Thursday, June 21, 2012

Sandusky jury to resume deliberations on Friday

Sandusky jury to resume deliberations on Friday


Sandusky jury to resume deliberations on Friday

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 07:20 PM PDT

Former Penn State assistant football coach Sandusky leaves the Centre County Courthouse after closing arguments in his child sex abuse trial in Bellefonte(Note: explicit sexual content) BELLEFONTE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The jury in the child sex abuse trial of Jerry Sandusky began deliberations on Thursday but without hearing a shocking new accusation from Sandusky's adopted son that he, too, was abused by the former Penn State assistant football coach. Prosecutors told the jury that Sandusky was a "serial predatory pedophile" who targeted young boys yearning for a father figure, while the defense said he had been ruined by overzealous prosecutors and false accusers hoping for a payday from civil lawsuits. ...


Worst ever Duluth, Minnesota flood causes $80 million in damage

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:35 PM PDT

A street is flooded in DuluthDULUTH, Minnesota (Reuters) - Duluth officials on Thursday estimated damage at up to $80 million just to the city's public infrastructure from the flood that swamped the northeast Minnesota city and nearby communities this week. The flooding, which left huge sinkholes and ripped up dozens of roads, also forced hundreds of people from their homes and killed several zoo animals. ...


Trayvon Martin shooter's statements to police made public

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 11:35 AM PDT

George Zimmerman explains the sequence of events leading up to the February 26, 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin in SanfordMIAMI (Reuters) - "You're going to die tonight" were among the last words Florida neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman heard from Trayvon Martin before he shot and killed the unarmed black teenager, Zimmerman told police. The death threat came as Martin was pounding his head into the ground and trying to smother him, according to Zimmerman's statements to detectives in the central Florida town of Sanford soon after the killing on a rainy night in February. ...


IRS to review whistleblower program for speed, quality

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 07:10 PM PDT

The National Debt Clock hangs on a wall next to an office for the Internal Revenue Service near Times Square in New YorkNEW YORK (Reuters) - The Internal Revenue Service is planning a "comprehensive review" of its embattled whistleblower program to improve the speed and quality of its decisions, an agency official said in a June 20 memorandum. The IRS will work with "internal and external shareholders" to produce a set of expectations to speed up the evaluation and payment of whistleblower claims, IRS Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller wrote in a memorandum posted on the agency's website, first reported by Bloomberg News. ...


Heat wave blankets Northeast for 2nd day

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:47 PM PDT

Two girls cool off in the mist from a fountain on the Rose Kennedy Greenway on a hot summer day in BostonNEW YORK (Reuters) - A heat wave blanketed the U.S. mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Thursday, sparking brownouts in New York City and forcing utilities across the region to ask customers to conserve electricity. Despite local transmission problems, regional power grid operators in New York, New England and the 13 states served by the PJM regional transmission group expected to have enough power to meet soaring demand on the second day of the hot weather. ...


"Chowchilla" kidnapper released from California prison

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 05:38 PM PDT

Handout booking photo of Richard Allen SchoenfeldLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - One of three men who kidnapped a busload of school children in California more than three decades ago and buried them alive in a moving van has been released on parole, state prison officials said on Thursday. Richard Schoenfeld, 57, was freed on Wednesday after serving more than 34 years in prison for his role in the 1976 abduction of 26 children and their bus driver in the town of Chowchilla in central California. ...


Church cuts jobs amid Philadelphia child sex abuse trial

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 05:09 PM PDT

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The beleaguered Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, beset by criminal and civil lawsuits related to a child sex abuse scandal, said on Thursday it is bleeding money and will lay off 45 people and close its 117-year-old newspaper. Archbishop Charles Chaput said the 1.5 million member archdiocese faces a $17 million shortfall in the next fiscal year, which Chaput said does not take into account another $10 million in legal and investigatory expenses over the past several months. ...

