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Numerals ‘2024’ arrive in Times Square in preparation for New Year’s Eve

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:18:34 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s beginning to look a lot like New Year’s Eve in New York.The numerals “2024” were delivered Wednesday to Times Square for its famous street party to ring in the New Year.Organizers said the lighted display arrived in the famous square following a coast-to-coast road trip covering more than 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers).After being tested out Wednesday, they’ll remain on display through Friday for people to see and photograph up close.“Like every good Broadway show, we have dress rehearsals, so we want to get them out,” explained Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance. “We want to test them out, make sure that they work.”The numerals will then be raised atop One Times Square, where they’ll light up when the ball drops to mark the beginning of 2024.Teresa Hui, a Brooklyn resident who was among those on hand for Wednesday’s ceremonial arrival, said she comes out every year despite her general aversion for the tourist mecca.“This is one of my favorite da...

Singer David Daniels no longer in singers’ union following guilty plea to sexual assault

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:18:34 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Countertenor David Daniels is no longer a member of the union for singers following his guilty plea to a charge of sexual assault.The 57-year-old and his husband, Scott Walters, pleaded guilty to sexual assault of an adult, a second-degree felony, in Houston’s Harris County District Court on Aug. 4. They both were sentenced to eight years’ probation and required to register as sex offenders.“David Daniels is no longer a member of AGMA. In light of an ongoing internal disciplinary proceeding, AGMA cannot comment further at this time.,” American Guild of Musical Artists spokeswoman Alicia Cook wrote in an email to The Associated Press.Matt Hennessy, a Houston-based lawyer for Daniels, did not immediately respond to an email from the AP seeking comment.Daniels was fired as a University of Michigan professor and was removed by the San Francisco Opera from a production of Handel’s “Orlando” following sexual assault allegations by a student at the university in...

Jury dismisses lawsuit claiming LSU officials retaliated against a former athletics administrator

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:18:34 GMT

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A jury on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit accusing top Louisiana State University officials of retaliating against an athletics administrator for reporting alleged inappropriate sexual behavior by a head football coach.After six days of testimony, a panel of five women and three men rejected the defense claims, The Advocate reported. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan of New Orleans presided over the trial after all of the federal judges in Baton Rouge recused themselves.Then-athletics administrator Sharon Lewis filed the federal lawsuit in 2021. She was fired the following year.Coach Les Miles guided the 2007 LSU football team to a national title but was fired by the university in 2016. He lost his coaching job at Kansas in 2021, after LSU released a report that revealed school officials there considered firing him in 2013 because of his alleged behavior with female student workers. Miles has denied allegations of improper behavior.The university had hired the H...

Mexico’s president predicts full recovery for Acapulco, but resort residents see difficulties

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:18:34 GMT

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador spoke ebulliently Wednesday about the recovery of Acapulco after Hurricane Otis smashed into the resort on Oct. 25, killing 52 people. But some residents still don’t have running water, sewage treatment is still deficient, tons of garbage and debris remain in the streets, and few hotels are fully open. López Obrador predicted the once-glamorous Pacific coast city would be 100% recovered by March, and claimed many residents’ homes are now in better shape than before the Category 5 hurricane hit. “Without doubt, in March, 100 (percent),” the president said at a news briefing in Acapulco. “The majority of people’s houses in Acapulco are now better than they were before the hurricane.”While hundreds of tons of debris have been removed, and some of the shattered, looted stores have re-opened, things are far from close to normal.Acapulco’s economy depends almost completely on tourism, and there were fe...

A white couple who burned a cross in their yard facing Black neighbors’ home is investigated by FBI

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:18:34 GMT

The FBI is investigating a white South Carolina couple for racial discrimination after they set a cross on fire in their yard last month facing toward their Black neighbors’ home.Federal civil rights investigators searched the white couple’s home in Conway on Wednesday, according to FBI spokesperson Kevin Wheeler. The retired Black couple also recorded video of the cross being burned on Thanksgiving weekend and described days of repeated threats from their neighbors. The next week, Worden Evander Butler, 28, and Alexis Paige Hartnett, 27, were arrested on state charges of harassment and later released on bond.Cross burnings in the U.S. are “symbols of hate” that are “inextricably intertwined with the history of the Ku Klux Klan,” according to a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision written by the late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The justices ruled that the First Amendment allows bans on cross burnings only when they are intended to intimidate because the action “is a particu...

