Chagrin Falls

Tropical Storm Nestor peppers the Florida Panhandle

After developing in the Gulf of Mexico and strengthening to a tropical storm Friday, Tropical Storm Nestor has begun to pelt parts of Florida. Nestor was expected to come ashore later Saturday morning near the seaside city of Apalachicola, bringing tropical storm-force winds and dangerous storm surge.

Closing arguments up next in deadly prison breakout trial

Closing arguments are expected next week in the trial of an inmate accused of murder in a deadly attempted breakout that left four North Carolina prison workers dead. Jurors on Thursday heard grisly details about the disturbance in a video interview, The Virginian-Pilot reported. In the interview, Mikel Brady described striking prison guard Wendy Shannon until she stopped moving during the October 2017 escape attempt at Pasquotank Correctional Institution.

'We will fight back': how the police killing of a black woman in Texas sparked fear and anger

The officer who shot Atatiana Jefferson was charged with murder – but as police killings continue across the country, communities say the system itself needs to changeProtesters demonstrate against the killing of Atatiana Jefferson, on Tuesday 15 October. Photograph: Yffy Yossifor/APAdarius Carr watched the video of his sister’s killing and struggled to understand.A police bodycam recorded the Fort Worth officer Aaron Dean in the dead of night pulling open the gate to Atatiana Jefferson’s back garden. He had a torch in one hand and a gun in the other. The policeman looked around suddenly wheeled about to shine the light on a window and shout: “Put your hands up! Show me your hands!”Before he finished speaking, Dean fired a single shot.On the other side of the window, Jefferson, a 28-year-old African American woman who had been playing video games with her young nephew, collapsed and died.“None of it makes sense to me,” said her brother, a US navy sailor.Within 48 hours, Dean was arrested on a murder charge. Carr described that as a start but said Dean did not bear responsibility alone for yet another killing of an African American in their own home by a white police officer.“He really cannot be a scapegoat for what’s happened,” said Carr. “Yes, he’s going to take his punishment but the system failed him. Whoever more senior was with him failed him. Whoever sent him out failed him. The training failed him.”Atatiana Jefferson. Photograph: APJefferson’s death has rocked a Texas city already attempting to shore up public confidence in a force responsible for killing seven people in recent months.Angry Fort Worth residents also drew parallels with a police shooting in Dallas – the killing of an unarmed black man, Botham Jean, in his own apartment by Amber Guyger, an officer who was convicted of murder earlier this month.People paying respects amid flowers laid outside Jefferson’s house struggled to understand how officers responding to a neighbour asking for a “welfare check” because he spotted an open door at 2am could have approached it like a crime scene, with guns drawn and failing to announce their presence, and then killed a woman in her own home.“It’s unbelievable. In years past you would say this is an isolated incident but this is happening way too often by law enforcement,” said Alvin Finkley, an African American forensic chemist who analyses seized drugs for the Dallas county police and lives in Fort Worth. The killings of Jefferson and Jean followed the murder conviction last year of another white police officer, in Dallas county, for shooting an unarmed 15-year-old African American boy in the back of the head as he sat in the passenger seat of a car that failed to stop.But if Fort Worth was rocked by the latest shooting, it was also caught off guard by the official response. The Republican mayor of Fort Worth, Betsy Price, swiftly denounced the shooting as unjustified. The city’s police chief, Ed Kraus, responded with an unusual outpouring of emotion as he spoke of the need for his officers to “react with a servant’s heart instead of a warrior’s heart”. Less than 48 hours after the killing, Dean was arrested for murder.> To say it’s only endemic to the Fort Worth police department ignores the reality> > State representative Harold DuttonFew in Texas would have predicted murder charges against police officers would even be laid until recently, let alone their conviction by juries.The Jefferson family lawyer, Lee Merritt, said that for a brief moment he thought justice might be done.“As we learned that the officer who was responsible for her murder was arrested and charged, that was a positive moment where it seemed like the judicial system was acting a little differently,” he said. “We don’t see officers led away in handcuffs very often.”But the atmosphere quickly soured. Dean was released on bail within hours and it was revealed that the police interrogated Jefferson’s eight-year-old nephew alone and then recorded that he said his aunt was pointing a gun at the window when she was shot. Merritt accused the police of laying the ground for Dean to claim self-defence.Politicians and protesters said the circumstances of the shooting raised questions about the recruitment and training of police officers in Texas and beyond.“Why is this happening?” said the state representative Harold Dutton, a member of the Texas legislative black caucus. “To say it’s only endemic to the Fort Worth police department ignores the reality of a system that has resulted in the deaths of so many all over this country. Unless we fix the system, we can be assured that we have many more deaths to come.”The police department has yet to explain how the neighbour’s call to a non-emergency number asking for a patrol to check on Jefferson’s house because of an open door became an “open structure call” by the time Dean and other officers were dispatched. That meant they treated the check as a suspected break-in and took a more confrontational approach.The officers saw the open front door and looked into the living room. At no point did they announce their presence. Not seeing anyone, Dean went into the back garden and, with his gun drawn, shone a torch in a window.The police say Jefferson reached for her gun and pointed it at the window. Dean demanded she raise her hands, still without saying he was a police officer, and then a split second later shot her.The mayor and the police chief have both been careful to say that Jefferson had every right to pick up her gun if she felt threatened, and the failure was Dean’s for not announcing who he was.The state representative Nicole Collier, chair of the Texas legislature’s criminal jurisprudence committee and vice-chair of the black caucus, said the shooting raised questions about the quality of police training, which often emphasizes an officer’s safety over the welfare of the public.“Unfortunately, to become a cosmetologist is the same amount of time that it is to become a police officer,” she said. “Basic police officers take 720 hours but to become a cosmetologist is 1,000 hours.” ‘So many families’Flowers lie on the sidewalk in front of the house in Fort Worth where a police officer killed Atatiana Jefferson. Photograph: David Kent/APAlex Piquero, a professor of criminology at the University of Texas, said that while he “absolutely understands why people are upset”, he has found no evidence that there is a systematic issue with recruitment or a systematic problem of police officers being too quick to open fire in Texas or across the country.“I don’t see any empirical evidence to demonstrate that recruits into policing are any worse than the recruits to any other profession,” he said. “We have doctors who lose their medical license. We have people in every profession who get fired or make mistakes on those jobs.”That was not how it was seen as anger poured out at a packed city council meeting the day after Dean’s arrest. Amid chants of “this city is not safe”, one speaker after another accused the council of inaction.Angela Darden told the council her brother, Jermaine, died of a heart attack as he was shot with a stun gun and held in a chokehold during a drug raid in 2013.“I’ve been coming here for so many families and I’ve been saying this time and time again: that you people do not give a rat’s ass about this city,” she said.Kraus, the police chief, stood at the back, listening without expression. One speaker, Ed Austin, turned to him and said: “You can’t come to our communities and terrorize us no more. We will fight back.”Pressure had been building after a series of killings by the police in recent months, although Kelly Allen Gray, one of only two African American members of the city council, cautioned they were very different from the circumstances of Jefferson’s death.“We had one shooting where someone took his ex-girlfriend and children hostage and then used a child as a shield as he fired upon police. So I don’t think you can lump all these killings in together,” she said.Allen Gray acknowledged the public anger but she was concerned that blanket vilification of the force would harm communities that rely on it for protection and hurt progress.“The police relationship with the community is not as broken and fractured as it once was,” she said. “Is it ever enough? No. But if I had to look back to when I first came on the council and I look at now, we have made really good strides. There are instances where you really want the police there. You want the police to show up.”

