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ACROSS OUR STATE & NATION

Probe into ‘discarded’ ballots

becomes campaign outrage fuel

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The news release from a U.S. attorney in Pennsylvania was provocative: Nine mailed-in military ballots had been “discarded” by the local election office in a swing county of one of the most important presidential battleground states.

All of them were marked for President Donald Trump, it said. Then came another news release with key details changed — the presidential choice was unknown on two of the ballots because they had been resealed — but still little explanation of what had happened and whether investigators believed a criminal act had occurred.

Despite the information vacuum, the White House press secretary told reporters “ballots for the president” had been “cast aside.” The Trump campaign’s rapid response arm pushed out the release from Trump’s own Justice Department under the headline “Democrats are trying to steal the election” — ignoring the fact that the local government, Luzerne County, is controlled by Republicans. Conservative voices used the news release as rocket fuel to amplify the investigation on social media.

Thursday’s kerfuffle and accompanying internet outrage over a handful of ballots is likely a taste of what’s to come in the month left before the presidential election, which is being held amid a global pandemic that has triggered a wave of absentee ballot requests as Trump continues to launch unsubstantiated attacks on mail voting.

It was Trump, after being briefed on the case by Attorney General William Barr, who first revealed publicly that the discarded ballots had been cast for him. He did so in an interview earlier Thursday with Fox News Radio in which he used the investigation to further sow doubt about mail-in voting. The radio interview was hours before the U.S. attorney’s office in Pennsylvania issued its news release about the probe to reporters.

Virus cases rise in US heartland, home to anti-mask feelings

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — It began with devastation in the New York City area, followed by a summertime crisis in the Sun Belt. Now the coronavirus outbreak is heating up fast in smaller cities in the heartland, often in conservative corners of America where anti-mask sentiment runs high.

Elsewhere around the country, Florida’s Republican governor lifted all restrictions on restaurants and other businesses Friday and all but set aside local mask ordinances in the political battleground state, in a move attacked by Democrats as hasty.

Meanwhile, confirmed cases of the virus in the U.S. hit another milestone — 7 million — according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University, though the real number of infections is believed to be much higher.

The spike across the Midwest as well as parts of the West has set off alarms at hospitals, schools and colleges.

Wisconsin is averaging more than 2,000 new cases a day over the last week, compared with 675 three weeks earlier. Hospitalizations in the state are at their highest level since the outbreak took hold in the U.S. in March.

Ginsburg makes history at Capitol amid replacement turmoil

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lay in state Friday at the U.S. Capitol as the first woman ever so honored, making history again as she had throughout her extraordinary life while an intensifying election-year battle swirled over her replacement.

The flag-draped casket of Ginsburg, who died last week at 87, drew members of Congress, top military officials, friends and family, some with children in tow, to the Capitol’s grand Statuary Hall, paying respect to the cultural icon who changed American law and perceptions of women’s power.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, joined other invited guests. His vice presidential running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris said that “RBG,” as she is known by many, cleared a path for women like her in civic life.

“She, first of all, made America see what leadership looks like — in the law, in terms of public service — and she broke so many barriers,” Harris told reporters at the Capitol. “And I know that she did it intentionally knowing that people like me could follow.”

Biden, who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Ginsburg was confirmed 27 years ago this month, said he was brought back to when he met her back then. “Wonderful memories,” he said.

Judge removes Trump public lands boss for serving unlawfully

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s leading steward of public lands has been serving unlawfully, blocking him from continuing in the position in the latest pushback against the administration’s practice of filling key positions without U.S. Senate approval.

U.S. Interior Department Bureau of Land Management acting director William Perry Pendley served unlawfully for 424 days without being confirmed to the post by the Senate as required under the Constitution, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris determined.

The ruling came after Montana’s Democratic governor in July sued to remove Pendley, saying the former oil industry attorney was illegally overseeing an agency that manages almost a quarter-billion acres of land, primarily in the U.S. West.

“Today’s ruling is a win for the Constitution, the rule of law, and our public lands,” Gov. Steve Bullock said Friday. Environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers from Western states also cheered the judge’s move after urging for months that Pendley be removed.

The ruling will be immediately appealed, according to Interior Department spokesman Conner Swanson. He called it “an outrageous decision that is well outside the bounds of the law,” and he said the Obama administration had similarly filled key posts at the agency with temporary authorizations.

Family demands release of

evidence in Breonna Taylor’s case

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Breonna Taylor’s family demanded Friday that Kentucky authorities release all body camera footage, police files and the transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to no charges being brought against police officers who killed the Black woman during a raid at her apartment.

