U.S. banking-reports leaker sentenced
NEW YORK -- A former U.S. Treasury Department worker was sentenced to six months in prison Thursday for leaking confidential financial reports to a journalist at BuzzFeed.
Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards pleaded guilty last year to a conspiracy charge, admitting that she leaked banking reports, including some related to people being investigated in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of foreign interference in U.S. elections.
The government said the material leaked for more than a year included reports on Paul Manafort, former President Donald Trump's onetime campaign chairman, along with a woman charged with trying to infiltrate U.S. political organizations as a covert Russian agent.
U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods gave Edwards, who was arrested in 2018, a sentence at the top of the federal sentencing guidelines range.
Edwards was a senior adviser to the head of the Intelligence Division at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, also known as FinCEN, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department responsible for safeguarding the nation's financial system.
Prosecutors said she leaked more than 2,000 confidential suspicious activity reports and more than 50,000 documents in all to an unidentified journalist who then shared the reports with publications worldwide.
Marshals: Man killed in arrest attempt
MINNEAPOLIS -- A man was killed Thursday when authorities who were part of a task force that included U.S. marshals fired their weapons after he allegedly displayed a handgun in Minneapolis' Uptown neighborhood, the U.S. marshals said.
The shooting happened shortly after 2 p.m. Thursday. The U.S. marshals said preliminary information indicates task force members were attempting to arrest a man wanted on a state warrant for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The man, who was in a parked car, didn't comply with law enforcement and "produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject," the U.S. marshals said in a statement. Task force members attempted lifesaving measures, but he died at the scene, they said.
The statement did not confirm which agencies were part of the task force. It was not clear how many law enforcement officers fired their weapons.
The U.S. marshals said a female who was in the vehicle was treated for minor injuries due to glass debris.
Few other details were provided. The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms both tweeted that they were responding to help investigate. The marshals said the state BCA is leading the investigation.
The Minneapolis Police Department said it was not involved in the incident.
Wildfire smoke-jumper dies of injuries
BOZEMAN, Mont. -- A Wyoming smoke-jumper has died of injuries suffered last month while fighting a wildfire in New Mexico, the U.S. Forest Service said Thursday.
Tim Hart of Cody, Wyo., suffered a hard fall on May 24 while responding to a fire in Hidalgo County, N.M. He was flown via air ambulance to a hospital in El Paso, Texas, where he died Wednesday night, the agency said.
Hart, 36, was working for the West Yellowstone Smokejumpers based in the Custer Gallatin National Forest in Montana at the time of his death.
He had been a wildland firefighter since 2006, working in North Carolina, Arizona, Oregon, Wyoming and Nevada. He joined the smoke-jumper program in 2016 and worked his rookie season in Idaho, the agency said. He was based in Montana beginning in 2019.
The cause of his hard fall is still being investigated, said Marna Daley, a spokesperson for the Custer Gallatin National Forest.
Cheney post-vote security tab soars
CASPER, Wyo. -- The Federal Elections Commission has released financial filings that show Wyoming's U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney spent $58,500 on security from January to March after she voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump.
Cheney's campaign spent $22,500 on security firm Command Executive Services and the remaining amount on three former Secret Service agents, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.
Cheney, a Republican, previously never spent any money on security during the first quarter of non-election years, officials said. Combined, she spent less than $2,000 on security services in her past three campaigns.
Despite being censured by the Wyoming Republican Party, losing her leadership position and being challenged by others in the Republican primary, Cheney has denied having been threatened while traveling.
However, Capitol police confirmed that the Republican was recently assigned a congressional security detail -- atypical for rank-and-file members of Congress.