prison

BANGKOK — Chinese artist Gao Zhen was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday for “infringing upon the reputation of heroes” over his satirical works of art, including statues of China’s former leader Mao Zedong.

U.S.-based Gao, who was part of an artistic duo known internationally as the Gao Brothers, was arrested while visiting family in China in August 2024. He has been in official custody since then.

He was sentenced by the Sanhei People’s Court court in northern Hebei province, according to his wife, Zhao Yaliang.

The charges against Gao relate to artistic works that China’s authorities claim insulted revolutionary figures, including a 2009 statue called Mao’s Guilt, which shows the former leader and founder of modern China as kneeling in repentance. Others include as series called Miss Mao, which shows a caricatured version of Mao with breasts and an engorged nose.

Shane Yi, a researcher at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, who has been advocating for the case, described the sentence as “a very clear case of a violation of a person’s freedom of expression.”

Yi noted that the artworks in question were created before the law Gao was sentenced with had been passed and said the artist plans to appeal the sentence.

The court did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amnesty International criticized the court sentence which it described as a deterrent against artistic expression.

“The lengthy pre-trial detention and, ultimately, decision to convict Gao Zhen and sentence him to the maximum three-year prison term under this offense illustrate the authorities’ determination to deter others from engaging in independent artistic expression,” said Amnesty’s China Director Sarah Brooks.

“No artist should face criminal punishment for creating work that challenges official narratives or encourages critical reflection on history,” she said.

Zhao said she hopes to be reunited with her husband and be able to return to the U.S., where the family had immigrated to.

“I felt two years was my limit, and I was really disappointed and sad. I haven’t been able to catch my breath,” she said. She had prepared clothes for her husband hoping that he would be released. Chinese courts often count the time of a sentencing from the date a prisoner is taken.

The Gao Brothers, whose works addressed themes of authoritarianism and censorship, became famous in a time of relative openness in China and were exhibited both inside the country and abroad.

However, in recent years, the state’s increased its controlling grip on certain aspects of expression, especially in regards to political figures with the passage of law in 2018 that bans criticism of the nation’s heroes.

Wu writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A Massachusetts woman who told police that she brought homemade firebombs to the U.S. Capitol to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was sentenced on Tuesday to just over six years in prison.

Riley English, a 26-year-old transgender woman, said she was in the grips of a mental health crisis and abusing drugs when she drove to Washington in January 2025 and told Capitol police that she was there to kill Bessent on the day of his Senate confirmation.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” she told U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras. “I’m not a political person. I’m not a violent person.”

Contreras, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, sentenced English to six years and one month of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release. English has remained jailed since her arrest and will get credit for the nearly 20 months that she already has spent in custody. She pleaded guilty in March to two weapons charges.

“You’ve had a very difficult life,” Contreras told English. “Hopefully, the progress you’ve made in jail to this date has set you on the right path.”

Nobody was injured, and Contreras said her plan to harm Bessent had an “exceedingly low or non-existent” chance of success. Bessent wasn’t at the Capitol when English arrived on Jan. 27, 2025. The Molotov cocktails that English brought to the Capitol appeared to be incapable of igniting, the judge noted.

Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 10 years and one month for English. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan Horan said English had been planning the “attempted political assassination” for at least a month at a time when the threat of politically motivated violence has been mounting in the U.S.

“This was not a chance encounter or an impulsive act,” Horan said.

The case against English fits a pattern of politically motivated violence that has plagued the U.S. over the past decade. In a letter addressed to the judge, Bessent said he worries the country “cannot survive this assault.”

“Political violence is an attack on the rule of law and on representative government itself,” Bessent wrote. “It also deprives our country of service by talented men and women with ability and integrity who may reasonably decide that no job is worth threats to themselves and their families.”

English’s prosecution drew comparisons to the case against California resident Sophie Roske, who was sentenced last October to over eight years in prison for attempting to assassinate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his Maryland home. Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of no less than 30 years for Roske, a transgender woman. They appealed Roske’s sentence by U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, calling it unreasonably lenient.

Defense attorney Maria Jacob said English was “terrified and traumatized” by fears of what would happen to transgender people under the second Trump administration.

“Our argument is that she was in a diminished mental state,” Jacob said.

Investigators said they found a folding knife, two homemade firebombs and a lighter in English’s possession at the Capitol.

English, of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, told police that she was influenced by Luigi Mangione, the man who was charged with fatally shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. She said she was “on a mission” and “had been thinking about this for a while because of Luigi Mangione,” prosecutors said. English told officers that she was terminally ill and “wanted to do something before I go,” according to prosecutors.

English also said she traveled from Massachusetts to Washington intending to kill other Republican political figures — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson — and to burn down the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, according to police. English changed her target to Bessent after reading an internet post about his confirmation hearing, police said.

Jacob said English’s actions last year were “a cry for help.”

“There was no indication that she was acting rationally that day,” the judge said.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

Tina Peters was recently released early from prison amid a pressure campaign from President Trump after the former Colorado elections official was convicted of tampering with voting machines.

Now, the top elections official in a conservative California county with a long history of voting controversies is seeking to hire her to help run elections there.

Clint Curtis, the registrar of voters in Shasta County, said on a local radio show Sunday that he planned to hire Peters as the assistant registrar next month, just weeks ahead of the November election.

“Tina Peters, she’s now available, so we’re going to pull her in. She has experience, and she’s able to take the rocks and arrows,” Curtis told the hosts of “Jefferson State of Mine,” a show hosted by leaders of the State of Jefferson secession movement.

