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Incoming Philadelphia mayor taps the city’s chief of school safety as next police commissioner

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:34 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker, who won her post by promising gun-violence-weary residents to get tough on crime, on Wednesday selected longtime police official Kevin J. Bethel to become the next police commissioner of the nation’s sixth most populous city.The move is Parker’s first major personnel decision in a heavily Black city where her campaign tried to connect with voters who are increasingly worried about public safety as well as quality-of-life issues, from faulty streetlights to trash collection. On the stump, Parker argued that her mayoral administration can both invest in policing and address broader societal problems at the same time.In an interview with ABC Philadelphia announcing the decision, Parker said Bethel is “a leader who is not afraid to make the tough decisions that we need to bring some order back to our city.” Bethel, 60, is a former deputy police commissioner in Philadelphia who since 2019 has served as the chief of...

Washington asks India about alleged assassination plot against US-Canadian activist

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:34 GMT

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government says it asked Indian authorities about allegations of a foiled assassination plot targeting a U.S.-Canadian citizen and it expects anyone deemed responsible to be “held accountable.”National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson says in a statement the U.S. government is “treating the issue with utmost seriousness” and raised it with the “senior-most” levels of India’s government.She was responding to a report in the Financial Times alleging U.S. authorities thwarted a plan to assassinate Sikhs for Justice general counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil, and raised concerns that India’s government was involved.Pannun, a dual citizen, is an organizer of a series of Sikh separatist votes in Canada and the United States. Watson says in a statement that Indian officials expressed “surprise and concern” and told the Americans that such activities were not their policy.India’...

25 killed when truck overloaded with food items and people crashes in Nigeria’s north

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:34 GMT

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A truck overloaded with food items and more than 200 people crashed in north-central Nigeria’s Niger state, killing 25 passengers and injuring dozens of others, authorities said Wednesday.The truck was on its way to Nigeria’s economic hub of Lagos on Tuesday when it crashed in Takalafia village in Niger’s Magama district on Tuesday, according to Nigeria’s road safety agency.Niger Gov. Mohammed Umaru Bago said in a statement that the 25 victims have been taken to a nearby mortuary while other passengers were being treated for their injuries.Kumar Tsukwam, sector commander of Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps in Niger, told The Associated Press that it’s believed some of the passengers wanted to travel with the trailer through Tuesday night to avoid unsafe roads during the day.“The passengers were not mindful of the (nature of the) road and the goods it was conveying,” Tsukwam said.Overloading and speeding are common causes of crashes along major roads in...

Democrats who swept Moms For Liberty off school board fight superintendent’s $700,000 exit deal

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:34 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Pennsylvania school board that banned books, Pride flags and transgender athletes slipped a last-minute item into their final meeting before leaving office, hastily awarding a $700,000 exit package to the superintendent who supported their agenda.But the Democratic majority that swept the conservative Moms For Liberty slate out of office hopes to block the unusual — they say illegal — payout and bring calm to the Central Bucks School District, whose affluent suburbs and bucolic farms near Philadelphia have been roiled by infighting since the 2020 pandemic.“People are really sick of the embarrassing meetings, the vitriol, they’re tired of our district being in the news for all the wrong reasons. And … the students are aware of what’s been going on, particularly our LGBTQ students and their friends and allies,” said Karen Smith, a Democrat who won a third term on the board.The district, with about 17,000 students in 23 schools, has spent $1.5 million on legal and...

Non-binary Montrealer on hunger strike to get ‘X’ gender marker on Quebec health card

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:34 GMT

QUEBEC — Non-binary Montrealer Alexe Frédéric Migneault is on Day 3 of a hunger strike to pressure Quebec’s public health insurance board to add a third gender option to health cards.Migneault, whose pronouns are they/them, is camping near the board’s office in Quebec City and says they won’t give up their strike until the cards carry an alternative to the traditional “M” or “F” identifiers.Migneault, whose strike involves only consuming vegetable broth, sports drinks and water, says they’ve been trying to get an “X” gender marker on their card since 2021 and that the board has been too slow to accommodate non-binary Quebecers.The board won’t comment on individual cases but says the Health Department is analyzing how such a change would impact the province’s health and social services network.Quebec’s secretariat for the condition of women says the health board is participating in an interdepartmental comm...

