December 20, 2022
Libyan militia held Lockerbie suspect before handover to US
CAIRO — Around midnight in mid-November, Libyan militia in two Toyota pick-up trucks arrived at a residential building in a neighborhood of the capital of Tripoli. They stormed the house, bringing out a blindfolded man in his 70s.
Their target was former Libyan intelligence agent Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, wanted by the United States for allegedly making the bomb that brought down New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, just days before Christmas in 1988 .The attack killed 259 people in the air and 11 on the ground.
Weeks after that night raid in Tripoli, the US announced Mas’ud was in its custody, to the surprise of many in Libya, which has been split between two rival governments, each backed by an array of militias and foreign powers.
Analysts say the Tripoli-based government responsible for handing over Mas’ud was likely seeking US goodwill and favor amid the power struggles in Libya.
Four Libyan security and government officials with direct knowledge of the operation recounted the journey that ended with Mas’ud in Washington.
The officials said it started with him being taken from his home in the Abu Salim neighborhood of Tripoli. He was transferred to the coastal city of Misrata and eventually handed over to American agents who flew him out of the country, they said.
The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Several said the United States had been exerting pressure for months to see Mas’ud handed over.
“Every time they communicated, Abu Agila was on the agenda,” one official said.
In Libya, many questioned the legality of how he was picked up, just months after his release from a Libyan prison, and sent to the US. Libya and the US don’t have a standing agreement on
FSRA enforces penalties on former insurance agents
According to the FSRA, the three misused personal information collected from students to apply for insurance policies – often without the students‘ knowledge. The three also claimed to the students that purchasing life insurance was a mandatory condition for employment. It was noted that the agents made no effort to determine if the insurance policies were suited to the needs of the students, who had no stable income and were living in Canada temporarily through study permits.
“What the three former insurance agents did to these students is egregious and completely unacceptable and our enforcement action should send a clear message that this kind of activity will not be tolerated,” said FSRA director of litigation & enforcement, legal enforcement Elissa Sinha. ” The FSRA is committed to protecting consumers purchasing insurance and ensuring that regulated individuals and companies uphold the required standard of conduct.”
A release said that the FSRA issued this order following a settlement with the three, who are no longer licensed under the Insurance Act. Each of the agents has been imposed administrative penalties between $15,000 and $55,000.
In October, the FSRA proposed to impose a compliance order on the life insurance managing general agent Greatway Financial, for training its agents to sell universal life insurance policies as of they were “insured retirement plans.”
According to the regulator, IRPs can be successful through continued and retained contributions, but are only suitable for higher net-worth individuals who can make those regular contributions. FSRA went on to accuse Great way of misrepresenting universal life policies and IRP strategies as “savings” instead of insurance.
States turn to high-tech kiosks to get legal help to those facing evictions
EVANSVILLE, Il. — On the second floor of this courthouse, what at first glance looks like an ATM is actually a legal lifeline. It is a legal aid kiosk, which helps users facing evictions to get the legal help they need.
“It’s going to either be in the courthouse or in their local library, and that’s where low-income people seek help,” said Scott Wylie, an attorney with ProBono Indiana. “It’s touch screen; it’s intuitive. They can look up all of the resources that are available and provide legal assistance in their eviction actions and other housing stability related issues. They can directly connect to a legal navigator who is trained to be able to provide them with guidance.”
When evictions began to rise in the state last year, pro bono legal services found many tenants in need of legal help.
“We found that over 50% of eviction clients, who were arriving to be removed from their apartment, had never heard of civil legal aid or rental assistance. Over 50%,” Wylie said.
According to data collected by The Eviction Lab, as of early November, the number of evictions in cities across the country is on the rise. When compared to their average numbers from previous years, in Las Vegas, it rose 60%; in Cleveland, it was up 61%; in Milwaukee, it climbed to 68% and in Tampa, it skyrocketed 121%.
“We have a large problem across the United States, and solutions like these help chip away at those inequities that poor people are confronted with,” Wylie said.
Several states are now making use of legal kiosks, including Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana and North Dakota.
In Indiana, $1 million in federal COVID relief funds paid for 120 kiosks to get deployed across the state, which connects users to Indiana Legal