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Gunfire on Maine interstate injures 2; person in custody

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:15:19 GMT

YARMOUTH, Maine (AP) — Gunfire erupted Tuesday on heavily traveled Interstate 295 north of Maine’s largest city, injuring two people, one of them seriously, police said. One person was in custody.Witnesses told reporters they saw one person in handcuffs, and video showed a car with bullet holes in the windshield on a highway off-ramp. Police briefly ordered people in nearby neighborhoods to shelter in place, but authorities later announced there was no threat to the public.The gunfire erupted along the highway in Yarmouth, a community of 9,000 about 12 miles north of Portland, which I-295 connects to the state capital, Augusta.Two people were injured during the highway shooting, said Shannon Moss, a state police spokesperson. Traffic backed up on the interstate as police halted traffic, and state, county and local police canvassed the area, Moss said. Representatives for the Maine Department of Transportation said they closed the southbound side of I-295 in Yarmouth in late mo...

Auschwitz march held ahead of 80th Warsaw ghetto anniversary

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:15:19 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Thousands of people assembled Tuesday at the former site of Auschwitz for the March of the Living, a yearly Holocaust remembrance march that falls this year on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.Participants in the event included Holocaust survivors who lived through the agony of Auschwitz or one of the other death camps where Nazi Germany sought to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe, and came close to doing so.Some attendees, including people from Israel and the United States, came face to face for the first time with something that has long been part of their psyche: the watchtowers, remains of gas chambers and the huge piles of shoes, suitcases and other objects that the victims brought with them on their final journey.German forces established Auschwitz after they invaded and occupied Poland during World War II, and killed more than 1.1 million people there, most of them Jews but also Poles, Roma, Soviet p...

Supreme Court: New Jersey can quit mob-busting port agency

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:15:19 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court says New Jersey can withdraw from a commission created decades ago with New York to combat the mob’s influence at their joint port.The high court ruled unanimously Tuesday that the Garden State doesn’t need New York’s consent to withdraw from the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. The commission was created in 1953 when organized crime had infiltrated the port and was demanding payments from workers and shippers through extortion and violence.New Jersey lawmakers have said that changes in the industry, including the development of container shipping, have lessened the influence of organized crime at the port and reduced the need for the commission. The state says the commission has become “an impediment to economic growth.”“We hold that New Jersey may unilaterally withdraw from the Waterfront Commission Compact notwithstanding New York’s opposition,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court.The two-member commission — wi...

Former NFL defensive end Chris Smith dead at 31

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:15:19 GMT

CLEVELAND (AP) — Former NFL defensive end Chris Smith, who was touched by tragedy while he played for the Cleveland Browns, has died. He was 31.Smith’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, and the Browns confirmed his passing on Tuesday. The cause of death was not immediately known.“Rest in Peace Chris,” Rosenhaus wrote on Twitter. “Condolences to all his family, friends and loved ones. We will miss you.”Smith played for the XFL’s Seattle Sea Dragons this season. He previously spent eight seasons in the NFL with Jacksonville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Las Vegas and Houston.While Smith was with the Browns in 2019, his girlfriend, Petara Cordero, was killed when she was hit by a car after she exited the vehicle he was driving. Cordero was standing on the road’s shoulder when the vehicle driven by a 47-year-old woman smashed into the passenger side of Smith’s car.“Chris was one of the kindest players and people that I’ve ever met,” Browns All-Pro defensive end Myles Garrett said. “He was willing ...

Indiana Senate approves handgun training fund for teachers

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:15:19 GMT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana state Senators advanced a bill Tuesday that would make state funding available for teachers seeking firearms training, a move critics have said could increase the number of guns in school to the detriment of students.The 42-8 vote comes after this past weekend’s three-day National Rifle Association convention in Indianapolis, which fell on the second anniversary of a mass shooting in the city at a FedEx facility that killed nine people.The House bill first advanced in February, amid teachers’ objections that having additional guns in schools would worsen school safety. On Tuesday, two Democrats joined all Republican state Senators in voting for the bill.Supporters have said the 40 hours of optional training would help teachers learn how to defend themselves and students if needed, especially in situations with an active shooter. State law currently allows school districts to permit teachers to be armed, but no training is mandated. The propose...

