Kentucky
Judge: Officials must decide on residency request
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) — A federal judge in Kentucky is compelling immigration officials to make a decision about an application for permanent residency brought by an Iranian immigrant who distributed leaflets for a violent organization in his home country 30 years ago.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Hood in Lexington ruled Thursday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its immigration arm “unreasonably delayed” an application brought by Mehrdad Hosseini for 12 years. Immigration officials now have two months to make a decision on his application.
Hosseini sued the federal government in an attempt to force a decision on his application, which would allow him to legally stay in the United States with his wife and children. Immigration officials granted Hosseini asylum on Feb. 5, 2000.
Arizona
Defendant accused in cellmate death
PHOENIX (AP) — A Phoenix man who told police he killed his 12-year-old half brother last month because he “just felt like killing” is now accused of fatally stabbing a cellmate, authorities said Thursday.
Andrew Ward, 27, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder in the Wednesday night killing of cellmate Douglas Walker, 33, in a Maricopa County jail in Phoenix, the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Walker was stabbed in the eyes with a golf pencil, the statement said. His throat was cut with a plastic playing card, he was beaten, and his head was smeared with peanut butter. Paramedics later discovered that his breathing passages were obstructed by a plastic bag and a peanut butter sandwich that was forced down Walker’s throat, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Officers discovered Walker’s injuries when they went to the locked cell after inmates said there was a fight, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Ward immediately admitted to detectives that he had choked and beaten Walker, the statement said.
Ward previously pleaded not guilty in the March 12 killing of his half brother, Austin Tapio. Ward was arrested after calling 911 from a convenience store near his family’s home. The boy had multiple stab wounds.
Police said when asked why he killed the boy, Ward said, “Honestly, I just felt like killing.”
Arizona
Woman killed in skydiving tragedy
ELOY, Ariz. (AP) — An attempt to set a world skydiving record by having more than 220 people free-fall from an airplane in formation turned tragic Thursday when one jumper died during the daring effort at the same Arizona location where two skydivers fell to their deaths last year trying to set a different record.
Police identified the victim as Diana Paris, 46, from Berlin, Germany. Her husband told authorities she had completed 1,500 jumps in her skydiving career.
Skydive Arizona blamed the accident on a malfunctioning parachute that was released too low to the ground to allow a reserve parachute to fully open. The skydiver was declared dead at the scene.
The accident occurred during an attempt to break a world formation record.
The group of 222 people from 28 countries was to free-fall from about 18,000 feet then come together in a formation like a snowflake and separate and link in another formation before pulling their parachutes.
The skydivers hurtle through the air at speeds of more than 100 mph, and they have about 70 seconds to complete the free-fall formations before they must deploy their parachutes.
The group did not set the record during the ill-fated jump or during several more after the death. They planned to continue Friday with 221 skydivers.
Pennsylvania
Argument over man sparks
rat retaliation
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia police are looking for several suspects in what appears to be a case of rat retaliation.
Investigators said an ongoing dispute over a man escalated late Wednesday, when a woman in her 20s, her mother and a pack of eight or nine other women went to the victim’s house with a baseball bat and a box containing an unknown number of white rats.
The group allegedly bashed in windows and the front door and then dumped the rodents into the home.
Police said one woman in the group also punched the 30-year-old victim and took her purse.
Authorities are trying to track down the suspects.
California
Three meningitis deaths reported
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three of eight people who contracted bacterial meningitis this year have died, and all three had sex with other men, Los Angeles County health officials said.
Thursday’s confirmation came a day after the Department of Public Health urged gay men who had HIV or multiple partners to be vaccinated against invasive meningococcal disease.
However, the department said the three men who died didn’t have any direct contact with each other. The disease still is considered rare and sporadic and the department is shying away from declaring any outbreak in the gay community, authorities said.
Four of the eight people who came down with the illness had sex with other men and three were HIV positive. The three who died in February and March were 27 or 28 years old and two were HIV positive, according to the department.
The agency was “insensitive” for failing to announce the deaths earlier, Michael Weinstein, executive director for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, told the Los Angeles Daily News.
About a third of the 32 bacterial meningitis cases reported in the county since October 2012 involved men who had sex with men, the Daily News reported.
New York
No tacos for you: Restaurant chain ‘bans’ Putin
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Hey Putin, don’t even think about ordering a Super Mighty in Buffalo.
Mighty Taco, a Buffalo-based chain of Mexican fast-foot restaurants, has banned Russian President Vladimir Putin from all of the company’s 23 locations in western New York.
The company known for its quirky ads announced on social media this week that effective immediately, Putin is banned from Mighty Taco for seizing Crimea from Ukraine. Might Taco’s posting says Putin may be ordering around Crimea, but he won’t be ordering a Super Mighty, one of the chain’s most popular menu items.
The posting, which features a red-tinted photo of a gesticulating Putin, says he’ll be “welcomed back” at Mighty Taco when he stops acting like a bully and “picking on people.”
