Suspect in arson at Pennsylvania governor's official residence to seek delay in next court hearing
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A man accused of trying to burn down Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro 's official residence is seeking to delay his next scheduled court appearance because he is receiving mental health treatment, his lawyer said Friday.
The suspect, Cody Balmer, had been scheduled to appear in court next Wednesday for a hearing to determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence against Balmer to take the case to trial.
But Mary Klatt, the chief public defender of Dauphin County, said Balmer's hearing will be postponed because he is receiving treatment.
'Everyone wants to ensure Mr. Balmer is mentally fit when this matter comes before the Court,' Klatt said in an email to The Associated Press.
Balmer is currently being held at the state prison in Waymart, the only state prison with a mental health unit for men, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Balmer, 38, is charged with attempted homicide, arson and other offenses for setting a fire that tore through a section of the state-owned residence's first floor and forced the governor, his wife, children and members of his extended family to flee in the middle of the night, hours after they celebrated the Jewish holiday of Passover with a Seder in the residence.
Shapiro, who is Jewish, is viewed as a potential White House contender for the Democratic Party in 2028.
Balmer told police that he had intended to attack the governor with a hammer if he had encountered him that night, police said in a court filing. No one was injured in the blaze, which fire officials say caused millions of dollars in damage to the heavily protected residence.
Balmer has not entered a plea.
Balmer has been held without bail since turning himself in to state police after the April 13 fire. Klatt has said he would be evaluated to see if he is competent to stand trial.
Balmer's mother and brother say he suffers from mental illness, something that Balmer denied in one brief court appearance. Authorities say Balmer expressed hatred for Shapiro.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
37 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
What it would take to convert a jet from Qatar into Air Force One to safely fly Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump really wants to fly on an upgraded Air Force One — but making that happen could depend on whether he's willing to cut corners with security. As government lawyers sort out the legal arrangement for accepting a luxury jet from the Qatari royal family, another crucial conversation is unfolding about modifying the plane so it's safe for the American president. Installing capabilities equivalent to the decades-old 747s now used as Air Force One would almost certainly consign the project to a similar fate as Boeing's replacement initiative, which has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told lawmakers Thursday that those security modifications would cost less than $400 million but provided no details. Satisfying Trump's desire to use the new plane before the end of his term could require leaving out some of those precautions, however. A White House official said Trump wants the Qatari jet ready as soon as possible while adhering to security standards. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not provide details on equipment issues or the timeline. Trump has survived two assassination attempts, and Iran allegedly also plotted to kill him, so he's well aware of the danger he faces. However, he seems willing to take some chances with security, particularly when it comes to communications. For example, he likes to keep his personal phone handy despite the threat of hacks. He boasted this week that the government got the jet 'for free,' saying, 'We need it as Air Force One until the other ones are done.' Here's a look at what it would take to make the Qatari plane into a presidential transport: What makes a plane worthy of being Air Force One? Air Force One is the call sign for any plane that's carrying the president. The first aircraft to get the designation was a propeller-powered C-54 Skymaster, which ferried Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference in 1945. It featured a conference room with a bulletproof window. Things are a lot more complicated these days. Boeing has spent years stripping down and rebuilding two 747s to replace the versions that have carried presidents for more than three decades. The project is slated to cost more than $5.3 billion and may not be finished before Trump leaves office. A 2021 report made public through the Freedom of Information Act outlines the unclassified requirements for the replacement 747s under construction. At the top of the list — survivability and communications. The government decided more than a decade ago that the new planes had to have four engines so they could remain airborne if one or two fail, said Deborah Lee James, who was Air Force secretary at the time. That creates a challenge because 747s are no longer manufactured, which could make spare parts harder to come by. Air Force One also has to have the highest level of classified communications, anti-jamming capabilities and external protections against foreign surveillance, so the president can securely command military forces and nuclear weapons during a national emergency. It's an extremely sensitive and complex system, including video, voice and data transmissions. James said there are anti-missile measures and shielding against radiation or an electromagnetic pulse that could be caused by a nuclear blast. 