Prosecutor: Worker charged with helping inmates escape discussed having them kill her husband ADVERTISING Prosecutor: Worker charged with helping inmates escape discussed having them kill her husband PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — A woman charged with helping two convicted murderers escape
Prosecutor: Worker charged with helping inmates escape discussed having them kill her husband
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — A woman charged with helping two convicted murderers escape from a maximum-security facility where she worked had discussed having them kill her husband, a district attorney confirmed Wednesday.
Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said at a news conference that Joyce Mitchell had talked to inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat about killing her husband, Lyle, who also works at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, near the Canadian border.
Sweat and Matt escaped from the 170-year-old prison on June 6 and remain on the lam. Joyce Mitchell, a prison tailoring shop instructor who befriended the inmates, was arrested June 12.
Lyle Mitchell arrived at the state police barracks in Malone with his attorney late Wednesday morning to talk to authorities, the Press-Republican of Plattsburgh reported.
Investigators have no information that Lyle Mitchell knew about the escape plan or assisted in it, Wylie said.
Howard University quizzed Dolezal if she tried to pose as black in her admissions essay
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Rachel Dolezal, who has posed for years as a black woman, faced tough questions about her racial identity long before her career as a civil rights advocate was derailed by this week’s revelations that she grew up “Caucasian.”
More than a decade ago, Howard University’s lawyers questioned whether she had tried to pose as African-American when she applied for admission to the historically black college in the nation’s capital.
Dolezal had sued the university, claiming among other things that she had been denied a teaching position because she was white. During a deposition, Howard’s lawyers pressed her to explain whether she had tried to mislead the admissions office with an essay on her study of black history, according to court documents reviewed by The Assoicated Press.
“I plunged into black history and novels, feeling the relieving release of understanding and common ground,” she wrote in the essay. “My struggles paled as I read of the atrocities so many ancestors faced in America.”
Dolezal resigned her NAACP post this week after her parents accused her of posing as black despite her Czech, German and Swedish ancestry. She now faces a swirl of criticism about other statements she’s made.
Pentagon chief says Iraqi forces training goal will not be met due to lack of recruits
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. will fall way short of meeting its goal of training 24,000 Iraqi forces to fight Islamic State militants by this fall, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday on Capitol Hill where lawmakers are already skeptical of the Obama administration’s strategy to address threats in the Mideast.
Carter told the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. has received only enough recruits to train about 7,000 — in addition to about 2,000 counterterrorism service personnel.
“Our training efforts in Iraq have thus far been slowed by a lack of trainees. We simply haven’t received enough recruits,” Carter said at a nearly three-hour hearing.
Carter said the train-and-equip mission in Syria also lacks enough trainees to fill existing training sites, primarily because it’s difficult to make sure the recruits are people who can be counted on and are not aligned with groups like IS.
“It turns out to be very hard to identify people who meet both of those criteria,” Carter said.
AT&T fined $100M for throttling customers with ‘unlimited’ data, company vows to fight
WASHINGTON (AP) — AT&T Mobility LLC has been slapped with a record $100 million fine for offering consumers “unlimited” data, but then slowing their Internet speeds after they reached a certain amount. The company says it will fight the charges.
The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday that the company misled consumers into buying plans they believed would give them unlimited ability to send and receive data, including Web browsing, GPS navigation and streaming videos. But once the consumer hit a certain level, the data on unlimited plans would be slowed down significantly, at speeds lower than advertised, the FCC said.
AT&T said it would “vigorously dispute” the fine, which was the largest proposed in FCC history. If AT&T can provide evidence that the FCC allegations are wrong, the fine could be reduced. Otherwise, if AT&T refuses to pay, it’s possible the two sides will wind up in court.
“The FCC has specifically identified this practice as a legitimate and reasonable way to manage network resources for the benefit of all customers, and has known for years that all of the major carriers use it,” the company said in a statement released to reporters. “We have been fully transparent with our customers, providing notice in multiple ways and going well beyond the FCC’s disclosure requirements.”
It’s not unusual for phone companies to slow, or “throttle,” speeds on a network as a way to manage congestion. Verizon slows down speeds for its heaviest users, but only on certain smartphones when there is congestion. Once the bottleneck eases, speeds return to normal.
Runaway tiger mauls man to death in Tbilisi after flood wrecks zoo; animal count still unclear
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — A tiger that broke loose after severe flooding at the Tbilisi Zoo mauled a man to death in the Georgian capital before being shot by police Wednesday, a day after officials said all the zoo’s tigers had died.
Zoo Director Zurab Gurielidze acknowledged he was to blame for releasing faulty information and said new counts indicated a tiger cub and a hyena could still be on the loose. The city has remained on edge, with runaway predators reportedly seen by some residents.
The Interior Ministry in the former Soviet republic said the tiger was hiding at an abandoned factory that had been turned into a construction market when he attacked the man Wednesday. The victim, who worked at the market, later died of his wounds at a hospital.
“We entered the depot and, suddenly, a white tiger rushed out of an adjacent room and attacked one of the workers, jumping at his throat and mauling him,” colleague Alexander Shavbulashvili told The Associated Press. “We broke the window of another room to flee, and the sound of breaking glass must have scared it and it ran away.”
Police commandos rushed to the site and killed the tiger.
2 boys rescue 1-year-old and 8-month-old from neighbor’s burning home in central Florida
OAKLAND, Fla. (AP) — Typical of their hot summer days free from school, 11-year-old Jeremiah Grimes and 10-year-old Isiah Francis were plopped on the couch watching YouTube and playing video games, but Tuesday they smelled something unusual.
When they looked out the window, they saw smoke streaming from the home next door.
As Jeremiah put on his shoes, Isiah ran next door, where he encountered the neighbor frantically searching for water to douse the flames. The man told him two young children were in the kitchen.
Isiah went inside and, with Jeremiah’s guidance, plucked the 1-year-old and 8-month-old from the burning home.
“It was really smoky,” Isiah said. “I could kind of see, but I had to use my sense of touch.”
