FILE – This Nov. 30, 2013, file photo shows then-Alabama running back Altee Tenpenny (28) walking off the field following a loss to Auburn in an NCAA college football game in Auburn, Ala. A coroner says a 20-year-old college football player has been killed in a one-car crash in Mississippi. Altee Tenpenny was pronounced dead at 6:57 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015, at Delta Regional Medical Center in Greenville. Washington County Coroner Methel Johnson says Tenpenny was taken to the hospital after he wrecked a 2008 Dodge Charger near the community of Glen Allan. (AP Photo/Butch Dill, File)
GREENVILLE, Miss. (AP) — A 20-year-old college football player was killed in a one-car crash in Mississippi, a local coroner said Wednesday.
Altee Tenpenny was pronounced dead at 6:57 p.m. Tuesday at Delta Regional Medical Center in Greenville, Washington County Coroner Methel Johnson told The Associated Press.
Tenpenny, who played at Alabama in 2013 and 2014, was taken to the hospital after he wrecked a 2008 Dodge Charger near the community of Glen Allan, Johnson said.
Johnson said a Mississippi Highway Patrol officer who responded to the crash told her Tenpenny was traveling alone when the vehicle hit road signs and flipped. She said he was thrown from the car, but she did not know whether he was wearing a seatbelt. Johnson said Tenpenny had been driving north, toward Arkansas, when the wreck occurred.
Tenpenny is from North Little Rock, Arkansas. He was a backup running back at Alabama before transferring to UNLV and then Nicholls State.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Altee and his family,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said Wednesday. “This is obviously a tragedy. This is a guy that was in our program and was good friends with a lot of our players. We’re going to be as supportive as possible to all the people that are affected by this.”
Tenpenny appeared in 26 games with the Crimson Tide over two seasons, running for 218 career yards.
Tenpenny was dismissed from the Nicholls State team on Monday after being arrested over the weekend on weapons charges, reported The Daily Comet in Thibodaux, Louisiana, (http://bit.ly/1QTHbHy ).
Tennessee running back Alvin Kamara was a teammate of Tenpenny in 2013 at Alabama. Kamara redshirted at Alabama in 2013 before transferring to Hutchinson Community College in Kansas. He’s now a junior for the Volunteers.
“What was so sad is I talked to him actually yesterday,” Kamara said in an interview Wednesday. “Just to wake up and get that news was heartbreaking. I know those guys over there are hurting, but it hurts me a lot, but I know he’s resting easy now.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden declared Wednesday he won’t run for president in 2016, ending a months-long flirtation with a third White House campaign and setting him on a glide path toward the end of his decades-long political career.
Biden’s decision bolsters Hillary Rodham Clinton’s standing as the front-runner by sparing her a challenge from the popular vice president.
In an extraordinary appearance in the White House Rose Garden, Biden said he always knew that the window for a viable campaign might close before he could determine whether his family was emotionally prepared for another campaign so soon after the death of his son Beau from brain cancer in May. Biden said his family was prepared to back him, but that he nonetheless would not be a candidate.
“Unfortunately, I believe we’re out of time,” he said, flanked by President Barack Obama and Biden’s wife, Jill.
A Biden aide said the vice president made his decision Tuesday night.
Encouraged by some who were seeking an alternative to Clinton, Biden had spent the past several months deeply engaged in discussions with his family and political advisers about entering the primary. Yet as the deliberations dragged on, Democrats began publicly questioning whether it was too late for him to run, a notion that hardened after Clinton’s strong performance in last week’s Democratic debate.
Notably, Biden did not endorse Clinton or any of the other Democratic candidates. Instead, he used the announcement to outline the path he said the party should take in the 2016 campaign, including a call for them to run on Obama’s record. In what could have been a campaign speech, Biden deplored the influence of unlimited contributions on politics, called for expanding access to college educations and called on Democrats to recognize that while Republicans may be the opposition, they are “not our enemy.”
“While I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent,” Biden said.
