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Next year’s Olympics are pushing Paris to confront crack cocaine use on city streets

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:40 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Neighborhoods in northeast Paris have struggled for years with the scourge of crack cocaine and its use in public. The Summer Olympics, kicking off a year from Wednesday, are offering an impetus to tackle the problem.Yet despite a surge in arrests and new promises of tougher security around the 2024 Paris Games, some residents question whether the newfound focus is just pushing users elsewhere instead of treating medical and mental health problems, a lack of housing and jobs and other deeper ills at the root of the crack crisis.Residents in the 18th and 19th arrondissements, or districts, of the French capital have long complained about the open-air crack use in their neighborhoods that stands in sharp contrast to the postcard-perfect tourist areas of Paris farther south.Small groups of people could be seen using illicit drugs on Sunday at the Porte de la Chapelle metro station and a nearby tram stop located across the street from a new multi-purpose aren...

Police narrow search for infant lost in flash flood, after 2-year-old sister’s body found

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:40 GMT

WASHINGTON CROSSING, Pa. (AP) — Search teams in Pennsylvania were focusing on one underwater area Sunday as they try to find a 9-month-old boy swept away in a flash flood, hours after authorities confirmed that the body of his 2-year-old sister was recovered from the Delaware River.Upper Makefield Township police said in a Facebook post Sunday that although 2-year-old Matilda Sheils had been “brought home to her loving family” after her body was recovered Friday, officials are “devastated that we have not yet been able to reunite Conrad with his sister and family.”Hundreds of people including search and rescue teams, marine units and police and fire personnel have scoured the area with the aid of “K-9s, sonar, drones, boats, divers, heavy equipment, GPS mapping and air units,” police said, adding that they were now at the point that “our search will be dependent upon the conditions of the river.”Authorities have centered their efforts on an area near where the cree...

Former Brazilian President Bolsonaro fades from the spotlight

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:40 GMT

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is fading from the spotlight, showing the courts’ power over the electoral system and the political shortcomings of the increasingly powerless former leader.Brazil’s top electoral court ruled last month that Bolsonaro is ineligible to run for any political office until 2030 for abusing his power and casting unfounded doubts on the country’s electronic voting system. Bolsonaro was once called the “Trump of the Tropics” after emerging as a crusading outsider promising to shake up the system and pursuing an aggressive brand of identity politics including conservative values. Trump, who also cast doubt on the U.S. electoral system and faces legal trouble, remains the front-runner for the Republican Party’s nomination. A clear demonstration of Bolsonaro’s waning power was a tax reform vote in Congress’ lower house this month. A proposal supported by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government to ...

‘Barbie,’ in 1st, and ‘Oppenheimer,’ in 2nd, fuel historic box office bonanza

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:40 GMT

“ Barbenheimer ” didn’t just work – it spun box office gold. The social media-fueled fusion of Greta Gerwig’s “ Barbie ” and Christopher Nolan’s “ Oppenheimer ” brought moviegoers back to the theaters in record numbers this weekend, vastly outperforming projections and giving a glimmer of hope to the lagging exhibition business, amid the sobering backdrop of strikes. Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” claimed the top spot with a massive $155 million in ticket sales from North American theaters from 4,243 locations, surpassing “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (as well as every Marvel movie this year) as the biggest opening of the year and breaking the first weekend record for a film directed by a woman. Universal’s “Oppenheimer” also soared past expectations, taking in $80.5 million from 3,610 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, marking Nolan’s biggest non-Batman debut and one of the best-ever starts for an R-rated biographical drama.It’s also the first time that one movie opened to more than $1...

Protesters in the Thai capital calls on senators to approve vote winners’ choice for prime minister

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:40 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — Hundreds of people gathered Sunday in the Thai capital of Bangkok to demand that conservative senators stop blocking the naming of a prime minister belonging to a winning coalition formed from May’s general election, a stance that risks a potentially destabilizing political deadlock.Protesters braved heavy rain to show their anger and frustration toward the members of the Senate, who were appointed by the military and pride themselves as defenders of traditional royalist values, which they believe are under threat. The surprise election winner, the Move Forward Party, failed in two efforts to have its leader Pita Limjaroenrat confirmed as the next prime minister, largely because he failed to woo enough votes from the senators, who are disturbed by the party’s reformist policy platform. As many as 1,000 demonstrators took to Bangkok’s busy Asok intersection with umbrellas and raincoats. many shouting “Senators, get out!” Speakers at the peaceful rally also called for p...

