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Nebraska trans health bill advances, despite filibuster vow

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:03:50 GMT

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Legislature voted Thursday to advance a contentious bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors, despite threats from some lawmakers that they would filibuster the rest of the session.The vote came on the third day of debate, in which lawmakers angrily accused one another of hypocrisy and a lack of collegiality early on. By Thursday, the chamber had turned somber as some lawmakers opposed to the bill broke down in tears and pleaded with their Republican colleagues to reconsider their support for the bill. Members of the LGBTQ community who had gathered in the Capitol to protest the bill showed their displeasure with the outcome, booing and cursing lawmakers who voted to advance it as they left the legislative floor.“I am a ball of rage,” said Wrenn Jacobson, 29, of Lincoln, after the vote. “I’ve had to go back to therapy when this bill was introduced. I know so many people — so many kids — who will be hurt by this.”“They come for the ...

Ohio toxic train derailment upends school baseball, track

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:03:50 GMT

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (AP) — On the surface, everything looks normal.There’s the East Palestine High School baseball team learning the finer points of baserunning at one edge of Reid Memorial Stadium. At the other, a handful of sprinters dart through the mild March air, the blue parachutes attached to their waists mushrooming behind them as they pick up speed.Same as it ever was at East Palestine as it transitions from winter to spring sports. Only, not really.A little over a mile east of the small school — student population 285 — tucked near the Pennsylvania state line, cleanup crews are still dealing with the aftermath of the Feb. 3 train derailment. While no one was hurt, concerns over a potential explosion led state and local officials to approve releasing and burning toxic vinyl chloride from five tanker cars that forced the evacuations of half the village and closed schools for a week.More than a month later, the cleanup is ongoing. The legal wrangling over who to blame ...

Ski-Doo maker BRP beats earnings expectations, and sees clear trails ahead

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:03:50 GMT

MONTREAL — BRP Inc. rode runaway powersport vehicle sales to a major jump in earnings last quarter, a better-than-expected performance the company says paves the way for further growth this year.The Ski-Doo maker reported that fourth-quarter profit rose 75 per cent year over year to $365.1 million, while revenue leaped 31 per cent to a record high of $3.08 billion.Sales of year-round products — all-terrain vehicles, side-by-side vehicles and three-wheeled motorcycles — fuelled the rise, increasing 47 per cent to $1.25 billion in the quarter ended Jan. 31 compared with the same period a year earlier.Seasonal products such as snowmobiles and Sea-Doos saw revenue surge 26 per cent to $1.32 billion.The results drove the Valcourt, Que.-based company to a 35 per cent market share for powersports in North America, its highest ever. It also claimed No. 1 market share among all original equipment manufacturers in the segments it operates in, up from fourth in 2020.“BRP’s Q4 resul...

New deep-sea worm named after Trinidad & Tobago scientist

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:03:50 GMT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A new species of deep-sea worm that can live in environments on the ocean floor that are either extremely hot or very cold has been named after a marine scientist from Trinidad and Tobago.Behold the Judiworm, whose official name is Lamellibrachia judigobini.“This must surely be a crowning point of my extensive marine career,” Judith Gobin, a marine ecologist and a professor at the University of the West Indies, said in a statement Wednesday.The name is meant to honor Gobin for her discoveries and efforts to protect marine life in the region, according to Magdalena Georgieva of the Natural History Museum in London.The University of the West Indies said in a statement that the new species was collected during exploratory missions from 2012 to 2014.The worm lives near hydrothermal vents and cold seeps across the Gulf of Mexico and around Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago at depths up to more than 10,800 feet (3,300 meters). The vents can reach temperatures o...

Espionage thriller ‘Rabbit Hole’ a new challenge for action star Kiefer Sutherland

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:03:50 GMT

Toronto-raised actor Kiefer Sutherland does not spend time, as he puts it, “surfing the web.” He doesn’t browse online for news and still visitsa library for research. It’s his recipe, he says, for avoiding misinformation. “It’s from all sides of the political spectrum,” says the star of a new deception-themed series, “Rabbit Hole,” premiering this Sunday on Paramount Plus. “There is no circumstance in this universe where two plus two equals five, and yet in an effort to belong to something, people will gravitate to that. I think that this is a potentially very dangerous thing that’s happening in our society.”Discerning between truth and manipulation has been a signature pattern behind some of Sutherland’s television roles, from the early 2000s as protagonist Jack Bauer in the counterterrorism drama “24,” which ran for nine seasons, to the ABC/Netflix political thriller “Designated Survivor.” In “Rabbit Hole,” Sutherland adopts a similar path as John Weir, a corporate espiona...

