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Colombia signs three-month cease-fire with FARC holdout group

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:25 GMT

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s government and the rebel group know as FARC-EMC on Monday signed a three-month cease-fire and formally began peace talks, as President Gustavo Petro tries to bolster his plans to pacify rural areas ahead of regional elections that will take place at the end of October.In an event that took place in the township of Tibu, near Colombia’s border with Venezuela, both sides also agreed to cease attacks on civilians and set up a group that will monitor the cease-fire and could include United Nations personnel.“Peace today seems to have been eclipsed when sirens, bombs, shouts of pain and desperation can be heard in places like the Middle East, Europe or sub-Saharan Africa” said Camilo González, the government’s lead negotiator. “These peace talks (in Colombia) are a bet on life and freedom.”FARC-EMC are currently Colombia’s third largest armed group, with around 3,500 members. The group is led by left-wing guerrilla fighters who refused to join a 2...

New York judge rejects Indiana ex-U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer’s request to remain free pending appeal

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:25 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer cannot defer his surrender next month to serve a nearly two-year prison sentence resulting from his insider trading conviction because there was overwhelming evidence of his crimes, a federal judge said Monday.Judge Richard M. Berman ruled there was no substantial question nor any close question of law to warrant letting the Indiana Republican remain free until his appeal is decided. He said prosecutors had presented “compelling testimony and documentary evidence” of Buyer’s crimes and “devastating evidence of an attempted cover-up.”The judge noted that a jury capped a nine-day trial by returning its March verdict in less than four hours. Prosecutors say he made illegal stock trades based on insider information while working as a consultant after serving in the House from 1993 to 2011.The lawyer and Persian Gulf War veteran once chaired the House Veterans’ Affairs committee and was a House prosecutor at ex-President Bill Clinton’s 1...

‘Harmful’: Human rights commissioner resigns over Saskatchewan’s pronoun bill

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:25 GMT

REGINA — A commissioner with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission has resigned over the provincial government’s proposed pronoun legislation.Heather Kuttai said in a letter Monday that the bill requiring parental consent if children under 16 want to change their names and pronouns at school is an attack on the rights of transgender and gender-diverse children.Kuttai, adding she has a transgender son, said children’s rights must take precedence over parental obligations.“This decision did not come lightly,” Kuttai said in the letter to Premier Scott Moe.“Removing a child’s rights, in the name of ‘parental rights’ is fundamentally anti-trans and harmful.”She said if the province passes the legislation with the notwithstanding clause, “Saskatchewan will no longer be a place that takes care of all its kids.”“This is something I cannot be a part of, and I will not be associated with a provincial government that takes away the righ...

Trump, campaigning in Iowa, vows to ban Hamas sympathizers from US if he wins a second term

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:25 GMT

CLIVE, Iowa (AP) — Doubling down on the hardline immigration policies that have long animated his base, former President Donald Trump on Monday vowed to bar refugees from Gaza and immediately expand his first-term Muslim travel ban if he wins a second term following the deadly attack on Israel last week.Trump, speaking to supporters in Iowa, said that if he returns to the Oval Office, he will immediately begin “ideological screening” for all immigrants and bar those who sympathize with Hamas and Muslim extremists. The war has sparked what is now the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides, with more than 4,000 dead.“No longer will we allow dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots, and maniacs to get residency in our country,” he said. “If you empathize with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists, you’re disqualified… If you want to abolish the state of Israel, you’re disqualified. If you support Hamas or any ideology that’s having to do with that or any of the other really sic...

Quebec coroner says more diligent police search could have saved life of Cree teen

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:25 GMT

MONTREAL — A 16-year-old Cree girl might still be alive had police spent more than 10 minutes looking for her after she had fallen into a ditch, a Quebec coroner has found.Neebin Icebound died of hypothermia Oct. 9, 2022, in the Cree community of Waswanipi, about 490 kilometres northwest of Quebec City. Early that morning, police received a call reporting a partially naked woman lying on the ground near an elementary school, Coroner Karine Spénard wrote in her report on Icebound’s death.Three officers — two from the Quebec provincial police and one from the Cree police service — responded, but they only spent around 10 minutes looking for the teenager, using the lights on their cars and a flashlight to search in the dark, foggy morning.“I find it astonishing that the search didn’t continue longer or in a broader manner,” Spénard wrote in her report dated Sept. 7, adding that police drove by the street where Icebound would be found two hours later.Given the cold, rainy weather, with ...

