Florida
DOJ: Hotel discriminated against Arab American group after Hamas attack
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The owner of a hotel in Orlando, Florida’s tourist district has reached an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department after the agency sued alleging discrimination when the resort canceled a planned conference for an Arab American group in the weeks after the attack which triggered the war in Gaza.
The Justice Department’s complaint filed Thursday alleged that the owner of DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Orlando at SeaWorld had discriminated on the basis of national origin when it canceled hosting an annual summit held by the Arab America Foundation in November 2023, almost a month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
There had been no threats or specific risks to the hotel related to the summit or any other non-discriminatory reason to cancel the meeting for the Arab American cultural and educational group, the complaint said.
“Simply stated, amidst an ongoing war in the Middle East, the hotel did not want an Arab group — in this instance, the Foundation — to have its event at the DoubleTree,” the complaint said. “This was the first time in years that the DoubleTree had canceled an event against the wishes of the customer.”
The owner, AWH Orlando Property, denied the allegations and didn’t admit liability. Attorneys for the owner didn’t respond Friday to an email seeking comment.
Under the terms of the Justice Department agreement, the hotel must issue a statement within a month to the Arab America Foundation making it clear that it welcomes all guests regardless of race, color, religion or national origin. The hotel also must adopt a written anti-discrimination policy and reach out to at least five Arab or Arab American groups to let them know the hotel is open to all members of the public, according to the agreement.
The agreement, which was reached immediately after the Justice Department’s complaint was filed, must be approved by a federal judge.
The Arab America Foundation didn’t immediately respond Friday to an email seeking comment.
Washington
Former newspaper editor sentenced for paying girls for explicit videos
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A former Washington state newspaper editor accused of paying girls for sexually explicit images has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Steven Smith, of Spokane, Washington, was sentenced on Wednesday, KREM-TV reported. He was arrested in July 2023 and charged with 11 counts of possession of depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
“Though it seems wholly inadequate to say, I am ashamed and I am so sorry,” Smith said at sentencing in the Spokane County Courthouse.
Smith pleaded guilty in November to one count of exploitation of a minor and three counts of first-degree possession of child pornography as part of a plea agreement, KHQ-TV reported at the time.
Smith was executive editor of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane from 2002 to 2008. After leaving the newspaper, he taught journalism ethics at the University of Idaho, retiring in 2020.
Court documents say an account in Smith’s name for a mobile cash payment service was linked to an investigation into children using social media to send sexually explicit images of themselves in exchange for money sent to them via the app.
The victims, 10- to 14-year-old girls, sent images to an Instagram account and received money through a cash app account. Internet activity of those accounts was traced to Smith’s Spokane home, according to the documents. Detectives say the victims shared approximately 30 nude videos of themselves between April 2022 and January 2023.
Chat conversations showed Smith was aware of the victims’ ages, the documents said.
Smith was downloading more of the images when investigators searched his home, the documents said.
Texas
Feds refer Harvey funding discrimination case to DOJ
Texas officials discriminated against residents based on race and national origin in distributing $1 billion in Hurricane Harvey aid in 2021, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development affirmed on Wednesday.
Since the state General Land Office has shown a “sustained unwillingness” to voluntarily correct the unequal treatment, which HUD contends violates the Fair Housing Act, the agency has referred the case to the Department of Justice.
Additional fact-finding by HUD investigators since their preliminary finding of discrimination in 2022 only reinforced that conclusion, Christina Lewis, Region VI director of the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, wrote Wednesday in a letter to GLO and two community groups who originally filed the complaint.
“GLO… focused Mitigation resources in communities that benefited smaller populations of rural White Texans over communities of urban Black and Hispanic Texans, particularly those closer to the coast and more prone to flooding from hurricanes and other natural disasters,” Lewis said.
Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham dismissed the move as a stunt by “political activists embedded in HUD by the Biden Administration.”
“The fact is, the HUD-approved plan overwhelmingly benefited minorities and there simply was no discrimination,” Buckingham said in a statement. “No other state has performed as efficiently and effectively as Texas in providing disaster recovery and mitigation funding to communities and residents.”
Buckingham said the Justice Department previously rejected “fake claims” from HUD because they lacked substance. Her spokesperson said she was referring to a 2023 letter in which the U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke returned a referral from the housing agency to HUD for further investigation.
