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  37. 백훈종 샌드뱅크 최고운영책임자는 “비트코인 전체 유통량 1900만개 중 사토시 나카모토 안전놀이터 창시자 지갑에 들어있는 110만개와 초기 유실된 200만개를 빼면 나머지 수량은 1600만개로 계산할 수 있다”며 “이 중 절반은 10년 동안 한 번도 움직이지 않은 다이아몬드 핸드가 보유하고 있다”고 말했다

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  102. 그는 “‘명심’, ‘당심’, 배경에 의지하지 않고, 오로지 민심의 물꼬 안전놀이터 를 트는 일에 집중하겠다”며 “원칙과 노선을 잃지 않으면서, 유능하게 국회운영을 주도해 나가는 정치력을 발휘하겠다”고 덧붙였다

  110. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  111. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  112. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  113. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  114. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  115. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  116. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  117. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  118. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  119. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  120. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  121. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  122. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  123. Shares of Donald Trump’s media and technology firm fell as much as 12% on Monday, extending a selloff that has now reduced the value of his stake in the operator of Truth Social to $2.9 billion.After its strong debut in late March, investors have soured on Trump Media & Technology Group after the company disclosed millions of dollars in losses earlier this month and said it would struggle to meet its financial liabilities.The company’s stock closed 8.4% lower at $37.17 on Monday, a far cry from the record high of $79 it had notched during its debut on March 26. It is down about 40% so far in April.The declines are reducing a potential windfall for Trump who could sell his shares to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign and legal expenses, although lock-up restrictions for six months could prevent him from selling or borrowing against his shareholding.Former U.S. President Trump – who owns about 78.75 million shares in the company – has seen a sharp slide in the valuation of his stake from around $6 billion last month.The market value of whole of Trump Media & Technology Group is now below that figure, at about $5.55 billion.But the declines are welcome news for short-sellers who have suffered hefty losses on the stock so far this year.Trump Media & Technology Group has a short interest of about 4.75 million shares, or 12% of its free float, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.Monday’s decline meant those betting against the stock made about $16 million in market-to-market profits, though those shorting the stock are still down 69% for the year.”DJT’s recent price weakness has offset the huuuuge financing costs short sellers are incurring and keeping many of them in the trade,” said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners.Politicians and news outlets in Colorado expressed anger over the expulsion from a Republican gathering this weekend of an experienced politics reporter who was told that the state party chairman “believes current reporting to be very unfair.”Journalists and prominent politicians, including the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, came to the defense of Colorado Sun reporter Sandra Fish and against current state GOP Chairman Dave Williams, who said he had “no apologies” for ejecting Fish.The controversy follows the contours of attacks on the press nationally, partly brought on by former President Donald Trump with the popularization of the term “fake news.” The ejection also appears to have influenced an endorsement Monday in the Republican primary race.The state Republican Party announced on the social media platform X that it was endorsing U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert over one of her primary opponents, Deborah Flora, in the state’s 4th Congressional District race, partly because “Deb Flora lied about participating in the CD4 Assembly process, & now she’s boot licking fake journalists who only help Democrats.”The post was a direct reply to Flora’s post on X defending Fish, in which Flora said the expulsion was “wrong and a violation of the First Amendment.”The chairman, who introduces himself on the state GOP website as “Dave ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Williams,” is seeking the nomination to run for the 5th District seat held by Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who is retiring from Congress.In a text, the MAGA-aligned Williams said he had no apologies for kicking Fish out of the assembly in Pueblo on Saturday and accused her of being a “fake journalist” and The Colorado Sun of being biased. When asked by text for examples, Williams did not respond. The Colorado Sun is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet that covers Colorado.“I invite anyone to share any example of The Colorado Sun or Sandra Fish being unfair or inaccurate. So far I have heard nothing,” said Larry Ryckman, editor of the news outlet. “The Founding Fathers weren’t any big fans of newspapers back in the day. But they understood that a healthy democracy demands free, unfettered press.”The assembly about two hours south of Denver was partly to select representatives to the Republican National Committee and to work on a party platform for the election.“There are 900,000 Republicans in the state of Colorado and a lot of unaffiliated voters who are interested in what happens at this assembly. And how they find out is via reporters like me being there to cover it,” Fish told The Associated Press by phone Monday.“I am, as one person on Twitter noted, a little old lady and I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s right to eject a reporter from a meeting like this,” said Fish, who has covered politics since 1982.Fish said she heard rumors prior to the event that she’d be barred from attending, and she asked event organizer, Eric Grossman, who texted her Thursday that he’d get back to her.“Thanks. I’ve been covering these assemblies for at least seven cycles and have never had issues before,” Fish texted back. Ryckman attempted to reach Williams on Thursday night to discuss, but said Williams never responded.Before dawn on Saturday, Grossman texted Fish saying she wouldn’t be included on the press list and that “the state chairman believes current reporting to be very unfair.”“I went anyway because, come on, this should be an open event,” said Fish, who was checked in and given press credentials that she wore around her neck along with a Colorado Sun nametag.About an hour later, security asked her to leave. Fish showed her press credentials, then Grossman arrived and soon a sheriff’s deputy was called. Fish left with the deputy.“We make no apologies for kicking out a fake journalist, who actually snuck into our event,” Williams said in a text. “Her publication is just an extension of the Democrat Party’s PR efforts, and the only backlash we see is from the fake news media, radical Democrats, and establishment RINOs who hate our conservative base.”Grossman, in a text, said Fish’s actions were “a selfish political stunt.”Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer defended the reporter, writing in a post on X: “Sandra Fish is a fair; honest and respected reporter, as a Republican I’m embarrassed by the GOP chair.”Former Colorado Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown also chimed in on X, describing Fish as “hard-hitting but fair. … This is a dangerous take by the current (Colorado GOP). … Transparency is necessary for our nation.”Among other stories, Fish has reported on how the Colorado Republican Party under Williams’ leadership paid for mailers that subtly attacked one of Williams’ primary opponents, and that fundraising slowed under his chairmanship.Security video captured most of an ambush at an Idaho hospital that left three corrections officers with gunshot wounds and allowed a white supremacist prison gang member to escape, a police detective testified Monday.The testimony from Matthew Canfield, a violent crimes detective with the Boise Police Department, came during a preliminary hearing for Skylar Meade, the inmate charged with escaping from a hospital last month when an accomplice opened fire on guards who had been transporting him back to prison.Nicholas Umphenour, who police say did the shooting, and Tia Garcia, who is accused of having provided the car the pair used to escape, had their preliminary hearings set for April 29.Prosecutors did not play the surveillance video in court but submitted it as an exhibit. Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove found that there was enough evidence to send the case against Meade to district court. His arraignment was set for April 17.Video clips show three Department of Correction officers escorting Meade to the prison transport van from the emergency department when they “are approached by another individual who appears to point an object at them and shoot and fire rounds at them,” Canfield said.The video also shows Meade and the shooter running to a parked vehicle, which they used to flee, Canfield said.Part of the encounter is blocked by the prison transport van itself, Canfield said.Investigators have also obtained video from a private ambulance that was parked in the emergency bay during the escape.The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.Two corrections officers were wounded in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the gunman. All are expected to recover.Meade and Umphenour are each being held on $2 million bail. Authorities said they are also suspected of killing two men during their 36 hours on the run — one in Clearwater County and one in Nez Perce County, both about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho. No charges have been filed in the deaths.The victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino, Idaho.Henderson had taken in Umphenour for about a month when he was in his late teens, according to authorities. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.Idaho Department of Correction officials have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” in the state’s penitentiary system.Meade, 31, was serving 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same lockup in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.The two were at times housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade recently had been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.One other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested, according to investigators. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.The man charged with setting a fire outside the Vermont office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to court paperwork filed by a federal agent.Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, who was previously from Northridge, California, entered the building on Friday and went to Sanders’ third-floor office where security video showed him dumping a liquid on the bottom of the door and setting it afire with a lighter, according to the special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.The building’s interior suffered some damage from the fire and sprinklers that doused the area with water, but no one was hurt. Sanders, an independent, was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office at the time were unharmed and able to evacuate.The agent who investigated spotted what appeared to be the remains of a canister of lighter fluid and a red cap on the floor near the office door.Soghomonian was arrested Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage a building used in interstate commerce, according to the U.S. attorney for Vermont. He had been staying at the Inn at Burlington in South Burlington for several weeks, an employee told authorities, according to the affidavit.When police knocked on the hotel room door, they heard a male saying he was getting dressed, according to an application to search the hotel room and a vehicle with New York plates. Officers then heard what sounded like the man dragging heavy items near the door. Officers got a key and attempted to open the door but it was blocked, according to the court document. They forced the door open and arrested Soghomonian without incident, they said.Sanders said in a statement that he is “deeply grateful to the swift, professional, coordinated efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement in response to the fire” and thankful that none of the people in the office were hurt.The motive remained unclear. It was not immediately known if Soghomonian had a lawyer, and an initial court appearance had not been set, officials said. A phone message left with the Chittenden County public defenders’ office was not immediately returned. Soghomonian was being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.The crime carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.The case was investigated by police departments in Burlington, Shelburne and Williston; Vermont State Police; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Capitol Police, officials said.CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas said early on Tuesday Israel’s proposal that it received from Qatari and Egyptian mediators did not meet any of the demands of Palestinian factions.However, the group added in a statement it would study the proposal, which it described as “intransigent”, and deliver its response to the mediators.A Hamas official told Reuters on Monday that the group has rejected the Israeli ceasefire proposal made at talks in Cairo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set for an invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge for displaced Palestinians.Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators as well as CIA Director William Burns.Burn’s presence underlined rising pressure from Israel’s main ally the U.S. for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians left destitute by six months of conflict.But senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Reuters: “We reject the latest Israeli proposals that the Egyptian side informed us of. The politburo met today and decided this.”Another Hamas official had earlier told Reuters that no progress had been made in the negotiations.”There is no change in the position of the occupation (Israel) and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” the Hamas official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”Israel said it was keen to reach a prisoners-for-hostages deal, by which it would free a number of Palestinians jailed in its prisons in return for the hostages in Gaza, but it wasn’t ready to end the military offensive before it invaded Rafah.Hamas wants any agreement to secure an end to Israeli military offensive, get Israeli forces out of Gaza and allow the displaced to return to their homes across the enclave.Rafah is the last refuge for Palestinian civilians displaced by relentless Israeli bombardments that have flattened their home neighbourhoods. It is also the last significant redoubt of Hamas combat units, Israel says.More than one million people are crammed into the southern city in desperate conditions, short of food, water and shelter, and foreign governments and organisations have urged Israel against storming Rafah for fears of a bloodbath.”We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.”This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.” He did not specify the date.Of the 253 people Hamas seized on Oct. 7, 133 hostages remain captive. Negotiators have spoken of around 40 going free in the first stage of a prospective deal.As a deadly tornado barreled toward their home in the Mississippi Delta, Ida Cartlidge only had time to scoop up her 1-year-old son, Nolan, and hold him close.Cartlidge huddled with her husband and three sons on the living room floor of their Rolling Fork mobile home, its thin walls all that separated the family from 200 mph (320 kph) winds.“I was holding my baby so tight. I said ‘Baby, I’m probably hurting you right now, but I just can’t let you go,’” she recalled.Then the tornado hit, and the home was gone. The twister launched Cartlidge into the air and pulled Nolan from her arms. She remembers seeing him floating above her, as though both were suspended in the air.She landed with a thud. Miraculously, Nolan fell on her chest. He was the only family member to escape the storm unscathed.The tornado that destroyed Cartlidge’s home last March killed 14 of Rolling Fork’s roughly 1,700 residents and reduced the town to rubble as it charted a merciless path across one of the country’s poorest regions. For the people there, a complicated story of struggle and resilience has emerged in the year since the storm changed everything and exposed vulnerabilities many survivors had been dealing with long before March 2023.The Cartlidge family spent the next year in a cramped motel room in search of a more permanent home, like many of their displaced neighbors.“There’s still a lot of suffering,” Sen. Joseph Thomas, who represents Rolling Fork in the state Legislature, said in a recent interview. “And you’re looking at an area that was already depressed.”Rolling Fork is in Sharkey County, where the poverty rate hovers around 35% — nearly double Mississippi’s roughly 19% rate and triple the nation’s nearly 12% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Before the storm, Cartlidge, 33, and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in a long, narrow three-bedroom, two-bath mobile home with their sons: Jakavien, 13, Amarii, 12, and Nolan. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones was a mechanic for a local auto parts shop.Cartlidge suffered a crushed pelvis and broken shoulder in the tornado. Jakavien punctured a lung and shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Amarri had deep lacerations on his back and ankles. Jones injured his ribs and spine.The mobile home park where they lived was also home to most of the 14 people who died in the tornado. Large families crowded into one- or two-bedroom units, which helped offset the financial strain endemic to a region where stable jobs are scarce.Sharkey County lost nearly 400 jobs after the tornado, according to Rolling Fork Mayor Eldridge Walker. The tornado laid waste to about 300 structures, including numerous homes and businesses, which meant lost tax revenue for the city, he said. In February 2024, Walker wrote to Thomas pleading for additional state funds.The city’s infrastructure suffered millions of dollars in damage. Public buildings, streets and the city’s sewer and drainage systems either sustained severe damage or were destroyed. One year after the tornado, buildings throughout town remain boarded up, and the remnants of destroyed properties dot the landscape.The local high school remains closed because of lingering damage, leaving students to ride buses to nearby towns. Destroyed vehicles still hinder residents’ ability to navigate their daily lives.“People were displaced from their transportation networks,” said William Keith, who worked on disaster response for the American Red Cross. “A lot of people went to the grocery store with their neighbor next door, or they had a buddy a couple blocks away, and then went to work with them.”After everyone was discharged from the hospital, the Cartlidge family moved into a two-bed motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. The Rolling Fork Motel is a one-story brick building with green doors and a bright yellow sign that looms over Route 61, known as the “Blues Highway.”Music is integral to Rolling Fork’s history. Blues legend Muddy Waters is a native son. The highway running through town symbolizes the genre’s popular theme of packing up and leaving one’s troubles behind, according to the Mississippi Blues Commission.Convincing locals to stay is a harder proposition these days.More than 70% of Rolling Fork residents displaced by the tornado were renters. Housing assistance programs run by nonprofits stepped in after the tornado, but most are geared toward homeowners rather than renters or people who lived with family members, Thomas said.Queen’terica Jones, 23, lived with her mother, Erica “Nikki” Moore, and three children in a mobile home just down the street from the Cartlidge place. On the evening of the tornado, she found her mother’s lifeless body facedown amid the rubble.Jones had no legal rights to her mother’s property and didn’t have the documents required by many programs that financed new mobile homes for displaced residents. Objects that had previously seemed ordinary — housing documents, family heirlooms, tax returns — suddenly took on life-altering significance for her.“It’s a hard period. From losing your mom to having to start all over again,” Jones said. “Jesus, that’s a whole lot.”Without stable work and housing, Jones has moved between the homes of friends and family members since the storm. It’s a common story in Rolling Fork, where public services and steady work that had always been elusive grew even more scarce in the storm’s aftermath.“Towns such as Rolling Fork generally have a smaller tax base with fewer economic resources to respond and recover from such disasters,” said Ryan Thomson, a professor of rural sociology at Auburn University. “Federal and state aid oftentimes lag behind local needs.”Nonprofits, the state and the federal government rallied to help. But if the assistance doesn’t address some of the town’s lingering needs, officials fear an exodus is likely.