FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (AP) — A jury convicted two men on Friday of charges related to human smuggling for their roles in an international operation that led to the deaths of a family of Indian migrants who froze while trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border during a 2022 blizzard. Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, an Indian national who prosecutors say went by the alias “Dirty Harry,” and Steve Shand, 50, an American from Florida, were part of a sophisticated illegal operation that has brought increasing numbers of Indians into the U.S., prosecutors said. They were each convicted on four counts related to human smuggling, including conspiracy to bring migrants into the country illegally. “This trial exposed the unthinkable cruelty of human smuggling and of those criminal organizations that value profit and greed over humanity,” Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andy Luger said. AP AUDIO: 2 convicted in human smuggling case after Indian family froze to death on US-Canada border AP correspondent Ed Donahue reports on a court case involving the border with Canada. “To earn a few thousand dollars, these traffickers put men, women and children in extraordinary peril leading to the horrific and tragic deaths of an entire family. Because of this unimaginable greed, a father, a mother and two children froze to death in sub-zero temperatures on the Minnesota-Canadian border,” Luger added. RELATED COVERAGE Prominent figure from Canada’s trucker protests against COVID-19 restrictions found guilty Mexico acknowledges Canada’s concerns about a Chinese auto plant, but says none exists Human smuggling trial witness says he was separated from a family hours before they froze to death The most serious counts carry maximum sentences of up to 20 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office told The Associated Press before the trial. But federal sentencing guidelines rely on complicated formulas. Luger said Friday that various factors will be considered in determining what sentences prosecutors will recommend. Federal prosecutors said 39-year-old Jagdish Patel; his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and 3-year-old son, Dharmik, froze to death Jan. 19, 2022, while trying to cross the border into Minnesota in a scheme Patel and Shand organized. Patel is a common Indian surname, and the victims were not related to Harshkumar Patel. The couple were schoolteachers, local news reports said. The family was fairly well off by local standards, living in a well-kept, two-story house with a front patio and a wide veranda. Experts say illegal immigration from India is driven by everything from political repression to a dysfunctional American immigration system that can take years, if not decades, to navigate legally. Much is rooted in economics and how even low-wage jobs in the West can ignite hopes for a better life. Before the jury’s conviction on Friday, the federal trial in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, saw testimony from an alleged participant in the smuggling ring, a survivor of the treacherous journey across the northern border, border patrol agents and forensic experts. Defense attorneys were pitted against each other, with Shand’s team arguing that he was unwittingly roped into the scheme by Patel. Patel’s lawyers, The Canadian Press reported , said their client had been misidentified. They said “Dirty Hary,” the alleged nickname for Patel found in Shand’s phone, is a different person. Bank records and witness testimony from those who encountered Shand near the border didn’t tie him to the crime, they added. Prosecutors said Patel coordinated the operation while Shand was a driver. Shand was to pick up 11 Indian migrants on the Minnesota side of the border, prosecutors said. Only seven survived the foot crossing. Canadian authorities found the Patel family later that morning, dead from the cold. The trial included an inside account of how the international smuggling ring allegedly works and who it targets. Rajinder Singh, 51, testified that he made over $400,000 smuggling over 500 people through the same network that included Patel and Shand. Singh said most of the people he smuggled came from Gujarat state. He said the migrants would often pay smugglers about $100,000 to get them from India to the U.S., where they would work to pay off their debts at low-wage jobs in cities around the country. Singh said the smugglers would run their finances through “hawala,” an informal money transfer system that relies on trust. The pipeline of illegal immigration from India has long existed but has increased sharply along the U.S.-Canada border. The U.S. Border Patrol arrested more than 14,000 Indians on the Canadian border in the year ending Sept. 30, which amounted to 60% of all arrests along that border and more than 10 times the number two years ago. By 2022, the Pew Research Center estimates more than 725,000 Indians were living illegally in the U.S., behind only Mexicans and El Salvadorans. Jamie Holt, a Special Agent with Homeland Security Investigations, said the case is a stark reminder of the realities victims of human smuggling face. “Human smuggling is a vile crime that preys on the most vulnerable, exploiting their desperation and dreams for a better life,” Holt said. “The suffering endured by this family is unimaginable and it is our duty to ensure that such atrocities are met with the full force of the law.” One juror Kevin Paul, of Clearwater, Minnesota, told reporters afterward that it was hard for the jurors to see the pictures of the family’s bodies. He said he grew up in North Dakota and is familiar with the kind of conditions that led to their deaths. “It’s pretty brutal,” Paul said. “I couldn’t imagine having to do what they had to do out there in the middle of nowhere.” ___ Goldberg reported from Minneapolis.499 swertres result 。

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FORT MYERS, FL. — The Siena College men’s basketball team is set for its third straight Thanksgiving Week Tournament in the Sunshine State. The Saints continue play in the Fort Myers Tip-Off with a pair of Palms Division matinees Monday and Tuesday at Suncoast Credit Union Arena on the campus of Florida SouthWestern State College.Siena [...]

