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LIVE UPDATES: Trump returns to NYC to face historic indictment in Stormy Daniels hush money probe

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:32:56 GMT

Leonard Greene | New York Daily NewsAll eyes are on New York City today where former President Donald Trump returns Monday ahead of a scheduled historic criminal indictment related to allegations he arranged for hush money to be paid to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.Never before has a former president faced criminal charges — and never before has the Big Apple braced for the kinds of protests that could accompany his arrival and court appearance. Stay tuned here for live updates:1:31 p.m.Small groups of Trump supporters and detractors are facing off on Fifth Avenue behind a sea of barricades surrounding Trump Tower.“The indictment? It’s dirty politics. Absolutely dirty politics,” said John McGuigan, who traveled from New Jersey to show his support for the former president.“They just want to take him out of the race but this will make him stronger. He’s gaining more attention this way than he would if he was just doing rallies around the country. And he’s coming...

Trump departs Palm Beach International Airport to head to New York to face criminal charges

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:32:56 GMT

Anthony Man and Scott Travis | South Florida Sun-SentinelFormer President Donald Trump departed from Palm Beach International Airport at 1 p.m. Monday for a flight to New York to face criminal charges against him.Trump left his Mar-a-Lago home and resort at about 12:20 p.m. on Monday, and about 15 minutes later he walked up the back stairs to his plane at PBIA.The motorcade and flight were widely watched, but it wasn’t like his presidential days flying in and out of the airport on Air Force One. Trump’s plane, emblazoned with his name, had to wait its turn to take off behind other aircraft.Along the route, his motorcade passed by a group of cheering and flag-waving Trump supporters gathered along Southern Boulevard in West Palm Beach.Fans began assembling early Monday to show support for the former along the route from Palm Beach to the airport in West Palm Beach.Trump supporters stand outside Palm Beach International Airport on Monday, April 3, as they wait for Trump to leave Mar-a...

Joe Mazzulla focused on what Celtics can control entering final week of regular season

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:32:56 GMT

As the Celtics enter the last week of the regular season, Joe Mazzulla, naturally, isn’t concerned with future possibilities or hypotheticals.Next week, the Celtics will learn their playoff opponent, likely from one of the play-in games. With four games left this week, they still have a shot at the No. 1 seed. But Mazzulla isn’t wasting his energy on those things.“There’s nothing we can do about it,” Mazzulla said. “A lot of it’s out of our control.”The No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, the C’s still have a shot – even if it’s highly unlikely – to catch the Bucks for the top seed. They trail by two games, with a road tilt set for Tuesday against the No. 3 seed 76ers before finishing the regular season at home with a two-game series against the Raptors before Sunday’s season finale with the Hawks. Each of those teams are potential playoff opponents.The Bucks, meanwhile, finish their regular season against the Wizards, Bulls, Grizzlies and Wizards. The Celtics need to make u...

Muslim charity alleges systemic bias in bid to halt revenue agency’s ‘tainted’ audit

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:32:56 GMT

OTTAWA — A grassroots Muslim charity is pointing to internal Canada Revenue Agency documents in a bid to persuade an Ontario court that a long-running federal audit is fundamentally tainted by systemic bias and Islamophobia.The Muslim Association of Canada wants the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to halt the revenue agency’s audit of the association on the grounds it violates Charter of Rights guarantees of equality and freedom of religion, expression and association.Lawyers for the registered charity plan to argue at a hearing Tuesday that the audit, which began in 2015, discriminates against Muslims.The federal government is asking that the case be dismissed, saying the revenue agency’s selection of the association for an audit and the subsequent examination do not infringe Charter rights.The association, which promotes community service, education and youth empowerment, says over 150,000 Canadians use its mosques, schools and community centres each year. The court ...

University facing class-action over COVID campus lockdown

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:32:56 GMT

DOVER, Del. (AP) — A federal judge has granted class-action status in a lawsuit in which current and former students of the University of Delaware claim the school breached contractual obligations and unjustly enriched itself by halting in-person classes and shutting down the campus in 2020 because of the coronavirus epidemic.Overruling several objections by attorneys for the university, Judge Stephanos Bibas said Friday that the lawsuit can proceed as a class action on behalf of thousands of students who were enrolled as undergraduates in the spring semester of 2020 and paid tuition.The ruling came just days before a scheduled hearing this week on the university’s request for the judge to grant summary judgment in its favor. That hearing has been postponed indefinitely.In his ruling, Bibas rejected UD’s argument that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue. The university also argued unsuccessfully that it is impossible to know who actually paid tuition because some stude...

