Ongoing 'beef' cited in fireman's killing
SANTA CLARITA, Calif. -- A Los Angeles County firefighter appeared to have a longstanding job-related dispute with the colleague he shot and killed at their small, rural fire station in what became California's second deadly workplace shooting in less than a week, authorities said Wednesday.
The gunman also wounded a fire captain at the station in Agua Dulce, a rural community about 45 miles north of Los Angeles on Tuesday before setting his house in a nearby community on fire and apparently killing himself, officials said. The coroner's office has not officially identified the shooter, and an autopsy is pending.
Preliminary interviews with other employees at Fire Station 81 indicate the shooter and the firefighter who was killed had "some workplace beef," said Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Brandon Dean, who is overseeing the homicide investigation.
The coroner's office on Wednesday identified the firefighter who died as Tory Carlon, 44.
The 54-year-old fire captain who was wounded was still in critical but stable condition. He is expected to survive his injuries, Dean said. It was not immediately clear if the shooter also had a dispute with the wounded man.
Tuesday's shooting occurred less than a week after a man opened fire with three handguns at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority bus and rail yard in San Jose, killing nine of his co-workers and then himself.
N.M. Democrat wins in House election
SANTA FE, N.M. -- Democrat Melanie Stansbury, a second-term state representative who as a congressional candidate embraced the Biden administration's prescription's for economic recovery, garnered roughly 60% of the vote in a four-way race to hand a stinging defeat to three-term Republican state Sen. Mark Moores in a special election to fill the seat previously held by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
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Stansbury, 42, won a race viewed as a precursor to a handful of races to fill vacancies in Congress ahead of 2022 midterm elections. Democrats held a 219-211 majority in Congress going into Tuesday's vote in New Mexico's 1st Congressional District. The district encompasses Albuquerque, rural Torrance County and other outlying areas that include the Indigenous community of Sandia Pueblo.
Unofficial election results on Wednesday showed a victory margin of 24.5 percentage points for Stansbury -- far greater than Haaland's 16-point win in 2020. That even edged past Biden's 23-point win in New Mexico last year.
Stansbury highlighted a working-class, public school upbringing in Albuquerque -- her mother was a factory worker and crane operator -- and embraced top-line Democratic initiatives on pandemic relief, infrastructure spending and efforts to slow climate change.
FEC fines tabloid for 2016 Trump payouts
The publisher of the National Enquirer has been fined $187,500 by the Federal Election Commission for payments the tabloid made to hide a story about former President Donald Trump's ex-mistress.
The $150,000 payment was made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, to buy and then not publish her story, in a "catch and kill" process built to benefit the Trump campaign.
The fine against A360 Media was handed down on May 17, 2021, according to Common Cause, a public advocacy group that sought information on the penalties and which released information on it Tuesday, according to the New York Post. A360 Media is the successor company to American Media.
In the letter to the group, the FEC said the publisher "knowingly and willfully" violated campaign finance laws.
In similar allegations leading up to the election, Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen admitted to making payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to silence her.
Cohen spent a year in prison over the payments that he says he made at Trump's behest.
Trump has repeatedly denied he had an affair with Daniels or that he was involved.
Group charged in stimulus check thefts
MIAMI -- Federal authorities said a ring of Venezuelans living in South Florida and Mexico stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. government stimulus checks from people who were struggling financially during the the covid-19 pandemic.
Jesus Felipe Linares Andrade, 34, was charged with conspiring to steal government money and identity theft, the Miami Herald reported. Federal prosecutors said as many as four other "co-conspirators" originally from Venezuela may be added to an indictment. Linares is accused of meeting with FBI informants to pick up packages containing the checks, including one containing 416 checks worth about $249,000.
The indictment said Linares and the unnamed co-conspirators are accused of stealing the stimulus checks and cashing them by using "fraudulent" identification documents, the Herald reported.
Linares, who has pleaded innocent, is being held without bail. Defense attorney David Scott Markus declined comment on Tuesday.