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New Orleans civil rights activist’s family home listed on National Register of Historic Places

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:42:26 GMT

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The New Orleans home where civil rights activist Oretha Castle Haley grew up and that served as a hub for Louisiana’s civil rights movement in the 1960s has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.The Treme neighborhood Craftsman-style home at 917-919 N. Tonti Street, which Haley shared with her parents and sister, Doris, is listed on the National Register as the “Castle Family Home” and later became known as the Freedom House, serving as a backdrop for pivotal moments in the city’s civil rights history.Haley participated in numerous protests, demonstrations and sit-ins fighting for racial equality. She notably challenged the segregation of facilities and lunch counters in New Orleans and promoted Black voter registration throughout Louisiana. She died in 1987 of ovarian cancer. In 1989, the city honored her memory by renaming Dryades Street, the site of many civil rights demonstrations, Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard.The now-bright green-paint...

A Chinese man is extradited from Morocco to face embezzlement charges in Shanghai

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:42:26 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese man wanted for allegedly embezzling millions of yuan (hundreds of thousands of dollars) from his company and then fleeing to Morocco was extradited back to China on Saturday, the Ministry of Public Security said.The man, a financial executive at the company, used passwords for its bank accounts to transfer money to his personal account, the ministry said in a statement. It didn’t name the company but said that Shanghai police filed a case against the man in February 2020.Moroccan police arrested him in April of this year and a court approved his extradition in late October. Chinese officials brought him back to Shanghai on Saturday.State broadcaster CCTV showed the man, identified only by his surname Luo, signing an arrest warrant after getting off the plane and then being handcuffed. Police officers led him from the jetway to the tarmac and to a waiting police car.The Public Security Ministry said it was the first extradition from Morocco to China sin...

Woman charged in midtown Starbucks vandalism

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:42:26 GMT

A 25-year-old woman is facing a mischief charge after a coffee shop in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood was vandalized.Police say they were called to the Starbucks location at Eglinton Avenue West and Bathurst Street on Thursday morning after reports someone had vandalized the storefront with posters and writing.Images posted to social media show the words “blood on your hands,” “Starbucks kills,” and “stop killing babies” had been plastered across the front door of the shop.Members of Toronto police’s hate crime unit arrested Skigh Johnson of Toronto and charged her with one count of mischief interfering with the enjoyment of property.She is scheduled for a court appearance on January 11, 2024. Police tell CityNews the investigation is ongoing but at this time the incident has not been classified as a hate crime. Police add that if it is determined the incident was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate, then investigators will consult wi...

Political violence threatens to intensify as the 2024 campaign heats up, experts on extremism warn

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:42:26 GMT

The man who bludgeoned former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer last year consumed a steady diet of right-wing conspiracy theories before an attack that took place with the midterm elections less than two weeks away.As the 2024 presidential campaign heats up, experts on extremism fear the threat of politically motivated violence will intensify. From “Pizzagate” to QAnon and to “Stop the Steal,” conspiracy theories that demonized Donald Trump’s enemies are morphing and spreading as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination aims for a return to the White House.“No longer are these conspiracy theories and very divisive and vicious ideologies separated at the fringes,” said Jacob Ware, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who focuses on domestic terrorism. “They’re now infiltrating American society on a massive scale.”A federal jury on Thursday convicted David DePape of attacking Paul Pelosi at his San Francisco home on Oct. 28, 20...

Estonia’s Kallas is reelected to lead party despite a scandal over husband’s Russia business ties

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:42:26 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Estonia’s ruling Reform Party reelected Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as its chairperson Saturday and confirmed her staying on as the Baltic nation’s leader amid widespread calls by opposition and voters for her to resign over a scandal involving her husband’s business dealings in Russia.Kallas was the only candidate for the party leadership post as center-right Reform held a general meeting in the capital, Tallinn. Two-thirds of the 931 delegates who took part in a vote supported her and one-third abstained.The 46-year-old lawyer has been the leader of the Reform Party, Estonia’s largest political group, since April 2018. She became the country’s first female prime minister in January 2021.Earlier this week, Kallas publicly signaled at a foreign policy conference in Washington her interest in becoming the next secretary-general of NATO. NATO’s current chief, Jens Stoltenberg, is due to step down in October 2024 after 10 years in the post.Kalla...

