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Former SDPD detective pleads guilty to running illicit massage businesses

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:52 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- A former San Diego Police Department detective, along with his co-defendants, each pleaded guilty Tuesday in connection with a years-long operation involving five illicit massage businesses.According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Peter Griffin, 78, who left the police department in 2002, was connected to a scheme that exploited woman to engage in commercial sexual services under the guise of offering massages. National City repeals decades-old ban on cruising Griffin, along with Kyung Sook Hernandez, 58, Yu Hong Tan, 56, and Yoo Jin Ott, 46, owned and operated Genie Oriental Spa, Felicita Spa, Blue Green Spa, Maple Spa and Massage W Spa between 2013 and August 2022, officials said. The massage businesses were located in the San Diego area and in Tempe, Arizona.The DOJ says the defendants were recruiting and employing women to perform commercial sexual services in the businesses while benefiting financially from the illegal enterprises.The defendants were report...

Complaints about telecommunications companies increase as Rogers outage top of mind

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:52 GMT

TORONTO — Complaints about Canada’s telecommunications companies were up 12 per cent from a year ago, while a service outage at Rogers Communications last summer helped make the company the most complained-about provider for the first time, according to a new report.The mid-year report by the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services’ (CCTS) found Rogers led the way with 17.4 per cent of all complaints. The report tallied complaints about 144 companies received from Aug. 1, 2022 to Jan. 31. Nearly 7,500 complaints were accepted, of which 88 per cent were resolved.Rogers was the subject of 1,294 complaints, as its total for the six-month period rose 29 per cent compared with a year earlier.The number of complaints by Rogers customers about complete loss of service issues almost doubled, largely driven by the 187 complaints accepted by the CCTS related to the company’s outage on July 8 and dissatisfaction with the subsequent compensation it offered.Ro...

Liz Weston: ‘Bridge’ your way to Social Security

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:52 GMT

Delaying the start of Social Security benefits is a powerful way for retirees to cope with inflation, survive bad investment markets and reduce the risk they’ll run short of money. The advantages of waiting are so great that financial planners often recommend their clients tap other savings, such as retirement funds, to help them delay claiming.Employers could increase their workers’ financial security by offering a similar “bridge” strategy as part of 401(k)s and other workplace retirement plans, according to a study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. The bridge strategy would tap a worker’s retirement account to pay amounts roughly equal to the foregone Social Security checks.People can create such bridges on their own, of course. If Social Security projects your benefit at age 62 will be $1,500 a month, for example, you could set up automatic monthly withdrawals of that amount from your 401(k) at retirement. But having an employer offer the option could make...

Anonymous tip leads police to suspect in fatal Oshawa stabbing

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:52 GMT

Police in Durham Region are crediting an anonymous tip with leading them to the suspect in a fatal double stabbing.Adam Odette, 37, was wanted in the stabbing death of 26-year-old Katie Kainz on March 12, 2023, at a home on Simcoe Street in Oshawa.A second female was also stabbed, but survived.Odette’s photo was shared to the public by police, as they tried to track him down.On Tuesday, April 4, police say they received an anonymous tip from a caller who believed they had seen Odette, who has distinctive tattoos on his face and neck.Durham police have issued a Canada-wide warrant for an Oshawa man after two women were stabbed, one fatally. Photo: Durham Regional PoliceInvestigators attended 769 Wilson Rd. N. in Oshawa, where Odette was arrested without incident.He has since been charged with second-degree murder in Kainz’s death.“Members of our community remained vigilant and provided valuable tips which assisted in bringing this individual into custody,” pol...