When asked about her health, which her attorneys said declined in prison, Curtis, himself a longtime election denier, quipped: “Getting out of prison really helps your ability.”

In response to questions from The Times about the hiring process, Curtis said in an email Tuesday afternoon that “counties are very slow” in bringing in new staffers and that Peters would be brought on “as a consultant.”

“Her duties would be to assist with supervision of the November election,” Curtis wrote. “None of our consultants have access to the voting systems, so she would be insulated from false claims.”

A bank of surveillance screens hangs in the public observation room at the Shasta County elections office in Redding, Calif., in February.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Peters, the former clerk in Mesa County, Colo., was convicted in 2024 and sentenced to nine years behind bars for breaching her county’s voting machines as part of a scheme to show that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump — a claim that has been repeatedly debunked.

She was found guilty of helping an outside computer expert — an associate of pro-Trump conspiracy theorist and MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell — gain unauthorized access to Mesa County’s Dominion election equipment in 2021 and make copies of its hard drive before and after a software upgrade.

Peters was released from prison in June. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted her sentence after months of haranguing from the president. Trump issued a pardon for Peters in December, but since her conviction was for state, not federal, crimes, it fell outside his purview.

‘Monkey business’ and a not-so-open job

In a statement to The Times on Tuesday, Peters’ attorney, Peter Ticktin, said she was “giving consideration to helping in the efforts in Shasta County as there most definitely has been monkey business in the way the election was handled.”

Ticktin, who cited his client’s “effort to get the invasive machines out of our election process,” did not elaborate on which election had alleged problems or what kind of role she had been offered.

The terms of Peters’ parole forbid her from leaving the state without permission from her parole officer, although, after her release, she visited Trump at the White House.

Talk about hiring Peters in Shasta County set off alarm bells across California.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office tweeted Monday that Peters “should still be in prison” and that “the state is investigating this.”

“Tina Peters, she’s now available, so we’re going to pull her in,” says Clint Curtis, Shasta County registrar of voters. “She has experience, and she’s able to take the rocks and arrows.”

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

And Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat, wrote on Facebook that talk of her hiring “should be stopped immediately. “

Brent Turner, the Shasta County assistant registrar whom Curtis suggested he would replace, said there’s one glaring problem with that plan: He hasn’t quit.

“I am the assistant registrar, last I checked, and until further notice I’m planning on continuing to serve the public in that role,” Turner said in an interview Tuesday.

Turner said he had not spoken to Curtis for days and that he learned his boss was floating Peters’ name as a replacement from a local reporter who called him Sunday for comment.

On the “Jefferson State of Mine” broadcast, Curtis said of Turner: ”He got sick on me. I was hoping he’d just, like, retire on June 2 and go away and let me fill [the position], but he didn’t.”

Turner said it was “inappropriate” for Curtis to speak publicly about his health and that he had not given him permission to do so.

Miranda Angel, a Shasta County spokeswoman, said in an email Monday that “there is no formal proposal or application” to replace Turner and that “any prospective employee or consultant would go through the same hiring process as anyone else seeking employment with the county.”

An elections office embroiled in controversy

Shasta County made national headlines in 2023 when its Board of Supervisors ditched Dominion voting machines based on unfounded claims of fraud and opted to hand-count ballots for more than 110,000 registered voters — quickly prompting a new state law that banned them from doing so.

Curtis, a 68-year-old attorney whose claims about rigged voting machines stretch to the early 2000s, took over the elections office last spring.

He was appointed by the county Board of Supervisors to fill the position vacated by two previous registrars who resigned for health reasons that they said were exacerbated by the stress of the job.

Curtis stands in the election counting area on Feb. 25 in Redding, Calif. Curtis installed a controversial election observer area filled with cameras trained on election workers’ hands as they feed ballots into machines.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Curtis lived in Florida then, had no previous ties to the area, and had never run an election. He got the position after advocating for hand-counting ballots and bragging in a public job interview that he had worked with Mike Lindell.

In Shasta County, he promptly eliminated nine of the vast, mostly-rural county’s 13 ballot dropboxes. He accused his predecessors in the elections office, without evidence, of stuffing ballots to sabotage conservative Republicans, and he called on federal authorities to raid his office and seize ballots.

Curtis also publicly advocated for Measure B, a voter-approved measure that would eliminate most voting by mail and require ballots to be hand-counted, among other sweeping changes.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the state’s top elections official, sued Shasta County over the citizens’ initiative in mid-June, arguing that it violated numerous state election laws and must be struck down before the November election.

Shasta County Superior Court Judge Benjamin L. Hanna this month issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocks implementation of Measure B, which voters approved in the June primary.

In that same election, Curtis was voted out of office. He will be replaced in January by Joanna Francescut, the former longtime assistant registrar, whom he fired.

A censure — and another reprimand

When Curtis spoke on the radio broadcast Sunday about hiring Peters — with whom, he said, he has regular phone conversations — he was under formal censure by the Board of Supervisors for his treatment of staff.

This spring, the county released the findings of two personnel investigations into Curtis’ conduct that were spurred by concerns raised by elections employees and their union representatives.

An internal investigation and an external probe by Oppenheimer Investigations Group found that Curtis made phone calls related to his own campaign during county work hours and casually threatened to kill, spank, slap or “throat punch” staffers.

He threatened to have one employee dragged out of the office by their hair, according to an internal investigation report by Monica Fugitt, the county’s director of support services.

