News in Brief

Date: 11 November 2022 - 22:18

News ID: ۱۰۸۸۴۵

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago police are investigating a noose that was found at the construction site of the Obama Presidential Center on Thursday, an act the Illinois governor condemned as a symbol of racist hatred. “The Chicago Police Department is aware of this matter and it is under investigation,” police spokesperson Alex Aguas said in an email. The noose is a symbol for the lynching of thousands of former slaves and their descendants who were hunted down, killed, and often hung from trees in the Jim Crow period following the end of slavery in the United States in 1865. “The noose is more than a symbol of racism, it is a heart-stopping reminder of the violence and terror inflicted on Black Americans for centuries,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said on Twitter.

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WILBUR-BY-THE-SEA, Fla. (AP) — The remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole sent heavy rains falling from Georgia to New York on Friday as flooding and surging ocean waters receded from a stretch of Florida coastline where the most damaging impacts became evident after it made landfall as a hurricane. A man and a woman were killed by electrocution when they touched downed power lines in the Orlando area, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said. Another man died as waves battered his yacht against a dock in Cocoa, despite efforts to resuscitate him by paramedics who managed to get on board as the boat broke away from its moorings, Cocoa Police said.

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TEXAS (Reuters) - A federal judge in Texas on Thursday ruled that President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt was unlawful and must be vacated, delivering a victory to conservative opponents of the program. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of former Republican president Donald Trump in Fort Worth, called the program an “unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power” as he ruled in favor of two borrowers backed by a conservative advocacy group. About 26 million Americans have applied for student loan forgiveness, and the U.S. Department of Education has already approved requests from 16 million. Jean-Pierre said the department would hold onto their information “so it can quickly process their relief once we prevail in court.”

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ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — At least 12 people were killed when a gasoline tanker crashed on a major road and then exploded in Nigeria’s northcentral Kogi State, police said Friday. The tanker had a brake failure along a major road in the Ofu council area on Thursday night when it collided with a vehicle obstructing the highway, causing a fireball, a police spokesman said. The vehicle “crushed cars on the way” and “12 people were killed” — all burnt to death, said William Ovye Aya with the Kogi police command.

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LONDON (Reuters) - A British man who worked in the UK embassy in Berlin has pleaded guilty to eight offences under the Official Secrets Act related to passing on information useful to Russia. David Ballantyne Smith, who was living in Potsdam, Germany and was employed as a security guard at the embassy, was extradited to Britain from Germany following his arrest by German police in August 2021. The 58-year-old pleaded guilty to eight offences on Nov. 4. Judge Mark Wall lifted restrictions on reporting Smith’s pleas on Friday after the prosecution indicated it will not seek a trial on a ninth charge to which Smith pleaded not guilty.