Democrats responded with nearly universal praise for the vice president and support for his decision. Clinton, who spoke to Biden shortly after his announcement, took to Twitter to call him “a good friend and a great man.”
“Today and always, inspired by his optimism and commitment to change the world for the better,” she said.
Republican contender Donald Trump praised Biden and took a poke at Clinton in a single tweet: “I think Joe Biden made correct decision for him & his family. Personally, I would rather run against Hillary because her record is so bad.”
Wednesday’s announcement was a letdown for Biden supporters who had pleaded with him to run, and in increasingly loud tones as his deliberations dragged on through the summer and into the fall.
For months, the 72-year-old Democrat made front pages and appeared on cable news screens as pundits mused about his prospects and Clinton’s perceived vulnerability. A super political action committee, Draft Biden, was formed with the explicit goal of getting him into the race.
At the White House, aides and longtime Biden loyalists had prepared for a potential bid, putting together a campaign-in-waiting should he decide to jump in. Last week one of those aides, former Sen. Ted Kaufman, wrote an email to former Biden staffers laying out the potential rationale for a Biden run and promising a decision soon.
Biden spoke personally to many supporters. As speculation about his plans reached a fever pitch, he kept up an intense schedule of public appearances, seemingly testing his own stamina for an exhausting presidential campaign.
But he also continued to broadcast his reluctance amid doubts that he and his family were emotionally ready in the wake of Beau Biden’s death.
In a September appearance on “The Late Show,” Biden told host Stephen Colbert he was still experiencing moments of uncontrollable grief that he deemed unacceptable for a presidential aspirant. “Sometimes it just overwhelms you,” he said, foreshadowing his ultimate decision.
Biden would have faced substantial logistical challenges in deciding to mount a campaign this late in the primary process.
Both Clinton and Sanders have been in the race since April – giving them a powerful head start in fundraising, volunteers, endorsements and voter outreach. Top Democratic operatives and donors already committed to Clinton would likely have had to defect to Biden in order for him to have viable shot at the nomination.
Having decided against a final presidential campaign, Biden now approaches the end of his long career in politics.
A month after being elected to the Senate in 1972 at age 29, Biden’s wife and baby daughter died when their car collided with a tractor-trailer. Biden considered relinquishing his seat, but instead was sworn in at the hospital where his sons, Beau and Hunter, were recovering.
Over six terms in the Senate, he rose to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees, developing broad expertise in global affairs and a reputation for a plainspoken, unpredictable approach to politics.
Biden twice ran for president. His most recent attempt in 2008 ended after he garnered less than 1 percent in the Iowa caucuses. His first run in 1987 ended even more quickly, following allegations he plagiarized in some speeches from a British politician.
He has not yet detailed his post-White House plans, but has told friends he has no plans to retire in a traditional sense. Although unlikely to again seek elected office, friends and aides say Biden has previously discussed starting a foundation, launching an institute at the University of Delaware or taking on a role as a special envoy and elder statesman if called upon by future presidents.
Vice-President Biden visited his son while he served in Iraq in 2009 Joe Biden …
NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. (AP) — Called to a meeting in the sanctuary of their church, teenage brothers Christopher and Lucas Leonard were told to stand and answer for what they had done.
When the answers didn’t come, the beatings began.
Christopher Leonard, 17, said he was punched in the stomach by a fellow church member. Then his parents, his half sister and other congregants delivered a beating that racked his whole body, until he was taken to another room with earplugs and earmuffs to keep him from hearing what was going on around him, he said.
“It hurt,” he said, “everywhere.”
When he was finally brought back to the sanctuary, he saw his 19-year-old brother collapse on the floor, moaning – and, then, not breathing.
His voice barely audible in court, Christopher Leonard gave his first public account Wednesday of the violence last week that sent him to the hospital and killed his brother. Six people have been arrested, including the brothers’ parents and half sister.
Testifying at a hearing for the half sister, Christopher didn’t explain what the brothers were being punished for, and the judge stopped him from disclosing what questions they were asked.