'The point is, it remains in flight no matter what,' she said. Will Trump want all the security bells and whistles? If the Qatari plane is retrofitted to presidential standards, it could cost $1.5 billion and take years, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that aren't publicly available. Testifying before Congress this week, Meink discounted such estimates, arguing that some of the costs associated with retrofitting the Qatari plane would have been spent anyway as the Air Force moves to build the long-delayed new presidential planes, including buying aircraft for training and to have spares available if needed. In response, Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said that based on the contract costs for the planes that the Air Force is building, it would cost about $1 billion to strip down the Qatar plane, install encrypted communications, harden its defenses and make other required upgrades. James said simply redoing the wiring means 'you'd have to break that whole thing wide open and almost start from scratch." Trump, as commander in chief, could waive some of these requirements. He could decide to skip shielding systems from an electromagnetic pulse, leaving his communications more vulnerable in case of a disaster but shaving time off the project. After all, Boeing has already scaled back its original plans for the new 747s. Their range was trimmed by 1,200 nautical miles, and the ability to refuel while airborne was scrapped. Paul Eckloff, a former leader of protection details at the Secret Service, expects the president would get the final say. 'The Secret Service's job is to plan for and mitigate risk," he said. "It can never eliminate it.' If Trump does waive some requirements, James said that should be kept under wraps because "you don't want to advertise to your potential adversaries what the vulnerabilities of this new aircraft might be.' It's unlikely that Trump will want to skimp on the plane's appearance. He keeps a model of a new Air Force One in the Oval Office, complete with a darker color scheme that echoes his personal jet instead of the light blue design that's been used for decades. What happens next? Trump toured the Qatari plane in February when it was parked at an airport near Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort. Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Allvin was there, too. The U.S. official said the jet needs maintenance but not more than what would be expected of a four-engine plane of its complexity. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it would be irresponsible to put the president and national security equipment aboard the Qatari plane 'without knowing that the aircraft is fully capable of withstanding a nuclear attack.' 'It's a waste of taxpayer dollars,' she said. Meanwhile, Boeing's project has been hampered by stress corrosion cracks on the planes and excessive noise in the cabins from the decompression system, among other issues that have delayed delivery, according to a Government Accountability Office report released last year. Boeing referred questions to the Air Force, which said in a statement that it's working with the aircraft manufacturer to find ways to accelerate the delivery of at least one of the 747s. Even so, the aircraft will have to be tested and flown in real-world conditions to ensure no other issues. James said it remains to be seen how Trump would handle any of those challenges. 'The normal course of business would say there could be delays in certifications,' she said. 'But things seem to get waived these days when the president wants it.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
As a generation of gay and lesbian people ages, memories of worse — and better — times swirl
WASHINGTON (AP) — David Perry recalls being young and gay in 1980s Washington D.C. and having 'an absolute blast.' He was fresh out of college, raised in Richmond, Virginia, and had long viewed the nation's capital as 'the big city' where he could finally embrace his true self. He came out of the closet here, got a job at the National Endowment for the Arts where his boss was a gay Republican, and 'lost my virginity in D.C. on August 27, 1980,' he says, chuckling. The bars and clubs were packed with gay men and women — Republican and Democrat — and almost all of them deep in the closet. 'There were a lot of gay men in D.C., and they all seemed to work for the White House or members of Congress. It was kind of a joke. This was pre-Internet, pre-Facebook, pre-all of that. So people could be kind of on the down-low. You would run into congresspeople at the bar,' Perry says. 'The closet was pretty transparent. It's just that no one talked about it.' He also remembers a billboard near the Dupont Circle Metro station with a counter ticking off the total number of of AIDS deaths in the District of Columbia. 