NEBRASKA CONGRESSMAN FOUND GUILTY
LOS ANGELES » U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska was convicted on charges that he lied to federal authorities about an illegal $30,000 contribution to his campaign from a foreign billionaire at a 2016 Los Angeles fundraiser.
A federal jury in L.A. deliberated about two hours Thursday before finding the nine-term Republican guilty of concealing information and two counts of making false statements to authorities. Fortenberry was charged after denying to the FBI that he was aware he had received illicit funds from Gilbert Chagoury, a Nigerian billionaire of Lebanese descent.
Fortenberry showed no emotion as the verdict was read, but his youngest daughter began sobbing uncontrollably in the front of the gallery as her mother tried to console her. After the jury left the courtroom, Fortenberry walked over to his wife and the two of his five daughters who were present and clasped them in a hug. Fortenberry said he would appeal immediately.
In first full year of pandemic, biggest cities lost residents. Tens of thousands of residents vacated some of the nation’s biggest, most densely populated and costly metropolitan areas in favor of Sun Belt destinations during the first full year of the pandemic, from mid-2020 to mid-2021, according to new data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The pandemic intensified population trends of migration to the South and West, as well as a slowdown in growth in the biggest cities in the U.S.
The exodus from the biggest U.S. metropolitan areas was led by New York, which lost almost 328,000 residents. It was driven by people leaving for elsewhere, even though the metro area gained new residents from abroad and births outpaced deaths.
Four die after falling from balcony in Swiss resort town.
Four people, apparently members of the same family, died after falling from the balcony of their seventhfloor apartment in Montreux, Switzerland, on Thursday, police said. A fifth person, a teenage boy who also fell from the balcony, was hospitalized in serious condition.
The five people have not been identified officially, but police said they were believed to be members of a French family: a 40-year-old man, his 41-year-old wife, her twin sister and the couple’s 8-year-old daughter, along with the sole survivor, the couple’s 15-year-old son.
Alexandre Bisenz, a spokesman for the Vaud canton police, said it was likely that the people had jumped from the balcony. Police are trying to determine the exact circumstances and causes of the incident, and said they had ruled out the presence of other people in the apartment at the time.
Arizona Legislature approves 15-week abortion ban.
PHOENIX » The Legislature on Thursday joined the growing list of Republican-led states to pass aggressive antiabortion legislation as the conservative U.S. Supreme Court is considering ratcheting back abortion rights that have been in place for nearly 50 years.
The House voted on party lines to outlaw abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, mirroring a Mississippi law now being considered by the nation’s high court.
The bill explicitly says it does not overrule a state law in place for more than 100 years that would ban abortion outright if the Supreme Court overrules Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 case that enshrined the right to abortion in law.