A former police sergeant has been arrested for the attempted abduction of a 15-year-old girl in Tokyo.
Koichi Omura, 32, who left the force in March, is accused of approaching the high school girl in a rented car on April 15, NTV reported Wednesday. According to police, Omura drove up beside the girl who was walking along a street in Akishima. He then produced what is believed to have been a police notebook and asked the girl to get into the car, reportedly saying, “I would like you to cooperate in an investigation.”
The girl got into the vehicle and then became suspicious and attempted to escape. Police quoted her as saying Omura tried to force her back into the car but she managed to get away.
According to police, Omura denies the charge and was quoted as saying, “I rented the car the day before, but I loaned it to an acquaintance.”
Iran Human Rights, May 15: Seven prisoners were hanged in the central Prison of Rasht (Northern Iran) today.
According to the official website of the Iranian Judiciary in Gilan Province the prisoners were all convicted of possession and trafficking of narcotic drugs. The prisoners were identified as: Jahangir Gorgij, Hashem bahar Ali, Shahram Hassan-Zadeh, Nemat Rajabi, Fahad Shirazi, Mohammad Zareiiand Tooraj Amini, said the report.
No further details were given in the report.
ABOARD THE USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH (AP) — A drone the size of a fighter jet took off from the deck of an American aircraft carrier for the first time Tuesday in a test flight that could eventually open the way for the U.S. to launch unmanned aircraft from just about any place in the world.
The X-47B is the first drone designed to take off and land on a carrier, meaning the U.S. military would not need permission from other countries to use their bases.
"As our access to overseas ports, forward operating locations and airspace is diminished around the world, the value of the aircraft carrier and the air wing becomes more and more important," Rear Adm. Ted Branch, commander of Naval Air Forces Atlantic, said after the flight off the Virginia coast. "So today is history."
The move to expand the capabilities of the nation's drones comes amid growing criticism of America's use of Predators and Reapers to gather intelligence and carry out lethal missile attacks against terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.
AP Nasser Almarzooq told The Associated Press on Monday that he’d asked his uncle, Hussain Al Khawahir, to bring him a pressure cooker because the ones he bought in the U.S. didn’t work. (Oh of course, everyone knows Saudi technology is so much superior to American technology)
Almarzooq says he’s concerned about his uncle and hasn’t been told anything since his Saturday arrest. Almarzooq goes to the University of Toledo and says his uncle was coming to visit him for a couple weeks. Al Khawahir is accused of using a passport with a missing page and making false statements about why he was traveling with the pressure cooker. A Saudi man was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after federal agents said he lied about why he was traveling with a pressure cooker, according to a court documents filed Monday. Two pressure cookers were used in last month’s Boston Marathon bombings
WASHINGTON – Organized
labor and activist groups asked President Barack Obama on Monday that he halt
deportations of undocumented immigrants who would be eligible for legalization
under bills pending in Congress.
“The deportations must stop, and they
must stop right now,” Ana Avendaño, spokeswoman on immigration topics for the
AFL-CIO, said in a teleconference.
The Senate has already begun the
process of amendments on a bipartisan bill that will seek to resolve the status
of the close to 11 million foreigners estimated to live and work in the United
States without authorization.
The Obama government has said its priority
is the detention and deportation of immigrants who commit serious crimes, but
since 2009 it has maintained a deportation rate of more than 300,000 people
annually.
The process of immigration reform faces even more difficulties
in the House of Representatives, where Republicans have the majority, than in
the Senate.
In the meantime, Obama can exercise his authority to suspend
deportations, Thomas Saenz, head of the Mexican American Legal Defense and
Education Fund, said.
“We are asking the president to exercise discretion
and cease deportations for those who qualify under the proposal of the Group of
8,” Saenz said, referring to the bipartisan Senate bill.
Pablo Alvarado,
executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said that
Obama “cannot be a bystander in the process.” EFE
JERUSALEM –
Archaeologists have found a mosaic dating back around 1,500 years in an area in
the northern part of Be’er Sheva, the largest city in the Negev desert of
southern Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority said.
“The
well-preserved mosaic is decorated with geometric patterns and its corners are
enhanced with amphorae (jars used to transport wine), a pair of peacocks, and a
pair of doves pecking at grapes on a tendril. These are common designs that are
known from this period; however, what makes this mosaic unique is the large
number of motifs that were incorporated in one carpet,” the authority
said.
The colorful mosaic, which dates back to the Byzantine period, was
discovered in the fields of Kibbutz Bet Qama, the authority said in a
statement.
