Sheriff accused of killing district judge inside of his chambers, authorities say
A Kentucky judge was shot and killed Thursday in his court chambers and a local sheriff has been arrested on suspicion of committing the slaying.
District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, was shot multiple times at the Letcher County courthouse in Whitesburg, Kentucky State Police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines, 43, was taken into custody at the scene without incident, police said.
He was charged with one count of first-degree murder.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he was informed earlier that a judge in Letcher County was killed.
“There is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow,” he wrote on X.
One person was reportedly in custody, but authorities have not disclosed any details about the shooting or have identified the judge killed or the suspect.
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Allison Ball, the state auditor of public accounts, initially identified the victim as Mullins before authorities disclosed his name.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Kentucky State Police. Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said his office will collaborate with Jackie Steele, the commonwealth’s attorney for the 27th Judicial Circuit, as special prosecutors in the case.
“We will fully investigate and pursue justice,” he posted on social media.
Letcher County Public Schools said it was ordered to go into mandatory lockdowns because of “an active shooting” in the downtown area.
“Your children are safe,” the district wrote online. “The shooter has been apprehended, but KSP has not released us to come out of lockdown. Your children were never in a concerning situation. Please give us time to work with KSP to figure out our next steps.”
The Kentucky Court of Justice system said it was aware of the killing and is cooperating with law enforcement.
“At this moment, we are not able to share further details, but we will provide updates as more information becomes available,” it said on social media. “Our deepest sympathies go out to all those impacted by this tragic event, and our thoughts and prayers are with the community during this challenging time.”
Mullins served on the bench in the 47th Judicial District where he oversaw juvenile matters, city and county ordinances, misdemeanors, traffic offenses, arraignments, felony probable cause hearings, claims involving $2,500 or less, civil cases involving $5,000 or less, voluntary and involuntary mental commitments and domestic violence cases, according to the court website.
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He has served as a district judge in Letcher County since he was appointed by former Gov. Steve Beshear in 2009 and elected the following year. Mullins promoted substance abuse treatment for people involved in the justice system and helped hundreds of residents enter inpatient residential treatment, according to a program for a drug summit he spoke at in 2022.
Diddy’s former protégé reacts to disgraced hip-hop mogul’s arrest: He ‘destroyed my life’
Moses “Shyne” Barrow recalled how Sean “Diddy” Combs forever changed the trajectory of his life after a 1999 New York nightclub shooting.
Shyne, a former Bad Boy rapper and current politician in Belize, discussed his history with the fallen music mogul after Diddy’s arrest and subsequent criminal charges for racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking as the alleged ringleader of a criminal enterprise.
“When I was an 18-year-old kid, just wanting to do nothing other than make my mother proud and make Belize proud and be recognized for my talent and take over the world,” Barrow said during a press conference Wednesday.
“I was defending him, and he turned around and called witnesses to testify against me. He pretty much sent me to prison.
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“I forgave. I moved on. But let us not pretend as if I was in Miami for Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
Shyne, who now serves as the Leader of the Opposition in the Belize House of Representatives, was a rising star in the hip-hop world when he signed with Bad Boy Records in 1998. One year later, Shyne joined Diddy and his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Lopez, at the now defunct Club New York in Times Square when gunfire broke out.
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During the scuffle, three people were injured, including a woman who was shot in the face. Lopez, Combs and his bodyguard, Anthony “Wolf” Jones, fled in his Lincoln and were later pulled over by the NYPD for running a red light.
“I forgave. I moved on. But let us not pretend as if I was in Miami for Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
A gun was found in the vehicle, and Lopez and Diddy were arrested. Lopez was let go, but Diddy, Jones and Shyne were each charged with multiple offenses. Diddy and Jones were both found not guilty at trial, while Shyne was convicted on five of eight counts and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Upon release, Shyne was deported to Belize.
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Since the incident, Shyne chose to forgive the “Victory” rapper and appeared on stage in London for a surprise performance with the Bad Boy Records founder in 2023.
“Let’s not lose sight of what the cold hard facts are,” Shyne insisted. “This is not someone who I vacationed with and someone who I enjoyed this great, intimate relationship of brotherhood.
“This is someone who destroyed my life, and who I forgave, and who I moved on, and for the better interest of Belize because he was in the position at that time to give scholarships and maybe to invest. I would not deny attempting to bring the investment to Belize and contribution to education in Belize.
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“Do I take any joy with what he is going through? Absolutely not. I am different than other people. No one needs to fail for me to succeed.”
Diddy, 54, was charged Tuesday with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution. He faces a minimum of 15 years behind bars and a maximum sentence of life in prison if found guilty.
