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What role will terrorism play in Nathaniel Veltman’s sentencing?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:36:44 GMT

Nathaniel Veltman’s trial was the first time Canada’s terrorism laws were put before a jury in a first-degree murder court case.He was ultimately found guilty in November of four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder for hitting the Afzaal family with his truck while they were out for a walk in London, Ont. on June 6, 2021.His sentencing is currently unfolding in London, with gripping victim impact statements.Since juries don’t explain how they reach their verdict, it’s unclear what role – if any – the terror allegations played in their decision.But according to Veltman’s defence team, terrorism will likely factor in when it comes to his sentence.“Later this month we will come back and make submissions on sentencing, that’s when terrorism will be an issue,” said attorney Christopher Hicks, who called it a precedent-setting case.“There’s very little law surrounding the issue of terrorism,” he ...

Texas father and son arrested in the killings of a pregnant woman and her boyfriend face new charges

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:36:44 GMT

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A Texas father and son arrested in the killings of an 18-year-old pregnant woman and her boyfriend are facing new evidence tampering charges, authorities said Friday as they announced that investigators have recovered the gun used to shoot the couple who disappeared before Christmas.The new charges in the killings of Savanah Nicole Soto, 18, and Matthew Guerra, 22, were announced two days after the father and son were interviewed by detectives and “made enough statements to implicate them in the murder,” San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said at a news conference. He’d earlier described the scene where the couple were found dead in a car as “very, very perplexing.”Christopher Preciado, 19, was arrested Wednesdays on a charge of capital murder and his 53-year-old father, Ramon Preciado, was accused of helping to move the bodies and charged with abuse of a corpse. On Thursday, police added charges of altering, destroying or concealing evidence against b...

Military members provide more details about the night group was rescued from crash

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:36:44 GMT

YELLOWKNIFE — A Royal Canadian Air Force search-and-rescue team was met with high winds, blowing snow and low visibility the night members were parachuted to a plane crash site in a remote area of the Northwest Territories last month. A military crew of eight from Winnipeg was sent to the site 300 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife on Dec. 27 to rescue 10 people who were heading to a camp to begin construction of a winter road. Three from the team parachuted more than 600 metres to reach the stranded passengers, some of whom were injured. Sgt. Vincent C-Benoit, who was one of the three Air Force members helping on the ground, says when they arrived, some passengers had already begun to make a shelter while others were huddled in the plane. The team was able to airdrop supplies, military food rations and heated tents to stay warm. A group of 17 remained at the site for roughly 14 hours until helicopters were able to pick them up the following morning. This report by The Canadian Pre...

People taking Wegovy and Ozempic have lower risk of suicidal thoughts vs. older drugs, study finds

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:36:44 GMT

People taking the popular diabetes and obesity drugs Ozempic and Wegovy had a lower risk of suicidal thoughts than those taking other medications to treat the same conditions, a new federal study finds. The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was published Friday and comes as European and U.S. regulators look into anecdotal reports that people taking the drug, semaglutide, had thoughts of self-harm. NIH and Case Western Reserve University researchers analyzed electronic medical records from more than 1.8 million patients prescribed semaglutide or another drug to treat obesity or diabetes between 2017 and 2022. They included about 240,000 patients treated for obesity or being overweight and nearly 1.6 million patients treated for diabetes. They found that people taking semaglutide had a 49% to 73% lower risk of first-time or recurring suicidal thoughts than those taking another drug for those conditions during a six-month follow-up period. The researchers called fo...

South Asian communities grapple with extortion threats in B.C., Ontario, Alberta

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:36:44 GMT

VANCOUVER — It started with a voice mail demanding payment of some kind, then a series of missed phone calls, later came the gun shots targeting the home of a Metro Vancouver business owner whose family and community are now gripped with fear. The businessman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the original message demanded a payment, “otherwise there would be consequences,” he said. At first, it seemed like a “prank” of some kind, and he didn’t take the calls seriously, but he called the would-be extortionists back. “We see that you’re doing well in business, so you need to pay us,” they told him. Police in at least three provinces are dealing with similar investigations of extortion schemes targeting business owners in South Asian communities, a tactic investigators say is commonly employed by organized crime groups in the Indian state of Punjab. In early December 2023, police in Abbotsford, B.C., revealed that extortion l...

