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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/arizona-cardinals/articles/41317920
| 2022-10-31T00:24:44
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/arizona-cardinals/articles/41317969
| 2022-10-31T00:24:50
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/arizona-cardinals/articles/41318033
| 2022-10-31T00:24:56
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/arizona-cardinals/articles/41318482
| 2022-10-31T00:25:02
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41317144
| 2022-10-31T00:25:27
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41317173
| 2022-10-31T00:25:33
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41317267
| 2022-10-31T00:25:39
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41317377
| 2022-10-31T00:25:45
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41317416
| 2022-10-31T00:25:51
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41317564
| 2022-10-31T00:25:57
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41317631
| 2022-10-31T00:26:03
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41317784
| 2022-10-31T00:26:04
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41317947
| 2022-10-31T00:26:10
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41318121
| 2022-10-31T00:26:16
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en
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41318135
| 2022-10-31T00:26:22
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en
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41318166
| 2022-10-31T00:26:24
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en
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41318544
| 2022-10-31T00:26:30
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en
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/41318624
| 2022-10-31T00:26:37
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318432
| 2022-10-31T00:27:25
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en
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318488
| 2022-10-31T00:27:31
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318517
| 2022-10-31T00:27:37
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318519
| 2022-10-31T00:27:43
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318681
| 2022-10-31T00:27:49
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318687
| 2022-10-31T00:27:55
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en
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318690
| 2022-10-31T00:28:25
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318702
| 2022-10-31T00:28:31
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318703
| 2022-10-31T00:28:37
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318725
| 2022-10-31T00:28:43
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318744
| 2022-10-31T00:28:50
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318746
| 2022-10-31T00:28:56
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318799
| 2022-10-31T00:29:02
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/houston-texans/articles/41318802
| 2022-10-31T00:29:05
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318090
| 2022-10-31T00:29:11
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318293
| 2022-10-31T00:29:17
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318402
| 2022-10-31T00:29:23
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318406
| 2022-10-31T00:29:30
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318512
| 2022-10-31T00:29:36
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318621
| 2022-10-31T00:29:42
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318622
| 2022-10-31T00:29:48
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318652
| 2022-10-31T00:29:54
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318655
| 2022-10-31T00:30:00
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318658
| 2022-10-31T00:30:06
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318671
| 2022-10-31T00:30:12
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318701
| 2022-10-31T00:30:18
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-york-jets/articles/41318826
| 2022-10-31T00:30:24
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/brooklyn-nets/articles/41318380
| 2022-10-31T00:31:44
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| 0.738227
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New York has agreed to pay $26 million to settle lawsuits filed on behalf of two men whose convictions in the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X were thrown out last November, city officials said.
Both Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam were exonerated last year after a judge found “serious miscarriages of justice” in their cases.
A 22-month investigation by then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s office and lawyers for the men found that evidence of their innocence, including FBI documents, was withheld at trial.
“I regret that this court cannot fully undo the serious miscarriages of justice in this case and give you back the many years that were lost,” New York County Supreme Court Administrative Judge Ellen Biben said in her ruling at the time.
Three men were convicted in 1966 for the murder of Malcolm X – Mujahid Abdul Halim (known previously as both Talmadge Hayer and Thomas Hagan), Aziz and Islam, and were sentenced to life in prison. Aziz and Islam said they were innocent. Halim acknowledged he took part in the assassination, but he maintained the innocence of the other two men.
Aziz was released from prison in 1985; Islam was released in 1987 but died in 2009 and received a posthumous exoneration.
“What’s most important is that Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam have reclaimed their good names,” David Shanies, an attorney representing both Aziz and the state of Islam, said in a statement to CNN.
“They will go down in history as two brave, dignified, innocent men who never stopped fighting their tragic wrongful convictions. It was imperative that these civil lawsuits be resolved immediately and fairly, and I am gratified that New York City and its lawyers worked with us toward a just resolution,” his statement said.
Vance’s review of the case came after the 2020 Netflix documentary, “Who Killed Malcolm X?” raised a slew of new questions.
Aziz filed a $40 million civil rights lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court in July, arguing his “wrongful conviction was the product of flagrant official misconduct, including, inter alia, by the NYPD and its intelligence unit, the Bureau of Special Services and Investigations.”
Paperwork for the $26 million settlement is still being finalized, but it will be split evenly between Aziz and the estate of Islam, said Nick Paolucci, press secretary for the New York City Law Department. Court records state the parties in both cases have “accepted the courts settlement recommendation in their respective cases.”
A New York City Law Department spokesman told CNN in a statement: “This settlement brings some measure of justice to individuals who spent decades in prison and bore the stigma of being falsely accused of murdering an iconic figure. Based on our review, this office stands by the opinion of former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. who stated, based on his investigation, that ‘there is one ultimate conclusion: Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam were wrongfully convicted of this crime.’”
CNN’s Laura Ly and Amy Roberts contributed to this report.
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https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/30/us/nyc-settlement-malcolm-x-murder/index.html
| 2022-10-31T00:31:46
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en
| 0.982229
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/brooklyn-nets/articles/41318735
| 2022-10-31T00:31:50
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en
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/brooklyn-nets/articles/41318809
| 2022-10-31T00:31:56
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en
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/new-york-knicks/articles/41317538
| 2022-10-31T00:32:06
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en
| 0.738227
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/new-york-knicks/articles/41318197
| 2022-10-31T00:32:12
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“ Black Adam,” the Dwayne Johnson-fronted DC superhero film, kept its hold on the No. 1 spot at the North American box office in its second weekend in theaters. Down 59% from its launch, and facing little new competition, “Black Adam” added $27.7 million in ticket sales, bringing its domestic total to $111.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Johnson spent a decade trying to bring the character to the big screen and has visions for follow-ups involving Superman. But the future of “Black Adam” is not written quite yet, though it’s earned $250 million worldwide. The Warner Bros. film carried a hefty price tag of $200 million, not including marketing and promotion costs, and a sequel has not been officially greenlit.
But big changes are afoot at DC—the studio just announced a new leadership team of Peter Safran and James Gunn, whose love for propping up little-known comic book characters is well-documented. And on Sunday, Johnson posted a note to his 344 million Instagram followers about the end of the world press tour, thanking those who worked behind the scenes to launch “our NEW DC FRANCHISE known as BLACK ADAM.”
Bucking recent romantic comedy trends, moviegoers remained curious about “Ticket to Paradise,” Universal’s Julia Roberts and George Clooney destination romp, which fell only 37% in weekend two to claim second place. The genre has not been the most reliable bet at the box office lately, with films like “Bros” stumbling in theaters, but the star power of Roberts and Clooney is proving hard to resist. “Ticket to Paradise” added $10 million from 3,692 North American theaters, bringing its domestic total to $33.7 million. Globally, it’s grossed $119.4 million to date.
Horror movies, meanwhile, claimed spots three through five on the weekend before Halloween on Monday. Lionsgate’s “Prey for the Devil” opened in third place with $7 million from 2,980 theaters. Notably, it is the only of the three horror films that carried a PG-13 rating. The others were R-rated.
Paramount’s “Smile” took fourth place in its fifth weekend with another $5.1 million, bringing its domestic total to $92.4 million (on a $17 million budget), while “Halloween Ends” landed in fifth place in its third weekend with $3.8 million. “Ends,” which has grossed $60.3 million in North America, was released simultaneously on NBC Universal’s streaming service Peacock.
“This is just another mandate in favor of horror,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s senior media analyst. “It’s not just about being in October, horror movies have played well throughout the pandemic. It’s a genre that continues to kill it at the box office time and again.”
Chinonye Chukwu’s Mamie Till-Mobley film “Till” went wide this weekend, adding $2.8 million from 2,058 locations to take seventh place. Boasting a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, the United Artists Releasing film has gotten good word of mouth with much of it centered on Danielle Deadwyler’s performance.
This weekend also saw the expansion of several notable films, like Todd Field’s “ Tár,” which expanded to 1,087 theaters nationwide where it grossed $1 million and landed in 10th place. Cate Blanchett’s performance as a renowned composer and conductor won her a top acting prize from the Venice Film Festival last month.
Another Venice-winner, “The Banshees of Inisherin” widened to 58 theaters and 12 new markets over the weekend. The Martin McDonagh film starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson earned $540,000. The Searchlight Pictures release will expand to around 800 locations next weekend.
Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun” expanded to 17 locations where it earned $75,242, bringing its cumulative grosses to $166,030. The A24-released father-daughter film starring Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio will continue to expand throughout awards season.
James Gray’s “Armageddon Time” opened in six theaters in New York and Los Angeles, to $72,000. Gray mined his own childhood to tell the story about an 11-year-old in Queens in the fall of 1980. The film, which premiered at Cannes earlier this year, stars Banks Repeta, Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong and Anthony Hopkins.
But as far as blockbusters are concerned, things will be somewhat slow-going until “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” arrives on Nov. 11.
“That’ll get the box office going again in a way that feels more like summer,” Dergarabedian said.
—-
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “Black Adam,” $27.7 million.
2. “Ticket to Paradise,” $10 million.
3. “Prey for the Devil,” $7 million.
4. “Smile,” $5.1 million.
5. “Halloween Ends,” $3.8 million.
6. “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile,” $2.8 million.
7. “Till,” $2.8 million.
8. “Terrifier 2,” $1.8 million.
9. “The Woman King,” $1.1 million.
10. “Tár,” $1 million.
—-
Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr.
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https://www.ktsm.com/entertainment-news/ap-black-adam-takes-top-spot-at-box-office-again/
| 2022-10-31T00:32:27
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en
| 0.951451
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HONG KONG (AP) — Workers in a manufacturing facility in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou appear to have left to avoid COVID-19 curbs, with many traveling on foot for days after an unknown number of employees were quarantined in the facility after a virus outbreak.
Videos circulating on Chinese social media platforms showed people who are allegedly Foxconn workers climbing over fences and carrying their belongings down the road.
The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, is one of the largest factories in China that assembles products for Apple Inc., including its latest iPhone 14 devices.
Not all the videos that showed workers purportedly leaving the facility could be verified. It is unclear if the workers leaving the facility had escaped or if they were allowed to leave.
Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Volunteers from nearby villages put out food and drinks for the Foxconn workers. One such volunteer, who asked to be identified only by his surname Zhang out of privacy concerns, was put in charge of distributing supplies that his village in Xingyang county had prepared. He said that the people shown in a video he uploaded to the short-video platform Douyin were Foxconn workers because they would have to take that road if they were leaving the facility.
The workers’ exodus comes after reports that Foxconn had placed a number of workers under quarantine following a COVID-19 outbreak in the factory.
The Foxconn facility in Zhengzhou can accommodate up to 350,000 factory workers, but it is not clear how many are currently employed by the factory. It is also unclear how many of them have left, or how many were affected by COVID-19 curbs implemented in the factory prior to their departure.
Earlier this week, media reports said that a “closed-loop” system had been implemented in the factory that largely restricts workers to movements between their residence and the plant.
Local media reports said that Foxconn workers complained of poor food quality and a lack of medical care for those who tested positive amid growing concerns that the infection could be spreading. The company also denied rumors that 20,000 people in the plant had been infected with COVID-19.
Cities near Zhengzhou have since urged Foxconn workers to report to local authorities if they have plans to return to their hometowns so they can undergo appropriate isolation measures.
According to posts on the Zhengzhou government’s public WeChat account, Foxconn issued notices Sunday to workers at its factory, pledging to ensure the safety, legitimate rights and income for those willing to stay.
A day after videos circulated of workers leaving the factory, Foxconn and several local governments have also arranged transportation for employees who choose to return home. It is not clear how much agency the workers had in deciding to leave the factory.
The departure of Foxconn workers from the Zhengzhou plant highlights the growing discontent in China’s “zero-COVID” strategy, where governments attempt to stamp out outbreaks by implementing strict isolation and lockdown measures where infections are detected.
___
AP video producer Liu Zheng in Beijing contributed to this report.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/business/ap-business/ap-workers-leave-iphone-factory-in-zhengzhou-amid-covid-curbs/
| 2022-10-31T00:32:33
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en
| 0.9825
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MINGKAMAN, South Sudan (AP) — In a country where the maternal mortality rate is one of the highest in the world, a small clinic dedicated to reproductive health care for more than 200,000 people is about to be shut down. The worried-looking mothers know too well what might happen next.
“If the hospital closes, we will die more because we are poor,” said one expectant mother who gave her name only as Chuti. She was attending a monthly checkup at the Mingkaman reproductive health clinic in this town on the White Nile River, and it might be her last.
The United Nations has said it intends to end the clinic’s operations by December because of a lack of funding from European and other supporters. It is just one casualty among many in developing countries as humanitarian donors have been stretched by one crisis after another, from COVID-19 to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.N. would not say how much it costs to run the clinic.
A loss like the clinic is of critical importance for people in places like Mingkaman, which along with the rest of South Sudan has struggled to cope with the aftermath of a five-year civil war, climate shocks like widespread flooding and lingering insecurity that includes shocking rates of sexual violence.
The U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan has said the war in Ukraine has led to a dramatic cut in funding for emergency medical care for people who have been sexually assaulted. “It’s not that sexual violence ebbs and flows, it’s going on all the time, largely unseen,” commissioner Barney Afako said. The commission also has asserted that the government has failed to invest in basic services like health care.
This reproductive health clinic in the capital of Awerial county in central South Sudan serves a community largely of people displaced by the civil war and the floods. It is where women who once gave birth at home now come to deliver their children. It is also where women who are assaulted come for care.
The maternal mortality rate in South Sudan was 789 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2019, according to the World Health Organization. That’s more than double the rate in more developed neighboring Kenya, according to U.N. data, while the U.S. rate was 23 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At least 250 women give birth in the Mingkaman clinic every month, said Teresa Achuei, the site manager with the organization IMA World Health, which runs the facility. She said she knew of only three women who have died while giving birth in the community, all of them outside the clinic.
Now, she said, hundreds of women could be at risk. “Our aim, our mission, is to reduce maternal mortality rate. Every woman should deliver safely. If the facility closes, there will be many deaths in the community,” she told The Associated Press during a visit in mid-October.
The clinic was founded in 2014, the year after South Sudan’s civil war began. Set up in tents as a temporary way to serve people displaced by fighting, it remains makeshift but works around the clock.
It is a center of activity in Mingkaman, a community on one of South Sudan’s muddy main highways without reliable electricity and running water. The military is present to respond to flares of violence. Many women support their families by collecting firewood from the nearby forest to sell or work in modest local hotels.
Multiple women expressed concern about the clinic’s coming closure.
“It will be worsening for us because it was helping us,” said Akuany Bol, who delivered her three children there. She looked miserable while waiting for a midwife to examine her child.
Andrew Kuol, a clinical officer, said the facility receives an average of 70 to 80 patients per day. It often admits 20 patients a day, or twice the number of beds.
Some women must be treated on the ground.
Kuol said the clinic faces shortages of medicines including malaria drugs, post-rape drugs, antenatal drugs and others, again because of waning donor support.
The nearest hospital is in the city of Bor in the neighboring state of Jonglei, where the clinic’s more complicated cases are sent. Getting there is complicated, too. With no bridge between the states, it can take an hour for a boat to cross the Nile.
As in much of South Sudan, travel is challenging. And current circumstances mean few of the people here can easily relocate for health care or anything else.
“These (displaced people) are not going anywhere because there is still insecurity and also the flooding,” said James Manyiel Agup, the Awerial county director for health here in Lakes state. He urged the U.N. partners to continue supporting the facility to save lives.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/health-news/ap-health/ap-womens-clinic-in-south-sudan-a-casualty-of-distracted-world/
| 2022-10-31T00:32:39
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en
| 0.971176
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NEW DELHI (AP) — At least 60 people died and many are feared injured after a century-old cable suspension bridge collapsed into a river Sunday evening in the western Indian state of Gujarat, sending hundreds plunging in the water, officials said.
Authorities said the 19th-century, colonial-era bridge over the Machchu river in the state’s Morbi district collapsed because it could not handle the weight of the large crowd, as the Hindu festival season drew hundreds of people to the recently opened tourist attraction. The bridge had been closed for renovation for almost six months and was reopened just four days ago.
