Claims of ‘lawlessness’ on New York City subways increase danger, critics say

Violent crimes in 2024 have been used as ‘political tool’, and law enforcement response does not solve root issues, critics say

A high-profile string of violent crimes on New York City’s subway in 2024 has been used “as a political tool” by pundits and politicians, transit advocates say, leading to a false perception of spiraling underground crime, which could create more danger in the future.

Crime in the subway system, one of the world’s most used rapid transit systems, declined in 2022 and decreased again in 2023, according to police. But subway crime is up so far in 2024, and it is the nature and violence of the incidents that has captured public attention.

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Idaho: white supremacist prisoner on the run after brazen hospital ambush

Three corrections officers injured after unknown accomplice of gang member Skylar Meade stages attack after hospital trip

A white supremacist prison gang member in Idaho and an accomplice remained on the loose Wednesday after the accomplice staged a brazen overnight attack to free the inmate as he was being transported from a Boise hospital, police said.

Police identified the man suspected of shooting two corrections officers during the ambush as Nicholas Umphenour. A warrant with a $2 m bond has been issued for his arrest on two charges of aggravated battery against law enforcement and one charge of aiding and abetting an escape, police said.

Police said the search continues for Umphenour and escaped inmate Skylar Meade, who fled the hospital early Wednesday in a gray 2020 Honda Civic with Idaho plates. It’s not known where they are or where they are headed, police said.

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Teenage twin sisters stabbed, one fatally, at New York deli

Sanyia Spain, 19, said that attacker made advances towards her and her sister Samyia and violently retaliated when they declined

Early Sunday morning in New York’s Park Slope neighborhood, 19-year-old twins Samyia and Sanyia Spain were stabbed by an unknown assailant following an altercation. The sisters were taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist hospital, where Samyia died and Sanyia was released after being treated for her injuries.

Sanyia said in an interview with the New York Daily News that the attacker made advances towards both girls, and violently retaliated when they declined. The teens were with a group of friends and relatives inside a bodega moments before the stabbings occurred.

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Criminal fraud trial of UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch to begin

Co-founder of Autonomy charged with 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy in 2011 sale of company to HP

A British technology tycoon once lauded as “Britain’s Bill Gates” was the “driving force” behind a “massive” years-long fraud, prosecutors alleged, as his criminal trial got under way in San Francisco on Monday.

Prosecutors said Mike Lynch, co-founder of the UK software company Autonomy, ruled the firm “with an iron fist” before its blockbuster takeover by Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

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FBI returns 22 looted artifacts to Japan after discovery in Massachusetts attic

Investigation of items that were stolen during the Okinawa battle began after family discovered them in late father’s belongings

The FBI has returned 22 centuries-old artifacts to Okinawa, Japan, after a family discovered them in their late father’s attic in Massachusetts.

Agents with the FBI’s Boston division on Friday announced that the return of the looted items followed a lengthy investigation that began when they received a call from a family who came across the items while sorting through their dead dad’s belongings.

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Philadelphia shooting suspect will face charges in Pennsylvania and New Jersey

The gunman is suspected of killing his stepmother, his sister, and the mother of his children before being arrested in New Jersey

The suspect involved in the fatal shootings of three people outside a Philadelphia-area suburb on Saturday morning has been arrested and will face charges in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, authorities said on Sunday.

According to authorities, 26-year-old Andre Gordon was found near a house in Trenton, New Jersey, after carrying out two separate shootings. Police had surrounded the home for hours in the belief that he was there, but Gordon apparently slipped out before the police cordon went up. He was arrested at around 5 pm, unarmed, when he was spotted walking down a street a few blocks away, police said.

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Former Trump adviser appeals to supreme court to keep him out of prison

Peter Navarro is appealing his conviction for contempt of Congress after he refused to cooperate with the January 6 House inquiry

Donald Trump White House official Peter Navarro appealed to the US supreme court on Friday to allow him to stay out of prison as he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction.

Navarro is due to report to a federal prison on Tuesday after an appeals court ruled that his appeal wasn’t likely to overturn his conviction for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the January 6 attack that Trump supporters aimed at the US Capitol in 2021.

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Police had cause to detain gunman before deadly Maine shooting last year – report

Before Robert Card killed 18 last year, police had opportunity to seize his guns and place him in custody after several incidents

Law enforcement should have seized a man’s guns and put him in protective custody weeks before he committed Maine’s deadliest mass shooting, a report found Friday.

An independent commission has been reviewing the events that led up to army reservist Robert Card killing 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston on 25 October, as well as the subsequent response.

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Judge orders special master for California prison known for rampant sexual abuse

Several employees at the federal correctional institution in Dublin have pleaded guilty to abusing female inmates

A judge called a California federal women’s prison known for rampant sexual abuse against inmates “a dysfunctional mess” on Friday as she ordered a special master to oversee the facility, marking the first time the Federal Bureau of Prisons has been subject to such an action.

“The situation can no longer be tolerated. The facility is in dire need of immediate change,” wrote US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, adding that the Bureau of Prisons has “proceeded sluggishly with intentional disregard of the inmates’ constitutional rights despite being fully apprised of the situation for years. The repeated installation of BOP leadership who fail to grasp and address the situation strains credulity.”

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US rancher used tissue and testicles to breed ‘giant’ sheep to sell for hunting

Arthur Schubarth, 80, pleads guilty to trafficking in ‘audacious’ and unlawful scheme to cross-breed sheep for lucrative sale

A Montana rancher illegally used tissue and testicles from wild sheep killed by hunters in central Asia and the US to breed “giant” hybrid sheep for sale to private hunting preserves in Texas, according to court documents and federal prosecutors.

Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, 80, of Vaughn, Montana, pleaded guilty to felony charges of wildlife trafficking and conspiracy to traffic wildlife during an appearance Tuesday before a federal judge in Great Falls.

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Three men charged with murder in deaths of US couple who disappeared in Caribbean

Ralph Hendry, 66, and Kathleen Brandel, 77, had been cruising the eastern Caribbean when their catamaran was hijacked

Three men who had escaped from prison have been charged with capital murder in connection with the deaths of an American couple who disappeared in the Caribbean in February after their catamaran was hijacked.

The Royal Grenada Police Force announced Friday that Trevon Robertson, 23; Atiba Stanislaus, 25; and Ron Mitchell, 30, were re-arrested on two counts of capital murder in the slayings of Ralph Hendry and Kathleen Brandel.

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Trump-backed former congressional candidate arrested for murder

Daniel Rodimer, a former pro-wrestler, suspected in killing of Christopher Tapp in Las Vegas

A former pro wrestler who won a prominent endorsement from Donald Trump while unsuccessfully running for Congress in Nevada surrendered to authorities on Wednesday on an arrest warrant for murder.

Daniel Rodimer, 45, was booked in connection with the slaying of 47-year-old Christopher Tapp, who was reportedly beaten to death in Resorts World Las Vegas on 29 October.

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Eight students injured in fourth consecutive shooting in Philadelphia

At least one student, a 16-year-old who was hit nine times, was critically wounded while waiting at a bus stop on Wednesday

Police say eight Philadelphia high school students waiting to board a city bus after classes Wednesday were wounded by gunshots from suspects who jumped from a car and opened fire, the fourth shooting on the transit system in as many days.

The previous three shootings each involved a fatality. At least one student was critically wounded at the bus stop, a 16-year-old who was hit nine times, Kevin Bethel, the city’s police commissioner, said at a news conference. The others were in stable condition.

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Police seek vehicle after masked men kill four at California party

Shooting on Sunday evening at outdoor gathering in King City left four dead and seven others injured, police say

Police are offering a $20,000 reward for information on a shooting that took place on Sunday evening when a group of masked men pulled up to an outdoor birthday party in central California and opened fire, killing at least four.

Officers responded to a reported shooting at about 6pm in King City, California, about 106 miles south of San Jose, and found three men with gunshot wounds who were pronounced dead in a front yard, the King City police department said. A total of 11 people were hit by gunfire.

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Wisconsin ethics panel calls for felony charges against Trump fundraising group

Commission says Save America Joint Fundraising Committee evaded campaign finance laws in effort to oust Trump foe

Donald Trump’s legal woes continue in Wisconsin, where the state’s ethics commission has recommended felony charges against Trump’s Save America Joint Fundraising Committee for its alleged role in a plot to bypass campaign finance limits.

Trump is already facing 91 felony charges in criminal cases across multiple states related to his political and business dealings. The newest allegations in Wisconsin were first reported on Friday by the news site WisPolitics.

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Two charged with murder over Kansas City Super Bowl parade shooting

Suspects charged with second-degree murder in shooting at Chiefs’ victory parade that left one person dead and 22 injured

Two men were charged on Tuesday afternoon with murder in connection with a mass shooting in Kansas City on 14 February that killed one person and wounded 22 others at a rally for the Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs, according to prosecutors.

As celebrations were winding up for the Chiefs and thousands of fans, after they returned triumphantly having won the Super Bowl in Las Vegas the previous weekend, gunfire erupted among the crowd.

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Two police officers and firefighter fatally shot after call in Minneapolis suburbs

A suspect in the shooting also died, officials say, and another officer was injured responding to call for help in Burnsville

A desperate call for help from a home in suburban Minneapolis early on Sunday turned deadly for two police officers and a firefighter who were fatally shot at the scene, according to officials.

A suspect in the shooting also died, officials said.

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Patrick Mahomes visits sisters injured in Super Bowl parade shooting

Champion quarterback makes hospital visit to Madison and Melia Reyes, who were hit by gunfire in Kansas City mass shooting

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and his wife, Brittany, visited two young sisters who were both shot in the legs during Wednesday’s parade for the reigning Super Bowl champions.

The Mahomeses on Thursday paid a call to 10-year-old Madison Reyes and Melia Reyes, age eight, at Children’s Mercy hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, where they were recovering from surgeries.

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Boy injured in Osteen church shooting lost ‘portion of his frontal lobe’

Samuel Moreno-Carranza’s grandmother posted about boy’s condition, who was injured when police killed the shooter – his mother

A boy who was shot in the head at celebrity Joel Osteen’s Houston megachurch on 11 February has lost “a portion of his frontal lobe” while recovering at the hospital, according to his grandmother.

In a Facebook post three days after the shooting, Walli Carranza said her seven-year-old grandson – Samuel Moreno-Carranza – “has lost a major part of what makes us who we are” after “half of his right skull [had] to be surgically removed during two surgeries done in less than 24 hours”. Samuel had endured “cardiac arrest multiple times, and no one can determine whether he has significant brain activity because his scalp tissue is too friable” to let doctors attach electroencephalogram wires to him, Carranza added in a post that doubled as a criticism of the US’s lack of meaningful gun control.

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Remains of 30 people found in Denver after ex-funeral home owner evicted

Body of woman, 63, also found at house as police issue warrant for Miles Harford, 33, who owned funeral home that closed in 2022

The body of a woman who died in 2022 and the cremated remains of about 30 people were found at a rental house in Denver after the eviction of a former funeral home owner, Denver police said on Friday.

A warrant was issued for Miles Harford, 33, who owned Apollo Funeral and Cremation Service in Littleton, which has been closed since September 2022. The expected charges include abuse of a corpse, forgery of the death certificate and theft of the money paid for the cremation.

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