrak train ride from New York City to D.C. Knowing the drill on lost electronics, she said she used the Find My iPhone app and located her laptop in Woodbridge, Virginia.

The Latest: Columbus statue defaced in San Francisco

A Columbus statue in San Francisco was defaced with red paint and graffiti, the day before a federal holiday celebrating the 15th century Italian navigator. Last year, San Francisco voted to replace the Columbus Day holiday with Indigenous Peoples Day to honor Native American people decimated by the arrival of European immigrants. Officials in Providence, Rhode Island, also report that a Columbus statue was vandalized there.

Exclusive: Deutsche Bank took years to flag suspect Danske money flows - source

FRANKFURT/TALLINN (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank did not disclose more than one million suspect money transfers with Danske Bank until February, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said, about five years after a whistleblower flagged suspicious transactions at Danske. Deutsche sent alerts about the suspect money flows involving the Danish bank to Germany's money laundering data authority and state prosecutors, the person said, prompting investigators to seek more information from Deutsche. Prosecutors are now investigating whether staff or management at Deutsche sanctioned the transactions, and whether they subsequently tried to cover them up, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

'Maybe I'll be around another 50 years, who knows?': Dolly Parton celebrates half a century on the Opry

Dolly Parton celebrated 50 years on the Grand Ole Opry this weekend, playing two sold-out shows on its iconic Nashville stage. "My daddy loved the Grand Ole Opry, so we had to listen to it back home, and me dreaming of being on it," she said before the show.

Officer who shot naked man in Georgia found not guilty

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Taking a drive with an auto worker on the General Motors picket line in Flint, Michigan

For a month of Sundays, Keondis Howell has anxiously eyed two things: his deep freezer, and his savings. The General Motors worker, on the picket lines for over a month, now plans the whole week’s dinners ahead of time, strategizing leftovers for the meals his three children will have. As the GM nationwide strike grinds toward its fifth week, United Auto Workers are feeling the strain in what has become the longest walkout the company has faced in half a century.

'Do the right thing,' family of UK teen killed in crash tells U.S. diplomat's wife

Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn spoke to media in New York during a visit intended put pressure on the Trump administration to have Anne Sacoolas to be sent back to face British investigators. Harry Dunn, 19, died after a car driven by Sacoolas crashed into his motorbike near RAF Croughton, an air force base in Northamptonshire in central England used by the U.S. military. Vehicles drive on the left in the United Kingdom, and the American woman was driving on the wrong side of the road when the accident happened, Dunn's family said.

Parishioners find other sanctuaries after church shooting

Members of New England Pentecostal Ministries are finding comfort and fellowship at other churches while theirs remains closed following a shooting during a weekend wedding. Dale Holloway, 37, is accused of wounding a clergyman and a bride Saturday in Pelham, New Hampshire. Stanley Choate, 75, the presiding bishop, was shot in the chest.

The Latest: Morawiecki likely to stay Polish prime minister

Officials from Poland's ruling party say Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is a "natural" to stay on as head of government after the party's second consecutive election victory. Mueller says Law and Justice party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has repeatedly praised Morawiecki and said he would continue in the job after Sunday's election. Official returns from 99.5% percent of the votes counted in Poland's parliamentary election suggest the country's ruling right-wing party might have lost its majority in the upper chamber, the Senate.

Jayme Closs: 1 year after abduction, I'm feeling stronger

The Wisconsin girl whose parents were fatally shot before she was kidnapped and held captive for 88 days before escaping from her abductor said she's feeling stronger every day and is thankful for the kindness and concern expressed to her from people all over the country in the year after the crime. Jayme Closs issued a statement Monday, a day before the one-year anniversary of the fatal shootings and abduction at her home near Barron in northwest Wisconsin. Closs said she is getting back to the activities she enjoys and loves hanging out with her friends.