“Mr. Curtis has demonstrated a clear pattern of unprofessional and abusive conduct toward staff,” wrote Fugitt, who recommended Curtis be physically separated from the elections staff, working at a different physical location or remotely because of his “pervasive abusive conduct.”

Curtis has denied the findings.

The Board of Supervisors censured Curtis on Aug. 11.

He responded by inviting reporters to the elections office in downtown Redding, where he showed them security footage that, he said, showed employees breaking into a room in the building, the news outlet Shasta Scout reported.

A woman walks past a ballot drop box in the Shasta County city of Anderson on Feb. 25.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Curtis allowed reporters to take video of the footage and said he had not discussed the matter with the staffers, Shasta Scout reported.

The county condemned those actions in an Aug. 14 news release, saying he “has repeatedly been advised of appropriate procedures for addressing and investigating personnel matters and advised of the importance of maintaining confidentiality of such matters.”

Curtis, the county wrote, showed “complete disregard for those procedures as well as employees’ due process rights.”

In an email Tuesday, Shasta County deputy chief executive officer Stewart Buettell said the county and its Board of Supervisors do not have the power to terminate Curtis’ employment because he was appointed to fill a vacancy in an elected position.

“As soon as they assume that office, it’s as if they were elected,” Buettell said. To be removed from the office, he said, Curtis would have to be recalled by voters.

A photo published last week by Shasta Scout shows a pair of doors to a room in the elections office containing ballots from the June election. Curtis sealed the doors with locks, duct tape and red-lettered signs that read: “KEEP OUT PER ROV CLINT CURTIS.”

“I had facilities put this lock on and destroy the keys,” Curtis told the news outlet. “So if someone comes … they have to bring a warrant and a bolt cutter. That’s the only way to get in that room.”

Turner, the assistant registrar, told The Times that “Clint seems to be taking issue with some of the ballots in his own race” that he lost.

Aug. 14 (UPI) — An Atlanta executive was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday for running what authorities described as “likely the largest Ponzi scheme in Georgia history.”

Todd Burkhalter, the founder and CEO of Drive Planning, ran a years-long scheme that defrauded thousands of investors of nearly $400 million, prosecutors said.

He used the funds for lavish purchases, including a $2 million yacht, a $2.1 million luxury condo in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and $800,000 in vehicles.

“Todd Burkhalter lured investors to send millions of dollars to Drive Planning for investments that he knew didn’t actually exist,” Georgia U.S. Attorney Theodore Hertzberg said in a statement.

“He promised investors that they were guaranteed substantial returns on their investments, and he ruthlessly encouraged them to deplete their kids’ college funds, take early distributions from retirement accounts, and borrow significant sums at high interest rates,” he added. “The sentences in this case should discourage other financial advisors from choosing insatiable greed and lies over honest investment strategies.”

FBI Special Agent in Charge Marlo Graham said Burkhalter brazenly continued his scheme even while under federal investigation.

“Todd Burkhalter organized what is likely the largest Ponzi scheme in Georgia history to fund an extravagant lifestyle,” Graham said in a statement.

Prosecutors said Burkhalter defrauded more than 2,000 investors from September 2020 to June 2024.

He has also been sentenced to pay more than $230 million in restitution.

Earlier this week, two other people were sentenced in the scheme.

The company’s chief operating officer, David Bradford, was sentenced to four years in prison and $4.2 million restitution.

Julie Edwards, Drive Planning’s chief administrative officer, was sentenced to to years prison and ordered to pay $630,000 in restitution.

KATIE Price has announced a new live tour in a money-making move.

It comes as the former glamour model is said to have been consulting divorce lawyers over her tumultuous marriage to Lee Andrews

In a new Instagram post, Katie revealed she’s set to tour the country with the podcast she hosts with sister Sophie, The Katie Price Show.

The post read: “PRICEY IS BACK!

“Katie Price and her little sister Sophie bring their hit podcast “The Katie Price Show” to a theatre near you, live – with more chaos, more singing and even juicer stories!

“They may be opposites, but their sisterly banter and relationship are what makes the podcast a success.”

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It was then confirmed that the sisters will be touring in February, with the tour kicking off on the 2nd in Stockport before ending in Harpenden on 25 February.

Tickets are on sale today (Friday 14 August) from 10am for the tour.

The tour announcement comes as Katie has spent the week partying in Ibiza with her son Harvey and Wayne Lineker.

She has been letting her hair down on the White Isle after a rocky time in her marriage with husband Lee.

The Dubai-based ‘businessman’ was exposed by The Sun as a conman last month, and currently remains in prison for a second time.

Sources revealed to The Sun that Katie was consulting divorce lawyers following her husband’s imprisonment, and took off her wedding ring.

Katie has now returned to wearing her ring, but is yet to speak out on Lee.

Aug. 12 (UPI) — Lightning struck a northern Ohio state prison, injuring at least 16 people, who were transported to the hospital, officials said Tuesday night.

The lightning struck the Grafton Correctional Institution, located about 30 miles southwest of Cleveland, Tuesday night, as inmates were returning from their evening meal, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said in a statement.

Of the 16 people transported to an outside hospital, one was airlifted, it said.

The conditions of those injured were not immediately clear, though the department said, “there have been no reported deaths at this time.”

The incident comes as larges portions of Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia were under flood watches amid thunderstorms and heavy rainfall, according to the National Weather Service.

Ohio correctional authorities said they are continuing to assess and monitor the situation.

