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FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (AP) — A jury convicted two men of charges related to human smuggling for their roles in an international operation that led to the deaths of a family of Indian migrants who froze while trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border during a 2022 blizzard. Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, an Indian national who prosecutors say went by the alias "Dirty Harry," and Steve Shand, 50, an American from Florida, were part of a sophisticated illegal operation that has brought increasing numbers of Indians into the U.S., prosecutors said. T...
FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (AP) — Nearly three years after a couple from India and their two young children froze to death while trying to cross the border from Canada into the U.S., two men went on trial Monday on human smuggling charges, accused of being part of a criminal network that stretched around the world. Prosecutors say Indian national Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, ran part of the scheme and recruited Steve Shand, 50, of Florida, to shuttle migrants across the border. Both men have pleaded not guilty in federal court in Minnesota. T...
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A North Korean military intelligence operative has been indicted in a conspiracy to hack into American health care providers, NASA, U.S. military bases and international entities, stealing sensitive information and installing ransomware to fund more attacks, federal prosecutors announced Thursday. The indictment of Rim Jong Hyok by a grand jury in Kansas City, Kansas, accuses him of laundering the money through a Chinese bank and then using it to buy computer servers and fund more cyberattacks on defense, technology a...
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The visuals were stunning: Water from the Blue Earth River surged around a southern Minnesota dam, carrying a shipping container with it as it toppled utility poles, wrecked a substation and washed away part of a riverbank. A home teetered on the edge of an eroded slope as floodwaters rushed underneath. Earlier this week, authorities said the Rapidan Dam near Mankato faced an "imminent threat" of collapse, but later they said an abutment had partially failed. The river swelled after an onslaught of rain pummeled the Midwest f...
BRANDON, Miss. (AP) — Already sentenced to many years in federal prison, six white former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to a long list of state and federal charges for torturing two Black men were sentenced Wednesday in state court. The state sentences did not add time to the federal prison terms the defendants had already received, but the victims' supporters hailed the yearslong sentences, saying they took on unique importance in Mississippi, where local residents saw echoes of the state's history of racist a...
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A former Mississippi sheriff's deputy was sentenced Tuesday to about 20 years in prison for his part in torturing two Black men in a racist assault and for his role in a separate episode where a white man was sexually assaulted. Hunter Elward, 31, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Tom Lee, who handed down a 241-month sentence. Lee is also due to sentence five other former law enforcement officers who admitted to torturing Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker after a neighbor complained that the men were stayin...
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Diversity initiatives would be defunded or banned from universities and other public institutions under a slate of bills pending in Republican-led legislatures, with some lawmakers counting on the issue resonating with voters in this election year. Already this year, Republican lawmakers have proposed about 50 bills in 20 states that would restrict initiatives on diversity, equity and inclusion — known as DEI — or require their public disclosure, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill-tracking softw...
BROOKHAVEN, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi grand jury issued a report last month sharply criticizing a police department whose errors prompted a mistrial this week in the case of two white men charged in an attack on a Black FedEx driver. Officers in the Brookhaven Police Department "poorly investigate their cases," according to a Lincoln County grand jury that considered more than 60 criminal cases. The department is "complacent," "does not complete investigations in a timely manner," shows a "lack of professionalism" and "has a habit of w...
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Six white former law enforcement officers in Mississippi who called themselves the "Goon Squad" pleaded guilty Thursday to a racist assault on two Black men in a home raid that ended with an officer shooting one man in the mouth. The officers entered the house without a warrant on Jan. 24, assaulting the men with a sex object and using stun guns and other objects to abuse them over a roughly 90-minute period, court documents show. After one victim was shot and wounded in a "mock execution" that went awry, the documents s...
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Men who had sworn an oath to protect and serve were huddled on the back porch of a Mississippi home as Michael Corey Jenkins lay on the floor, blood gushing from his mutilated tongue where one of the police officers shoved a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. As Jenkins writhed in pain, the six white officers devised a scheme to cover up dozens of stunning acts of brutality that they had just carried out during a 90-minute period of terror against Jenkins and a second Black victim. The officers planted drugs. They s...
LOUIN, Miss. (AP) — Multiple tornadoes swept through Mississippi overnight, killing one and injuring nearly two dozen, officials said Monday. State emergency workers were still working with counties to assess the damage from storms in which high temperatures and hail in some areas accompanied tornadoes. The death and injuries were reported by officials in eastern Mississippi's Jasper County. The small, rural town of Louin bore the brunt of the damage. Drone footage and photos showed wide expanses of debris-covered terrain, decimated homes a...
JACKSON, Mississippi. (AP) — A Mississippi grand jury has indicted two former police officers on murder charges and another ex-officer on a manslaughter charge in the death of a Black man seen on video being pinned down and repeatedly shocked with stun guns during a New Year's eve arrest. Officials in the state capital of Jackson released body camera footage Wednesday that showed then-officers Avery Willis, Kenya McCarty and James Land struggling to handcuff Keith Murriel as he was apparently stunned numerous times over 10 minutes. The o...
ROLLING FORK, Miss. (AP) — Rescuers raced Saturday to search for survivors and help hundreds of people left homeless after a powerful tornado cut a devastating path through Mississippi, killing at least 25 people, injuring dozens, and flattening entire blocks as it carved a path of destruction for more than an hour. One person was killed in Alabama. The tornado devastated a swath of the Mississippi Delta town of Rolling Fork, reducing homes to piles of rubble, flipping cars on their sides and toppling the town's water tower. Residents h...
BRANDON, Miss. (AP) — Police and court records obtained by The Associated Press show that deputies who were accepted to a Mississippi sheriff's department's special tactical unit have been involved in at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another seriously wounded. Two men allege that Rankin County sheriff's deputies shoved guns into their mouths during separate encounters, including one who says the deputy pulled the trigger, leaving him with wounds that required parts of his tongue to be sewn b...
ARKABUTLA, Miss. (AP) — A lone gunman killed six people including his ex-wife and stepfather Friday at multiple locations in a tiny rural community in northern Mississippi, the sheriff said, leaving investigators searching for clues to what motivated the rampage. Armed with a shotgun and two handguns, 52-year-old Richard Dale Crum, who a family friend said had a history of mental illness, opened fire at about 11 a.m. and killed a man in the driver's seat of a pickup truck parked outside a convenience store in Arkabutla, near the Tennessee state...
ARKABUTLA, Miss. (AP) — A lone gunman killed six people including his ex-wife and stepfather Friday at multiple locations in a tiny rural community in northern Mississippi, the sheriff said, leaving investigators searching for clues to what motivated the shocking rampage. Armed with a shotgun and two handguns, 52-year-old Richard Dale Crum opened fire at about 11 a.m. and killed a man in the driver's seat of a pickup truck parked outside a convenience store in Arkabutla, near the Tennessee state line, Tate County Sheriff Brad Lance said. D...
