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Florida rulings ease concerns about drag performers at Pride parades, drag queen story hours

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:48 GMT

By MIKE SCHNEIDER (Associated Press)ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Librarians who feared fines for hosting drag queen story hours and Pride parade organizers who worried about citations for including drag performers can breathe easier now that a judge has ruled that his injunction blocking Florida’s anti-drag law extends to all Florida venues, an attorney who is helping challenge the law said Thursday.A pair of orders that U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell issued in the past month makes clear that drag performances in themselves are not lewd or lascivious behavior, said Gary Israel, one of the attorneys for an Orlando restaurant that filed a lawsuit challenging the new Florida law championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis as unconstitutional.“The state has a very weak hand in this litigation,” Israel said.In his first order last month, the Orlando judge granted a preliminary injunction temporarily halting enforcement of the law until a trial is held to determine its constitut...

EPA loses Massachusetts court bid to toss lawsuit about stormwater pollution in the Charles, Mystic, and Neponset rivers

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:48 GMT

The EPA has lost its bid to toss a lawsuit about the federal environmental agency allegedly failing to protect three Boston-area rivers from stormwater pollution.A judge in U.S. District Court this week denied the Environmental Protection Agency’s motion to dismiss a suit filed by Charles River Watershed Association and Conservation Law Foundation — which aims to hold the EPA accountable for implementing stormwater runoff protections in the Charles, Mystic, and Neponset rivers.The groups sued the EPA last fall, accusing the feds of failing to regulate dangerous stormwater runoff in the three Boston-area rivers. The lawsuit seeks to curb stormwater pollution from commercial, industrial, and institutional properties.“Stormwater pollution is one of the greatest threats to urban rivers, including the Charles — polluted runoff degrades the river ecosystem and can cause rampant invasive species growth, toxic cyanobacteria blooms, and even fish kills,” said Ze...

Serious crimes unit takes over case of two missing B.C. children named in Amber Alert

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:48 GMT

SURREY, B.C. — Police have released more information about the woman alleged to have abducted her two  children, who are the subject of an Amber Alert.RCMP say Verity Bolton was spotted by closed-circuit TV emerging from a grocery store with a loaded cart in Kamloops two days before she was expected to give her children, who are from Surrey, back to their father after a vacation.   Surrey RCMP say in a news release that its serious crimes unit has taken over conduct of the investigation. The woman was supposed to return her children, eight-year-old Aurora and 10-year-old Joshuah Bolton, on July 17 to their father, who has primary custody. Police issued an Amber Alert on Wednesday saying they have concerns about the mother’s mental health and are worried about the well-being of the children.A photo released by RCMP shows a blue 2012 Dodge Ram 2500 pickup, towing a white horse trailer, that the woman is believed to be driving, and anyone who sees the vehicle or the Boltons is ur...

In a nod to Oppenheimer’s legacy, US officials vow to prioritize cleanup at nuclear lab

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:48 GMT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The price tag for cleaning up waste from the once top-secret Manhattan Project and subsequent Cold War-era nuclear research at Los Alamos National Laboratory has more than doubled in the last seven years, and independent federal investigators say federal officials will have to do better to track costs and progress.The Government Accountability Office in a report issued Wednesday said while some improvements have been made, the U.S. Energy Department hasn’t taken a comprehensive approach to prioritizing cleanup activities at the New Mexico lab.The report came as federal officials hosted a forum Thursday in Los Alamos to talk about cleaning up contaminated soil and groundwater and handling hazardous waste generated by decades of research that started with development of the atomic bomb during the 1940s.Ike White, who heads DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, said the release this week of the “Oppenheimer” film makes it a good time to talk about the...

Australian castaway gives detailed account of his time at sea

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:48 GMT

MANZANILLO, Mexico (AP) — He quit his corporate job and moved to Mexico to pursue his dream of sailing solo across the ocean.Australian Timothy Shaddock, 54, bought his 30-foot catamaran two years ago in the Mexican Pacific resort of Puerto Vallarta. He needed a place to live and he liked the isolation.“Of course, living on a boat and sailing on a boat is two different things and that was more of a challenge,” Shaddock told The Associated Press after stepping onto land for the first time in months.As his training ground Shaddock chose the Sea of Cortez, a narrow finger of water between the Baja California Peninsula and the Mexican mainland. “I was aware and the only preparation that you can really do is take the boat out to sea and test the boat at sea,” Shaddock said. He would take short journeys, noting what was working on the boat and what wasn’t, but was conscious that, in late April, hurricane season was coming. “It was either now or I could not really wait one more year,” he s...

