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China authorities arrest 2 for smashing shortcut through Great Wall with excavator

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:59 GMT

China’s Great Wall has been pierced by Genghis Khan, the Manchus, and now, allegedly, a couple of construction workers named Zheng and Wang who wanted a shortcut.Authorities in China arrested two people for smashing a path through a section of the ancient wall, a cultural icon and United Nations protected heritage site. The area of the breach was a broken-down section far from the restored segments most Chinese and foreign tourists are familiar with. State media showed a dirt road cut through a the wall against a rural landscape in Youyu County, hundreds of kilometers (miles) west of Beijing, and identified the suspects as a 38-year-old man surnamed Zheng and a 55-year-old woman surnamed Wang. The pair wanted a shorter route for some construction work they were doing in nearby towns, the reports said. China places immense pride in the system of towers and connecting walls wide enough for carriages to pass that stretch approximately 8,850 kilometers (5,500 miles), built mainly ...

Coco Gauff reaches her first US Open semifinal at 19. Ben Shelton gets to his first at 20

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:59 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Coco Gauff knows what it takes to reach a Grand Slam final. Been there, done that. What she hasn’t experienced is winning a major championship. So her first trip to the semifinals at the U.S. Open does not leave her satisfied at all, no matter how dominant the performance was that got her to that stage.“The dreams never came with the people in the stands and autographs. That was never in the dreams,” the 19-year-old from Florida said. “It was just, like, the trophy.”That hardware is getting closer. Gauff dealt just fine with the heat, the humidity and a big-hitting opponent to defeat Jelena Ostapenko 6-0, 6-2 on Tuesday, becoming the first American teenager to reach the final four at Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams in 2001.“Even though (by) the semifinals, (in) theory, if you want to win, there’s two matches left, you can’t think like that,” the sixth-seeded Gauff said. “I’m still in the mindset that I’m in the beginning of the tournament. That’s w...

Suspect in explosives attack on Japanese prime minister indicted for attempted murder, report says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:59 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Prosecutors in Japan indicted a 24-year-old man Wednesday on attempted murder and other charges in the explosives attack on Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in April, Japanese media reported.Kishida was campaigning for elections in Wakayama in western Japan when a man threw a homemade pipe bomb at him. Kishida was unhurt, but two others had minor injuries. After a three-month psychiatric evaluation of the suspect, prosecutors determined that Ryuji Kimura, 24, is mentally fit for trial and that the bomb used in the attack was lethal, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported. Kyodo reported that court records show Kimura may have been angry because he couldn’t file for candidacy in 2022 elections.The attack came about a year after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot and killed while campaigning for elections. Gun and bomb violence in Japan is exceedingly rare, and the attacks on Abe and Kishida shocked many in the country. The Associated Press

Texas AG Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial begins with a former ally who reported him to the FBI

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:59 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is underway with live television coverage, a former aide who reported him to the FBI on the witness stand and his wife watching from her desk in the state Senate but prohibited from participating.But how much Paxton himself will take part in the historic trial that resumes Wednesday is up in the air. Facing the gravest threat yet to his political future, Paxton left the start of the proceedings early and cannot be compelled to testify over accusations of corruption that have dogged one of Texas’ most powerful figures for years.The trial could last weeks and is beginning with testimony from Paxton’s former second-in-command, the first in a potentially long line of onetime allies who could help Republican impeachment managers build their case that Paxton should be permanently removed from office. Paxton pleaded not guilty Tuesday but did not return for opening arguments, when his attorneys sharply criticiz...

Trump critic and supporter in tight race in Utah special GOP congressional primary

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:59 GMT

The race had tightened Tuesday between a Donald Trump critic and supporter in a Utah special congressional primary race that could offer a glimpse into how Republican voters feel about a string of indictments against the former president as he seeks another term.The special election primary to replace longtime Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart saw Celeste Maloy, who was Stewart’s chief legal counsel and has his endorsement, with a narrow lead over former state lawmaker Becky Edwards late Tuesday.Edwards, a Trump critic, won two urban counties but Maloy, a Trump supporter, overtook her with strength from rural areas. Votes yet to be counted included thousands of mail-in ballots over the next two weeks.After seeing her early lead evaporate, Edwards briefly thanked supporters and ended an election night party in Salt Lake City. As they chanted, “Becky, Becky,” Edwards said she felt optimistic but would have to wait for more vote counting.Businessperson Bruce Hough, a committeeman for ...

