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Trump lawyers meet with Justice Dept. officials as charging decision nears in Mar-a-Lago case

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:11 GMT

By ERIC TUCKER (Associated Press)WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump met with Justice Department officials on Monday as a decision nears on whether to bring charges over the handling of classified documents at the former president’s Florida estate.The Trump lawyers two weeks ago requested a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland to raise concerns about what they alleged was prosecutorial misconduct and overreach by the team led by special counsel Jack Smith. But a defense attorney meeting with Justice Department officials is also often used as an opportunity to try to persuade them against bringing criminal charges.A trio of Trump attorneys — James Trusty, John Rowley and Lindsey Halligan — exited the Justice Department building in Washington on Monday morning after more than an hour inside. They got into a black sport utility vehicle and did not respond to reporters’ questions.It was not immediately clear who from the Justice Department a...

No survivors found after plane that flew over DC, led to fighter jets scramble crashes in Virginia

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:11 GMT

By MICHAEL BALSAMO and ASHLEY THOMAS (Associated Press)WASHINGTON (AP) — A wayward and unresponsive business plane that flew over the nation’s capital Sunday afternoon caused the military to scramble fighter jets before the plane crashed in Virginia, officials said. The fighter jets caused a loud sonic boom that was heard across the capital region.Hours later, police said rescuers had reached the site of the plane crash in a rural part of the Shenandoah Valley and that no survivors were found. The Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna Citation took off from Elizabethton, Tennessee, on Sunday and was headed for Long Island’s MacArthur Airport. Inexplicably, the plane turned around over New York’s Long Island and flew a straight path down over D.C. before it crashed over mountainous terrain near Montebello, Virginia, around 3:30 p.m.It was not immediately clear why the plane and pilot did not respond to radio transmissions, why it crashed or how many ...

Lawyer accused in series of alleged cold case rape and assaults, held on $500K cash bail

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:11 GMT

A Suffolk Superior Court judge on Monday ordered Matthew Nilo, accused in a series of alleged rapes and assaults dating back to 2007 and 2008, held on $5 million bail during an arraignment Monday.Nilo pleaded not guilty to the charges this morning. He can be released if he posts $500,000 cash.Nilo is charged with three counts of aggravated rape, two counts of kidnapping, one count of assault — attempted rape and one count of indecent assault and battery. The charges stem from alleged incidents in the Terminal Street area of Charlestown on Aug. 18, 2007; Nov. 22, 2007; Aug. 5, 2008; and Dec. 23, 2008, according to information provided by BPD Commissioner Michael Cox last week.An attorney now practicing in New Jersey, Nilo, 35, was arrested last Tuesday at his home in Weehawken, N.J., and agreed to waive extradition during a court appearance there last week.The charges against Nilo were filed after Boston Police, working with the FBI, turned to genetic analysis of evidence that ...

It will take days to collect debris from plane that flew over Washington, crashed in rural Virginia

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:11 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Four were killed when an unresponsive plane that flew over the nation’s capital crashed in Virginia, leaving behind “highly fragmented” wreckage in a mountainous area that will take days to gather and sort, federal authorities said Monday. A day after the plane prompted the military to scramble fighter jets, the Federal Aviation Authority said in a brief update that the pilot and three passengers were killed and that the plane was “destroyed” in the crash. Their identities weren’t immediately released.NTSB investigator Adam Gerhardt told reporters it will take investigators a while to reach the remote crash scene about two to three miles north of Montebello in mountainous terrain. They expect to be on the scene at least three to four days.Attention on the crash and its cause was heightened by its unusual flight path over Washington and a sonic boom caused by military aircraft heard across Washington, D.C. and parts of Maryland and Virginia. Speaking at a brie...

Wildfire risk remains well above average across Canada this month

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:11 GMT

OTTAWA — An area of land 11 times bigger than the city of Toronto burned from wildfires in the last four days — Canada’s worst spring wildfire season to date.Another 389 fires were recorded since June 1, and as of Monday morning there were 413 active fires underway, with the risk having spread to more provinces over the weekend.Nearly 250 of those were out of control in nine provinces and two territories.Mike Norton, the director general of the Northern Forestry Centre at the Department of Natural Resources, said having this many fires from coast to coast at this time of year is not normal. And the outlook for the rest of the season remains dire.In June the risk is well above average in every province and territory except Newfoundland and Labrador, where the risk is a little lower but still above average.Statistics compiled by the Canada Interagency Forest Fire Centre show more than 7,300 square kilometres of land burned in the last four days.That is nearly three times the ave...

