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Man agrees to plead guilty in Basquiat artwork fraud scheme

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:48 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former Los Angeles auctioneer has agreed to plead guilty in a cross-country art fraud scheme where he created fake artwork and falsely attributed the paintings to artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. The paintings ultimately wound up at the Orlando Museum of Art in Florida before they were seized by federal agents last year in a scandal that roiled the museum and led to its CEO’s departure.Basquiat, a Neo-expressionist painter whose success came during the 1980s, lived and worked in New York before he died in 1988 at age 27 from a drug overdose. The Orlando Museum of Art scandal came in 2022 when a federal raid ended in the seizure of 25 paintings whose authenticity had been in question for a decade. The museum had been the first to display the artwork.Defendant Michael Barzman, 45, was charged Tuesday in federal court in Los Angeles with making false statements to the FBI during an interview last year, the U.S. Attorney’s O...

Lawsuit seeks to uphold closing California’s last nuke plant

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:48 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An environmental group on Tuesday sued to block Pacific Gas & Electric from seeking to extend the federal operating licenses for California’s last nuclear power plant. A complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court by Friends of the Earth asks the court to prohibit the utility from sidestepping its 2016 agreement with environmentalists and plant workers to close the twin-domed Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant by 2025. The possibility of a longer operating run emerged last year after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature opened the way for PG&E to seek an extended lifespan for the twin reactors. The company intends to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year to extend operations by as much as two decades.The operating license for the Unit 1 reactor expires next year and the Unit 2 license expires in 2025.Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth, said in a statement that “PG&E has been acting as if...

North Dakota governor signs trans athlete bans into law

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:48 GMT

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota’s Republican Gov. Doug Burgum on Tuesday evening signed two transgender athlete bans into law, effectively prohibiting transgender girls and women from joining female sports teams in K-12 and college.Lawmakers in the House and Senate passed the bills with veto-proof majorities this year. If the governor had vetoed the bills or refused to sign them, the bills likely would’ve still become law.At least 19 other states have imposed restrictions on transgender athletes. Republican lawmakers across the U.S. have drafted hundreds of laws this year to push back on LGBTQ+ freedoms, especially targeting transgender people’s everyday lives — including sports, health care, bathrooms, workplaces and schools.The Biden administration this month proposed a rule, which still faces a lengthy approval process, to forbid outright bans on transgender athletes.In 2021, Burgum vetoed a nearly identical bill that would have banned transgender girls from playing on girls’ ...

Fox attorneys in libel case reveal dual roles for Murdoch

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:48 GMT

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Attorneys defending Fox in a defamation case related to false claims about the 2020 election withheld critical information about the role company founder Rupert Murdoch played at Fox News, a revelation that angered the judge when it came up at a Tuesday hearing.It was not clear whether the development would affect a trial scheduled to begin Thursday with jury selection. Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox for $1.6 billion, saying it damaged its reputation by repeatedly airing false claims that the company helped orchestrate a fraud that cost former President Donald Trump re-election.The role of Fox executives is at the heart of the case. The company’s attorneys have sought to insulate members of the Murdoch family and to keep them from testifying live before a jury, arguing that their roles at the parent company, Fox Corp., put them at a distance from the Fox News shows that aired the bogus claims.Fox Corp. had asserted since Dominion filed its lawsuit in 20...

Review: Blood sloshes and Nicolas Cage feasts in ‘Renfield’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:48 GMT

“Renfield” is not Nicolas Cage’s first blush with a vampire.In 1988’s “Vampire’s Kiss,” he played a New York literary agent who thought he was an immortal bloodsucker. His bug-eyed performance was essentially the birth of the over-the-top, kabuki-inflected mythology of Cage. Years later, it would launch a thousand memes — a kind of digital version of becoming undead.Thirty-five years later with “Renfield,” Cage is finally playing the genuine article, complete with bloodthirsty fangs and a dapper velvet smoking jacket. Casting Cage, our grandest of ghouls, as Dracula is so predestined that it almost risks being too on the nose. The good news is that, no, he’s perfect as Dracula. The bad news is that Cage’s Dracula is only a supporting role here, making “Renfield” more of a tasty morsel than a satisfying feast.That’s no discredit to Nicholas Hoult, who plays Bram Stoker’s devoted henchman to Dracula in Chris McKay’s “Renfield,” which ope...