Outside court, authorities have said the beating erupted during “spiritual counseling” over Lucas’ desire to leave Word of Life Christian Church, a small, secretive and highly regimented congregation in upstate New York.
The teens’ parents, Bruce and Deborah Leonard, are charged with manslaughter. The half sister, 33-year-old Sarah Ferguson, and three other church members are charged with assault.
At the conclusion of Wednesday’s hearing, the judge ruled there is sufficient evidence for the case against Ferguson to go forward.
Christopher Leonard testified that after an eight-hour Sunday service Oct. 11, pastor Tiffanie Irwin asked the Leonard family and some others to stay behind for a meeting.
The purpose?
The slight, bespectacled teenager paused, then said only: “To talk about what we had done. Lucas and I.”
He said he and his brother answered some questions during the interrogation but didn’t want to answer others.
Over what Christopher Leonard estimated was six or more hours, he was pummeled with fists and whipped with a 4-foot, folded electrical cord on the back and elsewhere, he said. He suffered injuries to his torso and genitals.
Later, he said, he rushed over to Lucas on the floor in the sanctuary, noticed he wasn’t breathing and tried with a church leader to revive him.
Barred from riding in the family van that carried his brother to a hospital, Christopher was taken to the hospital by other congregants but didn’t go in, he recalled. Instead, they drove him back and made him a bed on the second floor of the school-turned-church. He went to sleep, though it hurt to breathe and he repeatedly vomited.
Police have said the teens’ parents and other congregants wouldn’t tell officers where the injured Christopher was, and authorities searched for hours before a former church member helped get him on the phone.
The mother’s lawyer has said she was too timid to stop the beating. The father’s attorney has said prosecutors haven’t proved the couple intended to inflict serious injuries.
The pastor hasn’t been charged and hasn’t commented on the beating.
During the hearing, Ferguson stared down at the defense table in a small courtroom that officials had rearranged so that her brother would be a little farther away from her while he was on the stand.
“I can’t imagine the stress he was under to go into a courtroom … to testify against his sister,” District Attorney Scott McNamara said.
Ferguson’s lawyer, Thomas O’Brien III, described her as a “very sweet” and caring mother of four. He declined to comment further.
The case has dragged the reclusive church’s ways into public view in New Hartford, a town of 22,000 people about 50 miles from Syracuse where many had wondered what went on behind the brick walls.
Since the arrests, former members have described a once-vibrant and joyous house of worship that declined into a place of fear and intimidation.
The teens’ uncle Jimmy Stewart said Wednesday that he and his wife attended Word of Life in the 1990s but never joined because they felt “something wasn’t right.” The church’s pastors then forbade the Leonard children to associate with his family, he said.
Stewart said he long worried that “something like this would happen.”
—
Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.
DALLAS (AP) — A 14-year-old Muslim boy who was arrested after a homemade clock he brought to school was mistaken for a possible bomb will be moving with his family to the Middle East so he can attend school there, his family said.
Ahmed Mohamed’s family released a statement Tuesday saying they had accepted a foundation’s offer to pay for his high school and college in Doha, Qatar. He recently visited the country as part of a whirlwind month that included a Monday stop at the White House and an appearance Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol.
“We are going to move to a place where my kids can study and learn, and all of them being accepted by that country,” Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, told The Dallas Morning News before boarding an airplane from Washington back home to Texas on Tuesday.
The statement said the family has been “overwhelmed by the many offers of support” since Ahmed’s arrest on Sept. 14 at his school in Irving, a Dallas suburb. The family said it accepted an offer from the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development to join its Young Innovators Program.
Ahmed, who along with his family will relocate to Qatar, received a full scholarship for his secondary and undergraduate education. Ahmed said he was impressed with the program and thinks he’ll “learn a lot and have fun, too.”
Ahmed took a homemade clock to his high school to show a teacher, but another teacher thought it could be a bomb. The school contacted police, who handcuffed the boy and took him to a detention center. The school suspended him for three days.
