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Drought dwindles to less than 9% of California

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:45:39 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Only remnants of California’s three-year drought remain after winter’s epic storms.The U.S. Drought Monitor reported Thursday that areas of drought cover less than 9% of the state, down from more than 99% at the Oct. 1 start of the water year.Those areas, in the far north and southeast, are surrounded by areas of abnormal dryness amounting to just over 25% of the state. The best places to see the superbloom in California California’s winter was marked by numerous atmospheric rivers that dumped enormous amounts of rain and blanketed mountains with an extraordinary snowpack.

Toronto man charged after probe into online threats directed at synagogue

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:45:39 GMT

A Toronto man is facing charges after police allege he posted hate-motivated online threats toward a synagogue.Police began investigating after the alleged threats were posted online on Sunday, April 9, 2023.Two days later, on April 11, police arrested 29-year-old Thomas Botyrius of Toronto.He’s facing charges of uttering death threats, criminal harassment and indecent communication.It’s the latest in a disturbing series of incidents involving places of worship in the Greater Toronto Area.A 28-year-old man was arrested in Toronto last Friday after he allegedly attended a Markham mosque during morning prayers and tore a copy of the Qur’an while directing racist and Islamophobic rants toward worshippers.Sharan Karunakaran was charged with uttering threats, assault with a weapon, and dangerous driving, in connection to the incident.Police believe Karunakaran also attended a mosque in Scarborough earlier that same day and harassed worshippers.In a separate incident on Sunday...

Nebraska trans care ban for minors advances — with a twist

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:45:39 GMT

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors in Nebraska is one final step from passing after lawmakers advanced it Thursday, but not before a promise was made behind closed doors to hammer out a compromise between supporters and opponents of the bill before it’s passed. Opponents of the bill fell one vote short of the 17 they needed to successfully filibuster the bill and kill it for the year. It advanced 33-16. But that vote came only after Speaker of the Legislature Sen. John Arch took the extraordinary move of suspending business on the floor for nearly an hour to hash out the agreement behind closed doors with conservative lawmakers who dominate the unique one-house, officially nonpartisan Legislature.Both Arch and the bill’s author, freshman Sen. Kathleen Kauth, said details of a compromise have yet to be worked out. But Kauth said she expected to sit down with a handful of supporters, opponents and medical experts in the coming days....

Funerals set for most of Louisville’s bank shooting victims

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:45:39 GMT

Funeral arrangements were disclosed Thursday for most of the five bank employees killed this week in Louisville, Kentucky, as the city continues to grieve the victims of one of the latest U.S. mass shootings.As obituaries were posted online, more details surfaced about the lives of the employees killed Monday at Old National Bank. They have been identified as senior vice presidents Tommy Elliott, 63, and Joshua Barrick, 40; executive administrative officer Deana Eckert, 57; loan analyst Juliana Farmer, 45; and commercial real estate market executive Jim Tutt Jr., 64.According to Elliott’s obituary, a funeral service is set for 3 p.m. Friday at Broadway Baptist Church in Louisville, followed by a private burial. The same day, Eckert’s visitation will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. followed by a funeral service at Northside Christian Church in New Albany, Indiana, just over the Kentucky border from Louisville, according to her obituary.Barrett’s visitation will be held from 3 p....

Nurse pleads guilty to replacing fentanyl with saline

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:45:39 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — A nurse who previously worked at a Florida outpatient surgical center has been convicted of stealing fentanyl and replacing the powerful pain medication with saline.Catherine Shannon Dunton, 54, pleaded guilty Tuesday to tampering with a consumer product in Fort Pierce federal court, according to court records. She faces up to 10 years in prison at a June 27 hearing.According to court records, Dunton worked from September 2021 to April 2022 as a circulating nurse at The Surgery Center at Jensen Beach, about 45 miles 72 (kilometers) north of West Palm Beach.Center employees performing an inventory noticed the missing drugs, and video surveillance was used to identify Dunton as a suspect, officials said. Beginning in February last year, prosecutors said Dunton took vials of fentanyl and injected it into herself. To avoid detection, she replaced the narcotic painkiller from nearly 450 vials with saline solution, and then returned the adulterated vials to the center for use...

