National Roundup

Illinois
Chicago-area woman arrested on charges of emailing threats to shoot Trump and his son
CHICAGO (AP) — Federal agents arrested a Chicago-area woman Monday on a complaint accusing her of sending emails threatening to shoot former President Donald Trump and his son Barron, according to federal prosecutors and a criminal complaint.

Tracy Marie Fiorenza, 41, was arrested Monday morning on a charge of transmitting threats to kill or injure, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago. The case was filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in southern Florida.

“I will state that I will shoot Donald Trump Sr. AND Barron Trump straight in the face at any opportunity I get!,” Fiorenza said in a May 21 email to the head of an educational institution in the Palm Beach, Florida, area, according to an affidavit accompanying the complaint.
Donald Trump’s primary residence is in Palm Beach.

Fiorenza allegedly wrote a similar email on June 5, saying she would “slam a bullet” into Barron Trump “with his father IN SELF DEFENSE!,” according to the affidavit submitted by a U.S. Secret Service agent.

Neither the headmaster nor the school where the emails were allegedly sent was named in the charging documents.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Fiorenza had an attorney who could speak on her behalf. No attorney is listed for her on the federal docket.

CBS News Chicago reported that Fiorenza made an initial appearance Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Chicago, and a judge said she must go to the district court in Florida to answer the charges. The judge will decide at a Wednesday hearing how she will be transferred.

Agents interviewed Fiorenza at the agency’s Chicago field on June 14 — during which she was shown copies of the emails, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit says Fiorenza lives in Plainfield, Illinois, a southwest Chicago suburb.

Washington
Teva to pay $225M to settle cholesterol drug price-fixing charges
WASHINGTON (AP) — The generic drug maker Teva Pharmaceuticals agreed Monday to pay $225 million to settle price-fixing charges related to sales of a major cholesterol-lowering drug. The U.S. Department of Justice said the agreement also requires Teva to divest its business making and selling the drug, pravastatin, a generic version of the brand-name medicine Pravachol.

Another generic drug maker, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, agreed to pay a $30 million criminal penalty and to divest its pravastatin business as well.

In a statement, the U.S. arm of Israel-based Teva blamed a single former employee for striking agreements with Teva competitors that limited competition between 2013 and 2015. That employee left the company in 2016, Teva said.

DOJ had charged seven generic drug makers, including Teva and Glenmark, with price fixing, bid rigging and market allocation schemes. The seven companies have settled their cases with deferred prosecution agreements. Had any of the cases gone to trial, guilty verdicts could have led to mandatory bans from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health programs.

The companies collectively agreed to pay $681 million in fines in addition to other penalties.


Texas
A judge will consider if state can keep its floating barrier to block migrants crossing to U.S. from Mexico
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday will consider whether Texas can keep a floating barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border as both the Biden administration and Mexico push to remove Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s latest hardline measure to deter migrants from crossing.

The scheduled hearing in Austin comes days after Texas, which installed the water barrier on the Rio Grande in July near the border city of Eagle Pass, repositioned the wrecking ball-sized buoys closer to U.S. soil. Texas is being sued by the Justice Department, which argues the barrier could impact relations with Mexico and pose humanitarian and environmental risks.

During a trip Monday to Eagle Pass, Abbott said the barrier was moved “out of an abundance of caution” following what he described as allegations that they had drifted to Mexico’s side of the river.

“I don’t know whether they were true or not,” Abbott said.

It is not clear when U.S. District Judge David Ezra might rule on the barrier.

In the meantime, Abbott’s sprawling border mission known as Operation Lone Star continues to face numerous legal challenges, including a new one filed Monday by four migrant men arrested by Texas troopers after crossing the border.

The men include a father and son and are among thousands of migrants who since 2021 have been arrested on trespassing charges in the state. Most have either had their cases dismissed or entered guilty pleas in exchange for time served. But the plaintiffs remained in a Texas jail for two to six weeks after they should have been released, according to the lawsuit filed by the Texas ACLU and the Texas Fair Defense Project.

Instead of a sheriff’s office allowing the jails to release the men, the lawsuit alleges, they were transported to federal immigration facilities and then sent to Mexico.

“I think a key point of all that, which is hard to grasp, is also that because they’re building the system as they go, the problems flare up in different ways,” said David Donatti, an attorney for the Texas ACLU.

Officials in both Kinney and Val Verde counties, which have partnered with Abbott’s operation, are named in the lawsuit. A representative for Kinney County said Monday he did not believe anyone had yet reviewed the complaint. A representative for Kinney County did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

The lawsuit also alleges that there were at least 80 others who were detained longer than allowed under state law from late September 2021 to January 2022.

Abbott was joined at the border Monday by the Republican governors of Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota, all of whom have sent their own armed law enforcement and National Guard members to the border.