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Revealed: EU’s plan to sex up the European Parliament

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:00 GMT

BRUSSELS — The European Parliament knows it has a reputation for being boring. Now it’s trying to sex things up.MEPs don’t bother showing up to debates during the monthly plenary sessions in Strasbourg; journalists barely pay the place any attention; and the Parliament’s procedures are a mess — that’s according to the Parliament’s own civil servants who issued the grim diagnosis in a “background note” to senior MEPs earlier this year.Obtained exclusively by POLITICO, an obscure working group cooked up a document considering ways to overhaul the Parliament’s machinery in time for European elections in June 2024. “Debates are less lively because Members often come to plenary only for their intervention, they read out their speeches and leave right after without listening to the entire debate,” the document states.It also bemoans that there is “insufficient media attractiveness of some plenary agenda items resulting from...

See inside a new hotel in Chile where you’ll feel you’re sleeping on Mars

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:00 GMT

Mark Johanson | Bloomberg News (TNS)Glittering salt flats. Sky-poking volcanoes. Teal lagoons painted pink with flamingos. These are the wonders that await guests traveling to the resort town of San Pedro de Atacama — an oasis amid the greater Atacama Desert of northern Chile, which is the driest (non-polar) place on Earth.The 51-room Our Habitas Atacama, which opened on Sept. 15, is shaking things up as the most recent opening in a destination that rarely sees them. “The timing for Habitas is bang-on because the Atacama is red-hot right now,” says Harry Hastings, founder of bespoke travel company Plan South America. He says it’s one of his best-selling destinations.What sets the property apart, Hastings says, is not just the design and culinary ambitions but something far simpler: With starting rates from $300 per night, it’s the only luxurious hotel in the area that isn’t priced on an all-inclusive basis. It gives travelers rates far lower than those of such competitors as Awasi, ...

Ask a travel nerd: Environmentally friendly air travel for cheap stoics

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:00 GMT

By Sam Kemmis | NerdWalletAs someone who cares about my environmental impact and spending as little money as possible, life is full of fraught decisions.Should I buy organic milk even though it’s twice as expensive? Or choose an electric car for $40,000 rather than a friend’s run-down Corolla for $3,000?Should I make eye contact with the person on the street raising money to fight climate change or awkwardly pretend to be on a phone call?The point is that my aversion to spending money often means I’m cutting corners environmentally. Yet when it comes to air travel, these preferences aren’t in conflict. In fact, reducing one’s travel carbon footprint can actually mean spending less on airfare.The only downside: It means flying with airlines that pack you in (and treat you) like sardines.The high cost of legroomFlying burns a lot of fossil fuels — there’s no way around that fact. If the entire commercial aviation industry were a country, it would rank sixth (between Japan and Germany)...

What’s 12 feet tall, dead and taking the country by storm? A coveted skeleton, of corpse

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:00 GMT

Despite his name, Fred the Dead doesn’t have the guts to scare neighborhood kids. He doesn’t have the heart, either. He doesn’t have any internal organs at all.Fred is a 12-foot-tall Home Depot skeleton — and he’s a hot commodity. The metal-framed monsters can be spotted this time of year towering over Colorado neighborhoods, from cityscapes to rural farmland.Halloween fiends lucky enough to get their hands on the coveted décor can consider themselves members of an exclusive club; Home Depot won’t say how many of the skeletons it has sold, but Tyler Pelfrey, brand communications manager for the home-improvement giant, confirmed the behemoth box of bones has sold out every year since its 2020 debut.Calls to Home Depot stores in Glendale, Colorado Springs, Pueblo and Fort Collins this week confirmed — occasionally with a harumph of incredulous laughter from a sales associate for even deigning to hope — that the 12-foot-tall skeleton was out of stock.On Facebook Marketplace, price goug...

Stephen King sounds off on Maine mass shooting: ‘Stop electing apologists for murder’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:00 GMT

Maine native Stephen King called out the “madness” that led to Wednesday’s mass shooting in a Tweet on Thursday.“The shootings occurred less than 50 miles from where I live,” wrote King, an outspoken advocate against gun violence. “I went to high school in Lisbon. It’s the rapid-fire killing machines, people.“This is madness in the name of freedom,” he continued. “Stop electing apologists for murder.”

