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Judge in Catholic bankruptcy recuses over church donations

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:10 GMT

A federal judge overseeing the New Orleans Roman Catholic bankruptcy recused himself in a late-night reversal that came a week after an Associated Press report showed he donated tens of thousands of dollars to the archdiocese and consistently ruled in favor of the church in the case involving nearly 500 clergy sex abuse victims.U.S. District Judge Greg Guidry initially announced hours after the AP report that he would stay on the case, citing the opinion of fellow federal judges that no “reasonable person” could question his impartiality. But amid mounting pressure and persistent questions, he changed course late Friday in a terse, one-page filing.“I have decided to recuse myself from this matter in order to avoid any possible appearance of personal bias or prejudice,” Guidry wrote.The 62-year-old jurist has overseen the 3-year-old bankruptcy in an appellate role, and his recusal is likely to throw the case into disarray and trigger new hearings and appeals of every conseq...

Orioles promote pitching prospect DL Hall to serve as 27th man in Detroit doubleheader

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:10 GMT

Left-handed pitching prospect DL Hall didn’t break camp with the Orioles because they wanted him to continue to work as a starter. His first appearance with Baltimore this year could come out of the bullpen, where he thrived down the stretch last season.The Orioles added Hall as their 27th man for Saturday’s doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers. Hall, 24, is the No. 2 pitching prospect in the organization behind right-hander Grayson Rodriguez, who is scheduled to start the second game of the twin bill. With Dean Kremer pitching the opener, Hall will provide length out of the bullpen on a day the Orioles’ pitching staff will need to cover two games’ worth of innings.Hall was the scheduled starter for the second game of Triple-A Norfolk’s doubleheader Friday. The outing would have been his fifth this year with the Tides; he allowed eight runs, 15 hits and nine walks with 20 strikeouts over 16 1/3 innings in his first four starts, building up from lower...

Bill Madden: Buck Showalter managing a short-handed Mets roster as he waits for reinforcements to show up

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:10 GMT

The probable pitching matchups for the first showdown Mets-Braves series of the year — David Peterson vs. Max Fried, Tylor Megill vs. Spencer Strider, Jose Butto vs. Charlie Morton — only accentuated the obvious: Buck Showalter is managing short.That’s short as in, short at least two proven quality starting pitchers, and short as in another outfield bat to offset a mostly black hole bottom third of the Mets lineup.Right from the get-go, when Jose Quintana went down in spring training with a lesion on his rib and Justin Verlander was KO’d from starting the season with a teres major strain, Showalter began the process of putting together a “cut and paste” starting rotation comprised of Triple-A call-ups Joey Lucchesi, Megill and Butto, and further compromised by Carlos Carrasco’s sore elbow and Max Scherzer’s 10-game sticky stuff suspension. The Quintana injury now looms especially large since he was slated to assume the innings left by ...

New app allows nurses to pick up open shifts at short-staffed hospitals

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:10 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- The healthcare industry is starting to think outside of the box to address the nursing shortage.Hospitals are now turning to an app for help. That app is called “Shifts,” which nurses can download directly to their phone to pick up shifts at hospitals.Think of it like “Uber” for nurses.Like many nurses across the country, ICU nurse Chantal Chambers was feeling burned out from the profession.“There’s definitely a burnout,” Chambers said. “I think especially after COVID that exacerbated things a little bit.”The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects a shortage of nearly 200,000 nurses nationwide by 2025.  Local rattlesnake wrangler offers safety advice Chantal was also finding it harder to stay in healthcare. Then, she found out about the new app called “Shifts” by Aya Healthcare.The app shows Chantal what open shifts are available at local hospitals. With one swipe, she is able to accept a hospital shift whenever and wherever she wants.“The nurses easily see our jobs,...

Preliminary hearing for 'Teacher of the Year' facing sex abuse charges pushed

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:10 GMT

CHULA VISTA, Calif. -- The preliminary hearing in the case against a National City educator accused of engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old former student has been pushed to August.The decision was made by the court and sixth-grade teacher Jacqueline Ma's attorneys during a readiness conference held Friday morning. Her next appearance is slated for July 26.Ma, who was named as a San Diego County "Teacher of the Year" earlier this year, was charged with 15 felony counts, including possession of child pornography and sexual exploitation of a minor. She pleaded not guilty to these charges during her arraignment last month. Timeline: Unfolding of the Nathan Fletcher scandal The former Lincoln Acres Elementary School teacher was first arrested on March 7 at the campus, according to school officials. She posted bail following that arrest, but was taken into custody again on additional charges two days later.During her arraignment hearing last month, Deputy Distri...

