A factory farm has agreed to pay the Wisconsin Department of Justice $215,000 to settle pollution allegations.

The Legislature’s finance committee is slated to approve the deal during a meeting Tuesday. According to an analysis of the deal by the Legislature’s attorneys, the deal will settle allegations that Kinnard Farms improperly spread manure in Kewaunee and Door counties between 2018 and 2022, failed to timely submit an engineering evaluation for a feed storage area and failed to timely submit annual nutrient management plan updates.

The settlement also calls for Kinnard Farms to upgrade two waste storage facilities and a feed storage area.

The Kinnard operation includes 16 industrial farms with about 8,000 cows. The company has struggled with agricultural pollution for years as contaminants began showing up in private wells.

Kinnard Farms owner/operator Lee Kinnard said in a statement that the farms decided to settle rather than face a lengthy and costly dispute. He said the farms ‘look forward to pursuing state-of-the-art manure management technology.’

Kinnard Farms sued the state Department of Natural Resources in April 2022 over permitting changes that require the operators to limit the size of their herd and monitor groundwater for contamination. That lawsuit is still pending.

The wife of a now-former Connecticut state lawmaker was sentenced Thursday to six months in federal prison in connection with her role in the alleged theft of federal coronavirus relief funds from the city of West Haven.

Lauren DiMassa, one of several people arrested with former state Rep. Michael DiMassa in the investigation, had pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.

Federal prosecutors said the city of West Haven paid Lauren DiMassa nearly $148,000 for services she never provided to the city. She and her husband were accused of submitting fraudulent invoices to the city for coronavirus-related services including youth violence prevention, but instead they used the money for their own benefit, prosecutors said.

‘I am embarrassed and appalled at my own actions and simply wish to pay my debts and live out a quiet life with my family,’ she wrote in a letter of apology to the judge.

Her lawyer argued for a more lenient sentence, pointing out that DiMassa is 23 weeks pregnant.

District Judge Omar Williams noted the child was conceived after DiMassa was arrested and knew she was facing prison time. He ordered Lauren DiMassa to report to prison by May 23. He also sentenced her to serve five years of supervised release, the first six months of which must be spent in home confinement. She also was ordered to pay $147,776 in restitution.

DiMassa’s lawyer, Francis O’Reilly, said during her plea hearing last July that it was important to note that DiMassa turned over most of the money she received from the city to her husband.

Michael DiMassa, a Democrat, served as an aide to the city, with authority to approve reimbursement of COVID-19 expenditures.

He resigned from that job and the state legislature after his 2021 arrest. He has pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy charges related to the total theft of more than $1.2 million in virus relief funds from the city and is set to be sentenced next month.

Another former city employee, John Bernardo, 66, was sentenced Wednesday to 13 months in prison for his role in the scheme.

Maine’s backlog of criminal court cases remains about 60% to 65% higher than pre-pandemic levels, a stubborn figure the state has been unable to reduce over two years, the state’s chief justice said Thursday.

The primary cause is the inability to hold jury trials early in the pandemic, but other factors include the opioid epidemic and mental health disorders, child protective cases, and a big increase in felony crimes, the most serious criminal cases that take longer to resolve, Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill told lawmakers.

‘Judicial branch employees are feeling the weight of the realization that seems no matter what we do, we can’t catch up. We can’t address our backlog. Frankly, it hurts my heart,’ she said.

Stanfill used her State of the Judiciary address to the Maine Legislature to promote the governor’s budget proposal that includes four new judges and more clerks and marshals.

Stanfill said she’s also requesting a pay increase for judges beyond a 3% cost of living adjustment, telling lawmakers that the state’s judges are among the nation’s lowest.

She told lawmakers that there are many factors behind the backlog and noted that the judicial system was strained before the pandemic exacerbated the number of pending cases. Furthermore, court officials are spending a greater amount of time trying to find lawyers willing to represent indigent clients, she said.

‘The pandemic was the tipping point that unmasked the reality that even before 2020, the courts and judicial system were straining to keep up with the demand of cases,’ she said.

On other topics, the chief justice said the rollout of an e-filing system that was supposed to be implemented statewide last year has been delayed because of ‘hitches and issues’ including the fact that Maine has nation’s only court system using an Apple-based computer system, which must be swapped.

The Business and Consumer Court in Portland and the civil and family docket in Bangor are the only courts using the system, but the family and civil dockets in the Lewiston District Court and Androscoggin Superior Court in Auburn will be brought online later this year, she said.

Eighteen Republican state attorneys general warned the Senate this week to reject the nomination of Nancy G. Abudu to a judgeship on the 11th circuit court, citing her self-proclamation as a radical movement legal activist.

The state top cops, led by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in a letter that Abudu needs to be rejected because of her ‘dishonest and divisive record.’