“We are striving for a better Rolling Fork,” Walker wrote in his letter to Thomas. “And the chance to keep our people in this town.”The Red Cross paid for extended stays at the Rolling Fork Motel for displaced residents, and for months, volunteers clad in red vests doled out groceries and supplies to weary residents. They stacked whatever the storm hadn’t carried off in corners and made room for donated packages of Cup Noodles and Capri Sun.For nearly a full year in that cramped motel room, the Cartlidge family lived with only basic necessities. But they had owned their destroyed mobile home, making them eligible for a new one through a nonprofit called Samaritan’s Purse.In February, they moved into a renovated trailer near downtown, with a “Home Sweet Home” mat greeting them at the door. They cried in each other’s arms upon seeing the property.That night, Ida served the children popcorn and soda on a platter and they all watched horror films — none as scary as the nightmare they’d lived through together a year earlier.Then they went to bed, each in their own room.The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life.The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was received as a setback, albeit predictable, by trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.Nicolete Burbach, lead expert in social and environmental justice at the London Jesuit Centre, said the document showed the Vatican continues to fail to engage with queer and feminist approaches to the body “which it simply dismisses as supposedly subjecting both the body and human dignity itself to human whims.”“I think the main difficulty faced by the document is that it attempts to affirm the church’s authentic commitment to human dignity in the face of a troubling history on the part of the church itself around attacks on that dignity,” said Burbach, a trans Catholic theologian who researches transness and the Catholic Church.The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”The White House said President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, was “pleased” to see that the declaration “furthers the Vatican’s call to ensure that LGBTQ+ (individuals) are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.On the specifics involving gender theory, Jean-Pierre stressed that it was not Biden’s role to “litigate internal church policy.”Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.Klein said the Vatican “hypocrisy” was furthered by the document’s approval of surgery on intersex people, “which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm.”The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.Poland’s local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.Exit polls released after voting closed Sunday show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals. However, the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007-2014.He won on promises to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.Funding is being restored but Tusk still faces a difficult path. New laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes. Meanwhile his vow to liberalize the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and in its 74-year-old leader Jarosław Kaczyński.Some had dismissed Law and Justice after they lost power at the national level last year. But on Monday it was clear that the party, which ruled from 2015-2023, remains a force even though it’s lost some of the advantages it had when in power. That includes control over public media, a tool it used for years to push party propaganda. Tusk’s government stripped his opponents’ political control over taxpayer-funded media in one of its earliest moves.According to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% and Tusk’s Civic Coalition 31.9%. The state electoral committee was still counting votes on Monday.Tusk also has reasons to be pleased following the election.His allies won key mayoral roles, including in the capital. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski celebrated a sweeping reelection victory, with nearly 60% of the votes won on Sunday. That puts him in a strong position ahead of an expected run for the presidency next year, when President Andrzej Duda will finish his second and final term. Trzaskowski, now 52, barely lost to Duda in the 2020 presidential race.Tusk’s party, the Civic Coalition, was also projected to increase its control over the regional assemblies. The parties in his national governing coalition — which includes the Third Way and the Left — together won about 52%.The Third Way was projected to get 13.5%, a solid result for a new electoral group that includes an agrarian party and is conservative on social issues. But it was a poor showing for the Left, which was projected to win just 6.8%.Tusk, in a post on social platform X early Monday, said he was happy about his party’s “record victory in cities” and the new advantage it had gained in the regional assemblies. But he expressed worries about “demobilization, especially among young people, failure in the east and in the countryside.A ransomware attack that has affecting New Mexico Highlands University for nearly a week so far has caused officials to cancel classes through Tuesday.It’s the latest in a string of cyberattacks targeting state entities.New Mexico Highland’s Information Technology Services department identified a technology issue on April 3, verifying a few days later that the network issue stemmed from a ransomware attack.The hack caused the Las Vegas, New Mexico, university to cancel all classes from Wednesday afternoon, through Tuesday, as of Monday afternoon.The attack was identified on the server that operates the college’s internal portal for staff, students and faculty, university spokesperson David Lepre said, which is necessary in order to conduct classes.Lepre said a majority of the campus also accesses payroll through the college’s network, so New Mexico Highlands set up a help center for people to log their time via phone instead. The university is working to make sure employees and student employees get paid on time, according to an online page with updates on the cyberattack.New Mexico Highlands is still investigating the ransomware attack and then can start mitigation work once officials know the full extent of the hack, Lepre said.He said the university has been working with the state’s Department of Information Technology and the Higher Education Department to resolve the issue.”We’re just working as fast as we can to restore service as soon as possible to the campus community,” he said.There should be another update from the university on the status of the attack Tuesday afternoon, Lepre said.He said that according to New Mexico Highlands University’s vendors, which specialize in cybersecurity and mitigation, the school isn’t the first state entity to be attacked by this specific group. He said he personally didn’t have the name of the entity and it wouldn’t be in the public interest to publicize it anyway.Last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order focused on enhancing cybersecurity protection among state agencies. She wrote in the order that “a surge in cybersecurity breaches and hacks poses a severe threat to the integrity of sensitive information held by state agencies.”The order directs the state’s IT department to conduct IT and security assessments on state agencies. By Nov. 1, state agencies have to comply with specific security protocols from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.In the order, Lujan Grisham encouraged public bodies that weren’t required to follow the cybersecurity rules to do so anyway.”Cybersecurity is not just a technological issue; it’s a matter of public safety and national security,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve taken decisive action to fortify the resilience of our state agencies against potential cyber intrusions.”A cybersecurity measure was one of the few bills that got through lawmakers in the most recent Legislature but not the governor. It was one of two pocket-vetoed bills.Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, previously told the Journal if he’s reelected, he plans to introduce a larger, more comprehensive IT package next year that would include the 2024 session bill, which he believed needed more work.A woman was arrested after performing multiple doughnuts inside a Hobby Lobby parking lot and then leading police on a car chase in Northeast Albuquerque.Kathryn Edmiston, 21, of Albuquerque is being charged with two counts of aggravated fleeing law enforcement and reckless driving, Albuquerque Police Department spokeswoman Rebecca Atkins said.She is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center. It is unknown if she has an attorney.Edmiston’s arrest was part of APD’s citywide illegal street racing operation, which resulted in officers breaking up three separate events over the weekend and issuing 38 citations in the Valley, Northeast and Northwest Area Commands, Atkins said.According to police, one of the events involved Edmiston in Northeast Albuquerque.A criminal complaint filed at Metropolitan Court states that on March 30, an APD officer saw a driver in a white Dodge Charger — later identified as Edmiston — do doughnuts inside the Hobby Lobby parking lot, near Montgomery and Eubank.The complaint states the officer then put their lights and sirens on to “affect a stop” for reckless driving, but instead, Edmiston did “one or two more” doughnuts before fleeing onto Eubank at a “high rate of speed.”According to police, she accelerated south on Eubank and turned off her lights. The vehicle was later found traveling southbound on Interstate 25, where the driver got onto Interstate 40 and before getting off at the Louisiana exit.The complaint states she again turned off her vehicle lights and sped southbound on Louisiana before turning into a residential area. Other officers saw the vehicle near Eubank and Montgomery and identified her as the driver through a photo provided by the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division.On Friday, Edmiston was arrested inside a Maverick gas station in the 5000 block of Jefferson after officers noticed her parked vehicle, according to police.The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York has approved a questionnaire for jury selection and instructions for prospective jurors in the trial, which is set to begin next week.In a letter Monday, state Judge Juan Merchan provided attorneys in the case with a jury questionnaire that consists of 42 numbered questions on a range of topics. The form does not ask about party affiliation, political contributions or voting history.Merchan pushed back against a contention by Trump’s attorneys that potential jurors’ political affiliations and whether they like Trump is important to jury selection, saying that “contrary to defense counsel’s arguments, the purpose