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Drag performers sue St. George, Utah, over denying permit for show in public park

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:56:30 GMT

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah-based group that organizes drag performances is suing a city over the denial of permits for an all-ages show it aimed to host in a public park in April.The group, Southern Utah Drag Stars, and its CEO Mitski Avalōx accuse the city of St. George of “flagrant and ongoing violations of their free speech, due process, and equal protection rights” and, in a complaint filed in federal court on Tuesday, are asking for damages and for St. George to reverse its decision and authorize a drag show at the end of June.“This is the latest offense in a larger pattern of attacks discriminating against gender-diverse and LGBTQ+ people and their rights in Utah and throughout the country,” said Emerson Sykes, an attorney with the ACLU, which is representing the group.The lawsuit marks the most recent development in a fight over drag shows in St. George, Utah, a conservative city 111 miles (179 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. Since HBO filmed a drag ...

Hong Kong’s leader says police will investigate suspicious withdrawals from organ donation register

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:56:30 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said police will investigate suspicious applications from people seeking to withdraw from the city’s organ donation system, condemning the alleged attempt to damage the program as shameful. The city’s organ donation registration system received nearly 5,800 withdrawal applications in the five months since December, when the government raised the possibility of establishing an organ transplant mutual assistance program with mainland China. More than half of the withdrawal applications were found to be invalid, either as duplicate applications or coming from people who had never opted in.At a regular media briefing Tuesday, Lee pointed to those who withdrew their applications without ever registering, calling the moves suspicious. “I severely condemn those who attempt to cause damages to this noble system which saves lives through organ donations,” he said. “This is a shameful act.” Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to...

Ex-Seattle man gets 8 years for stealing $1M in pandemic benefits

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:56:30 GMT

SEATTLE (AP) — A former Seattle man who stole over $1 million in jobless benefits and small business loans during the COVID-19 pandemic was sentenced on Tuesday to more than eight years in prison, Seattle U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said in a statement.Bryan Sparks, 42, was indicted for the fraud scheme in November 2021 and pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in January. He was also ordered on Tuesday to pay more than $1 million in restitution.U.S. District Judge James L. Robart called Sparks at the sentencing “a serial thief and a fraudster — one of the more successful ones,” and said he was appalled by the damage Sparks had done.From March 2020 until at least January 2021, Sparks and a co-conspirator used stolen personal information of more than 50 Washington residents and businesses to apply for Economic Injury Disaster Loans from the Small Business Administration and unemployment benefits from the Washington State Employment Security Department, court d...

Canadian theatre director Daniel Brooks, first Siminovitch Prize winner, dies at 64

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:56:30 GMT

Daniel Brooks, a renowned Canadian theatre director who won a number of awards in a career that spanned over four decades, has died at 64.A news release announcing his death says he died in Toronto on Monday after a long illness.In his over 40-year career, Brooks was a director, writer, actor, producer and teacher, and frequently collaborated with other artists, including fellow Toronto natives Don McKellar and Tracy Wright, with whom he co-founded independent theatre troupe Augusta Company.Brooks was nominated in 1992 for a Governor General’s Literary Award in the drama category for “The Noam Chomsky Lectures,” co-written with Canadian theatre artist Guillermo Verdecchia.In 2001, Brooks was the winner of the inaugural Siminovitch Prize, which its website says recognizes artists who have made a significant creative contribution to theatre in Canada.Brooks’ family says a celebration of life will be held this summer.This report by The Canadian Press was first p...

NYC college professor fired after confrontation with abortion opponents

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:56:30 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City college has fired an adjunct professor who was recorded on video berating abortion opponents on campus earlier this month and who on Tuesday reportedly threatened a journalist with a machete.A Hunter College spokesperson confirmed art professor Shellyne Rodriguez was fired after the May 2 incident in which she is seen on video calling the abortion opponents’ information display “propaganda” and shoving some of the materials off the students’ table.“Hunter College strongly condemns the unacceptable actions of Shellyne Rodriguez and has taken immediate action,” the spokesperson, Vince DiMiceli, told the New York Post on Tuesday. “Rodriguez has been relieved of her duties at Hunter College effective immediately, and will not be returning to teach at the school.”Rodriguez and DiMiceli did not immediately return phone and email messages from The Associated Press on Tuesday evening.The Post reported that one of its reporters went to Rodriguez...

