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Alex Murdaugh plans to do something he hasn’t yet done in court – plead guilty

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:38:56 GMT

Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh is expected to step before a judge Thursday and do something he hasn’t done in the two years since his life of privilege and power started to unravel: plead guilty to a crime.Murdaugh will admit in federal court that he committed 22 counts of financial fraud and money laundering, his attorneys said in court papers filed this week.Murdaugh, 55, is serving life without parole in a South Carolina prison for shooting his wife and son. He has denied any role in the killings since their deaths in June 2021 and insisted he was innocent in two days of testimony this year before he was convicted of two counts of murder.The federal guilty plea likely locks in years if not decades in prison for the disbarred lawyer, even if his murder conviction and sentence in state court is overturned on appeal.The deal for pleading guilty in federal court is straightforward. Prosecutors will ask that any federal sentence Murdaugh gets will run at the same time as any p...

Stock market today: Asian shares track Wall Street’s slump after Fed says rates may stay high in ’24

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:38:56 GMT

NEW YORK — Asian shares are lower, tracking a slump on Wall Street after the Federal Reserve said it may not cut interest rates next year by as much as it earlier thought. Most regional markets fell more than 1%. U.S. futures and oil prices also declined. U.S. stocks slumped Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it may not cut interest rates next year by as much as it earlier thought, regardless of how much Wall Street wants it. The Fed held its main interest rate steady at its highest level in more than two decades, as was expected. Officials also indicated they may raise the federal funds rate once more this year, as they try to get inflation down to a 2% target. The Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, said it’s close to hitting the peak on rates, if not there already.“Moving forward, traders will scrutinize every piece of data from the US, with a particular emphasis on inflationary indicators, to gauge the potential for prolonged high rates,” Anderson Alves of ActivTrades said i...

Census shows 3.5 million Middle Eastern residents in US, Venezuelans fastest growing Hispanic group

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:38:56 GMT

The United States had 3.5 million residents who identify as Middle Eastern or North African, Venezuelans were the fastest-growing Hispanic group last decade and Chinese and Asian Indians were the two largest Asian groups, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.The most detailed race and ethnicity data to date from the 2020 census was released Thursday more than three years after the once-a-decade head count, which determines political power, the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual federal funding and holds up a mirror to how the U.S. has changed in a decade. The delay was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of a new method to protect the confidentiality of participants.The Census Bureau says the 2020 census provided more details on the nation’s racial and ethnic groups than ever before, offering counts for about 1,550 racial, ethnic and tribal groups, although some tables aren’t available at smaller geographies for some groups because of the new confi...

Republican David McCormick is expected to announce he’s entering Pennsylvania’s US Senate race

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:38:56 GMT

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republican David McCormick is expected to announce Thursday that he will enter Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race and make his second bid for the office, this time to take on Democratic Sen. Bob Casey after losing in last year’s crowded Republican primary.McCormick’s aides have sent invites to a “special announcement” by McCormick at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh at 5 p.m. ET.The Associated Press previously has reported on McCormick’s plans, citing three people who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss his intentions.The Senate candidates in Pennsylvania will share a ticket with candidates for president next year in a state that is critical to whether Democrats can maintain control of the White House and the Senate.A race between Casey and McCormick could be one of the nation’s most expensive and closely watched in a year when Democrats have a difficult 2024 Senate map that requires them to defend incumbents in red states — Montana...

Guatemalans rally on behalf of president-elect, demonstrating a will to defend democracy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:38:56 GMT

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Protests by thousands of Guatemalans this week supporting President-elect Bernardo Arévalo suggest that the efforts by some officials to derail his presidency have awakened a new will among many citizens to defend democracy.Public displays rejecting machinations by the attorney general’s office had been modest in the month since Arévalo’s resounding victory. But on Monday, thousands marched peacefully through the capital’s streets and on Tuesday protesters blocked major highways across the country.Historically, Guatemala has scored among the lowest in Latin American countries in its support for democracy, according to the AmericasBarometer survey, which has been measuring attitudes there for three decades. Over the past 15 years, measured support for democracy as the best form of government reached as high as 62.9% in 2014 and as low as 48.4% in 2017. Even as recently as the weeks before this year’s election, only 48% of those surveyed said democracy was ...

