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Hilary upgraded to Category 3 hurricane

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:42 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Hilary strengthened into a major storm Thursday evening off Mexico’s Pacific coast, and it could bring heavy rain to the southwestern U.S. by the weekend.The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Hilary's maximum sustained winds had risen to 120 mph (195 kph), making it a Category 3 hurricane. The storm was expected to grow into a Category 4 hurricane Friday while on a projected path that threatened landfall on the central Baja California peninsula by Sunday or possibly keep just offshore while heading for Southern California.Hilary was centered about 445 miles (715 kilometers) south of Los Cabos on the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. It was moving west-northwest at 14 mph (22 kph), but was expected to take a more northward heading in the coming days.The hurricane center said that as Hilary moves onto or brushes the Baja pensinsula, it could possibly survive briefly as a tropical storm or tropical depression and cross the U.S. border.No tropical storm ...

Pendleton Marine accused of sex assault identified, claims girl lied about her age

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:42 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- A Marine accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl was in court for the first time Thursday for a preliminary hearing at Camp Pendleton. The Marine, who has been identified as Private First Class Avery Rosario, claims the teen lied about her age several times, and claims he believed she was 21 years old during their alleged consensual sex in the barracks at Camp Pendleton in June. Rosario was brought into the courtroom handcuffed. No cameras or recording devices were allowed inside the courtroom.The government and defense both had a chance to make closing arguments. The government opted to submit theirs in writing, while the defense shared a PowerPoint presentation with facts of the case, and also submitted arguments in writing. The presentation was the only time information was shared, which detailed Rosario’s side of the story.According to the defense’s arguments, Rosario had a Tinder profile, where he met the girl, who went by a fictitious name and identified...

Utilities begin loading radioactive fuel into second new reactor at Georgia nuclear plant

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:42 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Workers have begun loading radioactive fuel into a second new nuclear reactor in Georgia, utilities said Thursday, putting the reactor on a path to begin generating electricity in the coming months.Georgia Power Co. says workers will transfer 157 fuel assemblies into the reactor core at Plant Vogtle, southeast of Augusta, in the next few days. There are already three reactors operating at the plant. Two reactors have been operating for decades, while the third reactor entered commercial operation on July 31, becoming the first new nuclear unit built from scratch in the United States in decades.It’s a key step toward completing the two-reactor project, which is seven years late and $17 billion over budget.Once fuel is loaded, operators will conduct tests and begin splitting atoms, which creates the high temperatures that boil steam that drives turbines, which generates electricity. The company says unit 4 is supposed to reach commercial operation by March 2024.Th...

Wildfire evacuations ordered for hundreds more properties in West Kelowna, B.C.

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:42 GMT

Hundreds of properties were ordered to evacuate late Thursday under threat from a wildfire near the city of West Kelowna, B.C., which has been placed under a state of emergency.Central Okanagan Emergency Operations ordered the evacuations of 763 more properties, increasing the total to 831, with thousands of others placed on alert and residents warned to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.“Tactical evacuation is already underway,” the operations centre said in a statement, adding that residents subject to the evacuation orders must leave immediately.The expansion involves 143 properties in the Bartley Road area and 620 properties in the Rose Valley area of West Kelowna.About 6,000 other properties were already on evacuation alert due to the out-of-control McDougall Creek wildfire, which began Tuesday and has grown to 11 square kilometres in size.The fire prompted a local state of emergency for the city of West Kelowna and part of the nearby Westbank First Natio...

Georgia school board fires teacher for reading a book to students about gender identity

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:42 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia school board voted along party lines Thursday to fire a teacher after officials said she improperly read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class.The Cobb County School Board in suburban Atlanta voted 4-3 to fire Katie Rinderle, overriding the recommendation of a panel of three retired educators. The panel found after a two-day hearing that Rinderle had violated district policies, but said she should not be fired. She had been a teacher for 10 years when she got into trouble in March for reading the picture book “My Shadow Is Purple” by Scott Stuart at Due West Elementary School, after which some parents complained.The case has drawn wide attention as a test of what public school teachers can teach in class, how much a school system can control teachers and whether parents can veto instruction they dislike. It comes amid a nationwide conservative backlash to books and teaching about LGBTQ+ subjects in school.Rinderle declined comment after the vote...

