Putin Meets With Alexis Tsipras of Greece, Raising Eyebrows in Europe - New York Times
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Putin Meets With Alexis Tsipras of Greece, Raising Eyebrows in Europe
New York Times MOSCOW — Welcoming the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, to Moscow at a time of badly strained relations between Russia and Europe, President Vladimir V. Putin on Wednesday declared that the visit “could not have come at a better time.” Mr. Tsipras ... Alexis Tsipras Calls for 'New Start' Between Greece and RussiaWall Street Journal Europe warns Greece ahead of Kremlin visit: 'Putin can't save you'Telegraph.co.uk Putin Meets Tsipras in Russia as EU Sanctions in FocusBloomberg Daily Mail -Christian Science Monitor all 737 news articles » |
Voice of America |
Defense Secretary Hails US-Japan Alliance
Voice of America TOKYO—. Beginning his first Asia tour, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter laid out the U.S. commitment to Japanese security Wednesday in Tokyo, urging restraint in territorial disputes between Japan and China. Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. and more » |
We rarely care about our privacy and surveillance in general terms, but when it comes to specifics we can get very defensive indeed
If you’re doing nothing wrong, and have nothing to hide from your government, then mass surveillance holds no fears for you. This argument might be the oldest straw man in the privacy debate, but it’s also a decent reflection of the state of the argument. In the UK’s first major election since the Snowden revelations, privacy is a nonissue.
This is a shame, because when it comes down to it, many of us who are doing nothing wrong have plenty we would prefer to hide.
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Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has filed criminal charges against Gachai Haciyev, an Azerbaijani who lives in the Lipetsk region of Russia.
Germany increasingly dismissive of Greek demand for €279bn in 'war debt' by Ben Knight in Berlin and Helena Smith in Athens
Politicians, media and public hostile to call for reparations, seeing it as an obstacle to resolving debt issue, even if many acknowledge war crimes against Greece
Germany has become increasingly disparaging of
The country’s vice-chancellor and economy minister, Sigmar Gabriel, who is also leader of the Social Democrats, dismissed the Greek demands, saying: “Honestly, I think it’s stupid.” He added that the issues of Greece’s debts and Germany’s war reparations were separate, and that such talk would not move forward negotiations “by one millimetre”.
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Under Obama, Fewer White House State Dinnersby webdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)
An invitation to a White House state dinner has always been one of Washington's most sought-after tickets. There's the elegant setting, VIP guests in tuxedos and designer gowns and a four-course meal served up by America's most famous kitchen. But don't get your hopes up. President Barack Obama has held the fewest number of state dinners since Harry S. Truman, who left office 62 years ago. In his first six years, Obama held just seven state dinners....
In the midst of this seething mountain capital, Mexico’s security ministry houses a bizarre museum — a collection of what the army seizes from drug traffickers. The Museo de Enervantes, often referred to as the Narco Museum, has drug samples themselves (including the rare black cocaine), diamond-studded guns, gold-coated cell phones, rocket-propelled grenades and medals that cartels award their most productive smugglers. It also shows off the narcos’ ingenuity for getting their drugs into the United States, including “trap cars” with secret compartments, catapults to hurl packages over the border fence and even false buttocks, to hide drugs in.
Agents on the 2,000 mile-U.S. border have wrestled with these smuggling techniques for decades, seemingly unable to stop the northward flow of drugs and southward flow of dollars and guns. But the amount of one drug — marijuana — seems to have finally fallen. U.S. Border Patrol has been seizing steadily smaller quantities of the drug, from 2.5 million pounds in 2011 to 1.9 million pounds in 2014. Mexico’s army has noted an even steeper decline, confiscating 664 tons of cannabis in 2014, a drop of 32% compared to year before.
