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Ecuador was calm and peaceful. Now hitmen, kidnappers and robbers walk the streets

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:00 GMT

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Belen Diaz was walking home from college one evening when a motorcycle carrying two men made a menacing U-turn.Terrified that she was about to be robbed for the eighth time in three years, the teaching student banged on a cab window until the driver drove her home. Diaz got away safe, but there was an unrelated fatal shooting the next day outside her gated community of two-story homes on the edge of the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil. Ecuador was one of the calmest countries in Latin America until about three years ago. Today, criminals prowl relatively wealthy and working-class neighborhoods alike: professional hitmen, kidnappers, extortionists and thousands of thieves and robbers. Mexican and Colombian cartels have settled into coastal cities like Guayaquil and grabbed chunks of the trade shipping hundreds of millions of dollars of cocaine from neighboring Colombia and Peru to countries overseas.One of the candidates in a special Aug. 20 presidential e...

More states expect schools to keep trans girls off girls teams as K-12 classes resume

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:00 GMT

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — As children across the U.S. head back to classes and practices for fall sports, four more states are expecting their K-12 schools to keep transgender girls off their girls teams. Kansas, North Dakota and Wyoming had new laws in place restricting transgender athletes before classes resumed, and a Missouri law takes effect at the end of this month, bringing the number of states with restrictions to 23. North Carolina could enact a ban later this month, and Ohio could follow in the fall. A few laws, including ones in Arizona and West Virginia, are on hold because of federal lawsuits.This year’s new restrictions are part of a larger wave of legislation across the U.S. against transgender rights. Republican legislators in some states have banned gender-affirming care for minors, restricted transgender people’s use of school and public restrooms, limited what public schools can teach about gender and sexuality and barred schools from requiring the use of a transg...

David McCormick is gearing up for a Senate run in Pennsylvania. But he lives in Connecticut

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — David McCormick had a clear explanation for why his fellow Republican, Dr. Mehmet Oz, lost a critical Pennsylvania Senate seat: Voters viewed the daytime television celebrity as an interloper from New Jersey with limited ties to the state he hoped to represent. “People want to know that the person that they’re voting for ‘gets it,’” McCormick, who narrowly lost to Oz in a GOP primary, said in March when asked to offer a postmortem of the general election defeat. “And part of ‘getting it’ is understanding that you just didn’t come in yesterday.”As Republicans aim to gain the one seat they need to retake the Senate in next year’s elections, McCormick is a top recruit. And before his anticipated campaign, he’s working to avoid Oz’s fate, frequently noting his upbringing in Pennsylvania, his ownership of a home in Pittsburgh and a family farm near Bloomsburg.“I live in Pennsylvania,” McCormick said during a March appearance on Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s po...

How Fani Willis oversaw what might be the most sprawling legal case against Donald Trump

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:00 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Long before the FBI began investigating Donald Trump ‘s hoarding of classified documents or Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special prosecutor to probe the former president, Fani Willis was at work.Just one month after Trump’s infamous January 2021 phone call to suggest Georgia’s secretary of state could overturn his election loss, the Fulton County district attorney announced she was looking into possible illegal “attempts to influence” the results in what has become one of America’s premier political battlegrounds. As she built her case, Willis called a parade of high-profile witnesses before a special grand jury, presiding over an investigation that was so public it seemed she would become the first prosecutor in U.S. history to indict a former president.She instead looks poised to become the third person to levy criminal charges against Trump, leapfrogged by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Justice Department special...

Man shot, killed by police in South Los Angeles

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:00 GMT

Police shot and killed a man early Sunday morning in the Vermont Square neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Just before 5:30 a.m., officers with the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a call of a grand theft auto suspect at a residence in the 6300 block of South Hoover Street, officials said. LAPD Sgt. Bruce Borihanh added that the victim was actively communicating with dispatch during the incident, telling police that the suspect was armed and inside of their car.At the scene, police found the armed suspect, described only as a man in his 30’s, sitting inside the victim’s vehicle in their driveway. Details are limited and it’s unclear what exactly happened next, but authorities said officers fired on the man. He was struck by the gunfire and taken into custody.  Paramedics with the Los Angeles Fire Department responded and pronounced the man dead at the scene.  Police released a photo of the gun they say the suspect, described only as a man in his 30's, was armed with o...