Spectator dies of ‘cardiac event’ after school game brawl

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:32:56 GMT

ALBURGH, Vt. (AP) — An autopsy has determined that a 60-year-old spectator who died after being involved in a brawl at a Vermont middle school basketball game in late January died of an acute cardiac event, state police said. The investigation is ongoing, and police are working with county prosecutors to review the case and any potential charges for people involved in the fight, state police said Friday. Russell Giroux, of Alburgh, died Jan. 31 at Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans over two hours after he was involved in the altercation among multiple spectators during a seventh- and eighth-grade boys basketball game between Alburgh Community Education Center and St. Albans City School, police said. The medical examiner determined that the cause of death was an “acute cardiac event following altercation in an individual with coronary artery atherosclerosis,” state police said. The manner of death will be listed as undetermined, police said.The fight had ended before troopers ...

1st moon crew in 50 years includes woman, Black astronaut

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:32:56 GMT

NASA on Monday named the four astronauts who will fly around the moon late next year, including the first woman and the first African American assigned to a lunar mission.The first moon crew in 50 years — three Americans and one Canadian — was introduced during a ceremony in Houston, home to the nation’s astronauts as well as Mission Control. “This is humanity’s crew,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.The four astronauts will be the first to fly NASA’s Orion capsule, launching atop a Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than late 2024. They will not land or even go into lunar orbit, but rather fly around the moon and head straight back to Earth, a prelude to a lunar landing by two others a year later.The mission’s commander, Reid Wiseman, will be joined by Victor Glover, an African American naval aviator; Christina Koch, who holds the world record for the longest spaceflight by a woman; and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen, a former ...

Egyptian asylum seekers decry ‘Islamophobia’ by Canada’s border agency

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:32:56 GMT

VANCOUVER — Attia Elserfy was expecting a second lease on life when he escaped Egypt with his family, landing in Vancouver in October 2018.But the Elserfys say their lives are in limbo because the Canada Border Services Agency challenged both Attia and his wife’s admissibility as refugees over their ties to a political party outlawed by the Egyptian government.The Elserfys took part in a hearing in November 2021, but have not heard from immigration officials since, unable to work, they have had to resort to welfare after the Egyptian government froze their assets.“It’s making me feel crazy, because it’s not the democratic Canada that I expected,” Elserfy said in an interview through an Arabic interpreter. “It makes me feel like I’m still living under the authoritarian regime that I escaped from.”Elserfy and other Egyptian asylum seekers spoke Monday alongside New Democrat MP Don Davies at his constituency office in Vancouver, decrying ...

Spending in Wisconsin Supreme Court race tops $42 million

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:32:56 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Spending on the high stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race has topped $42 million, nearly triple the previous national record for a court race, with the Democratic-backed candidate having a roughly $6 million advantage, according to a report released on Monday just before polls opened.The winner in Tuesday’s election between Democratic-backed Janet Protasiewicz and Republican-backed Dan Kelly will determine majority control of the court, with issues like abortion access, redistricting and more than a decade of Republican priorities, hanging in the balance.The court has been under conservative control for 15 years, helping to enshrine priorities of the GOP-controlled Legislature and former Gov. Scott Walker. Liberals have cast the race as a defining moment for their side to exert power and potentially overturn the state’s 1849 abortion ban law and redraw maps created by Republicans that have led to them increasing their control of the Legislature.The wi...

Drug dealer gets life for killing 9-year-old Liverpool girl

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:32:56 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A drug dealer who killed a 9-year-old Liverpool girl when he tried to gun down a rival was sentenced to life in prison Monday for murder during an emotional hearing he refused to attend.Thomas Cashman, 34, who declined to appear in Manchester Crown Court because he said the proceedings were “turning into a circus,” was convicted of murder in the Aug. 22 death of Olivia Pratt-Korbel. At the time, the child’s mother had tried to prevent Cashman’s intended target from barging into their home. Cashman was trying to kill Joseph Nee over a drug debt when he opened fire on a street in Liverpool. Nee ran from the gunman and tried to force his way into Cheryl Korbel’s home. Cashman continued to fire as Korbel blocked the door and one bullet passed through her wrist and struck her youngest child in the chest.Because of her own injury, the mother was helpless to aid her dying daughter.“My worst nightmare was being separated from her when she needed me the most,”...