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The Ukraine war, propaganda-style, is coming to Russian movie screens. Will people watch?

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:44:26 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The movie centers around a violinist from Belgium arriving to Kyiv to perform. It is February 2022, and his trip is upended as Russia starts bombing Ukraine. The artist survives a series of “inhuman crimes and bloody provocations by Ukrainian nationalists,” and he is ready to tell the world “what it was really like.”“The Witness” — a state-sponsored drama that premiered in Russia on Aug. 17 — is the first feature film about the 18-month-old invasion. The first feature film about the 18-month invasion of Ukraine to hit movie theaters nationwide, it depicts Ukrainian troops as violent neo-Nazis who torture and kill their own people. One wears a T-shirt with Hitler on it. The film also has the main character’s young son wondering: “Isn’t Ukraine Russia?”It’s the narrative the Kremlin has been promoting since the first days of the war — all packaged up in a motion picture.The release of “The Witness” comes after Russian authorities announced a plan to boost...

Trial starting for suspect in Des Moines school shooting that killed 2 students

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:44:26 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A trial will begin this week for the first of two teens charged with murder in a shooting at a Des Moines alternative school that left two students dead and the program’s founder injured.Jury selection is scheduled to start Monday in the trial of Preston Walls, 19, who is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder and criminal gang participation. Bravon Tukes, 19, is set to stand trial on the same charges on Oct. 2.Students Gionni Dameron, 18, and Rashad Carr, 16, died in the Jan. 23 shooting at Starts Right Here, an alternative program for at-risk students affiliated with the Des Moines public schools. Will Keeps, the founder of the school, suffered serious injuries in the shooting but has recovered.THE SHOOTINGThe shooting happened at midday at the school, located in a small office park on the edge of downtown Des Moines.According to court documents, Walls was armed with a handgun when he entered the school, which he also attende...

Stock market today: Asian shares mostly rise after Fed chief speech

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:44:26 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mostly higher Monday, as investors were relieved by the head of the Federal Reserve indicating it will “proceed carefully” on interest rates. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 added 1.7% to 32,151.72. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.6% to 7,155.40, after data on Australian retail sales showed they rose a higher than expected 0.5%.South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.8% to 2,539.30. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.7% to 18,260.91, while the Shanghai Composite surged 2.3% to 3,134.44. “The muted reaction of treasury yields to the rhetoric from Jackson Hole shows that US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell probably hit the right tone when it comes to keeping further policy tightening on the table but at the same time not rattling market confidence,” said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade. Wall Street recorded its first winning week since July, with the S&P 500 climbing 29.40, or 0.7%, to 4,405.71. The index had flipped bet...

Biden is widely seen as too old for office, an AP-NORC poll finds. Trump’s got other problems

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:44:26 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans actually agree on something in this time of raw discord: Joe Biden is too old to be an effective president in a second term. Only a few years his junior, Donald Trump raises strikingly less concern about his age.But they have plenty of other problems with Trump, who at least for now far outdistances his rivals for the Republican nomination despite his multiple criminal indictments. Never mind his advanced years — if anything, some say, the 77-year-old ought to grow up.A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds much of the public oddly united in sizing up the one trait Biden cannot change.The president has taken to raising the age issue himself, with wisecracks, as if trying to relax his audiences about his 80 trips around the sun.Age discrimination may be banned in the workplace but the president’s employers — the people — aren’t shy about their bias. In the poll, fully 77% said Biden is too old to be ef...

Texas takeover raises back-to-school anxiety for Houston students, parents and teachers

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:44:26 GMT

HOUSTON (AP) — The library at Houston’s Lockhart Elementary had been a refuge for 8-year-old Sydney, who has struggled because of dyslexia. The school’s librarian, Cheryl Hensley, curated a space that encouraged her to read.But now Texas has taken over Houston’s public school district, and her refuge has been repurposed as a space to be used in part for discipline. While students can still check out books, there will be no one to guide them. Hensley, the librarian, is gone.“I’m hurt … and now to know that Ms. Hensley is no longer on the campus, the library has been shuttered?” said Sydney’s mother, Lauren Simmons. “I’m at a point where, do I take my baby to school Monday because what’s going to happen to her?”Simmons as well as other parents, teachers, students and local officials have expressed anxiety and fear over what to expect as the new school year begins Monday.The new state-installed superintendent, Mike Miles, said his message to teachers and parents is about ho...