Lisa Simpson once said during an episode of “The Simpsons:” What could be more exciting than the savage ballet that is pro football? On Monday night, the entire Simpsons universe gets to experience it in a way not many could have imagined. The prime-time matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys will also take place at Springfield’s Atoms Stadium as part of “The Simpsons Funday Football” alternate broadcast. The altcast will be streamed on ESPN+, Disney+, and NFL+ (on mobile devices). ESPN and ABC have the main broadcast, while ESPN2 will carry the final “ManningCast” of the regular season. The replay will be available on Disney+ for 30 days. Globally, more than 145 countries will have access to either live or on replay. “We’re such huge football fans, and the Simpsons audience and the football audience, I feel, are like the same audience of just American families and football. And the Simpsons are so much a part of the DNA of the American family and culture that for us to, like, mush them together in this crazy video game, it’s so fun,” said Matt Selman, executive producer of “The Simpsons.” While the game is the focal point, the alternate broadcast, in some ways, will resemble a three-hour episode of “The Simpsons.” It starts with Homer eating too many hot dogs and having a dream while watching football. Homer joins the Cowboys in the dream while Bart teams up with the Bengals. Lisa and Marge will be sideline reporters. “That’s the beginning of the story, and the story continues through the entire game until Homer wakes up from his dream at the end of the game. It is like a complete story, and the NFL game will happen in between. It’s just going to be an amazing presentation with tons of surprises,” said Michael “Spike” Szykowny, ESPN’s VP of edit and animation. This is the second year ESPN has done an alternate broadcast for an NFL game. It used the for last year’s Sunday morning game from London between the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars. “The Simpsons” has featured many sports-themed episodes during its 35 seasons. Even though “Homer at the Bat” remains the consensus favorite sports episode for many Simpsons fans, there have been football ones such as “Bart Star” and “Lisa The Greek.” There also was a Super Bowl-themed one after Fox’s broadcast of Super Bowl 33 between Denver and Atlanta in 1999. Even though “The Simpsons” remains a staple on Fox’s prime-time schedule, it is part of the Disney family after their acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019. All 35 seasons are on Disney+. The show’s creators have worked with ESPN and the NFL to make sure the look and sound is definitely Simpsonsesque. The theme song is a mash-up of “The Simpsons” opening and “Monday Night Football’s” iconic “Heavy Action.” There have also been pre-recorded skits and bits to use during the broadcast featuring Simpson’s legendary voices Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, and Yeardley Smith. The telecast will be entirely animated, with the players’ movements in sync with what is happening in real-time on the field. That is done through player-tracking data enabled by the NFL’s Next Gen Stats system and Sony’s Beyond Sports Technology. While Next Gen Stats tracks where players are on the field with a tracking chip in the shoulder pads, there is skeletal data tracking and limb tracking data — which uses 29 points per player — to get closer to the player’s movements. The other data tracking will allow Beyond Sports and Disney to add special characters to the game. For example, there might be a play where Lisa catches the ball and goes 30 yards instead of Cincinnati’s Tee Higgins. “Lisa is much smaller than the rest of the players. So, in real life, the ball would go over her head, but now, with data processing, we can take the ball and make it go exactly into her hands. So for the viewer, it still looks believable, and it all makes sense,” said Beyond Sports co-founder Nicolaas Westerhof. The other major challenge is making “The Simpsons” two-dimensional