Kansas
Police dog’s death leads to legislation to toughen penalties
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is poised to increase penalties for killing police dogs and horses after legislators gave their final approval Tuesday to a measure inspired by a suspect’s strangling of a dog last year in the state’s largest city.
The Republican-controlled state House approved a bill with a 115-6 vote that would allow a first-time offender to be sentenced to more than three years in prison for killing a police animal, an arson dog, a game warden’s dog or a search-and-rescue dog and up to five years if the killing occurs when a suspect is trying to elude law enforcement. An offender also could be fined up to $10,000.
The current penalty for killing a police dog is up to a year behind bars and a fine of between $500 and $5,000, and the law doesn’t specifically cover horses.
“There is a lot of time and money put into those animals,” said House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican who was the bill’s leading advocate. “They have to continually train all the time and so to have one killed, there’s got to be a pretty harsh penalty.”
The GOP-controlled Senate approved the measure by a narrower 25-15 margin last week, and the bill goes next to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who has not said publicly whether she will sign it. Kelly typically signs measures with bipartisan support, but most of the 11 Democrats in the Senate opposed the bill.
Increased penalties have had bipartisan support across the U.S. In Colorado, the Democratically led General Assembly approved a measure last month. Proposals have advanced in GOP-controlled Legislatures in Missouri and West Virginia and introduced in at least four other states.
The Kansas measure was inspired by the November death of Bane, an 8-year-old Wichita police dog. Authorities say a suspect in a domestic violence case took refuge in a storm drain and strangled Bane when a deputy sent the dog in to flush out the suspect.
But critics of such measures have questions about how dogs are used in policing, particularly when suspects of color are involved. Their use also has a fraught history, such as their use during by Southern authorities during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Mississippi
Catfish farms settle suit alleging immigrants were paid more than Black workers
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Two Mississippi catfish farms have settled a lawsuit alleging that they brought workers from Mexico to the U.S. and paid them significantly more than they previously paid local Black farmworkers for the same type of labor, plaintiffs’ attorneys said Tuesday.
Southern Migrant Legal Services and Mississippi Center for Justice sued Jerry Nobile, his son Will Nobile and their farms in August on behalf of 14 Black farmworkers. The federal lawsuit said the Black workers were “systematically underpaid and denied job opportunities for years in favor of non-Black foreign workers” at Nobile Fish Farms, which also raise corn and soybeans.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys said the lawsuit concluded on “mutually agreeable terms” under a confidential settlement.
Court records show the lawsuit against Nobile Fish Farms was settled in February. Mississippi Center for Justice attorney Rob McDuff told The Associated Press that the deal was announced Tuesday because “all the terms of the settlement have been fulfilled.”
“We hope our legal efforts will make clear to farmers in the Delta, and across the U.S., that they need to pay fair wages to local workers,” McDuff said in a statement Tuesday.
An attorney for Nobile Fish Farms was out of town Tuesday and did not immediately respond to a phone message from the AP.
It was the eighth settlement on behalf of Black farmworkers who said they were pushed aside after higher-paid immigrants were hired at farms in the Mississippi Delta, one of the poorest parts of the United States. Five of the settlements were reached without lawsuits being filed, according to Southern Migrant Legal Services and Mississippi Center for Justice.
In December 2022, two farms settled lawsuits over claims that they hired white laborers from South Africa and paid them more than the local Black employees for the same type of work.
All three of the lawsuits were against farms in Sunflower County, which is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Jackson. The county’s population is just under 24,500, and about 74% of residents are Black, according to the Census Bureau.
Hannah Wolf, a Southern Migrant Legal Services attorney in the case against Nobile Fish Farms, said the H-2A guest worker program requires employers to try hire local workers before bringing immigrant workers, “but we continue to hear from U.S. workers who report being pushed out of their jobs and replaced with guest workers.”
“We will continue to investigate those claims and bring legal action when warranted,” Wolf said.
California
Trump sues two Trump Media co-founders, seeking to void stock in company
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Donald Trump is suing two co-founders of Trump Media & Technology Group, the newly public parent company of his Truth Social platform, arguing that they should forfeit their stock in the company because they set it up improperly.
The former U.S. president’s lawsuit, which was filed on March 24 in Florida state court, follows a complaint filed in February by those co-founders, Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss. Their lawsuit sought to prevent Trump from taking steps the two said would sharply reduce their combined 8.6% stake in Trump Media. The pair filed their lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Trump’s lawsuit claims that Litinsky and Moss, who were both contestants on Trump’s reality-TV show “The Apprentice,” mishandled an attempt to take Trump Media public several years ago, allegedly putting the whole project “on ice” for more than a year and a half.
But it also targets the pair over their Delaware suit against Trump, saying that it was one of several attempts they made to block Trump Media’s ultimately successful plan to go public. Trump Media accomplished that goal by merging with a publicly traded shell company called Digital World Acquisition in March.
Trump Media shares have fluctuated wildly since its stock market debut. On Tuesday, the stock closed at $51.60, up 6%, valuing the entire company at $5.9 billion.
