A California woman who wrongly accused a Black teen of taking her phone at a New York City hotel late last year and grabbed at him as he tried to leave is now charged with a hate crime. Miya Ponsetto was arraigned in court in Manhattan via videoconference Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to charges including unlawful imprisonment as a hate crime, aggravated harassment and endangering the welfare of a child. Ponsetto was at the Arlo Hotel in December when she got into a confrontation with a teen, 14-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr., whom she accused of stealing her phone.
Foreign countries that dare to “bully” China will see “their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of Steel forged by over 1.4 billion people,” proclaimed leader Xi Jinping in a landmark speech to celebrate the ruling Communist Party's centenary. We will never allow any foreign power to bully, oppress or subjugate us,” said Mr Xi as cheers erupted from the audience. The party's “glorious journey” over a century means “any attempt to divide the Chinese people from the party is bound to fail.
A Kennedale man who failed in an effort to kill his relatives by poisoning their pasta but completed the task when he stabbed, bludgeoned and burned them the next day was executed Wednesday evening by chemical injection in a Texas prison. John Hummel received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the December 2009 killings of his pregnant wife and father-in-law, the Associated Press reported. Hummel also killed his 5-year-old daughter.
An anti-terrorism court in eastern Pakistan has issued a death sentence to a former security guard who last year shot and killed his bank's manager after accusing him of insulting Islam's Prophet Mohammad, a lawyer said Thursday. Ahmad Nawaz has the right to appeal. The ruling a day earlier in the district of Khusab in the eastern Punjab province also sentenced him to two years in prison for assaulting police during his arrest, according to prosecution lawyer Mian Rizwan.
The bodies of two children were found Wednesday in the rubble of the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South condominium building in Surfside, Florida, a loss of life that Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava called "too great to bear." The children were identified as sisters Lucia Guara, 10, and Emma Guara, 4. They were found along with their mother, 42-year-old Anaely Rodriguez; the remains of their father, 52-year-old Marcus Guara, were discovered on Saturday.
As China's ruling Communist Party celebrates its auspicious anniversary, the debate is intensifying over how to deal with the renewed prominence of authoritarian values at the heart of the world's second largest economy. For the Communist Party, this is meant to be a moment for basking in the warm adulation of the masses, not for talk of a new Cold War. "The vast bulk of people in China… care very little about a change in the party because they're more concerned about their own lives," he says.
Prosecutors may file aiding and abetting third-degree murder charges against three former Minneapolis police officers in the death of George Floyd, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. The appeals court sent the case back to Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill. He denied prosecutors' motion to add the charges against former officers J Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao back in February during the runup to the separate trial of former Officer Derek Chauvin, whom Cahill sentenced on Friday to 22 1/2 years in prison for second-degree murder.
A new team of police and prosecutors on Tuesday obtained an arrest warrant charging Ian Cleary, 28, of Saratoga, Calif. with sexually assaulting Shannon Keeler when they were students at Gettysburg College in 2013. Police said they had not yet located him, and were not sure where he is, leaving it unclear whether Keeler will see the case go to trial.
Israel, a world leader in coronavirus vaccinations, reported its highest daily infection rate in three months as it scrambles to contain the spread of the new delta variant. The Health Ministry on Thursday reported 307 new cases on Wednesday, the highest in nearly three months and a rise from 293 newly-diagnosed cases a day earlier. The health ministry reportedly expects those numbers to jump in coming days, raising concerns that Israel is plunging back toward a crisis.
Traditionally neutral Switzerland has agreed to buy 36 F-35A Lightning II stealth fighter jets from Fort Worth's Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. Funding for the $5.5 billion agreement must still be approved by Switzerland's parliament, where it could face opposition from those who object to the price, or don't agree that the small central European nation needs the technology of the fifth-generation fighter aircraft to defend its mountainous terrain. “We are honored to be selected by Switzerland and look forward to partnering with the Swiss government, public, air force and industry to deliver and sustain the F-35 aircraft,” Bridget Lauderdale, Lockheed Martin vice president and general manager of the F-35 Program, said in a statement.
Abnormally high temperatures have been recorded across North America. British Columbia Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe said on Wednesday: "It is believed likely that the significant increase in deaths reported is attributable to the extreme weather BC has experienced and continues to impact many parts of our province." She said many of those who died in the heatwave had lived alone in homes that were not ventilated.
A Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer is facing domestic violence charges stemming from an altercation, the department said Wednesday. Officer Stephanie Michalowski is charged with simple assault and misdemeanor false imprisonment, police said in a news release. Tuesday evening, a CMPD officer spoke with “an adult subject” who reported being involved in an altercation, police said.
