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Pamela Smart, serving life, waits for chance to be heard

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:55:54 GMT

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Vanessa Santiago first met Pamela Smart in 2003 as a fellow prison inmate in New York, working with her as a teacher’s aide and participating with her in an arts rehabilitation program. The two became close, and when Santiago, 43, was released from the maximum security Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in 2020, she continued to stay in touch with Smart and support her petition for a sentence reduction hearing.Smart, 55, has served over 30 years of a life-without-parole sentence for plotting with her teenage lover to kill her husband in 1990. She has exhausted all of her judicial appeal options. The New Hampshire Supreme Court is expected to release an opinion Wednesday on whether a state council that rejected her request for a sentence reduction hearing last year should reconsider it.The state attorney general’s office has opposed Smart’s commutation requests — there have been three denied by the council since 2005 — saying she has never accepted full re...

Nashville shooting highlights security at private schools

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:55:54 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — An alarm blared and lights flashed as a heavily armed assailant stalked the hallways of The Covenant School.Surveillance footage of the shooting Monday at the private Christian school in Nashville showed many familiar security measures, including the double set of locked glass doors the killer shot their way through before fatally shooting three children and three school employees. “It’s just next to impossible to stop someone with an AR-17 coming through the door,” said George Grant, a leader with the Nashville Presbytery, which is connected with the school. Grant said the presbytery doesn’t have a formal security program for its churches and schools but that members have worked together to share best practices and improve safety. Around the U.S., private schools generally do not face as many requirements as public schools for developing security plans. In Tennessee, laws requiring schools to develop and submit safety plans do not apply to private scho...

Gwyneth Paltrow’s ski collision trial continues with defense

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:55:54 GMT

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Gwyneth Paltrow’s attorneys are expected to continue relying mostly on experts to mount their defense on Wednesday, the seventh day of the trial over her 2016 ski collision with a 76-year-old retired optometrist.The judge presiding over the trial in Park City has made it clear that he wants Paltrow’s defense team to rest their case by Thursday afternoon — in order to give the jury enough time to deliberate and come to a consensus.Terry Sanderson, the Utah man suing Paltrow, is asking for more than $300,000, saying that Paltrow’s recklessness on the slope caused the crash, leaving him with four broken ribs and years of post-concussion symptoms including confusion, memory loss and irritability. Paltrow has countersued for a symbolic $1 and attorney fees, alleging that Sanderson veered into her from behind.In the second week of trial, it’s clear that both sides have spared little expense to ensure they have a roster of expert witnesses on call i...

Myanmar junta dissolves Suu Kyi’s party, much of opposition

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:55:54 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military government took another major step in its ongoing campaign to cripple its political opponents on Wednesday, dissolving dozens of opposition parties including that of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to meet a registration deadline ahead of elections.Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, or NLD, was one of 40 parties ordered dissolved in an official announcement by the election commission published Wednesday in the state-controlled press. The NLD governed Myanmar with overwhelming majorities in Parliament from 2015 to 2021 before being overthrown by the military.The NLD had already announced that it would not register, denouncing the promised polls as a sham.The party, and other critics, say the still-unscheduled polls will be neither free nor fair in a military-ruled country that has shut free media and arrested most of the leaders of Suu Kyi’s party. The NLD won a landslide victory in the November 2020 election, but in February 2021, t...

New Wage Grid for Early Childhood Educators in Newfoundland and Labrador

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:55:54 GMT

Canada and U.S. Continue Talks to Modernize Columbia River Treaty

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:55:54 GMT

Pollievre To Vote Against Budget, Putting Politics Before People

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:55:54 GMT

In The Month Of Ramadan, We Honour Lupe Fiasco

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:55:54 GMT

1 dead, 8 injured after pursuit crash in Long Beach

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:55:54 GMT

One person is dead and eight others were hospitalized in a nine-vehicle crash following a pursuit in Long Beach on Tuesday night.The incident began after an officer tried pulling over a suspect driver in Seal Beach near 5th and Marina, according to Seal Beach police. The suspect did not yield and sped away on Pacific Coast Highway, leading officers on a pursuit.The suspect later crashed near the intersection of East Pacific Coast Highway and 2nd Street around 8:15 p.m., officials said.The collision caused a ripple effect involving eight other vehicles that left one person dead and eight others injured, authorities confirm.Sky5 images showed the mangled aftermath of the deadly collision.One person is dead and at least eight others were hospitalized after a multi-vehicle crash in Long Beach on Tuesday night. (KTLA)One person is dead and at least eight others were hospitalized after a multi-vehicle crash in Long Beach on Tuesday night. (KTLA)One person is dead and at least eight others...

Los Angeles County singles out 33 buildings at risk during an earthquake

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:55:54 GMT

Following the catastrophic damage from earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors published a list of 33 county-owned buildings that are in need of seismic upgrades.  Many of the buildings have been critical pieces of infrastructure for decades and are at risk of collapsing when and if the big one hits, which means thousands of people are working in structures every day that are not safe.  The list includes buildings like the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, the Chief Medical Examiner Service, where autopsies are performed, and multiple Los Angeles County + USC Medical buildings and parking structures.  Built before 1978, the structures are made of non-ductile concrete, meaning they were constructed with brittle concrete elements like columns, beams, walls and connections that would crumble during a big earthquake.  “The big issue is usually that the corners of the buildings aren’t properly tied together," said Dr. Lucy Jones...