Four charged in Brooklyn with intimidating victim of alleged sex abuse

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 05:18 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Four men were charged on Thursday with attempting to intimidate and bribe a teenage girl who is a witness in an upcoming sexual-assault trial, the first case resulting from a new task force to address witness tampering in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish community. According to an indictment, Abraham Rubin, 48, offered the alleged victim and her boyfriend $500,000 to recant testimony against Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed psychotherapist awaiting trial on charges he repeatedly abused the girl, starting when she was 12 years old. ...

Louisiana sex offenders must soon post their status on Facebook

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 04:52 PM PDT

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Convicted sex offenders and child predators who set up a Facebook or other social networking page will have to post their criminal status in their profile under a Louisiana law that takes effect on August 1. The measure, proposed by State Representative Jeff Thompson, may be the first such law in the nation. It expands on current state law requiring persons convicted of such crimes as aggravated incest, rape and pornography involving juveniles to disclose their crimes to local police, schools and other entities in the area where they live. ...

Justice Department files bias suit against towns home to polygamist sect

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 06:54 PM PDT

WASHINGTON/SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department sued two polygamist-dominated towns on the Utah-Arizona border on Thursday, citing religious discrimination and saying they operated for two decades as an arm of a breakaway Mormon sect. The complaint accuses the cities of carrying out the "will and dictates" of now-imprisoned sect leader Warren Jeffs, who is serving a prison term of life plus 20 years in Texas for raping two underage girls he wed in "spiritual marriages. ...

DOJ files bias suit against towns home to polygamist sect

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 03:44 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday sued two towns on the Utah-Arizona border that are dominated by a polygamist Mormon sect, citing religious discrimination and civil rights violations against residents who do not share the majority faith. The lawsuit against the twin cities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, said the towns and their joint police department and utility providers had allowed the sect to unduly influence the provision of public services, including policing. ...

Texas prepares for soaring power demand next week

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 05:01 PM PDT

HOUSTON (Reuters) - As a heat wave dissipates in the U.S. Northeast, the Texas electric grid is projecting record June demand next week as temperatures are forecast to climb to the upper 90s and low 100s Fahrenheit (37 Celsius) across the state. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said peak-hour power consumption could exceed 66,000 megawatts Monday afternoon, surpassing the monthly records for June of last year and straining the state's electric resources. ...

Jury deliberations begin in Sandusky trial as new abuse alleged

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 03:05 PM PDT

Former Penn State assistant football coach Sandusky leaves the Centre County Courthouse after closing arguments in his child sex abuse trial in Bellefonte(Note: explicit sexual content) BELLEFONTE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The jury in the child sex abuse trial of Jerry Sandusky began deliberations on Thursday, after they heard a prosecutor describe the former Penn State football coach as "a serial predatory pedophile" who preyed on young boys yearning for a father figure. As jurors started their discussions, a news report surfaced that Matt Sandusky, 33, had met with prosecutors this week to tell them he had been molested by Jerry Sandusky, his adopted father. ...


No money for sterilization victims in North Carolina budget

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 04:02 PM PDT

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - North Carolina's effort to become the first state to compensate people subjected to involuntary sterilizations failed when legislators passed a $20.2 billion budget on Thursday that does not include proposed $50,000 payments for each victim still alive. The news came as a blow for the 146 verified living victims of a decades-long, state-sanctioned eugenics program that forced sterilizations and castrations on citizens deemed unfit to bear children. ...

Fund for bullied New York grandmother tops $330k... and rising

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 03:03 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A fund set up for an upstate New York grandmother has taken in more than $330,000 in just over 24 hours after a video showing her being bullied by middle schoolers on a school bus went viral on the Internet. The ten-minute video, in which students from Athena Middle School in suburban Rochester insult 68-year-old bus monitor Karen Klein, making her cry, has received more than 1.8 million views on YouTube. ...

Mob suspect Bulger wants trial delay, prosecutors object

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 03:29 PM PDT

BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors have asked a judge to deny a request from reputed Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger to postpone his murder trial for a year. Bulger, who spent years on the FBI's most wanted list, turns 83 in September. He has pleaded not guilty to 19 murder charges, which date from the 1970s and 1980s. Bulger's attorney this week asked that the trial on charges related to 19 alleged murders be delayed to November 2013, saying the defense "cannot possibly be prepared. ...