The decision disappointed and angered those who have been calling for justice for Taylor for six months, and protesters vowed to stay in the streets until the officers involved are fired or someone is charged with her killing.

A diverse group, including Taylor’s mother, marched through Louisville on Friday evening. At one point, protesters streaming through the street encountered a line of police in riot gear who fired flash bang devices to turn them back ahead of a nighttime curfew, and some were arrested. Many then went back to a square that’s been at the center of the movement.

Earlier, Taylor’s lawyers and family expressed dismay that no one has been held accountable for her death.

NYPD should stop making traffic stops, attorney general says

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s attorney general on Friday recommended the New York Police Department get out of the business of routine traffic enforcement, a radical change she said would prevent encounters like one last year in the Bronx that escalated quickly and ended with an officer fatally shooting a motorist.

Attorney General Letitia James, who acts as a special prosecutor appointed to investigate certain police killings, argued that traffic stops for minor infractions often end in violence and that Allan Feliz’s death last October after he was pulled over for a seat belt violation “further underscores the need for this change.”

James’ office concluded that the NYPD’s use of deadly force was justified but that the sequence of events leading to Feliz’s death would never have happened if police hadn’t stopped him in the first place. Police further heightened tensions by attempting to arrest Feliz on outstanding warrants for low-level offenses such as spitting, littering and disorderly conduct, James’ office said.

The NYPD declined to comment.

Feliz initially complied when an officer asked him to get out of his car, but then jumped back in and tried to flee, James’ office said in a report on his death that included the recommendation about police yielding traffic stop duties.

Trump’s $200 prescription cards won’t hit mailboxes just yet

WASHINGTON (AP) — If you’re on Medicare, don’t run to the mailbox looking for a $200 prescription drug card courtesy of President Donald Trump.

Government officials said Friday that key details of Trump’s election-year giveaway still have to be fleshed out, including the exact timing and how Medicare’s cost would be covered — a sum that could approach $7 billion.

It’s also unclear which Medicare enrollees will get the promised cards. Trump said 33 million beneficiaries would receive cards in the mail, but more than 60 million people are covered by the federal health insurance program for seniors.

Trade groups representing the two industries most affected by the plan — drug companies and insurers — said they have received no specifics from the Trump administration. Public policy experts called it an attention-grabbing move — weeks before the presidential election — that won’t change much in the end.

“Providing a coupon does absolutely nothing to address the underlying problem of high and rising drug prices,” said Tricia Neuman, a Medicare expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “The administration has had nearly four years to work with Congress or go through the regulatory process to adopt proposals that could have a real and sustained impact on drug prices.”

Woman accused in QAnon

kidnapping plot pleads not guilty

DENVER (AP) — A Colorado woman accused of plotting with supporters of QAnon to have her son kidnapped from foster care pleaded not guilty to second-degree kidnapping on Friday.

Cynthia Abcug’s lawyer, Ara Ohanian, entered the plea during an online court hearing. Abcug, who has been released from jail, appeared by video too but did not speak during the short hearing.

Judge Patricia Herron denied Ohanian’s request to have Abcug’s GPS monitor removed or to change an order that prevents her from having contact with her two children.

Abcug’s son was removed by social workers from their home in Parker in suburban Denver in January 2019 after Abcug was suspected of lying about his health problems. She lost custody of her daughter last fall after the then 15-year-old told her therapist that her mother was working with QAnon supporters to kidnap her brother. Her comments led police to open their investigation.

Christina Brigham, a lawyer who represents Abcug’s children in separate court proceedings over who should have custody of them, told Herron that Abcug is cooperating with social workers to try to gain the ability to visit her children. However, she said the GPS monitor was an important part of maintaining the children’s placements because of “worry and concern.” She did not elaborate.

QAnon is a wide-ranging conspiracy fiction spread largely through the internet, centered on the baseless belief that President Donald Trump is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the “deep state” and a child sex trafficking ring run by satanic pedophiles and cannibals. It is based on cryptic postings by the anonymous “Q,” purportedly a government insider.

Prosecutors have not laid out what Abcug’s role was in the alleged scheme.

The vast majority of the evidence presented against her so far has come from her daughter, who admitted to learning to “tune out” her mother and was unable to provide many details about the plot.

She told police that her brother’s foster family had been portrayed as “evil Satan worshippers” and “pedophiles.” She also said two men came to their house to provide security as the kidnapping discussions were going on.

Abcug is scheduled to go on trial Feb. 8, 2021.

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