Evansville

U.S. veteran group 'expects' Trump apology for brain injury comment

A U.S. war veteran group is "expecting" an apology from U.S. President Donald Trump for his comments that downplayed traumatic brain injuries, an official said on Friday. Speaking in Davos on Wednesday, Trump said he did not consider the brain injuries suffered by U.S. service members in Iran's recent attack on a base in Iraq as serious.

SC sheriff: Deputies shot man who fired into home of girlfriend, child, grandmother

The sheriff said his deputies entered a “volatile situation.”

Man 'charges at police with hammer after being caught shining lasers at planes'

A man has been arrested for allegedly pointing lasers at planes trying to land at a Florida airport.Charlie Chapman Jr aimed the laser at a plane four times, as well as a sheriff's helicopter as they tried to land at Sarasota Bradenton Airport, police say.

As defense opens, Trump attorneys accuse Democrats of 'blind drive' to impeachment

Attorneys for President Trump opened their defense in his Senate impeachment trial Saturday morning by charging that the case presented by House Democrats was full of “bluster and innuendo,” and that “devastating evidence” would lead to the inevitable conclusion that the two articles of impeachment now being considered have no merit.

‘No longer a threat to our children.’ Man gets 50 year sentence for sexual extortion

A Virginia man was sentenced to 50 years in prison for sexually extorting children across the country, including South Florida.

2 teens charged with murder of man found shot to dead in Cadillac off SC road

The teens could face the death penalty if it’s found the killing was connected to a robbery or other crime.

US military investigating after finding Pornhub video of Navy service members shot through peephole

The Navy is reportedly investigating videos found on the website Pornhub that they believe show unsuspecting service members through a peephole in a bathroom.The videos were discovered earlier this month by an agent from the Naval Criminal Investigative Series, according to a report by NBC News.

A Miami-Dade teen grabbed a knife and threatened to kill himself. He’s now missing.

Before he left his Southwest Miami-Dade home, 13-year-old Jerell Jordan grabbed a knife and said he was going to kill himself, police said in a missing person alert.

Jeff Bezos’s girlfriend gave Amazon boss’s ‘flirtatious texts’ to brother who leaked to National Enquirer, report claims

Text messages allegedly sent by Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos may have been sold to tabloid newspaper the National Enquirer by his girlfriend’s brother, according to sources quoted by The Wall Street Journal.According to the paper, federal prosecutors are examining messages, including at least one photograph, first sent by the world’s richest man to news reporter Lauren Sanchez, with whom he was having an extramarital affair.

Boeing's 777X jetliner successfully completes maiden flight

Boeing Co successfully completed on Saturday the maiden flight of the world's largest twin-engined jetliner as the embattled planemaker steps up competition with European rival Airbus in a respite from a crisis over its smaller 737 MAX. The 777X, a larger and more efficient version of Boeing's successful 777 mini-jumbo, took off outside Seattle at 10:09 a.m. local time (1809 GMT) and landed at 2:00 p.m. (2200 GMT). Boeing officials said the maiden voyage would herald months of testing and certification before the aircraft enters service with Emirates in 2021, a year later than originally scheduled because of snags during development.

Senate impeachment trial: Trump’s legal team mounts his defense

President Donald Trump's legal team Saturday took to the Senate floor to argue against the case made by the House impeachment managers over the past three days. The president’s lawyers also will have 24 hours over three days to persuade senators that the articles of impeachment charged -- abuse of power and obstruction of Congress -- do not amount to impeachable offenses. As Jay Sekulow, the president's personal attorney, predicted, they briefly brought up former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, after Democrats raised them repeatedly in an effort to preempt the expected White House defense.

Peter MacKay begins bid to lead Canada's Conservative party

Former Canadian cabinet minister Peter MacKay criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday as he officially announced he is running to be leader of Canada's Conservative Party. MacKay served as foreign minister and defense minister in ex-Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government.

