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5 years after California’s deadliest wildfire, survivors forge different paths toward recovery

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:00 GMT

PARADISE, Calif. (AP) — On the day Paradise burned, Gwen Nordgren stopped her car just long enough to rescue a young woman escaping by foot.By that time on Nov. 8, 2018, the sky was black even though the sun had been up for hours. Both sides of the street were on fire as Nordgren grabbed the woman’s hand.“Have you lived a good life?” she asked. The woman said she had.“So have I,” said Nordgren, the president of the Paradise Lutheran Church council. “We’re going to say the Our Father and we’re going to drive like hell.”Nordgren has told that story countless times in the five years since the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history nearly erased a quiet community in the Sierra Nevada foothills. There are thousands more stories like it, each one providing a new frame for one of the worst wildfires in U.S. history.Five years later, some — like Nordgren — are sharing their stories freely and managing their post-traumatic stress enough to return to Paradise to help ...

Mexico Supreme Court justice resigns, but not because of criticism over his Taylor Swift fandom

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:00 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican Supreme Court justice who rose to fame after openly declaring himself a fan of pop star Taylor Swift resigned Tuesday.Justice Arturo Zaldívar had previously said he faced criticism for declaring himself a “Swiftie” in June. But in a resignation letter he posted Tuesday, he did not cite criticism of his musical tastes as a reason for resigning.Instead, Zaldívar said his “cycle had come to end” after 14 years of serving on Mexico’s highest court. He was one of three justices who regularly sided with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on rulings, but they are regularly outvoted by the court’s eight other justices.López Obrador has been a fierce critic of the court, which has ruled against some of his pet projects. In June, Zaldívar wrote in his social media accounts that “There are those who criticize me because I like Taylor Swift.”“They claim that Taylor, 33, is superficial and irrelevant. That her music is only made for — and listened to — by 15...

Electric-vehicle chargers distributed unequally in Canada, environment audit finds

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:00 GMT

OTTAWA — The national infrastructure program to install electric chargers for passenger vehicles is too concentrated in a small number of provinces and has no data to show where the biggest gaps are, a new audit says.The report was one of several that Environment Commissioner Jerry DeMarco tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday.DeMarco said the good news is that Canada appears on track to hit its goal of installing 33,500 charging ports by 2026. As of July, the Zero Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program had approved and funded 33,887 charging ports. About 13 per cent of them were already operational, and the rest are supposed to be up and running by March 2026, said DeMarco.However, he said almost nine in 10 of the ports that had been funded were in Ontario, Quebec or British Columbia. There were no targets set to identify where need was the greatest, or to ensure that lower-income communities and rural and remote areas were served by the program, the audit found.It’s cri...

Oregon GOP senators who boycotted Legislature file federal lawsuit in new effort to seek reelection

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:00 GMT

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Republican state senators in Oregon who boycotted the Legislature for a record six weeks earlier this year have filed a federal lawsuit as part of their efforts to seek reelection despite a recent voter-approved measure aimed at preventing walkouts.The senators are challenging an amendment to the state constitution approved by voters last year that bars lawmakers from reelection if they have 10 or more unexcused absences. The measure passed by a wide margin following GOP walkouts in the Legislature in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Confusion over its wording has sparked a debate over what the consequences of this year’s walkout would be for boycotting senators.Three Republican state senators, along with three county Republican central committees and two voters, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Oregon on Monday. In the complaint, Sens. Dennis Linthicum, Brian Boquist and Cedric Hayden — who all racked up more than 10 unexcused absences during this year&#...

Father of boy abducted in 2011 not notified of Hopley’s escape from halfway house

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:00 GMT

The father of a boy abducted in 2011 by a man who is now wanted on a Canada-wide warrant says he’s incredulous the repeat offender could walk away from a Vancouver halfway house.Paul Hebert says in a written statement that police did not notify him or his family that Randall Hopley went missing on Saturday after removing his electronic monitoring bracelet.Hebert, who now lives in Alberta, says Hopley was also released from custody just two weeks before he abducted his three-year-old son from the family’s home in Sparwood, B.C., in 2011.Hebert says while he doesn’t have “all the answers,” he believes that the “justice system isn’t working” if it allows Hopley to be placed in a situation where walking away was a possibility.Hopley, who is 58 years old, went missing just days before he was scheduled to appear in court to face charges for violating his release conditions.Vancouver Police say Hopley likely took “deliberate actionsR...

