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US, Venezuela swap prisoners: Maduro ally for 10 Americans, plus fugitive contractor ‘Fat Leonard’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:20 GMT

By JOSHUA GOODMAN and ERIC TUCKER (Associated Press)MIAMI (AP) — The United States freed a close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in exchange for the release of 10 Americans imprisoned in the South American country and the extradition of a fugitive defense contractor known as “Fat Leonard” who is at the center of a massive Pentagon bribery scandal, officials said Wednesday.The deal represents the U.S. government’s boldest bid to improve relations with the major oil-producing nation and extract concessions from the self-proclaimed socialist leader. The largest release of American prisoners in Venezuela’s history comes weeks after the Biden administration agreed to suspend some sanctions, following a commitment by Maduro and an opposition faction to work toward free and fair conditions for the 2024 presidential election.The release of Alex Saab, a Maduro associate who was arrested on a U.S. warrant for money laundering in 2020 and long was...

'Fat Leonard,' a fugitive now facing extradition, was behind one of US military's biggest scandals

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:20 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The extradition of convicted defense contractor Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis to the United States as part of the Venezuelan prisoner swap on Wednesday is the latest twist in a decade-long salacious saga and bribery scheme that swept up dozens of American Navy officers.One of the biggest bribery investigations in U.S. military history led to the conviction and sentencing of nearly two dozen Navy officials, defense contractors and others on various fraud and corruption charges. And it was punctuated by Francis' daring escape last year, when he fled from house arrest at his San Diego home to South America.An enigmatic figure who was 6-foot-3 and weighed 350 pounds at one time, Francis owned and operated his family’s ship servicing business, Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. or GDMA, which supplied food, water and fuel to vessels. The Malaysian defense contractor was a key contact for U.S. Navy ships at ports across Asia for more than two decades. During ...

Homeless people who died on US streets are increasingly remembered at winter solstice gatherings

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:20 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — With his gap-tooth smile, hip-hop routines and volunteer work for a food charity, Roosevelt White III was well known in the downtown Phoenix tent city known as “The Zone.”But like many homeless people, White suffered from diabetes and cardiovascular disease. He died unexpectedly one sweltering September day at age 36. Thousands of people like White who died this year without a permanent home are being memorialized on Thursday in communities from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to La Crosse, Wisconsin, to Riverside, California. Established in 1990, the increasingly popular Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day is observed with prayers, candles, moments of silence and the reading of names on Dec. 21, the first day of winter and the longest night of the year.A national gathering called “One Life, Too Many. Another Year, Too Long” is planned Thursday afternoon in Washington, with a Zoom call so people can follow from afar. Other gatherings will be in Cincinnati, Ohio; Wilmington, Delawa...

Metro accuses Loblaw of falsely implicating it in bread price-fixing scheme

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:20 GMT

In new court filings, Metro Inc. is accusing Loblaw Cos. Ltd. and its parent company of conspiring to implicate Metro in an alleged bread price-fixing scheme.Metro has submitted a statement of defence and crossclaim in Ontario Superior Court, responding to a class-action lawsuit that implicates it and several other grocers in the alleged conspiracy.The grocer denies being involved in bread price-fixing, which is also the subject of a federal Competition Bureau investigation. Loblaw said the allegations by Metro are ridiculous and untrue. Bakery supplier Canada Bread Co. recently filed its own statement of defence in the class-action suit, in which it denied participating in a wide-ranging conspiracy to fix the price of bread. In June, Canada Bread admitted to four counts of price-fixing under the Competition Act and was fined $50 million. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 20, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:MRU, TSX:L, TSX:EMP.A, TSX:WN)Rosa Saba, The Can...

Nantz, Childress, Ralph and Steve Smith named to 2024 North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame class

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:20 GMT

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — CBS Sports broadcaster Jim Nantz, former All-Pro wide receiver Steve Smith Sr. and college basketball stars Randolph Childress and Shea Ralph are in the class of 2024 inductees to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.Other notables to enter the hall at an induction ceremony in May in Charlotte include retired Davidson men’s basketball coach Bob McKillop, former Wake Forest athletic director Ron Wellman and Que Tucker, commissioner of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association, the Hall of Fame said Tuesday in a news release.Nantz, a Charlotte native, anchors CBS golf coverage and is the lead NFL play-by-play announcer for the network. He also led the network’s NCAA basketball coverage for 32 years.Smith played 13 seasons with the Carolina Panthers and is the team’s all-time leader in touchdowns, receptions and receiving yards. He also played three years for the Baltimore Ravens.Childress starred on the Wake Forest basketball team in the early 1990s, w...

