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Closings arguments set in trial of gunman in Pittsburgh synagogue massacre

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:17:46 GMT

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Closings arguments were set to get underway Thursday in the federal trial of a truck driver who killed 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in the nation’s deadliest attack on Jews.Robert Bowers is charged with 63 criminal counts, including hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death. Some of the charges carry a potential death sentence.Bowers’ attorneys did not call any witnesses or present any evidence after conceding at the trial’s outset that he attacked and killed worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. Seven people were injured in the attack, including five responding police officers.Prosecutors say the 50-year-old was motivated by his hatred of Jewish people. Over 11 days of testimony, jurors learned that Bowers had extensively posted, shared or liked antisemitic and white supremacist content on Gab, a social media platform popular with the far right.The defense ...

Supreme Court preserves law that aims to keep Native American children with tribal families

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:17:46 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday preserved the system that gives preference to Native American families in foster care and adoption proceedings of Native children, rejecting a broad attack from Republican-led states and white families who argued it is based on race.The court left in place the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, which was enacted to address concerns that Native children were being separated from their families and, too frequently, placed in non-Native homes.Tribal leaders have backed the law as a means of preserving their families, traditions and cultures.The “issues are complicated” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for a seven-justice majority, but the “bottom line is that we reject all of petitioners’ challenges to the statute.”Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, with Alito writing that the decision “disserves the rights and interests of these children.”Congress passed the law in response to the alarming rate at which Native American and A...

Suspect in mass shooting at Colorado gay nightclub is expected to take a plea deal

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:17:46 GMT

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The suspect in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub is expected to strike a plea deal to state murder and hate charges that would ensure at least a life sentence for the attack that killed five people and wounded 17, several survivors told The Associated Press. Word of a possible legal resolution of last year’s Club Q massacre follows a series of jailhouse phone calls from the suspect to the AP expressing remorse and the intention to face the consequences at the next scheduled court hearing this month.“I have to take responsibility for what happened,” 23-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich said in their first public comments about the case. Federal and state authorities and defense attorneys declined to comment on a possible plea deal. But Colorado law requires victims to be notified of such deals, and several people who lost loved ones or were wounded in the attack told the AP that state prosecutors have given them advance word that Aldrich w...

Stock market today: Wall Street keeps drifting higher to extend winning streak

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:17:46 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is drifting higher Thursday after a messy mix of economic reports yielded no clear sign about where the economy and inflation are heading.The S&P 500 was 0.4% higher in morning trading, coming off its highest level since April 2022. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 178 points, or 0.5%, at 34,157, as of 10:40 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.Homebuilder Lennar helped lead the S&P 500 with a gain of 3.5% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. It also gave a stronger-than-expected forecast for upcoming deliveries, saying customers are accepting the “new normal” of higher interest rates. Kroger, meanwhile, sank to one of the market’s sharper losses after reporting slightly weaker revenue for the latest quarter than expected. It fell 4.7% despite also reporting stronger profit than expected and reaffirming many of its financial forecasts for the year. The stock market is sti...

Russia summons Canadian envoy in Moscow over ‘undisguised robbery’ of cargo plane

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:17:46 GMT

OTTAWA — Moscow has again summoned Canada’s top diplomat in Russia, this time over the Trudeau government’s seizure of a massive Russian cargo plane.Russia says it has summoned Canadian chargé d’affaires Brian Ebel to tell him that Ottawa’s plans risk “the most serious repercussions.”It comes two days after Moscow warned relations with Canada were “on the verge of being severed” over the issue, and three months after the Kremlin summoned the same diplomat over Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly’s remarks about regime change in Russia.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Kyiv, Ukraine, on the weekend, where he announced that Canada officially seized an airplane that had been sitting on the tarmac at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport since February 2022.In an English-language statement posted Thursday, Moscow says the move “amounts to an attempt at undisguised robbery” and that the plane has been “seized i...

