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Biden hosts Irish prime minister on St. Patrick’s Day

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 10:13:49 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is hosting Ireland’s prime minister on Friday, after the COVID-19 pandemic scuttled the longstanding St. Patrick’s Day meetup two years in a row. Leo Varadkar, known as the taoiseach, and his partner, Matthew Barrett, also attended a breakfast with Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff at the Vice President’s home, and Varadkar told the crowd there that Ireland is grateful for the “close and deep bond with these United States.” He said the U.S. has played a central role in promoting peace in Ireland “at critical points when few others had the influence to do so.” And Varadkar said the U.S. has been strong on LGBTQ rights. “From Stonewall to Sacramento to San Francisco. America has led the way when it comes to LGBT equality,” he said. “I don’t think I would be here today were it not for what America did.”Varadkar was meeting with the president in the Oval Office before both were to head to the Cap...

Johnston will finalize own mandate for election interference probe

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 10:13:49 GMT

OTTAWA — Former governor general David Johnston says he will have a hand in determining his own mandate as special rapporteur on foreign interference in recent federal elections.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tapped the former governor general and legal scholar on Wednesday to probe allegations of Chinese interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, which were reported by Global News and the Globe and Mail.In a statement to The Canadian Press, Johnston described attempts to undermine the country’s democracy as “serious matters” and said he was “privileged” to have accepted the appointment.“I will work with officials to finalize the mandate, which will be made public promptly, to look into foreign interference in the last two federal general elections, and make appropriate recommendations on how to further protect our democracy and uphold Canadians’ confidence in it,” he said.Federal opposition parties are divided over Johnston&#...

Stocks fall as worries about banks, possible recession flare

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 10:13:49 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are falling on Wall Street Friday as worries worsen about the banking industry and fears rise it could drag the economy into a recession. The S&P 500 was 1.1% lower in morning trading, cutting into its gain for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 429 points, or 1.3%, at 31,817, as of 10:35 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.8% lower. This week has been a whipsaw for markets around the world as worries rise about the banking industry following the second- and third-largest U.S. bank failures in history. Just a day earlier, markets rallied in relief after two banks on both sides of the Atlantic tapped into tens of billions of dollars of cash to bolster their finances. But on Friday, some of the hope was washing out, and the pair were back to falling. In Switzerland, Credit Suisse shares dropped nearly 8%. On Wall Street, shares of First Republic Bank sank 19.4% and were on their way to a 66% plunge for the week. The two banks...

NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 10:13:49 GMT

A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:___ Extreme weather events are becoming more severe, not less CLAIM: Climate, weather or meteorological events that we would classify as “extreme” have declined in severity over the last 20 or 30 years.THE FACTS: While the impacts of climate change vary across the globe, scientists agree that overall, human-caused warming is supercharging events such as extreme precipitation, droughts and forest fires. But a podcast clip shared on Instagram falsely claims that extreme climate, weather and meteorological events are actually declining in severity. “We could look at accumulated cyclonic energy — typhoons in the Pacific, hurricanes in the Atlantic — and it’s actually declined over the last 20 or 30 years,” the speaker says in the vide...

Near ‘cliff’s edge,’ Credit Suisse not seen as systemic risk

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 10:13:49 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Longtime troubles at Credit Suisse came to a head this week with a record stock plunge that spread fears of a banking crisis jumping from the U.S. to Europe. But the problems have been building for years at Switzerland’s second-largest bank, ranging from bad bets on hedge funds to a spying scandal involving rival lender UBS.Experts say the upheaval is largely a byproduct of Credit Suisse’s troubles in recent years — making it look relatively vulnerable — and investor worries about the health of Western banks in general following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the United States.Shares of Credit Suisse sank over 30% Wednesday after its biggest shareholder — the Saudi National Bank — announced it would not provide more money to the Swiss lender. Hours later, Switzerland’s central bank agreed to lend Credit Suisse up to 50 billion francs ($54 billion) to shore up its finances. The stock rebounded. On Friday, shares dropped as much as 12% on the Swiss ex...

