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Roadway bombs planted by drug cartel in Mexico kill 4 police officers, 2 civilians

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:54:16 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A drug cartel set off a coordinated series of seven roadway bombs in western Mexico that killed four police officers and two civilians, officials said Wednesday, with a governor describing the violence as “a trap” for law enforcement personnel escorting volunteers to a supposed mass grave. Luis Méndez, the chief prosecutor of Jalisco state, said the blasts late Tuesday in the township of Tlajomulco were so powerful they left craters in the road, destroyed at least four vehicles and wounded 14 other people. It appeared to be the first time that a Mexican cartel killed law enforcement personnel with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, and was the latest example of the increasingly open, military-style challenge posed by the country’s drug cartels.Méndez said the two dead civilians were in a vehicle that happened to be passing the spot when the IEDs detonated in Tlajomulco, near the state capital of Guadalajara. He suggested the bombs may have been remotely detona...

Rodriguez leaves door open to regulating Meta’s new social media platform Threads

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:54:16 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada’s Heritage Minister is leaving the door open to regulating new social media platform Threads under a bill forcing Google and Meta to pay publishers for content they link to or repurpose.Asked Wednesday whether he had given any thought to capturing Meta’s new social network in the Online News Act known as Bill C-18, Pablo Rodriguez said, “that’s going to be eventually included in the regulation.”“It could be captured by the bill. We’re looking at that,” he said.“We don’t know yet, but it’s going to be more precise as we go into regulations.”The text and images platform has garnered at least 100 million users since it sprang up last Wednesday, after the act targeting Meta properties Facebook and Instagram along with Google’s search engine and news products received royal assent on June 22.The act has since sparked a tit-for-tat relationship between the digital giants and the federal governmen...

With escaped inmate still on the loose, Pennsylvania officials vow to upgrade security at jail

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:54:16 GMT

WARREN, Pa. (AP) — As authorities continued their search for a homicide suspect who used bedsheets to escape from a northwestern Pennsylvania jail, county commissioners on Wednesday vowed to make security upgrades and reevaluate procedures.Michael Burham, 34, fled the Warren County Prison late Thursday by climbing on exercise equipment to gain access to the roof and then used a rope fashioned from jail bedding to get down, authorities said. Prior to his escape, Burham had been held on $1 million bail and was facing numerous charges, including kidnapping and burglary.Commissioners say the law requires inmates to be provided with time in the jail yard, a room with a cage on the top floor, and inmates are taken there in shifts. While there, they are on camera monitored by staff, but “the amount of time that he got out of that roof was quicker than anybody could respond to to get inside the room,” Commissioner Jeff Eggleston said Wednesday. Whether such monitoring was effective security...

Raptors officially sign Dennis Schröder to multi-year contract

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:54:16 GMT

The Toronto Raptors officially signed point guard Dennis Schröder to a multi-year contract on Wednesday.While financial terms were not made available, it was reported on June 30 that Schröder had agreed to a two-year, $26-million contract with the Raptors.Welcome to Toronto, Dennis Schröder!#WeTheNorth pic.twitter.com/XukKOn6Ccn— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) July 12, 2023Toronto pivoted to sign Schröder after long-time Raptors guard Fred VanVleet joined the Houston Rockets on a reported three-year, $128.5 million deal, which includes a team option for the 2025-26 season.Raptors President Masai Ujiri called Schröder, who turns 30 in September, “fierce, creative, and above all, competitive.”“We’re excited to welcome Dennis to Toronto and are looking forward to seeing him on the Scotiabank Arena court,” Ujiri said.Schröder, a German native entering his 11th season in the NBA, most recently played for the Los Angeles Lakers, appearing in 66 games (50 st...

Election officials sue conservative voting group over refusal to produce ballot-harvesting evidence

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:54:16 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia State Election Board is asking a judge to order a conservative voting organization to produce information to help investigate its claims of ballot trafficking in the state.The Texas-based True the Vote group filed complaints with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in November 2021, including one saying it had received “a detailed account of coordinated efforts to collect and deposit ballots in drop boxes across metro Atlanta” during the 2020 general election and in a runoff election in January 2021. True the Vote’s assertions were relied upon heavily for the film “2000 Mules,” a widely debunked film by conservative pundit and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. The film featured surveillance video from drop boxes in Atlanta’s suburbs showing people depositing multiple ballots. A State Election Board investigation found that those people were submitting ballots for themselves and family members who lived with them, which is allowed under Georgia law.In the...

