All posts tagged "Politicalissues"

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have launched a new whistleblower program encouraging witnesses of public corruption and other crimes to come forward without fear. At an informal sit-down with journalists who cover the federal courts in Manhattan, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the idea behind the pilot program is to help prosecutors find out what they don’t know. He said he hopes it will help prosecutors root out corrupt power players by incentivizing whistleblowers to cooperate with the feds early and voluntarily in exchange for non-prosecution agreements. “There are plenty o......

A San Diego federal judge has upheld a California law that limits people under the age of 21 from buying semi-automatic rifles and other long guns, ruling that similar laws dating back centuries have also limited gun ownership by young adults for safety reasons. "The restrictions embodied in (the challenged law) were enacted because individuals under the age of 21 lack cognitive maturity and are disproportionately prone to violence," U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz wrote in his ruling, filed Friday. "For the same reasons, the rights of this age group were curtailed during the Founding era,......

DETROIT — Former Michigan House Speaker Rick Johnson has surrendered at a minimum-security federal prison camp in Minnesota to serve a 55-month sentence for pocketing bribes and corrupting the state's marijuana industry, according to an inmate database updated Saturday. The database shows Johnson, 70, among the 433 inmates at FPC Duluth near the western edge of Lake Superior. The prison is about 700 miles northwest of Lansing where Johnson was one of the most powerful Republican lawmakers in the state before becoming a lobbyist and chief regulator of Michigan's marijuana industry. That career ......

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and his wife, Nadine Arslanian, were indicted Friday on charges they accepted bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from three New Jersey businessmen seeking the senator’s help with their personal and legal problems. The 39-page indictment unsealed Friday in federal court in New York accuses Menendez of using his broad powers as New Jersey’s senior senator and ranking member of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee to interfere with ongoing prosecutions and influence U.S.-Egypt policy on behalf of the men providing him payoffs. Menendez balked ......

Presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy is vowing to allow Russia to keep every inch of Ukrainian territory it has occupied if Vladimir Putin promises to cut ties with China. The outspoken Republican candidate told Fox News that he would also cave to Russian demands to keep Ukraine out of NATO in exchange for the hypothetical pledge to break off economic and military alliances with Beijing. “I would freeze the current lines of control,” Ramaswamy said Wednesday night. “I would further make a hard commitment that NATO will not admit Ukraine to NATO. That’s enough to get Putin to do the deal.” If h......

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina’s long-contested six-week abortion ban is no longer in limbo. The S.C. Supreme Court decided in a 4-1 ruling on Wednesday that the state’s six-week abortion ban is constitutional and can go into effect. The Supreme Court in June heard oral arguments over whether the revived version of the state’s abortion ban violates a woman’s right to privacy under the state’s constitution. Here are five things to know about the state’s six-week abortion ban. 1. The ban prohibits abortions in South Carolina once fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is typically around the......