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US Congress goes wobbly on TikTok

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:09 GMT

Only days after TikTok’s CEO endured a bipartisan flogging on Capitol Hill, a Senate bill meant to rein in the company — released with much bipartisan fanfare and a bevy of endorsements earlier this month — is starting to look shakier.The bill, known as the RESTRICT Act, would give the Commerce Department and White House sweeping new powers to ban or restrict a wide range of communications and technology products coming from China. The bill would deprive TikTok of a crucial legal defense that it used to defeat the Trump administration’s attempted ban in 2020, and is considered key to any meaningful effort by the Biden administration to ban the Chinese-owned app.Until this week, the legislation appeared to be sailing ahead. Its chief sponsors, Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and John Thune (R-S.D.), had convinced more than 20 of their colleagues to sign onto the bill. And with the White House already on board and talks with House leadership allegedly unde...

Fatal fire complicates border city’s tensions with migrants

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:09 GMT

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — When Irwing López made it to Ciudad Juarez on the U.S.-Mexico border in January, the 35-year-old construction worker thought he had survived the worst and was steps away from his goal. He’d traversed jungle and raging rivers, and evaded Mexico’s notorious cartels, traveling thousands of miles from his native Venezuela. But then he found himself in a purgatory between U.S. immigration policies that pushed him back to Mexico and the unrelenting pursuit of Mexican immigration agents.And on Monday, López was reminded just how fragile his situation is. His friend and fellow Venezuelan Samuel Marchena was detained by immigration agents and hours later became one of the 39 migrants who died in a fire at a detention center.López, who sleeps in a shelter and washes windshields at stoplights for cash, said he won’t give up trying to enter the U.S., but he recognizes he’s not welcome in this sprawling border city that has grown tired of migrants i...

Doomsday plot? After 3 years, slain kids’ mom to stand trial

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:09 GMT

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — It has been more than three years since police announced that two kids were missing from a rural eastern Idaho town, and each twist in the grim investigation has seemed stranger than the last.Their mother claimed to be a deity, her estranged husband wrote in divorce papers. She called the children “zombies” before they vanished, a friend told police. A handful of followers seemed to buy into her doomsday claims, Arizona investigators reported. Those are just some of the details that could be aired in court starting next week, when Lori Vallow Daybell stands trial on murder, conspiracy and grand theft charges in the deaths of 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow, and Tylee Ryan, who was last seen a few days before her 17th birthday. Her husband, Chad Daybell, faces the same charges. And they are both also charged in the October 2019 death of Daybell’s late wife. Here’s a look at what is known and what is next in the bizarre case:HOW DID THE CASE BEGIN?JJ̵...

Alaska Native Scouts feted 67 years after rescuing Navy crew

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:09 GMT

GAMBELL, Alaska (AP) — Bruce Boolowon, then a lean 20-year-old, and a group of friends were hunting for murre eggs in a walrus skin boat on a remote Alaska island in the Bering Strait when they saw a crippled airplane flying low.“Something was wrong,” Boolowon, now 87, recalled of that day in 1955. “They came in and one engine was smoking.”Long before drones or weather balloons became military targets, a U.S. Navy P2V-5 Neptune maritime patrol aircraft had been attacked at about 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) by two Soviet MiG-15 fighters roaring out of nearby Siberia. The plane’s right engine was destroyed and the pilot was making a controlled crash landing.Its 11 crewmen had injuries in varying degrees of severity, caused either by the bullets sprayed by the two jet fighters, shrapnel or the fireball that erupted when the Neptune landed wheels up on the tundra of St. Lawrence Island and fuel tanks stored in the plane’s belly exploded. “And as the plane decelerated, the fireball d...

AP Was There: US crewmen shot down by Soviets arrive home

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:09 GMT

OAKLAND, California (AP) — Editor’s Note: Sixteen Alaska Native men were honored this week for rescuing the crew of a U.S. Navy patrol plane shot down over the Bering Strait by Soviet fighter jets nearly 70 years ago. With that belated honor, The Associated Press is republishing its story filed July 3, 1955, from Oakland, California, detailing the arrival of seven of the injured Navy crew members.____In cheerful spirits, despite wounds, burns and bandages, seven U.S. fliers whose Navy patrol plane was shot down June 22 by Russian jet fighters over the Bering Sea arrived here today from Anchorage, Alaska.A huddled group of families and friends watched at Alameda Naval Air Station as the seven stretchers were eased out of their hospital plane shortly before 3 a.m. A woman burst into tears.She was Mrs. Nellie Janke of Alameda, who had caught sight of her husband, chief electronics technician Elmer R. Janke, swathed heavily in bandages. She rushed forward to greet him.Aviation machinist...

