Pittsburgh Zoo mourns death of 10-year-old African lion
PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium says its 10-year-old African lion has died.
Razi’s death was announced Wednesday.
Officials say the lion had suffered for years from seizures. He had a grand mal seizure on Sunday and fell in his exhibit, breaking his jaw.
Veterinary and zoo staff determined that it wasn’t in Razi’s best interest to attempt the difficult surgery he would need.
Razi was first diagnosed with idiopathic epilepsy after experiencing a seizure in the spring of 2013, a year after he arrived at the zoo with his brother, Ajani, who is still at the facility.

On Caribbean island whispers, suspicion about Epstein
By DÁNICA COTO Associated Press
CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) — Ask about Jeffrey Epstein on St. Thomas and rooms go quiet. Some people leave. Those who share stories speak in barely audible tones.
The 66-year-old billionaire bought Little St. James Island off this U.S. Caribbean territory more than two decades ago and began to transform it — clearing the native vegetation, ringing the property with towering palm trees and planting two massive U.S. flags on either end. When guides took scuba divers to spots near the island, security guards would walk to the water’s edge.
It was off-putting to residents of St. Thomas — a lush tropical island east of Puerto Rico with winding roads through mountains dotted with dainty Danish colonial-era homes. Then, when Epstein pleaded guilty in a 2008 to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution, his need for privacy began to appear more sinister.
“Everybody called it ‘Pedophile Island,'” said Kevin Goodrich, who is from St. Thomas and operates boat charters. “It’s our dark corner.”
Many people who worked for Epstein told The Associated Press this week that they had signed long non-disclosure agreements, and refused to talk. One former employee who declined to be identified said Epstein once had five boats, including a large ferry in which he transported up to 200 workers from St. Thomas to his island every day for construction work.
The man said he saw a handful of young women when he was on Epstein’s property but he believed they were older than 18.
“When he was there, it was keep to yourself and do your thing,” the man recalled, adding that Epstein paid well and would give away older machinery and surplus including lumber to his employees.
Epstein built a stone mansion with cream-colored walls and a bright turquoise roof surrounded by several other structures including the maids’ quarters and a massive, square-shaped white building on one end of the island. Workers told each other it was a music room fitted with a grand piano and acoustic walls. Its gold dome flew off during the deadly 2017 hurricane season. Locals recalled seeing Epstein’s black helicopter flying back and forth from the tiny international airport in St. Thomas to his helipad on Little St. James Island, a roughly 75-acre retreat a little over a mile (about 2 kilometers) southeast of St. Thomas.
Epstein later bought neighboring Great St. James Island, which once was popular with locals and tourists for its main attraction, Christmas Cove, a place where you could hang out and order pizza and have it delivered via boat.
“He wasn’t well received,” recalled Spencer Consolvo, a St. Thomas native who runs a tourist shop near a large marina. “People think he’s too rich to be policed properly.”
Federal authorities consider the smaller of the two islands to be Epstein’s primary residence in the United States, a place where at least one alleged victim said in a court affidavit that she participated in an orgy, as well as had sex with Epstein and other people. She said she saw former U.S. President Bill Clinton on the island, but that she never saw him having sex with anyone. A Clinton spokesman issued a statement saying he never visited there.
A day after he pleaded not guilty in a New York courtroom to charges of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls, there was scant movement on the Caribbean island. Hurricane shutters covered the windows, locals hadn’t seen any lights at night and a lone worker drove a bright blue golf cart around the property.
At a nearby office that locals say Epstein owns in a seaside strip mall, a man in a T-shirt and sunglasses on his head opened the door a crack, shook his head vehemently when asked about Epstein and locked the door. The firm, Southern Trust Company Inc., hired Cecile de Jongh, wife of former Gov. John de Jongh, as its office manager, according to records with the U.S. Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority.
Meanwhile, Epstein’s arrest also prompted the U.S. Virgin Islands representative in Congress, Stacey Plaskett, to announce she would give the money Epstein had donated to her campaigns to charitable groups.
Now that Epstein has been arrested a second time, locals say tourists are increasingly asking about his islands when they visit St. Thomas. A woman who did not want to be identified for fear of losing her job running a charter company said she was elated when Epstein got arrested but is now vexed at tourists’ curiosity, saying she reluctantly shares whispered details of his case to prying adults if children are around.
Some of that fascination aggravates Vernon Morgan, a taxi driver and St. Thomas native.
“It brought some kind of notoriety to the Virgin Islands,” he said. “We would much rather that the Virgin Islands be seen in a different light.”

