List of All Articles with Tag 'rica'

Economists are divided over whether South Africa’s central bank will pause interest-rate increases on Thursday, or extend its

India’s Deccan Gold Mines Ltd. has rallied to its highest share price since 2008 after it went on

BofA Global Research on Thursday cut China's economic growth forecast for this year to 5.1% on a disappointing

Chad Doerman, an Ohio father accused of murdering his three sons, had been plotting the killings for months, according to court documents. “The defendant gave a statement during an audio and video recorded interview, during which he admitted to having been thinking about shooting his sons since October,” said the bill of particulars which was obtained by WCPO. Mr Doerman hadn’t slept in the three or four days leading up to the murders because “the thoughts of having to kill his sons was so heavy on him,” it added. The document sets out the series of events that led up to when the father allegedly killed his sons aged three, four and seven. After Mr Doerman came home from work early, he asked his wife and the three boys to join him for a nap in the master bedroom, the bill states. While the rest of the family were situated in the master bedroom, Mr Doerman’s 12-year-old stepdaughter was watching television in the family room. That room housed a Marlin Model HC .22 rifle, WCPO reported. As his family lay down to nap, Mr Doerman removed the rifle from its safe and began loading a magazine into it, the outlet said, before shooting one of his sons twice. His wife reportedly tried to help the child while yelling for her other boys to run. The 12-year-old moved to the master bedroom in time to witness the first shots fired, according to the document. She ran after one of her brothers, yelling for him to run away, but Mr Doerman shot the boy as he ran, causing him to fall, and allowing his father to shoot him again at close range, the outlet wrote. The 12-year-old then picked up another of her brothers and carried him out of the house, the document continues. But Mr Doerman caught up to the pair as they approached the road. He raised his weapon and told his stepdaughter to put her brother down, it said. Apparently out of ammunition, Mr Doerman tried to fire again but it the gun didn’t work, allowing the boy to run to his mother, who was trying to help her son who had been shot outside. The step-daughter ran toward the local fire department, telling a passerby who stopped her that “her father was killing everyone.” Mr Doerman then went up to his wife and the third boy. He bit his wife to try to get to his son, the document says. As they fought, Mrs Doerman was able to grab hold of the rifle but her husband fired, shooting her through her thumb. This caused her to drop the third boy, who Mr Doerman allegedly then shot in the head. “After the defendant executed all three boys, he sat on the side stoop of the residence” and watched his wife try to save her children, the outlet reported. The document says that the father fired nine shots: one boy was shot once, the other two were each shot four times. According to the sheriff’s office, Mr Doerman faces 21 counts: 9 counts of aggravated murder, 8 counts of kidnapping, and 4 counts of felonious assault. His first court appearance was on June 16, one day after the killings. Mr Doerman pleaded not guilty; the judge ordered his bond to be set for $20 million. “This is the most serious offense that we have on the books, judge,” said David Gast, assistant Clermont County prosecutor, during the first court appearance. “This is it. You can’t commit a more serious offense.” Clermont County Prosecutor Mark Tekulve announced in June that his office plans to seek the death penalty for Mr Doerman. “My goal is to have this man executed for slaughtering these three young boys,” Mr Tekulve said. “It is an incomprehensible act of horror that he perpetuated on this family.” Read More Ohio father accused of killing his 3 young sons indicted on murder charges Heartbreaking 911 calls reveal mother’s panic after husband ‘executed’ three young sons Father of man who executed his three young sons shares disbelief: ‘He just snapped’