“The main building at the site was a large hall 12 meters long
by 8.5 meters wide and its ceiling was apparently covered with roof tiles. The
hall’s impressive opening and the breathtaking mosaic that adorns its floor
suggest that the structure was a public building,” the authority
said.
Archaeologists said the site would have required extensive
resources to develop at the time it was built.
“The site, which was
located along an ancient road that ran north from Be’er Sheva, seems to have
consisted of a large estate that included a church, residential buildings and
storerooms, a large cistern, a public building and pools surrounded by farmland.
Presumably, one of the structures served as an inn for travelers who visited the
place,” the authority said.
The estate was located between Jewish and
Christian settlements. EFE
WASHINGTON – A former U.S. Department of
Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS-OIG) special agent in charge
and another special agent were indicted in the Southern District of Texas for
their roles in a scheme to falsify records and to obstruct an internal field
office inspection, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of
the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Special Agent in Charge Armando
Fernandez of the FBI San Antonio Field Office.
The indictment returned by
a federal grand jury in Brownsville, Texas, charges Eugenio Pedraza, 49, of
McAllen, Texas, with six counts of falsification of records in federal
investigations, five counts of obstructing an agency proceeding, one count of
obstruction of justice, and one count of conspiracy. The indictment also charges
Marco Rodriguez, 40, of Mission, Texas, with two counts of falsification of
records in federal investigations, two counts of obstructing an agency
proceeding, and one count of conspiracy.
DHS-OIG is the principal
component within DHS with the responsibility to investigate alleged criminal
activity by DHS employees, including corruption affecting the integrity of U.S.
borders.
According to the indictment, in September 2011, DHS-OIG
conducted an internal inspection of its McAllen Field Office to evaluate whether
its internal investigative standards and policies were being followed. At that
time, Pedraza was the special agent in charge of the McAllen Field Office, and
Rodriguez was a special agent stationed there. According to the indictment, in
anticipation of the inspection, Pedraza allegedly directed Rodriguez and other
DHS-OIG employees to engage in a scheme to falsify documents in open criminal
investigative case files, including numerous investigations in which DHS
employees were suspected of participating in the unlawful smuggling of
undocumented aliens and/or narcotics into the United States.
More
specifically, the indictment charges that at Pedraza’s direction, DHS-OIG
employees allegedly created and placed into these investigative files backdated
memoranda of activity that falsely reflected investigative activity by agents
that had not occurred; backdated case review worksheets that falsely reflected
supervisory case reviews that Pedraza had not conducted with his subordinate
agents; and backdated, unsent letters that were signed by Pedraza and purported
to inform the FBI of the opening of a DHS-OIG investigation.
According to
the indictment, the scheme’s purpose was to conceal severe lapses in DHS-OIG’s
investigative standards from individuals conducting an internal field office
inspection. The scheme was allegedly devised to conceal Pedraza’s failure to
ensure that investigations were being conducted promptly and thoroughly, his
failure to provide his subordinates with adequate training and supervision, and
his failure to ensure that the FBI was being timely notified of DHS-OIG’s
investigations.
The indictment also charges Pedraza with allegedly
directing two DHS-OIG employees to falsify memoranda of activity on additional
occasions and with obstructing justice by removing the falsified supervisory
case review sheets that he had created from DHS-OIG files after becoming aware
of the FBI and grand jury investigation into his conduct.
In a related
case, on January 17, 2013, Wayne Ball, a former DHS-OIG special agent, pleaded
guilty in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas before U.S.
District Judge Randy Crane to one count of a multi-object conspiracy to falsify
records in federal investigations and to obstruct an agency proceeding for his
participation in the scheme. Ball is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31,
2013.
The charge of falsification of records in federal investigations
carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The charge of obstructing an
agency proceeding carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. The charge
of obstruction of justice carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The
charge of conspiracy carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Each of
these charges carry a maximum fine of $250,000.
An indictment is not
evidence of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
The case is being
prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Eric L. Gibson and Timothy J. Kelly of the
Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section. The case is being investigated by
agents of the FBI, San Antonio Division.
TOKYO — 
WASHINGTON – Organized
labor and activist groups asked President Barack Obama on Monday that he halt
deportations of undocumented immigrants who would be eligible for legalization
under bills pending in Congress.
JERUSALEM –
Archaeologists have found a mosaic dating back around 1,500 years in an area in
the northern part of Be’er Sheva, the largest city in the Negev desert of
southern Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority said.
WASHINGTON – A former U.S. Department of
Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS-OIG) special agent in charge
and another special agent were indicted in the Southern District of Texas for
their roles in a scheme to falsify records and to obstruct an internal field
office inspection, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of
the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Special Agent in Charge Armando
Fernandez of the FBI San Antonio Field Office.