President Donald Trump has pardoned former New York Mets great Darryl Strawberry of tax evasion and drug charges, citing the 1983 National League Rookie of the Year's post-career embrace of his Christian faith and longtime sobriety. Strawberry was an outfielder and eight-time All-Star, including seven with the Mets from 1983 to 1990. He hit 335 homers and had 1,000 RBIs and 221 stolen bases in 17 seasons. Plagued by later legal, health and personal problems, Strawberry was indicted for tax evasion and eventually pleaded guilty in 1995 to a single felony count. That was based on his failure to report $350,000 in income from autographs, personal appearances and sales of memorabilia. Strawberry agreed to pay more than $430,000 as part of the case. He was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent surgery and chemotherapy in 1998. The following year, Strawberry was sentenced to probation and suspended from baseball after pleading no contest to charges of possession of cocaine and soliciting a prostitute. He eventually spoke in court about struggling with depression and was charged with violating his probation numerous times — including on his 40th birthday in 2002. Strawberry ultimately served 11 months in Florida state prison and was released in 2003. A White House official said on Nov. 7 that Trump approved a pardon for Strawberry who had served time and paid back taxes. Speaking on background to detail a pardon that had not yet been formally announced, the official noted that Strawberry found faith in Christianity and has been sober for a decade-plus, and that he'd become active in ministry and started a still-active recovery center. Strawberry posted on Instagram a picture of himself and Trump and wrote, “Thank you, President @realdonaldtrump for my full pardon and for finalizing this part of my life, allowing me to be truly free and clean from all of my past.” He described being home on Nov. 6, caring for his wife who was recovering from surgery, “when my phone kept ringing relentlessly.” “Half asleep, I glanced over and saw a call from Washington DC. Curious, I answered, and to my amazement, the lady on the line said, ‘Darryl Strawberry, you have a call from the President of the United States, Donald Trump,’” Strawberry wrote. “I put it on speakerphone with my wife nearby, and President Trump spoke warmly about my baseball days in NYC, praising me as one the greatest player of the ’80s and celebrating the Mets. Then, he told me he was granting me a full pardon from my past.” Strawberry said he was “overwhelmed with gratitude — thanking God for setting me free from my past, helping me become a better Man, Husband and Father.”

A jury in Virginia awarded $10 million on Nov. 6 to a former teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student, siding with her claims in a lawsuit that an ex-administrator ignored repeated warnings that the child had a gun. The jury returned its decision against Ebony Parker, a former assistant principal at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. Abby Zwerner was shot in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom. She had sought $40 million against Parker in the lawsuit. Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries, and does not have the full use of her left hand. A bullet narrowly missed her heart and remains in her chest. Zwerner did not address reporters outside the courthouse after the decision was announced. One of her attorneys, Diane Toscano, said the verdict sends a message that what happened at the school "was wrong and is not going to be tolerated; that safety has to be the first concern at school. I think it’s a great message.” Parker was the only defendant in the lawsuit. A judge previously dismissed the district’s superintendent and the school principal as defendants. The shooting sent shock waves through the community and the country at large, with many wondering how a child so young could gain access to a gun and shoot his teacher. The lawsuit said Parker had a duty to protect Zwerner and others from harm after being told about the gun. Zwerner’s attorneys said Parker failed to act in the hours before the shooting after several school staff members told her that the student had a gun in his backpack. “Who would think a 6-year-old would bring a gun to school and shoot their teacher?” Toscano told the jury earlier. “It’s Dr. Parker’s job to believe that that is possible. It’s her job to investigate it and get to the very bottom of it.” Parker did not testify. Her attorney, Daniel Hogan, had warned jurors about hindsight bias and “Monday morning quarterbacking” in the shooting. “You will be able to judge for yourself whether or not this was foreseeable,” Hogan said. “That’s the heart of this case. The law knows that it is fundamentally unfair to judge another person’s decisions based on stuff that came up after the fact. The law requires you to examine people’s decisions at the time they make them.” The shooting occurred on the first day after the student had returned from a suspension for slamming Zwerner’s phone two days earlier. Zwerner testified she first heard about the gun prior to class recess from a reading specialist who had been tipped off by students. The shooting occurred a few hours later. Despite her injuries, Zwerner was able to hustle her students out of the classroom. She eventually passed out in the school office. Zwerner testified she believed that she had died that day. Zwerner no longer works for the school district and has said she has no plans to teach again. She has since become a licensed cosmetologist. Parker faces a separate criminal trial this month on eight counts of felony child neglect. Each of the counts is punishable by up to five years in prison in the event of a conviction. The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. Her son told authorities he got his mother’s handgun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mom’s purse.

A federal judge said Thursday she will order federal agents in Chicago to restrict using force against peaceful protesters and news media outlets, saying current practices violate their constitutional rights. The preliminary injunction came in response to a lawsuit alleging federal agents have used excessive force in their immigration crackdown in the Chicago area. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis 's ruling, which is expected to be appealed by President Donald Trump's administration, refines an earlier temporary order that required agents to wear badges and banned them from using certain riot-control techniques, such as tear gas, against peaceful protesters and journalists. After repeatedly chastising federal officials for not following her previous orders, she added a requirement for body cameras. Ellis, who began Thursday’s hearing by describing Chicago as a “vibrant place” and reading from poet Carl Sandburg’s famous poem about the city, said it is “simply untrue” that the Chicago area is a violent place of rioters. A day earlier, attorneys for both sides repeatedly clashed in court over the accounts of several incidents during the immigration crackdown that began in September, including one where a Border Patrol commander threw a cannister of tear gas at a crowd. “I don’t find defendants’ version of events credible,” Ellis said. Ellis said agents will be required to give two warnings before using riot control weapons and that agents are restricted from using force unless it is “objectively necessary to stop an immediate threat.” She described protesters and advocates facing tear gas, having guns pointed at them and being thrown to the ground, saying “that would cause a reasonable person to think twice about exercising their fundamental rights.” The preliminary injunction stems from a lawsuit filed by news outlets and protesters who say agents have used too much force during demonstrations. In court, an attorney representing the federal government said senior Border Patrol official Greg Bovino, has a body-worn camera after Ellis required him to get one and complete the training for using it at a previous hearing. A message left Thursday for the Department of Homeland Security wasn’t immediately returned. During Wednesday's eight-hour hearing, witnesses gave emotional testimony when describing experiencing tear gas, being shot in the head with pepper balls while praying, and having guns pointed at them when recording agents in residential streets. Ellis questioned witnesses about how these experiences impacted them and if they prevented them from protesting again. One after another, witnesses described their anxiety about returning to protests or advocacy work. “I get really nervous because it just feels like I'm not safe,” Leslie Cortez, a youth organizer in the Chicago suburb of Cicero, told Ellis. “And I question my safety when I go out.” Attorneys also played footage of a five-hour deposition, or private interview, of Bovino where he defended agents' use of force and dodged questions about Border Patrol tactics in the nations' third-largest city.