‘She is an activist. She has repeatedly used misrepresentations and hateful rhetoric to advance her political goals. And she has thus shown herself unfit for this lifetime appointment,’ they wrote.

‘We are familiar with Ms. Abudu’s work and her willingness to demonize those with whom she disagrees, and we know well the importance of the seat on the Eleventh Circuit that she would fill,’ the AGs wrote.

President Biden nominated Abudu was nominated for the 11th circuit spot – which presides over districts in Alabama, Georgia and Florida, in 2022. Her nomination expired at the end of last Congress, prompting Biden to renominate her again earlier this year.

‘She has compared her fellow Americans to Jim-Crow-era racists. She has aligned herself with self-proclaimed ‘radical movement legal activists’ who view ‘policing’ as ‘the true threat to our collective safety.’ And she has proclaimed that our criminal justice system is ‘practically the same system as during slavery,’’ the AGs wrote.

‘These spurious and outrageous statements vividly demonstrate that she lacks the judgment, fair-mindedness, and integrity required of a federal judge,’ they said.

Abudu has been the Director of Strategic Litigation for the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center since 2019, a widely discredited organization the AGs point out ‘is infamous for leveling unfounded charges of ‘hate’ against political opponents.’

‘Since becoming a leader in that organization, Ms. Abudu has engaged in those same deplorable tactics by disparaging those in her way,’ they wrote.

The letter notes a ‘report’ to Congress that Abudu and her team submitted about Alabama’s supposed ‘unyielding record of racial discrimination in voting.’

‘The Alabama Attorney General’s Office set the record straight in a follow-up report that went claim-by-claim, documenting the SPLC’s many misrepresentations. Each misrepresentation served the overarching theme of Ms. Abudu’s report—that any disagreement over policy is proof that her political opponents are evil,’ the AG’s wrote.

‘Indeed, according to Ms. Abudu, things in Alabama are the same or worse today than they were in 1965. As she tells it, Alabama’s goal — today — is to ‘establish white supremacy in this State,’’they wrote.

Abudu’s assertions are ‘as offensive as they are baseless,’ the AGs said.

Last month an SPLC attorney was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia as part of a violent protest and charged with domestic terrorism. The arrested attorney worked in the same office that Abudu lists as her work address, the AGs noted.

‘In response to the arrest, the SPLC tacitly approved its employee’s alleged terrorism, choosing instead to put out a joint statement with the radical National Lawyers Guild criticizing the supposed ‘heavy-handed law enforcement intervention against protesters.’’

‘It’s not clear whether Ms. Abudu was involved with that attorney or the SPLC’s response to his arrest, but the SPLC’s response shows the culture of its office and its attitude toward the rule of law and law enforcement,’ the AGs wrote.

‘It would be hard to overstate the importance of federal circuit courts of appeals. Nearly every federal appeal ends at the circuit court. Attorneys in our offices regularly practice before these courts, and we have great respect for these judges who dedicate their lives to the rule of law and to ensuring that all litigants before them are fairly heard,’ the AGs said.

Abudu was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee 12-11 last month. It’s now up to the full Senate to determine her final fate.

Alabama inmates could see more time behind bars under a bill approved Thursday in the Alabama Senate that restricts the use of good behavior incentives to shorten prison stays.

Senators voted 30-1 for the bill that now moves to the Alabama House of Representatives. The legislation is named after a slain Bibb County Deputy Brad Johnson. Johnson was killed in 2022 by a man law enforcement officials said was released after serving four years of a 10-year theft sentence.

‘I think that our number one focus is making sure that bad people that are supposed to be in prison, stay in prison,’ Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed, R-Jasper, said.

While supporters said the change is needed to avoid a repeat tragedy, opponents argued the change would worsen Alabama’s ongoing prison crisis by adding to overcrowding.

‘If signed into law, SB1 will only agitate an already chaotic and violent system that is harming all Alabamians, including the lives of people incarcerated and correctional staff,’ Dillon Nettles, the policy and advocacy director for the ACLU of Alabama, said.

Alabama law now allows certain inmates sentenced to 15 years or fewer to earn up to 75 days of credit for every 30 days of good behavior. The Senate-passed bill reduces the rate that inmate accrue ‘good time’ credit and also says inmates who commit certain offenses while in prison, including escape, would be disqualified from early release. Most Alabama inmates are ineligible for the incentives because of their sentence length or conviction. An estimated 12% of inmates are eligible.

‘The man that killed Deputy Johnson was released on good time. I believe he should have been behind bars on that day,’ said the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. April Weaver of Brierfield said. The shooting happened not far from Weaver’s driveway, and the senator’s husband, an emergency room physician, rushed to try to save him.

