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Texas lawmakers recommend impeaching Attorney General Ken Paxton after Republican investigation

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:38:01 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton teetered on the brink of impeachment Thursday after years of scandal, criminal charges and corruption accusations that the state’s Republican majority had largely met with silence for years until now. In an unanimous decision, a Republican-led investigative committee that spent months quietly looking into Paxton recommended impeaching the state’s top lawyer. The state House of Representatives could vote on the recommendation as soon as Friday. If the House impeaches Paxton, he would be forced to leave office immediately. The move sets set up a remarkably sudden downfall for one of the GOP’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory. Only two other officials in Texas’ nearly 200-year history have been impeached. Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separate...

2023 Doors Open Toronto event will have 150 sites available for exploration

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:38:01 GMT

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Doors Open Toronto will be running a full slate of in-person sites open for public exploration.One of the highlights of the 2023 edition of Doors Open Toronto, which runs on May 27 and 28, will be an open house at the TTC’s McCowan Yard — the facility that houses all Scarborough RT trains.“This is something I think, to be honest, is a bit bittersweet,” TTC spokesperson Shabnum Durrani told CityNews during a tour of the carhouse on Thursday.“As everybody knows, we are going to be decommissioning the SRT in November, so this is really the last chance for people to come in and see the home of the SRT.”Building of the facility, located on Ellesmere Road east of McCowan station, began in 1983 — two years before the Scarborough RT went into service. The carhouse and the yard is 4.1 million square feet.However, in recent years, it’s taken an extraordinary effort to keep Line 3 running beyo...

Pennsylvania doctor sentenced in West Virginia to 6 months in pain pill scheme

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:38:01 GMT

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A Pennsylvania doctor was sentenced to six months in federal prison Thursday for his role in a pain pill prescription scheme.Dr. Brian Gullett also was fined $5,000 and surrendered his medical license.Gullett, 46, of Clarksville, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty last September to a felony count of aiding and abetting obtaining a controlled substance by fraud.Gullett was indicted in 2018 along with the owners, managers and other physicians associated with the Hope Clinic and a group that managed Hope’s daily operations. Hope Clinic had offices in Beckley, Beaver, and Charleston, West Virginia, and in Wytheville, Virginia. Five other physicians have pleaded guilty. The remaining defendants are awaiting trial.West Virginia has by far the nation’s highest drug overdose death rate.“The criminal conduct in this case exploited and worsened an already devastating opioid crisis,” Will Thompson, the U.S. attorney for West Virginia’s southern district, said in ...

Minnesota governor signs paid family and medical leave act to give workers up to 20 weeks off

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:38:01 GMT

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota workers will be entitled to paid time off when they’re seriously ill or to care for newborns and loved ones starting in 2026 under a bill that Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed Thursday, making his state the 12th to require those benefits.The paid family and medical leave program will allow Minnesota workers up to 12 weeks a year off with partial pay to care for a newborn or a sick family member, and up to 12 weeks to recover from their own serious illness. Benefits will be capped at 20 weeks a year for employees who take advantage of both.Business groups fought to block the proposal, warning that it would impose heavy costs and regulatory burdens on employers and aggravate their staffing problems. But it was hailed by supporters who said it would bring equality and fairness to the workplace.“Everyone deserves paid time away from work, to heal, to grow, and to live,” Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said at the signing ceremony. “This time is not optional...

Putin reports progress in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, saying only technical issues remain

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:38:01 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that “strictly technical” issues remain in resolving one of the main disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, neighbors that fought a war over a contested territory.Putin met in Moscow with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, discussing a dispute over a winding road called the Lachin Corridor. That’s the only authorized connection between Armenia and the contested territory, Nagorno-Karabakh, and it’s a lifeline for supplies to the region’s approximately 120,000 people. Aliyev and Pashinyan, in a broader regional summit meeting Putin hosted in Moscow, lashed out at each other for their positions regarding the land corridor. But Putin said that on the “principal issues, there is an agreement,” and later said all that remained were “surmountable obstacles,” calling them differences in terminology and “strictly technical.” He said representatives of Russia, Armenia and A...