In March, unable to legally obtain abortion care in Texas, Samantha Casiano was forced to carry a nonviable pregnancy to term, and gave birth to a three-pound baby who died hours later. Ms Casiano is among 13 women denied emergency abortion care under state law who are suing the state in a landmark case that is now in front of a Texas judge. In harrowing, historic courtroom testimony in Austin on 19 July, Ms Casiano and two other plaintiffs described their agony, isolation and heartbreak as they detailed their traumatic, life-threatening pregnancies and the state’s failure to care for them. As she described her experience to the court through tears, Ms Casiano vomited from the witness stand. “I watched my baby suffer for four hours,” she said in her testimony. “I am so sorry I couldn’t release you to heaven sooner. There was no mercy for her.” Abortion rights legal advocacy group Center for Reproductive Rights Texas filed the lawsuit on behalf of the women in March to force Texas authorities to clarify emergency medical exceptions to the state’s overlapping anti-abortion laws, marking the first-ever case brought by pregnant patients against such laws. Their testimony has underscored the depth of impacts from Texas laws and similar anti-abortion laws across the country, with abortion access stripped away for millions of Americans who are now exposed to dangerous legal and medical minefields during their pregnancies. The conflicting exemptions for medical emergencies in Texas have resulted in widespread confusion among providers and hospitals fearing legal blowback or severe criminal penalties, according to abortion rights advocates. Healthcare providers in the state found in violation of those laws could lose their medical license, face tens of thousands of dollars in fines, or receive a sentence of life in prison. The plaintiffs “suffered unimaginable tragedy” directly because of the state’s anti-abortion laws, Center for Reproductive Rights attorney Molly Duane said in her opening arguments. Texas officials and the state’s medical board have “done nothing” to clarify the law, she said. “I feel like my hands are tied,” said Houston obstetrician-gynecologist Dr Damla Karsa. “I have the skill, training and experience to provide care but I’m unable to do so. It’s gut-wrenching. I am looking for clarity, for a promise that I’m not going to be prosecuted for providing care.” Attorneys for the state have sought to dismiss the case altogether, arguing in court filings that the women lack standing to challenge the law because it is ultimately uncertain they will face similar complications again, that their “alleged prospective injuries are purely hypothetical”, and that some of the plaintiffs admitted they have since “struggled to become pregnant” again after their traumatic experiences. Amanda Zurawski, the lead plaintiff in the case, is still hoping to become pregnant after her life-threatening pregnancy. She called the state’s argument “infuriating and disgusting and ironic.” “Do they not realise the reason why I might not be able to get pregnant again is because of what happened to me as a result of the laws that they support?” she told the court. “Anybody who’s been through infertility will tell you it is the most isolating, grueling, lonely, difficult thing a person can go through.” ‘I wished I was dreaming. I knew I wasn’t’ Ms Casiano, a mother of four, was hoping for a girl. When she visited her physician for a checkup last September, “all of a sudden the room went cold” and quiet, she testified. Her daughter was diagnosed with anencephaly, a fatal birth defect in which a baby is born without parts of a brain or skull. “My first thought was … ‘maybe it’s a surgery, maybe she can be fixed,’ and then she said, ‘I’m sorry, but your daughter is incompatible with life, and she will pass away before or after birth,’” Ms Casiano said. “I felt cold,” she said. “I was hurt. I wished I was dreaming. I knew I wasn’t. I just felt lost.” A case worker at her obstetrician’s office gave her a pamphlet with funeral homes. She was prescribed antidepressants. She could not be referred for abortion care anywhere in the state. Texas was the first to implement a near-total ban on abortion, months before the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion last June, a decision that triggered a wave of state laws and legislation from anti-abortion lawmakers and governors to restrict care and threaten providers with criminal penalties. Amanda Zurawski endured several rounds of fertility treatments, tests, surgeries and misdiagnoses before learning she was pregnant in May of last year. “We were at first in shock … we were over-the-moon excited,” Ms Zurawski said. But her obstetrician discovered that she dilated prematurely, and soon after her membranes ruptured, draining amniotic fluid and endangering the life of her expected child. Doctors informed her there was nothing they could do under what was recently enacted state law, despite knowing with “complete certainty we were going to lose our daughter,” she said. The condition led to life-threatening sepsis. Doctors ultimately induced labor. Her daughter, which she named Willow, was not alive when she delivered. Ms Zurawski and her husband are still trying for pregnancy, but the trauma has closed one of her fallopian tubes, and a doctor had to surgically reconstruct her uterus. They also are considering in vitro fertilization, surrogacy and adoption. She previously testified to members of Congress about her experience, a story she will continue to tell, even if it is “excruciating” to do so, she told the Texas courtroom. “I know that what happened to me is happening to people all over the country. … So many people are being hurt by similarly restrictive bans,” she said. She has spoken out “because I can, and I know a lot of people who are experiencing or will experience something similar who can’t speak out, and it’s for those people I will,” she said. Healthcare providers caring for pregnant patients in the months after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade have faced severe obstacles for providing standard medical care in states where abortion is effectively outlawed, leading to delays and worsening and dangerous health outcomes for patients, according to a first-of-its-kind report released earlier this year. Individual reports from patients and providers like those named in the Texas lawsuit have shed some light on the wide range of harm facing pregnant women in states where access to abortion care is restricted or outright banned. But reporting from the University of California San Francisco captures examples from across the country, painting a “stark picture of how the fall of Roe is impacting healthcare in states that restrict abortion,” according to the report’s author Dr Daniel Grossman. More than a dozen states, mostly in the South, have effectively outlawed or severely restricted access to abortion care after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization last June. The decision has also opened new legal challenges, ones that could once again reshape the future of abortion access in America, while anti-abortion lawmakers and Republican candidates face a public that is overwhelmingly against such bans. ‘I don’t feel safe to have children in Texas anymore’ Ashley Brandt sent a picture of an ultrasound to her husband when she found out she was pregnant with twins. But after her 12-week ultrasound last May, doctors discovered one of the twins had acrania, in which the skull of the fetus is not formed, and brain tissue is exposed to amniotic fluid. The condition is fatal. Despite no chance of the twin’s survival, Ms Brandt was not eligible under Texas law for a procedure called a selective fetal reduction; Twin A still had some signs of life, like muscle spasms and cardiac activity. They traveled to neighbouring Colorado for care, and she returned home the day after the procedure. She gave birth to her daughter in November. “If I had not gone out of state and just done what was legal in Texas, my daughter … would likely have been in the [neonatal intensive care unit],” she said. “All of my ultrasounds leading up to labor I would have had to watch twin A … deteriorate more and more, every ultrasound. … I would have to give birth to an identical version of my daughter without a skull, without a brain, and I would have to hold her until she died, and I would have to sign a death certificate, and hold a funeral.” She said the state has failed to account for medical emergencies like hers. “I don’t feel safe to have children in Texas anymore,” she said. “It was very clear that my health didn’t really matter, that my daughter’s health didn’t really matter.” Read More ‘I felt I couldn’t tell anyone’: The stigma of abortion keeps women silent. It’s time for us to shout Ohio voters are likely to decide the future of abortion rights One year after Roe v Wade fell, anti-abortion laws threaten millions. The battle for access is far from over

