TV News LIES

Nearly three decades ago, Los Angeles prosecutors argued that Erik and Lyle Menéndez were cold-blooded killers who violently murdered their parents for money, and asked that they be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

This week, in an extraordinary turn of events for the brothers, the Los Angeles district attorney said he will recommend they be resentenced – a decision that could lead to their release.

“They have been in prison for nearly 35 years. I believe that they have paid their debt to society,” George Gascón, the Los Angeles DA, said during a packed Thursday press conference at the city’s hall of justice.

Gascón said he would ask they instead be sentenced to 50 years to life in prison, a recommendation that – because of their young age at the time of the killings – means they would be eligible for parole.

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Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of countercultural rock band The Grateful Dead, has died. He was 84 years old. His family posted the news on Lesh’s official Instagram page.

Born in Berkeley, Calif., in 1940, Lesh was initially drawn to classical music. He played violin as a child before turning his attention to the trumpet, which he studied throughout high school and his time at the College of San Mateo. In the early ‘60s, he met banjo player Jerry Garcia, who later asked him to join his rock band, The Warlocks, as their bassist — an instrument Lesh did not play. He accepted nonetheless, and in 1965, The Grateful Dead was born, with Lesh finding his footing in the improvisation-driven group as he went.

When Elizabeth Steere’s two sons were little, the family watched The Wizard of Oz and its famous tornado scene that whips Dorothy through the air.

Steere, who lives in Asheville, North Carolina, assured her kids, now 11 and 13, not to worry. “I remember saying, very glibly, ‘That’s not something you guys have to worry about,’” Steele recalled.

Then on 26 September, Helene struck the region as a tropical storm, killing scores of people, destroying whole towns, tearing apart roads, downing power lines, and contaminating water supplies. The waters damaged several schools in the region and left many without potable water.

Nearly a month later, about 76,000 students in western North Carolina are still out of school and families are scrambling to cope with the loss of routine and structure.

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An Ohio judge has decided that the state’s ban on most abortions was unconstitutional and could not be enforced.

Judge Christian Jenkins, of the Hamilton county common pleas court, also granted a permanent injunction in his ruling on Thursday.

Jenkins said that Ohio’s abortion prohibition flouted language in a voter-approved amendment to the state constitution that protected reproductive healthcare,

“Ohio voters have spoken. The Ohio constitution now unequivocally protects the right to abortion,” Jenkins said in his ruling.

Jenkins’s decision stems from a law that prohibited doctors from performing abortions after the detection of fetal cardiac or embryonic activity. This activity can be as early as six weeks into pregnancy, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

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