R. Kelly Found Guilty of All Charges in New York Racketeering and Sex-Trafficking Case

Singer R. Kelly was found guilty of leading a decades-long scheme to recruit women and underage girls for sex in New York on Monday, with the jury declaring him guilty of all nine counts of the racketeering and sex-trafficking charges against him, according to the New York Times.

The jury, consisting of seven men and five women, convicted Kelly of racketeering and eight violations of an anti-sex trafficking law after nine hours of deliberations in federal court in Brooklyn, after beginning its deliberations Friday afternoon. Kelly faces the possibility of decades in prison; an attorney for Kelly told CNN they are considering filing an appeal and are disappointed in the verdict.

Kelly’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 4, 2022.

The singer sat motionless in the courtroom as the verdict was read, according to the paper. His facial expression was obscured by a mask. The verdict comes 13 years after Kelly was acquitted of child pornography charges in Illinois. He faces further charges in Illinois.

Judge Orders 'Unconditional Release' for Reagan Shooter Hinckley

John Hinckley Jr. — the man who shot President Ronald Reagan four decades ago but was found not guilty by reason of insanity — is set to be unconditionally released from court supervision next year under an agreement disclosed at a court hearing Monday.

"If he hadn’t tried to kill a president, he would have been in unconditional release long, long ago," U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman said of Hinckley. "I'm going to, after all of these years, grant unconditional release to Mr. Hinckley. ... I think it's probably overdue given the record in this case."

A Surveillance Nightmare As Federal Prisons' Switch To Scanning Mail

The Bureau of Prisons has piloted a program that can give authorities “huge secret intelligence into the public sender of postal mail.”

IN A PENNSYLVANIA federal prison, Joe used to trace his girlfriend’s handwriting with his finger as the faint smell of her perfume wafted into his cell. Her letters elicited rare feelings of intimacy in an otherwise cold environment. But after his facility, United States Penitentiary Canaan replaced physical mail with photocopies in 2019, those feelings have disappeared.

“It’s just like receiving a fake dollar bill,” Joe told 'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' in an email through a prison communications system. 'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' is using a pseudonym because Joe fears retaliation from prison staff.

$3.5 Trillion for the Build Back Better Agenda Is Much, Much Less Money Than You Think

This big, scary-sounding number represents just 1.2 percent of U.S. GDP over the next 10 years.

If there’s one thing the corporate media has told us about the Democratic Party’s proposed Build Back Better agenda — the major initiative of the Biden administration, featuring significant investments in education, welfare, and more — it’s that it involves $3.5 trillion.

Left out of the coverage, though, is one key issue: How much money is that, really?

$3.5 trillion certainly sounds like a lot. Human brains aren’t equipped to understand numbers of this magnitude; in our regular lives, we never encounter 3.5 trillion of anything, let alone actual dollars.

But the reality is surprisingly modest: $3.5 trillion is just 1.2 percent of the U.S. economy over the relevant time frame.

The fact that the media has resolutely failed to provide this context is an act of true malfeasance. It contributes to public ignorance in general and supports the right’s favorite narrative of wild liberal profligacy. If the Build Back Better plan fails or is significantly reduced in scope, the media’s behavior will be a big reason why.

Multi-Count Indictment and Arrest of Former Tuscaloosa County License Commissioner

(MONTGOMERY) | Attorney General Steve Marshall announced the arrest of Lynne C. Robbins, the former Tuscaloosa County License Commissioner, for the use of her public office for personal gain, theft of property in the first degree, and seven counts of computer tampering. Robbins surrendered to the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office today and was released on a $10,000 bond.

Robbins, 56, of Tuscaloosa, served as Tuscaloosa County’s license commissioner until her resignation in February 2020.

Attorney General Marshall’s Special Prosecutions Division presented evidence to a Tuscaloosa County grand jury resulting in an indictment against Robbins.

The use of public office for personal gain charges relates to a series of checks Robbins wrote to the Tuscaloosa County License Commissioner’s office that was returned unpaid for non-sufficient funds. Robbins used her position as license commissioner to avoid paying the returned-check fee assessed in bad-check cases and to avoid repaying the face amounts of the unpaid checks. The first-degree theft charge relates to a scheme of conduct employed by Robbins between January 2016 and December 3, 2019, to take cash belonging to the Tuscaloosa County License Commissioner’s Office. The seven computer tampering charges relate to specific instances where Robbins altered data in the Tuscaloosa License Commissioner’s Office’s computer network to facilitate her embezzlement scheme and to conceal the scheme from discovery by county or state officials.

Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters Authorized for more Eligible Persons

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Friday that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine booster dose is now authorized for many people who previously received the two-dose Pfizer vaccine and are at least six months past completion of the primary series. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices did not review data on the mixing and matching of COVID-19 vaccine products or on Moderna or Johnson & Johnson boosters, thus the interim guidance from the CDC only applies to individuals who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine as their primary series.