Dominican officials say it may take months to identify all 28 people killed in this week’s explosion

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:42 GMT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Authorities in the Dominican Republic said on Thursday that it could take months to identify all of the 28 victims who died in a powerful explosion near the country’s capital this week.The announcement came as friends and family keep trying to confirm whether their loved ones died in Monday’s explosion at a bakery in the city of San Cristobal, just west of Santo Domingo. Authorities in the Dominican Republic said a patient in an intensive care unit has died, raising the death toll to 28. Fifty-nine people were injured, with the majority of them still hospitalized.The explosion took place mid-afternoon in a bustling commercial area in the city center, filled with businesses, including a bank and a hardware store. An investigation is still underway as to what caused the explosion, and authorities have said they will hold accountable any business that was not operating properly. It took firefighters three days to extinguish the blaze, which offi...

Ukrainian children’s war diaries are displayed in Amsterdam, where Anne Frank wrote in hiding

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:42 GMT

AMSTERDAM (AP) — The city where Anne Frank wrote her World War II diary while hiding with her family from the brutal Nazi occupation is hosting an exhibition about the Ukraine war with grim echoes of her plight more than three quarters of a century later.The exhibition that opened at Amsterdam City Hall on Thursday offers a vision of the war in Ukraine as experienced by children caught in the devastating conflict.“This exhibition is about the pain through the children’s eyes,” Khrystyna Khranovska, who developed the idea, said at the opening. “It strikes into the very heart of every adult to be aware of the suffering and grief that the Russian war has brought our children,” she added.“War Diaries,” includes writings like those that Anne Frank penned in the hidden annex behind an Amsterdam canal-side house, but also modern ways Ukrainian children have recorded and processed the traumatic experience of life during wartime, including photos and video.Among them is the artwork of ...

‘The buck stops with me’: Can the Ford government survive the Greenbelt scandal?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:42 GMT

Can Doug Ford survive the Greenbelt scandal? Will the controversy get worse? Insiders from across the political spectrum have been pondering what’s next for the Ford government a week after the bombshell Greenbelt report rocked Queen’s Park. Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s scathing report found the decision to open protected Greenbelt lands up to housing development favoured developers with ties to the housing minister’s chief of staff and that the selection of those lands was “biased,” “seriously flawed,” and was “dismissive of effective land-use planning.”“There are people who have clearly given money to his political party who are netting a massive, massive gain. When that all happens it’s hard to say you’re different than everybody else when you’re involved in those sort of activities, so I think to a certain extent he’s taken a hit,” said Bob Richardson, a former Liberal chief of staff and now senior counsel at National Public Rela...

Canada-wide warrant issued for 3rd suspect in death of man in Weston neighbourhood

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:42 GMT

Toronto police have issued a Canada-wide warrant for a third suspect wanted in the death of a 67-year-old man in the city’s west end last week.Faysal Mohamed, 25, of Toronto is wanted for first-degree murder in connection with the death of Ahmed Hassan, whose body was found inside an apartment in the area of Bellevue Crescent and Weston Road just after 6:30 p.m. on August 9. An investigation determined Hassan’s death to be suspicious but police have not revealed the cause of death. Two others are already in custody and facing first-degree murder charges in connection with the case. Sonya Ahenakew, 38, of Toronto, was arrested on Tuesday while 29-year-old Kidus Kidane of Toronto was arrested on Wednesday. Police have confirmed a relationship existed between Hassan and Ahenakew but did not elaborate on the exact nature of their relationship.

New York City suggests housing migrants in jail shuttered after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:42 GMT

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York City officials want to ease pressure on overcrowded homeless shelters by housing migrants in a federal jail that once held mobsters, terrorists and Wall Street swindlers before being shut down after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide.The proposal, suggested in an Aug. 9 letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration, came as New York struggles to handle the estimated 100,000 migrants who have arrived in the city since last year after crossing the southern U.S. border.The city is legally obligated to find shelter for anyone needing it. With homeless shelters full, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has taken over hotels, put cots in recreational centers and school gyms and created temporary housing in huge tents.The letter, written by a senior counsel for the city’s law department, identifies several other sites in which migrants could potentially be housed, including the defunct Metropolitan Correctional Center, which closed in 2021.That ...