Climate activists target jets, yachts and golf in a string of global protests against luxury

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:44:26 GMT

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Climate activists have spraypainted a superyacht, blocked private jets from taking off and plugged holes in golf courses this summer as part of an intensifying campaign against the emissions-spewing lifestyles of the ultrawealthy.Climate activism has intensified in the past few years as the planet warms to dangerous levels, igniting more extreme heat, floods, storms and wildfires around the world. Tactics have been getting more radical, with some protesters gluing themselves to roads, disrupting high-profile sporting events like golf and tennis and even splashing famous pieces of artwork with paint or soup. They’re now turning their attention to the wealthy, after long targeting some of the world’s most profitable companies – oil and gas conglomerates, banks and insurance firms that continue to invest in fossil fuels.“We do not point the finger at the people but at their lifestyle, the injustice it represents,” said Karen Killeen, an Extinction Rebellion acti...

Son stolen at birth hugs Chilean mother for first time in 42 years

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:44:26 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — “Hola, Mama.” What seems like an unremarkable greeting between mother and son was in this case anything but.Forty-two years ago, hospital workers took Maria Angelica Gonzalez’ son from her arms right after birth and later told her he had died. Now, she was meeting him face-to-face at her home in Valdivia, Chile.“I love you very much,” Jimmy Lippert Thyden told his mother in Spanish as they embraced amid tears.“It knocked the wind out of me. … I was suffocated by the gravity of this moment,” Thyden told The Associated Press in a video call after the reunion. “How do you hug someone in a way that makes up for 42 years of hugs?”His journey to find the birth family he never knew began in April after he read news stories about Chilean-born adoptees who had been reunited with their birth relatives with the help of a Chilean nonprofit Nos Buscamos.The organization found that Thyden had been born prematurely at a hospital in Santiago, Chile’s capital, and...

Many big US cities now answer mental health crisis calls with civilian teams — not police

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:44:26 GMT

DENVER (AP) — Christian Glass was a geology geek, a painter and a young man beset by a mental health crisis when he called 911 for help getting his car unstuck in a Colorado mountain town last year.Convinced that supernatural beings were after him, he balked when sheriff’s deputies told him to get out of his car. The officers shouted, threatened and coaxed, body camera video shows. Glass prayed: “Dear Lord, please, don’t let them break the window.”They did, and the 22-year-old grabbed a small knife. Then he was hit with bean bag rounds, stun gun charges and, ultimately, bullets that killed him and led to a murder charge against one deputy and a criminally negligent homicide charge against another. As part of a $19 million settlement this spring with Glass’ parents, Colorado’s Clear Creek County this month joined a growing roster of U.S. communities that respond to nonviolent mental health crises with clinicians and EMTs or paramedics, instead of police. The initiatives have sp...

Judge to hear arguments on Mark Meadows’ request to move Georgia election case to federal court

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:44:26 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge in Atlanta is set to hear arguments Monday on whether Mark Meadows should be allowed to fight the Georgia indictment accusing him of participating in an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election in federal court rather than in a state court.The former White House chief of staff was charged earlier this month along with former President Donald Trump and 17 other people. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who used Georgia’s racketeering law to bring the case, alleges that they participated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to illegally try to keep the Republican incumbent president in power even after his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.Lawyers for Meadows argue that his actions that gave rise to the charges in the indictment “all occurred during his tenure and as part of his service as Chief of Staff.” They argue he did nothing criminal and that the charges against him should be dismissed. In the meantime, they want U.S. District Judge...

Trump lawyers back in DC court as two sides differ over trial date in election subversion case

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:44:26 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump are due back in court Monday as a federal judge considers radically conflicting proposals for a trial date in the case accusing him of working to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has proposed a Jan. 2, 2024 trial in federal court in Washington, one of four cities where Trump could face trial as soon as next year. Trump’s lawyers, citing the time they say is needed to review 11.5 million pages of documents they’ve received from prosecutors, have asked for a trial in April 2026 — about a year and a half after the presidential election. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is expected to set at least a tentative trial date during Monday’s status conference.Another potential agenda item could be additional discussion on any constraints on Trump in publicly discussing evidence in the case. Chutkan said at a hear...