SEC says crypto firm Binance mishandled funds, violated securities laws

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:11 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao are accused of misusing investor funds, operating as an unregistered exchange and violating a slew of U.S. securities laws in a lawsuit filed by the SEC. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit on Monday lists thirteen charges against the firm — including commingling and divert customer assets to an entity Zhao owned called Sigma Chain. Binance is a Cayman Islands limited liability company founded by Zhao. The lawsuit lays out the extent to which the firms owners knew of the alleged legal violations: “Binance’s CCO bluntly admitted to another Binance compliance officer in December 2018, “we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.” SEC Chair Gary Gensler in a written statement that Zhao and Binance “engaged in an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of d...

Book Review: Isabel Allende’s ‘The Wind Knows My Name’ explores lives of 2 children adrift alone

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:11 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — “The Wind Knows My Name” by Isabel Allende (Ballantine Books) Prolific Latin American-born author Isabel Allende skillfully braids the traumatic stories of two young children separated from each other by decades and thousands of miles in her latest novel, “The Wind Knows My Name.”It’s a kind of homage to parents who make unthinkable decisions to save their little ones, and to kids who survive some of the toughest challenges imaginable. One fictional child featured in the book is 5-year-old Samuel Adler, whose father disappeared after the 1938 pogrom in Vienna known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. The other is 7-year-old Anita Diaz, who fled her native El Salvador with her mother only for the pair to be separated in 2019 at the Arizona-Mexico border. In both cases, the children are traveling by train and are ultimately left alone, torn from their families by war or immigration as we witness the dramatic sacrifices parents sometimes mus...

Counteroffensive? Probing defenses? What’s playing out on Ukraine’s battlefields?

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:11 GMT

The video, released over the weekend by Ukraine, shows several of its soldiers in full combat gear raising a finger to their lips. “Plans love silence. There will be no start announcement,” say the words flashing on the screen afterward, followed by warplanes in flight.While Kyiv is keeping silent about the start of any counteroffensive, fighting is raging in several sections of the front line, signaling that the long-expected campaign could be getting underway.Moscow claims it successfully fended off a Ukrainian attempt to ram through Russia’s defenses, but some pro-Kremlin military bloggers painted a different picture, acknowledging that Kyiv’s troops made some quick gains.‘SHAPING OPERATIONS’In recent weeks, Ukraine has intensified the shelling of Russian positions and successfully pushed back against Russia’s attempts to extend its gains outside the eastern city of Bakhmut that it reclaimed last month in the war’s longest and bloodiest battle.Pro-Kyiv paramilitary groups o...

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II earns a Tony Award nomination for ‘Topdog/Underdog’

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:11 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Yahya Abdul-Mateen II first encountered the play “Topdog/Underdog” in college, performing a section as a favor for a student director who needed actors for a showcase. It turned into a favor for Abdul-Mateen.“I immediately came alive. I used to struggle with contemporary work because none of the characters felt like me. I didn’t really relate,” he says. “It unlocked something inside of me where I just could give everything that I had to give to it.”Abdul-Mateen returned to Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer-winning work this winter, earning a Tony Award nomination in his Broadway debut opposite Corey Hawkins. “To be on Broadway was always the goal. I didn’t even need to be a star of a show. I just wanted to be on the stage and to have more than a few lines and that was success,” he says.“Just to be able to fulfill the artistic calling and to do it on that stage was what the goal was. And to have my first Broadway experience doing ‘Topdog/Underdog,’ it’s just a gi...

Home destroyed in ignition operation as fire continues to burn near N.W.T. community

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:57:11 GMT

SAMBAA K’E, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES — A home in Sambaa K’e has been destroyed during an ignition operation as an out-of-control wildfire grows closer to the community in the Northwest Territories. The territorial government says the operation between the airstrip and the lake was meant to burn available fuel to create a break between the wildfire and the community previously known as Trout Lake.It says an unexpected thunderstorm caused the test fire to flare up and, despite efforts to extinguish it, it crossed the airstrip toward the home Sunday evening.  The territory says containing the test fire was difficult as low visibility due to smoke has meant aircraft are unable to fly.The wildfire near the Alberta boundary was last estimated to have burned about 2,029 square kilometres in the territory and is now 15 kilometres from Sambaa K’e. Residents of the community, which is home to about 97 people, were ordered to evacuate the area Wednesday when the fire was 30 kilo...