DAD ARRESTED IN KILLINGS OF 5 OF HIS CHILDREN
CALIF.» A California WOODLAND, father has been arrested in the decades-old killings of five of his infant children — one found wrapped in a Winnie the Pooh blanket — in a case the sheriff said Monday has haunted his agency for years.
Paul Perez, 57, a convicted sex offender with a 20-year criminal history, was arrested at a state prison in Delano, days before he was expected to be released on unrelated charges. He is suspected in the deaths of the children born between 1992 and 2001.
Perez was charged with five counts of premeditated murder with special circumstances of lying in wait, torture and multiple victims. He also faces charges of assault on a child under 8 and criminal enhancements for his prior convictions.
Mortar attack on U.S. Embassy injured 1. BAGHDAD» A top U.S. commander said Monday that mortars were used in an attack on the American embassy in Baghdad that injured one person and caused some material damage the previous night, not katyusha rockets as was initially reported by staffers and a statement from the military.
Gen. Frank McKenzie, a top U.S. commander for the Middle East, told reporters traveling with him that the mortar attack started a fire that was put out. He said no U.S. military personnel were injured, but one U.S. national had a minor injury but returned to work.
In a phone call with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel AbdulMahdi, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed “outrage” and blamed the attack on “Iran’s armed groups,” according to a statement from State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagusand.
Fighting sharply rises in Yemen. SANAA» A drastic escalation in fighting between the Saudi-led military coalition and Houthi rebels in Yemen has killed and wounded hundreds of people over the past week, officials and tribal leaders said.
The U.S.-backed Arab coalition battling to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized government stepped up airstrikes on rebel targets northeast of the capital, Sanaa, following a months-long lull, while Houthis shelled government-held areas.
ERA fight advances with Virginia’s final ratification.
RICHMOND» Virginia officially became the critical 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment on Monday, clearing the way for likely court fights over whether the measure can be added to the U.S. Constitution.
State lawmakers made history earlier this month when each chamber of the General Assembly separately approved ratification resolutions. On Monday, the House and Senate took the final procedural step of signing off on each other’s measures.
Constitutional amendments must be ratified by three-quarters of the states, or 38. But the ERA’s future is uncertain, in part because of a 1982 deadline for ratification that Congress enacted decades ago.
U.S. attorney announces $145M settlement in opioid case. VT.» A San
BURLINGTON, Francisco-based health information technology company will pay $145 million to resolve criminal and civil charges that it helped set up an electronic health records system that encouraged physicians to prescribe opioids to patients who might not need them, federal prosecutors in Vermont said Monday.
Vermont U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan said Practice Fusion Inc. took kickbacks from a major opioid company in exchange for using its software to influence physicians to prescribe opioid pain medication.
Court documents said that Practice Fusion solicited a nearly $1 million payment from a company identified only as “Pharma Co. X” in exchange for creating an alert in Practice Fusion’s electronic health record system. The alert would cause doctors to write more prescriptions for extended release opioids than were medically necessary.