Review: A different kind of underdog story in ‘Air’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:52 GMT

The new movie “ Air ” is technically about a shoe. There is nothing especially extraordinary about this shoe. As the Q-like Nike designer Peter Moore (Matthew Maher) explains, the last significant change to footwear was made some 600 years ago when the decision was made to differentiate the right and left feet. The Air Jordan is, at the end of the day, just another shoe. No one coos about how comfortable it is. No one waxes poetic about its performance enhancing abilities or how many podiatrists recommend it for sporting purposes. No one even tries it on. That’s because “Air,” directed by Ben Affleck from a smart script by Alex Convery, is not really about the shoe at all. Nor is it about Michael Jordan, who has exactly one line in the film and is mostly seen from behind and in silhouette. It is about the men – and they were all men – of Nike who defied the odds and signed the rookie despite being a very distant third to Adidas and Converse in the basketball sneaker game in 1984. Th...

Spain: Alleged smugglers of defense material to Russia held

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:52 GMT

MADRID (AP) — Spanish police said Wednesday that they had detained one Russian national and one Ukrainian national for their alleged smuggling of defense material to Russia in defiance of European Union sanctions.The National Police said that the two people were arrested in Spain’s northern Basque Country region on an undisclosed date.Customs agents aided in the police investigation that started in June 2021 when police detected what they suspected was an illicit operation to send double-use aeronautical equipment to Russia.The police said in a statement that they suspected the smuggling ring was meant to help Russia elude the European Union trade sanctions imposed on it following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.“The smuggling ring that has been broken was designed to supply military equipment for the aeronautic sector,” the National Police said.The smugglers had developed a “sophisticated” system of evading international customs controls, police said, that made the shipments ...

CP NewsAlert: Vancouver asks police to end tent encampment in Downtown Eastside

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:52 GMT

VANCOUVER — The City of Vancouver says it has asked police to help bring a close to a tent encampment in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. It says in a statement that it decided to act due to “the growing public safety risk” posed by the encampment on East Hastings Street.More coming.The Canadian Press

Trump arrest prompts Jesus comparisons: ‘Spiritual warfare’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:52 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — For the most devoted Trump conspiracy theorists, there are no coincidences and timing is everything.So when ex-President Donald Trump was arraigned Tuesday on charges that he falsified business records to obscure hush money payments in an effort to influence the 2016 election, some of his most ardent followers quickly noted the court appearance came during Christianity’s most sacred week, Holy Week, when many Christians commemorate Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.“Seems there was someone else who was tortured and crucified this week,” read one post on Gab, a platform popular with Trump supporters. A similar post on Telegram put Trump’s case in apocalyptic terms: “Good vs Evil. Biblical times. Divine timing.”Comparisons likening Trump to Christ were among the top online narratives about the Republican former president and his criminal charges circulating in the last several days, according to an analysis of online and social media content conducted by Zi...

Global takedown of cybercriminals behind malware operation

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:52 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — An online marketplace that trafficked in stolen login credentials, email user names and passwords, bank account data and other sensitive information has been dismantled, law enforcement officials in the United States and Europe announced Wednesday.Officials also have seized 11 domain names tied to the Genesis Market and arrested about 120 users across the world, including some in the U.S., according to the FBI and Justice Department, which participated in the operation.The market “falsely promised a new age of anonymity and impunity, but in the end only provided a new way for the Department to identify, locate, and arrest on-line criminals,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement.Genesis Market was created five years and since then has provided users with access to data taken from more than 1.5 million computers infected with malicious software, the department said.“Operation Cookie Monster,” the effort by law enforcement agencies in 17 countries, ...

UN: Ban on Afghan female staffers by Taliban unacceptable

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:52 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The U.N. said Wednesday it cannot accept a Taliban decision to bar Afghan female staffers from working at the agency, calling it an “unparalleled” violation of women’s rights.The statement came a day after the U.N. said it had been informed by Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban that Afghan women would no longer be allowed to work for the world body. That announcement came after the U.N. mission in the country expressed concern that its female staffers were prevented from reporting to work in eastern Nangarhar province.The Taliban decision is “an unparalleled violation of women’s rights, a flagrant breach of humanitarian principles, and a breach of international rules,” Wednesday’s statement said. The Taliban have not commented publicly on the ban and have not released a statement.The U.N. statement said several U.N. national female personnel have already experienced restrictions on their movements, including harassment, intimidation and detention.“The UN...