See how an Alaska paddleboarder escaped a close encounter with a humpback whale

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:48 GMT

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska man on a paddleboard escaped a close encounter with a humpback whale, not even getting wet during a tense few seconds caught on camera by friends and family as the giant creature surfaced right in front of him then glided under his board.“It’s just so massive. You’re puny against this whale,” Kevin Williams of Anchorage said Thursday, a week after his adventure with an adult humpback whale in Prince William Sound. Adult females can weigh up to 70,000 pounds (31,700 kilograms) and average about 49 feet (15 meters) in length, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Males are a little smaller.Williams said anyone who claims they wouldn’t be afraid in that situation is crazy.“If you have a whale that doesn’t know you were there and is that close, that’s not a good situation,” he said. One flick of the animal’s fin “or anything it does could be the end of my life.”Williams, his son Brian and a couple other friends were paddleboa...

Toronto and GTA under severe thunderstorm watch, tornadoes possible near Barrie

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:48 GMT

Toronto and much of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) are under a severe thunderstorm watch, with Environment Canada cautioning for possible tornadoes near Barrie.Strong winds and heavy downpours are possible in Toronto this evening, with thunderstorms forming later tonight. Halton-Peel, York-Durham and the City of Hamilton are also under a severe thunderstorm watch this hour.Severe thunderstorm warnings are issued when imminent or occurring thunderstorms are likely to produce or are producing one or more of large hail, damaging winds, and torrential rainfall.A tornado warning is in place for Barrie that includes Collingwood and Hillsdale.“Environment Canada meteorologists are tracking a severe thunderstorm that is possibly producing a tornado. Damaging winds, large hail and locally intense rainfall, are also possible,” Canada’s weather agency said.“This severe thunderstorm is located near Stayner, moving east at 45 km/h.”Barrie is now under a Tornado warn...

Police say DNA technology has identified the killer in the unsolved death of a woman in 1981

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:48 GMT

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — More than four decades after a young New Hampshire woman was killed, law enforcement officials have solved the crime through DNA analysis and the use of forensic genealogy technology, the state attorney general said Thursday. But solving the case doesn’t bring with it the satisfaction of seeing justice: The man responsible for killing 23-year-old Laura Kempton died from an overdose in 2005, Attorney General John Formella said.Formella told reporters at a news conference in Portsmouth, where the killing took place in September 1981, that the investigators’ conclusion was “bittersweet” but underscored their resolve.The conclusion of the investigation after so many years should “send a message to anyone who has been affected by a case that has gone cold in this state that we will never stop working these cases,” he said. “We will never forget about these victims.”A police officer found Kempton dead in her apartment after attempting to serve a cour...

Synagogue gunman had traumatic childhood and couldn’t function as an adult, defense expert testifies

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:48 GMT

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The perpetrator of the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue massacre has led a deeply unstable life dominated by serious mental illness and family dysfunction, and has attempted suicide several times, a clinical psychologist testified Thursday.“This was a person who from the beginning had a childhood that was just laden with trauma, neglect and abuse from before he was born,” Katherine Porterfield testified for the defense during the sentencing phase of Robert Bowers’ trial. Bowers, 50, of suburban Baldwin, killed 11 worshippers from three congregations and wounded other worshippers and police officers on Oct. 27, 2018, when he opened fire inside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. He was convicted last month on 63 counts and could face the death penalty in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.Porterfield’s second day of testimony focused on Bowers’ teen and adult years. He showed some improvement around age 13 after an extended hospitalization in a ju...

Ottawa’s new round of sanctions on Russians includes celebrities, Wagner Group heads

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:48 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada is sanctioning more Russians whom Ottawa accuses of supporting Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and mercenary violence in Africa.Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has announced new sanctions against 38 individuals and 25 entities.The list has a focus on the paramilitary Wagner Group, which has sent combatants to Ukraine and across Africa.The sanctions also target Russia’s nuclear, drone and cultural industries, in response to that country’s attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear and cultural sites.The people sanctioned cannot have business dealings with Canadians or travel to Canada. Those added to the list Monday include pop singer Zara and actress Maria Shukshina, as well as the media outlet Readovka, Russia’s cultural ministry and mobile-network operators.French MPs have asked the European Union to add the Wagner Group to its terror listing, after countries such as Lithuania applied their own domestic labels to the group. The Conservatives have...