Security guard killed, suspect dead in Portland shooting

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:40 GMT

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) - Gunfire erupted inside Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital in Northwest Portland Saturday morning, leaving one security guard dead in the aftermath. After an hours-long search for the shooter, the suspect died in an officer-involved shooting in Gresham.The incident began around 11 a.m. when shots were fired on the 5th floor of the Irving Center, near the birthing unit at the hospital, PPB Sgt. Kevin Allen said. Though they did not have any information it was an active shooter event, officers responded as if it was, he said.The suspect -- who has not been identified -- fled the hospital, which led to "every available officer" working to locate the shooter.Initially, it was thought the shooter fled to the Fred Meyer store near Providence Park. But after a lengthy search police were "confident there is no threat at that store," Allen said around 2 p.m.The suspect in a fatal shooting at Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital died in an officer-involved shooting at NE 181st an...

Woman gored by Yellowstone bison says 'yes' to hospital proposal hours later

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:40 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona woman who suffered fractured vertebrae and collapsed lungs after being gored by a bison in Yellowstone National Park has said “yes” to her boyfriend's hospital proposal.Chris Whitehill said he planned to propose to Amber Harris during their vacation in the park this week, but after spending just one night there, an encounter with a bison upended those plans.The couple from the Phoenix area had walked to a lodge for some coffee Monday and decided to walk through a field to Yellowstone Lake in Wyoming, Harris posted on Facebook the next day. Woman gored by bison at Yellowstone National Park suffers ‘significant injuries’ They waited for some people and about 20 elk to leave the area before continuing. They also noticed two bison. They watched one “drop and roll in the dirt, like a dog would,” she wrote. “He got up on his feet and started walking, then running toward us.”The bison “struck her head-on and she was airborne,” Whitehill told KPNX-...

What Biden's SAVE plan means for student loan borrowers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:40 GMT

(The Hill) - Student loan borrowers could save thousands of dollars over the life of their loans due to changes to income-driven repayment (IDR) plans set to go into effect this fall. The changes are possible despite a blow dealt to debt forgiveness by the Supreme Court late last month.The Biden administration introduced the Saving on Valuable Education (SAVE) plan to transform the old IDR system into what the Department of Education called “the most generous” student repayment option ever given to borrowers.  Here’s what borrowers should know about the new SAVE plan before payments resume this fall after a three-year hiatus. Wisdom O. Cole, NAACP national director of Youth & College, led chants with others outside the White House for student loan debt relief. What is the SAVE plan? The plan, announced earlier this year, makes multiple significant changes that will lower the monthly payment for many borrowers, including some who could see their bill go to $0 ...

1 hospitalized after fight leads to shooting in Long Beach

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:40 GMT

Correction: Officials with the Long Beach Police Department originally reported that one person was killed and two others were injured in this shooting. A shooting at a party in Long Beach has sent one person to the hospital, police said. According to the Long Beach Police Department, officers responded to a home in the 1900 block of Luray Street around 10:45 p.m. Saturday night on calls of shots being fired. After initially confirming that one person was killed and two others were hospitalized in stable condition, LBPD officials confirmed with KTLA that only one person was transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The victim has not been identified. Detectives in Long Beach went to a nearby hospital believing that the victims there were from the Long Beach shooting, but they discovered that they were involved in another unrelated shooting in Carson.In that shooting, one person was killed and another sustained injuries, but is expected to survive.Cell phone...

LAPD honoring fallen officers with ‘A Ride to Remember’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:40 GMT

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Mission Area Station is hosting the 3rd Annual Memorial Bike Ride known as “A Ride to Remember, In Honor of All Fallen First Responders” on Sunday. Over 100 bikers will be riding 25 miles through the northwestern parts of the San Fernando Valley.  The event raises funds for the families of Mission Area’s fallen officers, Officer Val Martinez and Officer Nicholi Darkus, in addition to raising funds for Mission’s youth programs.   MGK, Megan Fox involved in altercation at O.C. Fair Officer Martinez was exposed to COVID-19 while on duty and passed away due to complications in July 2020. He never got the chance to meet his newborn twin boys, LAPD said. Officer Darkus was diagnosed with cancer shortly after graduating from the Police Academy and died just last month. He leaves behind a wife and three children, police confirmed. "This is very important," said one rider participating in the event with his daughter, who works at the San Ferna...