Month: December 2025

By Paula Wethington

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    DETROIT (WWJ) — A Chinese national who pleaded guilty to smuggling dangerous pathogens into Michigan has been deported, an FBI official said.

Yunqing Jian, 33, from the People’s Republic of China, was sentenced Nov. 12 to time served while awaiting disposition of the federal case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office previously said.

Jian, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, was arrested in June along with her boyfriend, Zunyong Liu, for smuggling in a fungus called Fusarium graminearum. The noxious fungus is known to cause “head blight,” a disease that affects barley, rice, wheat and maize, resulting in economic losses worth billions of dollars each year.

Liu has returned to China, and authorities say he is not likely to return to the United States.

Dan Bongino, deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, mentioned the case in a roundup of recent FBI cases he posted Monday on social media:

“Yunqing Jian, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, pleaded guilty to charges of smuggling a DANGEROUS biological pathogen into our country and then lying about it to FBI agents, and was DEPORTED. The FBI will not stand by and allow our foreign adversaries to exploit our top-notch university facilities in furtherance of their agendas,” Bongino said.

Another person, 28-year-old Chengxuan Han, was also arrested in June and pleaded no contest to three smuggling charges and to making false statements to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. Han was sentenced in September to time served and returned to China.

Last month, federal investigators charged three other Chinese nationals with conspiracy to smuggle goods into the U.S. and false statements. Court records show that all three men traveled on J-1 visas as scholars at the University of Michigan and lived in Ann Arbor.

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By WCCO Staff

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    MINNESOTA (WCCO) — Cold weather from a winter snowstorm over the weekend is helping a crew that’s working to create the Ice Castles at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.

The Ice Castles are expected to open at the fairgrounds in early January, but organizers are already growing and harvesting ice to create a 20-foot tall fortress. There will also be up to 10,000 icicles placed around the structure.

Attractions at the castles include ice slides, tunnels, caverns and intricate ice sculptures.

The opening date, and several of the features are weather dependent. Two years ago, the castles closed after just eight days after a particularly warm stretch.

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By S.E. Jenkins, Giles Hudson

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    TEXAS (KTVT) — A 10-year-old has died after the Lewisville fire last week that killed a woman and injured her family members, officials said.

Emergency crews were first called around 2:30 a.m. last Wednesday from the Eagle Ridge Mobile Home Park, according to the City of Lewisville. When crews arrived, heavy flames were coming from one unit. One person inside was able to get out and told firefighters that four other people were still inside.

Three adults and one child were rescued from the home. City spokesman Matt Martucci said last week that two of the adults and the child were in cardiac arrest, and crews immediately began CPR. All five occupants were taken to area hospitals.

According to the Dallas County Medical Examiner, 10-year-old America Plata died on Nov. 26 at the hospital.

The current conditions and names of the other family members have not yet been released.

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By Jeramie Bizzle, Charlie De Mar

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    CHICAGO (WBBM) — A former mental health counselor is charged with the alleged sexual assault of five young patients at a West Side hospital that spanned nearly a decade.

Cook County prosecutors charged Edmund Rivers, 68, with five felony counts of criminal sexual assault, including three counts of criminal sexual assault with a victim between 13 and 17, and two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault for the alleged abuse.

Prosecutors said the repeated attacks happened between 1996 and 2004 at Hartgrove Behavioral Health Hospital in the Austin neighborhood, where he first began working in 1993. The hospital is known to provide psychiatric care.

According to prosecutors, the alleged abuse happened in multiple locations throughout the facility, including patient rooms, a “seclusion” room, a cafeteria bathroom, and a gym equipment room. The victims were boys between the ages of 7 and 14 years old and didn’t know each other, prosecutors said.

It was further alleged that Rivers would threaten to sedate the victims with a hypodermic syringe for failing to comply with his advances.

“Edmund Rivers felt so comfortable that he can act with impunity at Hartgrove, that he actually dared victims to come forward,” said attorney Martin Gould.

Gould filed a civil lawsuit about one year ago on behalf of roughly 100 former Hartgrove patients who say they were sexually abused as kids while in the hospital’s care.

“He had access to the vulnerabilities and traumas they had from the past, and he exploited that, took advantage of that, and preyed upon them,” he said.

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said the five victims came forward and contacted police after learning about a civil lawsuit that was filed against the hospital for its pattern of abuse by its staff.

A man who said he was sexually assaulted at Hartgrove previously shared his story of survival, saying the abuse was almost an every-other-day occurrence while he was there.

“They would force us to do things to each other,” he said.

Gould alleges other staff members were complicit in the abuse and expects additional charges to be filed.

“There was a number of other individuals around him who also were abusing, who turned a blind eye, who otherwise covered it up,” he said.

Following a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Monday, a judge ordered that Rivers remain held until his next court date.

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