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Tracks reopen after freight train derails in Mojave Desert

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:26:05 GMT

Train traffic resumed Tuesday afternoon on a stretch of track where 55 railcars and two locomotives derailed a day earlier in a remote area of Southern California's Mojave Desert near Baker.There were no injuries when the freight train carrying iron ore went off the tracks Monday morning in the Mojave National Preserve, Union Pacific said.Crews worked around the clock to repair the tracks and traffic started moving again around 2 p.m. Tuesday, Union Pacific spokesperson Daryl Bjoraas said in emails to The Associated Press.Aerial photos show heaps of charred, mangled metal from the train derailment. March 27, 2023 (Viewer photo)Aerial photos show heaps of charred, mangled metal from the train derailment. March 27, 2023 (Viewer photo)Aerial photos show heaps of charred, mangled metal from the train derailment. March 27, 2023 (Viewer photo)The cause of the derailment remains under investigation.Bjorass said that iron ore, part of the steel-making process, spilled from the rail cars but...

Coffee shop mural stirs up controversy in Altadena 

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:26:05 GMT

A mural on the side of a popular coffee shop in Altadena is causing a stir in the community, with some residents calling for it to be taken down. The mural is on the side of Unincorporated Coffee Roasters on Lincoln Avenue in Altadena and was sanctioned by the owner. The muralist is a local Los Angeles artist who is known for his “chaotic and violent depictions of society.” Opponents of the mural say that they talked to the town council and the county, who said they have no jurisdiction over the art as it stands right now. Regardless, some community members are adamant that it be taken down. “[This mural does] not belong in a Black community or a community of color,” said She’ She’ Yancy, who lives next door to the mural. “This is misplaced.” Other community members don't see any violent depictions in the artwork. “I just see faces and hands, I don’t see anything violent about it,” a community member told KTLA’s Sara Welch. Opponents of the mural have a...

Russia convicts father of teen who drew anti-war picture

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:26:05 GMT

By Dasha Litvinova | Associated PressTALLINN, Estonia — A Russian court on Tuesday convicted a single father over social media posts critical of the war in Ukraine and sentenced him to two years in prison — a case brought against him after his daughter’s drawing at school opposed the invasion, according to his lawyer and activists.But Alexei Moskalyov fled house arrest before his verdict was delivered in his Russian hometown of Yefremov and is at large, court officials said. His 13-year-old daughter Maria, who has been taken from him by the authorities, wrote him a supportive letter for his trial from the orphanage where she is living, according to his lawyer, telling him, “Daddy, you’re my hero.”Moskalyov’s case has drawn international attention and was a grim reminder that the Kremlin is intensifying its crackdown on dissent, targeting more people and handing out harsher punishments for any criticism of the war. The broad government campaign of repres...

Man charged with firebombing Wisc. anti-abortion office

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:26:05 GMT

By Todd Richmond | Associated PressMADISON, Wis. — After nearly a year of searching, investigators used DNA pulled from a half-eaten burrito to capture the man they believe firebombed a prominent Wisconsin anti-abortion lobbying group’s office.The U.S. attorney’s office in Madison announced that police arrested 29-year-old Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury at Boston’s Logan International Airport on Tuesday. He was charged via the complaint with one count of attempting to cause damage by means of fire or an explosive.He made an initial appearance in federal court in Boston on Tuesday. U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald L. Cabell set a detention hearing for Thursday. Roychowdhury’s attorney, Brendan O. Kelley, who is listed in online court records as a federal public defender, declined comment when reached by phone after Tuesday’s hearing.Federal agents have been searching for almost a year for whoever tossed a pair of Molotov cocktails into the Wisconsin Family Act...

Arizona woman charged with murder for allegedly telling her pimp, ‘hop on him, daddy,’ leading to fatal Oakland shooting

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:26:05 GMT

OAKLAND — An Arizona woman has been arrested and charged with murder in connection with a January 2022 shooting, under the legal theory that she aided and abetted the homicide by telling her armed pimp, “hop on him, daddy.”Mariah Bostick, 31, was charged this month with murder in the killing of 45-year-old Virgil Earl Robinson III, who was shot and killed around 4 a.m. Jan. 18, 2022, on the 1600 block of Sonoma Way, near San Antonio Park in Oakland. In court papers, police describe Bostick as a sex worker who was identified by a fingerprint found on a high-heeled sandal left at the scene.Bostick remains in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on a no-bail hold and is set to enter a plea on Wednesday, court records show. She was arrested March 10, three days after prosecutors filed a single-count criminal complaint charging her with murder.Though Bostick has yet to plead not guilty, her attorney, Jeff Wozniak, told this newspaper that she’s not only innocent, but a ̶...

