Chronicle briefs for Jan. 13, 2023
Death Toll Rises to 9 After Tornadoes Shred Through South
Rescuers in Alabama were scouring through debris, and in some places going door to door, as they tried on Friday to find people who might have been killed or injured by the powerful storms that unleashed tornadoes and shredding winds across the South.
In Old Kingston, an unincorporated rural community in central Alabama, emergency workers searching the wreckage of a home found a woman who had been killed, raising the death toll from Thursday’s storms in Autauga County to seven, authorities said. Two more people were killed in Georgia, a 5-year-old boy and a state employee responding to the storm, state officials there said.
Yet the full extent of the devastation remained unclear Friday as communities scattered across Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi tried to assess all that had been lost.
Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama declared a state of emergency for six counties, including Dallas County, whose seat is Selma.
In Selma, trees were torn apart, roofs were peeled off houses and businesses, and utility lines were knocked down. Officials urged residents to stay off the roads and avoid fallen power lines.
Santos’ Legal woes grow as another FEC complaint filed
WASHINGTON – The troubles keep piling up for serial prevaricator George Santos, the freshman representative whose alleged misuse of campaign funds now has another government accountability group asking the Federal Election Commission to investigate.
Accountable.US, a progressive watchdog organization, filed a complaint with the FEC on Friday, alleging the New York Republican’s campaign misused funds for personal expenses, accepted excessive contributions and filed disclosure forms late.
“With each passing day, Congressmen Santos’s rap sheet of potential crimes and outlandish lies continues to grow. The FEC has an obligation to hold him accountable – Speaker McCarthy and his MAGA majority certainly won’t, especially after gutting the Congressional Ethics Office,” Accountable.US president Kyle Herrig said in a statement.
On Monday, the Campaign Legal Center filed its own FEC complaint also accusing the Santos campaign of paying personal expenses, focusing on its suspicious disclosures showing disbursements of $199.99, a cent below the threshold for providing receipts.
Santos has faced intense scrutiny since December, when the New York Times reported that he lied about nearly every aspect of his life. (Previous questioning of Santos’ make-believe biography by local news outlets before the general election failed to attract much attention.)
Spacey pleads not guilty to 7 more sexual assault charges
Kevin Spacey pleaded not guilty in a U.K. court Friday to seven more sexual assault charges.
The Oscar- and Tony-winning actor appeared via video link at London’s Southwark Crown Court, confirmed his full legal name, Kevin Spacey Fowler, and denied all the accusations against him, Reuters reported.
Spacey, 63, is charged with three counts of indecent assault, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent.
The charges were brought by the same person, a man who alleges the offenses took place between 2001 and 2004.