cartoon characters into 3-D simulations. Szykowny and his team worked to make that a reality over the past couple of months. “That’s a big leap of faith for them to say, hey, we trust you to make our characters 3-D and work with it. Our ESPN creative studio team has done a wonderful job,” Szykowny said. Lisa, Krusty, Nelson, Milhouse and Ralph will be with Bart and the Bengals; while Carl, Barney, Lenny and Moe join up with with Homer and the Cowboys. The broadcast will also feature ESPN personalities Stephen A. Smith, Peyton Manning and Eli Manning. ESPN’s Drew Carter, Mina Kimes and Dan Orlovsky will call the game from Bristol, Connecticut, and also be animated. They will wear Meta Quest Pro headsets to experience the game from Springfield using VR technology. For Kimes, being part of the broadcast and being an animated Simpsons character is a dream come true. She is a massive fan of the show and has a framed photo of Lisa Simpson — who she said is a personal hero and icon — as part of her backdrop when she makes appearances on ESPN NFL shows from her home in Los Angeles. “I didn’t have any input, and I didn’t see anything beforehand, so I wasn’t sure if it would look like me, but it kind of does, which is very funny,” said Kimes, who drew Simpsons characters when she was a kid. “To see the actual staff turn me into one was a dream.” Even though have struggled this season, Selman thinks both teams have personalities that appeal to “The Simpsons” universe. “We were just so lucky also that the Cowboys are sort of like a Homer Simpson-type team, American team, and Mike McCarthy might be a Homer-type guy, one might imagine,” he said. ”And then you have Joe Burrow on the other side who is a cool young, spiky-haired, blonde bad boy -- he’s like Bart. And that fits our character archetypes so perfectly. “If Homer is mad at Bart and has a hot dog dream while watching ’Monday Night Football’, and then it’s basically McCarthy versus Burrow, Homer versus Bart, and that’s the simple father versus son strangling — Homer strangling Bart dynamic that has been part of the show for 35 years. I don’t know if that would have worked as well if it was like Titans versus Jacksonville. We would have found something. We would have made it work.” AP NFL:Fort Worth-area retailers gear up for Small Business Saturday sales

Boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. has reached an agreement to purchase a New York City building for more than $20 million, per TMZ Sports . TMZ Sports reported that the building currently has offices, a diamond exchange and a large billboard. "I used to shop in the diamond exchange as a young adult," Mayweather said in a statement, per TMZ Sports. "I never thought I would end up owning this important property at the entrance of 47th Street. Through hard work and dedication anything is possible." Per Suzannah Cavanaugh of The Real Deal, Mayweather reached a $402 million deal to buy more than 60 buildings (totaling over 1,000 units) in New York City. The buildings are mostly in Upper Manhattan. TMZ Sports reported that Mayweather wants to provide affordable housing to families. Mayweather has done quite well for himself financially, especially after his career ended. Corinne Dorsey of Yahoo! Finance had this to report last February. "Based on recent evaluations up until 2023, Mayweather's estimated net worth currently stands at $1.2 billion. Predicting his financial standing for 2024 is difficult due to the inherent volatility of investments and the multifaceted nature of his business ventures. Nevertheless, considering his track record, it's foreseeable that Mayweather's net worth could reach a whopping $1.5 billion by 2024." Now Mayweather has added another huge asset to his portfolio as the calendar year winds down. This article will be updated soon to provide more information and analysis. For more from Bleacher Report on this topic and from around the sports world, check out our B/R app , homepage and social feeds—including Twitter , Instagram , Facebook and TikTok .

