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Japan police arrest woman, parents in beheading of man at hotel in Hokkaido entertainment district

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:53 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese police said they have arrested a woman and her parents in a bizarre beheading case in a popular night entertainment district in Japan’s northern city of Sapporo, where a headless man was found in a hotel room three weeks ago.Hokkaido police on Japan’s northern main island said Tuesday they arrested Runa Tamura, 29, and her father Osamu Tamura, a 59-year-old psychiatrist, the day before on suspicion of conspiring in beheading the victim at a hotel room and relocating his severed head in the middle of the night between July 1 and July 2.The head of the victim, Hitoshi Ura, 62, has been missing since then.Police raided the suspects’ home Tuesday and arrested the prime suspect’s mother Hiroko Tamura, a 60-year-old parttime worker, on suspicion of conspiring with her family in transporting and keeping the head at home. Police did not say exactly how the daughter and the father collaborated. Police are still investigating the motive and refused to s...

Stock market today: Asian markets follow Wall St up after Chinese promise to support economy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:53 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets followed Wall Street higher on Tuesday after China’s ruling Communist Party promised to shore up its sagging economy ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting traders hope will announce this interest rate cycle’s final increase.Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul and Sydney advanced. Tokyo declined. Oil prices rose.The Chinese ruling party on Monday promised measures to boost sluggish economic growth by supporting real estate sales and other struggling sectors but gave no details and didn’t mention possible stimulus spending.Any stimulus is “unlikely to be significant” while Beijing takes a “gradual and targeted approach,” Andrew McCaffery of Fidelity International said in a reportThe Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.7% to 3,217.75 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong surged 3.4% to 19,298.31. The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo shed 0.3% to 32,605.97 while the Kospi in Seoul advanced less than 0.1% to 2,630.70.Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 gained 0.4% to 7,336.20...

California aims to tap beavers, once viewed as a nuisance, to help with water issues and wildfires

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:53 GMT

For years, beavers have been treated as an annoyance for chewing down trees and shrubs and blocking up streams, leading to flooding in neighborhoods and farms. But the animal is increasingly being seen as nature’s helper in the midst of climate change.California recently changed its tune and is embracing the animals that can create lush habitats that lure species back into now-urban areas, enhance groundwater supplies and buffer against the threat of wildfires.A new policy that went into effect last month encourages landowners and agencies dealing with beaver damage to seek solutions such as putting flow devices in streams or protective wrap on trees before seeking permission from the state to kill the animals. The state is also running pilot projects to relocate beavers to places where they can be more beneficial. The aim is to preserve more beavers, along with their nature-friendly behaviors.“There’s been this major paradigm shift throughout the West where people have ...

Ramaswamy slated to headline South Carolina county GOP fundraiser in return to early voting state

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:53 GMT

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Biotech entrepreneur and Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy is slated to headline a GOP fundraiser in South Carolina as he returns to campaigning in the first-in-the-South primary state.Ramaswamy will be the featured speaker at the third annual Dorchester County GOP’s Faith, Family & Freedom Dinner, scheduled for Aug. 19 in Summerville at the Dorchester Shrine Club, county party Chair Steven Wright told The Associated Press on Tuesday.Wright said he and other Republican voters in South Carolina are hoping to see more of the broad GOP field at such county-level events. The double-digit field includes two homegrown hopefuls, former Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott, as well as former President Donald Trump, who has remained popular in South Carolina since his 2016 primary victory in the state.“Retail politics and speaking directly to voters is incredibly important,” Wright said of Dorchester County, an area just inland from Charleston tha...

Safety net with holes? Programs to help crime victims can leave them fronting bills

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:53 GMT

Pamela White stared at the silver tree with twinkling lights while she cleaned out her son’s apartment, wondering how in a matter of days she went from celebrating Christmas to having to think about headstones and burial plots.Her son, Dararius Evans, was an Army reservist and veteran who had survived a deployment in Iraq. A few days after Christmas 2019, the 28-year-old was killed in a shooting outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The shooter was sentenced to life in prison last year.White and her family, who live outside of New Orleans, turned to Louisiana’s victim compensation board for help paying for the unexpected funeral. She was met with administrative hurdles, a denial that blamed her son for his own death, a lengthy appeal — all while paying up front through a personal loan that gathered interest as she waited.Thousands of crime victims each year are confronted with the difficult financial reality of state compensation programs that are billed as safety nets to offset costs ...