It was not immediately clear exactly how many people were on the 764-foot-long (232-meter-long) bridge, but officials fear the death toll could rise. State minister Brijesh Merja told reporters that 60 people have died so far and that 17 people were admitted to hospitals.
Merja said emergency responders and rescue workers were searching for the survivors and those killed and injured were mostly teens, women and older people. Teams from the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force were also dispatched to help with the rescue.
“A rescue operation is underway,” Merja was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency. “There are reports that several people have suffered injuries. They are being rushed to hospitals.”
Videos on social media showed people clinging onto the metal cables of the partly submerged bridge in distress as emergency teams and rescuers used boats and inflatable tires to reach them. Some people were seen swimming ashore to safety. Others, who were fished from the waters, were carried away and transported to the hospitals in private vehicles and ambulances.
Local news channels ran pictures of the missing shared by concerned relatives in search of their loved ones.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in his home state of Gujarat on a three-day visit, said he was “deeply saddened by the tragedy.” His office announced compensation to the families of the dead and urged for speedy rescue efforts.
Meanwhile, the state government said it has formed a special team to investigate the disaster.
A vote for Gujarat’s state government — led by Modi’s party — is expected in the coming months and opposition parties have demanded an investigation into the collapse, saying that the bridge was reopened without getting safety clearance from the city’s civic body. The claim could not be independently verified.
Modi ruled the state as the top elected official for 12 years before becoming India’s prime minister in 2014.
The bridge collapse is Asia’s third major disaster in a month.
On Saturday, a Halloween crowd surge killed more than 150 mostly young people who attended festivities in Itaewon, a neighborhood in Seoul, South Korea. On Oct. 1, police in Indonesia fired tear gas at a soccer match, causing a crush that killed 132 people as spectators attempted to flee.
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| 2022-10-31T00:32:45
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| 0.987376
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PRAGUE (AP) — Populist billionaire Andrej Babis has announced his intention to run for the largely ceremonial post of the Czech Republic’s president.
Babis, the controversial former prime minister, made his announcement on Sunday evening in a television broadcast. He said his only goal is “for people to have a better life.”
Babis spoke after meeting his ally, President Milos Zeman, whose second and final term expires in January.
The first round of the presidential election is scheduled for Jan 13-14. The second round between the top two finishers will take place two weeks later.
Babis currently faces trial in a $2 million fraud case involving European Union subsidies.
The case involves a farm known as the Stork’s Nest that received EU subsidies after its ownership was transferred from the Babis-owned Agrofert conglomerate of around 250 companies to Babis’ family members. Later, Agrofert again took ownership of the farm.
The subsidies were meant for medium- and small-sized businesses, and Agrofert wouldn’t have been eligible for them. Agrofert later returned the subsidy.
It’s not clear when a verdict can be expected.
Babis denies any wrongdoing and has repeatedly said the allegations against him were politically motivated.
Babis’ centrist ANO movement stormed Czech politics in 2013, finishing a surprise second in the parliamentary election with an anti-corruption message to become a junior partner in the government with Babis as finance minister. Four years later he won the election and became premier.
A quarter of a million people took to the streets — the biggest such demonstrations since the 1989 anti-Communist Velvet Revolution — twice in 2019 to demand that Babis step down due to his scandals, including the conflict of interest over EU subsidies involving his former business empire.
Babis’ movement lost the parliamentary election last year in October. A coalition of five parties formed a new government, and ANO ended up in opposition.
Before the election, he was hit by yet another scandal that linked him and hundreds of other wealthy people to offshore accounts in findings by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists dubbed the “Pandora Papers.”
Babis denies any wrongdoing.
The Slovak-born Babis also faces charges in Slovakia that he collaborated with the communist-era secret police in Czechoslovakia before the 1989 anti-communist Velvet Revolution. He also denies that.
Babis will be among the front-runners in the presidential election, along with Army Gen. Petr Pavel, former chairman of NATO’s military committee, and former university rector Danuse Nerudova.
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| 2022-10-31T00:32:51
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| 0.981509
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HELSINKI (AP) — A venomous 2.2-meter (7 foot) king cobra that escaped from its home in a Swedish zoo has returned back home by itself, bringing a happy ending to over a week-long disappearance saga.
“Houdini, as we named him, has crawled back into his terrarium,” CEO Jonas Wahlstrom of the Skansen Aquarium told the Swedish public broadcaster SVT on Sunday.
The deadly snake, whose official name is Sir Vass (Sir Hiss), escaped on Oct. 22 via a light fixture in the ceiling of its glass enclosure at the aquarium, part of the zoo at the Skansen open-air museum and park on Stockholm’s Djurgarden island.
As a result of an intensive search with X-ray machines, “Houdini” was located earlier this week in a confined space near the terrarium in the insulation between two walls.
Holes were drilled into the walls where the snake was hiding but the cobra disappeared from the view of the X-ray cameras in the early Sunday. It turned out the snake had given up its freedom ride and crawled back to its terrarium.
“It was too stressful for Houdini with all the holes in the walls, so he wanted to go home again,” Wahlstrom told SVT.
The park said the snake wouldn’t have survived the cold climate if had gotten out of the building.
King cobras can grow up to 5.5 meters (18 feet) long and mainly live in India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
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| 2022-10-31T00:32:57
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| 0.977403
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The FIFA World Cup may be bringing as many as 1.2 million fans to Qatar, but the nearby flashy emirate of Dubai is also looking to cash in on the major sports tournament taking place just a short flight away.
Some soccer fan clubs have already said they’ll be commuting to Qatar during the cup on 45-minute flights from Dubai, the skyscraper-studded, beachfront city-state in the United Arab Emirates. Other fans plan to sleep on cruise ships or camp out in the desert amid a feverish rush for rooms in Doha.
Dubai’s airlines, bars, restaurants, shopping malls and other attractions now hope to benefit, further boosting their rebounding tourism industry in the crucial fall and winter months after the blows delivered by the coronavirus pandemic.
“If you can’t stay in Qatar, Dubai is the place you’d most like to go as a foreign tourist,” said James Swanston, a Middle East and North Africa expert at Capital Economics. “It’s somewhere safe, somewhere more liberal in terms of Western norms. It’s the most attractive destination.”
Now home to the world’s tallest building, cavernous malls — including one with an indoor ski slope — and thriving nightclub scene, Dubai has seen explosive growth fueled by its boom-and-bust real estate market that’s transformed the one-time pearling village over the last 20 years.
Its long-haul carrier Emirates helped make Dubai International Airport the busiest in the world for foreign travel and provides a steady stream of new visitors who stay for layovers or longer. And while still an autocratic sheikhdom like its other Gulf Arab neighbors, Dubai has a relatively more-liberal view on drinking and nightlife.
In the lead-up to the tournament, concerns about hotel room space and high prices for the rooms available have trailed Qatar, which lacks hotel capacity for all teams, workers, volunteers and fans at the World Cup. So Doha has created camping and cabin sites, hiring cruise ships, and encouraging fans to stay in neighboring countries and fly in for games.
Qatar has estimated it will have 45,000 hotel rooms for the tournament.
Surrounding nations, like Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, also suggest they could see a spike in visitors — even though Bahrain is the only among them that allows alcohol. Even Iran, months ago, suggested developing plans for World Cup tourists to stay on its Kish Island. Apparently, nothing came of the idea and now the Islamic Republic is gripped by nationwide protests.
Meanwhile, Dubai has over 140,000 hotel rooms, putting it easily into the top 10 destinations worldwide as far as available hotel rooms go, said Philip Wooller, a senior director at STR, a company that monitors the hotel industry. Dubai also offers price ranges greater than what Qatar can at the moment, given the demand, he said.
“I think Dubai is an incredibly eclectic city,” Wooller said. “You can buy a room for $100 or you can buy a room for $5,000.”
Still, he added, he expects “Qatar will be able to accommodate most of the fans coming to the World Cup (but) there will be a knock-on in Dubai.”
Dubai appears fully poised to take advantage of the tournament.
Its low-cost carrier, FlyDubai, plans as many as 30 round-trip flights a day during the World Cup, shuttling fans between Dubai’s Al Maktoum International Airport at Dubai World Central, or DWC, in the city-state’s southern reaches, to Doha International Airport, Qatar’s old main airport.
Other airlines that may use Al Maktoum airport include KLM, Qatar Airways and Wizz Air, while private jets will fly from there as well to the tournament, said Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports. That could help boost the profile of an airfield that Dubai hopes will expand in the future as Dubai International Airport nears its capacity.
“It’s a great experience for us to see DWC suddenly so busy for the World Cup,” he said. “It will give exposure to the convenience of the airport for so many people that (airlines may) actually favor operating from there.”
The expected economic boost from the World Cup for Dubai comes after its turnaround since suffering through the pandemic. It spent billions for its delayed Expo 2020 world’s fair — which largely attracted visitors already in the UAE.
Dubai, like much of the world, had a lockdown early in 2020. However, by July that year, it announced it was reopening for tourists. Though Dubai faced a surge of international criticism when cases spread from the emirate months later, around New Year, Dubai and the rest of the UAE widely rolled out vaccines.
The UAE dropped its mandatory mask policy about a month ago.
“Dubai is on a lot of people’s radars as one of the most phenomenal places to come and visit,” said Dennis McGettigan, the CEO of an eponymous empire of Irish bars in Dubai and elsewhere. “And I think the World Cup has added a layer” of desire to visit.
McGettigan said his bar business is already up as much as 40% on its sales, compared to 2019, something he linked to pent-up demand for socializing after the worst days of the virus. He said he’s overstaffed his locations and expects strong business through the tournament.
But McGettigan and others acknowledged headwinds Dubai faces in attracting World Cup tourists — the strong U.S. dollar. The Emirati dirham has long been pegged to the dollar, making a Dubai trip now more expensive for those using British pounds, euros and other currencies.
Other financial dangers also lurk for tourist-reliant Dubai, built on the promise of globalization.
“We still need to be cautious of global economic pressures, including rising interest rates, high oil and commodity prices, supply chain issues that are creating inflationary pressures which could impact Dubai’s economic recovery,” said Sapna Jagtiani of S&P Global Ratings.
McGettigan doesn’t expects that to be too much of a damper. His firm also will be organizing a massive fan zone venue in the grassy expanses of Dubai Media City, complete with musical performances, massive televisions and even a winter-themed area in Dubai’s desert environs.
“I, for one, am absolutely delighted to see everything back on full steam ahead and actually a little bit more,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
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| 2022-10-31T00:33:03
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| 0.956903
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BERLIN (AP) — Two environmental activists glued themselves to a dinosaur display at Berlin’s Natural History Museum on Sunday to protest what they said was the German government’s failure to properly address the threat of climate change.
The women used superglue to attach themselves to poles holding up the skeleton of a large four-legged dinosaur that lived tens of millions of years ago.
“Unlike the dinosaurs, we hold our fate in our own hands,” protester Caris Connell, 34, said as museum visitors milled around the display. “Do we want to go extinct like the dinosaurs, or do we want to survive?”
Fellow activist Solvig Schinkoethe, 42, said that as a mother of four she feared the consequences of the climate crisis.
“This peaceful resistance is the means we have chosen to protect our children from the government’s deadly ignorance,” she said.
The museum didn’t immediately comment on the protest.
The activists were part of the group Uprising of the Last Generation, which has staged numerous demonstrations in recent months, including blocking streets and throwing mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting.
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Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.
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| 2022-10-31T00:33:07
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| 0.952576
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BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s human rights envoy said Sunday that she is postponing an official visit to Qatar, after the Gulf nation reacted angrily to German government comments in recent days.
Qatar had summoned the German ambassador Friday over remarks by Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, who appeared to criticize the decision to award the World Cup to the Gulf nation because of its human rights record. Qatar has faced heavy international scrutiny of its treatment of migrant workers and its criminalization of homosexual relations.
“The developments this weekend have made clear to me how difficult it is in the current situation ahead of the World Cup to have the open and also critical conversation I planned with the government of Qatar,” said Luise Amtsberg, Germany’s human rights envoy.
Amtsberg, who was due to accompany Faeser on a visit to Qatar on Monday, said she would conduct the visit at a later date.
“While recognizing Qatar’s growing role as a regional and global actor, international pressure and our efforts to protect human rights will remain central even after the World Cup,” she said.
Faeser, whose portfolio includes sports, still plans to travel to Qatar with a delegation from the German soccer federation.
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| 2022-10-31T00:33:13
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| 0.969798
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MEXICO CITY (AP) — During the Day of the Dead celebrations that take place in late October and early November in Mexico, the living remember and honor their dearly departed, but with celebration — not sorrow.
Marigolds decorate the streets as music blares from speakers. Adults and children alike dress as skeletons and take photos, capturing the annual joy-filled festivities. It is believed that during the Day of the Dead — or Dia de Muertos — they are able to commune with their deceased loved ones.
No one knows when the first observance took place, but it is rooted in agriculture-related beliefs from Mexico’s pre-Hispanic era, said Andrés Medina, a researcher at the Anthropological Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Catholic traditions were incorporated into the celebration after the Spanish conquest in 1521.
“In that mythology, the corn is buried when it’s planted and leads an underground life for a period to later reappear as a plant,” Medina said. The grain of corn is seen as a seed, comparable to a bone, which is seen as the origin of life.
Today, skeletons are central to Day of the Dead celebrations, symbolizing a return of the bones to the living world. Like seeds planted under soil, the dead disappear temporarily only to return each year like the annual harvest.
Altars are core to the observance as well. Families place photographs of their ancestors on their home altars, which include decorations cut out of paper and candles. They also are adorned with offerings of items once beloved by those now gone. It could include cigars, a bottle of mezcal or a plate of mole, tortillas and chocolates.
Traditional altars can be adorned in a pattern representative of a Mesoamerican view that the world had levels, Medina said. But not everyone follows — or knows — this method.
“To the extent that Indigenous languages have been lost, the meaning (of the altar) has been lost as well, so people do it intuitively,” he said. “Where the Indigenous languages have been maintained, the tradition is still alive.”
The way Mexicans celebrate the Day of the Dead continues to evolve.
Typically, it is an intimate family tradition observed with home altars and visits to local cemeteries to decorate graves with flowers and sugar skulls. They bring their deceased loved ones’ favorite food and hire musicians to perform their favorite songs.
“Nowadays there’s an influence of American Halloween in the celebration,” Medina said. “These elements carry a new meaning in the context of the original meaning of the festival, which is to celebrate the dead. To celebrate life.”
In 2016, the government started a popular annual parade in Mexico City that concludes in a main square featuring altars built by artisans from across the country. The roughly three-hour-long affair features one of the holiday’s most iconic characters, Catrinas. The female skeleton is dressed in elegant clothes inspired by the engravings of José Guadalupe Posada, a Mexican artist who drew satirical cartoons at the beginning of the 20th century.
On Friday afternoon in the capital city, Paola Valencia, 30, walked through the main square looking at some of the altars and explained her appreciation for the holiday: “I love this tradition because it reminds me that they (the dead) are still among us.”
Originally from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, she said the residents of her hometown, Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán, take a lot of time to build large altars each year. They are a source of pride for the whole community.
“Sometimes I feel like crying. Our altars show who we are. We are very traditional and we love to feel that they (the dead) will be with us at least once a year,” she said.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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| 2022-10-31T00:33:19
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| 0.966599
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JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military prepped the family home of a Palestinian gunman for demolition Sunday, a day after he killed an Israeli man near an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Several people were also wounded in the shooting late Saturday.
Dramatic security camera video showed the assailant firing his assault rifle outside a grocery before a security guard rammed him with his truck and pinned him to the ground. An off-duty military officer then opened fire and killed the assailant, later identified as Mohammed Jaaberi, 35.
The attack took place between Hebron, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank, and Kiryat Arba, a nearby Israeli settlement. Jaaberi was from Hebron.
The military said Sunday it arrested one of Jaaberi’s brothers and mapped out the family home in a first step toward eventual demolition.
Israel routinely demolishes the homes of Palestinian assailants, arguing that it serves as a deterrent — even though the military had halted the practice for years after concluding it was counter-productive. Human rights groups have denounced punitive demolitions as collective punishment.
