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Man accused of abuse waives prelim hearing

DOYLESTOWN (AP) — A Pennsylvania man accused of sexually assaulting six girls in the same family will head to trial after waiving a preliminary hearing.

A Bucks County prosecutor said 52-year-old Lee Donald Kaplan waived the hearing Monday on charges filed last month.

Defense attorney Ryan Hyde says Kaplan maintains he’s innocent but didn’t want to make the girls to testify during the holiday season.

Authorities claim the Feasterville man fathered two children with a then-14-year-old girl who had been “gifted” to him for helping her parents financially and that he sexually assaulted five others.

Hyde says Kaplan maintains the mother of his children is his wife and that he didn’t touch the others.

He’s jailed with bail set above $1 million.

4-year-old likely set fire in home for attention

LEBANON (AP) — Fire officials say they believe a 4-year-old boy started a fire in his central Pennsylvania home in an attempt to get

attention.

The Lebanon Daily News reports the blaze broke out in a second-floor bedroom of a Lebanon home on Sunday morning. A cat died in the fire, which displaced two adults and four children.

Fire Commissioner Duane Trautman says the fire began in a child’s bed. He says he doesn’t know how the fire started, but said the boy may have had access to some matches or a lighter.

The child was taken to a hospital with injuries. His condition wasn’t immediately known.

Trautman says narrow streets and high winds posed challenges to firefighters. He estimates damage to the building at about $50,000.

Driver dumped corn on road after firing

BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a trucker dumped a load of corn on a southeast Nebraska highway after reading a text telling him he’d been fired.

Court records say 36-year-old Darren Walp, of Crum Lynne, Pennsylvania, is charged with felony criminal mischief and a related misdemeanor. The records don’t list the name of his attorney.

A court document says Walp was driving the load from Reynolds, Nebraska, to Hanover, Kansas, on Aug. 8 when he exchanged texts with his boss. The document says that soon after Walp read that he’d been dismissed, he stopped the truck on Nebraska Highway 8 near Odell, got out and opened the grain trailer’s bottom hatch doors.

The document says Walp then drove down the highway, spilling out nearly 1,000 bushels of corn — nearly $3,100 worth.

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