🔵 Democrat Mayor Indicted

Author

Citizen Frank
August 16, 2025

Good evening. It’s Friday, August 15.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell was hit with an 18-count federal indictment Friday accusing her of orchestrating a scheme with her bodyguard-turned-lover to defraud the city of more than $70,000.

Cantrell, 53, and Jeffrey Vappie, a member of her Executive Protection Unit (EPU), are charged with multiple crimes — including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and making false statements.

“In or around October 2021, Cantrell and Vappie developed a personal and intimate relationship,” states the indictment in the Eastern District of Louisiana. “To hide their relationship from detection and to maximize their time together, Cantrell and Vappie exploited their public positions to develop and implement a scheme to defraud the City of New Orleans and the New Orleans Police Department by engaging in personal activities while Vappie claimed to be on duty, and was paid for, providing protection for Cantrell.”

 
 

President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin left the world guessing on Friday after a historic summit that yielded no details about what was discussed, what was agreed to and what remaining sticking points remain to ending the war with Ukraine.

The two leaders holed up behind closed doors for around three hours at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. What they talked about, however, remains largely a mystery as the two leaders, standing side-by-side at a joint news conference, revealed very little of what “progress” they said was made. They took no questions from the press.

Here are the top takeaways from the summit.

Minneapolis police say at least 125 more cars were broken into — mostly through smashed windows — overnight, continuing the troubled trend as investigators continue to search for suspects.

One of the hardest hit spots Monday night into Tuesday morning was northeast Minneapolis, near Marshall Street and Broadway Avenue, where cell phone video shared with 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS showed an organized and aggressive strategy by the criminals — seemingly going vehicle by vehicle, smashing windows and searching for goods to steal.

“[It] made me cry. It was really, really a punch to the gut watching someone else inside my vehicle. I mean, it makes me scared to even come out here at night sometimes, too,” Brooke Tuff, whose brand new SUV’s window was smashed, said about watching the video.

The Trump administration will be deploying an additional 4,000 Marines from the US military in the waters around Latin America in order to combat the drug cartels, according to a new report from CNN.

Citing two US defense officials, the outlet reported that the move is part of a broader mission to ready military assets to target the drug cartels. A third person familiar with the plans told the outlet that the additional military assets are “aimed at addressing threats to US national security from specially designated narco-terrorist organizations in the region.”

Included in the deployment is the Jima Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, reporting to US Southern Command. The effort has reportedly been underway for the past three weeks.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem temporarily relocated her personal residence as she’s facing an increase in threats against her and “vicious doxxing,” a department spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Friday.

“Following the media’s publishing of the location of Secretary Noem’s Washington D.C. apartment, she has faced vicious doxxing on the dark web and a surge in death threats, including from the terrorist organizations, cartels, and criminal gangs that DHS targets. Due to threats and security concerns, she has been forced to temporarily stay in secure military housing,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. “Secretary Noem continues to pay rent for her Navy Yard residence.

“It’s a shame that the media chooses sensationalism over the safety of people enforcing America’s laws to keep Americans safe,” McLaughlin added.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is launching an investigation into Meta after reports found that the company green-lit internal rules that allowed AI chatbots to have “romantic” and “sensual” exchanges with children.

Hawley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, wrote in a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that his committee will dive into whether Meta’s generative-Al products enabled exploitation, deception or other criminal harms to children. Further, the probe will look at whether Meta misled the public or regulators about its safeguards on AI.

“I already have an ongoing investigation into Meta’s stunning complicity with China — but Zuckerberg siccing his company’s AI chatbots on our kids called for another one,” Hawley told Fox News Digital. “Big Tech will know no boundaries until Congress holds social media outlets accountable. And I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle can agree that exploiting children’s innocence is a new low.”

At age 30, Ann Johnson’s life in Saskatchewan was full. She taught math and physical education at a high school, coached volleyball and basketball, and had recently married and welcomed her first child. At her wedding, she delivered a 15-minute speech filled with joy.

Everything changed in 2005, when she suffered a brainstem stroke while playing volleyball with friends. The stroke left her with locked-in syndrome – near-total paralysis and an inability to speak. “She would try to speak, but her mouth wouldn’t move and no sound would come out,” researchers said. For nearly two decades, she communicated slowly using an eye-tracking system, spelling out words one letter at a time.

In 2022, Johnson became the third participant in a clinical trial run by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of California, Berkeley. The project aimed to restore speech using a brain-computer interface, or neuroprosthesis, that bypasses the body’s damaged connections.

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