Hundreds of giant paper-mache bulls stuffed with fireworks are erected in the front yards of the Mexican town of Tultepec every year in the first week of March. Thousands of restless fingers carefully cut, paste and painted the colorful patterns that brought the “toritos” to life on Friday during an annual celebration when the bull-shaped figures were set alight. Thousands of people gathered to dance and dodge amid the bulls as roman candles showered them with sparks and spinners nipped at their legs. Читать дальше...
President Joe Biden has signed into law a package of spending bills passed by the Senate in time to avoid a shutdown of many key federal agencies. He signed the legislation Saturday while offering thanks to leaders and negotiators from both parties. The vote Friday night gets lawmakers about halfway home in wrapping up their appropriations work for this budget year. Lawmakers are now negotiating a second package of six bills, including defense, in an effort to have all federal agencies fully funded by March 22. Читать дальше...
This week’s new streaming entertainment releases include a new album from pop princess Ariana Grande, a docuseries on National Geographic that follows female leaders of the animal kingdom and the Emma Stone-led “Poor Things” landing on Hulu, just in time for the Academy Awards. Also, Theo James stars in Guy Ritchie’s new Netflix series “The Gentlemen,” about an English duke who descends into the criminal underworld, and gamers this week will find out why some are calling Atlus’ Unicorn Overlord the... Читать дальше...
A new plea hearing has been set for an Alabama woman accused of falsely telling police she was abducted last summer after stopping to check on a toddler wandering near a highway. Carlee Russell’s disappearance captivated the nation before police called her story a hoax. A court document filed Thursday shows a plea hearing is set for March 21. She is appealing an earlier guilty judgment from a lower court. Russell disappeared July 13 after calling 911 to report a toddler beside an interstate near Birmingham. Читать дальше...
Crime scene tape surrounds the Skowhegan Indian, a local landmark in Maine, after an assault by Mother Nature. The towering wooden sculpture is missing part of its face and arm, as well as a spear. The damage is believed to be caused by wild weather and a windstorm. The 62-foot (19-meter) sculpture depicts a Wabanaki fisherman and was completed in 1969 by artist Bernard Langlais. Before it was damaged, the fisherman was holding a spear in one hand and a fishing weir, or trap, in the other. The face was damaged months ago and a Feb. Читать дальше...
Machine guns have been tightly regulated in the U.S. since the bloody violence of Prohibition-era gangsters like Al Capone. But in the last several years, a proliferation of tiny pieces of plastic and metal is fueling a spike in semi-automatic handguns converted to fully automatic fire. They’ve been found in states across the country and used in mass shootings. Known as Glock switches, auto sears, chips or other nicknames, conversion devices can now be made on a 3D printer or ordered from overseas online, sometimes available for less than $30. Читать дальше...
A top U.S. Treasury official has pressed Lebanese authorities to prevent funds from being funneled to Hamas by way of Lebanon during a visit to Beirut. Jesse Baker visited Lebanon and met with financial sector and political officials Thursday and Friday. A senior Treasury official says Baker shared with Lebanese authorities “specific concerns” about “the movement of Hamas funds through Lebanon, Hezbollah funds from Iran into Lebanon and then out into other regional areas” and called for “proactive measures” to combat it. Читать дальше...
Doctors around the country say insurers are making it harder to get coverage for home ventilators that patients with serious illnesses need as their lungs fail. They say patients often must struggle first with less-effective — and cheaper — devices before some plans will pay for noninvasive ventilators. In other cases, insurers balk at paying for a second ventilator needed when patients transfer from their bed to a wheelchair. Insurers say they cover the devices, but that coverage depends on a number of factors. Читать дальше...
Fresh off his defiant State of the Union address, President Joe Biden and his senior aides are beginning to barnstorm the country to aggressively sell his vision for a second term to voters. He's also warning of the Republican alternative. The president will try to ride the post-speech momentum to Pennsylvania and Georgia, two critical swing states that he flipped in 2020 and is rallying to retain in his column this November. He'll visit Wisconsin and Michigan next week. Biden’s reelection campaign... Читать дальше...
The Romanian government has won a yearslong legal dispute with a Canadian mining company seeking damages over failed plans to open a gold and silver mine in the Eastern European country. Gabriel Resources was seeking $4.4 billion in damages from the Romanian state, which owned a 20% stake in the mining project in Rosia Montana, a mountainous western Romania region that contains some of Europe’s largest gold deposits. The Romanian government withdrew its support for the project in 2014. The government... Читать дальше...
Firefighters in Hawaii have gotten control of a large fire at a biomass plant on Kauai Island. KITV Island News reports crews were called to the plant at about 3:30 p.m. on Friday. They got the fire under control about two hours later. An image of the fire shows red flames and black smoke billowing into the sky. Officials say the fire was contained within Biomass Power Plant and didn’t threaten the public. Kauai firefighters are investigating what caused the blaze.
An attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has set off explosions ahead of a Singapore-flagged vessel in the Gulf of Aden. The attack Friday targeted the bulk carrier Propel Fortune, which continued on its way. That's according to the United States military’s Central Command, which also said there was no damage to the vessel nor any crew members wounded in the attack. The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack. A statement from Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree... Читать дальше...