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He appeared in Manhattan federal court Tuesday, where he pleaded not guilty. Not only was Combs denied a proposed $50 million bail, he was sent to jail immediately after the hearing.
NFL Hall of Fame coach posts fiery response to VP Harris’ tweet about abortion
Legendary NFL coach Tony Dungy challenged a tweet from Vice President Kamala Harris about abortion rights.
Harris has been unapologetic about her stance on abortion rights for women, and she continued with a post on X Thursday.
“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree: The government, and certainly Donald Trump, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” she said.
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Dungy, the first Black head coach to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the modern era and second all-time, is a man of faith and questioned Harris.
“Dear VP Harris: I hear you make this statement all the time,” Dungy wrote in a quote tweet. “Exactly what ‘faith’ are you talking about when you say you don’t have to abandon it to support abortion? Are you talking about the Christian faith that says all babies are made in the image of God (Gen 1:26), that God places them in the womb (Jer 1:5) and that we should not take any life unjustly (Luke 18:20)?
“Are you talking about that faith or some nebulous, general ‘faith’ that says we’re good enough, and smart enough to make our own decisions? What ‘faith’ are you talking about?”
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Harris has pledged that if Congress were to pass a bill to reinstate the protections that Roe v. Wade guaranteed, she would “proudly sign it into law” if elected president in November.
Meanwhile, Trump commended the United States Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade, which has allowed states to handle the issue.
Dungy also reposted former NFL tight end Benjamin Watson’s quote tweet over a Sept. 17 Harris tweet, which said, “A young mother from Georgia should be alive today, raising her son and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school. This is exactly what we feared when Roe vs. Wade was struck down. In more than 20 states, Trump Abortion Bans prevent doctors from providing basic medical care.”
“Amber Thurman’s tragic death was caused by complications from legal abortion drugs and gross medical malpractice,” Watson responded. “She should have been treated immediately by physicians who instead waited too long to act. Georgia’s pro-life law is not the issue. It does not criminalize doing a D&C, especially when there is no detectable fetal heart rate.
“Amber should be alive, and [Harris] should focus her attention on these facts so we can prevent the next tragedy rather than promoting politically motivated falsehoods.”
On Dungy’s tweet, one commenter wrote, “I love what you stand for coach. But how do you support someone like Trump? I have never seen post from you criticizing him.”
“I guess you didn’t see my post last week when I said Donald Trump could not have read Florida Amendment 4 very carefully when he said he was going to vote ‘Yes’ on it,” Dungy replied.
Trump later clarified his stance on the abortion amendment, which would protect access to abortion in the state, saying, “I’ll be voting no.” Abortion is not permitted in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy with exceptions in rare circumstances.
“President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida. He simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short,” Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s press secretary, said after his NBC News interview.
Earlier this month, Harris also claimed Trump’s abortion platform would make no exception “even for rape and incest.”
“A survivor of a crime of violation to their body does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body. That is immoral, and one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” Harris said.
“Understand, if Donald Trump were to be re-elected, he will sign the national abortion ban.”
Trump said moments before Harris’ statement he does believe “strongly” in exceptions for abortion.
“I believe in the exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother,” Trump said during a debate. “I believe strongly in it. Ronald Reagan did also. Eighty-five percent of Republicans knew exceptions are very important.”
Dungy is a one-time Super Bowl-champion coach, which came after his 12-4 season in 2006 with the Indianapolis Colts.
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Dungy began his head coaching career in Tampa Bay with the Buccaneers, going 54-42 with the franchise before moving to Indy, where he quickly became a legend with Peyton Manning as his quarterback.
Dungy went 85-27 in his 112 games leading the Colts.
CNN reporter lectures boat-owning Trump supporter on economy — but he isn’t having it
A CNN reporter clashed with a supporter of former President Trump over whether he should have concerns about the economy, in a CNN interview that played on the liberal network on Wednesday.
CNN’s Elle Reeve interviewed Trump supporters at a MAGA boat parade in Panama City, Florida about their most important issues heading into the 2024 election. At one point, she got into a heated discussion with Trump supporter Joe Harner because he said the economy was his number one concern, telling Reeve that everything was “too expensive.”
She chimed in to lecture him for thinking this way.
“Let me maybe ask a slightly impolite question. But you know, if you can afford a boat, you’re not hurting so bad, right?” Reeve asked. “Because a boat cost a lot of money, and it’s a lot of upkeep.”
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“Listen, nobody gave me s—!” Harner responded. “I earned everything that I’ve got. I’m retired military, retired power plant, and I am successful and retired with boats and jet skis because I did it right, and everybody has that chance. Whether they choose or not, that’s up to them.”
“I would never try to take anything away from you in that way,” Reeve responded. “But what I’m asking is, groceries are probably a smaller part of your budget than say, someone who’s like a little worse off.”
