AP News in Brief at 9:09 p.m. EST
Trump retweets, deletes post naming alleged whistleblower
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - President Donald Trump retweeted, then deleted, a post that included the alleged name of the anonymous whistleblower whose complaint ultimately led to Trump´s impeachment by the House.
Just before midnight Friday, Trump retweeted a message from Twitter user @Surfermom77, an account that claims to be a woman named Sophia who lives in California. The account shows some indications of automation, including an unusually high amount of activity and profile pictures featuring stock images from the internet.
By Saturday morning, the post had been removed from Trump's feed, though it could still be found in other ways, including on a website that logs every presidential tweet.
While Trump has repeatedly backed efforts to unmask the whistleblower, his retweet marks the first time he has directly sent the alleged name into the Twitter feed of his 68 million followers.
Unmasking the whistleblower, who works in the intelligence field, could violate federal protection laws that have historically been supported by both parties.
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Plane crash kills 5, including LSU coach's daughter-in-law
ATLANTA (AP) - A small plane en route to a college football playoff game crashed into a post office parking lot in Louisiana shortly after takeoff Saturday, killing five people, including a well-known sports reporter who was the daughter-in-law of one of the team's coaches.
The two-engine Piper Cheyenne crashed in the city of Lafayette about a mile from the regional airport where the flight began, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Tony Molinaro said. Investigators from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating, according to Molinaro and an NTSB statement on Twitter.
The plane was an eight-passenger aircraft, said Lafayette Fire Chief Robert Benoit. Six people were on board the plane, five of whom were killed, he said. The sixth, a 37-year-old man, was being treated at an area hospital along with two people who were in the post office.
A person who was either in or near a car on the ground was also "impacted" by the crash and was being treated for injuries, Benoit said. He did not elaborate. A blackened car sat in the post office parking lot, which was carpeted with scattered tree limbs.
Kevin Jackson and other eyewitnesses told KLFY-TV that the plane hit a car as it fell, and that someone could be heard screaming inside the vehicle.
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Hundreds of accused clergy left off church's sex abuse lists
Richard J. Poster served time for possessing child pornography, violated his probation by having contact with children, admitted masturbating in the bushes near a church school and in 2005 was put on a sex offender registry. And yet the former Catholic priest was only just this month added to a list of clergy members credibly accused of child sexual abuse - after The Associated Press asked why he was not included.
Victims advocates had long criticized the Roman Catholic Church for not making public the names of credibly accused priests. Now, despite the dioceses´ release of nearly 5,300 names, most in the last two years, critics say the lists are far from complete.
An AP analysis found more than 900 clergy members accused of child sexual abuse who were missing from lists released by the dioceses and religious orders where they served.
The AP reached that number by matching those public diocesan lists against a database of accused priests tracked by the group BishopAccountability.org and then scouring bankruptcy documents, lawsuits, settlement information, grand jury reports and media accounts.
More than a hundred of the former clergy members not listed by dioceses or religious orders had been charged with sexual crimes, including rape, solicitation and receiving or viewing child pornography.
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US mass killings hit new high in 2019, most were shootings
The first one occurred 19 days into the new year when a man used an ax to kill four family members including his infant daughter. Five months later, 12 people were killed in a workplace shooting in Virginia. Twenty-two more died at a Walmart in El Paso in August.
A database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University shows that there were more mass killings in 2019 than any year dating back to at least the 1970s, punctuated by a chilling succession of deadly rampages during the summer.
In all, there were 41 mass killings, defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator. Of those, 33 were mass shootings. More than 210 people were killed.
Most of the mass killings barely became national news, failing to resonate among the general public because they didn't spill into public places like massacres in El Paso and Odessa, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Jersey City, New Jersey.
The majority of the killings involved people who knew each other - family disputes, drug or gang violence or people with beefs that directed their anger at co-workers or relatives.
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Man, 60, dies after beating in $1 Christmas Eve mugging
NEW YORK (AP) - A 60-year-old man who was kicked and punched while defending his partner during a $1 mugging on Christmas Eve has died.
Juan Fresnada died Friday afternoon at the Bronx hospital where he was taken in critical condition after the mugging early Tuesday, the New York Police Department said Saturday. Officers have released surveillance photos and videos in hopes of pinpointing suspects.
His partner, Byron Caceres, told the Daily News of New York that Fresnada suffered the fatal blows while trying to spare him and urging him to run to safety, which he did.
He "tried to defend me," Caceres, 29, told the newspaper Wednesday. He said he had been unable to summon help because he doesn't have a cellphone. No contact information for him could immediately be found Saturday.
Police said the two men were walking in the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx around 1:30 a.m. when several muggers approached them and demanded their property. When they refused, they were attacked.
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Doctor charged in 25 deaths sues hospital for defamation
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio doctor accused of ordering drug overdoses in the deaths of 25 hospital patients has sued his former employer for defamation, arguing that he did nothing wrong and did not deviate from hospital policy on end-of-life care.
