Panel indicts teen in Buffalo rampage
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A grand jury Wednesday charged the white 18-year-old accused of fatally shooting 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket with domestic terrorism motivated by hate and 10 counts of first-degree murder.
Payton Gendron, who has been in custody since the May 14 shooting, is scheduled to be arraigned today in Erie County Court.
The 25-count indictment also includes charges of murder and attempted murder as a hate crime and weapons possession.
Gendron had previously been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting, which also injured three people. He has pleaded not guilty.
The domestic terrorism charge accuses Gendron of killing "because of the perceived race and/or color" of his victims. It is punishable with a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
Murder charges were filed for each of the victims, who ranged in age from 32 to 86 and included eight shoppers, the store security guard and a church deacon who drove shoppers to and from the store.
The gunman, carrying an AR-15-style rifle he had recently purchased, opened fire on Saturday afternoon shoppers at the only supermarket in the predominantly Black neighborhood.
Gendron apparently detailed his plans and his racist motivation in hundreds of pages of writings he posted online shortly before the shooting.
Cuomo opts against N.Y. governor run
NEW YORK -- Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo appears to have opted against mounting an independent run for his old job.
Cuomo, who resigned in August amid allegations that he sexually harassed multiple women, had said he was open to running for governor this year despite the scandal.
But 5 p.m. Tuesday was the deadline for candidates to collect 45,000 voter signatures if they wanted to appear as an independent candidate for governor on the November general election ballot.
That deadline passed without Cuomo's campaign turning in the required nominating petitions, according to the state Board of Elections.
Cuomo's spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, did not respond to requests for comment.
The former governor has been making more public appearances in recent months and suggested in March that he might try to get on the ballot.
After giving a speech about gun violence Sunday in Brooklyn, Cuomo did not answer a question about whether he would run. Instead he said he was "speaking as a New Yorker" that day and added: "I don't have to worry about political correctness."
Palin denied retrial against N.Y. Times
NEW YORK -- The judge who presided over Sarah Palin's libel case against The New York Times denied her request for a new trial, saying she failed to introduce "even a speck" of evidence necessary to prove actual malice by the newspaper.
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff made the assertion in a written decision released Tuesday as he rejected post-trial claims from Palin's lawyers.
Her attorneys had asked the judge to grant a new trial or disqualify himself as biased against her, citing several of his evidentiary rulings that they said were errors. Those ranged from how the questioning of jurors occurred during jury selection to how jurors were instructed when they asked questions during deliberations.
"In actuality, none of these was erroneous, let alone a basis for granting Palin a new trial," the judge said.
Rakoff wrote that regardless of her post-trial motions, Palin was required to prove that an error in a published editorial was motivated by actual malice -- a requirement in libel lawsuits involving public figures.
"And the striking thing about the trial here was that Palin, for all her earlier assertions, could not in the end introduce even a speck of such evidence," he said.
Lawyers for Palin declined to comment.
No charges for lawman in '16 killing
MADISON, Wis. -- Two court-appointed prosecutors declined Wednesday to charge a Wisconsin sheriff's deputy in the 2016 fatal shooting of a man sleeping in a park, saying they didn't believe they could defeat a self-defense argument.
The decision echoes a district attorney's finding years ago that Joseph Mensah had acted in self-defense when he shot Jay Anderson Jr., one of three people he fatally shot over a five-year span.
Mensah was a Wauwatosa police officer at the time but has since become a Waukesha County deputy.
The special prosecutors, Milwaukee attorney Scott Hansen and La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke, spent months reviewing the case, consulting judges and attorneys and even conducting a mock trial with a jury, and they repeatedly found they couldn't overcome the self-defense argument.
Ethical considerations prevent prosecutors from charging cases they know they can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt, Hansen said.
"We're sorry there's nothing we can do to help heal those wounds, but there isn't and that's our conclusion," Hansen told Judge Glenn Yamahiro as Anderson's family looked on from the courtroom's gallery.