Leslieville residents share concerns over criminal activity near supervised consumption site

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:54:16 GMT

Leslieville residents are sharing growing concerns over what they say is an uptick in criminal activity near a supervised consumption site near Queen Street East and Carlaw Avenue.“We walk our kids to school paths that area. There’s always a large group in there. Our kids have all seen people doing drugs. We’ve seen drug deals happen,” said Ashley Kea, a nearby resident.She said recently that she was walking with her kids through the path and they found a bag with a pink rock inside of it. “Later on, we found out it was pink fentanyl.”Pink fentanyl found by a Leslieville resident near Queen St. and Carlaw Ave. Photo credit: Ashley Kea“It was pretty. Any child would have found it really fascinating. I mean, I don’t really know a child that doesn’t collect rocks and things like that. They could have grabbed it, touched it. They could open the bag … thinking it was something harmless,” explained Kea.The safe consumption ...

The friendship behind summer’s most charming comedy ‘Theater Camp’

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:54:16 GMT

There is quite a bit of history between the team behind “Theater Camp,” a loving satire of musical theater kids and their teachers that opens in theaters Friday.Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin and Nick Lieberman are all, first and foremost, theater kids themselves. They’re also longtime friends. Lieberman has been making things with Platt since they were in high school. Galvin and Gordon are best friends and did a play together about a decade ago. And Galvin and Platt are currently engaged.It’s Platt and Gordon’s relationship that stretches back the furthest, though. Both children of parents in the entertainment industry, they’ve been friends since they were 3 years old.“I was deeply in love with him,” Gordon laughed in an interview with her collaborators during the Sundance Film Festival. “He came out to me and didn’t want to be with me, but I still tried for years.”The ins and outs of all of their collaborations, musical workshops, web series, comedy videos and hours improvis...

Militants attack a security post in southwest Pakistan and trigger a clash that leaves 15 dead

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:54:16 GMT

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Five militants attacked a security post in southwest Pakistan in the early hours Wednesday, triggering an intense shootout that left nine soldiers, five attackers and a female passerby dead, officials and the military said.The newly formed militant group Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement, without providing further details.Hours after the attack, Pakistan’s military said in a statement that “a group of terrorists launched a dastardly attack” in the garrison district of Zhob in the southwestern Baluchistan province. The “initial attempt of terrorists to sneak into the facility was checked by soldiers on duty,” it read. The shootout left three militants and four soldiers dead, while five troops were critically wounded.The military later said the security forces in a search operation killed two more attackers who had escaped. Earlier, a senior government official, Azam Kakar, said the militants were armed with ass...

Russia’s Defense Ministry says Wagner mercenaries are surrendering their weapons to the military

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:54:16 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — Mercenaries of the Wagner Group are completing the handover of their weapons to the Russian military, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday, a move that follows the private army’s brief rebellion last month that challenged the Kremlin’s authority.The disarming of Wagner reflects efforts by authorities to defuse the threat it posed and also appears to herald an end to the mercenary group’s operations on the battlefield in Ukraine.The actions come amid continued uncertainty about the fate of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and the terms of a deal that ended the armed rebellion by offering amnesty for him and his mercenaries along with permission to move to Belarus.Among the weapons turned over were more than 2,000 pieces of equipment, such as tanks, rocket launchers, heavy artillery and air defense systems, along with over 2,500 metric tons of munitions and more than 20,000 firearms, the Defense Ministry said.The statement follows the Kremlin’s ackno...

The Pittsburgh synagogue gunman should be eligible for the death penalty, prosecutor argues

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 19:54:16 GMT

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The gunman who committed the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history should be deemed eligible for the death penalty because he intentionally planned the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and preyed on vulnerable victims as they were beginning Sabbath worship, a prosecutor urged jurors on Wednesday.“On Oct. 27, 2018, this defendant violated the safe, holy sanctuary that was the Tree of Life synagogue. He turned it into a killing ground,” prosecutor Soo Song told jurors in the sentencing phase for Robert Bowers, who was convicted last month in the attack that claimed 11 lives. But Bowers’ defense lawyer, Michael Burt, cited expert witnesses to bolster the claim that a “delusional belief system took over his thinking,” which left him unable to do anything but “following the dictates” of those delusional thoughts.At issue is whether Bowers is eligible for the death penalty — a preliminary stage in the weekslong sentencing process. If it determines he is el...