From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
Wall Street Journal – by Heather Haddon
New Jersey Democrats unsuccessfully attempted on Thursday to override Gov. Chris Christie’s veto of a gun-control bill when most GOP supporters of the legislation decided not to buck the presidential candidate.
The legislation would have prevented people with a documented history of mental illness from expunging that record to buy a gun. Continue reading “Lawmakers Fail to Override Christie Veto”
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The state Supreme Court has reversed itself and put back into place an older standard for warrantless searches by police during car stops.
Police can now search a vehicle without a warrant if they have probable cause to believe there is contraband or evidence of a crime as long as the circumstances that led to the probable cause are unforeseeable and spontaneous. Continue reading “State high court reverts back to old warrantless search rule”
If something looks like a cockroach and behaves like a cockroach – well, don’t be so sure. It could be a Russia-created miniature robot which can spy and find people trapped under debris. Scientists say this is the smallest roach robot ever.
Russian scientists from the Kaliningrad-based Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University have presented a prototype of a 100-percent machine cockroach robot that they have developed for a company whose name hasn’t been disclosed. Continue reading “New cockroach robot may save lives … and spy”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate was poised to vote on legislation that would keep the government open beyond next Wednesday’s deadline, but at a price Democrats are certain to reject: stripping taxpayer money from Planned Parenthood.
The stopgap spending bill, which would keep the government operating through Dec. 11, was expected to fail in Thursday’s vote. On Thursday, the White House issued a statement that President Barack Obama would veto it anyway, saying it “would limit access to health care for women, men, and families across the Nation, and disproportionately impact low-income individuals.” Continue reading “Democrats poised to filibuster stopgap funding measure”
CHICAGO (AP) — An effort to identify remains of young men killed by John Wayne Gacy in the 1970s has led to a break in the case of a teenager found shot to death in San Francisco 36 years ago, the latest in nearly a dozen cases either advanced or closed by the attempt to match DNA with exhumed Gacy victims.
The Cook County Sheriff’s office announced Wednesday that DNA tests revealed a “genetic association” between the remains of the teen, Andre “Andy” Drath, and his half-sister, Dr. Willa Wertheimer, who submitted her DNA to the office in 2011. Continue reading “Gacy exhumations help identify another unrelated victim”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Five-year-old Sophie Cruz made her way through a security fence and was just feet from Pope Francis’ popemobile during a short parade around the White House when she hesitated.
Clutching a yellow T-shirt and a note about immigration, she was someplace she wasn’t supposed to be. The uniformed security officer and another in a suit coming toward her probably seemed intimidating. It wasn’t until Francis himself motioned to her that she relented and let a security agent carry her to side of the open-air Jeep. Continue reading “Pope’s security faces Capitol test after parade incident”
Responding to a New York Post report stating that more than 300 New York City municipal employees didn’t earn enough to be able to afford a place to live, the mayor has offered to find them permanent housing.
During a press conference on Monday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio admitted there were people working for the city that were homeless, though he disputed the number initially reported. Continue reading “Hundreds of NYC workers homeless, as mayor to offer permanent housing”
SEATTLE (AP) — Prosecutors told jurors Tuesday that the father of the teenager who shot and killed four classmates and himself repeatedly lied on forms to illegally buy firearms. But the father’s lawyer countered the man underwent multiple background checks and was never told he was barred from having guns.
Raymond Fryberg is charged with illegally owning the handgun his son, Jaylen, used last year in the Marysville-Pilchuck High School shootings. Prosecutors say Fryberg was the subject of a 2002 domestic-violence protection order, making it illegal for him to have that handgun and the nine rifles found in his possession. Continue reading “Defense: Shooter’s dad was never told he couldn’t have guns”
KENTWOOD, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan woman who won a $1 million lottery prize didn’t know about it for months, after leaving the ticket in a pile of mail.
Lottery officials say Linda Tuttle of Kentwood stepped forward Tuesday with a winning ticket from the May 26 Mega Millions drawing. Tuttle told officials she recently found the ticket at home among some old mail. She didn’t search until a clerk at a local store mentioned that it had sold a $1 million winner in May. Continue reading “$1 million lottery ticket found among woman’s old mail”
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces shot a female Palestinian attacker after she attempted to stab a soldier at a West Bank checkpoint on Tuesday, the military said, as tensions continued to simmer ahead of this week’s major Jewish and Muslim holidays.
