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Ex-correctional officer at federal prison in California convicted of sexual misconduct

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:26:37 GMT

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A former federal correctional officer was convicted Monday of sexually abusing two inmates at a women’s prison in California where the warden and other employees were charged with similar conduct.A jury found the officer, John Russell Bellhouse, guilty on five counts of sexual abuse for incidents involving the two women between 2019 and 2020 at FCI Dublin, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of Oakland. Bellhouse, 40, was scheduled to be sentenced in August. “My clients feel heard,” Jessica Pride, an attorney for the victims, told KTVU-TV. “Regardless of a prisoner’s crime, sexual assault is not part of their punishment.”Prosecutors alleged in court documents that Bellhouse “began to express an interest in a particular female inmate and started calling the inmate his ‘girlfriend’” in 2020. Authorities said he inappropriately touched the woman and that she performed oral sex on Bellhouse twice in the prison’s safety office.All sexual activity between a pr...

Launch of search for graves at former Yukon residential school triggers raw emotions

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:26:37 GMT

CARCROSS, Yukon — Emotions ran high in a Yukon First Nations community Monday as officials announced the search for unmarked graves would begin at a former residential school site.Yukon’s Residential School Missing Children Project said ground-penetrating radar would be used to look for gravesites at the Chooutla Residential School in Carcross, Yukon, about 70 kilometres south of Whitehorse.Carcross-Tagish First Nation Chief Maria Benoit said the search is important for the community in its bid to find answers and peace in the residential school tragedy, where countless children taken from their families did not return home.“We are starting something here today that has been in the making for a long, long time,” Benoit said of the project, which was announced in 2021 after the discovery of more than 200 suspected unmarked graves on the site of the former Kamloops Residential School in B.C. “This all began in Carcross when it became clear that we had a respons...

West end shooting sends man to hospital with serious injuries

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:26:37 GMT

A man has been rushed to hospital with serious injuries after a shooting in the city’s west end on Monday evening. Police were called to the Keele Street and King George’s Drive area at around 6:18 p.m. and located the victim. He was taken to hospital in an ambulance.No further details were immediately available. More to comeSHOOTING: (UPDATE)Keele St & King George's Dr6:18 pm– police o/s– confirmed shooting– officers located a man w/ a gunshot wound– @TorontoMedics – took patient to hospital w/ serious injuries via emerge run– ongoing investigation– any info call 416-808-2222#GO1284476^al— Toronto Police Operations (@TPSOperations) June 5, 2023

US House panel investigates ties between US Interior secretary, environmentalists

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:26:37 GMT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Republican members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources are raising concerns about ties between Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and an Indigenous group from her home state that advocates for halting oil and gas production on public lands. The members on Monday sent a letter to Haaland requesting documents related to her interactions with Pueblo Action Alliance as well as those of her daughter, Somah, who has worked with the group and has rallied against fossil fuel development.The request comes just days after Haaland decided to withdraw hundreds of square miles in New Mexico from oil and gas production for the next 20 years on the outskirts of Chaco Culture National Historical Park — an area considered sacred by some Native American communities.U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, the Arkansas Republican who chairs the committee, said Congress has a duty to oversee federal agencies and the cabinet secretaries who lead them and that what he called Haaland&#...

Suspect in Natalee Holloway disappearance to challenge extradition from Peru to US, lawyer says

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:26:37 GMT

LIMA, Peru (AP) — The lawyer for the main suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway on Monday said his client has changed his mind and plans to challenge his extradition to the United States.Defense attorney Máximo Altéz announced the decision of Dutchman Joran van der Sloot just hours after the Peruvian government confirmed the extradition would take place Thursday. Altéz said van der Sloot reversed course following a meeting with Dutch diplomats.“He does not want to be extradited to the United States of America,” Altéz said, adding that he intended to file a writ of habeas corpus. “He was visited today by his embassy (representatives) who made him see the mistake he was making by being extradited without due process.”The attorney said van der Sloot was never notified of an open extradition process, and as a result, was not able to challenge it. Less than a week ago, Altéz had said his client explained in a letter he did not plan to challenge t...

