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Hawaii governor announces $150M fund for Maui wildfire victims modeled after 9/11 fund

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:30:30 GMT

HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii Gov. Josh Green on Wednesday announced the creation of a $150 million fund to help those who lost family members or who were injured in Maui’s wildfires. Beneficiaries will receive payments of more than $1 million as early as April to June of next year, the governor’s office said in a news release. Those getting money from the fund will waive their right to file legal claims.The fund aims to enable swift and generous financial payments for losses without requiring people to go through time-consuming litigation, the release said. It also aims to finance the rebuilding of Lahaina in a manner “that embodies Hawaii’s values and traditions.” Initial money for the fund is being provided by the state, Maui County, Hawaiian Electric and Kamehameha Schools, which is a major landowner in the Lahaina area. All four have been named in lawsuits over the wildfires. Green said he expects more partners to join the initiative. The fund is modeled on the Septe...

Costa Rica’s $6 million National Bank heist was an inside job, authorities say

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:30:30 GMT

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — Little by little an employee of Costa Rica’s National Bank took advantage of a surveillance blindspot to slip more than $6 million worth of currency into envelopes and casually walk out of the country’s largest bank, authorities said Wednesday.First announced last month, it was the largest bank heist in the country’s history. Police carried out 11 raids and arrested eight bank officials Wednesday.The 3.3 billion colon (US$6.1 million) robbery that apparently went unnoticed and unreported for weeks caused much finger-pointing in the Central American nation.There were no lack of distressing details.For example, while one employee, a treasurer, took the cash out of the bank, several others allegedly covered it up. Authorities are still trying to determine if they were in on the robbery or just didn’t want to take the blame when it was discovered the money was missing.Also, the last physical accounting of the bank’s cash was made in 2019. And investigators ar...

Veteran living her authentic self as pastor, author, LGBTQ advocate

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:30:30 GMT

CHICAGO — Pamela Lightsey’s worn many hats in her life: Sister, mother, wife, and soldier — all of it before she discovered herself in her 30s.Lightsey, the Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs at Meadville Lombard Theological School in downtown Chicago, is writing her third book, drawing on her intersectionality of being a black woman, a Christian minister, a mother, a queer lesbian who lived in the closet for years and a U.S. Army Veteran.She enlisted in the late 1970s as a private in the signal corps.“The military really gave me a sense of my capacity to do things as human being. as a human being,” she said. “Not ‘Oh you do that well as a woman.’ No. Soldier. ‘Soldier you’re going to do this, you’re going to do that.’”She got out of the military when she was pregnant with her first child and began working for the U.S. government as a civilian. More: Veterans Voices She saw the world and in that time, she began to see herself.“Being all the things, a wife, a civil serv...

Future of tax credit scholarship program uncertain amid Illinois veto session

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:30:30 GMT

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Last minute talks continued in Springfield on Thursday as pressure from lobbyists, interest groups, and citizens during an uneventful veto session.Union child care and home care workers convened in Springfield on Wednesday demanding a raise and better retirement benefits. Also on hand, supporters of a private school scholarship program set to sunset at the end of the year."My son, Wyatt went from low grades not loving school, crying, not asking to go to school," Stacy Moore said. "The Invest in Kids Scholarship gave me the choice to put my son in private school at Christian Life School and a smaller school setting, he’s now getting A’s and B’s and we’re now talking about college."The 5-year-old scholarship program encourages private donors to fund scholarships for low-income children. Individuals and businesses who contribute get a tax credit equal to 75% of their donation. Illinois Senate approves plan to allow new nuclear reactors Roughly 10,000 students ben...

One injured after plant explosion in Texas, residents forced to take shelter for hours

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:30:30 GMT

SHEPHERD, Texas (KIAH) — A massive fire at a chemical plant in rural Texas on Wednesday sent a plume of black smoke into the sky as officials closed down a local highway and ordered residents to take shelter.Multiple explosions were reported in Shepherd, Texas, starting with one at a chemical plant on FM 1127 Wednesday morning, according to the Montgomery County Police Reporter.Nineteen employees were at the plant, identified as Sound Resource Solutions, at the time of the explosion. Reports initially said several were injured, but authorities have clarified that just one employee experienced minor burns and was taken to a local hospital. Sound Resource Solutions recycles and repackages various chemicals. The owner of the plant said the explosion was caused by an accident involving a forklift, and was under investigation. ‘It was hell’: Marine says Hertz falsely accused him of stealing rental car, leading to arrest, jail San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said initial reports...

