HONOLULU (AP) ‐ A federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday accuses a former Honolulu city prosecutor of dealing opioids with her physician brother and using her position to cover up their crimes.
Katherine Kealoha, the wife of now-retired Honolulu police chief Louis Kealoha, steered law enforcement away from investigating her brother, Dr. Rudolph Puana, after police told her that he was buying cocaine, according to the indictment.
The siblings and unnamed co-conspirators were charged with distributing oxycodone, fentanyl and Xanax. Messages left for their lawyers were not immediately returned.
Puana was arrested amid a growing federal corruption investigation that has resulted in indictments against the Kealohas and current and former officers.
They are scheduled to go to trial next month after being accused of framing Katherine Kealoha’s uncle for the theft of the couple’s home mailbox to discredit him in a family financial dispute.
[CBS News] The research vessel Petrel is perched on a spot in the South Pacific Ocean that was anything but peaceful 77 years ago. Then, it was the scene of a major World War II battle between the U.S. and the Imperial Japanese Navies. For the U.S. aircraft carrier, Hornet, it would be her last battle.
Now, researchers are revealing Petrel found the wreckage of the USS Hornet in late January ‐ exactly what they were looking for. The ship was found more than 17,000 feet below the surface, on the floor of the South Pacific Ocean near the Solomon Islands. The USS Hornet is best known for launching the important Doolittle Raid in April of 1942 and its role in winning the Battle of Midway.
Richard Nowatzki, 95 now, was an 18-year-old gunner on Hornet when enemy planes scored several hits, reports CBS News' Mark Phillips.
"When they left, we were dead in the water," Nowatzki said. "They used armor piercing bombs, now when they come down, you hear 'em going through the decks ... plink, plink, plink, plink ... and then when they explode the whole ship shakes."
With 140 of her crew already dead, the order was given to abandon ship. The Hornet went to the bottom ‐ three and a half miles down ‐ which the crew of the Petrel has been scanning with a deep-sea sonar drone that sends back live pictures.
#2
..I cannot wait to see the full wreck survey when it's finished, because Hornet took one hell of a pounding.
During the battle itself, she was hit by:
*3 Japanese bombs
*2 Val dive bombers crashed into her (these don't appear to be the same as the kamikaze towards the end of the war; these two seem to have been mortally damaged and the pilots decided to go out in glory)
*3 Japanese torpedos
When it became clear Hornet couldn't be saved, she was ordered abandoned. The USN tried to scuttle her with NINE torpedos (it's unclear how many of those were duds - may have been four or five) and more than four hundred rounds of 5"/38 ammo.
She still wouldn't sink. At that point, still afloat, the wreck was abandoned and the USN cleared the area. The Japanese found her at dusk, and actually tried to capture the wreck. They tried getting a tow line on her, but couldn't get it to work so they launched four 'Long Lance' torpedos and finally sent her under.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/13/2019 4:42 Comments ||
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#3
Mike, were the US torpedoes early war models with the bad triggers? Or were those only issued to subs?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/13/2019 8:17 Comments ||
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...Rob,
They sure were. This was a sitting duck target under the best possible conditions and they still didn't work - and BuOrd, which had been bearing the same complaints from the sub skippers for almost a year, still wouldn't listen.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/13/2019 8:26 Comments ||
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#5
mike: saw some pics of the wreckage last night on imgur. very high resolution and the ship looked in very good shape considering it had been sunk.
Posted by: chris ||
02/13/2019 8:27 Comments ||
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#6
From what I read at cdrsalamander, that much ordinance would sink our entire LCS fleet, if anyone ever felt the need to expend ordinance on our LCS fleet.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/13/2019 10:56 Comments ||
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#7
Pretty sure a couple of 45ACP rounds below the water line will sink an LCS.
#8
I'm getting the feeling Hornet disagreed with the notion of being sunk, and is now just pouting on the ocean floor. Sulking that Enterprise got all the glory.