A black woman was shot and killed by police in her house. We need real justice

Justice for Atatiana Jefferson can’t be about locking up guilty police officers. We need to be more ambitious than that‘Cop convictions are increasing, but cop killings roughly remain constant.’ Photograph: Smiley N Pool/APLast week, a judge sentenced former Dallas Police Officer Amber Guyger to 10 years in prison for entering the wrong apartment in her building and killing Botham Jean, her neighbor. Lee Merritt, the Jean family attorney, boasted: “This is a victory for black people in America. It is a signal that the tide is going to change here. Police officers are going to be held accountable for their actions, and we believe that will begin to change policing culture all over the world.”But it would not. Guyger’s conviction didn’t even change police culture near Dallas. Before the ink could dry on the sentencing papers, a Fort Worth police officer entered into Atatiana Jefferson’s home. He shot and killed her within seconds. She was playing video games with her nephew. A neighbor called a non-emergency number for a wellness check because Atatiana’s door was open late at night. In 2013, Fort Worth police also killed a man in his own garage during a wellness check. The officers were not prosecuted.Merritt and some activists have issued calls for “more justice.” I understand this impulse. After a police killing, prison is something, and that something can feel like justice when the other option seems like nothing. People understandably want police officers to be punished for killing black people. They also hope that prison will send a warning message to other officers that they cannot get away with murder. But that’s not how policing works. If we want black people, or anybody, to be safe from police violence, then we must first be clear about one thing: prison is not justice. It is punishment, and contrary to popular belief, sending more cops to prison may not make other black people safe.Cop convictions are increasing, but cop killings roughly remain constant. As I have written before, police have killed about 14,000 people in the last 13 years, but only about 20 officers have been convicted of murder or manslaughter charges- an all time high. On average, police officers kill about 20 black people each year in Texas, and over 200 every year nationwide. Prison time certainly punishes some police for past behavior, but the US supreme court grants police so much legal protection for violent behavior that most of the killings are legal, constitutional or unexamined.Safety for black people could be less about sending individual cops to prison, and more about creating the conditions where people do not rely on police to feel safe. I was 13 years old when I saw a police officer shoot somebody. He was arguing with a teenager at a recreation center over a sign-in sheet. The officer stormed down the side of the basketball court, pulled out his gun, and shot the boy in his arm. After the horrific scream, I grabbed my sister and hid in the locker room for hours. The officer was not arrested. I doubt he was prosecuted. But he left after a few days, soon replaced by another officer with another gun who argued with more black kids over sign-in sheets. As police officers are transferred or sent to prison, new ones replace them, but the job description does not change. Thus, organizing around a single cop’s conviction misses the point that policing is problematic, and one officer’s punishment is a job opening for a future officer to inflict more harm and violence on communities of color.So what can happen instead of calling the police? Atatiana’s death is tragic because her neighbor called a non-emergency number for help. He sought an alternative, but the police came anyway, guns blazing. One immediate lesson here is to not send police officers for non-emergency calls. There are ways that people practice safety intervention everyday. Scholar and prison abolition organizer Rachel Herzing instructs us to “prepare for emergencies when not in crisis.” This means memorizing numbers of neighbors close by, securing someplace to go if home is not an option, encouraging people to build small teams to share resources and protection with each other, and ultimately organizing to reduce the size and scope of police.As for what should happen to police officers after they kill someone right now, I deeply sympathize with fence sitters who believe in prison abolition, but feel wrong about including cops in that vision. What pushes me to the abolition side is knowing that whatever punishment we demand for police is going to come back tenfold on black people. If a black man mistakenly kills a white woman police officer in Texas, her brother is not going to forgive him. A judge will certainly not warmly embrace him with a hug. He will not get sentenced to ten years. He will slowly die in a cage or quickly by execution on a cold table.Justice for Atatiana Jefferson must include reducing the size and scope of police, while building a world where our neighbors could knock on our doors, shout into the dark and ask if we are safe. * Derecka Purnell is a social movement lawyer and writer based in Washington, DC

Firefighters finishing containment of California wildfires

Firefighters are dousing remaining smoldering areas from a destructive wildfire that raged along the northern edge of Los Angeles last week. The Los Angeles Fire Department says containment of the approximately 12-square-mile (31-square-kilometer) fire is at 43 percent Monday. The fire erupted Thursday night and was rapidly spread by Santa Ana winds.

Parents of crash victim urge diplomat's wife to return to UK

The parents of a motorcyclist killed in a traffic crash with an American diplomat's wife took their case directly to U.S. audiences Monday, holding a New York news conference at which they urged the woman to return to Britain. The parents of Harry Dunn have reached out to U.S. politicians and plan to be in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday in their quest to get the woman back in the U.K. "to present herself to police," family spokesman Radd Seiger said. The diplomat's wife, Anne Sacoolas, should "do the right thing," Charlotte Charles, Dunn's mother, "face us as a broken family" and face the U.K. legal system, urged tearfully.

