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Judge won’t delay Trump’s defamation claims trial, calling the ex-president’s appeal frivolous

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:08 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York federal judge expressed growing impatience Friday with what he calls ex-President Donald Trump’s “repeated efforts to delay” a defamation lawsuit against him, saying he won’t stop a January trial to await the outcome of a “frivolous” appeal of one of his rulings. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan made the remarks in a written ruling as he criticized arguments made by Trump’s lawyers in asking him to mothball the 2019 civil claims by a New York columnist who says Trump raped her in a luxury Manhattan department store dressing room in spring 1996.“This case was largely stalled for years due in large part to Mr. Trump’s repeated efforts to delay,” Kaplan wrote. “Mr. Trump’s latest motion to stay — his fourth such request — is yet another such attempt to delay unduly the resolution of this matter.”The ruling increases the likelihood that Trump will face the defamation lawsuit on Jan. 15, just as primary season begins in his quest to become the Republican nominee for presi...

Ottawa ‘shouldn’t walk around with a stick’ to enforce health deals: Holland

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:08 GMT

OTTAWA — Newly appointed Health Minister Mark Holland says accountability for new federal health funding will largely come from Canadians themselves. Holland told a conference hosted by the Canadian Medical Association in Ottawa that a $198-billion deal struck between the federal and provincial governments in February is intended to restore Canadians’ optimism about Canadian health care. All provinces except Quebec have accepted the agreement in principle and are hammering out finer details.Holland says governments “viscerally” understand that Canadians are done with political excuses for the state of health care and want to see results. He says he believes those public demands will ensure accountability, and Ottawa “shouldn’t walk around with a stick.”Holland said after his appearance that his provincial and territorial counterparts are pulling in the same direction, and that’s why he doesn’t want to start talking about how they’...

Court tosses Jan. 6 sentence in ruling that could impact other low-level Capitol riot cases

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:08 GMT

A federal appeals court on Friday ordered a new sentence for a North Carolina man who pleaded guilty to a petty offense in the Capitol riot — a ruling that could impact dozens of low-level cases in the massive Jan. 6, 2021 prosecution. The appeals court in Washington said James Little was wrongly sentenced for his conviction on a misdemeanor offense to both prison time and probation, which is court-ordered monitoring of defendants who are not behind bars. Little, who entered the Capitol but didn’t join in any destruction or violence, pleaded guilty in 2021 to a charge that carries up to six months behind bars. He was sentenced last year to 60 days in prison followed by three years of probation. But the 2-1 opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that probation and imprisonment “may not be imposed as a single sentence” for a petty offense, adding “there are separate options on the menu.” Judge Robert Wilkins, who was appointed by former President Barack...

Daughter says NYC shark bite victim has had 5 surgeries and has been left with permanent disability

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:08 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The 65-year-old woman who was bitten by a shark at a New York City beach has undergone five surgeries since the attack and will require more, her daughter said in a statement.Tatyana Koltunyuk’s recovery from the Aug. 7 shark bite will also take years of physical therapy and close medical monitoring, daughter Darya Koltunyuk said.“Though the full impact of her injury is not yet known, it has left her with a permanent disability,” Darya Koltunyuk said in an online statement posted on GoFundMe to raise money for her mother’s medical care.Tatyana Koltunyuk was swimming off Rockaway Beach when a shark bit into her left leg, leaving a wound several inches wide and deep. Lifeguards pulled Koltunyuk from the water and applied a tourniquet to her leg. She was taken to a hospital in critical condition.Darya Koltunyuk, a pianist and the outreach manager at Princeton University Concerts, said her mother will remain hospitalized for at least several more weeks.Tatyan...

San Francisco launches driverless bus service following robotaxi expansion

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:08 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — First came the robotaxis. Then the driverless buses arrived.San Francisco has launched an autonomous shuttle service — less than a week after California regulators approved the expansion of robotaxis despite traffic and safety concerns.The free shuttle will run daily in a fixed route called the Loop around Treasure Island, the site of a former U.S. Navy base in the middle of San Francisco Bay. The Loop makes seven stops, connecting residential neighborhoods with stores and community centers. About 2,000 people live on the island.The all-electric vehicle, which doesn’t have a driver’s seat or steering wheel, is staffed with an attendant who can drive the bus with a handheld controller if necessary. The county is offering the shuttle service as part of a grant-funded pilot program to assess how autonomous vehicles can supplement the public transit system.“Having the attendant on board makes everyone feel comfortable,” said Tilly Chang, executive director of ...

