By Daniel Trotta (Reuters) -Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday signed into law a bill that bans gender-affirming medical care

Alex Murdaugh’s accomplice and friend Corey Fleming is now cooperating with the FBI over the convicted killer’s scheme to steal millions of dollars from his dead housekeeper’s family. Fleming, a longtime friend and law school classmate of the disgraced legal scion, accepted a plea deal with federal prosecutors this week over his involvement in Murdaugh’s financial fraud schemes. He appeared in federal court in South Carolina on Thursday where he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. At the court hearing, Fleming confessed that he had taken part in one of Murdaugh’s financial schemes – and admitted that he knew what he was doing when he did so. Prosecutors allege that Murdaugh orchestrated a financial fraud scheme which included stealing almost $4.3m from the estate of Gloria Satterfield and its insurance carriers. Satterfield was the Murdaugh’s longtime housekeeper who died in a mysterious “trip and fall” accident at the prominent family’s 1,700-acre Moselle estate in South Carolina in 2018 – the same property where Murdaugh shot dead his wife Maggie and adult son Paul three years later. Following her death, Murdaugh recommended that Satterfield’s sons hire his friend and fellow attorney Fleming to represent them in bringing a wrongful death claim against him, so that they could collect from his homeowner’s insurance policies. The insurance companies ultimately settled the estate’s claim for more than $4m – two payments of $505,000 and $3.8m. Murdaugh and Fleming then stole the settlement money for themselves and the housekeeper’s sons didn’t get a dime. Much of the stolen money was funneled through a fake “Forge” bank account which sought to imitate the legitimate and totally unrelated business Forge Consulting. In accepting the plea deal, Fleming admitted that he helped Murdaugh steal the insurance money meant for Satterfield’s sons and has agreed to cooperate with the FBI and US Attorney’s office in the case. He has also agreed to submit to polygraph tests and to turn over his law licences in South Carolina and Georgia. He faces up to five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000 when he is sentenced at a later date. He was released Thursday on a $25,000 unsecured bond. He is also facing separate state charges over the Satterfield case. Ronnie Richter, an attorney representing the Satterfield family, welcomed Fleming’s guilty plea. “This was a good day for justice because this is the first time anyone associated with the Satterfield case has pleaded guilty to anything,” he said. Fleming’s plea deal comes the same week that Murdaugh was indicted on a slew of new charges over their scheme. The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office announced on Wednesday that a federal grand jury had returned a 22-count indictment against the 54-year-old disgraced legal dynasty heir, charging him with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. The convicted killer was already awaiting trial on more than 100 financial crimes charges over a decade-long multi-million-dollar fraud scheme where Murdaugh stole millions from his law firm and legal clients – a scheme he confessed to orchestrating when he took the stand at his murder trial. But, now he has been hit with a further 22 charges for what prosecutors describe as three separate schemes to steal money from personal injury clients he represented through his law firm. As well as the scheme with Fleming, prosecutors allege that Murdaugh ran a second scheme from at least September 2005 to September 2021, where he allegedly routed and redirected clients’ settlement funds into his own pocket including by directing his law firm colleagues to pay the funds directly into his personal account. In the third scheme, Murdaugh and his banker Russell Laffitte allegedly conspired from July 2011 to October 2021 to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. Laffitte, who was CEO of Palmetto State Bank at the time, acted as Murdaugh’s personal banker and as a custodian or conservator for some of his law firm clients. Laffitte then conspired to defraud those clients, with the two men diverting the money to themselves. Laffitte was convicted in November of financial fraud charges in connection to Murdaugh’s alleged white collar fraud schemes. Murdaugh faces up to 30 years in prison on the highest charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in the new indictment. His other financial charges already amount to more than 700 years in prison if convicted. Even without the financial charges, Murdaugh will already spend the remainder of his life in prison after he was found guilty on 2 March of murdering his wife Maggie and son Paul on the family’s Moselle property back on 7 June 2021. Murdaugh was sentenced to life in prison the day after the verdict. Satterfield, who worked for the family for more than 20 years, was found at the bottom of the steps leading into the family’s home. She never resumed consciousness and died from her injuries three weeks later on 26 February. At the time, Murdaugh claimed that she had tripped over the family’s dogs and hit her head, and her death was regarded as an accidental fall. However, her death certificate cited her manner of death as “natural” and no autopsy was ever carried out. Questions have been swirling around Satterfield’s death for the past few years as the string of deaths, stolen money and corruption surrounding Murdaugh came to light. In September 2021, an investigation was reopened into her death and investigators said they planned to exhume her body. Satterfield’s death isn’t the only mystery death tied to the South Carolina legal dynasty. A homicide investigation has also been opened into the 2015 death of Stephen Smith, who was found dead in the middle of a road in Hampton County. The openly gay 19-year-old had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and his death was officially ruled a hit-and-run. But Smith’s family have long doubted this version of events, with the Murdaugh name cropping up in several police tips and community rumours. At the time of his murder, Paul was also awaiting trial for the boat crash death of Mallory Beach. Read More Alex Murdaugh indicted on 22 new financial fraud charges for stealing money from dead housekeeper’s family Audio reveals Alex Murdaugh blaming dogs for housekeeper’s death – after he walked back claim five years later Stephen Smith’s body is exhumed after murder near Murdaugh home – as family offers $35k reward to catch killer

