In El Paso, pastors offer waiting migrants shelter and counsel

EL PASO, Texas (AP) - As changing policies, rampant misinformation and exasperated, fearful crowds converge in this desert city, faith leaders are striving to provide shelter and uplift.

Along with prayers, they are counseling migrants about the daunting challenges that await them on U.S.

soil, with enormous backlogs in asylum hearings and the Biden administration´s newly announced measures that many consider stricter than the existing ones known as Title 42.

During Thursday morning Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, a few blocks from the border with Mexico, the Rev.
Daniel Mora prayed for goodwill in welcoming the crowds of migrants expected to arrive in the city and at the church´s gym-turned-shelter when pandemic-era restrictions on asylum-seeking lifted overnight.

"May the asylum promises of this country be renewed," Mora noted in the Mass intentions.

In an office next to the historic sanctuary, one of his fellow Jesuits prepared to visit a shelter at a different El Paso parish to counsel migrants who already had crossed illegally and were detained.

"One knows that that this is but one part, that we´re halfway on our way," said Tatiana Gamez, a Colombian mother who was released by immigration authorities to a small shelter run by the Catholic parish of St.

Francis Xavier, just across from one of El Paso´s three international bridges.

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Doomsday plot: Idaho jury convicts woman in murders of 2 children, romantic rival

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Idaho mother Lori Vallow Daybell was convicted Friday in the murders of her two youngest children and a romantic rival, a verdict that culminates a three-year investigation that included bizarre claims that her son and daughter were zombies and she was a goddess sent to usher in the Biblical apocalypse.

Vallow Daybell showed no expression as the verdict was read.

Some in the courtroom gallery wiped tears from their eyes.

Prosecutors in the case described Vallow Daybell as a power-hungry manipulator who would kill her two youngest children for money, while the defense team said she was a normally protective mother who fell under the romantic sway of a wannabe cult leader.

Jurors heard both stories Thursday during final arguments in the seven-week long trial, and deliberated for about four hours before breaking for the evening.

They resumed deliberations Friday morning and reached a verdict, which was announced shortly after noon.

Vallow Daybell was convicted of conspiring to commit the murders of 7-year-old Joshua "JJ" Vallow, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, and Tammy Daybell.
She was also convicted of grand theft as well as first-degree murder of the two children, a charge that indicates a more direct role in the crimes.

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Tennessee company refuses US request to recall 67 million potentially dangerous air bag inflators

DETROIT (AP) - A Tennessee company could be heading for a legal battle with U.S.

auto safety regulators after refusing a request that millions of potentially dangerous air bag inflators be recalled.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is demanding that ARC Automotive Inc. of Knoxville recall 67 million inflators in the U.S.
because they could explode and hurl shrapnel. At least two people have been killed in the U.S. and Canada, and seven others have been hurt as a result of defective ARC inflators, the agency said.

The recall would cover a large portion of the 284 million vehicles now on U.S.

roads, but the percentage is difficult to determine. Some have ARC inflators for both the driver and front passenger.

In a letter posted Friday, the agency told ARC that it has tentatively concluded after an eight-year investigation that ARC front driver and passenger inflators have a safety defect.

"Air bag inflators that project metal fragments into vehicle occupants, rather than properly inflating the attached air bag, create an unreasonable risk of death and injury," Stephen Ridella, director of NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation, wrote in a letter to ARC.

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Marine veteran who fatally choked NYC subway rider Jordan Neely is freed pending trial

NEW YORK (AP) - A U.S.

Marine veteran who placed an agitated New York City subway passenger in a chokehold, killing him and sparking outrage as bystander video went viral, surrendered Friday on a manslaughter charge filed nearly two weeks after the deadly encounter.

Daniel Penny, 24, was freed pending trial hours after turning himself in at a police station and appearing in court to answer criminal charges in the May 1 death of Jordan Neely, a former subway performer with a history of mental illness.

Penny did not enter a plea.

Neely's death prompted protests, while others embraced Penny as a vigilante hero. His lawyers have said he was acting in self-defense. Lawyers for Neely's family said Neely wasn´t harming anyone and didn´t deserve to die.
An autopsy ruled Neely's death a homicide due to compression of the neck.

"Jordan Neely should still be alive today," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.

A judge authorized Penny´s release on $100,000 bond and ordered him to surrender his passport and not to leave New York without approval.

Prosecutors said they are seeking a grand jury indictment. Penny is due back in court on July 17.

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Former Trump prosecutor mostly mum before Congress on details of hush-money investigation

WASHINGTON (AP) - An ex-prosecutor who once oversaw Manhattan's investigation of former President Donald Trump declined to substantively answer questions at a closed-door deposition Friday of the House Judiciary Committee, according to a Republican lawmaker in the meeting.

The prosecutor and his boss said he was merely abiding by grand jury rules.

Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, exited the meeting after roughly one hour and said Mark Pomerantz, the former prosecutor, repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment that protects people from providing self-incriminating testimony.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a scheme to bury allegations of extramarital affairs that arose during his 2016 White House campaign. GOP lawmakers have decried the investigation as a "political persecution" and launched an oversight probe.

