NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
1 Cop on trial: An Oklahoma judge ruled Monday that a white former police officer will face a fourth murder trial in the 2014 killing of his daughter’s black boyfriend. Tulsa County District Judge Sharon Holmes overruled motions filed by attorneys for former officer Shannon Kepler to dismiss the case after previous mistrials. Kepler, 57, is charged in the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Jeremey Lake. The shooting occurred while Kepler was off-duty. Kepler doesn’t deny shooting Lake, but he told investigators that he acted in self-defense because he thought Lake was armed. Police found no weapon on Lake or at the scene.
2 Decapitation: Investigators say a 27-year-old Houston man is accused of decapitating his mother and wounding his father in a stabbing attack. Harris County records show Kyriakos Savvas Georghiou was being held without bond Monday on charges of murder and aggravated assault of a family member in the Friday night attack. Police said the suspect came out of the home carrying two knives and surrendered to officers who were responding to a domestic disturbance call. Police did not release the victims’ names.
3 Officer killed: A Louisiana police officer was fatally shot after responding to a call about a shooting, authorities said. State Police Master Trooper Brooks David said Lafayette Cpl. Michael Paul Middlebrook was shot late Sunday. When the officer arrived at the scene, the suspect opened fire, leading to a shootout. The officer was pronounced dead at the scene. Two other people suffered non-life-threatening injuries and were taken to hospitals. The suspected gunman, Ian Paul Howard, 28, was detained.
4 Gay rights: Advocates of same-sex marriage said Monday that they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a Mississippi law that lets government workers and business people cite their own religious objections to refuse services to gay couples. The law, considered the broadest religious-objections law enacted since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, has been on hold amid court challenges. But it is set to take effect Friday because a federal appeals court refused to keep blocking it. The law “creates a toxic environment of fear and prejudice,” Susan Sommer of Lambda Legal said in a statement Monday. 5 Climate poll: Americans want their local officials to take on the challenge of battling global warming now that President Trump is withdrawing the nation from an international climate change agreement. That’s according to a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. The poll finds 57 percent of Americans say they favor local governments picking up the slack to try reducing greenhouse gas emissions on their own, with only 10 percent opposing it. About 55 percent of Americans say their own local and state governments should be doing more to address global warming, with only 10 percent saying they should be doing less.