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Deported man is suspect in deadly California beatings

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LOS ANGELES — A man who was deported from the United States six times was expected in court Wednesday to face charges after police say he killed three people and injured four in attacks targeting sleeping homeless men in California.

Investigators believe Ramon Escobar, 47, began attacking the men at random on Sept. 8, shortly after he arrived in California from Houston, where he’s considered a person of interest in the disappearance of his uncle and aunt.

Escobar, who was believed homeless himself, likely targeted victims to rob them, Los Angeles police Capt. William Hayes told reporters Tuesday.

Detectives have seized a wooden baseball bat and bolt cutters that they believe were used to bludgeon men as they lay sleeping on the beach or on the street in Los Angeles and suburban Santa Monica, police said. All but one of the men was homeless.

Escobar was arrested Monday and was expected to be charged with murder and attempted murder as early as Wednesday, followed by his arraignment.

It wasn’t immediately known whether Escobar had an attorney who could speak for him.

Escobar was being held without bail but U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials have filed a detainer seeking to take him into custody if he is released, the agency said.

Escobar was first ordered removed from the country in 1988 and was deported to his native El Salvador six times between 1997 and 2011, ICE said in a statement Tuesday night.

He was released from ICE custody last year after successfully appealing his latest immigration case, ICE said. The agency didn’t indicate his current legal status.

However, Escobar has six felony convictions for burglary and illegal reentry, ICE said.

Escobar spent five years in prison for robbery starting in the mid-1990s, Hayes said. Records in Texas show Escobar has had arrests for vehicle burglary, trespassing, failure to stop, public intoxication and two assaults, most recently in November 2017. That case was described as a misdemeanour.

Texas authorities also want to talk to Escobar about the disappearances late last month of 60-year-old Dina Escobar and her brother, 65-year-old Rogelio Escobar, Houston police said in a statement.

Dina Escobar’s burned van was found in Galveston, Texas, a few days after she went looking for her brother. She was last seen Aug. 28, two days after her brother vanished, the statement said.

Dina Escobar’s daughter, Ligia Salamanca, told KTRK-TV in Houston earlier Tuesday that her cousin, Ramon Escobar, had never come across as violent and wasn’t a source of trouble for the family.

“She loved him as she would a son,” Salamanca said of her mother’s devotion to Ramon Escobar.

Salamanca said he had been looking for work and needed a place to stay, so he was taken in by his uncle, who went missing days later.

Investigators believe Escobar was the man who used a baseball bat to bash the heads of three homeless men sleeping on downtown Los Angeles streets before dawn on Sept. 16, police said in a statement. Two died.

Escobar is believed to be the man captured on surveillance video ransacking the pockets and belongings of some downtown Los Angeles victims.

Two homeless men sleeping on the beach were bludgeoned in the head early on Sept. 8 and Sept. 10, leaving one in critical condition, officials said.

Another man who apparently was sleeping on the beach was found dead under the Santa Monica Pier on Sept. 20. Steven Ray Cruze Jr., 39, of San Gabriel, had been beaten to death.

Authorities at first described him as homeless, but family and friends said the father of two, who loved to fish at the pier, worked boats in neighbouring Marina del Rey and sometimes camped out under the pier to avoid the long commute home.

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Follow Weber at https://twitter.com/WeberCM .

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Associated Press journalists Robert Jablon and John Antczak in Los Angeles, David Warren in Dallas and researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.

Christopher Weber, The Associated Press

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Kananaskis G7 meeting the right setting for U.S. and Canada to reassert energy ties

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Energy security, resilience and affordability have long been protected by a continentally integrated energy sector.

The G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, offers a key platform to reassert how North American energy cooperation has made the U.S. and Canada stronger, according to a joint statement from The Heritage Foundation, the foremost American conservative think tank, and MEI, a pan-Canadian research and educational policy organization.

“Energy cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the United States is vital for the Western World’s energy security,” says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and one of America’s most prominent energy experts. “Both President Trump and Prime Minister Carney share energy as a key priority for their respective administrations.

She added, “The G7 should embrace energy abundance by cooperating and committing to a rapid expansion of energy infrastructure. Members should commit to streamlined permitting, including a one-stop shop permitting and environmental review process, to unleash the capital investment necessary to make energy abundance a reality.”

North America’s energy industry is continentally integrated, benefitting from a blend of U.S. light crude oil and Mexican and Canadian heavy crude oil that keeps the continent’s refineries running smoothly.

Each day, Canada exports 2.8 million barrels of oil to the United States.

These get refined into gasoline, diesel and other higher value-added products that furnish the U.S. market with reliable and affordable energy, as well as exported to other countries, including some 780,000 barrels per day of finished products that get exported to Canada and 1.08 million barrels per day to Mexico.

A similar situation occurs with natural gas, where Canada ships 8.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to the United States through a continental network of pipelines.

This gets consumed by U.S. households, as well as transformed into liquefied natural gas products, of which the United States exports 11.5 billion cubic feet per day, mostly from ports in Louisiana, Texas and Maryland.

“The abundance and complementarity of Canada and the United States’ energy resources have made both nations more prosperous and more secure in their supply,” says Daniel Dufort, president and CEO of the MEI. “Both countries stand to reduce dependence on Chinese and Russian energy by expanding their pipeline networks – the United States to the East and Canada to the West – to supply their European and Asian allies in an increasingly turbulent world.”

Under this scenario, Europe would buy more high-value light oil from the U.S., whose domestic needs would be back-stopped by lower-priced heavy oil imports from Canada, whereas Asia would consume more LNG from Canada, diminishing China and Russia’s economic and strategic leverage over it.

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The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

As the nation’s largest, most broadly supported conservative research and educational institution, The Heritage Foundation has been leading the American conservative movement since our founding in 1973. The Heritage Foundation reaches more than 10 million members, advocates, and concerned Americans every day with information on critical issues facing America.

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Poilievre on 2025 Election Interference – Carney sill hasn’t fired Liberal MP in Chinese election interference scandal

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From Conservative Party Communications

Yes. He must be disqualified. I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty, a foreign government that would almost certainly execute that Canadian citizen.

 

“Think about that for a second. We have a Liberal MP saying that a Canadian citizen should be handed over to a foreign dictatorship to get a bounty so that that citizen could be murdered. And Mark Carney says he should stay on as a candidate. What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?

“Mark Carney is deeply conflicted. Just in November, he went to Beijing and secured a quarter-billion-dollar loan for his company from a state-owned Chinese bank. He’s deeply compromised, and he will never stand up for Canada against any foreign regime. It is another reason why Mr. Carney must show us all his assets, all the money he owes, all the money that his companies owe to foreign hostile regimes. And this story might not be entirely the story of the bounty, and a Liberal MP calling for a Canadian to be handed over for execution to a foreign government might not be something that the everyday Canadian can relate to because it’s so outrageous. But I ask you this, if Mark Carney would allow his Liberal MP to make a comment like this, when would he ever protect Canada or Canadians against foreign hostility?

“He has never put Canada first, and that’s why we cannot have a fourth Liberal term. After the Lost Liberal Decade, our country is a playground for foreign interference. Our economy is weaker than ever before. Our people more divided. We need a change to put Canada first with a new government that will stand up for the security and economy of our citizens and take back control of our destiny. Let’s bring it home.”

 

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