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U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler said he was sorry Thursday after the New York Times obtained photos of him wearing blackface about two decades ago at a college Halloween costume party where he dressed as Michael Jackson.

The images emerged as Lawler, a first-term Republican, is locked in a competitive reelection fight for his congressional seat in New York’s Hudson Valley.

In a statement provided to The Associated Press, Lawler described himself as a lifelong Jackson superfan who was attempting to pay homage to the pop star.

The Times reported that the photo was taken in 2006 when Lawler was 20. In an image posted by the newspaper, Lawler can be seen wearing a red jacket and posing with an outstretched arm in one of Jackson’s signature dance moves. He used bronzer to darken his face.

A federal judge in Missouri put a temporary hold on President Joe Biden’s latest student loan cancellation plan on Thursday, slamming the door on hope it would move forward after another judge allowed a pause to expire.

Just as it briefly appeared the Biden administration would have a window to push its plan forward, U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp in Missouri granted an injunction blocking any widespread cancellation.

Six Republican-led states requested the injunction hours earlier, after a federal judge in Georgia decided not to extend a separate order blocking the plan.

The states, led by Missouri’s attorney general, asked Schelp to act fast, saying the Education Department could “unlawfully mass cancel up to hundreds of billions of dollars in student loans as soon as Monday.” Schelp called it an easy decision.

Three former Memphis police officers were convicted Thursday in the 2023 fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, but were acquitted of the harshest charges they faced for a death that sparked national protests and calls for broad changes in policing.

Jurors deliberated for about six hours before coming back with the mixed verdict for Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith.

All of them were convicted of witness tampering related to the cover-up of the beating, but Bean and Smith were acquitted of civil rights charges. Haley was acquitted of violating Nichols’ civil rights causing death, but convicted of the lesser charge of violating his civil rights causing bodily injury.

The union representing 45,000 striking U.S. dockworkers at East and Gulf coast ports has reached a deal to suspend their strike until Jan. 15 to provide time to negotiate a new contract, a person briefed on the matter says.

The union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, is to resume working immediately at least until January said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement has yet to be signed.

The agreement will allow the union and the U.S Maritime Alliance, which represents the shippers and ports, time to negotiate a new six-year contract. The person also said both sides reached agreement on wage increases, but details weren’t available.

In February, a prosecutor from a rural area outside Baton Rouge asked members of Louisiana’s Senate judiciary committee to imagine a frightening scene: You are home with your wife at 4 a.m. when suddenly a 17-year-old with a gun appears. The teenager won’t hesitate, District Attorney Tony Clayton said. “He will kill you and your wife.”

According to Clayton, teenagers were terrorizing the state without fear of consequences. The only way to stop them was to prosecute all 17-year-olds in adult court, regardless of the offense, and lock them up in prison. Law enforcement officials from around the state made similar arguments. Legislators quickly passed a bill that lowered the age at which the justice system must treat defendants as adults from 18 to 17.

But according to a review of arrests in the five months since the law took effect, most of the 17-year-olds booked in three of the state’s largest parishes have not been accused of violent crimes. Verite News and ProPublica identified 203 17-year-olds who were arrested in Orleans, Jefferson and East Baton Rouge parishes between April and September. A total of 141, or 69%, were arrested for offenses that are not listed as violent crimes in Louisiana law, according to our analysis of jail rosters, court records and district attorney data.

ON THE EVENING of January 6, 2021 — as the Capitol Police were doing final sweeps of ransacked buildings and senators were preparing to resume the electoral vote count — former President Donald Trump asked the White House switchboard to get Mark Martin on the phone.

A retired North Carolina Supreme Court justice, Martin was a key adviser to Trump’s multi-pronged fight to overturn his loss in November 2020. In discussions with aides and administration officials, Trump considered Martin’s counsel as important as that of attorney John Eastman, who’s currently under indictment in two states and may be disbarred in a third. Trump so trusted Martin that another legal adviser name-dropped him to bolster his own pitches.