of jury selection is not to determine whether a prospective juror likes or does not like one of the parties.””Such questions are irrelevant because they do not go to the issue of the prospective juror’s qualifications,” Merchan wrote. “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective juror can ensure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”The form asks prospective jurors numerous questions, including:Their neighborhoods, professions, employers (present and past), marital status, hobbies and interests, and relationships with others who have been victims of crimes or, alternatively, have worked in places like the FBI or prosecutors’ offices or in criminal lawWhether because “political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions” they would be unable to follow the judge’s instructions or render a verdictWhether they’ve read any of either Mark Pomerantz’s or Michael Cohen’s books about the alleged crimes and/or the investigation that led to the hush money case and whether what they have read or heard via audiobook “affects your ability to be a fair or impartial juror in this case”About their personal, familial or close friends’ ties to Trump or the Trump Organization before it addresses whether they have engaged in certain activities that would reflect political support for Trump or “any anti-Trump group or organization” and/or extremist movementsWhether they practice “a religion that would prevent you from sitting as a juror on any particular weekday or weeknight”; Merchan noted in his letter that if any observant Jews are selected as jurors, the court will not convene during PassoverWhat they read, watch and listen to in terms of media consumption, followed by a list of options to check, including The New York Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, as well as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax and social media platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok and Truth Social.Merchan suggested in his letter that the question of political affiliation “may easily be gleaned from the responses to other questions” but warned the attorneys in the case “not to seek to expand the degree of intrusion beyond what is relevant and has already been approved.”Attorneys for Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.The dispute over political preferences has also been raised in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, with his lawyers and prosecutors battling over disclosures about political affiliation in a questionnaire for prospective jurors there.Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan last year after he was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.In addition to detailing the jury questions, Merchan also said Monday that prospective jurors will be informed before they enter the courtroom that they will be identified by the numbers printed on their jury summonses “as a necessary measure to ensure anonymity.”Merchan ruled last month that he will use an anonymous jury, effectively shielding jurors’ names from the media and the public, citing “a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s).”In Monday’s letter, Merchan said the court won’t conduct individual interviews with prospective jurors who say they’re unable to serve, saying the step is “unnecessary, time consuming, and of no benefit” to the case.The jury questionnaire and instructions come the same day a state appeals court judge rejected Trump’s effort to delay the trial, which is set to begin April 15 with jury selection.Fifty animals were removed from a home in Butler County after two dogs were found dead in garbage bags.The gruesome discovery was made on Friday afternoon when a deputy stopped to let his K-9 out.The criminal complaint said a Butler County Sheriff’s deputy stopped at the Vagabonds event center off Whitestown Road in Butler Township to let his K-9 out. That K-9 immediately sniffed out two garbage bags.Each garbage had a dead German Shepherd inside. Both were severely underweight, and a veterinarian determined they were starved to death.Police said the dogs had collars that were traced back to Paul Frederick.Audrey Clark grew up on the street where Frederick lives and is familiar with the family.“I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That’s foul,” Clark said. “There’s nothing that you can really say to justify that. There is a million other things that they could’ve done if they didn’t want the animals except for starving them. “Neighbors told Channel 11 the Fredericks are pet breeders and occasionally cater out of the Vagabonds venue, about five miles away from their home in Connoquenessing Township.The criminal complaint said when police questioned Frederick, he claimed he didn’t know how the dogs died.Channel 11 tried to talk to Frederick’s wife at their home but she was too emotional and told us, “No comment.”On Saturday, April 6, the day after the horrific discovery, police got a search warrant and seized 50 animals from the home, including dogs, cats, pigs, goats and ducks.Norman Herald lives next door to the Fredericks.“They’re good people,” Herald said. “I was shocked. I was really shocked because they don’t bother nobody and as far as I know they take good care of their animals.”Herald said he doesn’t think Frederick would kill his dogs.“No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “Definitely, I don’t believe that.”Other neighbors believe he should be held accountable.“He should definitely be charged, and those charges should stick,” said Clark. “Personally, I think you should be in jail.”All the animals taken out of the home were brought to Anna Shelter in Erie.Paul Frederick is charged with cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.A 45-year-old driver was held without bail after being accused of striking and killing a pedestrian over the weekend and then hitting the victim with a brick in the head more than 20 times.Vasco Semedo of Brockton wore handcuffs as he faced a judge during his arraignment on Monday, and listened through an interpreter as a prosecutor detailed a bloody and brutal attack on pedestrian Stuart Smith, 50, who died of injuries he suffered after Saturday’s incident.Semedo was behind the wheel of a blue Toyota RAV 4 and hit Smith twice with his SUV on North Main Street on Saturday morning before getting out of the vehicle and attacking Smith with a brick, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague said in court.Both the pedestrian crash and the brick attack were captured on surveillance video, Sprague said. She added that Semedo accelerated his SUV, and appeared to have hit Smith with the vehicle intentionally. Some debris fell onto the SUV after it struck a building nearby.That’s when, according to Sprague, Semedo unleashed a violent assault on the victim as he lay injured on the ground until bystanders intervened.“He got out of the car. He took a brick off the hood of the car. He went over to where the victim was laying on the ground, and struck him in the head with that brick over 20 times,” Sprague said. “Bystanders had to pull him away. He fought back against the bystanders. Several times he tried to get back into his car, but the bystanders would not let him leave the scene.Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the area of 65 North Main St. after receiving a 911 call reporting a vehicle striking a pedestrian, Sprague said.When officers arrived, witnesses told police that the driver of a blue Toyota RAV4, later identified as Semedo, had struck the victim, Smith, with his vehicle twice, “and then he got out of his car and struck the victim in the head with a brick,” Sprague said.Semedo was arrested at the scene and brought to the police station for booking. There, he told officers he had been out with friends at a bar drinking the night before, and had arrived home at approximately 3 a.m. Saturday, Sprague said.Hours later, at 7 a.m., he told police he left his home to go to work. He told police that he tried to park his car in front of the homeless shelter at 54 North Main St., and then he gave several different versions of the pedestrian crash to police, Sprague said.First, Semedo told police that “he accidentally hit the gas on his vehicle and struck either a person or a dog,” Sprague said. “Then he changed that and said it was a woman that he struck, and then changed that to say it was a doll he had struck.”Semedo then told investigators that “he didn’t know person he had hit but he had seen the person a few times in the past,” Sprague said. In yet another account, Semedo told police he accidentally hit the gas and hit a blue metal pole.During his interview with police, Semedo had “blood on his clothing and his hands,” Sprague said.When officers asked him about the blood, “He froze initially, then he said ‘Made a mistake,’ and then he said that the blood was from the person that he hit with his car,” the prosecutor said.Police found Smith unresponsive on the pavement in front of the RAV4. Neighbors said Smith lived nearby in a boarding house.Surveillance video obtained by investigators show Smith, the victim, walking along the sidewalk before he suffered fatal injuries. According to Sprague, the video shows Semedo’s car turn left on North Main Street and then stop. The vehicle initially appears to let Smith pass by.“As the victim is about to clear the car, Semedo accelerates, and appears to purposely hit the victim,” Sprague said. “The victim lands in the parking lot, and the car then goes and strikes a metal pole to the right.”Then, Semedo opened the driver’s side door, closed the door and then put the SUV in reverse. Smith, who had gotten up, began walking and stumbling towards a building, “appearing injured or dazed,” Sprague said.Semedo then “drove his vehicle directly at the victim as (Smith) ran away from the car, striking him for a second time,” Sprague said, adding that Semedo then allegedly got out of the SUV and began attacking Smith with a brick.A blue Toyota RAV4 with front-end damage was seen at the crash scene on Saturday, parked in a parking lot in an area surrounded by yellow police tape. A building nearby was also damaged and a utility pole was knocked over.Prosecutors said Semedo does not appear to have a prior criminal record. A native of Cape Verde, he has been in the United States lawfully for about two years, Sprague said.The pedestrian death in Brockton is the latest fatal crash involving a pedestrian and apparent road rage in Massachusetts.Over the weekend, 26-year-old Destini Decoff died of her injuries after authorities said a driver struck her during an apparent road rage incident near a pub in Hopkinton last week. Ryan Sweatt, 36, of Milford is accused of striking Decoff with his car near Cornell’s Irish Pub on Hayden Rowe Street in Hopkinton around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