Kentucky Democrat Beshear links GOP challenger to reality of abortion law in reelection campaign

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:59 GMT

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has pushed his opposition to Kentucky’s abortion ban to the forefront of his reelection campaign by linking his Republican challenger to an extreme scenario of the strict law — requiring young victims of rape or incest to carry their pregnancies to term.Beshear’s campaign released a TV ad featuring a prosecutor denouncing the law’s lack of exceptions for rape or incest. It attacks GOP nominee Daniel Cameron for supporting the measure, which bans all abortions except when carried out to save a pregnant patient’s life or to prevent a disabling injury.The ad represents a reversal of roles in this socially conservative state — where Republicans have traditionally gone on offense in statewide races touting their opposition to abortion. Now, Beshear has become the aggressor against his anti-abortion GOP challenger — signaling a willingness among Democrats to press the issue since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a...

India’s prime minister uses the G20 summit to advertise his global reach and court voters at home

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:59 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — Major roads in New Delhi are teeming with giant posters and billboards announcing India’s presidency of this week’s summit of the Group of 20 nations. And one leader’s picture — smiling benignly from every traffic circle — stands out from the rest: Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Modi is also on the front page of major newspapers, and Indian TV channels are flashing his picture, accompanied by the Hindi word “Vishwaguru” — a leader of the world. In public speeches, his ministers are touting him as a steward of a surging India.It is an unabashed homage to the populist prime minister and staunch Hindu nationalist, who is celebrated by his supporters and by his party as someone who is leading a developing nation of more than 1.4 billion people to a bright new future.But this advertising blitz also displays the personal ambitions of Modi, who in the past has used the optics of New Delhi’s growing geopolitical clout and foreign policy triumphs to consolidate power. Experts ...

Lawyers claim cable TV and phone companies also responsible in Maui fires

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:59 GMT

HONOLULU (AP) — After a visit to a warehouse where Hawaiian Electric Company is housing power poles and electrical equipment that may be key to the investigation of last month’s devastating fires on Maui, lawyers for Lahaina residents and business owners told a court Tuesday that cable TV and telephone companies share responsibility for the disaster because they allegedly overloaded and destabilized some of the poles. The lawyers said the cables were attached in a way that put too much tension on the poles, causing them to lean and break in the winds on Aug. 8 when flames burned down much of Lahaina, killing at least 115 people and destroying more than 2,000 structures. LippSmith LLP has filed a proposed class action against Hawaii’s electric utility and Maui County in state court in Hawaii. Attorney Graham LippSmith is now asking the court to add multiple telecommunications companies and public and private landowners to the original suit.“In a disaster of this magnitude, it t...

Sri Lanka government to investigate allegation of intelligence complicity in 2019 Easter bombings

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:59 GMT

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s government will appoint a parliamentary committee to investigate allegations made in a British television report that Sri Lankan intelligence had complicity in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 269 people. Labor Minister Manusha Nanayakkara told Parliament on Tuesday that details on the investigation will be announced soon. A man interviewed in the Channel 4 videos released Tuesday said he arranged a meeting between a local Islamic State-inspired group and a top state intelligence official to hatch a plot to create insecurity in Sri Lanka and enable Gotabaya Rajapaksa to win the presidential election later that year.Azad Maulana was a spokesman for a breakaway group of the Tamil Tiger rebels that later became a pro-state militia and helped the government defeat the rebels and win Sri Lanka’s long civil war in 2009. Rajapaksa was a top defense official during the war, and his older brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had been defeated in ...

Legal fights over voting districts could play role in control of Congress for 2024

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:00:59 GMT

Democrats got a potential boost for the 2024 congressional elections as courts in Alabama and Florida ruled recently that Republican-led legislatures had unfairly diluted the voting power of Black residents. But those cases are just two of about a dozen that could carry big consequences as Republicans campaign to hold onto their slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Another trial alleging racial violations in voting districts got underway Tuesday in Georgia, where Democrats also hope to make gains, while voting rights advocates in Ohio decided to drop a legal challenge to that state’s congressional districts — providing a bit of good news for Republicans. Legal challenges to congressional districts also are ongoing in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. And new districts seem likely in New York and North Carolina, based on previous court actions.Though much remains to be settled, there’s a good chance congre...