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Battenfeld: Dems may give Biden a pass on touching, but Scott Brown didn’t

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:53:10 GMT

As if Joe Biden needs any more headaches, former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown comes out of the woodwork to remind everyone of Biden’s long, controversial history of inappropriately touching women.Brown, in an interview on a local podcast, rehashed the story of how he had to issue a strong warning to then Vice President Biden to keep his hands off Brown’s wife, Gail Huff Brown.“I told him I’d kick the (expletive) out – I told him to stop, so yes,” Brown said of the incident in the former senator’s swearing in ceremony in 2010.“He didn’t act the way I thought he should, and we called him on it and that’s it.”Asked about the comments in the “Burn Barrel” podcast by the Herald, Brown, the former U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand, texted: “For us, it’s old news. I called him on it in a humorous way. He got the message. We ended up having a cordial, positive working relationship.”But Brown’s retelling of the story has put the spotlight again on President Biden’s long history of touching wo...

Massive explosion at a gas station in Russia’s Dagestan kills 35 and injures scores more

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:53:10 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — A massive explosion at a gas station in Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan killed 35 people and injured scores more, Russian officials said Tuesday. Russia’s Health Ministry said 115 people were injured in the blast and subsequent fire, and 35 of them died, including three children. A total of 65 of those injured, including 16 children, remained hospitalized as of midday Tuesday, the ministry said. Eleven people, including two children, were in grave condition. The explosion occurred Monday night on the outskirts of Makhachkala, the region’s capital. A fire started at a car repair shop and spread to a nearby gas station, triggering the blast.Families of the dead will receive 1 million rubles (about $10,000) each and the injured between 200,000 and 400,000 rubles (about $2,000-$4,000), Dagestan’s authorities said. Russian state media said some of those injured would be airlifted to Moscow for treatment. Makhachkala is about 1,600 kilometers (990 miles) s...

Russia unleashes a missile barrage on Ukraine, killing and wounding civilians

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:53:10 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces unleashed a barrage of missiles on regions across Ukraine in the early hours of Tuesday morning, killing civilians and damaging civilian infrastructure. The barrage came just hours before top Russian military officials and their counterparts from Asia, the Middle East and Africa gathered outside Moscow for a security conference, where the fighting in Ukraine is likely to dominate the agenda. Moscow’s war in Ukraine is nearing the 18-month mark.The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia fired a total of 28 cruise missiles at the country. Sixteen of them were intercepted, the statement said. “Deliberate large-scale attacks on civilians. Solely for the sake of killing and psychological pressure,” presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on X, formerly known as Twitter. Podolyak added that the barrage was “an undeniable manifestation” of Russia’s “terrorist activity, legally documented by numerous destructions and victims.”Six out of seven Russian-l...

The UN and its partners ramp up their appeal for peace and aid at the 4-month mark of Sudan’s war

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:53:10 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Twenty United Nations and other international organizations on Tuesday called for peace, access to humanitarian support and respect for human rights in Sudan at the four-month mark of a war that has led to food shortages, death and injury, and sexual violence, among other troubles.Spokeswoman Margaret Harris of the World Health Organization appealed to the global community to do more, saying at a U.N. briefing in Geneva: “The world is ignoring the dire needs.”Sudan was plunged into chaos in April when months of simmering tensions between the military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, exploded into open fighting in Khartoum and elsewhere. Since then, the U.N and rights groups have accused both the military and the RSF of numerous human rights violations, although both forces have rejected these accusations.In Darfur, the scene of genocidal war in the early 2000s, the fighting has morphed into ethnic viol...

A $500 million deal to restore Gabon’s coast reignites climate finance debate

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:53:10 GMT

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Gabon will use a controversial financial move to ease its debt burden and restore its oceans at the same time, a leading conservation group said Tuesday.It’s the second-largest deal of its kind to date, and the first on mainland Africa, according to a press release by The Nature Conservancy, the global environmental nonprofit that helped broker the deal.Gabon, an oil-rich Central African nation known for its biodiversity, hosts the world’s largest population of leatherback turtles and myriad other endangered species. By refinancing $500 million of its foreign debt, TNC estimates, Gabon will free up $163 million to expand its protected coastal areas and combat illegal overfishing.“It’s a really interesting way of slightly reducing our debt repayments and also generating money for conservation,” said Lee White, Gabon’s minister of water, forests, sea, and environment. He collaborated with TNC, Bank of America and others to negotiate lower interest rates on Gabon’...

