Woman caught trying to plant explosive devices at Tesla dealership
(Jeremy Hogan/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A woman in Colorado has been arrested after police caught her with explosives at a Tesla dealership, police said.
The 40-year-old suspect, Lucy Grace Nelson, was arrested on Monday after the Loveland Police Department launched an “extensive investigation” on Jan. 29 following a series of vandalizations with incendiary devices at the Tesla Dealership in Loveland, Colorado, according to a statement from the police released on Wednesday.
“On Monday evening, Nelson returned to Loveland Tesla while in possession of additional incendiary devices, along with materials attributed to vandalism,” the Loveland Police Department said. “Detectives apprehended Nelson prior to further damage occurring.”
Nelson was immediately arrested and booked into the Larimer County Jail after being charged with explosives or incendiary devices use during felony, criminal mischief and criminal attempt to commit a Class 3 felony, authorities said.
She was issued with a $100,000 cash surety bond following the charges.
“The Loveland Police Department continues to work closely with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Denver Field Division, with Federal charges likely to follow,” police said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of 37 inmates on federal death row, the White House said Monday.
The move reduces the sentence for all but three of the 40 inmates on federal death row. Biden said that the commutations are “consistent with the moratorium my Administration has imposed on federal executions,” with the exception of terrorism and hate-motivated mass killings.
The three people on the federal execution list who were not on Biden’s commutation list are Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing; Robert Bowers, who was convicted of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue antisemitic attack; and Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black churchgoers in a racially motivated shooting in South Carolina.
According to the White House fact sheet about the move, the recipients of the commutations will have their sentences “reclassified from execution to life without the possibility of parole.”
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden wrote in a statement about the commutations.
“But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level,” Biden added.
The White House fact sheet said that the move was an effort to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from “carrying out the execution sentences that would not be handed down under current policy and practice.”
This decision comes after some notable figures and many activists called for Biden to take action. Pope Francis has called for the sentences of Americans on death row to be commuted during his Angelus address in October, the Vatican News Source reported.
“Today, I feel compelled to ask all of you to pray for the inmates on death row in the United States,” the Pope said at the time, according to the report. “Let us pray that their sentences may be commuted or changed. Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death.”
Biden is a devout Catholic and is set next month to visit the Holy See during a trip to Italy, where he will also have an audience with the pope.
Activists have called for Biden to commute the sentence of many or all federal death row inmates for some time. More than 130 civil and human rights groups penned a letter to the president in early December calling on him to commute the sentences of “all individuals on federal death row.”
“The only irreversible action you can take to prevent President-elect Trump from renewing his execution spree, as he has vowed to do, is commuting the death sentences of those on federal death row now. Your ability to change the course of the death penalty in the United States will be a defining, legacy-building moment in American history,” the letter said.
It is also an issue of racial justice. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 38% of federal death row inmates are Black — compared to the 14% of total American population according to the Pew Research Center. About 56% of the 40 men on federal death row were men of color, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, a close confidant of Biden, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said that he had urged the president to take action, citing the unfairness in the justice system.
“There are some real questions about the fairness in the process of the death penalty in the United States,” Coons said.
He added, “And I don’t know what President Biden will ultimately do, but I think there are reasons, both in terms of racial justice, due process, and what it says domestically and to the world about our values if we were to go ahead and execute all of these individuals, rather than have them spend the rest of life in prison.”
(WASHINGTON) — The largest pharmacy chain in America is accused of “unlawfully dispensing massive quantities of opioids and other controlled substances to fuel its own profits at the expense of public health and safety,” according to a civil lawsuit filed by the Justice Department, which was unsealed Wednesday.
The DOJ lawsuit alleges that CVS has, for more than a decade, knowingly filled sometimes-dubious prescriptions for controlled substances that lacked a legitimate medical purpose, or were not valid.
Those prescriptions included “dangerous and excessive quantities of opioids” and “trinity cocktails” — a blend of “especially dangerous and abused combination of drugs made up of an opioid, a benzodiazepine and a muscle relaxant,” the suit stated.
The suit also accuses the company of filling “at least thousands of controlled substance prescriptions” penned by “known ‘pill mills.'”
In a statement to ABC News, CVS spokesperson Amy Thibault called the suit “misguided” and said company officials “strongly disagree with the allegations and false narrative” described in the DOJ suit and will “defend ourselves vigorously.”
