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Macron welcomes back to France journalist freed in Mali

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:27:21 GMT

PARIS (AP) — A French journalist who was held hostage by Islamic extremists for nearly two years in Mali was welcomed home by French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, one day after his release.Olivier Dubois was kidnapped in April 2021 in northern Mali, a region wracked by jihadi violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.Leaving the plane at the Villacoublay military airport, southwest of Paris, with a big smile on his face, Dubois was applauded by the group of people waiting for his arrival. He was greeted with great joy by his sister and father, and then he hugged Macron. Speaking to French media, Dubois said he listened to French radio to keep himself sane in captivity and read the Quran “to understand” his captors. Dubois told RFI radio Tuesday that although he was not “hit or humiliated,” it was a grueling experience.“You are chained, you are a prisoner, you are considered a disbeliever, an infidel,” he said. “It was living outside all the time — w...

Lawsuit seeks to block abortion pill ban in Wyoming

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:27:21 GMT

Abortion-rights supporters filed an amended lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block Wyoming’s new abortion pill ban from taking effect.A group hoping to open what would be the state’s second clinic offering abortions filed the amended lawsuit days after Republican Gov. Mark Gordon signed what is the nation’s first explicit ban on abortion pills. Absent court intervention, that ban would take effect July 1. Abortion-rights supporters already were seeking to block a separate sweeping abortion ban that took effect Sunday in Wyoming without the governor’s signature. That law seeks to overcome objections that prompted a judge to suspend a previous ban. Both of the new Wyoming abortion bans make exceptions to save a pregnant woman’s life and for cases of rape or incest that are reported to police.Until Gordon signed the ban on medication abortions, no state had passed a law specifically prohibiting such pills, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that s...

Trump’s potential indictment caps decades of legal scrutiny

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:27:21 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — For 40 years, former President Donald Trump has navigated countless legal investigations without ever facing criminal charges. That record may soon come to an end.Trump could be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury as soon as this week, potentially charged with falsifying business records connected to hush money payments during his 2016 campaign to women who accused him of sexual encounters.It’s one of several investigations that have intensified as Trump mounts his third presidential run. He has denied any allegations of wrongdoing and accuses prosecutors of engaging in a politically motivated “witch hunt” to damage his campaign.An indictment in New York would mark an extraordinary turn in American history, making Trump the first former president to face a criminal charge. And it would carry tremendous weight for Trump himself, threatening his long-established ability to avoid consequences despite entanglement in a dizzying number of cases.Indictment, says biogr...

Only 1 Black rep gets role in talks on Mississippi policing

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:27:21 GMT

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — One Black lawmaker and nine white ones have been chosen to negotiate final versions of bills that could expand the territory of a state-run police department inside Mississippi’s majority-Black capital city.Critics say the bills are a way for the Republican-controlled state government to exert control over Jackson, which is 83% Black and is governed by Democrats.The Black lawmaker chosen as a negotiator, Democratic Rep. Earle Banks of Jackson, said Tuesday that his goal is to have a safer city. With just under 150,000 residents, Jackson has had more than 100 homicides for each of the past three years.“I think there is a desire by citizens in the city of Jackson for additional police protection, and Capitol Police may be the answer to that,” Banks told The Associated Press.Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and House Speaker Philip Gunn, both Republicans, on Tuesday finished selecting the senators and representatives to work on the final versions of two bills. The ...

Federal decision to shut down B.C. salmon farms prompts company court challenge

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:27:21 GMT

VANCOUVER — A British Columbia salmon farming company is going to court to challenge the federal government’s decision not to renew the licences for its open-net farms off Vancouver Island.Documents filed in Federal Court in Vancouver by Mowi Canada West apply for a judicial review of the decision last month by Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray to shut down 15 salmon farms.Mowi’s application seeks an order quashing or setting aside Murray’s decision to shut down the company’s 11 open-net salmon farms located off the Discovery Islands, near Campbell River.It asks the court to have the matter referred back to Murray and a declaration the minister’s February decision was “unreasonable, invalid and unlawful.”The federal government has not responded to the application, but as she announced the decision last month Murray said recent science indicates uncertainty over the risks fish farms pose to wild salmon and government was committed to transition...