Posted by: Charles ||
02/13/2019 15:45 Comments ||
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[News24] Bank statements show that the Free State government paid R334 202 652 over less than two years, from July 2014 to April 2016, to Indian company Estina.
Netwerk24 reported on Tuesday that the statements show the Guptas' involvement in the Vrede dairy scheme was far greater than previously suspected.
The bank statements show that the Free State Department of Agriculture paid the money over to Estina in amounts of up to R50m at a time.
The statements are for Estina's Standard Bank account, held at the Bedford Gardens branch, under account number 310864860. Estina was supposed to run the Vrede dairy farm on behalf of the department. Outsourcing to Indian contractors...what could possibly go wrong ?
The company should have ploughed the same amount of money back into the scheme, but statements showed that it never happened. Instead, the money was paid into the company's Bank of Baroda account in India almost immediately.
LONDON (Reuters) - The head of Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service is expected to stay on beyond his retirement date this year to guide the intelligence agency through the post-Brexit period, The Times newspaper reported.
Alex Younger, 55, is due to retire in November after five years in the role. But officials want him to extend his appointment to cover the 12 to 24 months after Britain has left the EU, The Times said.
If Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt confirm the extension, he will become the longest-serving MI6 chief since the 1960s. MI6 chiefs, known as "C", traditionally serve for five years at most.
Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, has agreed to remain as director-general of the security service until 2020. He was appointed in 2013.
MI6, depicted by novelists as the employer of some of the most memorable fictional spies from John le Carré’s George Smiley to Ian Fleming’s James Bond, operates overseas and is tasked with defending Britain and its interests.
Sub-Category: 'Gov't funded media as a tool of international diplomacy.' But you knew that already, so feel free to read on.
[Radio Free Europe] The National Guard commander of the U.S. state of Iowa has cancelled a visit to Kosovo over Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj’s refusal to cancel 100 percent tariffs on goods from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Pristina confirmed on February 11 that Major General Timothy Orr’s visit was canceled "in connection to tariffs of Serbian and Bosnian goods."
The spokesman added that the embassy had no comment on further visits or scheduled training.
Kosovo Security Forces commander Rahman Rama said he had been told the visit had been scrapped, and then informed Kosovo President Hasim Thaci of the decision in a letter.
"This is a consequence of the fees imposed on Serbia, which prompted the decision of the U.S. government," Rama told RFE/RL.
#1
If General Orr and his CIA POLMIL pals at Foggy Bottom want to meddle in international policy issues, there is that pesky US-Mexican border that requires periodic attention.
Staying the fok out of other people's business in Europe and beyond, why is it so difficult ?
The Kremlin has installed kill switch is on the four data cables that run into the country, so should Russia cut itself off from the Internet, it means they're probably would not be a Russian Internet at all. And I think the Kremlin is fine with that. http://t.co/bhkF7JTmyK
[Air Force Times] Capt. Zoe Kotnik, the first female pilot to head the F-16 Viper demonstration team, was relieved of command Monday.
"Col. Derek O'Malley, 20th Fighter Wing commander, relieved Capt. Zoe Kotnik from command Feb. 11 due to a loss of confidence in her ability to lead and command the Air Combat Command F-16 Viper demonstration team," said Col. Allen Herritage, director of public affairs at ACC, in a statement. "The Viper demonstration team is working to minimize impacts on scheduled performances and looks forward to inspiring crowds around the country during the upcoming season as soon as a new commander is selected."
Herritage would not comment further on what led to Kotnik's removal, citing privacy concerns.
The 20th, which is located at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, said in an email to Air Force Times that Kotnik declined to comment. Capt. Alannah Staver, a spokeswoman for the wing, said that Kotnik is no longer performing with the team, but "will continue to serve in a non-supervisory role in the 20th Fighter Wing."
In a statement on Shaw's Facebook page, O'Malley alluded to "mistakes" on Kotnik's part, but expressed hope that she will continue to serve in the Air Force.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2019 09:35 ||
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#1
What? You mean you are not going to follow the Navy's program of awaiting a disaster before acting?
