Missing 18-year-old last seen in Brooklyn Park, believed to be heading to Minneapolis
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says 18-year-old Melania Jones was last seen around 3 p.m. on Saturday in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. She had been wearing a white T-shirt, white and black shoes, and a black backpack.
Jones is 5 feet 1 inch tall and weighs 130 pounds, according to the BCA. She has black hair and brown eyes.
Melania Jones, 18, was last seen around 3 p.m. on July 5, 2025, in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.
Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension
Anyone with information on Jones' whereabouts is urged to call 911 or the Brooklyn Park Police Department at 763-493-8222.
Two other teens were also reported missing in Brooklyn Park over the weekend: 17-year-old Carissa Lindstrom and 15-year-old Makayla Makor.
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26 minutes ago
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Latest ‘Tiger King' twist finds ‘Doc' Antle sentenced to 1 year in prison for animal traffickin
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CNN
26 minutes ago
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US seeks extradition of Chinese man held in Italy accused of hacking to steal Covid-19 vaccine research
Italian authorities have arrested a Chinese man accused by US prosecutors of being part of a hacking team that stole coveted US research into a coronavirus vaccine on behalf of Chinese intelligence. At the height of the pandemic in early 2020, Xu Zewei worked at the behest of China's Ministry of State Security, to target US-based universities, virologists and immunologists doing research on Covid-19 vaccines, treatment and testing, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The indictment accuses another person, Zhang Yu, of participating in the activity. Zhang is believed to be in China, a Justice Department spokesperson said. Xu, 33, was detained at the Malpensa Airport northwest of Milan on July 3 and then taken to a nearby prison ahead of his court appearance, according to statements to CNN from Italian authorities. He made his initial court appearance in Milan on Tuesday as the US Justice Department begins to try to extradite Xu to the US District of South Texas, where he faces wire fraud, identity theft and hacking-related charges. The arrest is a major breakthrough for the FBI, which hunts hackers accused of working for foreign spies but rarely gets one from China into custody. 'He is one of the first hackers linked to Chinese intelligence services to be captured by the FBI,' the FBI's Houston field office posted on X. In court on Tuesday, Xu said he 'has nothing to do with this case,' his lawyer, Enrico Giarda, told reporters. 'He described himself as an IT manager at a company in Shanghai and essentially stated that he has no reason to commit the criminal acts he is being accused of,' said Giarda, adding that he was still waiting to review documents 'and understand exactly how the FBI identified him.' 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Associated Press
30 minutes ago
- Associated Press
California wants new education requirements for police officers. Are they watered down?
Amid calls for police reform in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder in 2020, California lawmakers set out to raise education standards for incoming law enforcement officers. Five years later — as California faces a widespread shortage of police officers — those reforms are being debated once again. In 2020, former Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer introduced a bill that would have required prospective police officers 18 to 25 years old to earn a bachelor's degree before entering the police force. A growing body of research shows that college-educated law enforcement officers tend to use less force and exercise better decision making. The bill was ultimately revised after it was criticized as too restrictive by law enforcement and labor leaders. 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Those concerns haven't stopped the bill from sailing through the Legislature, where it has received widespread support from many law enforcement agencies. It's supported by all of California's statewide law enforcement advocacy groups, including the California Police Chiefs Association, the California State Sheriff's Association, the California Association of Highway Patrolmen and the umbrella labor organization that lobbies on behalf of police unions, the Peace Officers Research Association of California. It has received no formal opposition. Democratic lawmakers at odds with one another over new standards In introducing his bill, Jones-Sawyer viewed a college education as paramount to law enforcement training because it would expose incoming officers to new perspectives, healthy debate and critical thinking skills. 'We keep looking at law enforcement as if anybody can do it,' said Jones-Sawyer. 