This fall appears to have little to do with law enforcement, however, and all to do with the wave of U.S. marijuana legalization. The votes by Colorado and Washington State to legalize marijuana in 2012, followed by Alaska, Oregon and D.C. last year have created a budding industry. U.S. growers produce gourmet products with exotic names such as White Widow, Golden Goat and Oaktown Crippler as opposed to the bog-standard Mexican “mota.” American dispensaries even label their drugs, showing how strong they are, measured in THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive ingredient), and grade their mix of sativa, which gets people stoned in a psychedelic way and indica, which has a more knock-out effect.
Drug policy reformists tout this market shift from Mexican gangsters to American licensed growers as a reason to spread legalization. “It is no surprise to me that marijuana consumers choose to buy their product from a legal tax-paying business as opposed to a black market product that is not tested or regulated,” says Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority. “When you go to a legal store, you know what you are getting, and that is not going to be contaminated.” A group called Marijuana Doctors elaborate the point in this comical online ad.
Analysts are still trying to work out the long-term effect this shift will have on Mexican cartel finances and violence. The legal marijuana industry could be the fastest growing sector of the U.S. economy. It grew 74% in 2014 to $2.7 billion, according to the ArcView group, a cannabis investment and research firm. This includes revenue from both recreational drug stores and from medical marijuana, which has been legalized in 23 states. The group predicts the industry will top $4 billion by 2016.
This means less cash for Mexican cartels to buy guns, bribe police and pay assassins. Coinciding with legalization, violence has decreased in Mexico. Homicides hit a high in 2011, with Mexican police departments reporting almost 23,000 murders. Last year, they reported 15,649.
Other factors may have caused this fall in killings, says Alejandro Hope, a security analyst and former officer of Mexico’s federal intelligence agency. “Finances from marijuana could be having an impact on violence but you also have to look at other causes. Many of the most violent cartel commanders have been killed or arrested,” Hope says. These downed warlords include the head of the Zetas cartel Heriberto Lazcano, a former soldier who was known as the Executioner for the mass graves he dug. Mexican marines say they shot Lazcano dead in 2012, although his cohorts bust into the funeral home and stole his corpse.
Despite the drop in homicides, Mexico’s violence is still at painful levels. In September, cartel thugs working with corrupt police attacked a group of students, killing three and abducting 43. The atrocity caused hundreds of thousands to take to the streets to protest corruption and bloodshed. On Monday, cartel gunmen ambushed police in Jalisco state, killing 15 in one of the worst attacks on security forces in recent years.
A key problem is that cartels have diversified to a portfolio of other crimes, from sex trafficking to stealing crude oil from Mexican pipelines. They also make billions smuggling hard drugs. Seizures of both heroin and crystal meth on the U.S.-Mexico border have gone up as those of marijuana have sunk, according to U.S. Homeland Security, with agents nabbing a record 34,840 pounds of meth in 2014.
In total, Americans spend about $100 billion on illegal drugs every year, according to a White House report. The estimate puts marijuana at about 40% of this, so the legal industry still only accounts for a fraction of the total. One restriction to growth is that U.S. federal law still prohibits cannabis, making banking difficult and scaring investors.
In the long term, drug policy reformers hope for a legal marijuana market in the entire region. This would throw up the possibility of Mexicans legally producing and exporting their drugs to the U.S., taking advantage of cheaper labor. “Cannabis is not unlike wine,” says Sanho Tree, director of the Drug Policy Project at Washington’s Institute of Policy Studies. “I can buy a $200 bottle of wine, if that is what I am after. But many people will prefer the cheaper mass market product.” One advocate is former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has voiced support for an American entrepreneur who wants to import marijuana to the United States.
Any such cross-border market would require a change of U.N. treaties, which outlaw marijuana. These come up for discussion in a General Assembly Special Session on Drugs in April 2016. “I feel optimistic there will be change. This movement has momentum,” Angell of Marijuana Majority says. “It is interesting that the United States was historically a driver of drug prohibition. Now parts of the U.S. are leading the change.”
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Syria’s Palestinian factions met Wednesday in an attempt to form a united front to fight the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) whose fighters now control most of the Yarmouk refugee camp on the edge of Damascus. One week after ISIS fought their way into Yarmouk, thousands of civilians remain trapped inside.
