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Biden adviser says US is pressing for the release of reporter who has spent 100 days in Russian jail

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:56:24 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Friday said the U.S. has been in contact with Russian officials to press for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as Friday marked the 100th day of the journalist being detained by the Russian government.Sullivan said he also spoke with Gershkovich’s family representatives and Wall Street Journal officials on Friday about the status of the case and the administration’s efforts to win the reporter’s release. The Kremlin earlier this week suggested that it was open to a possible prisoner exchange that could involve Gershkovich, but it underscored that such talks must be held out of the public eye.“I do not want to give false hope,” Sullivan told reporters. “What the Kremlin said earlier this week is correct. There have been discussions. But those discussions have not produced a clear pathway to a resolution, and so I cannot stand here today and tell you that we have a cle...

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations involving Trump have cost more than $9 million

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:56:24 GMT

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of President Donald Trump’s retention of classified records and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election have cost more than $9 million over the first several months, according to documents released Friday. The special counsel’s office spent more than $5.4 million on things like employees’ salaries, travel and transportation, rent, supplies and materials from Smith’s appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 through the end of March, Justice Department statement of expenditures show. Justice Department agencies spent another $3.8 million to support the special counsel. Those expenses include the cost of the protective details for the special counsel’s office as well as hours worked by agents and analysts on the probes. Trump was indicted last month on 37 felony counts alleging he illegally kept classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and refused government dema...

Dutch media say the government failed to agree on migration laws, which could prompt new elections

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:56:24 GMT

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Tense talks among the four parties in Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s ruling bloc have failed to broker a deal over ways to rein in migration, Dutch media reported Friday, citing unnamed sources. That would likely mean the collapse of the ruling coalition.The failure of months of talks on the thorny issue could now force a general election. The government didn’t confirm the reports and no ministers immediately emerged from the meeting near Rutte’s office, but an extra meeting of Rutte’s Cabinet was hastily arranged for later Friday.“We talked for a long time, we are coming here tonight because we did not succeed,” Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren told reporters as she walked into the Cabinet meeting.Other ministers arriving for the meeting did not confirm that the failure of the talks had led to the collapse of the government. But opposition lawmakers wasted no time in calling for fresh elections. Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigrat...

U.S. destroys last of its declared chemical weapons, closing a deadly chapter dating to World War I

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:56:24 GMT

RICHMOND, Ky. (AP) — The last of the United States’ declared chemical weapons stockpile was destroyed at a sprawling military installation in eastern Kentucky, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell announced Friday, a milestone that closes a chapter of warfare dating back to World War I.Workers at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky destroyed rockets filled with GB nerve agent, completing a decadeslong campaign to eliminate a stockpile that by the end of the Cold War totaled more than 30,000 tons.“Chemical weapons are responsible for some of the most horrific episodes of human loss,” McConnell said in a statement. “Though the use of these deadly agents will always be a stain on history, today our nation has finally fulfilled our promise to rid our arsenal of this evil. The weapons’ destruction is a major watershed for Richmond, Kentucky and Pueblo, Colorado, where an Army depot destroyed the last of its chemical agents last month. It’s also a defining mo...

Capitol rioter linked to Proud Boys gets 5 years in prison for pepper-spraying police

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:56:24 GMT

A Florida man prosecutors say is affiliated with the Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison for attacking police officers with pepper spray as they tried to defend the U.S. Capitol against supporters of President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021. Barry Ramey, an aircraft mechanic who was convicted of assault and other crimes in federal court in Washington, D.C., also tried to intimidate an FBI agent investigating him before his arrest. Ramey anonymously called the agent and recited the agent’s home address over the phone, prosecutors say. Ramey has been locked up since his April 2022 arrest. His attorney wrote in court documents that Ramey “has understood the gravity of his actions and is ready for a change with support standing by to help him through it.” There was no immediate response Friday to an email sent to his attorney seeking comment.Prosecutors say Ramey joined a large group of Proud Boys on the morning of Jan. 6 before heading toward ...

