April 9, 2022 11:48 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal jury has begun deliberating in the case against a former Virginia police officer charged with storming the U.S. Capitol to obstruct Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. The jury for the trial of former Rocky Mount police officer Thomas Robertson deliberated for more than four hours Friday without reaching a verdict. They will resume Monday. One of Robertson’s attorneys conceded that he broke the law when he entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The lawyer encouraged jurors to convict him of misdemeanor offenses but urged them to acquit Robertson of felony charges that he armed himself with a weapon and stormed the Capitol to overturn the election results.
April 9, 2022 4:45 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Actor Kevin Spacey is asking a judge to throw out a sex abuse lawsuit that his lawyers say was unjustly brought by an actor who alleges he was abused by Spacey in the 1980s. The lawyers wrote in papers filed Friday in Manhattan federal court that the allegations made by Anthony Rapp about an encounter when he was 14 are false and never occurred. The lawyers say the actor claims that Spacey surprised him by picking him up, putting him on a bed and putting some body weight against him before the actor “wriggled out” with no resistance. Lawyers for Rapp did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
April 9, 2022 4:44 am
BEIJING (AP) – A series of deaths at a hospital for elderly patients in Shanghai is underscoring the dangerous consequences of China’s stubborn pursuit of a zero-COVID approach amid an escalating outbreak in the city of 26 million people. Relatives say multiple patients have died at the Shanghai Donghai Elderly Care hospital. They say their loved ones weren’t properly cared for after caretakers infected with the virus were taken away to be quarantined, in adherence to the strict pandemic regulations, depleting the hospital of staff. Family members have taken to social media to plea for help and answers and are demanding to see surveillance video after getting little to no information about their loved ones from the hospital.
April 9, 2022 4:43 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Donald Trump Jr. texted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows two days after the 2020 presidential election with strategies for overturning the result if Trump’s father lost. That’s according to CNN, which reported that the text was sent two days before Joe Biden was declared the winner. Trump Jr.’s lawyer Alan S. Futerfas told CNN that “this message likely originated from someone else and was forwarded.” Separately Friday, Ali Alexander, a conservative activist who helped found the “Stop the Steal” movement, said he had received a subpoena to provide testimony to a federal grand jury as part of the Justice Department’s wide investigation into the insurrection.
April 9, 2022 4:17 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz is worth more than $100 million. That’s according to a financial disclosure form he filed Wednesday that’s required of all Senate candidates. Oz is a celebrity heart surgeon and former host of “The Dr. Oz Show.” The Republican’s assets include homes in Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, plus equities, a cattle farm and non-public stock in his in-laws’ tree-trimming empire. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Oz valued his assets at between $104 million and $422 million. If elected, he would be one of the wealthiest members of the Senate – and possibly the wealthiest.
April 9, 2022 1:47 am
A Waynesburg couple accused of aggravated assault and false imprisonment in one case and criminal homicide in a second will face trial. Cortland Rogers, 28 and Shawna Smith, 23 had multiple charges held for court after nearly 6 hours of testimony surrounding two separate cases. In the first case both were charged with aggravated assault for the beating of Jacqueline Rutan in the early hours of February 14. Victim’s testimony stated that she was called to a house where Rogers and Smith resided to prove her innocence regarding an incident from many years ago. Rutan admitted that the crowd of her, her fiancé, Rogers and Smith were doing crystal meth. An argument ensued that prompted Roger to order Smith into kicking and beating Rutan while Rogers held her at gunpoint. Police had both Rogers and Smith in custody over the assault when the report of the bodies of Kevin Williford and Judith Hunter being found was received by police. Testimony by Rutan indicated that Rogers and Smith were responsible for the shooting of Williford and Hunter. Police interviews played in court showed Rogers and Smith blaming each other for the killing of Williford and Hunter. Rogers and Smith are being held without bond in the Greene County Jail. They are scheduled for arraignment on May 23.
April 9, 2022 1:25 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – It’s a moment 46 days and more than two centuries in the making. President Joe Biden on Friday will celebrate the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to reach the Supreme Court, marking the pinnacle of her legal career and bringing his political story full circle. As a longtime Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Biden had a front-row seat to some of the most contentious confirmation battles in the court’s history. He also presided over the hearings for Justice Stephen Breyer, whose retirement this summer is clearing the way for Jackson to join the bench. (Photo: AP)
April 9, 2022 1:01 am
LOS ANGELES (AP) – The motion picture academy has banned Will Smith from attending the Oscars or any other academy event for 10 years following his slap of Chris Rock at the Academy Awards. The move comes after a meeting Friday of the academy’s board of governors to discuss a response to Smith’s actions. The academy in a statement called Smith’s actions “unacceptable and harmful.” Smith preemptively resigned from the academy last week during the run-up to the meeting and said he would accept any punishment the academy handed down. The academy also apologized for its handling of the slap and allowing Smith to remain and receive his best actor Oscar for “King Richard.”
April 8, 2022 4:59 pm
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) – Jurors have acquitted two defendants of all charges in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer but couldn’t agree on a verdict for two others. The verdicts were read Friday at the federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta were acquitted. The jurors could not agree on verdicts for Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. Croft is from Delaware and the others are from Michigan. Defense attorneys portrayed their clients as weekend warriors, often stoned and prone to wild talk. They said FBI undercover agents and informants tricked the men into agreeing to a conspiracy. Prosecutors entered evidence that the men discussed abducting Whitmer before the FBI sting began.
April 8, 2022 4:26 am
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – Officials say a suspect arrested in connection with Sunday’s mass shooting near the California state Capitol would likely still be in prison were it not for corrections officials’ use of sentencing credits authorized by voters in 2016. Smiley Allen Martin was released in February after serving less than half his 10-year sentence. He was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a machine gun. The California District Attorneys Association’s executive officer says Martin typically would not have been freed until at least May were it not for earlier release credits.