Texas prepares for soaring power demand next week

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 04:51 PM PDT

HOUSTON (Reuters) - As a heat wave dissipates in the U.S. Northeast, the Texas electric grid is projecting record June demand next week as temperatures are forecast to climb then to the upper 90s and low 100s Fahrenheit (37 Celsius) across the state. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said peak-hour power consumption could exceed 66,000 megawatts Monday afternoon, surpassing the monthly records for June of last year and straining the state's electric resources. ...

U.S. lawmakers voice optimism on transportation bill talks

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 03:18 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prospects for a deal to fund U.S. transportation projects over the long term appeared to brighten somewhat on Thursday as key House and Senate lawmakers described their negotiations in more optimistic terms. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the talks had improved in the last 24 hours and he was hopeful for an agreement before current authority for road, bridge and rail funding expires on June 30. Congress has been struggling to approve a long-term transportation bill since last fall. Nearly 3 million construction jobs depend on the outcome. ...

Rescue team reaches fallen climber on Oregon's Mount Hood

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:29 PM PDT

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - A rescue team scrambled up Mount Hood in Oregon on Thursday to reach a badly injured climber left stranded but alive after he fell hundreds of feet while trying to scale the peak alone, authorities said. Gary Morgan, 52, is reported to have suffered a serious injury to his leg or hip, and secondary injuries to other parts of his body, the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. It added that the rescue operation could take several hours. ...

Leader of Apple iScam gets up to 9 years in prison

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 03:02 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A computer-savvy thief won't be on the street for Apple Inc's next big product launch. Shaheed Bilal, 29, was sentenced to 4-1/2 to nine years behind bars for running a cybercrime ring that created counterfeit credit cards and then used them in Apple Inc stores across the country. The ring, which also included Bilal's brothers and girlfriend, purchased more than $1 million worth of iPads, iPhones and MacBooks over 2-1/2 years starting in 2008, and sold them to dealers in stolen goods in Brooklyn, New York. ...

Ex-Stanford exec Holt pleads guilty to obstruction

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:14 PM PDT

Former Stanford Financial executive Laura Pendergest-Holt arrives at federal court in HoustonHOUSTON (Reuters) - The chief investment officer of disgraced former billionaire Allen Stanford's defunct financial firm pleaded guilty on Thursday to lying to U.S. regulators in 2009 in an effort to delay their probe into a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Laura Pendergest-Holt, 38, admitted to a single count of obstruction of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation for her role in the scheme. She originally was charged in 2009 with 21 counts of fraud, conspiracy and obstruction. "I knew I was delaying the SEC," she said tearfully before U.S. ...


Marijuana veto in New Hampshire bucks regional trend

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:06 PM PDT

LITTLETON, New Hampshire (Reuters) - New Hampshire's Democratic governor on Thursday vetoed a bill passed by the Republican-controlled legislature that would legalize medical marijuana in the state, bucking a trend towards legalization in New England. Governor John Lynch said the measure did not provide sufficient restrictions on the cultivation and prescription of marijuana. He also opposes provisions authorizing teenagers to use it for treatment. ...

Dozens sickened by chemical in Indianapolis pool

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 01:28 PM PDT

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Dozens of people at a crowded public swimming pool were sickened on Thursday by an excessive amount of a water-purifying chemical in the pool, authorities said. The chlorine-based purifying chemical, called "Magic Acid," caused nausea, coughing and watery eyes among the swimmers, many of them children, and 71 people were taken to hospitals, Todd Harper of the Indianapolis Emergency Services said. All were listed in fair condition, and none of the injuries were considered life-threatening, he said. ...

As churches get political, IRS stays quiet

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 11:32 AM PDT

Pastor Jim Garlow is shown in this undated handout photo courtesy of Skyline Wesleyan Church(Reuters) - Pastor Jim Garlow will stand before congregants at his 2,000-seat Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, California, on Sunday, October 7, just weeks before the U.S. presidential and congressional elections, and urge his flock to vote for or against particular candidates. He knows such pulpit pleading could endanger his church's tax-exempt status by violating IRS rules for a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. A charity can take a position on policy issues but cannot act "on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office. ...