The two community groups, Texas Housers and Northeast Action Collective, on Thursday praised HUD’s action and said in a statement that the findings “confirmed what communities of color in Texas have long suspected.” They called on the Justice Department to force Texas to comply with federal discrimination laws since the state had bucked a voluntary agreement with the housing department.
At issue is how the federal government says Texas misspent some of the $4.3 billion in disaster recovery aid it received from Congress in 2019.
The General Land Office in 2021, under then-Commissioner George P. Bush, distributed a $1 billion tranche via a funding competition it designed for local governments. But the governments of Houston and Harris County received $0 from the contest, despite the county having the most deaths and property damage from the storm.
A Houston Chronicle investigation found the aid disproportionately went to inland counties with less damage from the storm than coastal ones hit hardest. The newspaper also found the land office steered money away from coastal communities the state measured were at highest risk of natural disasters and toward inland ones with a lower disaster risk.
Under pressure from irate Houston politicians of both parties, Bush canceled a planned second funding competition and announced plans to award $750 million directly to Harris County. But that did not satisfy all his critics.
HUD soon launched its own investigation. The agency’s conclusions, released in 2022, confirmed the Chronicle’s findings and said the unfair doling out of funds “discriminated on the basis of race and national origin” and “substantially and predictably disadvantaged minority residents, with particularly disparate outcomes for Black residents.”
The land office revised its plan to distribute a second $1.2 billion tranche. But a Texas Tribune investigation found that, too, routed aid disproportionately to more white, inland counties at less risk of natural disasters.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
What action the Justice Department may take is unclear with President Donald Trump, an ally of Abbott, returning to office next week. Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Washington
Nazi flag-bearing man gets 8 years in prison for truck crashing near White House
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Missouri man who crashed a rental truck into barriers protecting the White House was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison for an attack that prosecutors said was inspired by his fascination with Nazi ideology, court records show.
Sai Varshith Kandula, then 19, nearly struck two people standing next to a park bench when he steered a U-Haul box truck onto a sidewalk and toward metal bollards that prevent vehicles from entering Lafayette Square, which is located north of the White House. He retrieved a Nazi flag from a backpack after the May 22, 2023, crash, which didn’t injure anybody.
Kandula wanted to “attack and destroy” the U.S. government, prosecutors said.
“He wanted to eliminate the democratic process in America and replace the government with a Nazi style dictatorship,” they wrote.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich also sentenced Kandula to three years of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to pay nearly $57,000 in restitution, according to court records.
Defense attorney Scott Rosenblum said Kandula was suffering from schizophrenia and was overwhelmed by delusional thoughts, including his belief that “a reptilian race had installed a puppet regime to operate the U.S.”
“He’s amenable to treatment, understands its necessity, and recognizes an illness produced the acts that led to his current circumstances,” Rosenblum wrote.
Prosecutors recommended an eight-year prison sentence for Kandula, who pleaded guilty in May to a property damage charge. He has remained in custody since his arrest.
Kandula planned the attack for weeks before he took a flight from St. Louis to Washington, D.C. only hours before the crash, prosecutors said. He rented the truck in Herndon, Virginia approximately three hours before he crashed it into the barriers.
After Kandula backed up and slammed into the bollards a second time, the truck began smoking from its engine compartment and leaking fluids.
Authorities didn’t find any weapons, ammunition or explosives in his possession. But prosecutors said the attempted assassination of President-elect Donald Trump at a July 13 rally in Pennsylvania shows that “individuals who carry such destructive intent are capable of inflicting serious damage to the American political system.”
Police body camera video captured the aftermath of the crash. After his arrest, Kandula told investigators that he purchased the swastika flag because “Nazis have a great history.”
“He specifically praised Adolf Hitler. And it wasn’t just words — when his truck was disabled in the attack, the first thing he did was unfurl the flag of Nazi Germany,” prosecutors wrote.
After Kandula’s arrest, two psychologists diagnosed him with schizophrenia, according to Rosenblum.
“Both also believe his illness led directly to his offense,” the lawyer wrote.
Rosenblum said Kandula’s conviction will likely result in his deportation to India.