  158. 한덕수 국무총리는 이날 의사 집단행동 중앙재난안전대책본부 회의에서 “어떤 경우에 https://kia789.com 도 실력이 검증되지 않은 의사가 우리 국민을 진료하는 일은 없도록 철저한 안전장치를 갖출 예정”이라고 말했다

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  179. He appeared {extensively|thoroughly} {on the|around the|within the|about the|to the|over the} {legitimate|reputable|genuine|respectable|legit|authentic} {stage|phase} {prior to|before|just before|previous to|ahead of} his 1936 {film|movie} debut in Fermo con le mani|We welcome your {feedback|suggestions|comments|opinions|responses|feed-back} {about the|concerning the|regarding the|in regards to the|with reg 토지노 ards to the|with regard to the} TOTO {website|Web site|Site|Internet site|Web page|Web-site}

  198. 지난 2019년 5월21일 한 인터뷰에서 라슬로는 “오픈소스 인터넷 화폐를 현실 세계의 재화와 맞바꿨다고 말할 수 있다면 정말 멋질 것이라고 생 안전놀이터 각했다”며 “후회하지 않는다

  222. Thank you for being a guardian of gratitude, guiding us toward a more thankful and appreciative mindset through your blog!

  226. 토지 소유자 A씨는 시의 복구명령에도 불구, 행정당국의 조치를 비웃 토지노 분양 기라도 하듯이 원상복구명령이 내려진 지난달 22일 사토를 재차 반입해 불법 성토를 진행하다 적발돼 공사중지 처분을 받았다

  230. 그러나 “제 가족과 지인이 다치지 않을까 온통 그 생각뿐”이라며 “저 하나 때문에 토지노 분양 몇십 명, 몇백 명이 피해를 받고 있으니 저에게만 질타해 달라”며 “저는 더 이상 잃을 것도 없지만, 어떻게 살아야 하나 싶은 생각도 든다”고 말했습니다

  231. 기후위기비상행동 운영위원장은 “삶터를 저당 잡혀 에너지를 생산하고, 이를 또 실어 토지노 분양 나르기 위해 수백킬로 떨어진 곳의 피해를 폭력적으로 강요하는 부정의한 에너지 구조는 이제 걷어내야 한다”고 말했다

  233. 유튜브 캡처2004년 발생한 ‘밀양 여중생 집단 성폭행 사건’ 가해자 신상을 공 토지노 분양 개한 유튜버가 피해자와의 소통 끝에 영상을 모두 삭제했다고 밝혔으나 이는 사실이 아닌 것으로 전해졌다

  236. 그러나 “제 가족과 지인이 다치 토지노 분양 지 않을까 온통 그 생각뿐”이라며 “저 하나 때문에 몇십 명, 몇백 명이 피해를 받고 있으니 저에게만 질타해 달라”며 “저는 더 이상 잃을 것도 없지만, 어떻게 살아야 하나 싶은 생각도 든다”고 말했습니다

  239. 이어 “핵발전소를 어느 곳에 가서 짓는다 하더라도 새로운 초고압 송전탑없이는 토지노 분양 핵발전소는 만들어질 수 없다”라며 “또다시 밀양과 같은 끔찍한 일이 다시는 반복되어서는 않된다

  242. 이어 “핵발전소를 어느 곳에 가서 짓는다 하더라도 새로운 초고압 송전탑없이는 토지노 분양 핵발전소는 만들어질 수 없다”라며 “또다시 밀양과 같은 끔찍한 일이 다시는 반복되어서는 않된다

