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CORNING, N.Y. -- An upstate New York congressman said he and his family were threatened with a dead animal and a brick bearing a family member’s name at his home Friday.
The brick and the animal were found at Republican Rep. Tom Reed's house after 10:30 a.m., according to the Corning Police Department, which said it was working with state police and federal agencies to investigate, according to WIVB-TV.
Neither Reed nor police specified what kind of animal it was or provided other details.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- A Republican candidate running for Arkansas State Senate said he made “mistakes" as a teenager after repeatedly denying his dismissal from a Mississippi high school for wearing a racist Ku Klux Klan costume for Halloween.
Charles Edward Beckham III initially denied reports from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Arkansas Times that he was suspended and dismissed from Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science for wearing a racist Ku Klux Klan costume at a school-sponsored Halloween event. The Arkansas Times first reported Beckham's dismissal on Tuesday.
Beckham also told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a email Tuesday that people fabricated the allegations and blamed it on a ploy by the Democrats.
“First of all, I unequivocally denounce the KKK and any like minded hate group,” Beckham said in the email. “It is sad that the Democrats will do anything and say anything to try to win. The accusations that have been made about me are not only baseless and false, but disgusting.”
But the Democrat-Gazette obtained court records from a lawsuit Beckham's family filed in Hinds County Circuit Court in Jackson, Mississippi, that challenged his dismissal from the school.
The United States signed an international declaration on Thursday designed to strengthen families but that some say may weaken abortion rights around the globe.
The declaration is included in the Geneva Consensus, which 32 countries have signed and has been co-sponsored by Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Hungary and Uganda.
Part of the declaration reads “in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning.”
The Geneva Consensus is meant to encourage women’s rights and health, excluding abortion access, and was spearheaded by secretary of state Mike Pompeo. The aim of the declaration is to align U.S. foreign policy with socially conservative values.
The estranged wife of the man in custody who is accused of shooting one Houston police officer to death and wounding another issued a statement one day after the deadly incident at an apartment complex on Holly Hall.
She said if it wasn't for Sgt. Harold Preston's heroics, she would be dead.
"I pray that he rests in heaven, because if it were not for him, I know I would have been killed," she said. "He saved my life. He is a hero. He died protecting me and my family."
Preston and officer Courtney Waller responded to a domestic violence call at an apartment complex in the 2600 block of Holly Hall just before 8 a.m. Tuesday. They spoke to the estranged wife in the parking lot for about an hour before her son came out of the apartment and told them that his father had a gun. That's when police said Elmer Manzano opened fire, shooting both officers.
The mayor of Waukegan, Illinois, made an emotional plea for residents to stay calm after police opened fire on a car occupied by an unarmed young Black couple, killing one and wounding the other.
Mayor Sam Cunningham said he is close personal friends with the grieving families of the couple shot on Tuesday night in the Chicago suburb, prompting outrage and plans for a large protest on Thursday.
Relatives identified the couple as 19-year-old Marcellis Stinnette, who was killed, and Tafarra Willams, the mother of his baby, who was wounded.
Lake County Coroner Dr. Howard Cooper confirmed Stinnette's identity on Thursday and said preliminary autopsy results indicate he died "from injuries due to gunshot."
"This is tough on Waukegan. This is tough on this community," Cunningham said at a news conference on Wednesday. " I know these families personally."
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia is taking in a deep breath of fresh air. At least that’s the opinion of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Governor Jim Justice announced a milestone Wednesday in which the air quality in West Virginia, for the first time since the agency started tracking, is within all acceptable particulate levels.
“The entire state of West Virginia is now meeting all US EPA health based national ambient air quality standards for the first time since EPA made their initial non-attainment designation under the 1970 Clean Air Act in 1978,” Justice told a small group of employees of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection on Wednesday.
Justice appeared at the DEP headquarters alongside the U.S. EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Cosmo Servido.
Servido congratulated Justice and the DEP on the strong progress in air quality improvement. He was there to also announce other important news for the department involving the state’s water quality.
“I’m here to announce a $24 Million clean water state revolving fund grant to West Virginia. This grant, along with $5 Million in state matching funds, further capitalizes on the fund that provides low interest loans for the construction of waste water treatment facilities, storm water and estuary projects, and other water quality activities,” Servido said.
A 20-year-old suburban Detroit woman who was declared dead only to be found alive at a funeral home in August has died, the attorney representing her family said Monday.
Timesha Beauchamp died Sunday at Children’s Hospital in Detroit, Geoffrey Fieger said in a news release.
Beauchamp’s family, who live in Southfield, called 911 on Aug. 23 because she appeared to be suffering from serious breathing problems. Emergency medical technicians and paramedics responded, and a doctor who didn’t attend the scene pronounced Beauchamp deceased after one of the first responders reported by telephone that she had been unresponsive for 30 minutes and showed no signs of life.
