National
FBI finds 150 homemade bombs at Virginia home, prosecutors say
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Prosecutors say federal agents found one of the largest stockpiles of homemade explosives they’ve ever seized when they arrested a Virginia man on a firearms charge last month. Prosecutors said in a motion that investigators seized more than 150 pipe bombs and other homemade devices when they searched the home of the defendant in Isle of Wight County in December. The prosecutors wrote that this is believed to be “the largest seizure by number of finished explosive devices in FBI history.” Prosecutors said the defendant is being held on a firearms charge and could face more explosives charges.
Hundreds apply for restitution for abuse suffered at Florida reform schools
(AP) — Hundreds of people who say they suffered physical or sexual abuse at two state-run reform schools in Florida are in line to receive tens of thousands of dollars in restitution from the state, after Florida lawmakers formally apologized for the horrors they endured as children more than 50 years ago. At its peak in the Jim Crow 1960s, 500 boys were housed at what is now known as the Dozier School for Boys, most of them for minor offenses such as petty theft, truancy or running away from home. Orphaned and abandoned children were also sent to the school, which was open for more than a century. In recent years, hundreds of men have come forward to recount brutal beatings, sexual assaults, deaths and disappearances at the notorious school in the panhandle town of Marianna. Nearly 100 boys died between 1900 and 1973 at Dozier, some of them from gunshot wounds or blunt force trauma. Some of the boys’ bodies were shipped back home.
A fireworks explosion in the Honolulu area has killed 2 people and injured 20
HONOLULU (AP) — A New Year’s Eve fireworks explosion in a Honolulu-area neighborhood killed two people and injured 20 others, authorities say. The accident occurred just before midnight outside a home, the Honolulu Fire Department said in a statement. The neighborhood is near Honolulu’s international airport and a joint U.S. Air Force and Navy base and a little more than 2 miles east of the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, which honors sailors who died in the attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the U.S. into World War II. Two people were declared dead at the scene, and the other 20 victims were transported to hospitals, according to Honolulu Emergency Medical Services.
Chief Justice John Roberts defends judicial independence
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts issued a defense Tuesday of judicial independence, which he said is under threat from intimidation, disinformation and the prospect of public officials defying court orders. Roberts laid out his concerns in his annual report on the federal judiciary. It was released after a year where the nation’s court system was unusually enmeshed in a closely fought presidential race, with then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump assailing the integrity of judges who ruled against him as he faced criminal charges for which he denied wrongdoing. Trump won the race following a landmark Supreme Court immunity decision penned by Roberts that, along with another high court decision halting efforts to disqualify him from the ballot, removed obstacles to his election.