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Apple and Google have unveiled a rare partnership to add technology to their smartphone platforms that will alert users if they have come into contact with a person with COVID-19. People must opt in to the system, but it has the potential to monitor about a third of the world's population

A fire has engulfed large parts of a prison in Russia's Siberia region following a riot by inmates who accused guards of mistreating them. The area around the high-security Penal Colony No 15 in Angarsk has been sealed off and security forces deployed. There are reports of casualties but their number is unclear. Russia's penal service said inmates had "attacked a guard" who had to be taken to hospital. Officials said the unrest was under control and investigators had opened an investigation.

Just about a week after the Trump hating Democrat Governor of Nevada limited the ability for physicians to prescribe Hydroxychloroquine to treat Corona virus, news broke that Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak’s own Department of Corrections has been hoarding the drug for prisoners.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday commuted 21 prison sentences and pardoned five people who had already served their time behind bars, citing the coronavirus pandemic as a factor in his decision. Fourteen of the commuted cases involved murder or related charges -snip Among those who had sentences commuted were Suzanne Johnson, 75, of San Diego County, who had served 22 years for assaulting a child who died; 64-year-old Joann Parks of Los Angeles County who served 27 years for the deaths of her three young children who were killed in a house fire, which Parks denies setting; and Rodney McNeal, 50, of San...

Something was wrong. The chow hall line at New York’s Rikers Island jail had halted. For three hours, the men stood and waited, without food, until a correctional officer quietly delivered the news: A civilian chef was among those who tested positive for the coronavirus. “We was like, ‘What? The cook?’” said Corey Young, who spoke to The Associated Press last week by phone from Rikers. He and others wondered if the chef had sneezed on trays or into the food. Some men later floated the idea of a hunger strike to protest. “I don’t want to eat nothing that...

American hedge fund boss Bill Ackman has made $2.6 billion by betting against the markets just days after stoking fears by saying 'hell is coming' and begging President Donald Trump to shut down the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Pershing Square Capital Management hedge fund manager said his firm had made $2.6billion from a one-off bet that the coronavirus outbreak would cause a global market crash. His firm seized upon bond market turmoil during the coronavirus crisis in buying 'credit protection on various global investment grade and high-yield credit indices'.

Inmates told VICE that they're really just putting a mysterious vendor's existing product in 'NYS Clean' bottles.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s order directing all but “life-sustaining” businesses to shut down has spurred objections from several sectors. The law firm of Costopoulos, Foster & Fields asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for an emergency injunction to allow the firm to reopen. “The governor’s order is so broad and sweeping, it is manifestly unconstitutional and illegal,” wrote William Costopoulos. “No work is more essential than defending our clients accused of crimes. The postponement of trials that has been offered as a justification for temporarily shutting down our office is not a sufficient remedy. Under our laws, the accused has the...

WASHINGTON - An inmate at a federal jail in New York City has tested positive for coronavirus, marking the first confirmed case in the federal prison system. The inmate, who is housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, complained of chest pains on Thursday, a few days after he arrived at the facility, the federal Bureau of Prisons told The Associated Press. He was taken to a local hospital and was tested for COVID-19, officials said. The inmate was discharged from the hospital on Friday and returned to the jail, where he was immediately placed in isolation, the agency...

As much of the nation adjusts this week to sudden and indefinite home confinement, prison and jail wardens across the U.S. are scrambling to forestall an outbreak of COVID-19 inside a crowded U.S. correctional facility. With the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world, the U.S. faces unique challenges among its roughly 2.3 million inmates as the coronavirus surges silently through all 50 states. As projected staff shortages and fears of thinning medical resources cascade through the nation’s patchwork of federal, state, county and private prisons and jails -- where even rudimentary protective measures like alcohol-based hand sanitizers...

(CNN) - After a brief stay at Rikers Island, disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is moving to a prison in upstate New York. The former producer has been assigned to the Wende Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Alden, New York, an official with the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision told CNN. The jail, which is just east of Buffalo, New York, houses more than 950 inmates, including Mark David Chapman, who was convicted of murdering musician John Lennon. Weinstein is expected to stay at Wende for an undetermined period of time while authorities determine...

