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Opinion: Trump indictment initiates the most important case in U.S. history

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:23:59 GMT

The indictment of Donald Trump handed up in federal court in Washington Tuesday initiates the most important case in the country’s history.The document lays out a flagrant series of attacks on the peaceful transfer of power and on constitutional rule itself.The four counts against the former president include obstruction of an official proceeding — namely, Congress’ Jan. 6, 2021, certification of Joe Biden’s election — and three conspiracies: to defraud the United States, obstruct an official proceeding and deny voting rights.Who were Trump’s alleged co-conspirators? Following Justice Department custom, the indictment does not name them because they haven’t been charged, but it isn’t hard to discern some of their identities from their descriptions in the document, including Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman.Charges may well follow against the co-conspirators, some of whom could choose to part company with Trump and cooperate with the government. But the decision to begin ...

Opinion: School choice was doomed when it became a cover for segregation

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:23:59 GMT

Camille Edelman is doing the best she can.Even with her and her husband working, the Phoenix-area couple cannot afford to send their three special needs children to the specialized school best suited for them without financial assistance. And for more than a decade, that assistance was Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts.So why would Katie Hobbs, the state’s Democratic governor, want to take that away? She wouldn’t. But she might have to. She said last week that the program is on track to be about 50% over budget, costing taxpayers $1 billion. Republicans in the state predictably rushed to frame this fact as Hobbs ghoulishly preying on families in need.The reality is that families like the Edelmans are caught in a decades-long political tug of war that’s barely about education, sort of in the way that the Civil War was about “states’ rights.” This nationwide struggle is really about race, and it’s coming to a head in certain pla...

Review: Ira Sachs’ ‘Passages’ is passionate and messy

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:23:59 GMT

By Lindsey Bahr | Associated PressIf you’ve been wondering where all the sex has gone from the movies, you’re in luck: The new film “Passages” does not hold back in depicting the fresh passion of a love affair.But “Passages” should really come with a warning, and not because of its realistic illustrations of queer and heterosexual intimacy, which got the film slapped with an NC-17 rating. (Its distributor, MUBI, opted instead to release it in theaters as unrated.) No, “Passages” should come with a warning for its brutal honesty about the intoxicating haze of a new relationship and all its casualties.At least it’s fun and dangerous at the start (aren’t they all, though). Directed by Ira Sachs, working again with his co-writer Mauricio Zacharias, “Passages” is centered on Tomas (Franz Rogowski), a German living in France with his English husband Martin (Ben Whishaw), who begins an affair with a French woman, Agath...

2-mile closure of Highway 1 remains in effect on Big Sur coast due to recent slide activity

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:23:59 GMT

BIG SUR – A two-mile closure of Highway 1 remains in effect between Lucia and Limekiln State Park on the Big Sur coast due to recent slide activity at Paul’s Slide that has suspended the repair effort at that location for now.Highway 1 on the Big Sur coast remains open in the north from Monterey to Lucia, and in the south from Cambria to Limekiln.The continued movement of the hillside has paused slide removal efforts at Paul’s Slide, Highway 1 postmile marker 21.7, according to Caltrans. The result of current Geotech studies will help determine specific next steps for repair efforts.“The Santa Lucia Mountains are a geologically active range as travelers on Highway 1 on the Big Sur coast can attest,” said Kevin Drabinski, Caltrans District 5 public information officer in an email. “This is an area prone to slide activity both in the winter when the ground is lubricated and often, in months after the rains, when the soil is drying out.”Slides are a common occurrence as a consequence o...

Santa Cruz County implements new guidelines for COVID death counts

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:23:59 GMT

SANTA CRUZ — Those still monitoring COVID-19 metrics in Santa Cruz County even after the local health emergency entered the rear-view mirror earlier this year may have recently noticed a dramatic jump in one of county’s most crucial data points.An additional 44 COVID-19-related deaths were added July 27 to the county’s dashboard now hosted on the California Department of Public Health’s website after more than seven months of no changes in the category. That brings the county’s total to 320 COVID-related deaths since the onset of the virus in 2020.But Santa Cruz County Deputy Health Officer David Ghilarducci explained that the sharp increase came as part of an effort by state authorities to create alignment around a standard definition created by a national group of epidemiologists.RELATED: ‘We may be the last maskers’: California COVID cases are rising. Here’s why health experts are masking indoors“It boils down to an accounting issue, if you will,” said Ghilarducci. “We have not s...

