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Right-wing social media platform Parler plans to relaunch early next year

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:43 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The social media platform Parler, which caters to right-wing voices and was temporarily booted offline following the Jan. 6 insurrection, is relaunching ahead of next year’s presidential elections. The new owners of the company announced this week the platform is preparing for a “powerful resurgence” that emphasizes “a return to its roots as a robust marketplace of ideas.”Parler has been offline since April, when it was purchased by the digital media conglomerate Starboard for an undisclosed sum. Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, had also offered to buy the company beforehand, but the agreement collapsed late last year. The company’s new owner is a limited liability corporation known as PDS Partners. Elise Pierotti, who is returning as the platform’s chief marketing officer, said PDS consists of herself, Parler’s new CEO Ryan Rhodes and others who are choosing to remain anonymous. Jaco Booyens, an anti-sex trafficking activist, will serve as th...

U-Haul truck driver arrested downtown after reports of person with gun

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:43 GMT

Emergency Task Force officers have made an arrest in downtown Toronto after responding to reports of a person with a gun.In a social media post, Toronto Police said officers arrested the driver of a U-Haul truck that was being tracked by a police helicopter.Police say before the driver was arrested near Church and Carlton streets, the truck may have collided with several vehicles throughout Toronto and Durham Region.A photo from the scene of the arrest shows a police vehicle wedged against the truck, which has side damage. PERSON WITH A GUN– panel truck may have collided with several vehicles throughout Toronto & Durham– If you were involved, please notify @TrafficServices at 416.808.1900– If no injuries & damage is < $2000, they may refer you to Collision Reporting Centre #GO2914805 ^vk— Toronto Police Operations (@TPSOperations) December 20, 2023It’s unclear if anyone was injured. Officers have closed Carlton Street between Church and Mutua...

Turkey says its warplanes have hit suspected Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:43 GMT

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish warplanes carried out new airstrikes Wednesday against Kurdish militant targets in neighboring Iraq, the Turkish defense ministry said, a day after Turkish and Iraqi officials held high-level security talks in Ankara.Turkey often launches strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq that it believes to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a banned Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s.According to a statement from the ministry, the fighter jets struck a total of 14 suspected PKK targets in northern Iraq’s Gara, Hakourk and Qandil regions where the aircraft destroyed caves, shelters and warehouses used by the militants. Measures were taken to avoid harming civilians, historic or cultural heritage and the environment, the ministry added.There was no immediate comment from the PKK, the government in Baghdad or the administration in the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region in Iraq. Ankara mai...

Victim of Green River serial killer identified after 4 decades as teen girl who ran away from home

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:43 GMT

SEATTLE (AP) — Authorities have identified a teenage girl killed by the Green River serial killer in Washington state four decades ago.Lori Anne Razpotnik was 15 when she ran away from her home in Lewis County in 1982. Her family never saw her again.Her remains were found in 1985 over a road embankment in Auburn, south of Seattle, alongside the remains of two other victims. Investigators could not determine who two of those victims were, and the remains were listed as “Bones 16” and “Bones 17.”Bones 16 was identified through DNA testing in 2012 as Sandra Majors, but the identity of Bones 17 remained unknown until a forensic genetic genealogy firm, Virginia-based Parabon Nanolabs, was able to develop a new DNA profile and determine they belonged to Razpotnik.Razpotnik’s mother provided a DNA sample that confirmed the results, the King County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Tuesday.After authorities linked Gary Ridgway to the killings through DNA evidence in 2001, ...

Texas police officer indicted in fatal shooting of man on his front porch

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:43 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — An Austin, Texas, police officer has been indicted for deadly conduct in the fatal shooting of a man standing on his own front porch. A grand jury indicted Austin police Officer Daniel Sanchez on Wednesday in Rajan Moonesinghe’s death.Video and audio show Austin police officers arrived at Moonesinghe’s home in November 2022, yelled “drop your gun,” then fired at Moonesinghe, who was holding an AR-15-style weapon.Officers were responding to a 911 call requesting police and mental health support because a man was holding a long gun outside in the residential neighborhood. The caller, who was not identified in the recording, said the man had approached him earlier in the day to ask if he had noticed anything suspicious in the area.Ring security camera footage released by police shows Moonesinghe had just fired two shots into his home and had been speaking in the direction of his house while pointing the gun inside, but it is not clear why.Body camera fo...

‘Fat Leonard,’ a fugitive now facing extradition, was behind one of US military’s biggest scandals

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:43 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The extradition of convicted defense contractor Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis to the United States as part of the Venezuelan prisoner swap on Wednesday is the latest twist in a decade-long salacious saga and bribery scheme that swept up dozens of American Navy officers.One of the biggest bribery investigations in U.S. military history led to the conviction and sentencing of nearly two dozen Navy officials, defense contractors and others on various fraud and corruption charges. And it was punctuated by Francis’ daring escape last year, when he fled from house arrest at his San Diego home to South America.An enigmatic figure who was 6-foot-3 and weighed 350 pounds at one time, Francis owned and operated his family’s ship servicing business, Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. or GDMA, which supplied food, water and fuel to vessels. The Malaysian defense contractor was a key contact for U.S. Navy ships at ports across Asia for more than two decades. D...

Suriname’s ex-dictator sentenced to 20 years in prison for the 1982 killings of political opponents

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:43 GMT

PARAMARIBO, Suriname (AP) — Suriname’s former dictator Desi Bouterse was sentenced on Wednesday to 20 years in prison for the murders of 15 opponents of the then-military regime in December 1982, ending a historic 16-year legal process.Bouterse, 78, was previously sentenced in the case in 2019 and in 2021 but had appealed both decisions. The court on Wednesday upheld his conviction and the latest sentencing was seen as final with no more appeals allowed. The judge handed down 20 years given the ex-president’s age and that it was the highest sentence allowed at the time of the killings. “We have received a gem of a verdict,” said Hugo Essed, lawyer for the victims’ relatives, adding that he can now “proudly” say there is an independent constitutional state in Suriname.Neither Bouterse, nor his four co-suspects, who were sentenced to 15 years in prison, were present in the courtroom for the sentencing. Bouterse’s lawyer, Irvin Kanhai, said he disagreed with the verdict and had e...

Olympian, philanthropist, head of Canadian Women’s Foundation appointed to Senate

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:43 GMT

OTTAWA — A former Olympian, a philanthropist and the head of the Canadian Women’s Foundation have all been newly appointed to the Senate.The appointees include Marnie McBean, who was an Olympic medalist four times during her career as a rower and won three gold medals.She will be joined by Toni Varone, a developer who is a director on the board of the Crown corporation Canada Lands Company.The third appointee is Paulette Senior, the former head of the YWCA of Canada, who is known for her work promoting gender equity.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office announced the three will fill vacant seats in the Senate for Ontario. Independent senators are appointed by the Governor General on the recommendation of the prime minister after being selected by an advisory board.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 20, 2023.The Canadian Press

New York sues SiriusXM, accusing company of making it deliberately hard to cancel subscriptions

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:43 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s attorney general filed suit Wednesday against SiriusXM, accusing the satellite radio and streaming service of making it intentionally difficult for its customers to cancel their subscriptions.Attorney General Letitia James’ office said an investigation into complaints from customers found that SiriusXM forced subscribers to wait in an automated system before often lengthy interactions with agents who were trained in ways to avoid accepting a request to cancel service. “Having to endure a lengthy and frustrating process to cancel a subscription is a stressful burden no one looks forward to, and when companies make it hard to cancel subscriptions, it’s illegal,” the attorney general said in a statement. The company disputed the claims, arguing that many of the lengthy interaction times cited in the lawsuit were based on a 2020 inquiry and were caused in part by the effects of the pandemic on their operations. The company said many of its plans can be c...

Chris Christie outlines his national drug crisis plan, focusing on treatment and stigma reduction

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:43 GMT

ROCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Calling the latest wave of the nation’s drug crisis “a test of our national resolve,” Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie returned to a New Hampshire recovery center Wednesday to outline a people-focused, not punitive, policy plan.“This is a test to see who we want to be as both a people and as a country,” he said at the Hope on Haven Hill wellness center, which services pregnant women and mothers struggling with substance use disorder. “We need an approach that remembers and reflects on the very basic humanity of every single one of those 100,000 victims, as well as the treasures each one of them could have brought to this country.”Christie led a White House commission on opioid misuse in 2017, and he praised former president Donald Trump for endorsing all 56 of its recommendations. But only about half have been enacted, and both Trump and President Joe Biden have treated the problem as a crisis in name only, Christie said. Meanwhile, other Republi...