Month: February 2024

By SYLVIE CORBET and BARBARA SURK Associated Press PARIS (AP) — French actor Judith Godrèche called on France’s film industry to “face the truth” on sexual violence and physical abuse during a live broadcast Friday of the Cesar Awards ceremony, France’s version of the Oscars. “We can decide that men accused of rape no longer

By YURAS KARMANAU Associated Press TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The Rev. Viachaslau Barok was a familiar face in Rasony, a town in northern Belarus near the Russian border, overseeing construction of its Roman Catholic church and celebrating Mass daily for two decades. He got into trouble in December 2020, the height of anti-government demonstrations, when

By STEFANIE DAZIO Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County voters are set to decide if embattled District Attorney George Gascón will remain the head of the nation’s largest prosecutor’s office. There have been two failed attempts to get Gascón on the ballot for a recall. Gascón faces 11 challengers in the March

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has urged a Florida judge to dismiss the criminal case charging him with illegally retaining classified documents, claiming in part that presidential immunity protects him from prosecution even as that sweeping argument has so far in failed in federal courts in a separate case. Trump faces dozens of

By TIA GOLDENBERG Associated Press KIBBUTZ BE’ERI, Israel (AP) — Gillian and Pete Brisley are picking up the pieces of their shattered lives. They are cleaning up the house where their daughter and granddaughters were killed by Hamas on Oct. 7 in hopes that their son-in-law — believed to be held captive in Gaza —

By HANNA ARHIROVA Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Iryna Reva stares at her phone, replaying the last video her 25-year-old son Vladyslav sent her from the front line before the volunteer soldier disappeared 19 months ago in a battle with Russian forces in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Reva is one of the thousands of

By JAMES POLLARD Associated Press/Report for America COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina man has been found guilty of killing a Black transgender woman in the nation’s first federal hate crime trial over gender identity. Jurors decided Friday that Daqua Lameek Ritter fatally shot Dime Doe in 2019, because of her gender identity. Ritter

By MICHAEL PHILLIS Associated Press Federal regulators have granted Native American tribes more power to block hydropower projects on their land after a flurry of applications were filed to expand renewable energy in the water-scarce U.S. Southwest. Previously, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted developers approval to move ahead with planning even if tribes objected.

By REGINA GARCIA CANO Associated Press LA PARAGUA, Venezuela (AP) — The collapse of an illegally operated gold mine in a remote area of central Venezuela has exposed the sense of abandonment felt by small or rural communities bypassed by a quasi-economic renaissance seen in the South American country’s capital and cities. People in La

By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is promising to use a second term in the White House to defend Christian values and is suggesting he’ll protect the faith’s central icon, warning a convention of religious broadcasters that the left wants “to tear down crosses.” Trump spoke at the

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON Associated Press NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland (AP) — El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has received a rock-star welcome at a conservative gathering outside Washington as he urged people to “unapologetically fight” against what he called “dark forces.” At the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, Bukele told people to use El Salvador as

By KRUTIKA PATHI and SHEIKH SAALIQ Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — Last year more than two dozen opposition parties in India came together to take on Narendra Modi, one of the country’s most popular prime ministers in generations. But the broad alliance, beset with ideological differences and personality clashes, is cracking at a crucial

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon State Police say the remains of a teenager found over 50 years ago have been identified through advanced DNA technology as a young woman who went missing from Portland. Police said Thursday the remains are that of Sandra Young, a high school student who disappeared in 1968 or 1969. Police

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A San Diego man was arrested Thursday on suspicion of leaving threatening messages on the personal cellphone of an Arizona election worker he accused of rigging the 2022 election results, federal prosecutors said. The 52-year-old was charged with one count of communicating an interstate threat and will make an initial court

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Two more candidates are filing paperwork to appear on Pennsylvania’s primary ballots for U.S. Senate as Democratic Sen. Bob Casey seeks a fourth term. Brandi Tomasetti, a Republican from Lancaster County, and William Parker, a Democrat from Allegheny County, both filed paperwork Thursday before a court-ordered deadline. Both Parker and Tomasetti

By JOSHUA GOODMAN Associated Press MIAMI (AP) — A Utah man imprisoned for nearly two years in Venezuelan has sued President Nicolás Maduro for allegedly heading a “criminal enterprise” that kidnaps, tortures and unjustly imprisons American citizens. The complaint filed Thursday in Miami federal court by Joshua Holt seeks compensation for damages Holt and his

By JULIE WATSON Associated Press SAN DIEGO (AP) — It will still be months before the San Diego Zoo gets new pandas, the first such bears sent to the United States by China in decades. For now, the only U.S. zoo left with any is in Atlanta. But globally there are many places to check

HOUSTON (AP) — A word to the wise: If you overhear your work-from-home spouse talking business, just forget anything you may learn from it. And most definitely do not trade stocks using what authorities will almost certainly view as inside information. Tyler Loudon, a 42-year-old Houston man, learned this lesson the hard way. He pleaded

By JEFF AMY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia lawmakers are revisiting a nearly decade-old fight over whether the state needs to protect religious rights from being trampled by state and local governments. But opponents say the measure would provide a legal shield for people and groups to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people in the name