North Carolina Gov. McCrory concedes he lost re-election bid
North Carolina Gov. McCrory concedes he lost re-election bid
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory conceded the governor’s race Monday, clearing the way for Democrat Roy Cooper to be declared the winner nearly four weeks after Election Day.
The win by Cooper, the state’s outgoing attorney general, gives Democrats an important consolation prize after a disappointing election across the country. However, Republicans retain super majorities in both legislative chambers.
In a video message from his office posted to YouTube, McCrory said, “Despite continued questions that should be answered regarding the voting process, I personally believe that the majority of our citizens have spoken, and we now should do everything we can to support the 75th governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper.”
McCrory, who became the first sitting North Carolina governor to lose a re-election bid, was weighed down by a series of divisive laws he signed, including House Bill 2.
That law limited LGBT rights and directed transgender people to use restrooms in schools and government buildings corresponding to the sex listed on their birth certificates. It led to companies, sports organizations and entertainers pulling their business from the state, costing hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in spending.
Fake US embassy in Ghana shut down after ‘about a decade’
ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — A fake U.S. embassy that operated for “about a decade” in Ghana’s capital issuing counterfeit and fraudulently obtained visas has been shut down, the U.S. State Department announced.
The scam was orchestrated by “Ghanaian and Turkish organized crime rings” and a Ghanaian attorney, a statement said. Several suspects have been arrested, though others remain at large.
Raids led to the recovery of 150 passports from 10 countries and visas from the U.S., India, South Africa and the European Schengen zone.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said no one was able to enter the United States illegally using a counterfeit visa obtained at the fake embassy.
“This was a criminal, fraud operation masquerading as a fake U.S. embassy,” he told reporters.
It was not clear how many people were defrauded by the fake embassy, which charged $6,000 for its services.
Those running the operation were able to bribe corrupt officials “to look the other way,” the State Department said. Ghanaian officials said Monday they were still collecting information and were not prepared to comment.
Man convicted in son’s hot-car death gets life, no parole
MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — A judge on Monday sentenced a Georgia man to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole after a jury found that he intentionally left his toddler son in a hot SUV to die.
Jurors last month convicted Justin Ross Harris, 36, of malice murder and other charges in the June 2014 death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper.
Prosecutors argued throughout the trial that Harris was unhappily married and intentionally killed his son because he wanted an escape from family life. Defense attorneys maintained that Harris was a loving father and that while he was responsible for the boy’s death, it was a tragic accident.
Harris did not testify at trial and did not speak at his sentencing hearing.
Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark told Harris she thought about statements Harris made during conversations with police and his wife the day his son died about wishing to be an advocate to keep anyone else from ever leaving a child in a hot vehicle.
Mistrial declared in black motorist’s shooting
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina judge declared a mistrial Monday after a jury deadlocked in the murder trial of a white former police officer charged in the shooting death of an unarmed black motorist.
A panel of one black and 11 white jurors — who had seemed close to a verdict to convict Friday, with apparently only one holdout — said Monday they were unable to reach a unanimous decision after deliberating more than 22 hours over four days.
“We as a jury regret to inform the court that despite the best efforts of all parties we are unable to come to a unanimous decision,” said Circuit Judge Clifton Newman, reading a note from the jury before declaring a mistrial.
Former patrolman Michael Slager was charged with murder in the April 4, 2015, shooting death of 50-year-old Walter Scott. The judge had said the jury could also consider a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.
Cellphone video taken by a bystander that showed Scott being shot in the back five times was shown widely in the media and on the internet and shocked the country, inflaming the national debate about how blacks are treated by law enforcement officers.
Judge: Prosecutors can use Cosby’s deposition at trial
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Damaging testimony that Bill Cosby gave in an accuser’s lawsuit, including admissions that he gave young women drugs and alcohol before sex, can be used at his criminal sex assault trial, a judge ruled Monday.
The defense had insisted that Cosby only testified after being promised he wouldn’t be charged over his 2004 encounter with accuser Andrea Constand. But his lawyers at the time never had an immunity agreement or put anything in writing.
“This court concludes that there was neither an agreement nor a promise not to prosecute, only an exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill wrote in his ruling.
Cosby, 79, acknowledged in the 2006 deposition that he had a string of extramarital relationships with young women. He called them consensual, but many of the women say they were drugged and molested.
The release of the deposition testimony last year prompted prosecutors to reopen Constand’s 2005 criminal complaint.