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Florida GOP passes 6-week abortion ban; DeSantis signs it

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:42 GMT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Republican-dominated Florida Legislature on Thursday approved a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a proposal signed into law later in the day by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis as he prepares for an expected presidential run. The ban gives DeSantis a key political victory among Republican primary voters as he prepares to launch a presidential candidacy built on his national brand as a conservative standard bearer. The governor’s office said in a statement late Thursday that he had signed the legislation.The six-week ban will take effect only if the state’s current 15-week ban is upheld in an ongoing legal challenge that is before the state Supreme Court, which is controlled by conservatives. The policy would have wider implications for abortion access throughout the South in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade and leaving decisions about abortion access to states. Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi hav...

Warmly welcomed, ‘Cousin Joe’ jokes of staying in Ireland

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:42 GMT

DUBLIN (AP) — In Ireland this week, well wishers have lined the streets to catch a mere glimpse of President Joe Biden. Photos of his smiling face are plastered on shop windows and one admirer held a sign that read: “2024 – Make Joe President Again.”No wonder Biden keeps joking about sticking around. Back home, Biden’s approval rating is near the lowest point of his presidency. And even some Democrats have suggested he shouldn’t run for reelection. On trips within the U.S. to discuss his economic and social policies, Biden often gets a smattering of admirers waving as he drives by, and friendly crowds applaud his speeches. But the reception doesn’t compare with the overwhelming adoration he’s getting here in the old sod. Expect more of the same on Friday when Biden wraps up his visit to Ireland by spending a day in County Mayo in western Ireland, where his great-great grandfather, Patrick Blewitt, lived until he left for the United States in 1850. The l...

Workers at anti-poverty World Bank struggle to pay bills

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:42 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Andre Blount has been serving food to dignitaries at World Bank headquarters for nearly 10 years and says he has gotten exactly one raise — for 50 cents. This week, as leaders from around the world are in D.C for the spring meeting of the poverty-fighting organization, Blount and his coworkers are trying to bring attention to what they see as a galling situation:The workers who put food on the table for an organization whose mission is to fight poverty are themselves struggling to get by. Union leaders say a quarter of the World Bank food workers employed as a contract laborers through Compass Group North America receive public benefits, like SNAP, or food stamps, just to make ends meet.“It’s sickening,” Blount, 33, said as he joined red-shirted union members this week on a picket line outside the development bank on a hot afternoon. “They go around the world looking for how to help people, but you have hundreds of employees in D.C. who are struggling.”Inside...

Top 2024 hopefuls to address NRA convention after shootings

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:42 GMT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Last year it was Uvalde. Now it’s Nashville and Louisville. For the second year in a row, the National Rifle Association is holding its annual convention within days of mass shootings that shook the nation. The three-day gathering, beginning Friday, will include thousands of the organization’s most active members at Indianapolis’ convention center and is attracting a bevy of top Republican presidential candidates — enough that it could help shape the early part of next year’s GOP primary race.It illustrates the stark reality that such shootings have become enough of the fabric of American life that the NRA can no longer schedule around them. Nor do they really want to: The convention falls on the second anniversary of the mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis that killed nine people. The NRA calls the convention “one of the most politically significant and popular events in the country, featuring our nation’s top Second Amendment leaders.” Repub...

Shinkai sticking to what he knows best: Japan, youth, anime

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:42 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Makoto Shinkai doesn’t yet know the story he will tell in his next film, only that it will be about what he knows best. For one, it will be set in Japan, filled with those breathtakingly gorgeous landscapes he draws on his animation storyboards.If he were to set his film outside Japan, he would have to live in that city for at least several months.The narrative will almost certainly star a young hero or heroine, or both, with hearts of gold, who fearlessly embark on their coming-of-age journeys.All his recent films have those characteristics. It’s all he knows, Shinkai says, with a humble laugh.“I am not the kind of person with varied interests or many skills. I can only do one thing. I can only make my animation,” he told The Associated Press in a recent online interview from Los Angeles.He can’t even think of filmmakers or animators who have influenced him, except for being profoundly affected by Hayao Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro,’’ when he saw it as a ...

