The National Football League, the Justice Department, the FBI and other agencies will call on Congress on Tuesday to expand U.S. government authority to detect and destroy drones that could pose security threats over stadiums and other locations, Reuters reports. Congress has debated for years expanding authority amid growing safety concerns. "The time to act to keep fans safe is now," NFL security chief Cathy Lanier will tell a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on Tuesday. According to Lanier's written testimony, rogue drone flights into the restricted air space above stadiums during NFL games rose to 2,845 in 2023 from 2,537 in 2022. Drone flights are prohibited up to 3,000 feet (914 m) before major U.S. sporting events in a three-mile radius of stadiums. The White House and sports leagues since 2022 have been pushing for expanded authority to detect threatening drones, with the NFL, Major League Baseball and other leagues warning previously that without expanded authority, airports and sporting events "are at substantial risk from malicious and unauthorized (drone) operation." Congress in 2018 expanded the power of the Justice Department and Homeland Security to disable or destroy threatening drones, but officials say they need new authority. Legislation would expand federal coverage for airports and critical infrastructure like power plants, oil refineries or chemical facilities and high-risk prisoner transports. It would also allow use of expanded counter-drone authorities by state and local law enforcement. Owners or operators of airports or critical infrastructure could also use federally vetted drone-detection capabilities. "Gaps in legal authorities leave sensitive federal facilities, such as CIA headquarters, vulnerable to both intelligence collection by foreign states and physical attacks by hostile actors," said joint written testimony from the FBI and Justice Department. "We also need to allow critical infrastructure operators to take steps to protect their own facilities and assets." DHS said in written testimony that in a recent six-week period there were more than 6,900 drone flights within close proximity of the Southwest border, saying "the use of drones for illicit cross border activity is not only widespread, but highly organized."

Two New Orleans-based law firms and their attorneys who specialize in car accident claims have been charged with several others for their roles in staging wrecks, faking injuries and collecting millions of dollars in lawsuit settlements, the Guardian reports .  Among those indicted on Monday is a television stuntwoman-turned-attorney named Vanessa Motta, who in May had two clients criminally charged with helping orchestrate the 2020 shooting death  of another client of hers. The slain client of Motta – who was indicted along with her namesake firm – had been cooperating in the federal investigation that produced Monday’s indictment. Motta’s fiance, disbarred attorney Sean Alfortish who spent time in prison over unrelated fraud charges, was also included in the indictment for his alleged role in the conspiracy: paying the people who stage the accidents, known as “slammers”, to ram into 18-wheelers intentionally. Others indicted include the King firm, a law office known for its splashy ad campaigns, as well as its staff attorney Jason Giles. Three other individuals were indicted for being involved in at least six of the accidents between them, as well as filing fraudulent lawsuits. So far, 49 out of 52 defendants have pleaded guilty in the sprawling investigation codenamed Operation Sideswipe, mostly low-level participants who admitted packing into cars and participating in a scheme for a quick payoff. Some defendants have admitted not only faking their injuries but also going as far as getting major back and neck surgeries to increase their chances of a jackpot settlement. The case took a darker turn in the spring when a couple named Jovanna Gardner and Ryan Harris were indicted in the execution-style murder of a federal witness.

On Monday, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser credited District leaders’ embrace of a more aggressive approach to crime fighting with helping to drive down a generational spike in violence, focusing attention on an issue that last year drew public outcry and led Congress to block local legislation, the Washington Post reports. Bowser (D) at a news conference pointed to a dramatic downturn in crime rates as proof city leaders had “rebalanced” public safety in the District through a series of strategic choices. Violent crime is down 35 percent compared with this time last year, according to D.C. police data — a decrease that mirrors nationwide trends . Last year was the District’s deadliest in more than two decades, even as violent crime fell in other major U.S. cities. Experts in interviews cautioned against linking fluctuations to recent policy changes, saying it is too soon to know what happened. Still, Bowser said the progress has been a focus of her outreach to the transition team for President-elect Donald Trump , who at a rally in Florida this summer pledged to “rebuild our capital city so that it is no longer a nightmare of murder and crime.” Last year’s surge in violence traumatized residents across the city and was felt most acutely in predominantly Black neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River. A flurry of legislation and government initiatives followed. So did sparring between the council and Congress over a revision to D.C.’s criminal code that saw the House and Senate overturn local legislation for the first time in more than 30 years. Ultimately, the D.C. Council passed, at Bowser and Chief Pamela A. Smith’s urging, emergency crime legislation last summer that stiffened gun penalties and expanded pretrial detention for some violent crimes — and then followed up in March with another version of the bill, which also broadened the definition of carjacking with the goal of making it easier to prosecute. The level of violence is a far cry from what the city saw in the 1990s, when D.C. routinely saw more than 400 killings a year. After hitting a low of 88 in 2012, the last decade saw a broad uptick, with a sharp spike during the pandemic that saw more than 200 people killed in D.C. each of the years between 2021 and 2023. Homicides this year are on pace to be lower than they were in 2020, but higher than they were in 2019, according to data provided by the Bowser administration Monday. Overall, violent crime this year is down 16 percent compared with pre-pandemic numbers, Smith said Monday. Patrice Sulton, executive director of the left-leaning criminal justice advocacy group DC Justice Lab, said the factors behind the drop in crime are complex and could not be attributed to the Bowser administration’s alone. “It’s important to understand that there were predictably upticks in crime as a result of the pandemic, and other jurisdictions turned that around much more quickly than D.C. did,” she said. “We’re seeing some of the natural return to the numbers that we had before the pandemic.”