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Syria’s Assad in UAE to mark ongoing thaw in relations

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:53 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad arrived in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, his first visit to the wealthy Gulf country since the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria last month.Assad, who arrived with his wife, Asma, and a delegation of Syrian officials, was received by UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, according to a statement from Assad’s office.Sheikh Mohammed said in a statement on Twitter that the two “held constructive talks aimed at developing relations between our two countries.”The visit marks a continuation in the ongoing thaw of relations between Syria and other Arab countries, more than a decade after the 22-member Arab League suspended Damascus’ membership over Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters and later on civilians during the war.International sympathy following the quake appears to have sped up the regional rapprochement that had been brewing for years. Before the tragedy, the UAE had already reestablished ti...

In Chicago mayor’s race, 2 hopefuls reflect Democrats’ split

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:53 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — Before they were rivals to be Chicago’s next mayor, Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson both worked in education, though their career paths — like their views on the city’s future — were very different. Vallas was CEO of Chicago Public Schools, appointed by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley after Illinois lawmakers in the 1990s gave control of the troubled district to City Hall. Vallas came to be known as a turnaround expert in Chicago and in other U.S. school districts, supporting charter schools and voucher programs.Johnson taught middle and high schoolers before becoming an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, mobilizing thousands during a historic 2012 strike and in actions since that focused on strengthening public schools and the communities around them. It is just one example, but a significant one, of the contrasts between the two men now vying to lead the heavily Democratic city.Johnson is a progressive county commissioner who last month advanced to an April...

One dead after collision in Dundas Street West and Nottingham Drive area

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:53 GMT

One person has died after a collision in the Dundas Street West and Nottingham Drive area.COLLISION:Dundas St W & Nottingham Dr 4:38am– 2 veh collision– 1 veh hit tree, 2nd veh rolled over– 1 person deceased at scene– 1 trans to hospital with serious but non-life-thr injuries – 1 in custody– Dundas St W closed between Old Oak Dr & Briarly Ln#GO609960^se— Toronto Police Operations (@TPSOperations) March 19, 2023 Police responded to reports at approximately 4:38am of a two vehicle collision. One vehicle hit a tree and the second vehicle rolled over.One person was pronounced dead at the scene, one person was transported to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries and one person is in custody.Dundas Street West remains closed between Old Oak Drive and Briarly Lane.

Vandals attack French politician’s office over pensions row

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:53 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Protesters have vandalized the Nice office of the president of the Republicans party in an apparent threat to get his right-wing party to vote to block President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform.Eric Ciotti tweeted a photo of his office in the French Riviera city with shattered windows, after a paving stone was thrown at it overnight into Sunday. The vandals also scrawled the words “the motion or the stone” — in reference to the motions of censure against the pension reform that will be voted on Monday in the National Assembly in Paris. Amid weeks of mass protests over Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, Macron last week ordered Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne to invoke a special constitutional power to skirt a vote in the lower chamber of parliament. In response, lawmakers at both ends of the political spectrum filed no-confidence motions against her Cabinet on Friday.Ciotti had announced his party would not vote for either of the two motions ...

Man stabbed to death on a carousel at a German funfair

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:53 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Officials shut down a large funfair in western Germany on Sunday after a man was stabbed to death on a carousel.Police said the 31-year-old victim and another man got into a fight while riding a carousel at the fair in Münster, a city of around 300,000, on Saturday evening. During the altercation, the suspect stabbed the victim with a knife. Despite attempts to resuscitate him, the victim died on the scene.According to police, the two men did not know each other beforehand.Police are still searching for the suspect and another man who was with him at the time of the attack, both of whom fled.Sunday was slated to be the final day of the fair, but city officials chose to end it early “out of respect for the victim,” Markus Lewe, Münster’s mayor, said in a statement.The fair, known as the Send, is held three times a year in Münster. According to the organizers’ website, it draws up to a million visitors annually. The Associated Press

Alex Jones transferring assets to family and friends, evading payments to Sandy Hook families: NYT