The Grafton Correctional Institution opened in 1988 on 1,396 acres, according to its website.

ICRC facilitates first known transfer of detainees between Congolese government and M23 rebels in North Kivu.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has released 15 prisoners and handed them over to rebels from ⁠the Congo River Alliance/March 23 movement (AFC/M23) in the east of the country.

The release was announced by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which facilitated this first known transfer of prisoners under last year’s Qatar-mediated deal to end the fighting in the region.

The handover happened on Thursday and Friday after months of talks thrashing out the names of detainees to be freed.

An ICRC statement said the 15 prisoners agreed to be transferred before leaving the government-held eastern Congolese city of Beni in a convoy on Thursday evening.

The journey continued through Uganda before the convoy arrived in Rutshuru Territory in DRC’s North Kivu province, where the prisoners were ⁠⁠handed over to AFC/M23 on Friday, the statement added.

M23 seized the regional capitals in North and South Kivu from the Congolese government’s control in early 2025.

Stephanie Eller, head of ICRC operations in the capital ‌Kinshasa, said she hoped the transfer would pave the way for more releases.

“We hope that this ⁠operation will help bring relief ⁠to families who have been separated from their loved ones for a long time,” Eller said.

The release of detainees was one of the conditions in the Qatari-mediated agreement signed by the Congolese government and AFC/M23 in September.

Qatar welcomed the releases on Friday.

“The release of the detained persons represents an important step towards enhancing confidence between the parties and creating favourable conditions for further progress towards reaching peaceful and sustainable solutions,” Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

It added that Qatar “expresses its hope that this step will serve as an impetus for further measures that enhance confidence-building between the parties and meet the aspirations of the Congolese people for peace, development and prosperity”.

DRC, the United Nations and Western powers have repeatedly accused neighbouring Rwanda of supporting the M23 with its ‌own ‌troops and weapons as the armed group has advanced in the east, a charge Rwanda denies.

Authorities suspect narcotics dealers and gang rivalries are behind prison violence at several facilities in Sri Lanka.

Police and riot squads have been deployed after three inmates were killed and nearly two dozen others were injured in separate prison riots across Sri Lanka.

Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told parliament on Friday that one prisoner was killed when 40 inmates broke out of their cells at the New Magazine Prison in the capital, Colombo, late on Thursday.

Two more prisoners were killed on Friday morning during a second riot at Kuruwita prison, about 80km (50 miles) from the capital, he said.

Between the two incidents, 23 inmates were injured and admitted to hospitals, Wijepala said, adding that police and special forces ‌brought both riots under control.

Additionally, police told the Reuters news agency that officers fired tear gas at protesting inmates at an open prison in the coastal town of Negombo, about 40km (25 miles) from Colombo, to bring the situation there under control on Friday.

Riot police at all three prisons worked to return prisoners who had climbed onto rooftops or moved into open areas back to their wards, the minister said.

Wijepala told parliament the violence was related to narcotics dealers and rival criminal gangs.

He said the government is trying to find out if the riots were coordinated.

“When you take all ⁠these incidents together, it appears that there is planning behind these and an attempt at sabotage. But we can only say ⁠anything further after a comprehensive investigation,” Wijepala said.

The prison disturbances happened a month after 10 ⁠prison officials and 20 prisoners died in two days of fighting at a prison in Negombo.

One inmate also died and several others ‌were injured in a riot last weekend at a prison in Mahara, about 14km (8.6 miles) from Colombo.

Overcrowding in Sri Lanka’s prisons is at crisis levels.

Facilities are highly congested, with more than 39,000 inmates crowded into a system with a total capacity of just 10,000, according to a recent speech in parliament by Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara.

“The number of prisoners in Sri Lanka today is four times the capacity,” said Senaka Perera, president of the Committee for Rights of Prisoners. “In fact, they have been patient for so long.”

A large number of inmates are suspects awaiting trial for alleged narcotics-related offences. Recent laws tightening bail conditions have resulted in prison overcrowding, Perera said.

Sri Lanka is planning to amend its constitution ‌to extend superior court judges’ tenure by two years, as part of efforts to clear a backlog of more than one million court cases and reduce prisoner numbers.

KATIE Price is ignoring all the Lee Andrews prison drama to announce that she’s recording a whole new album – just like son Junior.

Despite her recent husband woes, after Lee, 43, was recently released from jail for the SECOND time, Katie, 48, is determined to be a pop star.

The former glamour girl revealed her big music news on her podcast, The Katie Price Show, during a chat with her sister Sophie.

In the conversation, Katie chatted about how she had met R&B star Ginuwine, through her producer friend Shay.

The star then let slip that this was the person who was helping to relaunch her pop career.

Katie said: “So, basically Shay, who’s doing my album at the minute.”

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It comes as the star’s son Junior, 21, recently revealed he was also working on new music.

Katie previously teased her pop comeback back in May, when she again said on her podcast: “I’m in the studio tomorrow, recording a new original track, not a cover. So I’m excited!”

To date, the wannabe pop star has only released one studio album, which was A Whole New World, which she recorded in 2006 with her ex-husband Peter Andre.

In the 20 years since, she has only released a handful of singles, including Free To Love Again, Hurricane and last year’s Best Of Me.

Meanwhile, Katie’s much-discussed fourth marriage took a turn when it was revealed Lee was had been hauled back to jail AGAIN in Dubai.

The self-proclaimed businessman was being held at Al-Awir prison, for the second time in as many months.

