In the news
■ Kadir Demirtas, Istanbul Airport’s customer experience manager, said staffers ensure that five newly deployed therapy dogs at the Turkish transportation hub “are safe and they are 100% adapted to all environments.”
■ Matthew Rodriguez, a former Warren, Mich., police officer who was fired for assaulting a 19-year-old detainee during jail processing, faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal civil-rights violation.
■ James Pfeiffer, the top prosecutor in Warren County, N.J., resigned “effective immediately,” amid a state probe into claims that his office lied about caseloads to pad its budget with state money meant for fraud investigations, state Attorney General Matthew Platkin said.
■ Jim Beard, 60, the former chief financial officer for Atlanta, pleaded guilty in an agreement with federal prosecutors to one count of federal program theft and one count of tax obstruction and agreed to pay back various entities including the city of Atlanta.
■ Javier Loya, a Houston oil broker accused of rape and sexual assault in Louisville, Ky., was ordered to pay a $100 fine as part of a plea agreement on a misdemeanor charge of physical harassment and barred from contacting the victims for two years, at which point the offense will be removed from his criminal record.
■ Tareck El Aissami, Venezuela’s former oil minister, was arrested on suspicion of treason, money laundering and criminal association in connection with a scheme authorities say siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars from state coffers.
■ Xaviar Bubudar, a 29-year-old Kansas City Chiefs superfan who admitted to robbing several banks and credit unions, was ordered to pay $10.8 million to a Bixby, Okla., bank teller he threatened and assaulted with a gun in December 2022.
■ Natalia Pinchuk, wife of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and imprisoned Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, said she has “learned from people who left the prison that Ales’ condition is continuing to worsen and he’s not receiving certain medicines that he needs.”
■ Tori Fugate, of the KC Pet Project, said an escaped mountain goat that got stuck under a Kansas City bridge was rescued by firefighters and “miraculously has no broken bones,” despite falling 15 feet to the ground.