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As death toll from Maui fire reaches 93, authorities say effort to count the losses is just starting

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:21:28 GMT

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — As the death toll from a wildfire that razed a historic Maui town reached 93, authorities warned Saturday that the effort to find and identify the dead was still in its early stages. It’s already the deadliest U.S. wildfire for over a century.Crews with cadaver dogs have covered just 3% of the search area, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said. “We’ve got an area that we have to contain that is at least 5 square miles and it is full of our loved ones,” noting that the death toll is likely to grow and “none of us really know the size of it yet.”He spoke as federal emergency workers picked through the ashen moonscape left by the fire that razed the centuries-old town of Lahaina. Teams marked the ruins of homes with a bright orange X to record an initial search, and HR when they found human remains.Pelletier said identifying the dead is extremely challenging because “we pick up the remains and they fall apart … When we find our family and our friends,...

Q&A: Dr. Yohuru Williams and Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs on reparations in Minnesota

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:21:28 GMT

When historian Yohuru Williams became co-chair of the St. Paul Recovery Act Reparations Committee in 2021, he took a deep dive into Minnesota’s history of racial injustices.“Coming here from the East Coast, I really wanted to make sure I came up to speed on the history of this region,” he said.Historian Yohuru Williams worked on St. Paul reparations efforts as the co-chair of the Recovery Act Reparations Committee in 2021. (Mark Brown / University of St. Thomas)The reparations committee Williams served on was focused on American descendants of chattel slavery. Yet, the more history Williams read, the more he felt that it was wrong to have a conversation about reparations without acknowledging the history of American Indians in Minnesota.The Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs, a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation, has been working for reparations for Indigenous people for many years. His most recent effort is an initiative to heal relationships between American India...

Winter Carnival: A new 2023 Queen of the Snows was crowned in July. What happened to the queen crowned in January?

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:21:28 GMT

A winter queen, crowned in summer?In a coronation on July 26 that was as quiet as falling snow, Jocelyn O’Neill was crowned Aurora, 2023 Queen of the Snows of the St. Paul Winter Carnival.O’Neill’s transition from South Wind Princess to queen, in an unannounced ceremony at Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul, is rare enough to be historical for the 137-year-old Carnival, but it was an unheralded event that followed an equally quiet dismissal.So, what happened? Why was Liv Swenson, who was crowned Queen of the Snows with great fanfare during the 2023 St. Paul Winter Carnival on Jan. 27, dismissed and replaced by a runner-up less than six months later?In a drama that is as opaque as a road in a blizzard, it depends on who you ask.After receiving an anonymous tip about Swenson’s removal, the Pioneer Press reached out to her for comment.Because rumors about the decision are swirling in Winter Carnival circles, she says, she decided it was time to defend herself ...

Ask Amy: I’ve told them they need therapy, and they refuse to do it. What now?

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:21:28 GMT

Dear Amy: Although I totally understand your enthusiasm for therapy to address a variety of issues, what do you do when this is simply not an option?I have friends who need therapy for all sorts of personal and relationship struggles, and they simply refuse.My parents’ marriage is now under heavy strain, but both have told me they would be “mortified to air their dirty laundry to a total stranger.”No matter what I try to say or do, there’s just no budging anywhere.Any ideas? Frustrated HelperDear Frustrated: Therapy has proved a transformative experience in my own life (and many others), and one reason is because working with a therapist is the ultimate safe space to “air the dirty laundry.”A good therapist builds trust with clients, and working on personal problems with a clinician helps to keep one’s dirty laundry where it belongs – in the hamper (so to speak) of one’s own life, versus involving family members who can’t necessarily be helpful because of their own intertwined relat...

¿En qué parte del mundo está Prigozhin, el señor de la guerra de Wagner? Libre y en control, aparentemente

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:21:28 GMT

(CNN) — A finales de la semana pasada, el líder de la oposición rusa encarcelado, Alexey Navalny, recibió una dura sentencia: después de que un tribunal lo condenara a 19 años en una colonia penal, lo enviaron de inmediato a una celda de castigo.Fue un marcado contraste con el destino de Yevgeny Prigozhin, el jefe del grupo de mercenarios rusos Wagner. En junio, Prigozhin lideró la fallida insurrreción que presentó el mayor desafío para el presidente ruso, Vladimir Putin, en más de dos décadas de gobierno. Mientras las tropas de Prigozhin se detuvieron antes de llegar a Moscú, un furioso Putin dijo en un discurso televisado que aquellos en el “camino de la traición” enfrentarían un castigo. Casi dos meses después, en el caso del jefe Wagner, esto simplemente no ha sucedido.Claramente, el precio de confrontar a Putin no es fijo. Quizás lo más sorprendente es que Prigozhin ni siquiera ha mantenido un perfil bajo desde la insurrección de junio.Apenas unas semanas después de la in...

