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Senate swiftly confirms top military brass, ending months-long campaign by GOP Sen. Tuberville

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate unanimously confirmed 11 top-ranking military officers late Tuesday, ending a months-long blockade staged by a single Republican, Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.Without debate, the Senate swiftly confirmed the military officials, including four-star generals, whose promotions and family livelihoods had been held up by the GOP senator protesting the Defense Department’s policy on abortion.“That’s good news,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said afterward.Schumer said other nominees had also been confirmed as the Senate is working to wrap up its work before a holiday recess.Confirming the 11 remaining high-ranking armed services nominees was a quiet end to Tuberville’s unusual effort after the senator faced pressure from all sides to relent. Critics said his stance, which had left key positions unfilled, threatened national security and left military families with an uncertain path forward.It came after the Senate...

2 Guinean children are abandoned in Colombian airport as African migrants take new route to US

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Two children from the West African nation of Guinea were abandoned in Bogota’s airport and taken into government custody this week after spending several days on their own in the international departures terminal, Colombian authorities said Tuesday.Colombia’s national immigration department said the children, aged 10 and 13, had been travelling with separate groups and were left in the airport by their relatives earlier this month for reasons that have not been clarified.The discovery of the two children comes as migrants from Africa increasingly use South American and Central American airports as stepping stones on the long route to the United States.Last year, more than 12,000 Africans crossed the roadless Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama on their way north after taking flights to Brazil, according to statistics published by Panamanian officials.But this year, the number of Africans making the grueling trek across the jungle fell by 25% as an air r...

Charges laid in 2022 Hamilton townhouse fire that killed four people

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

The Hamilton Fire Department has laid charges against two tenants who survived a townhouse fire last December that killed four people.Two adults and two children died in the fire in Hamilton on Dec. 29, 2022.Ontario’s Fire Marshal has said there were no working smoke alarms in the home.The fire department says the two tenants have been charged with two offences under the Fire Code, including disabling a smoke alarm.They are also charged with failing to notify the landlord that an alarm in the unit was disconnected, was not operating or that the operation of an alarm in the unit was impaired.If convicted, they could face of a fine of up to $50,000 for a first offence, up to a year in jail or both.

TTC Line 3 Scarborough RT parts, equipment on track to be reused in Detroit

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

Months after the TTC prematurely shut down Line 3 Scarborough RT due to a derailment, the transit agency’s remaining equipment and parts could be reused in Detroit.During a Detroit Transportation Commission (DTC) meeting earlier in December, its board voted to have DTC staff try to work out a deal with the TTC that would see all of the remaining, working parts, equipment and vehicles of the Scarborough RT acquired by the DTC for use on the Detroit People Mover.“It is the ultimate win-win because we’re able to put these items to good use which would otherwise be … scrapped for their metal. We’re able to take those, able to give those a second life,” Robert Cramer, the DTC’s general manager, told CityNews Tuesday afternoon. “It fills an incredible need for us given how difficult it is for us to get the replacement parts.”The Detroit People Mover is a 13-stop, single-track, one-way train line built in the mid-1980s and around the sa...

Migrant families rally for end to New York’s new 60-day limits on shelter stays

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Migrant families and their advocates marched outside New York City Hall on Tuesday to demand Mayor Eric Adams end his plan to limit the number of days newly arrived immigrants can remain in city-run shelters. The late afternoon demonstration of students and parents at City Hall Park was in response to an order Adams issued in October limiting homeless migrants and their children to 60 days in city housing. The Democrat said the move was necessary to relieve a shelter system overwhelmed by asylum-seekers crossing the southern U.S. border. Liza Schwartzwald, a director at the New York Immigration Coalition, one of the groups that organized Tuesday’s rally, said the time limits only serve to uproot families who have already made the dangerous journey across the border after fleeing poverty and crime in their homelands. “There’s no excuse to retraumatize these families,” she said.Karen Alford, a vice president at the United Federation of Teachers, said the policy will fo...

