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EPA: New pollution limits proposed for US coal, gas power plants reflect ‘urgency’ of climate crisis

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:10:58 GMT

By MATTHEW DALY (Associated Press)WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration proposed new limits Thursday on greenhouse gas emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants, its most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the nation’s second-largest contributor to climate change.A rule announced by the Environmental Protection Agency could force power plants to capture smokestack emissions using a technology that has long been promised but is not used widely in the United States.“This administration is committed to meeting the urgency of the climate crisis and taking the necessary actions required,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said.The new rule would “significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants, protecting health and protecting our planet,” Regan said. The plan would not only “improve air quality nationwide, but it will bring substantial health benefits to communities all acro...

Perfect brunch cocktails to celebrate moms on Mother’s Day

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:10:58 GMT

So far this year we have cleared four of the five hurdles of the annual Spring Cocktail Steeplechase — Mardi Gras, Easter, Cinco de Mayo and the Kentucky Derby. If we’ve made it this far, we can probably knuckle down and make it over the last one: Mother’s Day.When Anna Jarvis first conceived of a day to honor her mother in 1908, she was thinking of a pretty solemn affair, specifically surrounding a special Methodist Sunday church service. Jarvis was pretty adamant that the day should be rendered as “a singular possessive, for each family to honor its own mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world.” She made the establishment of just such a day her life’s work, succeeding on a national level in 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May a national holiday celebrating mothers (plural).Jarvis had by then already famously said that “her” Mother’s Day was a day to honor “the person who has done more for you than anyone in the worl...

Army officially designates Fort Moore, dropping Confederate name Benning

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:10:58 GMT

FORT MOORE, Ga. (AP) — The Army’s training hub in Georgia was renamed Fort Moore during a ceremony Thursday, replacing the name of a Confederate officer that had adorned the base for more than a century with that of a decorated Vietnam War commander and his wife.The name change for the post formerly known as Fort Benning had been in the making for more than a year, since an independent commission recommended in May 2022 renaming nine of its bases commemorating Confederate officers.Soldiers and dignitaries attended a ceremony Thursday unveiling the new sign that will stand outside the base headquarters. The post commander, Maj. Gen. Curtis Buzzard, welcomed attendees for the first time to Fort Moore, named in honor of the late Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife, Julia Moore. Located just outside Columbus, the Georgia base trains soldiers to fight in the infantry, to serve in tank crews and is home to the elite Army Ranger School. Roughly 70,000 soldiers and civilian workers are st...

Turkish candidate drops out in boost to Erdogan’s main challenger

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:10:58 GMT

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A candidate in Turkey’s presidential election announced his withdrawal from the race Thursday, a move that’s likely to benefit President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main challenger.The candidate who pulled out, Muharrem Ince, is the leader of the center-left Homeland Party. He was one of four contenders running in Sunday’s presidential election. Turkey holds a parliamentary election the same day. Ince had faced criticism for potentially ciphering support from the six-party Nation Alliance, which has united behind the candidacy of opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, and thereby forcing the presidential contest into a second-round.“I am withdrawing from the race,” Ince told reporters in front of his party’s headquarters, following weeks of resisting calls to step down. “I am doing this for my country.” Erdogan, who has led Turkey as prime minister and president since 2003, is facing the most challenging election of his 20-year rule. Pol...

New York attorney general sues manufacturer over magazine lock used in Buffalo store massacre

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:10:58 GMT

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York’s attorney general sued a gun accessory manufacturer Thursday for selling a lock that can be easily removed to attach high-capacity magazines, which are illegal in the state.The white gunman who massacred 10 Black shoppers and workers in a Buffalo supermarket last year carried out the attack with a semiautomatic rifle he purchased legally, but then modified so he could load it with illegal high-capacity ammunition magazines, as previously reported. New York law bans the possession of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. “We lost 10 innocent lives because a hate-fueled individual was able to make an AR-15 even deadlier through a simple change at home,” Attorney General Letitia James, an elected Democrat, said in a statement. “We cannot undo the devastating harm that was done, but this lawsuit against Mean Arms is part of our ongoing effort to pursue justice for the ten innocent lives that were unjustly taken.”Email messages seeking...

