Widow of Pulse gunman appears in Fla. court
ORLANDO, Fla. — Noor Salman, the widow of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, appeared briefly Wednesday in federal court in Orlando.
Salman kept quiet during the hearing, which lasted less than five minutes. Her attorney waived the reading of an indictment and entered a not guilty plea on her behalf.
Salman last week agreed to be transferred to Florida from California, where she has been held since her arrest in January. She faces charges of aiding and abetting her husband and obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors say Salman knew about her husband’s plans to attack the gay nightclub in Orlando but didn’t act to stop him. Mateen opened fire inside the club June 12, killing 49 people and injuring at least 68 others.
O’Reilly taking hiatus
NEW YORK — Embattled Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly, who announced he’s vacationing starting Wednesday and returning April 24, hasn’t taken off this much time consecutively in March or April for at least 10 years, an examination of his show’s transcripts revealed.
Mr. O’Reilly said he likes to take vacation around this time and that he booked this year’s break months ago. That would appear to stave off stories that the cable host had been pressured to make himself scarce for a while. His show has seen an advertiser exodus since reports emerged of settlements reached with five women to keep quiet about harassment accusations.
United remorseful
CHICAGO — The chief executive of United Airlines said the carrier will no longer ask police to remove passengers from full flights after the uproar over a man who was dragged off a plane by airport officers in Chicago.
In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” aired Wednesday, Oscar Munoz said he felt “ashamed” watching video of the man being forced off the jet. He has promised to review the airline’s passenger-removal policy.
United says it will pay compensation to passengers who were on the plane in which security officers dragged a man out of his seat.
Driver charge in killing
CHICAGO — The alleged getaway driver in the slaying of a Cook County judge and the wounding of his girlfriend has been charged, Chicago police said Wednesday.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi identified Joshua Smith, 37, as the first suspect to be charged in connection with the fatal shooting of Associate Judge Raymond Myles outside his Far South Side home early Monday. His girlfriend, 52, was shot in the leg but is expected to survive.
The killing was a robbery and “not a random robbery,” Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman, wrote in an email Wednesday.
Comparing Hitler, Lincoln
RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina state lawmaker said in a Facebook post Wednesday that President Abraham Lincoln was a “tyrant” similar to Germany’s Adolf Hitler.
Rep. Larry Pittman, a Concord Republican, was responding to commenters on his campaign Facebook page who were criticizing his bill that would have directed state government to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and restore the state constitution’s ban on samesex marriage. House Speaker Tim Moore said Wednesday that the bill is dead and won’t get a hearing.
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North Miami police Officer Jonathan Aledda will face criminal charges for shooting the unarmed caretaker of an autistic man last summer — one of a string of questionable police shootings of black men nationwide that sparked protests.