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The Great Grift: COVID-19 fraudster used stolen relief aid to purchase a private island in Florida

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:21:36 GMT

YANKEETOWN, Fla. (AP) — A freshwater spring bubbles amid the mangroves, cabbage palms and red cedars on Sweetheart Island, a two-acre uninhabited patch of paradise about a mile off the coast of this little Gulf Coast town.Pelicans divebomb nearby into the cool waters of Florida’s Withlacoochee Bay and the open view westward holds the promise of dazzling sunsets.It may have seemed like an ideal getaway for Florida businessman Patrick Parker Walsh. Instead, he’s serving five and half years in federal prison for stealing nearly $8 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds that he used, in part, to buy Sweetheart Island.While Walsh’s private island ranks among the more unusual purchases by pandemic fraudsters, his crime was not unique. He is one of thousands of thieves who perpetrated the greatest grift in U.S. history. They potentially plundered more than $280 billion in federal COVID-19 aid; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent.The loss represents close to 10% of the $4.3 ...

Manchin decision hurts Democrats’ Senate hopes and sparks new speculation about a presidential bid

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:21:36 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Joe Manchin’s decision not to seek reelection virtually ensures that the Democratic Party will lose his Senate seat next year in deep-red West Virginia, making the party’s steep path to retaining its razor-thin Senate majority even more difficult.Some Democratic officials are also concerned that Manchin’s announcement frees him to pursue a third-party presidential bid that could ultimately undermine President Joe Biden’s reelection. The 76-year-old Manchin has raised the possibility of a presidential bid in the past, and he made direct reference to national ambitions in the retirement video he posted on social media Thursday.“What I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together,” Manchin said. Manchin’s sudden announcement injects a new layer of uncertainty for Democratic leaders already anxious about the party’s pros...

Jewish refugees from Israel find comfort and companionship in a countryside camp in Hungary

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:21:36 GMT

BALATONOSZOD, Hungary (AP) — Zusha Pletnyov left his home in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk in 2014, when Russian-backed rebels seized large swaths of eastern Ukraine. After living some years in the capital, Kyiv, he fled again to Israel when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February of last year. An observant Jew, Pletnyov moved with his wife and five children to Ashkelon, just miles from the Gaza Strip, in the hopes of building a new life. But when Hamas militants from Gaza launched their attacks last month, a new war forced him to take flight for a third time, now to a camp for Jewish refugees in rural Hungary. “Coming here for me and for my wife is such unimaginable relief,” said Pletnyov, whose apartment building in Ashkelon was hit by a Hamas rocket as the attacks began. “It’s a comforting place to be.” The 34-year-old and his family are now living in a state-owned resort, disused for nearly two decades, on the shores of the sprawling Lake Balaton in western H...

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen raises a storm over her plan to march against antisemitism

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:21:36 GMT

PARIS (AP) — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has set off a cacophony of criticism over her plans to attend a weekend march to protest rising antisemitism in France, with critics saying that her once-pariah party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy.Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, numerous political parties and citizens are to attend the Sunday march. Le Pen has said that she and her National Rally party also will be there, in what some see as an attempt to leverage the Israel-Hamas war to make herself more palatable to mainstream voters.Party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, her father, was convicted repeatedly of antisemitic hate speech and played down the scope of the Holocaust. Daughter Marine — runner-up in the last two presidential elections and likely a top contender in 2027 — has worked to scrub the party’s image, kicking her father out and changing its name from National Front to National Rally.But the party’s curr...

What’s streaming now: Chris Stapleton, Call of Duty, ‘The Killer,’ Tim Allen’s Santa return

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:21:36 GMT

Country superstar Chris Stapleton’s fifth studio album and a documentary about Albert Brooks that includes Steven Spielberg, David Letterman, Ben Stiller, Larry David, Chris Rock and Wanda Sykes are some of the new television, movies, music and games available on a device near you.Also among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are Michael Fassbender playing a hitman in David Fincher’s “The Killer,” Tim Allen putting on his Santa suit for season two of “The Santa Clauses” and “The Buccaneers,” Apple TV+’s eight-episode series answer to “Bridgerton.”NEW MOVIES TO STREAM— Michael Fassbender plays an unnamed hitman in David Fincher’s “The Killer,” debuting on Netflix on Friday. It’s based on a French graphic novel and adapted by Andrew Kevin Walker, who also wrote the screenplay for “Seven” (or “Se7en” for the purists), this nameless assassin has some very specific rules for his chosen profession which he monologues to...

