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Oklahoma cold case cracked after 35 years thanks to cigarette butts: prosecutors
Oklahoma investigators say they have cracked a 35-year-old cold case after finding a match for a DNA profile taken from cigarette butts collected at the crime scene.
Earl Wilson, 55, is now facing a first-degree murder charge in the 1985 killing of Paul Aikman, who was stabbed to death at a rest stop along a road connecting Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the state’s attorney general’s office says.
“Advances in DNA technology are allowing authorities to take another look at these difficult cases,” Attorney General Mike Hunter said in a statement. “Just because cases go cold doesn’t mean someone shouldn’t be held responsible, even after three decades.”
Earl Wilson has been charged in a 1985 killing after investigators linked his DNA to cigarette buts found at the crime scene, prosecutors say. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections)
INDIANA ANNOUNCES ARREST IN 1986 DISAPPEARANCE OF WOMAN
The office says in 1985, agents from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) collected cigarette butts while combing the scene of Aikman’s death and later were able to develop a DNA profile from them.
The case went cold after no match was found. But then last year, OBSI criminalists searching CODIS – the FBI’s national DNA database – discovered that Wilson was a match, the Office says, adding that a fingerprint impression taken from the murder scene was able to be linked to Wilson as well.
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Wilson currently is being held at an Oklahoma correctional facility for a sexual battery conviction, the Associated Press reported, citing prison records.
“For 35 years, Paul Aikman’s family has ached not knowing who was responsible for his murder,” OSBI Director Ricky Adams said in a statement. “Thirty-five years have passed, but we have not forgotten about Paul.”
Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban slammed for using celeb ‘privilege’ to skip Australia’s mandatory quarantine
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are facing backlash from fans after they reportedly skipped the 14-day mandatory hotel quarantine upon arriving in Sydney, Australia.
The couple took a private jet to Australia and were spotted back at their luxury Southern Highlands estate just hours after landing, the Daily Mail said.
They were accompanied by their daughters, Faith and Sunday.
KEITH URBAN, NICOLE KIDMAN’S DAUGHTER, 12, IS TAKING FILMMAKING LESSONS, SINGER SAYS
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban attend the 54th Academy Of Country Music Awards
(Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
The New South Wales Government website states: “Under the Public Health Order by the Minister for Health and Medical Research, all people returning from overseas must quarantine in a designated quarantine facility, such as a hotel.
“Exemptions are rare due to the high risk of not quarantining. They are only considered where there are strong medical, health or compassionate grounds,” the statement continues.
Kidman, 53, and Urban, 52, were granted special permission to return to their estate amid the coronavirus pandemic, the outlet said. A rep for Urban told Fox News on Tuesday that the information swirling about their travels is “inaccurate” but did not provide further details.
KEITH URBAN AND NICOLE KIDMAN GUSH ABOUT EACH OTHER FOR THEIR 14TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban at the Australian Open
(Getty)
After photos surfaced of the couple outside of their Australian estate, fans immediately took to social media to criticize them.
“Very disappointed in @NicoleKidman and @KeithUrban not going into quarantine like the rest of the people coming from overseas. The rich and privileged getting away with it again,” one fan wrote.
“This is just bulls–t. Unfair & unAustralian. Seems we really are a country where the rich & famous are exempt from everything, incl. #COVID19au,” another fan said.
Another person stated: “One law for the rich and powerful and the rest ….well just buckle down!”
KEITH URBAN SAYS HE, NICOLE KIDMAN, THEIR KIDS ARE STAYING ‘CREATIVE’ IN CORONAVIRUS QUARANTINE
Other fans defended the couple. “Anyone can apply for the exemption from hotel quarantine if they can provide evidence of being able to self isolate. Try to gain more information before critizing [sic] someone,” one fan wrote.
Another person praised the couple for coming to Australia, writing, “I can’t wait to see Nicole Kidman’s Perfect Strangers movie filming in Australia now. The book was great. @KeithUrban glad you can be home to see your families there.”
Kidman and Urban’s arrival in Australia comes just a few weeks before the actress is set to start working on her new TV series, “Nine Perfect Strangers,” based on a novel by Liane Moriarty, the same author who wrote “Big Little Lies.”
The production is expected to bring $100 million into the Australian film industry and give several jobs to the local artists, according to The Daily Telegraph. Kidman is said to be providing medical expenses for crew members who need to quarantine before filming.
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“It is a great opportunity for me to give back to the community that nurtured me through so much of my career,” the actress told The Daily Telegraph on Sunday.
A rep for Kidman did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
Trump claims mail-in voting will lead to ‘most corrupt election’ in US history
President Trump doubled down on his criticism of mail-in voting on Tuesday, warning that it would lead to the “most corrupt election” in U.S. history.