Alberta’s two main political rivals have baggage to shed ahead of May 29 election

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:10 GMT

EDMONTON — Alberta’s two main provincial political party leaders are set to duel for the province’s highest office starting Monday in a campaign that for both could be a case of win or go home. A win by United Conservative Leader Danielle Smith and her party gets a second term, defeating Rachel Notley and her NDP just like in 2019. A loss and Smith risks being tossed out by her party, wearing the ignominy of the first Alberta conservative leader to lose in a head to head fight with the NDP, given the NDP won government in 2015 with a big boost from conservative vote-splitting. A win by Notley and it’s two of the last three elections going orange, with a chance to cement the NDP as Alberta’s dominant party. A loss and it’s two L’s in a row and perhaps calls for renewed leadership. Political scientist Lori Williams said both will bring baggage to the campaign trail, which begins with Monday’s expected writ drop and ends with a May 29 voting day. Smith is shouldering multiple con...

‘If we don’t understand, we can’t really change’: Studying Saskatchewan mass killer

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:10 GMT

RCMP may never fully learn why Myles Sanderson went on a deadly stabbing rampage on a Saskatchewan First Nation, but they may be able to offer answers that some experts say could help victims’ families make sense of it all.Mounties released on Thursday a preliminary timeline of the Sept. 4 attacks on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the nearby village of Weldon, which killed 11 people and injured 17. They also announced they are conducting a psychological autopsy on Sanderson, who went into medical distress and died after he was taken into custody.The psychological autopsy could help investigators understand why people were attacked and others not, Supt. Joshua Graham told a news conference.Staff in the RCMP’s behavioural sciences branch have met with community members and Sanderson’s family as part of the process, Graham said, and a report is expected in several months. Experts in the field say a psychological autopsy could provide answers into Sanderson’s thinking an...

Known for laughs, DC dinner to spotlight reporting risks

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:10 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — There will still be plenty of laughs, but the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner on Saturday also plans to take on the serious and solemn role of journalism in a democracy.This year’s dinner occurs as Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been imprisoned in Russia. He was detained in March and charged with spying, despite strong denials from his employer and the U.S. government. His family will be among the 2,600 people attending the gala at the Washington Hilton. Also attending will be Debra Tice, the mother of Austin Tice, who has not been heard from since disappearing at a checkpoint in Syria in 2012. U.S. officials say they operate under the assumption that he is alive and are working to try to bring him home. “They are among hundreds of journalists around the world who are wrongfully detained for the simple act of doing journalism — which is not a crime,” said Tamara Keith, a White House correspondent for NPR and the ...

210 migrant bodies wash up on Tunisia coast in under 2 weeks

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:10 GMT

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia’s coast guard says it has recovered around 210 bodies of migrants under two weeks that have washed up on the North African country’s central coastline amid an ongoing increase in migration.Preliminary examinations of the bodies indicated that the migrants were from sub-Saharan Africa, according to the National Guard’s Houssemeddine Jebabli.The number of bodies recovered was announced Friday. Of the 210 dead migrants found over 10 days starting on April 18, about 70 of those were recovered from the beaches of eastern Sfax, the neighboring Kerkennah islands and Mahdia, according to prosecutor Faouzi Masmoudi, who oversees migration issues.These three areas are starting points for most attempts to migrate to the Italian coast, including onward to the remote island of Lampedusa, he added.The increasing number of dead migrants has overwhelmed the Habib Bourguiba hospital morgue in Sfax, the capacity of which is 30 to 40 bodies.To ease the pressure on hospita...

AP Interview: Pelosi says Ukraine, democracy ‘must win’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:02:10 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — “We thought we could die.”The Russian invasion had just begun when Nancy Pelosi made a surprise visit to Ukraine, the House speaker then the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to lead a congressional delegation to Kyiv.Pelosi and the lawmakers were ushered under the cloak of secrecy into the capital city, an undisclosed passage that even to this day she will not divulge.“It was very, it was dangerous,” Pelosi told The Associated Press before Sunday’s one-year anniversary of that trip.“We never feared about it, but we thought we could die because we’re visiting a serious, serious war zone,” Pelosi said. “We had great protection, but nonetheless, a war — theater of war.”Pelosi’s visit was as unusual as it was historic, opening a fresh diplomatic channel between the U.S. and Ukraine that has only deepened with the prolonged war. In the year since, a long list of congressional leaders, senators and chairs of powerful committees, both Democrats and Republicans,...