New Jersey man skips $12,000 in EZ Pass tolls

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — Authorities say a New Jersey man who owes $12,000 in unpaid EZ Pass tolls has had his black Mercedes Benz impounded and is facing charges.

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Joe Pentangelo said Wednesday that Oscar Sanchez of Jersey City was pulled over by agency police on Tuesday because the car didn’t have a front license plate.

Pentangelo says the officer discovered Sanchez had an expired driver’s license and more than 200 counts of missed EZ Pass toll payments amounting to about $12,000.

Sanchez faces charges including theft of service, operating a vehicle on a suspended license and not having a front license plate.

Sanchez was not immediately available for comment, and it’s unclear whether he has an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

Fleeing man runs naked from Pittsburgh hospital

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Police say a Pittsburgh man driving a stolen car ditched the vehicle and jumped into a river to escape from authorities.

Then, after being captured, he fled naked from a hospital and hid inside a dumpster.

Police first chased 30- year-old James Edward Williams when a detective saw him driving a stolen car Wednesday morning.

Police say Williams abandoned the car and ran through a recycling yard, where he pushed a steel shelving unit onto an officer. They say he later tried to swim away in the Ohio River.

His foot got tangled in a barge’s rope, and he was taken to Allegheny General Hospital. Later Wednesday, he ran naked from the hospital, and was found hiding in a garbage container.

Online court records don’t list an attorney for Williams.

Man suing Hastert can remain anonymous

YORKVILLE, Ill. (AP) — A judge says a man who alleges Dennis Hastert sexually abused him doesn’t have to disclose his name in his lawsuit against the former U.S. House speaker.

A day after Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in prison in a hush-money case, Kendall County Judge Robert Pilmer ruled Thursday that a man known in court documents as Individual A can proceed with his lawsuit anonymously.

Prosecutors in the hushmoney cash say Hastert paid Individual A to stay quiet about sexual abuse that occurred when the man was 14 and Hastert was a high school wrestling coach.

The man’s lawsuit alleges Hastert still owes him $1.8 million of the promised $3.5 million.

Pilmer did not rule out requiring the man to reveal his name in the future.

Death toll mounts from air, artillery strikes

BEIRUT (AP) — Airstrikes and artillery killed more than 60 people in the past 24 hours in Aleppo, including dozens at a hospital in a rebel-held neighborhood, as Syria’s largest city was turned once again into a major battleground in the civil war, officials said Thursday.

Aid agencies warn that Aleppo is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster with the collapse of a two-month cease-fire and stalled peace talks.

The intensified violence – by far the worst since the partial cease-fire began – coincides with reports of a military buildup outside Aleppo that many fear is a prelude for a government attempt to force a complete siege of the city’s neighborhoods.

Battle-hardened residents were shocked by the bloodshed. Opposition activists accused the government of carpet-bombing rebel-controlled areas, while Syrian state media said more than 1,000 mortar rounds and rockets were fired at government held districts, killing 22 people.

Israeli treads lightly on Golan Heights issue

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sparked a new diplomatic brushfire by declaring that the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war, is and should remain sovereign Israeli territory.

But following tough international criticism, Israeli officials have begun to backtrack, saying that a 1981 decision to apply Israeli law to the strategic plateau fell short of annexation and implying that Netanyahu misspoke.

The debate offers a window into a more nuanced Israeli perspective that, despite statements from the country’s hard-line political leadership, continues to leave the door open, just barely, to a peace deal when Syria’s civil war finally winds down.

For now, the debate is largely academic. Syria has been engulfed in civil war for nearly five years, and there is no end in sight

With Syria and the Syrian side of the Golan divided between Syrian troops and various rebel forces, there is nobody to talk to, even if Israel decided to open negotiations.