Trump turned his liabilities into laugh lines at CNN town hall, underscoring GOP rivals’ challenge

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:10:58 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The Republicans in the audience laughed when former President Donald Trump mocked a woman who accused him of rape. They cheered when he defended his role during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. And they applauded again after he said he was “honored” to “terminate Roe v. Wade.”Trump’s defiant performance at the CNN town hall on Wednesday may ultimately hurt his standing with key groups of voters in next fall’s general election, especially women, suburbanites and independents. But the reaction of those who attended also demonstrated his extraordinary grip on the conservative voters who will soon decide the fight for the GOP presidential nomination.The magnitude of the challenge ahead for Trump’s Republican rivals was clear as the former president repeatedly turned his greatest political liabilities into jokes and applause lines for the GOP base. On Thursday, a day after the town hall, Trump’s Republican critics conceded they don’t kn...

Oklahoma police rush to respond to cries for help … from a goat

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:10:58 GMT

ENID, Okla. (AP) — Sometimes a wrong call can really get your goat.Police in Enid, Oklahoma at first walked slowly and cautiously through the grassy, wooded area of a farm seeking the source of faint cries in the distance.“That’s a person,” one of the officers said to the other on a video that has been widely shared from a Facebook post by the police department in the city about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northwest of Oklahoma City. The distressing noise that sounded like human cries for help escalated as officers David Sneed and Neal Storey began running to help who they thought was perhaps a person trapped under farm equipment.Instead, it was a goat.“That’s a goat? … from a long distance it sounds it sounds like help,” Sneed asked through laughter.“The farmer said he had two male goats in the barn, and he took one out and he wasn’t happy,” according to police spokesperson Cass Rains. Now the town and the police department are enjoying the tale of the rescue ...

Republicans continue push to restrict teachings on race in South Carolina

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:10:58 GMT

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina Republicans are one step closer to restricting how teachers discuss race in K-12 classrooms.As conservatives nationwide push bans on so-called “critical race theory,” the state Senate passed a likeminded effort Wednesday in a late night 27-10 vote after nearly six hours of debate. Parents could challenge any educational materials they say violate banned teachings around white privilege and implicit bias under a bill sent back to the GOP-controlled House.Missing from the bill is the explicit phrase “ critical race theory.” It instead prevents teaching that an individual “bears responsibility for actions committed in the past” by other members of their race, and that someone is inherently privileged or should receive “adverse or favorable treatment” due to their race.The bill states that nothing prevents teachings about any ethnic group’s history or the “fact-based discussion” of “controversial” periods and current events. Senate Majority Lea...

What is Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Gaza militant group now fighting Israel?

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:10:58 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — The cycle has become grimly familiar. Over three days, Israeli airstrikes on Gaza have killed at least 28 people, including senior Palestinian militants, as well as children as young as 4 years old. Palestinian militants in Gaza have fired over 600 rockets toward Israel, killing one person, setting off warning sirens as far north as the coastal city of Tel Aviv and sending tens of thousands of Israelis into bomb shelters. The most violent conflagration in months between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza has pitted the Israeli military against Islamic Jihad, Gaza’s second-largest militant group after Hamas. But Hamas, the militant group that runs the Gaza Strip, has sat this one out. As it tries to rein in its conflict with Israel and improve the miserable quality of life for the 2 million Palestinians under its control, Hamas has let the smaller Islamic Jihad group take the lead, as it did in a similar round of fighting last summer. Here’s a look ...

Sweden’s Loreen could win Eurovision – for the second time

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:10:58 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Loreen’s favorite moment of Eurovision comes as she’s rolled onstage, lying flat between two horizontal screens and sporting spiky jeweled nails, waiting for the music to start.It’s a moment of calm, about 40 seconds, when the Swedish singer can look at the audience and connect with the crowd, she says. It’s also a stark contrast to the energetic performance that follows, one that has her tipped to come first at the Eurovision Song Contest — for a second time.Loreen won in Baku, Azerbaijan, at Eurovision 2012 with “Euphoria” and now it’s looking like she could do the double and triumph again more than a decade later with “Tattoo.” If she does win it all, she’d only be the second person in Eurovision history to win twice — and it’s been 36 years since Johnny Logan pulled off that feat for Ireland.Loreen has already made it through Tuesday’s semifinal to earn a place for Sweden in Saturday’s Grand Final in Liverpool. This time feels differen...