Ex-attorney general sentenced to jail

Ex-attorney general sentenced to jail

NORRISTOWN, PA.

Former state Attorney General Kathleen Kane, once a rising star in state politics, left a courtroom in handcuffs Monday after getting a 10- to 23-month sentence for a retaliation scheme.

Kane, 50, also was sentenced to eight years of probation by a Montgomery County judge, who said Kane’s need for revenge led her to break the law and then lie to a grand jury. Kane, who was accused of leaking secret investigative files to embarrass a rival prosecutor, was convicted of perjury and obstruction.

Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy said Kane assumed an “off with your heads” mentality as she ran the state’s top law-enforcement agency. The judge called Kane a political “neophyte” who failed to make the transition from politician to public servant when she took office in 2013.

NAACP seeks probe after noose is put on black student

WIGGINS, MISS.

The president of the Mississippi NAACP is demanding a federal hate-crime investigation after the parents of a black high-school student said as many as four white students put a noose around their son’s neck at school.

“No child should be walking down the hall or in a locker room and be accosted with a noose around their neck,” president Derrick Johnson said Monday during a news conference in Wiggins. “This is 2016, not 1916. This is America. This is a place where children should go to school and feel safe in their environment.”

Johnson said the incident happened Oct. 13 near a locker room at Stone High School in Wiggins.

Hollis and Stacey Payton, parents of the purported victim, attended the news conference but did not speak. Their son, a sophomore football player, was not with them, and they did not release his name.

The NAACP said the incident happened during a break in football practice and that the noose was “yanked backward” while on the student’s neck.

One-fourth of US cancer deaths are linked to smoking

CHICAGO

Cigarettes contribute to more than 1 in 4 cancer deaths in the U.S. The rate is highest among men in Southern states where smoking is more common and the rules against it are not as strict.

The American Cancer Society study found the highest rate among men in Arkansas, where 40 percent of cancer deaths were linked to cigarette smoking. Kentucky had the highest rate among women – 29 percent.

The lowest rates were in Utah, where 22 percent of cancer deaths in men and 11 percent in women were linked with smoking.

Results were published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

While U.S. smoking rates have been falling, 40 million U.S. adults are cigarette smokers, and smoking is the top cause of preventable deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Officials: Attack kills 48 police trainees

QUETTA, PAKISTAN

Gunmen stormed a police training center late Monday in Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan province and detonated explosive vests, killing at least 48 police trainees, authorities said.

Baluchistan’s top health official, Noorul Haq, said at least 116 people were wounded — mostly police trainees and some paramilitary troops.

A security official put the death toll at 51. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

The attackers purportedly belong to the banned Lashker-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi group, an Islamic militant group affiliated with al-Qaida.

Associated Press