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The Hunt: ‘Rare’ mass shooting in Germany prompts concerns about mental illness, terrorism, and guns

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:00:23 GMT

On this week’s edition of “The Hunt with WTOP national security correspondent J.J. Green,” Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, says Germans are shocked and worried. toggle audio on and off change volume download audio Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler speaks about how rare the most recent mass shooting was for Germany because of strict gun laws $(function () { $('.wtop-audio-container .fa-play').on('click', function(){ var audio_filename = $('div.wtop-audio-file').data("mp3-url"); ga('send', 'event', 'Audio', 'play', audio_filename); }); }); SIGN UP TODAY for J.J. Green’s new natio...

Kelly’s 21 lead UCF past Florida 67-49 in NIT

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:00:23 GMT

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — CJ Kelly scored 21 points and UCF beat No. 4 seed Florida 67-49 on Wednesday night in the NIT.UCF (19-14) advances to the second round to play the winner of the Oregon-UC Irvine game.Kelly shot 9 for 13, including 2 for 4 from beyond the arc for the Knights. Taylor Hendricks scored 17 points and added eight rebounds. Ithiel Horton recorded 12 points and shot 5 for 10, including 2 for 6 from beyond the arc.Riley Kugel led the way for the Gators (16-17) with 13 points. Niels Lane and Myreon Jones each added six points. Florida lost eight of its last 11 contests, and went without its leading scorer, Colin Castleton, since Feb. 15 due to a broken hand.UCF took the lead with 11:52 left in the first half and never looked back. Hendricks led his team in scoring with 13 points in the first half to help put them up 35-26 at the break. UCF pulled away with a 9-0 run in the second half to extend a nine-point lead to 18 points. They outscored Florida by nine points in t...

Company gets a bit closer to raising $1.1B it needs for mine

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:00:23 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A mining company that wants to extract a collection of rare elements from beneath southeast Nebraska raised funds Wednesday toward its goal of finding the $1.1 billion it needs to build the mine that has been in the works for decades.Shareholders of a special purpose acquisition company called GX Acquisition Corp. II overwhelmingly approved merging with NioCorp, a Centennial, Colorado-based mining company, according to a regulatory filing. About $15 million from the deal will go to NioCorp, the company said.The GXII deal involves one of the risky shell companies once popular on Wall Street before many fell out of favor and had to be liquidated before they ever completed a deal. The SPACs, as they are known, are essentially companies created solely to merge with another business to invest in it.NioCorp shareholders also approved an $81 million financing deal with Yorkville Advisors Global last week.But the mine the company hopes to build about 80 miles (130 kilomet...

Rockslide briefly closes I-70 near Vail 

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:00:23 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — Interstate 70 was briefly closed in both directions Wednesday after a rockslide in Dowd Canyon, west of Vail.According to the Colorado Department of Transportation, the rocks slid from the north side of the highway, landing in the eastbound and westbound lanes. The largest rocks were the size of "a couple of couches," according to a spokesperson. Campaign launched against Kroger-Albertsons merger Cam Conner caught the aftermath on video as he was driving through the area. CDOT said no injuries were reported and no vehicle damage has been reported. A spokesperson said rockfall is common in Dowd Canyon, especially during the spring.

Campaign launched against Kroger-Albertsons merger

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:00:23 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — A coalition formed against the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger has launched an opposition campaign in hopes of putting a stop to the effort.The "Stop the Merger" campaign urges people to write to the Federal Trade Commission to oppose the plan. It includes 100 organizations from around the country, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7, which represents workers at both grocery chains. What happens if you don’t have license plates in Colorado? "The mega-merger, currently undergoing FTC review, would drive out competition, increase food prices, create food deserts, and put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk as well as hurt local farmers and ranchers," the UFCW Local 7 wrote in a news release about the campaign.Kroger and Albertsons — the parent companies of King Soopers and Safeway — are asking for the FTC's approval in the $25 billion merger effort. Kroger is the country's second-largest grocer, while Albertsons is the fourth.Kroger,...

