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Car bomb explosions and hostage-taking inside prisons underscore Ecuador’s fragile security

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:27 GMT

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador’s fragile security situation was underscored Thursday by a series of car bombings and the hostage-taking of more than 50 law enforcement officers inside various prisons, just weeks after the country was shaken by the assassination of a presidential candidate.Ecuador’s National Police reported no injuries resulting from the four explosions in Quito, the capital, and in a province that borders Peru, while Interior Minister Juan Zapata said none of the law enforcement officers taken hostage in six different prisons had been injured.Authorities said the brazen actions were the response of criminal groups to the relocation of various inmates and other measures taken by the country’s corrections system. The crimes happened three weeks after the slaying of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. The corrections system, known as the National Service for Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty, in recent years lost control of large prisons, w...

Hong Kong, other parts of south China grind to near standstill as Super Typhoon Saola edges closer

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:27 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — Most of Hong Kong and other parts of southern China ground to a near standstill Friday with classes and flights canceled as Super Typhoon Saola edged closer. The typhoon could make a landfall in southern China and many workers stayed at home. Students in various cities saw the start of their school year postponed to next week. Hong Kong’s stock market trading was suspended and more than 400 flights were canceled or delayed in the key center for regional business and travel.Mainland Chinese rail authorities ordered all trains entering or leaving Guangdong province to be suspended from Friday night to early evening Saturday, state media CCTV reported. The Hong Kong Observatory raised a No. 8 typhoon signal, the third-highest warning under the city’s weather system, early Friday. Its forecast said Saola — with maximum sustained winds of 210 kilometers (130 miles) per hour — would be closest to the financial hub on Friday night and Saturday morning, skirting withi...

After years of fighting, a praying football coach got his job back. Now he’s unsure he wants it

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:27 GMT

BREMERTON, Wash. (AP) — An assistant high school football coach in Washington state who lost his job during a controversy over his public post-game prayers is back on the sideline after the U.S. Supreme Court held that his practice was protected by the Constitution. But after fighting to be rehired for seven years, Joe Kennedy isn’t sure he wants it anymore, and the thought of kneeling in the spotlight again makes him queasy.On Friday night, he is due to coach his first game since 2015, when he last pressed his knee to the turf at Bremerton High School’s Memorial Stadium. Everyone will be watching for him to pray again, he said. “Knowing that everybody’s expecting me to go do this kind of gives me a lot of angst in my stomach,” said Kennedy, standing near midfield, where he intends to kneel when the game clock expires Friday. “People are going to freak out that I’m bringing God back into public schools.”After asking Kennedy to keep any on-field praying non-demonstrative or apa...

Smugglers are steering migrants into the remote Arizona desert, posing new Border Patrol challenges

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:27 GMT

ORGAN PIPE CACTUS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Ariz. (AP) — Border Patrol agents ordered the young Senegalese men to wait in the scant shade of desert scrub brush while they loaded a more vulnerable group of migrants — a family with three young children from India — into a white van for the short trip in triple-degree heat to a canopied field intake center.The migrants were among hundreds who have been trudging this summer in the scorching sun and through open storm gates in the border wall to U.S. soil, following a remote corridor in the sprawling Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument that’s among the most desolate and dangerous areas in the Arizona borderlands. Temperatures hit 118 degrees Fahrenheit (47.7 degrees Celsius) just as smugglers abruptly began steering migrants from Africa and Asia here to request asylum. Suddenly, the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, which oversees the area, in July became the busiest sector along the U.S-Mexico border for the first time since 2008. It’...

Video of police fatally shooting a pregnant Black woman set to be released, Ohio department says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:27 GMT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Body camera footage showing the final moments of a pregnant Black woman who was shot and killed by police in an Ohio parking lot last week is expected to be released to the public on Friday.Ta’Kiya Young, a 21-year-old from Columbus, was pronounced dead shortly after the Aug. 24 shooting outside a grocery store in the suburb of Blendon Township. Her unborn daughter did not survive. Suspected of shoplifting, police say Young was killed after she accelerated her car toward an officer. The family’s lawyer, Sean Walton, claims the police department has waited to release the bodycam video to minimize media attention on potentially damaging footage. Walton did not immediately respond to phone messages from The Associated Press seeking additional comment. Blendon Township Police Chief John Belford said the delay resulted from a small staff trying to process the video and properly redact certain footage in accordance with Ohio law. The family will be able t...