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:53 GMT

Infowars host Alex Jones has transferred millions of dollars’ worth of assets to family and friends, potentially shielding his wealth from the nearly $1.5 billion in legal damages he owes to the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, according to The New York Times.Jones was ordered last fall to pay more than $1.4 billion in damages to the families of eight victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, which left 20 young children and six adults dead. He was also ordered to pay another $50 million to the parents of a Sandy Hook victim in a separate Texas case.The Infowars host was hit with multiple defamation lawsuits after he repeatedly suggested that the school shooting in Newton, Conn., was a “false flag” operation staged by the U.S. government. The families of the victims, who he accused of being actors, were threatened and harassed by his followers.He filed for both personal and business bankruptcy within the last year as the damages piled up — a move that the Sand...

ATCEMS: 2 auto-pedestrian accidents reported overnight, 1 dead

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:53 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin-Travis County EMS responded to two separate auto-pedestrian crashes overnight Saturday into Sunday. The first crash happened in the 7900 block of Decker Lane near Lake Water E. Long around 9:48 p.m. ATCEMS said one person died at the scene.The second crash happened in north Austin around 5:30 a.m. Sunday on the North I-35 Service Road southbound near Barwood Park. ATCEMS said a person was struck by multiple vehicles and was taken to the hospital with critical life-threatening injuries. A second patient refused transport, EMS said. No other information was available at the time of the crashes.

Literary calendar for week of March 19

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:53 GMT

AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS IN THE U.S.: “Immigration, Identity and the Arts” is the theme of a conversation on the experiences of African immigrants seen through the lenses of music and literature, including Thi Bui’s NEA Big Read book “The Best We Could Do.” Shannon Gibney, writer, educator and activist, hosts a dialogue with Nigerian composer-performer Kashimana Ahua and Somali author Abdullahi Janno, whose children’s book “When River Stopped Singing to Cloud” will be featured. Free. Noon Saturday, March 25, East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier St., St. Paul.MARY KAY ANDREWS: Author of bestselling novels that evoke Southern locales and themes presents her latest, “The Homewreckers,” featuring Georgia house flipper Hatti Kavanaugh, in the Club Book series. Free. 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 27, R.H. Stafford Library, 8595 Central Park Place, Woodbury.CHAD CORRIE: Introduces “The Shadow Regent,” a standalone fantasy th...

Meteorologists say winters may be warmer, snowier. What is St. Paul doing to prepare?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:53 GMT

Heavy Midwest snows this season have stranded travelers, narrowed roads, forced St. Paul and Minneapolis to institute one-sided parking bans and generally made an icy, slushy muck out of travel.Experts say this is the climatological future, though not every year.“Our winter precipitation has been going up,” said Kenny Blumenfeld, a senior state climatologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “We’re having a year with a lot of precipitation, and average to above average for temperatures. Even though this trend is going to continue, we’re still going to have some old-fashioned winters — maybe not as frequently as they used to be.”In other words, Blumenfeld said, brace for wetter, heavier snowfalls in the years ahead than, say, 30 or 40 years ago, including some potential record-setters like the current one, interspersed with some winters like any other.“Is this going to be the new normal? Winters like this are probably ...

Sunday Bulletin Board: Today’s starting picture: the late, great Brave Bud Grant!

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:22:53 GMT

In memoriamWrites CHRIS, “formerly of Falcon Heights, now from beautiful White Bear Lake”: “Feeling sad today about the passing of Bud Grant. Reminds me of this entry to BB I made in 2019:“‘Hunted high and low for this photo before the Vikings football season comes to an end. You always find what you’re looking for in the last place you look.“The young baseball player in the back row on the left is our own Bud Grant. Before he made his mark as a football coach, he was a star pitcher for the Osceola Braves baseball team from 1950 to 1953. Baseball was king in Osceola, Wisconsin, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A playoff game often drew more than 2,000 fans. As a Vikings fan, I’m glad he didn’t stick to baseball.’“R.I.P., Bud.”Dept. of Neat Stuff (Paperweight of the Gods Division)Gregory J. of Dayton’s Bluff: “‘A paperweight is just what it says: It’s a weight that sits on paper, with th...