Governor Wolf has signed legislation into law that will make it easier to report sexual assault and violence on college campuses. Don Rooney has details…

State police say they busted more than 600 drunk drivers across the Keystone State over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Troopers made 607 DUI arrests between July 3rd and 7th and issued well over 12-thousand speeding tickets during the same period. There were also 975 crashes through that time, including nine deaths. Troopers allege alcohol was a factor in one of those fatal accidents.

The Allegheny County controller charged in a Detroit altercation is being ordered to stand trial. Chelsa Wagner was in court yesterday morning for another hearing on charges related to her arrest at a hotel while on a trip to Detroit earlier this year. She was arrested after she confronted officers who were trying to remove her husband from a hotel after he lost his key card. She’s ordered to appear in court in November.

THE STATE GAMING CONTROL BOARD HAS YET TO SET A HEARING DATE TO APPROVE A PROPOSED MINI-CASINO IN BIG BEAVER. IT’S BEEN NEARLY A YEAR NOW SINCE OFFICIALS FOR MOUNT AIRY CASINO ANNOUNCED ITS INTENT TO BUILD A CATEGORY 4 MINI-CASINO IN BIG BEAVER…BUT SO FAR, THEY HAVE NO GROUNDBREAKING DATE OR A DATE FOR ITS OPENING.

The installation of a playground set at John Antoline Memorial park in Monaca is completed. The play set was purchased by the Antoline Foundation and was built late last month in partnership with the borough. The park is named for the former mayor and recreation director who had a long history of public service in Beaver County.

WEATHER FORECAST FOR WEDNESDAY, JULY 10TH, 2019

TODAY – PARTLY SUNNY. A STRAY SHOWER OR
THUNDERSTORM IS POSSIBLE. HIGH NEAR 90.

TONIGHT – PARTLY CLOUDY. A STRAY SHOWER OR
THUNDERSTORM IS POSSIBLE. LOW – 71.

THURSDAY – SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS. A FEW
STORMS MAY BE SEVERE. HIGH – 87.

Wolf orders bond issue to help counties buy voting machines
By MARC LEVY Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday he is ordering a bond issue to help Pennsylvania’s counties pay for new voting machines ahead of 2020’s presidential election after a dispute between the Democrat and the Republican-controlled Legislature doomed legislation to help fund the machines.
The proposed bond issue of up to $90 million is designed to reimburse each county for 60% of their cost, according to Wolf’s administration, which provided little detail about the financing it will seek or the timeline for the move.
Wolf began pressing counties last year to replace their voting machines before 2020 after federal authorities warned Pennsylvania and at least 20 other states that Russian hackers targeted them during 2016’s presidential election.
That prompted a wide range of election integrity advocates and experts to urge states to switch to machines that produce an auditable paper trail.
Approval is required from the board of a state economic development financing agency that Wolf wants to use, and Republicans say they are researching what sort of legal authority the governor has to order the move.
Wolf suggested that legislative approval of the borrowing would be preferable and that Tuesday’s move is designed to at least give counties confidence that they won’t be left to pay a tab expected to exceed $100 million.
“It’s a proposal that we can move forward with, I think, and if there’s something that the Legislature wants to do that they think is better, again I’m all ears,” Wolf told reporters after an unrelated news conference in the Capitol. “But in the meantime, I think it’s important to show good faith and that’s what I’m doing here.”
Wolf’s administration has warned lawmakers that failing to replace Pennsylvania’s roughly 25,000 voting machines by next year’s elections could leave it as the only state without voter-verifiable paper systems, and certainly the only presidential battleground state in that position.
The money raised by the bond would have to be used for voting machines that have enhanced anti-hacking security, produce a paper record that allows a voter to double-check how their vote is recorded, and allow election officials to audit election results, Wolf’s administration said.
The so-called direct-recording electronic machines in wide use currently in Pennsylvania leave no paper trail and make it almost impossible to know if they’ve accurately recorded individual votes or if anyone tampered with the count.
Still, top Republican lawmakers resisted Wolf’s move to decertify voting machines, but then in late June they abruptly backed 11th-hour legislation that carried up to $90 million in borrowing authority to pay for new voting machines.
Wolf vetoed that measure Friday because Republicans packaged it with changes to election laws that Wolf said wouldn’t improve voting security or access, hadn’t been negotiated and didn’t include his priorities.
While Republicans bristled Tuesday at Wolf’s move to borrow without legislative approval, they also made no public pledge to advance standalone borrowing legislation.
As many as two-thirds of Pennsylvania’s counties could have new voting systems rolled out in this November’s election, and they are paying for it in the meantime with the property taxes that fund their operations, county officials say.
Wolf included one crucial change Tuesday in his stated intention to decertify voting systems, saying he would give counties that already use paper-based voting systems the opportunity to request an extension until June 2021 to select a new system. It wasn’t clear Tuesday whether that would ease complaints from counties being forced to switch.
Wolf’s administration has maintained that those machines are aging and will be more expensive in the future to replace.