U.S. expects record $60 billion in arms sales in 2012

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 10:43 AM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. arms exports are headed for a record $60 billion this year, but in coming years will probably return to the recent norm of about half that sum, a senior Pentagon official said Thursday. Foreign military sales "likely will go to $60 billion" in fiscal 2012 ending September 30, said Richard Genaille, deputy director of the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which brokers such government-to-government deals. ...

Police raid fuels political tension in Georgia

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 12:11 PM PDT

TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgian police seized satellite dishes on Thursday from a company suspected of giving them away to win votes for opposition leader Bidzina Ivanishvili's coalition, increasing tension before a parliamentary election. The police seized the receivers from Global Contact Consulting, owned by the billionaire businessman's brother, and a bribery investigation was launched. Gifts to voters could be seen as a violation of the law as Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition challenges President Mikheil Saakashvili's ruling party. ...

California serial killer arraigned on '70s NY murders

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 12:30 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Convicted California serial killer Rodney Alcala was arraigned Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court on charges of murdering two women in the 1970s, the same decade when he appeared on "The Dating Game" television show as a bachelor contestant. The 68-year-old Alcala, who was extradited from death row in California to New York and arrived Wednesday, entered court in handcuffs and an orange corrections jumpsuit, his graying hair held back in a ponytail. He pleaded not guilty to the charges. ...

Senate overhauls farm bill, but time running out

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 03:32 PM PDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate approved sweeping new U.S. farm legislation on Thursday that would cut almost all traditional farm subsidies while expanding a costly crop insurance program, but chances are slim the bill will pass this year. Passed by a 2-1 margin, the Senate's $498 billion five-year farm bill would compensate growers when revenue from a crop falls, rather than prop up prices. The bill saves at least $23 billion by cutting crop subsidies, conservation funding and food stamps for the poor. Crop subsidies provide the bulk of the savings. "This is about reform. ...

U.S. tabloid sued over coverage of girl missing in Aruba

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 11:27 AM PDT

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - The mother of Natalee Holloway, an American teenager who disappeared in Aruba seven years ago, has sued the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer for publishing articles about her daughter that it knew were false in order to increase sales. Beth Holloway, in a suit filed in federal court in Birmingham, Alabama, said the coverage over seven years caused her "emotional stress so severe that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it. ...

Judge halts trial of Alabama football fan accused of tree poisoning

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 11:35 AM PDT

MOBILE, Ala (Reuters) - A judge abruptly halted the trial on Thursday of an avid University of Alabama sports fan accused of poisoning two 130-year-old oak trees near rival Auburn University's campus, saying the jury pool had been tainted. Harvey Updyke, 63, faces charges of criminal mischief and unlawful property damage in connection with the poisoning of the beloved trees at Toomer's Corner, where Auburn fans have gathered for decades to celebrate football victories. ...

Sandusky jury to resume deliberations on Friday

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 07:20 PM PDT

Former Penn State assistant football coach Sandusky leaves the Centre County Courthouse after closing arguments in his child sex abuse trial in Bellefonte(Note: explicit sexual content) BELLEFONTE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The jury in the child sex abuse trial of Jerry Sandusky began deliberations on Thursday but without hearing a shocking new accusation from Sandusky's adopted son that he, too, was abused by the former Penn State assistant football coach. Prosecutors told the jury that Sandusky was a "serial predatory pedophile" who targeted young boys yearning for a father figure, while the defense said he had been ruined by overzealous prosecutors and false accusers hoping for a payday from civil lawsuits. ...


IRS to review whistleblower program for speed, quality

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 07:10 PM PDT

The National Debt Clock hangs on a wall next to an office for the Internal Revenue Service near Times Square in New YorkNEW YORK (Reuters) - The Internal Revenue Service is planning a "comprehensive review" of its embattled whistleblower program to improve the speed and quality of its decisions, an agency official said in a June 20 memorandum. The IRS will work with "internal and external shareholders" to produce a set of expectations to speed up the evaluation and payment of whistleblower claims, IRS Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller wrote in a memorandum posted on the agency's website, first reported by Bloomberg News. ...


