Crime

Michael Wright, a pro basketball player once drafted by the New York Knicks, was found bludgeoned to death in his SUV on Tuesday. NYPD detectives believe Wright may have been murdered by a man that he met on Grindr. The New York Daily News reports: Wright was found dead from a head wound inside his Lexus SUV on E. 16th …

Thou shall not steal candy bars is in there somewhere, right? The Friendly Atheist has the backstory: In 2001, the ACLU filed a lawsuit over a Ten Commandments monument outside the new City Hall building in Grand Junction, Colorado. It was a Christian symbol — everybody knew that — so it had no place on government property. Knowing that they …

A 61 year-old Mississippi patriot has been charged with bombing a local Walmart because the chain no longer sells the Confederate flag. USA Today reports: Tupelo Police Chief Bart Aguirre said a vehicle pulled up to an entrance of the Walmart in North Gloster around 1:30 a.m. CT. “A white male got out, lit the package and threw it in …

Philadelphia Gay News reports: A judge this week ordered Kathryn Knott to stand trial Dec. 9 for her alleged role in last year’s attack on a gay couple. Knott is charged with two counts each of aggravated and simple assault, as well as conspiracy and reckless endangerment in connection with the Sept. 11, 2014, attack on Zachary Hesse and Andrew …

Last year the US House candidacy of GOP former Stanislaus County Clerk and anti-abortion activist Karen Mathews Davis gained national attention when she claimed to have gotten death threats from anonymous writers who threatened to shoot her and her husband in the head if she didn’t withdraw from the race. While the feds investigated, Davis told the local press that …

Teofil Brank, who performed in gay porn as Jarec Wentworth, has been sentenced to six years in prison for extorting $500,000 and a luxury sports car out of Florida tech tycoon Donald Burns, who went to the FBI early this year after Brank’s blackmail demands escalated. The Los Angeles Times reports: At trial, Burns testified that he was “scared to …

A British man was arraigned today on charges that he drugged and murdered four young men that he met on hook-up sites over a period of 15 months. The Guardian reports: At a hearing before Barkingside magistrates court in east London, Stephen Port spoke only to confirm his name and address. He faces four counts of murder in relation to …

Fox News terrorism analyst Wayne Simmons has been charged with fraud for falsely claiming to be a former CIA agent. Via the Daily Mail: Simmons, 62, of Annapolis, Maryland, pretended to be an ‘Outside Paramilitary Special Operations Officer’ for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1973 to 2000, the US Attorney’s Office for Virginia’s Eastern District said in a statement released …

Former GOP House Speaker Dennis Haster will plead guilty to charges that arose after he lied to the FBI about the nature of large cash withdrawals he was allegedly using as payoffs to keep a decades-old sexual misconduct accusation from becoming public. NBC News reports: The politician, who was not in the Chicago federal courtroom where the agreement was announced …

Two of the three alleged gay-bashers accused in the brutal October 2014 attack on a Philadelphia gay couple have agreed to a plea deal in which they will receive probation and community service. The third and most infamous of the charged trio, Kathryn Knott, has refused a plea arrangement and will go on trial in two weeks. The attack electrified …

Via the Associated Press: A central New York couple has been charged with fatally beating their 19-year-old son inside a church and four fellow church members have been charged with assault in an attack that also left the young man’s brother severely injured, police said Tuesday. Bruce Leonard, 65, and Deborah Leonard, 59, of Clayville, were charged with first-degree manslaughter …

The abuse charge comes because the kids were duct-taped to their chairs. This case made a bit of news back in August when the boyfriend was arrested and now the mother has been charged too. The Smoking Gun has the arrest details: A Nebraska woman whose two young boys were forced to watch the film “Mommie Dearest” while duct-taped to …

Over the weekend hundreds of activists rallied in Philadelphia to mark the murder of a local trans woman. Today there’s a break in the case. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: A man has been arrested in the fatal shooting of a transgender woman in Philadelphia’s Logan section. Pedro Redding, 24, has been taken into custody in the Oct. 6 killing of …

NBC News reports: A large crowd gathered in Center City to call for justice and equality for transgender men and women in the wake of a brutal murder. The 5th Annual Philly Trans March took place Saturday afternoon at Thomas Paine Plaza, less than a week after Kiesha Jenkins, a 22-year-old transgender woman, was killed by a group of men …

Via the Associated Press: Holding signs saying the president was not welcome, more than 200 gun-rights activists protested Barack Obama’s visit on Friday to Oregon to meet with the families of victims of last week’s campus killings. The protesters stood outside Roseburg airport as Obama left a helicopter and got into a limousine that whisked him away for the private …

President Obama reportedly may circumvent Congress and issue an executive order requiring expanded background checks for gun purchases from high-volume dealers. The Washington Post reports: The proposed executive action aims to impose background checks on individuals who buy from dealers who sell a significant number of guns each year. The current federal statute dictates that those who are “engaged in …

Spencer Stone, the US Airman who recently won international accolades for thwarting a shooting on a Paris train, has been critically stabbed after he and a group of friends left Badlands, a popular gay disco in the Sacramento neighborhood known as Lavender Heights. The Sacramento Bee reports: Officers were called at 12:46 a.m. Thursday to the 2100 block of K …

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: Philadelphia police have asked for the public’s help in finding the men who attacked and killed a transgender woman in Logan in the wee hours of the morning Tuesday. Kiesha Jenkins, 22, of North Philadelphia, had been riding in a car that dropped her off at 13th and Wingohocking Streets around 2:30 a.m., said homicide Capt. …

According to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, the real culprit in the Oregon massacre is the shooter’s father for being an anti-gun advocate who was never in his son’s life. Seriously. Apparently single mothers bear zero responsibility in the outcome of their children. Talking Points Memo reports: “This killer’s father is now lecturing us on the need for gun control and …

Mediaite recaps last night’s show: “Perhaps the clearest sign of how little we want to talk about mental health is that one of the only times it’s brought up is, as we’ve seen yet again this week, in the aftermath of a mass shooting, as a means of steering the conversation away from gun control,” Oliver said. After playing clips …