NY REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLYMAN FACES MARIJUANA CHARGE: ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York state police say an assemblyman stopped for speeding on the state Thruway has been charged with marijuana possession.
Troopers say Stephen Katz was stopped on Tuesday morning for driving 80 mph on the highway with a 65 mph speed limit in Coeyman, south of Albany. They say an officer smelled marijuana and found Katz had a small bag of the drug.
Katz was given an appearance ticket for the violation. He's due in Coeymans Town Court on March 28.
The Hudson Valley assemblyman is a Republican and Conservative who lives in Mohegan Lake. He's a veterinarian first elected in 2010. He says he won't let the charge impede his public service.
He says he's confident once the facts are presented "this will quickly be put to rest."
FBI SAYS FED AGENT KILLING JUSTIFIED: LOS ANGELES (AP) — An immigration agent was justified in fatally shooting a colleague who opened fire on their boss in a federal office building last year, the FBI has determined.
The wild double-shooting at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Long Beach office occurred after Kevin Kozak, the second-in-command for the agency's Los Angeles region, turned down a transfer request by Ezequiel Garcia, who then shot him six times. Another agent rushed into the room and killed Garcia. Kozak survived.
The FBI spent about a year investigating and determined the fatal shooting was justified, bureau spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told The Associated Press. She declined to provide any details about what the investigation found leading up to Garcia's attack or the basis for the overall finding, saying they would be kept confidential because no criminal charges are planned.
WELLS FARGO AWARDS CEO STUMPF $19.3M LAST YEAR: Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf got a pay package worth $19.3 million last year, 8 percent more than he received in 2011, when his compensation deal made him one of the highest paid CEOs in the U.S.
Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission show Stumpf's total pay for 2012 included $2.8 million in salary, stock awards worth $12.5 million and a performance-based cash bonus of $4 million. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. said Stumpf deserved the higher pay in light of the bank's profits hitting a record $18.9 billion last year.
WORKER WHO SET FIRE TO SUB SENTENCED TO 17 YEARS: PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A shipyard worker who set fire to rags aboard a nuclear submarine because he wanted to go home was sentenced to a little more than 17 years in federal prison Friday for the blaze that transformed the vessel into a fiery furnace, injured seven people and caused about $450 million in damage.
Casey James Fury also was ordered to pay $400 million in restitution by a judge who weighed his lack of criminal record and the severity of the fire before imposing a 205-month prison sentence.
The 25-year-old Fury, formerly of Portsmouth, N.H., pleaded guilty to setting the May 23 fire while the USS Miami was undergoing a 20-month dry dock overhaul at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery.
The civilian painter and sand blaster told authorities that he wanted to go home because he was suffering from an anxiety attack. He told them he never envisioned such extensive damage when he used a lighter to set fire to a bag of rags that he left burning on a bunk in a state room.
The blaze quickly grew into an inferno spewing superheated smoke that billowed from hatches. It took 12 hours and the efforts of more than 100 firefighters to save the submarine. Seven people were hurt, the Navy has said.