Prosecutor urges life sentence for Michigan shooter who killed 4 students

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:08 GMT

PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A prosecutor urged a judge Friday to impose a life sentence on the teenager who killed four students at his Michigan school, arguing that his methodical planning and “appetite for violence” should keep him locked up forever.“He only stopped because there was no one left to shoot. Those kids were trained to go into lockdown and they did,” Karen McDonald said.“There were hundreds of kids in that building who wrote and texted their parents very similar things: ‘There’s a shooter. I’m scared. I love you.’ … They were helpless — like the birds,” McDonald said, referring to evidence that the shooter liked to torture birds.Her final remarks came at the close of a unique four-day hearing that will determine whether Ethan Crumbley, 17, gets a life sentence for the attack at Oxford High School or a shorter term that would some day make him eligible for parole.Because of the shooter’s age — 15 at the time — Oakland County Judge Kwame Rowe must cons...

Rhode Island tornado lifts car as New England storms damages homes, flood roads

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:08 GMT

BOSTON (AP) — A rare Rhode Island tornado lifted a car off an interstate highway Friday morning as severe weather damaged homes and swept already storm-weary New England, a fire official said.Johnston Fire Chief David Iannuccilli said firefighters rushed to help the startled motorist on Interstate 295 and found her unharmed from her encounter with a tornado. “The driver said she got caught in the funnel, was lifted 10 feet in the air and was dropped back down on her tires,” Iannuccilli said. “She was shaken up more than anything.”The tornado also moved through wooded areas and residential neighborhoods, but there were no reported injuries, Iannuccilli said. Meteorologist Glenn Field with the National Weather Service said the tornado was confirmed by radar and lifted tree limbs and other debris into the air.Elsewhere, authorities were investigating to see if there was additional tornado damage in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Tornado touchdowns were also confirmed in Attlebor...

Stock market today: Wall Street limps toward the close of a third straight losing week

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:08 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is limping Friday toward the close of a third straight losing week.The S&P 500 was down less than 0.1% and heading for a weekly loss of more than 2% like other U.S. indexes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 15 points, or less than 0.1%, at 34,489, as of 2:50 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% lower. August has been rough for the stock market, which has given back close to a third of the S&P 500’s torrid gains for the year’s first seven months. That’s in part because a swift rise in yields has forced investors to reconsider whether stocks got too expensive, particularly after critics warned the market rose too far, too quickly. Stocks were holding a bit steadier Friday after yields eased a bit. After topping 4.30% a day before and nearing its highest level since 2007, the 10-year Treasury yield fell back to 4.25%.Stock markets elsewhere in the world sank more sharply, as higher yields globally crank up the...

'Really incredible': Inside a downtown Chicago pizza tour

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:08 GMT

CHICAGO — The Chicago Architectural Tour gets a lot of glory, rightfully so, but there's also a downtown tour of one of the city's other staples — pizza.Jonathan Porter grew up eating pizza all around the city and became addicted to all the various delicacies Chicago has to offer.After a career in sales, Porter admitted he was doing it more "for the paycheck" and wanted to find something he truly loved."Once the economy took a downturn in 2008, I didn’t have the passion for what I was doing. I told myself at that time, if I was going to have to work the rest of my life, I wanted to make sure it was something that I truly loved," he told WGN News. Porter, who describes himself as a "pizza nerd," knew how popular tours are for Chicago tourists and locals, but noticed no one was doing pizza tours. So in 2010, he bought a bus and established Chicago Pizza Tours.He has no plans to slow down anytime soon."I am now 13 and a half years into it — I still feel like this is my baby and I don’...

What does the slang acronym 'IJBOL' mean?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:08 GMT

(NEXSTAR) – Just when you thought you had them all memorized, yet another internet-driven slang term has arrived to make you feel out-of-touch.The latest of these slang terms is “IJBOL,” an acronym that stands for “I just burst out laughing,” and can be used much in the same way as LOL (laughing out loud), ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) or LMAO (laughing my a-- off).As reported by The New York Times and Today.com, the acronym is increasingly being used on social media, or in texts, to convey users’ reactions to something they find surprisingly hilarious. It was first embraced by the K-Pop fan community in 2021, the Times reported. The iPhone ‘hang up’ button may not be moving as much as we feared As of this week, many users on X (formerly Twitter) appeared to be adopting the term more frequently in their posts, though plenty of those posts were also poking fun at the term, or mocking the media outlets that reported on the acronym’s alleged popularity.In any case, searches fo...