Second VW employee arrested over emissions scheme

DETROIT (AP) — The Volkswagen executive who once was in charge of complying with U.S. emissions regulations was arrested during the weekend in Florida and accused of deceiving federal regulators about the use of special software that cheated on emissions tests.

Oliver Schmidt, who was general manager of the engineering and environmental office for VW of America, was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and wire fraud.

Schmidt, 48, a resident of Germany, is the second VW employee to be arrested in an ongoing federal investigation into VW, which has admitted that it programmed diesel-powered vehicles to turn pollution controls on during tests and to turn them off in real-world driving. The scandal has cost VW sales and has tarnished its brand worldwide.

He was ordered held Monday at a hearing in Miami, where prosecutors argued that he posed a flight risk if released. He faces another hearing Thursday. After that he likely will be taken to Detroit, where the Justice Department investigation is based.

The complaint, dated Dec. 30, accuses Schmidt of conspiring with other Volkswagen executives to mislead U.S. regulators about why their vehicles emitted higher emissions on the road than during tests. Schmidt “offered reasons for the discrepancy” other than the fact that the company was cheating on emissions tests through illegally installed software on its diesel vehicles, court documents say.

Tests commissioned by the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation in 2014 found that certain Volkswagen models with diesel engines emitted more than the allowable limit of pollutants. More than a year later, Volkswagen admitted to installing the software on about 500,000 2-liter diesel engines in VW and Audi models in the U.S. The company later said some 3-liter diesels also cheated.

Syria’s Assad ready to ‘negotiate everything’ with rebels

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad said in remarks published Monday that he was prepared “to negotiate everything” at planned talks later this month in Kazakhstan, seeking to cast himself as a peacemaker after his forces’ recapture of Aleppo last month.

However, the upcoming talks, brokered by Ankara and Moscow, are still in doubt as Syrian opposition groups have yet to confirm their participation.

Syrian activists meanwhile reported what appeared to be a U.S.-led special forces raid on Islamic State militants in eastern Syria.

Omar Abou Leila, who runs Deir Ezzor 24, said four helicopters landed in the desert between the IS-held cities of Deir el-Zour and Raqqa on Sunday. Commandos set up checkpoints and intercepted a vehicle carrying several Islamic State militants, killing all of them and flying off with the bodies, he said.

“It’s an operation that apparently targeted an important figure,” Abou Leila told The Associated Press from Germany, where he is based. Deir Ezzor 24 is one of several locally staffed underground groups reporting from IS-held territory.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another activist-run group, said 25 militants were killed in the ambush.

Local witnesses said at least some of the commandos spoke Arabic. There was no immediate comment from the U.S.-led coalition.

In the northeastern province of Hassakeh, a car bomb exploded Monday night in the predominantly Kurdish town of Qamishli, wounding several people, including the driver of the vehicle, state TV, the Observatory and a local official said.

Jwan Mohammed, a Kurdish official in Qamishli, said security forces detained the driver of the car, who lost his legs in the blast. He said the car blew up in a main square that is home to several security offices. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but IS had carried out suicide attacks in Kurdish areas in the past.

Chief: Texas policeman suspended for 10 days after incident

DALLAS (AP) — A white Texas policeman was suspended without pay for 10 days, but will not be fired, after an incident in which he was caught on video wrestling a black woman and her daughter to the ground, Fort Worth Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald announced Monday.

Fitzgerald said the officer violated policy, is sorry for his behavior and is eager to resume active duty at the end of the suspension. He said he has asked the officer to go back into the community when the suspension ends “to repair relationships.”

“We are not sanctioning bad behavior… People make mistakes. We have levels of mistakes that every police officer makes,” Fitzgerald said. “Some things deserve punishment; some do not. Some deserve termination and some do not.”

The incident happened after Jacqueline Craig complained that a neighbor choked her 7-year-old son for allegedly littering in his yard. One of her daughters filmed the interactions between Craig and the officer.

In the video, the officer questions why Craig hadn’t taught her son not to litter and later asks why the neighbor shouldn’t have put his hands on her son. One of Craig’s daughters tries to push her mother away from the officer, but the officer forces Craig and the daughter to the ground. He thrusts a stun gun into Craig’s back and later points it at the daughter telling her to stay down.