Man Accused Of Shooting McKeesport Police Officer In Custody

Koby Francis was taken into custody in West Virginia after being on the run for more than a week. KDKA's Jennifer Borrasso has more.

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  • Trump news - live: President abandons Mar-a-Lago NYE party as Secret Service drops loyalists from Biden detail

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  • Green Beret Colonel Threatened to Kill Wife in Front of Children Before Standoff with Police: Affidavit

    Colonel Owen G. Ray has been suspended from his job as I Corps chief of staff pending a law enforcement probe into the case.

  • Mexican president makes show of popularity against world leaders

    Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday showed off his popularity in comparison to other world leaders, saying the media did not want the public to know how much support he enjoys. Asked during a regular news conference how confident he was heading into 2021, when Mexico holds legislative elections in June, Lopez Obrador said he was optimistic. Then he asked aides to project an ongoing survey of 13 world leaders' approval ratings.

  • China accuses US of show of force with Taiwan Strait passage

    China accused the U.S. of staging a show of force by sailing two Navy warships through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday morning. The Navy said the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers USS John S. McCain and USS Curtis Wilbur “conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit” in accordance with international law. China’s Defense Ministry called the move a “show of force” and a provocation that “sent the wrong signal to the ‘Taiwan independence forces’ and seriously endangered peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait area.”

  • Secret Service changing personnel amid concerns some may be Trump supporters - report

    Senior officers who previously protected Joe Biden as vice president are expected to be brought back on board

  • Turkish police detain Islamic State suspects -Anadolu

    Turkish police detained people suspected of ties to the Islamic State militant group in an operation targeting a total of 35 foreign suspects in Istanbul on Thursday, state-owned Anadolu news agency reported. It said the counter-terror squad police carried out simultaneous raids on 34 addresses in 14 districts of the city after receiving intelligence about possible militant attacks over the New Year period. Prosecutors in the capital Ankara ordered the arrest of a further 15 suspects in another Islamic State-related investigation, Anadolu also said.

  • Heavy snow expected in Texas; storm could spawn tornadoes

    A winter storm moving across southwestern Texas on Wednesday could dump more than a foot (0.30 meters) of snow before moving eastward and possibly spawning tornadoes in parts of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi on New Year's Eve, according to weather forecasters. Jeremy Grams, a forecaster with the National Weather Services’ Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said 12 to 18 inches (0.30 meters to 0.46 meters) of snow was possible west of the Pecos River in southwest Texas, with another 3 to 5 inches (0.13 meters) predicted for western Oklahoma by Thursday. Tornadoes are possible as the cold air moving eastward with the storm collides with moisture and warmer temperatures from the Gulf of Mexico, Grams said.

  • Report: Trooper under investigation dies in apparent suicide during house search

    A Louisiana State Police trooper died Wednesday in an apparent suicide as his colleagues were searching his home as part of a criminal investigation, law enforcement officials told the Associated Press.

  • The 7 Best Airbnbs in Los Angeles

    From an airy Venice loft to a romantic Topanga getaway, these vacation homes offer something for every traveler Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Don't blame Sharia for Islamic extremism -- blame colonialism

