America Mother on trial for deaths: White woman charged: Fierce winds fan wildfires:
Charity filings raise questions:
US Sen Doug Jones on Wednesday criticized Republican challenger Tommy Tuberville’s financial record after reports emerged that the former college football coach’s nonprofit only gave a fraction of its money to charity while it spent tens of thousands of dollars to stage annual golf tournaments.
The Associated Press and The New York Times reported this week that the Tommy Tuberville Foundation, an organization he formed to support veterans, spent one-third or less of its money on charitable activities.
Jones, who is widely considered the Senate’s most endangered Democrat, said his analysis indicated that only about 18 percent of the foundation’s money went to veterans while the foundation hosted an annual golf tournament and owned a truck.
“Now this is a candidate that is supposed to be there for veterans ... I know this,” Jones said. “His Foundation has not been good for veterans, but it’s been good for somebody.”
“Tommy Tuberville and his buddies can go play golf together and he charges money for it and they have a nice time, they spend a lot of money for the golf tournament,” Jones said. (AP)
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A South Carolina mother on trial for placing two of her newborns in trash bags and throwing them away about a year apart told investigators she blacked out from the pain of delivering the second child alone, waking up 15 minutes later and finding the boy’s face blue.
Alyssa Dayvault did not show up for her trial this week on two counts of homicide by child abuse, but the case is moving forward at the Horry County courthouse with her lawyers putting on a defense.
Prosecutors on Wednesday played a recording of Dayvault’s interview with police who were called after Dayvault showed up at the hospital with an infection caused when she did not deliver the placenta along with the baby boy in December 2018.
Dayvault told investigators in the recording she hid the pregnancy from both her longtime boyfriend and her mother. She said she delivered the baby alone in her North Myrtle Beach home. And after passing out from the pain and discovering the unconscious baby, she put him in a trash bag and threw him away, the recording showed. (AP)
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Amy Cooper, the white woman charged with filing a false police report for calling 911 during a dispute with a Black man in New York’s Central Park in May, made a second, previously unreported call in which she falsely claimed the man had “tried to assault her,” a prosecutor said Wednesday.
Assistant District Attorney Joan IlluzziOrbon described the second call as Cooper was being arraigned by video in a case that had garnered worldwide attention but was put on hold for months because of the coronavirus pandemic. Cooper did not enter a plea to the misdemeanor charge.
In the first 911 call, which was captured on a widely seen video of the confrontation, Cooper told a dispatcher only that the man, a birdwatcher named Christian Cooper, was threatening her. The second call was not recorded on video, but a 911 dispatcher provided prosecutors with a sworn affidavit regarding the calls, Illuzzi said.
“Using the police in a way that is was both racially offensive and designed to intimidate is something that can’t be ignored. Therefore we charged her,” said Illuzzi, whose last highprofile prosecution sent Harvey Weinstein to
prison in March for rape.
The case was adjourned until Nov 17 to allow prosecutors and her lawyer to work on a possible resolution that Illuzzi said could see Cooper participating in a program to educate her and the community “on the harm caused by such actions.” (AP)
Strong winds fanned two Rocky Mountain wildfires Wednesday, prompting new evacuation orders as one spread toward communities outside Rocky Mountain National Park.
Cool autumn weather had been helping firefighters in their efforts to quell the Mullen Fire in southeastern Wyoming and northern Colorado, and the Cameron Peak Fire in northern Colorado. But gusts of 70 mph (110 kms per hour) have complicated their efforts.
Forecasters expected dry air and strong wind to pose a challenge for firefighters into the weekend.
The fierce burning is occurring much later in the year than usual. Mountain snows usually are significant enough to end fire season well before mid-October.
The latest evacuations in the path of the Cameron Peak Fire affected mainly recreational properties – including hundreds of mountain cabins – in and around the communities of Glen Haven and Drake east of Rocky Mountain National Park. (AP)