‘Romeo & Juliet’ stars’ lawsuit over 1968 film’s teen nude scene tossed

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:38:01 GMT

A Los Angeles County judge on Thursday said she will dismiss a lawsuit that the stars of 1968’s “Romeo and Juliet” filed over the film’s nude scene, which they said involved them being subjected to fraud, and sexual abuse and harassment when they were in their teens.Superior Court Judge Alison Mackenzie ruled in favor of a motion from defendant Paramount Pictures to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Olivia Hussey, who played Juliet at age 15 and is now 72, and Leonard Whiting, who played Romeo at 16 and is also 72. Mackenzie determined that the scene didn’t amount to child pornography and was protected by the First Amendment, finding that the actors “have not put forth any authority showing the film here can be deemed to be sufficiently sexually suggestive as a matter of law to be held to be conclusively illegal.”In her written decision, she also found that the suit didn’t fall within the bounds of a California law that temporarily suspended the statute of...

UN peacekeeping on 75th anniversary: successes, failures and challenges ahead in a divided world

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:38:01 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — On the 75th anniversary of U.N. peacekeeping, the United Nations chief said Thursday that peacekeepers are increasingly working in places where there is no peace and praised the more than 4,200 who have given their lives to the cause of peace since the U.N. authorized its first military deployment in 1948.It was a day to look back at the successes of peacekeeping from Liberia to Cambodia and its major failures in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but also to the challenges ahead, including dealing with more violent environments, fake news campaigns, and a divided world that is preventing peacekeeping’s ultimate goal: successfully restoring stable governments.And it was a day to honor the more than 2 million peacekeepers from 125 countries who have served in 71 operations since the U.N. Security Council sent those first military observers to supervise implementation of Israeli-Arab armistice agreements following their war.At a ceremony honoring the fallen peacekeepe...

Victims’ families settle wrongful death suit against quadruple killer, his parents

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:38:01 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The families of four young men killed and buried on a Pennsylvania farm have settled their wrongful-death lawsuits against the man who confessed in the killings and his parentsCosmo DiNardo, who was 20 at the time, admitted luring four young men ages 19 to 22 to the family’s farm in July 2017, saying he would sell them marijuana. He then killed them and buried them on the farm. He’s serving four consecutive life sentences.The lawsuits alleged DiNardo’s parents, Sandra and Antonio DiNardo, should have stopped him from having access to guns since he was barred from possessing firearms due to an involuntary commitment to a mental health facility.Citing court records, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Thursday that the agreements were reached earlier this month. Jeffrey Ogren, the DiNardo family’s attorney, declined comment Thursday, noting the settlements are confidential.The Associated Press

Navy SEALs training plagued by pervasive problems, according to investigation after death of sailor

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:38:01 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The training program for Navy SEALs is plagued by widespread failures in medical care, poor oversight and the use of performance-enhancing drugs that have increased the risk of injury and death to those seeking to become elite commandos, according to an investigation triggered by the death of a sailor last year.Medical oversight and care were “poorly organized, poorly integrated and poorly led and put candidates at significant risk,” the nearly 200-page report compiled by the Naval Education and Training Command concluded.The highly critical report said flaws in the medical program “likely had the most direct impact on the health and well being” of the SEAL candidates and “specifically” on Kyle Mullen, the sailor who died. It said if the shortcomings had been addressed, his death may have been preventable.The investigation also dug deep into the longstanding problem of sailors using steroids and similar banned drugs as they try to pass the SEAL qualification course...

'The Henry Puffer Podcast': Downers Grove elementary school students host podcast after dismissal

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:38:01 GMT

There are thousands of podcasts to choose from, but how about a podcast where the hosts are still in elementary school?A group of third to sixth graders in Downers Grover are pulling big names to their podcast table. The kids running "The Henry Puffer Podcast" are between 8 and 11-years-old.Third grade teacher, Miss Christine Reynolds came up with the idea as a way to introduce the kids to people giving back to their communities ‘Faces of Parkinson’s’: Mother, daughter highlight patients battling degenerative disease using photography Four years and countless guests later, The Henry Puffer Podcast went from a small microphone to a full fledged podcast nestled among giants on Apple and Spotify.Sure, there are hiccups and some days, it goes off script. But, the beauty of this podcast doesn't lie in it's perfect delivery, instead the lessons learned behind the mic that even the smallest can do big things.Watch the full coverage of The Henry Puffer Podcast in the video player above.