Austin Hall, the man accused of killing Johnson and shooting another deputy, had been released early from a 10-year prison sentence for theft, despite escaping from a work release center in 2019.

The issues surrounding Hall’s release are complicated. He never returned to state prison custody after he was recaptured so he never had a disciplinary hearing to revoke his good time credit, a prison system spokeswoman said this summer. Court records show he was held in county jails and eventually allowed to be released on bond for the other charges he faced, according to court records.

Hall now faces capital murder charges for Johnson’s death.

Minnesota pollution and health officials made the case at the State Capitol on Thursday for legislation to restrict nonessential uses of ‘forever chemicals’ known as PFAS, and for the $45.6 million that Gov. Tim Walz has requested in his budget to prevent, manage and clean up the ubiquitous compounds.

State agencies launched a drive two years ago to protect communities from PFAS, which don’t break down in the environment but accumulate in human bodies. They’ve already tested water supplies for 98% of the state’s population, pioneered new clean-up technologies and started statewide monitoring.

‘PFAS is an urgent public health and environmental issue facing Minnesota and the nation,’ Katrina Kessler, commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, said at a briefing for reporters.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluorinated substances, are widespread and expensive to remove from water. They’ve been linked to a broad range of health problems, including low birthweight and kidney cancer. The chemicals had been used since the 1940s in consumer products and industry, including in nonstick pans, food packaging and firefighting foam. Their use is now mostly phased out in the U.S., but some still remain.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week proposed the first federal limits on PFAS in drinking water, a move the agency said will save thousands of lives. Kessler said that affirmed the work Minnesota has already done, while setting new goals that will need more resources to achieve.

While PFAS are usually found at low levels in Minnesota, there are hot spots across the state. They’ve been found in 42% of Minnesota’s community water systems, not including private wells, said Dan Huff, assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health. While very few systems are at levels considered at risk, he said, more tests are expected to be completed later this month.

‘Minnesota has become a national leader in protecting residents of Minnesota from PFAS,’ Huff said. ‘Now, while we’re proud of this, maintaining the status quo is not an option. Protecting Minnesotans from PFAS requires much greater pollution prevention. It also is going to require additional resources that only our Legislature can provide.’

A key item in the governor’s PFAS budget proposal is $25 million to support the planning and design of drinking water systems for affected communities. But Kirk Koudelka, assistant commissioner of the pollution control agency, said that’s just a ‘down payment’ and that ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’ will be needed later to build those facilities. He noted that the EPA’s draft standards are more restrictive than Minnesota’s current standards, and said some of the state’s public water systems will exceed them.

Woodbury, for example, will probably need over $100 million, while Cottage Grove will need around $60 million and Bemidji will need about $25 million, he said.

Democratic Rep. Jeff Brand, of St. Peter, is the lead House author of legislation supported by the two state agencies that seeks to eliminate nonessential PFAS from products for children, cookware, dental floss and thousands of other consumer goods. He said he expects it will get added to the main environment budget bill this session.

‘We need to turn off the faucet in our state,’ Brand said. ‘The PFAS prevention package will hold manufacturers accountable for their direct impacts in the community, and will help to shut off the faucet, so that way we can focus on costly but necessary cleanup measures.’

President Biden told a crowd he likes ‘babies better than people’ as a child wailed during a speech he was giving on Wednesday.

The exchange occurred during an event at the White House celebrating the 13th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, when a baby began crying as Biden was speaking to a crowd in the East Room.

‘That’s alright, we like babies,’ Biden said as the person holding the baby got up to leave the room, prompting laughter from the crowd.

‘You don’t have to worry about it. It’s okay. It’s alright,’ he said, motioning the individual to sit back down. The crowd cheered as they returned to their seat, and Vice President Kamala Harris laughed as she looked on.

‘As a matter of fact, I like babies better than people,’ Biden added, prompting more laughter from the crowd. The child then quieted and he continued with his speech. 

Biden later held and hugged the baby, who was later reported to be the child of Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif.

The moment comes just one day following a previous speech in the same room, in which Biden committed his latest gaffe. 

During a speech celebrating Women’s History Month, Biden called for a ban on ‘assault weapons,’ but at the same time mistakenly said America needed to ‘keep guns out of the hands of domestic political advisers.’ He presumably meant to say domestic terrorists.

Biden has had a rough year so far when it comes to blunders, having committed just under a half a gaffe per day on average during the month of January. He continued into February and March with numerous trips and falls, as well as more speaking errors.

The New Hampshire House rejected a measure aimed at sending fewer children to the state’s troubled youth detention center Thursday after child advocates argued it would have had the opposite effect.

The disagreement arose as lawmakers inch closer to replacing the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, a 144-bed facility that costs the state $13 million per year while typically housing fewer than a dozen teens daily. Debate about closing the center began years ago, but came to a boil amid horrific sexual abuse allegations stretching back decades.