DOJ: Hotel discriminated against Arab American group after Hamas attack
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The owner of a hotel in Orlando, Florida’s tourist district has reached an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department after the agency sued alleging discrimination when the resort canceled a planned conference for an Arab American group in the weeks after the attack which triggered the war in Gaza.
The Justice Department’s complaint filed Thursday alleged that the owner of DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Orlando at SeaWorld had discriminated on the basis of national origin when it canceled hosting an annual summit held by the Arab America Foundation in November 2023, almost a month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
There had been no threats or specific risks to the hotel related to the summit or any other non-discriminatory reason to cancel the meeting for the Arab American cultural and educational group, the complaint said.
“Simply stated, amidst an ongoing war in the Middle East, the hotel did not want an Arab group — in this instance, the Foundation — to have its event at the DoubleTree,” the complaint said. “This was the first time in years that the DoubleTree had canceled an event against the wishes of the customer.”
The owner, AWH Orlando Property, denied the allegations and didn’t admit liability. Attorneys for the owner didn’t respond Friday to an email seeking comment.
Under the terms of the Justice Department agreement, the hotel must issue a statement within a month to the Arab America Foundation making it clear that it welcomes all guests regardless of race, color, religion or national origin. The hotel also must adopt a written anti-discrimination policy and reach out to at least five Arab or Arab American groups to let them know the hotel is open to all members of the public, according to the agreement.
The agreement, which was reached immediately after the Justice Department’s complaint was filed, must be approved by a federal judge.
The Arab America Foundation didn’t immediately respond Friday to an email seeking comment.
Washington
Former newspaper editor sentenced for paying girls for explicit videos
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A former Washington state newspaper editor accused of paying girls for sexually explicit images has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Steven Smith, of Spokane, Washington, was sentenced on Wednesday, KREM-TV reported. He was arrested in July 2023 and charged with 11 counts of possession of depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
“Though it seems wholly inadequate to say, I am ashamed and I am so sorry,” Smith said at sentencing in the Spokane County Courthouse.
Smith pleaded guilty in November to one count of exploitation of a minor and three counts of first-degree possession of child pornography as part of a plea agreement, KHQ-TV reported at the time.
Smith was executive editor of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane from 2002 to 2008. After leaving the newspaper, he taught journalism ethics at the University of Idaho, retiring in 2020.
Court documents say an account in Smith’s name for a mobile cash payment service was linked to an investigation into children using social media to send sexually explicit images of themselves in exchange for money sent to them via the app.
The victims, 10- to 14-year-old girls, sent images to an Instagram account and received money through a cash app account. Internet activity of those accounts was traced to Smith’s Spokane home, according to the documents. Detectives say the victims shared approximately 30 nude videos of themselves between April 2022 and January 2023.
Chat conversations showed Smith was aware of the victims’ ages, the documents said.
Smith was downloading more of the images when investigators searched his home, the documents said.
Texas
Feds refer Harvey funding discrimination case to DOJ
Texas officials discriminated against residents based on race and national origin in distributing $1 billion in Hurricane Harvey aid in 2021, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development affirmed on Wednesday.
Since the state General Land Office has shown a “sustained unwillingness” to voluntarily correct the unequal treatment, which HUD contends violates the Fair Housing Act, the agency has referred the case to the Department of Justice.
Additional fact-finding by HUD investigators since their preliminary finding of discrimination in 2022 only reinforced that conclusion, Christina Lewis, Region VI director of the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, wrote Wednesday in a letter to GLO and two community groups who originally filed the complaint.
“GLO… focused Mitigation resources in communities that benefited smaller populations of rural White Texans over communities of urban Black and Hispanic Texans, particularly those closer to the coast and more prone to flooding from hurricanes and other natural disasters,” Lewis said.
Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham dismissed the move as a stunt by “political activists embedded in HUD by the Biden Administration.”
“The fact is, the HUD-approved plan overwhelmingly benefited minorities and there simply was no discrimination,” Buckingham said in a statement. “No other state has performed as efficiently and effectively as Texas in providing disaster recovery and mitigation funding to communities and residents.”
Buckingham said the Justice Department previously rejected “fake claims” from HUD because they lacked substance. Her spokesperson said she was referring to a 2023 letter in which the U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke returned a referral from the housing agency to HUD for further investigation.
