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A former police chief who escaped from an Arkansas prison is captured
This combo of images released by the Arkansas Department of Corrections shows the recapture of escaped inmate Grant Hardin, an ex-police chief and convicted killer, by Arkansas law enforcement officers and the U.S. Border Patrol on Friday, near Moccasin Creek in Izard County, about 1.5 miles northwest of Calico Rock prison.
Arkansas Department of Corrections/AP
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Arkansas Department of Corrections/AP
A former police chief and convicted killer known as the “Devil in the Ozarks” was captured by law enforcement 1.5 miles northwest of the prison he escaped from following a massive, nearly two-week-long manhunt in the rugged mountains of northern Arkansas, authorities announced Friday.
Grant Hardin, a former police chief in the small town of Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border, was serving lengthy sentences for murder and rape. Eventually, his notoriety led to a TV documentary, “Devil in the Ozarks.”

Hardin briefly attempted to run from officers when he saw them approach Friday afternoon, but he was quickly tackled to the ground, said Rand Champion, a spokesperson for the Arkansas prison system.
“He’d been on the run for a week and a half and probably didn’t have any energy left in him,” he added.
Hardin’s identity was confirmed through fingerprinting, the Izard County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post.
There’s no indication that Hardin was injured, though he will be checked for dehydration and other medical problems.
Now, investigators are “chomping at the bit and really ready to talk to him,” said Champion, who used his cellphone to capture an image of Hardin being led away by officers. Hardin said nothing during those moments.
The escape, search and eventual capture
Hardin had been held at the Calico Rock prison since 2017 after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in a fatal shooting. In order to escape, he impersonated a corrections officer “in dress and manner,” according to a court document. A prison officer in one of the guard towers opened a secure gate, allowing him to walk out of the facility.
Champion said that someone should have checked Hardin’s identity before he was allowed to leave, describing the lack of verification as a “lapse” that’s being investigated.
Searchers had been using bloodhounds, officers on horseback, drones and helicopters in their hunt for Hardin since he escaped on May 25.
Shortly after the escape, a bloodhound found — then quickly lost — Hardin’s scent when heavy rains blew through the area, Champion said. The bloodhound tracked Hardin’s path for less than a quarter of a mile, after which could have gone in any direction.

“That was one of the most frustrating things, that they were able to track him but then they lost him because of the rain,” Champion said.
An elite and highly trained U.S. Border Patrol team had recently joined the search, federal authorities announced this week. The Border Patrol Tactical Team provided “advanced search capabilities and operational support,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection said.
Its members are experienced in navigating complex terrain, the agency said earlier this week. The team tracked Hardin through the region known for its rocky and rugged landscape, thick forests and an extensive cave network.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol shared photos on Facebook of Hardin shirtless and covered in mud, laying face down with his hands tied behind his back on Friday. The post said that Hardin was “turned over to Arkansas State Police unharmed” by the federal agency.
A spokesperson for the agency didn’t respond to a phone call and emailed request for comment regarding the post on Friday night.
Hardin’s criminal convictions
Hardin pleaded guilty in 2017 to first-degree murder for the killing of James Appleton, 59. Appleton worked for the Gateway water department when he was shot in the head Feb. 23, 2017, near Garfield. Police found Appleton’s body inside a car. Hardin was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Hardin’s DNA was also matched to the 1997 rape of a teacher at an elementary school in Rogers, north of Fayetteville. He was sentenced to 50 years for that crime.

