Army veteran pleads not guilty in anthem assault on teen
SUPERIOR, Mont. (AP) — An Army veteran pleaded not guilty to assaulting a 13-year-old boy who the suspect said refused to remove his hat during the national anthem at a rodeo in Montana.
Attorney Lance Jasper has told the Missoulian that defendant Curt Brockway, a 39-year-old veteran with a traumatic brain injury from an automobile crash, believed he was doing what President Donald Trump wanted him to do.
Brockway told investigators the boy cursed at him when he asked him to remove his hat.
Witnesses have said Brockway picked the boy up by his neck and slammed him to the ground. Court records say the boy suffered a skull fracture.
Brockway, of Superior, Montana, entered his plea Wednesday in the Aug. 3 encounter.
He remains free without bond. His next hearing is Oct. 23.

Ex-Blackwater contractor sentenced to life in Iraq shootings
By ASHRAF KHALIL Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Blackwater security contractor was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for his role in the 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq that left 14 people dead.
Federal judge Royce Lamberth issued the sentence after a succession of friends and relatives requested leniency for Nicholas Slatten, who was found guilty of first-degree murder by a jury in December.
Prosecutors charged that Slatten, of Sparta, Tennessee, was the first to fire shots in the September 2007 massacre of Iraqi civilians at a crowded traffic circle in Baghdad. In all, 10 men, two women and two boys, ages 9 and 11, were killed.
The defense had argued that Slatten and other Blackwater contractors opened fire only after they saw what they mistakenly thought was a potential suicide car bomber moving quickly toward their convoy.
Defense attorney Dane Butswinkas described Slatten as “a person of high integrity” whose family members had served in the U.S. military for four generations.
Several of Slatten’s supporters openly accused prosecutors of scapegoating an innocent man in order to placate Iraqi public opinion. The shootings strained U.S.-Iraqi relations and focused intense international scrutiny on the extensive use of private military contractors in Iraq.
In 2014, a jury convicted Slatten and three other contractors — Paul Alvin Slough, Evan Shawn Liberty and Dustin Laurent Heard— who were part of a four-vehicle convoy that was protecting State Department personnel in the area. An appeals court overturned that conviction, saying Slatten should have been tried separately from the three other men.
Slatten was retried last summer, but a mistrial was declared after the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict. A subsequent jury convicted him of murder in December 2018.
Slatten’s father, Darrell, paused in addressing the judge to speak directly to his son, who sat largely impassive in a beige prison jumpsuit.
“Nick, please accept my apology for what your country has done to you,” he said. “We will fight until hell freezes over to correct this travesty of justice.”
Slatten himself told the judge that he was a victim of an “unjust prosecution” and that government lawyers cared more about producing a conviction than uncovering the truth of what happened in Baghdad 12 years ago.
“This is a miscarriage of justice and it will not stand,” he said.
But Judge Lambert, in issuing the life sentence, dismissed much of the family’s claims that Slatten was a scapegoat for international political considerations.
“The jury got it exactly right,” he said. “This was murder.”

As a result of a hearing, Zachary Dinnell will be sentenced soon. Sandy Giordano has more on this story…

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police say they arrested five people over violence involving pro-democracy protesters at the city’s international airport. Spokesman Mak Chin-ho says all of the men aged between 17 and 28 were arrested for illegal assembly. Two were also charged with assaulting a police officer and possessing offensive weapons. He says additional suspects are expected to be arrested, including some who assaulted an officer as riot police sought to clear the terminal, prompting him to draw his sidearm.

NEW YORK (AP) — A person familiar with the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide in a federal jail says surveillance video reviewed after the death shows guards did not check on inmates every half hour as was noted in log entries. Epstein is believed to have killed himself early Saturday at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, where he was awaiting trial in a sex trafficking case.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A federal appeals court says high tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike don’t violate the right of truckers and other motorists to travel between states, upholding dismissal of their lawsuit. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday Pennsylvania’s use of turnpike tolls to pay other costs was authorized by Congress. The ruling upholds a federal judge’s decision in April to dismiss the lawsuit by the Missouri-based Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and others.

Pipe replacement begins Thursday on Ohioville Road, otherwise known as Route 168, between Route 51 and Forest Lane. Work will take place between 7 am and 5 pm. Traffic will be detoured via Route 51 and Route 251.

An Ohio man is accused of forging checks from a local physical therapy office. Franklin Township Police say the owner of Burk Physical Therapy was contacted by Huntington Bank in June after a man attempted to cash a suspicious check from her bank account, and the man left after being pressed for more details on the check. The accused is being charged with 2 counts forgery, theft by deception, theft by unlawful taking, and access device fraud.

A new bill co-introduced by U. S. Senator, Pat Toomey, would give prosecutors another option to obtain death penalty sentences. Specifically, the bill would permit federal prosecutors to impanel a second jury for sentencing death penalty cases if the 1st jury does not reach a unanimous decision. “Eric’s Law”, named after Eric Williams, a federal corrections officer who was murded by an individual that received a second life in prison because one of the jurors would not vote for a death sentence. The bill is modeled after laws in California and Arizona.

U. S. Rep Conor Lamb sought help from President Trump, when concerning Beaver County’s 387 thousand dollar penalty from the IRS. Lamb explained the county’s predicament in a letter, saying the predicament stemmed from its former payroll supervisor’s inability to properly file payroll tax paperwork for 2016/2018. Officials say the taxes were paid, but the forms were not filed correctly. If the penalty is not waived, it will be on tax payers to pay it back.