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Immigration fuels uptick in US population growth

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:51 GMT

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The number of immigrants to the U.S. jumped to the highest level in two decades this year, driving the nation’s overall population growth, according to estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.The United States added 1.6 million people, more than two-thirds of which came from international migration, bringing the nation’s population total to 334.9 million. It marks the second year in a row that immigration powered population gains.A decline in the number of deaths since the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic also contributed to the U.S. growth rate.Population gains stem from immigration and births outpacing deaths.After immigration declined in the latter half of last decade and dropped even lower amid pandemic-era restrictions, the number of immigrants last year bounced back to almost 1 million people. The trend continued this year as the nation added 1.1 million people.The last time immigration surpassed 1.1 million people was in 2001, according to Cen...

Macron in crisis after immigration showdown

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:51 GMT

PARIS ― French President Emmanuel Macron scored a Pyrrhic victory late Tuesday night after passing a flagship immigration bill in a vote that leaves his parliamentary coalition deeply scarred. The bill imposes a series of measures that have been heavily criticized by the left as pandering to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, while the far-right party claims the Macron government has been inspired by its long-time calls for foreigners to be excluded from state welfare benefits. A key part of the bill would now see social security benefits for foreigners conditional on being in France for at least five years, or 30 months for those who have jobs, echoing some of the National Rally’s longtime campaign lines.In a surprise move, the National Rally on Tuesday announced it would vote in favor of the latest version of the government’s bill, embarrassing the top brass of Macron’s party, who had to choose between passing a bill with far-right support or throwing in the t...

Holiday Helping: Brandon Gunnoe’s Peanut Butter Buckeyes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:51 GMT

7News Holiday Helping is back! In this edition, Brandon Gunnoe is making a favorite of his family’s – Peanut Butter Buckeyes.Order new 2023 recipes from the 7News team to get all of their favorite holiday recipes! Your donation will help Project Bread feed hungry families right here in Massachusetts.Check out other Holiday Helping recipes from the 7News team.

NASA laser message beams video of a cat named Taters back to Earth, and it’s a big deal

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:51 GMT

(CNN) — A laser communications experiment flying aboard NASA’s Psyche mission has beamed back a video to Earth from nearly 19 million miles (31 million kilometers) away — and the short clip stars a cat named Taters. It’s the first time NASA has streamed a video from deep space using a laser.In the ultra-high definition video, the playful orange tabby cat chases, of all things, the elusive red dot from a laser pointer as it moves across a couch.The cat video was transmitted to Earth from a flight laser transceiver as part of the Deep Space Optical Communications experiment, or DSOC. The technology could one day be used to quickly transmit data, imagery and videos as humans push the limits of space exploration by venturing to places like Mars.The 15-second video was encoded in a near-infrared laser and beamed from the Psyche spacecraft to the Hale Telescope at the California Institute of Technology’s Palomar Observatory. The video was downloaded at the observatory ...

Bruins tie game late, but lose to Wild in OT, 4-3

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:51 GMT

A tremendous night of entertainment at the Garden ended in disappointment again for the Bruins and renewed concern about frittering away leads.The B’s lost a third period lead for third time in four games and, though they tied it late to get a point., Kirill Kaprizov scored with 2:06 left in overtime to lift the Minnesota Wild to a 4-3 win.The B’s coughed up two third period goals but after Alex Goligoski high-sticked Charlie Coyle with 2:31, Brad Marchand tied it up with 1:06 left in the third. In a wild pile-up in front of Marc-Andre Fleury, Marchand pulled it out of the mass of humanity and roofed it over the gallant Fleury.Coyle then hit the post on a backhand attempt in the final minuteOn the winner, Jake DeBrusk missed the net, sending the Wild off on a 3-on-1. Joel Eriksson-Ek set up Kaprizov for his second goal of the game and the win.In their last Garden game before Christmas, the B’s gave their fans a good show in the first period to take a 2-1 lead on a ...