ALBANY, N.Y. – What do you do when fear over the new coronavirus leads to a shortage of hand sanitizer? If you're the state of New York, you make it yourself. Or you have prisoners do it. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday the state had begun producing its own line of hand sanitizer, known as NYS Clean. The state will distribute the products to schools, local governments, prisons and other public entities free of charge. The low price of making the sanitizer in house – $6.10 a gallon – will allow the state and local governments to save big, particularly...

Former CIA Director John Brennan Thursday on MSNBC accused President Donald Trump of playing to a “very debased” group of people. Discussing Trump’s comments on Roger Stone today at a prison graduation ceremony in Las Vegas, Brennan said, “He’s clearly giving every indication he wants to act like a mob boss. And he’s going to try to take care of him and his soldiers.” He continued, “It’s outrageous he would try to make any moral equivalency between someone like Roger Stone who the judge said has trampled the law and public servants like James Comey and others who really tried...

President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of former Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the New York Times reported Tuesday.Several Trump administration aides had claimed to ABC that the president is planning to grant the former governor clemency. Trump had previously hinted he was looking into commuting the 14-year sentence, which was originally handed down after Blagojevich was convicted of trying to sell the Senate seat of then-president elect Barack Obama in 2008, according to NBC Chicago. https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1229845536511070209 “Yes, we commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich. he served eight years in jail, a long time. He seems like a very nice person, don’t know him,” Trump...

... The visceral, retributive reactions to Mr. Madoff’s petition, including from liberals who claim to want to end mass incarceration, reveal the obstacles to transformational criminal justice reform. The truth is, there is only a small number of entirely “sympathetic” people in prisons who could be released without any scruples by the public or affront to their victims. Those incarcerated for violent offenses compose a vast majority of our prison population, in spite of a false narrative that most people are in there for nonviolent drug offenses. The pain and harm experienced by their victims is real, and that’s also...

BALTIMORE - Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has asked for a sentence of one year and one day in prison in relation to her guilty plea in the “Healthy Holly” book scandal that led to her fall from grace and resignation from office last year, with her attorneys arguing she has already suffered greatly. “Ms. Pugh has become a tragic figure - an inspiring person dedicated to helping her community who is now a disgraced, unemployed felon, and who has lost everything that she had,” her attorneys wrote in a sentencing memorandum Friday that included some redacted sections. “We submit...

There is at least one issue a divided electorate can come together on this election year: A recent poll finds 90% of those surveyed agreed on the importance of making health care more affordable. Millions of Americans remain uninsured. As Meg Oliver reports in partnership with ProPublica, some people are even going to jail because they're squeezed by a system that's putting new demands on overburdened incomes. Tres and Heather Biggs' son Lane was diagnosed with leukemia when he was five years old. At the same time, Heather suffered seizures from Lyme disease. "We had so many — multiple health...

CHEROKEE, Iowa -- A Marcus, Iowa, man was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for stealing copper from wind turbine sites around Marcus and burglarizing several businesses. Andrew Bock, 35, pleaded guilty in Cherokee County District Court to first-degree criminal mischief, third-degree burglary and third-offense possession of a controlled substance. Bock was charged with stealing copper and materials valued at $7,390 from nine wind turbine sites on Oct. 12 or Oct. 13. He was accused of causing $11,080 in damage to the wind turbine sites.

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, February 5, 2020 The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division announced today that it has opened an investigation into conditions of confinement in four of Mississippi’s prisons.  The investigation will examine conditions at the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman), Southern Mississippi Correctional Institute, Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, and the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility. The State of Mississippi is responsible for all four facilities. The investigation will focus on whether the Mississippi Department of Corrections adequately protects prisoners from physical harm at the hands of other prisoners at the four...

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified Wednesday that the actions taken by the bureau to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page were “unacceptable” and “cannot be repeated.” During his first congressional appearance following the release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s FISA review last year, Wray vowed to reform the FISA system by implementing “specific procedures and safeguards.” “The failures highlighted in the inspector general report are unacceptable, period. And they cannot be repeated,” Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee. “I have already ordered more than 40 corrective actions to our...