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    Man Who Shot at Pipeline and Power Station Gets 25 Years in Prison

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    Cameron M. Smith, 50, a Canadian who wanted to bring more attention to climate change, was also ordered to pay $2.1 million in restitution for damage he caused in the Dakotas.A Canadian man who, in an attempt to raise awareness about climate change, used a high-powered rifle to fire shots at a pipeline in South Dakota in 2022 and a power station in North Dakota in 2023 was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in federal prison.The man, Cameron M. Smith, 50, who pleaded guilty last September in U.S. District Court in Bismarck, N.D., to two counts of destruction of an energy facility for the vandalism, was also ordered to pay $2.1 million in restitution.In July 2022, Mr. Smith used a high-powered Bushmaster rifle to fire rounds into a transformer and pump station that was part of the Keystone Pipeline in Clark County, in eastern South Dakota, according to court records. The act caused about $500,000 in damage and disrupted the pipeline, which carries oil from Canada through the United States, records show. Electrical service to some customers in North Dakota was also disrupted, prosecutors said.Ten months later, in May 2023, Mr. Smith again used a Bushmaster rifle to shoot at the Wheelock electric substation near Ray, in northwest North Dakota, causing about $1.2 million in damage, court records show. All energy facilities are federally protected, and damaging them can be deemed an act of terrorism if an attack is intended to “affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate,” according to the Justice Department. Judge Daniel Traynor of U.S. District Court in Bismarck, N.D., found that Mr. Smith’s actions had met that definition — a finding reflected in the sentence he handed down.Mr. Smith, whose lawyer said he is autistic, was an online marketer who was renting a small home on the Oregon coast at the time of his arrest. He was not working at the time.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rage Against Elon Musk Turns Tesla Into a Target

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      Tesla charging stations were set ablaze near Boston on Monday. Shots were fired at a Tesla dealership in Oregon after midnight on Thursday. Arrests were made at a nonviolent protest at a Tesla dealership in Lower Manhattan on Saturday.The electric car company Tesla increasingly found itself in police blotters across the country this week, more than seven weeks after President Trump’s second inauguration swept Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, into the administration as a senior adviser to the president.Mr. Musk, 53, is drawing increasing backlash for his sweeping cuts to federal agencies, a result of the newly formed cost-cutting initiative Mr. Musk has labeled the Department of Government Efficiency.During a demonstration on Saturday at a gleaming Tesla showroom in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan, protesters joined in chants of “Nobody voted for Elon Musk” and “Oligarchs out, democracy in.” One held a sign saying, “Send Musk to Mars Now!!” (Mr. Musk also owns SpaceX.)Shots were fired at the Tesla dealership in Tigard, Ore., this week.Tigard Police DepartmentSeveral hundred protesters remained there for two hours, organizers said, blocking entrances and shutting down the dealership.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Activists Sent to Prison for Pouring Powder Over Case Holding U.S. Constitution

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      One climate activist was sentenced to 18 months in prison, the other to two years. They said that they had meant to draw attention to climate change.Two climate activists who dumped red powder over the display case that holds the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives Museum in February were each sentenced this week to more than a year in prison.Judge Amy Berman Jackson of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday sentenced one activist, Jackson Green, 27, of Utah, to 18 months in prison to be followed by two years of supervised release.On Friday, Judge Jackson sentenced the other activist, Donald Zepeda, 35, of Maryland, to two years in prison with two years of supervised release.They must pay $58,607.59 in restitution to the National Archives, according to court records.In an episode that was captured on video, Mr. Green and Mr. Zepeda poured powder over the display case in the rotunda of the National Archives Museum on Feb. 14 in what prosecutors described as a “stunt” that was meant to draw attention to climate change.The two men also poured powder over themselves and stood in the rotunda, calling for solutions to climate change.The Constitution was not damaged, according to the National Archives Museum, which said that the powder was made of pigment and cornstarch.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man Smashes Ai Weiwei’s Porcelain Sculpture at Italian Museum