A Canadian work permit for US H1-B visa holders hit its cap of 10,000 applicants in only 48 hours.

Argentina’s state-run energy company refused to accept a cargo of liquefied Russian natural gas it had agreed to

Asian stocks are poised for a cautious open as the US posted modest gains in a choppy session

During a Republican-led oversight committee hearing regarding IRS whistleblowers connected to a probe into President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, Marjorie Taylor Greene showed explicit photos of the president’s son on posters. The Georgia Republican held up a series of posters with images of Hunter Biden naked and photos of him engaging in sexual acts at the Congressional hearing on Wednesday. “Marjorie Taylor Greene is literally showing dick pics at our Oversight Hearing,” California congressman Robert Garcia tweeted. “Marjorie Taylor Greene is currently brandishing Hunter Biden nudes during a House hearing. I’m not going to post it. Disgusting,” journalist Aaron Rupar tweeted, adding: “Your taxpayer dollars paid for Marjorie Taylor Greene to print Hunter Biden nudes on poster board so she could pull this stunt during a House hearing.” The Lincoln Project tweeted: “The GOP is getting teachers fired for teaching sex ed while the GOP shows porn on the House floor.” Florida Republican Byron Donalds came to her defence: “According to @RepRaskin & @danielsgoldman, the explicit images of Hunter Biden presented by @RepMTG are TOO RACY for the Oversight Committee & demanded they go away. These are the same Democrats that want this material IN OUR KIDS’ SCHOOLS. Please spare me the outrage.” “I wonder how many hours MTG has spent reviewing the Hunter Biden videos and images. Deep and penetrating analysis,” lawyer Brad Moss mused. “Before we begin, I would like to let the committee and everyone watching at home that parental discretion is advised,” the Georgia Republican said as she started her questioning. “Hunter recorded multiple sex tapes with a prostitute he had paid for out of his law firm’s bank,” one poster read. On another poster, which depicted a blown up airline ticket, Ms Greene pointed to Hunter Biden’s name saying it showed that he purchased the ticket “for this woman,” she said, pointing to a woman’s naked bottom half. She then asked the witness: “I would like to point out that if he was purchasing a plane ticket for her for sex and traveling across state lines, do you believe that to be a violation of the Mann Act?” The Mann Act, a federal law, makes it illegal to transport “any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.” The witness didn’t fully answer the question when the Georgia congresswoman held up another explicit photo, saying “Hunter Biden paid for this woman to do this with him.” The House panel’s top Democrat Jamie Raskin at one point interjected: “Should we be displaying this in the committee?” New York Democratic Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also called out the Georgia Republican’s moves, seeming to point out similarities between claims against Hunter Biden and Florida Rep Matt Gaetz: “If the gentlelady from Georgia wanted to follow evidence, we should also take a look at, hypothetically ... sex trafficking charges against a 17-year-old girl…” Prosecutors investigated whether Mr Gaetz may have been involved in a scheme to traffic a 17-year-old girl. However, in February the Department of Justice told him that no charges would be brought against him. Mr Gaetz had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Read More Biden’s latest campaign video is a Marjorie Taylor Greene speech Marjorie Taylor Greene attacks special counsel Jack Smith as ‘little b****’ for Democrats Republican claims of Biden family ‘corruption’ are being undermined by their own whistleblowers GOP claims of Biden family ‘corruption’ undermined by their own whistleblowers Watch live: IRS agent Gary Shapley testifies on Hunter Biden investigation IRS whistleblowers to testify to Congress as they claim 'slow-walking' of Hunter Biden case