Mourners in heavily Palestinian Chicago suburb remember Muslim boy killed as kind, energetic

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:25 GMT

BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. (AP) — Crowds of mourners in a heavily Palestinian Chicago suburb paid respects Monday to a 6-year-old Muslim boy killed in an alleged hate crime, hours after authorities revealed new details about the evidence used to charge the family’s landlord with stabbing the child and his mother.Wadea Al-Fayoume, who had recently had a birthday, died Saturday after being stabbed dozens of times in a brutal attack that drew condemnation from local elected officials to the White House. Authorities said the family’s landlord, Joseph Czuba, was upset over the Israel-Hamas war and attacked them after the boy’s mother proposed they “pray for peace.” In Bridgeview, which is home to a large and established Palestinian community, family and friends remembered Wadea as a kind and energetic boy who loved playing games. His body was carried in a small white casket — which was at times draped with a Palestinian flag — through packed crowds.Mosque Foundation Imam Jamal Sa...

Gunman kills two Swedes in Brussels, prompting terror alert and halt of Belgium-Sweden soccer match

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:25 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — A gunman fatally shot two Swedes in Brussels late Monday, prompting authorities to halt a Sweden-Belgium soccer match and leaving over 35,000 soccer fans holed up in the nearby national stadium for hours as the capital went on its highest terror alert level with the assailant at large. The killings happened some 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the stadium where over 35,000 fans were watching the Belgium-Sweden soccer, Belgium’s anti-terror center said. The match was suspended half way through.“The population needs to be actively vigilant and avoid any unnecessary travel,” anti-terror center spokeswoman Laura Demullier said, adding that the top priority for authorities was to get the thousands of fans safely out of the King Baudouin Stadium.The center said the terror alert for the rest of the country was raised to its second-highest level. Raising the terror level in the capital to the top 4 rating means that a “threat is extremely serious.” It previously stood at 2...

Funeral held for 6-year-old boy killed for being Muslim

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:25 GMT

CHICAGO -- An emotional Monday morning in Bridgeview during the funeral service for 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume, who was brutally stabbed to death over the weekend due to his Muslim faith.Family and community members surrounded Al-Fayoume's casket at the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview on Monday to remember the Palestinian boy who recently celebrated his sixth birthday.“I have seen children torn to pieces from war. I never thought I would see this in America,” Dr. Abdul Gany Hamadeh of Council of Islamic Organizations Greater Chicago said.Mosque Foundation Imam Jamal Said reflected on the boy’s death during the janazah, or funeral service, but also the wider loss of life in the war between Israel and Hamas.In Bridgeview, which is home to a large and established Palestinian community, family and friends remembered Wadea as a kind and energetic boy who loved playing games. His body was carried in a small white casket — which was at times draped with a Palestinian flag — through packed...

Argument leads to stabbing on Red Line platform in Grand Crossing

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:25 GMT

CHICAGO — A woman was injured on Monday morning after a stabbing on a CTA platform on the city's South Side, police say.According to Chicago Police, the stabbing happened around 10:30 a.m. at the CTA Red Line station in the 0-100 block of West 79th Street in Grand Crossing.Police say a 24-year-old woman and a 21-year-old woman got into an argument on the platform before the younger woman allegedly pulled out a sharp object and stabbed the victim in the head and the left forearm. Woman stabbed while inside Logan Square business Police say the victim was taken to the hospital in good condition.According to police, the 21-year-old woman was taken into custody after receiving treatment for minor injuries. Police have not identified anyone involved and say charges are pending.

The importance of early intervention for behavioral health issues in children — and more

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:15:25 GMT

For Monday, Oct. 16, WGN’s Dina Bair has new medical information, including: More Coverage: WGN's Medical Watch Experts recommend early screening and intervention for behavioral health problemsData from more than 150,000 children ages 2-6 reveals significant behavior disruptions that could have been averted with immediate programs to offset the troubling activity. Researchers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital found what they call alarming evidence of behavioral spirals in families with social stressors living in poverty. They were not surprised at the challenges but say they were shocked at how young the impact manifests itself and how few people sought professional help. Experts say parents cannot wait until school age to seek aid for their children's troubling behaviors. Flesh-eating bacteria detected in Florida waters since Hurricane Ian Beware of what's in the water... A new study confirms flesh-eating and other bacteria in Florida's coastal water after Hurricane Ian. Univer...