Saturday’s attack was part of an ongoing escalation, with 2022 on course to be the deadliest year in the West Bank since the United Nations started monitoring fatalities in 2005. It came just three days before Israel holds its fifth election in under four years.
While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the central issue of the campaign, a rise in Palestinian attacks tends to help right-wing parties that advocate harsh measures against Palestinians.
No Palestinian militant group has claimed Jaabari as one of its members, though celebrations erupted in Hebron after news of the attack spread.
Elsewhere in the West Bank on Sunday, the Israeli military said a Palestinian driver attempted to ram a car into Israeli soldiers standing at bus stops along a highway east of Jerusalem near the Dead Sea. Paramedics said they treated five people with mild to moderate injuries. The army said a police officer and civilian shot the driver, who was treated by paramedics at the scene.
More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year. The fighting has surged since a series of Palestinian attacks killed 19 people in Israel in the spring. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and in the decades since has built dozens of settlements, now home to nearly 500,000 Israelis living alongside around 2.5 million Palestinians. The Palestinians seek the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, as a future independent state. There have been no substantive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians in over a decade.
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| 2022-10-31T00:33:25
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| 0.97264
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JERUSALEM (AP) — One of Israel’s most extremist politicians, known for his inflammatory anti-Arab speeches and stunts, is attracting new supporters from a previously untapped demographic — young ultra-Orthodox Jews, one of the fastest-growing segments of the country’s population.
Itamar Ben-Gvir’s sharp rise in popularity in the last three years has transformed him from a fringe provocateur to a central player in Tuesday’s parliament election. Polls indicate his Religious Zionism party could emerge as the third-largest and help return former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to power.
His appeal is a reflection of the ongoing right-ward shift of the Israeli electorate over the years, with Ben-Gvir and his party also attracting voters who previously supported other right-wing parties.
This shift is particularly noticeable among Israel’s 1.3 million ultra-Orthodox Jews who make up 13% of the population.
The community, known in Hebrew as Haredim, is growing at a breakneck rate, with an average birth rate more than twice the national average. Children make up half of their population, and young adults between 18-35 another quarter.
Ben-Gvir’s appeal among young Haredim reflects a shift in the political preferences of a community that cleaves to a strict adherence to religious tradition. For decades, the ultra-Orthodox largely voted for two Haredi political parties — United Torah Judaism and Shas.
Those parties promoted the community’s interests in exchange for supporting coalition governments with a range of ideological flavors — though the Haredim had a preference for center-right factions that tended to be more culturally conservative.
But several prominent rabbis who served as spiritual leaders for these parties have died in recent years. Analysts say younger and middle-aged Haredim are growing disillusioned with the old guard.
“The majority of relatively younger ultra-Orthodox — under the age of 50 — have turned right-wing, and sometimes staunchly right-wing, something that in the past didn’t exist,” said Moshe Hellinger, a political scientist at Israel’s Bar Ilan University.
The Haredi political leadership lacks a strong, charismatic leader “and this vacuum allows (voters) to go in different directions,” Hellinger said.
Into that void steps Ben-Gvir.
Voting records from predominantly Haredi communities indicate that since Ben-Gvir entered politics in 2019, support for him in those areas has increased over Israel’s four successive elections — though he still lagged behind the established ultra-Orthodox parties.
Ben Gvir’s campaign declined requests by The Associated Press to interview him or officials managing outreach to the ultra-Orthodox community.
Several factors appear to be driving his growing popularity in the community.
Some Haredim prefer the Religious Zionism party’s mix of Orthodox Jewish and ultra- nationalist messaging to that of Netanyahu’s Likud party which, while hard-line, remains predominantly secular.
Recent years have also seen an uptick in attacks by Palestinian assailants targeting ultra-Orthodox Jews, as part of the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In March, shortly after a Palestinian gunman opened fire on the streets of Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv, killing five Israelis, Ben Gvir arrived on the scene and delivered statements to TV cameras surrounded by a throng of young Haredi men shouting racist screeds.
The scene repeated itself in May, after a Palestinian killed three Israelis in the central town of Elad.
At a recent campaign rally in Elad, Ben-Gvir whipped up a gender-segregated crowd, calling for the death penalty for convicted Palestinian militants. The audience, many of them young men in white button-down shirts and black skullcaps, responded with cheers and whistles, then chants of, “Death to Arabs” and “Death to terrorists.”
David Cohen, a resident of Beit Shemesh, a heavily ultra-Orthodox city west of Jerusalem, said he would vote for Ben-Gvir, comparing him to former U.S. President Donald Trump and describing him as a straight-talking man of action.
“He seems to be the only one that will really accomplish anything,” Cohen said of Ben-Gvir. “He’s a guy that says what he means and means what he says.”
Ben-Gvir first entered parliament in 2021, after his Jewish Power party merged with the Religious Zionism party. Jewish Power, which failed to cross the electoral threshold in the 2019 and 2020 elections, is the successor to the outlawed Kach party of the late ultra-nationalist politician Meir Kahane.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, the Religious Zionism party has surged in the polls. It’s forecast to win twice as many seats as in the previous election and could make the difference between Netanyahu returning to power or remaining in the opposition.
It will be the fifth election in under four years, largely fought over whether Netanyahu is fit to rule while facing corruption charges.
Ben-Gvir, who was convicted of offenses that include inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization, went on to make a legal career out of defending Jewish extremists charged with violent offenses.
He lives in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, next to Hebron, the West Bank’s largest Palestinian city. Until recently, he displayed a photo in his home of Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli who killed 29 Palestinians and wounded over 100 in a shooting attack as they knelt in prayer at Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1993.
On Saturday, a Palestinian gunman opened fire at Israelis in Kiryat Arba, killing a 50-year-old man and wounding several others.
While a hawkish booster of Israeli security forces — advocating immunity from prosecution for soldiers and the death sentence for Palestinians convicted of attacks on Jews — Ben-Gvir did not serve in the military; he was issued an exemption because of his extremist ideology.
In the run-up to the election, Ben Gvir told public broadcaster Kan that he advocated dismantling the Palestinian self-rule government and annexing the West Bank, while simultaneously denying its roughly 2.5 million Palestinian residents the right to vote for Israel’s Knesset.
“There’s no such thing as Palestine, this is ours, this is our land,” he said.
Political scientist Shira Efron, who heads the Israel Policy Forum think tank, said she believes the rise of Ben-Gvir is a result of what she described as systematic incitement, mostly by Netanyahu and his Likud party, against Israel’s large Arab minority.
Ben-Gvir is “shrewd, charismatic and expresses what many Jewish Israelis sadly think but until now didn’t feel comfortable saying out loud,” she said.
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Associated Press writer Eleanor H. Reich contributed to this report.
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| 2022-10-31T00:33:27
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| 0.961175
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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Itaewon, the neighborhood where at least 151 people were killed in a Halloween crowd surge, is Seoul’s most cosmopolitan district, a place where kebab stands and BBQ joints are as big a draw as the pulsing night clubs and trendy bars.
Wedged between two of the city’s biggest parks and the War Memorial of Korea museum, Itaewon has long been popular among foreign residents and tourists thanks in large part to a major U.S. military base that was once nearby. The area’s nightlife is mostly centered on one main road.
In recent years, the days around Halloween have seen Itaewon’s lively streets filled with partygoers — expat and Korean alike — dressed up in holiday costumes. Those festivities continued even during the pandemic, which temporarily dampened Itaewon’s nightlife after several cases were traced to the area’s nightclubs and other venues.
Officials believe that tens of thousands of revelers flocked to Itaewon on Saturday, in one of the biggest gatherings since the country removed most of its COVID-19 restrictions in recent months. Witnesses say the streets were so densely clogged with people and slow-moving vehicles that it was practically impossible for emergency workers and ambulances to arrive in time, leaving them helpless to prevent the situation from developing into the country’s worst disaster in years.
On Saturday night, emergency workers were seen rushing to carry the injured and dead out in stretchers as ambulances lined up in the streets and a chaotic crowd fled the area. Paramedics and pedestrians frantically performed CPR on people in the streets near rows of lifeless bodies kept under blue blankets.
Park Ji-won, who runs a Middle Eastern restaurant across the street from Hamilton Hotel, said he saw emergency workers bring out people in stretchers among the huge throngs of crowds as he closed his restaurant around 11 p.m. He had no idea what just happened.
“I just presumed a fight broke out — in my 10-plus years of doing business here, I only saw ambulances when people got assaulted or when there were fires,” Park said.
He said he was “extremely shocked” when he got home and watched the news, which was when the death toll was at a dozen. “But then the death toll kept growing until it became 151,” he said.
Park said Itaewon always had large Halloween crowds, even during raging COVID-19 infections last year. He said shop owners like him usually avoid the narrow alley beside Hamilton Hotel during holiday festivities, because “once you go there, you cannot move or get out.”
For some people, it was the contrast between the normally lively, fun neighborhood and the mass death that was most striking.
“People were wearing Halloween costumes so the scene was so unrealistic,” said an official at an Itaewon tourism organization who rushed to the scene to try to help. She requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the incident.
While there’s not widespread Western-style trick-or-treat activities in South Korea, Halloween-themed parties and events have become increasingly popular among young South Koreans, and Itaewon is the country’s hottest spot for such events, where bars, clubs and restaurants hold costume competitions.
Itaewon’s international character was shaped by its proximity to a U.S. military garrison nearby. The area is still home to restaurants, bars and other businesses catering to the American community in Seoul.
The Yongsan Garrison, which served as the headquarters for the U.S. Forces Korea and the United Nations Command until 2017, is less than a mile away from Itaewon. The U.S. forces have since relocated their South Korean headquarters to Pyeongtaek, a city 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Seoul, leaving only a small contingent in Yongsan while beginning to hand over the land to the South Korean government.
Even after losing most of its American military customers, Itaewon has remained a major attraction for both South Koreans and foreign visitors, who are drawn to the district’s buzzing and boozy nightlife as well as its international flair. Restaurants serving American barbecue and Middle Eastern kebabs sit alongside Irish pubs and traditional Japanese-style bars.
“The Itaewon community has opened its arms to us for many years and is part of the reason our Alliance is so strong,” U.S. Forces Korea, which commands the nearly 30,000 American military personnel in the country, said in an online statement, written in English and Korean. “ During this time of grief, we will be there for you just as you have been there for us.”
The epicenter of the disaster appeared to be on a cramped, sloping alley running along the western side of the Hamilton Hotel, where some witnesses say people fell and toppled over one another like “dominoes.” The brick hotel and its adjacent shopping center are a well-known landmark in the area.
The lane would have left those seeking shelter with few options. One side is occupied by the mostly solid wall of the hotel. The other is lined with a handful of small storefronts, including bars, a small retail shop and a branch of the Emart24 convenience store chain.
The alley itself is on an incline that leads to one of the entrances to the busy Itaewon subway station, making it harder for revelers to maintain their footing as the crowd surged. The block-long alley links the main road with another narrow strip packed with bars and trendy restaurants.
One witness told local TV station YTN that he saw both foreigners and Koreans who’d been killed, and seemed amazed as the neighborhood filled with police vehicles and ambulances trying to help the injured and dying.
“It was like an abyss,” the man, who gave his name as Hwang Min-hyuk, said.
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Schreck reported from Bangkok.
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| 2022-10-31T00:33:33
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| 0.979294
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LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A female journalist was crushed to death Sunday in Pakistan while covering a political march led by former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a senior police officer said.
Sadaf Naeem, 36, a television journalist with Channel 5 in Lahore, was crushed to death after she slipped from the container truck Khan was traveling in, said Salman Zafar, assistant superintendent in Kamuke, one of the towns on the march’s path.
Khan’s convoy was making its way through Punjab province toward Islamabad on the march’s third day. The demonstrators were challenging Khan’s successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his government, demanding snap elections. It was the practice of Khan’s convoy team to invite a few journalists at a time onto the top of the truck to speak to Khan.
“Shocked & deeply saddened by the terrible accident that led to the death of Channel 5 reporter Sadaf Naeem during our March today,” Khan said in a tweet. “I have no words to express my sorrow. My prayers & condolences go to the family at this tragic time. We have cancelled our March for today.”
Sharif also expressed his condolences to Naeem’s bereaved family, announcing a roughly $20,000 donation to her relatives.
“Deeply saddened by the death of reporter Sadaf Naeem after falling from a long march container,” Sharif said in a tweet. “Cannot feel sad enough over this tragic incident. Heartfelt condolences to the family. Sadaf Naeem was a dynamic and hardworking reporter. We pray for patience for the family of the deceased.”
Naeem was the breadwinner for her family and had worked as a journalist for 12 years. Pakistani officials say they will bear the living costs and educational expenses of her two children, aged 17 and 21.
About 10,000 of Khan’s supporters, many of them piled into hundreds of trucks and cars, left from Lahore on Friday.
The convoy’s journey, expected to be capped with an open-ended rally in Islamabad, could present a significant challenge to the new administration. The rally could potentially also turn violent if police move in to disperse Khan’s supporters.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/ap-journalist-crushed-to-death-at-ex-pakistan-pm-khans-march/
| 2022-10-31T00:33:39
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| 0.982378
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PARIS (AP) — A French citizen working in wildlife conservation has been released after being abducted two days earlier in northeastern Chad, France announced Sunday.
“France thanks Chadian authorities who worked towards the release,” the Foreign Ministry said, adding that French diplomats remain “mobilized” to help Jerome Hugonnot and his family.
Hugonnot was working for the Sahara Conservation Fund in Chad’s Wadi Fara province that borders Sudan at the time of his abduction Friday by unknown kidnappers, according to the Chadian government spokesman Aziz Mahamat Saleh. A number of armed groups operate along the Chad-Sudan border.
The Sahara Conservation Fund and its partners have spent years in Chad working to reintroduce a species of desert antelope known as the scimitar-horned oryx.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/ap-kidnapped-french-conservationist-released-in-eastern-chad/
| 2022-10-31T00:33:45
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| 0.972861
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian students clashed with security forces at universities across Iran on Sunday, Iranian media reported, as videos showed security forces firing tear gas and live ammunition at students.
Sunday’s violence came as nationwide protests gripped the country despite threats from the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The Guard’s chief had warned young Iranians that Saturday would be the last day of the protests first sparked by the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police.
Clashes escalated at Azad University in Tehran, where Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported that some groups attacked a protest staged during a memorial ceremony for the victims of a deadly attack at a major Shiite holy site in southern Iran. Several students were injured in the clashes, Tasnim reported, without elaborating.
Videos on social media purportedly showed security forces firing tear gas at students shouting against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. University campuses have emerged as central hotbeds of opposition, playing a central role in the protest movement.
A video posted by the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights showed a member of the Basij, the Guard’s force of paramilitary volunteers, firing a pistol at close range at students protesting.
The human rights group said it strongly condemned, “the encroachment of university campuses by armed plainclothes forces and violent crackdown on peaceful student protests.”
Hardline, pro-government students in several universities across the country had gathered to commemorate a deadly Islamic State-claimed attack on a mosque in Shiraz that killed 13 people on Wednesday, including women and children. The ceremonies also drew masses of antigovernment protesters, including at Azad University.
“Freedom, freedom, freedom!” they chanted.
The Iranian government has repeatedly alleged that foreign powers have orchestrated the protests, without providing evidence. The protests have become one of the most serious threats to Iran’s ruling clerics since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The protests first focused on the state-mandated hijab, or headscarf, for women but quickly grew into calls for the downfall of Iran’s theocracy itself. At least 270 people have been killed and 14,000 have been arrested in the protests that have swept over 125 Iranian cities, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran.
Since October 24, the country’s authorities started hearing the cases of at least 900 protesters charged with “corruption on earth” — a term often used to describe attempts to overthrow the Iranian government that carries the death penalty.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/ap-more-clashes-at-irans-universities-after-weeks-of-unrest/
| 2022-10-31T00:33:47
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| 0.955581
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BERLIN (AP) — Mevlude Genc, who worked for reconcilition after five members of her family were killed in a racist attack that shook Germany in the early 1990s, has died.
Authorities in Northrhine-Westphalia state said Sunday that Genc died at 79, providing no further details.
Genc and her husband Durmus, who had immigrated from Turkey to Germany, lost two daughters, two granddaughters and a niece when far-right extremists set fire to their home in the western city of Solingen in 1993.
