Final Newscast

Keith Harper Jr.

WKNJ Newscast

December 17, 2009

Good Afternoon, Thursday, December 17^th at___________ o’clock and your’e listening to 90.3 WKNJ-FM Union, New Jersey and I’m ___________ with the news.

In Local New…

PLAINFIELD -- A 20-year-old accused of murder took the stand during a pretrial hearing today to argue that his Miranda rights were violated. Willie Greene is one of five men accused in the 2007 beating death of Lazaro Tista, a Guatemalan immigrant from Plainfield. Before Superior Court Judge James Heimlich, Greene testified that he was arrested and aggressively interrogated by police without his lawyer present. The baby-faced defendant, with long sideburns and a small goatee, said his learning disability makes it difficult to understand what he reads. "I didn’t fully comprehend what they meant by ‘you have the right to remain silent,’" Greene testified today, as he rested his handcuffed hands on the witness stand. "I just went along with it and signed the paper, even though I didn’t understand." His defense attorney, Roy Greenman, argued his client has a low I.Q. and his family told police they intended to hire a lawyer to represent him. Authorities were able to convince Greene to give a statement about an hour before his lawyer contacted police, Greenman said. Assistant Prosecutor Michael Henn said police acted appropriately during the arrest and interrogation, and a videotape of Greene’s statement shows his testimony in court was not credible.

UNION TOWNSHIP -- An Elizabeth man staggered into a township diner bleeding after he was shot in the face in a county-owned park Monday night, police said. Union Township police received a 911 call from University Diner on North Avenue at 5:45 p.m. Monday. Union Township police Captain Scott Breslow said the victim collapsed after entering the restaurant. After administering aid to the wounded man, police "followed a trail of blood from the diner" to Ursino Park. The park, located on the intersection of North and Morris avenues, sits across from Kean University, the Liberty Hall Museum and another piece of county-owned land, Phil Rizzuto park. A spokeswoman for Kean University's police department said thevictim was not a student.

National News…

The Washington City Council voted Tuesday to legalize same-sex marriage in the nation's capital. The bill was approved overwhelmingly by a vote of 11-2. The bill will be given to Mayor Adrian Fenty, who has expressed his support and vowed to sign the bill. If the mayor signs it, Congress will have 30 days to intervene before it would take effect. It is considered unlikely that the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill will block the bill.

Tuesday's second vote was needed to send the measure to Fenty. The council passed the bill in an 11-2 vote December 1. If the measure becomes law, Washington will join Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Iowa in allowing legal same sex marriages. A law legalizing gay marriage in New Hampshire takes effect January 1.

In other National News…

An American father said he hopes to be bringing his 9-year-old son home from Brazil on Thursday after a long international custody battle that has involved U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and many Brazilian courtrooms. A Brazilian court on Wednesday ordered that the boy, Sean Goldman, be returned to the custody of his father in the United States. The father, David Goldman, spoke to CNN's "American Morning" on Thursday shortly after his plane touched down in Brazil."I hope that this is the last trip I'll have to come down here," Goldman said. In an earlier conversation with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Goldman said, "I hope this time I will be able to go down to Brazil and come back home with my son. Hopefully the rule of law, god, nature, human decency will be followed, and Sean will come home to reunite with me, his only parent."The Federal Regional Tribunal's 3-0 ruling in Rio de Janeiro upheld a decision in June by the 16th Federal Court in Rio, which ordered Sean returned to his home with his father in New Jersey in accordance with the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

In World News…

Investigators probing the June crash of an Air France flight in the Atlantic Ocean still do not know what brought the plane down, who was at the controls when it crashed, or what the pilots did in the moments leading up to the disaster, according to a new report released Thursday."At this stage ... it is still not possible to understand the causes and circumstances of the accident," investigators said in the report. Flight 447 -- an Airbus A330 -- went down in stormy weather in the Atlantic Ocean June 1 while flying from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France. All 228 people on board were killed. Most of the bodies were never recovered. France's air accident investigation agency, the BEA, released its second interim report into the crash Thursday. It had been planning a news conference at the same time, but canceled it because of snow in Paris.The plane hit the water belly first, essentially intact, studies of the debris and the bodies that have been recovered show. Oxygen masks were not deployed, indicating that the cabin did not depressurize, the report said. Automated messages sent from the plane in the minutes before the crash showed there were problems measuring airspeed, the investigators said.

In Sports…

In the NFL…

The Giants play The Alanta Falcons Sunday

The Jets play the chargrs Sunday

In the NBA no games tonight

MLB

Yankees reportly interested in pitcher Nick Johnson

Today will be sunny with temps in the high 30’s with winds off 10mph so dress warm

That’s the news for today I’m________ and we’ll be back afer this break and this nwes report was written by Keith Harper Jr.