A cache of homemade fireworks exploded as it was being destroyed by a bomb squad, flipping and damaging cars, smashing windows in homes and injuring 17 people including police officers, authorities said. It could take days to determine why the material exploded inside an iron containment vessel on a tractor-trailer Wednesday night, tearing the rig apart in what was supposed to be a safe operation to handle explosives that were too unstable to remove from a South Los Angeles neighborhood where tons of illegal fireworks were discovered. The blast shortly after 7:30 p.m. sent nine police officers and a federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officer to the hospital with minor injuries, Fire Chief Ralph M. Terrazas said.
A favourite spot of the late Princess Diana, the Sunken Garden at her former London home Kensington Palace has been redesigned to house a statue in her honour to be unveiled on Thursday by her sons, Princes William and Harry. "This has been a very special project to work on, as the Sunken Garden was a favourite place of Diana, Princess of Wales," Pip Morrison, who designed the new layout, said in a statement. "We have worked carefully to ensure that the new layout and planting scheme compliments the statue, providing a calming place for people who visit Kensington Palace to remember the princess."
Make major memories with a tiny house vacation Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
Temperature records have been shattered across western Canada and the US Pacific Northwest. Canada broke its country temperature record for a third straight day on Tuesday - 49.6C (121.3F) in Lytton, British Columbia. Before Sunday, temperatures in the country had never passed 45C. The heat has been blamed for helping cause the deaths of dozens in the Vancouver area.
The parents of a boy in Virginia were arrested after officers discovered his body in their home freezer, according to police and local media reports. Kassceen Weaver, 49, and Dina D. Weaver, 48, are charged with conspiracy to conceal a body and failing to render aid to a child, WWBT reported, citing the Chesterfield County Police Department. Chesterfield is just outside of Richmond, Virginia, about 60 miles from the North Carolina border.
An East Los Angeles woman was charged Wednesday with killing her three children, including a baby, earlier this week. Sandra Chico, 28, appeared in court but a judge postponed until next month her arraignment on three counts each of murder and assault on a child causing death. “In an instant, three innocent children were taken from us and we are crestfallen,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement.
The bodies of two children have been found in the rubble of a collapsed Florida tower block, raising the known death toll to 18, rescuers say. Rescue teams have been able to build a ramp for a crane to reach areas of the ruined building. Rescue teams say they are working 12-hour shifts as they comb the rubble in the town of Surfside, north of Miami, despite sweltering heat and high humidity hampering their efforts.
The Manhattan district attorney's office is said to have charged the Trump Organization and its CFO. Prosecutors have spent three years on a tax-crimes investigation. A grand jury in New York indicted the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, as part of a yearslong tax-crimes investigation, The New York Times first reported Wednesday.
Two Miami-Dade County public school students are among the more than 150 people missing after a Florida condo collapsed. The school district has only been able to make contact with 15 of the 17 students who were registered as residents at the doomed Surfside condo, the Miami Herald reported. Two Miami-Dade County public school students are among the more than 150 people missing after a Florida condo building partially collapsed last week, a report said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was operating in sync with a British destroyer during an incident last week in the Black Sea that he described as a “provocation to test Moscow's response.
A Washington state lawmaker apologized Wednesday for wearing a yellow Star of David — a symbol forced on Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust — at a speech over the weekend to protest restrictions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, pinned a yellow Star of David badge on his shirt during a Washingtonians for Change event in Lacey, Washington Saturday. "In the current context, we're all Jews," Walsh wrote in a Facebook comment under video of the event.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, criticized the "false pressure" to reach a 60-vote supermajority to pass legislation in 2010. Sinema, then a state representative, suggested that the filibuster forced Democrats to "kowtow" to moderate lawmakers. Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin are the only two Democrats who've vocalized staunch opposition to eliminating the filibuster.
A 38-year-old mother in Nebraska has been sentenced to 64 to 102 years in prison for sexually assaulting two of her daughter's friends during sleepovers at her home. The sentencing comes after Christina Greer was found guilty in March on three counts of first-degree sexual assault of a minor after she abused two boys, aged 12 and 13, in 2018. Phil Kleine, a deputy prosecutor with the Sarpy County Attorney's Office, said: “This case took three and a half years from arrest to sentencing.”
“Obamacare is getting stronger every time the Republicans try to kill it.”
“It is far from certain the Supreme Court will safeguard the Affordable Care Act the next time the law reaches the court’s chambers.”
“Although ACA cost Obama an enormous amount, it’s become clear that he will have the last laugh.”
“Even the feistiest Republicans have given up talking seriously about repeal.”
“Current and future cases will largely concern the administration and enforcement of the ACA, not its underlying architecture.”