Ex-coal baron sues media for defamation
Former coal baron Don Blankenship is suing several news outlets and media personalities, claiming he was defamed during his failed bid for a U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia.
Mr. Blankenship’s suit was filed in Mingo County, W.Va. It names The Associated Press among other large media companies. He is seeking $12 billion in damages.
Mr. Blankenship says news organizations waged a concerted plot to destroy him by erroneously labeling him as a convicted felon or saying he was imprisoned for manslaughter.
Mr. Blankenship is the former CEO of Massey Energy, which owned a mine where a 2010 explosion killed 29 workers. He spent a year in federal prison after being convicted of conspiring to break mine safety laws, a misdemeanor.
Cruz fined $35,000
Federal elections officials fined Ted Cruz’s Senate campaign $35,000 for failing to report more than $1 million in bank loans he used to finance his successful longshot race in Texas in 2012.
The penalty was part of a settlement reached by the Federal Election Commission and Mr. Cruz’s Senate campaign in February and disclosed in a letter this week from the commission to the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group that had filed a complaint over the unreported loans.
The fine comes more than three years after the loans were revealed by The New York Times in January 2016 and became a political issue for Mr. Cruz during the Republican presidential primary.
Plea in pipe bomb case
A Florida man charged with sending pipe bombs to prominent critics of President Donald Trump is expected to plead guilty next week.
A notice entered in the case file of Cesar Sayoc in Manhattan federal court shows a plea hearing has been scheduled for Thursday.
Without a plea deal, Mr. Sayoc, 56, faced charges carrying a potential penalty of mandatory life in prison. It was not known which charge or charges the plea would involve.
Former officer charged
A former suburban-Atlanta police officer who was fired last year after an internal investigation found he used unnecessary force during the arrest of a former college football player has been charged with simple battery.
The Henry County district attorney’s office said in an email that former county police officer David Rose was charged this week. The court document charging Mr. Rose says he “did intentionally make physical contact of an insulting and provoking nature to Desmond Marrow by grabbing him by the neck and choking him.”
Mr. Rose arrested Mr. Marrow on Dec. 2, 2017, while responding to calls of a road-rage situation.
Limits on paint stripper
The Environmental Protection Agency banned consumer use of a popular but deadly paint stripper but stopped short of also banning commercial use of the product by tradespeople.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed the rule, which will bar manufacture and import of the stripper methylene chloride for consumer use, in a private meeting with relatives of a man who died while using the paint stripper.
The EPA cited “the acute fatalities that have resulted from exposure to the chemical” and an “unreasonable” risk to consumers. Retail stores have until later this year to remove the product from sale.