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Many police chiefs and sheriffs view the bill as a meaningful way to raise education standards while affording incoming officers the flexibility to meet them. In May, Los Angeles Sheriff Robert Luna wrote a letter to Sen. Jesse Arreguín, an Oakland Democrat and chair of the Senate's public safety committee, arguing in favor of Irwin's bill. The sheriff's office once required all applicants to have a bachelor's degree, wrote Luna, but the requirement was 'short-lived' because the office saw 'an immediate decline in applicants by about 50 percent.' Luna said Irwin's bill is a 'more workable, more inclusive path forward' because it includes exceptions for those with non-academic experience. Although the vast majority of local law enforcement agencies nationwide only require a high school diploma, having a college degree can often create more opportunities for better pay and promotions. Police officer shortage: truth or myth? All across the state, law enforcement officials say staffing is an ongoing problem, which more education requirements might exacerbate. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office is short roughly 1,500 officers as of June 1, according to spokesperson Miesha McClendon. The office was able to respond to recent protests through the support of staff from other areas of law enforcement, including its jails and detective division, McClendon said. In rural areas, such as Plumas County in the northeast corner of the state, Undersheriff Chad Hermann said a single officer is sometimes responsible for covering communities that are as far as 70 miles apart. If that officer needs to make an arrest and drive a suspect to jail, a town could spend hours without any nearby police on duty, he said. Sheriffs and police officers say the shortage is due to several factors, including low wages in some communities, an aging workforce and negative perceptions of police following high-profile instances of misconduct. Departments are offering starting bonuses and other incentives, such as better benefits, as a way to recruit new officers. Some agencies gave record-breaking raises to officers coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. In some places, including the California Highway Patrol, entry-level officers can expect six-figure salaries and top notch benefits. But not all agencies can offer those perks. 'We're not a rich county — we can't offer the big hiring stipends,' said Hermann. 'By adding a requirement like an associate degree, it's going to make it harder to get people from our hiring pool.' He said even exceptions for those with military service may not help the recruiting problem since the hiring pool is so small in a county with just under 19,000 residents. While the new law enforcement recruitment task force in Irwin's bill is designed to ease some of those staffing challenges, Christy Lopez, a law professor at Georgetown University said it's troubling to see that it would only comprise people from law enforcement. 'We need to be moving towards a recruiting approach that seeks to screen in the right people, not just screen out the worst people,' she said. 'And to make sure that we develop that sort of approach to recruiting, you need perspectives broader than just law enforcement.' She said the police recruiting crisis is a myth. 'The idea that there's a crisis in recruiting presupposes that we know what the right number of police officers is and that we're not there,' she said. 'And we don't know that.' What it takes to become a police officer Devin Nisbet grew up in Calaveras County and as a kid, he had a positive experience with one of the officers when he prank-called 9-1-1. Instead of just disciplining Nisbet, who was around 6 years old, the officer gave him a tour of the police cruiser and handed him a patch with the sheriff's office logo. 'It made me want to be part of it,' said Nisbet in an interview with CalMatters. After dropping out of college, Nisbet was working for a grocery store in Calaveras County when that same sheriff's office held a recruiting event in a nearby parking lot. The agency promises a $10,000 bonus, spread out over three years, for new recruits. At the time, he said he thought to himself, 'Why not try to do this?' It took Nisbet roughly seven months to pass the county's background checks and exams, which include a written test, a psychological exam and a medical exam. He then received a tentative job offer from the Calaveras County Sheriff's Office, contingent on completing a police academy. In January, he enrolled in the police academy at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton. Police academy training in California typically takes a minimum of six months, but some police departments require far more training. Nisbet is paid by the Calaveras County Sheriff's Office for the entirety of this training, just under $34 an hour. The college program requires students to learn CPR, first aid, and various laws about use of force, search and seizure and firearms. They're tested in scenarios that can include chases or combat. In one timed exam, they must pull a 165 lb dummy, cross a 25 yard obstacle course, run 500 yards and scale a 6-foot fence. Some students fail to pass the academy's courses. Others never get hired because they fail the police department's background checks or have low scores. Nisbet is set to graduate on July 2, at which point he'll begin working, but his training won't be over. New officers must complete weeks of field training and a year of probation. 'I believe that people, if they want to do this job, they need to get evaluated first,' said Nisbet, though he said an associate degree shouldn't be required. He said many of his classmates don't have a college degree. ___ This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
