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In Europe’s empty churches, prayer and confessions make way for drinking and dancing

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:11:37 GMT

MECHELEN, Belgium (AP) — The confessionals where generations of Belgians admitted their sins stood stacked in a corner of what was once Sacred Heart Church, proof the stalls — as well as the Roman Catholic house of worship — had outlived their purpose. The building is to close down for two years while a cafe and concert stage are added, with plans to turn the church into “a new cultural hot spot in the heart of Mechelen,” almost within earshot of where Belgium’s archbishop lives. Around the corner, a former Franciscan church is now a luxury hotel where music star Stromae spent his wedding night amid the stained-glass windows.Across Europe, the continent that nurtured Christianity for most of two millennia, churches, convents and chapels stand empty and increasingly derelict as faith and church attendance shriveled over the past half century.“That is painful. I will not hide it. On the other hand, there is no return to the past possible,” Mgr. Johan Bonny, bishop of Antwerp, to...

Bank of England is set to hike rates to battle inflation. That means pain for borrowers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:11:37 GMT

LONDON (AP) — The Bank of England is poised to raise borrowing costs again on Thursday to combat stubbornly high inflation, which has failed to come down from its peak as quickly as expected.Though the consensus among analysts is that the central bank will raise its main interest rate by a quarter-percentage point — hitting a new 15-year high of 4.75% — there are concerns, certainly among borrowers, that it may opt for a bigger half-point increase. That larger hike would be particularly painful for people with loans, especially the 1.4 million or so households in the U.K. that will have to refinance their mortgages over the rest of the year.Central banks around the world, from the U.S. Federal Reserve to European Central Bank, have been rapidly raising interest rates to bring down inflation first stoked by supply chain backups tied to the rebound from the pandemic and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Turkey’s central bank also was expected to raise rates Thursday in what cou...

Shifting S. Africa coal plant for clean energy needs millions in loans; experts say that’s a problem

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:11:37 GMT

MIDDELBURG, South Africa (AP) — Plumes of heat-trapping pollutants last billowed from the giant stacks of Komati Power Station in October, when the coal-fired plant that fed South Africa’s hungry electrical grid for more than half a century was shut down to make way for a solar, wind and battery storage plant.Converting Komati to be part of the clean energy revolution is seen as an important test case for coal-reliant South Africa, the world’s 16th-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and developing nations elsewhere. It’s supported by $497 million, most of it from the World Bank.The problem, energy experts say, is that almost all that money is in the form of loans that can be difficult for developing nations to repay. And that risks hobbling the global effort to cut emissions and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels to stave off the worst effects of climate change.For South Africa, which needs an estimated $38 ...

Britain marks the Windrush anniversary with the story of its Caribbean community still being written

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:11:37 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Seventy-five years ago, a ship landed at Tilbury Dock near London, carrying more than 800 passengers from the Caribbean to new lives in Britain.The arrival of the Empire Windrush on June 22, 1948, became a symbol of the post-war migration that transformed the U.K. and its culture. The term “Windrush generation” has come to stand for hundreds of thousands of people who arrived in the U.K. between the late 1940s and early 1970s, especially those from former British colonies in the Caribbean.Windrush Day is being marked on Thursday with scores of community and official events, including a reception hosted by King Charles III. Charles commissioned portraits of 10 Windrush passengers for the royal collection as a reflection of “ the immeasurable difference that they, their children and their grandchildren have made to this country.” There also is a national church service, a Windrush flag flying over Parliament and a set of commemorative stamps from the Royal Mail.Behind th...

Ambitious Saudi plans to ramp up Hajj could face challenges from climate change

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:11:37 GMT

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia has ambitious plans to welcome millions more pilgrims to Islam’s holiest sites. But as climate change heats up an already scorching region, the annual Hajj pilgrimage — much of which takes place outdoors in the desert — could prove even more daunting. The increased number of pilgrims, with the associated surge in international air travel and infrastructure expansion, also raises sustainability concerns, even as the oil giant pursues the goal of getting half its energy from renewable resources by 2030.Next week, Saudi Arabia hosts the first Hajj pilgrimage without the restrictions imposed during the coronavirus pandemic. Some 2.5 million people took part in the pilgrimage in 2019, and around 2 million are expected this year.Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s wide-ranging plan to overhaul the kingdom’s economy, known as Vision 2030, 30 million pilgrims would take part in the Hajj and Umrah — a smaller, year-round pilgrima...

