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Judge rejects Zooey Zephyr bid to return to Montana House

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:17:54 GMT

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the transgender Montana lawmaker silenced after telling Republicans they would have blood on their hands for opposing gender-affirming health care for kids, was barred from returning to the statehouse House floor in a Tuesday court ruling that came just hours before the Legislature planned to wrap up its biennial session.District Court Judge Mike Menahan said it was outside his authority to overrule lawmakers and return Zephyr to the House floor. He cited the importance of preserving the Constitution’s separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches.“Plaintiffs’ requested relief would require this Court to interfere with legislative authority in a manner that exceeds this Court’s authority,” Menahan wrote in his ruling.Attorneys for the state of Montana had asked the judge to reject an emergency motion from Zephyr’s lawyers challenging her ouster. The first-term lawmaker was silenced two weeks ago for admonishing ...

NBA MVP: 76ers’ Embiid wins league’s top individual honor

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:17:54 GMT

Philadelphia 76ers center and league scoring champion Joel Embiid earned his first NBA MVP trophy Tuesday night, topping two-time winner Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets.The 29-year-old from Yaoundé, Cameroon, averaged 33.1 points to win his second straight scoring title, averaged 10.2 rebounds and tied a career high with 4.2 assists per game. Embiid played in 66 games, the second-highest total of his career, but again has been hit with injuries in the playoffs. Embiid has been sidelined with a sprained right knee that cost him one game of the playoff sweep against Brooklyn and the opening game of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Boston, which was won by Philadelphia on Monday night.Jokic finished runner-up and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks was third. Embiid received 73 first-place votes. Jokic received 15 first-place votes, and Antetokounmpo got 12.“It’s been a long time coming,” Embiid said. “A lot of hard work. I’ve been through a lot. I̵...

Myles Gray’s mother says conclusion of B.C. coroner’s inquest marks end of chapter

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:17:54 GMT

Margie Gray says the end of a coroner’s inquest into the death of her son has shown the public what she has known all along; that Vancouver police officers beat her son to death when he was vulnerable and needed help.Gray said the classification of her son Myles Gray’s death as homicide by the inquest jury brought her some relief, nearly eight years after he died.“People know the truth and that to me is a huge, huge piece,” she said in an interview on Tuesday from her home on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast.The coroner presiding over the two-week inquest, Larry Marzinzik, had advised the jury before deliberation began that homicide meant death due to injury intentionally inflicted by another person, but it’s a neutral term that doesn’t imply fault or blame.“We all know that’s what it was,” Gray said of the classification. “That came right from (the pathologist).”Dr. Matthew Orde, the forensic pathologist who p...

Autopsy: Stab wounds to heart, lungs killed Cash App founder

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:17:54 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Cash App founder Bob Lee died during surgery from stab wounds that pierced his heart and a lung, according to an autopsy report released Tuesday that also shows he had alcohol and drugs in his system. Doctors at San Francisco General Hospital tried for hours to close the wounds in Lee’s heart and save his life, but they declared him dead at 6:49 a.m. April 4, according to an 18-page autopsy report by the San Francisco Medical Examiner. A toxicology test found Lee, 43, had alcohol, cocaine, ketamine and allergy medication in his system, Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Ellen Moffatt wrote. Moffatt concluded Lee’s cause of death was multiple stab wounds, and that the manner and method of death was homicide by sharp injury. Tech consultant Nima Momeni, 38, was charged with murder with a sentencing enhancement of using a knife in the April 4 stabbing death of Lee. If convicted, he faces 26 years to life in prison.A plea hearing on Tuesday was continued until May...

New reversal by Twitter after move sparked MTA withdrawl

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:17:54 GMT

In an about-face, Twitter says it has restored free access to a key tool for verified government and “publicly owned” services so they can tweet weather, transit and other alerts after New York City’s transit agency said earlier this week it would no longer use the platform for its service advisories. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is among countless official and unofficial accounts that abruptly lost access to Twitter’s API, or application programming interface, to send out automated alerts about service changes and emergencies last week. By Thursday afternoon, senior executives agreed to cease publishing service alerts to the platform altogether.The decision put the country’s largest transportation network among a growing number of accounts, from National Public Radio to Elton John, who have reduced their Twitter presence or left the platform since its takeover by Elon Musk.Twitter had signaled that the days of private accounts disseminating troves of information ...

