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Florida Senate passes 6-week abortion ban backed by DeSantis

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:48 GMT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Senate on Monday approved a bill to ban abortions after six weeks, a measure supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis as the Republican prepares to launch his expected presidential candidacy. The proposal must still be approved by the House before it reaches the governor’s desk. Florida currently prohibits abortions after 15 weeks. A six-week ban would more closely align Florida with the abortion restrictions of other Republican-controlled states and give DeSantis a political win on an issue important with GOP primary voters ahead of his potential White House run.The bill would have larger implications for abortion access throughout the South, as the nearby states of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi prohibit the procedure at all stages of pregnancy and Georgia bans it after cardiac activity can be detected, which is around six weeks. “Bodily autonomy should not give a person the permission to kill an innocent human being. We live in a time where th...

MLB game times cut 30 minutes, steals double under new rules

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:48 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball’s new rules are working as hoped through the first four days of the season.The average game time has dropped by 30 minutes, stolen bases have doubled and batting average has increased by 16 percentage points compared to last year’s opening weekend.Games averaged 2 hours, 38 minutes through Sunday with the new pitch clock, down from 3:08 for the first four days of the 2022 season and a 3:04 final average.In the first year of restrictions on defensive shifts, the .246 batting average for nine-inning games was up from .230 over the first four days last year, when many games were played in cold and wet weather. Left-handed batting average increased to .232 from .229 in last year’s first four days and right-handed average went up to .254 from .230.“We are extremely pleased with the early returns,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said Monday. “Fan reaction has been positive to the brisker pace with more action. And players have made a great adjustment ...

Nashville police: School shooter planned attack for months

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:48 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — As students across Nashville walked out of class on Monday to protest gun violence at the Tennessee Capitol following a school shooting last week, police said the person who killed six people, including three 9-year-old children, had been planning the massacre for months.Police have not established a motive for the shootings at The Covenant School, a small Christian elementary school where the 28-year-old shooter was once a student, according to a Monday news release from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. Both Nashville police and FBI agents continue to review writings left behind by Audrey Hale, both in Hale’s vehicle and home, police said. “It is known that Hale considered the actions of other mass murderers,” police said.The three children who were killed in the shooting were Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. The three adults were Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of the school, custodian Mike Hill, 61, and 61-year-old sub...

Autopsy finds cause of death for Irvo Otieno was asphyxia

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:48 GMT

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Irvo Otieno, a 28-year-old Black man whose death last month at a Virginia mental hospital has led to second-degree murder charges against 10 deputies and hospital employees, died of “positional and mechanical asphyxia with restraints,” a medical examiner’s office said Monday. Arkuie Williams, the administrative deputy in the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, confirmed the findings to The Associated Press after attorneys for Otieno’s family first shared them in a statement. The manner of death was homicide, Williams wrote in an email. Otieno, who struggled with mental illness, died March 6 after he was pinned to the floor while being admitted to Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie County. Video released earlier this month showed sheriff’s deputies and hospital employees restraining a handcuffed and shackled Otieno for about 20 minutes after he was forcibly led into a hospital room. For much of that time, Otieno was prone on the floor, pinned...

North Dakota teachers can still use transgender students’ pronouns after lawmakers fail to override governor’s veto

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:48 GMT

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota teachers can still use transgender students’ pronouns after lawmakers fail to override governor’s veto.Source

Maine ice disk on frozen lake measures 541 meters across

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:48 GMT

MADAWASKA, Maine (AP) — Volunteers cut a big ol’ circle in a frozen lake and set it in motion, reclaiming a world record in a category that few people know exists: The biggest ice carousel.With a diameter of 1,776 feet — or 541 meters — the giant piece of ice estimated at 146,000 tons moved slowly like a Lazy Susan to hoots, hollers and high fives on Saturday.Northern Maine Ice Busters had to cut through ice nearly 30 inches thick on a path painstakingly measured by survey crews to create a perfect circle measuring nearly six football fields across. It’s a laborious-but-fun way to provide entertainment during the long, cold winter, and it has turned into something of a rivalry in places like Finland, Minnesota and Maine. There’s even a World Ice Carousel Association.“It’s a friendly competition,” said John Mazo, media liaison for the Northern Maine Ice Busters.On Saturday, it took a herculean effort to get the giant disk moving with 10 outboard boat engines, farm e...

Finland doubling NATO’s border with Russia in blow to Putin

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:48 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — The blue-and-white Finnish flag rises outside NATO headquarters Tuesday afternoon, making Finland a member and doubling Russia’s border with the world’s biggest security alliance.The move is a strategic and political blow to President Vladimir Putin, who has long complained about NATO’s expansion toward Russia and partly used that as a justification for his country’s war with Ukraine.“What we see is that President Putin went to war against Ukraine with a declared aim to get less NATO,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. “He’s getting the exact opposite.”Like all NATO members, Finland will benefit from the collective security guarantee that an attack on one is considered an attack on all.NATO has said that it has no immediate intention to step up its presence in Finland. Some members have deployed troops there for war games over the last year. Russia immediately warned that it would bolster forces near Finland if NATO sends any additional troops or equipmen...

S&P 500 wavers as OPEC move stokes inflation fears

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:48 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Stock markets around the world are mixed Monday, as a jump in oil prices threatens to add upward pressure on inflation. The S&P 500 rose 0.1% in afternoon trading after shifting between small gains and losses earlier. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 293 points, or 0.9%, at 33,568, as of 2:36 p.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.8% lower. Oil jumped roughly 6% after Saudi Arabia and other crude-producing countries said over the weekend they would cut production. That lifted stocks of energy companies, including a 5.8% rise for Exxon Mobil, 10.1% leap for Marathon Oil and 4.3% gain for BP. While the jump in oil helps energy producers, it also weighs on much of the rest of the market. That’s because it dents one of the main themes that helped stocks rise in this year’s just completed first quarter: that turmoil in the banking system and a continued slowdown in inflation could push the Federal Reserve to ease its hikes to interest r...

Businessman gets 8 years in prison for theft of COVID funds

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:48 GMT

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut businessman who conspired with a now-former state lawmaker to steal federal coronavirus relief funds from the city of West Haven was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison for his role in the scheme.A federal investigation found John Trasacco, 50, had conspired with former state Rep. Michael DiMassa to submit fraudulent invoices from two companies Trasacco controlled for goods and services never provided. The list included thousands of items of personal protection equipment, billings for heating and air conditioning maintenance at several municipal buildings, COVID-19 supplies for the school board, and cleaning services for various city and school buildings, including one building that had been vacant and abandoned for years. Federal prosecutors determined Trasacco’s companies received approximately $431,982 from the scheme. A jury found Trasacco guilty on Dec. 2 of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. U.S. District Judge Omar...

Starbucks fires Buffalo worker active in unionization effort

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:48 GMT

Starbucks has fired one of the workers who helped kick off a unionization effort at the company.Lexi Rizzo, an eight-year Starbucks employee and shift supervisor, was fired from her store in Buffalo, New York, on Friday. Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing Starbucks’ workers, said Rizzo was fired after arriving a few minutes late for work. It claims the firing was retaliation for Rizzo’s vocal support of the union.Rizzo was one of the workers who first reached out to labor organizers in 2021 to unionize Starbucks stores. Since then, at least 294 of Starbucks’ 9,000 company-owned U.S. stores have voted to unionize, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Seattle-based Starbucks opposes the unionization effort.Starbucks said Monday that Rizzo was fired for “repeated and substantial violations” of its attendance policy, including one instance where she arrived more than three hours late for a shift. Starbucks said it had documented six instances in which Rizzo...