August 7, 2019 4:14 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – A veteran FBI agent who was fired over derogatory text messages about President Donald Trump has sued the FBI and Justice Department. Peter Strzok says in the lawsuit filed Tuesday that the FBI’s decision to fire him was “the result of unrelenting pressure” from Trump and his allies. The suit also says the Justice Department violated Strzok’s privacy by disclosing hundreds of the text messages to reporters. Strzok was a veteran counterintelligence agent who helped lead FBI investigations into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. He was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team after the texts were discovered, and was fired from the FBI last August. Representatives of the FBI and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
August 7, 2019 4:13 am
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea says leader Kim Jong Un supervised a live-fire demonstration of newly-developed short-range ballistic missiles he said would send an “adequate warning” to the United States and South Korea over their joint military exercises. The announcement by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday came a day after South Korea’s military said it detected the North firing two projectiles that were likely ballistic missiles into the sea. Tuesday’s launches were the North’s fourth round of weapons tests in less than two weeks. Experts say the country’s testing activity could intensify if progress isn’t made on nuclear negotiations with Washington. KCNA says two missiles launched from a western airfield flew cross-country and over the area surrounding capital Pyongyang before accurately hitting an island target off its eastern coast.
August 7, 2019 4:11 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump and the first lady spent time at a hospital in Dayton, Ohio, Wednesday, where many of the victims of Sunday’s attack were treated. The White House says Trump visited Miami Valley Hospital to thank first responders and hospital staff, as well as meet with victims and their families. At least 200 protesters gathered outside the hospital. Connor Betts opened fire in Dayton’s Oregon district early Sunday morning, killing nine people, including his 22-year-old sister, before officers fatally shot. Later, Trump will travel to El Paso, Texas – the site of the second mass shooting last weekend. (Photo: CNN)
August 7, 2019 4:07 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) – A Pennsylvania man has been charged with selling machine guns and other firearms and ammunition stolen from a federal storage facility in West Virginia. Richard Adam Schreiber of Everett was indicted Tuesday after federal agents seized about 100 guns, more than 1,300 gun components and nearly 124,000 rounds of ammunition. Prosecutors say Schreiber plotted with a security guard who pilfered the weapons and ammunition from a gun-disposal facility operated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The guard, Christopher Lee Yates, has pleaded guilty in the case and is due to be sentenced in late August. Prosecutors say Schreiber bought the stolen weapons from Yates and then sold them over the internet.
August 7, 2019 4:06 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania’s top state prosecutor says investigations remain underway after 1,862 calls were made to his office’s clergy abuse hotline in the 12 months since a landmark grand jury report exposed decades of child abuse within the state’s Roman Catholic dioceses. Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Tuesday that about 90 percent of those calls concerned allegations of abuse or cover-ups within the Catholic church. The rest were about institutions or people outside the Catholic church. Shapiro calls it “a profoundly impactful experience” that he’s been stopped daily by people who are grateful for the investigation or want to tell him their own stories of victimization. Pennsylvania dioceses have been evaluating claims and making payments through compensation funds established in the wake of the report.
August 7, 2019 4:03 am
SHALER, Pa. – (WPXI) – A Shaler man is dead after being shot by police outside of his home in the Spencer Woods neighborhood. Police said they were called to the area for reports that the man, Donald Babbit, 49, was acting erratically. When officers arrived, they were informed Babbit had access to guns inside his home. Allegheny County Police Superintendent Coleman McDonough said those officers set up a perimeter and began trying to contact him using a loud speaker. Babbit then allegedly walked toward officers waving a handgun in the air. After officers told him to put it down he pointed it at one of them, McDonough said. That’s when three officers shot Babbit and hit him multiple times. He was taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead a short time later. Penn Hills School District issued a statement saying Babbit was a teacher in the district: “It is with deep regret that the Penn Hills School District shares the unexpected passing of PHHS teacher Don Babbit earlier today. Don was a beloved member of our staff and had the distinct reputation among students, families, and colleagues as being an exceptional teacher. He will be missed. No further information is available at this time.”
August 7, 2019 3:55 am
Funeral services have been set for a former Washington County resident who was gunned down in a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio early Sunday morning. Services for 26-year-old Nicholas Cumer will be held at eleven o’clock on Saturday, August 10th in the Piatt and Barnhill Funeral Home at 420 Locust Avenue in Washington. Friends will be received from one to three and six to eight p.m. on Thursday and Friday. Cumer was a 2012 graduate of Washington High School and received his Bachelor’s Degree and Master’s degree from St. Francis University.
August 6, 2019 5:46 pm
VATICAN CITY (AP) – Letters and postcards the former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick wrote to three men he allegedly sexually abused and harassed show how he groomed his victims, experts say.
Two abuse prevention experts reviewed the correspondence at the request of The Associated Press. They said McCarrick’s use of familiarity and boasts about his own power were ways he made the men feel special. AP is publishing the correspondence ahead of the promised release of the Vatican’s own report into who knew what and when about McCarrick’s misconduct.
Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick in February. McCarrick denies the allegations. (Photo: CNN)
August 6, 2019 4:55 pm
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) – The FBI has opened an investigation into the Ohio mass shooting, citing the gunman’s interest in violent ideology. The head of the FBI’s Cincinnati field office says investigators will try to determine what ideologies influenced 24-year-old Connor Betts. Special Agent Todd Wickerham did not specifically say what the FBI was investigating, but said the agency is looking into who might have helped Betts, and why he chose the specific target of Dayton’s Oregon entertainment district. Dayton’s police chief says Betts had expressed “a desire to commit a mass shooting.” Betts was wearing a mask and body armor when he opened fire with an AR-15 style gun outside a strip of nightclubs in Dayton early Sunday. He killed his younger sister and eight others before officers fatally shot him less than 30 seconds into his rampage.
August 6, 2019 10:25 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison has died. Publisher Alfred A. Knopf says Morrison died Monday night at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. She was 88.
She was the first black woman to receive the Nobel literature prize, awarded in 1993. The Swedish academy hailed her use of language and her “visionary force.” Her novel “Beloved,” in which a mother makes a tragic choice to murder her baby to save the girl from slavery, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988. (Photo: Getty Images)
