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Defense secretary tells Navy graduates they are ready to serve

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:20 GMT

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told newly commissioned officers at the U.S. Naval Academy on Friday that they are ready to “defend our democracy with honor, courage and commitment.”Austin, speaking during the ceremony at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium after President Joe Biden addressed graduates last year and Vice President Kamala Harris delivered remarks in 2021, acknowledged the Navy’s role in training allies, helping expand Ukraine’s maritime capabilities in its fight against Russian invasion and bringing relief to international conflict zones. “Class of 2023, wherever your career takes you, remind the world of what you stand for — and what America stands for: Honor. Courage. And commitment. Democracy. Liberty. And the rule of law,” Austin told 1,018 graduates at the academy’s commissioning ceremony.The secretary said naval officers have a special understanding of the power of teamwork, and “we need that spirit for the crucia...

New York City outlaws discrimination on the basis of weight, height

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:20 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed legislation Friday that will ban discrimination based on body size by adding weight and height to the list of protected categories such as race, sex and religion.“We all deserve the same access to employment, housing and public accommodation, regardless of our appearance, and it shouldn’t matter how tall you are or how much you weigh,” said the mayor, who joined other elected officials as well as fat-acceptance advocates at a City Hall bill-signing ceremony.Adams, a Democrat who published a book about reversing his diabetes through a plant-based diet, said the ordinance “will help level the playing field for all New Yorkers, create more inclusive workplaces and living environments, and protect against discrimination.”Exemptions under the ordinance, which the city council passed this month, include cases in which an individual’s height or weight could prevent them from performing essential functions of a job.Some busin...

X marks the spot: Yellen tells Congress US could run out of money to pay all its bills by June 5

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:20 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Congress on Friday that the U.S. could default on its debt obligations by June 5 — four days later than previously estimated — if lawmakers do not act in time to raise the federal debt ceiling.Yellen’s letter comes as Congress breaks for a long Memorial Day weekend, and tensions build over whether a deal between the White House and Republicans in Congress will be struck in time.The so-called “X-date” arrives when the government no longer has enough of a financial cushion to pay all its bills, having exhausted the “extraordinary measures” it has been employing since January to stretch existing funds.Yellen said in her letter that the agency used one such measure for the first time since 2015 to get the U.S. financial position to this point: a swap of roughly $2 billion in Treasury securities between the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Federal Financing Bank.“The extremely low level of remaining resources dema...

Oregon, awash in treatment funds after decriminalizing drugs, now must follow the money

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:20 GMT

Funding for drug treatment centers in Oregon, financed by the state’s pioneering drug decriminalization policy, stood at over a quarter-billion dollars Friday as officials called for closer monitoring of where the money goes.That need for oversight was demonstrated Wednesday when state officials terminated a $1.5 million grant agreement with a drug recovery nonprofit in Klamath Falls accused of failing to submit completed expenditure and data reports and buying a building for more than double the authorized amount.That $1.5 million is just a drop in a huge bucket — $264.6 million has been allocated to date for recovery centers — and state officials have a massive responsibility to ensure the money does what it is supposed to: combatting drug use in a state with one of the nation’s highest addiction rates.Oregon’s drug decriminalization had a rocky start after voters approved it in a 2020 ballot measure. Only a tiny number of people have accessed treatment services ...

Miami zoo apologizes for treatment of threatened kiwi bird

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:20 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — Officials at a South Florida zoo have apologized and promised to end its “Kiwi Encounter” experience after a viral video showed humans petting one of the threatened birds, which are a national symbol for New Zealand.Zoo Miami spokesperson Ron Magill said in a statement Tuesday that they’re sorry for the stress caused by a video on social media of people handling Paora, the kiwi bird under the zoo’s care.“Though Paora has thrived at Zoo Miami while receiving the best care available, the development of the Kiwi Encounter was, in hindsight, not well conceived with regard to the national symbolism of this iconic animal and what it represents to the people of New Zealand, especially the Maori,” the statement said.An online petition was started after a video posted on Twitter Monday showed the flightless, nocturnal bird being handled by visitors and kept awake by artificial lighting. The online outcry got the attention of New Zealand’s Department...