“There is consensus to fight ISIS among Palestinians,” says Farouk al-Rifai, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Society Network in Syria who is currently in Damascus, “but disagreement about cooperating with the criminal regime,” referring to the government of Bashar al-Assad.
Palestinian fighters were taken by surprise last Wednesday when ISIS militants appeared in the camp after being allowed in by fighters from al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. Since then they have been battling ISIS in the rubble-filled streets of this once crowded and vibrant Palestinian neighbourhood.
“This was already a place where women were dying in childbirth because of lack of medicine and children were dying of malnutrition,” says Chris Gunness, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees. “We’ve just got reports of terrified people holed up in their houses with intesnse street fighting raging outside.”
And on top of the street fighting, residents inside say the regime continues to strike the camp.
“The situation now is dire because the regime is striking using barrels (bombs) and targeting civilians,” said Abu Abdallah, who is still inside Yarmouk but didn’t want to use his real name. “The worst part is the regime does not discriminate between civilians and fighters.”
An estimated 18,000 people remain in the camp, once home to around 180,000 mostly Palestinian residents. At least 3,500 of those who remain are children, according to aid workers. Yarmouk has already been under siege for more than two years and people have literally starved to death inside the camp. The siege and on-going clashes among regime troops and rebel forces have made delivering aid and supplies almost impossible at times. Gunness say his organization has had no access to the camp since the latest round of fighting broke out April 1.
“We need a pause [in the fighting] and humanitarian access so we can get aid to the civilians that need it,” says Gunness.
The U.N., aid organizations and activists are calling for an immediate end to hostilities in Yarmouk and for the protection of the civilians, but inside the camp there are now confused battle lines and shifting alliances among militias.
The Palestinians say they had an agreement with the Nusra Front, who control several checkpoints into Yarmouk, to keep calm and maintain security in the camp. Instead, the Nusra Front stopped Palestinian allies from entering the camp and welcomed ISIS.
This marked an unusual alliance between ISIS and Nusra, two of the most powerful armed forces in Syria. Since ISIS emerged in Syria, it has competed with the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country. If the cooperation in Yarmouk was replicated in other parts of Syria, ISIS and Nusra would become a much stronger force.
“This is a localized thing,” says Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center, “but it may be a harbinger of things to come elsewhere in Syria.”
Now, its hard to see which international powers have the ability to appeal to the numerous factions warring in and around the camp — some allied with opposition rebels, some with al-Qaeda and others with Assad or ISIS.
“It begs the question, ‘who can stop this?’ I suspect we have very little leverage,” says Shaikh. “If we’re not careful we will be recounting the story of Yarmouk for years to come.”
When Syrians first rose-up against the regime of Assad in 2011, Palestinians tried to remain neutral. For decades Palestinian refugees in Syria co-existed with the government, which supported some of their political factions, but by Dec. 2012 Yarmouk was the site of heavy fighting between forces allied with the regime and those against it.
Now, mostly destroyed, Yarmouk has become a microcosm of the increasingly complex battlefield and shifting alliances in the four-year civil war. What were once clear sides for and against the regime, are increasingly complicated by new fronts against the Islamist groups and infighting among rebel forces who try to maintain what little they hold.
“Alliances are constantly shifting. This is a very bad cocktail of groups and interests,” says Shaikh, pointing out that the increasingly unpredictable situation shows there will be no military solution to the Syrian conflict. While the various fighters may be switching sides and setting new precedents for the wider Syrian conflict, Gunness points out that all have outside supporters.
“All the parties on the the ground in Syria have backers. They are all clients of somebody. Somebody buys their guns or buys their knifes or supports them,” says Gunness. “Those with political or diplomatic, financial or economic, religious or spiritual influence needs to bring that influence to bear so civilian life can be spared.”
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Family tension at the far-right National Front, a rising force in French politics, blew wide open as Marine Le Pen moved to sideline her father from the party he founded after he belittled the Holocaust.
