3 women sue Epstein’s estate, citing rape, other sex acts
NEW YORK (AP) — Three women are suing the estate of Jeffrey Epstein and others in lawsuits that cite rape and other forced sex acts while he served a Florida jail sentence and assaults that stretched to 2014.
The lawsuits in Manhattan federal court were filed Tuesday on behalf of women who remained anonymous. They sought unspecified damages.
The lawsuits say two women were 17 and the third woman was 20 when they said they were sexually assaulted by Epstein. All said they were also coerced into giving Epstein sexual massages.
One woman maintains Epstein forced her to marry another woman.
A message seeking comment was left with a lawyer for Epstein’s estate.
Epstein killed himself in his New York prison cell on Aug. 10 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

FBI: Truck driver threatened mass shooting at Memphis church
By JEFF MARTIN Associated Press
A truck driver has been arrested after saying he would commit a mass shooting at a church in Memphis, Tennessee, authorities say in newly filed court records.
Thomas Matthew McVicker was apprehended in Indianapolis before the plan could be carried out, according to a criminal complaint unsealed this week. It’s the most recent case in a string of men being arrested around the country for threatening to carry out shootings.
McVicker, 38, made “credible threats to conduct a mass shooting and suicide” planned for Thursday, an FBI special agent said in a sworn affidavit.
He was arrested by Indiana State Police and the FBI, said Chris Bavender, an FBI spokesman in Indianapolis.
Earlier this month, a friend of McVicker in the south Alabama town of Fairhope told a Florida FBI officer that McVicker has been considering “shooting a church up” or killing people on the street.
Later, in a telephone call, the friend said McVicker told her the church shooting would happen when he was in Memphis on Thursday and that he “intended to take his knife and slit the pastor’s throat.”
His mother told the FBI he owned a Ruger P90 handgun and sometimes uses cocaine and methamphetamine. She also said her son is being treated for schizophrenia. McVicker told his Alabama friend “evil entities entered his body and are torturing him,” the affidavit states.
The friend asked McVicker why he wanted to kill innocent people, and he said “they put spiritual snakes and spiders in my bed at night,” the FBI agent wrote. “I’ve only seen them a couple of times but they take form and I can feel them crawling on me and under me,” the affidavit states.
The FBI says it confirmed with McVicker’s employer that he requested leave time Thursday and that he indicated in the request that he would spend the leave time in Memphis, the affidavit states.
The affidavit doesn’t specify a motive, nor does it identify a specific Memphis church. McVicker’s friend did not learn of an exact location from the phone call. However, “McVicker insisted that ‘something’ would happen when he was in Memphis,” the affidavit states.
The Memphis Police Department was notified of the threat, which did not mention a specific church, police spokesman Louis Brownlee said Tuesday. Memphis police work regularly with state and federal authorities on these types of threats “to stay ahead of the curve,” Brownlee said.
Earle Fisher, pastor at Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, said he would be reaching out to his congregation to tell them about the threat and inform them that the church has security measures in place.
“It’s tragic that we are in a climate that even in your house of worship, in what is supposed to be a sacred and safe space, you have to take up measures that might include making sure that you have armed security in your sanctuary to make sure that your parishioners are safe,” Fisher said.
After the initial tip, a task force officer in the FBI’s Tampa division conducted much of the investigation, reaching out to McVicker’s friend, mother and company, among other things, the affidavit shows. The case “supports our message that the FBI takes all tips from the public seriously and continually works with federal, state and local law enforcement partners to keep our communities safe,” Tampa FBI spokeswoman Andrea Aprea said in an email.
Court records in Alabama show McVicker received a ticket for driving a truck in an improper lane in Jefferson County, which includes Birmingham, in June 2014. He was working for Swift Transportation of Gary, Indiana, at the time, records show. McVicker failed to pay the fine until 13 months later, after his driver’s license was suspended, records show.
Court records list McVicker’s address as Punta Gorda, Florida, but his Alabama friend told the FBI that McVicker lives in his semi. The records don’t list a lawyer who could be reached for comment on McVicker’s behalf.
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Associated Press writers Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; and Rick Callahan in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

Philly standoff points to need for new gun law, Wolf says
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gov. Tom Wolf is urging the passage of a law in Pennsylvania requiring gun owners to report stolen or lost firearms, suggesting it could have prevented last week’s wounding of six Philadelphia police officers during a long standoff.
Wolf made the comments Tuesday during his regular appearance on KDKA-AM radio in Pittsburgh.
He says Pennsylvania needs a stolen or lost guns reporting requirement so that people like the accused shooter in Philadelphia can’t illegally get a hold of a long gun.
Maurice Hill is charged with attempted murder, assault and other counts. He’s accused of shooting at officers who were serving a drug warrant Wednesday and then keeping police at bay while he fired from inside a house.
The six officers were released after being treated at hospitals.

