A jury found an Illinois landlord guilty of murder and hate crime charges Friday for the brutal killing of a 6-year-old whose mother rented rooms in the man’s home, an attack that spiked fears over anti-Muslim discrimination in the earliest days of the war in Gaza.

Joseph Czuba, 73, was charged in the fatal stabbing of Wadee Alfayoumi and the wounding of his mother, Hanan Shaheen on Oct. 14, 2023, in Plainfield, about 40 miles from Chicago. Authorities alleged the family was targeted because of their Islamic faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas that erupted on Oct. 7, 2023.

Jurors deliberated less than 90 minutes before returning with the verdict.

“I don’t know if I should be pleased or upset, if I should be crying or laughing,” Wadee’s father, Odai Alfayoumi, said at a news conference, speaking in Arabic. “People are telling me to smile. Maybe if I were one of you, I would be smiling, but I’m the father of the child and I’ve lost the child. And I feel like this decision came to a little too late.”

Ben Crump, the national civil rights attorney representing Shaheen, released a statement calling the verdict a “measure of justice.”

“Wadee was an innocent six-year-old child whose life was stolen in an act of unimaginable violence fueled by hatred,” the statement added. “While we are relieved that his killer has been held accountable, we must continue to stand against the rising tide of hate that led to this senseless act. We must honor Wadee’s memory by continuing to fight against hate in all its forms and working toward a future where every child is safe, valued, and free from violence.”

Sheriff: Hackman likely dead for nine days

An examination of actor Gene Hackman’s pacemaker after the discovery of his body this week suggested that he died on Feb. 17, the sheriff of Santa Fe County said in a news conference Friday.

Sheriff Adan Mendoza said that after Hackman, 95, and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 65, were found dead in separate rooms of their New Mexico home, Hackman’s pacemaker was inspected and it showed that the “last event” occurred on that date, nine days before their bodies were discovered.

“According to the pathologist, I think that is a very good assumption that that was his last day of life,” the sheriff said. He added that both bodies tested negative for carbon monoxide.

Investigators combing through the secluded home outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, discovered common medication, medical records and a 2025 planner, according to a search warrant return released Friday.

The return, an inventory of items taken during a search of the home, specified that police had recovered thyroid medication, Tylenol and diltiazem, a drug often used to treat high blood pressure or chest pain.

VMI fires Black leader who backed diversity

The board of the Virginia Military Institute voted Friday against extending the contract of Maj. Gen. Cedric T. Wins, the college’s first Black superintendent.

The school’s board of visitors, which voted 10-6 not to extend Wins’ contract, did not give an official reason for the decision, which was made after a closed session that lasted more than two hours.

The move followed years of pushback from conservative alumni of the college who had objected to what they called Wins’ “woke” efforts to increase campus diversity. And it followed accusations from a Virginia state senator that the effort to remove him was racially motivated.

The school is the oldest state-supported military college in the country, and all students participate in reserve officers training, a pathway to leadership roles in the U.S. military. Wins, a VMI alumnus, was appointed to the job in 2021, although he began on an interim basis the previous year. He was responsible for removing the statue of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, a Confederate general, that had been prominently positioned on campus.

He also led efforts to increase diversity on campus following reports of “relentless racism” experienced by Black cadets published by the Washington Post in 2020, shortly before he took over. A subsequent state investigation concluded that there was a racist and sexist culture at VMI.

Extradited drug lord appears in N.Y. court

A Mexican drug lord notorious for his role in a U.S. drug enforcement agent’s brutal 1985 murder was arraigned on sweeping drug-trafficking charges in New York on Friday.

The arraignment of the drug lord, Rafael Caro Quintero, a founding member of the Sinaloa Cartel, came a day after he was transferred to the United States from Mexico in a move that potentially signaled a new era of cooperation between the two countries.

Caro Quintero was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn along with Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, a former leader of the Juarez Cartel.

Caro Quintero, 72, was charged in a superseding indictment in 2020 with smuggling thousands of kilograms of illegal drugs across the U.S. border as well as with a four-decade effort to murder his rivals. Carrillo Fuentes, 62, was charged in a separate indictment with similar crimes from 1990 to 2014.

Saritha Komatireddy, an assistant U.S. attorney, said at the arraignment that Caro Quintero had “pioneered the Mexican drug-trafficking industry.”

Today marks beginning of Ramadan holiday

For millions of Muslims worldwide, the fasting month of Ramadan begins on Saturday.