Four young Germans were later convicted of murder and attempted murder. They were sentenced to between 10 and 15 years in prison for the arson in which 17 people were also seriously injured.
The attack and others that occurred around the same period stoked international concerns about resurgent neo-Nazi sentiment following German unification in 1990. Many of the victims were Turkish immigrants who came to Germany as “guest workers” after World War II.
Despite her devastating loss, Genc appealed to Turks and Germans alike to overcome hatred and reach out to each other.
“The death of my family should open us up to be friends,” she said during a memorial ceremony shortly after the attack. “Let’s live together hand in hand.”
State governor Hendrick Wuest said Genc “embodied like few others the belief in the goodness of human beings.”
“Her legacy will live on,” he wrote on Twitter. “Our thoughts are with her family.”
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/ap-mother-who-sought-reconciliation-after-racist-attack-dies/
| 2022-10-31T00:33:53
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| 0.989677
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MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Victims of a huge mudslide set off by a storm in a coastal Philippine village that had once been devastated by a killer tsunami mistakenly thought a tidal wave was coming and ran to higher ground where they were buried alive by the boulder-laden deluge, an official said Sunday.
At least 20 bodies, including those of children, have been dug out by rescuers in the vast muddy mound that now covers much of Kusiong village in southern Maguindanao province, among the hardest-hit by Tropical Storm Nalgae, which blew out of the northwestern Philippines early Sunday.
Officials fear 80 to 100 more people, including entire families, may have been buried by the deluge or washed away by flash floods in Kusiong between Thursday night and early Friday, according to Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a Muslim autonomous region run by former separatist guerrillas.
Nalgae, which had vast rain clouds, left at least 73 people dead in eight provinces and one city in the Philippine archipelago, including in Kusiong, and a trail of destruction and flooding in one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
The catastrophe in Kusiong, populated mostly by the Teduray ethnic minority group, was particularly tragic because its more than 2,000 villagers have carried out disaster-preparedness drills every year for decades to brace for a tsunami because of a deadly history. But they were not as prepared for the dangers that could come from Mount Minandar, where their village lies at the foothills, Sinarimbo said.
“When the people heard the warning bells, they ran up and gathered in a church on a high ground,” Sinarimbo told The Associated Press, citing accounts by Kusiong villagers.
“The problem was, it was not a tsunami that inundated them but a big volume of water and mud that came down from the mountain,” he said.
In August 1976, an 8.1-magnitude earthquake and a tsunami in the Moro Gulf that struck around midnight left thousands of people dead and devastated coastal provinces in one of the deadliest natural disasters in Philippine history.
Lying between the Moro Gulf and 446-meter (1,464-foot) Mount Minandar, Kusiong was among the hardest hit by the 1976 catastrophe. The village never forgot the tragedy. Elderly villagers who survived the tsunami and powerful earthquake passed on the nightmarish story to their children, warning them to be prepared.
“Every year, they hold drills to brace for a tsunami. Somebody was assigned to bang the alarm bells and they designated high grounds where people should run to,” Sinarimbo said. “Villagers were even taught the sound of an approaching big wave based on the recollection of the tsunami survivors.”
“But there wasn’t as much focus on the geo-hazards on the mountainside,” he said.
Bulldozers, backhoes and payloaders were brought to Kusiong on Saturday with more than 100 rescuers from the army, police and volunteers from other provinces, but they were unable to dig at a spot where survivors said the church lay underneath because the muddy mound was still dangerously soft, officials said.
The national disaster-response agency reported 22 missing from the storm’s onslaught in several provinces. Sinarimbo said many of the missing in Kusiong were not included in the government’s official tally because entire families may have been buried and no member was left to provide names and details to authorities.
Army Lt. Col. Dennis Almorato, who went to the mudslide-hit community Saturday, said the muddy deluge buried about 60 rural houses in about 5 hectares (12 acres) of the community. He gave no estimate of how many villagers may have been buried but described the extent of the mudslide as “overwhelming” and said the nighttime disaster may have unfolded fast.
A regional army commander, Major Gen. Roy Galido, has been ordered to lead an emergency command center to head search and retrieval work in Kusiong, officials said.
The stormy weather in a large swath of the country prompted the coast guard to prohibit sea travel in dangerously rough seas as millions of Filipinos planned to travel over a long weekend for visits to relatives’ tombs and for family reunions on All Saints’ Day in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
More than 100 domestic and international flights were canceled, Manila’s international airport was briefly closed amid stormy weather and sea voyages in storm-whipped seas were prohibited by the coast guard, stranding thousands of passengers.
Floodwaters swamped many provinces and cities, trapping some people on their roofs, and more than 700 houses were damaged. More than 168,000 people fled to evacuation camps. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed disappointment over the high casualty toll in a televised meeting with disaster-mitigation officials Saturday.
“We should have done better,” Marcos Jr. said. “We were not able to anticipate that the volume of water will be that much so we were not able to warn the people and then to evacuate them out of the way of the incoming flash floods.”
About 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippine archipelago each year. It is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/ap-philippine-storm-victims-feared-tsunami-ran-toward-mudslide/
| 2022-10-31T00:33:59
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| 0.976548
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GOMA, Congo (AP) — Rwanda accused neighboring Congo of escalating tensions between the two countries on Sunday, a day after the Rwandan ambassador to Congo was given 48 hours to leave the country following rebel advances in the east.
Congo believes that Rwanda is supporting the M23 rebels, who have expanded their control over the past year. On Saturday, residents said the rebels gained control of two more towns, including Kiwanja.
In a statement issued after Rwandan Ambassador Vincent Karega was order to leave Congo, the Rwandan government said its forces along the border “remain on alert.”
“It is regrettable the government of the DRC continues to scapegoat Rwanda to cover up and distract from their own governance and security failures,” said the statement attributed to the Office of the Government Spokesperson.
In a sign of mounting tensions, about 100 demonstrators in Congo marched through the streets of Goma from the city center to the Rwandan border, denouncing “Rwandan aggression.” Some carried torn Rwandan flags and chanted hostile slogans. At the border, a Rwandan flag was set on fire.
The M23 rose to prominence more than a decade ago when its fighters seized Goma, the largest city in Congo’s east, which sits along the border with Rwanda. After a peace deal, many of M23′s fighters were integrated into the national military.
Then the group re-emerged last November, saying the government had failed to live up to its decade-long promises. By June, they had seized the strategic town of Bunagana near the border with Uganda.
M23 has been a flashpoint for relations between Congo and Rwanda: Many of the M23 fighters are Congolese ethnic Tutsis and Rwanda’s president is of Rwandan Tutsi descent.
In August, a report by U.N. experts said they had “solid evidence” that members of Rwanda’s armed forces were conducting operations in eastern Congo in support of the M23 rebel group.
Rwanda, though, has repeatedly denied the allegations and has accused Congolese forces of injuring several civilians in crossborder shelling.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/ap-rwanda-criticizes-expulsion-of-its-ambassador-from-congo/
| 2022-10-31T00:34:05
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| 0.970535
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PRAGUE (AP) — Tens of thousands of Czechs gathered in the capital on Sunday to demonstrate their solidarity with Ukraine and their support for democratic values.
The rally took place in reaction to three recent anti-government demonstrations where other protesters demanded the resignation of the pro-Western coalition government of conservative Prime Minister Petr Fiala for its support for Ukraine. Those earlier rallies also protested soaring energy prices and opposed the country’s membership in the European Union and NATO.
The organizers of the earlier rallies are known for spreading Russian propaganda and opposing COVID-19 vaccinations.
The people who turned out Sunday in Prague waved the Czech, Ukrainian and EU flags while displaying slogans that read “Czech Republic against fear” and “We will manage it.”
Sunday’s rally at central Wenceslas Square was organized by a group called Million Moments for Democracy, which was behind several rallies in support of Ukraine following the Feb 24 Russian invasion. The group also previously held massive rallies against the former prime minister, populist billionaire Andrej Babis, calling him a threat for democracy.
The group said the anti-government protests, which united the far right with the far left. exploited the people’s fear of inflation and the war in Ukraine and were trying to undermine democracy.
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, thanked those at the rallyin a video message. She said her country has been facing “the darkest moment in its history” but added hope that Russia’s aggression won’t succeed.
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Follow all AP stories on the impact of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/ap-tens-of-thousands-of-czechs-show-their-support-for-ukraine/
| 2022-10-31T00:34:07
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| 0.958463
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PREDAPPIO, Italy (AP) — Several thousand black-clad fascist sympathizers chanted and sang in praise of the late Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on Sunday as they marched to his crypt, 100 years after Mussolini entered Rome and completed a bloodless coup that gave rise to two decades of fascist rule.
The crowd of 2,000 to 4,000 marchers, many sporting fascist symbols and singing hymns from Italy’s colonial era, was more numerous than in the recent past, as the fascist nostalgics celebrated the centenary of the March on Rome.
On Oct. 28, 1922, black-shirted fascists entered the Italian capital, launching a putsch that culminated two days later when Italy’s king handed Mussolini the mandate to start a new government.
The crowd in Predappio, Mussolini’s birthplace and final resting place in the northern Emilia-Romagna region, also was apparently emboldened by the fact that a party with neo-fascist roots is heading an Italian government for the first time since World War II.
Organizers warned participants, who arrived from as far away as Rome, Belgium and the United States, not to flash the Roman salute used by the Fascists, or they would risk prosecution. Still, some couldn’t resist as the crowd stopped outside the cemetery where Mussolini is laid to rest to listen to prayers and greetings from Mussolini’s great-granddaughter, Orsola.
“After 100 years, we are still here to pay homage to the man this state wanted, and who we will never stop admiring,” Orsola Mussolini said, to cheers.
She listed her great-grandfather’s accomplishments, citing an infrastructure boom that built schools, hospitals and public buildings, reclaimed malaria-infested swamps for cities, and the extension of a pension system to non-government workers. She was joined by her sister Vittoria, who led the crowd in a prayer.
The crowd gave a final shout of “Duce, Duce, Duce!” Mussolini’s honorific as Italy’s dictator.
Anti-fascist campaigners held a march in Predappio on Friday, to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the town — and to prevent the fascists from marching on the exact anniversary of the March on Rome.
Inside the cemetery on Sunday, admirers lined up a handful at a time to enter his crypt, tucked away in a back corner. Each was given a memory card signed by his great-grandaughters with a photo of a smiling Mussolini holding his gloved hand high in a Roman salute. “History will prove me right,” the card reads.
Italy’s failure to fully come to terms with its fascist past has never been more stark than now, as Italy’s new Premier Giorgia Meloni seeks to distance her far-right Brothers of Italy party from its neo-fascist roots.
This week, she decried fascism’s anti-democratic nature and called its racial laws, which sent thousands of Italian Jews to Nazi death camps, “a low point.” Historians would also add Mussolini’s alliance with Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II and his disastrous colonial campaign in Africa to fascism’s devastating legacies.
Now in power, Meloni is seeking a moderate course for a new center-right government that includes Matteo Salvini’s League party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. But her victory gives far-right activists a sense of vindication.
“I would have voted for Lucifer if he could beat the left,” said organizer Mirko Santarelli, who heads the Ravenna chapter of the Arditi, an organization that began as a World War I veterans group and has evolved to include caretaking Mussolini’s memory. “I am happy there is a Meloni government, because there is nothing worse than the Italian left. It is not the government that reflects my ideas, but it is better than nothing.”
He said he would like to see the new Italian government do away with laws that prosecute incitement to hatred and violence motivated by race, ethnicity, religion and nationality. It includes use of emblems and symbols — many of which were present in Sunday’s march.
Santarelli said the law punishes “the crime of opinion.”
“It is used as castor oil by the left to make us keep quiet. When I am asked my opinion of Mussolini, and it is clear I speak well of him, I risk being denounced,” Santarelli said.
Lawyer Francesco Minutillo, a far-right activist who represents the organizers, said Italy’s high court established that manifestations are permissible as long as they are commemorative “and don’t meet the criteria that risks the reconstitution of the fascist party.”
Still, he said, magistrates in recent years have opened investigations into similar manifestations in Predappio and elsewhere to make sure they don’t violate the law. One such case was closed without charges last week.
To avoid having their message misrepresented, Santarelli asked the rank and file present not to speak to journalists. Most complied.
A young American man wearing a T-shirt with a hand-drawn swastika inside a heart and the words “Brand New Dream,’’ and a fascist fez said he had timed his European vacation to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the March on Rome so he could participate in the march in Predappio. He declined to identify himself, other than to say he was from New Jersey, and lamented there was no fascist group back home to join.
Rachele Massimi traveled with a group four hours from Rome on Sunday to participate in the event, bringing her 3-year-old who watched from a stroller.
“It’s historic,” Massimi said. “It’s a memory.”
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/ap-thousands-commemorate-italys-fascist-dictator-at-crypt/
| 2022-10-31T00:34:13
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| 0.971183
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LONDON (AP) — An attacker threw firebombs an immigration center in the English port town of Dover on Sunday before killing himself, officials said. Two other people were lightly injured in the attack and over 700 migrants had to be relocated.
The Kent Police force said “two to three incendiary devices” were thrown at the facility where recently arrived migrants are taken, and two people received “minor injuries.”
A news photographer at the scene said a man drove up and threw three gas bombs at the facility before driving to a nearby gas station and killing himself.
Police confirmed that “the suspect was identified, and very quickly located at a nearby petrol station, and confirmed deceased.” The force said “a further device was found and confirmed safe within the suspect’s vehicle.”
Local lawmaker Natalie Elphicke said “all the people who are at the center are being looked after and precautions are being made for their safety.”
Dover is the arrival point for many migrants who cross the English Channel from France in small boats. The number of people making the hazardous journey across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes has risen sharply in recent years, with 40,000 reaching the U.K. so far this year, up from 28,000 in all of 2021 and 8,500 in 2020.
Dozens have died, including 27 people in November 2021 when a packed smuggling boat capsized.
Britain and France have wrangled over how to stop the people-smuggling gangs that organize the journeys.
Britain’s Conservative government has announced a controversial plan to send people who arrive in small boats on a one-way journey to Rwanda. Critics say the plan is immoral and impractical, and it is being challenged in the courts.
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said he was being kept updated on the incident by police.
“My sympathies are with those involved and my thanks and admiration are with Kent Police and Border Force officers as they go about their essential work to keep us safe,” he said.
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Follow all AP stories on global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/ap-uk-police-say-gas-bombs-thrown-at-immigration-center-1-hurt/
| 2022-10-31T00:34:19
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| 0.984737
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TOKYO (AP) — As the United States and Japan further strengthen their military alliance, they’ve turned to farmers markets to foster friendlier ties between American military bases and their Japanese neighbors.
On Sunday, about 20 Okinawan farmers and vendors came to Camp Hansen, a Marine Corps base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, bringing locally grown spinach, pineapples, big lemons and other fresh vegetables and fruits that the U.S. embassy said attracted hundreds of customers.
U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, who proposed the event, said the market brought healthy, local produce to consumers at Camp Hansen, while providing Japanese farmers and businesses with new customers. He bought Okinawan spinach, according to the U.S. Embassy.
“A win-win for all,” Emanuel tweeted.
Fostering good relations with their host communities is important for the U.S. military based in Japan — especially in Okinawa where a heavy U.S. military presence has carried a fraught history.
Emanuel said in a statement he expects to see farmers markets foster a benefit between the Okinawan residents and American servicemembers who are contributing to the defense of Japan. He said he hopes to establish more farmers markets at other U.S. bases across Japan and hold them regularly.
Emanuel, a former congressman who served as former President Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff, tweeted that he later joined Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki at a festival of Okinawans gathering from around the world, including Americans of Okinawan descent, held every five years.
Okinawa was reverted to Japan from U.S. occupation in 1972. Today, a majority of the 50,000 U.S. troops based in Japan under a bilateral security pact, as well as 70% of U.S. military facilities, are still in Okinawa, which accounts for only 0.6% of Japanese land.
Many Okinawans who complain about noise, pollution, accidents and crime related to American troops are now concerned about a possible emergency in Taiwan — just west of Okinawa and its outer islands — as an increasingly assertive China raises tensions amid its rivalry with Washington.