“Mail-In Voting, unless changed by the courts, will lead to the most CORRUPT ELECTION in our Nation’s History! #RIGGEDELECTION,” Trump tweeted Tuesday.
The president’s comments come after he warned during his sit-down interview with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace that mail-in voting would “rig the election.”
TRUMP SAYS MAIL-IN VOTING WILL LEAD TO RIGGED ELECTION
Wallace asked whether the president would accept the results of the presidential election in November, and asked whether the president was a “good loser.”
“I’m not a good loser. I don’t like to lose. I don’t lose too often. I don’t like to lose,” Trump said. “You don’t know until you see. It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election, I really do.”
The president and Republicans have been warning about possible voter fraud connected to mail-in voting for months, while Democrats and the media have often pointed to a lack of evidence that mail-in voting, and absentee voting, lead to voter fraud.
Earlier this year, up to 800 ballots were disqualified in Paterson, N.J., after hundreds of ballots were found in the mail bundled together, despite a state law forbidding anyone from handling or sending more than three mail-in ballots together. Several individuals – including a councilman-elect – are now facing criminal charges for alleged election fraud.
But Twitter in the past has flagged tweets from Trump about mail-in voter fraud, and said that “Trump claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to ‘a Rigged Election.’ However, fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud.”
The president and the GOP have railed against recent attempts by Democrats to increase voting by mail; the RNC and the Trump reelection campaign have doubled their legal budget this year to hit back at efforts by Democrats to overhaul voting laws in response to the pandemic.
Democrats, pushing back against the claims by Trump and the GOP, say that cases of actual voter fraud are limited and claim that Republicans are trying to suppress voter turnout to improve their chances of winning elections.
Meanwhile, Trump campaign national press secretary Hogan Gidley said Monday that the president has a right to be skeptical of election results, claiming Democrats have a “history of cheating.”
“The Democrats are pushing for universal mail-in voting, that is just fraught with all the types of possibility of cheating and the Democrats know it,” Gidley told “The Story.” “So they are bragging about a policy that could completely compromise the election, and then they are asking us to abide by those results. That’s ridiculous.”
Hogan said the Trump campaign “won’t say right now that whatever happens, we are just going to say that’s the way that it is, because we know now that Democrats have a history of cheating in elections and we will not let them cheat on this one.”
“If this election is free and this election is fair,” he concluded, “Donald Trump will get four more years in the White House.”
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser, Tyler Olson and Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.
5 words that will help Trump win the African-American vote in 2020
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How COVID-19 is impacting future of professional sports
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Guest trips while fleeing charging bison at Yellowstone National Park in terrifying video
“Play dead.”
That was the advice repeatedly screamed to a person who was filmed running away from a charging bison while visiting Yellowstone National Park.
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE SHARES SAFETY TIPS AS YELLOWSTONE REOPENS
In the terrifying clip, which was shared to YouTube last week and has since racked up nearly 300,000 views, two bison are seen standing together before they begin charging two guests who are running for their lives. However, one of them trips and falls onto the grass.
Bystanders standing behind the person recording scream in terror as the bison continues charging toward the visitor who is now lying flat.
Unbelievably, however, the wild animal stops and instead just appears to smell.
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Those watching scream for the guest to “play dead” as the bison continues to sniff her for several seconds, until it eventually runs away. She gets up and calmly walks away with the person she had been running with earlier. She did not appear to be injured.
Guests are warned from getting too close to the bison while inside the park, which are wild and known to charge
(iStock)
The video was shared Friday, but it was not revealed what day this particular incident took place.
According to the publication Cowboy State Daily, the incident occurred at Nez Perce Creek.
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Guests are warned about getting too close to the bison, which are wild and known to charge.
Last month, a visitor at Yellowstone National Park was gored by a bison after getting too close in an attempt to take a photo.
(iStock)
“Bison have injured more people in Yellowstone than any other animal,” the National Park Service writes on its website, noting all guests should stay at least 25 yards away from the animal, which can run three times faster than humans.
Last month, a visitor at Yellowstone National Park was gored by a bison after getting too close in an attempt to take a photo.
In May, two days after the park opened after being closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, a visitor was injured by a bison after also approaching the wild animal too closely.
Trump to reverse Obama-era affordable housing rule
President Trump plans this week to reverse an Obama-era regulation designed to encourage more low-income units in the country’s mostly White suburbs, putting him squarely at odds with Democratic rival Joseph R. Biden over affordable housing.
The president is taking aim at the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, a 2015 regulation requiring communities that accept certain federal funding to identify and address housing policies that have a “discriminatory effect.”
