DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ How Allegations of an Office Romance Came to Complicate the Case Against Trump
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-20 | by ( Serge F. Kovaleski | Richard Fausset | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Soon after her victory, she set up a group to interview job candidates called the Integrity Transition Hiring Committee. Wade, a lawyer and municipal court judge from the Atlanta suburbs whom she counted as a longtime friend and mentor. But in recent days, allegations have surfaced that Mr. Wade was not only a mentor to Ms. Willis, but also a romantic partner. The allegations appeared in a court motion filed this month by Michael Roman, one of Mr. Trump’s 14 co-defendants in the Georgia case. In an interview with The New York Times, a person familiar with the situation said the two had grown close after meeting in a legal education course for judges in 2019 — some two years before Ms. Willis hired Mr. Wade as special prosecutor in the Trump case.

Persons: Willis, Nathan J, Wade, Donald J, Trump, ”, Michael Roman, Trump’s, Mr Organizations: The New York Times Locations: Georgia’s Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia

The stabbing on Friday of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd in 2020, at a special unit inside a Tucson, Ariz., prison is the latest in a series of attacks against high-profile inmates in the troubled, short-staffed federal Bureau of Prisons. The assault comes less than five months after Larry Nassar, the doctor convicted of sexually abusing young female gymnasts, was stabbed multiple times at the federal prison in Florida. The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that an inmate at the Tucson prison was stabbed around 12:30 p.m. on Friday, though the bureau did not identify Mr. Chauvin, 47, by name. The agency said in a statement that the inmate required “life-saving measures” before being rushed to a hospital emergency room nearby. The office of Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general who prosecuted the former police officer, identified the inmate as Mr. Chauvin.

Persons: Derek Chauvin, George Floyd, Larry Nassar, James Bulger, Whitey, Jeffrey Epstein, Chauvin, Keith Ellison Organizations: of Prisons, Department, Federal Bureau of Prisons Locations: Minneapolis, Tucson, Ariz, Florida, Boston, Minnesota

Nithya Raman turned into a political celebrity almost overnight when she emerged as the face of a rising progressive vanguard to campaign for the Los Angeles City Council in 2020. With a master’s degree in urban planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and experience working with slum dwellers in India, Ms. Raman zeroed in on the city’s soaring housing prices and promised to give renters and homeless people a seat at the political table — her seat. Ms. Raman, 42, wound up receiving more votes than any council member in the city’s history and began to draw comparisons to the progressive New York congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — “LAOC,” one local critic derisively called her. Barely a year later, though, Ms. Raman ran into an adversary her grass-roots army was powerless to confront: the bruising power politics involved in running a city of 3.8 million people. The City Council had embarked on its once-a-decade redistricting process, and Ms. Raman, who had few allies among the city’s old-guard politicians, was threatened at one point with losing virtually all of the constituents who had elected her.

Persons: Nithya Raman, Raman, Alexandria Ocasio, Cortez Organizations: Los Angeles City Council, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York, The City Council Locations: India, Alexandria

Firefighters spent hours dousing the blaze with water and carving boundaries around the burning fields with heavy machinery. They managed to keep the fire away from nearby homes, containing it to some empty plots of land. Then came what could prove to be one of the key turning points in a disaster that became the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. With hurricane-force gusts still blowing over the fire site and the surrounding arid shrubbery, crews left the neighborhood. The death toll has reached at least 115, and more than 2,000 structures were destroyed.

Organizations: Firefighters Locations: Lahaina, Maui

It was moments later when she caught a glimpse of smoke in the distance. At first it was a wisp, but within minutes it had grown thicker, rippling down the hillside on violent winds. Ms. Denton Fuqua, 32, and her husband were worried. They grabbed a few essentials and prepared to leave in their cars. “People were just like, ‘Oh, are you heading out?’ Ms. Denton Fuqua recalled.

Persons: Chelsea Denton Fuqua, Denton Fuqua, —, Ms, “ Organizations: Chelsea Locations: Lahaina, Maui

When Hawaii’s last sugar cane plantation shut down in Maui in 2016, it marked the end of an era when sugar reigned supreme in the archipelago’s economy. But the last harvest at the 36,000-acre plantation underscored another pivotal shift: the relentless spread of extremely flammable, nonnative grasses on idled lands where cash crops once flourished. Varieties like guinea grass, molasses grass and buffel grass — which originated in Africa and were introduced to Hawaii as livestock forage — now occupy nearly a quarter of Hawaii’s landmass. Fast growing when it rains and drought resistant when lands are parched, such grasses are fueling wildfires across Hawaii, including the blaze that claimed at least 93 lives in Maui last week. “These grasses are highly aggressive, grow very fast and are highly flammable,” said Melissa Chimera, whose grandmother lived on the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company’s plantation in Maui after emigrating from the Philippines.

Persons: ”, Melissa Chimera, “ Organizations: Fire Exchange Locations: Maui, Africa, Hawaii, Philippines, Pacific

None of the 80 warning sirens placed around Maui were activated by the island or the state’s emergency management agencies in response to the devastating Lahaina fire, a spokesman confirmed on Saturday. Hawaii boasts what it describes as the largest system of outdoor public safety warning sirens in the world, alarms that blare in cases of danger. Residents who survived the fire have wondered aloud why no one activated the sirens, which emit noises at a higher decibel level than a loud rock concert and can be heard from more than half a mile away. The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency’s spokesman, Adam Weintraub, confirmed on Saturday that the sirens were not activated, and he stressed that the sirens alone would not have been a sign to evacuate, but for residents to seek more information. Mr. Weintraub said other alert systems were activated — including alerts that were sent to cellphones and through radio and television stations — but the power was out for much of the day in Lahaina on Tuesday, and many residents said they never got any warnings.

Persons: Adam Weintraub, Weintraub Organizations: Hawaii, decibel, Hawaii Emergency Management Locations: Maui, Hawaii, Lahaina

More than half a dozen others were injured before the police fatally shot the gunman in a third-floor room where he had barricaded himself. But Missouri is one of 29 states that have no background check requirement for private sales. So, Mr. Harris found a weapon by browsing the online site Armslist. Federal law requires background checks only for purchases made through the approximately 80,000 businesses that sell, ship, import or manufacture weapons licensed through the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Unlicensed private sellers, by contrast, can legally sell their wares at gun shows, out of their houses and, increasingly, through online platforms such as Armslist that match buyers with sellers.

Persons: Louis, Orlando Harris, Mr, Harris, Alexzandria Bell, Jean Kuczka Organizations: Visual, Performing Arts High School, of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives Locations: St, Missouri

Search resuls for: "Serge F. Kovaleski"

8 mentions found