The Sun revealed how despite being released a few weeks ago, Lee still faces mounting fines and financial demands exceeding £100,000 to £120,000 from his detentions at the notorious jail.

Katie made it clear in an interview with The Sun that she would not cover the cost.

“There’s nothing I can do. I’m not here to pay anything for anyone,” she told us in an exclusive chat earlier last month.

“I’ve got my own life. Even though he’s part of my life.”

Katie tied the knot with conman Lee in January, just 10 days after meeting him.

Ever since, stories of Lee’s lies, scams and imprisonments have filled the pages of newspapers and magazines.

Chris Young grew up in Clarksville, Tenn., in the direst imaginable circumstances — unimaginable, in fact, to many of us.

He never knew his father. His mother was a crack addict with a habit of stabbing her romantic partners. While his mom was in prison, Young and his older brother, Robert, mostly fended for themselves, often in a home that lacked electricity and running water. Young, tormented by sickle-cell disease, saw many of those closest to him die by homicide or suicide.

The two boys weren’t totally bereft. They had a grandfather, cousins, friends and a stepfather. A neighbor provided showers, until his water bill got too high; another supplied hot meals. A woman known as Big Mama offered shelter and tough love. But it wasn’t nearly enough. Desperate for money, the teenage Young — smart, entrepreneurial, dreaming of a rap career — became a gun-toting drug dealer.

Young’s searing memoir, “The Wound Is Where the Light Enters,” chronicles this bitter childhood and its devastating consequences. The evocative title is a quotation from the 13th century Persian poet Rumi.

Unlike some prison memoirs, this isn’t an innocence story. But it is no less an indictment of the U.S. justice system — its laws, its courts and its brutal prisons. “The constant state of heightened agitation and awareness that it takes to survive a single day in a federal penitentiary is enough to drive a man insane,” Young writes. “At every turn, the system is designed to crush your humanity. You’re an animal in there and are expected to act like one.”

But not everyone does. “The Wound Is Where the Light Enters” not only reveals the system’s horrors, but also celebrates the redemptive power of hope, intellect and community.

By the time Young was swept up in a federal drug investigation, he already had two felony drug convictions. His involvement in the federal conspiracy case, as he tells it, was marginal. He was no kingpin and had never met most of the people being charged.

But he faced a zealous prosecutor, with only court-appointed attorneys at his side. Worse yet, he was up against a harsh “three-strikes” law that replaced judicial discretion with mandatory minimum sentences.

Young’s own pride and sense of justice also came into play. He could have pleaded guilty, perhaps even cooperated, and received a finite (though still hefty) prison sentence. Instead, determined to argue his case, he opted for a trial at which conviction was all but certain. Then, against advice, he presented a meticulously crafted and rehearsed speech at his sentencing hearing.

The 26-year-old Young, who’d already spent four years behind bars, had used that time productively. A former straight-A student who had dropped out of high school, he had embarked on a program of self-education, reading deeply in African American history, Greek philosophy, finance and other subjects. “Every day,” he writes, “I left the library with new language to put to my thoughts.”

Young told the court about his chaotic upbringing and his recent scholarly pursuits. “He spoke of the things he could do if he did not have to die in prison. He told me of the possibilities that would never be,” the trial judge, Kevin H. Sharp, writes in the book’s foreword. “It was impossible to listen to someone so full of compassion, intelligence, and, above all, promise, and not question the system that had not just allowed this to happen but required it.”

Sharp sentenced Young to life without the possibility of parole, as the law mandated. But two years later, he stepped down from the bench and joined Young’s defense team.

Young describes his childhood mostly from the perspective of a boy — alternately bewildered, hurting, depressed and “mad all the time.” His account of his incarceration, with its mind-numbing routines, gang hegemony and intermittent violence, is equally gripping.

At McCreary, the tense high-security federal prison in Kentucky known as Misery Mountain, Young meditated, adhered to a workout routine, read prodigiously, taught GED classes to fellow inmates and maintained ties to his few surviving loved ones. And he kept hoping. “The system’s control over my body was absolute,” Young writes. “Its control over my mind was not.”

In 2015, the sickle cell-related disintegration of his hips prompted Young’s transfer to a low-security prison, Federal Medical Center Lexington. Here the surroundings are less bleak, the library better, the prisoners friendlier. Young teaches himself to code and envisions an app that will focus on mental health and suicide prevention. Yet he still must fight to obtain the hip replacement surgery he so desperately needs.

By now, his case has attracted sympathetic press attention and more effective lawyers. Even so, his story takes a dark turn. From Lexington, he is sent to his most terrifying prison yet, known as Bloody Beaumont, where COVID-19 adds another layer of threat. A judge reduces his sentence, but, for reasons never entirely clear, he is suddenly thrown into the prison’s “hole,” its barbarous solitary confinement cells.

It is from that hell that Young, more than a decade after his arrest, emerges to freedom — earning a degree in economics and public policy from Southern Methodist University, pursuing a consulting career and writing this indelible book. For his 2021 grant of executive clemency, he has his lawyers and reality-TV star Kim Kardashian to thank — as well as President Trump.

Klein, a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia, has been a three-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.

The former president and his wife were sentenced to 15 years last year after being convicted of money laundering.

Former Peruvian President Ollanta Humala has been released from prison after the country’s Constitutional Court overturned his 15-year prison sentence for a case linked to a globe-spanning corruption scandal involving Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

Humala was serving his sentence at a special detention facility in eastern Lima that houses several of Peru’s jailed former leaders. The 64-year-old and his wife, Nadine Heredia, were found guilty last year of money laundering for receiving illegal contributions from Odebrecht, now known as Novonor, and the Venezuelan government in two presidential campaigns.