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Donald Trump sat down with Sean Hannity for a town hall in Iowa on Thursday evening to answer questions from local voters, although almost all of the questions came from the Fox News host himself. Before a raucous and adoring crowd, the Republican former president was asked about domestic and foreign policy topics, claiming he would solve most within six months of retaking office, boasting of his tough stance towards Russia and Iran. When other GOP primary candidates like Ron DeSantis and Asa Hutchinson were brought up, he dismissed the threat they posed as his audience booed and jeered the very mention of their names. But there was no mention whatsoever of Fox’s recent $787m settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over the former’s coverage of Mr Trump’s bogus claims that the 2020 presidential election fraud was “rigged” against him by a vast Democrat-led conspiracy to deprive him of a second term. Mr Trump did use the opportunity provided to try to shoot down the latest allegations that he knowingly stored classified Pentagon documents from his presidency at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, insisting: “I don't know anything about it. All I know is everything did was right.” Read More Trump’s Fox and CNN town halls expose media’s inability to fact-check a fountain of nonsense Trump plays down legal threat of secret papers recording at Fox News town hall Trump surprises crowd by mocking people who say ‘woke’ – including his own son who runs businesses off it

A police officer and a British national are among those killed since the strikes began, police say.

The family of Christian Glass, who called 911 after his car got stuck and was later shot and killed by police, will receive a $19m payout – the largest payout for police misconduct in the history of Colorado. Mr Glass was shot and killed in Silver Plume, west of Denver in the central parts of the state, in the summer of last year. Four local governments in the state will each pay parts of the settlement to reach the record amount. In addition to the funds, the family will also receive assurances that the state and its police agencies are enacting measures to ensure a similar incident doesn’t occur again, according to 9News. Mr Glass called 911 on 10 June last year after his car got stuck on a road in the small town, a former silver mining camp. Seven officers from five agencies responded. Mr Glass was shot and killed an hour and ten minutes after he had called for a mental health check. He told the officers on several occasions that he was scared to open the door of the car or to roll down his window, but the police still attempted to get Mr Glass to get out of the vehicle. Clear Creek County Deputy Andrew Buen, who has since left the job, broke the passenger-side window, Tased Mr Glass, and shot him with bean bags, which were non-lethal. Officers have said that Mr Glass then reached out with a small knife, prompting Officer Buen to shoot him five times, killing Mr Glass. His parents, Simon and Sally Glass, said in a statement via their lawyers that they hope that the settlement will work as a message that injustice will not be accepted and that those responsible for their son’s death will be held accountable, including the officers who didn’t act to protect Mr Glass. The family has said previously that they wanted further indictments for those offices. University of California, Los Angeles law professor Dr Joanna Schwartz told 9News that “$19m is a lot of money”. “I think this agency will be thinking carefully about how it operates in the future, and other departments in the region and across the country are also going to take notice of this suit. But I think it’s the noneconomic changes that will most directly impact the department in the immediate future,” she added. Clear Creek County, Officer Buen’s former department, has the largest payout – $10m. As part of the settlement with the county, Mr Glass’s parents will get to speak to new patrol recruits joining the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office. The county is also set to create a crisis response team before 1 January 2025. The co-responder programme across the county will couple mental health workers with paramedics to respond to calls along with police to make sure that what took place in the case of Mr Glass doesn’t occur again. Dr Schwartz told 9News that in many instances, police agencies aren’t interested or willing to agree to settlements like this one. “I really haven’t heard of another settlement that involves the parents actually themselves speaking to officers, which is truly novel in my experience,” she told the local station. More follows...

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