Chinese drug distributors face charges
Compiled from news services
WASHINGTON— U.S. prosecutors charged two Chinese nationals who sold fentanyl to American customers over the Internet in a massive international conspiracy case, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
The case is unique, the Justice Department said, because the men are the first Chinese-based fentanyl manufacturers and distributors to be slapped with a label reserved for those who have control of the most prolific international drug trafficking and money laundering organizations.
Prosecutors identified the Chinese men charged in the case as 40-year-old Xiaobing Yan and 38-year-old Jian Zhang. It is unclear whether the men could be brought to the U.S. to face charges.
Md. hate-crime charge
A white University of Maryland student accused of fatally stabbing a black student who was visiting the campus has been charged with a hate crime after authorities reviewed his phone and social media activity, prosecutors said.
A Prince George’s County, Maryland, grand jury on Tuesday handed up the hate-crime charge against Sean Urbanski, who already faced a murder count in the May slaying of Richard Collins III.
Mr. Urbanski stabbed Mr. Collins in May while he was visiting friends at U-Md. in a “totally unprovoked” attack, police said. Mr. Collins, 23, had been attending Bowie State University and was set to graduate days before he was killed.
Impaired balloon pilot
AUSTIN, Texas — The pilot in the deadliest hot air balloon crash in U.S. history was likely impaired by opioids and sedatives when he ignored weather warnings and flew the ride into a power line and killed 16, investigators said Tuesday.
Besides Valium and oxycodone, there was enough over-the-counter antihistamine Benadryl in Alfred “Skip” Nichols’ system to mimic “the impairing effect of a blood-alcohol level” of a drunken driver, said Dr. Nicholas Webster, a National Transportation Safety Board medical officer.
Worst oil spill since 2010?
An oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last week may be the largest in the U.S. since the 2010 blowout at BP’s Macondo well that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig and killed 11 people.
The Delta House floating production facility about 40 miles southeast of Venice, La., released 7,950 to 9,350 barrels of oil from early Wednesday to Thursday morning, according to closely held operator LLOG Exploration Co.