As another election looms, one that is shaping up to be settled by courts, it’s crucial to examine the legal players who tried to reverse Trump’s defeat in 2020. But unlike Eastman and other Trump-aligned lawyers, Martin has largely escaped scrutiny for his contribution to the Big Lie effort, which culminated in a nine-minute call as Trump and his allies were still looking for ways to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence into handing Trump the election.

The huge asteroid that hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was not alone, scientists have confirmed.

A second, smaller space rock smashed into the sea off the coast of West Africa creating a large crater during the same era.

It would have been a “catastrophic event”, the scientists say, causing a tsunami at least 800m high to tear across the Atlantic ocean.

Dr Uisdean Nicholson from Heriot-Watt University first found the Nadir crater in 2022, but a cloud of uncertainty hung over how it was really formed.

A court in the Netherlands has fined a man for harassing and intimidating a woman on a street in Rotterdam, in the first conviction under a new law tackling sexual harassment in public spaces.

The 33-year-old man was fined €100 (£84) by a court in Rotterdam on Wednesday, months after he was accused of grabbing a woman on the street by the hips and holding her. The court set out an additional fine of €180 if he is caught reoffending.

In the Netherlands, journalists and onlookers reportedly packed into the court to hear the pioneering ruling. The court ruled that the man had touched the woman without her consent and “in a manner that could be considered frightening, hurtful and degrading”.

Following concerns that the law would be nearly impossible to enforce, a pilot project had dispatched undercover teams to roam the streets of Rotterdam, Utrecht and Arnhem and look out for catcalling and harassment.

Evidence from the team in Rotterdam was key to the conviction, as they told the court they had watched the woman react with shock and fear to the man’s actions before she rushed away.

In August, leaders of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Mikisew Cree First Nation and Fort Chipewyan Métis wrote a letter to the then-minister of Transport, Pablo Rodriguez.

"The Transport Canada dock in downtown Fort Chipewyan is the only alternative to the airport if the community is placed under an urgent evacuation alert," they wrote, particularly if evacuation by air is not possible.

"We went ahead and we said that we were going to go ahead with the contracting of the remediation of the dock to repair it, so we would be able to dredge the canal to the channel."

Once they found the contractor, Adam said, the company revealed to them that there were "heavy contaminants in the area," based on the 2017 report.

Adam said Transport Canada failed to notify the community about this issue.

'Tis the season ... A recent Ontario kids’ hockey game between seven and eight-year-olds was halted after parents and at least one coach started brawling in the stands. The violence broke out at the season-opening tournament for the Klevr League, which attracts some of Ontario’s best young players.

Look up at the night sky from a city — where most people live — and you'll see just a smattering of stars. Perhaps even an airplane or two.

But drive further out, past the glare of lights from houses, cars, office buildings and street lamps, and the stars reveal themselves in a way that few have truly seen.

Now, it seems the night sky is under attack not only from below, but from above, thanks to the rapid proliferation of satellites, mainly megaconstellations, which can contain hundreds or thousands of satellites. And leading the charge is SpaceX.

The company launched its first batch of 60 Starlink satellites in 2019. Soon, they were showing up in data from professional astronomical institutions.

Mountains of plastic waste from the fishing industry have covered the coast along the Valdes Peninsula in Argentina's Patagonia, threatening the lives of sea lions, fish, penguins and whales and also endangering human health.

The coasts of the peninsula on Argentina's Atlantic coast, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO for its natural beauty, have been dotted with crates, nets, buoys and other fishing tools thrown into the sea and washed ashore.

"These plastics are made up of chemicals and pollutants that can cause a number of diseases in both humans and marine fauna," said Diego Gonzalez, a biologist studying industrial fishing waste.

Reuters journalists captured scenes of animal carcasses decomposing among piles of plastic litter on the beach of Pico Sayago, while other critters continued to navigate around the trash.