A police photo of the device shows a carrying case containing a circuit board and power supply wired to a digital display. Police ultimately chose not to charge Ahmed with having a hoax bomb, and the police chief has said there was no evidence the teen meant to cause alarm. His parents later withdrew him from the school.
But in recent weeks, the teenager has been traveling the world. Ahmed earlier this week told The Associated Press that he had visited Google and Facebook, along with other companies and institutions. He also visited with the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, which has prompted some criticism because al-Bashir is wanted by International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes for atrocities linked to the Darfur fighting. Ahmed’s father is a Sudanese immigrant to the U.S. and a former presidential candidate in Sudan who ran opposing al-Bashir.
Before attending “Astronomy Night” at the White House on Monday, where he chatted briefly with President Barack Obama, Ahmed said he was grateful. He said the lesson of his experience is: “Don’t judge a person by the way they look. Always judge them by their heart.”
On Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol, Ahmed stood alongside California Rep. Mike Honda as the Democrat praised the teen, saying Ahmed had used his negative experience to raise awareness about racial and ethnic profiling. Honda and more than two dozen other congressmen sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch last month calling on the Department of Justice to investigate Ahmed’s detention and arrest.
While Drake‘s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late had its share of mean-mugged anthems, and his furious Meek Mill diss track, “Back To Back” just about broke the internet, it’s the sunny, pop-minded “Hotline Bling” that has risen to the top of the Billboard charts this year.
Outside of his guest spot on Rihanna‘s “What’s My Name,” Drake has never landed a number one on the Billboard Hot 100 — his closest bid being his 2009 breakthrough single, “Best I Ever Had,” which peaked at number 2. “Hotline Bling” has now matched “BIEH” as Drizzy’s highest charting record, and the rapper is gunning for the top spot next week, hoping that the video will be his ticket to the top of the pile.
That video has arrived, and you can watch Drizzy show off some of his dance moves in it above. Will it be enough of an event for Drizzy to unseat fellow Torontonian The Weeknd from the number one slot? Click the picture above to watch the video and comment letting us know on our Facebook wall.
BAGHDAD (AP) — The new top U.S. military officer said Tuesday he sees no prospect right now for Russia to expand its airstrike campaign into Iraq, speaking after briefings to update him on the battle against Islamic State militants.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his first trip to the war zone since taking the top post on Oct. 1. He told reporters traveling with him that U.S. officials spoke with Iraqi leaders and were told no Russian airstrikes had been requested, despite earlier reports that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi wanted Russia’s help against Islamic State militants.
Dunford planned to talk with his commanders to get updates on battles in Beiji and Ramadi, where Iraqi forces have made some recent gains.
“Being in the job about two weeks, one of the things I want to do is go over here, get eyes on, on the ground,” Dunford said as his C-17 headed into Irbil.
Dunford’s flight into Iraq was suddenly delayed when Iraqis on the ground in Baghdad refused to allow his C-17 aircraft to land in Irbil.
Just before 9:30 a.m., local time, as Dunford’s plane was nearing Baghdad en route to Irbil, the crew was directed to fly instead to Baghdad.
The change set off a flurry of activity on the plane, as military staff quickly yanked phones and cords out of containers to make urgent phone calls to officials on the ground, to fix the confusion. After about a half-hour, the aircraft got permission to land in Irbil.
It was unclear what triggered the mix-up, but officials said the plane’s flight had been pre-approved by Iraqi leaders.
This also is Dunford’s first overseas trip since he took the chairman’s job, signaling the high priority he and the Pentagon leadership place on finding the right formula to use local forces backed by coalition airstrikes to retake territory the Islamic State militants control in Iraq and Syria.
He met in Irbil with the head of Iraq’s Kurdish regional government, President Massoud Barzani.
“I am new in my job and one of the first things I wanted to do was come over here and see you,” Dunford told Barzani. “As you know, we have a common enemy,” the U.S. general said.