The two community groups, Texas Housers and Northeast Action Collective, on Thursday praised HUD’s action and said in a statement that the findings “confirmed what communities of color in Texas have long suspected.” They called on the Justice Department to force Texas to comply with federal discrimination laws since the state had bucked a voluntary agreement with the housing department.
At issue is how the federal government says Texas misspent some of the $4.3 billion in disaster recovery aid it received from Congress in 2019.
The General Land Office in 2021, under then-Commissioner George P. Bush, distributed a $1 billion tranche via a funding competition it designed for local governments. But the governments of Houston and Harris County received $0 from the contest, despite the county having the most deaths and property damage from the storm.
A Houston Chronicle investigation found the aid disproportionately went to inland counties with less damage from the storm than coastal ones hit hardest. The newspaper also found the land office steered money away from coastal communities the state measured were at highest risk of natural disasters and toward inland ones with a lower disaster risk.
Under pressure from irate Houston politicians of both parties, Bush canceled a planned second funding competition and announced plans to award $750 million directly to Harris County. But that did not satisfy all his critics.
HUD soon launched its own investigation. The agency’s conclusions, released in 2022, confirmed the Chronicle’s findings and said the unfair doling out of funds “discriminated on the basis of race and national origin” and “substantially and predictably disadvantaged minority residents, with particularly disparate outcomes for Black residents.”
The land office revised its plan to distribute a second $1.2 billion tranche. But a Texas Tribune investigation found that, too, routed aid disproportionately to more white, inland counties at less risk of natural disasters.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
What action the Justice Department may take is unclear with President Donald Trump, an ally of Abbott, returning to office next week. Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Washington
Nazi flag-bearing man gets 8 years in prison for truck crashing near White House
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Missouri man who crashed a rental truck into barriers protecting the White House was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison for an attack that prosecutors said was inspired by his fascination with Nazi ideology, court records show.
Sai Varshith Kandula, then 19, nearly struck two people standing next to a park bench when he steered a U-Haul box truck onto a sidewalk and toward metal bollards that prevent vehicles from entering Lafayette Square, which is located north of the White House. He retrieved a Nazi flag from a backpack after the May 22, 2023, crash, which didn’t injure anybody.
Kandula wanted to “attack and destroy” the U.S. government, prosecutors said.
“He wanted to eliminate the democratic process in America and replace the government with a Nazi style dictatorship,” they wrote.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich also sentenced Kandula to three years of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to pay nearly $57,000 in restitution, according to court records.
Defense attorney Scott Rosenblum said Kandula was suffering from schizophrenia and was overwhelmed by delusional thoughts, including his belief that “a reptilian race had installed a puppet regime to operate the U.S.”
“He’s amenable to treatment, understands its necessity, and recognizes an illness produced the acts that led to his current circumstances,” Rosenblum wrote.
Prosecutors recommended an eight-year prison sentence for Kandula, who pleaded guilty in May to a property damage charge. He has remained in custody since his arrest.
Kandula planned the attack for weeks before he took a flight from St. Louis to Washington, D.C. only hours before the crash, prosecutors said. He rented the truck in Herndon, Virginia approximately three hours before he crashed it into the barriers.
After Kandula backed up and slammed into the bollards a second time, the truck began smoking from its engine compartment and leaking fluids.
Authorities didn’t find any weapons, ammunition or explosives in his possession. But prosecutors said the attempted assassination of President-elect Donald Trump at a July 13 rally in Pennsylvania shows that “individuals who carry such destructive intent are capable of inflicting serious damage to the American political system.”
Police body camera video captured the aftermath of the crash. After his arrest, Kandula told investigators that he purchased the swastika flag because “Nazis have a great history.”
“He specifically praised Adolf Hitler. And it wasn’t just words — when his truck was disabled in the attack, the first thing he did was unfurl the flag of Nazi Germany,” prosecutors wrote.
After Kandula’s arrest, two psychologists diagnosed him with schizophrenia, according to Rosenblum.
“Both also believe his illness led directly to his offense,” the lawyer wrote.
Rosenblum said Kandula’s conviction will likely result in his deportation to India.
