Prosecutor: Man to plead guilty to students’ slayings
RICHMOND, Va. – A former hospital worker is expected to plead guilty in the high-profile slayings of two college students in Virginia, a prosecutor said Monday.
Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci announced the plea agreements in Jesse LeRoy Matthew Jr.’s cases in a brief news release. Matthew is due in Albemarle County Circuit Court on Wednesday. Details of the agreement were withheld “in the interest of protecting the integrity of the judicial process,” Tracci wrote.
Matthew is charged with murder in the deaths of 18-year-old Hannah Graham and 20-year-old Morgan Harrington. Without the plea agreement, he could have faced the death penalty in the Graham case had he been convicted at trial. He’s already serving life in prison for a sexual assault in Fairfax County.
Graham’s September 2014 disappearance came amid rising national concern about sexual assaults and other crimes around universities. A massive search ended when a team from a Richmond-area sheriff’s office found her body five weeks later on abandoned property in Albemarle County, about 12 miles from the Charlottesville campus and six miles from a hayfield where Harrington’s remains had been found in January 2010.
Iran’s moderates cement election gains in results
Iran’s conservatives took further blows Monday with backers of moderate President Hassan Rouhani grabbing the biggest bloc in parliament, while a prominent hard-line cleric was dropped from a panel that will pick the country’s next leader, officials said.
The near-final results from Friday’s twin elections appeared to cement a surprising surge in favor of Rouhani and his supporters despite many pro-reform candidates being blocked from the ballots by Iran’s election gatekeepers.
The parliament elections marked the latest test of strength between Iran’s conservative forces and Rouhani’s coalition, which seeks to ease Iran’s international isolation and carved out the nuclear deal with world powers that rolled back sanctions.
Moderate-leaning voters appeared to complete a clean-sweep in the capital Tehran, giving all 30 parliament seats to candidates believed to be aligned with Rouhani and his policies, the Reuters news agency reports, citing vote tallies from Iran’s Interior Ministry.
UN to expand aid delivery in Syria as peace holds
The United Nations plans to step up delivery of humanitarian aid in Syria, taking advantage of a fragile cease-fire that has largely held for a third day.
The UN plans to distribute aid to 154,000 people in areas besieged by government troops and rebels in the next five days, according to the office of the UN humanitarian affairs coordinator in Damascus. The agency is ready to help about 1.7 million people in difficult-to-reach areas.
The decision follows a partial truce that was announced by the United States and Russia on Feb. 22 and began Saturday. Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, which has gained the upper hand in the conflict backed by Russian air power, agreed to the proposal, and 97 armed opposition groups on Friday confirmed their participation.
So far, there have been limited violations to the cease-fire, while airstrikes have continued against Islamic State militants and others not covered by the partial truce, including the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.
Associated Press & Washington Post