Carlee Russell made a series of suspicious internet searches in the days before she claimed to have been abducted, Alabama authorities revealed at a press conference on Wednesday. A forensic analysis of Ms Russell’s cell phone, work and home computers found she looked up information about the movie Taken, Amber Alerts, booking a bus ticket from Birmingham to Nashville and “how to take money from a register without being caught”, Hoover Police Department Nicholas Derzis told reporters. The searches shed light on the 25-year-old’s mindset leading up to when she claimed to have been kidnapped after seeing a toddler walking along the side of Interstate 459 on 13 July, Mr Derzis said. Police had been unable to verify Ms Russell’s allegations, and she has since refused to be interviewed, he added. According to authorities, Ms Russell left work at the Woodhouse Spa in the Summit luxury shopping mall in Birmingham at about 8.20pm on 13 July. She called 911 at 9.34pm that night to report seeing a toddler wandering on the side of Interstate 459. When police officers arrived, they found her red Mercedes still running and her belongings, including a wig, phone, Apple Watch and purse, but no sign of her or the toddler. An analysis of Ms Russell’s phone found that she drove for 600 yards, or six football fields, while on the 911 call claiming she was observing a toddler, Mr Derzis said. Ms Russell turned up on foot at her parents’ home in Hoover 49 hours later, and claimed she had been kidnapped and barely survived. At Wednesday’s press conference, Mr Derzis revealed that Ms Russell was seen taking items from Woodhouse Spa before leaving work. Detectives conducted a brief interview with Ms Russell in hospital, where she claimed to have been abducted by a man with orange hair and a bald spot “who came out of the trees”. She claimed the man picked her up and forced her into a car, and the next thing she remembered she was in the trailer of an 18-wheeler semi, Mr Derzis said. Ms Russell told police that she heard a woman and a baby in the semi, but didn’t see them. She claimed to have escaped from the trailer, before being recaptured and taken to a house, where her alleged captors forced her to undress and pose for photographs. She told detectives she was placed in a car, and was able to escape and flee into woods and came out near her home. Detectives noted she had a minor injury in her lip, and a torn shirt. They also found $107 in cash tucked in her right sock. “Out of respect for Carlee and her family, detectives did not press for additional information in this interview, and made plans to speak with her in detail after giving her time to rest,” Mr Derzis said. The Secret Service analysed her phone and computers, and found internet searches that are “very relevant to this case,” Mr Derzis said. On July 11, Ms Russell searched: “Do you have to pay for amber alert or search”. On the day of her alleged abduction, she searched “how to take money from a register without being caught”. She also searched for a one-way bus ticket from Birmingham to Nashville departing that day, Mr Derzis said. She also searched for Taken, a 2008 thriller about an abduction starring Liam Neeson. “There were other searches on Carlee’s phone that appear to shed some light on her mindset, but out of respect to her privacy we will not be releasing the content of those searches at this time,” the police chief said. “We’ve asked to interview Carlee a second time, but we have not been granted that request. As you can see there are many questions left to be answered, but only Carlee can provide those answers. “What we can say is that we’ve been unable to verify most of Carlee’s initial statement made to investigators, and we have no reason to believe that there is a threat to public safety.” Read More Carlee Russell - latest: Alabama police throw cold water on dramatic kidnapping tale during press conference Carlee Russell’s employer breaks silence on ‘sensitive’ investigation into her bizarre disappearance Alabama police find ‘no evidence’ Carlee Russell was trying to help toddler on highway when she disappeared

Clashes between police and protesters lead to two deaths in the city of Kisimu.

Oregon officials have identified Jesse Lee Calhoun of Portland, as a person of interest in the deaths of four women that police say are linked, law enforcement sources told The Associated Press. The 38-year-old has not been officially named as a person of interest or charged with any crimes related to the investigation. On Monday, nine different police departments released a joint statement saying the deaths of Kristin Smith, 22; Charity Lynn Perry, 24; Bridget Leann (Ramsay) Webster, 31; and Ashely Real, 22, are linnked. All four women were found either near or on the sides of roads between February and May in the wider Portland area. Authorities have so far been unable to determine the victims’ cause and manner of deaths. Speaking anonymously with local media, officials have said the deaths could be the work of a serial killer. Read More Deaths of four women in Portland linked to person of interest, authorities say Police probe possible connection between deaths of six women in Oregon