For residents of the Navajo Nation, the beginning of daylight saving time means the beginning of an annual headache. The Navajo Nation, which stretches into Utah and New Mexico, approved a resolution in 1968 to follow daylight saving time, which begins Sunday. Most of the largest Native American reservation in the U.S. is situated between two territories that remain on standard time: Arizona and the Hopi reservation. A stretch of highway in Tuba City, Arizona, is the de facto border between the Navajo and a part of the Hopi reservation. Читать дальше...
Nearly 130 years since the first three women were elected to state legislative offices in the U.S., women remain massively underrepresented in state legislatures. In 10 states, women make up less than 25% of their state legislatures, according to Rutgers’ Center for American Women in Politics. West Virginia is at the very bottom of that list, having just 16 women in its 134-member Legislature, or just under 12%. That’s compared with Nevada, where women occupy just over 60% of state legislative seats. Читать дальше...
The United Nations chief says legal equality for women could take centuries as the fight for gender equality has become an uphill struggle against rank discrimination and gross human human rights abuses. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a warning on International Women’s Day that “a global backlash against women’s rights is threatening, and in some cases reversing, progress in developing and developed countries alike.” He told Friday's packed U.N. commemoration that “a global backlash against women’s rights is threatening... Читать дальше...
A massive floating pier that will allow ships to sail up to Gaza and offload aid will soon sail from the U.S. to the Mediterranean Sea as the U.S. looks at ways to address Gaza's dire food needs. While Army and Military Sealift Command personnel will be used to get the pier up and running, the Pentagon says no U.S. troops will be on the ground in Gaza. President Joe Biden announced the pier Thursday in his State of the Union speech.
The 2024 presidential election campaign will pick up Saturday where the 2020 contest left off. Or, more precisely, in a place where it never actually ended. Georgia was so close four years ago that Republican Donald Trump finds himself indicted here for his push to “find 11,780 votes” and overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. Now, fresh off their Super Tuesday domination to set up a near-certain rematch, the two rivals will hold dueling events in a state that both parties see as pivotal to winning in November. Читать дальше...
The Senate has approved a $460 billion package of spending bills in time to meet a midnight deadline for avoiding a shutdown of many key federal agencies. The vote gets lawmakers about halfway home in wrapping up their appropriations work for this budget year. The bill now goes to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. Meanwhile, lawmakers are negotiating a second package of six bills, including defense, in an effort to have all federal agencies fully funded by March 22. Senate Majority Leader... Читать дальше...
OpenAI is reinstating CEO Sam Altman to its board of directors and said it has “full confidence” in his leadership after the conclusion of an outside investigation into the company’s turmoil. The ChatGPT maker tapped the law firm WilmerHale to look into what led the company to abruptly fire Altman in November, only to rehire him days later. After months of investigation, it found that Altman’s ouster was a “consequence of a breakdown in the relationship and loss of trust” between him and the prior board, OpenAI said Friday. Читать дальше...
Famous for being the spot where a spacecraft purportedly crashed in 1947, Roswell, New Mexico, is a mecca for people fascinated by extraterrestrial phenomenon. It's only fitting that the city’s police force has uniform patches that are out of this world. They feature a flying saucer, two tiny aliens faces and the words “Protect and Serve Those That Land Here.” The new patch was announced by the department Friday. The first ones were handed out this week, and the transition is expected to be complete later this year. Читать дальше...
Former President Donald Trump has met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a conservative populist whose crackdowns in Hungary have sparked criticism that he's eroding that country's democracy. Trump and Orbán have a longstanding relationship, and their meeting Friday comes as Hungary has had conflicts with the Biden administration. Orbán is the third foreign populist leader to lend his support to the Trump movement after El Salvador's Nayib Bukele and Argentina's Javier Milei spoke at a conservative... Читать дальше...
Florida lawmakers are heading home after raising the the minimum age for strippers from 18 to 21 and passing a $117 billion state budget on the final day of their 60-day annual session. Unlike the previous two years when Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was gearing up to run for president, the governor didn’t ask the Legislature for much this year. There were fewer divisive bills addressing issues like abortion, guns, race and LGBTQ+ rights and more discussion House Speaker Paul Renner’s and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo’s priorities. Читать дальше...
A federal judge has upheld the use of an immigration program that allows up to 30,000 migrants from four countries into the U.S. per month. The ruling Friday came in response to a lawsuit from Republican-leaning states that argued the humanitarian parole program “created a shadow immigration system.” They also said the Biden administration program economically burdened states receiving migrants with rising costs of health care, education, and public safety. Advocates for the federal government countered that migrants from Cuba... Читать дальше...
Authorities have detected a 2.5-mile-long oil sheen off the coast of Southern California but say it doesn’t appear to be a crude spill and are investigating the cause. U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Richard Brahm said authorities spotted the sheen after daybreak Friday. He says there were no reports of spills or leaks from oil platforms operating offshore and the sheen does not appear to be growing, so authorities suspect it was a one-time discharge or natural seepage. Officials in Southern California formed a unified command to investigate. Читать дальше...
At least one fertility clinic in Alabama has resumed in vitro fertilization treatments. News outlets report that Alabama Fertility Specialists performed several embryo transfers Thursday. Alabama Fertility was among three clinics that paused their services after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed in an accident at a storage facility could pursue wrongful death lawsuits for their “extrauterine children.” The ruling prompted state lawmakers... Читать дальше...