Dr. William Husel, who is accused of murder, filed the lawsuit Thursday in Franklin County against the Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System and its parent organization, Trinity Health Corp.
"It would not be an exaggeration to state that Dr. Husel has suffered perhaps the most egregious case of defamation in Ohio's recent history," according to the lawsuit.
Patients died from their illnesses, not the administration of fentanyl, a powerful painkiller ordered by Husel, he said in the lawsuit.
Husel also claims he received no formal training on hospital procedures from Mount Carmel when he was hired in 2013 as a critical care physician and that he received a doctor of the year award in 2014.
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A final fundraiser for man who boosted ice bucket challenge
GLOUCESTER, Mass. (AP) - Hundreds of people plunged into the chilly ocean at a Massachusetts beach on Saturday to honor Peter Frates, the former college baseball player whose battle with Lou Gehrig´s disease helped spread the ALS ice bucket challenge.
About 1,000 people showed up for the final "Plunge for Pete" at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, and more than half of those braved the frigid waters on what would have been Frates' 35th birthday.
The event, in its eighth year, raised money for the Pete Frates #3 Fund, which helped pay for Frates' medical bills.
"He is laughing so hard right now at me getting into the ocean," said Frates' wife, Julie, who participated in the plunge for the first time wearing the bikini she had on when she first met her husband. "This is the best birthday party he could ask for and wherever he is, he is very grateful."
The former Boston College baseball player, who lived in Beverly, a suburb north of Boston, died Dec. 9 after a seven-year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
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6 men become 1st to cross perilous Drake Passage unassisted
LOS ANGELES (AP) - As freezing water thrashed their rowboat in some of the most treacherous waters in the world, six men fought for 13 days to make history, becoming the first people to traverse the infamous Drake Passage with nothing other than sheer manpower.
They dodged icebergs, held their breaths as giant whales breached near their small boat and rode building-sized waves while rowing 24 hours a day toward Antarctica.
The team of men from four countries finished crossing the Drake Passage on Wednesday in just under two weeks after pushing off from the southern tip of South America.
"This is a really big deal in Antarctic history to hear about this," said Wayne Ranney, a Flagstaff, Arizona-based geologist who has led expeditions to Antarctica and crossed the Drake Passage in motorized vessels more than 50 times. "One hundred percent of their progress was done with those 12 arms for 600 (nautical) miles. That´s just phenomenal. I can´t even imagine."
Besides the threat to their lives, the men labored under grueling conditions. Their 29-foot (9-meter) rowboat, named the Ohana, had to be in constant motion to avoid capsizing. That meant three men would row for 90 minutes while the other three rested, still cold and wet.
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Burrow throws 7 TDs, No. 1 LSU routs No. Oklahoma 63-28
ATLANTA (AP) - Joe Burrow turned in the greatest performance yet in his Heisman Trophy season, throwing for seven touchdowns and 493 yards as No. 1 LSU romped to a breathtaking 63-28 victory over No. 4 Oklahoma in the Peach Bowl semifinal game Saturday.
The Tigers (14-0) headed to the national championship game against either No. 2 Ohio State or No. 3 Clemson clicking on all cylinders, having dismantled the Sooners (12-2) with a first half for the ages.
Burrow tied the record for any college bowl game with his seven TD passes - which all came before the bands hit the field for the halftime show at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Justin Jefferson was on the receiving end for four of those scoring plays, also tying a bowl record.
For good measure, Burrow scored an eighth TD himself on a 3-yard run in the third quarter, thoroughly dominating his expected duel with Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts, the Heisman runner-up.
All that as the Tigers played with heavy hearts. Shortly before the game, LSU offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger learned that his daughter-in-law, broadcaster Carley McCord, was among five people killed in a plane crash in Louisiana.
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Rwanda avoids US-style opioids crisis by making own morphine
BUSHEKELI, Rwanda (AP) - It was something, the silence. Nothing but the puff of her breath and the scuff of her slip-on shoes as Madeleine Mukantagara walked through the fields to her first patient of the day. Piercing cries once echoed down the hill to the road below. What she carried in her bag had calmed them.
For 15 years, her patient Vestine Uwizeyimana had been in unrelenting pain as disease wore away her spine. She could no longer walk and could barely turn over in bed. Her life narrowed to a small, dark room with a dirt-floor in rural Rwanda, prayer beads hanging on the wall by her side.
A year ago, relief came in the form of liquid morphine, locally produced as part of Rwanda´s groundbreaking effort to address one of the world´s great inequities: As thousands die from addiction in rich countries awash with prescription painkillers, millions of people writhe in agony in the poorest nations with no access to opioids at all.
Companies don´t make money selling cheap, generic morphine to the poor and dying, and most people in sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford the expensive formulations like oxycodone and fentanyl, prescribed so abundantly in richer nations that thousands became addicted to them.
Rwanda´s answer: plastic bottles of morphine, produced for pennies and delivered to homes across the country by community health workers like Mukantagara. It is proof, advocates say, that the opioid trade doesn´t have to be guided by how much money can be made.