Essay: A mega-fan’s appreciation for Tina Turner’s limitless energy and lessons of survival

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:20 GMT

DALLAS (AP) — When Tina Turner died at age 83, I found myself drifting back to the fourth grade, to the day I truly discovered her voice. I was on Thanksgiving break — bored — when I decided to rummage through my parents’ old cassette tapes in search of entertainment.What I found was astonishing: an album called “Private Dancer.”“I look up to the stars with my perfect memory. I look through it all and my future’s no shock to me.”“Who was this magnificent woman?” I thought as the lyrics of the song “I Might Have Been Queen (Soul Survivor),” flowed through the headphones of my Walkman. “What had she been through?”I quickly consulted an expert on the matter: my mom, who as a teenager in the ’60s, had been listening to Tina since she first made hits with her then-husband Ike. Mom, like Tina, didn’t sugarcoat the superstar’s history: Off-stage, Ike was beating her. It was something she herself — and most others — didn’t know when she and Dad first went to see her ...

Provinces, territories agree to help feds in ’30 by 30′ goal to halt land, water loss

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:20 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada’s provinces and territories are on board to help the federal government in its goal to halt land and water loss across the country.Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault met with his counterparts in Ottawa today and said they’re all on the same page about conservation targets.The Liberal government is leading a biodiversity strategy to protect 30 per cent of Canadian land and water by 2030. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the target in 2020 and Canada was among the countries which pushed successfully for more than 190 other countries to follow suit at a UN biodiversity conference in Montreal last December.“It’s a necessary plan. Nature is what nurtures all life. It provides us with food, clear air and water, as well as protection from nature’s hazards,” Guilbeault said on Friday.Provincial, territorial leaders have agreed to collaborate with Ottawa and Indigenous Peoples moving forward because “there’s n...

Music Review: Arlo Parks wishes her eyes were still wide on new album ‘My Soft Machine’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:20 GMT

“My Soft Machine,” by Arlo Parks (Transgressive)Britpop artist Arlo Parks approaches her work as a poet, laying incisive lyrics over a murkily cozy lo-fi hip-hop. On her second album, “My Soft Machine,” Parks balances childlike wonder with personal trauma and disappointment. The opening track, “Bruiseless,” sets the mood expertly with the line, “I just wish that my eyes were still wide.”Since the release of her 2018 single, “Cola,” Parks has produced a steady stream of stories told with disarming warmth and honesty. Her debut album, “Collapsed in Sunbeams,” composed during quarantine, is a striking document of time spent inside her room and her mind. On the new release, she retains her inviting, catchy vibe, but starts to venture outside both thematically and musically.In interviews, Park says that she has come to know exactly what she wants. On “My Soft Machine,” Parks stays true to her DIY foundations, but, as a producer on the recording, she has expanded her sound. The exploratio...

Fulton Market developers, restaurant groups look to hire private 24 hour security

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:20 GMT

CHICAGO -- A proposal to hire private security to patrol Fulton Market has been drawing fire Friday afternoon.A new association of powerful developers and restaurant groups, backing a proposal to annually pay a $800,000 price tag, that reportedly calls for building owners merchants to foot the bill for private 24 hour security."Businesses are extremely upset that their property taxes have gone through the roof and now Walter Burnett, and other city officials now want them to pay more money for police security that they've already paid for," Romanelli said.Roger Romanelli reached out publicly to City Hall to ask Mayor Brandon Johnson and 27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett to stop the proposed Fulton Market private security plan.  "Everybody in the neighborhood has got to pony up $1 million? Alderman Burnett? This makes no sense," Romanelli said.Romanelli, long time executive Director of the Fulton Market Association, said smaller, family-owned restaurants are being forced out of Chica...

Chicago firefighters battle 2-alarm fire in West Pullman

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:20 GMT

CHICAGO — The Chicago Fire Department is battling a house fire Friday afternoon in West Pullman.According to the Chicago Fire Department, some sort of explosion was reported in the two-alarm fire in the 12000 block of South Lafayette Avenue. Shots fired on Chicago’s North Avenue Beach hours after opening for the summer One firefighter was injured and suffered non-life-threatening injuries, the fire department said. It's not clear if anyone else was injured.Provided / Chicago Fire DepartmentPictures from the Chicago Fire Department show flames coming from the second story of the home.This is a breaking news story and will be updated as more information becomes available.