SAN DIEGO (AP) — Officials say they seized $2.3 million worth of marijuana mixed in with a shipment of jalapeño peppers at a Southern California port.

A Customs and Border Protection K-9 unit alerted officers to a shipment of peppers Thursday at the Otay Mesa cargo facility in San Diego.

A CBP news release says officers discovered more than 7,500 pounds (3,401 kilograms) of marijuana in the peppers’ pallets.

Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan congratulated the officers on Twitter and noted it was the second large seizure of marijuana there within days.

Authorities seized more than 10,600 lbs (4,808 kilograms) of marijuana in a shipment of plastic auto parts at the port Tuesday.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A man discovered a 50-year-old letter in a bottle from the Russian Navy on the shores of western Alaska.

Tyler Ivanoff found the handwritten Russian letter early this month while gathering firewood near Shishmaref about 600 miles (966 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage, television station KTUU reported.

“I was just looking for firewood when I found the bottle,” Tyler Ivanoff said. “When I found the bottle, I had to use a screwdriver to get the message out.”

Ivanoff shared his discovery on Facebook where Russian speakers translated the message to be a greeting from a Cold War Russian sailor dated June 20, 1969. The message included an address and a request for a response from the person who finds it.

Reporters from the state-owned Russian media network, Russia-1, tracked down the original writer, Capt. Anatolii Prokofievich Botsanenko, KTUU reported.

He was skeptical he wrote the note until he saw his signature on the bottom.

“There — exactly!” he exclaimed.

The message was sent while the then 36-year-old was aboard the Sulak, Botsanenko said. Botsanenko shed tears when the Russian television reporter told him the Sulak was sold for scrap in the 1990s.

Botsanenko also showed the reporter some souvenirs from his time on the ship, including the autograph of the wife of a famous Russian spy and Japanese liquor bottles, the latter kept over his wife’s protests.

Ivanoff’s discovery of the bottle was first reported by Nome radio station KNOM.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Police in Virginia say more than 50 television sets have been mysteriously placed on front porches in a neighborhood outside Richmond.

Henrico County police Lt. Matt Pecka said residents found older model televisions outside their front doors Sunday morning. He told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that video from one doorbell camera showed a person wearing TV-shaped headgear while dropping off a TV set.

Police believe that more than one person is responsible. A similar incident occurred in a nearby neighborhood last year.

It’s unclear if the incident is a crime. Pecka said that dropping off the televisions on front porches is “at most” illegal dumping.

Most of the TVs will be recycled. But a couple residents indicated they would keep their televisions for now.
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Information from: Richmond Times-Dispatch, https://www.richmond.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Lil Nas X is galloping his way to two new records on the Billboard charts thanks to the massive success of “Old Town Road.”

The song that beat out Mariah Carey and “Despacito” to become the longest-running No. 1 hit in the history of the Hot 100 chart has now set records on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs and Hot rap songs charts, respectively.

“Old Town Road,” which features Billy Ray Cyrus and is spending its 19th week at No. 1, surpasses the record set by Drake’s “One Dance” on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs chart. Drake’s track spent 18 weeks at No.1.

On the Hot rap songs chart, where Lil Nas X’s county-rap tune is also spending its 19th week on top, the 20-year-old beats the record set by Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” and Missy Elliott’s “Hot Boyz.” The latter three songs each spent 18 weeks at No.1.

Last month Lil Nas X’s viral song became the most successful No. 1 song of all-time when it reached its 17th week at No. 1 on the all-genre Hot 100 chart — Billboard’s main chart for singles — surpassing the 16-week record held by Carey and Boyz II Men’s “One Sweet Day” and Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber’s “Despacito.”

“Old Town Road” is now spending its 19th week on top of the Hot 100 chart.

Lil Nas X’s song, which has achieved most of its success through audio streaming, was originally a solo song but he added Cyrus to the track. The song also has remix versions featuring Diplo, Young Thug, Mason Ramsey and BTS, and Billboard counts the original song and its remixes as one when calculating chart position, thus helping “Old Town Road” stay on top.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania appeals court on Monday questioned why actor Bill Cosby never got a supposed non-prosecution agreement in writing as his lawyers asked the panel to overturn his sexual assault conviction.

Cosby, 82, is serving a three- to 10-year prison term for drugging and molesting a woman at his home in what became the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.

The three-judge panel asked why Cosby’s top-shelf lawyers didn’t follow the norm and get an immunity agreement in writing, and approved by a judge, when accuser Andrea Constand first came forward in 2005.

“This is not a low-budget operation. … They had an unlimited budget,” said Superior Court Judge John T. Bender. “Could it be they knew this was something the trial court would never have allowed?”

Cosby’s lawyers have long argued that he relied on the promise before giving testimony in Constand’s 2005 lawsuit that proved incriminating when it was unsealed a decade later.

Judge Carolyn Nichols echoed Bender’s point, asking, “how can the elected district attorney bind that office in perpetuity?”

Cosby’s lawyers also attacked Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill’s decision to let five other accusers testify when Cosby went on trial last year, after more than 60 accusers came forward and his deposition was unsealed. Prosecutors said they chose women whose accounts showed that Cosby had a “signature” crime pattern. Bender seemed to agree, interrupting defense arguments that their stories had significant differences.

“The reality of it is, he gives them drugs and then he sexually assaults them,” he said. “That’s the pattern, is it not?”

Kristen L. Weisenberger, representing Cosby, said one of the women wasn’t even sure she’d been violated. But prosecutors said that’s how Cosby planned it.

“The defendant should not be . rewarded because she has no recollection because of the drugs he gave her,” Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Jappe argued.

The court’s decision on how many other accusers should be allowed to testify will be closely watched by sexual assault survivors and defense lawyers as men like movie mogul Harvey Weinstein await trial in #MeToo-type cases.

O’Neill had allowed just one other accuser at Cosby’s first trial in 2017, when the jury failed to reach a verdict.

Cosby’s lawyers called the decision to let five testify at the retrial arbitrary and prejudicial. However, the panel said judges are not bound by their earlier trial rulings.

Cosby, who is serving time at a state prison near Philadelphia, was not in court for the arguments at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg. The court typically takes several months to issue decisions.

Long beloved as “America’s Dad” for his TV role as Dr. Cliff Huxtable, Cosby has called his encounters with Constand and other accusers consensual.

In his deposition, Cosby acknowledged getting quaaludes in the 1970s to give to women before sex, including 19-year-old Therese Serignese, whom he had met at a Las Vegas hotel. Serignese traveled from Florida to attend Monday’s hearing.

“Remember, there are 60 accusers,” she said. “Out of 19 prior bad act witnesses requested by the prosecutors, the judge only allowed five. I say Bill Cosby got a good deal there.”