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Sibling Colorado election judges work in honor of their mother

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:58:32 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — Monday was National Election Hero Day. Ahead of Election Day, folks celebrated the workers who make sure every vote is counted.Many election judges sign up for the role to help their community, but for one pair of judges in Jefferson County, the meaning of the position is even deeper. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox Carissa Thompson and Mark Lauwers are siblings. The pair said they have always been close."We actually grew up in Pleasant View right down the road over there," Thompson said."We went to Golden High School together, and she went to CSU (Colorado State University) two years ahead of me," Lauwers said. "Brought me up there once and I was sold, so followed her up there." Still haven't voted on Prop HH? Here's what to know about it Tying the two even closer together was their mother, Teri, who wanted to be an election judge before her sudden passing last year."The two of us were talking about doing this together this yea...

Denver lawyer sentenced to 3 years in prison for stealing from investor

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:58:32 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — A former Denver lawyer was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for stealing from an investor.The attorney, Steven Bachar, pleaded guilty in September to a count of felony theft, according to the Denver District Attorney's Office."Mr. Bachar made several misrepresentations and omissions to secure the investment funds and never invested or repaid the money, instead spending most of the investor’s $125,000 for personal use," the DA's office wrote in a release.Bachar founded Denver-based Empowerment Capital and its subsidiary, Empowerment Law, the DA's office said. An investor wired him tens of thousands of dollars on two occasions after Bachar offered a stake in his companies' profits. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox Bachar instead spent the investor's money on things like credit card debt, personal expenses, meals and travel, and he paid nearly $32,000 of it to his ex-wife, according to the affidavit for his arrest.Denver Dist...

Dumping trash

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:58:32 GMT

Imagine looking out your window to a pile of trash that gets bigger day after day and nothing has been done about it for a year. What can be done? It’s tonight’s Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser.When the Potters walk out their front door, it’s into a nice neighborhood. Jill Potter: “I think our complex, they seem to be taking care of it.”Now look out Jill’s back window. Jill Potter: “Trash. Lots of trash.”The trash is on the swale behind their Pompano Beach condo. You name it, it’s here.Jill Potter: “There’s flooring. There’s kitchen cabinets. There’s furniture, mattresses, couches, bathtubs and toilets.”It’s been going on for a while. This is Google Maps from 2022 with the trash prominently in the picture. Jill Potter: “I don’t even have words for it. It’s just terrible that people think they can just drive up and dump trash anywhere.”Over the past year plus, Jill has...

Paradise Lost: Homeless woman living at Ft. Lauderdale airport — and she’s not alone 

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:58:32 GMT

The South Florida housing crisis has residents living on the edge. The prices of homes, apartments, insurance, and condo assessments keep going up and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight.Tonight, we begin a series of reports on this issue facing so many. 7’s Karen Hensel investigates: Paradise Lost. They look like tired travelers waiting for a flight. But take a closer look.These people are actually homeless and they are living inside Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.Rebecca: “Well, since right now, I am completely broke, so I’m not going anywhere. Just going, hiding in different parts of the airport.”Rebecca has lived here with her adult son and cat for almost a year. She says the airport is safer than the streets and overcrowded shelters.Rebecca: “You got cameras everywhere. You’ve got police.”She became homeless after her husband Brian died. She moved from Arizona to Florida for a fresh start.Rebecca: “I l...

Mitsotakis: Greece would participate in ‘safe’ sea corridor to Gaza

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:58:32 GMT

LONDON — Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said his country would consider participating in a sea corridor of humanitarian aid to Gaza if ships could operate with “full protection.”Speaking to POLITICO’s Power Play podcast, Mr Mitsotakis said he would discuss all available humanitarian aid options with French President Emmanuel Macron and Arab leaders at a high-level summit in Paris on Thursday.The Greek PM told host Anne McElvoy his nation would be well-placed to participate in a maritime corridor to help aid shipments to Gaza. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told last week’s edition of Power Play the U.K. was looking “at all the different ways” to get aid into Gaza, following reports that Britain, France and the Netherlands were considering plans for a maritime corridor.Mitsotakis said: “Because of our geography, if we can deliver humanitarian aid in an organized manner and ensure that this aid reaches those who actually nee...