For Native viewers, ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ is an imperfect triumph

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:00 GMT

Greg Braxton | (TNS) Los Angeles TimesFrom the moment it was announced as a major feature film, “Killers of the Flower Moon” has sparked plenty of excitement — and anxiety.An adaptation of David Grann’s nonfiction bestseller about the murder of Osage people in 1920s Oklahoma, by white settlers plotting to acquire the rich oil deposits under Osage land, was most highly anticipated because of the elite names attached — in particular director Martin Scorsese and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.But the project also prompted considerable concern from the Osage nation and other Native Americans. With Scorsese at the helm instead of an Indigenous director, Osage people feared that the film would be yet another example of Hollywood’s traditionally stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans.“I was worried we were going to get exploited again — not so much in losing resources and our land, but in the telling of the story of how we lost our resources a...

Israeli air and ground strikes intensify in Gaza; internet collapse cuts territory off from outside

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:00 GMT

By WAFAA SHURAFA, JOSEF FEDERMAN and BASSEM MROUE (Associated Press)DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Internet and phone services collapsed in the Gaza Strip under intensified Israeli bombardment Friday night, largely cutting off its 2.3 million people from the outside world and each other, as Israel’s military said it was “expanding” ground operations in the besieged territory.The military’s announcement signaled it was moving closer to an all-out invasion of Gaza, where it has vowed to crush the ruling Hamas terrorist group after its bloody incursion in southern Israel three weeks ago. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.Explosions from a barrage of airstrikes lit up the sky over Gaza City after nightfall Friday when the blackout in internet, cellular and landline services hit. Already plunged into darkness after most electricity was cut off weeks ago, Palestinians were now thrown into isolation, huddled in homes...

Hundreds arrested for shoplifting in latest Vancouver police blitz

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:00 GMT

VANCOUVER — Retailers across Canada are concerned about an uptick in violence as a “tsunami” of retail theft plagues businesses that threatens the safety of employees and customers, says the general manager for loss prevention at London Drugs. Tony Hunt told a news conference Friday at Vancouver police headquarters that most retailers have seen at least a 20 per cent increase in retail theft in recent years, so he is grateful city police are cracking down on the problem. “Our primary concern as employers is the abuse of front line employees with aggressive and violent behaviours with increasing frequency and intensity,” he said. “This isn’t a Vancouver problem. We’re hearing across the province, across the country, employees and customers are afraid and this is simply not OK.”This comes as Vancouver police reported on its latest shoplifting crackdown on Friday with 258 arrests, along with the recovery of almost $57,000 in stolen goods ...

Inmate suspected in prison attack on Kristin Smart’s killer previously murdered ‘I-5 Strangler’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:00 GMT

COALINGA, Calif. (AP) — A California inmate accused of attacking Paul Flores this summer, shortly after Flores reported to prison to serve his conviction for murdering college student Kristin Smart, strangled his serial killer cellmate two years ago, officials said.The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation this week identified inmate Jason Budrow as the suspect in the Aug. 23 attack on Flores at the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, about 185 miles (300 kilometers) north of downtown Los Angeles.The department declined to share information about how Budrow allegedly was able to get to Flores or whether it is investigating how the attack happened on the agency’s watch in light of Budrow’s previous behavior while incarcerated.“CDCR is limited in the amount of information it can provide on incarcerated people’s housing for safety and security reasons,” the agency said in an email.Budrow is serving life without parole for fatally strangling his girlf...

New York City sets up office to give migrants one-way tickets out of town

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:54:00 GMT

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York City is intensifying efforts to transport migrants out of the city as its shelter system reaches capacity, setting up a dedicated office to provide asylum-seekers with free, one-way tickets to anywhere in the world. City Hall confirmed the establishment of a new “reticketing center” in Manhattan as its latest bid to ease pressure on its shelters and finances following the arrival of more than 130,000 asylum-seekers since last year. Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has described the situation as a crisis and has begun to warn that shelters are so full that migrants will soon be forced onto the street as winter approaches. “I cannot say this enough. You know, we are out of the room,” he told reporters this week. “And it’s not ‘if’ people will be sleeping on the streets, it’s when. We are at full capacity.”The city’s plan to offer migrants transportation builds upon previous efforts to send the asylum-seekers elsewhere, though the establishment of the dedicate...