By Jason Morris, CNN

(CNN) — A defiant Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis testified Wednesday before an investigative Georgia state Senate committee. The committee scrutinized her prosecution of President Donald Trump and multiple codefendants, at one point briefly cutting Willis’ microphone when she testified beyond the question she was asked.

“Let me tell you why this is such a damn joke,” Willis said at a different point while being questioned by Greg Dolazal, a Republican state senator, in the Georgia Capitol.

The investigative committee that met Wednesday, which is made up of six Republicans and three Democrats, is tasked with prosecutorial oversight across the Peach State. It will issue a final report after its investigation, but has no power to directly sanction Fulton County’s top prosecutor.

During the hearing, Dolazal questioned Willis about her hiring of Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor on Fulton County’s massive 2020 election case against Trump. Willis’ onetime romantic relationship with Wade ultimately led to her being removed from the criminal case she brought against Trump and his allies.

“Why don’t you investigate how many times my house has been swatted?” Willis forcefully told the committee during questioning Wednesday. “Why don’t you investigate how many times they’ve called me the N-word?”

Former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, an attorney for Willis, told the committee that it was engaged in a “witch hunt.”

“You’re not a judge and you don’t have the power to make evidential rulings, and you don’t have the power,” Barnes told Dolezal, the committee chairman who was questioning Willis about her investigation.

“I think you are confusing facts,” Willis responded to questions about her racketeering investigation of Trump and his codefendants,.

“You all have been trying to intimidate me for five years, which is why I have not been able to live in my house for five years, because the N-word has been written on my house, thousands of threats have come to my office,” Willis testified, as she defended her actions.

“I ain’t going to quit in a month because somebody threatened me. I took an oath to do the right thing. People came into my community and committed a crime and I indicted them, and rest assured, if someone else comes in my community and commits a crime, I will indict them again,” she said.

When Barnes asked the prosecutor if she wanted to answer Dolezal’s question about whether she and Wade discussed the Trump case when he was hired, she quipped, “It’s a dumbass question.”

The committee was created to investigate Willis and Wade’s relationship

Wade was hired to be the special prosecutor to oversee Willis’ extensive racketeering indictment against Trump and numerous codefendants for their actions following the 2020 presidential election.

The Georgia state Senate Read more

COSTA CENTRAL, Calif. - Calendarios del 2026 informan a residentes sobre seguridad en Diablo Canyon

Miles de hogares locales están recibiendo calendarios del 2026 que incluyen información clave de seguridad relacionada con la Planta Nuclear de Diablo Canyon.

Los calendarios contienen detalles importantes que los residentes deben conocer en caso de una emergencia en la planta, además de precauciones que pueden tomarse desde ahora para estar mejor preparados.

Esta iniciativa coincide con la reciente aprobación otorgada a Diablo Canyon por la Comisión Costera, que autorizó una licencia federal de operación por 20 años, así como un permiso de desarrollo costero. Las autoridades recomiendan a los residentes revisar cuidadosamente la información incluida en los calendarios y conservarla en un lugar visible dentro del hogar.

Condado de Santa Bárbara enfrenta déficit presupuestario y propone plan de acción

La Junta de Supervisores del Condado de Santa Bárbara recibió un informe sobre el presupuesto para los próximos cinco años durante la reunión del martes en Santa María.

El condado enfrenta un déficit de más de 66 millones de dólares, lo que podría afectar programas esenciales como Medi-Cal y CalFresh, que brindan apoyo a miles de residentes.

Para abordar esta situación, se ha propuesto un nuevo plan presupuestario que busca reducir gastos, mejorar la eficiencia y equilibrar el presupuesto en los próximos años. Las autoridades advierten que los residentes podrían ver ajustes en algunos servicios si no se logra un equilibrio.

The post Noticias de la Costa Central 12-17-25 appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. (KEYT) – A 31-year-old motorcyclist died after a collision with a box truck in the median of Hueneme Road Monday.

The identity of the deceased has not been publicly released.

On Dec. 15, around 3:48 p.m., dispatchers received calls regarding a two-vehicle traffic collision involving a black Ducati motorcycle and a white Morgan box truck stated a press release Wednesday from the California Highway Patrol-Coastal Division (CHP).

An initial investigation revealed that the motorcycle, driven by a 31-year-old man, was westbound on Hueneme Road the same time that a Morgan box truck, driven by a 32-year-old man, was also traveling westbound on Hueneme Road detailed the CHP.

The speed of both vehicles and the exact cause of the collision remains under investigation, but a crash occurred involving both vehicles in the median on Hueneme Road resulting in fatal injuries to the 31-year-old motorcyclist who was later declared dead at the scene explained the CHP.

The driver of the box truck remained on the scene and provided a statement to investigators and Hueneme Road, from Raytheon Road to Naval Air Road, was closed for two-and-a-half hours shared the CHP.

It is unknown at this point in the investigation if drugs or alcohol were involved, but anyone with more information is asked to contact the CHP Ventura Office at 805-662-2640.

The post Motorcyclist dies after traffic collision with box truck on Hueneme Road Monday afternoon appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

CNN

By Sarah Ferris, Manu Raju, CNN

(CNN) — A bloc of House GOP centrists just made the ultimate hardball play against Speaker Mike Johnson — agreeing to help Democrats effectively seize control of the Republican agenda by forcing a vote on their own bill on the looming Obamacare subsidies cliff.