Beauchamp wasn’t taken to a hospital until an hour later when Cole Funeral Home in Detroit called 911. The state said funeral home staff saw her chest moving when they went to collect her from her Southfield home.
The Justice Department announced an $8 billion settlement with Purdue Pharma, the OxyContin maker widely accused of fueling the nation's opioid crisis that has been blamed for more than 400,000 American deaths in the last 20 years.
The settlement resolves criminal and civil investigations into how Purdue Pharma aggressively marketed its powerful painkillers but the staggering amount is largely symbolic. The company is tied up in bankruptcy proceedings and lacks the assets to pay the full amount.
The Sacklers, the wealthy family that controls the company, will separately pay $225 million to resolve civil claims.
The settlement agreement does not prevent family members or company executives from being prosecuted in the future.
The Sackler family said family members who served on the Pharma's board of directors acted "ethically and lawfully," which would be proven in "the upcoming release of company documents," a statement from family on Wedensday read.
Marine Maj. Gen. Stephen Neary was fired Tuesday from his command of Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa by Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger, according to the Corps.
“Neary was relieved due to a loss of trust and confidence in his ability to serve in command,” said a Tuesday press release from Headquarters Marine Corps.
The general is under investigation for alleged use of a racial slur during physical training outside the Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa headquarters in Böblingen, Germany, Stars and Stripes first reported.
Neary allegedly asked junior Marines how they felt about the N-word while they were conducting physical training with rap music using the word on in the background, “which prompted Neary to ask the junior Marines how they would feel if he said it,” a lance corporal present told Stripes.
(Reuters) - A Kentucky judge ruled on Tuesday that an anonymous grand juror may speak publicly about the evidence that the state attorney general presented in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor by police officers.
The juror, whose name has not been publicly disclosed, filed suit against the state for permission to speak freely about the secret grand jury proceeding. The suit suggested that Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron may have misrepresented details of the case that the jury heard.
The proceedings that ended with the jury recommending no homicide charges against the three white officers in the case, an outcome that stoked days of protests over the use of excessive force by police against blacks and minorities. One of the officers, Brett Hankison, was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment for firing into a neighbor’s apartment.
WASHINGTON – An independent government watchdog agency has agreed to investigate alleged political influence from the Trump administration over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
The Government Accountability Office, an independent legislative agency that investigates, audits and evaluates government operations for Congress, accepted a Senate request on Monday to examine potential political interference and "determine whether this interference has violated the agencies’ scientific integrity and communication policies.”
"We expect the work will start in January, as staff who cover those issues become available," Charles Young, a spokesman for GAO, told USA TODAY.
THESSALONIKI, Greece -- Greece’s government says it has finalized plans to build a wall along its northeast border with Turkey, over concerns that migrants may try to stage mass crossings into the European Union country.
Government spokesman Stelios Petsas said Monday that 26 kilometers (16 miles) of wall would be added to an existing 10-kilometer (six-mile) section of fence in a 63-million-euro ($74 million) project due to be completed by the end of April.
A standoff occurred at the border earlier this year after Turkey said it would no longer prevent migrants trying to reach the EU, and tens of thousands tried to cross into Greece.
The two countries are also at odds over energy rights in the eastern Mediterranean in a dispute that has triggered a dangerous military buildup in the region and fears of conflict.
PHILADELPHIA -- Police unions nationwide have largely supported President Donald Trump’s reelection, amid mass demonstrations over police brutality and accusations of systemic racism — but a number of Black law enforcement officers are speaking out against these endorsements, saying their concerns over entering the 2020 political fray were ignored.
Trump has touted his support from the law enforcement community, which includes endorsements from national, city and state officers’ unions — some of which publicly endorsed a political candidate for the first time. He’s running on what he calls a “law and order” platform and tapping into a strain of anger and frustration felt by law enforcement who believe they are being unfairly accused of racial discrimination.
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While support for the Republican incumbent does not strictly fall along racial lines, many Black officers say the endorsements for Trump don’t fairly represent all dues-paying members.
“We are members of these unions, and they don’t take into consideration our feelings about Donald J. Trump, then they don’t care about us and ... they don’t care about our dues,” said Rochelle Bilal, the recent past president of the Guardian Civic League of Philadelphia, calling the National Fraternal Order of Police's Trump endorsement an “outrage.”
Bilal, who was elected as Philadelphia’s first Black female sheriff last year, spoke at at an early October news conference with other Black law enforcement groups in Philadelphia to condemn Trump endorsements and the process they say ignored their concerns over what they perceived to be racist remarks, support for white supremacist groups and a lack of respect for women from Trump.
Read More at ABC News:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/black-officers-break-unions-trump-endorsements-73678834