Driver who fatally struck 3 siblings at school bus stop is found guilty of reckless homicide

A 24-year-old Indiana woman who struck four children with her pickup truck, killing three of them, as they crossed a rural highway to their school bus, has been found guilty of reckless homicide. Alyssa Shepherd was also found guilty of criminal recklessness in the Oct. 30, 2018, crash, which shined a light on issues of school bus safety.

The Latest: City plans to remove plane from site Saturday

The state Department of Transportation determined the runway was not damaged by the crash, the city said in a news release. A Ravn Air Group flight brought in investigators from the state transportation department and the NTSB, the city said. It then returned the Cordova High School swim team to Anchorage.

Sharpton searches for the words to eulogize _ and galvanize

A stirring eulogy by the Rev. Al Sharpton. The 65-year-old civil rights activist has become a constant of the Black Lives Matter era with his presence in the pulpit after police shootings of African Americans, showing up in cities like Baltimore, Sacramento and Ferguson, Missouri to comfort loved ones and call for justice. On Saturday, the scene will unfold again, as Sharpton delivers remarks at a service for Atatiana Jefferson, who was playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew when she was killed by a white Fort Worth, Texas, police officer.

U.S. oil major Chevron says hopeful about maintaining Venezuela presence

The company's remarks follow an earlier report by Bloomberg that said the United States is considering extending Chevron's waiver to operate in Venezuela with more limitations by granting the company a 90-day sanctions reprieve. "We are a positive presence in Venezuela, and we are hopeful that General License 8C is renewed so that we can continue operations in the country for the long-term," Ray Fohr, a Chevron spokesman, told Reuters in an emailed statement.

The Latest: Nestor races toward Florida Panhandle

Rain from Tropical Storm Nestor is lashing Florida's Gulf Coast as the storm continues to race toward the Florida Panhandle. On Friday night, the National Hurricane Center said the storm was centered about 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of Panama City, Florida. It had top sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kph) and was moving to the northeast at 23 mph (37 kph).

Indiana woman convicted of reckless homicide in 3 deaths

An Indiana woman was convicted Friday of reckless homicide for plowing her pickup truck into four children, killing three of them, as they crossed a two-lane highway to board their school bus. The Fulton County jury also found Alyssa Shepherd, 24, guilty of criminal recklessness in the Oct. 30, 2018, crash that killed 6-year-old twin brothers Xzavier and Mason Ingle, and their 9-year-old sister, Alivia Stahl. Maverik Lowe, 11, was critically injured.