The average long-term US mortgage rate falls to 7.29% in fourth-straight weekly drop

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:34 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate fell for the fourth time in as many weeks, more positive news for prospective homebuyers who have been held back by sharply higher borrowing costs and heightened competition for relatively few homes for sale.The latest decline brought the average rate on a 30-year mortgage down to 7.29% from 7.44% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Wednesday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.58%.Despite the recent pullback, the average rate on a 30-year home loan is still sharply higher than just two years ago, when it was around 3%. Higher rates can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, limiting how much they can afford in a market already out of reach for many Americans. They also discourage homeowners who locked in far lower rates two years ago from selling.The elevated mortgage rates and a near-historic-low supply of homes on the market have stymied sales of previously occupied U.S. homes, which slumped in Octob...

Debate begins on replacement workers bill, as Poilievre stays mum on Tory position

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:34 GMT

OTTAWA — A government bill banning the use of replacement workers in federally regulated workplaces is putting a spotlight on the federal Conservatives, who have yet to state their position in a debate that pits labour groups against business.The House of Commons is set to begin debating the recently tabled legislation later today, which would apply to workplaces including transportation hubs and the telecommunications sector.Labour leaders have long called for the measure, as have the federal New Democrats, who used their supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals to expand the proposal to cover strikes in addition to lockouts.The Bloc Québécois is challenging the Liberals to scrap a clause in the bill that stipulates the law take effect after an 18-month waiting period, a delay that Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan says was requested by two agencies involved in ending labour disputes.Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre would not tell reporters this morning whether his MPs will...

Less than 2 years after nearly being killed by Russian bomb, Fox’s Benjamin Hall returns to Ukraine

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:34 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall, nearly killed by Russian bombs while reporting in Ukraine less than two years ago, returned to the country this week to interview Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Hall has endured dozens of surgeries since the March 14, 2022, blast. He lost his right leg below his knee and part of his left foot, the eyesight in his left eye and suffered burns across his body. His two Fox reporting colleagues that day, photographer Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian “fixer” Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, were both killed.Besides the Zelenskyy interview, Hall told Fox’s Bret Baier on Tuesday that he returned to Ukraine to pay tribute to Zakrzewski and Kuvshynova.“It was also an opportunity to remind people that journalism will never be stopped, despite the dangers,” he said.The staggering toll in the Israel-Hamas war is another reminder. The Committee to Protect Journalists said 53 journalists and media workers have been killed there sinc...

Mexican activist who counted murders in his violence-plagued city is himself killed

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:34 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — An activist who documented murders in one of Mexico’s deadliest cities has himself been killed, authorities confirmed Wednesday.Adolfo Enríquez was killed in the city of Leon, in north-central Guanajuato state. The city has the third-highest number of homicides in Mexico, trailing only the border cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez.Enríquez described himself on his social media profiles as an “activist, demanding a country with the rule of law.”For years, Enríquez has posted a simple, moving tally of each murder in Leon, writing just hours before his death that “murder number 55 in Leon so far in November just occurred in the Margaritas neighborhood.”He himself became murder victim number 56 late Tuesday, local police confirmed, without providing details on the attack. State prosecutors confirmed his death and said it was under investigation.Local media reported Enríquez was shot to death after leaving a restaurant, and that the attacker fled on a motorcycle.The n...

The US has thwarted a plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader, an AP source says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:34:34 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has thwarted a plot to kill Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said Wednesday.U.S. authorities have raised concerns with New Delhi that the Indian government may have had knowledge of the plot, according to the official who was not authorized to comment on the sensitive matter.The official declined to comment on when or how U.S. officials became aware of the plot as well as how the alleged assassination attempt was derailed. The FBI is investigating the matter, the official said.Spokespeople for the FBI and Justice Department declined to comment Wednesday. The revelation follows the September disclosure by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of what he said were credible allegations that the Indian government may have had links to the assassination in that country of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. India rejected the accusation as absurd, but Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat...