One woman was taken to the hospital after she crashed her vehicle into a Perkins Restaurant in New Castle yesterday afternoon. According to police, the crash took place just before four o’clock. No one in the restaurant was hurt. The woman driver was taken to UPMC Jameson for treatment.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Police say two Pittsburgh officers were injured and two men were arrested after what they call “large and unruly” crowds flooded into the street on the city’s South Side. The city’s public safety department says officers were called to the area just before 2:15 a.m. Sunday, where people had filled the street, stopping traffic in both directions. An officer’s foot was run over as he was writing a traffic citation. Another officer injured his knee.

BETHEL PARK, Pa. (AP) — A street fight in western Pennsylvania ended with a man being shot in the leg. Bethel Park police responded to Wallace Avenue around 8:20 p.m. Sunday following reports of two men fighting and shots being fired. They soon found the wounded man and took him to a hospital. The man’s wound is not considered life-threatening. But his name and further details on his condition were not disclosed. The other man wasn’t injured. The fight and shooting remain under investigation.

UPDATE: The double murder trial continues for Brandon Richardson in Beaver County Court. Beaver County Radio News Correspondent Sandy Giordano has the latest…

(Photos taken by Frank Sparks)

BREAKING NEWS: Firefighters were called overnight to an apartment fire in the 11-hundred block of Fifth Street in the area of the Corner Grill. The building – owned by John and Margie Lecnar – was evacuated, but the fire is completely out now and firefighters are no longer on the scene. Beaver County Radio News has learned that blaze began as an electrical fire in the 2nd floor kitchen of the building. That entire area, along with the rear of the attic, is gutted. No injuries were reported.

WEATHER FORECAST FOR MONDAY, AUGUST 19TH, 2019

TODAY – PARTLY SUNNY. HIGH – 87.

TONIGHT – A FEW CLOUDS. A STRAY SHOWER OR
THUNDERSTORM POSSIBLE. LOW – 67.

TUESDAY – MIXED CLOUDS AND SUN WITH SCATTERED
THUNDERSTORMS. HIGH – 88.

Sanders’ criminal justice plan aims to cut prison population
By MEG KINNARD Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is proposing a criminal justice overhaul that aims to cut the nation’s prison population in half, end mandatory minimum sentencing, ban private prisons and legalize marijuana. He says the current system does not fairly treat people of color, addicts or the mentally ill.
“We have a system that imprisons and destroys the lives of millions of people,” Sanders told The Associated Press before the planned released of his proposal Sunday. “It’s racist in disproportionately affecting the African American and Latino communities, and it’s a system that needs fundamental change.”
Sanders was promoting the plan during a weekend of campaigning in South Carolina, where the majority of the Democratic electorate is African American. The Vermont senator, who won the support of some younger black Democrats during the 2016 primary, has stepped up his references to racial disparities, particularly during stops in the South and urban areas.
Before about 300 at a town hall in Columbia on Sunday afternoon, Sanders conducted a conversation on the plan with several state lawmakers who have endorsed him. Also part of the discussion was Donald Gilliard, Sanders’ South Carolina deputy political director, who was at one time sentenced to life in federal prison for a nonviolent drug crime.
“Sometimes you don’t even believe what you’re hearing here,” Sanders said Sunday, of the problems he sees in the criminal justice system.
As president, Sanders said he would abolish mandatory minimum sentencing and reinstate a federal parole system, end the “three strikes law” and expand the use of alternative sentencing, including community supervision and halfway houses. The goal is to reduce the prison population by one-half.
“A very significant number of people who are behind bars today are dealing with one form or another of illness,” Sanders said. “These should be treated as health issues, not from a criminal perspective.”
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness , 2 million people with mental illness are booked into jails annually.
Taking aim at what his proposal calls “for-profit prison profiteering,” Sanders would ban private prisons, make prison phone calls and other inmate communications free, and audit prison commissaries for price gouging and fees.
The plan would legalize marijuana and expunge previous marijuana convictions, and end a cash bail system that Sanders says keeps hundreds of thousands who have not been convicted of a crime languishing in jail because they cannot afford bail.
“Can you believe that, in the year 2019, 400,000 people are in jail awaiting a trial because they are poor?” Sanders said. “That is a moral outrage, it is a legal outrage.”
According to the Prison Policy Initiative , more than 460,000 people are being held in local jails around the country while they await trial, with a median bail amount of $10,000 for felony offenses.
Sanders wants to improve relations between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve. To do that, he proposes to end federal programs that provide military equipment to local police forces, establish federal standards for the use of body cameras, provide bias training and require that the Justice Department review all officer-involved shootings.
“You have a lot of resentment in minority communities all over this country, who see police forces not as an asset but as an invading force,” Sanders said.
On capital punishment, Sanders’ plan formalizes his call to end the federal death penalty and urges states to eliminate the punishment as well.
“When we talk about violence in society and trying to lower the levels of violence, it is not appropriate that the state itself is part of capital punishment,” Sanders said.
Sanders said that over the long term, his plan will save the public money because of reductions to overall incarceration costs.
“It will cost money but it will pay for itself many, many times over,” Sanders said. “Locking people up is very, very expensive.”
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Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

Funerals Saturday for 4 children killed in day care fire
ERIE, Pa. (AP) — Residents of a Pennsylvania city will gather Saturday to mourn and remember four of the five children who died when fire swept through a child care center.
Funerals for 8-year-old La’Myhia Jones, 6-year-old Luther Jones Jr., 4-year-old Ava Jones and 9-month-old Jaydan Augustyniak will take place at Erie’s Bayfront Convention Center, with visitation before a noontime service.
The funeral for 2-year-old Dalvin Pacley will be held Monday.
Fire officials suspect last Sunday’s blaze was accidental and possibly electrical. Extension cords and other wiring have been sent for examination.
An adult and two adolescent boys were able to escape the fire.
Three of the victims were the children of a volunteer firefighter, Luther Jones. Their mother, Shevona Overton, is also the mother of Jaydan.

New York City subway scare suspect taken into police custody
NEW YORK (AP) — A man suspected of placing two devices that looked like pressure cookers in a New York City subway station, causing an evacuation and roiling Friday’s morning commute, has been apprehended, police said.
Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea tweeted Saturday morning that a man seen in surveillance video holding one of the objects — which police identified as rice cookers —was taken into custody.
Police said cameras captured a man pulling the cookers out of a shopping cart and placing them in the Fulton Street subway station near the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.
A third cooker of the same make, year and model was found about 2 miles away (3 kilometers) on a sidewalk in the Chelsea neighborhood, prompting another police investigation.
Authorities determined they were not explosives.
Many rice cookers look like pressure cookers, which use pressure to cook food quickly — a function that has been used to turn them into bombs.
Dozens of suspicious packages are reported daily in the city, but the proximity of the subway station to the site of the Sept. 11 attacks served to heighten anxiety before police gave the all-clear.
Police have stressed that so far, it isn’t clear if the man was trying to frighten people or merely throwing the objects away.
“I would stop very short of calling him a suspect,” said John Miller, the New York Police Department’s top counterterror official.
“It is possible that somebody put out a bunch of items in the trash today and this guy picked them up and then discarded them, or it’s possible that this was an intentional act.”
Police say they didn’t have details on the man’s apprehension. No charges have been announced.

Section of Pennsylvania Turnpike to close for bridge work
NEW STANTON, Pa. (AP) — Motorists will face detours when a section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike closes for bridge work.
The toll road will close in both directions between New Stanton Exit 75 and Breezewood Exit 161 starting at 11 p.m. Saturday until approximately 6 a.m. Sunday, weather permitting.
The turnpike commission says the closure is needed for workers to safely remove the temporary bridge over the turnpike at milepost 110 in Somerset. A new bridge opened to traffic on July 19.
Motorists will be permitted to enter the turnpike eastbound at the Bedford interchange and westbound motorists can enter the toll road at the Somerset exchange.
Detours will be posted.