Romney gets 1st likely challenger in ’24 Utah Senate primary

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:45:39 GMT

FARMINGTON, Utah (AP) — A potential challenger to Republican first-term Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah took a major step Thursday toward jumping into next year’s race, expected to be one of the GOP’s hardest-fought primary contests in 2024.With memories of Romney’s two votes to impeach former President Donald Trump stillfresh, Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson announced he was forming an exploratory committee 14 months before the scheduled primary.Utah needs a “conservative fighter” who represents its values, not a “professional career politician,” Wilson told The Associated Press in an interview at his real estate office in northern Utah.“I don’t have any illusions that, as speaker of the house, I’m a household name. But that’s really not what this is about. What this is about is me going out and understanding what people care about,” he said.The move is just shy of making his campaign official and allows Wilson to raise money and campaign statewide. Romney has not yet ann...

Apple Books – Top Books

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:45:39 GMT

Top Paid Books (US Bestseller List):1. Romantic Comedy (Reese’s Book Club) by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House Publishing Group)2. It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover (Atria Books)3. Over My Brother’s Dead Body, Chase Andrews by Piper Rayne (Piper Rayne Incorporated)4. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group)5. The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth (St. Martin’s Publishing Group)6. I Will Find You by Harlan Coben (Grand Central Publishing)7. It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover (Atria Books)8. Blue Moon by Lee Child (Random House Publishing Group)9. Searching for Caryn by Susan Stoker (Stoker Aces Production, LLC)10. Rizzoli & Isles: Listen to Me by Tess Gerritsen (Random House Publishing Group)The Associated Press

Nunavut Inuit organization revokes enrolment of sisters, says first-of-its-kind case

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:45:39 GMT

The organization responsible for enrolling Inuit under the Nunavut Agreement has removed twin sisters from its list in what is calls a first-of-its-kind case. Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated announced March 30 it was investigating alleged fraud involving the enrolment of 24-year-old Nadya and Amira Gill. The organization said the women were enrolled in 2016 after their mother claimed she adopted them from an Inuk woman. That woman’s family recently disputed the claim and said they have no biological relationship to the twins.Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated said in a statement Thursday that it asked the Gills to provide evidence they have an Inuk birth parent but did not receive a response. The Iqaluit community enrolment committee decided to remove them from its list April 6.The organization and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association have both called for the RCMP to investigate.Neither sister responded to requests for comment and The Canadian Press was unable to reach their mother, Kar...

Judge tosses 40th murder conviction tied to disgraced ex-CPD detective

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:45:39 GMT

CHICAGO – After 24 years, a man who has spent nearly a quarter of a century in prison for a murder he insisted he did not commit will soon be freed.Richard Kwil saw a Cook County judge overturn his conviction in court on Thursday, the latest in a series of reversed judgments linked to disgraced former Chicago police detective Reynaldo Guevara.Kwil's daughter, 25-year-old Aixa Hernandez, applauded her father's impending release from prison. New lawsuits filed against former Chicago cop bring old allegations to light "Really happy," she said. "He was away a really long time. I’m just glad we get to build a relationship finally."Hernandez said she has only known her father through short visits, letters and phone calls. It made the moment a judge tossed out her father's murder conviction more profound."It didn’t feel real but it’s really exciting," she said. "Just glad it’s all over."Undated booking photo of Richard Kwil. (Photo: Pontiac Correctional Center)Kwil says not only was he ...

Skilling: Scattered clouds, unseasonable temps for Chicago

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:45:39 GMT

A second day of July level warmth with temps flirting with the day's 82 degree record—last set in 1941. The day is to finish 25 degrees above normal!AND THE WARM WEATHER has two more days to run! It plans to stick around—courtesy of a blocking pattern over the country in the higher levels of the atmosphere. The so-called REX BLOCK—which occurs when warm air becomes trapped between cool rainy air to the south and north---slows bears the name of the meteorologist—DANIEL REX—who in 1950 first identified this upper air configuration's tendency to slow the eastward progress of weather across the country.It may surprise some—but the fact is, by a margin of well over two to one, days in 2023 have been WARMER THAN NORMAL 68% of the time. COOLER THAN NORMAL DAYS have only occurred 27% of the time since January 1st.The warmth is expansive and has been eating away at the snow pack—only a week ago nearly 3 feet deep in parts of the North Woods of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan—and it's doing it B...