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Florida couple charged with more than $2M in COVID-19 relief fraud

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:09:50 GMT

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — A southwest Florida couple has been charged with stealing more than $2 million in COVID-19 relief funds and using the money to buy boats, new businesses and other luxury items.Timothy Craig Jolloff, 46, and Lisa Ann Jolloff, 56, made their initial appearances Friday in Fort Myers federal court on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and illegal monetary transactions, according to court records. Timothy Jolloff is also charged with one count of wire fraud.According to a criminal complaint, Timothy Jolloff submitted false and fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan and Paycheck Protection Program loan applications in the spring of 2020 to the Small Business Administration, as well as a PPP approved lender. This caused the SBA and a PPP lender to approve and fund 11 disaster loans and six PPP loans, totaling about $2.14 million, prosecutors said.The Jolloffs then used the money to purchase three pontoon boats, real estate in Indiana, home furnishing...

Biden taps Dr. Mandy Cohen for top role as next CDC director

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:09:50 GMT

(CNN) — President Joe Biden intends to appoint Dr. Mandy Cohen to lead the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House confirmed exclusively to CNN, succeeding Dr. Rochelle Walensky in the critical public health role as the agency grapples with challenges in the aftermath of the pandemic.“Dr. Cohen is one of the nation’s top physicians and health leaders with experience leading large and complex organizations, and a proven track-record protecting Americans’ health and safety,” Biden said in statement shared first with CNN.And as Cohen takes on what’s become an increasingly politicized role at the CDC, Biden heralded her capacity to work across the aisle.“Dr. Cohen has been recognized by leaders from both parties for her ability to find common ground and put complex policy into action. I look forward to working with Dr. Cohen as she leads our nation’s finest scientists and public health experts with integrity and transparency,” the president said.Cohen, who wi...

‘Extraction 2′ review: Chris Hemworth’s black-ops mercenary is bolder, bloodier and extractier

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:09:50 GMT

Nina Metz | Chicago TribuneA follow-up to the 2020 hyperviolent Chris Hemsworth Netflix action thriller, “Extraction 2″ is a cinematic diversion that asks: Would you like to see a man’s hand split down the middle? Ripped apart in a way that has you thinking: Now there’s a “live long and prosper” salute gone very wrong. Well, pal, have I got a movie for you.Last we saw Hemsworth’s Tyler Rake, the black ops mercenary with a talent for rescuing — sorry, extracting — people out of bad situations, he was battered and bleeding and plunging from a bridge to a watery grave.If you forgot any of that in the intervening years, a recap of the final sequence is helpfully recycled in the opening moments of “Extraction 2: The Dentist Will See You Now.” (I kid! Bodies take a beating, but not a pearly white is busted out of place.)The original ends with a brief postscript: The rescued teenage son of a drug lord is reacclimating to life when, suddenly, a hazy Tyler-shaped figure appears in the distan...

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked Pentagon Papers exposing Vietnam War secrets, dies at 92

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:09:50 GMT

By HILLEL ITALIE (AP National Writer)NEW YORK (AP) — Daniel Ellsberg, the history-making whistleblower who by leaking the Pentagon Papers revealed longtime government doubts and deceit about the Vietnam War and inspired acts of retaliation by President Richard Nixon that helped lead to his resignation, has died. He was 92. Ellsberg, who announced in February that he was terminally ill with pancreatic cancer, died Friday morning, according to a letter from his family released by a spokeswoman, Julia Pacetti. Until the early 1970s, when he revealed that he was the source for the stunning media reports on the 47-volume, 7,000-page Defense Department study of the U.S. role in Indochina, Ellsberg was a well-placed member of the government-military elite. He was a Harvard graduate and self-defined “cold warrior” who served as a private and government consultant on Vietnam throughout the 1960s, risked his life on the battlefield, received the highest security clearances a...

Trey Mancini knew a return to the Orioles was ‘off the table.’ It didn’t dull his love for Baltimore.