DOJ’s lawsuit says CVS “contributed to the opioid crisis, a national public health emergency with devastating effects in the United States.” The suit went on to say: “These included illegitimate prescriptions for extremely high doses and excessive quantities of potent opioids that fed dependence and addiction, as well as illegitimate prescriptions for dangerous combinations of opioids and other drugs.”
The suit accuses CVS of ignoring sometimes “egregious red flags” about prescriptions “bearing the hallmarks of abuse and diversion.” The lawsuit points to performance metrics and incentive compensation policies that allegedly pressured pharmacists to “fill prescriptions as quickly as possible, without assessing their legitimacy” and corporate policies that allegedly prioritized speed over safety.
The suit claims CVS refused to implement compliance measures recommended by its own experts to reduce the number of invalid prescriptions with red flags “primarily due to fear that they would slow the speed of prescription filling and increase labor costs,” according to the suit.
The government is seeking civil penalties, injunctive relief and damages to address what it called CVS’ unlawful practices and to prevent future violations.
In her statement, Thibault, the CVS spokesperson, said the company has been an industry leader in fighting opioid misuse.
“Each of the prescriptions in question was for an FDA-approved opioid medication prescribed by a practitioner who the government itself licensed, authorized, and empowered to write controlled-substance prescriptions,” Thibault’s statement said.
She said the DOJ lawsuit “intensifies a serious dilemma for pharmacists, who are simultaneously second-guessed for dispensing too many opioids, and too few.”
(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) — As brush fires continue to spread across Los Angeles County, more than 1,000 prisoners, working as “incarcerated firefighters,” are among the emergency responders fighting the blazes, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed to ABC News.
The prisoners, who voluntarily sign up to be a part of the Conservation (Fire) Camps Program, are embedded with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, crew members.
Participating individuals are typically paid between $5.80 and $10.24 per day plus $1 an hour when responding to active emergencies, according to the CDCR.
Those responding to the Los Angeles fires and working 24-hour shifts are earning $26.90 per day, according to the law enforcement agency.
“CDCR Fire Camp Program firefighters are proud to be embedded with CAL FIRE personnel to protect lives, property and natural resources in Southern California,” the agency said in a statement.
Incarcerated firefighters have been working “around the clock” cutting fire lines and removing fuel from behind structures to slow fire spread, the CDCR said, adding that the program is a source of “crucial support” during emergencies.
The exact number of hours and shifts the incarcerated crew members have worked since brush fires erupted in Los Angeles on Jan. 7 was not immediately clear.
The agency said the program paves the way for professional emergency response certifications and job opportunities after an inmate’s release. It also allows for criminal record expungement and opportunities to reduce their sentences, according to the CDCR.
Most incarcerated fire crew members receive two additional days off their sentence for every one day they serve on a fire crew, according to the agency, and camp volunteers, who work as support staff but not on a fire crew, receive one day off their sentence for every one day they serve.
The inmate firefighting program dates back to 1915 but largely expanded in California in the 1940s because of firefighter shortages during World War II, according to the CDCR.
The state’s Assembly Bill 2147, which passed in 2020, allowed inmate firefighters to petition courts to dismiss their convictions after serving their time.
The Los Angeles fires have brought renewed attention to the program, drawing some criticism over the wages the inmate firefighters receive.
Kim Kardashian took to social media over the weekend to call for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to raise their wages. “I am urging @cagovernor to do what no Governor has done in 4 decades, and raise the incarcerated firefighter pay to a rate [that] honors a human being risking their life to save our lives and homes,” Kardashian wrote.
In comparison, California firefighters typically earn a monthly base salary between $3,672 and $4,643 plus an additional $1,824 to $2,306 of extended duty week compensation every four weeks, according to Cal Fire.
The CDCR’s inmate fire program operates 35 minimum-security facilities in 25 counties across California, including two camps designated for incarcerated women.
There are more than 1,800 incarcerated individuals staffing the camps across the state, according to the agency.
Participating prisoners have joined the thousands of federal, state and local emergency responders who are battling at least four active wildfires across Los Angeles County as of Tuesday.
The largest of the devastating blazes, the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades, has scorched more than 23,000 acres, destroyed thousands of structures and remains at 17% containment as of Tuesday afternoon.
The Eaton Fire, in Altadena, has spread over 14,000 acres and is 35% contained, according to Cal Fire. There have been at least 24 deaths between the two fires — a number officials warn may rise as emergency efforts continue.
Approximately 88,000 Los Angeles County residents are under evacuation orders Tuesday as another dangerous Santa Ana wind event is forecast to impact the already vulnerable region.
