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LAS VEGAS (AP) —
A woman accused of intentionally plowing a car carrying her young daughter through crowds of pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip was charged Tuesday with murder, child abuse and hit-and-run.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said he expects to file additional charges against Lakeisha Nicole Holloway, 24, in coming days.
"This is an ongoing investigation with many items of video, physical evidence and many, many witnesses to be interviewed," Wolfson said. "I've personally seen the videos from a variety of angles, and I'm appalled at the callousness of this defendant's conduct and what appears to be an intentional act."
The casino surveillance video has not been made public, and Wolfson said prosecutors don't plan to present it in court Wednesday, when Holloway is scheduled to make her first appearance.
One of Holloway's public defense attorneys, Joseph Abood, said she plans to plead not guilty.
Authorities say Holloway repeatedly swerved Sunday onto the sidewalk packed with tourists in front of the Paris Las Vegas and Planet Hollywood casino-hotels.
The crash killed Jessica Valenzuela, 32, of Buckeye, Arizona, and injured at least 35 people from California, Colorado, Florida, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington state, Mexico and Quebec, Canada. Three were still in critical condition Tuesday and five others remained hospitalized.
"We can all agree this is a shocking and tragic event," Abood said. "We have great sympathy for the family of Jessica Valenzuela and all the other people who were injured."
Holloway is on suicide watch in jail, where she is being held without bail. Abood said he and another public defender, Scott Coffee, were still collecting information and didn't know whether Holloway's mental health will emerge as a defense.
Holloway was charged with the felony child abuse and neglect because police say her 3-year-old daughter was with her in the vehicle. The child wasn't hurt and is now in custody of child protective services.
Authorities have said a motive for the crash was unclear. But a picture is emerging of a woman who overcame a rough childhood and homelessness to become an award-winning high school graduate and caring mother — only to have it go terribly awry.
Holloway previously lived in Oregon, where she changed her name in October to Paris Paradise Morton, according to court records.
Several years ago, she graduated from an alternative high school in Portland and received an award for overcoming adversity from the nonprofit Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center, which helps at-risk youths with education and job training.
After she was arrested Sunday, she told investigators she was homeless and out of money, sleeping in her car in casino parking garages. She said she was getting little rest because casino security would force her out. She might have been on her way to Texas to find the estranged father of her daughter, authorities said.
"She ended up on the Strip, 'a place she did not want to be,'" a police report quoted her as saying. "She would not explain why she drove onto the sidewalk but remembered a body bouncing off her windshield, breaking it."
People jumped on the car and banged on its windows, but Holloway kept driving, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said. She went about a mile with a broken windshield and a flattened tire before pulling into an off-Strip hotel and telling a valet to call 911.
Holloway no showed no resistance when police arrived and spoke coherently about what happened, the sheriff said. A police drug-recognition expert said it appeared she wasn't drunk but may have been under the influence of a stimulant.
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) —
More than 3,000 prisoners in Washington have been mistakenly released early since 2002 because of an error by the state's Department of Corrections.
At a news conference Tuesday, Gov. Jay Inslee said he has ordered immediate steps to correct the long-standing problem.
"Frankly, it is maddening," Inslee said.
Authorities say a July 2002 state Supreme Court ruling required the Corrections Department to apply good-behavior credits earned in county jail to state prison sentences. However, the programming fix ended up giving prisoners with sentencing enhancements too much so-called good time.
An analysis showed as many as 3,200 offenders were released early. The median number of days for early release was 49. Based on a prior Supreme Court ruling, most of the affected offenders won't have to go back to prison.
Inslee told corrections officials to stop releasing prisoners affected by the glitch until a hand calculation is done to ensure the offender is being released on the correct date. A broad fix to the software problem is expected to be in place by early January.
The governor said two retired federal prosecutors will conduct an independent investigation to figure out why it took so long to discover and fix the problem.
"I have a lot of questions about how and why this happened, and I understand that members of the public will have those same questions," Inslee said.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) —
U.N. Security Council members have reached agreement on a resolution they plan to adopt on Friday endorsing the way forward on a possible end to Syria's civil war, Russia's deputy foreign minister said.
"There is an agreement," Gennady Gatilov told reporters.
Diplomats had rushed to overcome divisions on the draft resolution while world powers held the latest talks on how to bring an end to the conflict.
The resolution has been described as a rare gesture of unity on the Syria peace process by a council often deeply divided on the crisis, which is deep into its fifth year with well over 300,000 killed.
The U.S. and French ambassadors to the U.N. both expressed optimism as well ahead of the Security Council meeting Friday afternoon.
Some 20 foreign ministers on Friday were tackling the most difficult issues for a possible end to Syria's civil war, including sorting out which Syrian groups will represent the opposition in peace talks in the new year.
Jordan presented countries' lists of groups that should be considered terrorist organizations instead, another critical issue.
But Syria's main opposition group expressed doubts that the push for a Jan. 1 deadline for starting peace talks among Syrian parties was "too ambitious."
Meanwhile, the role of Syrian President Bashar Assad in a political transition remains the most challenging issue of all.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said he presented lists submitted from each country of groups they consider terrorist organizations. He said some countries "sent 10, 15, 20 names" and others more.
"Now I think there will be follow-up steps in terms of countries meeting again to set criteria which will help filter the list," said Judeh, whose country is tasked with putting the final list together.
Both he and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said negotiations among the foreign ministers were "going well." Others around the table included key European nations, Saudi Arabia and top Syria allies Russia and Iran.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the two most important issues are launching political negotiations among Syrian parties and implementing a U.N.-monitored cease-fire. "Without peace talks, the cease-fire cannot be sustained. Without a cease-fire, peace talks cannot continue to produce results," he said.
Wang noted the "severe threat posed by international terrorism," a reference to the Islamic State group, which has exploited the chaos to seize large parts of Syria.
Earlier in the day, U.N. diplomats had said a key stumbling block in agreeing on a draft council resolution was how to address the issue of a transitional government in Syria.
British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said the resolution would not break new ground but would enshrine agreements from talks in Vienna and Geneva.
A peace plan agreed to last month by 20 nations meeting in Vienna sets a Jan. 1 deadline for the start of negotiations between Assad's government and opposition groups. The plan says nothing about Assad's future but says that "free and fair elections would be held pursuant to the new constitution within 18 months."
The Jan. 1 deadline is "too ambitious a timetable," the U.N. representative for the Syrian National Coalition, the main Western-backed opposition group, told reporters Friday morning. Najib Ghadbian estimated that a month of preparation is needed.
Ghadbian also said a comprehensive solution to the conflict requires "the removal of all foreign troops from Syria, all of them," including Russia, which began airstrikes there in September. The strikes are focused on more moderate forces fighting Assad in areas where the Islamic State group has little or no presence.
"For us, the utmost priority is to stop the killing. Then we can make headway with a cease-fire and political transition," Ghadbian said.
The coordinator of the opposition team that will negotiate with the Syrian government, former Prime Minister Riad Hijab, said in Saudi Arabia on Friday that Assad should have no role during a transitional period. He also called for "confidence-building measures" such as the lifting of a siege imposed on rebel-held areas and a halt to airstrikes.