Obama becomes first president to break US’s pro-Israel Tradition by The European Union Times
Remarks by US President Barack Obama about not requiring Iran to recognize Israel as part of a nuclear deal with the P5+1 is counter to the discourse adopted by the White House and other US officials since the regime came into being, says a renowned activist and radio host.
Obama said in a Monday interview with NPR that requiring Tehran to recognize Israel is a “fundamental misjudgment”.
According to Don DeBar, the president’s comments “directly” addressed a “demand” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said earlier that Iran’s recognition of the regime must a part of the deal with Tehran.
Like other regional countries that are “under the control of their own people”, Iran would not take such a measure, DeBar speculated. However, Obama’s address “is almost mind-blowing because it is counter to the tradition of politics in Washington, DC.”
“I’m also mindful of the fact that the nature of the United States and Europe as colonial and imperial powers has not changed,” he said, warning further that it is essential to watch out as this is “not the end of the game”.
Since negotiations began between Tehran and the P5+1 –the US, Britain, Russia, China, France, and Germany, Tel Aviv has outspokenly voiced opposition against a deal that would end sanctions on Iran in exchange for limiting its nuclear program.
Following a meeting with the Israeli cabinet on Friday, Bibi called for “unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel’s right to exist”, saying, “the cabinet is united in strongly opposing the proposed deal”.
After lengthy talks, Iran and P5+1 finally reached a mutual understanding in the Swiss lakeside city of Lausanne on Thursday and will start drafting a final accord, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which is expected to come until the end of June.
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The Daily Star |
Obama and Castro to break Cold War ice in person
The Daily Star Handout picture released on April 3, 2015 by Cuban official website www.cubadebate.cu, showing former Cuban president Fidel Castro (L) greeting a member of the Venezuelan delegation "II flight Solidarity Bolivar-Marti" who are in Cuba taking part in social ... and more » |
US Keeps ‘Close Eye’ on Iran as Yemen Conflict Deepensby webdesk@voanews.com (Jeff Seldin)
The Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen is threatening to grow into a wider conflict as both the United States and Iran take new steps to potentially strengthen partners in the region. U.S. defense officials announced Wednesday the U.S. has begun flying daily mid-air refueling missions for coalition planes taking part in airstrikes against Shia Houthi rebels. They said Washington also is expediting delivery of bombs and guidance kits to the Saudis and other coalition partners. Meanwhile,...
Movement to Permit Physician Aid in Dying for Terminally Ill Surges by webdesk@voanews.com (Carolyn Weaver)
In the 18 years since Oregon State’s “Death With Dignity” law took effect, about 750 terminally ill residents have used doctor written prescriptions of lethal drugs to end their lives. Such prescribing is also legal in four other U.S. states - New Mexico, Washington, Vermont and Montana. Now, following the high-profile case of a terminally ill young woman from California, support is growing for legalizing the practice in other states, including New York. VOA’s Carolyn Weaver has more
WASHINGTON -
This is a developing story. Stay with FOX 5 and MYFOXDC.com for updates.
A second arrest has been made in connection to the
February murder of D.C. lawyer David Messerschmitt at The Donovan Hotel
, D.C. police said.
19-year-old Dominique Johnson was arrested Wednesday morning. She is charged with conspiracy to commit robbery. Her first court appearance will be Thursday. Police released no additional details.
Last Wednesday, police arrested 21-year-old Jamyra Gallmon. She is charged with murder.
Sources tell FOX 5 that Johnson is the girlfriend of Gallmon. FOX 5 has learned that the suspects lived together at an apartment on Good Hope Road in Southeast. Neighbors say the couple had very heated arguments in the past couple of weeks. They were in court being sued by their landlord last month, court documents show.
Gallmon has pleaded not guilty through her attorney who told the judge the stabbing death was a result of an "imperfect self-defense." Gallmon is being held without bond.
