FBI Task Force operation in Yakima County leads to seven indictments
YAKAMA, Wash. — Following several years of operating in Yakima County, the work of an FBI Task Force has led a federal Grand Jury to indict seven separate people across the region for breaking federal law. Many of those individuals…
Arizona prisoner won’t be executed in gas chamber
An Arizona prisoner is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on June 8 for killing an 8-year-old girl. Frank Atwood is the second death-row prisoner to decline lethal gas since the state refurbished its gas chamber. Gas chamber executions haven't been used in the United States in more than 20 years. Atwood declined to pick a method of execution when officials asked him if he wanted to die by lethal injection or the gas chamber. Lethal injection is Arizona’s default execution method when prisoners refuse to make a selection. Atwood was sentenced to die for his murder conviction in the 1984 killing of Vicki Hoskinson.
Grand jury indicts man in Buffalo supermarket shooting
The white man accused of killing 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket appeared briefly in court Thursday after a grand jury indicted him on a first-degree murder charge. Assistant district attorney Gary Hackbush said the indictment of 18-year-old Payton Gendron was handed up Wednesday. He was silent throughout the proceeding and sent back to jail. Someone shouted “Payton you’re a coward!” as he was led out. Ten people were killed and three others wounded in the Saturday shooting at the Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo. Authorities are continuing to investigate the possibility of hate crime and terrorism charges.
GOP directs culture war fury toward green investing trend
Red state officials are coming out swinging against growing Wall Street efforts to consider environmental risk in investment decisions. Their target is “ESG,” which stands for environmental, social and governance. The principles call on investors to consider factors other than traditional financial metrics in their decisions. The acronym has become the latest culture war fodder in conservative media and in state government this year. The movement against green investing indicates how the GOP has become more willing to damage its relationship with big business to fight ideological foes. Opposition has been particularly strong in red states where fossil fuels make up a large part of the economy.
Experts warn that drought will impact Central Washington this summer
Police: Western Washington boy shoots older brother inside family apartment
Rosmarie Trapp, whose family inspired 'Sound of Music,' dies
Rosmarie Trapp, whose Austrian family the von Trapps was made famous in the musical and beloved movie “The Sound of Music,” has died. Trapp Family Lodge says she died Friday at the age of 93 at a nursing home in Morrisville, Vermont. Rosmarie was the first daughter of Austrian naval Capt. Georg von Trapp and Maria von Trapp and a younger half-sibling of the older von Trapp children portrayed on stage and in the movie. The family escaped from Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938 and performed singing tours throughout Europe and America. They settled in Vermont in the early 1940s and opened a ski lodge in Stowe.
‘I protected my children’: Moses Lake mom relives day her car was nearly stolen with her kids inside
MOSES LAKE, Wash. – A Moses Lake family went through the unimaginable on May 3. Mother Kendra Brown went to pick up her four-year-old daughter from school when the Moses Lake Police Department (MLPD) says violent felon Salvador Harguindeguy tried stealing her car. Her two-year-old and five-month-old were still strapped in. She had attended to her five-month-old who’d been crying…
The tiniest babies: Shifting the boundary of life earlier
Growing numbers of extremely premature infants are getting lifesaving treatment and surviving. Over the last half century, medical science has slowly shifted the boundary of what is known as viability ever earlier. While the concept of viability has long been associated with the abortion debate, it is a changing line that has little to do with most abortions. More than 99% of abortions occur at or before 21 weeks, according to federal statistics. It is a real concern for doctors, though, as they try to care for these children, who are highly susceptible to disabilities such as cerebral palsy, cognitive impairments, blindness and severe lung problems.
Jury hears closing arguments in trial over slain teacher
Closing arguments have ended in the trial of a Georgia man charged with murdering a popular high school teacher whose disappearance in 2005 remained a mystery for more than a decade. Prosecutors told the jury Thursday in Irwin County Superior Court that Ryan Duke convicted himself when he told investigators in 2017 that he fatally struck Tara Grinstead while robbing her home for drug money. Duke's defense attorneys said Duke was pressured into giving a false confession and the real killer was another man convicted previously of helping dispose of Grinstead's body. Duke told investigators he and a friend burned Grinstead's body in a pecan orchard. Bone fragments matching her DNA were later found there.
Abortion-friendly states prep for more patients if Roe falls
Reproductive rights advocates are planning to open new abortion clinics or expand the capacity of existing ones in states without restrictive abortion laws. This comes as a leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion says justices could overturn the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. Some Democratic-led states in the West and the Northeast are proposing public money for an expected influx of people traveling from other places for abortions. A clinic in Memphis, Tennessee, plans to open an abortion facility in August in the southern Illinois city of Carbondale. Illinois has easy abortion access but is surrounded by more restrictive states.
Illinois man convicted of giving son rifle he used to kill 4
An Illinois man faces up to three years in prison after being convicted of illegally giving his son an assault-style rifle he later used to shoot and kill four people in 2018 at a Waffle House in Tennessee. A judge convicted Jeffrey Reinking last week of illegal delivery of a firearm to a person who had been treated for mental illness within the past five years. The Journal Star of Peoria reports Tazewell County prosecutors argued that Reinking knew his son, Travis Reinking, had undergone mental health treatment. Jeffrey Reinking’s attorney argued that his client didn’t know his son had been treated. Travis Reinking surrendered his guns to his father, who later returned them to him at some point before the deadly shooting in Nashville.
Senate overwhelmingly approves $40B in new aid to Ukraine in response to Russia invasion
Approval comes three weeks after Biden requested a smaller $33 billion version.
Cancer deaths in Black people drop; still higher than others
A new study says cancer deaths rates have steadily declined among Black people but remain higher than in other racial and ethnic groups. Cancer deaths have been dropping for all Americans for the past two decades because of lower smoking rates and advances in early detection and treatment. The rates among Black people fell 2% each year from 1999 to 2019. The highest cancer death rates in 2019 were in Black men, higher than other groups. The U.S. government report was published Thursday in JAMA Oncology.
Biden forest plan stirs dispute over what counts as "old"
President Joe Biden’s order to protect the nation’s oldest woodlands is raising a simple but vexing question: When does a forest grow old? The answer could affect millions of acres of federally-managed forests where environmentalists want logging restricted as climate change, wildfires and other problems devastate vast forests. Scientists say there's no simple formula for what's old — in part because growth rates among species can vary greatly. That’s likely to complicate Biden’s efforts to protect older forests as part of his faltering climate change fight, with key pieces stalled in Congress. Underlining the issue's urgency are wildfires that have killed thousands of California's giant sequoias in recent years.
Are I Bonds a Good Investment?
Inflation is up, the stock market is down, and I bonds have suddenly come into vogue due to an unprecedented interest rate of 9.62%. But while I bonds can help…
