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Family pays tribute to New Mexico man killed by bear: ‘He was a strong person’

Relatives of Benjamin Halona remember his career as wildlife firefighter and his zeal for selling tamales

Relatives of a New Mexico man who was fatally mauled by a bear inside his home recently say they are choosing to remember his firefighting career and zeal for peddling tamales rather than his rare, brutal manner of death.

As Benjamin Halona’s sister, Gloria Halona, and her daughter, Samantha Vandever, put it, that is the least he deserved after the quiet dignity that he showed becoming a widower in February and subsequently grappling with health problems that required him to use a walker and a wheelchair to move around.

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© Photograph: Courtesy Harona family

© Photograph: Courtesy Harona family

© Photograph: Courtesy Harona family

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US man says ‘hold tight’ to loved ones after wife and toddler killed by lightning

Kameron Glasgow of Florida honors wife Kenya and daughter Kennedi at local vigil after last week’s tragedy

A Florida man whose wife and toddler daughter were killed by a lightning strike while he was near them recently has implored people to “hold … tight” to their loved ones.

Kameron Glasgow made that arresting remark to local media at a weekend gathering honoring the memories of his wife, Kenya, and two-year-old daughter Kennedi after they died on 23 August from an exceedingly rare cause.

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© Photograph: Dawna Moore/Alamy

© Photograph: Dawna Moore/Alamy

© Photograph: Dawna Moore/Alamy

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Ex-White House teleprompter operator fined $172,000 for Trump speech bets

Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Gabriel Perez wagered on Kalshi about words president used in speeches

A White House teleprompter operator who left his post amid accusations that he used inside knowledge to make bets on Donald Trump’s speeches on an online prediction market has been fined $172,000, according to federal regulators.

Gabriel Perez illicitly exploited “material, nonpublic information” that he gathered through his work for the president in order to place wagers on the Kalshi platform “for his personal benefit”, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) maintained in a news release on Friday.

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© Photograph: Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

© Photograph: Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

© Photograph: Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

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‘This whole thing’s a farce’: New Orleans Catholic church sex abuse settlement brings anger and shock

Survivors begin receiving letters with payment amounts months after $305m settlement agreement was struck

Survivors of child rape and other sexual abuse within New Orleans’s Roman Catholic archdiocese learned that $641,000 or so is the most they can individually get under a settlement approved in December to resolve a years-long bankruptcy protection case.

Those amounts were communicated in letters that hundreds of clergy abuse survivors participating in the New Orleans archdiocese’s bankruptcy began quietly receiving on Tuesday. The figures are well below a $2.4m jury verdict awarded to an unrelated Louisiana religious sexual abuse claimant in June 2025 after the state’s legislature temporarily eliminated filing deadlines for such cases.

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© Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

© Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

© Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

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Sonya Massey’s family says death of sheriff’s deputy who killed her ‘doesn’t feel like justice’

A cousin says death of Sean Grayson in prison ‘doesn’t give Sonya back her life or return her’ to her children

The death in prison of the former Illinois sheriff’s deputy convicted of murder after fatally shooting Sonya Massey in her home “doesn’t feel like justice to me”, a cousin of the woman has said in an emotional statement.

“It doesn’t give Sonya back her life or return her back to her [two] children”, who were aged 15 and 17 at the time of the killing, Sontae Massey wrote in the statement on Monday. Referring to Sonya Massey’s mother, the statement continued: “It doesn’t give my aunt back her daughter. And it doesn’t give our family the accountability were still waiting for …

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© Photograph: Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune via Getty Images

© Photograph: Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune via Getty Images

© Photograph: Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune via Getty Images

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Ex-mayor Dan Sullivan supports incumbent Dan Sullivan’s Senate bid against third Dan Sullivan

Endorsement of Republican incumbent over challenger with same name adds twist to unusual campaign in Alaska

Dan Sullivan supports Dan Sullivan against Dan Sullivan in Alaska’s US Senate election, says a former Alaskan mayor who recently backed the race’s Republican incumbent over a challenger sharing their name.

That development provided another of multiple absurd elements to Dan S Sullivan’s campaign for a third term in the US Senate, which – beside Mary Peltola, a former Alaska Democratic congresswoman – has drawn opposition from Dan J Sullivan.

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© Photograph: Mark Thiessen; Becky Bohrer/AP

© Photograph: Mark Thiessen; Becky Bohrer/AP

© Photograph: Mark Thiessen; Becky Bohrer/AP

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ICE agent jailed on allegations of breaking into ex-girlfriend’s apartment

Thomas Bailey, 58, faces charge of unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling near Covington, Louisiana

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer was jailed on Friday on allegations of breaking into a woman’s apartment.

Thomas Bailey, 58, faces a charge of unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling after his arrest by the sheriff’s office of St Tammany parish, Louisiana, the agency said in a statement.

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© Photograph: Aaron M Sprecher/Getty Images

© Photograph: Aaron M Sprecher/Getty Images

© Photograph: Aaron M Sprecher/Getty Images

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