South African government minister and bodyguards robbed at gunpoint on major highway

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:00 GMT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African police are on a manhunt for suspects who robbed a government minister at gunpoint and disarmed her two bodyguards of their pistols on a busy Johannesburg highway, police said Tuesday.The robbery took place while Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga’s bodyguards were changing a punctured tire in the early hours of Monday morning. Three gunmen allegedly appeared from bushes, ordered the bodyguards to lie on the ground before taking their firearms, and then pointed a gun at Chikunga and robbed her of some personal items.“A manhunt has since been launched following this unprecedented incident,” police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe said.The minister told lawmakers during a parliamentary briefing Tuesday that the ordeal had traumatized her.“The whole experience was very traumatizing, devastating, it was bad,” Chikunga said, adding that she tried to make a call when she realized something was amiss. “But just before I could do anything they...

Russian troops shoot and kill a Georgian civilian near the breakaway province of South Ossetia

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:00 GMT

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Russian troops stationed in Georgia’s breakaway province of South Ossetia shot and killed a Georgian civilian near the line of control in what the Georgian authorities denounced as “the most heinous act.”The encounter reflected the continuing tensions in the region after the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, which ended with Moscow recognizing South Ossetia and another Georgian province, Abkhazia, as independent states and beefing up its military presence there. Most nations of the world consider both breakaway regions to be parts of Georgia, a former Soviet republic. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said in a statement that a Russian soldier killed a Georgian citizen Monday while trying to illegally detain him near the village of Kirbali.“This incident reaffirms the dire security situation on the ground and bears witness to the severe consequences of occupation,” he said. He added that “all relevant mechanisms have been set in motion, and internati...

GOP senators are meeting with Sen. Tuberville to urge him to drop blockade on military nominations

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican senators are holding a meeting Tuesday to confront Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville about his blockade of almost 400 military nominations, an effort to find a path forward as the senator has dug in on his protest of a Pentagon abortion policy.The unusual meeting called by GOP senators to challenge one of their own comes after a handful of Senate Republicans held the floor for more than four hours last week in frustration, calling up 61 of the military nominations only for Tuberville to stand up and object every time. The Senate has traditionally approved large groups of military nominations by voice vote, but just one senator’s objection can upend that process. Republicans said they will continue to try to negotiate with the Alabama Republican — hoping to persuade him to hold up civilian nominees instead, or maybe even take legal action — and have said they will also try to force more votes on nomination. They are holding the meeting as Democrats are consid...

Alexander Payne on the inspirations of ‘The Holdovers’ and the movies that shaped him

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — There are rituals to an Alexander Payne movie. In post-production, he and his longtime editor, Kevin Tent, will gather collaborators for Tie Day Tuesday (women can wear a tie or pearls) and Friday night martinis, during which Payne pulls out his 16mm projector to play old reels he’s collected on eBay.“I kind of overbought,” Payne says, smiling. “If you don’t have the right storage facility, you start getting vinegar syndrome. I had a beautiful print of ‘The Breaking Point’ — it’s one of my favorite films — and within a year it got vinegar syndrome and I had to throw it out.” A deep affection for cinema tends to run alongside the moviemaking. Payne’s latest, the acclaimed “The Holdovers,” started, years ago, with an old film. The 62-year-old, Omaha, Nebraska-based director caught a restoration of the 1935 French comedy “Merlusse.” The plot’s basic framework — a much-disliked teacher stays over Christmas break with a handful of kids ...

Keeping yourself safe: Chicago crime experts offer tips on how to avoid carjackings, minimize harm

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:00 GMT

CHICAGO — The City of Chicago has seen a dramatic rise in car thefts in the past two years. While the victims involved in some of the incidents have gone uninjured, others have found themselves violently attacked.While avoiding a car theft may not always be possible, crime experts say there are some steps that can be taken to avoid serious injury and minimize the impact of a crime. Read More: Tips from Chicago crime experts on how to avoid robberies, minimize harm George McDade, the chairman at Cook County Crime Stoppers and retired Chief of Detectives for the Chicago Police Department Eugene Roy, shared tips about how to avoid a carjacking and any injuries or ongoing issues that may come as a result. (Getty Images)Car theftsAccording to CPD statistics, car thefts across the city have increased by 68% since last year and 200% since 2021.Crime experts say there are several reasons why a criminal may steal a vehicle. Some may use the stolen vehicle to commit more crimes, making it d...