Smokies US park starts early parking tag sales for new rule

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) — Great Smoky Mountains National Park has begun selling annual parking tags ahead of a new requirement beginning March 1 to buy daily, weekly or annual tags to park any vehicle for more than 15 minutes.

Park officials say the $40 annual tags can be bought online through the Great Smoky Mountains Association or at any of the park’s visitor centers. Annual tags purchased before March 1 will be valid through March 2024.

The $5 daily and $15 weekly parking tags will become available for purchase Feb. 21 at recreation.gov.

The revenue will fund services such as trail maintenance, custodial work and trash removal, resource education programs, emergency responders and law enforcement staff.

Parking tags are not transferrable between vehicles. Parking will remain first-come, first-served throughout the park.

After a civic engagement process, the park announced the decision in Aug. 2022 to proceed with the tags requirement, naming it the Park it Forward program.

4 Tennessee church members killed in Texas plane crash

YOAKUM, Texas (AP) — A small plane crashed Tuesday while approaching a Texas airport, killing four members of a Tennessee church and leaving the lead pastor injured, authorities and the church said.

The single-engine Piper PA-46 crashed in an open field south of an airport in Yoakum, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Yoakum, a city of about 6,000 people, is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of San Antonio.

One of the five people on board was able to get out of the plane and was taken to a hospital in Victoria, Sgt. Ruben San Miguel of the Texas Department of Public Safety told the Victoria Advocate. Victoria is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Yoakum.

Harvest Church, located in the Memphis suburb of Germantown, said lead pastor Kennon Vaughan was in stable condition at a Texas hospital.

The church identified the four people killed as Bill Garner, the church’s executive vice president; Steve Tucker, a church elder; and Tyler Patterson and Tyler Springer.

“All were beloved members of Harvest Church and their loss currently leaves us without the proper words to articulate our grief,” the church said on its website.

Texas man pleads guilty to role in $1.6M romance scam plot

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Texas man has pleaded guilty to his role in a romance scam in which women from across the nation were cheated out of a total of about $1.6 million by someone often pretending to be a U.S. Army general.

Fola Alabi, who is also known as Folayemi Alabi, 52, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island last week to conspiracy and money laundering, federal prosecutors said in a statement Monday.

According to prosecutors, someone often posing as a general stationed overseas befriended women online, then gradually gained their trust by feigning romantic or personal interest.

The women, often in their 70s and 80s and widowed or divorced, were persuaded to send cash or checks to addresses and companies controlled by Alabi, who lived in Richmond, Texas, near Houston.

The money was then desposited into bank accounts he also controlled, prosecutors said, before being quickly withdrawn or transferred.

Federal agents who searched Alabi’s cellphone found photographs and videos of packages containing cash and checks he had received from some victims, prosecutors said.

The victims were from Rhode Island, Tennessee, North Carolina, California, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Texas, Idaho and South Dakota, authorities said.

An Arizona woman lost $334,000, according to an affidavit filed in the case. She “felt shame, embarrassment, and guilt over being scammed” and did not have enough money for food or to pay bills as a result, according to the affidavit.

A Rhode Island woman sent a check for $60,000 and was going to send an additional $240,000, but her bank determined that she might be a victim of fraud, put a hold on her account and contacted local police, authorities said.

Sentencing is scheduled for April 25.