Inside the King’s Speech: The British parliament’s weirdest tradition

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:58:32 GMT

Does anyone understand what’s going on with the King’s Speech? We certainly don’t. POLITICO commissioned our legendary constitutional expert to explain … As usual, they asked not to be named for this piece.LONDON — A person unschooled in the peculiarities of the state opening of the British parliament might assume that King Charles III was a powerful head of state.Central London — and even the airspace above Westminster — is closed off for the day so the king can ride to parliament in a grand horse-drawn carriage. Once he has changed into his ceremonial robes and imperial state crown, he and Queen Camilla will proceed through the royal gallery to the ornate House of Lords chamber. Finally, the king sits on a gleaming golden throne, surrounded by peers (members of the Lords) wearing ermine robes.If all this pomp and ceremony appears to place the king at the top of the power pyramid, with peers situated just below, humble members of parliament — the only elected part...

Biggest source of money laundering in Gaza hides in plain sight

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:58:32 GMT

Isabel Oakeshott is international editor at Britain’s Talk TV.A little over a fortnight after the Hamas attacks on October 7, global money-laundering experts gathered in Paris to discuss how to disrupt the flow of money to terrorists.Among the delegates were representatives from Interpol, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United Nations and the World Bank. Top of the agenda was the Middle East, with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — which monitors 40 countries’ efforts to tackle dirty money — at pains to highlight the challenges faced by those responsible for identifying and disrupting the increasingly complex and opaque structures and systems used to hide money by extremists.Orchestrating even small-scale atrocities and suicide bombings takes money; killing and maiming on the scale of October 7 costs millions. And against this backdrop, the global campaign to tackle illicit money flows has taken on new urgency. The stakes could not be higher, but when it comes...

Israel has only weeks to defeat Hamas as global opinion sours, former PM Ehud Barak says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:58:32 GMT

TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be digging in for a “long and difficult war” but former leader Ehud Barak fears Israel has only weeks left to eliminate Hamas, as public opinion — most significantly in the U.S. — rapidly swings against its attacks on Gaza. In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, the former prime minister and chief of the Israel Defense Forces also suggested a multinational Arab force could have to take control of Gaza after the military campaign, to help usher in a return of Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority to take over from Hamas. Even with that change of the political order in Gaza, however, Barak stressed the return to diplomacy aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state was a very remote prospect. Barak, who led Israel between 1999 and 2001, observed the rhetoric of U.S. officials had shifted in recent days with a mounting chorus of calls for a humanitarian pause in the fighting. The sympathy generated toward Is...

Macron faces make or break moment on immigration bill

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:58:32 GMT

PARIS — A highly contentious immigration bill is putting Macron’s governing coalition to a test — and might as well blow it up.The bill includes measures to legalize undocumented workers in some cases and speed up the removal of failed asylum seekers and migrants who have committed crimes on French soil.French senators started debating legislation that has been carefully tailored to embody “toughness and simplicity,” with measures that are both “tough against [foreign] delinquents” and inspired by “humanity,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said in his opening remarks at the Senate on Monday. The stakes are high for Macron’s troops, as a victory on the emotive topic of immigration would put Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally on the back foot ahead of European elections next year. But a defeat would give a boost to the opposition and fuel speculation that the French president has become a lame-duck president.Immigrati...

Why Charles III will hate every word of his first King’s Speech

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:58:32 GMT

LONDON — You’re an eco-warrior royal who’s waited 74 years to deliver his big speech to parliament. Then your prime minister spoils it all by throwing his anti-green agenda right in the middle of it.Expect an awkward moment for King Charles III Tuesday as he opens a new British parliamentary session by reading out Rishi Sunak’s legislative program for the year — complete with a big boost for the fossil fuel industry. The King’s Speech — Charles’ first as head of state — is a fixture of the U.K. political calendar, and a moment of high pomp starring a monarch who is constitutionally obliged to remain above the fray.But with a general election looming and Sunak struggling in the polls, this year’s speech offers the PM an irresistible opportunity to set out clear differences with the opposition Labour Party and show his deflated Conservative MPs he’s got a plan to turn things around.That means Charles — who has spent a lifetime warning about cl...