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One year after the anti-abortion ruling, the White House keeps a spotlight on the issue

Published Tue, 17 Dec 2024 02:42:13 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — One year ago, Democrats suffered one of the most stinging political defeats in recent history as the Supreme Court, which had been methodically stocked with conservative appointees, eliminated the nationwide right to abortion.Unbowed on Saturday’s anniversary, however, it’s the White House, not Republicans, who are calling the most attention to the issue with a cascade of events designed to tap into simmering rage from the overturning of Roe v. Wade. “I don’t think people are tired,” Jennifer Klein, the White House point person on gender policy, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I think people might be mad. I think there’s a lot of fear out there. But I feel like that turns into power.”First lady Jill Biden met this week with women who were denied abortions even though their health was at risk. Vice President Kamala Harris appeared in an hourlong televised special in Dallas and will travel to North Carolina on Saturday for a speech....

Past deep sea rescues show the challenges of saving those on board

Published Tue, 17 Dec 2024 02:42:13 GMT

BOSTON (AP) — The desperate search for a submersible that disappeared while taking five people to view the Titanic wreckage has drawn attention to other deep-sea rescues. Those rescue efforts — from a submersible off Ireland to a submarine off the New Hampshire coast — offer some measure of hope for the passengers and their families. But some of those rescues were not as complex as the effort to find the Titan submersible. They were often in shallower waters and, in several cases, were much bigger crafts. Many ended with some, if not all, the passengers on board dying — demonstrating the inherent risk of operating in the deep ocean.___PISCES III SUBMERSIBLEFifty years ago, two British sailors sat trapped in a deep-sea submersible more than 1,500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, facing an uncertain fate while an international team scrambled to figure out a way to free them.In an incident that echoes the efforts to find and retrieve those trapped in the Titan submersible,...

Maine Legislature vote expands sovereignty for Native American tribes

Published Tue, 17 Dec 2024 02:42:13 GMT

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Native American tribes in Maine took an important step toward greater sovereignty as the state Legislature voted to let most federal laws apply to Wabanaki tribes, putting them on the same footing as other federally recognized tribes across the country.Both the Maine House and Senate approved the bill with enough support Wednesday to overcome a potential veto of the bill.“Today signifies a landmark victory in the pursuit of Wabanaki self-determination,” Penobscot Nation Chief Kirk Francis said Thursday in a statement. The Penobscot are one member of the Wabanaki Nations, which encompasses Indigenous peoples living in what is now Maine.Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has opposed the bill, sponsored by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, expressing concerns that it could lead to confusion and lawsuits. Her office had no immediate comment on the legislative action.Tribes in Maine are set apart from the other 570 federally recognized tribes across the country beca...

After Paris blast crumples building in Left Bank, rescue workers still searching for 1 person

Published Tue, 17 Dec 2024 02:42:13 GMT

PARIS (AP) — French rescue workers searched Thursday for a person feared missing after a powerful blast brought down a building on Paris’ Left Bank, injuring more than 30 people, six of them critically.Investigators were working to determine the cause of Wednesday’s explosion. A possible gas leak was one of the theories under investigation. The blast near the historic Val de Grace military hospital in Paris’ 5th district crumpled the facade of a building that held a private academy of design and arts.The Paris prosecutors’ office raised the number of people with critical injuries from four to six on Thursday. Some of those suffered severe burns, said Health Minister François Braun.One person who had been feared missing under the rubble was located in a hospital where they were being treated, the prosecutors’ office said.Efforts were ongoing to locate another person still feared missing, it said. With more than 2 million people densely packed within the ...

Government benefits helped lower-income households afford rising cost of living: PBO

Published Tue, 17 Dec 2024 02:42:13 GMT

OTTAWA — The parliamentary budget officer says lower-income households maintained their purchasing power despite high inflation with help from government benefits.In a report released Thursday, the PBO analyzed how the purchasing power of households at different income levels changed between the final quarters of 2019 and 2022.The report says all households saw an increase in purchasing power over those three years, rising by five per cent overall.That suggests households could buy more with their incomes at the end of last year than they could before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada in early 2020.That is despite a rise in inflation that peaked at 8.1 per cent last summer.But for households in the bottom 20 per cent of income, their earnings were not enough to address the rising cost of living.The report says those households relied on government transfers to make up the difference.“Higher-income households are better able to handle the rising cost of living using their own so...

