With his dad in prison and his mom suffering from alcoholism, Malik Grant faced abandonment and instability early on. Two years later, Grant has an apartment and a full-time job with the city’s Department of Public Works. Grant, 29, is among about 200 people receiving support through Baltimore’s relatively new Group Violence Reduction Strategy, which targets the root causes of gun violence: hopelessness, joblessness, poverty, mental health, substance abuse, housing instability, poor conflict resolution and more.
On rural Texas farmland, beneath hundreds of rows of solar panels, a troop of stocky sheep rummage through pasture, casually bumping into one another as they remain committed to a single task: chewing grass. The booming solar industry has found an unlikely mascot in sheep as large-scale solar farms crop up across the U.S. and in the plain fields of Texas. The proliferation of sheep on solar farms is part of a broader trend — solar grazing — that has exploded alongside the solar industry.
The house was burning with her brother-in-law and nephew inside when Jackie McDaniels flagged down a firetruck and begged for help. "Whoever is in there is no longer alive,” she recalled one of the firemen telling her before urging her to flee her Altadena neighborhood. Now McDaniels, like so many, is facing the gripping realities of grief and questions about what more could have been done.
When President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in as president of the United States inside the Capitol’s rotunda, he will do so facing a bust of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the federal holiday commemorating King’s legacy. It's a disquieting contrast for some civil rights advocates who wish to fulfill the late reverend's dream of non-violent social revolution. The concurrent events have been met with mixed feelings by civil rights leaders, who broadly reviled Trump’s rhetoric and stances on race and civil rights during his third presidential campaign.
For someone who fishes for a living, nothing says a bad day like spending over 18 hours on a lake and taking home nothing. Recently, a group of fishermen were said to be stranded on Kenya's popular Lake Naivasha for that long and blamed the water hyacinth that has taken over large parts of it. “They did not realize that the hyacinth would later entrap them,” said fellow fisherman Simon Macharia.
Things seemed to be looking up for Venezuela in 2022. Following years of authoritarian rule and withering economic sanctions, President Nicolás Maduro had agreed to work toward a democratic presidential election. The White House, in return, granted him a financial lifeline: a permit for U.S. energy giant Chevron to pump and export Venezuelan oil.
The yellow name tag that Ales Bialiatski wears on his prison garb sets him apart from other inmates in Penal Colony No. 9 in eastern Belarus. It marks Bialiatski as a political prisoner to be singled out for harsh treatment. Because he's been labeled an “extremist” by authorities, he's routinely denied medications, food parcels from home and contact with relatives, and is subjected to forced labor and stints in punishment cells, according to former inmates.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Sunday that the ceasefire in Gaza will not begin until Hamas provides the names of the three hostages it is set to release later on Sunday in exchange for scores of Palestinian prisoners. Israel meanwhile announced that it had recovered the body of Oron Shaul, a soldier who was killed in the 2014 Israel-Hamas war, in a special operation hours before the ceasefire was set to begin. The bodies of Shaul and another soldier, Hadar Goldin, remained in Gaza after the 2014 war and had not been returned despite a public campaign by their families.
Hours after South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol was formally arrested, triggering rioting by his supporters, his lawyers said Sunday that he remains defiant in his refusal to answer questions over the probe into his declaration of martial law last month. Yoon was formally arrested early on Sunday, days after being apprehended at his presidential compound in Seoul. Yoon’s arrest could mark the beginning of an extended period in custody, lasting months or more.
Germany's ambassador to the U.S. warns the incoming Trump administration will give big tech companies "co-governing power."
Voters in Missouri last election approved a constitutional amendment that promised to undo the state's near-total abortion ban. The same day, they reelected a Republican supermajority to the state Legislature, including several of the same lawmakers who passed the abortion ban in 2019. Now, GOP lawmakers are working to roll back some, if not all, of the abortion rights protected under the new amendment.
It was a potential blueprint for how the Trump administration may attack “sanctuary” jurisdictions that resist mass deportations. “You and your subordinates could potentially face up to 20 years in prison,” America First Legal, a group led by current and former advisors to President-elect Donald Trump, said in the letter. Its president, Stephen Miller, will be deputy chief of policy in the new administration and is a longtime architect of Trump's immigration policies.
TikTok voluntarily shut down service. However, the social media app still gave users the option to download their data.
TikTok is no longer accessible to its US users. For now.
The sound and sight of so many cranes clustered together creates a chorus of trills, trumpets and honks throughout the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge Center in northern Alabama during the winter. The annual migration of sandhill cranes brings bird-watchers in droves to see the tall birds up close, but also the chance to catch a glimpse of the rare and endangered whooping cranes that migrate in much smaller numbers to Wheeler. “It’s a birder’s paradise,” park ranger David Young noted.
The outgoing U.S. ambassador to the United Nations says she watched America’s leadership diminish in the world during Donald Trump’s first presidency and China fill the vacuum. Linda Thomas-Greenfield is warning that if it happens again during Trump's second term, adversaries will move in anew. In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, Thomas-Greenfield said during Joe Biden’s presidency, the United States again engaged with the world, rebuilt alliances and reestablished America’s leadership.
As U.S. police departments release preliminary or finalized 2024 crime numbers, many are reporting historic declines in homicides and drops in other violent crimes compared to 2023. In many parts of the country, though, those decreases don't match the public perception. Experts say most cities are seeing a drop in crime levels that spiked during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
TikTok disconnected access to its users in the United States late Saturday shortly before a national ban on the app was to take effect, with President-elect Donald Trump unable to intervene until he takes office."We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office," the message added.
Nearly 200 Afghan nationals have been flown on to the United States after their special immigration visas were processed in the Philippines as part of an agreement between Manila and Washington, the U.S. Embassy in Manila said Sunday. The Afghans left the Philippines in several groups on commercial flights last week after completing their application process for resettlement in the U.S., according to the embassy spokesperson Kanishka Gangopadhyay. An embassy statement expressed "deep appreciation to the government of the Philippines for their cooperation and support for U.S. efforts to assist Afghan special immigrants.”
Millions of TikTok users in the United States are no longer able to watch videos on the social media platform as a federal ban on the immensely popular app takes effect. When users opened the TikTok app on Saturday, they encountered a pop-up message that said “Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now” and prevented them from scrolling on videos. “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” the message said.
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