Intelligence watchdog’s delayed report says Global Affairs program risks blowback

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:20 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada’s intelligence watchdog says a program that has diplomats collecting sensitive information abroad runs the risk of blowback from foreign states.The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency released a report this afternoon that it wrote three years ago, urging Ottawa to set protocols in place around the Global Security Reporting Program.Global Affairs Canada runs that program by posting roughly 30 diplomats abroad to interview people such as activists, journalists and armed opposition groups, and their information is often shared with Canada’s spy agency.The report is dated December 2020, and it says that diplomats undertaking this work aren’t adequately informed on how to avoid breaking international rules that forbid diplomats from spying.The review agency also said the program lacked co-ordination.The report said policies were communicated by e-mail and some of the information diplomats collected stayed within embassies instead of being lo...

Andrew Haigh on the collapsing times and unhealed wounds of his ghost story ‘All of Us Strangers’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:20 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Andrew Haigh began getting a sense of the knockout power of his new film, “All of Us Strangers,” a few days after it premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. “I’d run into people who had seen the film three days before. I’d be talking to them and they’d just start crying,” Haigh says, laughing. “And I’m sort of both apologetic and quite glad that it shook them to their core.”Haigh, the 50-year-old British filmmaker of “45 Years” and “Lean on Pete,” is accustomed to strong responses from his films. His 2011 breakthrough, “Weekend,” about a tender but brief romance, is considered a landmark of queer cinema.“That that film has had an effect will probably always be the thing that I’m most proud of,” Haigh said in an interview earlier this fall when “All of Us Strangers” was playing at the New York Film Festival.Yet Haigh’s latest, which opens in limited release Friday, may be his most shattering. Andrew Scott stars as Adam, a lonely screenw...

Right-wing social media platform Parler plans to relaunch early next year

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:20 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The social media platform Parler, which caters to right-wing voices and was temporarily booted offline following the Jan. 6 insurrection, is relaunching ahead of next year’s presidential elections. The new owners of the company announced this week the platform is preparing for a “powerful resurgence” that emphasizes “a return to its roots as a robust marketplace of ideas.”Parler has been offline since April, when it was purchased by the digital media conglomerate Starboard for an undisclosed sum. Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, had also offered to buy the company beforehand, but the agreement collapsed late last year. The company’s new owner is a limited liability corporation known as PDS Partners. Elise Pierotti, who is returning as the platform’s chief marketing officer, said PDS consists of herself, Parler’s new CEO Ryan Rhodes and others who are choosing to remain anonymous. Jaco Booyens, an anti-sex trafficking activist, will serve as th...

U-Haul truck driver arrested downtown after reports of person with gun

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:20 GMT

Emergency Task Force officers have made an arrest in downtown Toronto after responding to reports of a person with a gun.In a social media post, Toronto Police said officers arrested the driver of a U-Haul truck that was being tracked by a police helicopter.Police say before the driver was arrested near Church and Carlton streets, the truck may have collided with several vehicles throughout Toronto and Durham Region.A photo from the scene of the arrest shows a police vehicle wedged against the truck, which has side damage. PERSON WITH A GUN– panel truck may have collided with several vehicles throughout Toronto & Durham– If you were involved, please notify @TrafficServices at 416.808.1900– If no injuries & damage is < $2000, they may refer you to Collision Reporting Centre #GO2914805 ^vk— Toronto Police Operations (@TPSOperations) December 20, 2023It’s unclear if anyone was injured. Officers have closed Carlton Street between Church and Mutua...

Turkey says its warplanes have hit suspected Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:20 GMT

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish warplanes carried out new airstrikes Wednesday against Kurdish militant targets in neighboring Iraq, the Turkish defense ministry said, a day after Turkish and Iraqi officials held high-level security talks in Ankara.Turkey often launches strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq that it believes to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a banned Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s.According to a statement from the ministry, the fighter jets struck a total of 14 suspected PKK targets in northern Iraq’s Gara, Hakourk and Qandil regions where the aircraft destroyed caves, shelters and warehouses used by the militants. Measures were taken to avoid harming civilians, historic or cultural heritage and the environment, the ministry added.There was no immediate comment from the PKK, the government in Baghdad or the administration in the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region in Iraq. Ankara mai...