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      The man behind the episode, at a reception for Mr. Ai’s new exhibition in Bologna, has targeted artists before, a museum spokesman said.A reception for a new exhibition by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in Bologna, Italy, was disrupted on Friday when a man walked in and smashed a large, porcelain sculpture, leaving museum guests and the artist stunned.The incident, which occurred during a reception for “Ai Weiwei. Who Am I?,” the artist’s first solo exhibition in the city, sent guests at the Palazzo Fava scattering and left the sculpture shattered on the floor.Footage of the incident captured by security cameras and later shared on Mr. Ai’s Instagram account shows the man forcefully pushing over the sculpture and then raising its broken pieces above his head before being tackled by museum guards.Mr. Ai said in an emailed statement on Monday that the loud sounds of the sculpture shattering made him first think of a terrorist attack or an explosion.“When I learned that it was my large porcelain artwork that had been destroyed, I was astonished,” he said. “I never imagined that a piece nearly 100 kilos in weight could be damaged so easily.”Arturo Galansino, the exhibition’s curator at the Palazzo Fava, said by phone on Monday that he was upstairs at the event when he heard a “big noise” and was quickly alerted that a work had been broken.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jewish Man Charged With Attempted Murder in Attacks on Muslim Neighbor

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      Izak Kadosh faces more than 40 charges, many of them hate crimes, including attempted murder and aggravated assault. Prosecutors said the attacks, in Brooklyn, went on for months.A Jewish man in Brooklyn was arrested and charged with attempted murder and hate crimes after repeatedly attacking his Muslim neighbor over several months, ultimately breaking into the neighbor’s apartment and striking him so hard with a mallet that he had internal bleeding, according to a criminal complaint.The man, Izak Kadosh, was arrested on Saturday, two days after he broke into the apartment, according to police officials. Mr. Kadosh faces more than 40 charges, including attempted murder, aggravated harassment, hate-crime assault and intent to damage property.Mr. Kadosh pleaded not guilty to all of the charges in Kings County Criminal Court on Monday. Bail was set at $25,000 cash or a $125,000 partially secured bond. He is being held on Rikers Island and is due to appear in court again on Friday.A lawyer for Mr. Kadosh declined to comment on the case.The neighbor who was attacked, Ahmed Faycal Chebira, said the harassment started soon after he moved into the building, in the Crown Heights neighborhood, in October. Mr. Chebira, who is from Algeria, said Mr. Kadosh would call him “dirty Arab” or “dirty Muslim” and spit on him.“I told him, leave me alone,” Mr. Chebira, 50, said in Arabic on Wednesday. “Everyone has their own religion in America; I don’t have a problem with anyone.”“I feel relieved now that they caught him,” Mr. Chebira continued, adding that he was in the hospital when he learned about the arrest. “I was afraid that I would leave the hospital and he would be outside.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lawyer Who Tried to Set Off Bomb Outside of Chinese Embassy Pleads Guilty

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      Christopher Rodriguez tried to detonate a bag of explosives at the embassy in Washington, D.C., by firing a rifle at it but missed, prosecutors said.A Florida lawyer pleaded guilty on Friday to placing a bag of explosives near the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., and trying to detonate it with a rifle, according to court records.This was not the first time the lawyer, Christopher Rodriguez, had attempted a detonation, prosecutors said. He had previously set off explosives in 2022 that caused “significant damage” to a statue of the Communist leaders Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong in San Antonio, Texas, by shooting at canisters of explosives with a rifle, according to court records.But when Mr. Rodriguez, 45, of Panama City, Fla., employed a similar tactic by shooting at a 15-pound backpack of explosives that he dropped near the fence of the Chinese Embassy on Sept. 25, 2023, he missed, and the explosives did not detonate, according to court records.Federal authorities say a Florida lawyer tried to detonate a backpack with explosives outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington in September.U.S. District Court for the District of ColumbiaMr. Rodriguez pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to damaging property occupied by a foreign government, using explosive materials to cause malicious damage to federal property, and receipt or possession of an unregistered firearm.The charges cover his attack on the statue in San Antonio and his attempt to damage the Chinese Embassy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ex-Marine Sentenced to Nearly 5 Years for Role in Jan. 6 Riot

