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Biden will host Americas summit that focuses on supply chains, migration and new investment

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:20:45 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is gathering leaders from countries across the Americas on Friday in the U.S. capital to discuss the tightening of supply chains and addressing migration issues.In a preview of the first Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity Leaders’ Summit, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday that the two-day event would be a “once in a generation opportunity” to shift more of the global supply chains to the Western Hemisphere.Kirby said the summit would also involve the “shared migration challenge” and the building of “meaningful economic opportunity” among the countries in the region.Friday’s event was announced last year at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. The focus on trade comes as competition has intensified between the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies. Biden has provided government incentives to build U.S. infrastructure and for companies to construct new fact...

CJ McCollum scores 32 points to lead short-handed Pelicans past Pistons, 125-116

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:20:45 GMT

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — CJ McCollum says he enjoys basketball too much to allow fatigue or a thrown-off routine to stop him from doing what he can to carry the short-handed New Orleans Pelicans through back-to-back games.He even found a moment during a second-quarter stoppage against Detroit on Thursday night to play rock-paper-scissors with a young fan.“I actually owe that kid some shoes,” an exhausted but grinning McCollum said. “We got to find the kid. I lost.”The Pelicans, however, beat the Pistons, 125-116, thanks in large part to McCollum with his 33-point night.“He did everything we asked him to do and more,” Pelicans coach Willie Green said of McCollum, who scored 29 points Wednesday night in a victory at Oklahoma City. “It’s a credit to his mindset, to his character and to the work that he puts in.”New Orleans was facing Detroit without starting power forward Zion Williamson and starting wing Brandon Ingram, who are also two of their top scorers. Williamson, who has been injury ...

Closing arguments scheduled Friday in trial of police officer charged in Elijah McClain’s death

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:20:45 GMT

DENVER (AP) — Closing arguments are scheduled Friday in the trial of a police officer charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man stopped as he walked home from the store after someone reported that he was suspicious.Nathan Woodyard is the third police officer to be prosecuted in McClain’s 2019 death in the Denver suburb of Aurora. Protests over the killing of George Floyd a year later renewed interest in the case and led to calls for first responders to be held responsible for his death. The trial of two other police officers indicted in McClain’s death ended in a split verdict last month, with Jason Rosenblatt acquitted of all charges and Randy Roedema convicted of the least serious charges he faced — criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault — which could lead to a sentence of anywhere from probation to prison time.Two paramedics, Jeremy Cooper and Lt. Peter Cichuniec, who were involv...

Takeaways from AP’s reporting on an American beef trader’s links to Amazon deforestation

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:20:45 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Data analysis by The Associated Press and the Rainforest Investigations Network, a nonprofit reporting consortium, found that a little-known American meat trading company in Utah is feeding China’s growing appetite for Brazilian beef, a commodity that’s driving the deforestation of the Amazon.The world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon plays a critical role in the global climate by absorbing carbon emissions.As Chinese beef imports have surged sixfold in the last decade, according to U.N. Comtrade data, Salt Lake City-based Parker-Migliorini International, known as PMI Foods, has shipped more than $1.7 billion dollars in Brazilian beef, almost all of that to China. PMI’s biggest supplier of Brazilian beef is meat processing giant JBS SA, which has been cited repeatedly by Brazilian federal prosecutors for buying cattle raised on deforested land.PMI’s role as middleman shipping meat across borders shows how the growing international trade in beef can drive deforestat...

Biden is bound for Maine to mourn with a community reeling from a shooting that left 18 people dead

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:20:45 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is heading to Lewiston, Maine to mourn with a community where 18 people were killed in the deadliest mass shooting in state history. It’s the type of trip that is becoming far too familiar. “Too many times the president and first lady have traveled to communities completely torn apart by gun violence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on the eve of the Bidens’ trip on Friday. “We can’t accept it as normal.” In addition to those killed, 13 people were injured in the Oct. 25 shootings at a bar and a bowling alley.The Bidens will pay their respects to the victims, meet with first responders and grieve with families and community members affected by the shootings, Jean-Pierre said. The president has said he’s determined to fight gun violence in the U.S. He created the first-ever White House office of gun violence prevention, which is charged with finding solutions and fully implementing landmark gun safety ...