  247. 기후위기비상행동 운영위원장은 “삶터를 저당 잡혀 에너지를 생산하고, 이를 또 실어 토지노 분양 나르기 위해 수백킬로 떨어진 곳의 피해를 폭력적으로 강요하는 부정의한 에너지 구조는 이제 걷어내야 한다”고 말했다

  252. 이에 A씨는 지난 5일 토지노 분양 지역 맘카페에 “저는 밀양 성폭행 사건으로 거론된 B씨의 여자친구가 아니다”라며 “마녀사냥으로 아무 상관 없는 제 지인이나 영업에 큰 피해가 되고 있다”고 피해를 호소했다

  255. 밀양시 제공 *박영태 대표이사는 “지역사회에 기여할 수 있는 사업을 토지노 분양 고심한 끝에 장애인 가족 걷기 행사를 마련했다”며 “아름다운 자연 속에서 가족과 함께 시간을 보내며 일상의 스트레스에서 벗어나길 희망한다”고 말했다

  259. 정효진 토지노 기자윤석열 정부의 원전 확대, 제2 제3의 밀양 만들 것지난 8일, 경남 밀양765kV송전탑반대대책위, 청도345kV송전탑반대공동대책위를 포함한 197개 단체, 1500여명의 시민들은 밀양 송전탑 6·11 행정대집행 10년째를 맞아 ‘다시 타는 밀양 희망버스’를 타고 밀양에 모였다

  260. 기후위기비상행동 운영위원장은 “삶터를 저당 잡혀 에너지를 생산하고, 이를 또 실어 나르기 위해 수백킬로 떨어진 곳의 피해를 폭력적으로 강요하는 부정의한 에너지 구조는 토지노 이제 걷어내야 한다”고 말했다

  266. 그 토지노 는 “한국 성폭력 상담소에서 갑자기 ‘영상 업로드에 동의한 적 없다’고 공지한 후 피해자 여동생분과 남동생분에게 메일을 보냈지만, 연락이 두절됐다”고 말했다

  267. 한국성폭력상담소 7일 보도자료를 통해 “나락 보관소는 마치 피해자 토지노 들과의 긴밀한 소통 끝에 피해자들의 의사를 반영해 영상을 내린 것처럼 사실과 다른 공지를 하고 있다”며 “상담소와 피해자 쪽은 처음부터 마지막까지 피해자 의사를 확인하지도, 경청하지도, 반영하지도 않았던 행태에 문제를 제기한다”고 밝혔다

  268. 하 토지노 지만 다른 유튜버들이 또 다른 가해자 신상을 폭로하고, 또 다른 유튜버가 피해자 동의를 얻은 듯한 영상을 추가 공개하면서 다시 불을 지폈다

  276. 앞서 최상목 부총리 겸 기획재정부 장관과 스즈키 이치 일본 재무상은 전날 정부서울청사에서 한일 재무장관 회의를 한 뒤 “양국 통화의 급격한 가치 하락에 대한 심각한 우려를 공유했다”며 “환율의 과도한 변동성과 무질서한 움직임에 적절한 조치를 계속 취해나갈 것을 재확인했다”고 강조했 메이저사이트 다환율, 전일 종가 대비 4

  279. 고소 3건 및 진정 13건 접수윤희근 경찰청장은 10일 밀양 성폭행 유튜브 영상들과 관련 토지노 고소장·진정서가 접수된 것에 대해 “관련법에 따라 신속하게 판단하겠다”고 밝혔다

  280. 스즈키 장관은 노동시장 및 노동환경 개혁 등 육아세대에 메이저사이트 대한 지원을 강화하는 한편, 사회보장제도 전반의 지속가능성을 확보하기 위한 일본의 정책 패키지인 ‘어린이 미래전략’을 공유했다

  284. *김태환 회장은 “도심과 자연이 조화를 이루는 밀양파 토지노 크골프장에서 제18회 밀양시장배 전국파크골프대회를 개최하게 되어 의미가 깊다”며 “이 대회가 파크골프의 인기 확산에 기여하고 밀양을 널리 알리는 데 도움이 되길 희망한다”고 말했다

  291. 곽대경 동국대 경찰사법대학 교수는 “과거보다 SNS를 통해 정보가 전달되는 속도가 빠르고, 확산하는 범위가 넓어졌기 때문에 사실과 다른 내용도 걷잡을 수 없이 퍼질 위험이 있다”며”공권력을 믿지 못하고 처벌 결과를 인정할 수 없다는 이유로 사적 제재를 정당화한다면 비슷한 사건에 대해 모두가 ‘눈에는 눈, 이 토지노 에는 이’로 대처하는 식의 악순환만 이어질 것”이라고 지적했다

  299. 박영훈 산림녹지과장은 “증가하는 산림복지에 대한 시민들의 욕구에 걸맞게 숲속 야영장과 수목원을 연계해 산림에서 휴양, 체험, 교육이 이뤄질 수 있는 공간으로 조성할 예정”이라며 “시민들에게 다양한 산림복지 혜택을 제공하고 토지노 지역경제 활성화에 기여하는 공간이 될 수 있도록 노력하겠다”고 말했다

  302. 피해자 측이 “동의 없는 신상 공개”라고 반발한 데 이어 고소와 진정이 10여건 접수돼 토지노 경찰이 수사에 나섰고, 이들 중 한 유튜버는 방송통신심의위원회의 심의까지 받게 됐다

  311. 홍정완 한국무역협회 대전세종충남지역본부 팀장은 “일본·중국 등 인접 국가와 경합하고 있는 석유제품과 플라스틱, 고무, 가전제품, 자동차부 메이저사이트 품 업종에선 부진이 예상된다”고 전했다

  315. 그는 “장기간 현 레벨에서 등락을 지속한 만큼 메이저사이트 1200~1400원대가 새로운 균형이라고 판단한다”며 “향후 환율은 3분기까지는 달러화의 추가 강세로 1400원대에 도전할 가능성도 있다”고 전망했다

  322. 홍정완 한국무역협회 대전세종충남지역본부 팀장은 “일본·중국 등 인접 국가와 경합하고 있는 석유제품과 플라스틱, 고무, 가전제품, 자동차부 메이저사이트 품 업종에선 부진이 예상된다”고 전했다

  326. 순간 이상하다 싶어서 ‘문철아’하고 고함을 지르면서 유천강변 주변을 모 토지노 솔루션 두 찾았는데 아들의 모습은 보이지 않았다”며 “함께 온 원생들이나 아내도 문철이의 모습을 보지 못했다고 했다

  337. 밀양시 농지담당은 최초 신고 5일이 지난 토지노 솔루션 4월 2일 현장을 방문해 육안으로 식별한 결과, 성토재에서 이상한 점을 발견하지 못해 토양오염 검사 의뢰 결과를 보고 원상회복 등 행정처분을 하겠다고 밝혔다