Senegal violence threatens country’s stability as experts call on government to instill calm

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:26:37 GMT

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegal experts called on the government on Monday to instill calm after days of the deadliest violence in years and concerns it could have lasting consequences.Days of clashes between security forces and supporters of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko have killed at least 16 people and injured hundreds of others. Police have arrested 500 people, some of whom used Molotov cocktails and weapons. “(There’s) the threat of chaos. The threat of civil war,” Alioune Tine, founder of Afrikajom Center, a West African think tank, told The Associated Press in an interview Monday in the capital, Dakar. “We have never ever lived this situation in Senegal … We cannot go fighting among ourselves and we have to stop now, to make peace now, to be united now.”The clashes first broke out last Thursday, after Sonko was convicted of corrupting youth but acquitted on charges of raping a woman who worked at a massage parlor and making death threats against her. Sonko, who d...

B.C. officials push back on safe supply critics, seeing ‘no sign’ drugs are diverted

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:26:37 GMT

VICTORIA — British Columbia officials have rebutted claims that drugs prescribed through the province’s safe supply program aimed at curbing overdoses are being re-sold to young people, helping fuel the deadly opioid crisis.B.C.’s representative for children and youth, Jennifer Charlesworth, says her office hasn’t seen any indication that youth are using drugs “diverted” from the safe supply program.Her remarks come after Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre recently told the House of Commons that federal and B.C. government policies are worsening the overdose crisis because prescription hydromorphone “gets sold to kids” by those taking part in the program, with the profits used to buy fentanyl.B.C.’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe — who joined Charlesworth and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry at a news briefing — says toxicology tests show hydromorphone hasn’t been present in any significant number of deaths.Lapointe says officials ar...

California officials: Florida picked up asylum-seekers on Texas border and flew them to Sacramento

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:26:37 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The state of Florida picked up asylum-seekers on the Texas border Monday and took them by private jet to California’s capital city at taxpayer expense for the second time in four days, California officials said, prompting allegations that migrants were misled and catching shelters and aid workers by surprise.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials were mum, as they were initially last year when they flew 49 Venezuelan migrants to the upscale Massachusetts enclave of Martha’s Vineyard, luring them onto private jets from a shelter in San Antonio.As California Attorney General Rob Bonta investigated the migrants’ transportation, local officials and faith-based groups sought to provide housing, food and other resources to the more than three dozen new arrivals. Many were from Colombia and Venezuela, and California had not been their intended destination.California Gov. Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, lashed out at DeSantis as a “small, pathetic man” ...

'It's really odd': Family pleads for information about missing Logan Square woman

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:26:37 GMT

CHICAGO — The family of a missing Logan Square woman is anxious to learn her whereabouts after she hasn't been seen or heard from since Friday. AJ Battaglia says his life was turned upside down when he got a late-night call from his sister's roommate. Brittany Battaglia (Photo provided by AJ Battaglia )"You see this stuff on the news all the time and once it happens to you, your mind is everywhere. It's really odd," Battaglia said. The roommate informed Battaglia that she hadn't seen nor heard from his sister, 33-year-old Brittany Battaglia, since Friday, June 2. Battaglia told WGN News that the news was alarming. SEE ALSO: Missing 12-year-old girl last seen in Oakland, Chicago police say"We noticed Friday that her location was stopped sharing with us," he said. "My parents and I, and my sister, we all share our location, so we thought that was a little funny."Brittany Battaglia resides in the 1900 block of N Kimball Ave., near Armitage Avenue. According to her brother, a man Britta...

Lakeside Pride Marching Band helps Buffalo Grove celebrate love, respect for all

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:26:37 GMT

BUFFALO GROVE, Ill. — Molly Pinta organized Buffalo Grove's first Pride Parade back in 2019.  After attending Aurora's Pride Parade, the 13-year-old middle schooler asked her parents why her hometown didn't have one. On Sunday, the northwest suburb celebrated its third Pride Parade with the help of the Lakeside Pride Marching Band.  WGN photojournalist Kevin Doellman captured the sights and sounds.  Mayor Brandon Johnson, political leaders help kickoff Pride Month in West Town Watch the full story in the video player above.