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Wisconsin Republicans try to force vote on reappointment of nonpartisan election leader

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:38 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republicans who control the Wisconsin Senate, in a surprise move Wednesday night, proceeded with trying to force a vote on firing the state’s nonpartisan top elections official before the 2024 presidential election.The Senate voted to move ahead at a later date with a public hearing, and ultimately a confirmation vote, on the reappointment of Megan Wolfe for a second term overseeing elections in the presidential battleground state. Democrats walked out of the Senate chamber before the vote, objecting to bringing the unscheduled resolution to a vote at 9:30 p.m. on a day that was expected to focus on passage of the state budget.The Republican move was an attempt to get around Democrats on the Wisconsin Elections Commission who a day earlier tried to block the Senate from ever getting a chance to vote on Wolfe’s confirmation. Democrats fear that the Senate will reject her confirmation, which is the same as firing her.The three Democrats on the election...

Stock market today: Banks lead early gains on Wall Street

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:38 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are off to a mostly higher start Wall Street. The S&P 500 was up 0.2% in early trading Thursday. The Dow rose 108 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite was up 0.1%. Yields were jumping in the bond market after data showed the U.S. economy grew at a 2% annual rate in the first three months of the year, much stronger than estimated earlier. Banks rose after the Federal Reserve said 23 of the nation’s biggest banks would be able to survive a severe recession in its latest “stress test” of the system.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.Wall Street is poised to open with gains Thursday ahead of new data on jobs and U.S. economic growth with the leaders of major central banks saying this week that interest rates must remain elevated to tamp down inflation, though there have been indications that the surge in prices has abated.Futures for the benchmark S&P 500 index and Dow Jones Industrial Average each gained about 0.3% befor...

Poland vows not to bow to EU migrant rules and threatens to veto any refugee relocation plan

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:38 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — Poland’s prime minister insisted Thursday that the country wouldn’t be forced to accept European Union rules on migration, and he vowed to veto any plan that might force countries to take in refugees.“An attack on Europe is underway. Europe’s borders are not secure. The safety of the inhabitants of our continent is at stake,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a video statement. He said he would propose “a plan for secure borders” to EU leaders at a summit in Brussels.Earlier this month, EU countries made a breakthrough on asylum law reform, sealing an agreement on a plan to share responsibility for migrants entering Europe without authorization. The issue is at the root of one of the bloc’s longest-running political crises.The deal balanced the obligation for countries where most migrants arrive to process and lodge them against the requirement for other members to provide support, whether financial or by hosting refugees. Countries refusing to take mig...

German rail union says it’s ready to take long-running pay dispute to arbitration

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:38 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A German rail workers’ union said Thursday that it’s prepared to take a long-running pay dispute with the main national railway operator to arbitration, which should head off strikes during the summer vacation period.Talks between the EVG union and state-owned railway operator Deutsche Bahn broke down last week. The union — which has already staged hours-long or one-day “warning strikes,” a common tactic in German negotiations — then announced a ballot on open-ended strike action.That announcement came as schools closed for summer in parts of Germany. On Wednesday, Deutsche Bahn proposed bringing in outside mediators in hopes of resolving the dispute without further strikes during the summer.EVG said it will discuss an arbitration process with Deutsche Bahn. “We have an eye particularly on travelers, who we don’t really want to hit with strikes during the vacation period,” the union’s chief negotiator, Kristian Loroch, said in a statement....

Hurricane Adrian strengthens, new tropical depression brings rain to Mexico’s Pacific coast

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:38 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Adrian gained strength Thursday far off Mexico’s Pacific coast, but father south and closer to land, a new tropical depression has formed that has forecasters much more worried. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Adrian had sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph). The storm was expected to weaken again to a tropical storm by the weekend and keep heading out to sea. On Thursday morning, the hurricane’s center was about 440 miles (710 kilometers) west-southwest of the Pacific coast seaport of Manzanillo, Mexico. The hurricane center said Adrian was moving west-northwest at about 8 mph (13 kph), and that general motion was expected to continue. But farther south, Tropical Depression Two-E was expected to build in strength and become the second tropical storm, and perhaps hurricane, of the eastern Pacific season.Mexico’s National Meteorological Service said the depression was expected to bring torrential rains to the coasts of the impoverished souther...

