NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
1 Sibling victims:
It took 50 years, until the release of a landmark investigative report, for sisters Mary Robb Jackson and Cynthia Carr Gardner to realize that the parish priest in the Pittsburgh-area suburb where they lived as children had molested both of them, a couple of years apart. The sisters’ discovery added theirs to the cases of siblings cited throughout the state grand jury report on the sexual abuse of children by clergy within six Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania. The nearly 900-page report, released Aug. 14 after a two-year investigation, cited at least two dozen sets of siblings victimized by clergy among the scores of abuse cases it documented going back to the 1940s. Two of the cases involved five siblings.
2 3D guns for sale:
The owner of a Texas company that makes untraceable 3D-printed guns said Tuesday that he has begun selling the blueprints through his website to anyone who wants to make one, despite a federal court order barring him from posting the plans online. Cody Wilson said he started selling the plans Tuesday and that he had already received nearly 400 orders. He said he’ll sell the plans for as little as a penny to anyone in the U.S. who wants them. Although the court ruling barred the company from posting the plans online, it didn’t mention whether they could be sold. Anyone who wants to get these files is going to get them,” Wilson said, noting he can only sell to U.S. customers. “They can name their own price.”
3 Death sentence:
An Ohio judge in Cincinnati sentenced a convicted serial killer to the death penalty in the man’s resentencing for slaying two teenage girls. The judge on Tuesday followed the jury’s recommendation in the resentencing of 49-year-old Anthony Kirkland. Kirkland was sentenced to death in 2010 for killing 14-year-old Casonya Crawford and 13-year-old Esme Kenney. Ohio’s Supreme Court overturned that sentence. Kirkland’s lawyers argued for life in prison without the possibility of parole. They argued Kirkland was sexually, physically and mentally abused as a child and his life should be spared. The prosecutor sought the death penalty, citing the “human carnage” committed. Authorities say he strangled the teens and burned their bodies. Kirkland is serving a life sentence for killing two women in 2006.
4 Jamestown slavery:
Four centuries after some of the first enslaved Africans were brought to English-controlled North America, plans are under way to commemorate their arrival in Virginia and reckon with slavery’s legacy. In 1619, Africans came on two ships that had recently raided what’s believed to have been a Spanish slave vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. Sailing into what’s now Hampton, Va., the ships traded more than 30 Africans for food and supplies. English colonists took the Africans, likely from what is now Angola, to properties along the James River, including Jamestown. Visitors to historic Jamestown can see the spot where they landed and take a tour exploring the place where they lived.
5 “Dine-and-Dash Dater”:
Los Angeles County prosecutors have filed extortion, grand theft and other charges against a man accused of being the “Dine-and-Dash Dater.” Authorities say 45-year-old Paul Guadalupe Gonzales used dating apps to meet women, took them to dinner at restaurants and then left without paying any part of the bill. Deputy District Attorney Michael Fern says eight women ended up paying themselves and in two cases restaurants picked up the check. The complaint says the women were defrauded of a total of $950. If convicted, he faces up to 13 years in prison.