    Warning that Islamic extremists want to impose fundamentalist religious rule in American communities, right-wing lawmakers in dozens of U.S. states have tried banning Sharia, an Arabic term often understood to mean Islamic law. These political debates – which cite terrorism and political violence in the Middle East to argue that Islam is incompatible with modern society – reinforce stereotypes that the Muslim world is uncivilized. They also reflect ignorance of Sharia, which is not a strict legal code. Sharia means “path” or “way”: It is a broad set of values and ethical principles drawn from the Quran – Islam’s holy book – and the life of the Prophet Muhammad. As such, different people and governments may interpret Sharia differently. Still, this is not the first time that the world has tried to figure out where Sharia fits into the global order. In the 1950s and 1960s, when Great Britain, France and other European powers relinquished their colonies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, leaders of newly sovereign Muslim-majority countries faced a decision of enormous consequence: Should they build their governments on Islamic religious values or embrace the European laws inherited from colonial rule? The big debateInvariably, my historical research shows, political leaders of these young countries chose to keep their colonial justice systems rather than impose religious law. Newly independent Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia, among other places, all confined the application of Sharia to marital and inheritance disputes within Muslim families, just as their colonial administrators had done. The remainder of their legal systems would continue to be based on European law. To understand why they chose this course, I researched the decision-making process in Sudan, the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence from the British, in 1956.In the national archives and libraries of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, and in interviews with Sudanese lawyers and officials, I discovered that leading judges, politicians and intellectuals actually pushed for Sudan to become a democratic Islamic state. They envisioned a progressive legal system consistent with Islamic faith principles, one where all citizens – irrespective of religion, race or ethnicity – could practice their religious beliefs freely and openly.“The People are equal like the teeth of a comb,” wrote Sudan’s soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Hassan Muddathir in 1956, quoting the Prophet Muhammad, in an official memorandum I found archived in Khartoum’s Sudan Library. “An Arab is no better than a Persian, and the White is no better than the Black.” Sudan’s post-colonial leadership, however, rejected those calls. They chose to keep the English common law tradition as the law of the land. Why keep the laws of the oppressor?My research identifies three reasons why early Sudan sidelined Sharia: politics, pragmatism and demography.Rivalries between political parties in post-colonial Sudan led to parliamentary stalemate, which made it difficult to pass meaningful legislation. So Sudan simply maintained the colonial laws already on the books. There were practical reasons for maintaining English common law, too. Sudanese judges had been trained by British colonial officials. So they continued to apply English common law principles to the disputes they heard in their courtrooms. Sudan’s founding fathers faced urgent challenges, such as creating the economy, establishing foreign trade and ending civil war. They felt it was simply not sensible to overhaul the rather smooth-running governance system in Khartoum.The continued use of colonial law after independence also reflected Sudan’s ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity.Then, as now, Sudanese citizens spoke many languages and belonged to dozens of ethnic groups. At the time of Sudan’s independence, people practicing Sunni and Sufi traditions of Islam lived largely in northern Sudan. Christianity was an important faith in southern Sudan. Sudan’s diversity of faith communities meant that maintaining a foreign legal system – English common law – was less controversial than choosing whose version of Sharia to adopt. Why extremists triumphedMy research uncovers how today’s instability across the Middle East and North Africa is, in part, a consequence of these post-colonial decisions to reject Sharia. In maintaining colonial legal systems, Sudan and other Muslim-majority countries that followed a similar path appeased Western world powers, which were pushing their former colonies toward secularism. But they avoided resolving tough questions about religious identity and the law. That created a disconnect between the people and their governments.In the long run, that disconnect helped fuel unrest among some citizens of deep faith, leading to sectarian calls to unite religion and the state once and for all. In Iran, Saudi Arabia and parts of Somalia and Nigeria, these interpretations triumphed, imposing extremist versions of Sharia over millions of people.In other words, Muslim-majority countries stunted the democratic potential of Sharia by rejecting it as a mainstream legal concept in the 1950s and 1960s, leaving Sharia in the hands of extremists.But there is no inherent tension between Sharia, human rights and the rule of law. Like any use of religion in politics, Sharia’s application depends on who is using it – and why.Leaders of places like Saudi Arabia and Brunei have chosen to restrict women’s freedom and minority rights. But many scholars of Islam and grassroots organizations interpret Sharia as a flexible, rights-oriented and equality-minded ethical order. Religion and the law worldwideReligion is woven into the legal fabric of many post-colonial nations, with varying consequences for democracy and stability.After its 1948 founding, Israel debated the role of Jewish law in Israeli society. Ultimately, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his allies opted for a mixed legal system that combined Jewish law with English common law. In Latin America, the Catholicism imposed by Spanish conquistadors underpins laws restricting abortion, divorce and gay rights.And throughout the 19th century, judges in the U.S. regularly invoked the legal maxim that “Christianity is part of the common law.” Legislators still routinely invoke their Christian faith when supporting or opposing a given law. Political extremism and human rights abuses that occur in those places are rarely understood as inherent flaws of these religions. When it comes to Muslim-majority countries, however, Sharia takes the blame for regressive laws – not the people who pass those policies in the name of religion.Fundamentalism and violence, in other words, are a post-colonial problem – not a religious inevitability. For the Muslim world, finding a system of government that reflects Islamic values while promoting democracy will not be easy after more than 50 years of failed secular rule. But building peace may demand it.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. Read more: * What Sharia means: 5 questions answered * How Islamic law can take on ISIS * Trump’s travel ban is just one of many US policies that legalize discrimination against MuslimsMark Fathi Massoud has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, and the University of California. Any views expressed here are the author's responsibility.

  • 'Playing with fire': GOP Sen. Ben Sasse tears into Republicans planning to object to Electoral College results

    The Nebraska senator said that in private, few Republicans actually believed Trump's baseless claims of voter fraud.

  • On Jan. 20, Biden to issue memo freezing Trump administration's midnight regulations

    At noon ET on Jan. 20, after President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated, he will issue a memo to stop or postpone midnight regulations and actions taken by the Trump administration that have not gone into effect by Inauguration Day, Biden transition spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday.Midnight regulations are created by executive branch agencies during the lame duck period of an outgoing president's administration. Psaki shared some examples, including a rule the Department of Labor is expected to publish that "would make it easier for companies to call their workers independent contractors to avoid minimum wage and overtime protections."Issuing a regulatory freeze is standard practice for incoming administrations, Psaki said, "but this freeze will apply not only to regulations but also guidance documents — documents that can have enormous consequences on the lives of the American people." Biden has already said he will take several executive actions on his first day in office, including rejoining both the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change.More stories from theweek.com Trump is right about the Republican death wish 5 cartoons about the end of a very, very bad year A bat research team investigating coronavirus origins in China reportedly had their samples confiscated

  • Ethiopian migrant who became symbol of integration in Italy killed on her goat farm

    An Ethiopian migrant who became a symbol of integration in Italy, her adopted home, has been killed on her farm where she raised goats for her cheese business, police said on Wednesday. A Ghanaian employee on her farm in the northern Italian region of Trentino has admitted to killing Agitu Ideo Gudeta, 42, with a hammer and raping her, Italian news agency Ansa reported.