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Christmas is filled with traditions, and one of the favorites at Christ Community Church is the congregation singing “Silent Night” by candlelight. “Christmas does play a big part in this story,” said Pastor Todd Hertz, spokesman for the church, which has a main campus on Randall Road in the South Elgin/St. Charles area and satellite locations in Aurora, Streamwood, DeKalb and Huntley. “Christmas has always been very special. We have a lot of traditions.” This year was particularly special because it’s the church’s 40th anniversary and the final time founding Pastor Jim Nicodem, who is retiring next year, will lead the “Silent Night” rendition. The six couples who helped establish nondenominational Christ Community were part of a prayer group that decided they wanted a different kind of church experience, Hertz said. Church felt irrelevant to their lives and wasn’t a place they felt they could invite others to attend; they wanted something they could enjoy, he said. “The thinking was how can we reach people for Christ? How can we introduce people to Christ in a way that doesn’t feel old and stuffy?” Hertz said. The new church made its debut on Dec. 16, 1984, with the organizers deliberately choosing the holiday season because studies show that people are more open to attending services at that time of year, Hertz said. One of Christ Community Church’s many Christmas traditions is to place a large tree in the atrium of its main South Elgin/St. Charles campus church and surround it with a holiday train that runs continuously. (Christ Community Church) “It was a strategy to launch at Christmas. I think it had a lot to do with the growth,” Hertz said. Nicodem was chosen as their first pastor. He and his family lived on the East Coast, but Nicodem was familiar with the area because he graduated from Wheaton College. Getting the word out was done by going door to door to tell people about the new venture, passing out pamphlets, and inviting family and friends to attend. They had 150 people at the first service, Hertz said. It grew quickly from there, and they began holding services at a St. Charles movie theater that was part of a shopping center anchored by a Kmart store. It didn’t take long for it to become known as the “Kmart” church and the “blue light special” church, the latter a nod to the store’s practice of announcing special sales by turning on a blue light,Hertz said. Within five years, the church had 700 members. It was time to build its own meeting place. Forty acres of land — a former alfalfa field — at Bolcum and Randall Roads were purchased in 1990. An extension campus in DeKalb followed in the early 1990s, and now there are locations in Aurora, Streamwood and Huntley as well. Attendance at the St. Charles/South Elgin church is about 2,500 weekly with another 1,300 congregants worshipping at the other locations, Hertz said. This year, Christ Community’s Christmas services culminated in a teaching series looking at the life of Jesus through the eyes of Mary, his mother, including the nativity story, he said. “This series has been really impactful for the people in the church. I think whenever we lead up to Christmas, we want to focus on Jesus,” Hertz said. The series has provided a different perspective that created a lot of excitement among the congregation, he said. Christmas traditions are special because “they tie us back to when we were young, to our families, to really good memories,” Hertz said. “I think they are really important, especially in hard times like the last several years. We’ve had political division and wars and things like that. I think these traditions do something to comfort us,” he said. For 40 years, Nicodem has been part of those traditions. He will step down in May but will stay involved in the church, Hertz said. Well-known Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman, seen here performing at the GMA Dove Awards in 2016, will help Christ Community Church in South Elgin celebrate its 40th anniversary with a concert on Feb. 21 (Wade Payne/Invision/AP) “He’s handing the leadership to two other pastors on staff. He’s ready to let new voices lead,” he said. And Christ Community will celebrate its anniversary from February through March with 40 days for 40 years. Among the events planned are comedy club featuring Christian comic Jaron Myers and a Feb. 21 concert by well-known Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman, who has 59 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, five Grammy awards and an American Music Award. (Tickets go on sale Jan. 1.) The church also commissioned a documentary film about its founding that’s to premiere at the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles in the spring. Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.Cheryl Hines Faces Backlash Over Video of RFK Jr. Showering in MAHA Promo

