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California begins 2024 with below-normal snowpack a year after one of the best starts in decades

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:42:00 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California is beginning 2024 with a below-normal mountain snowpack a year after it had one of its best starts in decades, and officials said Tuesday that the weather whiplash has made the outcome of this winter uncertain.The water content of the statewide snowpack was 25% of the average to date, said Sean de Guzman, a water supply forecasting official with the California Department of Water Resources.The snowpack functions as a huge frozen reservoir, providing about 30% of the water used annually in California as it melts and runs off into streams and rivers in the spring. Storms to bring light rain, snow and ‘coldest air of the season’ to San Diego County De Guzman conducted the first in a seasonal series of manual measurements on a snow course in the Sierra Nevada at Phillips Station, south of Lake Tahoe. The department also collects measurements with electronic instruments at more than 260 other sites.De Guzman and his crew methodically worked across a f...

Vigil held to honor slain Muslim boy as accused attacker appears in court in Illinois

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:42:00 GMT

JOLIET, Ill. (AP) — An Illinois man charged with murder, attempted murder and a hate crime in an October attack on a Palestinian American mother and her young son appeared at a pretrial hearing Wednesday as community members gathered outside the courthouse in support of the child’s family.Joseph Czuba, 71, is accused of fatally stabbing of 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and wounding Hanan Shaheen on Oct. 14 in in Plainfield, Illinois, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.Shaheen survived the attack but was hospitalized during her son’s funeral. She has since been discharged.Shaheen told police that Czuba, their landlord, was upset over the Israel-Hamas war and attacked them after she urged him to “pray for peace.” An autopsy showed the boy had been stabbed dozens of times.An attorney for his father provided the spelling of the boy’s name as Wadee Alfayoumi. At the time he was killed, the boy’s name was reported as Wade...

Harvard seeks to move past firestorm brought on by school President Claudine Gay’s resignation

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:42:00 GMT

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Harvard University on Wednesday sought to move beyond the firestorm brought on by the plagiarism allegations, congressional testimony and resignation of Claudine Gay, the school’s first Black president, as it seeks a new leader and tries to heal divisions at the elite Ivy League school.The search for a new president will begin “in due course” and will include “broad engagement and consultation with the Harvard community,” the Harvard Corporation, the school’s 11-member governing board, said in statement Tuesday, adding that will be driven by “core values of excellence, inclusiveness, and free inquiry and expression.”“At a time when strife and division are so prevalent in our nation and our world, embracing and advancing that mission — in a spirit of common purpose — has never been more important,” leadership said.As it looks for a new president, the corporation also needs to examine its role in Gay’s appearance before Congress, according to ...

Vehicle sales posted biggest annual jump last year since 1997: DesRosiers

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:42:00 GMT

TORONTO — Auto sales jumped 11.8 per cent in 2023 compared with the year before as vehicle supply continued to improve, according to DesRosiers Automotive Consultants.The report says it was the biggest year-over-year increase in sales since 1997.DesRosiers says improved vehicle supply and pent-up demand from so-called lost sales during the pandemic in the second half of the year helped boost sales activity despite higher interest rates and economic worries.Sales for the month of December also came in strong across all provinces with an increase of 10.7 per cent year-over-year, marking 14 consecutive months of growth, the report says.DesRosiers adds the fourth quarter saw sales rise 17.2 per cent compared with the fourth quarter of 2022.Andrew King, managing partner at DesRosiers, says sales of light trucks reached a record share of 85.8 per cent last year as consumers preferred bigger vehicles over passenger cars.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 3, 2024.The...

Judge raises mental health concern about man held in New Year’s Eve weekend gunfire near Vegas Strip

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:42:00 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A California man accused of firing dozens of gunshots from upper floors of a condominium-hotel near the Las Vegas Strip the morning before New Year’s Eve had his bail set at $500,000 on Wednesday.Jon Roger Letzkus appears to be mentally unstable and “what he is alleged to have done in our community is incredibly dangerous,” Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa said, citing reports to the court following his arrest.Standing before the judge in shackles, Letzkus, 45, told Saragosa that he “more or less” understood the more than 70 felony charges against him.Police said no one was found injured by gunfire but nearby buildings were damaged a little before 6 a.m. Sunday at Signature Towers — a three-building complex that is part of the MGM Grand resort east of Las Vegas Boulevard. Police said Letzkus was found and arrested almost five hours later.Prosecutor Erika Mendoza told the judge on Wednesday that Letzkus admitted firing shots and that the un...