Mr. Trump has been hammering the theme at White House events and in campaign conference calls with supporters. He told Arizona supporters in a telephone rally Saturday that the Obama regulation is “destroying suburbs.”
“People work so hard to live in a certain community. We shouldn’t be destroying that community,” the president said.
The 2015 rule required local governments that qualify for federal housing funds to follow a checklist of dozens of questions to track patterns of poverty and segregation. The Obama administration’s aim was to enforce the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
“We finalized the AFFH rule at HUD to guarantee the promise of fair housing to every American,” Julian Castro, who served as housing and urban development secretary in the Obama administration, told The Washington Times in a statement. “It was the result of decades of work, sparked by leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.”
The Trump administration has been working to roll back the rule, effectively suspending its enforcement in 2018 and issuing a proposal in January to redefine some of its requirements. HUD Secretary Ben Carson said at the time that the regulations were “overly burdensome to both HUD and grantees and are ineffective in helping program participants meet their reporting obligations.”
Congress has prohibited HUD for the past four years from requiring any grant recipients from undertaking specific changes to zoning laws as called for by the AFFH rule.
Mr. Biden’s campaign platform makes clear that he would try to further Mr. Obama’s goals in housing desegregation. His campaign said Mr. Biden will “eliminate local and state housing regulations that perpetuate discrimination.”
“Exclusionary zoning has for decades been strategically used to keep people of color and low-income families out of certain communities,” the campaign’s website states. “As president, Biden will enact legislation requiring any state receiving federal dollars through the Community Development Block Grants or Surface Transportation Block Grants to develop a strategy for inclusionary zoning.”
Mr. Biden also is proposing to spend $300 million in local housing policy grants to give states and local communities “the technical assistance and planning support they need to eliminate exclusionary zoning policies and other local regulations that contribute to sprawl.”
Mr. Trump said Democrats are trying to “snuff out” the American dream by putting “far-left Washington bureaucrats in charge of local zoning decisions.”
“They are absolutely determined to eliminate single-family zoning, destroy the value of houses and communities already built, just as they have in Minneapolis and other locations,” Mr. Trump said last week at an event highlighting his deregulation agenda. “Your home will go down in value, and crime rates will rapidly rise.”
He said residents of the suburbs “have worked all their lives to get into a community, and now they’re going to watch it go to hell. Not going to happen, not while I’m here.”
“My administration will continue pressing forward until we have made every last vestige of Washington fully, completely and totally accountable to the citizens of the United States,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Castro said the president, whose support in the suburbs has been eroding, especially among White women, is playing identity politics.
“While Vice President Biden has committed to reinstating the rule and fulfilling the promise of fair housing to all, Donald Trump has decided to stoke racism and further divide Americans,” Mr. Castro said.
In 2016, Mr. Trump won suburban districts by 4 percentage points nationwide, but an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Monday showed Mr. Biden leading the president 52% to 43% among suburban voters.
Other public polls in the past two months have shown Mr. Biden leading among suburban voters by as much as 25 percentage points. Trump campaign officials have criticized such polls in general for skewing results by undercounting Republican voters.
In making his case for getting rid of the housing rule, the president has cited the case of Westchester County, New York. The county settled a court case in 2009 with the federal government, which sued the county for falsely certifying that it was reviewing barriers to fair housing as a condition of accepting federal grants.
Westchester officials agreed to create 750 units of affordable housing in communities where Black and Hispanic residents made up less than 3% and 7%, respectively, of the county’s population.
The president said of the court case, “I’ve been watching this for years in Westchester, coming from New York. They want low-income housing built in a neighborhood. Well, I’m ending that rule. I’m taking it out.”
The president said Mr. Biden “and his bosses from the radical left want to significantly multiply what they’re doing now.”
“And what will be the end result is you will totally destroy the beautiful suburbs,” he said. “Suburbia will be no longer as we know it. So they wanted to defund and abolish your police and law enforcement while at the same time destroying our great suburbs.”
At a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing in February, Rep. Fred Keller, Pennsylvania Republican, said the administration’s moves would empower local communities to increase housing affordability. He called the AFFH rule “a burdensome paperwork exercise with no enforcement that would have done nothing to produce actual affordable housing.”
But Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said the action by HUD in January “reverses the 2015 policy before it had even been fully implemented.”
“No meaningful guidance existed until the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule was published in 2015,” she told lawmakers. “After several years of considerable input from a broad array of stakeholders, the 2015 AFFH rule made the strongest effort in decades to reverse harmful patterns of segregation and discriminatory practices in communities across the country. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has completely undermined this work by gutting the 2015 rule and proposing a rule that ignores the legacy of segregation and practically eliminates any accountability.”