Justice Department files bias suit against towns home to polygamist sect

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 06:54 PM PDT

WASHINGTON/SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department sued two polygamist-dominated towns on the Utah-Arizona border on Thursday, citing religious discrimination and saying they operated for two decades as an arm of a breakaway Mormon sect. The complaint accuses the cities of carrying out the "will and dictates" of now-imprisoned sect leader Warren Jeffs, who is serving a prison term of life plus 20 years in Texas for raping two underage girls he wed in "spiritual marriages. ...

Factbox: Letters in Sandusky sex abuse trial to alleged victim

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 05:51 PM PDT

(Reuters) - The following are excerpts from some of the six letters and a "story" entered as evidence in the child sex abuse trial of former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach. All were handwritten by Sandusky and addressed to an accuser known in court documents as Victim 4. Sandusky is charged with five counts of sexual abuse against Victim 4, who was the first witness called by the prosecution. The letters were undated. Reuters policy is not to identify the victims of sexual crimes. "The (Victim 4)-J story" "Very few people know about this story and probably less care. ...

"Chowchilla" kidnapper released from California prison

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 05:38 PM PDT

Handout booking photo of Richard Allen SchoenfeldLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - One of three men who kidnapped a busload of school children in California more than three decades ago and buried them alive in a moving van has been released on parole, state prison officials said on Thursday. Richard Schoenfeld, 57, was freed on Wednesday after serving more than 34 years in prison for his role in the 1976 abduction of 26 children and their bus driver in the town of Chowchilla in central California. ...


Four charged in Brooklyn with intimidating victim of alleged sex abuse

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 05:18 PM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Four men were charged on Thursday with attempting to intimidate and bribe a teenage girl who is a witness in an upcoming sexual-assault trial, the first case resulting from a new task force to address witness tampering in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish community. According to an indictment, Abraham Rubin, 48, offered the alleged victim and her boyfriend $500,000 to recant testimony against Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed psychotherapist awaiting trial on charges he repeatedly abused the girl, starting when she was 12 years old. ...

Church cuts jobs amid Philadelphia child sex abuse trial

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 05:09 PM PDT

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The beleaguered Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, beset by criminal and civil lawsuits related to a child sex abuse scandal, said on Thursday it is bleeding money and will lay off 45 people and close its 117-year-old newspaper. Archbishop Charles Chaput said the 1.5 million member archdiocese faces a $17 million shortfall in the next fiscal year, which Chaput said does not take into account another $10 million in legal and investigatory expenses over the past several months. ...

Texas prepares for soaring power demand next week

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 05:01 PM PDT

HOUSTON (Reuters) - As a heat wave dissipates in the U.S. Northeast, the Texas electric grid is projecting record June demand next week as temperatures are forecast to climb to the upper 90s and low 100s Fahrenheit (37 Celsius) across the state. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said peak-hour power consumption could exceed 66,000 megawatts Monday afternoon, surpassing the monthly records for June of last year and straining the state's electric resources. ...

Louisiana sex offenders must soon post their status on Facebook

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 04:52 PM PDT

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Convicted sex offenders and child predators who set up a Facebook or other social networking page will have to post their criminal status in their profile under a Louisiana law that takes effect on August 1. The measure, proposed by State Representative Jeff Thompson, may be the first such law in the nation. It expands on current state law requiring persons convicted of such crimes as aggravated incest, rape and pornography involving juveniles to disclose their crimes to local police, schools and other entities in the area where they live. ...

Heat wave blankets Northeast for 2nd day

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:47 PM PDT

Two girls cool off in the mist from a fountain on the Rose Kennedy Greenway on a hot summer day in BostonNEW YORK (Reuters) - A heat wave blanketed the U.S. mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Thursday, sparking brownouts in New York City and forcing utilities across the region to ask customers to conserve electricity. Despite local transmission problems, regional power grid operators in New York, New England and the 13 states served by the PJM regional transmission group expected to have enough power to meet soaring demand on the second day of the hot weather. ...


No comments:

Post a Comment