Mattea Roach advances to final of ‘Jeopardy Masters’ tournament

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:56:30 GMT

Toronto trivia titan Mattea Roach has made it to the final round of “Jeopardy Masters.”The Canadian writer and podcaster came in second and third in the two games on Tuesday’s show, landing a spot in Wednesday night’s final.The tournament pit six recent super-champions against each other, including Roach, James Holzhauer and Amy Schneider.Schneider was eliminated ahead of the semifinals, while Holzhauer is advancing to the final as well.A different combination of competitors played two “high-stakes games” in each hour-long episode of the quarter- and semifinals. The three remaining champs will play each other twice in Wednesday night’s final, which airs on CTV2.This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 23, 2023.The Canadian Press

Do not call: States sue telecom company over billions of robocalls

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:56:30 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — Attorneys general across the U.S. joined in a lawsuit Tuesday against a telecommunications company accused of making more than 7.5 billion robocalls to people on the national Do Not Call Registry.The 141-page lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix against Avid Telecom, its owner Michael D. Lansky and company vice president Stacey S. Reeves. It seeks a jury trial to determine damages.The lawsuit arises from the nationwide, bipartisan Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force of 51 attorneys general and the District of Columbia. It was formed last year to investigate and take legal action against telecommunications companies routing volumes of robocall traffic. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said nearly 197 million of the robocalls were made to Arizona phone numbers between December 2018 and January 2023.“Every day, countless Arizona consumers are harassed and annoyed by a relentless barrage of unwanted robocalls — and in some instances these ille...

Texas governor sent bill abolishing position of Harris County elections chief

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:56:30 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Shaking up elections in Texas’ largest county, the GOP-controlled Legislature on Tuesday approved abolishing a position in Harris County that oversees more than 2 million voters around Houston months before the city chooses a new mayor. At the same time, Republicans advanced a separate plan that would also have a singular impact on Harris County, a growing Democratic stronghold: allowing the state to take greater control over elections there if it is determined there is a “pattern of problems.” The push by the state’s GOP majority resurfaced tensions over voting in the Texas Capitol, two years after Democratic lawmakers walked out for 93 days in protest of new voting restrictions that also targeted Harris County. At the center of proposed changes this time is last year’s elections in Harris County, where local officials have acknowledged problems that included paper ballot shortages and delayed poll openings. Republican candidates have challeng...

Priest killed in Mexico; 9th slain in country in past 4 years

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:56:30 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest has been killed in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, the ninth slain in the country in the past four years. The church’s Catholic Multimedia Center identified the priest as Rev. Javier García Villafaña, who had been assigned to the Capacho parish in Huandacareo just one month earlier. The Michoacan state prosecutor’s office said that García’s body had several gunshot wounds and was found inside a vehicle. The killing came one day after the Mexican Episcopal Conference expressed its solidarity and condemnation of an attack against Monsignor Faustino Armendáriz Jiménez, archbishop of the northern state of Durango.On Sunday, an elderly man tried to stab Armendáriz in Durango’s cathedral. The archbishop escaped uninjured.The conference said in a statement that it condemned García’s killing and called on authorities to find those responsible.“It is a painful reminder of the serious situation we face as a society, in which the presence of o...

How a religious order became a sanctuary for pedophile priests

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:56:30 GMT

WGN Films presents “Sanctuary of Sin,” a series looking at a little-known religious order and the role it played in the Catholic church sex abuse crisis. This is Part 2 of 3.Father Gerald Fitzgerald started a Catholic religious order after a chance encounter with a beggar. It turned out the beggar was a priest in need of help and had nowhere to turn. So, Father Fitzgerald founded the Servants of the Paraclete in the late 1940s to help fill that void. He established in a compound in the New Mexico desert where priests struggling with alcohol abuse or a crisis of faith could be treated.But he soon encountered clergy with more serious issues.“Within the first few years, priests begin to show up - not for alcoholism or lack of faith – but for credible accusations against them in terms of sexual abuse,” said Kevin O’Neill, a professor in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto.Fitzgerald’s facility did not employ therapists or medical professionals. But he d...