Denver donates bison to US tribes that seek to restore bond with animal

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:00:23 GMT

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — Dozens of bison from a mountain park outside Denver were transferred Wednesday to several tribes from across the Great Plains, in the latest example of Native Americans reclaiming stewardship over animals their ancestors lived alongside for millennia.Following ceremonial drumming and singing and an acknowledgment of the tribes that once occupied the surrounding landscape, the bison were loaded onto trucks for relocation to tribal lands. Campaign launched against Kroger-Albertsons merger About a half-dozen of the animals from Colorado will form the nucleus of a new herd for the Yuchi people south of Tulsa, Oklahoma, said Richard Grounds with the Yuchi Language Project. The herd will be expanded over time, to reestablish a spiritual and physical bond broken two centuries ago when bison were nearly wiped out and the Yuchi were forced from their homeland, Grounds said.He compared the burly animals' return to reviving the Yuchi's language — and said both language a...

Miami neighborhood on edge days after man fires semi-automatic rifle, striking home

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:00:23 GMT

Residents of a Miami neighborhood said their sense of security was taken away by a man captured on surveillance video unloading a barrage of bullets with a high-powered rifle in the middle of the night.The gunshots, discharged in the early hours of March 7 along Southwest 23rd Street, between 14th and 16th avenues, have left residents shaken.“I heard them at 2:47 a.m.,” said area resident Shirley Nashiro. “I don’t feel safe.”The semi-automatic blasts jolted people out of their sleep in this otherwise quiet section of the Magic City.“There’s a lot of children here now, and everybody’s scared,” said Beba Sardiña Mann with the Silver Bluff Homeowners Association.“Pretty unpleasant and somehow frightening,” said a man who lives in the neighborhood.Bullets sailed into a home on that Tuesday morning. Fortunately, no one inside the residence was injured.Residents of the home that was shot at declined to discuss the incident ...

Cemetery won’t sell plots, vaults and headstone together

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:00:23 GMT

You own a couple of cemetery plots along with the vaults and a headstone, but when you try to sell it all, the cemetery says no. Can you be blocked from selling your own property? It’s why one woman called Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser.When Ana was younger, she was smart enough to look ahead.Ana: “Planning, planning ahead in case we ever need it.”Back in 2010, she and her partner decided to take care of something many people don’t want to talk about: a cemetery plot.Ana: “And we bought it just in case something would happen to us. Our children would have a place to bury us.”They bought two cemetery plots at a Kendall cemetery from a person that included two burial vaults and a monument.Ana: “This was in 2010. I paid about $4,000.”Of course, things change in life, and Ana decided she no longer wanted to be buried.Ana: “I would like to be cremated. I don’t have any use for them right now.”So Ana listed her two plots with vaults and a stone.Little did she know sh...

Crumbled debris found platform at Forest Hills station

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:00:23 GMT

Crews were on scene at the MBTA’s Forest Hills station in Jamaica Plain on Wednesday after crumbled debris was found on the station’s Commuter Rail platform.The T said Wednesday night that the debris were padding materials used around ceiling joints. The T said the debris weighed less than one pound. “That could kill somebody,” one rider told 7NEWS. “That’s not very good at all.” The broken debris looked to have fallen from the station’s ceiling area above the platform during Wednesday’s morning commute. The T said both the MBTA and Keolis, which operates and maintains the Commuter Rail system, sent crews to the platform to investigate what happened. This incident happened just a matter of weeks after a ceiling tile fell at the Harvard MBTA station in Cambridge. Video showed the tile barely missing a woman walking nearby. The incident resulted in additional tiles being inspected and removed. After this latest incident at Forest Hills, riders reacted.“Th...

Jaylen Brown carries Celtics to scrappy victory over Timberwolves

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:00:23 GMT

Over their recent slide in which the Celtics have lost five of eight games, Joe Mazzulla has been preaching about the margins that decide the outcome of games. By his own admittance, the coach has been pissed off that his team hasn’t learned the importance of rebounding, and not giving up second-chance points, during critical moments.For one night, the Celtics flipped the script. And it was Grant Williams, who desperately needed a good moment, who came up big when they needed him the most.The Celtics led by two in the closing seconds as they fended off a late Timberwolves rally when Marcus Smart put up a wide-open 3-pointer that missed. But Williams was where he needed to be and corralled the rebound. The C’s couldn’t call a timeout as Williams wrestled with defenders with the ball and they had to settle for a jump ball, but Williams won the tip over Rudy Gobert, and a pair of free throws from Jayson Tatum sealed the win.It wasn’t pretty in Minnesota. The Celtics shot poorly from de...