October 24, 2024 5:53 pm
(AP) Prosecutors are recommending that Erik and Lyle Menendez be resentenced for the 1989 killings of their parents in Beverly Hills. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced during a Thursday news conference that his office would recommend the brothers be sentenced to 50 years to life. But he says their ages at the time of the crimes mean they will be eligible for parole immediately. The brothers were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without parole. Prosecutors must now seek court approval for resentencing. The brothers admitted to the crime but said they feared their parents were about to kill them to prevent the disclosure of the father’s longtime sexual molestation of Erik Menendez.
October 24, 2024 3:09 pm
(AP) — President Joe Biden is preparing to issue an historic apology during his first diplomatic visit to a tribal nation as president on Friday. He’s planning to formally apologize for the nation’s 150-year campaign to assimilate Indigenous children by taking them away to Indian boarding school system. The system devastated the lives of generations of Indigenous children and their ancestors. Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland says this is a big deal to all of Indian County. She launched an investigation that found nearly 1,000 children died at more than 500 schools during U.S. government efforts to dispossess tribal nations of their land.
October 24, 2024 4:40 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s highest court has ruled people whose mail ballots are rejected for not following technical procedures in state law can cast provisional ballots. That decision Wednesday is sure to affect some of the thousands of mail-in votes experts say are likely to be rejected this fall for not following all of the mail-in voting procedures Pennsylvania requires. The state’s status as the swing state with the most electoral votes in the close presidential election, now in its final two weeks, puts the court decision under heightened public scrutiny as the parties scrape for votes.
October 24, 2024 4:50 am
ASTON, Pa. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris says she believes Donald Trump “is a fascist” after his longest-serving chief of staff said the former president praised Adolf Hitler while in office and put personal loyalty above the Constitution. In interviews with The New York Times and The Atlantic, John Kelly warned that the Republican nominee meets the definition of a fascist and that while in office he suggested that the Nazi leader “did some good things.” At a CNN town hall Wednesday, Harris was asked if she believed that Trump is a fascist. She replied twice, “Yes, I do.” Kelly is the retired Marine general who worked for Trump in the White House from 2017 to 2019.
October 24, 2024 4:53 am
DULUTH, Ga. (AP) — Republican Donald Trump is pushing supporters in Georgia to get out and vote for him in a state that could be crucial in the presidential election. He spoke Wednesday before a rollicking rally that was filled to capacity and organized by Charlie Kirk, a conservative provocateur. Kirk is using his online presence and the organization he founded, Turning Point Action, to make himself one of the nation’s most recognizable conservatives. He is launching get-out-the-vote operations in key battleground states. Trump has put a particular emphasis on winning support from younger men as he tries to reach them through podcasts, social media and influencers such as Kirk.
October 24, 2024 4:59 am
ATLANTA (AP) — With less than two weeks before Election Day, a resurgence of misinformation and conspiracy theories about voting is forcing state and local election officials to spend their time debunking rumors and explaining how elections are run. This year’s election is the first presidential contest since former President Donald Trump began spreading lies about widespread voter fraud costing him reelection in 2020. Election experts see the conspiracy theories as laying the groundwork to again challenge the election should he lose.
October 24, 2024 1:30 am
North Strabane Township Police are looking for 38 year old Adam Logan in connection with an armed robbery at the Coen Market along Hill Church Houston Road Sunday night. An arrest warrant has been issued for him and police are asking the public not to approach him as he is considered armed and dangerous. Anyone with information is asked to call 9-1-1. Logan’s last known location was in Washington. He faces charges that include; robbery with threat of serious bodily injury, burglary, terroristic threats and simple assault by menacing.
October 24, 2024 2:49 am
WASHINGTON COUNTY, Pa. — The parents of a Charleroi toddler who died in Washington County in 2023 are being charged for the death. Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh has announced the charges against Brooke Whitehead, 32, and Ryan Whitehead, 32. Brooke is charged with criminal homicide, among other charges, and Ryan is charged with endangering the welfare of a child. A criminal complaint alleges Charleroi police were sent to the couple’s home on Prospect Avenue on Oct. 24, 2023, for a 14-month-old child who wasn’t breathing. The child was later pronounced dead at a hospital. The complaint states officers who first responded to the home were informed of “markings” on the child, which were documented as multiple bruises on the child’s face, neck and chest. Through an autopsy, it was determined that the child died from blunt force trauma to the head, torso and extremities. The autopsy also found recent skull fractures and long bone fractures in various states of healing. The complaint states Brooke was the only adult home on the day of her child’s death, but the child would have also been in Ryan’s custody when some of the other injuries happened. Walsh tells WJPA News that the pair were located Tuesday night in Bellefonte, Pa. and were housed in the Center County Jail before being returned to Washington County.
October 24, 2024 2:31 am
WASHINGTON, Pa. —(WPXI)- Three Washington County men pleaded guilty in county court to killing nearly two dozen deer illegally. The Pennsylvania Game Commission said Ezra McClelland, 20; Julian Marth, 21; and Grant Bamberger, 20, all of Washington, poached 21 deer in Dec. 2023. Nine deer were reported to have been shot and left laying on Dec. 9. On Dec. 17 another call was made to the Game Commission that reported similar activity in the same area; this time 12 deer were found dead. The actors did not attempt to retrieve those deer either. Six of the shot deer were antlered bucks. The Game Commission said the three men pleaded guilty. They will lose their hunting licenses for life, serve seven days in county jail, and pay $6,300 in fines. The rifles used in the poaching spree were seized and will not be returned. Anyone who sees poaching or other wildlife crimes is asked to contact the Pennsylvania Game Commission by calling the agency’s 24-hour dispatch center at 1-833-PGC-HUNT or 1-833-PGC-WILD, or call the Operation Game Thief toll-free hotline at 1-888-PGC-8001.
October 24, 2024 4:57 am
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina officials say the catastrophic flooding and destruction from Hurricane Helene likely caused at least $53 billion in damages and recovery needs in the state. Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration generated the preliminary figure in a report released Wednesday that also includes Cooper’s request to the General Assembly for $3.9 billion. The request was disclosed the day before the legislature planned to meet for a one-day session to advance additional Helene recovery legislation. Cooper says the previous record for storm damage in North Carolina was $17 billion after Hurricane Florence in 2018.
