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To help rare whales, Maine and Massachusetts will spend $27 million on data and gear improvements

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:39 GMT

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Scientists and officials in New England hope to collect better data about a vanishing whale species, improve fishing gear to avoid harming the animals, and make other changes as Maine and Massachusetts receive more than $27 million in public funding.The money is intended to aid the North Atlantic right whale, which is jeopardized by entanglement in commercial fishing gear and collisions with large ships. The population of the giant whales fell by about 25% from 2010 to 2020, and now numbers less than 360.The largest chunk of the money is $17.2 million the Maine Department of Marine Resources has received from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to improve data collection about the whales, officials said Tuesday. The money will allow Maine to expand its right whale research and improve the assessment of risk to the whales posed by lobster fishing, which is a key industry in the state, Maine officials said.“The goal of this research is ...

Senior Hamas leader killed in Beirut blast

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:39 GMT

(CNN) — Hamas said Tuesday that one of its senior leaders has been killed in an attack in the south of the Lebanese capital Beirut, raising fears of a potential escalation in fighting in the region.Hamas media outlet Al Aqsa TV said Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas, was “martyred in a treacherous Zionist airstrike in Beirut.”Arouri was considered one of the founding members of the group’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and was based in Beirut. Two other leaders from Hamas’ military wing, Samir Findi Abu Amer and Azzam Al-Aqraa Abu Ammar, were also among those killed in the strike, according to Hamas officials.At least four people were killed in the attack that targeted an office belonging to Hamas in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh, Lebanese news agency NNA reported. The area is also a stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah.The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to comment when asked about the announcement ...

PedWest to resume operations after temporary closure

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:39 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Pedestrian West at the San Ysidro Port of Entry will reopen this week after temporarily suspending operations in early December, border officials said.Both northbound and southbound directions will reopen for seven days per week starting Thursday with limited hours of operation, the U.S. Customs Border and Protection said in a news release Tuesday. The northbound crossing will reopen from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., while the southbound lane will be open from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. “CBP will continue to prioritize our border security mission as necessary in response to thisevolving situation. We continue to assess security situations, adjust our operational plans, anddeploy resources to maximize enforcement efforts against those noncitizens who do not uselawful pathways or processes – such as scheduling an appointment via CBP One™ – and thosewithout a legal basis to remain in the United States," CBP said. Large waves damage Ocean Beach Pier On Dec. 9, PedWest stopped operations “in ...

El Cajon Police release documentary on homeless crisis in San Diego County

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:39 GMT

EL CAJON, Calif. -- The El Cajon Police Department has created a 35 minute film documenting the often frustrating issue of dealing with the homeless crisis and to answer the public’s question of why the cops aren’t doing more about it.“Proposition 47 passed in 2014, and it reduced many of the felony crimes involving theft and drug use and drug possession, those types of things. It reduced those to misdemeanors, making them non-bookable offenses in the county of San Diego,” Chief of Police Mike Mouton told FOX 5. “So if somebody's using methamphetamine right behind you right now, that's not something we can take somebody to jail for. We have to write them a ticket and then hope they appear in court.”  Interview: Newsom ‘frustrated’ by local governments’ inaction on homelessness, behavioral health crises Right away in the documentary it becomes abundantly clear just how many people living on the streets are drug addicted and/or selling, and doing so by choice.When offered help they ...

A congressman and a senator’s son have jumped into the Senate race to succeed Mitt Romney in Utah

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:39 GMT

A congressman and a senator’s son jumped into the race Tuesday for the Utah U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mitt Romney.Republican U.S. Rep. John Curtis announced his campaign to a TV station after saying last fall he had decided not to run.After people asked him to reconsider, he decided he could carry over his work representing Utah but with a bigger platform, Curtis told KSL-TV.Curtis has served eastern Utah’s Third District since 2017. He was previously mayor of Provo, Utah, for seven years and for a time was a county-level Democratic Party official.Brent Orrin Hatch also announced his candidacy Tuesday. Hatch is one of six children of the late Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who retired after 42 years in office in 2019 and died in 2022.Brent Hatch is a trial lawyer who is treasurer and past director of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization that advocates interpreting the U.S. Constitution according to the context in which it was written.He was an ...

