Lian Li Stuck LCDs in the Middle of Its PC Case Fans, Because Someone Had To
You can always count on Computex, Taiwan's annual mecca for PC enthusiasts, to deliver mind-blowing
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McCloud throws career-high 5 TD passes, No. 24 James Madison beats Coastal Carolina 56-14
Jordan McCloud threw a career-high five touchdown passes — three to Elijah Sarratt — and No. 24 James Madison rebounded from its only loss to rout Coastal Carolina 56-14 on Saturday
2023-11-26 08:19
Why Tesla Keeps Changing Its Prices
Tesla Inc. has done seemingly nonstop tinkering with its prices this year, moving them lower in dramatic fashion
1970-01-01 08:00
Forensic audit into Lebanon's central bank reveals misconduct and 'illegitimate' commissions
A forensic audit into Lebanon’s central bank by a New York-based company has revealed yearslong misconduct by the bank’s former governor and $111 million in “illegitimate commissions.”
2023-08-12 01:39
Body cam shows prolific federal drug prosecutor offering cops business card in DUI crash arrest
When police arrived at his house to investigate a hit-and-run, Joseph Ruddy, one of the nation’s most prolific federal narcotics prosecutors, looked so drunk he could barely stand up straight, leaning on the tailgate of his pickup to keep his balance. But he apparently was under control enough to be waiting with his U.S. Justice Department business card in hand. “What are you trying to hand me?” an officer asked. “You realize when they pull my body-worn camera footage and they see this, this is going to go really bad." That footage obtained by The Associated Press showed Ruddy apparently attempting to leverage his position to blunt the fallout from a Fourth of July crash in which he is accused of drunkenly striking another vehicle and leaving the scene. But despite being charged, the 59-year-old Ruddy remained on the job for two months, representing the United States in court as recently as last week to notch another win for the sprawling task force he helped create two decades ago targeting cocaine smuggling at sea. On Wednesday, a day after the AP asked the Justice Department about Ruddy's status, the veteran prosecutor was pulled off three pending criminal cases. A Justice Department spokesman would not say whether he had been suspended but said that Ruddy, while still employed, had been removed from his supervisory role at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tampa. The case also has been referred to the Office of Inspector General. Such an inspector general's probe would likely focus on whether Ruddy was trying to use his public office for private gain, said Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics professor at Washington University in St. Louis who reviewed the footage. “It’s hard to see what this could be other than an attempt to improperly influence the police officer to go easy on him,” Clark said. “What could possibly be his purpose in handing over his U.S. Attorney’s Office business card?” Ruddy, whose blood-alcohol level tested at 0.17%, twice the legal limit, was charged with driving under the influence with property damage — a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison. Despite his own admissions and witness testimony, he was not charged with leaving the scene of an accident. Neither Ruddy nor his attorney returned messages seeking comment. Ruddy is known in law enforcement circles as one of the architects of Operation Panama Express, or PANEX — a task force launched in 2000 to target cocaine smuggling at sea, combining resources from the U.S. Coast Guard, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Historically, PANEX-generated intelligence contributes to more than 90% of U.S. Coast Guard drug interdictions at sea. Between 2018 and 2022, the Coast Guard removed or destroyed 888 metric tons of cocaine worth an estimated $26 billion and detained 2,776 suspected smugglers, a senior Coast Guard official said in congressional testimony in March. The bulk of those cases were handled by Ruddy and his colleagues in Tampa, where PANEX is headquartered. A former Ironman triathlete, Ruddy enjoys a reputation among attorneys for hard work and toughness in the courtroom. Among his biggest cases were some of the early extraditions from Colombia of top smugglers for the feared Cali cartel. But the majority of cases handled out of his office involve mostly poor fishermen from Central and South America who make up the drug trade’s lowest rungs. Often, the drugs aren’t even bound for American shores and the constitutional guarantees of due process that normally apply in criminal cases inside the U.S. are only loosely observed. “Ruddy is at the heart of a costly and aggressive prosecutor-led dragnet that every year pulls hundreds of low-level cocaine traffickers off the oceans and incarcerates them in the U.S.,” said Kendra McSweeney, an Ohio State University geographer who is part of a team studying maritime interdiction policies. Research by Ohio State's Interdiction Lab found that between 2014 and 2020, the median sentence for smugglers picked up at sea and prosecuted in Tampa was 10 years — longer than any other court in the country and compared to seven years, six months in Miami, which handles the second-largest amount of such cases. Last Friday, nearly two months after his arrest, Ruddy was in court to ratify a plea deal in the case of a Brazilian man, Flavio Fontes Pereira, who in February was found by the U.S. Coast Guard with more than 3.3 tons of cocaine aboard a sailboat off Guinea, in West Africa. After two weeks aboard the U.S. Coast Guard vessel, Pereira made his initial court appearance in Tampa in March, charged under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, which gives the U.S. unique arrest powers anywhere on the high seas whenever it determines a vessel is “without nationality.” Ruddy is next due to appear in court in his own case Sept. 27. He's accused of sideswiping an SUV whose driver had been waiting to turn at a red light, clipping a side mirror and tearing off another piece of the vehicle that lodged in the fender of Ruddy’s pickup. “He never even hit brakes,” a witness told police. "He just kept going and he was swerving all the way up the road. I’m like, ‘No, he’s going to hurt somebody.’ So I just followed him until I got the tag number and just called and reported it.” When officers arrived at Ruddy’s home in the suburb of Temple Terrace, they found him hunched over his pickup, holding his keys and using the vehicle for support, the report said. Officers noted that he had urinated on himself, was unable to walk without help and failed a field sobriety test. “I understand we might be having a better night,” Tampa police patrolman Taylor Grant said before looking at the business card. “Why didn’t you stop?” the officer asked. “I didn’t realize it was that serious,” Ruddy said in a slurred response. “You hit a vehicle and you ran,” the officer said. “You ran because you’re drunk. You probably didn’t realize you hit the vehicle.” ___ Goodman reported from Miami. Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.