Two Canadians killed during battle in Ukraine, Global Affairs says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:17:54 GMT

Paul Hughes says one of the most difficult moments of his life was placing a Canadian flag over the body bag of a soldier from Alberta killed during a bloody battle in eastern Ukraine. Hughes carefully drove an ambulance carrying the body of Kyle Porter for more than four hours away from an area near Bakhmut where the Canadian and another soldier, Cole Zelenco, were killed during fierce fighting last week. “I draped the Canadian flag over him. That hit me as hard as I’ve been in hit in the 14 months I’ve been in Ukraine,” Hughes said in a phone interview from Kharkiv after retrieving Porter’s body Tuesday.“My heart goes out to (their families). The deepest condolences.”Global Affairs said in an emailed statement that the department is aware of reports that two Canadians died in Ukraine. It said it’s following up with authorities but cannot release more information due to privacy considerations. Family and aid workers identified the two Canadians. Zelenco was from St. Catharines, Ont...

‘Corruption toll’: Federal jury convicts 4 at bribery trial

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:17:54 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — Federal jurors on Tuesday convicted all four defendants of bribery conspiracy at their trial in Chicago that provided an inside look at pay-to-play politics in Illinois that prosecutors said involved the state’s largest electric utility and, at the time, one of its most powerful politicians.It’s a resounding win for U.S. prosecutors in one of the biggest corruption trials in Illinois since former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 in the same federal courthouse, including on charges he sought to sell President Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat. During a month and a half of testimony, prosecutors sought to prove two former ComEd executives, a former utility consultant and a longtime government insider arranged contracts, jobs and money for associates of then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan — once one of the nation’s most powerful legislators — to ensure proposed bills boosting ComEd profits became law.Madigan, 81, has been indicted in t...

BNSF tracks back in service after Wisconsin dedrailment

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:17:54 GMT

LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) — Railroad tracks damaged after a BNSF Railway freight train derailed in southwestern Wisconsin have been repaired and returned to service, rail and government officials say.BNSF contractors made repairs and reopened the line Saturday, BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent said.“They’ve got that all repaired and they’re at full speed already, running rail overnight,” Craig Thompson, secretary of Wisconsin Department of Transportation, told the La Crosse Tribune.Thursday’s derailment in Crawford County involved two of the train’s three locomotives and 10 cars carrying a variety of freight, including paint and lithium-ion batteries, Kent said. Four railway employees received minor injuries. The Federal Rail Administration is investigating the derailment.Crawford County Emergency Management Specialist Marc Myhre said about 20 BNSF Railway cars were involved.Two cars went into the Mississippi River, but neither contained hazardous materials, Kent said. Some of the containers t...

Money Mexican migrants sent home rose by 11.4% in Q1

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:17:54 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexicans living abroad sent home a total of almost $14 billion in the first three months of 2023, an 11.4% increase over the same period of 2022, the country’s central bank said Tuesday. While still considerable, the rate of growth in remittances appears to be slowing, after large pandemic-era increases in 2022 and 2021. In March, remittances for the month were actually down 1.2% compared to the same month last year. That may be related to the Feb. 28 decision by the government to stop accepting remittances through the government-owned Bienestar bank. The government said the decision was made to avoid duplicating the functions of another government transfer office. But some experts said it was a reaction to signs that drug cartels may have been using remittances through the Bienestar bank to launder money. The Bienestar bank has not yet responded to questions about reports that there had been a surge in remittances sent through the bank to the cartel-dominat...

Vancouver city council plans pilot project to test car-free Gastown for pedestrians

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:17:54 GMT

Vancouver is planning to eliminate weekend car traffic from the main thoroughfare of its historic Gastown neighbourhood as early as this summer, a city councillor announced Tuesday.Sarah Kirby-Yung said she will introduce a motion on May 9 for a “people-focused Gastown,” which will include plans for a pilot project to shut down Water Street to car traffic on weekends starting as early as summer 2023. The results will inform the city’s plans for Gastown, which may involve removing car traffic from the neighbourhood permanently in the future, Kirby-Yung said. “The centrepiece of the vision includes pedestrianizing Water Street, looking at the options to make it either car-free or car-light on a seasonal or on a year-round basis,” she said during a news conference in Gastown, surrounded by Mayor Ken Sim and other ABC council members.“As (we’ve) seen with so many cities around the world, we have the potential to make Gastown truly a destination ...