Tamaki, who was reelected for his second four-year term in September, supports the bilateral security alliance but has made the reduction of U.S. military bases a key component of his platform.
Sunday’s launch of the farmers’ market on Okinawa came a week after one at the Yokota Air Base in the western suburbs of Tokyo.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/ap-us-uses-farmers-markets-to-foster-ties-at-bases-in-japan/
| 2022-10-31T00:34:26
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| 0.972461
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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — As he watched a dozen or more unconscious partygoers carried out from a narrow backstreet packed with youngsters dressed like movie characters, an overwhelmed Ken Fallas couldn’t process what was happening.
Fallas, a Costa Rican architect who has worked in Seoul for the past eight years, said Saturday’s Halloween festivities at the city’s nightlife district of Itaewon were a long-awaited occasion to hang out with fellow expats following years of COVID-19 restrictions
Instead, the 32-year-old became a front-row witness to one of the most horrific disasters South Korea has seen.
The smartphone video Fallas took following the deadly crowd surge shows groups of Halloween revelers carrying out their unconscious peers, one after another, from an alley near Hamilton Hotel, passing by throngs of people dressed in capes and Miyazaki movie costumes. Some people are seen administrating CPR to injured people on the pavement while others shout for help above blaring dance music.
Fallas said police and emergency workers were constantly pleading with people to step up if they knew how to give CPR because they were overwhelmed by the large number of the injured laid out on the street.
“I saw a lot of (young) people laughing, but I don’t think they were (really) laughing because, you know, what’s funny?” Fallas said. “They were laughing because they were too scared. Because to be in front of a thing like that is not easy. Not everyone knows how to process that.”
Fallas said he and his friends were trapped among the huge throngs of people pushing toward the alley when police officers began breaking the lines from behind to approach the injured. He said people near his group didn’t initially know what was happening.
“We were we were unable to move back. The music was loud. Nobody knew what was happening. People were still partying with the emergency happening in front of us,” he said. “We were like, ‘What’s going on from here, where we can go?’ There was no exit.”
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/international/ap-witness-recalls-harrowing-moment-of-seoul-crowd-surge/
| 2022-10-31T00:34:32
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| 0.991345
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HONG KONG (AP) — World leaders expressed sadness and condolences after at least 151 people were killed in a crowd surge Saturday night in Seoul, South Korea.
The tragedy occurred in Seoul’s Itaewon district during Halloween festivities when a huge crowd surged into a narrow downhill alley. At least 82 others were injured in the South Korea’s deadliest accident in years.
U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden sent their “deepest condolences” to the families of the deceased.
“We grieve with the people of the Republic of Korea and wish for a quick recovery to all those who were injured,” said President Biden in a tweet. “The United States stands with the Republic of Korea during this tragic time.”
Similarly, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the news from Seoul as “horrific” on Twitter.
“All our thoughts are with those currently responding and all South Koreans at this very distressing time,” Sunak wrote.
Itaewon’s international character was shaped by its proximity to a U.S. military garrison nearby. The area is still home to restaurants, bars and other businesses catering to the American community in Seoul.
U.S. Forces Korea, which commands the sizable American military presence in the country, expressed its condolences in a Facebook post.
“The Itaewon community has opened its arms to us for many years and is part of the reason our Alliance is so strong,” the command said, writing in English and Korean. “During this time of grief, we will be there for you just as you have been there for us.”
Pope Francis invited the crowd in St. Peter’s Square to pray for the victims.
“We pray the Risen Lord also for those — especially young people — who died last night in Seoul, due to the tragic consequences of a sudden crush,” Francis said after his Sunday’s Angelus prayer.
Leaders from countries including Japan, France, China and Singapore reacted with shock and sadness over the tragedy in Seoul.
“I’m hugely shocked and deeply saddened by the extremely tragic accident in Itaewon, Seoul, that took many precious lives, including those of young people with their future ahead of them,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in a tweet.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron — who tweeted in both French and in Korean — offered support to Seoul residents and South Korea.
“France is with you,” he said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed similar sentiments on Twitter, sending his “deepest condolences” to the people of South Korea “and wishing a fast and full recovery to those who were injured.”
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni tweeted: “Our thoughts are with the victims of the tragedy that occurred in Seoul and with their families. Italy is close to the Korean people at this time of great pain and deep sadness.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping also sent his condolences to South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, expressing shock over the accident in Seoul, according to a statement by the Chinese foreign ministry.
Hong Kong leader John Lee, in a statement on Facebook, hoped for swift recoveries for those injured in the crush.
“I express profound sorrow over the passing of the victims, extend my deepest condolences to their families and wish for a speedy recovery to all those who were injured,” said Lee.
Prince William and his wife Kate also sent a message of condolence. The heir to the British throne said on social media: “Catherine and I send all our love and prayers to the parents, families and loved ones of those tragically lost in Seoul yesterday evening.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said she was “heartbroken” by the tragic news from Seoul.
“They were looking for a night of lighthearted Halloween festivities but instead found real horror and death,” said Baerbock. “My thoughts are with the victims, their friends and families, and those who still fear for their loved ones.”
“This is a sad day for South Korea. Germany stands by their side,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a tweet.
Singapore’s President Halimah Yacob described the loss of lives as “tragic” and said it was “hard to imagine” the trauma and grief experienced by the families, loved ones and friends of those affected.
“My thoughts and prayers are with the people of South Korea during this difficult time, and I wish a quick and full recovery to all those who are injured,” she said.
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Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.
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| 2022-10-31T00:34:38
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ATLANTA (AP) — Black church leaders and activists in Georgia rallied Sunday in a push to get congregants to vote — a longstanding tradition known as “souls to the polls” that is taking on greater meaning this year amid new obstacles to casting a ballot in the midterm elections.
At Rainbow Baptist Church just outside Atlanta, about two dozen cars and a large bus emblazoned with the image of civil rights icon John Lewis formed a caravan in the parking lot. Teresa Hardy, an organizer with voting rights group The Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, led a prayer before the caravan set out for a polling site at a nearby mall.
Few people in the group actually cast a ballot there, but organizers said it was important to promote voting, particularly in the wake of new restrictions enacted by the state Legislature.
“Your rights are being taken away,” said Comarkco Blackett, a minister at Rainbow Baptist. “We have to get out, stand together across color boundaries.”
State lawmakers nearly did away with Sunday voting under a bill signed into law last year. The Republican-sponsored legislation followed former President Donald Trump’s false claims that voter fraud cost him reelection in 2020.
Though lawmakers backed off the Sunday voting ban, the bill shortened the time to request a mail ballot, rolled back the COVID-19 pandemic-driven expansion of ballot drop boxes, reduced early voting before runoff elections and prohibited groups from handing out food and water to voters in line.
Republicans said Georgia’s new law was necessary to restore confidence in the state’s election system. Civil rights advocates saw it as an attack on Black voters, who helped Democrats win the presidential contest in Georgia in 2020 for the first time since 1992 and later take the state’s two U.S. Senate seats. They are pushing back by redoubling efforts to turn out Black voters.
“No matter what barriers they try to put in place, we’re going to find a way for our people to get around those barriers so they can actually exercise their right to vote,” said Helen Butler, executive director of the People’s Agenda.
Sunday’s caravan ended at a strip mall, where several dozen people held signs encouraging passersby to vote. Georgia has experienced a significant jump in turnout during early voting, which runs through Nov. 4. As of Friday morning, more than 1.25 million voters had cast ballots in person, according to the secretary of state’s office, a jump of more than 50 percent from the 2018 midterm contest.
“Our ancestors fought far harder than we’re fighting,” said Rhonda Taylor, a leader in the AME Church in Atlanta who participated in Sunday’s rally. “We got to keep going.”
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta who is facing reelection in November, attended a separate “souls to the polls” event at a church in Atlanta.
“Souls to the polls” reflects the Black church’s central role in the fight for justice and freedom in the U.S., said W. Franklyn Richardson, chairman of the board of trustees of the Conference of National Black Churches.
Richardson said efforts like it are particularly critical this election cycle.
“It’s the cumulative accomplishment of our people that is being challenged and threatened that makes this such an urgent election,” he said.
The idea for “souls to the polls” goes back to the civil rights movement. The Rev. George Lee, a Black Mississippi entrepreneur, was assassinated by white supremacists in 1955 after he helped nearly 100 Black residents register to vote in the town of Belzoni.
It reflects a larger effort in the Black community to leverage the church for voting rights, said Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont.
In addition to motivating potential voters, pastors provide the “logistical support to get people to go directly from church service to go to vote,” he said.
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Fields reported from Washington.
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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz will be sentenced to life in prison this week — but not before the families of the 17 people he murdered get the chance to tell him what they think.
A two-day hearing is scheduled to begin Tuesday that will conclude with Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer formally sentencing Cruz for his Feb. 14, 2018, massacre at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Because the jury at his penalty trial could not unanimously agree that the 24-year-old deserved a death sentence, Scherer can only sentence the former Stoneman Douglas student to life without parole — an outcome most of the families criticized.
Each family of the 14 students and three staff members Cruz murdered can speak, as can the 17 people he wounded during the seven-minute attack. The families gave highly emotional statements during the trial, but were restricted about what they could tell jurors: They could only describe their loved ones and the murders’ toll on their lives. The wounded could only say what happened to them.
They were barred from addressing Cruz directly or saying anything about him — a violation would have risked a mistrial. And the jurors were told they couldn’t consider the family statements as aggravating factors as they weighed whether Cruz should die.
Now, the grieving and the scarred can speak directly to Cruz, if they choose.
“We are looking forward to speaking without the guardrails that were imposed upon us,” said Tony Montalto, whose 14-year-old daughter Gina was murdered.
Broward County Public Defender Gordon Weekes, whose lawyers represent Cruz, said he has no problem with the families expressing their anger directly to Cruz.
“Rightly so,” Weekes said. The sentencing hearing “is not only an accountability process, but there are also some cathartic pieces that come from it.”
“Hopefully, after expressing (their anger), not only will the community be able to hear the pain they are carrying, the court will be able to hear it and we will move forward.”
Cruz is not expected to speak, Weekes said. He apologized in court last year after pleading guilty to the murders and attempted murders — but families told reporters they found the apology self-serving and aimed at garnering sympathy.
That plea set the stage for a three-month penalty trial that ended Oct. 13 with the jury voting 9-3 for a death sentence — jurors said those voting for life believed Cruz is mentally ill and should be spared. Under Florida law, a death sentence requires unanimity.
Prosecutors had argued that Cruz planned the shooting for seven months before he slipped into a three-story classroom building, firing 140 shots with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle down hallways and into classrooms. He fatally shot some wounded victims after they fell. Cruz said he chose Valentine’s Day so it could never again be celebrated at Stoneman Douglas.
Cruz’s attorneys never questioned the horror he inflicted, but focused on their belief that his birth mother’s heavy drinking during pregnancy left him brain damaged and condemned him to a life of erratic and sometimes violent behavior that culminated in the massacre — the deadliest mass shooting to go to trial in U.S. history.
After Cruz is sentenced, he will be transferred from the Broward County jail to the state correctional system’s processing center near Miami, then later to a maximum-security prison, his lawyers have said. The Florida Department of Corrections declined to comment.
Ron McAndrew, a former Florida prison warden, believes that because of Cruz’s notoriety, officials at that prison will place him in “protective management,” separated from other inmates, to keep him from being harmed.
Cruz’s cell will be 9 feet by 12 feet (3 meters by 4 meters) with a bed, metal sink and metal toilet, McAndrew said. For one hour a day, he will be allowed alone into an outdoor cage that is usually 20 feet by 20 feet (6 meters by 6 meters) where he can exercise and bounce a basketball. Florida prisons do not have air conditioning. McAndrew noted that because Cruz has a life sentence, he will be last in line for education and rehabilitation programs.
Cruz will be kept in protective management until prison officials believe it is safe to place him into the general population, a process that could take years, McAndrew said. It is also possible that Florida could send Cruz to another state in exchange for one of its notorious prisoners, so both could have more anonymity, the former warden said.
But eventually, Cruz will be placed in the general population, McAndrew said. He will be required to bunk, work and mingle with other prisoners. At 5-foot-7 (1.4 meters) and 130 pounds (59 kilograms), Cruz could have difficulty defending himself — though he did attack and briefly pin a Broward jail guard. It is possible a more physically imposing prisoner could become his protector — “but that comes with a horrible price,” McAndrew said.
Linda Beigel Schulman, whose son, teacher Scott Beigel, was murdered by Cruz, said she hopes Cruz “has the fear in him every second of his life just the way he gave that fear to every one of our loved ones whom he murdered, or the students and people that he harmed.”
Craig Trocino, a University of Miami law professor, said one benefit of Cruz receiving a life sentence is that he will fade from public view; a death sentence would have brought a decade of appeals, with the possibility of a retrial, and eventually an execution. Each step would have been covered extensively.
“No one is going to hear about him anymore until he dies,” Trocino said.
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Three former Illinois prison guards face life behind bars after the 2018 fatal beating of a 65-year-old inmate in a case marked by the unpunished lies of other correctional officers who continue to get pay raises, records obtained by The Associated Press and court documents show.
Juries convicted Department of Corrections Officer Alex Banta in April and Lt. Todd Sheffler in August of federal civil rights violations owing largely to the cooperation of the third, Sgt. Willie Hedden. Hedden hopes for a reduced sentence — even though he admitted lying about his involvement until entering a guilty plea 18 months ago.
But Hedden’s account of what happened to Western Illinois Correctional Center inmate Larry Earvin on May 17, 2018, is not unique. Similar testimony was offered by six other correctional officers who still work at the lockup in Mount Sterling, 249 miles (400 kilometers) southwest of Chicago.
Like Hedden, all admitted under oath that initially, they lied to authorities investigating Earvin’s death, including to the Illinois State Police and the FBI. They covered up the brutal beatings that took place and led to Earvin’s death six weeks later from blunt-force trauma to the chest and abdomen, according to an autopsy reports.
Documents obtained by The AP under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act indicate that none of the guards has been punished for the coverup. Despite admitting their indiscretions, Lts. Matthew Lindsey and Blake Haubrich, Sgts. Derek Hasten, Brett Hendricks and Shawn Volk and Officer Richard Waterstraat have flourished — three have been promoted, one has been on paid leave, and on average, they’ve seen salary hikes of nearly 30% and increases in pension benefits.
Even if fired from their jobs now, they’d keep the extra money from salary hikes — tied to promotions or contractual agreement — and the accompanying boosts in retirement benefits.
Phone numbers associated with the officers are not connected, or messages weren’t returned. None has responded to a request through the Corrections Department to speak to them.
Corrections spokeswoman Naomi Puzzello said an internal review of the Earvin incident has been postponed until the federal probe is complete. She promised that Corrections will take “all appropriate steps” to punish misconduct. But it has no authority “to take past wages from an employee or impair a pension,” she said.
Banta and Sheffler are in federal custody, awaiting sentencing — Banta on Tuesday and Sheffler on Jan. 6. Hedden’s sentencing has not been scheduled.
Hedden testified in April that he ascribed to “the culture at Western” which called for roughing up troublemakers while escorting them to the segregation unit used to discipline inmates who break rules or threaten prison safety.
Western’s warden was replaced in 2020 in efforts that Gov. J.B. Pritzker said last spring were a part of changing the culture, which also have included initiatives to address the use of force and establish a more affirmative approach to inmates.
Accountability, however, matters, too, said Jennifer Vollen-Katz, executive director of the John Howard Association, a prison watchdog.
“There is a disturbing lack of transparency around staff discipline when it comes to Corrections,”Vollen-Katz said. “It’s really hard to have faith in culture change … when you have staff that behave like this and there seem to be little or no repercussions.”
The Justice Department also has a stake. Lying to the FBI is a felony. Timothy Bass, the U.S. attorney’s lead prosecutor on the case, said he couldn’t comment on whether there would be further prosecutions.
The officers whose stories changed only when the investigation intensified were clear about their reasons when testifying under oath at the trials.
“There’s an unwritten rule, the saying that goes around that ‘Snitches get stitches…,’” Volk testified, explaining his untruthful interview with the Illinois State Police the week following the Earvin incident. “You’re part of a brotherhood with everybody out there and you don’t want to be the guy that snitches.”
