Archbishop says Pelosi is not entitled to receive Communion
Archbishop of San Francisco Salvatore Cordileone announced Friday that Rep. Nancy Pelosi will not be admitted to receive Communion in response to her push to codify abortion rights, underscoring the nation's widening divisions as the U.S. Supreme Court consider whether to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
His statement marks the latest clash between Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and the House Speaker over abortion rights, which Pelosi has championed.
"After numerous attempts to speak with Speaker Pelosi to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion," Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said in a tweet about the San Francisco Democrat who is speaker of the House.
The move comes a year after Cordileone and Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego became embroiled in a debate over excluding from Communion politicians who support abortion rights like Pelosi and President Joe Biden, also a Catholic.
"To those who are advocating for abortion, I would say, 'This is killing. Please stop the killing. You're in a position to do something about it,'" Cordileone said last year in an interview with Catholic television network EWTN.
—Los Angeles Times
R. Kelly’s sentencing in New York delayed ... again
A federal judge in New York on Friday granted a two-week delay in sentencing for R. Kelly after his lawyer said experts she’d hired had been unable to get access to the singer in the federal lockup in Brooklyn.
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly moved Kelly’s sentencing hearing from June 15 to June 29, writing in her order that it would be the last time she granted a change. The hearing had originally been set for May 4.
The latest delay came after Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, wrote in a motion that her sentencing mitigation experts would not be able to interview Kelly in jail until May 26 at the earliest due to delays in approval by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. Their report would not be completed until June 9, Bonjean said.
A jury found Kelly guilty of 12 individual illegal acts, including sex with multiple underage girls as well as a 1994 scheme to bribe an Illinois public aid official to get a phony ID for 15-year-old singer Aaliyah so the two could get married.
He’s also accused in federal court in Chicago of conspiring with two associates to rig his 2008 child pornography case in Cook County and hide years of alleged sexual abuse of young girls.
A jury trial in that case is scheduled to kick off on Aug. 1.
—Chicago Tribune
Fetterman 'feeling good,' raising funds as he recovers
PITTSBURGH — Two days after he became the Democrats' standard-bearer in one of the country's most important U.S. Senate races, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman was continuing to rest in a Lancaster hospital, recovering from a stroke he had late last week.
Campaign spokesman Joe Calvello told the Post-Gazette on Thursday that Fetterman is "feeling good today, he is up and walking around and talking to hospital staff and doctors about his recovery plans and his campaign staff about his massive primary win."
Fetterman's pacemaker — implanted Tuesday with a defibrillator — is "functioning perfectly," Calvello said, and a neurologist continues to say he will "make a full recovery," according to the campaign.
Though their candidate is unable to return to the campaign trail, donors are trying to make sure that when he does, he'll have the money to fight in all 67 counties — a key part of his campaign pitch.
Fetterman's campaign raised more than $1.6 million in the first 24 hours after he clinched the Democratic nomination, officials said.
On Tuesday, Fetterman won the primary by a wide margin over U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta and Jenkintown Borough Councilwoman Alex Khalil.
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Man gets 24-year term for setting wildfire that killed condors
LOS ANGELES — A man who was convicted of setting a wildfire in Big Sur that burned 125,000 acres, seriously injured a firefighter and killed 12 endangered California condors was sentenced this week to 24 years in state prison.
Ivan Gomez, 31, who was sentenced Wednesday, was found guilty last month of setting the 2020 Dolan fire, cultivating marijuana in the Los Padres National Forest and 12 counts of animal cruelty tied to the condor deaths, according to the Monterey County district attorney's office.
The fire destroyed a number of homes and injured several firefighters, including one seriously, authorities said. A dozen condors perished in the fire and their nesting grounds were burned.
California State Parks and Recreation officers first spotted flames on Aug. 18, 2020, in the forest known as the "top of the world," according to the DA's office. Around the same time, officers received reports of a man throwing rocks at vehicles on Highway 1 and the Lime Creek Bridge.
The man, later identified as Gomez, was carrying multiple lighters when confronted by officers and admitted to starting the fire at an illegal marijuana field nearby.
—Los Angeles Times
