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Former North Carolina Sen. Lauch Faircloth dies at 95

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:21:00 GMT

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Former U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina, a onetime conservative Democrat who switched late in his career to the Republicans and then got elected to Congress, died Thursday. He was 95. Faircloth, who served one Senate term before losing to then-unknown Democrat John Edwards in 1998, died at his home in Clinton, said Brad Crone, a former campaign aide and close friend. Years after an unsuccessful Democratic bid for governor in 1984, Faircloth switched to the GOP and ran in 1992 against U.S. Sen. Terry Sanford, a longtime friend and former political ally. Faircloth pulled off the upset, attacking Sanford as a big-spending liberal and benefiting politically from Sanford’s health problems in the campaign’s final weeks.While in the Senate, the millionaire businessman and Sampson County farmer was known as one of the most partisan senators, blasting Bill and Hillary Clinton and calling for the dismantling of Cabinet departments and other federal agencies. He...

Striking Hollywood writers, studios to resume negotiations next week

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:21:00 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Contract talks that could end Hollywood’s writers strike are set to resume next week, studios said Thursday.The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the industry’s studios, streaming services and production companies in union negotiations, said in a statement that they had reached out to the Writers Guild of America on Wednesday and the two sides agreed to resume negotiations next week.Leaders are still working out the details, the statement said, and no further specifics were provided.“Every member company of the AMPTP is committed and eager to reach a fair deal, and to working together with the WGA to end the strike,” the statement said.There are no talks yet planned to settle the actors strike.Writers have been on strike for 4 1/2 months over issues including pay, job security and regulating the use of artificial intelligence. A previous attempt to restart talks fell flat. The two sides had a handful of meetings in m...

California lawmakers sign off on ballot measure to reform mental health care system

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:21:00 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers are casting the final votes on hundreds of bills Thursday before the legislative session ends at midnight.Approved bills will go to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who will have until Oct. 14 to decide whether to sign them into law, veto them or let them become law without his signature.The state Legislature almost never overrides a veto from the governor, no matter what political party is in charge. Here’s a look at what lawmakers have voted on:MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEMSenators on Thursday signed off on putting two proposals before voters next March that would help transform the state’s mental health system and address the state’s worsening homelessness crisis. A measure by Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin would allow the state to borrow $6.38 billion to build new treatment beds and housing. A proposal by Sen. Susan Eggman would overhaul how counties pay for mental and behavioral health programs. Irwin’s proposal still needs a fi...

As captured fugitive resumes sentence in the US, homicide in his native Brazil remains unsolved

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:21:00 GMT

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — When the Brazilian prosecutor in charge of a homicide case targeting Danilo Cavalcante saw footage of the 34 year-old crab-walk out of a U.S. prison last month, he thought the fugitive might try to head home, where he stood to receive a considerably lighter sentence.Cavalcante fled Brazil in 2018, several months after allegedly shooting a man whose family members said owed him money. Today, Cavalcante faces life in a U.S. cell for the brutal killing of his girlfriend.“I thought he wanted to escape to Brazil,” Tocantins state prosecutor Rafael Pinto Alamy told The Associated Press on Thursday. “He would have to comply with the prison rules here, which are much more lenient.”A court hearing in Cavalcante’s Brazilian homicide case has been set for Oct. 11. The case is expected to go to a jury, probably next year, Alamy and Cavalcante’s lawyer told the AP.Brazil does not deliver life sentences. Even had Cavalcante been sentenced to the maximum 30 years, Alamy...

AP PHOTOS: Satellite images show flood devastation that killed more than 11,000 in Libya

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:21:00 GMT

DERNA, Libya (AP) — Images taken by satellite show the physical devastation from a flood that killed at least 11,300 people in the eastern Libyan city of Derna. Two dams above Derna burst early Monday under the pressure from rain dropped by a storm. The pent-up water swept blocks of low-lying downtown Derna out to the Mediterranean Sea. Many said they heard loud explosions as the dams exploded. A flood several meters (many feet) high rolled down a mountainside into the city. Images made about 400 miles above the earth’s surface show that the storm left a brown layer of mud and dirt across the city.Untold numbers are buried under mud and debris that includes overturned cars and chunks of concrete. The death toll soared to 11,300 as search efforts continue, Marie el-Drese, secretary-general of the Libyan Red Crescent, told The Associated Press by phone Thursday.She said that an additional 10,100 had been reported missing. Health authorities previously put the death toll in Derna at 5,...