Residents return to find homes gone, towns devastated in path of Idalia

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:27 GMT

HORSESHOE BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Hurricanes and tropical storms are nothing new in the South, but the sheer magnitude of damage from Idalia shocked Desmond Roberson as he toured what as left of his Georgia neighborhood.Roberson took a drive through Valdosta on Thursday with a friend to check out damage after the storm, which first hit Florida as a hurricane and then weakened into a tropical storm as it made its way north, ripped through the town of 55,000.On one street, he said, a tree had fallen on nearly every house. Roads remained blocked by tree trunks and downed power lines, and traffic lights were still blacked out at major intersections.“It’s a maze,” Roberson said. “I had to turn around three times, just because roads were blocked off.”The storm had 90 mph (145 kph) winds when it made a direct hit on Valdosta on Wednesday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said.“We’re fortunate this storm was a narrow one, and it was fast moving and didn’t sit on us,” Kemp told a news conference Thursday ...

Cook's Corner mass shooting victim thanks first responders for saving his life

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:27 GMT

Just over a week after a deadly mass shooting at a popular Orange County biker bar claimed the lives of four people, including the gunman, one of the six victims wounded during the attack is thanking those who helped save his life.  The deadly shooting unfolded on Aug. 23 when retired Ventura police sergeant John Snowling walked directly up to his wife inside Cook’s Corner in Trabuco Canyon, and, without saying a word, shot her and a friend, according to witnesses. He continued “randomly” shooting people both inside and outside the bar before being fatally shot in a gunfire exchange with seven deputies, Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said at a news conference.  The horror of that night became even clearer this week after officials at the Orange County Fire Authority released 911 calls made during the mass shooting.  “My buddy just got shot. We’re at Cook’s Corner. He can’t breathe,” one witness tells dispatchers. “Who has the gun?” the dispatcher asks. “So...

Man found stabbed to death at Malibu beach, suspect remains at large

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:27 GMT

A vigil was held Thursday night to remember a 21-year-old man who was found stabbed to death at a Malibu beach.Emmanuel Baltazar Silva was a new father to a three-month-old son when his body was found near a lifeguard tower at Las Tunas Beach just before midnight on Aug. 22.He later died at the hospital from multiple stab wounds. As his friends and family gathered at the beach Thursday night, the suspect still remains at large.His mother, Patricia Silva, said Emmanuel worked as a security guard and was always a good son who never got into trouble. She recalls the last time she spoke with her son.“He said, ‘Mom, I’ll be back.’ He even told me, ‘It won’t take long, I promise. I’ll be back,’” she said. “But he never came back.”Emmanuel Baltazar Silva, 21, in a family photo.Emmanuel Baltazar Silva, 21, in a family photo.A memorial set up by loved ones to remember Emmanuel Baltazar Silva at Las Tunas Beach on August 31, 2023. (KTLA)Loved ones gathered for a vigil to honor Emmanuel Baltaz...

Driver in Vallejo police chase crashes into car, kills occupant before escaping: police

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:27 GMT

(KRON) -- One person is dead after a police chase in Vallejo on Wednesday led to a crash, the Vallejo Police Department said. The person being chased fled the scene before police could arrive, and they remain at large. At about 5:35 p.m., VPD officers came across a Toyota Avalon that matched the description of a car that was involved in multiple armed robberies, according to police. Officers approached the car in the area of Tennessee Street and Tuolumne Street, and it sped away. Emeryville police searching for person of interest involved in stabbing The driver was ignoring traffic lights and stop signs, per VPD. Police initiated a pursuit but lost sight of the car as it was traveling eastbound on the 3300 block of Tennessee Street. About 30 seconds later, another police unit saw the car going westbound and weaving in and out of traffic on Springs Road near Mosswood Avenue. Officers made a U-turn to follow it.Officers then saw a large cloud of debris and dust near Springs Road an...

Petition circulating against SF pickleball courts

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:27 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – Pickleball is stirring up controversy in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights neighborhood. A resident created a petition complaining about the noise from the popular sport.Neighbors from behind the Presidio Wall pickleball courts have complained and actually made a petition against the sound that comes from these courts, but people who play there daily say the sound doesn't travel very far."It’s pretty self-contained, and the court noise is only at certain times of day too. I don't think it's disruptive,” said Lucas Ho, who plays at the courts. With pickleball becoming all the rage, San Francisco has opened public pickleball courts throughout the city to make it more accessible. Time running out to remove sailboat stuck at Stinson Beach "I love it, just got the pickleball bug and it is hella fun. The community is awesome,” said Zane Roshe, another player. When the Presidio Wall courts get busy, you can hear the “pock-pock” pickleball sound from a bloc...