Ex-Oklahoma officer gets 263 years for rapes, sex assaults
Ex-Oklahoma officer gets 263 years for rapes, sex assaults
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A former police officer convicted of raping and sexually victimizing women while on his beat in a low-income Oklahoma City neighborhood was ordered Thursday to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Jurors had recommended that Daniel Holtzclaw be sentenced to 263 years in prison for preying on women in 2013 and 2014. District Judge Timothy Henderson agreed, said Holtzclaw will serve the terms consecutively and denied his request for an appeal bond.
Holtzclaw waived his right to remain in custody in the county jail for 10 days, instead opting to be taken directly to prison. Defense attorney Scott Adams said Holtzclaw will appeal.
“It is what it is,” Adams said. “It wasn’t a surprise.”
Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater had strong words for Holtzclaw, who was convicted last month on 18 counts, including four first-degree rape counts as well as forcible oral sodomy, sexual battery, procuring lewd exhibition and second-degree rape. Holtzclaw was acquitted on 18 other counts.
Disappearance of Bolivia’s No. 2 lake a harbinger
UNTAVI, Bolivia (AP) — Overturned fishing skiffs lie abandoned on the shores of what was Bolivia’s second-largest lake. Beetles dine on bird carcasses and gulls fight for scraps under a glaring sun in what marshes remain.
Lake Poopo was officially declared evaporated last month. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have lost their livelihoods and gone.
High on Bolivia’s semi-arid Andean plains at 3,700 meters (more than 12,000 feet) and long subject to climatic whims, the shallow saline lake has essentially dried up before only to rebound to twice the area of Los Angeles.
But recovery may no longer be possible, scientists say.
“This is a picture of the future of climate change,” says Dirk Hoffman, a German glaciologist who studies how rising temperatures from the burning of fossil fuels has accelerated glacial melting in Bolivia.
At least 3 killed as Somali extremists attack restaurant
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A suicide car bomber rammed the gates of a restaurant near a beach in Somalia’s capital before gunmen fought their way into the building in an attack claimed by an Islamic extremist group that killed at least three people on Thursday, a police official said.
The assailants may have taken some hostages inside the Liido Seafood restaurant, which is popular with Mogadishu’s elite and government officials, Capt. Mohamed Hussein said. It wasn’t immediately clear if any senior officials were trapped in the restaurant.
“The operation (to overpower the attackers) is ongoing now. The (attackers) are still inside and fighting our troops,” Hussein said from the scene of the attack as gunfire rang out in the background. He said he had counted at least three bodies outside the restaurant.
An unknown number of people are still trapped inside the restaurant, and the death toll is likely to rise when the attack is over, he said, adding that darkness is hampering efforts by the security forces to overwhelm the assailants.
Gunfire could be heard inside the restaurant, suggesting that the gunmen were killing civilians trapped inside, he said.
Some Democrats fear Clinton’s message is failing
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton has questioned Bernie Sanders’ electability. She’s criticized his plans for health care, foreign policy and Wall Street. And she’s tagged him with flip-flopping on gun control.
None of it appears to be sticking — and that’s raising concerns among Democrats who fear that a months-long primary campaign could create lasting damage for their party.
While most believe Clinton will still capture the nomination, some say she is failing to respond effectively to Sanders, fueling both his primary rise and strengthening the Republican argument against her. Others say she got too a late of a start going after Sanders and is still not hitting him enough — eroding her lead in states that should be safe.
“They didn’t take him seriously enough because they thought they had a gadfly,” said John Morgan, a Florida attorney and Clinton donor. “The gadfly wasn’t a gadfly — he was a lightning bug. And people have been following that lightning bug all over America.”
Though Sanders has dismissed questions about Clinton’s use of a private email account and server as secretary of state and how she responded to the deadly 2012 Benghazi attacks, some Democrats say she needs a better response to his critique of her ties to Wall Street, which they argue reinforces months of Republican attacks on her character.
AP Conversation: Kasich bets against voter anger
BOW, N.H. (AP) — John Kasich isn’t angry.
And he’s betting his presidential aspirations that voters aren’t, either — despite the sustained political strength of leading Republicans he says are taking the country “into the dark.”
The second-term Ohio governor, trekking through New Hampshire, preferred not to go after his GOP rivals during an extended interview with The Associated Press. He didn’t even want to attack the Democratic president he hopes to replace. No, this man is trying to win the presidency on his terms, which run counter to fundamental assumptions about the mood of voters.
“Contrary to what we hear, they’re not angry, I don’t think they’re angry at all,” Kasich says. “I think they’re upset things are not going well for them. Their wages are stuck, a lot of things like that. But they really want to hear answers. And they want to be hopeful. Look, when people leave my town halls, a lot of them say, I’m hopeful again. Because these problems are not that hard. It’s all political mumbo-jumbo that’s screwing everything up.”
More than anything, the tell-it-like-he-sees-it governor condemned the angry politics that have shaped the 2016 Republican primary election. This, during an AP Conversation, the latest in a series of interviews with the presidential candidates. Kasich spoke to the AP aboard his campaign bus in New Hampshire, the unofficial staging ground for his underdog candidacy.
British future in EU? French PM warns of exit ‘tragedy’
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Worries about a British exit from the European Union weighed on participants at the World Economic Forum on Thursday, with France’s prime minister warning that it would be a “tragedy” that could prove an inspiration to populists around the region at a time when many countries are contending with massive numbers of refugees.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said he’s in no hurry to hold a referendum on his country’s future in the EU, if a deal on his reform proposals doesn’t emerge at a summit of European leaders in February. But he insisted that his aim is to “secure” Britain’s future in a reformed EU, a stance that he says is the best outcome for both sides.
“If there’s a good deal on the table, I will take it,” he told an audience of mainly business leaders in the Swiss ski resort of Davos. “But if there isn’t the right deal, I’m not in a hurry. I can hold my referendum any time up until the end of 2017. And it’s much more important to get this right than to rush it.”
One of the major tenets of the manifesto of Cameron’s Conservative Party, which won a governing majority in last May’s general election, was a pledge to hold a referendum on Britain’s future in the EU by the end of 2017 after a renegotiation process.
Britain’s future in the EU is set to be the main discussion point a summit of the EU’s 28 leaders on Feb. 18-19. The thinking until very recently was that an agreement would emerge then, paving the way for a referendum in the summer.
Will Smith joins Oscars boycott, says he won’t attend
NEW YORK (AP) — Will Smith says he will not attend the Academy Awards next month, joining his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and others in protest against two straight years of all-white acting nominees.
“My wife’s not going. It would be awkward for me to show up with Charlize (Theron),” said Smith on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday. “We’ve discussed it, but at this current time, we’re uncomfortable to stand there and say this is OK.”
Smith, who some thought might be nominated for his performance in the football drama “Concussion,” said his decision was “deeply not about me.”
“This is about children that are going to sit down and they’re going to watch the show and they’re not going to see themselves represented,” said Smith.
Smith, who would likely have been a sought-after presenter at the Feb. 28 ceremony, becomes the biggest name to join a boycott of the Academy Awards following announcements by Spike Lee (an honorary Oscar recipient this year) and Pinkett Smith.