Husband arrested for murder after wife’s body found in dumpster
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(COOPERSBURG, Pa.) — A man has been arrested in the murder of a New Jersey woman whose body was found in a Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, dumpster over the weekend.
Rolando Corte, 42, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Lucrecia Jadan Sumba, 39, from Elizabeth, New Jersey, according to the Union County Prosecutor’s Office.
Sumba was reported missing by friends and family on Jan. 9 to the Elizabeth Police Department. Sumba was killed last Wednesday, according to prosecutors.
Corte was identified and arrested on Sunday. He is being held at the Union County Jail in New Jersey and is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday.
If found guilty, he could face up to life in prison.
It’s unclear if the suspect and victim had any connection or what led police to identify Corte as a suspect.
The woman was found in a dumpster on S. 3rd Street in Coopersburg just before 6 p.m. on Saturday, according to police.
Coopersburg, a suburb of Allentown, is about 80 miles west of Elizabeth.
An autopsy revealed Sumba’s cause of death was sharp force injuries and her death was ruled a homicide, according to the county coroner.
“A joint investigation conducted by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Task Force, Elizabeth Police Department, Coopersburg Police Department, and the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office led to the identification and arrest of Corte,” according to the prosecutor’s office.
Coopersburg Police did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — The Gulf Coast is digging out from a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm that struck from Texas to Florida, closing airports and crippling roadways.
Over 2,000 flights were canceled on Tuesday and more than 1,300 flights have been canceled on Wednesday.
Multiple fatalities have been reported due to car crashes and hypothermia.
In the Atlanta area, DeKalb County officials declared a state of emergency on Wednesday and are urging all residents to shelter in place due to the severe winter weather. Over 100 cars have been reported stranded on roadways, keeping crews from responding to emergencies, officials said.
Many areas saw more snow than they have in at least 130 years.
Florida saw its most snow on record, with a preliminary 8.8 inches of snow observed in Milton, north of Pensacola.
The southeast part of Houston saw over 4 inches, making it one of the top snowstorms to impact the area.
Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, saw all-time record highs with 7.5 inches and 7.6 inches respectively.
In Louisiana, Baton Rouge saw 7.6 inches, New Orleans saw 8 inches and Lafayette recorded 9 inches.
New Orleans demolished its most recent highest snow total, which was 2.7 inches in 1963.
Snow is still falling early Wednesday in Georgia, Florida and the coastal Carolinas.
About 5 inches have so far been reported in parts of coastal North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
The snow is expected to end this morning but rain will continue in Florida.
(WASHINGTON) — Peach and Blossom are the two lucky turkeys from Minnesota who will escape a fowl fate of ending up on someone’s Thanksgiving table this year when they are pardoned Monday by President Biden at the White House.
These birds were plucked for the presidential flock and went through rigorous training to ride the gravy train to the White House for the honor, according to John Zimmerman, chairman of the National Turkey Federation.
Zimmerman’s 9-year-old son Grant and other young trainers made sure their feathers wouldn’t be ruffled by the spotlight.
“Preparing these presidential birds has taken a lot of special care,” Zimmerman said Sunday during a press conference introducing the two turkeys.“We’ve been getting them used to lights, camera and even introducing them to a wide variety of music — everything from polka to classic rock.”
Peach and Blossom, weighing 41 and 40 pounds, respectively, were hatched back in July. They traveled to Washington this week and were treated to a suite at the Willard InterContinental hotel before their big day on Monday, as is tradition.
After their pardon, the two turkeys will head back to Waseca, Minn., to live out the remainder of the feathery lives as “agricultural ambassadors” at Farmamerica, an agricultural interpretive center.
Previous poultry pardoned under Biden include Liberty and Bell in 2023, Chocolate and Chip in 2022, and Peanut Butter and Jelly in 2021.
The turkey pardon at the White House is an annual tradition that is usually “cranned” full of a cornucopia of corny jokes. This year’s pardon will be the last of Biden’s presidency.
The history of the turkey pardon
The origin of the presidential turkey pardons is a bit fuzzy. Unofficially, reports point all the way back to Abraham Lincoln, who spared a bird from its demise at the urging of his son, Tad. However, that story might be more folklore than fact.
The true start of what has evolved into the current tradition has its roots in politics and dates back to the Harry Truman presidency in 1947.