Polish conservatives win lower house but lose Senate

Poland's conservative ruling Law and Justice party capitalized on its popular social spending policies to win a majority of seats in the lower house of parliament but lost control of the Senate, according to results reported Monday. When exit polls were released after voting ended Sunday evening, the ruling Law and Justice party appeared headed for a strong victory. The results from the Senate, however, indicate that the opposition will have a tool to prevent the ruling party from rushing through laws without consulting opposition parties — something it has often done during its four years in power.

'I literally find new ways to love you every single day': Thomas Rhett writes sweetest anniversary post to his wife

Country star Thomas Rhett and his wife Lauren Akins just celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary. "I can’t believe the Lord has blessed me with 7 amazing years of marriage with @laur_akins," Rhett wrote in a post.

Dangerous search on for 1 missing after hotel collapse

Rescue workers and search dogs moved gingerly through a dangerously unstable, partially collapsed hotel in New Orleans on Monday in a risky search for the only person still missing after the structure partially collapsed . Fire Chief Tim McConnell told reporters that engineers also were in the building to determine how best to stabilize it. Mayor LaToya Cantrell said utilities were cut off to nine major businesses in the area.

Police desperate for information on missing 3-year-old girl, 2 persons of interest in custody

Authorities in Alabama say they have no information on the whereabouts of a missing 3-year-old girl who was believed to have been abducted while attending a birthday party this weekend. Two persons of interest are being questioned as the search for Kamille "Cupcake" McKinney intensifies, Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith said Monday. Kamille was playing with other children at an outdoor birthday party in the Avondale neighborhood of Birmingham on Saturday night when she vanished, authorities said.

Drugs investigators close in on Asian 'El Chapo' at centre of vast meth ring

A vast drugs Asian drugs syndicate, which is wealthy, disciplined and less violent than Latin America’s cartels has become the prime target of a sprawling, previously unreported counter-narcotics operation, according to a new Reuters investigation.  The suspected leader of the multinational drugs trafficking syndicate, protected by a guard of Thai kickboxers, is Tse Chi Lop, a China-born Canadian citizen.  The elusive Mr Tse, said to be on a par with Latin America's legendary drugs traffickers “El Chapo” and Pablo Escobar, is being investigated in connection with a network formed out of an alliance of five of Asia’s triad groups that allegedly smuggles methamphetamine, heroin and ketamine, said the newswire. Known as “The Company” or “Sam Gor” after one of Mr Tse’s reported nicknames, which means “Brother Number Three” in Cantonese, the crime ring deals mainly in meth - a highly addictive drug that has devastating effects on long term users – and which it often conceals in packets of tea.  According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Sam Gor syndicate’s meth revenue in 2018 was at least $8 billion a year, but could be as high as $17.7 billion.  Suspected drugs kingpin Tse Chi Lop Credit: Reuters The UN agency estimates that the cartel has a 40% to 70% share of the wholesale regional meth market that has expanded at least fourfold in the past five years. Lawmakers believe the drugs are being funneled to at least a dozen countries from Japan in North Asia to New Zealand in the South Pacific.  Sam Gor is believed to collaborate with a more diverse range of local crime groups than the Latin cartels do, including Japan’s Yakuza, Australia's biker gangs and ethnic Chinese gangs across Southeast Asia. The crime network is also less prone to uncontrolled outbreaks of internecine violence than their Latin counterparts, setting aside rivalries in pursuit of massive profits, police say.  The Reuters investigation uncovered that Mr Tse, 55, is the main focus of Operation Kungur, a massive transnational counter-narcotics case, led by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and drawing in about 20 agencies from Asia, North America and Europe.  It surpasses any other international effort to combat Asian drug trafficking syndicates, say law enforcement agents linked to the probe, and includes authorities from Burma, China, Thailand, Japan, the United States and Canada.  Taiwan, while not formally part of the operation, is assisting in the investigation. An AFP document reveals that the organisation has “been connected with or directly involved in at least 13 cases” of drug trafficking since January 2015, and names Mr Tse as the suspected ringleader, among the profiles of the operation’s top 19 targets.  Reuters was unable to contact Mr Tse. The AFP, US Drugs Enforcement Agency and Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau said they would not comment on investigations.

Fort Worth cop resigns after fatally shooting black woman

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