After Ohio train wreck, Biden orders door-to-door checks

February 25, 2023

By Matthew Daly and Farnoush Amiri Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday directed federal agencies to go door-to-door in East Palestine, Ohio, to check on families affected by the toxic train derailment that has morphed into a heated political controversy. Under Biden’s order, teams from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency will visit homes beginning Saturday. Workers will ask how residents are doing, see what they need and connect them with appropriate resources ...

Prosecutor: Alex Murdaugh ‘fuzzy’ about new details of case

February 25, 2023

By Jeffrey Collins Associated Press Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh faced intense questioning about his movements the night his wife and son were killed as the prosecutor challenged inconsistencies in his memory Friday at his double murder trial. A day after revealing for the first time that he was at the kennels where his wife and son were shot shortly before they died, Murdaugh returned to the stand in his own defense. During cross-examination, prosecutor Creighton Waters grilled Murdaugh about what he repeatedly called the once-prominent lawyer’s “new ...

Court proceedings advance in deadly shooting on film set

February 25, 2023

By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press A film-industry weapons supervisor made her first formal court appearance Friday on a felony charge in the shooting death of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin on the set of a Western movie. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s attorney said his client will plead not guilty, but the judge did not take that plea during the virtual court proceeding. Instead, the judge issued conditions of release that allow Gutierrez-Reed to keep a gun at home for self-defense. Gutierrez-Reed and Baldwin were charged last month with felony involuntary manslaughter ...

Michigan State set to resume classes after fatal shootings

February 20, 2023

By Joey Cappelletti Associated Press EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan State University professor Marco Diaz-Munoz is still haunted by what he witnessed last Monday night, when a gunman entered his classroom in Berkey Hall, killing two of his students in what he describes as “12 minutes of terror.” “Those images haunt me. The images of those two girls,” Diaz-Munoz told The Associated Press. Arielle Anderson and Alexandria Verner, both juniors, would die that night, Feb. 13. The gunman would shoot six more students during the rampage in two campus buildings. Brian ...

6 fatally shot in small Mississippi town, suspect in custody

February 18, 2023

By Michael Goldberg and Emily Wagster Pettus Associated Press ARKABUTLA, Miss. (AP) — Six people were fatally shot Friday at multiple locations in a small town in rural Mississippi near the Tennessee state line, and authorities blamed a lone suspect who was arrested and charged with murder. Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bailey Martin confirmed the killings in Arkabutla, in Tate County, to The Associated Press. County Sheriff Brad Lance told local news outlets the killings occurred at a convenience store and two homes. Trucks marked as belonging to the ...

5 Memphis officers plead not guilty in death of Tyre Nichols

February 18, 2023

By Adrian Sainz and Jonathan Mattise Associated Press MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Five former Memphis police officers pleaded not guilty Friday to second-degree murder and other charges in the violent arrest and death of Tyre Nichols, with his mother saying afterward that none of them would look her in the eye in court. Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith made their first court appearances with their lawyers before a judge in Shelby County Criminal Court. The officers were fired after an internal police investigation into the Jan. 7 ...