The Taliban are entrenched in Afghanistan after 2 years of rule. Women and girls pay the price

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:00 GMT

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban have settled in as rulers of Afghanistan, two years after they seized power as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from the country following two decades of war. The Taliban face no significant opposition that could topple them. They have avoided internal divisions by falling in line behind their ideologically unbending leader. They have kept a struggling economy afloat, in part by holding investment talks with capital-rich regional countries, even as the international community withholds formal recognition. They have improved domestic security through crackdowns on armed groups such as the Islamic State, and say they are fighting corruption and opium production.But it’s their slew of bans on Afghan girls and women that dominated the Taliban’s second year in charge. They barred them from parks, gyms, universities, and jobs at nongovernmental groups and the United Nations – all in the space of a few months – allegedly because they weren’t wearing prope...

What to stream this week: ‘The Monkey King,’ Stand Up to Cancer, ‘No Hard Feelings,’ new Madden game

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:00 GMT

Jennifer Lawrence’s R-rated comedy “No Hard Feelings” and the more family friendly animated movie “The Monkey King” from director Stephen Chow are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near youAmong the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are a Harlan Coben TV adaptation with a young protagonist, Irish singer-songwriter Hozier’s third studio album and sweet Marcie, the introverted member of the “Peanuts” gang gets a special, “Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie.”NEW MOVIES TO STREAM— Parents looking for fresh animated offerings should rejoice that Netflix has a new film from Stephen Chow, the actor and producer known for “Kung Fu Hustle” and “Shaolin Soccer,” in “The Monkey King” streaming Friday, Aug. 18. Jimmy O. Yang of “Silicon Valley” and “Crazy Rich Asians” voices said Monkey King, born from a stone with magical powers and a big ego and who is on a quest for immortality. A young human g...

Today in History: August 14, McVeigh sentenced to death

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:00 GMT

Today in HistoryToday is Monday, Aug. 14, the 226th day of 2023. There are 139 days left in the year.Today’s Highlight in History:On Aug. 14, 1945, President Harry S. Truman announced that Imperial Japan had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II.On this date: In 1848, the Oregon Territory was created.In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law.In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter, a statement of principles that renounced aggression.In 1947, Pakistan became independent of British rule.In 1948, the Summer Olympics in London, the first held since 1936, ended.In 1973, U.S. bombing of Cambodia came to a halt.In 1980, actor-model Dorothy Stratten was shot to death at age 20 by her estranged husband and manager, Paul Snider, who then killed himself.In 1994, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the terrorist known as “Carlos the Jackal,” was captured by French agents in Sudan.In 19...

Cedric Mullins robs tying home run, hits winning one in Orioles’ 5-3 win over Mariners in 10 innings

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:00 GMT

Cedric Mullins leaped at the center field wall, extending his gloved right hand beyond it. He fell to the dirt on the warning track, uncertainty still hanging over a packed T-Mobile Park.Then, Mullins rose to his feet and emphatically swung his left arm, letting the stadium know he in fact robbed what would have been a game-tying home run for the second out of Sunday’s ninth inning.Two pitches after Mullins’ sensational catch denied Ty France, Seattle Mariners right fielder Dominic Canzone evened the game with a solo shot, but that simply provided the opportunity for more heroics from Mullins, who blasted a go-ahead, two-run home run in the 10th to carry Baltimore to a 5-3 victory.“There’s always that scenario of what’s better, robbing a home run or hitting one,” Mullins said. “But to do [both] basically within an inning is pretty cool.”Mullins wasn’t in the Orioles’ starting lineup for Sunday’s series finale, his thi...

Maui officials and scientists warn that after the flames flicker out, toxic particles will remain

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:57:00 GMT

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — When flames swept through western Maui, engulfing the town of Lahaina, residents saw toxic fumes spewing into the air as burning homes, pipes and cars combusted, transforming rubber, metal and plastic into poisonous, particulate matter-filled smoke.Retired mailman and Vietnam veteran Thomas Leonard heard a boom as a propane tank at a nearby home exploded, leaving a cloud that looked like “a gigantic mushroom” in its wake.Thirty-seven year old Mike Cicchino, who grew up on Maui, said he could tell how close the flames were based on how far away cars sounded as their gas tanks erupted. He and his family sought refuge in the ocean across a knee-high sea wall and as he helped others onto the rocks, his rib cage ached, his eyes were nearly swollen shut and he vomited.“It was like a war,” Cicchino said.About 46,000 residents and visitors have flown out of West Maui since the devastation became clear last week, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority. Officials are...