November 25, 2022 5:14 am
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) – The co-owner of Colorado Springs’ Club Q said that anti-LGBTQ hate has evolved from prejudice to incitement. In one of his first interviews since Saturday night’s mass shooting, Nic Grzecka told the Associated Press that politicians calling transgender people “groomers” breeds violence. Grzecka built Club Q into an enclave that sustained the LGBTQ community in the conservative-leaning Colorado Springs. On Saturday, a shooter killed five and injured 17 in Club Q. Grzecka and community leaders are working to reconstitute an LGBTQ support system to facilitate healing.
November 25, 2022 5:07 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Residents of Ukraine’s bombed but undaunted capital are taking empty bottles in search of water and crowding into cafés for power and warmth after the latest onslaught of Russian missile strikes. In scenes hard to believe in a city so hip and sophisticated, some Kyiv residents resorted to collecting rainwater from drainpipes, as repair teams labored Thursday to reconnect supplies. Many switched defiantly into survival mode after the latest barrage of missile strikes the previous day plunged the city of 3 million and much of the country into the cold and dark of winter.
November 25, 2022 5:05 am
PITTSBURGH — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that a man convicted of third-degree murder in a Thanksgiving Day 2016 crash that killed three people following a police chase can be sentenced to a mandatory life prison term. The Tribune-Review reports that the state’s highest court cited what it called the “clear and unambiguous language” of the statute in siding with an appeals court that ordered a new sentencing hearing for 28-year-old Demetrius Coleman of Homewood, who is serving a 70- to 140-year term. Prosecutors said Coleman reached speeds of 100 mph while fleeing a traffic stop on Nov. 24, 2016 before he collided with a car that burst into flames in North Versailles, killing the driver, his fiancée and their toddler daughter. Coleman was convicted of three counts of third-degree murder as well as vehicular homicide and aggravated assault, among other charges, in the deaths of Kaylie Meininger, 21; her fiancé, David Bianco, 29; and their 2-year-old daughter, Annika, who were on their way to a holiday dinner. Prosecutors sought a mandatory life term even though state law sets a mandatory 20- to 40-year term for third-degree murder, citing another statue allowing such a penalty for anyone “who has previously been convicted at any time of murder or voluntary manslaughter.” The trial judge said that would be “illogical and ludicrous” since Coleman’s convictions occurred simultaneously. Prosecutors appealed after Coleman was sentenced to 70 to 140 years, and the Pennsylvania Superior Court sided with them in February of last year.
November 25, 2022 5:03 am
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — (WPXI) – A woman died on Thanksgiving Day after she allegedly stole an ambulance from a hospital in West Virginia and reportedly crashed it into the Kanawha River, officials say. According to a news release from the Charleston Police Department obtained by The Associated Press, Elizabeth Reed was a patient at Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital in West Virginia when she allegedly took a Cedar Grove Volunteer Fire Department Ambulance just after midnight Thanksgiving day. Reed allegedly began driving toward Kanawha Boulevard, and about five minutes later, she reportedly hit a cement barrier near Chesapeake Avenue. She went over the embankment and into the Kanawha River, police said, according to the AP. Reed was located inside the ambulance by a search and rescue team, according to the AP. She was pronounced dead at about 10 a.m. No further information has been released. The investigation is ongoing.
November 24, 2022 4:26 am
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The alleged shooter facing possible hate crime charges in the fatal shooting of five people at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub has been ordered held without bail in an initial court appearance. Twenty-two-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich appeared by video from jail Wednesday and could be seen slumped over in a chair with injuries visible on their face and head. Aldrich appeared to need prompting by defense attorneys when asked to state their name by the judge. Police say 17 people were injured by gunshots in last weekend’s attack. The suspect faces possible murder and hate crime charges. Aldrich’s attorneys say in court filings that the suspect is nonbinary but didn’t elaborate.
November 24, 2022 4:24 am
NEW YORK (AP) — A writer who accused former President Donald Trump of rape filed an upgraded lawsuit against him Thursday in New York, minutes after a new state law took effect allowing victims of sexual violence to sue over attacks that occurred decades ago. E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer filed the legal papers electronically as the Adult Survivor’s Act temporarily lifted the state’s usual deadlines for suing over sexual assault. Carroll previously sued Trump for denying that he raped her. But she previously had been barred from suing over the alleged rape because too many years had passed. Trump says Carroll’s claims are a hoax.
November 24, 2022 4:23 am
BEIJING (AP) — China is expanding pandemic lockdowns, including in a city where factory workers clashed with police this week, as its number of COVID-19 cases hits a daily record. Across China, the number of new cases reported Thursday was 31,444, the highest since the virus was first detected in late 2019. People in parts of Zhengzhou with a total of 6.6 million residents were told to stay home for five days except to buy food, get tested or get medical treatment. The daily number of cases is increasing, though China’s caseload remains low compared to other countries. The ruling Communist Party remains committed to its “zero-COVID” strategy, aiming to isolate every case and stamp out the virus.
November 24, 2022 4:22 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Kyiv’s mayor says that 70% of the Ukrainian capital has been left without power after Moscow unleashed yet another devastating missile barrage on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The mayor said Thursday that engineers were doing their best to get electricity back as soon as possible. He said the water supply has been restored in about half of Kyiv on the left bank of the Dnieper River. A punishing barrage of Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure caused power outages across large parts of the country, piling more damage onto Ukraine’s already battered power network and adding to the misery for civilians as winter begins. Russia’s strikes come as its forces have suffered battlefield setbacks in the war that it launched nine months ago.
November 24, 2022 4:21 am
DUQUESNE, Pa. (WPXI) — Emergency crews were called to a house fire in Duquesne. According to Allegheny County 911, police, fire and EMS units were called to the 600 block of South 5th Street near Crawford Avenue at 8:25 p.m. Wednesday night. A woman in the house at the time of the fire was taken to the hospital for injuries. Additional details are limited at this time. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
November 24, 2022 4:16 am
MONTROSE, Pa. (AP) — A plea hearing has been scheduled for next week in the case of a natural gas driller facing felony charges in Pennsylvania over allegations it polluted a small community’s drinking water. Houston-based Coterra Energy Inc. will appear in Susquehanna County Court on Tuesday. That’s according to online court records. Coterra’s corporate predecessor, Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., was charged with drilling faulty gas wells that leaked flammable methane into residential water supplies in Dimock and surrounding communities. Dimock drew national notoriety after residents were filmed lighting their tap water on fire in the 2010 documentary “Gasland.”