According to
court documents released last Thursday
, Messerschmitt used the Gmail address "
dcguy456"
to post an ad on Craigslist soliciting other men. Detectives say Gallmon used the Craigslist username “chrissanchez0906” to communicate with the victim. Messerschmitt, who was married to a woman, told the individual to meet him at The Donovan Hotel the night of February 9.
After her arrest on April 1, police say Gallmon admitted to going to the hotel that night with the intention of robbing the victim. According to the court documents, Gallmon said she walked into the hotel room and quickly turned to walk out when Messerschmitt got off the bed and grabbed her. Gallmon told police this caused a flashback to a memory of when she was assaulted.
At that point, she told police that Messerschmitt started fighting with her. She pulled a knife, according to the court documents, and stabbed the victim seven times, including one wound that went through his heart. According to the court documents, Gallmon said she stole Messerschmitt's SmartTrip Metro card. Cash was also taken, police said.
Police identified Gallmon through their investigation as the
person of interest in the surveillance video
who entered the hotel and walked up the stairwell to the fourth floor at around 7:44 p.m. on February 9. Police say email and cell phone records connected Gallmon to the crime.
We expect to learn more on Thursday about the evidence police collected that led to Johnson's arrest.
This is a developing story. Stay with FOX 5 and MYFOXDC.com for updates.
WATCH ABOVE: French and German investigators are combing through the private life of Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot who deliberately crashed Germanwings Flight 9525 into the French Alps. Eric Sorensen reports.
BERLIN – The profile that has emerged of Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz has become more troubling by the day.
In the hours after Flight 9525 crashed in the French Alps two weeks ago, Lubitz was regarded as one of 150 victims in an unexplained disaster. Two days later he was the prime suspect of an unfathomable act.
By now, French and German prosecutors have little doubt that the 27-year-old intentionally slammed the Airbus A320 into a mountain, killing everyone on board, and there is growing evidence that his actions weren’t just a split-second decision but the result of days of planning.
The revelations have raised questions about who knew what, when, and whether Lubitz could have been stopped.
The crash has prompted particular soul-searching in Germany. Seventy-two of those killed were German citizens, the worst air disaster in the nation’s history since the Concorde crash of 2000, in which 97 Germans died.
“Germany, a byword for technical perfection where security isn’t just a hallmark of quality but an article of faith and a measure of value, has been traumatized,” historian Michael Stuermer wrote in an op-ed Saturday for Die Welt newspaper.
Investigators have pieced together a picture of Lubitz by analyzing the voice and flight data recorders found at the crash site, searching his homes in Duesseldorf and Montabaur, and by interviewing friends, relatives, colleagues and doctors.
So far, this is what they have communicated about their findings:
— Medical records show that before he received his pilot’s license, Lubitz suffered from depression, with doctors recording “suicidal tendencies.” It forced him to take a break of several months from his pilot training. Lufthansa has said Lubitz informed their flight school when he returned in 2009 that he had experienced an episode of “severe depression.” But Germanwings, the Lufthansa subsidiary Lubitz joined in 2013, said it was unaware of this. But both airlines say Lubitz passed all medical tests and was cleared by doctors as fit to fly.
— In the months before the crash Lubitz sought help from several doctors, including specialists at Duesseldorf’s University Hospital. The hospital declined to confirm reports that Lubitz was experiencing vision problems, but said he had come in for tests. Duesseldorf prosecutors say there was no evidence the co-pilot had any physical ailments.
— In the week leading up to the crash Lubitz spent time online researching suicide methods and cockpit door security. Safety rules introduced after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States allow someone in the cockpit to deny others entry.
— Shortly after takeoff from Barcelona on March 24, Lubitz offered to take over the controls while the pilot went to the toilet. Finding himself unable to enter the cockpit on his return, the pilot pleaded with Lubitz to let him back in. Lubitz ignored him and repeatedly accelerated the plane before it slammed into a mountainside near the village of Le Vernet.
With pilots responsible for the lives of 10 million air travellers worldwide every day, the idea that one might be harbouring a dark desire to harm himself and others has prompted deep unease.