St. Louis couple who pulled guns on protesters charged with unlawful use of a weapon
The St. Louis couple who drew national attention for brandishing guns at protesters in late June was charged on Monday, according to CBS affiliate KMOV-TV. Patricia and Mark McCloskey each face one charge of “unlawful use of a weapon — flourishing,” sources told the outlet.
“It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening matter at those participating in nonviolent protest, and while we are fortunate this situation did not escalate into deadly force, this type of conduct is unacceptable in St. Louis,” said Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. “We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation will not be tolerated.”
Police executed a search warrant last week and seized Mark McCloskey’s gun. The couple’s former attorney later turned over Patricia McCloskey’s gun.
The confrontation took place on June 28, when several hundred protesters were headed to the home of St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson. Photos and video show the couple with guns drawn as the protesters passed their home, which is located on a private street.
Mark McCloskey told KMOV-TV that he and his wife were scared for their lives.
“It was like the storming of the Bastille, the gate came down and a large crowd of angry, aggressive people poured through,” he said. “I was terrified that we’d be murdered within seconds. Our house would be burned down, our pets would be killed.”
Video on social media appears to show the protesters opening and walking through the unbroken gate, KMOV reported. It’s not clear when or how the gate was damaged.
McCloskey also claimed that he and his wife received death threats from the group — although one of the protest’s leaders said the group was peaceful and no threats were made.
During a Monday appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Mark McCloskey called it an “upside-down world.”
“The prosecutor, the circuit attorney, has decided that her job isn’t to keep us safe from criminals, but to keep the criminals safe from us,” he said.
An attorney for the couple called Monday’s charges “disheartening.”
“I, along with my clients, support the First Amendment right of every citizen to have their voice and opinion heard,” said attorney Joel Schwartz, according to KMOV-TV. “This right, however, must be balanced with the Second Amendment and Missouri law, which entitle each of us to protect our home and family from potential threats.”
The couple has received support from local politicians including Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who urged Attorney General William Barr to launch a federal civil rights investigation of Gardner before the charges were announced, according to KMOV-TV. He accused the attorney of making “a politically motivated attempt to punish this family for exercising their Second Amendment rights.”
After the charges were announced, Hawley urged the court to dismiss the case on Twitter. “The court should dismiss this case, which is plainly contrary to Missouri law and the US Constitution, and sanction the Circuit Attorney’s Office,” he wrote.
Missouri Governor Mike Parson said last week that he may pardon the couple. Based on what he knew about the case, “I don’t think they’re going to spend any time in jail,” he said on the Marc Cox Morning Show, according to KMOV-TV.
President Trump has also weighed in. In an interview with Townhall Media, the president said the couple “were going to be beat up badly, if they were lucky.” The couple also appeared at a virtual Trump campaign event on Friday night.
Joe Biden says 4 Black women are in the running to be his vice president
- Joe Biden has said that four Black women are currently among those being vetted to be his vice president.
- Speaking on MSNBC’s “The Reid Out” show on Monday, he did not commit to picking a Black woman for the job, but said his whole administration will “look like America.”
- He did not share the names of people he was vetting. People rumored to be on the list include Sen. Kamala Harris, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, and and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Joe Biden has said that four Black women are among those being considered tob be his vice presidential pick, and pledged that whomever is chosen, his administration will “look like America.”
He made the comments to journalist Joy Reid on the first airing of her MSNBC show, “The Reid Out,” on Monday.
He stopped short of making an outright commitment to appointing a Black woman as his vice president, but said his administration “from Vice President, to Supreme Court, to Cabinet positions, to every major position in the White House,” would be as diverse as America itself.
Biden did not share the names of the Black women — or anyone else — being vetted.
People rumored to be considered for Biden’s vice presidential pick include Sen. Kamala Harris, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, Rep. Val Demmings of Florida, Rep. Karen Bass of California, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
“It is important that my administration, I promise you, will look like America,” Biden told Reid on Monday.
“From Vice President to Supreme Court to Cabinet positions to every major position in the White House it’s going to look like America,” he continued. “It’s critically important that be the case. I can guarantee you that.”
He said his popularity within the Black community predates the South Carolina primary, which he won in February with a strong appeal to Black voters.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
Responding to Reid’s remarks that Black women are the “heartbeat” of the Democratic Party, Biden boasted of his support from them and added: “And so they’re the ones, as that old saying goes, that brought me to the dance.”
In March, Biden said that his running mate would “in all likelihood” be a woman.
He also laid out the vetting process, which he noted was being undertaken by “women and men of color as well as white folks.”
As former Vice President, Biden is familiar with the process, which he described as “like a public physical examination.”
Four candidates have been vetted so far, and after the list is narrowed, he will meet them personally and make a decision, Biden said.