Scientific report urges debate on genetic modification to control insect pests

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:42:26 GMT

Scientists are learning to turn the genetics of insect pests against themselves, altering the genome of familiar foes in ways that give farmers and doctors new ways to fight them. The burgeoning field offers fresh hope against old scourges such as malaria. And it could provide shiny new tools as familiar insecticides lose their punch and climate change shuffles the deck. But concerns buzz the new technology like a cloud of gnats. “Questions remain about the efficacy of these tools, their safety and their appropriateness,” says a new report from the Council of Canadian Academies. “Will it be suitable to deploy gene editing in the natural environment and how will gene editing fit into the wider pest control tool box?”The report, released last week, was commissioned by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, an arm of Health Canada that regulates chemicals used to manage pests. It’s the start of what its authors hope will be an urgent and thoughtful convers...

‘Forge a new relationship’: Indigenous leaders hopeful of new provincial government

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:42:26 GMT

WINNIPEG — When Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew took the unconventional move of appointing himself the minister responsible for Indigenous reconciliation, he did so with the intent of strengthening the relationship between the province and Indigenous communities.First Nations and Métis leaders have said that relationship soured during the previous government’s seven years in power. It seemed like a “natural fit” to include Indigenous governments when looking at making positive bonds with other orders of government, said Kinew, Manitoba’s first First Nation premier, in an interview with The Canadian Press this month. “I’ll be doing engagement, relationship-building and defining how we’re going to move forward in a good way with Indigenous nations,” said Kinew, who was raised as a young boy on the Onigaming First Nation in northwestern Ontario.It has been a long-standing practice that the premier take on the role of minister of intergovernmen...

Authorities say they have identified the suspect in the shooting of a hospital security guard

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:42:26 GMT

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Authorities say the gunman who was killed after shooting to death a security guard at a New Hampshire psychiatric hospital has been identified.New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said Saturday that 33-year-old John Madore entered New Hampshire Hospital on Friday afternoon and killed Bradley Haas, a state Department of Safety security officer who was working at the front lobby entrance of the facility.All patients at the psychiatric hospital were safe, and the state trooper who killed Madore was not wounded.Formella said Madore was most recently living in a hotel in the Seacoast region and also had lived in Concord.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A shooter killed a security guard in the lobby of New Hampshire’s state psychiatric hospital on Friday before being fatally shot by a state trooper, officials said.The shooting happened around 3:30 p.m. at New Hampshire Hospital and was contained to the front...

Argentine presidential candidate Milei goes to the opera – and meets both jeers and cheers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:42:26 GMT

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Both jeers and cheers for Argentina’s right-wing presidential candidate resounded with acoustic perfection inside the country’s legendary Colón Theater, laying bare the country’s polarization on the eve of Sunday’s runoff.The audience had gathered Friday evening in Latin America’s premiere opera house that is world-renowned for its acoustics to watch a performance of “Madama Butterfly” — but Javier Milei soon became the main event. A group began insulting him as he sat in the front row of a box alongside his girlfriend.“Milei, trash, you are the dictatorship!” some attendees can be heard chanting at the candidate in videos on social media. He has downplayed Argentina’s bloody 1976-1983 military rule, saying the number of its victims is far below what human rights organizations have long claimed, among other controversial positions.Some videos on social media also showed a few orchestra musicians playing the “Peronist March,” an anthem of the poli...

4 businesses targeted in burglaries on South Side: CPD

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:42:26 GMT

CHICAGO -- Four businesses were burglarized on the South Side early Saturday morning, police said. Police said an unknown number of individuals smashed the glass to front doors of four businesses in the 5400 block of South Wentworth Avenue around 4:26 a.m. and took an unknown amount of property before fleeing. NTSB investigating CTA crash that injured 38 There is currently no one in custody and police are investigating.