“A technical malfunction, a terrorist act, a natural disaster or human error – none of these would be so troubling,” German weekly Der Spiegel wrote in its latest edition.
As the extent of Lubitz’s illness became known in the days following the crash, German prosecutors took the unusual step of providing regular updates on their investigation to reassure the public. German newspapers, normally at pains to protect the identity of even convicted criminals, spelled out the co-pilot’s full name to indicate the gravity of his alleged deeds
Meanwhile, the country’s airlines swiftly mandated that two people have to remain in the cockpit at all times, while politicians debated the need to relax patient privacy rules – prompting a swift rebuke from medical associations who warned that rash changes to the rules could undermine patients’ confidence in doctors and prevent them from seeking help, doing greater harm than good.
Few commentators, however, have raised the possibility that Lufthansa, a national institution, may have made any avoidable mistakes. Instead, they have pointed to similar incidents that are believed to have taken place in Namibia, the United States and Indonesia over the past two decades.
Conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung concluded that “ultimately Lufthansa’s system failed.” However, given that Lubitz appeared to have gone to great lengths to conceal the extent of his illness, the paper questioned whether any system could ever account for what goes on inside a person’s head.
Others evoked the phenomenon of the “Geisterfahrer” – a German term meaning “ghost driver” describing someone who drives the wrong way down the Autobahn, endangering himself and others.
The notion of an unstoppable yet ultimately rare incident resonated in Spain, which counted 51 of its citizens among the dead.
“Who could have known that he was determined to destroy himself on that day?” said Mercedes Valle, a 54-year-old doctor in Madrid. She added that the content of the black box had confirmed “there was a deranged person with suicidal tendencies left in charge of a plane.”
“In the past I’ve seen the impact such a person can have at the wheel of a school bus or even a car. Fortunately, it’s a very rare occurrence,” she said.
Harold Heckle in Madrid contributed to this report.
© The Canadian Press, 2015
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Second woman arrested in DC lawyer's stabbing death - DC News ...
MyFox Washington DC-3 hours agoJamyra Gallmon, 21, is charged with first degree murder while armed, ... 19-year-old Dominique Johnson was arrested Wednesday morning.
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Kim Vuong, alongside family members, fourth from left, leaves a news conference in the District on March 25. Vuong’s husband, David Messerschmitt, was found slain at the Donovan Hotel in February. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)
District police on Wednesday arrested a second suspect in connection with the stabbing death of a 30-year-old lawyer who was found dead in a downtown Washington hotel room.
Dominique Johnson, 19, was arrested about 7:45 a.m. and is being charged in an arrest warrant with conspiracy to commit armed robbery, according to a statement from D.C. police.
The intellectual property attorney, David Messerschmitt, was found dead Feb. 10 inside a fourth-floor room at the Donovan Hotel on Thomas Circle. He had been stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen, groin and heart, according to police.
Police last week arrested Jamyra Gallmon, 21, and charged her with first-degree murder. Police said in an arrest affidavit that she allegedly answered an ad Messerschmitt had placed on Craigslist for a sexual encounter with a man.
She told detectives she wanted to rob the attorney, according to the affidavit, but that he grabbed her arm, causing a flashback to a time when she had been assaulted. She acknowledged that she pulled a knife from her sweat pants and stabbed Messerschmitt and took his cash and Metro card, according to court papers.
Gallmon and Johnson were roommates in Southeast Washington. About two weeks after Messerschmitt was killed, the two were ordered by a D.C. Superior Court judge to pay $1,800 in rent owed since January.
Keith L. Alexander and Clarence Williams contributed to this report.
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2nd suspect arrested in Donovan Hotel murder
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Dominique Johnson, 19, was arrested on Wednesday at 7:45 a.m. and charged with conspiracy to commit robbery in the death of 30-year-old ...
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2nd woman arrested in DC lawyer's fatal stabbing at hotel
MyFox Washington DC-3 hours ago
The Metropolitan Police Department said officers arrested 19-year-old Dominique Johnson of southeast Washington on Wednesday morning.
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