EPA tells states not to block waste from Ohio derailment

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 10:13:49 GMT

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday ordered states to stop blocking contaminated waste from a fiery train derailment in Ohio from being sent to hazardous waste storage sites around the nation. A handful of politicians and states have sought to block shipments from East Palestine, including Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who last week said he had stopped waste from the derailment from coming into his state. EPA Administrator Michael Regan said there was no reason for states to block shipments of the type of waste that certified facilities routinely handle every day. “This is impermissible and this is unacceptable,” he said. The EPA has ordered railroad Norfolk Southern to cover the costs of cleaning up from the Feb. 3 derailment that toppled 38 rail cars. No one was hurt, but concerns over a potential explosion led state and local officials to approve releasing and burning toxic vinyl chloride from five tanker cars and forced the evacuations of half the village.Ohio this w...

US pledges over $171M in humanitarian help for Venezuelans

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 10:13:49 GMT

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The U.S. government pledged more than $171 million Friday for humanitarian and development projects to assist Venezuelans experiencing a variety of urgent needs at home and abroad.Some of the money will go for food, water and sanitation efforts within the crisis-wracked country, while other funds are designated for emergency shelter, health care and other services for Venezuelans who have migrated to other South American nations, the U.S. Department of State told The Associated Press.The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, announced the funding during a conference in Brussels. The event is designed to raise awareness of Venezuela’s protracted economic and political crisis, which has pushed millions into poverty and driven more than 7 million others to migrate, mostly within Latin America.“We must continue to provide critical assistance to Venezuelan refugees, migrants, their host communities and those still in Venezuela,” Thomas-...

German lawmakers approve plan to shrink bloated parliament

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 10:13:49 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Lawmakers in Germany approved electoral reforms Friday that would reduce the size of the country’s increasingly bloated parliament, but two opposition parties were vehemently critical and the plan is expected to face a court challenge.Parliament’s lower house, or Bundestag, currently has a record 736 members. The changes approved on a 400-261 vote with 23 abstentions would reduce that number to 630.Other proposals to reform the system have failed in recent years because of the difficulty of reconciling parties’ interests. Germany’s next national election is expected in the fall of 2025.In German elections, every voter gets two votes: one for a directly elected candidate, the other for a party list.Each of the country’s 299 constituencies elects its legislative representative directly by a simple majority vote. At least 299 further seats go to candidates elected on party lists. The list votes are critical because they determines the percentage of seats each ...

‘Brother’ was a moment to be seen for Lamar Johnson and Kiana Madeira

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 10:13:49 GMT

TORONTO — In the opening scene of “Brother,” two Black teens prepare for a climb, the elder instructing his younger sibling: “follow my every step.” As they trek up a hazardous hydro tower, an impeccable sight of Toronto comes into view. It’s treacherous but rewarding, an allegory for the Black experience.At an early point in his life, Lamar Johnson — who stars in the Clement Virgo-directed coming-of-age chronicle — said he couldn’t imagine himself starring in this scene.“I didn’t even know that being able to act, much less in a film like ‘Brother,’ was possible until I sat down and saw a commercial with a little Black kid, and I was like, ‘whoa, hold on, I could do that too,’” said Johnson, 28, who spent most of his growing years as a self-taught dancer.  “In a way, it was quite beautiful to be able to sit down and read the script and feel seen.”“Brother,” adapted from Vancouver-based author David Chariandy’s novel of the same name, i...

Man who hoped to kill Arab and Black people gets 20 years

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 10:13:49 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia man who shot at two convenience stores hoping to kill Arab and Black people has been sentenced to serve 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal hate crime charge.Larry Edward Foxworth, 48, fired a Glock pistol multiple times through the windows and doors of two convenience stores in Jonesboro, just south of Atlanta, shortly before 3 a.m. on July 30, 2021, the U.S. attorney’s office in Atlanta said in a news release. Both stores were open and people were inside, but no one was hit.Clayton County police arrested Foxworth shortly after the shots were fired. He told investigators he wanted to kill Arab and Black people and believed that’s who was inside those two stores, the release says. He said he hoped he had killed people and expressed belief in white supremacy.“He fired repeatedly into convenience stores in his effort to kill those inside based solely on the color of their skin,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan said in the releas...