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:09:50 GMT

Monday, on the other side of the Orioles’ weekend series at Wrigley Field, will mark 10 years since Trey Mancini played his first game in Baltimore’s organization. Before the matchup between his new and old teams began, he spoke about what the portion of the past decade spent with the Orioles meant to him.“If you would have told me 10 years ago everything that would have happened between then and now, I don’t know if I would have believed it back then,” Mancini said. “It’s always gonna hold such a special place in my heart.”Mancini batted sixth and played first base for the Chicago Cubs in Friday’s series opener against the Orioles. The 31-year-old was Baltimore’s eighth-round pick in 2013 and made his major league debut three years later. Across a six-year run as an Oriole that ended with last year’s trade to the Houston Astros, Mancini endeared himself to the fan base and the Baltimore community with his play, his p...

Home Showcase: New Wellesley home thoughtfully appointed

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:09:50 GMT

With the eye-popping sales velocity in the Boston-area real estate market, it would be much easier for luxury builders to put up new construction quickly and forgo the details.Nobody took the easy road when designing 22 Suffolk Road in Wellesley, resulting in a luxurious, turn-key estate replete with high-end touches that make it stand out from a crop of new builds.To fit in with its coveted Cliff Estates location, the home is a smooth transition between your traditional Colonial and the modern farmhouse aesthetic sought after by current buyers.The home didn’t just woo us with good looks, although the chevron hardwood in the foyers and sleek French doors are a nice touch. It’s the practical — and stylishly appointed — details that won us over.There’s a tiled mudroom with cubbies and a bench so coming and going stays organized and doesn’t track snow and mud throughout the house. There’s an impeccably finished lower level with a wet bar so you don’t have to run upstairs to replenish s...

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers and helped push the US withdrawal from Vietnam, dies at 92

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:09:50 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers and helped push the US withdrawal from Vietnam, dies at 92.

George Floyd’s killing capped years of violence, discrimination by Minneapolis police, DOJ says

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:09:50 GMT

By JIM SALTER and MARK VANCLEAVE (Associated Press)MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday issued a withering critique of Minneapolis police, alleging that they systematically discriminated against racial minorities, often violated constitutional rights and disregarded the safety of people in custody for years before George Floyd was killed.The report was the result of a sweeping two-year probe, and it confirmed many of the citizen complaints about police conduct that emerged after Floyd’s 2020 death. The investigation found that Minneapolis officers used excessive force, including “unjustified deadly force,” and violated the rights of people engaged in constitutionally protected speech.The investigation also concluded that both police and the city discriminated against Black and Native American people and those with “behavioral health disabilities.”“We observed many MPD officers who did their difficult work with professionalism,...

Pittsburgh synagogue gunman is found guilty in the deadliest attack on Jewish people in US history

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:09:50 GMT

By PETER SMITH (Associated Press)PITTSBURGH (AP) — A truck driver who spewed hatred of Jews was convicted Friday of barging into a Pittsburgh synagogue and shooting everyone he could find, killing 11 congregants in an act of antisemitic terror for which he could be sentenced to die.The guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion after Robert Bowers’ own lawyers conceded at the trial’s outset that he attacked and killed worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Jurors must now decide whether the 50-year-old should be sent to death row or sentenced to life in prison without parole as the federal trial shifts to a penalty phase expected to last several weeks.Bowers was convicted of all 63 criminal counts he faced, including hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death. His attorneys had offered a guilty plea in return for a life sentence, but prosecutors refused, opting...

Iowa Supreme Court declines to reinstate strict abortion limits, but a new law could be coming

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:09:50 GMT

By HANNAH FINGERHUT and SCOTT McFETRIDGE (Associated Press)DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Abortion will remain legal in Iowa after the state’s high court declined Friday to reinstate a law that would have largely banned the procedure, rebuffing Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and, for now, keeping the conservative state from joining others with strict abortion limits.In a rare 3-3 decision, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld a 2019 district court ruling that blocked the law. The latest ruling comes roughly a year after the same body — and the U.S. Supreme Court — determined that women do not have a fundamental constitutional right to abortion.The blocked law bans abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant. The law contains exceptions for medical emergencies, rape, incest and fetal abnormality.Writing for the three justices who denied the state’s request to reinstate the law, Justi...