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DC Council passes crime bill, gives police green light for high-speed chases

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:51 GMT

On a 12 to 1 vote, the D.C. Council passed a bill on Tuesday that supporters said would help address a spike in crime across the nation’s capital.Homicides are up 17%, and violent crime overall has risen 33% when compared to the same time last year, according to police figures.“Most crime is committed by repeat offenders,” said D.C. Council chair Phil Mendelson. “A robber robs more than once; shooters unfortunately shoot more than once, or commit other violent offenses more than once.”The most controversial part of the legislation would make it easier for judges to hold people in jail pending trial when the court finds that they have likely committed a violent crime.“These changes will provide courts with more direction and flexibility to hold individuals who may be contributing to repeated instances of retaliatory gun violence,” according to the bill.Council member Janeese Lewis George, the only lawmaker to vote against the bill, voiced opp...

Scientists say a new epoch marked by humans’ impact on Earth — the Anthropocene — began in 1950s

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:51 GMT

From climate change to species loss and pollution, humans have etched their impact on the Earth with such strength and permanence since the middle of the 20th century that a special team of scientists says a new geologic epoch began then.Called the Anthropocene — and derived from the Greek terms for “human” and “new” — this epoch started sometime between 1950 and 1954, according to the scientists. While there is evidence worldwide that captures the impact of burning fossil fuels, detonating nuclear weapons and dumping fertilizers and plastics on land and in waterways, the scientists are proposing a small but deep lake outside of Toronto, Canada — Crawford Lake — to place a historic marker.“It’s quite clear that the scale of change has intensified unbelievably and that has to be human impact,” said University of Leicester geologist Colin Waters, who chaired the Anthropocene Working Group. This puts the power of humans in a somewhat similar class with the meteorite that crashed into E...

A 76-year-old woman has sued a Kansas hospital saying a man sexually assaulted her at the facility

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:51 GMT

A man has been charged with rape and other crimes in a series of sexual assaults on patients in a Kansas hospital, and a 76-year-old woman who says she was among his victims has blamed negligence and carelessness by the facility.The woman filed a lawsuit Monday against Ascension Via Christi Hospital in Wichita seeking in excess of $75,000. Miguel Rodela, 28, was charged last month with multiple counts of rape, attempted rape and battery, and is jailed on $250,000 bond. Rodela, who was neither a patient nor a hospital employee, was apprehended in the pre-dawn hours of June 15 after fighting with security guards. His attorney in the public defender’s office declined to comment.The 76-year-old woman said she awoke around 1 a.m. that day to a man manipulating her catheter. She told police she assumed he was fixing it but noticing he was wearing no gloves or medical attire, she told him to find someone else to fix the catheter, according to the probable cause affidavit.A nurse walk...

Idaho sued over law making it a crime to help minors get abortions without parental consent

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:51 GMT

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Two advocacy groups and an attorney who works with sexual assault victims are suing Idaho over a new law that makes it illegal to help minors get an abortion without their parents’ consent. Abortion is already banned in Idaho at all stages of pregnancy. But the law enacted in May — dubbed a “travel ban” by the advocacy groups and an “abortion trafficking ban” by the lawmakers who passed it — seeks to prevent minors who don’t have parental approval from getting abortions in states where the procedure is legal. Violating the law is a felony, punishable by at least two and up to five years in prison.The Legal Voice activist group filed the lawsuit in federal court Tuesday on behalf of Nampa attorney Lourdes Matsumoto, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, and the Indigenous Idaho Alliance. All of the plaintiffs work with and sometimes assist minors who are seeking abortions, and they want to continue that work without the threat of prosecution. They conten...

La justicia toma como válido documento escrito a mano por Aretha Franklin como su testamento

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:51 GMT

LOS ÁNGELES – La Justicia determinó este martes que el documento escrito a mano por la “Reina del Soul” Aretha Franklin en 2014, encontrado en su sofá tras su muerte, es el testamento válido de su herencia.La disputa legal sobre la millonaria herencia de la cantante estadounidense (1942-2018) llegó a juicio el lunes en el condado de Oakland, Michigan, y este martes fue anunciada la deliberación.“Estoy muy feliz. Han sido unos cinco años muy largos y ahora podemos tener un respiro. Es algo muy bueno”, dijo el hijo menor de la cantante de “At Last”, Kecalf Franklin, a la cadena estadounidense Fox.Franklin murió de cáncer de páncreas en agosto de 2018 y entonces se creía que la artista no había preparado un testamento. Jennifer Hudson canta “Respect” en primer tráiler de filme sobre Aretha Franklin Muere nieto de Robert De Niro; tenía 19 años Meses más tarde, en mayo de 2019, fueron encontrad...

