Prosecutor: Hundreds of pot plants grown where 8 were killed
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Four days after the calculated killings of eight people in rural Ohio, a prosecutor revealed Monday that marijuana was found at some of the crime scenes, including a grow-house sheltering hundreds of plants.
“It wasn’t just somebody sitting pots in the window,” Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk said.
The victims — all members of an extended family — were fatally shot in the head, including a young mother whose newborn baby was sleeping beside her Friday morning. That baby, another infant and a toddler were spared.
The victims were remembered Monday as loyal and caring people. More than a dozen counselors, clergy and psychologists arrived at the local high school to help friends and neighbors handle their grief.
‘Individual A’ sues Hastert for unpaid hush money
CHICAGO (AP) — A man who alleges he was sexually abused by former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and later promised $3.5 million to stay quiet filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit Monday, saying he’s owed more than half of the money Hastert promised.
The man, identified in court documents as “Individual A, filed the lawsuit in Yorkville, the northern Illinois city where Hastert was a high school teacher and wrestling coach when, prosecutors believe, he molested at least four boys decades ago.
Prosecutors said the statute of limitations on the sex crimes ran out long ago, so they could only charge the 74-year-old Republican with dodging banking regulations for when he withdrew the hush money. Hastert pleaded guilty to the federal banking charges in October and is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in Chicago. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Hastert’s attorneys, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment on the lawsuit Monday.
In the lawsuit, the man said he was 14 years old when Hastert offered to take him to a wrestling camp, before he went to high school. The man said Hastert sexually abused him in a motel room where he and Hastert were staying alone, adding that Hastert was a “trusted friend” of his family.
Saudi Arabia outlines reform plan for oil-addicted economy
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia unveiled a bold reform plan on Monday aimed at weaning the country off its “addiction” to oil in a bid to prepare the next generation of Saudi leaders for the domestic pressures of youth unemployment and revenues eroded by lower oil prices.
The project, which includes plans to float a stake in the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, and set up one of the world’s biggest government investment funds, is meant to provide a blueprint for sweeping reforms to steer the OPEC kingdom away from its decades-long reliance on cheap-to-produce oil.
King Salman said in a televised announcement that the Cabinet approved the plan, known as Vision 2030, and called on Saudis to work together to ensure its success.
But it was left to the king’s powerful son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to spell out details in an interview aired shortly after the announcement on Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabiya.
The 30-year-old second-in-line to the throne also serves as the country’s defense minister and chairs a committee to oversee economic policymaking. That committee, the Council on Economic and Development Affairs, has been focused on reorienting the kingdom away from its heavy reliance on fossil fuels, creating jobs and boosting foreign investment.
Dubai pushes the pedal to the metal on driverless cars
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Already home to the world’s biggest skyscraper, Dubai has another tall order to fill: By 2030, its leader wants 25 percent of all trips on its roads to be done by driverless vehicles.
Monday’s announcement by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum came without warning and with few details, as is sometimes the case with the many aspirations of the leadership of the United Arab Emirates.
In this car-crazed city-state of over 1.5 million registered vehicles, it’s not unusual to see Ferraris idling alongside Lamborghinis at traffic lights. And Dubai already is home to a driverless Metro rail system, which carried 178 million riders in 2015.
Smart-car technology is being used in some of the world’s luxury vehicles, and it is advancing rapidly enough for the plan to become a reality — or a nightmare for the thousands of taxi drivers who now plying the streets among the sleek skyscrapers in the UAE’s commercial capital.
In a statement carried by the state-run WAM news agency, Sheikh Mohammed said the plan would cut down on costs and traffic accidents. The project would be a joint venture by Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority and the Dubai Future Foundation, he said, without offering how it would be funded in the oil-rich nation.