Zimbabwe reports record tobacco sales, mostly to China, yet many farmers deep in debt

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:17:46 GMT

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe has reported record tobacco sales as the southern African nation reestablishes itself as one of the leading growers in the world, and yet the small-scale Black farmers now selling their crop mostly to China are “heavily indebted” and seeing “minimal” benefits, according to an association that represents their interests.Critics say the farmers are not benefitting as they should from Zimbabwe’s tobacco boom, largely because of a contract system that locks them into unfavorable loans and prices, often with Chinese companies operating under the state-owned China National Tobacco Corporation, the largest cigarette maker in the world.China buys most of Zimbabwe’s tobacco to feed its huge market. While other companies and local merchants are also involved in the contract system in Zimbabwe, it is dominated by Chinese firms and their agents.The Zimbabwean government announced Wednesday that the country, Africa’s top producer and...

Liberals table ‘sustainable jobs’ bill to back up pledge to help workers transition

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:17:46 GMT

OTTAWA — The federal Liberals introduced new legislation today that would require the government to develop and share a plan every five years to help workers transition to a clean-energy economy.It would hold the government to account for its promises to help workers retrain and create new jobs as Canada shifts away from its current reality as a combustion-energy powerhouse.The government says a clean-energy economy could create as many as 400,000 new jobs before the end of this decade alone.The Liberals are calling Bill C-50 the Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act.The pragmatic-sounding name belies the political fight ahead as energy-dependent provinces in Western Canada accuse Ottawa of trying to overstep its bounds.Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said her province would provide additional cash to help cut emissions from oil and gas production only if Ottawa scrapped the sustainable jobs bill.This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2023.The Canadian Press

India, Pakistan brace for winds, flash flooding as Cyclone Biparjoy makes landfall

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:17:46 GMT

MANDVI, India (AP) — Cyclone Biparjoy made landfall on Thursday evening as a vast swath of western India and neighboring southern Pakistan braced for flash floods, heavy rain and high winds. Rain pelted the shores and skies darkened along the Arabian Sea, while dust storms hampered evacuation and rescue work on land. Authorities expect conditions to worsen for two or three days as Biparjoy was expected to reach wind speeds gusting up to 140kmph (86mph) before slowing down in India’s Gujarat province.In India’s Kutch district, near Jakhau port where the cyclone made landfall, authorities were expecting significant inundations of the area. In Pakistan, Keti Bandar in the country’s flood-ravaged southern Sindh province, also lies in Biparjoy’s path. The bazaars and beaches in Mandvi, India, usually a bustling coastal town known for its wooden boat-makers, were deserted Thursday under government shutdown orders. Heavy winds and rains uprooted some trees in the area. Local media reported...

American arrested over assault on 2 tourists in Germany that left one woman dead

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:17:46 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — An American man has been arrested after allegedly assaulting two tourists he met near Neuschwanstein castle in southern Germany, an attack that left one of the women dead, authorities said Thursday.The incident near the popular tourist attraction happened on Wednesday afternoon. It took place near the Marienbruecke, a bridge over a gorge close to the castle that offers a famous view of Neuschwanstein.The 30-year-old man met the two women, ages 21 and 22, on a hiking path and lured them onto a trail that leads to a viewpoint, police said in a statement.The man, himself described as a tourist, then “physically attacked” the younger woman, they said. When her companion tried to intervene, he choked her and pushed her down a steep slope. The assailant then appears to have attempted to sexually assault the 21-year-old before pushing her down the slope as well. She fell nearly 50 meters (165 feet), ending up close to her friend.The mountain rescue service rescued both women....

Motorcyclist dead after semitruck crash in Palatine: Police

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:17:46 GMT

PALATINE, Ill. -- A 50-year-old motorcyclist is dead after a crash involving a semi-trailer truck in Palatine overnight.According to Palatine Police, the crash took place near the 200 block of North Northwest Highway around 1:11 a.m. Police said the semi-tractor trailer combination was exiting a private drive to travel southbound when a motorcycle traveling northbound struck the trailer of the semi-trailer truck. 2 men rob Walgreens store in West Ridge: Chicago Police The man driving the motorcycle was pronounced dead on the scene. The northwest highway between North Hicks Road and East Hicks Place was closed for several hours and reopened at 7:30 a.m.There is no other information provided on the incident.