SAN DIEGO
Border arrests up 23 percent
Central Americans attempting to enter the United States illegally on the nation’s border with Mexico helped drive a 23 percent increase in U.S. Border Patrol arrests during the 2016 fiscal year, according to figures released Friday. Apprehensions surged to 415,816 during the 12-month period ended Sept. 30 from a 44-year-low of 337,117 during the same period a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said. Still, the most recent numbers represent the Border Patrol’s fifth-lowest arrest tally since 1972 and were far below numbers seen in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The number of Central Americans
BALTIMORE
Patients to get up to $26,000
More than 5,500 women who said they were secretly recorded during pelvic exams by a gynecologist at Johns Hopkins will each receive at least $20,000 as part of a $190 million settlement with the hospital system. Determination letters have been sent to the about 9,600 women who said they were victimized by Dr. Nikita Levy at a Johns Hopkins-affiliated clinic in Baltimore, WBAL-TV reported. The settlement, which was approved in 2014, is one of the largest on U.S. record involving sexual misconduct by a physician. The TV station reports that about 8,300 of the plaintiffs will receive money ranging from about $1,800 to about $26,000.
MIAMI
Officers fired over comments
Three new police officers were fired for making comments on a group chat about using Miami’s primarily black neighborhoods for target practice, a newspaper reported Friday. Officers Kevin Bergnes, Miguel Valdes and Bruce Alcin were let go Dec. 23, after an internal affairs investigation concluded they violated department policies, said the Miami Herald, citing documents it obtained.
LAS VEGAS
Rio struggles to get lights on
The busy New Year’s holiday weekend is likely to come and go before a Rio casino hotel tower in Las Vegas fully recovers from a power outage that prompted a 900-room evacuation, officials said Friday. Spokesman Richard Broome of the Rio’s parent company, Caesars Entertainment, said the company was testing to see whether rooms on the lowest 20 floors could be occupied Friday. That could mean about 500 rooms would reopen in time for the holiday, when hotel rooms are scarce.
Compiled from wire reports