Lindsey was in charge of segregation that day and testified he saw Hedden, Sheffler and Banta bring Earvin into the segregation unit’s vestibule, where there are no security cameras. He was among several witnesses who reported seeing Earvin punched, kicked and stomped before motioning to Sheffler through an interior window to stop.
Lindsey told no one what he had seen. When the FBI called in late summer 2018, he lied for “fear of retaliation,” according to his recent testimony.
Since May 2018, Lindsey has been promoted and his salary has increased 42% to $105,756, according to records disclosed by Corrections.
Hasten, too, said he “was just scared of the retaliation,” adding that his wife also works at the prison. His salary has grown 17% to nearly $79,000 even after voluntarily changing to a lower-paying job at Western.
Hendricks and Volk were also in the segregation vestibule with Sheffler, Hedden and Banta. Hendricks testified that he was shocked by the violence against Earvin, who was handcuffed behind the back and face down on the ground. But when asked why he lied to investigators, he admitted: “I didn’t want to tell on my coworker.”
Hendricks has since received a promotion and pay increases totaling nearly 30%.
When state police officers talked to Haubrich, they were focused on rough treatment of Earvin that began in his housing unit. They were unaware that it had continued in the segregation entrance. But like Hendricks, Haubrich volunteered nothing about the brutality he had seen because he “was covering the backs of my fellow officers and brothers.”
Haubrich has been on paid leave from the prison since May 2018, watching his salary increase nearly 30% to $96,396. That’s also the case for Lt. Benjamin Burnett, escorted off the prison grounds days after the attack with Haubrich, along with Hedden and Banta.
Waterstraat, who’s been promoted with a 44% pay increase, didn’t come clean with authorities until faced with a grand jury.
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AP Researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed.
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Follow Political Writer John O’Connor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor
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CLIFTON, Va. (AP) — Robert F. Horan Jr., who secured a murder conviction of D.C. sniper Lee Boyd Malvo during his four-decade tenure as the top prosecutor in Virginia’s largest county, died on Friday at his home. He was 90.
The cause of Horan’s death at his home in Clifton, Virginia, wasn’t immediately determined, but he had been in hospice care, his wife, Monica Horan, said on Sunday.
Horan served as Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney for 40 years before retiring in 2007. He continued going into the county prosecutor’s office for years after his retirement because he loved practicing law and being a public servant, his wife said.
“He thought the community deserved to have someone who was looking after their interests, as well as the victim’s interests,” Monica Horan said. “And he felt that people who did evil things deserved to pay for the evil things they did.”
Malvo was 17 when he and John Allen Muhammad shot and killed 10 people in the Washington area over a three-week span in October 2002. Malvo was sentenced to life in prison without parole after a jury convicted him of capital murder but declined to impose the death penalty. Muhammad was executed in Virginia in 2009.
Former Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert worked with Horan on the sniper case, with Ebert prosecuting Muhammad and Horan prosecuting Malvo.
“He was the best trial lawyer I ever saw,” Ebert told the Washington Post.
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| 2022-10-31T00:35:02
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LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — A University of Kentucky student who was studying in South Korea was one of more than 150 people killed when a huge Halloween party crowd surged into a narrow alley in a nightlife district in Seoul, the school said Sunday.
Anne Gieske, a nursing student from northern Kentucky, died in the crush of people in the Itaewon area of Seoul on Saturday night, University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto said in a statement posted on the school’s website.
Gieske was studying in South Korea this semester with an education abroad program, Capilouto said. The university also has two other students and a faculty member there, but they have been contacted and they are safe, he said.
“We have been in contact with Anne’s family and will provide whatever support we can — now and in the days ahead — as they cope with this indescribable loss,” the statement said.
The university is located in Lexington, Kentucky. The school has offered online and phone resources for students who are grieving, including the services of a mental health clinician. The university has nearly 80 students from South Korea, the statement said.
“As a community, it is a sacred responsibility we must keep — to be there for each other in moments of sheer joy and in those of deepest sadness,” Capilouto said. “That is what compassionate communities do.”
It remained unclear what led the crowd to surge into the downhill alley, and authorities promised a thorough investigation. Witnesses said people fell on each other “like dominoes,” and some victims were bleeding from their noses and mouths while being given CPR.
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| 2022-10-31T00:35:08
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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The online commercials in a state senate race in some Raleigh, North Carolina, suburbs make an ominous claim, similar to one repeated across the country ahead of the Nov. 8 election: The Republican candidate “wants to strip away our reproductive rights.”
The Republican, Mark Cavaliero, says the Planned Parenthood-affiliated political action committee behind the ads is misrepresenting his views, which he says stop short of endorsing a complete abortion ban in one of the Southern states with the fewest abortion restrictions. “There should be some limit,” he said in an interview. “Where that limit is is up for discussion.”
The same theme is echoing in elections across the country in the first nationwide election since the U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that protected the right to abortion nationally.
Now, it’s a state-by-state question that’s the subject of ballot measures in some states and is a major issue in many elections across the U.S. on Nov. 8. Outcomes of elections for governors, state lawmakers, supreme court justices and attorneys general could determine abortion access. Beyond that, a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy has been proposed in Congress.
Abortion-rights groups and Democratic candidates are sounding alarms that Republicans would curtail access. Republicans, even those who have supported abortion bans, are campaigning mostly about other issues, including inflation and crime.
Still, it’s clear that certain Republican victories could result in abortion restrictions.
“We’ve got states like Kansas, Pennsylvania, even Georgia, and Wisconsin where the governor’s races or state legislature races could determine perhaps where these states go on abortion rights, even though abortion isn’t directly on the ballot,” said Linda Goler Blount, president of the Black Women’s Health Imperative.
Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, also says results from the election will shape abortion policy. “If Republicans are elected, we may be able to pass some measures,” she said in an interview.
In North Carolina, where both chambers of the legislature are under GOP control, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has twice vetoed bills that would have restricted abortion, which is currently barred after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with narrow exceptions for urgent medical emergencies for the pregnant woman.
The equation could change if Republicans can pick up two more seats in the state Senate and three in the House, giving the party enough members to override vetoes from Cooper, whose term runs another two years.
That’s why Planned Parenthood Action PAC North Carolina has been airing ads targeting Cavaliero and other Republicans in districts where voting margins are expected to be tight. It’s part of a nationwide campaign that planned to spend $50 million.
Democratic incumbent Sydney Batch recounted at a recent campaign event about how, when she was in the state House in 2019, she was present to vote against a veto override even though she was recovering from a mastectomy.
“My colleagues and I will continue to show up because we believe that medical decisions and bodily autonomy of every woman in North Carolina should be in their hands,” she said.
Cavaliero said he doesn’t want to ban abortion entirely and is not the “anti-abortion extremist” that the ad calls him.
“I take a very reasonable position,” he said. “I feel like at some point during the pregnancy, abortion becomes a real problem.”
While Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have supported restricting abortion, there’s no consensus on how to do it.
That’s been a theme since June’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling made bans into realities, leaving even abortion opponents divided on details.
The two states where lawmakers have passed new bans since June — Indiana, where enforcement is on hold amid a legal challenge, and West Virginia — did so only after debates that led to including exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
Polling has shown that most voters want abortion to remain legal. That was reflected in the first election on the issue since Roe was overturned, when Kansas voters rejected a ballot measure in August that would have allowed lawmakers to tighten restrictions or ban abortion.
Kansas Democrats are rallying voters by focusing on abortion access.
At a recent meeting in the town of Wamego, local Democrats wrote postcards to voters urging them to protect abortion rights. Kathy Swenson, a 71-year-old retired teacher, summarized the message: “If you think your rights are protected just because of Aug. 2, you’re wrong.”
Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat in a state where Republicans control the Legislature, is seeking re-election. Her Republican opponent, Derek Schmidt, and the GOP candidate for attorney general, Kris Kobach, have promised to defend existing restrictions against any court challenges.
Three years after a state supreme court ruling that found the Kansas Constitution protects abortion rights, Kansans for Life is urging supporters to vote against retaining five of the six justices who are on the ballot.
Also being closely watched is the governor’s race in Arizona, where a ban on abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation is in effect while courts decide whether to allow enforcement of a law that would ban abortions at all stages of pregnancy.
In Pennsylvania, the election of a new governor could keep the status quo — abortions allowed up to 24 weeks — or install a Republican-controlled government that would be expected to roll back abortion rights. The current governor, Democrat Tom Wolf, has vetoed restrictions passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature.
Democratic candidate Josh Shapiro has made abortion access a prominent feature of his campaign, raising it at a recent event with union members in Philadelphia. “The other side, they love to talk a good game about freedom, right?” Shapiro said. “Let me tell you something: it’s not freedom to tell women what they’re allowed to do with their bodies.”
Republican Doug Mastriano used his opposition to abortion to help win the primary, saying “life” was the most important issue. He has downplayed that view during the general election campaign, dropping it from his stump speech and handing the microphone to his wife, Rebecca, to bring it up.
“As conservatives, as Republicans we very much believe in women’s rights,” she told a rally in Erie in October. “In fact, we carry the torch on that. First of all, we believe in a woman’s right to be born.”
Since the Supreme Court ruling, bans on abortion at any stage of pregnancy have been adopted or kicked in in a dozen states. In a 13th, Wisconsin, clinics have stopped providing abortions amid uncertainty about whether an 1849 ban applies.
There, Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul is suing to overturn the ban — a move supported by the Democratic governor, Tony Evers. Both are up for election this year in a state where Republicans control the Legislature.
The GOP candidate for governor, Tim Michels, supported the ban during the primary. He now says that if he’s elected, he would sign a bill granting exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
In liberal Oregon, one of a handful of states with no abortion restrictions, the issue looms large in the gubernatorial election.
Republican Christine Drazan says she would follow the law if elected governor in a state that has helped fund abortion care for women throughout the Northwest.
In a September debate, Democrat Tina Kotek said that’s not enough.
“A governor can do a lot of damage even if there’s a law on the books: stopping agencies, not being a champion, not moving resources to help Oregonians,” she said.
___
Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Andrew Selsky in Salem, Oregon; and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this article.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The man accused of attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband carried zip ties with him when he broke into the couple’s San Francisco home, according to a person briefed on the investigation, in what is the latest parallel to the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021.
The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the Pelosi case and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Sunday.
The attack on Democratic leader’s 82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, less than two weeks before before the Nov. 8 election that will determine control of Congress as well as key statewide and local offices, was an unsettling reminder of the nation’s toxic political climate. With threats to public officials at an all-time high, members of Congress were being urged to reach out for additional security resources, including increased police patrols of their neighborhoods.
U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said in a weekend memo to lawmakers that the attack “is a somber reminder of the threats elected officials and families face in 2022.”
Police in San Francisco said the assault of Paul Pelosi was intentional. Authorities said the suspect, identified as David DePape, 42, confronted Paul Pelosi in the family’s Pacific Heights home early Friday and, the AP has reported, demanded to know, “Where is Nancy?”
The two men struggled over a hammer before officers responding to a 911 call to the home saw DePape strike Paul Pelosi at least once, police said. DePape was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, elder abuse and burglary. Prosecutors plan to announce the charges on Monday during a new conference and expect his arraignment on Tuesday.
Eerie echoes of the Jan. 6 riot were apparent in the incident at the Pelosi home.
Rioters who swarmed the Capitol trying to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump roamed the halls and shouted menacingly, demanding “Where’s Nancy?” Some in the siege were seen inside the Capitol carrying zip ties. The presence of the zip ties on the suspect in Paul Pelosi’s assault was first reported by CNN.
Nancy Pelosi was in Washington when her husband was attacked at home. She soon returned to San Francisco, where her husband was hospitalized. He had surgery for a skull fracture, and suffered other injuries to his arms and hands, her office said.
“Our children, our grandchildren and I are heartbroken and traumatized by the life-threatening attack on our Pop,” she said in a letter late Saturday to colleagues. “We are grateful for the quick response of law enforcement and emergency services, and for the life-saving medical care he is receiving.”
Paul Pelosi remains hospitalized and “continues to improve,” she told colleagues.
With Election Day nearing and Trump relentlessly promoting claims he did not lose to Biden in 2020, federal agencies warned on Friday that domestic extremists fueled by election falsehoods “pose a heightened threat” to the midterms. The Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies said the greatest danger was “posed by lone offenders who leverage election-related issues to justify violence.”
Biden and other officials, Democrats and Republicans, condemned the attack on Paul Pelosi and said violence has no home in American politics.
“Enough is enough is enough,” Biden said while campaigning in Pennsylvania on Friday night.
Trump, in an interview taped Friday with Americano Media, a conservative Spanish-language network, called the attack on Paul Pelosi a “terrible thing,” but the former president also tried to link it to crime in U.S. cities.
For years, Republicans have tried to make Pelosi a campaign boogeyman, using the 82-year-old’s image as a recurring caricature in countless ads against Democrats, including many now airing in races nationwide during a hostile election season.
The head of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, said Sunday it was “unfair” to blame the GOP for creating a political climate that could have laid the ground for such an attack.
“You can’t say people saying, ‘Let’s fire Pelosi’ or ‘Let’s take back the House” is saying go do violence,” she told “Fox News Sunday.”
The House GOP’s campaign chief, Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, was asked during a Sunday interview about a tweet promoting his own video, which shows him shooting a gun at an indoor target.
“Enjoyed exercising my Second Amendment rights,” Emmer tweeted, mentioning he was with two House GOP candidates. The video includes the imagery and sounds of the rifle being fired. The tweet was posted Wednesday, before Paul Pelosi was assaulted, and said: “13 days to make history. Let’s #FirePelosi.”
Emmer said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he was just “exercising our Second Amendment rights, having fun.”
Both McDaniel and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California said Paul Pelosi’s assailant was “deranged.”
McCarthy said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that violence or the threat of violence “has no place in our society.”
Five years ago, a left-wing activist opened fire on Republicans as they practiced for an annual charity baseball game. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana was critically wounded. In 2011, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in the head at an event outside a Tucson grocery store.
Elon Musk jumped into the debate Sunday tweeting, then deleting, a link to a fringe website with an unfounded rumor about the attack on Speaker Pelosi’s husband. Sent to his millions of followers, Musk’s tweet came just days after his purchase of Twitter fueled concerns that the social media platform would no longer seek to limit misinformation and hate speech.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who leads the Senate committee overseeing security at the Capitol, said lawmakers are considering new measures, including taking their private information off the internet.
Klobuchar, D-Minn., noted, however that Nancy Pelosi “has been villainized for years and, big surprise, it’s gone viral, and it went violent.”
“I think it is really important that people realize that it is not just this moment of this horrific attack, but that we have seen violence perpetrated throughout our political system,” Klobuchar told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, Seung Min Kim in Wilmington, Delaware, and Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-ap-source-pelosi-attacker-carried-zip-ties-in-jan-6-echo/
| 2022-10-31T00:35:20
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-lakers/articles/41318380
| 2022-10-31T00:35:25
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration is taking stock of a newly empowered Xi Jinping as the Chinese president begins a third, norm-breaking five-year term as Communist Party leader. With U.S.-Chinese relations already fraught, concerns are growing in Washington that more difficult days may be ahead.
Xi has amassed a measure of power over China’s ruling party unseen since Mao Zedong, the leader from 1949 until his death in 1976. Xi’s consolidation of power comes as the United States has updated its defense and national security strategies to reflect that China is now America’s most potent military and economic adversary.
Biden takes pride in having built rapport with Xi since first meeting him more than a decade ago, when they served as their countries’ vice presidents. But Biden now faces, in Xi, a counterpart buoyed by a greater measure of power and determined to cement China’s superpower status even while navigating strong economic and diplomatic headwinds.
“We’re not back in the Mao era. Xi Jinping is not Mao,” said Jude Blanchette, chair of China studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But we are definitely in new territory and unpredictable territory in terms of the stability and predictability of China’s political system.”
Biden and Xi are expected to hold talks on the sidelines of next month’s Group of 20 summit in Indonesia, a long-anticipated meeting that would come after nearly two years of tense relations. The leaders are dug into winning the upper hand in a competition that both believe will determine which country is the leading global economic and political force driving the next century.
