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Jurors still needed in trial of Austin police officer accused of murder

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:24 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — More jurors are still needed for the trial of an Austin police officer accused of murder in a 2020 deadly shooting, according to one of Christopher Taylor's defense attorneys. The trial was expected to begin Wednesday, but when KXAN checked in on jury selection Tuesday evening, Taylor's attorney Ken Ervin said they did not end the day with enough jurors to proceed to trial, and will have to bring an additional jury panel in Wednesday morning.Jury selection began Monday, but an error led to that jury panel's dismissal. Taylor, 31, is accused of shooting and killing Michael Ramos, 42, during a confrontation with police in a south Austin apartment complex parking lot. APD officer heads to murder trial in Michael Ramos shooting Ervin told KXAN the doors to the courtroom were locked while the state was conducting jury selection Monday morning, which is not allowed. The judge was unaware this had happened. Ervin said if the error was discovered after the fact, any trial...

GOP debt ceiling negotiators say day ended with 'significant gap' between sides

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:24 GMT

Republican negotiators are warning that a “significant gap” remains between the White House and GOP lawmakers on a deal to raise the debt ceiling with nine days to go until June 1 — the day the Treasury Department has said the U.S. could default.The fundamental issue is topline discretionary spending levels, GOP negotiators Reps. Garret Graves (R-La.) and Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) said in extensive comments to reporters late Tuesday afternoon.“There is a significant gap between where we are and where they are on finances,” Graves said. “Unless and until the White House recognizes that this is a spending problem, then we’re gonna continue to have a significant gap.”McHenry echoed that the “fundamental issue of spending still remains inside the room and outside the room.”The debt ceiling bill House Republicans passed last month calls for capping fiscal year 2024 federal funding at fiscal year 2022 levels as part of an effort to cut spending, which Democrats have rejected. The White Hou...

Douglas County school board member Elizabeth Hanson resigns during public meeting

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:24 GMT

Douglas County school board member Elizabeth Hanson resigned Tuesday evening, stepping down before the board was set to vote on changes to the district’s equity policy — one of several areas in which Hanson and the conservative majority have had sharp differences.“There are some egregious things that are happening on the board right now,” Hanson, who was elected in 2019, told The Denver Post. Her resignation, which is effective immediately, comes months before her term was set to end in November.“As a Board of Education, every decision that we make should be grounded in how are we making our district better for our students and our employees and this board is sadly failing both,” Hanson told the board when announcing her resignation.She said “the last straw” was her colleagues’ recent refusal to settle a lawsuit that accused directors of violating Colorado’s open meeting law last year when they prepared to fire former Super...

Flyers distributed to protest scheduled Pride event at North Hollywood elementary school

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:24 GMT

“Keep your kids home and innocent.”That’s part of the message included in a flyer being distributed in North Hollywood to protest a Pride event scheduled at Saticoy Elementary School next month. The flyer has upset some parents and educators who believe it is spreading a message of intolerance.“We respect everyone, but some things are appropriate for children that age, and some things are not,” said George Dzhabroyan, who is among the Saticoy parents opposed to the Pride event. “Hopefully the message gets across and people understand that parents should be the primary contact of what their children should be exposed to and shouldn’t be exposed to.”A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Unified School District says the June 2 event will include an assembly and teachers will read students a book titled, The Great Big Book of Families, which highlights diversity.The district says parents can allow their child to skip the program.A flyer being distributed in North Hollywood protests a sched...

'Unprecedented' collection of unseen James Dean memorabilia headed to auction

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:24 GMT

Never before seen items once belonging to Hollywood royalty are heading to auction this week. The items come from the collection of Jane Deacy, best known as the agent of iconic 1950s heartthrob James Dean.The items are set to go to auction beginning this Thursday through a Los Angeles-based auction house.Dean, whose star burned bright and was extinguished in an instant, was one of the most famous actors in America, becoming a global icon for his performances in celebrated films, "Rebel Without a Cause," "East of Eden," and "Giant."Over the span of only three years, Dean's meteoric rise saw him become a household name after previously living in anonymity as a struggling actor in New York. His untimely death in a car accident in San Luis Obispo County in 1955 sent shockwaves through Hollywood and across the globe. He was only 24 years old at the time, and was widely regarded as one of the most famous actors in the world.Now personal items and correspondence between Dean and his New Y...