  339. 박 지부장은 “밀양 송전탑에 반대하며 할매들이 몸에 쇠사슬을 엮고 투쟁했던 10년 전 상황을 들었다”라며 “생존권을 위해 항의하는 마을주민들에게 공권력을 투입해 농성장을 짓밟고 폭력까지 가한 사실에 토지노 솔루션 분노하지 않을 수 없다”라고 전했다

  340. 정효진 기자윤석열 정부의 원전 확대, 제2 제3의 밀양 만들 것지난 8일, 경남 밀양765kV송전탑반대대책위, 청도345kV송전탑반대공동대책위를 포함한 197개 단체, 1500여명의 토지노 솔루션 시민들은 밀양 송전탑 6·11 행정대집행 10년째를 맞아 ‘다시 타는 밀양 희망버스’를 타고 밀양에 모였다

  342. 시 관계자는 “자칫 도시 이미지가 부정적으로 낙인찍힐 수 있어 우려스러우면서도 조심스럽다”며 “조만간 유감 내용을 담은 시장 명의 공식 입장문을 낼 계획이다”고 말했다밀양시의회의 제2 토지노 솔루션 55회 제1차 정례회 본회의 모습

  348. 한국성폭력상담소 7일 보도자료를 통해 “나락 보관소는 마치 피해자들과 토지노 솔루션 의 긴밀한 소통 끝에 피해자들의 의사를 반영해 영상을 내린 것처럼 사실과 다른 공지를 하고 있다”며 “상담소와 피해자 쪽은 처음부터 마지막까지 피해자 의사를 확인하지도, 경청하지도, 반영하지도 않았던 행태에 문제를 제기한다”고 밝혔다

  349. 또 다른 주민은 “최근 안병구 밀양시장은 지역을 새로운 중장기 농업농촌과 식품산업 발전계획을 수립해 급변하는 농업환경에 적극 토지노 솔루션 적으로 대처하고 지속 가능한 농업 기반을 마련하겠다는 로드맵을 밝혔다”며 “하지만 밀양시 행정의 현주소를 보면 안 시장의 공언에 의구심이 들 수밖에 없는 실정”이라고 질타했다

  353. 또 다른 주민은 “최근 안병구 밀양시장은 지역을 새로운 중장기 농업농촌과 식품산업 발전계획을 수립해 급변하는 농업환경에 적극 토지노 솔루션 적으로 대처하고 지속 가능한 농업 기반을 마련하겠다는 로드맵을 밝혔다”며 “하지만 밀양시 행정의 현주소를 보면 안 시장의 공언에 의구심이 들 수밖에 없는 실정”이라고 질타했다

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  431. 상반기 외국인은 미국발 인공지능 반도체주 열풍에 국내 반도체주를 대거 사들였고, 실적 호전과 안전놀이터 주주환원 강화가 기대되는 자동차주도 많이 포트폴리오에 담았다

  442. 한국투자증권 유종우 리서치본부장은 “상반기 AI 확산 기대에 따른 반도체 강세, 수출주 상승 랠리 덕분에 코스피지수가 회복됐지만 코스피의 특성상 반도체 이외에 2차전지, 바이오, 플랫폼 등의 비중이 안전놀이터 높아 반도체를 제외한 나머지 업종이 지수 상승을 제어하는 요인으로 작용했다”면서 “여기에 고금리 환경이 겹치며 글로벌 AI와는 차별화된 모습을 연출했다”고 전했다

  448. SC제일은행과 모기업인 스탠다드차타드그룹의 투자 전략 전문가들은 이번 보고서를 통해 2024년의 하반기 핵심 투자 테마를 ‘다가오는 변화, 새 안전놀이터 로운 미래를 위한 적응’이라 정했다

  475. 만약에 이용자들이 이 점을 법적으로 문제 삼는다면 문제가 될 수도 있는 건가요? 최건희 : 초반에는 이렇게 문제가 될 수도 있을 것 같았는데 크래프톤 측에서 이렇게 일부 꾸미기 기능을 제안하고 대응책을 내놓자 메이저사이트 일부 이용자들은 과거에도 네이마르, 손흥민, 블랙핑크 등 유명인들과 콜라보를 진행할 때는 이런 제한이 없었는데 전액 환불 조치해달라 이런 것들을 강력하게 요구하면서 저항하기도 했었습니다

  497. 또한 이런 알페스나 팬픽 게재는 온라인상으로 음란한 문헌을 배포 또는 판매하거나 전시한 경우에 해당해서 1년 이하 징역 또는 천만 원 메이저사이트 이하 벌금에 처해지실 수 있습니다

  511. 올해 초 공개한 메이저사이트 로드맵 내 ‘사업구조 이원화로 해외 결제시장 진출을 본격화한다’는 내용을 이행함으로써 글로벌 시장 진출의 중요한 전환점 마련 및 페이코인의 가능성을 입증한 것이다

  516. 다만 그는 “내년 말부터 강세장이 시작돼 몇 년 동안 이어질 것으로 예상된다”며 “이 강세장 주기는 금, 은, 비트코인 투자자들이 모두 기다려온 이벤트가 될 것이며 투자자들이 그동안의 인내심에 따른 보상을 받게 될 것”이라고 기 메이저사이트 대했다

  519. 10여 년 전 데뷔 여자 분수 이후, 방탄소년단은 역사상 가장 인기 있는 음악 그룹 중 하나이자 틱톡에서 네 번째로 큰 아티스트 계정이 되면서 전 세계를 강타했다

  520. 제보하기 전화 : , 스테이씨 노출 4444 이메일 : 카카오톡 : ‘KBS제보’ 검색, 채널 추가 네이버, 해주세요!강릉 외국인 관광택시 사업 이용객 전년 대비 144%↑도깨비촬영지·BTS정류장·강릉커피거리 순으로 방문 강원도 강릉시가 외국인 관광택시 사업 상반기 실적을 분석한 결과 이용객이 급증한 것으로 나타났다

  523. 서 교수는 과거 BTS 멤버 지민이 광복절 기념 티셔츠를 입고 방송에 출연하고 RM이 SNS에 광복절 기념 트윗을 남긴 것 레즈 야스 에 대해서도 일본 우익 세력이 반발했던 사례를 언급하며 “전 세계에 K팝의 영향력이 커지면서 일본 우익 세력의 트집 잡기가 날로 늘어나는 모양새”라고 지적했다

  526. 악당 짓을 그만 두고 ‘악당 전담 처리반 AVL’이 된 ‘에이전트 미니언즈’와 ‘그루 주니어’의 탄생으로 능력치 아이돌 노출 모음 상승한 ‘그루 패밀리’가 탈옥한 빌런 ‘맥심’을 막기 위해 펼쳐지는 이야기를 담은 영화다