Truesdell Fire burning west of Evergreen

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:51 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) -- A small wildfire is burning west of Evergreen in the Mount Evans Wilderness.According to the Arapaho Roosevelt National Forest Service, the fire is only about a quarter of an acre, but smoke is visible.The fire has been named the Trusedell Fire.The forest service said a helicopter and ground resources are on the way.FOX31 will continue to monitor information from the fire service and update this article as needed.

Falls like Blitzen Ridge are the most common cause of death in Rocky Mountain National Park

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:51 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) -- The tragic death of a young cliff climber on Sunday is sadly the leading cause of deaths in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park.A 26-year-old woman died after falling while free climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday, the park said in a release Monday.The woman from Boulder was free-solo climbing on the Four Aces of Blitzen Ridge when she fell approximately 500 feet, according to the release. That ridge is located on Ypsilon Mountain on the east side of the park.  Woman dies after 500-foot fall in Rocky Mountain National Park Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the nation's national parks in which falls are more common causes of death than any other, according to National Parks Service data requested and compile by outdoors magazine Outforia.Between 2010 and 2020, there have been 1,174 deaths in the national parks system, ranging in causes from wild animals to murder. Falls are the most common cause of death across all 60 parks, representin...

Man undergoes facial reconstruction surgery after brutal beating in Coconut Grove; Police searching for 2 suspects

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:51 GMT

A South Florida man was forced to undergo surgery after suffering a brutal beating in Coconut Grove, which he said was an attack motivated by hate.Gregory Breidenbach suffered a black eye and broken bones, but that wasn’t all. He remains in pain emotionally and physically. “I’m going through a big wave of a rollercoaster of emotions from everything that happened,” Breidenbach said. The victim was walking home in Coconut Grove on Saturday just after midnight when all of a sudden two men jumped him. They called him an offensive slur for a gay man, while punching and kicking him repeatedly and left him for dead.“My brain has blocked it all out, I do know I was cognizant enough when the cops found me and they said I was lying in the street and that I didn’t have my clothes on.”7News spoke to Breidenbach just before his preparation for surgery.“All of my face has to be redone, everything is busted, from nasal cavity, nasal and sinus is sepa...

Worcester police ask for public’s help in Colby Avenue standoff investigation

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:51 GMT

Worcester police have asked for the public’s help as they investigate a standoff between law enforcement and a man barricaded in a local home last week.Police said officers were called to the home off Colby Avenue on Friday morning around 8:30 a.m. after they said a man allegedly shot two of his family members. Police said the man then fired at responding officers and ran inside the home after initially complying with orders to get on the ground.Authorities remained on scene throughout the day Friday and eventually took the man into custody after roughly 13 hours, according to police. Police said the two family members who were shot suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The man accused of shooting his family members was also treated by paramedics and taken to a hospital, police said. He is expected to survive. In a new tweet on Tuesday, police said they are seeking videos or photos from members of the public taken during the incident last week. Anyone with such photos or...

Lawrence, Reading men arrested, charged in separate assaults on Massachusetts State Police troopers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:51 GMT

The Massachusetts State Police arrested a 24-year-old Lawrence man for an alleged assault on one of their own last week — one of two such assaults in as many days, the agency says.“These incidents were brazen, and deliberately violent assaults perpetrated by motivated offenders on public servants who were engaged in their duties to protect our roads, our communities, our citizens, and our visitors,” said Col. John Mawn Jr., interim head of the MSP.An MSP trooper pulled over Hernan Aybar Romero, 24, of Lawrence, on Interstate 495 in Tewksbury Friday night for some alleged motor vehicle violations — among them, according to a later list of charges, driving without a license, attaching plates, operating with a suspended or revoked registration, operating an uninsured motor vehicle, and not having an inspection sticker — and found out that the man had four outstanding warrants for his arrest on drug charges.An MSP statement alleges that as the trooper was attempting to arrest him, Aybar...