Wave of migrants that halted trains in Mexico started with migrant smuggling industry in Darien Gap

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:38:56 GMT

HUEHUETOCA, Mexico (AP) — Thousands of migrants riding atop railway cars in Mexico this week or waiting in mile-long lines by the tracks to hitch a ride to the U.S. have triggered the closure of one U.S. border crossing and forced Mexico’s largest railroad to suspend dozens of freight trains.But the upsurge has also revealed a much larger phenomenon — an almost unbroken chain of migrants being shuffled from Colombia through the Darien Gap jungle into Panama on an industrial scale that could approach 500,000 this year.Those migrants are then moving steadily without interruption up through Central America into Mexico and on to the U.S. border.“Behind us, there are thousands more. It’s continuous,” Juan Carlos Leal, a Venezuelan migrant who was waiting Wednesday with his 5-year-old son beside railroad tracks about 35 miles north of Mexico City.He and other migrants waiting to hop passing trains — some while still running — in the Mexican town of Huehuetoca said 3,500 migrants are...

No Labels push in closely divided Arizona fuels Democratic anxiety about a Biden spoiler

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:38:56 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — More than 15,000 people in Arizona have registered to join a new political party floating a possible bipartisan “unity ticket” against Joe Biden and Donald Trump. While that’s less than the population of each of the state’s 40 largest cities, it’s still a number big enough to tip the presidential election in a critical swing state. And that is alarming people trying to stop Trump from winning the White House again.The very existence of the No Labels group is fanning Democratic anxiety about Trump’s chances against an incumbent president facing questions about his age and record. While it hasn’t committed to running candidates for president and vice president, No Labels has already secured ballot access in Arizona and 10 other states. Its organizers say they are on track to reach 20 states by the end of this year and all 50 states by Election Day.“If they have someone on the ballot who is designed to bring the country together, that clearly draws vote...

A grandmother seeks justice for Native Americans after thousands of unsolved deaths, disappearances

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:38:56 GMT

HARDIN, Mont. (AP) — Yolanda Fraser is back near a ragged chain-link fence, blinking through tears as she tidies up flowers and ribbons and a pinwheel twirls in the breeze at a makeshift roadside memorial in a small Montana town.This is where the badly decomposed body of her granddaughter Kaysera Stops Pretty Places was found a few days after the 18-year-old went missing from a Native American reservation border town. Four years later, there are still no answers about how the Native American teenager was killed. No named suspects. No arrests.Fraser’s grief is a common tale among Native Americans whose loved ones went missing, and she’s turned her fight for justice into a leading role with other families working to highlight missing and slain Indigenous peoples’ cases across the U.S. Despite some early success from a new U.S. government program aimed at the problem, most cases remain unsolved and federal officials have closed more than 300 potential cases due to jurisdict...

More rain on the way for Chicago; warmer than normal weather across the nation's mid-section (and Chicago area) as we close September and begin the new month of October

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:38:56 GMT

More rain is on the way later Thursday into Friday morning in the wake of Wednesday' showers and thundery rains that concentrated on the far west/northwest suburbs. Heaviest area totals. Note: While no official observations exist, it's quite possible some areas in De Kalb County received 3"+ FRIDAY SEVERE OUTLOOKStrong or severe thunderstorms are expected to develop in sections of the Plains later Friday with all severe hazards possible Valid Friday Sept. 22-Saturday Sept. 23Odds strongly favoring warmer than normal weather across the nation's mid-section (and Chicago area) as we close September and begin the new month of October6-10 and 8-14 day temp outlooks:

Loons suffer complete collapse in 4-3 loss to L.A. Galaxy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:38:56 GMT

Minnesota United did choreographed goal celebrations in the first half and internally combusted in the second half Wednesday.After taking a 3-1 lead, the Loons allowed Los Angeles Galaxy to score three second-half goals for 4-3 meltdown loss at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif.Entering the final stretch of the season, eight-place MNUFC (9-10-10, 37 points) fell apart against the 13th-place Galaxy (8-11-9, 33 points).The Loons allowed Billy Sharp to log a hat trick.Minutes later, young left back Ethan Bristow was sent off for a second yellow card in the 74th minute. He tugged on Tyler Boyd’s shirt in the second half after kicking the ball away for his initial booking in the first half. When the red card was flashed, he appeared to not know why.Instead of bring on a defender to solidify things on the back end, manager Adrian Heath brought on two attacking substitutions in the 77th minute. Emanuel Reynoso had come off at halftime. Without a natural left back filling in...