Nation Glance
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles police launched an internal investigation Friday after an attorney released body camera video that he says shows an officer planting cocaine in his client’s wallet during an arrest.
The video was taken during an arrest in April when officers stopped Ronald Shields, 52, who they suspected had been involved in a hit-and-run crash.
It appears to show an officer standing beside Shields, who is in handcuffs, as another officer leans down and picks up a small baggie filled with white powder — which later tested positive for cocaine — that is on the ground. The officer who picked up the baggie then motions to the second officer, points to Shield’s wallet in his hand and appears to place the baggie in the wallet. The officer then turns on his body camera, but the cameras automatically save the previous 30 seconds when they are switched on.
Moore defiant as GOP sees Alabama Senate seat at risk
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — His party suddenly and bitingly divided, Alabama Republican Roy Moore ignored increasing pressure to abandon his Senate bid on Friday as fears grew among GOP leaders that a once-safe Senate seat was in jeopardy just a month before a special election.
Moore, an outspoken Christian conservative and former state Supreme Court judge, has denied a Washington Post report that he had sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl and pursued three other teenagers decades earlier as an assistant district attorney in his 30s.
The revelations have produced a wave of concern among anxious Republican officials in Washington but little more than a collective shrug from many Republicans in Alabama, which holds a special election on Dec. 12 to fill the seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Marine drill instructor gets 10 years for abusing recruits
RALEIGH, N.C. — A Marine Corps drill instructor was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for choking, punching or otherwise tormenting recruits, especially three Muslims — one of whom ultimately killed himself.
A military jury handed out the punishment to Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix a day after convicting him of abusing more than a dozen trainees at the Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina.
Among other things, he taunted the Muslims as “terrorists” or “ISIS” and ordered two of them to climb into a clothes dryer, the jury decided.