General News
Meropi Kyriacou Honored as TNH Educator of the Year
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
ALBANY, N.Y. — The man convicted of slaughtering his parents and four siblings in a home that later inspired the “The Amityville Horror” book and movies has died, prison officials said Monday.
Ronald DeFeo, 69, died Friday at Albany Medical Center, where he was taken Feb. 2 from a prison in New York’s Catskill Mountains, the state Department of Corrections and Community Services said. The cause of his death wasn't immediately known.
DeFeo was serving a sentence of 25 years to life in the 1974 killings in Amityville, on suburban Long Island.
The home became the basis of a horror-movie classic after another family briefly lived there about a year after the killings and claimed the house was haunted. A book and two movies — the 1979 original, starring James Brolin, Margot Kidder and Rod Steiger, and a 2005 remake — portrayed a home with strange voices, walls that oozed slime, furniture that moved on its own, and other supernatural features.
DeFeo had pursued an insanity defense at his trial, saying he heard voices that drove him to kill his family.
He unsuccessfully sought a retrial in 1992, claiming that his 18-year-old sister killed the other five family members and that he then shot her.
“I loved my family very much,” he said at a 1999 parole hearing, where he also said he had gotten married while in prison.
The corrections department said it couldn't disclose why DeFeo was hospitalized, citing health privacy laws. The Albany County Coroner’s Office, tasked with determining what caused his death, said it doesn't release such information, except to relatives of the dead.
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — More than 100 long-finned pilot whales that beached on the western Australian coast Thursday have returned to sea, while 29 died on the shore, officials said.
On Monday, April 22, 2024, history was being written in a Manhattan courtroom.
PARIS - With heavy security set for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games during a time of terrorism, France has asked to use a Greek air defense system as well although talks are said to have been going on for months.
PARIS (AP) — Paris has a new king of the crusty baguette.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A tiny Philip Morris product called Zyn has been making big headlines, sparking debate about whether new nicotine-based alternatives intended for adults may be catching on with underage teens and adolescents.