Judge to weigh suspending Wyoming’s first-in-the-nation ban on abortion pills

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:11:37 GMT

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming’s first-in-the-nation ban on abortion pills will come before a state judge Thursday as the court considers whether the prohibition should take effect as planned July 1 or be put on hold pending the outcome of a lawsuit.While other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion, Wyoming in March became the first U.S. state to specifically ban abortion pills. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April that access to one of the two pills, mifepristone, may continue while litigants seeking to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of it.Two nonprofit organizations in Wyoming, including an abortion clinic that opened in Casper in April; and four women, including two obstetricians, have sued to stop Wyoming from curbing access to the abortion pills. On Thursday, Teton County Judge Melissa Owens will hear arguments about what should happen as the lawsuit plays out.Wellspring Health Access, Wyoming’s ...

Up, up and away – flying taxis look to France’s city of revolution to unleash change on the skies

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:11:37 GMT

LE BOURGET, France (AP) — Just a dot on the horizon at first, the bug-like and surprisingly quiet electrically-powered craft buzzes over Paris and its traffic snarls, treating its doubtless awestruck passenger to privileged vistas of the Eiffel Tower and the city’s signature zinc-grey rooftops before landing him or her with a gentle downward hover. And thus, if all goes to plan, could a new page in aviation history be written.After years of dreamy and not always credible talk of skies filled with flying, non-polluting electric taxis, the aviation industry is preparing to deliver a future that it says is now just around the corner. Capitalizing on its moment in the global spotlight, the Paris region is planning for a small fleet of electric flying taxis to operate on multiple routes when it hosts the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games next summer. Unless aviation regulators in China beat Paris to the punch by green-lighting a pilotless taxi for two passengers under development t...

The case of Azerbaijanis citizens in Iran

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:11:37 GMT

The EU should take a stronger stand against the Ayatollah regime repression of Human Rights and meddling in the South Caucasus, writes Maurizio Geri.The relationship between Azerbaijan and Iran is at its worst since long time. For the second time in just months, Baku has warned its citizens against traveling to Iran. Following the January terrorist attack in the Azerbaijani embassy in Iran there has been a mutual expulsion of some diplomatic personnel and the suspension of Azerbaijan's embassy operation. In February, the Azerbaijani authorities detained nearly 40 people on suspicion of spying for Iran. In March an anti-Iranian member of Parliament was wounded in Baku, with the involvement of the Islamic Republic in an attempt to kill him. Some scholars even wonder about a risk of a war between the two countries. Actually, the President of Azerbaijan is one of the few heads of state in the world willing to call out Iran’s “state-sponsored terrorism”. But why Iran is so interested in ...

Just nine fashion companies do even the bare minimum on unsustainable cotton

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:11:37 GMT

When it comes to their use of cotton, the vast majority of international brands (89%) are non-transparent, unsustainable and show little progress towards improving labour conditions. Those are the findings of the 2023 Cotton Ranking, published by Solidaridad Europe and the Pesticide Action Network UK, writes Political Editor Nick Powell.One of the report’s main messages is that unsustainable cotton is a choice. It maintains that a wide range of possible actions are available to corporations to help them mitigate, address or even reverse the worst environmental and social impacts of cotton production. They are set out in a paper ‘Cotton and Corporate Responsibility’, published simultaneously with the 2023 Cotton Ranking.Much of the cotton purchased by major companies does not meet even the requirements of basic certification, meaning that its source cannot be verified as meeting minimum standards. Only nine of the 82 largest cotton-sourcing companies in the world are found to be...

Meet Bosco: LAPD drug dog that sniffed out drugs, gun, cash from vending machine  

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:11:37 GMT

KTLA 5’s Rick Chambers got the opportunity to meet Bosco, the LAPD drug dog that sniffed out heroin, fentanyl, guns and cash from a vending machine in a warehouse in Gardena on Friday. What makes Bosco’s story even more remarkable is the fact that he has only been a K-9 for six months and that he was on his third-ever deployment when he got called into action. Deputies with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office were serving a search warrant at the Gardena warehouse when they requested a K-9 Unit from the Los Angeles Police Department to assist them. The two-year-old Dutch shepherd quickly alerted officers to 15 pounds of heroin, a kilogram of fentanyl, an assault rifle and thousands of dollars in cash in an operational vending machine. Los Angeles City Council approves ‘robot dog’ donation to police According to Bosco’s handler, Officer Pablo Soto, his frenetic energy is what helps officers the most when searching for drugs.  “When he’s looking for the odor, he’...