The stunning blow to Johnson comes after weeks of tense infighting among GOP leaders, moderates and hardliners that failed to produce any Republican fix for the end of month Obamacare deadline. It’s an act of protest that is unusual even in this fractious and unruly House, with four moderate Republicans ​agreeing to deliver a major floor win for the leader of the House Democratic caucus.

Now, those centrists, led by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Mike Lawler, are privately threatening Johnson to change his strategy on the expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies — or allow Democrats to secure that major victory on the floor in January.

Fitzpatrick had pushed his own compromise legislation to extend the subsidies for two years, instead of Democrats’ three, and with major reforms attached, but he was repeatedly blocked by party leaders from securing a floor vote.

“The only thing worse than a clean extension with no anti-fraud and no income caps is a cliff. So obviously left with a Hobson’s choice,” he told reporters, speaking about the Democratic bill, which includes none of the reforms that centrists of both parties have endorsed.

The House on Wednesday is expected to vote on a separate, narrower health care proposal from GOP leadership that does not address the expiring subsidies – all but guaranteeing that the money will lapse and spike premiums for tens of millions of Americans next year. A bipartisan group of senators is also working on a parallel track to strike their own health care agreement.

In a tense huddle on the House floor on Wednesday, multiple GOP moderates warned Johnson that he must now allow a vote on the centrists’ own compromise plan to address the subsidies, according to a person involved in the discussions. If he doesn’t, Johnson will face an embarrassing prospect the first week of January: the plan from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that’s detested by a majority of Republicans will pass the GOP-led House.

“What we’re trying to do is to force the conversation. We have to have a conversation on something. There should be an extension of the ACA tax credits for some period of time,” Pennsylvania Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who was part of that huddle with Johnson, told CNN.

Mackenzie was one of the four GOP centrists who took what’s often described in Congress as the nuclear option — agreeing to a discharge petition from the opposite party. Lawler, Fitzpatrick and Pennsylvania Rep. Rob Bresnahan also signed onto the Democratic effort in quick succession Wednesday morning. They are not the only ones who will support the bill when it comes up.

GOP Rep. Nick LaLota of New York

By Lauren del Valle, CNN

(CNN) — Brian Walshe is expected to be sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole after a jury in Dedham, Massachusetts, convicted him of first-degree murder, finding he planned to kill his wife Ana Walshe just hours after ringing in the new year in 2023.

The sentencing will represent the culmination of a case that captured national attention almost three years ago, first with the initial search for 39-year-old Ana Walshe, and then with the grisly evidence that her husband googled topics like “how to dispose of a body” and other inquiries on cleaning up blood.

For the defense, the trial itself “was an uphill battle from the jump,” according to Daniel Medwed, a law professor at Northeastern University, despite the prosecution’s lack of concrete evidence about how Ana died and definitive proof of premeditation – an element needed to convict Walshe of first-degree murder.

Walshe left a trail of evidence prosecutors used to retrace his actions to dispose of his wife’s remains.

Prosecutors left jury ‘breadcrumbs’

Prosecutors told the jury Ana met a violent death at her husband’s hand before he dismembered her body and disposed of her remains in area dumpsters.

Walshe then lied to investigators, claiming she had gone missing the morning of January 1, 2023, after leaving their Massachusetts home to handle a work emergency in Washington, DC, where she worked and lived part time.

Ana Walshe’s body has never been found.

Prosecutors called about 50 witnesses over eight days, but they never offered the jury a theory of how exactly Walshe killed his wife, a real estate manager and the mother of his three children.

Instead, they worked to shed light on purported strife in the Walshes’ marriage, stemming from a separate, federal criminal case against Walshe and an affair Ana was having in DC.

Walshe has always maintained he had nothing to do with Ana’s death. His defense team told the jury he found her dead in their bed hours into the new year, then panicked, fearing no one would believe him.

“Why do people kill? It’s usually love or money or both,” Medwed told CNN. “Here, it was a ‘love gone bad’ theory, because she was having an affair and he was in financial distress.”

Prosecutors alleged Walshe found out about his wife’s monthslong affair with a man she met in Washington, DC, William Fastow, and feared losing his wife and kids to a new life she had there while he was facing the possibility of prison time and a hefty restitution bill for a federal fraud conviction.

When Ana died, Walshe was still awaiting sentencing for that conviction. He had pleaded guilty to selling forged Andy Warhol artwork and was granted home confinement ahead of sentencing because he was the primary caregiver for their three kids.

“The prosecution tried as best as possible to create motive,” Medwed said, “and then they pointed to the post-incident cover-up to suggest (Walshe) was acting in a cold and calculating manner, and that that may reflect back on his mental state at the time of her death.”

Digital data recovered from Walshe’s devices revealed he also googled divorce and William Fastow days before his wife’s death.

A conviction on first-degree murder requires evidence of deliberate premeditation, which was not a given in this case, according to Medwed.

“I think the prosecution did as good a job as possible to allude to premeditation, given the absence of the body for an autopsy and the absence of any direct evidence about cause of death,” Medwed said. “Given all of the absence, what the prosecution, I think, tried to do is leave the jury some breadcrumbs.”

One such breadcrum