Heredia subsequently received asylum in Brazil.

“It has been decided to declare the entire criminal proceedings against Ollanta Moises Humala Tasso null and void,” read the Constitutional Court ruling dated July 15 and published on Thursday.

Humala, a former army officer who led the country from 2011 to 2016, was the first Peruvian ex-leader to face trial in the Odebrecht corruption scandal, which has also tainted three other former presidents.

He had filed a habeas corpus petition – a legal request asking the court to examine whether he had been unlawfully imprisoned – which the Constitutional Court declared to be “well-founded” because it found that he had been convicted for conduct that was not legally defined as money laundering when the campaign contributions were received.

The former president’s lawyer, Wilfredo Pedraza, said that his side has received the judgement “with considerable satisfaction”.

In 2016, Odebrecht agreed to pay $3.5bn in penalties after having spent $788m in bribes to foreign leaders and government officials in order to win infrastructure projects across Latin America.

Odebrecht admitted to having paid at least $29m in bribes to Peruvian officials between 2005 and 2014.

Reporting from Sacramento — Gov. Jerry Brown’s effort to revise and ultimately loosen state prison parole rules appears to be on its way to passage on Nov. 8, as a new poll finds strong support across a wide swath of California voters.

Fifty-seven percent of likely voters in a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times survey backed Brown’s Proposition 57, and only 31% were opposed. While earlier polling showed an even wider lead, the proposal has had consistently solid backing throughout the campaign season.

“Proposition 57 should pass comfortably,” said Ben Winston of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, the Democratic pollster who makes up the bipartisan team that conducts the survey.

The measure, which would allow more prisoners a chance at parole and give additional authority to prison officials to award good-behavior credits, has wide appeal among the state’s young voters.

As many as two-thirds of the poll’s likely voters under the age of 40 supported Proposition 57, with the highest backing from younger white Californians. Support was at, or surpassed, the 60% threshold among Democrats, white voters who are “independent” of any political party and Latino women.

The only serious opposition came from registered Republicans, self-described conservatives and older, non-college-educated voters.

Young voters may be a harbinger of a dramatic long-term shift on crime and punishment in a state where long prison sentences for sensationalized crimes were once the hallmark of successful campaigns.

“This generation of California voters simply wasn’t alive when a tough-on-crime approach was necessary to win a statewide election,” said Dan Schnur, director of USC’s Unruh Institute of Politics.

Political analysts also point to a potential correlation in the poll between supporters of the parole overhaul and those who support Proposition 64, the effort to fully legalize marijuana. Seventy-one percent of the likely voters who support the marijuana measure also support Proposition 57.

“I think there are parallel issues here,” said Doug Herman, a Democratic strategist. “They’re making the point that the criminal justice system is broken.”

The ballot box guide to California’s propositions »

Brown has fought bitterly with district attorneys across California over Proposition 57, which he contends is simply offering the chance for a prisoner’s request to be heard by the state Board of Parole Hearings. Under the measure, parole commissioners could consider releasing any prisoner whose primary sentence was not for one of the state’s specifically listed violent crimes, and then only for secondary crimes or enhancements added at the time of sentencing.

Prosecutors, on the other hand, argue that Proposition 57 would almost certainly lead to the early release of dangerous criminals. And they believe the initiative’s expansion of good-behavior credits would mean less time behind bars even for high-risk predators.

The USC/Times poll, like most nonpartisan surveys, tested voter opinions by using Proposition 57’s official ballot title and summary — a description that has become a bone of contention during the campaign.

“The ballot title and summary is a gross and blatant misrepresentation of what this measure would do,” said Merced County Dist. Atty. Larry Morse. “It is incredibly dishonest.”

Law enforcement opponents dispute that new parole eligibility would be given only to offender, who are “nonviolent,” a word that Morse said he believes downplays the threat and thus artificially inflates any estimates of true voter support for the governor’s policy proposal.

“He knows damn good and well this applies to crimes that anyone would see as violent,” Morse said of Brown.

Dan Newman, a spokesman for the Proposition 57 campaign, said the measure is “exactly what voters want in a public safety policy — a focus on keeping dangerous offenders locked up while rehabilitating nonviolent offenders before they get out.”

While most of the focus is on the impact of revising prison parole procedures, Proposition 57 also would revoke provisions of a 2000 ballot measure that has sent some juvenile defendants into adult courtrooms. Prosecutors helped lead the campaign for that proposal 16 years ago, but Morse said he and other district attorneys now agree those teenagers should remain in the juvenile justice system.

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The survey of 1,500 registered voters was conducted for USC Dornsife and the Los Angeles Times by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and American Viewpoint. Support for the ballot initiative was almost identical among the entire sample — 58% in favor — as it was among likely voters.

The poll results come as both sides in the Proposition 57 campaign ramp up efforts to persuade voters. Brown has raised more than $19.7 million in support of the measure, with the largest share of that money spent during the spring on gathering signatures to quickly qualify the initiative for the ballot after skirmishes in court over whether it was properly vetted under state election law. The governor’s effort had enough money left over for campaign mailers and a statewide radio ad blitz, while opponents, having raised less than $1.4 million, have had fewer opportunities.

