US reports another arrest of Chinese scientist with no permit to send biological material
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the U.S. at the Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said Monday.
The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit.
'The guidelines for importing biological materials into the U.S. for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,' said John Nowak, who leads field operations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The scientist was interviewed and arrested Sunday after arriving on a flight from China, where she is pursuing an advanced degree at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan. She planned to spend a year completing a project at the University of Michigan.
Her shipments, including an envelope stuffed inside a book, were intercepted last year and earlier this year and opened by authorities, the FBI said.
The court filing doesn't indicate whether the FBI believes the biological material was dangerous, though U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon Jr. said smuggling "threatens our security."
The government last week charged two Chinese scientists who are accused of conspiring to smuggle a toxic fungus into the U.S. One was turned around at the Detroit airport and sent back to China last year, while the other, a researcher at the University of Michigan, was arrested. She remains in custody.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
24 minutes ago
- The Guardian
LA cleans up and protests some more after weekend of defiance against Trump
Outside the federal courthouse complex in downtown Los Angeles on Monday morning, two cleaners carrying bins on wheels looked uncertainly at the daunting task in front of them – long walls in several directions covered in spray-painted graffiti after a weekend of vigorous street protest. They donned black plastic gloves and reached for spray bottles and rolls of paper towels, but these seemed hardly adequate even for the black marble plinth bearing the name 'Edward R Roybal Center and Federal Building' where they began. Indeed, the rest of the official writing on the plinth was illegible, defaced by three separate graffiti reading 'Fuck Ice' and another saying 'Dead Cops'. The City of Angels was in recovery and clean-up mode after a fraught, boisterous day of protest on Sunday against Donald Trump's immigration roundups and his decision to activate the California national guard against the will of the state's leaders. A mostly peaceful series of demonstrations were marred, as night fell, by more serious acts of vandalism and violence. Some people, who the LAPD chief later said were not affiliated with the protesters, tossed rocks and paving stones off freeway overpasses on to police cruisers and officers below and a line of Waymo driverless vehicles that had already been spray-painted were set on fire. On Monday morning, street cleaning vehicles were out in force on Alameda Street, on the east side of the federal courthouse complex, where the national guard was stationed on Sunday and where thousands of protesters converged, starting in the early afternoon. The sidewalk and the long block of Alameda flanked by the federal buildings were cordoned off to the public. The 101 freeway, which had been occupied by protesters the night before, was open to traffic again, but most of the downtown exits were sealed off by California highway patrol vehicles. A cleaning crew with a pressure washer was hard at work on the outside of the federal building on Los Angeles Street, which houses a passport office, a social security office and other key federal bureaucratic services. The national guard, which played almost no role in policing the protests on Sunday, was once again nowhere to be seen. Federal authorities from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were likewise noticeably absent. With much of the Los Angeles police department recovering from a long day and night, the streets were largely given over to representatives from neighboring police forces drafted in to help – from Pasadena, South Pasadena, Burbank, Vernon and other cities. South Pasadena had the job of guarding concrete blocks set up overnight on either side of LA city hall on Spring Street. Its officers also stood guard on the building's western steps. Much of the city establishment – council members, local elected officials and union leaders – flocked, meanwhile, to a protest of their own in Grand Park, on a hill overlooking city hall, to demand the release of David Huerta, a leader of the Service Employees International Union who was arrested on Friday while monitoring an immigration raid and was expected in court for his first appearance on Monday afternoon. 'David Herta is my brother,' the president of his union, April Verrett, told the crowd to rapturous applause and chanting. 'What he would say is, use this moment!' The thousands in attendance blew horns and yelled in approval. Union volunteers acted as marshals for the event and kept a close eye on the perimeter to watch for troublemakers – there appeared to be none. A sole Los Angeles police helicopter hovered overhead, but otherwise law enforcement was entirely absent.