Group turned away at Mexican holiday party returned with gunmen killing 11, investigators say

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Survivors of a Sunday massacre in central Mexico told investigators that a group of people turned away from a holiday party returned later with gunmen who killed 11 and wounded 14, authorities said Tuesday.Navigio Agustín Gallardo Romero, a Guanajuato state prosecutor, said nine men and two women were killed. The state prosecutor’s office had revised the death toll down to 11 Monday night from 12, explaining that there was confusion with a victim from a separate case at the hospital.Authorities recovered shells from seven different guns at the scene, Gallardo said in a recorded video message. He said investigators are focusing on a group that operates in the area without providing more detail.Families carried the caskets of some of the victims through the streets of Salvatierra Tuesday.Guanajuato has been the scene of bloody turf battles between the Jalisco cartel and local gangs backed by the Sinaloa cartel. The state has long had the highest number of homicides ...

Counselors get probation for role in teen’s death at a now-closed Michigan youth home

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) — Two former youth counselors charged in the death of a teenager more than three years ago who was restrained at a Michigan youth home have been sentenced to 18 months on probation.Michael Mosley, 50, and Zachary Solis, 30, both of Battle Creek, pleaded no contest in March to involuntary manslaughter in the May 1, 2020, death of 16-year-old Cornelius Fredericks at Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo. Two counts of second-degree child abuse were dropped.A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such at sentencing.Fredericks, 16, died two days after he lost consciousness while being restrained by staff at Lakeside. Prosecutors said at the time that he was being restrained for throwing a sandwich.The restraint resulted in Fredericks losing consciousness due to a lack of blood flow and oxygen, authorities said. He never regained consciousness, and died of a heart attack May 1, 2020, at a Kalamazoo hospital. The Kalamazoo County Medical Examiner’s O...

Plane breaks through thin ice on Minnesota ice fishing lake, 2 days after 35 anglers were rescued

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

WASHKISH, Minn. (AP) — A light plane carrying ice anglers broke through thin ice as it tried to land on a large lake in northwestern Minnesota on Tuesday, the same lake where authorities had to rescue dozens of anglers who became trapped on an ice floe two days earlier.Upper Red Lake is considered one of Minnesota’s premier ice fishing lakes, but the ice remains thin amid higher-than-normal temperatures.In Tuesday morning’s incident, according to the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office, the pilot of the Cessna 172 identified what he believed was a safe landing area. But he had difficulty slowing down because of the lack of snow. The plane slid onto thin ice, and its nose broke through into open water. While the plane did not sink, both anglers got wet from the waist down. They were taken to a nearby resort, where they were given dry clothing.On Sunday evening, emergency responders used an airboat to rescue 35 people after they became stranded on a piece of ice that br...

DNA may link Philadelphia man accused of slashing people on trail to a cold-case killing, police say

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Authorities say a man accused of slashing people with a large knife while riding a bicycle on a trail in Philadelphia in recent weeks is now a person of interest in the cold-case slaying of a medical student that occurred among a series of high-profile sexual assaults in a large city park two decades ago.Elias Diaz, 46, is charged with aggravated assault and other counts in the attacks or attempted attacks in late November and early December, where police say he used a machete-type knife against people on the Pennypack Park Trail in northeast Philadelphia.Interim Police Commissioner John Stanford Jr. said Diaz’s DNA appeared to connect him to the 2003 strangulation killing of a medical student in the city’s sprawling Fairmount Park and perhaps to several other sexual attacks there. Stanford said Diaz is now a person of interest and charges were pending final confirmation of the DNA link. Rebecca Park, 30, a fourth-year student at the Philadelphia Coll...

Why is the CTA Yellow Line still closed 1 month after crash?

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:14:54 GMT

CHICAGO —  More than a month after a CTA Yellow Line train hit a piece of snow removal equipment sending more than a dozen people to the hospital, the line remains closed and the transit agency won’t say when it may re-open.National Transportation Safety Board investigators are back at the scene this week performing accident reconstruction.  NTSB’s preliminary investigation of the November 16 crash indicated the braking distances programmed into the CTA’s signaling system may not have been long enough. High-rise residents still out one year after fire The finding prompted the CTA to examine pre-programmed systems on all of its rail lines and the agency said it determined the potential flaw is unique to the Yellow Line. Investigators say the train operator immediately engaged braking systems when signals indicated there was danger ahead. The train slowed from 54mph to 27mph at the moment of impact.Meanwhile, the rail line that connects Skokie with Chicago’...