Stoneman Douglas locked down for 2 hours on day after somber anniversary
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School went on lockdown for more than two hours Wednesday afternoon, one day after the community marked the fifth year since the mass shooting that left 17 dead.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office confirmed that it was investigating a “possible threat,” but emphasized that no one appeared to be in any danger. “No immediate threat has been identified at this time, and students and staff are safe,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Gerdy St. Louis said in an e-mailed statement.
The lockdown, which started about 1:50 p.m. and was lifted about 3:30 p.m., generated a wave of concern on social media, where people were quick to note the date and the atmosphere of dread that continues to hover over the Parkland campus whenever public safety is in question.
—South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Scientology leader concealed whereabouts, judge says
TAMPA, Fla. — A U.S. magistrate judge has ruled that Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige was “actively concealing his whereabouts or evading service” in a federal trafficking lawsuit and declared him officially served in the case.
Judge Julie S. Sneed noted that opposing attorneys had gone to significant lengths to serve Miscavige with the lawsuit filed in Tampa federal court last April. Valeska Paris and husband and wife Gawain and Laura Baxter allege they were trafficked into Scientology as children and forced to work for little or no pay as adults.
Process servers tried to deliver court documents to Miscavige 27 times between May and August at 10 church properties in Clearwater and Los Angeles and were turned away by security. During a meeting on Jan. 25, attorneys for the Baxters and Paris asked Miscavige’s attorneys if they would accept service for their client. They declined.
Parcels with the court papers sent by certified mail to Scientology properties were returned to sender with unsigned return receipts, refused at the location or lost in the mail.
Sneed’s order, issued Tuesday, officially deems Miscavige served in the lawsuit and is a win for the former church workers, who already successfully served five church entities also named in the case. But a glaring question remains over the complaint’s fate.
—Tampa Bay Times
Bankman-Fried’s secret bail co-signers are Stanford dean and a researcher
NEW YORK — The names of two secret signers of Sam Bankman-Fried’s staggering $250 million bond package were revealed Wednesday.
The filings reveal Bankman-Fried was bailed out partially by a former dean of Stanford University, Larry Kramer, and Andreas Paepcke, a research scientist at the school.
Bankman-Fried had fought to keep the names secret, but they were unsealed in Manhattan Federal Court following requests by several media outlets.
Kramer paid $500,000 and Paepcke paid $200,000. Bankman-Fried’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, are responsible for the remainder of the bond package, the largest federal pretrial bail package in history. He is staying at his parents’ Palo Alto, California, home under house arrest.
Bankman-Fried, 30, has pleaded not guilty to criminal wire fraud charges in a multibillion-dollar fraud case carrying a potentially decadeslong prison sentence.
—New York Daily News
Nicola Sturgeon resigns as Scotland’s first minister
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon resigned after more than eight years as head of the country’s government and independence movement in a surprise move that will reverberate across UK politics.
Sturgeon, 52, has headed the semi-autonomous administration in Edinburgh since 2014. The decision to step down comes after an unusually turbulent time for Sturgeon. It leaves her Scottish National Party — and the independence campaign — looking for a new figurehead without a clear road map, and after a recent dip in the polls.
At a press conference in Edinburgh, Sturgeon said that she’d always felt that “part of serving well would be to know almost instinctively when the time is right to make way for someone else.”
“In my head and in my heart I know that time is now, that it is right for me, my party and my country,” she said. “It might seem sudden, but I have been wrestling it obviously with oscillating levels of intensity for some weeks.”
While her departure removes a formidable opponent to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives north of the border, it may end up benefiting Keir Starmer’s opposition Labour Party more. Labour dominated Scottish seats in the Westminster Parliament until the 2015 wipe-out when it lost 40 seats and the SNP swept up 56 of 59 constituencies north of the border.
—Bloomberg News
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