Month: March 2023

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian police have announced arrests in an international labor trafficking ring. York Region police say than 60 Mexican nationals lured to Canada with the promise of good jobs were made to live and work in “deplorable” conditions and feared deportation if they spoke out. York Region police say 64 people were rescued

By ASHRAF KHALIL and GARY FIELDS Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The expected move next week in Congress to overturn District of Columbia laws dealing with criminal justice and voting has created a political tempest in the nation’s capital, with local activists decrying it as the latest effort to undermine the city’s ability to determine

By MARGARET STAFFORD Associated Press A lawsuit filed by a Muslim advocacy group alleges that corrections officers at a Missouri prison used pepper spray on Muslims while they were praying and then retaliated when they complained. The lawsuit was filed Thursday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Missouri and the CAIR Legal Fund. It alleges that

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press A New York man has pleaded guilty to stealing a badge and radio from a police officer who was brutally beaten as rioters pulled him into the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol over two years ago. Court record show that Thomas Sibick pleaded guilty on Friday to assault and

By ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Press MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A former Memphis Fire Department emergency medical technician told a Tennessee board Friday that officers “impeded patient care” by refusing to remove Tyre Nichols ‘ handcuffs, which would have allowed EMTs to check his vital signs after he was brutally beaten by police. Robert Long, whose

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — Hoosier rocker John Mellencamp is donating an archived collection of his life and work to Indiana University. IU President Pamela Whitten announced the donation Friday. She says the collection will include original creative works, photographs, instruments and other significant memorabilia related to his music, artwork, social activism and philanthropy. Whitten says

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) — A former Colorado clerk who has become a hero to election conspiracy theorists has been convicted of a misdemeanor obstruction charge for trying to prevent authorities from taking an iPad she allegedly used to videotape a court hearing. The case is separate from Tina Peters’ alleged involvement in a security

DETROIT (AP) — Former Michigan State University basketball star Keith Damon Appling has been sentenced in the death of a Detroit man. Prosecutors say Appling shot the man after an argument over a gun in May 2021. The Wayne County prosecutor’s office says a judge is sentencing the 31-year-old Appling to serve 18 to 40

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A video released by a Tennessee prosecutor shows the death of a Black man in a Memphis jail after he was beaten during a confrontation. News outlets report that the Nashville District Attorney’s Office released the video Thursday. Citing the medical examiner’s report, the Shelby County sheriff said 33-year-old Gershun Freeman

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — Georgia’s Stegeman Coliseum has been closed for repairs after a small piece of concrete fell from the ceiling of the nearly 60-year-old facility that hosts several of the university’s sports teams and school graduation ceremonies in the spring. The school says no one was injured when the concrete fell on Wednesday,

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards is traveling to Asia for a weeklong series of meetings with business leaders and policymakers in the hopes of growing foreign investment. Edwards left Friday and will return March 11. During his time in Asia, he will visit South Korea and Japan and meet with

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The company that owns the medical transport aircraft that crashed in northern Nevada last week, killing all five people aboard, has been tied to two other fatal crashes in the last four years. The Reno Gazette-Journal reported Friday that a records review shows 11 people have now died on planes owned

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (AP) — Health officials say a person in southwest Florida has died after being infected with an extremely rare brain-eating amoeba. The Florida Department of Health in Charlotte County confirmed the death Thursday. The agency had previously issued an alert last month, warning residents about the Naegleria fowleri infection. Health officials say

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press Prosecutors produced no direct evidence linking South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh to the killings of his wife and son, yet a jury took less than three hours to convict him — thanks, in large part, to the defendant himself. “It came down to just a couple of key pieces

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican official says her government thought Arizona rancher George Alan Kelly should have faced first-degree murder charges for allegedly killing a Mexican migrant. Mexico’s head of consular protection Vanessa Calva said Friday Mexico had told U.S. prosecutors that it thought first-degree charges more accurately described the circumstances in which migrant

By TARA COPP Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Two former Iraq and Afghanistan War-era defense secretaries are recommending that the government consider new ways to ensure that military service is taken into account when courts prosecute former service members. The Veterans Justice Commission, led by onetime Pentagon chiefs Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta, has come

By LISA RATHKE Associated Press MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Vermont’s leading Roman Catholic bishop testified Friday against a bill that would remove an exemption to the state’s child abuse and neglect reporting laws for members of the clergy. Bishop Christopher Coyne told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday that information shared in a confession must

By JOHN ANTCZAK Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some residents stranded in Southern California mountain communities by a huge snowfall could be stuck for another week, an official said Friday. A late-February blast of arctic air produced a rare blizzard east of Los Angeles in the San Bernardino Mountains, where thousands of people live

By TOM MURPHY AP Health Writer Walgreens says it will not start selling an abortion pill in 20 states that had warned of legal consequences if it did so. The drugstore chain’s announcement Thursday signals that access to mifepristone may not expand as broadly as federal regulators intended in January, when they finalized a rule

By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A former U.S. Army private from Kentucky who was devoted to a violent extremist group has been sentenced to 45 years in prison for plotting to arrange a murderous terrorist attack on his paratrooper unit. U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods said Friday that 24-year-old Ethan

By MARK STEVENSON MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico is seeking to avoid potential trade sanctions this week for failing to stop the near-extinction of the vaquita, the world’s smallest porpoise and most endangered marine mammal. Studies estimate there may be as few as eight vaquitas remaining in the Gulf of California, the only place they

By CHRISTINA LARSON AP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Archaeologists have found the earliest direct evidence for horseback riding – an innovation that would transform history – in 5,000 year old human skeletons in central Europe. “When you get on a horse and ride it fast, it’s a thrill – I’m sure ancient humans felt

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer NEW YORK (AP) — It’s not always emphasized given that she’s one of the most groundbreaking still photographers of the past 50 years. But Nan Goldin is a movie buff. So it’s maybe not surprising that Goldin is excited, even thrilled, about going to the Oscars. Her life and

BEIRUT (AP) — The World Bank says that Syria has sustained an estimated $5.1 billion in damages in the massive Feb. 6 earthquake that hit northern parts of the country and also southeastern Turkey. The assessment came in a report that was released on Friday. The World Bank says the level of the damage is

By TARA COPP Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. announced a new $400 million military aid package for Ukraine on Friday that for the first time includes armored vehicles that can launch bridges — allowing troops to cross rivers or other gaps as Russian and Ukrainian forces remain entrenched on opposite sides of the

By The Associated Press Voters in Oklahoma will decide Tuesday whether it should be legal to possess and grow recreational marijuana in the state. The cannabis industry wants to expand the market to help offset falling prices brought on in part by a glut of medical dispensaries opened to support medical marijuana users. The measure