Police dog’s death leads to legislation to toughen penalties
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is poised to increase penalties for killing police dogs and horses after legislators gave their final approval Tuesday to a measure inspired by a suspect’s strangling of a dog last year in the state’s largest city.
The Republican-controlled state House approved a bill with a 115-6 vote that would allow a first-time offender to be sentenced to more than three years in prison for killing a police animal, an arson dog, a game warden’s dog or a search-and-rescue dog and up to five years if the killing occurs when a suspect is trying to elude law enforcement. An offender also could be fined up to $10,000.
The current penalty for killing a police dog is up to a year behind bars and a fine of between $500 and $5,000, and the law doesn’t specifically cover horses.
“There is a lot of time and money put into those animals,” said House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican who was the bill’s leading advocate. “They have to continually train all the time and so to have one killed, there’s got to be a pretty harsh penalty.”
The GOP-controlled Senate approved the measure by a narrower 25-15 margin last week, and the bill goes next to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who has not said publicly whether she will sign it. Kelly typically signs measures with bipartisan support, but most of the 11 Democrats in the Senate opposed the bill.
Increased penalties have had bipartisan support across the U.S. In Colorado, the Democratically led General Assembly approved a measure last month. Proposals have advanced in GOP-controlled Legislatures in Missouri and West Virginia and introduced in at least four other states.
The Kansas measure was inspired by the November death of Bane, an 8-year-old Wichita police dog. Authorities say a suspect in a domestic violence case took refuge in a storm drain and strangled Bane when a deputy sent the dog in to flush out the suspect.
But critics of such measures have questions about how dogs are used in policing, particularly when suspects of color are involved. Their use also has a fraught history, such as their use during by Southern authorities during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Mississippi
Catfish farms settle suit alleging immigrants were paid more than Black workers
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Two Mississippi catfish farms have settled a lawsuit alleging that they brought workers from Mexico to the U.S. and paid them significantly more than they previously paid local Black farmworkers for the same type of labor, plaintiffs’ attorneys said Tuesday.
Southern Migrant Legal Services and Mississippi Center for Justice sued Jerry Nobile, his son Will Nobile and their farms in August on behalf of 14 Black farmworkers. The federal lawsuit said the Black workers were “systematically underpaid and denied job opportunities for years in favor of non-Black foreign workers” at Nobile Fish Farms, which also raise corn and soybeans.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys said the lawsuit concluded on “mutually agreeable terms” under a confidential settlement.
Court records show the lawsuit against Nobile Fish Farms was settled in February. Mississippi Center for Justice attorney Rob McDuff told The Associated Press that the deal was announced Tuesday because “all the terms of the settlement have been fulfilled.”
“We hope our legal efforts will make clear to farmers in the Delta, and across the U.S., that they need to pay fair wages to local workers,” McDuff said in a statement Tuesday.
An attorney for Nobile Fish Farms was out of town Tuesday and did not immediately respond to a phone message from the AP.
It was the eighth settlement on behalf of Black farmworkers who said they were pushed aside after higher-paid immigrants were hired at farms in the Mississippi Delta, one of the poorest parts of the United States. Five of the settlements were reached without lawsuits being filed, according to Southern Migrant Legal Services and Mississippi Center for Justice.
In December 2022, two farms settled lawsuits over claims that they hired white laborers from South Africa and paid them more than the local Black employees for the same type of work.
All three of the lawsuits were against farms in Sunflower County, which is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Jackson. The county’s population is just under 24,500, and about 74% of residents are Black, according to the Census Bureau.
Hannah Wolf, a Southern Migrant Legal Services attorney in the case against Nobile Fish Farms, said the H-2A guest worker program requires employers to try hire local workers before bringing immigrant workers, “but we continue to hear from U.S. workers who report being pushed out of their jobs and replaced with guest workers.”
“We will continue to investigate those claims and bring legal action when warranted,” Wolf said.
California
Trump sues two Trump Media co-founders, seeking to void stock in company
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Donald Trump is suing two co-founders of Trump Media & Technology Group, the newly public parent company of his Truth Social platform, arguing that they should forfeit their stock in the company because they set it up improperly.
The former U.S. president’s lawsuit, which was filed on March 24 in Florida state court, follows a complaint filed in February by those co-founders, Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss. Their lawsuit sought to prevent Trump from taking steps the two said would sharply reduce their combined 8.6% stake in Trump Media. The pair filed their lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Trump’s lawsuit claims that Litinsky and Moss, who were both contestants on Trump’s reality-TV show “The Apprentice,” mishandled an attempt to take Trump Media public several years ago, allegedly putting the whole project “on ice” for more than a year and a half.
But it also targets the pair over their Delaware suit against Trump, saying that it was one of several attempts they made to block Trump Media’s ultimately successful plan to go public. Trump Media accomplished that goal by merging with a publicly traded shell company called Digital World Acquisition in March.
Trump Media shares have fluctuated wildly since its stock market debut. On Tuesday, the stock closed at $51.60, up 6%, valuing the entire company at $5.9 billion.
