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Amtrak aims to double ridership within 20 years

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:10 GMT

Rich Thomaselli | TravelPulse (TNS)It almost seems like an anachronism. Taking a trip by train is like something out of the past.Now, Amtrak is looking to double in size.By using funds from the 2021 infrastructure bill, Amtrak is making improvements at some of its biggest and most popular hubs. Those include train stations in New York, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago and Philadelphia.“Amtrak is making significant investments to modernize our stations,” said EVP Laura Mason, who is overseeing the company’s internal infrastructure overhaul.Amtrak’s budget is expected to zoom. Annual capital investments alone are slated to rise to $2.5 billion by 2025. They were $785 million as recently as 2019.Improvements and renovations are scheduled for Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, New York’s Penn Station and Chicago’s Union Station.Penn Station in Baltimore, which is over 100 years old, is also expected to undergo improvements and renovations. The station has not seen a refresh in almost 40 ...

Green bins and pig pins: Here's how to dispose of pumpkins in San Diego County

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:10 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- With spooky season in the rearview mirror, many are left wondering what they should do with their wilted jack-o'-lanterns.Clean San Diego is encouraging residents to reduce waste post-Halloween by properly disposing unwanted pumpkins. CompostingFor EDCO customers and City of San Diego residents, this is as easy as tossing your October squashes in your green bins. Kids in San Diego County can trade in their Halloween candy for cash However, this only goes for pumpkins that are clean and unpainted. Be sure to remove those burned up tea lights before disposal. Residents with painted pumpkins can dispose of them in their yard waste containers, or put them in their black bins.DonatingThere's also the option of taking those unwanted to pumpkins to select local farms, where they will be fed to pigs and other animals instead of going to waste.An organizations known as Pumpkins for Pigs has compiled a list of farms that are accepting donations in the county. These pumpki...

First installment due for San Diego County property tax payments

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:10 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- The first due date for San Diego County property tax payments arrived Wednesday.Treasurer-Tax Collector Dan McAllister said his office mailed out more than 1 million 2023-2024 secured property tax bills in early October. “Property taxes fund essential county and city services,” said McAllister. “Public health, public schools, and many more critical services are funded by these tax dollars, so we encourage taxpayers to pay their taxes as early as possible. This year we expect to generate $8.63 billion in property taxes.” Del Mar home sold for record-breaking $44.1M as countywide sales slow The first installment is due on Wednesday, Nov. 1. In order to avoid delinquency, property owners must pay their bill by Sunday, Dec. 10. Those payments can be paid for free online using an e-check (electronic check). All 1,013,632 secured tax bills are available to be viewed and paid at sdttc.com.Once payments are made online, property owners ...

Voters are skeptical of Biden’s age. But Trump’s notable flubs risk drawing unwelcome attention, too

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:10 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — To hear Donald Trump tell it, President Joe Biden is so senile that he doesn’t know where he’s speaking and feeble enough that others are making decisions for him.Yet Trump has made notable flubs of his own. The former president mixed up the city and state where he was campaigning last weekend and had to be corrected by a local official. He recently called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán the leader of Turkey and has repeatedly mispronounced the militant group Hamas as “hummus.”Biden is now 80 and Trump is 77. Trump was the oldest person elected to a first term — until Biden was. Today, the age factor is shaping up as an important issue in a possible rematch in 2024 of their first race, in 2020. Yet polls consistently show that Americans view the Democratic president’s age as more of a liability, even as some of Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination are stepping up efforts to use the issue against him.An August poll from The Asso...

Real estate industry facing pushback to longstanding rules setting agent commissions on home sales

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:10 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A series of court challenges are seeking to upend longstanding real estate industry practices that determine the commissions agents receive on the sale of a home — and who foots the bill. One case brought in 2019 in federal court in Missouri by a couple of home sellers ended Tuesday with a federal jury ordering the National Association of Realtors and some of the nation’s biggest real estate brokerages to pay almost $1.8 billion in damages after finding they artificially inflated commissions paid to real estate agents. The verdict stated that the defendants “conspired to require home sellers to pay the broker representing the buyer of their homes in violation of federal antitrust law.”If treble damages — which allows plaintiffs to potentially receive up to three times actual or compensatory damages — are awarded, then the defendants may have to pay more than $5 billion.“This matter is not close to being final as we will appeal the jury’s verdict,” Mantill Wi...