Some users are experiencing a bug after updating to Windows 11 24H2 where sound levels are unexpectedly increasing to 100 percent, and it's mainly happening on gaming-focused PCs. There are no error messages or indications other than suddenly loud volume. As of a few days, Microsoft has confirmed the bug and found that it occurs when one or more of the... Mikael Markander , Joel LeeToday, 25th December is a very special day for all of us. Our nation marks the 100th Jayanti of our beloved former Prime Minister, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ji. He stands tall as a statesman who continues to inspire countless people. Our nation will always be grateful to Atal Ji for architecting India’s transition into the 21st century. When he took oath as PM in 1998 our country had passed through a period of political instability. In about 9 years, we had seen 4 Lok Sabha elections. The people of India were getting impatient and sceptical about governments being able to deliver. It was Atal Ji who turned this tide by providing stable and effective governance. Coming from humble roots, he realised the struggles of the common citizen and the transformative power of effective governance.Daltonganj: In an interesting electoral outcome, Muslim votes, though not directly cast for the saffron party, inadvertently helped BJP candidate Kushwaha Shashibhushan Mehta retain his Panki assembly constituency seat for the second consecutive term. While Muslims didn't vote for the BJP, their support for Mumtaz Ahmad Khan of the Azad Samaj Party, who secured over 22,000 votes, proved crucial in Mehta's victory margin of about 9,000 votes. IPL 2025 mega auction IPL Auction 2025: Who got whom IPL 2025 Auction: Updated Full Team Squads Mehta's main challenger was independent candidate Devender Kumar Singh (Bittu Singh), who had been expelled from Congress. Initially, Bittu Singh led by 11,000 votes, with political observers predicting his victory. However, his fortunes reversed dramatically. Khan's candidature emerged as the decisive factor in Bittu Singh's defeat, effectively helping BJP's Mehta secure another term. According to political analysts, without Khan's presence and the subsequent split in Muslim votes, the outcome might have favoured Bittu Singh. Congress candidate, Laal Suraj, known until recently as a Hindutva advocate, failed to gain Muslim support. While Bittu Singh enjoyed popularity among Muslim voters, Khan's presence split their votes, ultimately benefiting Mehta, who is perceived as a neo-Hindutva leader. "I won the election. It's people's grace," Mehta said.

SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:SSNC) Shares Acquired by Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc.Lisa Simpson once said during an episode of “The Simpsons:” What could be more exciting than the savage ballet that is pro football? On Monday night, the entire Simpsons universe gets to experience it in a way not many could have imagined. The prime-time matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys will also take place at Springfield’s Atoms Stadium as part of “The Simpsons Funday Football” alternate broadcast. The altcast will be streamed on ESPN+, Disney+, and NFL+ (on mobile devices). ESPN and ABC have the main broadcast, while ESPN2 will carry the final “ManningCast” of the regular season. The replay will be available on Disney+ for 30 days. Globally, more than 145 countries will have access to either live or on replay. “We’re such huge football fans, and the Simpsons audience and the football audience, I feel, are like the same audience of just American families and football. And the Simpsons are so much a part of the DNA of the American family and culture that for us to, like, mush them together in this crazy video game, it’s so fun,” said Matt Selman, executive producer of “The Simpsons.” While the game is the focal point, the alternate broadcast, in some ways, will resemble a three-hour episode of “The Simpsons.” It starts with Homer eating too many hot dogs and having a dream while watching football. Homer joins the Cowboys in the dream while Bart teams up with the Bengals. Lisa and Marge will be sideline reporters. “That’s the beginning of the story, and the story continues through the entire game until Homer wakes up from his dream at the end of the game. It is like a complete story, and the NFL game will happen in between. It’s just going to be an amazing presentation with tons of surprises,” said Michael “Spike” Szykowny, ESPN’s