'I remember when the number was three,' says Perry, 63. Now Perry, a public relations professional in San Francisco, is part of a generation that can find itself overshadowed amidst the after-parties and DJ sets of World Pride, which wraps up this weekend with a two-day block party on Pennsylvania Avenue. Advocates warn of a quiet crisis among retirement-age LGBTQ+ people and a community at risk of becoming marginalized inside their own community. 'It's really easy for Pride to be about young people and parties,' says Sophie Fisher, LGBTQ program coordinator for Seabury Resources for Aging, a company that runs queer-friendly retirement homes and assisted-living facilities and which organized a pair of Silver Pride events last month for LGBTQ+ people over age 55. These were 'the first people through the wall' in the battle for gay rights and protections, Fisher says. Now, 'they kind of get swept under the rug.' Loneliness and isolation The challenges and obstacles for elderly LGBTQ+ people can be daunting. 'We're a society that really values youth as is. When you throw in LGBTQ on top of that, it's a double whammy,' says Christina Da Costa of the group SAGE — Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders. 'When you combine so many factors, you have a population that's a lot less likely to thrive than their younger brethren.' Older LGBTQ+ people are far more likely to have no contact with their family and less likely to have children to help care for them, Da Costa says. Gay men over 60 are the precise generation that saw their peer group decimated by AIDS. The result: chronic loneliness and isolation. 'As you age, it becomes difficult to find your peer group because you don't go out to bars anymore,' says Yvonne Smith, a 73-year-old D.C. resident who moved to Washington at age 14. 'There are people isolated and alone out there.' These seniors are also often poorer than their younger brethren. Many were kicked out of the house the moment they came out of the closet, and being openly queer or nonbinary could make you unemployable or vulnerable to firing deep into the 1990s. 'You didn't want to be coming out of a gay bar, see one of your co-workers or one of your students,' Smith says. 'People were afraid that if it was known you were gay, they would lose their security clearance or not be hired at all.' In April, founders cut the ribbon on Mary's House, a new 15-unit living facility for LGBTQ+ seniors in southeast Washington. These kind of inclusive senior-care centers are becoming an increasing priority for LGBTQ+ elders. Rayceen Pendarvis, a D.C. queer icon, performer and presenter, says older community members who enter retirement homes or assisted-living centers can face social isolation or hostility from judgmental residents. 'As we age, we lose our peers. We lose our loved ones and some of us no longer have the ability to maintain our homes,' says Pendarvis, who identifies as 'two-spirit' and eschews all pronouns. 'Sometimes they go in, and they go back into the closet. It's very painful for some.' A generation gap Perry and others see a clear divide between their generation and the younger LGBTQ+ crowd. Younger people, Perry says, drink and smoke a lot less and do much less bar-hopping in the dating-app age. Others can't help but gripe a bit about how these youngsters don't know how good they have it. 'They take all these protections for granted,' Smith says. The younger generation 'got comfortable,' Pendarvis says, and sometimes doesn't fully understand the multigenerational fight that came before. 'We had to fight to get the rights that we have today,' Pendarvis said. 'We fought for a place at the table. We CREATED the table!' Now that fight is on again as President Donald Trump's administration sets the community on edge with an open culture war targeting trans protections and drag shows, and enforcing a binary view of gender identity. The struggle against that campaign may be complicated by a quiet reality inside the LGBTQ+ community: These issues remain a topic of controversy among some LGBTQ+ seniors. Perry said he has observed that some older lesbians remain leery of trans women; likewise, he said, some older gay men are leery of the drag-queen phenomenon. 'There is a good deal of generational sensitivity that needs to be practiced by our older gay brethren,' he says. 'The gender fluidity that has come about in the last 15 years, I would be lying if I said I didn't have to adjust my understanding of it sometimes.' Despite the internal complexities, many are hoping to see a renewed sense of militancy and street politics in the younger LGBTQ+ generation. Sunday's rally and March for Freedom, starting at the Lincoln Memorial, is expected to be particularly defiant given the 2025 context. 'I think we're going to see a whole new era of activism,' Perry says. 'I think we will find our spine and our walking shoes – maybe orthopedic – and protest again. But I really hope that the younger generation helps us pick up this torch.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Why Trump's threat to pull Columbia's accreditation is so ominous
