U.S. issues sanctions over Cuba abuses
WASHINGTON -- The Biden administration announced new sanctions Thursday against a Cuban official and a government special brigade that it says was involved in human rights abuses during a government crackdown on protests on the island earlier this month.
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control listed Alvaro Lopez Miera, a Cuban military and political leader, and the Interior Ministry Special Brigade, as among those who will face the latest sanctions.
Earlier this month, thousands of Cubans took to the streets in Havana and other cities across the island to protest food shortages and high prices during the coronavirus crisis.
Treasury said in a statement that Lopez Miera "has played an integral role in the repression of ongoing protests in Cuba." Cuba's Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, which is led by Lopez Miera, and other Cuban government security services attacked protesters and arrested or caused to disappear more than 100 protesters to suppress the protests, according to Treasury.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez immediately took to Twitter to call the sanctions "baseless and slanderous" and suggested that Biden apply the sanctions on himself "for acts of everyday repression and police brutality" in the U.S.
Chicago gunfire kills 3 people in 1 day
CHICAGO -- A drive-by shooting in Chicago wounded eight people who had been riding on a party bus, one of several shootings in the city that left at least three people dead on the same day, police said.
Chicago Police Superintendent. David Brown on Thursday said few of the people wounded in each shooting are cooperating with police and urged community members to step forward if they know anything.
Deputy Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said detectives believe the people on the bus were targeted, but he didn't provide any specifics. Deenihan said the bus had pulled into a gas station in Lincoln Park on the city's North Side on Wednesday night to let people use the bathroom. Three cars pulled up, and people inside began shooting toward the bus passengers headed into the building, he said.
No arrests have been made.
One man was hospitalized in critical condition with a gunshot wound in the chest, police said, while the other men and women who were wounded were in good, fair or serious condition.
State panel votes to move Forrest bust
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A decades-long effort to remove a bust of a Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader from the Tennessee Capitol cleared its final hurdle Thursday, with state leaders approving the final vote needed to allow the statue to be relocated to a museum.
The seven-member State Building Commission voted 5-2 to remove the Nathan Bedford Forrest bust, as well as the busts of two other Tennessee military leaders.
Forrest was a Confederate cavalry general who amassed a fortune before the Civil War as a plantation owner and slave trader in Memphis. After the war, he was a leader of the Klan, which terrorized Black people as it sought to reverse Reconstruction efforts and restore white supremacy.
The Forrest bust was first installed at the Capitol in 1978 and has sparked protests and demonstrations.
"No doubt we have work to do to achieve equality and justice for all people, but today's vote shows that progress is possible," said Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Black lawmaker from Memphis and the Senate's Democratic caucus chairwoman.
Deal reached in energy titan fraud case
CINCINNATI -- The energy giant at the center of a $60 million bribery scheme in Ohio admitted Thursday to new details of its role in the conspiracy as part of a settlement with federal prosecutors, including how it used dark money groups to fund the effort and paid a soon-to-be top utility regulator to write the legislation it got in exchange.
Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud under the deal, acting U.S. Attorney Vipal J. Patel and FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman announced at a news conference.
The charge would be dropped if the company complies over three years with a list of required actions in the deal, including paying a $230 million criminal penalty and continuing to fully cooperate with investigators.
The deal comes in a scandal that started since the arrests a year ago of then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four associates. Government officials say Householder orchestrated a plan to accept corporate money for personal and political use in exchange for passing nuclear bailout legislation and scuttling an effort to repeal the bill.
FirstEnergy is one of the largest investor-owned electric systems in the nation with an annual revenue last year of $10.8 billion. Half of the $230 million penalty will go to the federal government and the other half will be paid to a program that benefits Ohio's regulated utility customers, Patel said.