Court filing: Manafort faces more than 19 years in prison
WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort, the one-time chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, could spend more than 19 years in prison on tax and bank fraud charges, prosecutors said Friday.
Court documents filed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office reveal that Manafort faces possibly the lengthiest prison term in the Russia investigation. The 69-year-old Manafort is also at serious risk of spending the rest of his life in prison if a federal judge imposes a sentence within federal guidelines.
The potential sentence stems from Manafort’s conviction last year on eight felony counts related to an elaborate scheme to conceal from tax authorities the millions of dollars he earned overseas from Ukrainian political consulting. It is one of two criminal cases pending against Manafort in which he faces prison time.
Manafort, who led Trump’s campaign for months during the 2016 presidential campaign, is not charged with any crimes directly related to Russian election interference, the thrust of Mueller’s probe. But prosecutors have recently revealed that they remain deeply interested in his contacts during and after the campaign with an associate the FBI says has ties to Russian intelligence.
In a 27-page court filing Friday, prosecutors did not recommend a precise sentence for Manafort, but they agreed with a calculation by federal probation officials that his crimes deserve a punishment of between 19.5 and 24.5 years. They also lay out in great detail for U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III how they say Manafort’s greed drove him to disregard American law.
Nigeria delays election because of ‘challenges’
KANO, Nigeria — Nigeria’s electoral commission delayed the presidential election until Feb. 23, making the announcement a mere five hours before polls were set to open today. It cited unspecified “challenges” amid reports that voting materials were not delivered to all parts of the country.
Residents of Africa’s most populous nation and largest democracy woke up to outrage. Many relocated for the chance to vote.
A review of logistics, along with the determination to have a credible vote, led the commission to conclude that going ahead with the election as planned was “no longer feasible,” commission chairman Mahmood Yakubu told reporters in the capital, Abuja.
Nigeria also postponed the previous presidential election in 2015 because of deadly insecurity in the northeast, which remains under threat from Islamic extremists.
Payless ShoeSource to shutter all of its remaining US stores
NEW YORK — Payless ShoeSource is shuttering all of its 2,100 remaining stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, joining a list of iconic names like Toys R Us and Bon-Ton that have closed down in the last year.
The Topeka, Kansas-based chain said Friday it will hold liquidation sales starting Sunday and wind down its e-commerce operations. All of the stores will remain open until at least the end of March and the majority will remain open until May.
The debt-burdened chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April 2017, closing hundreds of stores as part of its reorganization.
At the time, it had over 4,400 stores in more than 30 countries. It remerged from restructuring four months later with about 3,500 stores and eliminated more than $435 million in debt.
The company said in an email that the liquidation doesn’t affect its franchise operations or its Latin American stores, which remain open for business as usual. It lists 18,000 employees worldwide.
Snow too thick to plow keeps skiers from California resorts
SAN FRANCISCO — Winter weather enveloping California’s mountains for a fourth straight day Friday kept skiers from hitting the slopes at the start of the Presidents Day holiday weekend, with snow so deep that plows could not tackle it and cities scrambled to find places to pile it.
Several routes to the ski mecca of Lake Tahoe shut down, including about 70 miles (110 kilometers) of Interstate 80 from Colfax, California, to the Nevada state line. Chains were required for travel in many other parts of the towering Sierra Nevada.
“All avid skiers are itching to get out on the mountain but the roads are pretty treacherous right now,” said Kevin Cooper, marketing director for Lake Tahoe TV.
The storm was expected to dump between 3 and 6 feet of fresh snow in a region where some ski resorts reported getting 3 feet (1 meter) since Thursday. Officials warned of avalanches in the greater Lake Tahoe Area, where heavy snow and high winds were expected through Sunday.
Storms also have swamped much of the state with heavy rain that crumbled roads and flooded a resort north of San Francisco where a kayaker paddled through a meeting room after a nearby river swelled over its banks. The onslaught extended into Arizona and other parts of the U.S. West, with a winter blast also hitting Missouri.
Academy reverses plans, will air all awards live at Oscars
NEW YORK — Bowing to a backlash that had threatened to engulf an already blunder-plagued Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday reversed its decision to present four awards during the commercial breaks of this year’s Oscar broadcast.
All 24 categories will be shown live, after all, at the 91st Academy Awards on February 24, the academy announced in a statement. On Monday, the academy had said that the winning speeches for cinematography, film editing, makeup and hairstyling and live-action short would be aired in a shortened, taped segment during the broadcast.
“Nine days until the showtime, still tweaking the script” the Academy tweeted Friday.
The academy did not address whether the change meant extending the show’s length, which organizers have said would be reduced to three hours.
The academy’s move to strike awards from the live broadcast was fiercely contested by many of this year’s Oscar nominees, including “Roma” director Alfonso Cuaron and “BlacKkKlansman” filmmaker Spike Lee. The American Society of Cinematographers on Wednesday issued an open-letter to the academy, signed by Martin Scorsese, Brad Pitt and others, calling the plans an insult to the cinematic arts.