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Battenfeld: Is Maura Healey becoming just another drive-by governor?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:24 GMT

Is Maura Healey becoming just another drive-by governor?We’ve seen this movie before.Healey showed up in western Massachusetts on Wednesday for two quick events to survey flooding damage in that part of the state, and hours later was off to Atlantic City of all places for a governors’ conference.Then her office announced that after the conference, she’d be traveling to Michigan and wouldn’t be home until Sunday. Details about the Michigan trip were scant but she plans on Friday to meet with the “Michigan Women’s Commission” with other fellow governors. Maybe she can join them for a game of hoops.This comes as more torrential rains are possible later this week which could impact the already flooded areas of western Massachusetts.Healey has been out of state now overnight for four full weeks of her brief tenure as Massachusetts governor, leaving either Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll or Secretary of State William Galvin in charge.That’s a downright Romneyesque record. An...

Top general’s dismissal reveals new crack in Russian military leadership

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:24 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian general in charge of forces fighting in southern Ukraine has been relieved of his duties after speaking out about the problems faced by his troops in a move that reflected new fissures in the Russian military command following a brief rebellion by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, the commander of the 58th Army fighting in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, which is a focal point in the Ukrainian counteroffensive, said in an audio statement to his troops released late Wednesday that he was dismissed after a meeting with the top military brass.Popov said that the military leadership was angered by his frank talk about the challenges faced by his forces, particularly the shortage of radars tracking enemy artillery, which resulted in massive Russian casualties.“The top officers apparently saw me as a source of threat and rapidly issued an order to get rid of me, which was signed by the defense minister in just one day,” he said. ...

Climate activists block runways at 2 German airports, causing numerous flight cancellations

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:24 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Climate activists blocked flights at two German airports for several hours Thursday in protest against the most polluting form of transportation, and to demand tougher government action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.The group Last Generation said several of its members entered the grounds of Hamburg Airport around 6 a.m. (0400 GMT) and glued themselves to the runway on the first day of the school vacation in the north German city.Dozens of flights were canceled and 10 arrivals had to be diverted to other airports, Germany’s dpa news agency reported.Members of the group also cut through a security fence at Duesseldorf Airport in the west and blocked an access route to the runway, disrupting several flights before operations resumed.In a statement, the group accused the German government of lacking a strategy to tackle the climate crisis and called for immediate measures to cut emissions in the transportation sector, including ending tax exemptions for airline...

Germany presents long-awaited strategy on China as a rival and partner

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:24 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — The German government on Thursday presented a long-awaited strategy for relations with China that points to a “systemic rivalry” with the Asian power and a need to reduce risks of economic dependency, but highlights Berlin’s desire to work with Beijing on global challenges such as climate change.The 64-page document approved by Chancellor OIaf Scholz’s Cabinet builds on Germany’s first national security strategy, issued a month ago, which didn’t go into detail on foreign policy. Scholz’s three-party coalition had pledged when it took office in late 2021 to draw up a “comprehensive China strategy.”Germany has Europe’s biggest economy and is the 27-nation European Union’s most populous member. It is keen to maintain good ties with China, its biggest trading partner in recent years, despite wariness over Beijing’s growing assertiveness and refusal to criticize the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In its strategy, the government said i...

Dangerous heat wave baking US Southwest brings triple digit temperatures and fire risk to California

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:24 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — After a historically wet winter and a cloudy spring, California’s summer was in full swing Thursday as a heat wave that’s been scorching much of the U.S. Southwest brings triple digit temperatures and an increased risk of wildfires.Blistering conditions will build Friday and throughout the weekend in the central and southern parts of California, where many residents should prepare for the hottest weather of the year, the National Weather Service warned.Midday highs were mostly expected to be above 100 degrees (37.7 C), and desert areas could reach 120 (48.8 C), forecasters said. Little relief was expected overnight, when temperatures could remain in the 80s (above 26.6 C). An excessive heat watch was in effect through Sunday for interior Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.“Please plan accordingly, this is not the time to be hiking or be outside for long durations,” the weather service’s LA office said on Twitt...