US, Panama and Colombia aim to stop Darien Gap migration

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:48 GMT

PANAMA CITY (AP) — The United States, Panama and Colombia announced Tuesday that they will launch a 60-day campaign aimed at halting illegal migration through the treacherous Darien Gap, where the flow of migrants has multiplied this year.Details on how the governments will try to curb the flow of migrants that reached nearly 90,000 in just the first three months of this year through the dense, lawless jungle were not provided in the joint statement. The ambitious announcement came as the Biden administration nervously awaits the expected end of a pandemic-related rule May 11 that has suspended rights to seek asylum for many. Without that instrument of dissuasion at the U.S. border, there is concern migrant arrivals could again become unmanageable.The joint statement said the countries will also use “new lawful and flexible pathways for tens of thousands of migrants and refugees as an alternative to irregular migration,” but again gave no details.The plan’s third element is investme...

US official: Top Biden aide, Saudi prince discuss Yemen war

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:48 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke by phone with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday amid signs that the Saudis and Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen are making “significant progress” toward finding a permanent end to their nine-year conflict, according to a senior administration official.The crown prince, often referred to by his initials MBS, has had a strained relationship with President Joe Biden over human rights and oil production concerns. But the de facto Saudi leader and the president’s top national security adviser decided to talk amid encouraging signs on winding down the long and bloody war, a top priority for Biden.The call came after Saudi diplomat Mohammed bin Saeed al-Jaber met with Houthi officials in Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Sunday for talks that were aimed at accelerating negotiations on ending the war, a senior administration official familiar with the conversation told The Associated Press. The offi...

Officers plead not guilty in Ronald Greene’s deadly arrest

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:48 GMT

FARMERVILLE, La. (AP) — Five Louisiana law enforcement officers pleaded not guilty Tuesday to state crimes in the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene, a death authorities initially blamed on a car crash before long-suppressed body-camera video showed white officers beating, stunning and dragging the Black motorist as he wailed, “I’m scared!”The arraignment came nearly five months after a grand jury handed up a list of charges ranging from negligent homicide to obstruction and malfeasance, the first indictments related to Greene’s bloody death on a roadside in rural northeast Louisiana. Greene’s family and several supporters attended the brief proceedings in Union Parish, calling for justice to be served nearly four years after Greene’s death. “Bring it,” Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, told reporters outside the courthouse. Charged in the case are four current and former Louisiana State Police troopers and one Union Parish sheriff’s deputy who responded to Greene’s a...

Biden celebrating peace, family history in Irish visit

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:48 GMT

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — President Joe Biden embarked Tuesday on a journey of diplomatic and family celebration, highlighting the U.S. role of 25 years ago in ending deadly bloodshed in Northern Ireland while catching up with distant relatives in the Republic of Ireland. It’s his first trip back as America’s president. Biden arrived in Belfast on Tuesday night and was greeted at the airport by United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. He will spend about half a day in the city on Wednesday, holding talks with Sunak before going to Ulster University to mark the Good Friday accord anniversary.The president will also “engage” with the leaders of Northern Ireland’s five main political parties but not as a group, the White House said.Monday marked a quarter-century since the Good Friday Agreement, signed on that day in April 1998, ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland that killed 3,600 people. Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, is observing the ...

Fire causes evacuation order in Indiana city near Ohio line

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:31:48 GMT

RICHMOND, Ind. (AP) — Authorities urged people to evacuate Tuesday near a large industrial fire in an Indiana city near the Ohio border that sent massive clouds of black smoke into the sky.The fire was in Richmond in Wayne County, 70 miles (112.6 kilometers) east of Indianapolis. Indiana State Police said the blaze was at the former Hoffco factory, which closed in 2009. Mayor Dave Snow described it as a “serious, large-scale fire.”“Many units are on scene,” Snow said on Facebook. “Please avoid this area if possible, as it is dangerous, and allow our first responders room to get this under control.”The evacuation order applied to people living within a half-mile (0.80 kilometer) of the fire. People outside that radius who live downwind of the fire were advised to keep windows closed and pets inside. Bethesda Worship Center offered temporary shelter for people forced out of their homes, while other agencies were trying to arrange hotel rooms if necessary, Pastor Ken Harris told ...