Antioch: Former Deer Valley High School security guard arrested for allegedly ‘grooming’ student for lewd purposes

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:26:05 GMT

ANTIOCH — A man who worked as a security guard for a local high school has been arrested and charged with alleged illicit contact with both a student and an undercover cop posing as a 13-year-old, court records show.Christopher George Miller, 30, was charged March 20 with seven felonies, including attempted lewd or lascivious acts on a minor, distributing lewd material to a minor, contacting a minor for lewd purposed and attempting to give drugs to a minor, court records show. He was arrested at a park in Contra Costa County four days earlier, where authorities say he arranged to meet an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.Miller worked at Deer Valley High School in Antioch, as a site safety substitute, the Antioch school district’s superintendent said. She said Miller worked there for just seven days and was fired the same day the allegations surfaced.“Unfortunately, when criminal investigations are pending, the Antioch Unified School District is limit...

New California gas price law another defeat for oil industry

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:26:05 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — It was just a few weeks ago that California Gov. Gavin Newsom called the oil industry the second most powerful force on earth, trailing only Mother Nature in its ability to bend the elements — both physical and political — to its will.Yet on Tuesday, Newsom plans to sign a new law that gives state regulators the power to penalize oil companies for making too much money, the first of its kind in the country. It’s the type of legislation the oil industry might have crushed in the past. But on Monday, the bill cleared the state Assembly with only one Democrat voting against it.“When you take on big oil, they usually roll you,” Newsom said Monday after lawmakers passed the bill. “The Legislature had the courage, conviction and the backbone to stand up to big oil.”The bill is the latest in a string of defeats for the oil industry in California, a state many don’t think of as a fossil fuel powerhouse. But for decades, California was one of the l...

Mayor: Philadelphia water will not be tainted by spill

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:26:05 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia officials say the city’s water system will not be affected by a chemical spill into the Delaware River upstream last week.“We can all confidentially say the threat has passed — I repeat: All the city’s drinking water is safe to drink and will not be impacted by the spill,” Mayor Jim Kenney said Tuesday night. Sampling hasn’t detected any substance from the spill, and “models tracking the flow and tide of the Delaware River show the potential threat is passing us,” he said.Health officials in Bucks County, just north of Philadelphia, said Sunday that between 8,100 and 12,000 gallons (30,700 and 120,000 liters) of a water-based latex-finishing solution spilled into the river late Friday because of a burst pipe at the Trinseo Altuglas chemical facility in Bristol Township.Officials said it is nontoxic to humans, and no known adverse health effects have been reported in the county.Philadelphia officials said tests of hundreds of samples...

Video shows guards running away during fire that killed 40

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:26:05 GMT

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — After migrants in northern Mexico placed mattresses against the bars of their detention cell and set them on fire, guards quickly walked away and made no apparent attempt to release the men before smoke filled the room and killed at least 40, surveillance video showed Tuesday.Hours after the fire broke out late Monday, rows of bodies were laid out under shimmery silver sheets outside the immigration detention facility in Ciudad Juarez, which is across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas, and a major crossing point for migrants.Twenty-nine people were injured and were in “delicate-serious” condition, according to the National Immigration Institute.At the time of the blaze, 68 men from Central and South America were being held at the facility, the agency said.In the video, two people dressed as guards rush into the camera frame, and at least one migrant appears by the metal gate on the other side. But the guards did not appear to make any effort to open th...

Deadly fire highlights immigration pressures on Mexico

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:26:05 GMT

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The fire that killed at least 40 people at an immigration detention center in Mexico happened as Western hemisphere countries face pressure to address the extraordinary number of people fleeing their homes.Mexico has expanded its network of dozens of detention centers while working closely with the United States to limit movement of asylum-seekers through its territory to the U.S. border, including to Ciudad Juarez, where authorities said migrants set mattresses on fire late Monday in a detention center after learning they would be deported.Here are some questions and answers about the conditions and policies that led to one of Mexico’s deadliest events at an immigration detention center.WHY WERE THESE MIGRANTS DETAINED?Specifics have yet to be released, but Mexico has emerged as the world’s third most popular destination for asylum-seekers, after the United States and Germany. It is still largely a transit country, though, for those on the way to the U.S.Asyl...