Daily Mail
26 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Horrified jurors were 'shaking and crying' in court after hearing how Netflix-inspired murderer killed girl
A Wisconsin jury was left horrified when they were shown disturbing images a Netflix-inspired murderer took of his victim. Maxwell Anderson, 34, was convicted on Friday of first degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse and arson of property other than building in the April 2024 murder of 19-year-old college student Sade Robinson. Investigators have said that Anderson is believed to have spread her remains around Milwaukee County and burned her car to hide evidence after the two met for dinner and drinks at the Twisted Fisherman in Milwaukee and went back to Anderson's apartment. There, prosecutors said Anderson took disturbing photos showing him groping Robinson while she lay face down on his couch and was said to be far too incapacitated to have resisted. Another damning photo showed Anderson holding Robinson's right breast as she lay unconscious. That breast would later be cut off her body, and has not yet been recovered. 'That was pretty damning evidence that shook everyone,' juror Melissa Blascoe told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, noting that it was the first time during the two-week long trial prosecutors proved Robinson was at Anderson's house before her death. 'I physically felt like I was gonna throw up at that point,' she added. 'I know a lot of people were shaking and crying.' Blascoe said the photos will now 'be in my mind for quite some time,' describing them as Anderson's 'trophy.' But they also served as the 'nail in [Anderson's] coffin,' Blascoe said, explaining that by the time jurors went to deliberate on the charges 'everyone agreed pretty early in the morning that he was guilty.' The jury then spent just an hour deliberating on Friday, much of it debating whether to convict him of first degree intentional homicide or first degree reckless homicide. After they then read out their decision, Blascoe said the jury was presented with new information - that Anderson was watching the Netflix series Love, Death & Robots. The animated show's Season 2 finale, 'The Drowned Giant,' depicts the gruesome dismantling of a gigantic human body on a beach. Prosecutors claimed that Anderson mutilated Robinson's body on a Wisconsin beach overlooking Lake Michigan. 'I was like... that's disgusting because that could have been where he got some of his ideas or fantasies,' Blascoe said. At the trial, prosecutors proved that Anderson spent months prepping his basement for the gruesome murder by covering it from floor to ceiling with painter's tarp, Law & Crime reports. He also had a sanitation sink and three saws inside. Prosecutors have previously also said that Robinson and Anderson were caught on surveillance footage leaving the Twisted Fisherman in Robinson's Honda Civic at around 9.30pm on April 1. An app on Robinson's phone then shows it left Anderson's home shortly after midnight on April 2, and traveled to Warnimont Park, along the Lake Michigan shore, where police would later discover a 'sawn off' human leg that was confirmed to be Robinson's. Surveillance footage from the park showed a Honda Civic ramming through a gate at around 3am and someone is seen going down to the water several times before leaving at 4.30am, Law & Crime reports. By around 7.30pm that day, the Milwaukee Fire Department responded to a vehicle fire - which investigators later determined was Robinson's Honda. Within the car, despite 'extreme fire damage,' investigator's identified the outfit Robinson had been wearing on the night of the date as well as part of an iPhone consistent with hers burned in the car, CNN reported. From there, cops received surveillance footage showing Anderson getting on a bus near where the Honda was torched and riding to a stop near his home, according to a police affidavit. Then, on April 6, police found a foot and human flesh not far from the burned-out vehicle, which they confirmed belonged to Robinson. An ensuing search of his home also found blood in a bedroom and on the walls leading to the basement - where investigators found a 'sex dungeon,' according to WISN. Following the verdict on Friday, Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Ian Vance-Curzan said he is 'satisfied' with the outcome but noted that 'our hearts go out to the family of Sade Robinson.' Milwaukee County Sheriff's Det. JoAnn Donner, who spent months working on the case, also said: 'My heart goes out to the family and [Robinson's] friends and really, the community at large. 'It's everyone's come together, and it's really hard to take that step back as a law enforcement officer and not get that really emotionally involved during the case,' she continued. 'I will admit that I did go back to my office after the verdict, and I had a good cry because I finally got to have that emotion. It does affect us too.' Robinson's mother, Sheena Scarbrough, said in a GoFundMe for her daughter's memorial service that Robinson was a 'loving daughter, a cherished sister, and a dear friend to many.' Anderson is set for sentencing on August 15, where he faces a mandatory life sentence in prison.
Daily Mail
34 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Country singer Conner Smith was 'behind the wheel' of car that fatally hit elderly woman
The country singer Conner Smith is accused of striking and killing an elderly woman with his vehicle on the night of Sunday, June 8. According to a statement released by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department on Monday, the 24-year-old singer hit and killed a woman identified as Dorothy Dobbins, 77, with his Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. Smith — who is signed to Big Machine Records, Taylor Swift's old label — allegedly hit Dobbins when she was walking in a marked crosswalk. has contacted representatives for Smith for comment but has not yet received a response.