Colorado Supreme Court bans Trump from ballot

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:51 GMT

DENVER — A divided Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday declared former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House under the U.S.Constitution’s insurrection clause and removed him from the state’s presidential primary ballot, setting up a likely showdown in the nation’s highest court to decide whether the front-runner for the GOP nomination can remain in the race.The decision from a court whose justices were all appointed by Democratic governors marks the first time in history that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment has been used to disqualify a presidential candidate.“A majority of the court holds that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” the court wrote in its 4-3 decision.Colorado’s highest court overturned a ruling from a district court judge who found that Trump incited an insurrection for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but said he could not be barred fro...

Homicide victim found dead in 1979 near Las Vegas Strip ID’d as missing 19-year-old from Cincinnati

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:51 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A body discovered in an open field in 1979 near what is today a busy intersection of the Las Vegas Strip has been identified as a teenager from Ohio who had left home that year in search of her biological father, authorities announced Tuesday.She was 19-year-old Gwenn Marie Story, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. For 44 years, she was known only as “Sahara Sue Doe,” nicknamed for the intersection where she was found.Police said Tuesday that advancements in DNA testing led to the identification last month.According to police, a man discovered the body on the night of Aug. 14, 1979, while walking through a vacant lot near the northern edge of the Las Vegas Strip. She had wavy hair, and her fingernails and toenails were painted red.Today, the nearby Strat Hotel looms large over that intersection, which features the Sahara hotel-casino.Authorities believe the victim had died within 24 hours prior to the discovery, according to an entry de...

California’s top prosecutor won’t seek charges in 2020 fatal police shooting of Bay Area man

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:51 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California’s attorney general will not seek criminal charges against a police officer who in 2020 fatally shot a man outside a pharmacy in the San Francisco Bay Area amid national protests over the police killing of George Floyd, his office announced Tuesday.A Vallejo police officer fatally shot 22-year-old Sean Monterrosa on Jun 2, 2020, after responding to reports of suspects stealing from a pharmacy as peaceful protests and civil unrest swept across the country following Floyd’s killing a week earlier in Minneapolis. California Attorney General Rob Bonta found there was not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jarrett Tonn, who was a detective with the Vallejo Police Department at the time of the shooting, did not act in self-defense or in defense of his partner officers. “Sean Monterrosa’s life mattered and there is nothing that can make up for his death. His loss is and will continue to be felt by his family and the Bay Area communi...

Trump defends controversial comments about immigrants poisoning the nation’s blood at Iowa rally

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:51 GMT

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his comments about migrants crossing the southern border “poisoning the blood” of America, and he reinforced the message while denying any similarities to fascist writings others had noted. “I never read ‘Mein Kampf,’” Trump said at a campaign rally in Waterloo, Iowa, referencing Adolf Hitler’s fascist manifesto.Immigrants in the U.S. illegally, Trump said Tuesday, are “destroying the blood of our country, they’re destroying the fabric of our country.” In the speech to more than 1,000 supporters from a podium flanked by Christmas trees in red MAGA hats, Trump responded to mounting criticism about his anti-immigrant “blood” purity rhetoric over the weekend. Several politicians and extremism experts have noted his language echoed writings from Hitler about the “purity” of Aryan blood, which underpinned Nazi Germany’s systematic murder of millions of Jews and other “undesirables” before and during World...

California heroin dealers who used code words like ‘taco’ in phone orders get 24 years in prison

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:51 GMT

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Two Southern California brothers who ran a heroin-delivery operation — taking telephone orders from customers using code words like “taco” — have been sentenced to 24 years each in federal prison, prosecutors announced.Julio Cesar Martinez, 45, of Riverside, and Victor Martinez, 46, of Hemet, parts of California’s sprawling Inland Empire, were sentenced Monday. Both pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to distribute heroin and acknowledged distributing at least 29 kilograms (64 pounds) of the drug in Orange County, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.The ring operated from at least September 2003 to July 2021 and sold heroin that was smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico by couriers who sometimes hid the drug in their body cavities, the U.S. attorney’s office said.Call centers run out of workers’ homes handled orders from buyers who used the names of Mexican foods to buy drugs. A gram of heroin was a “taco” and an ...