I suspect that even casual followers of the news have heard about the ongoing battles between the government and higher education. First there's House Republicans' plan to increase taxes on university endowments, and now President Donald Trump's administration is threatening Columbia University's accreditation. As a college president, I know what these threats mean, but I've found myself having to explain them to folks who aren't higher ed nerds like me. Accreditation, I tell them, is what people Gen X or older might think of like a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, but for colleges and universities, accreditation is not just something that's nice for a university to have; it's something a university needs to have if it expects to offer any kind of financial aid to its students. The vast majority of college students receive some form of financial aid, so even the wealthiest of institutions understand that accreditation is important. That's why it's so ominous that the Trump administration, which claims that Columbia insufficiently handled expressions of antisemitism on its campus, contacted the university's accreditor alleging that the university is no longer eligible to be accredited. According to a statement from the Department of Education, Columbia 'failed to meaningfully protect Jewish students against severe and pervasive harassment on Columbia's campus and consequently denied these students' equal access to educational opportunities to which they are entitled under the law.' Columbia issued a statement that said it is 'deeply committed to combating antisemitism on our campus,' that it's 'aware of the concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights today,' and that it has 'addressed those concerns directly' with its accreditor. Prior to the first Trump administration, there were seven regional accreditors that were responsible for assuring that most colleges and universities operate at standards that signify what they do is done well and in order. Each accrediting agency developed a set of standards requiring that an institution, generally in five- to 10-year intervals, conduct a self-study to ensure that it continues to meet them. The institution must then submit a report to its accrediting agency. Then, a team of colleagues reviews the materials, and depending on the agency and its timelines, that team or another visits the campus to certify that what was submitted is accurate and that the institution is in good standing and keeps its 'seal of approval.' During the first Trump administration, the practice of regional accreditors as the primary determinants of accreditation was changed. All accreditors are viewed as national accreditors, including some with more of a niche focus like Christian colleges, that have the same power to certify that an institution is eligible for federal financial aid. This provides several options now for schools to be accredited, and more than 30 accreditors exist today. Accreditation is essentially about continuous improvement through constant assessment. Even the peer review process is designed not to simply determine if the standards are met, but if they are not, to identify weaknesses and provide feedback for improvement to meet those standards. While not meant to be a punitive process, the various agencies do have a series of steps in place to heighten an institution's urgency to address any deficiencies. There are generally levels of sanctions that an institution might receive, from a monitoring report to show progress made on deficiencies, to a public warning, which allows anyone to know what the institution must do to improve, and finally some kind of probationary period in which significant deficiencies must be corrected. While rare, accrediting agencies can cease to recognize an institution for failure to meet the standards set. It would take several years, though, for a school to get to the place where it loses accreditation — and even if accreditation is lost, most agencies have processes in place that allow schools to appeal that decision. There are multiple examples of schools successfully appealing a loss of accreditation and working their way back into good standing. When the Trump administration contacted the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which accredits Columbia, it simply began a process to review the charges. Different commissions might handle these notices in different ways. Under the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, the accrediting agency I'm most familiar with, 'unsolicited information,' such as a letter from the federal government or a local news article covering a negative event, could begin such a review. But accreditation is a process, so even a letter from the administration would not create an immediate negative action as accreditors engage in a thoughtful and deliberate process to verify compliance with the standards. Again, the goal is continuous improvement, not punishment. If a school is out of compliance, the accreditor will take action. But this would occur only after working closely with the institution, giving it a chance to correct course on its own. Columbia, in the short term at least, doesn't appear to be at any risk of not being able to provide its students financial aid. This article was originally published on
