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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison for $10 billion fraud

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NEW YORK — Fallen FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday for stealing more than $10 billion from customers of his global cryptocurrency exchange.

Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan handed down the steep prison term in a packed courtroom just before noon after hearing from one of more than 200 ...Read more

Hector Amezcua/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

Sacramento march honoring Latino activist Cesar Chavez to include calls for Gaza cease-fire

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A wide-range of Sacramentans will march near downtown this Saturday in honor of the late civil rights leader Cesar Chavez and to protest current issues affecting underrepresented communities.

The annual gathering, now in its 22nd year, pays homage to Chavez’s advocacy while connecting his work to modern day activism. This year, the march will...Read more

Why Washington's farmworkers are disappearing

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SKAGIT COUNTY, Washington — While there's plenty of work to be done in Washington's fields, orchards and berry rows, farmworkers are becoming increasingly rare in the Evergreen State.

From 2017 to 2022, total hired farm labor in the state dropped 23%, dipping at more than twice the national rate, with the greatest contraction recorded among U...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Parks, bars, protests stripped from bill that would create gun-free zones in Colorado

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A proposal to limit where people can carry firearms in Colorado, openly or with concealed carry permits, was narrowed substantially Wednesday as sponsors fought to win a key committee vote in the state Senate.

The bill as introduced would have banned firearms from being carried at a slew of places, including stadiums, protests at public ...Read more

Chandan Khanna/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

Florida Supreme Court issues no rulings today, leaving decision on abortion-access amendment pending

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Florida voters must continue to wait to learn whether they will get to vote in November to make abortion access a guaranteed right under the state constitution.

The Florida Supreme Court typically issues opinions on Thursday mornings at 11 a.m. and is expected to decide by April 1 on whether abortion access can be on ...Read more

Arvin Temkar/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS

Georgia lawmakers leave library bill on the shelf

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ATLANTA — The first meeting of the last day of the 2024 Georgia General Assembly brought some measure of relief for librarians.

Lawmakers were scheduled to consider a bill that sought to ban their affiliations with the American Library Association. But the topic never came up at the 8 a.m. meeting of the legislative panel controlling the bill...Read more

DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Lawsuit: Jackson County Sheriff isn't handling Ramadan food properly for Muslim inmate in Michigan

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The Jackson County Sheriff's Office has not been giving a Muslim man in custody at the county jail adequate Ramadan accommodations, according to a lawsuit filed by a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.

The Michigan Chapter of Council on American Islamic Relations alleged the county failed to provide nutritious and sufficiently ...Read more

Miguel Martinez/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS

5 students died at 1 Georgia school. Now focus is on grieving, safe driving

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ATLANTA — When three Lakeside High students died in a Labor Day crash, it was an unimaginable loss.

“At that time, you just couldn’t imagine that this would ever happen again,” said Tracy Queen, co-president of the Parent Teacher Student Association.

But then in February, a fourth student died in another car crash. Less than three ...Read more

Arvin Temkar/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS

Georgia House revives hope for new process to compensate people wrongfully convicted

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ATLANTA — The clock is running out for six men who’ve been exonerated of crimes the courts now say they didn’t commit to receive compensation from the state for the decades they spent in prison, but an effort to stop this from happening in the future gained new life this week.

An effort that aims to standardize the compensation process ...Read more

Kevin Richardson/Baltimore Sun/TNS

Key Bridge collapse adds uncertainty to transportation-focused state budget divide

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Even before the collapse of an iconic piece of Maryland infrastructure Tuesday, finding the money needed to sustain the state’s critical transportation network was the largest hang-up left in the General Assembly session barreling toward its finish line.

The crash that took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge has only added to the complexity.

...Read more

HYOSUB SHIN / AJC/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS

Judge rules Georgia Republican Party vice chairman voted illegally

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ATLANTA — A judge ruled Wednesday that the Georgia Republican Party’s first vice chairman, Brian K. Pritchard, violated state election laws when he voted nine times while serving probation for a felony check forgery sentence.

Pritchard, a conservative talk show host, must pay a $5,000 fine and receive a public reprimand from the State ...Read more

Key Bridge collapse minute-by-minute: Recordings, reports fill in timeline of Baltimore disaster

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Miguel Luna headed to his construction job around 6:30 p.m. Monday, where he and six other workers filled potholes overnight on the towering Francis Scott Key Bridge.

A 22-person Indian crew aboard the Dali, a hulking cargo ship involved in an accident in Belgian waters eight years earlier, prepared to set off on a 28-day voyage to Sri Lanka ...Read more

Philly canceled its Trans Day of Visibility event this year, but will still fly flag at City Hall

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PHILADELPHIA —While a transgender pride flag will be raised at City Hall on Thursday, it won't be accompanied by its usual fanfare.

Celena Morrison-McLean, the executive director of the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs, announced earlier this month that the city's Annual Trans Day of Visibility flag-raising event will not be happening this...Read more

What the Supreme Court's abortion pill case could mean for California

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LOS ANGELES — Lee had just been dumped when she found out she was pregnant.

With no car, no job and no support, the 23-year-old — who asked that her last name be withheld for medical privacy — ended up at the virtual clinic Hey Jane, where she was quickly assessed and prescribed abortion medication.

Four months later, thousands of ...Read more

Cole considered early favorite to win House Appropriations gavel

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WASHINGTON — Texas Rep. Kay Granger’s decision to step down early as chair of the House Appropriations Committee opens one of the most powerful jobs in Congress.

But unlike the usual scramble to claim the powerful gavel, the race to fill Granger’s seat may not be much of a race at all, with Oklahoma’s Tom Cole emerging as a clear front-...Read more

Maduro tests limits of Biden administration's fair-election deal

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Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has so brazenly disrespected his promise for free and fair elections that allies in Colombia and Brazil took to publicly condemning his crackdown on the opposition.

Barring the opposition’s primary winner, Maria Corina Machado, and her little-known substitute, Corina Yoris, from running in this year’s...Read more

Ukraine's No. 2 city hit by Russian guided bomb

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Ukrainian authorities said the northeastern city of Kharkiv was hit with a guided bomb on Wednesday, killing at least one person and injuring others in the first such strike on the city since the war began over two years ago.

The attack on a block of apartment buildings in Ukraine’s second-largest city injured at least 19 people, regional ...Read more

California legislators push law change after ruling against family in Nazi looted art case

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LOS ANGELES — California legislators plan to introduce a bill Thursday that would bolster efforts by Holocaust survivors, their heirs and other victims to recover artwork and other property stolen from them as a result of political persecution.

Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, co-chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and lead ...Read more

Lula-Milei clash embodies the world's competing economic views

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There are few presidents in the world today with more radically different economic models than Argentina’s Javier Milei and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Milei is desperate to gut public spending, sell off state-run companies and slash regulations. Lula, meanwhile, hounds his aides to ramp up spending, revitalize state companies to ...Read more

Key Bridge collapse minute-by-minute: Recordings, reports fill in timeline of Baltimore disaster

Current News / News & Features /

Miguel Luna headed to his construction job around 6:30 p.m. Monday, where he and six other workers filled potholes overnight on the towering Francis Scott Key Bridge.

A 22-person Indian crew aboard the Dali, a hulking cargo ship involved in an accident in Belgian waters eight years earlier, prepared to set off on a 28-day voyage to Sri Lanka ...Read more