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How are people supposed to rebuild Paradise, California, when nobody can afford home insurance?

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:00:33 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Heidi Lange was among the first to rebuild after the deadliest wildfire in California history destroyed her home in 2018 along with much of the town of Paradise. After the fire, she got divorced, which left her with only half the money paid out by insurance — but she budgeted, planned ahead and even paid extra for stucco siding and a metal roof to make her new house more resistant to fire. She thought the hard part was over. So the office manager was stunned to learn nearly four years living in the same home, this month the annual premium on her home insurance would rise dramatically — from $1,200 to $9,750.“To see we’ve come so far, only to have the legs kicked out from under us,” she said. “This is so crazy to me. How is this the biggest thing we’re dealing with?”The soaring cost of home insurance has consumed the town of Paradise, residents and officials say, as it prepares to commemorate the five-year anniversary of the Nov. 8, 2018, Camp Fire. Residents hav...

Pennsylvania voters weigh abortion rights in open state Supreme Court seat

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:00:33 GMT

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania voters will make a decision with implications for the future of voting and abortion rights in a presidential battleground state when they choose the winner in Tuesday’s election for an open state Supreme Court seat.The race between Democrat Dan McCaffery and Republican Carolyn Carluccio will not change the fact that Democrats hold a majority on the seven-seat bench. Democrats currently hold a 4-2 majority with an open seat following the death last year of Chief Justice Max Baer, a Democrat.Justices serve 10-year terms before they must run for retention to stay on the court.McCaffery is a former Philadelphia prosecutor and judge who sits on a statewide appellate court, the Superior Court. Carolyn Carluccio is a Montgomery County judge and a former federal prosecutor and public defender. The state’s highest court has issued pivotal decisions on major election-related cases in recent years, including throwing out GOP-drawn congressional d...

Voters in Pennsylvania to elect Philadelphia mayor, Allegheny County executive

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:00:33 GMT

Voters on both ends of Pennsylvania are deciding Tuesday who will lead the state’s most populous counties, in races that could help shape how Democrats talk about crime, progressive policy and abortion in the political arena.The results in Philadelphia and Allegheny County, which is home to Pittsburgh, will set the electoral stage for 2024, when the state will be a presidential battleground state, with candidates taking lessons about how Democrats see crime and the strength of progressives in local races. into the next election cycle.In Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth largest city, voters will choose a new mayor between Democrat Cherelle Parker and Republican David Oh. Parker, 51, a former state legislator and former city councilmember, is favored to win in the heavily Democratic stronghold. Her tough-on-crime and moderate approach resonated with voters in a crowded primary in May.Oh, 63, also a former city councilmember, has built a broad coalition in public office and empha...

Ex-gang leader to get date for murder trial stemming from 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:00:33 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former Southern California street gang leader charged with killing rap icon Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas in 1996 is expected Tuesday to learn the date for his murder trial, probably next year.Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis won’t face the death penalty but could be sentenced to life in prison if he’s convicted of one of hip-hop’s most talked-about killings. He pleaded not guilty last Thursday and remains jailed in Las Vegas.Davis, 60, is originally from Compton, California. He was arrested Sept. 29 outside a Las Vegas-area home where police served a search warrant July 17.In recent years, Davis said in interviews and a 2019 tell-all memoir that he orchestrated the drive-by shooting that killed Shakur at age 25 and wounded rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight. Knight, now 58, is serving 28 years in a California prison for the death of a Compton businessman in 2015.Davis is the only person still alive who was in the vehicle from which shots were fired. He has also sa...

Special counsel in Hunter Biden case to testify before lawmakers in ‘unprecedented step’

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:00:33 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The prosecutor overseeing the Hunter Biden investigation is expected to testify on Tuesday, marking the first time a special counsel will appear before Congress in the middle of a probe. It comes as House Republicans are aiming to ramp up their impeachment inquiry into the president and his family after weeks of stalemate. David Weiss is set to appear for a transcribed interview before members of the House Judiciary Committee as the U.S. attorney battles Republican allegations that he did not have full authority in the yearslong case into the president’s son. “Mr. Weiss is prepared to take this unprecedented step of testifying before the conclusion of his investigation to make clear that he’s had and continues to have full authority over his investigation and to bring charges in any jurisdiction,” Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesperson for Weiss, said in a statement Monday.The rare move by the Justice Department to allow a special counsel or any federal prosecutor to...