‘Cancel culture’ is big now, but has it been around for years?

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:21:28 GMT

(new Image()).src = "https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=9be9c680-c459-4acb-af21-654a2ccca384&cid=c2ffed0c-3624-46c0-b10f-97c976d290a3";cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "9be9c680-c459-4acb-af21-654a2ccca384",mediaId: "c276cf73-a716-4f94-96a6-b6a0e4a4098b"}).render("c847b03924f44f8ea68e96ea591819fb"); });This story was written as part of the WTOP Book Report series authored by Terik King. Read more of that coverage. “Cancel culture” is a polarizing phenomenon that evokes a strong reaction from people across all sectors of society, and can look like anything from restaurant boycotts to job terminations after the resurfacing of years-old tweets to backlash for impulsive misstatements.Philadelphia journalist Ernest Owens, author of “The Case for Cancel Culture,” told the WTOP Book Report that he believes we’ve got it all wrong.Before writing his own, Owens said he read other books about the phenomenon.“They were against it. It was a complete attack on the term ...

Series of Tropical Waves to Lead to Up and Down Rain Chances this Week

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:21:28 GMT

We remain under the influence of a tropical wave this weekend, which brought some storms to the Florida Keys Saturday and during the overnight. Now this Sunday, the tropical wave will be located to our west, which means we should be on the moist side of the wave. This is the first of a series of tropical waves which could have an effect on our weather pattern over the next week in South Florida.This Sunday, expect a mix of sun and clouds with possible scattered afternoon showers and storms. Highs will remain hot into the low to mid 90s, which is a few degrees above normal.A Heat Advisory will go into effect again today from 10AM through 7PM for Miami-Dade and Broward Counties for heat indicies up to 109F. There is no advisory posted for the Florida Keys.For Monday, we’ll be in between tropical waves with a thin sliver of drier air forecast to sweep across the eastern coast of South Florida and into the Keys. This should keep most — if not all — of the afternoon sho...

Spain’s La Liga files EU complaint over Qatar funding of French club Paris St-Germain

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:21:28 GMT

Spanish football league La Liga has filed a complaint with the European Commission against Qatari-owned French club Paris St-Germain, alleging that its funding mechanism breaches EU competition laws.La Liga in a statement Saturday cited the EU’s recent Foreign Subsidies Regulation, which establishes limits on EU companies receiving funds from non-EU states when that could lead to market distortions. Since 2011, Paris St-Germain (PSG) has been owned by Qatar Sports Investments, a subsidiary of the Qatari government sovereign fund. La Liga alleges that Qatar’s investment in the club has given PSG an unfair advantage. PSG uses Qatar’s “foreign subsidies to sign top players and coaches well above its potential in a normal market situation,” the complaint alleges.“This enables them to boost their sporting performance, as well as affecting the ability of rival clubs to recruit,” according to the statement.La Liga added that it trusts the European ...

Pressure to act on small boat crossings intensifies after 6 die in English Channel

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:21:28 GMT

LONDON — Pressure on U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to stem small boat crossings across the English Channel intensified this weekend after at least six people died making the voyage on Saturday.Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said on social media that the dangerous crossings “desperately need to stop,” while Conservative MP Jake Berry, a former Conservative Party chairman, warned that “only radical changes can truly turn the tide” in an article for the Sunday Express.French authorities said on Saturday that six people died off the coast of France, and another two people were possibly missing, after a boat trying to cross the Channel capsized. Nearly 60 migrants were rescued and taken to either Britain or France.The tragedy came after the U.K. government spent last week highlighting its efforts to reduce the number of of asylum seekers arriving in small boats. It faced a setback on Friday after dozens of asylum seekers were evacuated from a controversial ...

Taiwan’s VP defies Beijing with New York City transit stop

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 12:21:28 GMT

Taiwan’s vice president Lai Ching-te defied pressure from Beijing to make a transit stop in New York City on Saturday en route to a state visit to Paraguay.Lai, the leading presidential candidate in Taiwan’s upcoming election, is using the Big Apple stop to meet with members of the Taiwanese American community. On Saturday, China began conducting a three-day military exercise in the East China Sea a few hundred miles from Taiwan — a typical show from Beijing to express its displeasure with the island’s foreign political activities.But China’s reaction was relatively muted given that China’s ambassador to the U.S., Xie Feng, told a crowd at the Aspen Security Forum last month that aborting Lai’s stopovers was his “top priority.” These travel visits often attract the eyes of watchers in Beijing and Washington, given their contentious nature for China, but American protocol dictates that they remain low key.Lai announced his arrival in New York on Saturday evening in a p...