US returns first group of asylum seekers to Nuevo Laredo
By JUAN ANTONIO CALDERON Associated Press
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (AP) — The so-called Remain in Mexico program for U.S. asylum seekers expanded to another Mexican border city Tuesday with the arrival of a first group of migrants to Nuevo Laredo.
The 10 migrants had crossed the border to seek U.S. asylum Monday and will now have to wait in Mexico as their applications are processed.
Lucía Ascencio of Venezuela had waited for three months in Nuevo Laredo with her husband and two young sons just for the chance to make her asylum petition in Laredo, Texas. She was stunned by her return to Mexico as they walked from the bridge carrying plastic bags containing a bottle of water, a bottle of juice and an orange.
“We hadn’t thought that they were going to send us back,” she said. Her family was given a date in September to return for the next step in their process.
A spokeswoman with Mexico’s immigration agency confirmed that the first group of 10 returned Tuesday.
The U.S. program, known formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols, acts as a deterrent for applicants who previously were released into the U.S. with notices to appear in court.
The program was already operating in the Mexican border cities of Tijuana, Mexicali and Ciudad Juarez. More than 18,000 mostly Central American migrants had been returned to those cities through the first week in July, according Mexican officials.
Nuevo Laredo is in Tamaulipas state, which the U.S. State Department warns Americans not to visit due to kidnappings and other crimes.
The program’s expansion to Tamaulipas was announced after the U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement to avert threatened tariffs on Mexican exports last month.
The state is notorious for violent drug cartels that have controlled its border cities. But its long shared border with Texas also includes the busiest sector for U.S. Border Patrol’s migrant apprehensions.
Migrant shelters in cities along Mexico’s northern border have been swamped for months. Like Ascencio, migrants who want to apply for U.S. asylum wait for months to get the opportunity. The Remain in Mexico cities are even more affected because the migrants are sent back to wait for a process that could last more than a year.
At the Casa AMAR migrant shelter in Nuevo Laredo, director Aaron Mendez said there was already a “humanitarian crisis” that the shelter lacked the resources to deal with.
“If they could have 50 shelters here in the city it still wouldn’t be enough,” Mendez said. Authorities had originally said 150 to 200 migrants could be returned to Nuevo Laredo daily.
On Monday, Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said that 327 migrants awaiting U.S. asylum hearings had found jobs in northern Mexico and that companies had offered 3,700 positions.
The federal government has pledged to assist border cities in accommodating the migrants, but details have been few and local shelters complain that the new government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has actually cut funding that they had received to support migrants. Ebrard said they had arranged with 16 shelters to provide places for migrants to stay, but that would only meet a fraction of the need.
Several civil rights organizations in the U.S. have sued the government over the Migrant Protection Protocols. Many migrants say they fear that staying in some Mexican border cities could jeopardize their personal safety.
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Associated Press writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.