The FBI is investigating a Texas sheriff’s office, a woman interviewed by agents says

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:20:45 GMT

DALLAS (AP) — The FBI is investigating a Texas sheriff who faced complaints of corruption from his own deputies for years before drawing broader scrutiny for his agency’s response to a mass shooting, according to a woman interviewed by federal agents.The woman said she’s twice met with a pair of FBI agents in recent months after contacting them about what she feels was the sheriff’s botched investigation of her brother’s killing. Jenifer Jones told The Associated Press the agents gathered records accusing San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers and his staff of wide-ranging misconduct and told her they were looking for potential civil rights violations. During hourslong interviews, Jones said they asked specific questions about cases and events well beyond her brother’s death. Federal investigators’ interest in the rural sheriff comes after an AP investigation found longstanding accusations that Capers has ignored deputies’ misconduct and neg...

Hintz has 2 goals and an assist to help Stars beat Oilers for 3rd straight win

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:20:45 GMT

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Roope Hintz had two goals and an assist, Scott Wedgewood made 46 saves and the Dallas Stars beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 Thursday night for their third straight win.Joe Pavelski had a goal and two assists and Matt Duchene also scored for the Stars, who improved to 7-1-1 on the season.Sam Gagner scored twice in his return to the lineup and Evander Kane also had a goal struggling Oilers, who have lost five of their last six and dropped to 2-6-1. Stuart Skinner had 23 saves.Dallas opened the scoring 8:08 into the game right after Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins missed a golden opportunity. The Stars went the other way on a 2-on-1 with Duchene opting to shoot and beating Skinner down low for his second of the season.The Oilers bounced back with 3 minutes left in the first period as Nugent-Hopkins stripped a puck in the Dallas zone and directed it to Kane, who blasted his third of the season past the Wedgewood’s glove.The Stars regained the lead 3:25 into th...

Anthony Albanese soon will be the first Australian prime minister in 7 years to visit China

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:20:45 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Anthony Albanese will become the first Australian prime minister in seven years to visit China in recognition that bilateral relations have improved after crashing to unprecedented depths over trade and security differences that remain largely unresolved.The election of Albanese’s center-left government last year after nine years of conservative rule created an opportunity for a reset. His three-day visit that starts Saturday will take him to Shanghai then Beijing, though details about his itinerary are limited.Since 2016, when Chinese leader Xi Jinping met an Australian prime minister twice in six months, China severed top-level ministerial contacts. Official and unofficial trade sanctions stacked up since 2020 to cost Australian exporters up to 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year for commodities including coal, wine, beef, barley and lobsters as business and politics entwined in the relationship as never before.But many say the trade boyco...

Christie banks on New Hampshire as he makes the case that only he can stop Trump: ‘I am the cavalry’

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:20:45 GMT

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has a message for disgruntled Democrats and independents in New Hampshire fed up with the 2024 presidential front-runners.“Vote in the Republican primary, baby. We’re the only game in town, and we’re the only way to stop Donald Trump,” he told voters at a diner in Derry last week during a swing through the first-in-the-nation primary state.As his GOP rivals including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott go all in on Iowa in the weeks before voting begins, Christie often has New Hampshire all to himself. He’s charting a path here as the race’s most vocal critic of the former president, casting himself as the only Republican willing to directly take him on and arguing that Trump will lose to President Joe Biden next November if he’s the party’s nominee.While he’s unpopular in national polling, some surveys here conducted in September suggest his support reaches the low do...

How an American meat broker is fueling Amazon deforestation

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:20:45 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — As incomes in China have grown in the last decade, so has China’s appetite for beef. No longer out of reach for China’s middle class, beef now sizzles in home woks and restaurant kitchens. China has become the world’s biggest importer of beef, and Brazil is China’s biggest supplier, according to United Nations Comtrade data. More beef moves from Brazil to China than between any other two countries. But the Brazilian cattle industry is a major driver of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Data analysis by The Associated Press and the Rainforest Investigations Network, a nonprofit reporting consortium, found that a little-known American company is among the key suppliers and distributors feeding China’s hunger for beef – and the Amazon deforestation that it fuels.The world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon plays a critical role in the global climate by absorbing carbon emissions. A new study published this week in the journal of the National Academy of Sciences ...