Top Hamilton headlines this week: What happened in Italy didn't stay in Italy + NDP wiped out of Hamilton
The weekend is here, but plenty happened in the Hamilton area this week. Don't miss these top stories from Spectator reporters.
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One Hamilton hospital nurse worked 24 hours straight. Three nurses worked so many hours that it added up to more than one and a half full-time jobs each. The increasing amount of excessive overtime is deeply disturbing to unions and patient advocates, who question why there are no limits to how many hours a nurse can work.
Four Catholic trustees racked up $127,000 in travel and art costs on a publicly funded trip — plus nearly $63,000 more in legal costs managing the aftermath — prompting a ministry review. The report gives insight into where things went wrong, but also how the trustees spent taxpayer dollars which they have since vowed to repay.
Spectator columnist Susan Clairmont was likely the only journalist who, entirely by chance, saw the complete, untouched video of Const. Greg Pierzchala's murder. 'What I heard was the most horrific evidence I've experienced in more than 30 years as a journalist,' she writes.
A come-back-from-the-dead Liberal election win has wiped the NDP off Hamilton's federal map — a political shift with potentially profound implications for city residents bracing for tariff-war layoffs and those already struggling with poverty.
He says she was into it. She says she wasn't. He says they went on to have an affair. She says he raped her. Const. Jeffrey Turnbull of the Hamilton Police Service is on trial for sexually assaulting a female officer.
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Boston Globe
15 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Jury deliberations begin in former R.I. teacher's whistle-blower lawsuit against prominent Catholic school
Get Rhode Map A weekday briefing from veteran Rhode Island reporters, focused on the things that matter most in the Ocean State. Enter Email Sign Up Marsocci, who testified for several days, never brought his concerns to the police, nor did he confront the teacher in question, Galamaga said. Advertisement But Robert E. Savage, an attorney representing Marsocci, reminded jurors the defense also did not bring in others to testify. Other than Marsocci, the only individuals who testified during the trial were former school administrators named in the lawsuit, he noted. 'They came here alone,' Savage said. Marsocci has said he was terminated in May 2017 for insubordination, when school officials discovered a website he created. The site featureds photos of former principal Joseph Brennan, assistant principal David Flanagan, and president John A. Jackson, claiming they lied about a 'potential predator;' videos Marsocci secretly recorded; and screenshots of sexually suggestive emails he found on the classroom computer, including some responding to Craigslist ads for 'Dad/Son Play.' Advertisement Brennan was also seen in another, secretly-recorded video — shared anonymously with WPRI-TV — that showed Brennan using racist and antisemitic slurs. Marsocci also alleges the three men defamed him in letters to the school community, and interfered with his ability to get hired at other Catholic schools in the state. Savage told the jury on Thursday Marsocci has been working in construction and is now 'poverty-stricken.' But Marsocci also faces counter-claims accusing him of making libelous and slanderous statements. In addition, Brennan is accusing him of violating his rights by surreptitiously filming him in his office and giving 'selective false and fictitious information' to the media. In testimony at trial, Marsocci said he told Brennan and the school chaplain in 2014 about finding the emails on the computer, which students also used. The teacher was allegedly seeking sexual encounters with younger men on Craigslist, and sent a photo of himself with students. Brennan testified he investigated the allegations by talking to the teacher, who denied writing the emails. But Marsocci said he continued finding explicit emails, so he took screenshots of them and started building the website. He also said he used a hidden camera to record his conversations with Brennan and other school officials 'because of the history of events with the Catholic Church.' Brennan testified he did not know Marsocci was still probing the incident. In May 2017, Brennan and Flanagan learned of Marsocci's 'Hawk Outsider' website when the webpage was left open in a faculty room. The website was not yet public, but Marsocci refused to take it down when confronted by administrators and was fired. Advertisement Warwick police spoke with Marsocci and the Hendricken administrators, looked at the screenshots of the email, and determined the situation was a civil matter. Galamaga said Marsocci's primary goal 'was to take down' Brennan, Flanagan, and Jackson. 'Mr. Marsocci wants you to believe that Bishop Hendricken has a teacher on the campus that is acting as a sexual predator, and he claims the evidence of this was easily accessible to anyone on that computer,' Galamaga told jurors on Thursday. 