August 19, 2022 4:10 am
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) – A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to put forward proposed redactions as he committed to making public at least part of the affidavit supporting the search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s estate in Florida. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Thursday gave prosecutors a week to submit a copy of the affidavit with proposed redactions for the information it wants to keep secret. It comes a little more than a week after the FBI seized classified and top secret information during a search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last week. A prosecutor said the investigation into whether Trump illegally stored classified records is still “in its early stages.”
August 19, 2022 4:03 am
Washington County Commissioners voted to approve the acceptance of a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development for the purpose of helping with election integrity. The grant will total more than $733,000 and was funded by state legislature through Act 88 of 2022. Commissioner Diana Irey-Vaughn is pleased to be getting the funding and looks for it to help the county elections office greatly. Director of Elections Melanie Ostrander says that there are qualifications on how the money is to be used. She states that the monies are to be used to help counties obtain resources to count mail-in and absentee ballots beginning on Election Day. According to Ostrander there are 9 categories that monies from the grant may be used. Some of them are paying workers to help tabulate mail in and absentee ballots, purchase of equipment to help tabulate those ballots, pay for poll workers, and help with the payment of printing and postage for the office to comply with a national registration of voters and the printing of ballots. The grant is designed to be an ongoing funding source and the monies are to be used during the fiscal year that the grant is issued.
August 18, 2022 1:56 pm
(AP) – A person familiar with the situation tells The Associated Press that Deshaun Watson has reached a settlement with the NFL and will serve an 11-game suspension and pay a $5 million fine rather than risk missing his first season as quarterback of the Cleveland Browns. Watson was accused of sexual misconduct by two dozen women while he played for the Houston Texans. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Thursday in disclosing the settlement between Watson and the league, which had sought to ban him for at least one year for violating its personal conduct policy. As part of the settlement, Watson may return for the Browns’ game on Dec. 4 in Houston.
August 18, 2022 8:58 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Slightly fewer Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week as the labor market continues to be the strongest segment of the U.S. economy. Applications for jobless aid for the week ending August 13 fell by 2,000 to 250,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Last week’s number, which raised some eyebrows, was revised down by 10,000. The four-week average for claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 2,750 to 246,750. Unemployment applications generally reflect layoffs and are often seen as an early indicator of where the job market is headed.
August 18, 2022 4:23 am
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) – A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to put forward proposed redactions as he committed to making public at least part of the affidavit supporting the search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s estate in Florida. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Thursday gave prosecutors a week to submit a copy of the affidavit with proposed redactions for the information it wants to keep secret. It comes a little more than a week after the FBI seized classified and top secret information during a search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last week. A prosecutor said the investigation into whether Trump illegally stored classified records is still “in its early stages.”
August 18, 2022 4:21 am
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – A Taliban police spokesman in Afghanistan’s capital says the toll from a mosque bombing has risen to 21 people killed with 33 others wounded in the attack. Khalid Zadran, the spokesman for Kabul’s police chief, gave the figures Thursday to The Associated Press after the bombing at the Sunni mosque. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack Wednesday, though the Islamic State group’s affiliate in the country has been blamed for a series of similar assaults. They’ve stepped up attacks targeting the Taliban and civilians since the former insurgents’ takeover last August as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their withdrawal from the country.
August 18, 2022 4:19 am
HUALIEN, Taiwan (AP) – The U.S. government will hold talks with Taiwan on a trade treaty in a new sign of support for the self-ruled island democracy China claims as its own territory. The announcement comes after Beijing launched military drills that included firing missiles into the seas around Taiwan in an attempt to intimidate the island after a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The announcement by the U.S. Trade Representative made no mention of tension with Beijing but said the negotiations were meant to enhance trade and regulatory cooperation, a step that would entail closer official interaction.
August 18, 2022 4:17 am
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The debate over a limited set of circumstances in which abortion could be legal is causing divisions among GOP lawmakers in some states. The spark is the U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting a right to abortion and returning the issue to states to determine. In Wisconsin, GOP state lawmakers are at odds over whether to reinforce an exception for a mother’s life and add protections for instances involving rape and incest. In Indiana, Republicans passed a near-total ban on abortion, with exceptions for rape and incest included after some Republicans joined with all Democrats. Some experts say the inconsistency among Republicans underscores the new debate within the GOP.
August 18, 2022 4:16 am
The remains of a U.S. Army soldier from Ohio killed in the Korean War will be buried in Pennsylvania, officials said. Pfc. Donald Born will be laid to rest on Aug. 30 at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery, the Army said. According to officials, the Steubenville, Ohio, native was taking part in a defensive action near Chinju at the southern end of the Korean peninsula in 1950 when his unit came under attack. The 19-year-old went missing and was listed as presumed dead in 1953. Remains that were recovered in the vicinity were buried with unidentified Korean War soldiers in Hawaii until they were disinterred for analysis in 2019. Born was accounted for by using circumstantial evidence as well as anthropological and mitochondrial DNA analysis in June., the Army said. More than 7,500 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Korean War, officials said.
August 18, 2022 4:14 am
Two former Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks were ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of people they victimized in one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history. U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner awarded $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in a long-running civil suit against the judges, writing the plaintiffs are “the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions.” In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility, Western PA Child Care. Ciavarella ordered children as young as 8 to detention, many of them first-time offenders deemed delinquent for petty theft, jaywalking, truancy, smoking on school grounds and other minor infractions. The judge often ordered youths he had found delinquent to be immediately shackled, handcuffed and taken away without giving them a chance to put up a defense or even say goodbye to their families. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out some 4,000 juvenile convictions involving more than 2,300 kids after the scheme was uncovered.