What to do with your tree after Christmas

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:42:00 GMT

As the holiday season winds down, many of us will be taking our Christmas trees to the curb. But instead of sending them off to the landfill, there’s a few ways you can extend their usefulness throughout the year.Gardening expert Carson Arthur explains that brining a real Christmas tree into your home is different from simply cutting a tree down in the wild.“These are grown on farms, so trees, boughs, planters, garlands, they’re all properly grown crops that farmers in Canada actually supply. So that’s a good thing. But what we do with them afterwards is a bit of the problem,” he says.As per Earth.org, if disposed off with a wood chipper or a bonfire, a tree has an average carbon footprint of 3.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2). If it ends up in a landfill, that number goes up four times to 16kgs.Arthur says that’s not only bad for the environment, but a huge waste as well.“When we put it at the end of the road or we put it into the garbage, that̵...

A look at killings of militant leaders believed targeted by Israel

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:42:00 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Hamas and Hezbollah have accused Israel of carrying out an airstrike that killed a top Hamas leader in Beirut.While Israel has not claimed responsibility, Tuesday’s airstrike had the hallmarks of an Israeli attack.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have repeatedly threatened to kill Hamas leaders following the group’s deadly Oct. 7 cross-border attack that sparked the war in Gaza. Israel also has a long history of assassinating its enemies, many carried out with precision airstrikes. A look at some of those targeted killings:December 2023Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, is killed in a drone attack outside of Damascus. Iran blames Israel.2019An Israeli airstrike hits the home of Bahaa Abu el-Atta, a senior Islamic Jihad commander in the Gaza Strip, killing him and his wife. 2012Ahmad Jabari, head of Hamas’ armed wing, is killed when an airstrike targets his car...

B.C. school district fined for failing to address student’s anxiety

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:42:00 GMT

VANCOUVER — An unnamed school district in British Columbia has been ordered by the province’s human rights tribunal to pay $5,000 to a student for failing to accommodate her anxiety disorder.Tribunal vice-chair Devyn Cousineau says in a decision released last month that the school district “failed to take reasonable steps to investigate and address the female student’s anxiety over her transition from elementary school to high school.The ruling says the unidentified student had been diagnosed since kindergarten with anxiety and has been on medication since Grade 7 when she made the move to high school in fall 2018.The tribunal judgment says the student was transitioning from a unique language arts program in elementary school into regular language classes in high school, where her anxiety levels escalated with more difficult material and an “unsupportive” teacher who allegedly laughed at her mistakes.The family filed the human rights complaint in 2020, ...

Trial postponed for man charged with 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:42:00 GMT

MAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — The New Jersey man charged with stabbing “The Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie is allowed to seek material related to Rushdie’s upcoming memoir about the attack before standing trial, a judge ruled Wednesday.Jury selection in Hadi Matar’s attempted murder and assault trial was originally scheduled to start Jan. 8.Instead, the trial is on hold, since Matar’s lawyer argued Tuesday that the defendant is entitled by law to see the manuscript, due out in April 2024, and related material before standing trial. Written or recorded statements about the attack made by any witness are considered potential evidence, attorneys said.“It will not change the ultimate outcome,” Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said of the postponement.Matar, 26, who lived in Fairview, New Jersey, has been held without bail since prosecutors said he stabbed Rushdie more than a dozen times after rushing the stage at the Chautauqua Institution where the aut...

Oklahoma’s next lethal injection delayed for 100 days for competency hearing

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:42:00 GMT

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The lethal injection of an Oklahoma man scheduled to be executed next month has been paused for 100 days so that a hearing can be held to determine if he’s mentally competent enough to be executed.The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals issued the stay of execution on Dec. 22 for James Ryder, 61. Ryder was scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Feb. 1 for his role in the 1999 slayings of a mother and son in Pittsburg County after a property dispute.“Having reviewed the evidence, we find the matter should be remanded to the District Court of Pittsburg County for a hearing to determine whether Ryder ‘has raised substantial doubt as to his competency to be executed,’” the appellate court wrote in its order.Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the court’s decision.Ryder’s attorneys have argued for years that he is incompetent and that his mental illness has become...