Maine voters to decide fate of electric utilities, tribal obligations in off-year election

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:00:33 GMT

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine voters faced a busy ballot on Tuesday in an off-year election dominated by a decision over whether to replace the state’s two much-criticized private electric utilities.Voters were also set to decide whether to restore language about honoring obligations to Native American tribes to printed versions of the state constitution. Other referendums included a vote on whether to attempt to curb influence from foreign governments and entities on state elections.The state’s busy slate of referendums comes a year before Maine will likely once again emerge as a battleground for a congressional seat and a presidential electoral vote in its more conservative 2nd Congressional District.NEW POWER COMPANYThe proposed takeover of two investor-owned utilities that distribute 97% of electricity in the state is unprecedented.If approved, the referendum would mark the first time a state with existing private utilities decided to scrap them all at the same time in favo...

Five years after California’s deadliest wildfire, survivors forge different paths toward recovery

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:00:33 GMT

PARADISE, Calif. (AP) — On the day Paradise burned, Gwen Nordgren stopped her car just long enough to rescue a young woman escaping by foot.By that time on Nov. 8, 2018, the sky was black even though the sun had been up for hours. Both sides of the street were on fire as Nordgren grabbed the woman’s hand.“Have you lived a good life?” she asked. The woman said she had.“So have I,” said Nordgren, the president of the Paradise Lutheran Church council. “We’re going to say the Our Father and we’re going to drive like hell.”Nordgren has told that story countless times in the five years since the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history nearly erased a quiet community in the Sierra Nevada foothills. There are thousands more stories like it, each one providing a frame for one of the worst wildfires in U.S. history.Five years later, some — like Nordgren — are sharing their stories freely and managing their post-traumatic stress enough to return ...

US Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and state Sen. John Whitmire lead crowded field in Houston mayor’s race

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:00:33 GMT

HOUSTON (AP) — Voters in Houston headed to the polls Tuesday to elect the next mayor of the nation’s fourth-largest city, choosing from a crowded field that includes U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and state Sen. John Whitmire, two longtime Democratic lawmakers.Jackson Lee and Whitmire have dominated an open mayoral race that drew 17 candidates to the ballot and one write-in candidate — and has been focused on issues of crime, crumbling infrastructure and potential budget shortfalls. If elected, Jackson Lee would be Houston’s first Black female mayor. Since 1995, she has represented Houston in Congress. Whitmire has spent five decades in the Texas Legislature, where he has helped drive tough-on-crime policies while also casting himself as a reformer.If no candidate manages to get more than half of the vote on Tuesday, the top two will head to a runoff, which would be held Dec. 9.Jackson Lee, 73, and Whitmire, 74, have touted their experience in a race to lead one of the youngest major ...

The Supreme Court takes up a case that again tests the limits of gun rights

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:00:33 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up a challenge to a federal law that prohibits people from having guns if they are under a court order to stay away from their spouse, partner or other family members. The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in their first case about guns since last year’s decision that called into question numerous gun control laws.The federal appeals court in New Orleans struck down the law following the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision in June 2022. That high-court ruling not only expanded Americans’ gun rights under the Constitution, but also changed the way courts are supposed to evaluate restrictions on firearms.Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion for the court tossed out the balancing test judges had long used to decide whether gun laws were constitutional. Rather than consider whether a law enhances public safety, judges should only weigh whether it fits into the nation’s history of gun regulation, Thomas wrote.The Bruen decision ...

Civilians fleeing northern Gaza’s combat zone report a terrifying journey on foot past Israeli tanks

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:00:33 GMT

BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip (AP) — What was once Gaza’s busiest thoroughfare has become a terrifying escape route for Palestinian civilians fleeing combat on foot or on donkey carts. On their way south, those running for their lives said they raised their hands and waved white flags to move past Israeli tanks along the four-lane highway. Some reported Israeli soldiers firing at them and said they passed bodies strewn alongside the road.Many escaped with just the clothes on their back. One woman, covered head-to-toe in a black veil and robe, cradled a toddler and clutched a black purse. A man walked alongside a covered donkey cart that transported his family. It was piled high with mattresses.In the north of the Gaza Strip, Israeli ground forces backed by relentless airstrikes have encircled Gaza City, the base of Hamas ‘ power, since the weekend. They cut the strip in half and sought to drive Palestinians from northern Gaza as troops advanced. From early on in the war, now...