96-year-old Korean War veteran still attempting to get Purple Heart medal after 7 decades

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:21:36 GMT

ST. PETER, Minn. (AP) — Earl Meyer remembers in vivid detail when his platoon came under heavy fire during the Korean War — he still has shrapnel embedded in his thigh.But over 70 years later, the 96-year-old is still waiting for the U.S. Army to recognize his injury and to award him a Purple Heart medal, which honors service members wounded or killed in combat.Meyer has provided the Army with documents to back up his assertion that he was wounded in combat in June 1951. Doctors at the Department of Veterans Affairs agreed that his account of the shrapnel coming from a mortar attack was probably true. But few men in his unit who would have witnessed the battle have survived, and he thinks the medic who treated him on the battlefield was killed before he could file the paperwork.An Army review board in April issued what it called a final rejection of Meyer’s request for a Purple Heart, citing insufficient documentation. His case highlights how it can be a struggle for wounded v...

San Francisco bidding to reverse image of a city in decline as host of APEC trade summit

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:21:36 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — World leaders, CEOs, protesters and thousands of others will soon descend on San Francisco for a global trade summit that could give the battered city a chance to reverse its image of an economic powerhouse now in decline. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit will be San Francisco’s largest international gathering since dignitaries gathered in 1945 to sign the charter creating the United Nations. The summit opens Saturday and runs through Friday, drawing an expected 20,000 people. Of particular note this year is a planned tete-a-tete between President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit — their first direct engagement in a tension-filled year between the world’s two biggest economic powers.As host, San Francisco and the city’s partners are polishing sidewalks, scrubbing away graffiti and moving homeless people to accommodations indoors. Separately, Mayor London Breed has been promoting p...

Disputes over safety, cost swirl a year after California OK’d plan to keep last nuke plant running

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:21:36 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — More than a year after California endorsed a proposal to extend the lifespan of its last nuclear power plant, disputes continue to swirl about the safety of its decades-old reactors, whether more than $1 billion in public financing for the extension could be in jeopardy and even if the electricity is needed in the dawning age of renewables.Late last month, a state judge tentatively approved the blueprint to keep the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant operating for an additional five years, until 2030. The proposal, which could get finalized later this month, imposed several conditions, including that federal nuclear safety regulators greenlight the longer run and that a state loan supporting the extension is not canceled. The twin reactors, located midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, began operating in the mid-1980s. They supply up to 9% of the state’s electricity on any given day. Environmentalists argue California has adequate power without the reactors...

Clashes over Israel-Hamas war shatter students’ sense of safety on US college campuses

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:21:36 GMT

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — As a Jewish student, Eden Roth, always has felt safe and welcome at Tulane University, where more than 40% of the students are Jewish. That has been tested by the aftermath of last month’s invasion of Israel by Hamas. Graffiti appeared on the New Orleans campus with the message “from the river to the sea,” a rallying cry for pro-Palestinian activists. Then came a clash between dueling demonstrations, where a melee led to three arrests and left a Jewish student with a broken nose. “I think that the shift of experience with Jews on campus was extremely shocking,” said Roth, who was in Israel last summer for a study-abroad program. “A lot of students come to Tulane because of the Jewish population — feeling like they’re supported, like a majority rather than a minority. And I think that’s definitely shifted.”Tulane isn’t alone. On other campuses, long-simmering tensions are erupting in violence and shattering the sense of safety that makes colleges hubs of free...

Palestinian soccer team prepares for World Cup qualifying games against a backdrop of war

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:21:36 GMT

Makram Daboub may be struggling to prepare his Palestinian team for the start of 2026 World Cup qualification but he takes some comfort, for now at least, that his players stuck in Gaza are safe.The national soccer team’s head coach wanted to include Ibrahim Abuimeir, Khaled Al-Nabris, and Ahmed Al-Kayed in a training camp in Jordan ahead of World Cup qualifying games against Lebanon next Thursday and Australia on Nov. 21.But they were unable to make it out of Gaza because of the Israel-Hamas war, now in its second month. “So far they are fine,” Daboub told The Associated Press. “Many of their relatives have died, however, as a result of the bombing.”Two players from Gaza, Egypt-based Mohamed Saleh and Mahmoud Wadi, are expected to join the Palestinian team in Jordan. Daboub, who is from Tunisia, acknowledged it will be difficult for players to focus on football while many have families in danger. “With the death and destruction in Gaza, the players are in a difficult psychological ...