NYPD cop and fiancee allegedly froze 8-year-old boy with autism to death, police said

An 8-year-old boy with autism died of hypothermia last week after his NYPD cop dad allegedly placed him inside a freezing cold garage as temperatures dropped well below zero, officials said. Suffolk County police arrested 40-year-old Michael Valva and his 42-year-old fiancee, Angela Pollina, on Friday for the second-degree murder of Thomas Valva. The child was taken to Long Island Community Hospital where his "body temperature was at 76 degrees," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart said at a press conference on Friday.

Seller auctioning JFK docs from ex-California governor

Former California Gov. Jerry Brown wants to know who is trying to sell his father’s memorabilia related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Private letters and other items that had belonged to Edmund G. “Pat” Brown when he was governor are being offered by the auction house Sotheby’s, which estimates the value at $20,000 to $30,000. Sotheby's says the seller wants to remain anonymous.

Warden in charge of prison during Epstein suicide moved to different facility: Source

The warden in charge of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, at the time convicted sex offender and financier Jeffery Epstein died by suicide, has been relocated, a source familiar with the decision told ABC News. Lamine N’Diaye was moved to a leadership position at a minimum security prison at FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey, putting him back in the field with inmates despite the ongoing Epstein investigation.

EU plans more protectionist antitrust rules, data sharing in policy shake-up

The EU plans to adopt more protectionist antitrust rules and encourage businesses to share data as part of an industrial policy overhaul aimed at giving European companies a sharper edge in global markets, a strategy document seen by Reuters shows. Drafted by the European Commission and set to be unveiled in March, the strategy also includes the more aggressive use of trade defense instruments against companies deemed to be benefiting unfairly from foreign subsidies. "Our vision is not about shielding uncompetitive industries or encouraging protectionist policies ... At the same time, the EU cannot be complacent about third countries or companies undermining fair competition in the single market on global markets," the document said.

Fashion retailer H&M says data protection breaches unacceptable

STOCKHOLM/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Fashion retailer H&M said on Saturday that data security breaches found at its German unit were unacceptable and it was cooperating with the local data protection supervisory authority in its investigation into the matter. "The local team has taken a range of action and is in close dialogue with all colleagues", an H&M spokeswoman said in a statement. Earlier German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the State Data Protection Commissioner in Hamburg, Johannes Caspar, had started a probe into H&M management on unlawfully sounding out workers about their personal life and storing the details.

Female prisoner dies after guards ‘did not stop her being beaten with soap bars’

A female prisoner died after guards did not intervene while she was being beaten with a sock filled with bars of soap, it is claimed in a lawsuit set to be heard in the US.Nicole Rathmann was attacked by another inmate as she lay on her bunk at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

Friend recounts victim's last moments before Houston explosion

A deadly explosion that left two people dead and sent shock waves throughout the city was felt by one of the victim's friends, just after they spoke on the phone. Bobbie, a friend of one of the victims, told ABC Houston station KTRK that the two were on the phone when the victim arrived at the Watson Grinding and Manufacturing just before 4:30 a.m. Friday, when the blast occurred. "He said, 'I can hear a very loud hissing sound,'" Bobbie said.

Sanders grabs lead in Iowa race as support for Warren drops: New York Times

Senator Bernie Sanders is leading other Democratic presidential candidates with 25% of the likely vote in Iowa, just over a week before statewide caucuses in the state, a New York Times/Siena College poll released Saturday showed. Sanders has gained six points since the last Times/Siena poll in October, while support for Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and former Vice President Joe Biden has remained steady at 18% and 17%, respectively, it showed. Sanders' gains come at the expense of his fellow progressive, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, whose support dropped to 15% from 22% in the October poll, the New York Times reported.

AOC and Michael Moore urge Iowa voters not to 'play it safe' as they stand in for Sanders

Two of Bernie Sanders’s highest-profile allies, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, filled in for him on the campaign trail Friday night, speaking to a rally here at the University of Iowa, as the Vermont senator participated in the impeachment trial in Washington, D.C. 

