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Florida floods: Businesses, residents begin cleaning up mess

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:41 GMT

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Workers at one of Fort Lauderdale’s landmark restaurants spent Friday tearing out carpeting and original hardwood floors, both ruined when 8 inches (0.25 meters) of water poured inside two days earlier.Old Heidelberg was among numerous businesses and residences affected by historic rainfall in South Florida this week that caused widespread flooding, closing the state’s international airport for nearly two days and turning streets into rivers. While it started raining on Monday, much of the water fell Wednesday, and the Fort Lauderdale area saw record rainfall amounts in a matter of hours, ranging from 15 inches (38 centimeters) to 26 inches (66 centimeters), the National Weather Service said.Stephan and Yvonne Liebe said they had never experienced a flood like this since they bought Old Heidelberg 16 years ago, even during hurricanes and tropical storms. The German restaurant sits at the entrance to Fort Lauderdale’s Edgewood neighborhood, the city...

Greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2021, but climate experts still see positive signs

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:41 GMT

OTTAWA — Several climate change experts said Friday they see reason for hope in Canada’s efforts to slow global warming even though the country’s greenhouse gas emissions rose slightly in 2021.The annual inventory of Canada’s emissions for 2021, published Friday, showed emissions from all sources that year added up to 670 million tonnes. That’s up from 659 million tonnes in 2020. Typically any increase in emissions would leave environment activists deflated. This time it didn’t.“Canada’s latest emissions reporting contains a rare kernel of good news,” said Rachel Doran, director of policy and strategy at Clean Energy Canada.Although emissions edged higher, they remained below both the pre-pandemic level in 2019 and the 2005 level, which is the comparison target for Canada’s 2030 emissions goal.Emissions in 2020 plunged to their lowest levels in more than two decades, as COVID-19 kept cars off the road, planes on the ground and big industrial...

DA: Suspect in killing of Cash App founder planned attack

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:41 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The 38-year-old tech consultant charged with the killing of Cash App founder Bob Lee planned the attack, drove the victim to a secluded spot and stabbed him over an apparent dispute related to the man’s sister, prosecutors said in a court document released Friday.The motion to detain Nima Momeni without bail is the first official accounting of what may have led to the stabbing death of Lee in a deserted part of downtown San Francisco early morning on April 4. Momeni was arrested Thursday and appeared in a San Francisco courtroom Friday but did not enter a plea. He is now scheduled to be arraigned April 25.The judge in Friday’s brief hearing agreed to detain Momeni in jail without bail. If convicted, he faces 26 years to life in prison, said the office of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.Momeni appeared in court wearing an orange sweatshirt and pants. He did not speak except to say, “Yes your honor,” when the judge asked if he agreed to decline his right to...

US Supreme Court’s abortion pill order spares safe havens

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:41 GMT

Before the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in Friday, access to an abortion pill was in line to become more cumbersome in California, New York and some other states that have positioned themselves as safe havens for those seeking to end their pregnancies.The order keeps in place federal rules for use of mifepristone, one of the two drugs usually used in combination in medication abortions. The legal saga isn’t over: The Supreme Court suggested it will decide the issue by Wednesday.The high court’s position at least pauses a ruling issued last Wednesday by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans that would have allowed mifepristone sales to continue, but under rules adopted by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000, before a series of changes that relaxed access.The 5th Circuit ruling, which overturned another recent federal court order halting mifepristone sales nationwide, was set to take effect Saturday. It would have required the drug to be taken in the pres...

Telford says national security limits what she can say on foreign interference

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:41 GMT

OTTAWA — The prime minister’s chief of staff offered up few details to a House of Commons committee studying foreign interference in the last two elections, frustrating Conservatives and New Democrats who say her lack of answers Friday will erode trust.Katie Telford said she should not be at the procedure and House affairs committee answering questions about national security, but she agreed to appear “because I want Parliament to work.”As a senior adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Telford has top-secret security clearance.“In my years in this job, I have seen a huge range of intelligence from all parts of the world. Some of it has been wrong … some of it, right,” Telford said.“Some we may never know or only with time will we learn if it’s true.”Trudeau’s national security and intelligence adviser, Jody Thomas, also provided MPs with a document Friday that contained the official record of dates the prime minister had been...

Son gets life in drive-thru hit that killed mob-linked dad

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:41 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York man will spend the rest of his life in prison after hiring a hitman to kill his father, a reputed Mafia associate gunned down at a McDonald’s drive-thru in what prosecutors called a scheme to control a real estate empire built from mob money.Anthony Zottola Sr. blotted away tears at sentencing Friday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. Audible sobs filled the courtroom as his sister and brother addressed him, the culmination of a wrenching family drama that the judge said was difficult to fathom.Welling with emotion, his sister Deborah Ann Zottola, spoke lovingly of her brother even as she talked of the pain of losing their father.A jury last fall found Zottola and an accomplice, Himen Ross, guilty in a murder-for-hire plot that prosecutors said went wrong several times before it finally led to the death of the victim, Sylvester Zottola, 71.The first attack occurred in September of 2017, when a stranger floored the then-70-year-old with a punch to th...

Wet winter gives way to colorful ‘Superbloom’ in US West

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:41 GMT

The tiny rain-fed wildflowers, no bigger than a few inches, are so vivid and abundant across California this year that their hues of purple and yellow look like paint swatches from space.From the mist-shrouded San Francisco Bay area to the deserts of Arizona near the Mexican border, there are flashes of color popping up after an unusually wet winter helped produce a so-called “ Superbloom.”A series of powerful storms dumped record amounts of rain and snow across California, replenishing reservoirs, bringing an end — mostly — to the state’s three-year drought, and setting prime conditions for millions of dormant seeds to sprout. Botanists say wildflowers are expected to be blooming well into May, with some areas just starting.“One of the things unique about this year is how incredibly widespread it is,” said Naomi Fraga, director of conservation programs at the California Botanic Garden. “It’s pretty spectacular.”Superblooms often follow wet winters, according to experts....

Ontario court judge facing two assault charges

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:41 GMT

An Ontario court judge is facing a pair of assault charges.In a notice posted Friday, the Ontario Court of Justice says Justice Paul Currie of the Central West Region has been charged with assault and assault causing bodily harm.No further details were provided as to when the charges were laid or the circumstances surrounding them. “Regional Senior Justice Paul Currie will not be assigned any judicial or administrative duties until further notice,” the provincial court statement said. “No further information or comment about this matter will be provided at this time.”Justice Anthony Leitch will be acting as Regional Senior Justice for the Central West Region until further notice.Justice Currie was appointed to the regional position by the Ford government in April 2019. He was called to the bar in 1984 and began his legal career as an assistant Crown attorney before moving into private practice. In 2004, Justice Currie was appointed a judge of the Ontario Cour...

Alberta Premier Smith, with election looming, announces new limits on media questions

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:41 GMT

EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, four days after announcing she won’t answer questions on her ethics investigation, now says she will limit questions on all other topics.Smith told reporters in Calgary that given an election is looming, she will now only allow reporters to ask a single question at news conferences and not allow them the traditional followup query.Smith says the change is because her United Conservative Party wants to get in questions from more reporters during the election campaign, which is set to begin May 1 with voting day on May 29.Political scientists say Smith is making the change to avoid accountability, particularly over her phone call with the accused in an active criminal case which is now the subject of an investigation by Alberta’s ethics commissioner.They say followup questions to politicians are crucial as they are typically used to clarify or, if necessary, challenge the content of the first answer.Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley s...

Brazil judge orders police to question Bolsonaro on uprising

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:41 GMT

SAO PAULO (AP) — A Brazilian Supreme Court justice ordered the federal police Friday to take testimony from former President Jair Bolsonaro as part of the investigation itno the Jan. 8 attacks on government buildings in the capital.Justice Alexandre de Moraes gave the federal police 10 days to question the former president, acting on a request from the Prosecutor General’s Office.Thousands of Bolsonaro supporters trashed the presidential palace, the Supreme Court and Congress one week into President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s third term in office.The leftist Lula narrowly beat the far-right Bolsonaro in an October runoff election. Bolsonaro never explicitly conceded he lost the election and sought to sow doubt about Brazil’s electronic voting system.Bolsonaro was in Florida during the attacks, but prosecutors want to know whether he encouraged his supporters to wreak havoc. Hundreds are in jail awaiting trial, but hundreds of others have been released.The former president’s legal t...