Ex-San Francisco kindergarten teacher sentenced to federal prison for possessing child porn

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:24 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO — A Bay Area man who worked as a substitute kindergarten teacher until he was arrested and charged with possessing child pornography has been sentenced to a year in federal prison, court records show.Marc Nunez, 29, of San Francisco, was one of two teachers at the K-8 Cathedral School for Boys in San Francisco to be charged with child pornography-related crimes, the other being Nunez’s longtime romantic partner, Charles Barrett. Nunez was sentenced May 1 by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer and has until Aug. 1 to report to prison, court records show.Barrett, a former music teacher at the Cathedral School and Alta Vista School, has pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography and is scheduled to be sentenced next month.Both men were arrested after authorities elicited cooperation from a “known child porn distributor” who allegedly filmed himself molesting at least one teen boy, and is referred to in court records as “Confidential Witness 1” or “CW1.” The ...

Alameda county board of supervisors launches investigation into Sophia Mason case

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:24 GMT

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to authorize an independent investigation into the county’s handling of the case of Sophia Mason, an 8-year-old Hayward girl whose tragic death last year highlighted systemic failures in the way that the county’s Department of Child and Family Services handles reports of suspected child abuse.“This is not a situation any of us want to be confronted with,” said supervisor Elisa Marquez, whose district includes Hayward. “We can learn from this huge loss and do better.”The recommendation for an investigation — which will also “review best practices for conducting child welfare investigations” — was presented by District 1 Supervisor Lena Tam and passed unanimously.The vote — which comes nearly a year after the Bay Area News Group published its original investigation into DCFS’s slipshod handling of Sophia’s case — marked the first time that supervisors have discussed Sophia in a public meeting.County su...

Bay Area man charged with murdering pregnant Hayward woman in front of her 5-year-old son

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:24 GMT

OAKLAND — A 33-year-old man has been arrested after fleeing the Bay Area, where he allegedly killed the mother of his 5-year-old son and wounded her new romantic partner in front of the young boy, court records show.Vaughn Boatner, who has addresses listed in Suisun City and San Mateo, was charged with murder in the killing of 30-year-old Monique Aldrige and attempted murder for shooting her 28-year-old boyfriend, an Oakland resident who survived.Boatner, arrested Monday in Washington, was also charged with child abuse for allegedly subjecting the child to the horrifying crime scene, and with a felony count of illegal gun possession, court records show.Police say that while still hospitalized, the 28-year-old Oakland man told authorities why he believed Boatner committed the brazen shooting: Boatner had recently found out Aldrige was pregnant by her new beau and became enraged. An autopsy report confirmed she was in the early stages of pregnancy, according to court records.Boa...

Transcripts of Kissinger’s Calls Reveal His Culpability

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:24 GMT

President Richard Nixon was in rare form, though in reality, it was none too rare. “The whole goddamn Air Force over there farting around doing nothing,” he barked at his national security adviser Henry Kissinger during a phone call on December 9, 1970. He called for a huge increase in attacks in Cambodia. “I want it done!! Get them off their ass and get them to work now.”As Nixon rambled and ranted — calling for more strikes by bombers and helicopter gunships — Kissinger’s replies were short and clipped: “Right.” “Exactly.” “Absolutely, right.” We know this because, while Nixon was fuming about “assholes” who said there was a “crisis in Cambodia,” the conversation was being recorded. It wasn’t the secret White House taping system that finally laid Nixon low as part of the scandal that came to be known as Watergate, but Kissinger’s own clandestine eavesdropping system. Later, it was up to Kissinger’s secretary Judy Johnson to transcribe that night’s exchange and add in the sing...

U.S. Blamed the Press for Military Looting in Cambodia

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:24 GMT

In September 1966, two U.S. helicopters crossed the border of South Vietnam and flew 20 miles into the neutral kingdom of Cambodia. Near the town of Snuol, they blasted a Cambodian army outpost with eight rockets, killing one soldier and wounding four others. The air assault was blamed on “pilot error,” and it was just one of many lethal U.S. helicopter attacks in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Three and a half years after the errant airstrike, U.S. forces would again attack Snuol, but this time it was no mistake. Instead, U.S. troops deliberately assaulted the town as part of America’s “Cambodian incursion,” an ill-fated invasion that President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, hoped would win the Vietnam War.A previously unrevealed military investigation — declassified in the 1980s but buried deep in the files of Vietnam War-era inspector general’s documents in the nation’s archives — shows that after U.S. soldiers were caught looting Snuol in May...