  • Police on report man was making bombs: 'Hindsight is 20/20'

    More than a year before Anthony Warner detonated a Christmas Day bomb in downtown Nashville, officers visited his home after his girlfriend told police he was building bombs in a recreational vehicle at his residence, according to documents. Officers were called to Pamela Perry’s Nashville home on Aug. 21, 2019, following a report from her attorney that she was making suicidal threats while sitting on her front porch with firearms, the police department said in a statement.

  • Wang Xiangjun: China's 'Glacier Bro' presumed dead

    The Chinese influencer and environmentalist Wang Xiangjun was known for his love of glaciers.

  • Klobuchar Rips Hawley over Plan to Object to Electoral College Results: ‘Coup Attempt’

    Senator Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) said Wednesday that Josh Hawley's (R., Mo.) plan to object to the certification of Electoral College votes amounted to a "coup attempt."Hawley said in a Wednesday statement that he could not "vote to certify the electoral college results on January 6 without raising the fact that some states…failed to follow their own state election laws," and called on Congress to investigate allegations of voter fraud."This is how you run for President on the Republican side in 2024. You join a coup attempt," Klobuchar wrote on Twitter in response to Hawley. "Democracy will prevail. As lead Dem on Rules [Committee] I will guarantee it."> This is how you run for President on the Republican side in 2024. You join a coup attempt. > > Democracy will prevail. As lead Dem on Rules Com. I will guarantee it. There’s a bipartisan group of electeds who will put our country first. See you on the 6th! https://t.co/jDkGVi4vDw> > -- Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) December 30, 2020President Trump has refused to publicly concede defeat to opponent Joe Biden, and has alleged that Democrats "stole" the election by means of widespread voter fraud. Lawyers allied with the president have sued to void the election results in several crucial states, but have not presented evidence of fraud compelling enough to overturn the results. The Senate Committee on Rules and Administration oversees contested elections as part of its responsibilities. Senator Roy Blunt, the other Republican from Missouri, chairs the committee, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) is also a member.Representative Mo Brooks (R., Ala.) claimed on Monday that "dozens" of House Republicans could object to the election certification. The representatives would need the support of at least one senator for their objections to be heard and debated. Now that Hawley has announced his own objection, Brooks and other House Republicans could succeed in having their objections heard, though there is no indication that vice president Mike Pence will refuse to certify the results.

  • Woolly rhino remains found in melting Siberian permafrost

    Russian scientists are poring over the well-preserved remains of a woolly rhinoceros that likely roamed the Siberian hinterland more than 12,000 years ago after it was found in the diamond-producing region of Yakutia. Similar finds in Russia's vast Siberian region have happened with increasing regularity as climate change, which is warming the Arctic at a faster pace than the rest of the world, has thawed the ground in some areas long locked in permafrost. The rhino was found at a river in August complete with all its limbs, some of its organs, its tusk - a rarity for such finds - and even its wool, Valery Plotnikov, a scientist, was quoted as saying by Yakutia 24, a local media outlet.

  • Security firms say suspicious object on oil tanker off Iraq

    Sailors involved in transferring fuel oil from an Iraqi tanker in the Persian Gulf to another vessel owned by a shipping company traded in the U.S. discovered a “suspicious object” they fear could be a mine, authorities said Thursday. The discovery comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. in the waning days of President Donald Trump's administration. Already, America has conducted B-52 bomber flyovers and sent a nuclear submarine into the Persian Gulf over what Trump officials describe as the possibility of an Iranian attack on the one-year anniversary of the U.S. drones strike in Baghdad that killed a top Iranian general.

  • Authorities investigating if Nashville suicide bomber also blew up his dogs

    Warner told a friend he was going to spend time away with his dogs

  • Israel welcomes former spy in U.S.

    It took 35 years to get here. An emotional moment for the former U.S. Navy analyst who served three decades in prison for spying for Israel. Jonathan Pollard and his wife Esther arrived in Tel Aviv to a welcome from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The leader saying a Hebrew prayer of thanksgiving for the liberation of prisoners. Pollard had long voiced a desire to emigrate to Israel, which granted him citizenship. The espionage affair was a rare strain on U.S.-Israel relations for decades. "We are ecstatic, we're home at last after 35 years." Pollard was sentenced in 1987 to life imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage, and was freed on parole in 2015. Seen by some as a parting gift to Israel by the Trump administration the U.S. Justice Department let the parole terms' five-year travel ban go unrenewed last month.