S&P/TSX composite down as energy and base metal stocks fall, U.S. stocks mixed

Published Tue, 17 Dec 2024 02:42:13 GMT

TORONTO — Canada’s main stock index was down more than 150 points in late-morning trading as the price of oil fell below US$70 a barrel and losses in the energy and base metal stocks weighed on the Toronto market.The S&P/TSX composite index was down 157.16 points at 19,548.79.In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 49.96 points at 33,901.56. The S&P 500 index was up 0.61 of a point at 4,366.30, while the Nasdaq composite was up 54.81 points at 13,557.01.The Canadian dollar traded for 75.98 cents US compared with 75.86 cents US on Wednesday.The August crude oil contract was down US$2.80 at US$69.73 per barrel and the July natural gas contract was down four cents at US$2.56 per mmBTU.The August gold contract was down US$18.10 at US$1,926.80 an ounce and the July copper contract was down a penny at US$3.91 a pound.This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 22, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD=X)The Canadian Press

King Charles III claims his 1st Royal Ascot winner as the reigning monarch

Published Tue, 17 Dec 2024 02:42:13 GMT

ASCOT, England (AP) — King Charles III has claimed his first Royal Ascot winner as the reigning monarch.Watching the race alongside Queen Camilla from the Royal Enclosure, the king saw Desert Hero — wearing the royal silks and an 18-1 shot — win by a short head in the King George V Stakes on Thursday.“Royal winners at the royal meeting are extremely special, especially this one,” jockey Tom Marquand said. “It will live high in my career, probably at the top for the rest of my days in the saddle.”The king and queen were seen waving toward Marquand and Desert Hero after the race.Desert Hero’s trainer, William Haggas, said “the king and queen are absolutely thrilled.”“It is obviously very important for racing, but it is important that the king and queen enjoy it, which they clearly appear to do, and long may that continue,” Haggas said.The late Queen Elizabeth II was a big fan of horse racing and had 24 winners at Royal Ascot in her long reign.___AP sports: https://ap...

Winnie Ewing, icon of Scotland’s pro-independence movement, dies at 93

Published Tue, 17 Dec 2024 02:42:13 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Winnie Ewing, a charismatic politician considered to be the mother of the modern Scottish independence movement, has died. She was 93.Ewing’s relatives announced Thursday that she died the day before, “surrounded by her family.”The family statement said Ewing was “considered the most important Scottish politician of her generation.” Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that Scotland’s independence movement had lost “a beloved icon.”Trained as a lawyer, Winnifred Margaret Ewing joined the pro-independence Scottish National Party — then a small fringe group — and unexpectedly won election to the U.K. Parliament in 1967. Ewing greeted her surprise victory with the words: “Stop the world — Scotland wants to get on.”The win was a huge boost to the SNP, and Ewing became a high-profile champion of Scottish independence on the national and international stage.She served in the U.K. Parliament, then the European Parliament — where she was nicknamed Madame Écosse, or Madam...

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

Published Tue, 17 Dec 2024 02:42:13 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 ...

Guatemalans worry about security, unimpressed by leading candidates ahead of election

Published Tue, 17 Dec 2024 02:42:13 GMT

SAN JUAN COMALAPA, Guatemala (AP) — Just days away from electing a new president, many Guatemalans remain undecided, unimpressed by the leading candidates and even considering casting a protest vote to express their disapproval.Concerns about extortion and violent crime cross class lines, and rural and urban communities, perhaps explaining why candidates leading the polls are promising heavy-handed security tactics, including reinstating the death penalty or hammering criminal gangs into submission.The machinations of electoral authorities keeping some popular candidates out of the race and cancelling others drew headlines in the capital and expressions of concern abroad. But for the average Guatemalan the controversies surrounding the election are nowhere near as concerning as the rising cost of feeding their families and protecting their loved ones.Ahead of Sunday’s election, the AP interviewed Guatemalans in rural San Juan Comalapa about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest o...