Slain teen's kin rap officer's sentence
DALLAS -- A Texas jury gave a white former police officer too lenient of a punishment when sentencing him to 15 years for the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager who was in a car leaving a house party, the victim's family members said.
Roy Oliver fired into the car filled with teens the night of the April 2017 party in suburban Dallas, killing 15-year-old Jordan Edwards.
"He can actually see life again after 15 years and that's not enough because Jordan can't see life again," Edwards' stepmother, Charmaine Edwards, said of Oliver after he was sentenced Wednesday night.
Prosecutors had asked for a minimum of 60 years in prison. The jury, which featured two black members out of 12 jurors and two alternates, acquitted Oliver on two lesser charges of aggravated assault stemming from the shooting.
The murder conviction was rare for a shooting involving an on-duty officer. Oliver's defense team said it had already begun the process of appealing. His attorneys said he would be eligible for parole after 7 ½ years, but they also said they were concerned about his safety in prison.
U.S., China probe dismantles drug ring
NEW ORLEANS -- United States and Chinese officials say a joint investigation into a fentanyl ring has dismantled an international supplier.
News outlets report U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Chinese narcotics authorities say the investigation also stopped more than 20 million doses of the drug from reaching the U.S. A Homeland Security Investigations attache in China, Shawn Harwood, said at a Wednesday news conference in New Orleans that this joint investigation is the first of its kind.
A Homeland Security Investigations statement says its New Orleans office learned in August 2017 of a China-based supplier exporting fentanyl to the United States. The department's office in Guangzhou, China, and the Chinese Narcotics Control Bureau then began the joint investigation.
Officials are now investigating 35 U.S. addresses where the ring tried to deliver drugs.
U.S. territory's lawmakers OK legal pot
The House and Senate of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory located in the Pacific Ocean near Guam, have approved legislation to legalize the recreational use of marijuana and allow commercial sale of the drug.
If Republican Gov. Ralph Torres signs the bill, it would make the commonwealth the first U.S. territory to allow recreational marijuana use, as well as the first locality in the United States to create a commercial marijuana market via legislative action, rather than via a voter-driven ballot initiative.
The vote in the House was 18-1, with one abstention, while the Senate vote was 6-0 with two abstentions. A majority of lawmakers in both chambers are Republican.
"This is a historic moment, as it is the first time a governing body in the U.S. has ever enacted legislation to both end marijuana prohibition and establish a system of regulation to replace it," said Karen O'Keefe, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy Project, in a statement.
Leaker thanks Trump for tweet's support
ATLANTA -- A former government contractor who leaked a classified report on Russian hacking is now thanking President Donald Trump for tweeting about her case, after she once called him a "soulless ginger orangutan."
In a Thursday telephone interview from a Georgia jail, Reality Winner told CBS This Morning that Trump's tweet was a "breath of fresh air" and it made her laugh. Trump tweeted Aug. 24 that Winner's crime is "small potatoes" compared with "what Hillary Clinton did." Trump closed the tweet by blasting U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions: "So unfair Jeff, Double Standard."
In Thursday's interview, Winner said that "even our commander in chief, President Trump, has kind of come out and said 'wait a minute. This is really unfair, there's this double standard here,' and for that I can't thank him enough."
Before her arrest, Winner posted on Facebook that climate change was a more important issue than health care "since not poisoning an entire population seems to be more in line with 'health' care, and not the disease care system that people voted for a soulless ginger orangutan to 'fix.'"
Winner was sentenced to more than five years in prison for mailing the classified material to a news outlet. Prosecutors say it's the longest sentence ever for a federal crime involving leaks to the news media.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
A Section on 08/31/2018