  528. 韓国の人気グループ、ＢＴＳ（防弾少年団）のＪＩＭＩＮ（ジミン）が１９日にリリースしたセカンドソロアルバム「ＭＵＳＥ」のタイトル曲「Ｗｈｏ」が、世界最大の音楽配信サービス・スポティファイのチャート「デイリートップソンググローバル」で３位を記録した。Ｊ 북한 전쟁 ＩＭＩＮ（ビッグヒットミュージック提供）＝（聯合ニュース）≪転載・転用禁止≫所属事務所のビッグヒットミュージックによると、同曲はリリース初日にストリーミング再生回数７９０万１５０７回で３位となった。韓国、タイ、ベトナムなど７カ国の「デイリートップソング」で首位に立った。また、１１２カ国・地域のｉＴｕｎｅｓ（アイチューンズ、米アップルのコンテンツ配信サービス）のトップソングチャートで１位を記録した。「ＭＵＳＥ」は愛を見つけるためにさまざまな試みをし、時にはさまようというストーリーが盛り込まれたアルバム。ＪＩＭＩＮは愛をテーマにインスピレーションを探す過程を表現した。「Ｗｈｏ」は会ったことがない誰かを懐かしむ切ない状況と混乱する感情を歌った曲だ。「ＭＵＳＥ」は日本でも人気を集めている。オリコンのデイリーアルバムランキングで１位を獲得した。현지시간 14일 오전 8시쯤 루브르 박물관 인근200미터 성화봉송···팬들 장사진그룹 방탄소년단의 맏형 진이 14일 프랑스 파리에서 개막하는 2024 파리 올림픽의 성화를 봉송했다

  530. #Jimin_Who 통해 독점적으로 제공하는 인앱 리워드 선봬틱톡은 방탄소년단 지민의 기대되는 솔로 2집 ‘MUSE’의 출시를 축하하기 위해 새로운 인앱 경험을 제공하는 캠페인 ‘#Jimin_Who 노무현명예훼손 ‘를 공개했다고 21일 밝혔다

  537. *팝업에는 8M 높이의 초대형 ‘에이전트 미니언’과 BTS 쯔양 성매매 미니언즈 포토존과 극중 아미인 파피의 방을 생생하게 구현한 포토존, 슈퍼배드 굿즈숍 그리고 체험존 ‘악당 전담 처리반 K-훈련센터’가 준비됐다

  543. 韓国の人気グループ、ＢＴＳ（防弾少年団）のＪＩＭＩＮ（ジミン）のセカンドソロアルバム「ＭＵＳＥ」（７月１９日発売）が海外メディアからも高評価を得ている。ＪＩＭＩＮ（ビッグヒットミュージック提供）＝（聯合ニュース）≪転載・転用禁止≫所属事務所のビッグヒットミュージックによると、米グラミー・ドットコムは「ＭＵＳＥ」について「ＪＩＭＩＮの芸術的成長と多芸多才ぶりを見せ、新たな音楽的アイデンティティーを表している」とし、愛とインスピレーション BTS논란 に関する大胆な探求だと評価した。ＪＩＭＩＮが収録曲７曲のうち６曲の制作に参加し、２曲は共同プロデュースを行ったことに言及し、「コンセプト、ビジュアルなど創作に直接参加し、さらに実力を高めた」とした。また、「ＭＵＳＥ」が「ファンのためのプレゼントにとどまらず、ＪＩＭＩＮについてさらに深く知るきっかけになる」とし、「この作品は郷愁を呼び起こすと同時に最近の趣向ともマッチする。彼はまだ自身のミューズを探せなかったかもしれないが、彼のアルバムは確実に多くの人にインスピレーションを与えている」との見方を示した。米音楽メディア、コンシークエンス・オブ・サウンドも、ＪＩＭＩＮを魅力的なパフォーマーに作り上げる多くの要素のうちの一つとして多才さを挙げた。「現代舞踊とバレエ、そして防弾少年団の曲のヒップホップ的な雰囲気がバランスを取り、これがステージ上で彼を魅力的な存在にする」と分析した。英ＮＭＥは「ＭＵＳＥ」が「愛の気運が詰まったアルバム」だとし、「現実的でロマンチックなものを探すための道のりであり、ＪＩＭＩＮの音楽の新たな側面をより深く探求するアルバム」だと評価した。ＪＩＭＩＮは２３日（日本時間）、米ＮＢＣテレビの人気トーク番組「ザ・トゥナイト・ショー・スターリング・ジミー・ファロン」でアルバムのタイトル曲「Ｗｈｏ」を初披露する。昨年１２月から陸軍で兵役中だが、収録は入隊前に行われた。빅히트뮤직 제공그룹 방탄소년단 멤버 지민이 군 복무 중에 낸 신곡 ‘후’가 전 세계 112개 국가·지역 아이튠즈 ‘톱 송’ 1위 자리로 직행했다

  548. 특히 앨범의 타이틀곡인 ‘Who’를 이용해서 틱톡 콘텐츠를 제작하는 레즈 몰카 등 다양한 챌린지를 즐기면서, 한정된 기간에만 적용되는 독점 프로필 프레임을 획득할 수 있다

  552. 서 교수는 과거 BTS 멤버 지민이 광복절 기념 티셔츠를 입고 방송에 출연하고 RM이 SNS에 광복절 기념 트윗을 남긴 것에 대해서도 일본 우익 세력이 반발했던 사례를 언급하며 “전 세계에 K팝 카리나 팬티노출 의 영향력이 커지면서 일본 우익 세력의 트집 잡기가 날로 늘어나는 모양새”라고 지적했다

  562. 이렇게 익명성 그리고 토지노 솔루션 감추어서 거래를 할 수 있다는 점, 게다가 여러 가지 제도를 만듦으로써 수사당국이 여러 가지 거래 정황 등을 포착할 수 있는 여지는 생겼습니다마는 그래도 일반 계좌 거래와 비교하면 훨씬 더 쉽게 숨길 수가 있거든요

  568. 이렇게 익명성 그리고 토지노 솔루션 감추어서 거래를 할 수 있다는 점, 게다가 여러 가지 제도를 만듦으로써 수사당국이 여러 가지 거래 정황 등을 포착할 수 있는 여지는 생겼습니다마는 그래도 일반 계좌 거래와 비교하면 훨씬 더 쉽게 숨길 수가 있거든요

  571. 만약에 그렇다면 그런 서비스를 돈을 내고 받을 수는 있겠습니다마는 해당 업체에게 지급을 한 그 금액에 대해서는 과연 환불을 받을 수 토지노 있느냐? 이 부분에 대해서는 굉장히 불안하거든요

  574. 얼굴이 완전히 질려있었고…”진술 등을 토대로 경찰이 조사한 토지노 결과, 관장은 말아서 세워둔 매트 사이에 아이를 거꾸로 넣고 10분 넘게 내버려둔 것으로 확인됐습니다

  585. 119 구급차13일 경찰과 소방 당국에 따르면 지난 12일 오후 7시 40분께 양주시 덕계동의 한 태권도장이 있는 건물 의원에서 “5살 남자아이가 숨을 토지노 분양 쉬지 않는다”는 신고가 접수됐다

  588. 그렇기 때문에 이 관장 입장에서는 어떻게 주장할지는 정확히 지금 판단할 수 없겠습니다마는 아무래도 본인의 책임을 가장 줄일 수 있는 방법은 애초에 학대 행위가해 행위를 한 것이 아니라 장난을 치다가 예상하지 못하 토지노 분양 게 이런 일이 생긴 것이다

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