That imbalance may help explain another strong marker for the initiative in the poll: It was winning with 63% of voters who said they already have cast a ballot.

john.myers@latimes.com

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Detailed poll results

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What you need to know about the 17 propositions on the Nov. 8 ballot

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No word on jailed Tunisian opposition leader Ghannouchi for 11 days, his son tells Al Jazeera.

The son of jailed Tunisian opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi says his family and lawyers have been unable to see or contact the 85-year-old for 11 days since he was hospitalised after collapsing in prison.

In an interview with Al Jazeera on Monday, Moadh Ghannouchi said the last time lawyers saw his father was days before he temporarily lost consciousness on July 17, and that requests to visit him in hospital, including one submitted to the public prosecutor, had been refused, leaving the family with no confirmation of his whereabouts or condition.

“It is like a situation of enforced disappearance,” he said.

Ghannouchi said his father, who has high blood pressure and difficulty breathing, had been left exposed to a severe heatwave in a prison with no air conditioning.

“We hold the authorities fully responsible for his condition,” he said, alleging that his father’s confinement in a stiflingly hot prison was intended to worsen his health.

“It was not enough to imprison him – they want to torment him further,” Moadh told Al Jazeera.

“This is stressful for us and certainly for him as well because he’s used to always having a number of visits every week from lawyers and from family – so it has been 11 days cut off from everything, from every visit, from everyone.”

Ghannouchi said conflicting rumours had spread on social media, with some placing his father at the Rabta public hospital in Tunis, others at a military hospital, and some claiming he had suffered a heart attack. But the family has received no official information, he said, with the authorities refusing to communicate.

In a statement on his official Facebook page on Monday, Ghannouchi’s defence team demanded information on his condition. An Ennahda party spokesperson told Al Jazeera that it did not know which hospital he is in or his state of health.

The former speaker of parliament and most prominent figure detained in President Kais Saied’s crackdown on opponents has been jailed since April 2023 after receiving a life sentence that his supporters say was politically motivated. Saied’s government denies that prosecutions of opponents are politically driven.

Rached Ghannouchi lost consciousness last week as temperatures inside Mornaguia prison climbed, according to Haifa Chebbi, daughter of another imprisoned opposition figure. She said she witnessed the incident and that the temperature reached 52C (126F). His lawyers said on Thursday that his condition was “critical.”

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention previously found that Ghannouchi’s detention was arbitrary and called for his immediate release, a ruling his son said authorities ignored.

On Sunday, the National Salvation Front, a broad opposition coalition, urged the authorities to issue an immediate statement on his health and Amnesty International called for the protection of prisoners during the heatwave.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres toured the notorious former ‘Assad prison’ in Sednaya during the first visit by a serving UN chief to Syria since 2009. Known as the Assad regime’s flagship prison, Sednaya was dubbed Syria’s ‘slaughterhouse’ where thousands were tortured and killed.

July 24 (UPI) — A prominent Supreme Court litigator in Maryland has been sentenced to six years in federal prison for tax evasion and mortgage fraud, prosecutors said Friday.

Thomas Goldstein, who argued some 40 cases in front of the nation’s highest court, was found guilty of eight felonies in a February trial.

Prosecutors say Goldstein, an avid poker player, funneled millions from his law firm to cover gambling debts — and lied to IRS agents to hide them.

“His motivation was singular: pure, unrelenting greed,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. “Whether funneling gambling income through offshore bank accounts, shaving millions off his true law firm income, or lying to his lenders, Goldstein’s crimes always sought to advance and maintain his exorbitant lifestyle, replete with Bentleys, globe-trotting vacations, and a $200,000 watch.”

Goldstein also submitted fraudulent mortgage applications to two lenders, omitting “millions of dollars of liabilities, including more than $14 million he owed for poker-related debts, as well as taxes he owed the IRS,” officials said.

He was approved for a $1.98 million mortgage.

Goldstein, 56, cofounded the widely-popular SCOTUSblog, which follows the Supreme Court.

His trial featured an appearance by Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire, who testified Goldstein assisted him in recovering a gambling debt from a billionaire.

Goldstein was ordered to serve six years in prison, five years probation and pay more than $3.1 million in restitution.

“Thomas Goldstein built a distinguished legal career arguing that the rule of law matters,” said Kelly O. Hayes, the U.S. attorney in Maryland, in a statement. “Yet, as the evidence at trial showed, he repeatedly chose to violate that very principle for his own financial benefit.”

Indian authorities release the two men after years in prison although both remain under tight court-imposed restrictions.

Indian authorities have released prominent Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez and journalist Irfan Mehraj on bail after years in prison on “terrorism” financing charges although both remain under tight court-imposed restrictions.

The two men walked free from a New Delhi jail late on Wednesday, their relatives said, as India’s National Investigation Agency seeks to overturn their bail – the latest chapter in what rights groups call New Delhi’s sweeping crackdown on activists, journalists and dissidents in India-administered Kashmir since 2019 when it scrapped the region’s autonomy, granted under the Indian Constitution.

Parvez, programme coordinator for the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), was arrested in 2021 by the National Investigation Agency at his home in Srinagar.

Mehraj, a freelance journalist who worked with the same rights group as a researcher, was arrested in 2023.

Both face charges of “funding terrorism” and “propagation of secessionist agenda” under India’s stringent “antiterrorism” laws, which in effect allow authorities to hold people without trial indefinitely.

The National Investigation Agency accuses the two of using the JKCCS to fund militant-linked activities and promote a separatist agenda. Both men deny the allegations.

A lower court granted them bail last week, but the agency appealed. The Delhi High Court refused on Tuesday to suspend the release order although it imposed tougher restrictions on the men’s movements and activities while it hears the appeal.