2 dead in Houston explosion that destroyed building, caused 'significant' damage to homes

The two victims killed in an explosion at a Houston manufacturing facility have been identified, authorities said. Gerardo Castorena and Frank Flores, both employees at Watson Grinding and Manufacturing, were killed in the early-morning blast at the site on Friday, according to the city's police and fire chief. The manufacturing company issued a statement expressing its condolences to the families of the victims, but did not name the two employees who were killed.

Officer Charged in Murder of Son, 8, Kept in Freezing Garage, Police Say

The voices were captured by household surveillance equipment."Get your hand off his mouth," a woman says. "There's people everywhere."The woman, Angela Pollina, was talking to her fiance, Michael Valva, a New York City police officer. The mouth she was urging him to remove his hand from belonged to his son, Thomas, an 8-year-old with autism, officials said.Not long after the recording was made, the authorities said, Thomas Valva was dead. He had been kept overnight in the couple's unheated Long Island garage as the temperature outside plunged to 19 degrees, the police said.His body temperature was just 76 degrees when he was brought to the hospital, the police said.On Friday, Valva and Pollina were charged with second-degree murder in the boy's death. Valva, who joined the New York Police Department in 2005 and was most recently assigned to the transit bureau, was suspended after his arrest, the New York department said.Timothy Sini, the Suffolk County district attorney, described the killing as "one of the worst crimes I've ever seen.""The depravity of these defendants is shocking," Sini said. "They caused the death of this little boy and then they watched him die."There had been warnings that Valva, 40, and Pollina, 42, might be harming at least some of the six children living with them -- his three sons and her three daughters -- at their home in Center Moriches, New York.For at least two years, Valva's estranged wife, Justyna Zubko-Valva, sought to sound the alarm about what she said was his abuse of their sons, according to court filings in their divorce.Sini said Friday that the county's child welfare agency had also been contacted about the family. He declined to elaborate. The couple's other children have been placed in a "safe environment" for the time being, Geraldine Hart, the Suffolk County police commissioner, said.Valva and Pollina called the police to their home early on Jan. 17, officials said. Valva was in the basement when the police arrived, and he appeared to be performing CPR on the boy.He said that Thomas had fallen in the driveway while waiting for the school bus and had then lost consciousness, officials said.Thomas was taken to Long Island Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, officials said. The county medical examiner ruled the death a homicide and found that hypothermia was a major contributing factor, officials said."Thomas Valva was subjected to freezing temperatures in the home's unheated garage overnight when the outside temperature was 19 degrees," Hart said."We have determined Thomas was never in the driveway that morning, and he suffered head and facial injuries that were not consistent with the father's account," the chief added.The police said they were working with the local school district, social services agencies, the FBI and others to try to piece together what had unfolded in the home over time."We are still investigating the extent of the abuse and if it extended to all the children," Hart said.Thomas' mother, Zubko-Valva, told Newsday, "Thank God, the justice is being served."Her son "had such an amazing good heart," she told Newsday. "Everybody who knew him, they instantly fell in love with him. He was just a joy of everybody's life."She and Valva were married in 2004 and began divorce proceedings in 2015, according to court records. Zubko-Valva suggested in court filings that Valva had abused the boys.She cited a 2018 report from a school psychologist that said that Thomas and his 10-year-old brother Anthony "come into school hungry" and that Anthony, who also has autism, had "lost a significant amount of weight."Amanda Wildman, who said she worked for Valva and Pollina as a nanny from 2017 to 2018, said she noticed that the couple treated the boys more harshly than they did the three girls."They were just always very verbally abusive," Wildman said. "I've never seen them put their hands on them, but they were always very assertive. It was sad."Video and audio recordings cited by prosecutors at the couple's arraignment suggested they had some sense of the effect of how they treated the boys.Video shot two nights before Thomas' death, prosecutors said, showed him and Anthony shivering as they slept on the garage floor with no mattress, no pillows and no covers.Audio recorded Friday before the police arrived, prosecutors said, included a child's voice asking, "Why can't Thomas walk?""Because he's hypothermic," prosecutors said Pollina replied. "When you're washed with cold water and it's freezing, you get hypothermia."Later, prosecutors said, Pollina can be heard asking, "What are you doing?"Valva, prosecutors said, replied that he was "suffocating him, that's what I'm doing."That, prosecutors said, was when Pollina asked him to remove his hand.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