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      Tyler Bradley Dykes was charged with assaulting law enforcement after prosecutors said he stole a police officer’s riot shield to help break into the Capitol.A South Carolina man who was serving in the United States Marine Corps when he stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and stole a police officer’s riot shield to help break into the building was sentenced on Friday to nearly five years in prison, according to federal prosecutors.The man, Tyler Bradley Dykes, 26, who was previously convicted of a felony for his actions while marching in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., was sentenced by Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to four years and nine months in prison for assaulting law enforcement during the 2021 riot, the U.S. Department of Justice said.“His actions and the actions of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election,” the department said.Prosecutors said that Mr. Dykes moved fences to help other members of the crowd get to the Capitol doors, helped push officers back from their posts, gave a Nazi salute, stole a police riot shield and used it to help break into the Capitol.They recommended that Mr. Dykes, who is from Bluffton, S.C., receive a sentence of five years and three months.Lawyers for Mr. Dykes asked for a sentence of two years, arguing that he had acknowledged his wrongdoing when he pleaded guilty in April to the assault charges, that he was only 22 years old at the time of the riot, and that he had enlisted in the Marine Corps to serve his country.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lake Mead Ancient Rocks Toppled by Vandals

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      After a video was widely shared online of two men pushing over a rock formation at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada, the authorities are asking for the public’s help to identify them.The National Park Service is seeking help from the public to find two men who were captured on camera toppling an ancient natural rock formation at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada last week, officials said on Monday.A video posted on April 7 shows the two men, legs bent, pushing the large red rocks. A young girl in the background can be heard yelling: “Don’t fall … Daddy! Daddy!” As the men try to move the rocks, another person is heard off-camera saying, “But why?”The National Park Service is asking anyone who might be able to help identify the “vandalism suspects” to call or text the National Park Service-wide Tip Line 888-653-0009, submit a tip online or email nps_isb@nps.gov.Lake Mead National Recreation Area, established in 1936, is 2,338 square miles. It runs along the Colorado River, from the western end of Grand Canyon National Park to below Davis Dam. The sandstone formations on the Redstone Trail were shaped over time by geological forces from 140 million-year-old dunes, according to the National Park Service.“National parks are some of the most special, treasured, and protected areas of our country,” the agency said in a statement. “To protect these natural and cultural resources for this and future generations, all visitors to national parks are expected to follow park laws and regulations.”John Haynes, the public information officer for Lake Mead National Recreation Area, told KVVU, a Fox affiliate in Las Vegas, that he didn’t understand why someone would vandalize it.“This almost feels like a personal attack in a way,” Mr. Haynes said.Vandalism in national parks is nothing new, Jordan Fifer, a public affairs specialist for the National Park Service told The New York Times.“Unfortunately, it’s common,” Mr. Fifer said. “We rarely, however, see something of this nature where the people in the video seem so intent on destruction.”In 2021, vandals destroyed abstract geometric designs at Big Bend National Park in Texas that had survived for thousands of years by scratching their names and dates into them.The U.S. National Park Service condemns such behaviors on its website, noting that disturbing wildlife or damaging their habitats can directly lead to their demise and is illegal. More

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      2 Charged After Pouring Red Powder Over Case Holding U.S. Constitution

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      Two activists poured the powder over the protective case at the National Archives Museum last month to call attention to climate change, prosecutors said.Two climate activists who dumped red powder over the display case that contains the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives Museum last month were charged on Thursday with destruction of government property, prosecutors said.The activists, Donald Zepeda, 35, of Maryland, and Jackson Green, 27, of Utah, poured the powder over the display case in the rotunda of the building on Feb. 14 as part of a “stunt, which was intended to draw attention to climate change,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a statement on Friday.During the episode, which officials said was captured on video by supporters of Mr. Green, the two men also poured red powder over themselves and then stood before the Constitution as they called for solutions to climate change.The Constitution was not damaged, according to the National Archives Museum, which said that the powder was found to be a combination of pigment and cornstarch.“Fortunately, the four pages of the Constitution on display were not at risk for damage by this incident,” said Stephanie Hornbeck, a national preservation program officer.The rotunda was closed after the episode, which cost more than $50,000 to clean up, prosecutors said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More