Couple faces murder charges in Crow girl’s 2019 death

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:27:21 GMT

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A Montana couple faces charges of murder and tampering with evidence in the 2019 disappearance and death of a 6-year-old girl on the Crow Indian Reservation, according to court documents.Mildred Alexis Old Crow was physically assaulted and left in a bathtub to drown before her body was wrapped in plastic and concealed inside a container, Big Horn County Attorney Jeanne Torske said in court documents.The container was taped shut and remained hidden for more than two years while the defendants collected benefits that were meant for the victim, Torske wrote.Roseen Lincoln and Veronica Dust, both 36 years old, could face life in prison if convicted in state district court. They remained in custody Tuesday on $1 million bond each and were scheduled to be arraigned on March 28 before state District Judge Matt Wald in Hardin.Indigenous women are victimized at astonishing rates, with federal figures showing that they — along with non-Hispanic Black women — have experi...

Pence seeks ‘common sense’ Social Security, Medicare reform

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:27:21 GMT

As he mulls a 2024 presidential bid, former Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday called for “common sense and compassionate solutions” to reform entitlement programs and the nation’s debt burden, suggesting changes to Social Security and Medicare programs hurtling toward insolvency, particularly for younger generations, without naming specific recommendations.“What we need now is leadership because, if we act in this moment with the support of this generation, we can introduce common sense reforms that will never touch anyone who is in retirement, or anyone who will retire in the next 25 years,” Pence told an audience of college students at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. “It’ll just take courage to do it, and that’s where your generation will come in.”What to do with Social Security and Medicare, as the programs close in on projected insolvency dates, has emerged as a dividing line for Republicans seeking to lead their party in the 2024 president...

Lead Derek Chauvin prosecutor appointed to be state judge

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:27:21 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — One of the state’s lead prosecutors who helped convict Derek Chauvin of murder in the May 2020 killing of George Floyd has been appointed as a judge in Hennepin County, Minnesota’s governor announced Tuesday.Gov. Tim Walz said Matt Frank “will be a remarkable judge who will approach this position with the understanding that justice is a process, not a result.”Frank is an experienced attorney with the state Attorney General’s Office, and he helped lead the state’s prosecution of Chauvin and three other former Minneapolis police officers who were charged in Floyd’s killing. Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter and sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison. He later pleaded guilty to a federal count of violating Floyd’s rights and was sentenced to 21 years on that count, to be served concurrently. Frank also helped broker guilty pleas for two other former officers on charges of aiding and abetting manslaughter. A fourth forme...

Ex-judge rejects free speech defense in Project Veritas case

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:27:21 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The First Amendment protection for journalists should not keep prosecutors from seeing most evidence gathered in a probe of people connected to conservative group Project Veritas, a former federal judge appointed to the case said in a report Tuesday.Barbara Jones told U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres that she recommends letting prosecutors view most of the 1,000-plus documents gathered through search warrants for a probe into how the group received a diary purported to belong to President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden.Neither Project Veritas nor any of its staffers have been charged with a crime. The group says its activities were newsgathering and were ethical and legal.Jones, who formerly served as a federal judge in Manhattan, acknowledged that courts have long recognized a qualified evidentiary privilege for information gathered during a journalistic investigation.But she wrote that the privilege is not absolute and that it offers the greatest protection w...

Police: Suspect still at-large after Eisenhower rollover crash that injured 2

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 20:27:21 GMT

COOK COUNTY, Ill. — One suspect is still at-large and two people are in the hospital after a three car rollover crash on the Eisenhower Expressway that lead to a foot pursuit Tuesday.According to the Maywood Police Department, their officers were called to the area of South 9th Avenue and St. Charles Road sometime Tuesday morning for a person waving a gun out of a dark grey BMW SUV.After arriving in the area, officers found the vehicle in question near the intersection of North 6th Avenue and Lake Street and attempted to stop it, but the vehicle fled the area. Police terminated pursuit after the offending vehicle sped up going through the intersection of South 9th Avenue and St. Charles Road. Man shot, killed during Rogers Park home invasion Afterward, a parked Maywood police officer saw the offending vehicle drive down the eastbound entrance ramp onto the Eisenhower Expressway near South 9th Avenue. Once on the Eisenhower, the offending vehicle continued driving at a high rate of...