Tagged: crime

The latest detainee to leave the Guantanamo Bay prison boarded an Air Force jet earlier this week. His destination: Sudan. The man, 52-year-old Ibrahim al-Qosi, had admitted to being Osama bin Laden's bookkeeper, driver and sometime cook, and he was one of the first prisoners to arrive at Guantanamo in 2002.

Now, he is the latest to leave. His departure brings the total detainee population at the U.S. naval base in Cuba down to 168 — from a high of 680 in May 2003.

Visa and Mastercard have announced that they will pay retailers more than $6 billion to settle several class-action and individual lawsuits retailers have filed since 2005.

According to a Wall Street Journal story from earlier this month, the settlement stems from complaints that Visa and MasterCard, the largest card-payments networks in the world, prohibited retailers from imposing surcharges to customers using those credit cards.

A 69-year-old New Orleans man has pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of theft of government funds.

U.S Attorney Jim Letten's office says Robert P. McFarland entered the plea Thursday before U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon.

The U.S. Department of Labor says more north Louisiana child care businesses are paying workers a legal wage after a crackdown by the Wage and Hour Division. But it says a majority of such businesses in Bossier, Caddo, East Carroll, Lincoln and Ouachita parishes are still breaking the law.

A news release Thursday said 57 percent of the employers investigated this year were violating minimum-wage, overtime or record-keeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act — compared to 81 percent last year.