'Yet, curiously, nobody else ever found this easy-to-access evidence except Mr. Marsocci.' Galamaga pointed to how eight years have passed since those allegations became public. 'Wouldn't you expect one person to come forward by now to corroborate his stories?' Galamaga said. 'Nobody has ever come forward with such an allegation,' he added. Todd D. White, an attorney representing Brennan, said Marsocci is responsible for his own termination. 'Mr. Marsocci conducted a witch hunt against a colleague,' White said in his closing statement on Wednesday. Savage maintained on Thursday that Marsocci, who worked at the school for more than 23 years, was not insubordinate. He said whistleblower laws exist for employees to raise alarm if they believe, in good faith, a law was broken. 'He lost everything — absolutely everything,' Savage said. Material from a previous Globe story was used in this report. Christopher Gavin can be reached at
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Yahoo
Supreme Court rejects Mexico's lawsuit against U.S. gun makers
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the Mexican government's lawsuit against U.S. firearms manufacturers accusing them of aiding and abetting gun violence. The court ruled unanimously that the lawsuit is barred by a 2005 federal law that shields gun companies from legal liability. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the opinion, acknowledged the gun violence problem, but said Mexico had failed to make allegations that would surmount those liability protections in claiming the companies aided and abetted the unlawful sale of guns. "The question presented is whether Mexico's complaint plausibly pleads that conduct. We conclude it does not," she wrote. The 2021 lawsuit accused Smith & Wesson, Colt and other companies of deliberately selling guns to dealers who sell products that are frequently recovered at Mexican crime scenes. The Mexican government said the aiding and abetting allegations meant that the companies were not protected by the federal immunity shield, called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Mexico was seeking up to $10 billion in damages. The case at the Supreme Court involved two companies — Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms. Other manufacturers, including Glock and Colt, successfully had claims against them tossed out. A federal judge initially ruled for the manufacturers, but the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the case last year, saying the liability shield did not extend to Mexico's specific claims. The case reached the Supreme Court following increased tensions between American and Mexican leaders after the election of President Donald Trump, who has cited drug trafficking and gang violence in Mexico amid his crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Democrats in Congress have introduced legislation intended to reduce the flow of guns across the border, which they estimate to total at least 200,000 a year. This article was originally published on
New York Post
19 hours ago
- New York Post
Soap star on crusade to save her husband — accused of spying
Emmy-winning soap star Martha Byrne is in the midst of her most challenging role yet — starring in a real-life spy drama. A seemingly routine job taken by her husband, former NYPD cop Michael McMahon, 57, unraveled into an almost 10-year nightmare, resulting in him becoming the first private investigator convicted of spying for the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the US. In one scene which could have been plucked from Hollywood thriller, a dozen FBI agents surrounded their New Jersey home in the fall of 2020. Advertisement 8 Martha Byrne's book is out today. 'From the moment the FBI knocks on your door, your fight-or-flight instinct kicks in,' said Byrne, who played Lily Walsh on 'As the World Turns' in the mid-'80s and again from 1993 to 2008. 'It starts when you wake up until nightfall, when sleep is interrupted by a powerful demonic entity threatening to tear your entire life apart.' 8 Martha Byrne said she found strength in her Catholic faith in the battle to exonerate her husband. Tamara Beckwith Advertisement The mother-of-three has transformed herself into an investigator, advocate, personal trainer and even amateur psychiatrist for her husband's cause. McMahon denies he knowingly worked for the Chinese government, and has long maintained he is a scapegoat used by the Department of Justice to score political points by making an example of him. Byrne's continuing fight to exonerate McMahon is told in her new book, 'In the Interest of Justice: One Woman's Fight Against a Weaponized Justice Department to Save Her Husband.' 