‘Scream as loud as you can’: 5 boys rescued from NYC tunnel

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:03:50 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Five mischievous boys had to be rescued after they crawled through a storm drain tunnel in New York City and got lost, authorities said.In audio released by the fire department, 911 dispatchers work to pinpoint the boys’ exact location and then tell them to scream once rescuers are close enough to hear.“Now you can scream as loud as you can,” a dispatcher says. “They want you to scream and yell.”The five boys, aged 11 and 12, crawled into a storm drain on Staten Island at about 6 p.m. Tuesday, fire department officials said at a news conference Wednesday. The boys walked about a quarter mile and then called 911 when they couldn’t find their way back, officials said.“We’re stuck in the sewer,” one of the boys says on the recording. “You’re stuck where?” a dispatcher responds.A second dispatcher says he is familiar with the area and tries to determine exactly where the boys are. “Once you went down, was the sewer left, right, straight — where was it?” the d...

Supreme Court restores man’s conviction despite police violation of Charter right

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:03:50 GMT

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada has restored the conviction of an Ontario motorist who had been drinking, even though police made an unauthorized stop on a private driveway.In a unanimous ruling Thursday, the top court said that given the circumstances, the evidence obtained from the unlawful police stop should not have been excluded by an appeal judge.The Ontario Provincial Police were patrolling near Thessalon First Nation on Lake Huron after midnight in March 2016 when they noticed an all-terrain vehicle about to leave a parking lot outside a convenience store.The officers decided to conduct a sobriety check of the motorist, Walker McColman, and followed his vehicle down a road and onto a private driveway that served his parents’ home.Upon approaching McColman, an officer noticed signs of intoxication, including a strong odour of alcohol and his inability to stand up straight.McColman was arrested and taken to a police station for breathalyzer testing. He was convicted...

Paraguay launches corruption probe of former president

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:03:50 GMT

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Paraguay’s attorney general launched a criminal investigation Thursday into U.S. allegations that a former Paraguayan president and the current vice president were involved in corruption and had ties to a terrorist group.Paraguay’s Attorney General Emiliano Rolón Fernández said a team would look into the U.S. allegations that former President Horacio Cartes and Vice President Hugo Velázquez engaged “in systemic corruption that has undermined democratic institutions in Paraguay.”Cartes and Velázquez have previously denied the allegations.The U.S. government, meanwhile, added three people to a list of Paraguayan officials it suspects of “significant corruption” and who would be barred from entry into the U.S. along with their family members. That list, started in 2019, now numbers nine officials.The U.S. in January issued explosive allegations that Cartes and Velázquez had ties to the Mideastern militant group Hezbollah, which Washington has designated a...

4 CPD officers stripped of police powers amid investigation into gun seizures: source

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:03:50 GMT

CHICAGO — Four Chicago police officers were stripped of their police powers and placed on desk duty last week amid an investigation into the documentation of guns recovered on the street, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.The investigation centers around the officers' procedures in documenting firearms that were taken off the street while the officers were on duty, the source said.The four officers were assigned to the Calumet District on the Far South Side, the source said. A representative for the Chicago Police Department declined to comment.In a statement, Ephraim Eaddy, the first deputy of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, said: “COPA is actively investigating the actions of the involved officers and made a recommendation to the Chicago Police Department to relieve the officers of their police powers.”

3-year-old cancer patient from Northwest Suburbs needs your help to go on dream trip

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:03:50 GMT

ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. – He’s not even four years old, but he’s dealt with a lifetime of medical treatments in his young life.Now an organization is hoping to give a cancer patient from the Northwest Suburbs a trip of a lifetime, and you can help.Campaign One at a Time is raising funds to send three-year Levi Tsu, who has been fighting an aggressive brain tumor since March 2020, to Walt Disney World and Give The Kids the World Village during March. They need $5,000 to do so and as of the middle of the month, they’ve raised $3,405 for the trip.“For us, I think every single moment is just so precious, and I think knowing that, we realize that going to Disney is even that much more special, for him and for us, because we don’t know what lies ahead,” said Levi's mother Shannon Tsu. “So being able to partake in that for us and our entire family with Levi I think is really meaningful.”The couple said that they learned about Campaign One at a Time from other parents who also had children un...