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Oregon halts electric vehicle rebates due to demand, money

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:47 GMT

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon will temporarily suspend rebates for buying or leasing an electric vehicle for a year starting in May because too many people are applying and the program is running out of money, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported Thursday.A growing number of Oregonians are buying or leasing electric vehicles, with over 60,600 registered in the state.The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality announced Wednesday the suspension of the Clean Vehicle Rebate Program that has disbursed more than $71 million over five years to help people buy or lease roughly 25,000 of those vehicles. A fifth of the rebates went to low- and moderate-income households, state data shows.“Even though we’re announcing a temporary suspension, it really shows the program is a victim of our own success,” Rachel Sakata, senior air quality planner with the department. “We’re one of the top states in the nation in terms of the percentage of EV sales.”Oregon’s Department of Transportation estimates that...

Kentucky Senate passes bill to legalize medical marijuana

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:47 GMT

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — The Kentucky Senate voted Thursday to legalize medical marijuana in the state, delivering a breakthrough endorsement after years of resisting access to cannabis for people suffering from a series of debilitating illnesses.The measure was passed by the Senate on a 26-11 vote, sending it the House, which has supported medical cannabis measures in the past. Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers.“This is one of those issues where you take out the ledger and you list the pros and cons,” said Republican Sen. Stephen West, the bill’s lead sponsor. “And it’s a long list on both sides. But for me personally, the pros outweigh the cons.”Republican Sen. Gary Boswell opposed the bill, referring to cannabis as “a drug, not a medicine.” He said the qualifying medical categories listed in the measure are “too broad.” The dramatic vote came before lawmakers started an extended break to give Gov. Andy Beshear time to consider signing or vetoing the stack...

Vancouver mayor says foreign meddling ‘insinuations’ are because he’s not Caucasian

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:47 GMT

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said his race is behind “insinuations” in a newspaper report connecting him to election meddling by Chinese diplomats.Sim said at a news conference Thursday he was not aware of any foreign interference in the 2022 municipal election that saw him defeat incumbent Kennedy Stewart.“If there’s proof of foreign interference in our election, I want to know about it, because I’m a Canadian,” Sim said. “… If there was proof of this, I’d be as mad as hell as anybody else.”A Globe and Mail report said Canadian intelligence officials are concerned the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver interfered in the election by using diaspora community groups and grooming certain candidates.The newspaper cites a Canadian Security Intelligence Service document that it said does not name the consulate’s favoured mayoral and council contenders, although it wanted Stewart to lose.Sim said the accusations are “disgusting” and racial...

Pence defends joke about Buttigieg ‘maternity leave’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:47 GMT

KEENE, N.H. (AP) — The husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Thursday he hasn’t heard from Mike Pence in the days since the former vice president mocked his family, but will continue to hold him accountable for his words.Chasten Buttigieg was asked on ABC’s “The View” whether Pence contacted him after joking at a dinner for journalists and politicians that Pete Buttigieg took “maternity leave” after he and his husband adopted newborn twins.“Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression,” Pence said Saturday at the Gridiron Dinner.Chasten Buttigieg, who said he doesn’t expect to hear from Pence, called the remarks “part of a much bigger trend attacking families.”“I spoke up because we all have an obligation to hold people accountable for when they say something wrong, especially when it’s misogynistic, especially when it’s homophobic, and I just don’t take that when it’s towards my family, and I don’t think any...

Southern California jailbreak mastermind convicted

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:47 GMT

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — An inmate who organized a daring, elaborate Southern California jailbreak in 2016 was found guilty Thursday of the escape but acquitted of kidnapping a taxi driver while on the run, authorities said.Jurors in Orange County Superior Court also convicted Hossein Nayeri, 44, of Newport Beach of stealing a van but acquitted him of kidnapping during a carjacking and lesser offenses, the district attorney’s office said in a statement.On Jan. 22, 2016, Nayeri and two other men broke out of the Orange County Central Jail Complex in Santa Ana, prompting a weeklong manhunt.Using smuggled tools, they cut through a metal grate in their maximum-security dorm cell, then climbed through plumbing shafts within the walls to reach the roof, where they rappelled down five stories using a rope made of bed linens, according to authorities and a cellphone video shot by Nayeri.The men later kidnapped a 72-year-old unlicensed taxi driver. The driver was sometimes held at gunp...