California high court says Monterey County can’t enforce oil well ban as state debates future of fossil fuels

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:23:59 GMT

By SOPHIE AUSTIN | Associated Press/Report for AmericaSACRAMENTO — The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Monterey County cannot enforce a voter-approved ban on new oil and gas wells, a decision that comes amid an ongoing battle over how the state should address the health and climate impacts of fossil fuel extraction.The ruling comes a day after environmental advocates announced a plan to try to enshrine a state law banning new gas and oil wells near homes, schools and hospitals as the oil industry vies for voters to overturn it. Voters could face dueling measures on the November 2024 ballot.The court’s decision dealt a blow to local advocates, who have been fighting for years to change the practices of the oil industry. Voters in the county first approved the ban in 2016, shortly after which Chevron sued. The state Supreme Court said the state, not the county, has the authority to regulate certain methods of oil production that would have been banned by the measure.Laura...

Hyundai, Kia warn drivers of 90,000 vehicles to park outside due to fire risk

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:23:59 GMT

Hyundai and Kia are recalling about 90,000 cars and SUVs in the United States and warning owners to park them outside and away from structures and other vehicles because they could catch fire.The recall is just the latest in a long and large series of other fire-related recalls of Hyundai and Kia vehicles in the past few years for a number of reasons.This recall, affecting several different models, stems from an issue with the electronics in a transmission oil pump, a part of the vehicle’s “Idle Stop and Go” system. The system shuts the engine down whenever the vehicle comes to a stop, then starts again when the driver lifts their foot off the brake. It’s a feature common in many newer models from different automakers.But in the recalled Hyundais and Kias some electronic components can overheat, causing damage that increases the risk of “localized melting,” the automaker said, and of fire.Hyundai is aware of at least 4 “thermal incidents” related to this issue but no confirmed crash...

Convicted peeper caught again, this time in a California hospital bathroom, police say

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:23:59 GMT

A Riverside transient who was convicted in December of illegally filming people in a bathroom was arrested again by Riverside police on Wednesday, Aug. 2, on suspicion of committing the same crime.Security guards at Kaiser Permanente detained Sergio Eduardo Quezada, 27, after someone reported him hiding in a women’s bathroom at the sprawling facility on Magnolia Avenue and recording women, police said.Police arrived and arrested him.“He had a drug pipe in his possession and, yes, officers found evidence on his phone implicating him in the very illegal recordings,” police said in a statement.Kaiser spokesman Terry Kanakri, in an email, declined to say in which building the incident took place.“We are deeply committed to maintaining a safe, secure and respectful environment for our members, patients, employees, physicians, and anyone who visits our facilities,” the spokesman said. “We continually review our practices and thoroughly investigate incidents to learn and strengthen our pra...

Mother of 2 children who died in California house fire pleads guilty to 12 felonies

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:23:59 GMT

A Lake Elsinore-area woman who investigators say was sitting in a car while high on methamphetamine as a fire broke out in her home that killed two of her children and her grandmother pleaded guilty to 12 felony charges on Thursday, Aug. 3.Devinn Elysee Fisher, 31, was sentenced to 12 years in state prison after she was convicted of three counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of willful child cruelty, one count of cruelty to an elder, one count of burning an inhabited structure, four counts of causing a fire that caused great bodily injury and three counts of cruelty to an animal.The plea was made to the court over the objection of the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, said Brooke Beare, a DA’s spokeswoman. She did not elaborate on the DA’s objection. Fisher’s attorney, Darryl Exum, could not be reached for comment.Fisher rescued her 1-year-old son from the flames, but 1-year-old Arya Alcaraz and 2-year-old Julian Alcaraz-Fisher were found dead in the garage wher...

Kremlin critic Navalny expects a lengthy prison term as court readies extremism trial verdict

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:23:59 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is preparing to hear the verdict Friday in his latest trial on extremism charges. The prosecution has demanded a 20-year prison sentence, and the politician himself said he expects to receive a lengthy term. If the court finds Navalny guilty, it would be his fifth criminal conviction, all of which his supporters see as a deliberate Kremlin strategy to silence its most ardent opponent. Navalny is already serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of court. He also was sentenced in 2021 to 2½ years in prison for a parole violation. The extremism trial has taken place behind closed doors in the penal colony east of Moscow where he is imprisoned. The 47-year-old Navalny is President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe and has exposed official corruption and organized major anti-Kremlin protests. He was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he bla...