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Schumer to lead a bipartisan delegation of senators to China, South Korea and Japan next week

Published Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:11:25 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is leading a bipartisan congressional delegation to China next week, traveling to the country amid heightened tensions and after several members of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet visited over the summer. Schumer, along with Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, is visiting government and business leaders in China, South Korea and Japan “with the goal of advancing U.S. economic and national security interests” in the region, his office said Tuesday. Schumer — a long time critic of China — plans to talk to Chinese officials about human rights, concerns about Chinese-made fentanyl in American cities and China’s “role in the international community,” his office said, as well as areas for potential cooperation.Since the administration resumed direct Cabinet-level visits to China this summer after the Chinese spy balloon floated over the country, the two sides have been working to arrange another summit between Biden and Chinese Preside...

Jury hears Manuel Ellis’ last words at trial of Washington officers accused in the Black man’s death

Published Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:11:25 GMT

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — Jurors heard the last words of Manny Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man who was punched, shocked with a Taser, put in a chokehold and held face down, during opening statements Tuesday in the trial of three Washington police officers accused in his death.“I can’t breath, sir. I can’t breath, sir. I can’t breath,” Washington Assistant Attorney General Kent Liu told jurors, describing what he said were Ellis’ last words, uttered several minutes before he died in front of paramedics on the street in Tacoma.“We are here today because this should not have happened,” Liu said. “Mr. Ellis did nothing wrong.” Officers Matthew Collins and Christopher Burbank, both white, are charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. Officer Timothy Rankine, who is Asian American, is charged with manslaughter. It’s the first trial under a 5-year-old Washington state law designed to make it easier to prosecute police who wrongfully use deadly force. All three o...

A foreign armed force to fight gangs makes many in Haiti celebrate, while others worry

Published Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:11:25 GMT

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Foreigners with guns are met with hostility in most countries in the world. But the departure of armed soldiers and police from Haiti in 2017 after nearly two decades on the streets helped criminals seize control of much of the country. Gangs have carried out so much robbery, rape and kidnapping that Haitians on Tuesday welcomed news that the United Nations Security Council had approved deployment of an international armed force to Haiti.News of the vote — which authorized a one-year deployment of a Kenya-led force to help quell violent gangs — dominated conversations and radio and TV programs.“It’s like God heard Haiti’s prayers, and he’s sending help,” said Wensley Johnson, 40.Johnson had to flee his home this year after gangs pillaged the community where he lived, a community built by people who survived Haiti’s 2010 devastating earthquake. Worried about the never-ending gang violence, Johnson sent his son and stepdaughter to live with his mother in t...

‘Freedom Convoy’ organizer Pat King asks to move trial out of Ottawa

Published Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:11:25 GMT

OTTAWA — An Ontario court judge says he’s unlikely to grant “Freedom Convoy” organizer Pat King’s request to move his criminal trial out of Ottawa.King was among the original group of organizers that brought big-rigs and other trucks to the capital city to protest COVID-19 public health restrictions in early 2022.His lawyer, Natasha Calvinho, told the court Tuesday that his name has been highly publicized ever since. She made a second attempt to convince a judge to move the trial away from Ottawa and argued King is so notorious he would not have a chance at a fair trial in the city.Several people charged during the demonstration have been denied similar requests, including convoy organizer James Bauder and former Ontario MPP Randy Hillier.Calvinho argued King had a greater notoriety than most other convoy organizers and even Hillier, who represented an Ottawa-area riding for about 15 years.King “was and still is more highly publicized than most other pe...

Colorado high court to hear case against Christian baker who refused to make LGBTQ-themed cake

Published Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:11:25 GMT

DENVER (AP) — On the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court victory this summer for a graphic artist who didn’t want to design wedding websites for same-sex couples, Colorado’s highest court said Tuesday it will now hear the case of a Christian baker who refused to make a cake celebrating a gender transition. The announcement by the Colorado Supreme Court is the latest development in the yearslong legal saga involving Jack Phillips and LGBTQ+ rights. Phillips won a partial victory before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 after refusing to make a gay couple’s wedding cake but was later sued by Autumn Scardina, a transgender woman, who asked his suburban Denver bakery to make a pink cake with blue frosting for her birthday. It refused after Scardina explained it would celebrate her transition from male to female.The justices didn’t explain how or why they made the determination. It was announced in a long list of decisions about which cases they will hear and reject. The case involves the state’s...