“I think it’s interesting that people who are a little bit more comfortable are still so concerned about the economy. Do you see what I‘m saying?” she continued.
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“Because I want my money to go further,” he said. “I want inflation to go down. I want interest rates to go back down. I want all that, but that covers everybody in the economy. Not just me, not just the poor, not just the rich, it covers everybody.”
After Reeve asked Harner if he was worried his kids wouldn’t be able to afford a house or a car, he said he wasn’t worried about that.
“I train my kids and taught my kids properly. They have great educations and they’re both successful in their careers. Actually, they‘re doing better than me,” he revealed.
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Though the rate of inflation has subsided to 2.5% as of August 2024, Americans’ budgets are still stretched due to the price increases that have occurred in rcent years. Compared with four years ago, in August 2020, when the country was in the midst of the pandemic and before inflation accelerated, prices are up just shy of 21%, according to FOX Business calculations.
Overall, food prices have risen about 22.8% in the last four years.
To perhaps the man in the interview’s delight, however, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half a point this week, marking the first reduction in four years.
Secret Service under pressure to respond to new whistleblower allegations
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Wednesday sent a letter to acting U.S. Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe asking him about whistleblower allegations pertaining to the second assassination attempt against former President Trump in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday.
A whistleblower “with direct knowledge of Secret Service protection at former President Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach — an individual who has in fact protected President Trump at that very location” — alleged to Hawley’s office earlier this week that “there are ‘known vulnerabilities’ in the fence line surrounding the course,” including “places that offer a clear line of sight to the former president and others playing the course.”
“As a result, the whistleblower alleges it has been Secret Service protocol to ‘post up’ agents at these vulnerable spots when Trump visits the course. That apparently did not happen on September 15,” Hawley wrote in his letter to Rowe. “Instead, the gunman was permitted to remain along or near the fence line for some 12 hours.”
Hawley told reporters on Thursday that the whistleblower said it “has been standard Secret Service protocol [that] there are known vulnerabilities at that course.”
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“That is, areas where you can get a clear line of sight from off the course of people playing the course,” Hawley explained. “So, it has been Secret Service protocol to station agents at these known sites before Trump would play the course. That apparently didn’t happen. It sounds as if they didn’t even sweep the perimeter. This is really strange. This is why the gunman was able to hang out there at one of these known vulnerable sites for twelve hours without anybody saying anything to him until Trump was within a few hundred yards.”
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Secret Service agents were able to neutralize the suspected threat on Sunday allegedly posed by Ryan Routh, who has been arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Authorities said more charges may be filed against Routh at a later date.
“We greatly respect the role of Congressional oversight and will respond to any request for briefings or other information through official channels,” the USSS told Fox News Digital in response to Hawley’s letter.
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Hawley added in his letter that it is also unclear “whether agents swept the perimeter of the golf course at any point, or whether drones were used to surveil the fence line” on Sunday while the former president was golfing.
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“The reality is that the would-be assassin should never have been able to linger around the course for that long undetected,” the senator wrote.
He continued to ask whether Secret Service personnel were posted at the “known vulnerability” locations along the Trump International Golf Club perimeter fencing; whether personnel did a sweep of the perimeter prior to the former president’s arrival on the course; if they used “canine units or Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) elements to monitor the perimeter”; if counter surveillance personnel were at the golf course; and what the “specific counter surveillance mitigation plan” was that day.
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Hawley does not currently sit on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is looking into the two assassination attempts on Trump since July, but the Missouri senator has been conducting his own independent investigation into both attempts.
Caitlin Clark ends rookie season with another WNBA record in the books
The Washington Mystics used their scheduled season finale against the Indiana Fever to pull off a stunt that yielded record attendance, despite being one of the worst teams in the league this year.
With Caitlin Clark and the Fever finishing the season in Washington D.C. on Thursday, the Mystics made the advantageous marketing decision of moving the game to a larger venue. They moved it to Capital One Arena, home to the NBA’s Washington Wizards.
Washington typically plays in the The Entertainment and Sports Arena, which is located Congress Heights, a residential neighborhood in southeast Washington, D.C. It has a capacity of only 4,200.
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But Capital One Arena, located in the Chinatown section of the larger Penn Quarter of the city, has a maximum capacity of 20,356 for basketball games.
The Mystics had no problem filling those seats with Clark in town, despite having just 13 wins going into the game.
The 20,711 fans that showed up on Thursday represented a new record for the highest-attended WNBA regular-season contest. The record broke the previous regular-season record of 20,674, which was reached four times by Washington during the 1998 and 1999 seasons.