The start of the Muslim fasting month is traditionally determined by the appearance of the crescent moon, which can lead to slight variations depending on geographical location.

In countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, Lebanon, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan and Syria it was announced that March 1 has been designated as the first day of fasting. In the Palestinian territories, fasting will also begin on Saturday.

Ramadan is considered particularly sensitive to heightened tensions, especially in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Jerusalem.

Hamas hostage buried as truce talks continue

Mourners in Israel on Friday buried the remains of one of the final hostages released in the first phase of the ceasefire between Hamas militants and Israel, as negotiators discussed a second phase that could end the war in Gaza and see the remaining living captives returned home.

The funeral procession for Tsachi Idan, an avid soccer fan who was 49 when he was abducted by Hamas militants, began at a Tel Aviv football stadium en route to the cemetery where he was buried in a private ceremony.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Idan, taken from Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 2023 attack that left 1,200 dead in Israel and sparked the war in Gaza, was killed in captivity.

His body was one of four released by Hamas early Thursday in exchange for over 600 Palestinian prisoners, the last planned swap of the ceasefire’s first phase, which began in January.

Idan was the only one of his family taken to Gaza. His eldest daughter, Maayan, was killed as militants shot through the door of their saferoom. Hamas militants broadcast themselves on Facebook live holding the Idan family hostage in their home, as his two younger children pleaded with the militants to let them go.

Police investigating woman over K-pop kiss

South Korean police have summoned a Japanese woman for questioning after she was accused of kissing Jin, a member of K-pop supergroup BTS, without consent during a public event last year.

The Japanese woman, whose name was not revealed, was in a crowd of fans at the event in Seoul in June that celebrated Jin’s discharge from the South Korean military after his mandatory 18 months of service. Jin, whose real name is Kim Seok-jin, was offering hugs to his fans when the Japanese woman abruptly kissed him on his cheek.

Video footage that went viral showed Jin looking uncomfortable when a couple of female fans tried to kiss him.

Subsequently, someone filed a formal legal complaint on a government website, which authorities can react to if they consider them worthy of investigation.

Last Wyoming abortion clinic remains open

Wyoming’s only full-service abortion clinic stopped providing abortions Friday, but it remained open after Gov. Mark Gordon approved a law requiring that such facilities be licensed as surgical centers.

The clinic will still be staffed and continue to take phone calls from patients while challenging the new law in court, Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said.

“We want to ensure that we are navigating this process appropriately,” Burkhart said, adding that the clinic was “not abandoning people.”

The Casper clinic will provide neither surgical nor medication abortions while seeking a court order blocking the new law, Burkhart said.

Wellspring filed a lawsuit Friday to challenge the new law in Natrona County District Court. Gordon spokesman Michael Pearlman, citing policy not to comment on matters involving pending litigation, said Friday the Republican governor would have no comment on the bill signed late Thursday.

Greece brought to standstill by strike

A general strike in Greece on Friday halted trains and ferries, grounded flights and disrupted public services as thousands of workers walked off the job on the second anniversary of Greece’s worst-ever train disaster.

The 24-hour walkout, called by Greece’s two main labor unions, was the latest in a series of public protests over a dragging judicial investigation into the crash, in which 57 people were killed.

There is still lingering anger in the country over the government’s failure to put any of its politicians under scrutiny over the loss of life.

Rallies took place in Athens and across Greece, with protesters calling for those at fault in the crash to be punished and for rail safety to be improved.

Joseph Wambaugh, 88, wrote ‘The Onion Field’

Joseph Wambaugh, who wrote the gripping, true-crime bestseller “The Onion Field” and numerous gritty but darkly humorous novels about day-to-day police work drawn from his own experiences as a Los Angeles police officer, has died at 88.

A family friend said Wambaugh died Friday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and the cause was esophageal cancer.

The prolific author, who initially planned to be an English teacher, had been with the Los Angeles Police Department 11 years and reached the rank of sergeant when he published his first novel, “The New Centurions,” in 1971.

It took a hardened, cynical look at the lives of police officers and the stresses they face patrolling the often mean streets of Los Angeles.

He followed it with a similar novel, “The Blue Knight,” in 1972.

“If he didn’t invent the police novel, he certainly reinvented it,” Michael Connelly, author of bestselling Los Angeles cop novels, told the Associated Press in 2007.

— News service reports