PHOENIX
Sheriff faces U.S. charge
The U.S. Justice Department’s promise to file a criminal contempt-of-court charge against the longtime sheriff of metro Phoenix comes less than a month before the 84-year-old lawman will learn whether he gets a seventh term in office. Sheriff Joe Arpaio will face the possibility of jail time and a clouded political future when prosecutors file a misdemeanor contempt charge against him for defying a judge’s orders to end his signature immigration patrols. The charge is expected to be filed Wednesday. The sheriff issued a statement saying he was confident he would be exonerated and accused President Barack Obama’s administration of trying to influence the sheriff’s race.
RENO, Nev.
Woman still hospitalized
Detectives are reviewing witness accounts and “horrifying” cellphone video while they consider filing a criminal complaint after a pickup truck plowed into a crowd of people during a Native American rights demonstration in downtown Reno, the police chief said Tuesday. The 18-year-old male driver and a 17-year-old passenger have been questioned but no arrests have been made in Monday evening’s incident. A 59-year-old woman remained hospitalized Tuesday with non-life threatening injuries. Quanah Brightman, executive director of San Francisco-based United Native Americans Inc., said the group was speaking out against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota when the truck approached.
CHICAGO
Fossil is from beardog
For decades a fossilized carnivore jawbone sat largely unnoticed in a drawer at Chicago’s Field Museum. Now the scientist who grew curious when he opened that drawer has established with a colleague that the fossil belonged to an early, long-extinct relative of dogs, foxes and weasels known as a beardog. The Field Museum fossil and another at the University of Texas each represent a new genus, the taxonomic rank above species. The researchers believe these beardogs, which lived up to 40 million years ago, may eventually tell the world more about the evolution of dogs and other carnivores.
Compiled from wire reports.