Abortion foes urge justices to allow limits on abortion drug

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:15:19 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for anti-abortion doctors on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to allow restrictions to take effect on a drug used in the most common method of abortion in the United States, while a lawsuit continues.The justices are weighing a request from the Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, makers of the drug mifepristone, to keep on hold lower-court rulings restricting mifepristone’s use. The high court is expected to act in the fast-moving case from Texas by late Wednesday.Alliance Defending Freedom, representing doctors and medical groups in a challenge to Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug, argued in a court filing that the FDA “has stripped away every meaningful and necessary safeguard on chemical abortion, demonstrating callous disregard for women’s well-being, unborn life, and statutory limits.” The legal brief by the anti-abortion doctors called particular attention to what it termed “mail-order abortion,...

Hunger is soaring and spreading across West Africa, says UN

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:15:19 GMT

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Hunger is soaring and spreading across West Africa, with some 48 million people, a 10-year-high, facing food insecurity in the conflict-riddled region, the United Nations warned Tuesday.Driven primarily by violence as well as the economic fallout from COVID-19 and inflation, food insecurity has heavily impacted Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, northern Nigeria and Mauritania, U.N. officials said at a press conference in Senegal’s capital, Dakar. U.N. officials said that for the first time, some 45,000 people in the Sahel region, the arid expanse below the Sahara Desert, are on the brink of starvation, one step away from famine. The vast majority facing catastrophic levels of hunger, 42,000, are in Burkina Faso, the officials reported.“The situation is worrying,” said Ann Defraye, a regional nutrition specialist for UNICEF in West and Central Africa. “Last year, we saw a large increase (31%) in the numbers of children admitted to health facilities with severe wa...

Ontario Science Centre to move to Ontario Place, province confirms

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:15:19 GMT

The Ford government confirmed Tuesday that it intends to move the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place.Ontario Tourism Minister Neil Lumsden says the science centre will move to the waterfront site in 2025 and remain open in its current location in the city’s east end until then.The province said it intends to revamp Ontario Place into a year-round destination with expanded parkland, beaches, waterfront access, and family-friendly fun.“We’re bringing more to Ontario Place with more beaches, more greenspace, more trails and more fun with the Ontario Science Centre, a year-round Live Nation concert venue and expanded food and beverage offerings so families can enjoy a meal together,” Premier Doug Ford said in a release.The Ontario Science Centre will be housed in a custom-built, state-of-the-art facility, as well as in the upgraded Cinesphere and Pod complex.The redevelopment of the Ontario Place site has been in the works for years.The attraction, which opened in...

Some 200 long-term care residents forced to move from troubled Montreal facilities

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:15:19 GMT

MONTREAL — Some 200 vulnerable residents are being forced to move out of two Montreal-area long-term care homes that were put under trusteeship last fall amid allegations of poor treatment.The health authority representing western Montreal has confirmed that all the residents of the Floralies Lachine and Floralies LaSalle homes are being relocated out of concern for their health and safety.A report by a retired Health Department employee made public last fall alleged “abuse in all its forms” at the privately owned residences, including violence and negligence on the part of employees.The two residences were put under trusteeship on Sept. 1, 2022, shortly after a streptococcus A outbreak last summer killed six people.The health authority says the situation at the residences has stabilized but the move is necessary to ensure the long-term well-being of residents. The management of the Floralies residences say they were shocked by the news and worried about the impact the m...

FACT FOCUS: NYC crime is not worst ever, despite claims

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:15:19 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Following Monday’s congressional hearing on violent crime in New York City, claims spread across social media that the bad old days are back in the nation’s largest city.Conservatives and other users widely shared a video clip of New York City Councilman Robert Holden, who testified at the special hearing in Manhattan that he’s “never seen the lawlessness” he’s seen today in his lifetime.“DEMOCRAT city councilman Robert Holden has lived in New York City for 71 years,” Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee that held the hearing tweeted, along with a clip of the Queens lawmaker’s testimony. “He’s never seen crime this bad.”But experts and city officials say crime across the five boroughs is nowhere near the levels seen in the 1990s, and while there was a rise in 2022, those figures are already trending down this year. Here’s a closer look at the facts.CLAIM: Crime in New York City is the worst it’s ever been, especially in the borough of Manhattan where Trump fa...