#4
For the military to remove a waaamon from a historic role that quickly, she must have really fucked up. Like fucking the commander's under age son/daughter.
#7
...20FW and the 55FS (CAPT Kotnik's home unit) were my last assignment in the USAF before I retired. Not at ALL sure what happened here, but I am suspecting that there was a near-miss of some kind and she tried to cover it up. There's no mention of any UCMJ procedures pending, and no indication of anybody else on Viper East being yanked out, which you'd see if there was a zipper failure. It's a shame; she had a hell of a career ahead of her.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/13/2019 17:15 Comments ||
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[Radio Free Europe - ME Bureau] WASHINGTON -- The son of the Iran's last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, asserted that Iranian society is close to a "flash point" like it was before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and that the government in Tehran is near collapse.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled former crown prince of Iran, said in an interview with RFE/RL's Radio Farda that he thinks "we are really close to the fall of the [Iranian] regime."
He added that the current situation in Iran is similar to how it was in 1979 when his father left Iran amid violent turmoil and went into exile.
That upheaval ended centuries of monarchy in Iran and led to the formation of the Islamic Republic of Iran with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini at its head.
"The atmosphere [in Iran] seems to be close to a flash point," he said at his home outside of Washington, D.C.
Pahlavi's comments came as Iran on February 11 celebrated the 40th anniversary of the establishment of an Islamic government in Iran.
#3
The Persian royal court is still active in exile. I met a doctor’s wife who had just returned from serving a turn as a lady in waiting or something. I’m not sure about the caliber of the conversation, though, as all she talked about was the clothes she’d worn. But then, I am very happily bourgeoise.
A taste:
[EagleForum] "I was with them at that table as they founded the Women’s Movement and NOW. The entire stated point of their activities was to destroy the American family and with that, Western civilization. Is this not crazy? They were tooth-grittingly determined. They were driven by destruction and deeply violent impulses toward men and the patriarchy. Their goal? To establish a matriarchy in order to end all war because that’s what men do, wage war. They believed that if women ran everything there would be no more war.
In their madness they have conspired to destroy masculinity, drugging our little boys while trying to remake them into little girls and thus, emboldening our enemies who now see us as easy pickings. No nation is easier to overwhelm than one which has feminized the men and put females at the head of the tribe. Matriarchies never survive ‐ never have, never will!" If you read the post, you'll understand the .jpg.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
02/13/2019 08:17 ||
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Liberal Listicle Money Drain Defies Gravity
[10News] After a crushing round of layoffs that sent shockwaves through the newsroom, BuzzFeed's editorial staff announced on Tuesday that they have formed a union to grapple with the threats looming over the media industry.
Employees have informed BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith of their intentions, according to the NewsGuild of New York ‐ the union with which BuzzFeed is organizing. NewsGuild said that more than 90% of "eligible editorial employees signed on to the union effort."
BuzzFeed, once a darling in the digital media space, laid off 15% of its workforce last month . Employees took to Medium to write an open letter to the company's leadership team to express anger over BuzzFeed's decision not to pay laid-off staffers for earned paid time off. CEO Jonah Peretti eventually relented after the backlash .
However, it appears that the effort to unionize started before the latest round of cuts, with the NewsGuild calling it a "months long organizing drive." Included in the demands are PTO payouts, reasonable severance and due process for termination ‐ a list that shows that staffers are bracing for more turmoil.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2019 06:23 ||
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#1
Because if there's anything better than a crew of people yammering mindlessly, it's a crew of people yammering mindlessly with collective bargaining.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/13/2019 7:32 Comments ||
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#2
...Popcorn, anyone?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/13/2019 8:28 Comments ||
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#3
I foresee them collectively deciding how to split zero.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
HONOLULU (AP) ‐ A federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday accuses a former Honolulu city prosecutor of dealing opioids with her physician brother and using her position to cover up their crimes.
[Radio Free Europe - ME Bureau] WASHINGTON -- The son of the Iran's last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, asserted that Iranian society is close to a "flash point" like it was before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and that the government in Tehran is near collapse.