'Doorbell Ditch' Prank Led to Crash That Killed 3 Teens, Officials Say

A man who the authorities contend deliberately crashed his car into another one on a Southern California road last Sunday, killing three of the six teenagers inside, did so because the group had played a so-called doorbell ditch prank on him, prosecutors said this week.The man, Anurag Chandra, 42, faces several murder charges for his role in the Temescal Canyon Road crash, which the Riverside County District Attorney's Office said Thursday occurred after the boys played a doorbell ditch prank on him.In a doorbell ditch, also commonly known as a ding-dong-ditch, a person rings a doorbell and tries to run away before anyone opens the door.After one of the boys had been dared, all six teenagers drove to a nearby home on Mojeska Summit Road in Corona, about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles, the district attorney's office said, citing the California Highway Patrol's investigation. The boy rang the doorbell and returned to the 2002 Prius that they were riding in, and the group took off.But Chandra, who lives at the home, chased after them in his 2019 Infiniti Q50, prosecutors said. His car rammed into the back of the Prius, "causing it to veer off the road and into a tree," prosecutors said.Daniel Hawkins, Jacob Ivascu and Drake Ruiz, all 16-year-old passengers, were killed in the crash, prosecutors said. The 18-year-old driver and two other boys, ages 13 and 14, were injured but survived."The circumstances in this case are unusual," John Hall, a spokesman with the Riverside County District Attorney's Office, said in an email Friday. "Based on the evidence in this case, the response and actions taken by the defendant are egregious and extremely disproportionate to a teen ringing a doorbell and running away."Chandra was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday, but "it was continued at the request of the defense," Hall said. A new arraignment has been scheduled for Feb. 21, he said.Chandra "is being held on no bail because this is a potential death penalty case," Hall said. "That is because we have alleged a special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, making him eligible for the death penalty."District Attorney Mike Hestrin of Riverside County will decide whether to seek the death penalty at a later date, he said.Phone calls and messages to numbers listed for Chandra were not immediately returned Friday night. Calls and messages on Friday to the public defender's office, which represented him in court Thursday, were not immediately returned.Speaking to NBC4 in Los Angeles, a bandaged and still-healing Sergio Campusano, the driver of the Prius, said in an interview this week that he had blacked out after the driver of the Infiniti "rammed his car into my back" and his head whipped into his window.Describing the prank, which Campusano said the group came up with during a sleepover, one of the boys was dared to "either jump into a pool at night or go ding-dong-ditch a house."After the boys drove away from the house where the doorbell was rung, the group saw a man from the home following them, and Campusano said the other car got "really, really close.""I was like, 'What is this guy doing?'" Campusano, who tried to drive away from the Infiniti, told the TV station. "Then I felt like a nudge forward, like he hit me from the back.""When he rammed us from the side, I thought, I was like, if anything happens, I love these guys," said Campusano, who described the close-knit group of friends as "all a part of me."The group had been celebrating Jacob's birthday over the weekend, the TV station reported.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

1 dead, 1 hurt after gunfire erupts in Charlotte neighborhood, police say

Police are trying to determine whether there is a relationship between the two victims.

Raisin factory worker killed after her clothes get caught on machine

A woman working in a central California raisin processing facility was killed Friday when her clothes got snagged on a machine, authorities said. Yaneth Lopez Valladares, 33, was identified as the victim in the accident at Del Ray Packing Company in Sanger, according to a statement from the Fresno County Sheriff's Office. Valladares "was working on a Stem Grading Line when [her] clothing got caught on a shaft to a cylinder that breaks up raisin bunches, causing the employee to strike their head," said a statement released by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.