After failing to meet their own March 2023 deadline to shut it down, lawmakers recently allocated money to select a site for a new, much smaller facility but the stopgap measure left many details unresolved.

Hoping to move forward, the state House passed a bill Thursday that would fund a 12-bed facility, with room for up to 18, and allocating roughly $22 million for design and construction, with as much money as possible coming from federal COVID-19 relief aid. The bill, which now goes to the state Senate, also begins outlining clinical and safety guidelines for the new facility, including a focus on therapeutic and trauma-informed care of children.

While there is broad agreement on such an approach, some lawmakers said the bill falls short. Rep. Marjorie Smith, a Democrat from Durham, said it might replicate the same mismanagement and harm to juveniles in its care.

‘There’s nothing that says we won’t be doing the same things we’ve been doing for years and failing — the same things that caused more than 1,000 children to allege physical and sexual abuse,’ she said.

Smith supported a failed amendment to the bill that would have required future leaders of the center to be experts in helping children with special needs, not corrections officers. It also would have prevented children from being sent to the facility if they had fewer than three prior convictions for low-level crimes. Supporters said that would prevent unnecessary incarceration of youth, but opponents said it would have unintended consequences.

Under current law, officials sometimes briefly detain children who commit low-level crimes to remove them from dangerous homes while they arrange a place for them to stay, such as a foster home. Child advocates opposed the amendment to require three prior convictions, arguing that it would incentivize law enforcement to bring more charges so that they could obtain a brief detention.

‘If you make it harder to put somebody in this new trauma-informed, therapeutic center, what will happen is you’re encouraging law enforcement and judges to escalate charges,’ said Republican Rep. Jess Edwards, of Auburn, sponsor of the funding measure, at a news conference Wednesday.

A coalition of state officials who work with children agreed with Edwards.

‘The experts agree that individualized, trauma-informed care administered within a treatment facility will not only support youth more effectively but will reduce recidivism rates and future costs,’ said Cassandra Sanchez, the state’s Child Advocate.

Lawmakers haven’t decided where to build the new facility but have mentioned Manchester, Concord or Hampstead as possibilities. In 2021, the state purchased Hampstead Hospital with the goal of transforming it into a residential and psychiatric treatment hospital for children and young adults.

The United States and Canada have reached an agreement to allow both countries to turn away migrants who cross illegally at the northern U.S. border, a U.S. official confirmed to Fox News Digital on Thursday.

The deal is set to be announced Friday by President Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who are meeting in Ottawa.

The agreement will mean that migrants who attempt to cross illegally between ports of entry into either country will be returned, which officials believe will deter irregular migration at the U.S.-Canada border.

The agreement, first reported by the L.A. Times, marks an update to the Safe Third County Agreement established by the two nations in 2004, which required migrants to claim asylum at a country through which they passed — but did not apply to those who entered illegally.

Additionally, Canada will announce a commitment to accept an additional 15,000 migrants over the next year from the Western Hemisphere, as part of its commitments made under the Los Angeles Declaration last year — which committed nations to a regional response to the migration crisis.

Such a move would be accepted to lessen the pressure facing the U.S. southern border, which has faced a historic migrant surge since 2021.

The move comes amid an increase in migrant encounters at the northern border which, while not as substantial as the surge at the southern border, has left some authorities overwhelmed.

There were over 109,000 migrant encounters at the northern border in FY 2022, up from 27,000 in FY 2021.  The border, which is 5,525 miles, only has 115 ports of entry. 

Fox News recently reported that Border Patrol was appealing for volunteers to deal with the surge, which was attributed to ‘Mexican migrants with no legal documents.’

The diplomatic agreement also marks the latest move by the administration to crack down on illegal border crossings. With the looming end of Title 42 expulsions in May, the administration has proposed a rule that would go into effect before then and would make migrants automatically ineligible for asylum if they have crossed illegally and have failed to claim asylum in a country through which they have passed.

This is a breaking news alert; check back for updates

Hackers have attacked the Wisconsin court system’s computer network, court officials said Thursday.

A cyberattack began early this week, according to a statement from court officials. Network users may have experienced intermittent service or slower than usual response times from online services, court officials said. Asked when specifically the attack began and if it’s still ongoing, courts spokesman Tom Sheehan said in an email that he had no further information.

The statement said that attorneys or self-represented litigants who might experience difficulty filing documents electronically should contact the clerk of court in their respective counties, suggesting the attack was continuing Thursday afternoon.

Director of State Courts Randy Koschnick said in the statement that the court system has taken effective counter measures but did not elaborate.

The attack has not result in the breach of any data and court operations are continuing as usual statewide, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Annette Ziegler said in the statement.