Williamson County sees some confusion from voters on election day

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:30:30 GMT

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — Williamson County's elections administrator says this week's election came with the same familiar speedbumps she sees during most elections.Judith Ritchie, elections administrator, said elections ran smoothly for the most part on Tuesday. Some of the county's more heavily foot-trafficked polling sites, like those in grocery stores, had the typical line of locals waiting to cast their ballots.As voting districts between counties become muddied as they grow closer together, Ritchie said poll workers also encountered voters registered in other counties that needed to be redirected."Every election, there are one or two folks that come into Williamson, and we have to say, 'No, you have to vote in Travis.' So now they have to travel that way. We always, always emphasize to our voters to make a plan," Ritchie said.Anna Silverwolfe of Hutto was not among those able to cast their ballots on election day.Silverwolfe said she went to her typical polling place ...

Mounted horse patrol coming to Texas State University

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:30:30 GMT

SAN MARCOS, Texas (KXAN) --- Texas State University is welcoming two new members to its University Police Department: horses named Duke and Lyndon. In a news release, the university said they'd be the first Texas university with a mounted horse patrol unit as part of their police department. Corporal Haley McClaran and Corporal Aleysha Ortiz were assigned to the unit. Corp. Ortiz said this is both her and Lyndon's first time receiving this training. "He's still learning and I'm learning," she said. "I think that's our connections that we have right now."The university said the plan is to fully implement the horses during the spring 2024 semester. Texas State University said its implementing mounted patrol on campus starting in the 2024 spring semester. (Photo: Texas State University Police Department) Texas State University said its implementing mounted patrol on campus starting in the 2024 spring semester. (Photo: Texas State University Police Department) "Duke and Lyndon will live...

Colin P. Clarke: How jihadist groups are using the Israel-Hamas war to inspire and recruit lone wolf extremists

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:30:30 GMT

It didn’t take long after the Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7 for terrorist groups to flood the internet with praise for the killings. The next step for entities such as al-Qaida and Islamic State is to capitalize on raging antisemitism to fuel homegrown violent extremist attacks in the West, perpetrated by lone wolves and small cells of jihadist sympathizers. All cities and nations should be bracing for that.Despite historical enmity between Hamas and the jihadist groups with broader ambitions, numerous al-Qaida-linked groups heaped praise upon Hamas, while also taking the opportunity to celebrate the death of Israelis.Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent, an al-Qaida offshoot, celebrated the Oct. 7 attack, saying it “exposed the cowardice of Israeli soldiers.” Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen praised Hamas’ actions and spoke about the “myth” of Israeli military might, prodding its supporters in the Muslim world to harness the momentum ...

Leonard Greene: MLK rightly said Israel has a right to exist, but it’s not anti-Semitic to seek peace in Gaza

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:30:30 GMT

Usually, when Martin Luther King’s words are misappropriated, the culprits are misinformation mercenaries trying to advance some right-wing idea that is light years away from King’s ideology,Their favorite is King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, in which King said people should be judged by “the content of their character” and not “the color of their skin,” poetic phrases perversely twisted to pretend that King would have fought against something as righteous as affirmative action.So when video of King surfaced online last week denouncing antisemitism and backing Israel’s right to exist, the source and the timing put a lot of people on edge.For weeks, after the terrorist group Hamas launched a bloody attack against Israel, comedian Amy Schumer has expressed support for Israel’s retaliation effort, and has even hinted that calls for a ceasefire are antisemitic.Her social media posts included a video of King standing up for ...

Bobby Ghosh: No, Gazans can’t just rise up against Hamas

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:30:30 GMT

“They could have risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’état.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog ought to know better than to have said that. But those who don’t — those who had no call to pay attention to Palestinian politics until a month ago — might be forgiven for asking why Hamas has never faced a serious uprising from within their Gazan redoubt in the 17 years it has ruled the strip.That it has not allows some, in Israel and elsewhere, to suggest that the majority of the 2.3 million Palestinians who are confined to the 139 square miles of Gaza must approve of the terrorist group’s actions, including the horrific attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. To follow this line of reasoning is to conclude that all Gazans are complicit in terror. “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible,” Herzog told reporters a few days after the attack. “This rhetoric about civ...