Man in 20s dead, another in critical condition after Mississauga crash

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:53:10 GMT

A man in his 20s is dead and another is fighting for his life in hospital after an early morning crash in Mississauga.Emergency crews were called to Derry Road between Mavis and McLaughlin roads around 5:30 a.m. for reports of a multi-vehicle collision.Paramedics tell CityNews two vehicles were involved and a man in his 20s was pronounced dead at the scene. A second man was rushed to hospital in life-threatening condition.Images from the scene show a black car and a white car with significant front end damage.Eastbound Derry is blocked at Mavis for the investigation. Police are asking motorists to avoid the area.This is a developing story. More to come.

Migrant boat sinks off Tunisian coast, leaving 5 dead and 7 missing

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:53:10 GMT

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — A migrant boat sank off Tunisia’s port city of Sfax, leaving five people dead and seven others missing, officials said Tuesday. The dead included a child.Sfax is the starting point for most attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy.Twenty-three migrants were rescued out of 35 people on board, most of them Tunisians and a “small number of sub-Saharan nationals,” said Faouzi Masmoudi, a Sfax court spokesperson.The boat sank on Monday shortly after leaving from the Sfax area, Masmoudi said.The Sfax court opened an investigation to determine the cause of the accident, which occurred two days after another migrant boat sank off Gabes, a port in southeastern Tunisia, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Sfax, killing a child and a 20-year-old man. Five other people remain missing.A number of boats have capsized, shipwrecked or otherwise been in distress in recent days off the North African coast and near Italian shores. Tens of thousands of migrants have...

Some athletes with a fear of flying are leaning on greater resources than their predecessors

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:53:10 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco Giants star Joc Pederson is scared to fly. Outfielder Seth Brown of the Oakland Athletics, too.They are hardly the only ones. Longtime manager Dusty Baker would bet that anxiety in the air has shortened more than a few careers. He recalls watching terrified teammates and coaches cling tightly to photos of their loved ones during bumpy flights.“There’s no helping them,” Baker said. “A lot of times they have a couple drinks more than they should on the plane. I’ve had guys I played with, they had like four or five kids, and the plane was having turbulence and they would start kissing their kids, like they were kissing them goodbye, like it was the last time they would see their kids.”In big-time sports, there’s no getting around regular flying. Major League Baseball players might crisscross the country several times in a single week. NBA and NHL teams frequently play on consecutive nights in different cities and time zones. Even 300-plus-pound ...

Retirees face $17,400 hit in Social Security if fund isn't bolstered: analysis

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:53:10 GMT

(NEXSTAR) – The average retired couple would see a $17,400 Social Security cut in 2033 if the program is allowed to continue on its current path, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).The CRFB's analysis found that politicians' promises not to touch the program would actually ensure a reduction in benefits across the board when the trust fund behind Social Security goes insolvent in a decade.That fund, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund, is set to run through its reserves by 2033, just when people who are currently 57 years old retire at 72. Odds of a ‘strong’ El Niño grow again: Will you feel it locally? According to the analysis, once the OASI becomes insolvent, it will only be able to pay out an amount equivalent to what it receives in funding, meaning a 23% drop in Social Security benefits.That would mean an annual $17,400 loss for the typical dual-income couple and a $13,100 reduction for those with...

How a law associated with mobsters is central to the latest charges against Trump

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 15:53:10 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened her investigation into Donald Trump after the release of a recording of a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger.Trump suggested during the call that Raffensperger, a Republican and the state’s top elections official, could help “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Meet the co-conspirators charged with Trump in the Georgia indictment More than two years later, the indictment brought Monday by a grand jury went far beyond that phone call, alleging a web of crimes committed by Trump and others. Willis used Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law to charge Trump and 18 associates for allegedly participating in a wide-ranging conspiracy to overturn the state's 2020 election results.She told reporters late Monday that she intended to try all 19 defendants together and noted her pros...