August 21, 2022 8:09 am
NEW DELHI (AP) — At least 40 people have died and others are missing in flash floods triggered by intense monsoon rains in northern India over the past three days, officials said Sunday. The rains inundated hundreds of villages, swept away mud houses, flooded roads and destroyed bridges in some parts of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand states. The Indian Meteorological Department predicted that heavy to very heavy rain would continue to fall in the region for the next two days. An official government release Sunday said landslides and flooding in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh over the last three days killed at least 36 people. Hundreds were taking shelter in relief camps after being displaced from their flooded homes. In the neighboring state of Uttarakhand, a series of cloudbursts Saturday left four dead and 13 went missing as rivers breached banks and washed away some houses. Rescue teams were evacuating the stranded in both states.
August 21, 2022 8:07 am
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The prosecution spent three weeks telling jurors how Nikolas Cruz murdered 14 students and three staff members at a Florida high school four years ago. Now his attorneys will get their chance to present why they believe he did it, hoping to get him sentenced to life without parole instead of death. Melisa McNeill, Cruz’s lead public defender, is expected to give her opening statement Monday, having deferred its presentation from the start of the trial a month ago. She and her team will then begin laying out their 23-year-old client’s life history: his birth mother’s abuse of alcohol and cocaine during her pregnancy, leading to possible fetal alcohol syndrome; his severe mental and emotional problems; his alleged sexual abuse by a “trusted peer;” the bullying he endured; and his adoptive father’s death when he was 5 and his adoptive mother’s four months before his Feb. 14, 2018, attack at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. McNeill’s decision to delay her opening statement appeared part of a broader strategy to not deny or lessen anything prosecutors told jurors about Cruz’s massacre — he pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder. This trial is only to decide his sentence; the seven-man, five woman jury will consider whether the prosecution’s aggravating circumstances “outweigh” the defense’s mitigating factors.
August 21, 2022 8:05 am
MOSCOW (AP) — The daughter of a Russian nationalist ideologist who is often referred to as “Putin’s brain” was killed when her car exploded on the outskirts of Moscow, officials said Sunday. The Investigative Committee branch for the Moscow region said the Saturday night blast was caused by a bomb planted in the SUV driven by Daria Dugina. The 29-year-old was the daughter of political theorist Alexander Dugin, a prominent proponent of the “Russian world” concept and a vehement supporter of Russia’s sending of troops into Ukraine. Dugin’s exact ties to President Vladimir Putin are unclear, but the Kremlin frequently echoes rhetoric from his writings and appearances on Russian state TV. He helped popularize the concept of “Novorossiya” (New Russia) that Russia used to justify the annexation of Crimea and its support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. He promotes Russia as a country of piety, traditional values and authoritarian leadership, and disdains Western liberal values. Dugina expressed similar views and had appeared as a commentator on the nationalist TV channel Tsargrad.
August 21, 2022 8:03 am
KENNEDY TOWNSHIP, Pa. (WPXI)— A woman was killed and another person was injured after the car they were traveling in collided head-on with a Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus. According to Pittsburgh Regional Transit spokesperson Adam Brandolph, the crash happened on McCoy Road at Neville Avenue in Kennedy Township around 4:12 p.m. Friday. Brandolph said the bus, route 22-McCoy, was traveling inbound when the car hit it head-on. The passenger of the car, identified by the Medical Examiner’s Office as 54-year-old Helen Ringeisen, from Bridgeville, died at a hospital from injuries she sustained in the crash. Brandolph said the driver of the car was also taken to a local hospital with injuries. Port Authority police are investigating.
August 21, 2022 3:46 am
PennDOT is alerting motorists to two traffic advisories in the area this weekend. Southbound Interstate 79 is closed at the Neville Island Bridge in Allegheny County for concrete repairs and bridge painting. That closure is planned through 5:00 a.m. Monday. Detours are posted, using Routes 65, the Sewickley Bridge, and Route 51. expect traffic backups on that heavily traveled route. PennDOT will also have daytime single lane restrictions on Interstate 70 in Westmoreland County the area of the Yukon and Madison exits starting Monday and running through September 1. Those lane closures are for the replacement of concrete barriers.
August 21, 2022 3:36 am
Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh tells WJPA News that the parents of an infant girl who died last week under suspicious circumstances have been arrested. Walsh says 31-year-old James May IV and 23-year-old Shannon McKnight, both of Canonsburg, had to be physically removed from a home at 409 Wayne Street in Canton Township Friday morning after they were found hiding there. Police have been looking for May and McKnight for more than a week after the death of their three-month-old daughter, Navaeah. Authorities say Navaeah died at a local hospital August 11th, after the parents called 911 to report that she was unresponsive. Her sixteen-month-old brother was later found to have cocaine and fentanyl in his urine, following a wellness check at UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. Walsh says that the two disappeared after their daughter’s death and did not attend her funeral on Thursday. May and McKnight were arraigned on multiple charges, including child endangerment and are lodged in the Washington County Jail without bond. Walsh says manslaughter charges may be filed at a later date, in connection with their daughter’s death. A preliminary hearing has been set for August 30th.
August 20, 2022 4:08 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Last week’s attack on author Salman Rushdie and the indictment of an Iranian national for plotting to murder former national security adviser John Bolton have given the Biden administration new headaches as it attempts to negotiate a return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. A resolution may be tantalizingly close. But as the U.S. and Europe weigh Iran’s latest response to an EU proposal believed by most to be the West’s final offer, the administration faces new and potentially insurmountable domestic political hurdles to successfully forging a lasting agreement.
August 20, 2022 4:06 am
(AP) – The Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr improperly withheld portions of an internal memorandum Barr cited in announcing that then-President Donald Trump had not committed obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation. The department had argued the 2019 memo represented the private deliberations of its own lawyers before any decision had been formalized, and was therefore exempt from disclosure. Friday’s decision by a federal appeals court said the Justice Department memo noted Mueller’s report didn’t accuse Trump of obstructing justice but also didn’t exonerate him. The internal memo said that could be interpreted as implying an accusation against Trump if released to the public. (Photo: AP)
August 20, 2022 4:04 am
ATLANTA (AP) – A federal judge says Sen. Lindsey Graham’s appearance before a special grand jury should not be delayed while he continues to challenge it in court. The grand jury is investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia. Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May ordered the South Carolina Republican to honor his subpoena for the grand jury. Graham’s attorneys appealed that order to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and asked May to stay her ruling while that appeal plays out. May declined that request Friday. Graham is currently scheduled to appear before the special grand jury on Tuesday. Representatives for Graham did not immediately respond Friday to messages seeking comment on May’s ruling.
August 20, 2022 4:03 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – A fire at a munitions depot inside Russia forced the evacuation of two villages near the border with Ukraine, while two civilians were reported wounded by Russian shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as both sides traded accusations about fighting near the facility in southern Ukraine. The fire late Thursday struck the munitions storage building near the village of Timonovo in Russia’s Belgorod region on Ukraine’s northeastern border. About 1,100 people live in Timonovo and Soloti, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the border. No one was hurt, said Belgorod regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov on Friday.