VP of edit and animation. This is the second year ESPN has done an alternate broadcast for an NFL game. It used the characters from “Toy Story” for last year’s Sunday morning game from London between the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars. “The Simpsons” has featured many sports-themed episodes during its 35 seasons. Even though “Homer at the Bat” remains the consensus favorite sports episode for many Simpsons fans, there have been football ones such as “Bart Star” and “Lisa The Greek.” There also was a Super Bowl-themed one after Fox’s broadcast of Super Bowl 33 between Denver and Atlanta in 1999. Even though “The Simpsons” remains a staple on Fox’s prime-time schedule, it is part of the Disney family after their acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019. All 35 seasons are on Disney+. The show’s creators have worked with ESPN and the NFL to make sure the look and sound is definitely Simpsonsesque. The theme song is a mash-up of “The Simpsons” opening and “Monday Night Football’s” iconic “Heavy Action.” There have also been pre-recorded skits and bits to use during the broadcast featuring Simpson’s legendary voices Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, and Yeardley Smith. The telecast will be entirely animated, with the players’ movements in sync with what is happening in real-time on the field. That is done through player-tracking data enabled by the NFL’s Next Gen Stats system and Sony’s Beyond Sports Technology. While Next Gen Stats tracks where players are on the field with a tracking chip in the shoulder pads, there is skeletal data tracking and limb tracking data — which uses 29 points per player — to get closer to the player’s movements. The other data tracking will allow Beyond Sports and Disney to add special characters to the game. For example, there might be a play where Lisa catches the ball and goes 30 yards instead of Cincinnati’s Tee Higgins. “Lisa is much smaller than the rest of the players. So, in real life, the ball would go over her head, but now, with data processing, we can take the ball and make it go exactly into her hands. So for the viewer, it still looks believable, and it all makes sense,” said Beyond Sports co-founder Nicolaas Westerhof. The other major challenge is making “The Simpsons” two-dimensional cartoon characters into 3-D simulations. Szykowny and his team worked to make that a reality over the past couple of months. “That’s a big leap of faith for them to say, hey, we trust you to make our characters 3-D and work with it. Our ESPN creative studio team has done a wonderful job,” Szykowny said. Lisa, Krusty, Nelson, Milhouse and Ralph will be with Bart and the Bengals; while Carl, Barney, Lenny and Moe join up with with Homer and the Cowboys. The broadcast will also feature ESPN personalities Stephen A. Smith, Peyton Manning and Eli Manning. ESPN’s Drew Carter, Mina Kimes and Dan Orlovsky will call the game from Bristol, Connecticut, and also be animated. They will wear Meta Quest Pro headsets to experience the game from Springfield using VR technology. For Kimes, being part of the broadcast and being an animated Simpsons character is a dream come true. She is a massive fan of the show and has a framed photo of Lisa Simpson — who she said is a personal hero and icon — as part of her backdrop when she makes appearances on ESPN NFL shows from her home in Los Angeles. “I didn’t have any input, and I didn’t see anything beforehand, so I wasn’t sure if it would look like me, but it kind of does, which is very funny,” said Kimes, who drew Simpsons characters when she was a kid. “To see the actual staff turn me into one was a dream.” Even though the Bengals (4-8) and Cowboys (5-7) have struggled this season, Selman thinks both teams have personalities that appeal to “The Simpsons” universe. “We were just so lucky also that the Cowboys are sort of like a Homer Simpson-type team, American team, and Mike McCarthy might be a Homer-type guy, one might imagine,” he said. ”And then you have Joe Burrow on the other side who is a cool young, spiky-haired, blonde bad boy -- he’s like Bart. And that fits our character archetypes so perfectly. “If Homer is mad at Bart and has a hot dog dream while watching ’Monday Night Football’, and then it’s basically McCarthy versus Burrow, Homer versus Bart, and that’s the simple father versus son strangling — Homer strangling Bart dynamic that has been part of the show for 35 years. I don’t know if that would have worked as well if it was like Titans versus Jacksonville. We would have found something. We would have made it work.” AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

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