The Supreme Court seems likely to side with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Published Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:11:25 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed likely to preserve the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against a conservative-led challenge.Even some conservative justices sounded skeptical of arguments that the agency, created after the 2008 financial crisis to regulate mortgages, car loans and other consumer finance, violates the Constitution in the way it is funded.The CFPB case is one of several major challenges to federal regulatory agencies on the docket this term for a court that has for more than a decade been open to limits on their operations. The CFPB, the brainchild of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has long been opposed by Republicans and their financial backers.But a majority of the court appeared ready to reject the sweeping arguments made by the lawyer for payday lenders whose challenge to a CFPB rule spawned the Supreme Court case. A ruling for the agency also would quiet concerns about the validity of the CFPB’s actions si...

US Rep. John Curtis says he won’t run to succeed Mitt Romney as Utah senator

Published Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:11:25 GMT

U.S. Rep. John Curtis won’t run to succeed Mitt Romney, leaving the race to replace the nationally known Utah senator clear of one of the state’s best known Republicans.“We’ve accomplished a lot but my work for them is not done,” Rep. John Curtis wrote in a Monday op-ed in the Deseret News. “I believe we need elected leaders who are more concerned about doing their job than getting the next job. To walk away now would leave a commitment unfilled. I want to finish the job.”A former mayor of the city of Provo, Curtis, 63, has served in Congress since 2017, winning a special election that year and reelection by wide margins ever since.Curtis emerged as a possible candidate after Romney, 76, announced last month that he won’t run for reelection. Romney said he would be too old by the time his second term ended and that younger people needed to step up and run.The announcement opened a wider door for next year’s Senate race and led to speculation about whether Uta...

Pennsylvania House proposes April 2 for presidential primary, 2 weeks later than Senate wants

Published Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:11:25 GMT

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Most Pennsylvania lawmakers want to move their state’s presidential primary election up from late April, but disagreements arose in the House on Tuesday over whether to embrace a Senate-backed plan that would shift the election to mid-March. A House committee first rejected, but later passed, a bipartisan Senate bill that seeks to hold the election on March 19. That second vote came hours after the committee approved its own bill to move the primary to April 2. Most lawmakers are motivated to move the primary from April 23 — where it is set by state law — to avoid a conflict with the Jewish holiday of Passover and to make it earlier in the primary calendar, thereby giving voters in the battleground state more of a say in deciding presidential nominees.“I think at its core, people recognize that Pennsylvania is frankly the center of the political universe,” said the bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia. “If you want to win a natio...

MK-ULTRA mind-control experiments: Quebec high court says U.S. has immunity in Canada

Published Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:11:25 GMT

MONTREAL — Quebec’s Court of Appeal says the United States government cannot be sued in Canada for its alleged role in infamous brainwashing experiments at a Montreal psychiatric hospital.The proposed class-action lawsuit is about MK-ULTRA — allegedly funded by the Canadian government and the CIA between the 1940s and 1960s at Montreal’s Allan Memorial Institute, which was affiliated with McGill University.In a 3-0 decision rendered Monday, the province’s highest court upheld a lower court decision that said a 1982 Canadian law governing how foreign states can be sued in the country cannot be used retroactively. The court case stems from a January 2019 class-action lawsuit filed against McGill University, the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Canadian and U.S. governments after Montrealers allegedly had their memories erased and were reduced to childlike states.The lawsuit — which has not been authorized by a judge — alleges that the experiments by Dr. Ewen Cameron a...

Welcome to Lake Cow-nty: Giant cow sculpture pays homage to farmers and land — it just needs a name

Published Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:11:25 GMT

LAKE COUNTY, Ill. — In some regards, the Lake County landscape is every bit as much as it was 150 years ago. But to a great extent, this county and plenty of others in Illinois and throughout America which were agriculturally base, have given way to the modern city and suburban lifestyle.Enter a sculpture of a larger-than-life bovine. It’s an artistic homage to the milk cow and all that she represents — and it’s all because of Greg Koeppen and the Lake County Farm Bureau.Koeppen is the executive director of the bureau and he saw a similar cow 20 years ago while driving through Door County, where German settlers brought them to Wisconsin to help in feeding a fast-growing Midwest.“In my head at the time I said, ‘One day that'll be so cool to have something like that here in a very urban Chicago area,” he said.So 18 months ago he pitched it to the board at the bureau and they loved it.“The minute I told him this is my idea is the vision I have for it they loved it. They embraced it and...