The military said forces opened fire and “identified a hit” following the incident in the West Bank city of Hebron. The woman’s condition was not immediately known, although the military said she was taken to a Jerusalem hospital for treatment. The soldier was not wounded. Continue reading “Israeli forces shoot Palestinian after stabbing attempt”
BOSTON (AP) — The world finally knows her name — Bella Bond — and some of the grisly circumstances of how she was killed and later found on a beach in Boston Harbor.
But there are many lingering questions: Why didn’t those who knew the 2-year-old girl call police when they stopped seeing her with her mother, Rachelle Bond? Why didn’t state child protection workers remove her from her home when her mother had a history of drug and prostitution arrests? What’s next in the case? Continue reading “Many questions linger in case of girl found dead on beach”
Officials for a national chain store have issued an apology after a customer in its Secaucus store complained about a cashier’s swastika bracelet, a local cable news channel reported.
The shopper, who told News12 he is the son of a Holocaust survivor, said he does not want to see the clerk fired, according to the report, but he hoped the incident would help people be more cognizant of other’s feelings. Continue reading “Sam’s Club apologizes for cashier’s swastika bracelet: report”
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — The anguish in the man’s voice on the 911 call was clear.
He was telling the dispatcher on the other end of the line that he had just tried to drown his children in a pond and he was so distraught and disoriented that he couldn’t describe where he was. “Please send an ambulance. My daughters are in the lake, drowning. Both of my young daughters.”
Alan Tysheen Eugene Lassiter sobbed as he struggled to explain where he was so police could come to help. Later in the call, he told a bystander: “I just drowned my two daughters in the lake back there.” Continue reading “Man calls 911 to tell police he just tried to drown his kids”
The Hungarian parliament has passed a law authorizing the government to deploy the military to help handle the asylum seeker crisis in the country, which includes powers to use non-lethal force.
According to the law, the army would be allowed to use rubber bullets, pyrotechnical devices, tear gas grenades or net guns, the parliament’s website said. Continue reading “Hungary passes law allowing govt to use army in asylum seeker crisis”
Popular communications application Skype went down across the world on Monday. Numerous users are currently complaining on social media that they are not able to sign in.
“We’re a bit overloaded right now…Please try again later, or download Skype to use it anytime,” Skype wrote on its website. Continue reading “Skype communication app is down across the globe”
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Pedro Abad, the Linden, N.J., police officer and alleged drunken driver, turned himself into authorities on Monday to face charges in a fatal wrong-way crash on the West Shore Expressway on March 20.
He was booked by the NYPD at the 120 Precinct stationhouse, and then arraigned at state Supreme Court in St. George. Continue reading “N.J. cop Pedro Abad, driver in Staten Island crash, pleads not guilty”
TOVARNIK, Croatia (AP) — Thousands of people were pouring into Croatia on Thursday, turning it into the latest hotspot in the 1,000-mile plus exodus toward Western Europe after Hungary used tear gas, batons and water cannons to keep migrants out.
By Thursday morning, Croatian police said 6,200 people had entered the country since the first groups started arriving early Wednesday. Croatia represents a longer and more arduous route into Europe for the asylum-seekers from Syria and elsewhere fleeing violence in their homelands. But they have little choice after Hungary sealed off its southern border with Serbia and began arresting anyone caught trying to enter illegally. Continue reading “Croatia now latest migrant hotspot after Hungarian clashes”
GLOUCESTER, Va. (AP) — Amid the cornfields and marinas dotting this conservative tidewater Virginia enclave between the York River and Mobjack Bay, people are divided over what one local pastor calls “the civil rights issue of this generation” — how to deal with a transgender student’s demand to use the boys’ restrooms at the local high school.
“If they’re not fixed like a man, they should not use the men’s bathroom,” Gary Pilkinton, a 56-year-old movie special effects worker, told a reporter recently outside the local Wal-Mart. Another shopper, Cheryl Walker, took the opposite view. Continue reading “Transgender student’s battle divides rural Virginia town”
HILDALE, Utah (AP) — The latest on the deadly flash flooding to hit the Utah-Arizona border region (all times local):
7:27 p.m. A Southern California sheriff’s department says one of six people killed in flash flooding that swept through Utah’s Zion National Park is a sergeant with the department, and his wife was also on the hiking trip. Continue reading “The Latest: California sheriff’s sergeant among flood’s dead”
A van and SUV carrying three women and 13 children sat near the widening stream, waiting for the water to recede so they could cross back to their homes in a small, polygamous town on the Utah-Arizona border.
But in an instant, flood waters engulfed them and the two vehicles were sucked downstream, bobbing in the turbulent water before they tumbled over an embankment. Only three children survived. Twelve of the 16 are dead. One is missing. Continue reading “Flood waters trap hikers, carry away cars in Utah; 16 die”