“There’s an awful lot of issues for us to talk to China about,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. He added that U.S. and Chinese officials have been working to arrange a meeting of the leaders, though one has yet to be confirmed. “Some issues are fairly contentious and some should be collaborative,” Kirby said.
Biden and Xi traveled together in the U.S. and China in 2011 and 2012, and they have held five phone or video calls since Biden became president in January 2021. But the U.S.-China relationship has become far more complicated since those getting-to-know-you talks over meals in Washington and on the Tibetan plateau a decade ago.
As president, Biden has repeatedly taken China to task for human rights abuses against the Uyghur people and other ethnic minorities, Beijing’s crackdowns on democracy activists in Hong Kong, coercive trade practices, military provocations against self-ruled Taiwan and differences over Russia’s prosecution of its war against Ukraine.
Xi’s government has criticized the Biden administration’s posture toward Taiwan — which Beijing looks eventually to unify with the communist mainland — as undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Chinese president also has suggested that Washington wants to stifle Beijing’s growing clout as it tries to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy.
“External attempts to suppress and contain China may escalate at any time,” Xi warned in his address before the Communist Party congress. “We must therefore be more mindful of potential dangers, be prepared to deal with worst-case scenarios, and be ready to withstand high winds, choppy waters and even dangerous storms.”
Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago who researches Chinese politics, said there are some potentially stabilizing developments emerging in the relationship after months of rancor.
Two of China’s best-known diplomats in Washington were elevated at the Communist Party meeting. Foreign Minister Wang Yi was selected for the Communist Party’s Politburo, the policymaking body made up of the 24 most senior officials. China’s ambassador to the U.S., Qin Gang, is joining its central committee. Their elevation should bring a measure of continuity to the U.S.-China relationship, Yang said.
Yang noted there has also been an effort on the part of the Communist Party leadership to “tone down its warm embrace of Russia.” Last month, after meeting with Xi on the sidelines of a summit in Uzbekistan, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Xi had expressed “concern and questions” about the war in Ukraine.
With his third term confirmed, “in some ways, Xi is now freer to act and less encumbered in terms of no longer having to always watch what his rivals are doing,” Yang said. “I think that actually may affect his approach and may make him more comfortable in dealing with Biden.”
White House officials have played down hopes that Xi’s new five-year hold on the Communist Party could give him breathing room to more fully engage on matters where China has some overlapping interests with the U.S.
Biden, during a meeting with Defense Department officials on Wednesday, stressed that the U.S. was “not seeking conflict” with China. Hours later, Chinese state television reported Xi told members of the national committee on U.S.-China relations that Beijing should find ways to work with Washington on issues of mutual concern.
The conciliatory moment was short-lived.
The following day, U.S. and Chinese officials were trading rhetorical shots about the U.S. move earlier this month to expand export controls on the sale of advanced semiconductor chips to China.
“The U.S. has overstretched the national security concept and suppressed China’s development, and normal business cooperation has been politicized and weaponized,” Wang Hongxia, counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told reporters.
Her comments came not long after a top Commerce Department official, Undersecretary Alan Estevez, said at a Washington forum that “if I was a betting person, I would put down money” on the U.S. imposing additional export controls on China.
China’s economy is slowing, with Beijing reporting this month that growth for the first nine months of the year was 3%, putting it on pace to fall well below its official full-year target of 5.5%. The country’s economy is also dragging from strict “zero” COVID rules, and Beijing is confronting a deceleration in exports and home prices that fell to a seven-year low in September.
It also faces increased competition from a U.S. and European Union that are investing tens of billions of dollars to compete on semiconductors and other technologies. All of this points to the possibility that China might not eclipse U.S. gross domestic product by 2030 as many economists have forecast.
Ruchir Sharma, chairman of Rockefeller International, recently concluded that with its likely growth trajectory China would exceed the U.S. economy by 2060, if it manages to do so at all.
At the same time, Secretary of State Antony Blinken as well as the U.S. chief naval operations officer, Adm. Mike Gilday, have recently expressed concern that Beijing may try to step up its timeline to seize Taiwan. Blinken said China had made “a fundamental decision that the status quo was no longer acceptable.”
China has largely refrained from criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine, but also has held off on supplying Moscow with arms. Still, the conflict has raised concerns in Taiwan that China — which has never controlled the island — might be further emboldened to move on its long-stated plan for unification.
U.S.-China tensions have been further enflamed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August visit to Taiwan and Biden’s remark in May that the U.S. military would defend Taiwan in case of an attack by China, comments the White House later played down.
“What’s concerning now is that with Xi’s unlimited power and ambition, he may use Taiwan to distract from his internal problems,” said Keith Krach, a former undersecretary of state during the Trump administration. “I hope he’s looked at the courage of the Ukrainians and reckoned that the people of Taiwan are just as courageous, perhaps even more so.”
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Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of China at: https://apnews.com/hub/china
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| 2022-10-31T00:35:26
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will take up the issue of affirmative action again Monday — the second time in six years — but with the conservative majority now generally expected to end the use of race in higher education admissions.
That would be a major shift for the court, which first ruled in favor of affirmative action policies in admissions in 1978. The earlier cases on affirmation action are each known by a single name: Bakke, Grutter, Gratz and Fisher.
During arguments Monday in cases involving North Carolina and Harvard, those names may be used as shorthand for the cases they represent. But real people are behind them.
A look at what they have done since the Supreme Court made their names synonymous with the issue of race in higher education:
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 1978
Allan Bakke was in his 30s when he applied to the medical school at the University of California, Davis. Rejected twice, Bakke sued. He said the school’s decision to set aside 16 seats for minority students in a class of 100 discriminated against him as a white man. The Supreme Court agreed and ordered him admitted. But the court allowed the use of race as a factor in admission if it was part of an overall evaluation of an applicant. Bakke graduated in 1982 and worked for years as an anesthesiologist in Minnesota. He has kept out of the spotlight since his case.
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Grutter v. Bollinger, 2003
Barbara Grutter was Michigan resident who applied to the University of Michigan Law School in 1996. Grutter, who is white, had a 3.8 grade point average but was rejected. She sued for discrimination, claiming the school’s policies gave certain minority students a significantly greater chance of admission. The Supreme Court said in a 5-4 decision that the law school’s admissions policy, which considered race as one factor in admissions, was not illegal. The decision allowed the continued use of race in admissions.
The Bollinger in the case was Lee Bollinger, who was sued in his capacity as the university’s then-president. Bollinger, now Columbia University’s president, told reporters recently that he is “worried about the outcome” of the current cases.
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Gratz v. Bollinger, 2003
The companion case to Grutter’s involved Jennifer Gratz, a white woman denied undergraduate admission to Michigan. Unlike Grutter, Gratz won her case. The Supreme Court agreed that the school’s undergraduate admissions system was flawed because it relied too heavily on race.
Frustrated that affirmative action survived anyway, Gratz was instrumental in Michigan’s passage of Proposal 2, which ended race-based preferences in state university admissions. The ban survived its own trip to the Supreme Court. Gratz went on to open a microbrewery in Florida with her husband.
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Fisher v. University of Texas, 2013 and 2016
Abigail Fisher is Supreme Court famous twice over. Fisher, who is white, sued after being rejected in 2008 from the University of Texas at Austin. A cello player who also participated in math competitions and did volunteer work, she graduated just shy of the top 10% of her class. She argued the university’s policy discriminated against her because of race, in violation of the Constitution.
Her first Supreme Court case was inconclusive. Three years later, when her case returned to the court, the justices in a narrow ruling upheld the school’s use of affirmative action. Only seven justices ruled in the case, however, because Justice Antonin Scalia had died and Justice Elena Kagan was recused.
Fisher, who has called herself an “introverted person,” graduated from Louisiana State University in 2012 and worked in finance, but she hasn’t given up on the affirmative action issue. Now in her 30s she’s one of the leaders of Students for Fair Admissions, the group that brought the UNC and Harvard cases to the high court. The group’s head is Edward Blum, a former stockbroker who also financially backed Fisher’s original case and other race-based Supreme Court cases.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the Supreme Court at: https://apnews.com/hub/supreme-courts
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-from-bakke-to-fisher-evolution-of-affirmative-action-cases/
| 2022-10-31T00:35:27
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-lakers/articles/41318706
| 2022-10-31T00:35:31
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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The two North Carolina Supreme Court seats up for election in November have taken on extra significance as the outcome could flip the court’s partisan makeup during a period of political polarization.
Registered Democrats hold a 4-3 advantage on the court, but Republicans would retake the majority for the first time since 2016 should they win at least one race. The seats carry eight-year terms, so barring unplanned retirements, Republicans would be assured of keeping the upper hand for at least 4 1/2 years if successful.
Outside groups are spending big to influence the races. In the two largest television markets alone, two super PACs have committed spending roughly $3 million on ads, according to documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission.
In keeping with nonjudicial elections this year, ads have focused on crime and abortion.
North Carolina is among a handful of states with intense high court races after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision giving states the power to decide the legality of abortion. Abortions are legal in North Carolina through 20 weeks of pregnancy — with some health exceptions afterward — making the state an option for women from more restrictive states nearby.
Court of Appeals Judges Richard Dietz, a Republican, and Lucy Inman, a Democrat, are looking to succeed retiring Associate Justice Robin Hudson. And Associate Justice Sam Ervin IV, a Democrat, is seeking reelection against Republican Trey Allen, currently general counsel for the state court system.
State Republican Party materials label Allen and Dietz as “conservative judges.” And at a recent Democratic Party rally, Gov. Roy Cooper urged Inman and Ervin’s election “because they are going to be fair and follow the law.”
In interviews, the four candidates offered commitments of ruling without partisan and ideological agendas if elected.
“My vote in each case will be based on my best understanding of the law and the facts, and my personal politics would not enter into the equation,” Allen said.
Ervin, the grandson of late Watergate committee chairman Sen. Sam Ervin Jr., said he’s already met that standard during his appellate career, calling himself “pretty allergic to ideological labels.”
Beyond usual legal conflicts, justices could hear challenges to policies enacted by a Republican-controlled General Assembly that could earn veto-proof majorities in November. Those could include legislation on voting, guns and abortion that Cooper has stopped by threatened or actual vetoes since 2019. Lawmakers also must redraw congressional districts, which aren’t subject to veto.
North Carolina Republican leaders plan to consider further restrictions on abortion in 2023 but haven’t reached a consensus.
The liberal-leaning North Carolina Families First PAC jumped on the abortion issue, running a television ad accusing Allen and Dietz of having “extreme views” that “could allow lawmakers to criminalize abortions, forcing women and girls to give birth.”
Judges and judicial candidates are subject to rules designed to ensure impartiality on issues they could rule on. Allen and Dietz said they would approach any case without presumptions on how they’d rule.
“When I see ads like that, I am disappointed because I think it is reinforcing this idea to the public that judges have already made up their minds,” Dietz said.
Commercials from the outside group Stop Liberal Judges contend one ruling written by Inman and another agreed to by Ervin that blocked certain convicted child sex offenders from being tracked electronically for decades are proof they’re “not protecting our children.”
Inman, who joined the Court of Appeals in early 2015 and ran unsuccessfully for Supreme Court in 2020, called them a “false and misleading smear” that belies her record as both a trial and appellate judge.
“It is wrong and the antithesis of the law to exploit child victims for political gain,” she said.
The elections come near the end of a two-year court term marked by several high-profile split decisions — favoring the Democratic majority — involving redistricting, voter ID and criminal justice cases.
Democratic politicians and allies have praised such majority opinions as victories for equality and justice. Dissenting opinions from Republican justices have been acerbic at times, accusing the other side of judicial activism.
“It has been a very difficult and challenging term of court,” former Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr said.
While not speaking about specific cases, Ervin pushed back on the idea that partisanship has seeped through majority opinions.
“To say that a group of people who votes together are voting for partisan purposes is not really a fair accusation in the absence of some showing that the decision that’s under consideration was not legally supported,” said Ervin, who if reelected would have to step down in late 2027 for mandatory retirement at age 72.
Allen and Dietz have highlighted the court’s perceived public image.
“I’ve become increasingly concerned about what I believe is a growing public perception that the court is acting or has been acting more as a political body than as a legal body,” said Allen, who as general counsel works under Republican Chief Justice Paul Newby.
Dietz said he’s never written a dissenting opinion since joining the Court of Appeals in 2014, which reflects his willingness to work with colleagues.
“How you get stronger decisions and also how you reassure the public that justice is being done is by bringing people together and reaching that result that everyone agrees on,” Dietz said.
Inman said there’s been good reason for her dissenting opinions, some of which were ultimately adopted by the Supreme Court.
“It’s better to have experience knowing when you have to stand up for the law, and going along to get along does not serve that purpose,” she said.
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-high-stakes-in-n-carolina-court-races-with-majority-on-line/
| 2022-10-31T00:35:33
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MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Karoline Leavitt recalls being in her New Hampshire college dining hall in 2018, filling out an application for a White House intern job while her friends were tailgating at a football game.
“I remember thinking, ‘If I made this opportunity, it’s worth missing any football game in the world,’” she told The Associated Press in an interview.
She got the job. That eventually led to a position in President Donald Trump’s White House press office, then another as communications director for Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.
Inspired by Stefanik, the youngest woman elected to Congress when she won in 2014 at age 30, Leavitt is now running for a House seat of her own. At age 25, she could make history on Election Day, Nov. 8: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., won at 29 in 2018.
Leavitt, an unabashed pro-Trump Republican, would also be the youngest person in the next session of Congress if she were to defeat two-term Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in one of the most competitive races this year. Leavitt is seven months younger then fellow Gen Z candidate Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Florida Democrat favored in his race.
The New Hampshire contest will test the appeal of a far-right candidate in a Democratic-leaning state in a midterm election that historically has served as a referendum on the current president.
The 1st Congressional District has a history of switching between parties. It flipped five times in seven elections before Pappas, now 42, won the open seat in 2018. The district includes Manchester, the state’s most populous city, Portsmouth on the Seacoast and rural communities farther north.
Leavitt won her 10-way Republican primary in September in part by going to the right of the other candidates, including Matt Mowers, the party’s 2020 nominee. Mowers also worked in the Trump administration and has said he believed there were voting irregularities in the 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
“I consistently continue to be the only candidate in this race who says that I believe the 2020 election was undoubtedly stolen from President Trump,” Leavitt said during a debate a week before the primary.
Numerous federal and local election officials of both parties, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no evidence of that. Trump recently endorsed Leavitt, calling her “fantastic.”
“Matt Mowers had solid Trump credentials,” said Dante Scala, a University of New Hampshire professor of political science. “And yet she managed to out-Trump him … and that meant also expressing a lie about a stolen election without reservation.”
Pappas called Leavitt extreme and said her claims about the 2020 election “are not based in truth or reality” and are “dangerous.” Leavitt contends that Pappas and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., “are the real extremists,” citing their support for a federal elections bill named after the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., that would have created national automatic voter registration, allowed all voters to cast ballots by mail and weakened voter ID laws, among other things.
Leavitt has been campaigning for stronger parental rights in schools and increased domestic energy production. She has the endorsement of Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, a moderate who backed Trump’s reelection bid.
“Washington is broken, and it won’t get fixed if we keep sending the same people back there,” said Sununu, who lives in the 1st District. “Karoline Leavitt is the new voice and principled vote New Hampshire needs in Congress.”
Pappas and Leavitt have little in common beyond backgrounds in family small businesses — his at a restaurant known for its ice cream, hers working at an ice cream stand and at a used truck and car dealership.
The two have sparred over inflation, the future of Social Security and abortion.
Leavitt contends that the Inflation Reduction Act, which Pappas voted for, will actually increase inflation at a time when families are struggling.
Pappas notes that the new law has capped out-of-pocket costs for older adults on Medicare and provides energy rebates for businesses and families. He said it is fully paid for, will lower energy and health costs costs, and will reduce the deficit by $1.9 trillion over 20 years.
On Social Security, Pappas has accused Leavitt of wanting to privatize it “and gamble it on the stock market.” Leavitt said she would work to protect the benefits of anyone who has paid into the system and is open to “alternative solutions that will ensure a better future for your children and grandchildren.” She said Pappas wants to raise taxes on high earners to continue supporting Social Security.
