August 21, 2020 12:38 pm
BOSTON (AP) – “Full House” star Lori Loughlin will be sentenced to two months in prison after a judge accepted her plea deal with prosecutors for paying $500,000 in bribes to cheat the college admissions process. Her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, was sentenced earlier Friday to five months behind bars for his role in the college admissions bribery scheme. They pleaded guilty in May to paying half a million dollars to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California as crew recruits even though neither is a rower. Giannulli told the judge he takes full responsibility for his conduct and regrets the harm it is caused his family.
August 21, 2020 4:18 am
NEW YORK (AP) – President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he ripped off donors trying to fund a southern border wall. The plea happened Thursday, hours after Bannon was pulled from a yacht off the coast of Connecticut and arrested. He becomes the latest in a long list of Trump allies to be charged with a crime. The charges were contained in an indictment in Manhattan federal court. Prosecutors say the organizers of the “We Build The Wall” group raised more than $25 million from thousands of donors and pledged that 100% of the money would be used for the project.
August 21, 2020 4:17 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Sometimes politics gives way to the personal at the White House. It has seen 18 weddings and at least 10 people are known to have died there, including two presidents and three first ladies. It will serve Friday as a place of mourning for President Donald Trump and his family with a private memorial service for the president’s younger brother, Robert, who passed away at 71. The president has described Robert as not just his brother but his “best friend.” Anita McBride, who served in three presidential administrations, including as first lady Laura Bush’s chief of staff, says it is completely within the president’s ability to honor him with a service there and that the White House serves a complex mission as an office, a museum and a home.
August 21, 2020 4:16 am
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) – Wildfires that have claimed at least five lives and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes continue to blaze around California. Three major collections of fires are threatening tens of thousands of homes in the San Francisco Bay Area and central California. More evacuations are expected as hot and gusty weather continues into Friday. State fire officials say at least four civilians have died in the fire areas, possibly including a Pacific Gas & Electric worker. And a helicopter pilot on a water-dropping mission died in a crash Wednesday.
August 21, 2020 4:15 am
OLD FORGE, Pa. (AP) – President Donald Trump has taken the fight for Pennsylvania to Joe Biden’s old backyard, insisting his Democratic rival would be the state’s “worst nightmare” if elected president. In a particularly in-your-face bit of campaign trolling, Trump staged a small rally just outside the former vice president’s birthplace in Scranton mere hours before Biden was to formally accept the Democratic presidential nomination. Trump insists Biden is “no friend of Pennsylvania.”
August 21, 2020 4:14 am
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) – Joe Biden has accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, vowing to take on national crises and declaring that “we will overcome this season of darkness.” Biden’s nomination marks the pinnacle – so far -of a political career that has spanned almost a half century. The former vice president, who at 77 years old would be the oldest president ever elected, was saluted by former Democratic foes as he became the party’s official standard bearer for the campaign against President Donald Trump in November. He focused on uniting the deeply divided nation as Americans grapple with a months-long health crisis, related economic devastation and a national awakening on racial justice.
August 21, 2020 4:09 am
WEST HOMESTEAD, Pa (AP) – After five months of being closed due to the coronavirus, the major movie theaters chains in the U.S. are starting to reopen. AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr visited the AMC Waterfront 22 in West Homestead, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh, on its opening day Thursday. It is one of 113 AMC locations to open nationwide, touting retro movies and retro pricing and strict sanitary policies to entice audiences back to theaters. Many were eager to get back to the theaters, although for most the 15 cent tickets were the main draw. After opening day, back catalog films will cost $5 a ticket.
August 21, 2020 3:49 am
Nearly a year after his DUI arrest in the City of Washington, City Councilman Matt Staniszewski entered a guilty plea and was sentenced. Staniszewski was found unconscious in a parked car on E. Wheeling Street in August of 2019. It was the fourth DUI arrest for Staniszewski. Staniszewski entered into an open plea and his case was considered as a first time DUI offender because it has been more than 10 years since his last offense. Staniszewski’s attorney Sean Logue presented Senior Judge Anthony Bardaro with evidence of Staniszewski’s in-patient treatment for substance abuse and his community activism combating substance abuse as evidence for a favorable sentence. Ultimately, Bardaro reviewed all of the evidence and sentenced Staniszewski to six months probation and a $300 fine. After the hearing Staniszewski commented, saying he took responsibility for his actions and is working to support individuals by helping them find better coping mechanisms than indulgence of substance abuse.
August 20, 2020 1:43 pm
BETHESDA, Md. (AP) – U.S. government coronavirus expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has undergone surgery to remove a growth from his vocal cord that was causing his notably hoarse voice. A spokesperson at the National Institutes of Health says Fauci underwent outpatient surgery for the polyp Thursday and was home and resting. Fauci is a member of the White House coronavirus task force. He has become the nation’s leading scientific voice on the pandemic, giving regular public advice via media interviews and webcasts, as recently as Wednesday. Fauci has said the bump on his vocal cord never got a chance to heal because he couldn’t rest his voice during the crisis.
August 20, 2020 9:37 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of laid-off workers seeking U.S. unemployment benefits rose to 1.1 million last week after two weeks of declines, evidence that employers are still cutting large numbers of jobs as the coronavirus bedevils the U.S. economy. The latest figures suggest that more than five months after the viral outbreak erupted the economy is still weak, despite recent gains as some businesses reopen and some sectors like housing and manufacturing have rebounded. A rising number of people who have lost jobs say they consider their loss to be permanent.