Under their bail conditions, the two must arrange their own stay in the capital, where they are facing trial, and cannot travel to Kashmir, according to a court document seen by the news agency AFP. Proceedings in the case will continue in the coming weeks.

Human rights violations

The JKCCS has for decades documented alleged rights violations by Indian government forces in Kashmir, including torture and unlawful killings, and has drawn attention to thousands of unmarked graves in border areas suspected of holding victims of “enforced disappearances”.

International rights groups, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, have consistently called for the men’s release, saying they were jailed for their work.

In 2023, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said Parvez’s arrest was an “act of reprisal for his human rights work, and an attempt to silence him and Kashmiri civil society as a whole”.

After their release, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organisation Against Torture said the two were arrested on “trumped-up charges” and called on Indian authorities to drop the case, describing the proceedings as politically motivated.

Journalists in Indian-administered Kashmir say they have faced harassment and arrests since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government annulled the region’s partial autonomy.

From 2019 to 2023, more than 3,600 people were arrested there under “antiterrorism” laws, more than half of whom remain in prison, according to government figures.

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947. Both countries claim the territory in full.

Rebel groups have fought the Indian government since 1989, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians.

The incident was witnessed by the daughter of Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, another prominent political prisoner.

An intense heatwave has worsened the already harsh conditions faced by inmates at Tunisia’s Mornaguia prison and recently caused jailed opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi to temporarily lose consciousness, according to the daughter of another prominent political prisoner who says she witnessed the incident.

Haifa Chebbi, daughter of imprisoned 81-year-old opposition politician Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, said in an emotional live video posted on Facebook after a visit to the jail on Tuesday that she saw the 85-year-old Ghannouchi faint in the stifling heat and she felt barely able “to breathe or even walk on my own feet” by the time she left.

She said the temperature inside Mornaguia prison reached 52 degrees Celsius (126 degrees Fahrenheit) during her visit. Detainees spend most of their time confined to cells no larger than 16 square metres (172 square feet), she added, and are only allowed to spend two hours a day outside.

In 2022 her father helped establish the National Salvation Front (FSN), a broad coalition of secular, liberal and Islamist groups opposed to the increasingly authoritarian rule of President Kais Saied. He was among 37 opposition figures charged with “conspiracy against state security” in 2025, and was sentenced to 12 years in jail.

United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk described the imprisonment of the 37 defendants as “a setback to justice and rule of law”.

“The process was marred by violations of fair trial and due process rights, raising serious concerns about political motivations,” Turk said in a statement in 2025.

Ghannouchi, a former parliament speaker and leader of the Ennahda political movement, has been imprisoned since 2023. He was rushed to hospital on April 30 following a sharp deterioration in his health, but is now back in Mornaguia prison.

In her video, Haifa was careful not to blame prison staff for conditions in the jail, saying they were doing everything they could and that elderly prisoners in particular were receiving special attention.

She said the incident she witnessed highlighted the toll prison conditions are taking on elderly inmates, several of whom are spending their fourth summer behind bars.

She named several other imprisoned opposition figures, including lawyers Abir Moussi and Ayachi Hammami, prominent radio journalist Ziad El Hani, and activist Chaima Issa.

Linking the detentions to wider unrest over water and electricity shortages, Haifa said the crisis extends beyond prison walls. She called on Tunisians to take action to achieve meaningful political change, saying: “We are responsible for everything that will happen, whether negative or positive.”

TEEN Mom alum Nathan Griffith looks like he’s aged quickly during his latest stint in prison.

In his latest mugshot, former MTV star Nathan, 38, has deep wrinkles in his brows and a long beard as he serves time behind bars in Nevada after he was arrested twice for domestic violence in the past few years.

As The U.S. Sun previously reported, he was sentenced to four years in prison in May 2025 after he was charged with domestic battery in 2023 and again two years later.

He was busted for strangling his sister Heather in the first incident, then charged with assaulting his ex-girlfriend Anastasia and violating his probation in the second.

Nathan had a hearing to request an early release on parole in April, The Ashley’s Reality Roundup first reported.

“I have failed in my decision-making,” Nathan said during the hearing, according to the outlet.

“I have failed in numerous of things I have done in life. And I have failed as a human. Words cannot express how regrettable I am in for my decisions and actions.

“Over the last few years, I became so pathetic that I didn’t care about myself or anything, not even my life.

“I’m sure the parole board has received a few letters describing who I was in my former years, of how great of a person I was.

“We can sit here listening to the many marvelous things I have done and accomplished, or how nice, kind and charitable I am.”

“But the attributes and accomplishments did not land me here in prison.

“My lack of insight and compassion, and selfishness has put me here. I was hurting so intensely inside that I couldn’t manage my pain nor myself.”

He also admitted he struggles with alcoholism, The Ashley added.

As The U.S. Sun reported, he checked into rehab in 2024, though sobriety did not seem to stick.

Nathan is actively working to change his life in prison, he claimed during the parole hearing, completing 11 education certificates, including a trauma program and anger management course.

His parole was approved in July, though he does not have to legally be released until November.

Nathan is the ex-fiancee and second baby daddy of Teen Mom star Jenelle Evans, with whom he shares son Kaiser, 12.

Nathan is still married to May Oyola after their 2022 wedding, despite separating for a brief time in 2025.

In 2021, he told The U.S. Sun he struggles with PTSD and other mental health issues after serving time in the United States Marine Corps.