94-year-old gymgoer shows there’s no age limit to fitness

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:56:24 GMT

For the last two decades, seven days a week, three times a day, 94-year-old Vic Downs has been working out at the Scarborough YMCA. “I’ve been coming to the YMCA for about 25 years now,” Downs tells CityNews. “I come at 6 a.m. and I do my weight training.”“Around 7 a.m., I go home. I have breakfast and I sleep and then I come back here by 9 a.m.”His meal plan is also consistent. For breakfast, he enjoys six eggs. By lunchtime, he indulges in a container of cottage cheese, a can of tuna and yogurt. By dinner, he eats either chicken breast or sardines. “You have to put the effort into it to get the return,” said Downs. “I was in the army and in the army, the first thing they told you to do was exercise in the morning before breakfast so that’s what got the whole thing rolling.”The 94-year-old fitness enthusiast was born in London, England, on June 12, 1929 and immigrated to Canada in 1952.“Way back then, this would be in the 1950s, there wasn’t very many ...

CRTC to maintain approach for setting wholesale internet rates, with some adjustments

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:56:24 GMT

OTTAWA — The federal telecommunications regulator is sticking with the way it sets prices for Canada’s large carriers that provide smaller competitors with access to the internet.The CRTC says its review of its process for wholesale rates found the best method of promoting competition is the current approach in which it sets rates for wholesalers such as TekSavvy based on the service and infrastructure costs to the major players, plus a markup.Most of Canada’s larger carriers had argued for reforms, saying the traditional rate-setting method has resulted in competitors paying them less than break-even cost.They instead wanted to bring in commercial negotiations as the method for setting the majority of wholesale service rates, saying that model would provide greater opportunity to meet competitor-specific needs while minimizing unnecessary regulation.The CRTC says it will improve its current approach with adjustments such as considering market rates and other relevant in...

Trump blasts DeSantis in Iowa, says GOP rival ‘despises’ the state’s ethanol

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:56:24 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Friday headlined his largest Iowa campaign event in nearly four months with a speech to thousands at an arena in the western part of the state. Trump used his appearance in Council Bluffs to attack his top GOP rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for opposing the federal mandate for ethanol, a renewable fuel additive that Iowa leads the nation in producing.“I’m proud to be the most pro-farmer president that you’ve ever had,” Trump said at the outset of the event aimed at promoting his administration’s agricultural record and touting his oversight of clawbacks of regulations on farmers. “I fought for Iowa ethanol like no president in history.”He planned to stop by a local Dairy Queen afterward to mingle with workers and customers.The large Republican presidential field has spent a lot of time over the last few months in Iowa, the leadoff GOP caucus state. In June, more than a half dozen candidates, including DeSantis, former Vice ...

Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred for false election fraud claims, a Washington review panel says

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:56:24 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A review panel says former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani should be disbarred in Washington for how he handled litigation challenging the 2020 election on behalf of then-President Donald Trump.Giuliani “claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence,” wrote the three-lawyer panel in a report released Friday that goes through the errors and unsupported claims in a Pennsylvania lawsuit he argued seeking to overturn the Republican president’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Between Election Day and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, Giuliani and other Trump lawyers repeatedly pressed claims of election fraud that were almost uniformly rejected by federal and state courts. He’s the third lawyer who could lose his ability to practice law over what he did for Trump: John Eastman faces disbarment in California, and Lin Wood this week surrendered his license in Georgia.“Mr. Giuliani’s effort to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential el...

Pritzker announces $40B in state transportation investments

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:56:24 GMT

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Commuter trains, roads, and other forms of transportation will see tens of billions of dollars in investments across Illinois over the next several years.Over the next six years, Governor JB Pritzker says more than $40 billion dollars will be invested in improving all modes of transportation calling it the largest construction project in state history.The announcement, made Friday morning in Springfield by Pritzker, Illinois’ Secretary of Transportation and members of the general assembly.Officials say the program is a “blueprint to improve roads, bridges, transit, rail, airports, waters, bike and pedestrian accommodations over the next six years.” What qualifies for an AMBER Alert in Illinois? According to information released by the state, the fiscal year 2023 “annual highway improvement program” totals nearly four billion dollars…and will be significantly larger than years past.  In the 2023 fiscal year, officials expect improvements to 900 highway mile...