Landmark law saved whales through marine industries change

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:42 GMT

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — On a breezy spring day, scientists and conservationists methodically conducted experiments near 15 North Atlantic right whales that occasionally spouted and surfaced in a bay south of Boston.The pod of adults and calves is about 4% of the worldwide population of a marine mammal that almost disappeared from the planet after many decades of commercial whaling. There now are only a few hundred of the behemoths, which can weigh 70 tons (63.5 metric tons) and subsist on small ocean organisms.Although right whale numbers are dwindling, conservationists attribute their continued survival to the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The landmark federal law — a half century old this year — has forced the fishing and commercial shipping industries to take important steps to help protect the critically endangered whales. And it’s spurred government agencies and scientists to undertake research.David Wiley, research ecologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admini...

‘A reflection’: Stampede tarp auction an indicator of Alberta’s booming economy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:42 GMT

CALGARY — The amount of money that was flowing freely at the annual Calgary Stampede canvas auction Thursday night was just the sort of gusher that Alberta’s oil and gas industry likes to see.The event is typically considered a bellwether for Alberta’s energy industry, as many sponsors that pay to have their company names on chuckwagons competing in the festival’s rodeo are players in the energy sector. The province has traditionally had a boom and bust economy tied to the price of oil. With the price of West Texas Crude around $82 a barrel the sector is definitely in a boom position right now.Last year with the sport returning after the COVID-19 pandemic the 27 rigs taking part in the event raised $2.1 million or roughly $77,800 per bid.This year the total hit $2.75 million dollars or about $102,000 for each chuckwagon team.“We’re delighted that there were a few competitive bids which drove some numbers up and it’s about the families and what the...

China sanctions US Congress member for Taiwan visit

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:42 GMT

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China sanctioned a United States lawmaker Thursday for his visit to Taiwan, saying he violated the “One China” principle that says Beijing has sovereignty over the island.The mainland’s ruling Communist Party says Taiwan, which split from the mainland in 1949 amid a civil war, must be reunited with China by force if necessary. Beijing says Taipei has no right to conduct foreign relations and views visits by U.S. lawmakers to the island as violating its claims of sovereignty. The sanctions against Rep. Michael McCaul include freezing his assets and properties in China, prohibiting any organization or individual in China from conducting transactions or working with him, and denying him a visa to enter the country, according to a statement Thursday from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.It’s one of several rounds of sanctions China announced as tensions build between Beijing and Washington.China retaliated for U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s meet...

‘Quiet luxury’: No flash, no logos, but big-time style

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:42 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — They’re the biggest of brands. But with no logos. And that’s the whole point. Call it stealth wealth, or quiet luxury. For the rich and those who aspire, logo-free fashion with outsized price tags is having a moment — at least among people who can spend in the face of higher inflation and a volatile economy. It’s a come-and-go trend that, while spiking in the pandemic’s wake, traces its roots as far back as the American industrialists of the 19th-century Gilded Age and France in the 1700s. And retailers are taking note, as are more designers looking to capture not only the rich but their wannabes, too. Think Hollywood nepo baby and Goop multimillionaire Gwyneth Paltrow and her head-to-toe Prada, luxurious cashmere sweaters and Celine boots during her week in a Utah courtroom in a dispute over a ski crash. She was a picture of neutral-toned designer duds, and those who know luxury easily spotted the brands behind her staid, logoless, very price...

India’s stretched health care fails millions in rural areas

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:42 GMT

SURGUJA, India (AP) — Poonam Gond is learning to describe her pain by numbers.Zero means no pain and 10 is agony. Gond was at seven late last month. “I have never known zero pain,” she said, sitting in the plastic chair where she spends most of her days.The 19-year-old has sickle cell disease, a genetic blood disorder. Her medicine ran out weeks ago.Gond’s social worker, Geeta Aayam, nods as she bustles around Gond. She has the same disease — but, with better care, leads a very different life.Hundreds of millions of rural Indians struggle to access care for a simple reason: The country just doesn’t have enough medical facilities. India’s population has quadrupled since its independence in 1947, and an already fragile medical system has been stretched too thin: In the country’s vast countryside, health centers are rare, understaffed and sometimes run out of essential medicines. For hundreds of millions of people, basic health care means a daunting journey to a distant government-run ...