Sudan’s neighbors meet in Cairo, seeking an end to raging conflict

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:24 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — Leaders from Sudan’s six neighboring countries met in Cairo on Thursday for the most high-profile peace talks since conflict erupted across the northeastern African country in mid-April.The meeting, hosted by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, was attended by the leaders of Ethiopia, South Sudan, Chad, Eritrea, the Central African Republic and Libya.Sudan has been rocked by violence since Apr. 15, when tensions between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces burst into open fighting.The conflict has killed more than 3,000 people and wounded more than 6,000 others, Health Minister Haitham Mohammed Ibrahim said last month. The actual death toll is likely much higher, doctors and activists say.The fighting has forced more than 2.4 million people to flee their homes for safer areas inside the country, according to the International Organization for Migration. Around 738,000 others have crossed into neighboring countries, the agency said.Thursday’s meet...

Climate talks chief, who also heads oil company, says world must ‘attack all emissions, everywhere’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:24 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — The head of this year’s United Nations’ climate talks called Thursday for governments and businesses to tackle global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in all regions and sectors if they want to stop the planet from passing a key temperature limit agreed on more than seven years ago.Sultan al-Jaber of the United Arab Emirates, who also heads one of the country’s state oil companies, told senior officials from Europe, Canada and China gathered in Brussels that record-breaking heat seen in parts of the world recently shows the need for urgent action to curb emissions.Laying out his strategy for the upcoming COP28 global climate talks in Dubai this fall, al-Jaber said that leaders “must be brutally honest” about what has caused the sharp rise in temperatures since preindustrial times and how to stop them from climbing further.While many fossil fuel companies have pledged to reduce direct and indirect emissions from their operations — known as scope ...

Black Lives Matter movement marks 10 years of activism and renews its call to defund the police

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:24 GMT

The Black Lives Matter movement hits a milestone on Thursday, marking 10 years since its 2013 founding in response to the acquittal of the man who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.Gunned down in a Florida gated community where his father lived in 2012, Martin was one of the earliest symbols of a movement that now wields influence in politics, law enforcement and broader conversations about racial progress in and outside the U.S.BLM activists and organizations plan to mark a decade of the movement with in-person and virtual events. Calls to action include a renewed push to defund police departments and reinvest in Black communities that have suffered disproportionately from police brutality, unequal treatment in criminal justice systems and mass incarceration.In the wake of Supreme Court decisions that stymied relief from student loan debt held disproportionately by Black borrowers and banned affirmative action in higher education, the need for BLM’s existence couldnR...

IMF deposits much-awaited $1.2B with Pakistan’s central bank under bailout, finance minister says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:24 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s finance minister on Thursday said the International Monetary Fund deposited a much-awaited first installment of $1.2 billion with the country’s central bank under a recently signed bailout aimed at enabling the impoverished Islamic nation to avoid defaulting on its debt repayments.Minister Ishaq Dar in televised remarks said the remaining $1.8 billion would be received from the IMF over the next nine months. The funds will bolster the country’s foreign exchange reserves, which shrank to less than $4 billion in recent months, raising fears of a default. The country’s foreign exchange reserves are likely to rise to $14 billion this week, Dar said.The latest development came a day after the IMF said its executive board had approved an agreement to release a $3 billion loan to support Pakistan’s economic stabilization program. Wednesday’s announcement came less than two weeks after Pakistan and the IMF agreed to the plan following meetings with Prime Mi...

Just 5% of women’s players at Wimbledon have a female coach. The tennis tour wants to change that

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:24 GMT

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — On the day of the Wimbledon singles draw, Billie Jean King and other founding members of the women’s professional tennis tour gathered 5 miles away at a London hotel to mark the 50th anniversary of a meeting that led to the formation of today’s WTA.That long-ago moment was prompted by frustration at being paid far less in prize money than the sport’s male athletes. For all of the progress since in that area, there remains an aspect of tennis in which gender equity is nowhere near being achieved: coaching. Of the 128 women in the singles bracket at Wimbledon, which ends this weekend, just six work with a female coach — roughly 5%. All of the coaches for men were men.“Terrible. Extremely disappointing,” King, the International Tennis Hall of Fame member and rights advocate, told The Associated Press when asked about the scarcity of female coaches. “It’s about society, absolutely. You have to see it to be it. So if you don’t see a woman up there as a coach, it...