Thursday, Apr 19th
Last update05:20:13 AM GMT
Domestic Glance
The pilot of a helicopter that crashed in New York City's East River -- killing five people -- said a piece of luggage may have inadvertently shut down the engine and caused the aircraft to fall into the water.
Officials said the Eurocopter AS350 chopper, operated by Fly Liberty Charter, left Kearny, N.J., and was on a photo shoot when it plunged into the frigid river after a flight of about 11 minutes.
In a packed Brooklyn courthouse on Friday, Martin Shkreli, the “Pharma Bro” who rose to international notoriety after increasing the price of a lifesaving drug 50-fold, was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Shkreli, 34, was convicted of two counts of securities fraud and a single count of conspiracy last August. He had dismissed the trial as “a silly witch-hunt perpetrated by self-serving prosecutors”.
But before his sentencing, Shkreli wrote to Judge Kiyo Matsumoto asking for leniency. “I was a fool. I should have known better,” he wrote.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a class-action lawsuit Friday against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying agents are forcibly removing asylum-seeking parents from their children without reason.
The class-action suit adds onto a pending suit ACLU has already filed to try and reunite a mother and 7-year-old daughter from the Democratic Republic of Congo who sought asylum in the U.S. and were later detained separately, the organization said. After the ACLU filed that suit, government officials released the mother, the organization said.
After an apparent hourslong standoff between police and a gunman, three women were found dead Friday night at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville, authorities said.
The National Rifle Association filed a lawsuit over Florida gun legislation that was signed into law on Friday.
The lawsuit asks a federal judge to bar the new law from taking effect, the AP reported.
The NRA takes issue with the part of the bill that raises the age limit for purchasing all firearms from 18 to 21, according to the Associated Press.
A Forest Service spokesman on Thursday confirmed Tooke's sudden retirement just seven months after he took over an agency that has been rocked over the past two years by reports of rampant sexual harassment.
His departure comes less than a week after PBS NewsHour reported Tooke was under investigation following relationships with subordinates before he became chief.
Florida’s lawmakers narrowly passed a controversial gun reform bill late on Wednesday that would allow armed teachers in the state’s classrooms, three weeks to the day after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school massacre in which 17 people were killed.
The new legislation, which must now be approved by the Florida governor, Rick Scott, also raises the age at which weapons can be purchased to 21 and provides extra money for school security and mental health support.
The package was backed by families of the Parkland victims, but strongly opposed by many Democrats, who failed to block its passage in a 67-50 vote.
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