For Emmett Till’s family, national monument proclamation cements his inclusion in the American story

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:53 GMT

When President Joe Biden signs a proclamation on Tuesday establishing a national monument honoring Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley, it will mark the fulfillment of a promise Till’s relatives made after his death 68 years ago.The Black teenager from Chicago, whose abduction, torture and killing in Mississippi in 1955 helped propel the civil rights movement, will be seen as more than just a cause of that movement, said Till’s cousin, the Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr.“We are resolute that it now becomes an American story and not just a civil rights story,” Parker told The Associated Press, ahead of a planned proclamation signing ceremony at the White House.With the stroke of Biden’s pen, the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, located across three sites in two states, will be federally protected places. But Till’s family members, along with a national organization seeking to preserve Black cultural heritage sites, say their work protecting the Till legacy contin...

Man fatally shot in Brampton, suspects fled in vehicle

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:53 GMT

Peel Regional Police are searching for suspects after a man was fatally shot in Brampton on Monday night.Authorities were called to the Parity Road and Argelia Crescent area around 10:30 p.m. for a weapons dangerous call.Police received reports that an adult male had been shot. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.Investigators said suspects were seen fleeing the area in a vehicle. A description of the car was not provided.There is a heavy police presence in the area.WEAPONS DANGEROUS:– Argelia Cr/Parity Rd #Brampton– Reports of an adult male shot-Male has been pronounced on scene– U/K suspect(s) fled the area in a vehicle– Large police presence -More information as it comes in– Investigation ongoing– C/R at 10:18 pm– PR23-0238906— Peel Regional Police (@PeelPolice) July 25, 2023

Nashville school shooter’s writings reignite debate over releasing material written by mass killers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:53 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — In Tennessee, a request for police to release a school shooter’s private writings has morphed into a complex multiparty fight that pits the parents of traumatized students against a coalition of local news outlets, nonprofits, and a Republican lawmaker — with both sides claiming their position is in the public interest.The person who killed three 9-year-old children and three adults at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville on March 27 left behind at least 20 journals, a suicide note and a memoir, according to court filings. But there is no national standard governing if, or how, such writings are made public.Shooters sometimes release their writings themselves over the internet, prompting a race to suppress their spread. In 2019, the white supremacist who killed 51 worshippers at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, posted his anti-immigrant screed online. Five months later, a man who killed 23 at a Texas Walmart published a racist diatrib...

Victims in deadly collapse of China middle school gym roof largely members of girl’s volleyball team

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:53 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Prosecutors in northeastern China are pursuing criminal charges against the managers of a construction firm blamed for the collapse of the roof of a middle school gymnasium, leading to 11 deaths. State media on Tuesday gave few details about the case and the victims, but said 19 people were inside the facility when the concrete roof came down, among them two coaches and 17 players. Fifteen were trapped in the rubble after the Sunday afternoon collapse at the No. 34 Middle School, with the last victim only being recovered on Monday morning. An initial investigation said a construction crew working on a new administrative building next to the gym had stored bags of perlite used in plastering and internal finishing work on the roof that had grown heavy by absorbing water from the recent heavy rains striking much of the country, particularly the northwest. Following the incident, social media and the Baidu news website carried footage of angry parents complaining about wh...

Michelle Goldberg: The weird silence about Brexit’s disastrousness

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:53 GMT

There’s a growing understanding in Britain that the country’s vote to quit the European Union, a decisive moment in the international rise of reactionary populism, was a grave error.Just as critics predicted, Brexit has led to inflation, labor shortages, business closures and travel snafus. It has created supply chain problems that put the future of British car manufacturing in danger. Brexit has, in many cases, turned travel between Europe and the U.K. into a punishing ordeal, as I learned recently, spending hours in a chaotic passport control line when taking the train from Paris to London. British musicians are finding it hard to tour in Europe because of the costs and red tape associated with moving both people and equipment across borders, which Elton John called “crucifying.”According to the U.K.’s Office for Budget and Responsibility, leaving the EU has shaved 4% off Britain’s gross domestic product. The damage to Britain’s economy, the OBR’s chair has said, is of the same “m...