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TexasTowelie's JournalClinton pharmacist will head to prison in compound pharmacy scheme
Former pharmacist Silas Richmond II, 33, of Clinton, one of 12 people charged in a multistate, $400 million compound pharmacy scheme, was sentenced Tuesday at William M. Colmer Federal Courthouse in Hattiesburg to 16 months in prison and three years of post-release supervision.
U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett did not fine Richmond, but said he must pay restitution of $354,957.43 and interest would be waived.
Richmond pleaded guilty July 18 to conspiracy to commit health care fraud of more than $545,000.
He is listed as a 2010 graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy.
Read more: https://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/story/news/crime/2018/11/27/clinton-pharmacist-sentenced-mississippi-compound-pharmacy-scheme/2096200002/
Two more real-estate investors admit cheating at South Mississippi foreclosure auctions
GULFPORT - Two more real estate investors have admitted conspiring to rig bids at foreclosure auctions, bringing to nine the total who say they cheated at the public auctions held at South Mississippi courthouses.
J. Gregg Goodhart Jr., 50, of Biloxi and Christopher Vaughan, 53, of Ocean Springs each face up to 10 years in prison after entering guilty pleas Tuesday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr., who is handling all the cases.
The investors met in secret before public auctions, agreed who would bid on properties and paid off those who sat out the bidding.
Vaughan admitted to attorneys with the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division that, from June 2011 until February 2017, he spent $408,890 on auction properties and payoffs.
Read more: https://www.sunherald.com/news/local/crime/article222300810.html
Mississippi Rhodes Scholar Jaz Brisack shares passion for labor organizing in the South
Oxford • As an introduction to the conditions of the workers of the world, 16-year-old Jaz Brisack washed dishes at Panera Bread. At the national restaurant chain owned by a multi-billion dollar holding company, Brisack’s co-workers worried about scheduling shifts through family emergencies and living without health insurance. There the teenager realized first-hand how workers are powerless to bargain for better wages and benefits on their own.
Five years later, Brisack is a senior at Ole Miss and the university’s 27th Rhodes Scholar. She plans on taking advantage of the prestigious academic opportunity to study Political Theory in preparation for a career organizing workers and rebuilding the power of labor unions in the South.
“I want to bring what I learn back to be a labor organizer in Mississippi,” Brisack said. “I want to dive deeply into capitalism and what comes next. I want to study what conclusions people before came to and how that transfers back to the present.”
Last week, Brisack was one of 32 students from across the United States to be selected for the scholarship, which provides full financial support for a degree at the University of Oxford in England. Brisack has chosen to pursue a two-year Master of Philosophy program with a focus on political theory.
Read more: http://www.djournal.com/news/mississippi-rhodes-scholar-jaz-brisack-shares-passion-for-labor-organizing/article_905a7ff2-4b11-5522-8d82-54e808ffeaaf.html
Confederate flag on civil rights hero's grave gets widow's pardon
The 93-year-old widow of a slain civil rights activist in Mississippi said Wednesday that she forgives the person who draped a Confederate battle flag over her husband's gravesite.
Ellie Dahmer said her family was told the black woman who left the flag Tuesday did it as a protest to teach a grandchild about the state's history, and the bad things the flag represents.
"We were told that she was telling her grandson about that flag — about how much hate was in that Confederate flag," Dahmer told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
Vernon Dahmer is buried in south Mississippi's Jones County. He was killed in January 1966 when the Ku Klux Klan firebombed his family's home in nearby Forrest County because he helped other black people register to vote.
Read more: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2018/11/28/rebel-flag-draped-civil-rights-heros-grave-gets-widows-pardon/2143081002/
Cryptocurrency scheme promising 'guaranteed, no-risk returns' targeted by Texas regulators
The Texas State Securities Board issued an emergency order this week warning Texans about a cryptocurrency scheme that promises “guaranteed, no-risk returns” of between 10 and 20 percent a month.
Mark Steven Royer of Del Mar, Calif., has been soliciting investments from Texans and others for a cryptocurrency trading and mining program known as My Crypto Mine without disclosing key information about the risks involved, the agency said in an order issued Wednesday.
The agency said the marketing of the scheme on Facebook and the company's website contains statements that are misleading and likely to deceive the public, threatening immediate and irreparable harm to investors.
Royer denied the allegations in a Thursday interview with The Dallas Morning News and said he plans to "vigorously defend against these claims."
Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/business/business/2018/11/29/cryptocurrency-scheme-promising-guaranteed-no-risk-returns-targeted-texas-regulators
Sanders Institute kicks off gathering of progressive leaders
Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vt. weaved through dozens of renowned politicos and progressives, greeting the Thursday evening’s guests with avidity, presiding over a convention the likes of which Burlington has never seen.