He then flew to Baghdad, where he met with Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi, and is scheduled to meet with al-Abadi. He met with senior U.S. military leaders.
Dunford’s stop in Iraq comes after three days of meetings with senior military and government leaders in Israel and Jordan, two key U.S. allies in the region. In both countries, Dunford heard officials’ concerns about the Islamic State threat and the roiling instability in the region.
Late last week Iraqi troops backed by Shiite militia fighters drove IS militants out of the Beiji oil refinery, which has been contested for months.
Iraq announced Tuesday that it had driven Islamic State militants out of Beiji, which is about 155 miles (250 kilometers) north of Baghdad and is strategically located on the road to Mosul, the country’s second-largest city.
According to U.S. Lt. Col. Mike Filanowski, an intelligence officer with the military’s joint task force in Baghdad, Iraqi forces – largely the special operations troops – secured the refinery’s perimeter and the power plant to the north, and were slowly moving toward the center of the refinery, clearing enemy fighters.
He said they are encountering explosive devices and sniper fire. Filanowski estimated that there were still about 200 Islamic State fighters around the refinery, with more east of the river.
Mosul and Ramadi, the capitol of Iraq’s western province of Anbar, are both under IS control, and efforts to retake them have been problem-plagued.
Earlier this month, however, U.S. officials said Iraqi ground forces have advanced to the outer suburbs of Ramadi and that conditions may be right to launch an assault to take back the city.
Dunford’s visit comes just a few months after Defense Secretary Ash Carter made a trip to Irbil, also meeting with Kurdish leaders. And at the time, Carter told U.S. and coalition forces that the Kurdish troops, known as the Peshmerga, are “the model of what we are trying to achieve” – capable and motivated local forces who can battle Islamic State militants.
The U.S. has been training and equipping the Kurdish forces, through the auspices of the Iraqi government. And the Kurds have proven to be better able to combat IS than the Iraqi Army.
So far, the U.S. has not provided arms directly to the Kurds, insisting instead that it work through the country’s central government in Baghdad in order to avoid fomenting more division.
Islamic State extremists swept across northern Iraq last year, taking over large sections of the country. Much of the Iraqi Army collapsed, with troops fleeing or joining the militants.
The show has hired a new fact-checker and two new genealogists as part of its reforms, said the network’s Beth Hoppe on Monday. PBS had suspended the series after determining that the show’s producers violated standards by allowing Affleck undue influence on its content and failing to inform the network of his request.
“It has become a more transparent process and a more rigorous process,” Hoppe said, “but essentially at its core these are personal stories about people who are finding out about their histories. That hasn’t changed.”
“Finding Your Roots,” which is hosted and written by Henry Louis Gates Jr., returns on Jan. 5.Julianne Moore, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Sen. John McCain and television producers Norman Lear and Shonda Rhimes are among the 28 new celebrities whose backgrounds are traced.
Given the sensitivity of the Affleck case, the series makes certain to mention if its experts find slaveholding backgrounds for any of the celebrities featured this season, even if that isn’t a central part of the story being told, Hoppe said. That’s the case with several people in the new season, but PBS would not reveal which ones.
Hoppe said Gates has done everything PBS has asked to ensure the show has no further problems.
Someone defaced a famous D.C. mural of Bill Cosby, replacing the comedian’s face with that of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The mural at Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street NW shows Cosby and President Barack Obama, the only two people allowed to eat there for free, the restaurant boasts.
https://instagram.com/smearleader/
D.C. graffiti artist “Smear leader” has taken responsibility for the picture saying, “Kim’s Chili Bowl. Instead of looking at a sexual predator, people can celebrate in jubilation that the great leader is now on their Wall. Eat (expletive) Cosby.”
“What I would like for people to take away from this particular event is that it is an embarrassment to residents of D.C. old and new that his face is still up on the wall mural,” Smearleader told News4.
The comedian has been a huge supporter of the restaurant, appearing at their 55th celebration back in 2013.