On abortion, Pappas said he would support the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would protect the right to access abortion care nationwide after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Leavitt pledged on her campaign website to be a “fearless pro-life advocate” if elected to Congress. She said she supports having state legislatures make decisions on abortion regulations and would oppose a federal abortion ban.
As a contrast to Leavitt, who has never held elected office, Pappas notes his bipartisan record in Congress and his “People Over Party” coalition of supporters that include Republicans, former Republicans and independents.
“Her professional background is as Donald Trump’s spin doctor in the White House,” Pappas said. “She’s never worked with Democrats on anything.”
Kathleen Sullivan, former chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, wrote in a column in the New Hampshire Union Leader that “it is difficult to see Leavitt working with Democrats in the way that Pappas has worked with Republicans.” She cited Leavitt’s references to Democrats as “radical, power-hungry socialists” and previous comments that climate change is “a manufactured crisis” created by the Democrats.
Leavitt says her experience working in the White House prepared her well for Congress, with the West Wing “perhaps one of the most fast paced, high pressure work environments there is.”
She says her youth would be an advantage in Congress.
“There’s people on both sides of the aisle that have been down there literally twice as long as I have been alive,” said Leavitt, who campaigned at college campuses, including her alma mater, Saint Anselm College in Manchester. “That’s a problem for our republic. That’s a problem for your young voters who really want a voice.”
Stefanik, now the third-ranking Republican in the House, endorsed Leavitt early on, calling her a “rising star in the Republican Party who will carry the torch of conservative values for generations to come.” Leavitt credits Stefanik with encouraging her to mount a campaign.
“Nobody told her she was going to win, but she believed in herself,” Leavitt said. “That was very inspiring to me. And I thought, ‘Why can’t I do that from my own home district?’”
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Learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections. And follow the AP’s election coverage of the 2022 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-leavitt-25-cites-youth-in-bid-to-be-youngest-congresswoman/
| 2022-10-31T00:35:39
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| 0.974706
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/san-antonio-spurs/articles/41317553
| 2022-10-31T00:35:44
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk on Sunday tweeted a link to an unfounded rumor about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, just days after Musk’s purchase of Twitter fueled concerns that the social media platform would no longer seek to limit misinformation and hate speech.
Musk’s tweet, which he later deleted, linked to an article by a fringe website, the Santa Monica Observer, an outlet that has previously asserted that Hillary Clinton died on Sept. 11 and was replaced with a body double.
In this case, the article recycled a baseless claim that the personal life of Paul Pelosi, the speaker’s husband, somehow played a role in an intruder’s attack last week in the couple’s San Francisco home, even though there is no evidence to support that claim.
Musk did so in reply to a tweet by Hillary Clinton. Her tweet had criticized Republicans for generally spreading “hate and deranged conspiracy theories” and said, “It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result.”
In response to Clinton’s tweet, Musk provided a link to the Santa Monica Observer article and added, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”
The Los Angeles Times, the dominant news organization in the Southern California area where the Observer is located, has said the Observer is “notorious for fake news.”
Police in San Francisco have said the suspect in last week’s attack, identified as David DePape, 42, broke into the Pelosi family’s Pacific Heights home early Friday and confronted Paul Pelosi, demanding to know, as the AP has reported, “Where is Nancy?”
The two men struggled over a hammer before officers responding to a 911 call to the home saw DePape strike Paul Pelosi at least once, police said. DePape was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, elder abuse and burglary. Prosecutors plan to file charges on Monday and expect his arraignment on Tuesday.
Police say the attack was “intentional” and not random but have not stated publicly what they consider to be the motive.
The exchange between Musk and Clinton occurred a day after Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, tweeted that the company’s policies toward “slurs” and “hateful conduct” were still in place.
“Bottom line up front: Twitter’s policies haven’t changed. Hateful conduct has no place here,” Roth wrote.
Shortly after Musk took control of Twitter, some accounts on the platform began tweeting messages ranging from racist slurs to political misinformation, such as “Trump won,” to see what Twitter will now tolerate.
Musk himself said Friday that he would form a “content moderation council” for Twitter and promised advertisers that the website would not devolve into a “free for all hellscape.” Musk has also described himself as a “free speech absolutist.”
But at least one major advertiser, General Motors, has said it will suspend advertising on Twitter while it monitors the direction of the platform under Musk.
Also on Sunday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she didn’t trust Musk to run Twitter.
Referring to antisemitic attacks and the QAnon conspiracy theory that were advanced online by DePape, the suspect in the attack, Klobuchar said, “I think you have to have some content moderation.”
“If Elon Musk has said now that he’s going to start a content moderation board,” the senator said, “that was one good sign. But I continue to be concerned about that. I just don’t think people should be making money off of passing on this stuff that’s a bunch of lies.”
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| 2022-10-31T00:35:46
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| 0.968938
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LONDON (AP) — The British government insisted Sunday it has robust cybersecurity for government officials, after a newspaper reported that former Prime Minister Liz Truss’ phone was hacked while she was U.K. foreign minister.
The Mail on Sunday said that the hack was discovered when Truss was running to become Conservative Party leader and prime minister in the summer. It said the security breach was kept secret by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the head of the civil service.
The newspaper, citing unnamed sources, said Russian spies were suspected of the hack. It said the hackers gained access to sensitive information, including discussions about the Ukraine war with foreign officials, as well as private conversations between Truss and a political ally, former Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng.
The U.K. government spokesperson declined to comment on security arrangements, but said it had “robust systems in place to protect against cyber threats,” including regular security briefings for ministers.
Opposition parties demanded an independent investigation into the hack, and into the leak of the information to a newspaper.
“Was Liz Truss’s phone hacked by Russia, was there a news blackout and if so why?” said Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran. “If it turns out this information was withheld from the public to protect Liz Truss’ leadership bid, that would be unforgivable.”
Labour Party law-and-order spokesperson Yvette Cooper said “the story raises issues around cybersecurity.”
“It’s why cybersecurity has to be taken so seriously by everyone across government, the role of hostile states,” she told Sky News. “But also the allegations about whether a Cabinet minister has been using a personal phone for serious government business, and serious questions about why this information or this story has been leaked or briefed right now.”
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/tech-news/ap-technology/ap-uk-politicians-demand-probe-into-liz-truss-phone-hack-claim/
| 2022-10-31T00:35:47
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| 0.975222
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/san-antonio-spurs/articles/41318027
| 2022-10-31T00:35:50
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia resumed its blockade of Ukrainian ports on Sunday, cutting off urgently needed grain exports to hungry parts of the world in what U.S. President Joe Biden called a “really outrageous” act.
Biden warned that global hunger could increase because of Russia’s suspension of a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukraine, one of the world’s breadbaskets.
“It’s really outrageous,” Biden said Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware. “There’s no merit to what they’re doing. The U.N. negotiated that deal and that should be the end of it.”
Biden spoke hours after Russia announced it would immediately halt participation in the grain deal, alleging that Ukraine staged a drone attack Saturday against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of occupied Crimea. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own weapons.
Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry reported Sunday that 218 ships involved in grain exports have been blocked — 22 loaded and stuck at ports, 95 loaded and departed from ports, and 101 awaiting inspections.
One of the blocked ships, carrying 40,000 tons of wheat for Ethiopia under a U.N. aid program, could not leave Ukraine on Sunday as a result of Russia’s “blockage of the grain corridor,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure, said on Twitter. The ship, Ikaria Angel, was stuck in the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk.
The Istanbul-based UN center coordinating the ship passages later said the Ikaria Angel was among six vessels that began moving out but hadn’t yet entered a humanitarian corridor. The center reported on plans to move and inspect other ships on Monday but it wasn’t clear whether Russia would agree.
The grain initiative — an example of rare wartime cooperation between Ukraine and Russia — has allowed more than 9 million tons of grain in 397 ships to safely leave Ukrainian ports since it was signed in July. U.N. chief António Guterres had urged Russia and Ukraine on Friday to renew the deal when it expires Nov. 19. The grain agreement has brought down global food prices about 15% from their peak in March, according to the U.N.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskky expressed outrage at Russia’s decision. Referring to the Ikaria Angel, he said in his nightly video address Sunday, “This bulk ship with wheat for the U.N. food program and other vessels with agricultural products are forced to wait, because Russia is blackmailing the world with hunger.”
Two initiatives to revive the grain deal were reported Sunday.
Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar was in talks with his counterparts to “solve the problem and to continue the grain initiative,” his agency said, adding that no more grain ships would leave Ukraine but those already waiting near Istanbul would be inspected on Sunday or Monday.
At the United Nations in New York, Guterres delayed a trip by a day to engage in talks aimed at ending Russia’s suspension of the grain export deal. Russia also requested a meeting Monday of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the topic.
Analysts say Russia’s withdrawal shows that it sees the grain deal as another way to pressure Ukraine.
“By leaving the deal now and putting the blame on Ukraine, it aims to slow Ukrainian attacks around the Black Sea,” said Mario Bikarski, a Economist Intelligence Unit analyst. Russia could be hoping that Ukraine’s Western allies might ask it to focus its forces elsewhere to save the grain deal, he said.
More conflicting details emerged Sunday about the alleged attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
The city council of Mariupol, a Ukrainian port now controlled by Russia, claimed on Telegram that Ukrainian special services had destroyed at least three Russian warships near the city of Sevastopol on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
But an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry claimed that the Russians’ “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four Russian warships. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles.
Reports have surfaced for months of Ukrainian sabotage of Russian warplanes and ammunition depots on Crimea and Zelenskky has vowed repeatedly to recapture the strategic Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Sunday that one Ukrainian drone that reportedly attacked Sevastopol appeared to emanate from a civilian ship carrying agricultural products from Ukraine. The ministry claimed an inspection of the wreckage showed the drones used Canadian-made navigation and their launch point was the Ukrainian coast near the port of Odesa.
Independent verification of each side’s claims was not possible.
Ukraine appears to have targeted the Black Sea Fleet and other Russian military infrastructure on Crimea — far from the front lines but a critical launching pad for attacks against Ukraine — since the spring, although it often doesn’t confirm its responsibility.
On the battlefront, Russian missile attacks kept pounding key front-line hot spots in Ukraine. The Russians shelled seven Ukrainian regions over the past 24 hours, killing at least five civilians and wounding nine more, Ukraine’s presidential office said.
In the eastern Donetsk region, where the fighting is ongoing near the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, eight cities and villages were shelled.
In areas that Ukraine has recaptured, residents are still recovering bodies of killed civilians, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
“Over the past 24 hours alone, in three de-occupied towns and villages, we found abandoned bodies of Ukrainian civilians,” Kyrylenko said.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy said Sunday that Russian forces were mining territories they leave behind twice as densely as during the first months of the war.
Power outages were reported Sunday in the occupied Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, home to the closed Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest. Ukrainian and Russian officials traded blame for the shelling that caused the blackout.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/top-headlines/ap-top-headlines/ap-global-concern-on-russias-suspension-of-ukraine-grain-deal/
| 2022-10-31T00:35:53
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en
| 0.958021
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https://sportspyder.com/nba/san-antonio-spurs/articles/41318317
| 2022-10-31T00:35:56
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en
| 0.738227
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BEIRUT (AP) — President Michel Aoun left Lebanon’s presidential palace Sunday, marking the end of his six-year term without a replacement, leaving the small nation in a political vacuum that is likely to worsen its historic economic meltdown.
As Aoun’s term ends, the country is being run by a caretaker government after Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati failed to form a new Cabinet following May 15 parliamentary elections. Aoun and his supporters warn that such a government doesn’t have full power to run the country, saying that weeks of “constitutional chaos” lay ahead.
In a speech outside the palace, Aoun told thousands of supporters that he has accepted the resignation of Mikati’s government. The move is likely to further deprive the caretaker administration of legitimacy and worsen existing political tensions in the country.
Mikati responded shortly afterward with a statement from his office saying that his government will continue to perform its duties in accordance with the constitution.
Many fear that an extended power vacuum could further delay attempts to finalize a deal with the International Monetary Fund that would provide Lebanon with some $3 billion in assistance, widely seen as a key step to help the country climb out of a three-year financial crisis that has left three quarters of the population in poverty.
While it’s not the first time that Lebanon’s parliament has failed to appoint a successor by the end of the president’s term, this will be the first time that there will be both no president and a caretaker cabinet with limited powers.
Lebanon’s constitution allows the cabinet in regular circumstances to run the government, but is unclear whether that applies to a caretaker government.
Wissam Lahham, a constitutional law professor at St. Joseph University in Beirut told The Associated Press that in his view, the governance issues the country will face are political rather than legal.
Although the constitution “doesn’t say explicitly that the caretaker government can act if there is no president, logically, constitutionally, one should accept that because… the state and institutions should continue to function according to the principle of the continuity of public services,” he said.
Lebanese are deeply divided over Aoun, an 87-year-old Maronite Christian and former army commander, with some seeing him as a defender of the country’s Christian community and a leading figure who tried to seriously fight corruption in Lebanon. His opponents criticize him for his role in the 1975-90 civil war and for his shifting alliances, especially with the Iran-backed Hezbollah, the country’s most powerful military and political force. He has also come under fire for grooming his son-in-law to replace him, and many blame him for the economic crisis that is rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement.
Aoun, Lebanon’s 13th president since the country’s independence from France in 1943, saw Beirut’s historic relations with oil-rich gulf nations deteriorate because of Hezbollah’s powers and one of the world’s largest non-nuclear explosions at Beirut’s port in August 2020 that killed more than 200.
Aoun blasted his political opponents and said that they prevented him from bringing to justice central bank governor Riad Salameh, who is being investigated in several European countries, including Switzerland, France, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein for alleged money laundering and embezzlement.
“I leave a country that is robbed,” Aoun said, adding that all Lebanese were hurt by losing their life savings in local banks. He added that some politicians prevented the investigation into the port blast.
Aoun, who blamed his political rivals and others for the crisis except for members of his political party, later left the palace and headed to his residence in Beirut’s northern suburb of Rabieh.
Aoun’s biggest achievement came last week. He signed a U.S.-mediated maritime border agreement with Israel that Beirut hopes will lead to gas exploration in the Mediterranean. That will presumably help Lebanon come out of its economic crisis that has been described by the World Bank as one of the worst the world has witnessed since the 1850s.
Parliament has held four sessions since late September to elect a president but no candidate was able to get the two-thirds majority of the vote needed. As in previous votes, parliamentary blocs will have to agree on a consensus candidate for the country’s top post as no alliance within the legislature controls majority seats.
Aoun himself was elected in 2016 after a more than two-year vacuum. Despite Hezbollah’s support then, Aoun was only elected after he received the backing of the bloc of his main rivals of the Christian Lebanese Forces Party as well as the bloc of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
Under Lebanon’s power-sharing agreement, the president has to be a Maronite Christian, the parliament speaker a Shiite and the prime minister a Sunni Muslim. Cabinet and government seats are equally divided between Muslims and Christians. Christians, Sunnis and Shiites each make about a third of Lebanon’s 5 million people.
Since the economic meltdown began with nationwide protests in October 2019, Lebanon’s political class — which has ruled since the end of the civil war — has resisted reforms demanded by the international community that could help secure billions of dollars in loans and investments.
Talks between Lebanon’s government and the IMF that began in May 2020 and reached a staff-level agreement in April have made very little progress.
The Lebanese government has implemented few of the IMF’s demands from the agreement, which are mandatory before finalizing a bailout program. Among them are restructuring Lebanon’s ailing financial sector, implementing fiscal reforms, restructuring external public debt and putting in place strong anti-corruption and anti-money laundering measures.
“The prospects of an IMF deal were already dim before the upcoming power vacuum and departure of Aoun,” said Nasser Saidi, an economist and former Minister of Economy. “There is no political will or appetite for undertaking reforms.”
“Aoun’s departure is simply another nail in the coffin,” he said. “It does not change the fundamentals of a dysfunctional failed state and totally ineffective polity.”
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https://www.ktsm.com/news/top-headlines/ap-top-headlines/ap-lebanon-president-leaves-with-no-replacement-crisis-deepens/
| 2022-10-31T00:35:59
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en
| 0.976006
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https://sportspyder.com/nfl/tennessee-titans/articles/41318261
| 2022-10-31T00:36:02
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en
| 0.738227
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