ATTORNEY CITES “RHETORIC” IN ANTHEM ATTACK
» The attorney
, . for a man accused of throwing a 13-year-old boy to the ground at a rodeo because the teenager didn’t remove his hat during the national anthem says his client believes he was acting on an order from President Donald Trump.
Attorney Lance Jasper tells The Missoulian the president’s “rhetoric” contributed to 39year-old Curt Brockway’s disposition when he grabbed the boy by the throat and slammed him to the ground, fracturing his skull at the Mineral County Fairgrounds on Saturday.
Jasper says Brockway is an Army veteran who believes he was acting on an order by his commander in chief. He adds that Brockway’s decision-making has been affected by a brain injury he suffered in a vehicle crash.
Fox’s Carlson calls white supremacy a hoax.
Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson faced criticism Wednesday for declaring white supremacy “a hoax,” the same day President Donald Trump visited El Paso after a white gunman who had written an anti-Latino rant killed 22 people.
Carlson has faced criticism before for his commentary, including a statement that immigration has made America dirtier. His remarks Tuesday came with the nation rubbed raw by two weekend mass shootings and increased concerns by law enforcement officials about violence attached to nationalism.
“The combined membership of every white supremacist organization — would they be able to fit into a college football stadium?” Carlson asked.
Adopting a low, mocking voice, he said, “This is a hoax, just like the Russia hoax. It’s a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power.”
Four dead, two wounded in stabbings.
GARDEN GRO V E , CA
» Police have arrested a man LIF . they say killed four people and wounded two others in a robbery and series of stabbings in Orange County. The attacks were spaced over about two hours Wednesday in Garden Grove and neighboring Santa Ana.
Garden Grove police Lt. Carl Whitney says the suspect robbed a bakery, fatally stabbed two men at an apartment, robbed a check-cashing business and an insurance business where he stabbed a woman, slashed a man at a gas station, disarmed and killed a security guard at a 7Eleven store in Santa Ana and killed an employee at a Subway restaurant before being arrested.
He says the attacks appeared to be random and the motive appears to be robbery and, in his words, anger and hate.
U.S. gives initial OK to predator-killing sodium cyanide.
IDAHO» The U.S. EnvironBOISE , mental Protection Agency has taken an initial step to reauthorize a predator-killing poison that injured a boy in Idaho and killed his dog.
The federal agency on Tuesday announced an interim decision involving sodium cyanide that’s used in M-44s, devices embedded in the ground that look like lawn sprinklers but spray cyanide when triggered by animals attracted by bait.
Environmental groups, which have filed lawsuits aimed at banning the devices, blasted the move.
Florida doubles efforts to hunt invasive pythons.
FORT
Standing in
. front of a hissing, squirming 12foot-long python Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he’s doubling resources to remove the invasive species that’s destroying the natural food chain in Florida’s delicate Everglades.
The state has been paying select hunters to catch and kill the invasive snakes on state lands since March 2017. Scientists say the giant constrictor snakes, which can grow to more than 20 feet long, have eliminated 99% of the native mammals in the Everglades, decimating food sources for native predators such as panthers and alligators.
— Denver Post wire services