Harris peeks at peppers on farm with climate change in mind

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:09 GMT

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday traveled down a dirt road to tour a farm outside Zambia’s capital that’s using new techniques and technology to boost its vegetable crop as she highlighted ways to secure food supplies in an age of global warming.“It’s an example of what can be done around the world,” she said after walking past rows of peppers and inspecting a drip irrigation system.Unlike in the United States, where conversations about climate change usually revolve around replacing fossil fuels with clean energy, the focus in Africa is on expanding access to food. Rising prices stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine have been damaging to poor countries, and global warming is expected to bring more challenges in the coming years.Hunger can also create instability, leading to migration and conflict.“The connection between these issues is quite clear,” Harris said.She is pushing for $7 billion in private-sector investments, mostly to boost c...

Norwegian Arctic area to be evacuated due deadly avalanches

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:09 GMT

HELSINKI (AP) — Norwegian authorities said Saturday they would evacuate an area in northern Norway where avalanches and landslides have killed four people, including a tourist from Slovenia.Norwegian police tweeted that the decision was based on a recommendation from the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute and would affect several parts of the Arctic municipality of Tromsoe.Four people died and one person was critically injured in three separate avalanches in the area on Friday. A tourist group from Slovenia was caught in the middle of one avalanche, and one of its members was among the victims.Police said a house and a barn were dragged into the sea.Two new landslides were reported in the Tromsoe area on Saturday. Police advised residents and visitors to stay indoors, if possible. The Associated Press

Ukrainian cleric in court amid dispute over Kyiv monastery

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:09 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s top security agency notified a top Orthodox priest Saturday that he was suspected of justifying Russia’s aggression amid a bitter dispute over a famed Orthodox monastery.Metropolitan Pavel, the abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, Ukraine’s most revered Orthodox site, has strongly resisted the authorities’ order to vacate the complex. Earlier in the week, he cursed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, threatening him with damnation.Facing a court hearing in the Ukrainian capital, the metropolitan strongly rejected the claim by the Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, that he condoned Russia’s invasion. Pavel described the accusations against him as politically driven. The SBU, which has raided his home, asked the court to put him under house arrest pending the investigation.The monks in the monastery belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has been accused of having links to Russia. The dispute surrou...

1 dead after 2-vehicle collision in southeastern Travis County, traffic delays expected

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:09 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — One person died early Saturday morning in southeastern Travis County as a result of a two-vehicle collision, according to Austin-Travis County EMS.First responders said a vehicle rescue call came in at 4:22 a.m. for a collision in the 6200 block of Kellam Road. ATCEMS originally said in a tweet the collision had a pin-in and a possible fatality.According to officials, Travis County STAR Flight was also assigned to the call.In an update, ATCEMS said the pinned patient was freed and medics were performing CPR. In total, there were two patients being evaluated and treated by EMS.In a final update, ATCEMS said one of the patients was pronounced dead at the scene, and the second refused transport by EMS.Officials said drivers should expect extended traffic closures for the investigation.

VOTE: Help us choose the best KXAN viewer photo of March 2023

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:25:09 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Here at KXAN, we get hundreds of photos sent to us each month by viewers just like you.We want to showcase some of the best pictures we receive, so we narrowed them down to our 10 favorites for the month. March's picks inevitably feature lots of bluebonnets, as well as photos of the incredible lightning Austin saw in the middle of the month.Help us choose the best viewer photo of March 2023. Look through the 10 pictures below, then vote for your favorite. The winning photo will move on to represent March in the best viewer photos of the year competition once 2023 is said and done.If you’d like to submit a photo for March’s competition, email it to [email protected]. Be on the lookout as KXAN may contact you to send a permission form so we can use your photo on air and online.Here are the options for March, in no particular order.Lightning ShowDripping Springs, March 17.Lightning over Dripping Springs on March 17, 2023. (KXAN Viewer Photo)Texas ThistleSun City, M...