North Korea’s Kim again threatens use of nukes as he praises troops for long-range missile launch

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:18:34 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country has a policy of not hesitating to launch a nuclear strike on a rival if provoked, as he praised troops involved in its recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, state media reported Thursday. Since adopting an escalatory nuclear doctrine last year, Kim has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons preemptively. But many foreign experts say North Korea has yet to obtain functioning nuclear missiles and is also unlikely to use its nukes first because it’s outgunned by the U.S. and its allied forces.North Korea on Monday conducted its first intercontinental ballistic missile test in five months, calling the drill a warning over confrontational U.S. and South Korean moves. North Korea cited a recent U.S.-South Korean meeting on boosting their nuclear deterrence plans.The North’s Korean Central News Agency said Kim met troops at the General Missile Bureau on Wednesday to congratulate them on the launch of...

In federal challenge to Mississippi law, arguments focus on racial discrimination and public safety

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:18:34 GMT

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge will consider arguments over racial discrimination, public safety and local democracy as he decides whether to block appointments to a state-run court set to be created on Jan. 1 in part of Mississippi’s majority-Black capital city. Attorneys for Mississippi and the NAACP, who represent Jackson residents suing the state, each laid out their arguments Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate. The federal judge will decide whether to grant the NAACP’s motion for a preliminary injunction blocking the appointment of judges and prosecutors to the new court in part of Jackson. Brenden Cline, an attorney representing the NAACP, said the court was created by a discriminatory law that violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The appointment rather than election of judges and prosecutors deprives Hinds County residents of exercising local control over the criminal justice system that other communities enjoy, he said. “The 14th ...

Wisconsin man sentenced for causing creation and distribution of video showing monkey being tortured

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:18:34 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A southwestern Wisconsin man was sentenced Wednesday to a year and a day in prison for causing the creation and distribution of a video of a monkey being tortured.U.S. District Judge William M. Conley also fined Kenneth Herrera, 40, of Soldiers Grove $5,000 and ordered him to serve three years of supervised release following his prison sentence.Herrera was cited under the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act, which makes it illegal to cause the creation or distribution of depictions of “animal crushing.” Animal crushing includes burning, suffocating, impaling or causing the serious bodily injury of animals, prosecutors said. Herrera pleaded guilty to the charge on Sept. 15. His attorney, Richard Coad, issued a statement saying his client “is terribly sorry for his wrongdoing, and for putting his family and community through this ordeal.”Agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the FBI found evidence that Herrera in December 2021 sent money to a vi...

'Screening at Speed': DHS to rollout tech that screens 1 traveler every 12 seconds

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:18:34 GMT

Can you imagine walking through TSA security checkpoints at O'Hare without having to take off your coat or shoes, or even remove items from your carry-on? That experience is something the United States Department of Homeland Security is close to making a reality through their "Screening at Speed" program.According to aviation officials, through the Screening at Speed Program, work is being done on developing technology that would allow for airport checkpoints to screen 300 airplane passengers and their carry-on luggage per lane, per hour, which boils down to roughly five passengers screened per minute, or one passenger screened every 12 seconds.Future airport screening concept design from 2015. Photo credit: DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T)Although there is not yet a timetable for implementation at O'Hare or Midway International Airports in Chicago, DHS officials said a rollout at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas is planned to begin in Jan. 2024. Aviation of...

Suburban driver suspected in deadly head-on crash was allegedly high on cocaine, deputies say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:18:34 GMT

CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. — A Crystal Lake man suspected of being under the influence of drugs amid a deadly head-on collision last February now faces multiple felonies in connection with the crash, the Lake County Sheriff's Office announced on Wednesday.Traffic crash investigators conclude that Craig B. Muzard, 74, was under the influence of cocaine while driving on Route 59 south of Route 132 in unincorporated Lake Villa the night of Friday, Feb. 3. Investigators said the influence of drugs played a "direct role" in the crash and death of George V. Giannakakis, who was 73 years old at the time. Man, 55, hit by 2 different vehicles while crossing street on Northwest Side Muzard was arrested on Wednesday and charged with aggravated driving under the influence of drugs, resulting in death and reckless homicide.Deputies say Muzard was driving a GMC Acadia northbound on Route 59 when, for unknown reasons, the vehicle veered into the southbound lanes. The GMC struck a Kia driven by Giannaka...