Voter check-in computers come back online after outage in Georgia
ATLANTA — Georgia's voter check-in system was restored Thursday morning after a statewide outage had caused problems with early voting in the primary election, according to the secretary of state's office.
Voters were still able to cast ballots during the outage, but poll workers had to use backup procedures to verify their registration information before they were allowed to vote.
The problem was caused by a "glitch" after primary and backup servers automatically restarted Wednesday night, said a spokesman for the secretary of state's office. Restarting the servers Thursday morning appeared to fix the issue.
The disruption affected Georgia's voter registration system, called ElectioNet, which is used to check in voters at early voting locations during the primary. The secretary of state's office announced plans to replace the ElectioNet system earlier this year, but the new computer system wasn't ready in time for the primary.
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
DA won’t charge suspect in Dave Chappelle attack with assault with a deadly weapon
LOS ANGELES — While police say the man who tackled comedian Dave Chappelle onstage at the Hollywood Bowl had a replica gun with a knife, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s office declined Thursday to file felony charges.
Isaiah Lee, 23, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and was being held on $30,000 bail.
The district attorney’s office has referred the case to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office for misdemeanor filing consideration. After reviewing the evidence, prosecutors determined that while criminal conduct occurred, the evidence as presented did not constitute felony conduct. The D.A.'s office does not prosecute misdemeanor crimes within the city of Los Angeles.
Sources told the Los Angeles Times that Lee did not brandish the weapon in Tuesday night’s assault and that the weapon was inside a bag Lee was carrying. That is among the reasons why the incident did not rise to a felony charge of assault with a deadly weapon.
Investigators, however, are still trying to determine how Lee evaded several layers of security at the Hollywood Bowl and managed to get onstage and attack the comedian.
—Los Angeles Times
Walgreens agrees to pay Florida $683 million to settle opioid lawsuit
Walgreens has agreed to pay the state of Florida $683 million to settle a lawsuit claiming the drugstore chain helped fuel the state’s opioid crisis, the company announced Thursday.
The settlement includes $620 million to be paid over 18 years and a one-time payment of $63 million for attorneys’ fees. Walgreens admitted no wrongdoing or liability, a company news release said.
“As the largest pharmacy chain in the state, we remain focused on and committed to being part of the solution and believe this resolution is in the best interest of all parties involved,” said Danielle Gray, executive vice president and global chief legal officer for Walgreens Boots Alliance, the chain’s parent company. “Our pharmacists are dedicated healthcare professionals who live and work in the communities they serve, and play a critical role in providing education and resources to help combat opioid misuse and abuse.”
In court filings, the state claimed a Walgreens drug distribution center sold 2.2 million tablets to a single Walgreens pharmacy in tiny Hudson — enough for a roughly six-month supply for each of the town’s 12,000 residents. In some cases, the Florida Attorney General’s Office said, Walgreens increased orders up to 600% in just two years, including, for example, supplying a town of 3,000 with 285,800 orders of oxycodone in one month.
—Orlando Sentinel
US says $300 million Russian-owned yacht was seized in Fiji
Officials in Fiji have seized a $300 million yacht allegedly owned by Suleiman Kerimov at the request of the U.S. Justice Department.
The 348-foot Amadea was seized after a U.S. court found it was “subject to forfeiture based on probable cause of violations of U.S. law,” the Justice Department said in a release Thursday. Kerimov is one of several Russians that are on a U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions list.
“This seizure of Suleiman Kerimov’s vessel, the Amadea, nearly 8,000 miles from Washington, D.C., symbolizes the reach of the Department of Justice as we continue to work with our global partners to disrupt the sense of impunity of those who have supported corruption and the suffering of so many,” Andrew Adams, director of Task Force KleptoCapture, said in the statement.
Fiji’s High Court approved the seizure earlier this week. A lawyer representing the company that the vessel is registered under said the superyacht is owned by another tycoon who is not on sanctions lists.
—Bloomberg News