Justice Dept. accuses 2 political operatives of hiding foreign lobbying during Trump administration

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:39 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two well-connected political consultants provided false information about lobbying work on behalf of a wealthy Persian Gulf country during the Trump administration, according to Justice Department court records unsealed Tuesday.Charging documents filed in federal court in Washington allege that Barry P. Bennett, an adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, spearheaded a covert and lucrative lobbying campaign aimed at advancing the interests of a foreign country, including by denigrating a rival nation.The country for whom the work was done is not named in the documents but it matches the description of Qatar, which in 2017 paid Bennett’s company $2.1 million for lobbying work, and was identified in a 2020 Justice Department subpoena that was earlier obtained by The Associated Press and that sought records related to Bennett’s foreign lobbying.Federal prosecutors filed two criminal counts against Bennett in a charging document known as ...

New Mexico regulators revoke the licenses of 2 marijuana grow operations and levies $2M in fines

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:39 GMT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico marijuana regulators on Tuesday revoked the licenses of two growing operations in a rural county for numerous violations and have levied a $1 million fine against each business. One of the businesses — Native American Agricultural Development Co. — is connected to a Navajo businessman whose cannabis farming operations in northwestern New Mexico were raided by federal authorities in 2020. The Navajo Department of Justice also sued Dineh Benally, leading to a court order halting those operations.A group of Chinese immigrant workers sued Benally and his associates — and claimed they were lured to northern New Mexico and forced to work long hours illegally trimming marijuana on the Navajo Nation, where growing the plant is illegal.In the notice made public Tuesday by New Mexico’s Cannabis Control Division, Native American Agricultural Development was accused of exceeding the state’s plant count limits, of not tracking and tracing its inven...

Souvenir sellers have flooded the Brooklyn Bridge. Now the city is banning them

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:39 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Visitors to New York City hoping to take home a souvenir from the Brooklyn Bridge will now have to settle for a photograph, as vendors are about to be banned from the iconic span.The new rule, which goes into effect Wednesday, aims to ease overcrowding on the bridge’s heavily trafficked pedestrian walkway, where dozens of trinket sellers currently compete for space with tourists and city commuters.As crowds flocked to the bridge over the holiday season, the situation turned dangerous, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. He pointed to videos that showed pedestrians leaping from the elevated walkway onto a bike lane several feet below in order to bypass a human traffic jam.“It’s not only a sanitary issue, it’s a public safety issue,” Adams said on Tuesday. “People would’ve trampled over each other. We need order in this city. That is one of our major landmarks.”The new rules will apply to all of the city’s bridges — though none have close to as many vend...

Court rules absentee ballots with minor problems OK to count

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:39 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin election clerks can accept absentee ballots that contain minor errors such as missing portions of witness addresses, a court ruled Tuesday in a legal fight that has pitted conservatives against liberals in the battleground state.Dane County Circuit Court ruled in favor of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin in its lawsuit to clarify voting rights protections for voters whose absentee ballots have minor errors in listing their witnesses’ addresses. The ruling means that absentee ballots with certain technical witness address defects will not be rejected in future elections, the league said.A Waukesha County Circuit Court, siding with Republicans, barred the Wisconsin Elections Commission in 2022 from using longstanding guidance for fixing minor witness address problems on absentee ballots without contacting the voter. That ruling left absentee voters at risk of having their ballots rejected due to technical omissions or errors with no guarantee that...

Arizona border crossing with Mexico to reopen a month after migrant influx forced closure

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:10:39 GMT

LUKEVILLE, Ariz. (AP) — A border crossing on the most direct route from Phoenix to the nearest beaches will reopen Thursday, authorities said, one month after it closed in response to a large migrant influx.U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it was also reopening a pedestrian border crossing in San Diego on Thursday and resuming full operations at a bridge in Eagle Pass, Texas, and a crossing in Nogales, Arizona.The moves reflect a drop in illegal crossings from December highs, authorities said. Troy Miller, acting CBP commissioner, said last month that crossings had reached “unprecedented” heights, topping 10,000 on several days.The Lukeville closure on Dec. 4 brought heavy pressure on CBP from Arizona’s top elected officials. While remote, it is used to travel to Puerto Peñasco, or Rocky Point, a resort area on Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. Americans also visit the border community of Sonoyta to eat, shop and get dental and medical care.Cargo rail crossings in the Texas...