For three days, left-leaning leaders from around the nation have come to the Queen City for “The Gathering” at the behest of the Sanders Institute, a progressive think tank founded by the senator’s wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders.
Waiting for speakers, including Sanders, to take the stage at the ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, guests milled about in the packed room chatting and sipping glasses of wine, as high profile attendees — Princeton Professor Cornel West, actor and progressive activist Danny Glover, and the Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Carmen Yulín Cruz — trickled into the room.
Organizers said the event will help unify the progressive movement and give participants an opportunity to strategize how to move priorities forward.
Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2018/11/30/sanders-institute-kicks-off-gathering-progressive-leaders/
Female Guard members claim barrage of harassment
In the summer of 2013, members of the Vermont Air National Guard attended a week-long camp at the Combat Readiness Training Center in Alpena, Michigan, a few miles from Lake Huron.
Air Guard Command Chief Brian Marchessault saw the deployment as a way to boost morale and strengthen the skills of enlisted members. The camp included airsoft gun battles, firefighting drills and pep talks from military leaders, who credit the Guard for prepping “today’s airmen to be tomorrow’s leaders.”
After a long day of drills in the stifling summer heat, some Air Guard members shifted into partying mode at the River Club, an on-base bar decorated with squadron patches, autographs and a massive moose head.
Beer at the River Club was cheap — for a few dollars Guard members could buy a 36-ounce stein. According to four Guard members who attended the camp, leadership had to impose nightly patrols to control problem behavior. Some of those put in charge of policing social events felt overwhelmed and unable to handle the chaos, according to a member who served in that role.
Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2018/11/29/flying-fraternity-female-guard-members-claim-barrage-harassment/
Texas appeals court rejects challenge to immigrant detention centers
A state appeals court on Wednesday tossed out a lawsuit challenging the state’s licensing of two family immigrant detention centers that hold women and children in South Texas.
The ruling by the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals reversed a 2016 trial court judgment that ordered the state to refrain from licensing such facilities.
Since then, both detention centers have been allowed to remain open, though neither is technically licensed by the state.
Grassroots Leadership, a nonprofit immigrant rights group, had challenged the emergency rule that allowed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to issue special licenses to the detention centers to keep them open, saying it allowed the centers to detain children for longer periods under lower standards of care.
Read more: https://www.statesman.com/news/20181128/texas-appeals-court-rejects-challenge-to-immigrant-detention-centers
The detention centers are located in Dilley and Karnes City.
Ukraine bars entry to Russian males, upping ante in conflict
Source: AP
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian officials on Friday upped the ante in the growing confrontation with Russia, announcing a travel ban for most Russian males and searching the home of an influential cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The long-simmering conflict bubbled over Sunday when Russian border guards rammed into and opened fired on three Ukrainian vessels near the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. The vessels were trying to pass through the Kerch Strait on their way to the Sea of Azov. The Russians then captured the ships and 24 crew members.
The Ukrainian parliament on Monday adopted the president's motion to impose martial law in the country for 30 days in the wake of the standoff.
There has been growing hostility between Ukraine and Russia since Moscow's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Russia has also supported separatists in Ukraine's east with clandestine dispatches of troops and weapons. Fighting there has killed at least 10,000 people since 2014 but eased somewhat after a 2015 truce.
Read more: https://www.meridianstar.com/cnhi_network/ukraine-bars-entry-to-russian-males-upping-ante-in-conflict/article_63a1b6a6-b897-5039-b4e7-5acddf86efa0.html
Advocates Say Increased Taxes on Cigarettes Will Save Lives and Money in Mississippi
A coalition of cigarette tax advocates is asking Mississippi legislators to Invest in a Healthier Future. MPB's Ashley Norwood reports.
Khalil Jackson is listing family members he's seen become chronically ill or pass away due to cigarette usage. The use of Tobacco products remain the nation's number one cause of preventable death, according to the American Cancer Society. A senior student at St. Andrews, he says he hopes the use of cigarettes in his family stops with him.
"Up to my great-great-grandfather, great grandfather, grandfather...Every single one of them has had a turn for the worse in terms of their health in one way or another," said Jackson.
Katherine Bryant is with the American Heart Association, one of the 30 plus organizations part of the "Invest in a Healthier Future" Coalition. Bryant says increasing tobacco taxes and investing in tobacco prevention will not only save lives but save the state money.
Read more: http://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/2018/11/29/advocates-say-increased-taxes-on-cigarettes-will-save-lives-and-money-in-mississippi/
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