Author Deesha Philyaw has a 7-figure deal for her next two books

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:21:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Prize-winning fiction writer Deesha Philyaw, who struggled to find a publisher for what became her acclaimed debut “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies,” has a 7-figure deal for her next two books. Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announced Thursday that it had signed up Philyaw and will publish her novel “The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman” in 2025. Mariner calls the book a “biting satire” of the Black church and “a deeply provocative” story about family, friendship and “sexual agency.” Philyaw, who attended several different churches as a child, is centering the novel around a megachurch leader.“In writing True Confessions, I really wanted to explore the narratives that 40- and 50-something Black women sometimes tell ourselves – as well as the narratives told about us – regarding our desires and aspirations,” Philyaw said in a statement.Her second book for Mariner, “Girl, Look,” is billed by the publisher as a ...

California lawmakers to vote on plan allowing the state to buy power

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:21:00 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers were scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to give Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration permission to buy massive amounts of electricity, a move aimed at avoiding blackouts by shoring up the state’s power supply while jumpstarting the West Coast’s fledgling offshore wind industry.Five companies paid roughly $750 million last year to lease areas off the California coast to build wind turbines. Collectively, those projects could generate enough electricity to power 3.5 million homes, helping the state avoid blackouts during extreme heat waves that have routinely strained the electrical grid of the nation’s most populous state.But so far, the state’s largest utility companies have not been willing to commit to buying power from projects like those because it would cost too much money and take too long to build. In addition to building the wind turbines, the projects will require improvements at the st...

A judge must now decide if Georgia voting districts are racially discriminatory after a trial ended

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:21:00 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — A trial challenging voting district maps in Georgia concluded Thursday with the state arguing that court intervention on behalf of Black voters isn’t needed, while the plaintiffs argued that Black voters are still fighting opposition from white voters and need federal help to get a fair shot. If U.S. District Judge Steve Jones rules for the challengers, one of Georgia’s 14 U.S. House seats, plus multiple state Senate and state House seats, could be redrawn to contain majorities of Black residents. That could shift control of those seats to Democrats from Republicans. The closing arguments focused on the question of how far Georgia has come since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, whether more intervention is needed and whether proposals brought forward by the plaintiffs are so race-conscious as to be unconstitutional. Section 2 of that law says voting district lines can’t result in discriminatory effects against minority voters.The plaintiffs acknow...

One injured due to shooting in Jane and Wilson area

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:21:00 GMT

One person has sustained injuries due to a shooting in the Jane Street and Wilson Avenue area on Thursday evening.Police responded to reports of a shooting at approximately 7:22 p.m.Once on scene police confirmed the shooting and located one victim with non-life-threatening injuries.The suspects fled on foot and there is a large police presence in the area.Police ask those around to avoid the area.

Lawsuit: Woman sexually assaulted by sexual predator inside Northwest Indiana nursing home

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:21:00 GMT

EAST CHICAGO, Ind. — A woman is suing a Northwest Indiana nursing home after she claims a resident sexually assaulted her grandmother.According to a police report, a nurse found a 90-year-old man sexually assaulting a 96-year-old woman in her room earlier this month. 4-year-old hospitalized after accidental shooting in Gary The man, who is a registered sex offender, admitted to the crime but has not been arrested and remains at Harbor Health and Rehab.Glorietta Evans-Dumas said she received a call from a staff member at the facility on Sept. 2 saying her grandmother, Ruth Reed, 96, had been assaulted. "I had to take my grandmother to the emergency room to get an examination," Evans-Dumas said.According to the police report, a nurse walked into Reed's room at the facility and found the man touching her breast.The nurse asked Reed if she was ok and when she said no, the nurse called police. The man was interviewed by police and said "I am dumb, I messed up."While a nursing home faci...