Truman ruffled feathers by starting “poultry-less Thursdays” to try and conserve various foods in the aftermath of World War II, but Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day all fell on Thursdays.
After the White House was inundated with live birds sent as part of a “Hens for Harry” counter-initiative, the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board presented Truman with a bird as a peace offering — although the turkey was not saved from a holiday feast.
President John F. Kennedy began the trend of publicly sparing a turkey given to the White House in November 1963, just days before his assassination. In the years following, the event became a bit more sporadic, with even some first ladies such as Pat Nixon and Rosalynn Carter stepping in to accept the guests of honor on their husband’s behalf.
The tradition of the public sparing returned in earnest during the Reagan administration, but the official tradition of the poultry pardoning at the White House started in 1989, when then-President George H.W. Bush offered the first official presidential pardon. In the more than three decades since, at least one lucky bird has gotten some extra gobbles each year.
Katherine Faulders, Aaron Katersky and Peter Charalambous, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Donald Trump’s lawyers are urging the New York judge in his criminal hush money case to throw out his conviction based on unsworn allegations of “grave juror misconduct” that prosecutors have described as vague and “seemingly inaccurate.”
While Trump’s lawyers argued the claims illustrate “the manifest unfairness of these proceedings,” Judge Juan Merchan criticized Trump’s lawyers for making claims consisting “entirely of unsworn allegations” and for opposing a hearing that would allow the allegations to be vetted.
“Allegations of juror misconduct should be thoroughly investigated. However, this Court is prohibited from deciding such claims on the basis of mere hearsay and conjecture,” wrote Merchan, largely rejecting the claims unless Trump’s attorneys provide sworn statements or consent to a hearing on the matter.
Trump’s claims were included in court filings unsealed on Monday, but the specific allegations were redacted.
Defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove — who Trump last month nominated to top positions in the Department of Justice — claimed to have uncovered evidence of juror misconduct that calls into question what they call the “dubious validity of the highly suspect verdicts rendered by the jury.”
Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
Judge Merchan has yet to sentence Trump, who has been seeking to have the case dismissed on the grounds of presidential immunity following his reelection last month.
Trump’s lawyers, citing presidential immunity and other ongoing litigation, told Merchan they oppose a hearing examining their claims of juror misconduct, and instead asked the judge to weigh the claims as he considers Trump’s pending motion to throw out the case.
“This behavior is completely unacceptable, and it demonstrates without question that the verdicts in this case are as unreliable as DA Bragg’s promise to protect Manhattanites from violent crime,” the defense lawyers said, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case.
Prosecutors argued in a filing that the jury misconduct claims are vague and untested, and that Trump’s lawyers declined to include a sworn declaration. They wrote that the alleged source of the claims directly told Trump’s lawyers that their summary of the allegations “contains inaccuracies and does not contain additional information that I never shared,” and that they declined to sign a sworn affidavit.
“Defendant cannot short-circuit this process by insisting that this Court treat his unsworn and seemingly inaccurate allegations of jury misconduct as true,” prosecutors said.
Prosecutors alleged that Trump’s lawyers are avoiding the proper mechanism to evaluate the claims by inserting them into the public domain while “opposing any endeavor to properly evaluate them.”
“Defendant does not want to participate in a hearing designed to evaluate these claims. He wants instead to use these unsworn, untested claims by his attorneys to undermine public confidence in the verdict,” their filing said.
Judge Merchan largely sided with prosecutors, declining to consider the claims unless Trump’s lawyers specifically move to vacate the verdict due to allegations of juror misconduct based on sworn allegations or evaluated through a hearing, which they so far have not done. Merchan still allowed both sides to docket their filings with significant redactions.
“This Court finds that to allow the public filing of the letter without redactions and without the benefit of a hearing, would only serve to undermine the integrity of these proceedings while simultaneously placing the safety of the jurors at grave risk,” Merchan wrote.
The exchange comes as the Merchan, on Monday, rejected Trump’s request to vacate the verdict in the case based on the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision.
Trump had sought to dismiss his criminal indictment and vacate the jury verdict on the grounds that prosecutors, during the trial earlier this year, introduced evidence relating to Trump’s official acts as president that was inadmissible based on the Supreme Court’s subsequent ruling that Trump is entitled to presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken while in office.
Merchan ruled that the evidence in the case related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”