Cheryl Tillman, Appleton’s sister, was with her mother and sister at a flea market in Ozark, Missouri, when law enforcement called to tell her Hardin had been captured. Tillman is also the mayor of Gateway, the 450-person town where Hardin was briefly police chief.
Tillman told The Associated Press that Hardin’s capture was a “big sigh of relief” for her whole family.
“We don’t have to walk around, turning around all the time, thinking somebody’s on our back,” Tillman said, emphasizing her appreciation for the officers who helped capture Hardin.
A problematic past in law enforcement
Though Hardin was police chief in Gateway for just four months, he had served as an officer in multiple communities around northwest Arkansas, his police records show.
In his first job as a police officer 35 years ago in Fayetteville, Hardin struggled almost immediately, his supervisors said. He was dismissed by Fayetteville police, but kept getting hired for other law enforcement jobs in northwest Arkansas over the years.
Hardin worked about six months at the Huntsville Police Department before resigning, but records do not give a reason for his resignation.
He later worked at the Eureka Springs Police Department from 1993 to 1996. Former Chief Earl Hyatt said Hardin resigned because Hyatt was going to fire him over incidents that included the use of excessive force.
“He did not need to be a police officer at all,” Hyatt told television station KNWA.
By the time he was the police chief in Gateway in 2016, “he was out chasing cars for no reason,” Tillman recalled in the documentary “Devil in the Ozarks.”
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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
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Mario Tama/Getty Images
Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.
In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.
The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.
Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

The disclosures also report gifts, travel, food and lodging that the justices received in 2025. Jackson and Sotomayor were the only two to report gifts. Jackson was given a painting for her chambers valued at $2,500, and Sotomayor reported a trip to Kansas City to watch the opening of a musical based on her children’s book, Just Ask.
In addition, she reported receiving free tickets worth $4,333 while on “a private trip to Puerto Rico.” The tickets were from the record label that represents Bad Bunny, and her trip coincided with the artist’s months-long concert series in San Juan. Sotomayor’s parents were from Puerto Rico, and she has spent much time there over the years.
The justices also disclosed significant reimbursements for travel throughout 2025. Thomas’ travel, food and lodging expenses were paid for by the Hoover Institution for speaking at a celebration of conservative economist Thomas Sowell.
Sotomayor, Gorsuch, Barrett and Jackson were reimbursed for international travel, where they gave speeches, spoke about their books or taught. Roberts was the only sitting member of the court not to report any gifts or travel reimbursements.
The annual filings also shed some light on the justices’ activities off the bench. Kavanaugh reported that in addition to his duties as a Supreme Court justice, he serves as a coach to multiple D.C.-area Catholic Youth Organization girls’ basketball teams. Coach K, as he is known by his players, wrote the court’s June decision declaring that states can ban transgender women and girl athletes from playing on women’s and girls’ sports teams.

The justices’ salaries are established by law. The chief justice earns the most, at $320,700 per year. The eight associate justices earn $306,600 per year. While that is a lot of money to most Americans, the justices and even their law clerks could earn more the minute they leave their Supreme Court jobs for large law firms.
Roberts was the only member of the court to report investing in individual stocks. Alito in the past has also owned shares of individual stocks, but his report is not due for three months when his extension runs out. For the most part, the justices do not own individual stocks, but do invest in index funds, mutual funds and other such investment programs in order to both make money and limit potential conflicts of interest that would require their recusal from certain cases.
However — and this is a big however — the financial reporting forms the justices are required to fill out are so unspecific and the reporting ranges for investment earnings are so broad that it is impossible to determine any justice’s overall wealth. In addition, the current value of the justices’ homes isn’t reported. Neither is their spouses’ income, which in the case of the chief justice, for instance, likely far exceeds his take-home pay.
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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show
At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.
A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.
City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”
Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.
Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.
“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.
Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.
Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.
“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.
The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.
Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.
“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.
Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”
He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.
Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.
On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.
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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote
The Justice Department sent letters warning election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that they could face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting, a spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.
The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”
“The Department sent these letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, asking for voluntary compliance in a timely manner with their obligations under federal law to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.
Noncitizen voting in federal elections is extremely rare, but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson are among those who said they received the letters from the Justice Department.
The letters say state election officers “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” noncitizen voting. They further specify that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a statewide voting registration list or who facilitates noncitizens’ receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability.
“An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation” of federal law, the letters said.
Henderson wrote on social media that the threats constitute “truly bizarre behavior.”
“Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts.”
The letters are the latest move in the Justice Department’s campaign to assert more federal control over state elections.
While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.
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