8 Michael McMahon, a highly decorated NYPD veteran, suffered a series of panic attacks after his arrest on conspiracy for acting as a spy for China in 2000. Tamara Beckwith Advertisement 'You don't have to have the largest army to conquer the enemy, just the smartest,' she writes. Armed with her computer and cell phone, Byrne, 55, has become an expert on Operation Fox Hunt — the Chinese government's scheme to track down and prosecute dissidents in foreign countries, mostly without the cooperation of their sovereign governments. The Post previously revealed a Chinese police station in Lower Manhattan, where officials allegedly often work with local private investigators to nab Chinese nationals, usually on charges from the motherland. McMahon was convicted of stalking a New Jersey couple who are Chinese expatriates. He maintains he had no knowledge he had been working on behalf of the PRC. Advertisement 8 Martha Byrne acted as a domestic drill sergeant in order to keep her husband's spirits up while they prepared for his trial in 2023. Tamara Beckwith After his 2020 arrest, McMahon began having panic attacks, according to Byrne, who snapped into action and became his personal trainer. 'You can have one day in bed,' she told her husband. 'But ONLY one … Depending on his mood, I balanced the dual role of cheerleader and tough love drill sergeant.' She also knocked on doors — going to police precincts in New Jersey to tell her husband's story, and seeking out other private detectives to warn them they were potential DOJ targets and of the need to verify Chinese clients were not working for the PRC. 'Justice would most certainly prevail,' she writes. 'We just had to fight.' 8 Martha Byrne worked as an investigator and advocate for her husband, trying to clear his name. Gregory P. Mango Not everyone rushed to help. Byrne went to see 2017 New York City mayoral candidate Bo Dietl, who runs one of the biggest PI firms in the world, based in Manhattan. She claims he listened to her story and then had a colleague hand her a card with a lawyer's name on it before abruptly ending the meeting. The Post previously revealed that Dietl went into business with a Chinese security company in 2015 and had boasted on WABC's 'Sid and Friends in the Morning' that he had surveilled the exiled Chinese billionaire dissident Miles Guo. He has never faced any charges related to this and declined to comment Wednesday. Advertisement Among those who have backed Bryne's fight is retired FBI agent Kevin Hecht, one of the foremost experts on Chinese counterintelligence, who began investigating Operation Fox Hunt in 2016. Despite his extensive experience, Hecht told The Post last week that he was never consulted on McMahon's case. He called McMahon's case an example of 'malicious prosecution' on the part of the DOJ. 8 Bo Dietl worked with a Chinese security firm and conducted surveillance on a Chinese billionaire. Paul Martinka Advertisement 'The facts of this case show McMahon was not part of the Fox Hunt scheme, but rather, used to obtain documentation of a civil nature, such as real estate and other financial footprints,' Hecht said in a statement. While preparing for McMahon's trial, which began 2023, the family was horrified when they found out that the federal government had obtained a secret warrant to track their emails. 'One day in early 2021 we received a very disturbing letter from Microsoft alerting us they had complied with a search warrant issued on December 31, 2018, from the Department of Justice for our emails,' she writes. 'We knew the government must have looked through our emails but seeing it in writing is something I can't describe. Microsoft's letter [said] the warrant was now finally closed. How long had it been open? We felt completely violated. I had no idea if they had spied on our children. How often was I followed' Advertisement 8 The People's Republic of China set up a 'police station' in Lower Manhattan in order to spy on dissidents in New York. REUTERS The family never found out. But Byrne said agents scoured 10 years of her and McMahon's banking records and credit card bills. Now, as McMahon prepares to turn himself in to authorities to serve his 18-month sentence on June 16, they are hoping for President Trump to intervene and issue a pardon. 'It brought me hope when I saw the caliber of people Donald Trump appointed to his administration … many who at one time had been targets of the government themselves,' she wrote. Advertisement McMahon was hired in fall 2016 by what he believed was a translation company from New Jersey to do surveillance on a luxury Short Hills, NJ, home occupied by a relative of Xu Jin and Liu Fang, and to use public records to find companies and other assets registered to the couple. 8 Byrne, seen here at home with McMahon, says the family has almost exhausted their funds trying to exonerate McMahon. Tamara Beckwith/NY POST He was told that he was locating assets for a civil court case. Xu and Liu, he was told, had stolen money from a construction company and the people who hired him wanted to find where the cash had gone. What he was not told was that Xu was a former Wuhan official who had fled China amid allegations of corruption. McMahon's work was used without his knowledge in a 2018 New Jersey civil suit against the couple and others, brought by the Xinba Construction Group Co., alleging they had embezzled millions. Xinba won a nearly $15 million default judgment in 2019, court records show. Meanwhile, Byrne and her family have practically exhausted their savings on legal fees, she writes, adding they have very little left to fund an appeal. 'Not sure what more I can do,' she told The Post. 'Pray. That's all I do. And slowly, prayers are getting answered.'
