AP PA Headlines 6/15/20
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A group of people gathered around a statue of Christopher Columbus in south Philadelphia over the weekend, saying they intended to protect it from vandals amid the recent protests but drawing criticism from the city’s mayor. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that about 100 people clustered around the statue of the explorer at Marconi Plaza on Saturday, some with guns and baseball bats.
Thomas Easterday said the goal was “protecting the statue from these rioters who want to take it down.” On Sunday, Mayor Jim Kenney said on Twitter “All vigilantism is inappropriate, and these individuals only bring more danger to themselves and the city.”
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — When police across the United States clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters over George Floyd’s death, officers in Camden, New Jersey, marched along with residents and activists. For the poor city across the river from Philadelphia, it was seven years ago when civic leaders disbanded the city police department and started anew.
Former Chief Scott Thomson says the focus today is on police engagement with the community, and deescalation when problems arise. Critics say the new agenda comes with more patrols and more surveillance, and that’s the opposite of protesters’ demand for less policing.
HARRISBURG (AP) —Pennsylvania’s most active shale gas driller has pleaded no contest to environmental crimes over its handling of contamination at a pair of well sites. The state attorney general’s office announced Friday that Range Resources Corp. pleaded no contest in Washington County Court to seven misdemeanor counts.
As part of its plea, the Fort Worth, Texas-based company will pay $50,000 in fines and make $100,000 in charitable contributions to a pair of watershed groups. Range has drilled more than 1,500 unconventional gas wells in Pennsylvania. It says it’s taken responsibility for the contamination and has improved its operations.
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Features
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — When police across the United States clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters over George Floyd’s death, officers in Camden, New Jersey, marched along with residents and activists. For the poor city across the river from Philadelphia, it was seven years ago when civic leaders disbanded the city police department and started anew. Former Chief Scott Thomson says the focus today is on police engagement with the community, and deescalation when problems arise. Critics say the new agenda comes with more patrols and more surveillance, and that’s the opposite of protesters’ demand for less policing.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden’s search for a running mate is entering a second round of vetting for a dwindling list of potential vice presidential nominees, with several black women in strong contention. Prominent Democrats with knowledge of the process say Biden’s vetting committee has narrowed the choices to as few as six serious contenders after initial interviews.
Among those still in the mix are former presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. A potentially surprise inclusion is Susan Rice, who served as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser. Biden’s campaign is dismissing the idea of a shortened list as early speculation.
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) — Republican supporters of President Donald Trump say he didn’t know the significance to black Americans of the date and location he chose for his first campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic. Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Tim Scott of South Carolina are expressing relief that Trump has moved the rally from June 19 to June 20. June 19, also known as Juneteenth, marks the end of slavery in the U.S. The rally location, Tulsa, Oklahoma, was the scene in 1921 of one of the most severe white-on-black attacks in American history. Trump relented after an outcry.
WASHINGTON DC (CBS) –Recently, while President Trump was talking “law and order,” first lady Melania Trump was tweeting about “healing & peace.” And back in April, when Mr. Trump declined to wear a face mask (“It’s voluntary, you don’t have to do it. … I don’t think I’m going to be doing it”), his wife put one on, and urged others to do the same (“to keep us all safe”).
It’s not exactly a palace coup, and some might say not nearly enough to keep her husband’s more controversial actions in check. But either way, according to a new book, Melania Trump has more influence than you might think. In “The Art of Her Deal,” Washington Post correspondent Mary Jordan explores the life of the first lady and her surprising role as one of the most influential voices in the Trump White House. CBS NEWS
Correspondent Tracy Smith said, “This is very different than the narrative that some people have painted that she is trapped.” “Oh, ho! Makes her crazy to say she’s ‘Poor Melania Trump’; she’s not,” said Pulitzer Prize-winner Mary Jordan. “She is smart, independent. She will decide what she wants to do and what she doesn’t wanna do.” Jordan is the author of “The Art of Her Deal,” published by Simon & Schuster (a ViacomCBS company).
The White House dismisses the book as “fiction.” But Jordan said that, after several years and more than a hundred interviews, a clearer picture emerged or a woman who grew up dreaming of a life far away from her native Sevnica, Slovenia. “She’s a girl who grew up in a really small town and couldn’t wait to get out,” Jordan said. “She told everyone that. I mean, everyone I talked to in Slovenia said, ‘She couldn’t wait to get out of this town. She wanted to be where the action is.'”
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Once again, a video of a white person confronting a person of color is making news. This time, the CEO of a cosmetics company has apologized for a video in which she and her husband confronted a man and threatened to call the police because the man was stenciling “Black Lives Matter” on a retaining wall outside his home in San Francisco. Lisa Alexander says “there are not enough words” to say how sorry she is. The taped confrontation — widely shared online — has prompted cosmetics distributor Birchbox to cut ties with Alexander’s LaFace Skincare.
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — There’s a manhunt under way in Manhattan, Kansas — but not for a human. It’s for an alligator. How’d a gator get into a Kansas creek? Authorities believe the 5-foot reptile is one of two stolen from a pet store. A man called 911 to report seeing an alligator while walking along a trail. When animal control officers responded, they saw the gator lounging on a log. Officials don’t know how the gator got into the creek — or where the other swiped gator might be.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — There are a lot of things people aren’t crazy about seeing on other people’s lawns — like plastic flamingos, maybe. In Cambodia, authorities are scolding a man for what he uses to decorate his lawn: live land mines and other abandoned ordnance. Officials in the northwest part of the Southeast Asian nation say they found more than two dozen unexploded munitions hung from a tree and scattered around the man’s yard.
Authorities say the man, who wasn’t identified, used to gather mines from rice fields and forests near his home to sell as scrap. But when the government banned the sale and purchase of land mines and other ordnance, he decided to decorate with them, instead. Officials have collected the weapons so they can be destroyed..
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved