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2 men wrongly convicted in California are declared innocent

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:58:57 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two men who served nearly 17 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of attempted murder after a 2004 shooting were declared innocent Thursday by a California judge. Under a new law, the state is required to pay them each $140 for every day they spent behind bars, or about $900,000. The verdicts for Dupree Glass and Juan Rayford concluded a new trial that began in October after a state appeals court panel vacated their convictions and they were freed in 2020. The proceedings included a dramatic confession by the actual shooter, Chad Brandon McZeal, a gang member who’s serving a life sentence for murder in an unrelated case, the defense team said. After the judge ruled, Glass and Rayford embraced each other and their attorneys. Outside the courthouse, the men were cheered by family members and supporters. Rayford, clutching his baby daughter, called it an “amazing” feeling to have their records finally wiped clean and their reputations restored. “I thought ab...

Twitter scraps ‘government-funded media’ tag on public broadcasters

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:58:57 GMT

Twitter removed the “government-funded media” tag on public broadcasters including the CBC Thursday without any explanation.The move came after the Global Task Force for public media called on Twitter earlier in the day to correct its description of public broadcasters in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea.The group chaired by CBC president Catherine Tait had said Twitter applied the label without warning to the accounts of CBC/Radio-Canada; the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, known as ABC; the Korean Broadcasting System, or KBS; and Radio New Zealand, or RNZ. It noted that Twitter’s own policy defines government-funded media as those that may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.The task force said that was not the case here, where editorial independence is protected in law and enshrined in editorial policies.It said the most accurate label would be “publicly funded media.”Twitter initially labelled several accounts with...

Haley vs. Scott: From South Carolina allies to 2024 rivals

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:58:57 GMT

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — As she introduced South Carolina’s next senator, then-Gov. Nikki Haley said her decision to appoint Tim Scott was “pretty simple.”“This man loves South Carolina,” Haley said of Scott, a congressman at the time. “He is very aware that what he does and every vote he makes affects South Carolina and affects our country. And so it was with that that I knew he was the right person.”Scott was just as effusive, praising Haley as someone who governed with “conviction” and “integrity.” He pledged to “get on the team with Nikki Haley to make sure that all of America continues to hear the great things about South Carolina.”Haley and Scott are forever linked by that announcement at the South Carolina Statehouse on a winter day in 2012, cementing their status as rising stars in a Republican Party frustrated by Barack Obama’s reelection just a month earlier. But nearly a dozen years later, they find themselves poised to run against each other for the GOP presiden...

UK foreign secretary leaves Pacific early to focus on Sudan

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:58:57 GMT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Britain’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly cut short a Pacific tour Friday to return to Britain and deal with the deteriorating situation in Sudan.Sudan’s military ruled out negotiations with a rival paramilitary force Thursday, saying it would only accept its surrender as the two sides continued to battle in central Khartoum and other parts of the country.The British High Commission said Cleverly had been dealing with the Sudan situation from its offices in Wellington by making a series of calls to key partners overnight.Cleverly left from New Zealand a day before he was due to meet with his counterpart, Nanaia Mahuta. He’d arrived in New Zealand earlier than scheduled Thursday on his first official visit to the country after skipping a planned visit to Samoa and flying in directly from the Solomon Islands.“It’s with real regret that due to the ongoing situation in Sudan I’ve had to cut the visit short,” Cleverly said in a statement....

Leaving drama behind, GOP warms to McCarthy in debt fight

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:58:57 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The last Republican holdout in the grueling race for Kevin McCarthy to become House speaker, firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz, may be a surprisingly easier vote to get when it comes to passing the House Republican plan to raise the debt ceiling.That’s because the 320-page debt ceiling package McCarthy has drafted includes many long-sought conservative priorities — a rollback of current spending levels, a cap on future spending, work requirements for government aid recipients — that Gaetz, the House Freedom Caucus and other factions demanded.Rather than drag McCarthy down with painstaking internal party battles over the debt ceiling bill, House Republican lawmakers are looking to prop up their leader, get behind the bill and take the spending fight to President Joe Biden at the White House.“I’m not looking to spit in the face of the gift horse,” Gaetz, R-Fla., told reporters at the Capitol as he weighs how he will vote.“If you took this plan, and the plan that the Ho...

Supreme Court set to decide on access to abortion pill

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:58:57 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is facing a self-imposed Friday night deadline to decide whether women’s access to a widely used abortion pill will stay unchanged or be restricted while a legal challenge to its Food and Drug Administration approval goes on.The justices are weighing arguments that allowing restrictions contained in lower-court rulings to take effect would severely disrupt the availability of the drug, mifepristone, which is used in the most common abortion method in the United States.It has repeatedly been found to be safe and effective, and has been used by more than 5 million women in the U.S. since the FDA approved it in 2000.The Supreme Court had initially said it would decide by Wednesday whether the restrictions could take effect while the case continues. A one-sentence order signed by Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday gave the justices two additional days, without explanation.The justices are scheduled to meet for a private conference Friday, where t...

Stock market today: Asian shares follow Wall Street lower

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:58:57 GMT

NEW YORK — Shares were weaker in Asia on Friday, tracking a decline on Wall Street following mixed earnings reports from big companies and more signals the U.S. economy may be slowing. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index edged 0.1% to 28,638.24. The Kospi in Seoul dropped 0.8% to 2,542.72. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gave up 0.6% to 20,274.42. The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney lost 0.3% to 7,337.40, while the Shanghai Composite shed 0.5% to 3,349.56. On Thursday, the S&P 500 fell 0.6% to 4,129.79 after drifting listlessly earlier this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.3% to 33,786.62, while the Nasdaq composite dropped 0.8% to 12,059.56. Tesla weighed heavily on the market for a second straight day on worries about how much profit it’s making on each of its electric vehicles. It dropped 9.7% after reporting revenue for the first three months of the year that fell short of analysts’ expectations as it repeatedly cut prices on its models. Several banks also dropped after rep...

Poll: Biden 2024 splits Dems but most would back him in Nov.

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:58:57 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Only about half of Democrats think President Joe Biden should run again in 2024, a new poll shows, but a large majority say they’d be likely to support him if he became the nominee.The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that 26% of Americans overall want to see Biden run again — a slight recovery from the 22% who said that in January. Forty-seven percent of Democrats say they want him to run, also up slightly from only 37% who said that in January. The ambivalence among Democratic voters comes as Biden is preparing to formally announce his 2024 reelection campaign as soon as next week, according to people briefed on the discussions. The president has been eyeing Tuesday, April 25 — four years to the day since he entered the 2020 race — although no final decisions have been made. Despite the reluctance of many Democrats to see Biden run for another term, 78% of them say they approve of the job he’s doing as president. And a to...

The Big Weather Story Emerging is One Of Below Normal Temps

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:58:57 GMT

Temps are to average BELOW NORMAL each of the coming 14 days, which takes up well into the week after next.The chill this weekend will be noticeable with daytime highs not likely to move out of the 40s. It's likely to be the coolest weekend here in a week--one with temps averaging 20-degrees below those we saw last weekend and more than 11-degrees below normal.What's more ANY daytime heating sets the stage for cloud develop in what is to be a very unstable atmosphere with cold air aloft. Temps in such a situation drop faster than usual with height and this encourages air at the bottom of the atmosphere to become unstable and begin to rise and cool. The clouds which form in such an environment can be "convective" and capable of produce scattered instability showers in the warmer hours of the day. What's more, given temps as low as 20 degrees within a mile of the service, it wouldn't be surprising to see any spotty rain showers capable of being mixed with some small hail in spots.THE ...

Severe storms bring flash flooding, hail and tornado warnings

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:58:57 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- A complex of severe thunderstorms brought flash flooding and water rescues in north Austin, large hail to many communities, and Tornado Warnings in several counties. Storms continue south of Austin overnight, but will clear the area Friday after a quick early-morning sprinkle.Isolated storm development Thursday afternoon produced brief quarter-size hail in Leander. An evening cold front then brought the main event. Ping pong ball size hail was reported in Fredericksburg, Liberty Hill and La Grange as a lumbering complex of storms made its way southeastward. Storms stalled over north Austin dropping 4.64" in Walnut Creek in north Austin in less than 2 hours, 1.52" of which falls in 15 minutes. This prompted at least 8 water rescues in various north Austin locations. Walnut Creek surged to 23 feet deep, where two people were pulled from the creek. One other water rescue victim went to the hospital. 20-30 cars were stranded for some time at Highway 183 and Duval as peo...