Ex-governor snyder charged in water crisis
L ANS I N G ,M I CH . » Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder was charged Wednesday with willful neglect of duty after an investigation of ruinous decisions that left Flint with lead-contaminated water and a regional outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease.
The charges, revealed in an online court record, are misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
The charges are groundbreaking: No governor or former governor in Michigan’s 184-year history had been charged with crimes related to their time in that office, according to the state archivist.
“We believe there is no evidence to support any criminal charges against Gov. Snyder,” defense attorney Brian Lennon said Wednesday night.
Lennon said a criminal case would be outrageous. Snyder and others were scheduled to appear in court Thursday, followed by a news conference by Attorney General Dana Nessel and prosecutors.
Besides Snyder, a Republican governor from 2011 through 2018, charges are expected against other people, including former officials.
Italy puts over 320 on trial for ‘ndrangheta mob ties.
L AM E Z IA T E RM E , I TA LY » A trial with more than 320 defendants began Wednesday in southern Italy against the ‘ndrangheta crime syndicate, arguably the world’s richest criminal organization that quietly amassed power as the Sicilian Mafia lost influence.
Expected to take at least a year, the trial is taking place in a specially constructed high-security bunker on the sprawling grounds of an industrial park in Calabria, the “toe” of the Italian peninsula.
Prosecutors hope the trial will deliver a harsh blow to the ‘ndrangheta, the Calabria-based mob organization that has exploited tens of billions of dollars in cocaine revenues over decades to extend its criminal reach.
Estonia’s prime minister steps down under a cloud.
MOS COW» The prime minister of Estonia resigned Wednesday, his coalition government of centrists and far-right nationalists engulfed by a corruption scandal over misuse of state loans intended for coronavirus pandemic relief.
The departure of the prime minister, Juri Ratas, signaled an unusual bout of political turbulence in a country that joined the European Union and also NATO in 2004, establishing itself as a bastion of pro-Western stability on Russia’s western border.
This orientation is highly unlikely to change because Ratas’ most likely successor, the leader of the opposition center-right Reform Party, Kaja Kallas, is a firm supporter of the U.S.-led military alliance. Estonia’s president asked Kallas on Wednesday to form a new government, but it was unclear whether she could muster the necessary votes in Parliament.
U.S. carries out its first execution of a woman since 1953.
T E RR EH AUT E , I N D. » A Kansas woman was executed Wednesday for strangling an expectant mother in Missouri and cutting the baby from her womb, the first time in nearly seven decades that the U.S. government has put to death a female inmate.
Lisa Montgomery, 52, was pronounced dead at 1:31 a.m. after receiving a lethal injection at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Ind.
She was the 11th prisoner executed at the facility since July when President Donald Trump, an ardent supporter of capital punishment, resumed federal executions after 17 years without one.
As a curtain was raised in the execution chamber, Montgomery looked momentarily bewildered as she glanced at journalists peering at her from behind thick glass.
A woman standing over her shoulder leaned over, gently removed Montgomery’s face mask and asked if she had any last words.
“No,” Montgomery responded in a quiet, muffled voice. She said nothing else.