U.S. oil major Chevron set to receive Venezuelan crude cargo: document

If the loading proceeds, it would be the first shipment assigned to Chevron since the United States sanctioned PDVSA in January as part of a campaign to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose 2018 reelection most Western nations consider a sham. The vessel Agios Fanourios is set to load 2 million barrels of Venezuelan heavy crude on Oct. 19-21 at Jose port, according to a PDVSA scheduling document viewed by Reuters.

Tropical Storm Nestor forms, threatening US Gulf Coast

Tropical Storm Nestor bore down on the northern Gulf Coast with high winds, surging seas and heavy rains Friday evening, threatening to hit an area of the Florida Panhandle devastated one year ago by Hurricane Michael. Nestor was forecast to hit the coast around Mexico Beach on Saturday morning without strengthening into a hurricane.

Chicago's mayor says top cop drinking before incident in car

Chicago's mayor said Friday that the city's top police officer told her he'd had "a couple of drinks with dinner" before he fell asleep at a stop sign while driving home, an incident that the chief contends was related to a change in his blood pressure medication. Superintendent Eddie Johnson didn't mention having anything to drink when he spoke to reporters Thursday night, and the department spokesman said officers who responded to a 911 call reporting a man asleep in a car at a stop sign didn't observe any signs of impairment. Mayor Lori Lightfoot told the Chicago Sun-Times on Friday that she agreed with Eddie Johnson's decision to request an internal affairs investigation of the Thursday incident to assure the public he's not trying to hide anything about his actions.

Judge halts funeral plans for woman shot at home by officer

A probate court judge has halted a funeral scheduled for Saturday for a woman shot in her home by a Fort Worth police officer. Dallas County Probate Court Judge Brenda Hull Thompson on Friday issued a temporary restraining order sought by Marquis Jefferson, the father of Atatiana Jefferson. The father sought the order to gain control over the funeral arrangements of his daughter from his daughter's aunt, Bonita Body.

Proposal seeks to modernize campgrounds at national parks

The Interior Department is reviewing recommendations to modernize campgrounds at national parks. The recommendations posted online this week come from an advisory committee created under former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke that has been looking at ways for private businesses to operate on public lands. The vice chairman of the Outdoor Recreation Advisory Committee, Derrick Crandall, said many campgrounds don't meet visitors' expectations.

California utility sees decade of power cuts to avoid wildfires

Bill Johnson, who became CEO of bankrupt PG&E Corp earlier this year, told an emergency meeting with the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) that recent power outages included lack of information and hardships that cannot be repeated. "Eventually the technology will get us to a point where we don't need to be doing it," he said.

Clinton email probe finds no deliberate mishandling of classified information

A U.S. State Department investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state has found no evidence of deliberate mishandling of classified information by department employees. The investigation, the results of which were released on Friday by Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley's office, centered on whether Clinton, who served as the top U.S. diplomat from 2009 to 2013, jeopardized classified information by using a private email server rather than a government one.

Judge orders New Mexico compound suspect hospitalized

A federal judge has ordered a woman charged with firearms and terrorism-related counts to be hospitalized for mental health treatment more than a year after authorities arrested her and four other adult residents of a squalid New Mexico compound. In his order, Chief U.S. District Court Judge William Johnson said Jany Leveille has not been able to understand the proceedings in the case against her because she is suffering from mental illness. The order Thursday allows for a maximum of four months of hospitalization for Leveille before the court determines whether she might eventually prove competent to stand trial.

Gabbard calls Clinton 'personification of the rot' as war of words heats up

"You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain," said Gabbard, a congresswoman from Hawaii who is a favorite of Russian state media as well as many liberals. Gabbard has said she will not run as a third-party candidate.

Castro blindsides Buttigieg over Chicago donation

Julián Castro rebuked Pete Buttigieg in a fundraising email to supporters Friday, criticizing the Indiana mayor over his decision to accept funds from a former Chicago city attorney involved in the botched handling of the police shooting of teen Laquan McDonald. Castro was the first Democratic presidential candidate to call out Buttigieg for his connection to Steve Patton, who made a $5,600 donation to the Buttigieg campaign in June and was scheduled to co-host a fundraising event Friday. “I applaud Mayor Buttigieg for returning the contribution, but at a time where police violence remains such a critical issue, it shouldn’t take four months to return such a problematic contribution,” Castro wrote.

U.S. energy secretary will not comply with congressional Democrats' impeachment probe

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry will not turn over documents to congressional Democrats who had subpoenaed them over his role in Ukraine as part of their impeachment probe into President Donald Trump, a department official said in a letter on Friday. Three U.S. House of Representatives committees subpoenaed Perry on Oct. 10 for any role he played in Trump's push to pressure Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate his political rival, former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden and his son. In a letter to the three committees, Melissa Burnison, an assistant energy secretary, wrote that the impeachment inquiry had not been properly authorized.