North Korea says ICBM launch was response to rivals’ drills

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:47 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Friday that its latest intercontinental ballistic missile launch was intended to send a “stronger warning” over combined U.S. military exercises with South Korea, blaming those for creating a “most unstable security environment” in the region.Thursday’s launch from North Korea’s capital area came hours before South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol traveled to Tokyo for a summit with Japanese Prime Minster Fumio Kishida. The meeting underscored Seoul’s urgency to tighten security cooperation with a fellow U.S. ally in the face of North Korean nuclear threats. The ICBM launch was North Korea’s fourth missile event in about a week as it ratcheted up a tit-for-tat response to U.S.-South Korean military drills, the biggest of their kind in years, which began Monday and run through March 23. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test-firing of the Hwasong-17 ICBM from Pyongyang’s international airp...

Daughter of 1 of 3 missing women in Mexico hasn’t lost hope

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:47 GMT

PEÑITAS, Texas (AP) — The daughter of one of two sisters from Texas who went missing in Mexico along with their friend three weeks ago while traveling to a flea market says she hasn’t lost hope that they’ll be located.“We are waiting for them to come back home,” Maria Guadalupe Ramirez, 27, told KRGV-TV in Weslaco.The FBI said in a statement Thursday that it was unable to comment on the investigation but said the agency “relentlessly pursues all options when it comes to protecting the American people, and this doesn’t change when they are endangered across the border.” The three women — Ramirez’s mother, Marina Perez Rios, 48; Ramirez’s aunt, Maritza Trinidad Perez Rios, 47; and their friend, Dora Alicia Cervantes Saenz, 53 — were headed to a flea market to sell clothes in the Mexican city of Montemorelos in the state of Nuevo Leon. The state prosecutor’s office in Nuevo Leon has said it is investigating the women’s disappearance.The sisters live in Peñitas, a small Texa...

Rats invade stove near pregnant NYC woman's bedroom

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:47 GMT

UPPER MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11) — Samantha couldn’t believe her eyes when her sister started playing cellphone video last Wednesday morning in the kitchen of their family apartment in Upper Manhattan.“My sister recorded 13 rats in the kitchen, and one got caught in the mouse trap,” Samantha told PIX11 News in New York.She shared the shocking video from her sister, Yovanka Landa, which showed rat after rat scampering across a kitchen counter and slipping through an opening in the stovetop."They go through the stove to get to the gas line so they can go into the hole that’s behind the refrigerator," Samantha said. Shop at IKEA? You may be entitled to part of a $24M class action settlement Seven family members live in a six-bedroom apartment on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard; a pregnant woman sleeps in a room next to the kitchen.“I have a video of me killing one yesterday,” Landa said of the rats, telling PIX11 News she used a baseball bat.The family realized they were in for some t...

'Full of spirit': Family remembers Englewood High School senior shot and killed

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:47 GMT

CHICAGO — The family of a South Side high school senior is pleading for answers after she was shot and killed earlier this month.Family members of DeShawnay Yoakum, 18, said she fought for her life for 10 days after she was shot on March 1 near 45th and South Drexel. Girl, 17, shot in head while inside Hyde Park residence: police "She didn't deserve this," Artamese Prewitt, Yoakum's mother, said. "My baby was full of spirit. She wasn't mean, she wasn't evil. She was not."Prewitt should be helping her daughter get ready for prom and graduation, but instead, she's now planning her funeral.She said the family still doesn't have any answers or justice."Just speak up, just speak up," Prewitt said. "Anonymous tip, I don't care. Just speak up for my baby."DeShawnay YoakumYoakum not only fought for days in the hospital, but also turned 18 while she was there. It was a milestone they celebrated, but one that should have looked much different for the Englewood High School senior.Prewitt wan...

APA! asks for help caring for 2 dogs with gunshot wounds

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:47 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Pets Alive! asked for help Thursday with two dogs who were shot.APA! said the dogs were admitted into the nonprofit shelter’s clinic this week, and both were recovering from gunshot wounds from separate shootings.  “Yodeling Pickle is a 10-month-old Lab mix who was initially surrendered to Austin Animal Center (AAC) after being shot, as his owners could not afford the medical costs of treating the wounds,” APA! said.According to the shelter, Yodeling Pickle had roughly 50 pellets embedded in his leg, and because of his severe injuries and inability to benefit from surgery, he’s receiving daily, hour-long bandage changes and was on bed rest to promote healing.“Samia is a five-year-old German Shepherd mix who was also brought to AAC this week when her owners found her with a gunshot wound. Samia had run away from home and was found with the injuries. Her owners also had to surrender her due to financial reasons,” APA! said.According to APA!, the City of Austin’s...