Suspect hit man with pick-up truck while driving on sidewalk in downtown Toronto: police

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:38 GMT

Toronto police are searching for a suspect who struck another man while driving on a sidewalk downtown, in what police are calling an “assault with a weapon investigation.”Police say two men got into a fight at Lower Simcoe Street and Bremner Boulevard at 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday, when the suspect then got into a pick-up truck and drove on the sidewalk, hitting the man with his vehicle from behind.The suspect then turned the vehicle around, continuing to drive on the sidewalk at a high rate of speed before fleeing the scene.The man struck was treated for non-life-threatening injuries in hospital.Police say the suspect is five feet eight inches tall with short curly hair.He was driving a black 2002 Ford Ranger truck with Ontario licence plate BV68520.

Italian researchers ready to reach the edge of space on Virgin Galactic ship

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:38 GMT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A team of Italian researchers expects to reach the edge of space Thursday morning, flying aboard Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered plane as the company prepares for monthly commercial flights.The flight is scheduled to launch from Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, with two Italian Air Force officers and an engineer with the National Research Council of Italy focusing on a series of microgravity experiments during their few minutes of weightless. One will wear a special suit that measures biometric data and physiological responses while another will conduct tests using sensors to track heart rate, brain function and other metrics while in microgravity. The third will be studying how certain liquids and solids mix in that very weak gravity.Virgin Galactic will be live-streaming the flight on its website. Next up for Virgin Galactic will be the first of hundreds of ticket holders, many who have been waiting years for their chance at weightlessness and ...

Burkina Faso’s military accused of killings, torture in latest Human Rights Watch report

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:38 GMT

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A slew of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and instances of torture by Burkina Faso’s military has terrorized communities in the country’s northeast this year, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Thursday. The violence took place between February and May across the province of Séno. The report identifies at least 27 people who were either summarily executed or disappeared and then killed, most of them members of the Fulani ethnic group. Jihadi fighters linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have waged a violent insurgency in Burkina Faso for seven years. The violence has killed thousands of people and divided the country, leading to two coups last year.The report by the New York-based watchdog comes in the wake of an April massacre in which residents say security forces killed at least 150 civilians in Karma, a northern village near the Mali border. A Burkina Faso government spokesperson did not respond to a reque...

Helicopter crew rescues firefighters stranded when rescue boat goes over falls

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:38 GMT

CLIFTON, N.J. (AP) — Two firefighters involved in a rescue effort in a New Jersey river became stranded themselves when their boat went over a waterfall, but a state police helicopter crew was eventually able to bring the pair to safety.No injuries were reported in either of Wednesday’s rescues in the Passaic River, authorities said.The Clifton firefighters were among emergency responders who were helping three people stuck in two boats on the river around 3 p.m. when their rescue boat plunged over the falls at Dundee Dam in Clifton and into the river below. A third firefighter who was in the rescue boat managed to get out before it went over the falls, authorities said.The state police helicopter soon arrived and crews began extracting the firefighters, who were stuck in the partially submerged boat in the river’s swift currents. The first rescue was done quickly as a rescuer repelled down about 100 feet (about 30 meters) to bring one person to safety, but the second to...

Italian police: Migrant smugglers gave children sleeping pills to keep quiet during border crossing

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:38 GMT

MILAN (AP) — Traffickers in a migrant smuggling cell busted in a cross-national investigation administered sleeping pills to children to prevent them from making noise as they were carried at night across the Croatian-Slovenian border, Italian police said Thursday.Police in the northeastern Italian city of Trieste identified 26 suspects in the cell, part of a larger ring, all Albanian and Kosovo citizens, many residents of Italy. Seven have been arrested, five are being sought on arrest warrants on suspicion of criminal association aimed at aiding illegal immigration and another 13 remain under investigation.The investigation was launched in 2021, before Croatia dropped its border controls earlier this year upon joining the EU’s Schengen-area passport-free travel zone. According to Italian police, migrants were brought by car to the Croatian-Slovenian border, then walked across at night, and picked up on the other side. While children were given sleeping pills, adults were jacked up...