Movie Review: In ‘Radical,’ an unorthodox teacher in a violent Mexican border town

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:10 GMT

On their first day sixth grade, the students of Jose Urbina Lopez Elementary School in the Mexican border city of Matamoros find their new teacher rolling on the floor surrounded by overturned desks.They’re not desks, he exclaims. They’re lifeboats.So begins Christopher Zalla’s “Radical,” an inspirational based-on-a-true-story drama about an unconventional teacher named Sergio Juarez Correa (Eugenio Derbez). His day-one lesson is ultimately about buoyancy. But the metaphor isn’t hard to grasp. In Lopez’s classroom, education is a life raft.“Radical,” which opens in theaters Friday, is a conventional but stirring entry in the crowded canon of uplifting educator tales like “Stand and Deliver,” “Lean on Me” and “The Class.”“Radical,” though, isn’t set at an inner-city school in Los Angeles, New Jersey or Paris, like those films are. Matamoros, along the Rio Grande and across from Brownsville, Texas, is considered a lawless place, known for extreme violence and migrant encampments. “Rad...

Mother, son charged with kidnapping after police say they took a teenager to Oregon for an abortion

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:10 GMT

An Idaho woman and her son have been charged with kidnapping after prosecutors say they took the son’s minor girlfriend out of state to get an abortion. Court documents show Idaho police began investigating the mother and son earlier this summer after a 15-year-old girl’s mother told authorities her daughter had been sexually assaulted and later taken to Oregon to have an abortion.With some narrow technical exceptions, abortion is banned throughout pregnancy in Republican-controlled Idaho. The procedure is legal in left-leaning Oregon, prompting many patients to cross the state border for abortion services, a trend anti-abortion opponents have struggled to stifle. Idaho’s Republican-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Brad Little are seeking more ways to curb abortion as well. Recently, the state made it illegal to help minors get an abortion without their parents’ consent, legislation aimed at preventing minors who don’t have parental approval from getting ...

Pope Francis says he’ll spend 3 days in Dubai for COP28 climate conference

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:10 GMT

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis said Wednesday that he will travel to Dubai for three days during the COP28 climate conference hosted there. Francis said during an interview on Italian television network RAI that he would depart for Dubai on Dec. 1 and stay until Dec. 3. Excerpts of the interview were broadcast on Wednesday evening and recorded a few hours earlier. The full hourlong interview was to be broadcast later Wednesday night.Francis offered no details of his trip’s program, including any appearance at the conference. The travel comes about two weeks before his 87th birthday. When asked about his health — after setbacks that included abdominal surgery just a few months ago to repair a hernia and remove intestinal scarring — Francis quipped in reply in what has become his standard line — “I’m alive.”The international climate conference begins on Nov. 30 and runs through Dec. 12. Francis has made the need for urgent care for the environment a hallmark priority of his papa...

Blinken heads to Israel, Jordan as Gaza war and criticism of it intensifies

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:10 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Israel and Jordan this week as Israel’s war in Gaza and international criticism of it intensify, the State Department said Wednesday.Blinken will depart Washington on Thursday and will be in Israel and Jordan on Friday and Further stops in the Middle East are possible, meaning the trip may follow the frenetic pace of Blinken’s last trip to the region shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel where last-minute schedule changes were frequent. Blinken ended up traveling to Israel three times as well as six Arab nations during that trip.Blinken will be entering a diplomatic maelstrom that will likely complicate his mission. Jordan announced Wednesday that it had recalled its ambassador to Israel and would not permit Israel’s ambassador to Jordan to return to the country. It said it would not revisit those moves until the Gaza conflict was over.State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Blinken would once again und...

Republican US Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado won’t seek reelection, citing party’s ‘insidious narratives’

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:10 GMT

DENVER (AP) — U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, a conservative Republican who represents much of Colorado’s rural eastern plains, announced Wednesday he would not seek a sixth term in Congress, citing many in his party who refuse to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election and to condemn the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.In a video message posted online, Buck said voters’ hopes that Republicans will take decisive action may be in vain, and that his party’s “insidious narratives breed widespread cynicism and erode Americans’ confidence in the rule of law.”“Too many Republican leaders are lying to America, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, describing Jan. 6 as an unguided tour of the Capitol and asserting that the ensuing prosecutions are a weaponization of our justice system,” Buck said.The 64-year-old former prosecutor, who has served in Congress since 2015, was one of the eight Republicans who joined with Democrats to oust House Speaker Kevin M...