The best part about it for the Mystics was that the fans there got to watch the home team pull of the win over Clark’s Fever 92-91
The Las Vegas Aces pulled off a similar move when they hosted the Fever at the larger T-Mobile Arena for a July 2 game instead of playing in the relatively smaller Michelob ULTRA Arena. For that game, 20,366 fans showed up, which represented the highest regular-season single-game attendance since 1999.
However, it nearly didn’t happen for the Mystics. Clark came just one technical foul shy of earning a one-game suspension this year. In the Fevers’ most-recent game against the Dallas Wings, Clark was about to pick up her seventh technical foul of the season, which would have meant a one-game suspension for the rookie.
During the game, Clark was walking up the floor after a turnover. She looked up at the replay and immediately started to mouth off to the referee. Kelsey Mitchell stuck out her arm to prevent Clark from heading over to the ref, while Aliyah Boston pulled Clark away and yelled, “No,” to keep her from getting a technical foul.
By avoiding a seventh technical foul, Clark was free to bring a frenzy of fans to watch her play in Washington on Thursday night.
Clark’s record-attended season finale is a fitting end to a historic season where the rookie seemed to break so many other records.
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Clark’s performance on Thursday gave her the record for most points by a point guard in a single season in WNBA history. Clark already clinched the record for most points by a rookie and the league’s single-season assist record.
As the single-season record holder and league-leader in assists this year, Clark is the youngest player to ever lead the league in assists.
Clark also led the league in 3-pointers this year, and had the second most of all time in a single season with 122.
On top of that, she broke the record for most All-Star votes for any player in WNBA history, and became the first rookie to ever record a triple-double.
The attention and performance that Clark has given the Fever has thrust the team into the playoffs for the first time in eight years, as one of the most popular teams in the league. The 14 most-watched WNBA games this year all included the Fever.
Two of Clark’s teammates spoke out about how different it is playing with Clark this year, for the team’s vibe and visibility.
Point guard Kelsey Mitchell told reporters ahead of Thursday’s game she didn’t think the public would know much about her if not for Clark, adding she was used to a more introverted approach to her job.
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“I think the reality of it is that I don’t think people would know without “C squared” (Clark’s nickname), so shout out to Caitlin!” Mitchell said when asked about getting more attention and fans this season.
“She’s done an unbelievable job of bringing her own fans and people that support her, but, for me, I kinda laugh at it and I embrace it at the same time because I always flew under the radar. I’ve always kind of been that person that is very conservative, very introvert, so now I get to see the flip side of it.
Meanwhile, Shooting guard Erica Wheeler told reporters that Clark’s presence this season has resulted in the team needing to be more resilient to scrutiny.
“All we do is have fun with Caitlin Clark, who never takes anything seriously,” Wheeler said. “I tell people all the time she’s really a kid at heart. … There’s moments where we need to be serious, and we are serious, but a majority of the time, we’re having fun. Because you gotta understand, the outside world was really trying to get inside this building. We just didn’t let it.
Grocery chain brings back popular item — after months of being sold out
Trader Joe’s brought back the mini, viral version of one of its popular tote bags.
The small bags are going for hundreds on the secondary market, but they were spotted in a Rockville, Maryland, store on Wednesday for $2.99 each, according to TikTok user Nina Daniels.
“There’s actually someone monitoring them because people are buying them, apparently like crazy,” Daniels said in a video she posted to the social media platform. “You guys have a limit of five.”
The bags sold out earlier this year and can even be found on resale sites like eBay for $500 for a set of four.
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“I am in Hawaii and we have no Trader Joe’s here,” one TikToker wrote in response to Daniels’ video. “I just want one. I’ll pay you to ship it for me please.” She responded, “DM me.”
The totes “are made of the same heavy duty, 65% cotton/35% polyester blend as our larger, classic Canvas Bags,” Trader Joe’s says on its website. They come in navy, yellow, red and forest green.
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The bags measure 13 inches long by 11 inches tall and are 6 inches wide. They are perfect for “smaller shopping trips,” the retailer says.
“It’ll fit a dozen of your favorite TJ’s apples, or you can fill your Mini Tote with TJ’s snacks & sweets to keep you munching on your next road trip,” the Trader Joe’s website says. “You can even stash a small paperback in the handy side-pocket, along with a Ciabatta Demi-Baguette, Organic String Cheese, and Citterio Salami Sticks for a relaxing spring afternoon in the park.”
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This has been the year of viral products for retailers. The Stanley cup craze took off when special colors were released ahead of Valentine’s Day at Target. Trader Joe’s also released mini insulated tote bags that made the rounds on social media in June.
The hot-ticket mini tote bags are only available for a limited time, but it is unclear when sales will cease at Trader Joe’s stores. FOX Business reached out to Trader Joe’s for more information, but it did not immediately respond.