2023-09-09 01:34
Dramatic Walk-Off Home Run Wins Little League World Series For California
Louis Lappe's dramatic walk-off home run won the Little League World Series.
2023-08-28 05:52
How Lionel Messi's Inter Miami statistics look after incredible streak ends
A look at Lionel Messi's scoring streak for Inter Miami and how it came to an end against Nashville SC in MLS
2023-08-31 20:20
Gunman in Pittsburgh synagogue massacre planned attack, defense acknowledges as trial gets underway
A lawyer for the man charged in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history is acknowledging he planned the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue and made hateful statements about Jewish people
2023-05-31 01:35
Pinterest Revenue Beats Estimates on Shopping Push
Pinterest Inc. reported second-quarter revenue that exceeded analysts’ estimates, signaling that the company’s efforts in expanding its business
2023-08-02 04:09
Eddie Howe ‘hugely frustrated’ as Newcastle denied win by controversial penalty
Eddie Howe was left fuming after Paris St Germain denied Newcastle a priceless Champions League victory with a controversial stoppage-time penalty. The Magpies were heading for a famous 1-0 win at the Parc des Princes until Polish referee Szymon Marciniak awarded a spot-kick against Tino Livramento after a VAR review, allowing Kylian Mbappe to level in the eighth and final minute of added time. Howe, who said in a television interview that the official had been placed under “extreme” pressure by the PSG players, labelled a decision which cost his side two precious points “poor” in his post-match press conference. Asked if he felt a sense of injustice, the Newcastle boss said: “Yes, I do. It wasn’t the right decision in my opinion. “There are so many things to take into account at that moment, the speed first. It was a ricochet that when it is slowed down, looks completely different to the live event. “The ball hits his chest first, comes up and hits his hand. But his hand is not in an unnatural position, they [his hands] are down by his side, but he is in a running motion. “I feel it is a poor decision and it’s hugely frustrating for us as you know how little time there is left in the game. There is nothing we can do about it now.” The pivotal moment arrived in the fifth minute of stoppage time when Ousmane Dembele attempted to deliver the ball across the Newcastle penalty area and saw it hit Livramento’s side and rear up on to the underside of his arm. Mr Marciniak, who had earlier seen decisions not to award spot-kicks for an Anthony Gordon challenge on Achraf Hakimi and a shout for handball against teenager midfielder Lewis Miley upheld, was advised to review the incident and this time decided to award the penalty. The Magpies, who had taken a 24th-minute lead through Alexander Isak, defended it for grim life until the last-gasp controversy, although they needed Pope to be at his brilliant best on several occasions. They now need to beat AC Milan at home on December 13 and hope PSG do not win away to Borussia Dortmund to progress. Asked if that was something to cling on to, Howe, who celebrates his 46th birthday on Wednesday, said: “Yes, I think that’s absolutely right. In the next couple of days, that will become more relevant in our thoughts, I think. “When the draw came out, it was the ‘group of death’ and I don’t think many people gave us a chance of qualifying from it and sitting here now, I’m a little bit frustrated that it’s not in our hands because when I look back at the two Dortmund games, I felt we could have done better in those matches. “I don’t think it’s the time for that, I think it’s probably a time to be positive and to say that if we can beat Milan, then good things can happen from it.” For PSG boss Luis Enrique, there was a mixture of relief and frustration on a night when his side created a host of chances but were unable to take any of them until Mbappe’s late intervention. Enrique said: “Without a doubt, we played a very great game. We deserved to win. We played better than Newcastle. The result does not reflect what happened on the pitch. “It’s not basketball. We are one of the teams in Europe that scores the most. Sometimes the ball doesn’t want to go in. “Sometimes the game looked like table tennis. I couldn’t believe we couldn’t score, but we carried on despite the frustration.” Read More On this day in 2015: Great Britain end long wait for Davis Cup win Deloitte predicts global revenues for women’s elite sport will top £1bn in 2024 Alan Shearer blasts ‘disgusting’ penalty as Newcastle denied win in Paris First half was the worst I’ve seen us – Phil Foden savours thrilling fightback Beth Mead ‘smiling like a Cheshire cat’ on England return Rodrigo Bentancur set to be out until February after tearing an ankle ligament
2023-11-29 14:13
RBI Governor Says India Inflation Vulnerable to Food Price Shock
Sign up for the India Edition newsletter by Menaka Doshi – an insider's guide to the emerging economic
2023-11-09 14:51
Sabalenka into second Wimbledon semi-final
Aryna Sabalenka powered into a second Wimbledon semi-final on Wednesday with a straight-sets win over Madison Keys...
2023-07-12 21:58
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