Game commission recommends deer feeding ban
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A committee of Pennsylvania Game Commission staff has recommended a statewide ban on feeding white-tailed deer.
The agency biologists say that banning artificial feeding stations would help slow the spread of wildlife diseases. They’re asking residents to voluntarily stop feeding deer.
The commission often addresses wildlife outbreaks of insect-borne infections, West Nile Virus, and other flare-ups, but its scientists are most concerned about chronic wasting disease in deer.
The neurological disorder is fatal, and exposure cannot be detected until shortly before the deer’s death. The disease has spread to herds in 23 states, including Pennsylvania, where it continues to spread.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that municipalities that have proposed feeding bans in the past have faced opposition and eventually abandoned the idea after backlash from voters who enjoy the pastime.
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Information from: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, http://www.post-gazette.com

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A former Uber driver convicted of kidnapping and assaulting a woman he picked up while off-duty in Pittsburgh has been sentenced to nearly a year in jail. Soumana Dao received a 364-day term on Monday and will get credit the roughly four months he has already served. The 32-year-old Dao will also serve five years of probation and 15 years as a registered sex offender. Authorities say Dao picked up the woman after she requested an Uber in October 2017 and soon began to touch her inappropriately.

Congressman Pete King, R-N.Y., said Monday he is backing a bill in the House to ban assault weapons because he does not “see any need for them in everyday society.” King told the New York Daily News “They are weapons of mass slaughter,” after he became the first GOP representative to back the measure first rolled out in February by Congressman David Cicilline, D-R.I. The bill has 200 Democratic co-sponsors and seeks to ban semi-automatic firearms and large-capacity magazines. The measure has drawn renewed attention after the shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio earlier this month. King had been in favor of background checks for gun purchases, but the back-to-back shootings, which left 32 dead and dozens injured, pushed him to back the assault weapon bill. But even if the bill passes the House, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he will not bring the legislation to the Senate, and President Donald Trump says he opposes the bill.

After a dirty diaper smacked into his patrol car, an Indiana State Trooper issued a message. “Littering is always bad”.  After working the state fair in Indianapolis on Sunday, Indiana State Police Sergeant Stephen Wheeles was on his way home when a diaper came flying out of the car in front of him on I-65, hit the road a couple of times and struck the front of his patrol car before disappearing underneath his vehicle. The state trooper pulled over the vehicle and found a passenger in the backseat with a baby. The unnamed passenger wouldn’t admit that he had been changing the baby’s diaper, according to Wheeles. Instead, the man told Wheeles that he had rolled down the window and that the wind blew the diaper out. Wheeles let the man go on with his day — but not before giving him a ticket for littering.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrats are mounting a comeback in statehouses across the country, pouring millions of dollars into state level races that the party has often ignored. Democrats are trying to gain ground in state legislatures ahead of a once-in-a-decade redistricting process that redraws congressional maps. The stakes are particularly high following a recent Supreme Court ruling that decided federal courts have no business policing political boundary disputes in many cases.

Residents in Baden are moving back to normalcy after an hours-long standoff in the borough. Beaver County Radio News Correspondent Sandy Giordano has the story. Click on ‘play’ to hear Sandy’s report…

According to this week’s Triple-A East Central Gas Price Report the average price is five cents cheaper this week at $2.81 a gallon. In Beaver, drivers are paying 2.76 a gallon while in New Castle, the average price is nearly three cents lower at 2.73. The national average is $2.61, which is three cents cheaper than last week, 17-cents less than a month ago and 22-cents cheaper than a year ago. A year ago the average in Western Pennsylvania was at 3.09 a gallon.