Pomerantz in a written opening statement called the committee's inquiry itself "an act of political theater." He also explained he was invoking the Fifth Amendment because the Manhattan District Attorney´s office had previously warned him before he published a book on the investigation that he could face criminal liability if he revealed grand jury material or violated a provision of the New York City Charter dealing with misuse of confidential information.

Pomerantz, who left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office after disagreements over the direction of the Trump investigation, was subpoenaed by the Republican-controlled House committee.

The panel, chaired by GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, is probing how Bragg handled Trump's historic indictment.

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A Texas woman was fatally shot by a boyfriend angry she had an abortion, police say

DALLAS (AP) - A man angry that his girlfriend had an abortion in another state fatally shot the 26-year-old woman, Dallas police said.

He was jailed on a murder charge as of Friday.

Texas banned abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy in September 2021.

But nearly all abortions have been halted in Texas since Roe v. Wade was overturned last summer, except in cases of medical emergency.

Gabriella Gonzalez was with her boyfriend, 22-year-old Harold Thompson, in a Dallas parking lot Wednesday when he tried to put her in a chokehold, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
She had returned from Colorado the night before.

"It is believed that the suspect was the father of the child," the affidavit said. "The suspect did not want (Gonzalez) to get an abortion."

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What to know about Twitter's new CEO Linda Yaccarino

NEW YORK (AP) - Elon Musk is welcoming a veteran ad executive to the helm of Twitter, the social media site the billionaire Tesla CEO has been running since he bought it last fall.

Musk announced Friday that he's hiring Linda Yaccarino to be the new CEO of San Francisco-based Twitter, which is now called X Corp.

He said Yaccarino's role will be focused mainly on running the company's business operations, leaving him to focus on product design and new technology.

Here's what to know about Yaccarino.

VETERAN AD EXEC

Yaccarino, 60, has worked as an advertising executive for decades.

She came to NBCUniversal in 2011, just as Comcast was completing its merger with NBC, and oversaw integrating the companies' ad sales platforms. There, her most recent title was chairman, advertising and client partnerships. She oversaw all market strategy and advertising revenue, which totaled nearly $10 billion, for NBCUniversal´s entire portfolio of broadcast, cable and digital assets.

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'He wanted to live the American Dream': Honduran teen dies in US immigration custody

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) - The mother of a 17-year-old boy who died this week in U.S.

immigration custody demanded answers from American officials Friday, saying her son had no known illnesses and had not shown any signs of being sick before his death.

The teenager was identified as Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza, according to a tweet from Honduran foreign relations minister Enrique Reina.
Maradiaga was detained at a facility in Safety Harbor, Florida, Reina said, and died Wednesday. His death underscored concerns about a strained immigration system as the Biden administration manages the end of asylum restrictions known as Title 42.

His mother, Norma Saraí Espinoza Maradiaga, told The Associated Press in a phone interview that her son "wanted to live the American Dream."

Ángel Eduardo left his hometown of Olanchito, Honduras, on April 25, his mother said.

He crossed the U.S.-Mexico border some days later and on May 5 was referred to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which operates longer-term facilities for children who cross the border without a parent.

That same day, he spoke to his mother for the last time, she said Friday.

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Oregon GOP walkout threatens bills on abortion, trans care - and senators' careers

SALEM, Ore.

(AP) - A boycott by Republican state senators in Oregon threatens to derail hundreds of bills, including on gun control, gender-affirming care and abortion rights, as a deadline looms that could also upend the protesters' political futures.

Democrats control the Statehouse in Oregon. But the GOP is leveraging rules that require two-thirds of lawmakers be present to pass legislation, which means Democrats need a certain number of Republicans to be there too.

Republican and WBC247가입코드 Democratic legislative leaders met behind closed doors for a third day Friday to try to bridge the divide, as the boycott entered its ninth straight d

/>Lawmakers with 10 unexcused absences are barred from reelection under a constitutional amendment passed overwhelmingly last November by voters weary of repeated walkouts.

To give time for negotiations - and keep boycotters with nine unexcused absences from hitting that 10-day tripwire - Senate President Rob Wagner agreed to cancel Senate sessions on Friday, Saturday and Sund

/>It would instead reconvene Monday.

"I think people, at least people who observe politics, are going to have a pretty anxious weekend," Priscilla Southwell, professor emerita of political science at the University of Oregon, said Friday.

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Atlantic City casino can't live without a beach, so it's rebuilding one

ATLANTIC CITY, N

/>(AP) - What's an ocean without a beach?

One Atlantic City casino that takes its name from the sea doesn't want to find out, and so it's spending up to $700,000 of its own money to rebuild a badly eroded beach in front of it.

The Ocean Casino Resort began the work Wednesday, and plans to have a new 110-foot-wide beach open for Memorial Day weeke

/>Chronic erosion near the casino has reduced the beach to just 5 to 8 feet (1.5 to 2.4 meters) wide in places.

Bill Callahan, the casino's general manager, said Ocean can't wait for the next government-funded beach replenishment project, which could take another year or two.

Callahan and several casino officials were on their daily coffee walk one day last fall when they looked out the window - and saw very little sand between the Boardwalk and the ocean.