California woman Sherri Papini accepts plea deal, will admit her 'kidnap' was all a hoax
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Six weeks after Sherri Papini was arrested and charged with faking her own kidnapping in 2016, the so-called Super Mom from Redding has signed a plea deal and will admit that she orchestrated the hoax, her attorney told The Sacramento Bee on Tuesday.
William Portanova, a prominent Sacramento defense attorney who signed onto the case in late March, said Papini, 39, signed a plea agreement Tuesday morning in which she will plead guilty to counts of lying to a federal officer and mail fraud.
"We are taking this case in an entirely new direction," said Portanova, a former federal prosecutor. "Everything that has happened before today stops today."
Papini issued a statement through her attorney expressing remorse.
"I am deeply ashamed of myself for my behavior and so sorry for the pain I've caused my family, my friends, all the good people who needlessly suffered because of my story and those who worked so hard to try to help me," Papini said in her statement. "I will work the rest of my life to make amends for what I have done."
—The Sacramento Bee
Oklahoma governor signs near-total ban on abortion in push to be nation’s ‘most pro-life state’
OKLAHOMA CITY — Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a near-total ban on abortion Tuesday, declaring it to be a big step toward his goal of making Oklahoma “the most pro-life state in the country” as states continue to follow Texas’ lead in imposing new restrictions.
The Oklahoma law is scheduled to go into effect in late August, but legal challenges are expected and the law would effectively be unenforceable unless the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in an opinion expected by June.
“We want to outlaw abortion,” Stitt said during the bill-signing ceremony. The governor, who along with others wore red roses as a symbol of the sanctity of life, has promised to sign any abortion restriction that lawmakers approve and send to his desk.
The law, Senate Bill 612, bans all abortions, with an exception to save the life of the mother. There is no exception forrape or incest. Providers face criminal penalties up to $100,000 or a maximum prison sentence up to 10 years. There is no punishment for a woman who obtains an abortion.
It’s the latest abortion restriction bill to pass in wake of Texas’ enactment of Senate Bill 8 last September.
The White House challenged the Texas law, which has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, and is blasting Oklahoma’s legislation.Press secretary Jen Psaki called the bill an “unconstitutional attack on women’s rights” and one of the most “extreme” state laws signed to date.
—The Dallas Morning News
Deadly overdoses have spiked among teens, even as drug use dropped, UCLA researchers find
Deadly drug overdoses among U.S. teenagers have more than doubled in frequency in recent years, even as those in the age group became less likely to use illegal drugs, researchers from UCLA and elsewhere found in a newly published analysis.
The findings underscore the fact that teens face serious danger from the kinds of drugs circulating in the United States,including the powerful opioid fentanyl and other synthetic opioids and benzodiazepines, said Joseph Friedman, a UCLA addiction researcher and lead author of the study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“The bottom line is, the drug supply is just becoming a toxic mess,” Friedman said.
Drug use among teens is not becoming more common, Friedman said, but it is growing much more dangerous. Teens used to be more insulated from the dangers of fentanyl, because they didn’t typically experiment with the kinds of drugs to which fentanyl was added in the past. That is no longer the case, as the synthetic opioid is popping up in counterfeit pills, he said.
Fewer teens are experimenting with drugs, but those who do “are at a much higher risk of overdose death because of the spread of counterfeit pills that look like Percocet and OxyContin or Xanax, but they’re actually illicit fentanyl,” he said.
—Los Angeles Times
At least 45 feared dead in South Africa after heavy rainfall
JOHANNESBURG — At least 45 people are thought to have died in South Africa's eastern coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal due to unusually heavy rainfall, according to officials, who cautioned that the numbers are preliminary because so many are currently missing.
There are fears that numerous people have been injured, while damage to property was extensive. The military has been put on alert.
About 100 school buildings were damaged, some of which were used as shelter by pupils and teachers until they could be rescued. Multiple landslides were reported.
Rebuilding could be a significant challenge, since many streets were washed away. However, it was hard to assess the situation since so many relay towers for mobile communications were offline.
The city of Durban was particularly badly affected. Many critical transport routes are now under water and some containers were washed away in the city's harbor.
—dpa