Former Alabama police officer charged with murder in shooting of Black man

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:36:44 GMT

A former Alabama police officer has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a man in front of his own home during a dispute with a tow truck driver, the district attorney announced Friday. Steve Perkins, 39, was shot and killed by a police officer on Sept. 29 when officers accompanied a tow truck driver trying to repossess Perkins’ truck. A grand jury indicted Mac Bailey Marquette, a 23-year-old police officer who responded to the scene, on a murder charge accusing him of intentionally killing Perkins by shooting him with a pistol. Court records did not immediately indicate if Marquette has an attorney to speak on his behalf. Morgan County District Attorney Scott Anderson announced the indictment during a news conference Friday. Anderson said “the job now falls to me and my office to prosecute this case and seek justice.”“It’s not easy for me to be in the position of prosecuting an officer, but in this circumstance, it’s the right thing to do,” he said. Anderso...

Nashville is reassigning 10 officers following the leak of a school shooter’s writings, police say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:36:44 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Ten officers with the Nashville police department’s specialized investigative unit will be reassigned following an unauthorized release of writings from the shooter who killed six people, including three children, at The Covenant School last year.A spokesperson for Metro Nashville Police Department said Friday the officers, who have not been named, will transition out of the division next month.“This is a reassignment, only,” said Kristin Mumford in an email. To date, the department has been unable to identify the person who leaked pages from a school shooter’s journals to a conservative commentator nearly two months ago. The unsanctioned publication of documents came during an ongoing legal battle over whether they should be released as public records.Police announced in December that they had “exhausted all available investigative avenues” while acknowledging that one former police detective who had images from the journal declined interview requests....

Belarus’ authoritarian leader tightens control over the country’s religious groups

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:36:44 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a law into effect that significantly tightens control over various religious denominations and organizations.The law, published on the presidential website this week, mandates that all denominations and religious groups reapply for state registration, which authorities reserve the right to refuse.It’s the latest step in Lukashenko’s a crackdown on dissent, which intensified after a disputed presidential election in 2020 gave the authoritarian leader a sixth term in office. The government arrested more than 35,000 protesters in demonstrations that denounced the vote as rigged, and thousands of them were beaten in custody. Many were forced to leave the country to escape prosecution.Since 2022, involvement in unregistered organizations became a criminal offense, punishable by up to two years in prison.According to official data in 2023, a total of 3,417 religious groups were registered in Belarus, a c...

A magnitude 4.1 earthquake shakes a wide area of Southern California, no injuries reported

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:36:44 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A light but widely felt earthquake shook Southern California on Friday. There were no immediate reports of damage to buildings, other infrastructure or injuries.The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 4.1 quake struck at 10:55 a.m. and was centered about a mile (1 kilometer) northwest of Lytle Creek, in the San Gabriel Mountains about 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of downtown Los Angeles.Such a quake is typically not strong enough to cause significant damage. Michael Guardado, who works at the front desk of the U.S. Forest Service’s Lytle Creek Ranger Station, said the “building shook hard.”Officials were working to determine the earthquake’s impact on the area and Guardado said he had heard that “a lot of rocks” had fallen onto Lytle Creek Road.Cari Torguson, a bartender at Melody’s Place in Lytle Creek, said she felt “a hard boom and a shake” from the earthquake.“It wasn’t very long but it was scary,” she told The Associated Press.A decorative glass mushro...

17-year-old and 19-year-old arrested in North York home invasion, car theft

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:36:44 GMT

A 17-year-old and 19-year-old are facing charges for their alleged involvement in a home invasion and car theft in North York, Toronto police said. Officers were called to a home in the Yonge Street and Florence Avenue area at around 4 a.m. on Dec. 21 for reports of break-and-enter.It’s alleged that five suspects approached the residence, and two of them forcibly entered the home through a back patio. Related: 5 Toronto teens between ages of 14 and 16 busted in Markham carjacking probe Illegally parked vehicle led police to Toronto carjacking, home invasion suspect Once inside, police said the two suspects demanded the homeowner’s car keys and threatened the victim with a can of pepper spray. The suspects fled the residence with the victim’s vehicle. No injuries were reported.Authorities were able to identify the two suspects in collaboration with the Provincial Car Jacking Task Force.On Friday, police said a 17-year-old male youth f...