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Salman Rushdie honored at PEN America gala, first in-person appearance since stabbing

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:17:47 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Salman Rushdie made an emotional and unexpected return to public life Thursday night, attending the annual gala of PEN America and giving the event’s final speech as he accepted a special prize, the PEN Centenary Courage Award, just nine months being after being stabbed repeatedly and hospitalized.“It’s nice to be back — as opposed to not being back, which was also a possibility. I’m glad the dice rolled this way,” Rushdie, 75, told hundreds gathered at the American Museum of Natural History, where he received a standing ovation. It was his first in-person appearance at a public event since he was attacked last August while on stage at a literary festival in Western New York.Rushdie, whose attendance had not been announced beforehand, spoke briefly, and dedicated some of his remarks to those who came to his help at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit education and retreat center. He cited a fellow attendee, Henry Reese of the City of Asylum project in Pittsburgh,...

On US Bike to Work Day, here’s how COVID, eco-thinking made cycling better in cities worldwide

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:17:47 GMT

MONTREAL (AP) — In the agonies of the virus that upended most of the world, millions of people from Bogota to Berlin saw what life could be like on two wheels instead of four.Even as commuting to the office and going to school plunged at the height of COVID lockdowns, outdoor recreation, and cycling in particular, surged in country after country as people looked to escape isolation in a relatively safe way. In response, city after city have developed bikeways with new urgency since 2020. The question is whether people stick with their new cycling habit in these closer-to-normal times. On Friday, Bike to Work Day in the U.S., the automatic counters that record each passing cyclist in many cities will get the latest numbers.So far the evidence is incomplete and varies by place. But the numbers suggest that if they build it, people will come.Case studies led by global urban planning researchers Ralph Buehler of Virginia Tech and John Bucher of Rutgers University track what more than a ...

Threatening 22 million people, Mexico’s Popocatepetl is a very closely watched volcano

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:17:47 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano rumbled to life again this week, belching out towering clouds of ash that forced 11 villages to cancel school sessions.The residents weren’t the only ones keeping a close eye on the towering peak. Every time there is a sigh, tic or heave in Popocatepetl there are dozens of scientists, a network of sensors and cameras, and a roomful of powerful equipment watching its every move.The 17,797-foot (5,426-meter) volcano, known affectionately as “El Popo,” has been spewing toxic fumes, ash and lumps of incandescent rock persistently for almost 30 years, since it awakened from a long slumber in 1994.The volcano is 45 miles (72 kilometers) southeast of Mexico City, but looms much closer to the eastern fringes of the metropolitan area of 22 million people. The city also faces threats from earthquakes and sinking soil, but the volcano is the most visible potential danger — and the most closely watched. A severe eruption could cut off...

Trudeau calls out Italy on LGBTQ rights at G7, Canada to announce Russian sanctions

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:17:47 GMT

HIROSHIMA, Japan — The G7 Leaders’ Summit kicked off on Friday in Hiroshima with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling out Italy over LGBTQ rights and whispers of new sanctions against Russia. A government official, who is not being named because they are not authorized to discuss the details publicly, says Canada plans to announce new sanctions on Russia during the G7 Leaders’ Summit. The sanctions will target Russian companies involved in military technology, while other sanctions have to do with human rights violations, including the transfer and custody of Ukrainian children in Russia.The three-day summit is expected to focus on geopolitical and economic threats from Russia and China, with news reports suggesting G7 countries plan to announce various sanctions against Russia. Meanwhile, earlier on Friday, Trudeau spoke out against the Italian government’s stance on LGBTQ rights during a bilateral meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.“Obvious...

Stock market today: Asian shares mostly rise on hopes for US debt deal, but China declines

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:17:47 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mostly higher Friday as hopes grow that the U.S. Congress will reach a deal to avoid defaulting on the nation’s debt.Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.8% in early trading to 30,827.87. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5% to 7,270.20. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.6% to 2,529.68. Chinese shares fell on renewed worries set off by signs an extended lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic was hurting sales. Also weighing on Chinese shares were inflationary pressures and geopolitical risks, analysts said. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 1.4% to 19,449.72, while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.7% to 3,274.87. “While the broader risk environment has been singlehandedly uplifted by progress around the U.S. debt ceiling negotiations, Chinese equities continue to struggle for gains,” said Yeap Jun Rong, market analyst at IG. President Joe Biden, now in Hiroshima for the Group of Seven summit of developed nations, has said he’s confid...

Awash in social media, how are police learning to inform the public better after shootings?

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:17:47 GMT

Jennifer Seeley was glued to her phone, safe at home but terrified nonetheless.There was an active shooter at the Texas mall where she works as an assistant store manager. And she was searching desperately for information, praying. Was the gunman dead? Were her coworkers dead? What was happening?So with law enforcement in the Dallas area town of Allen releasing information slowly on that horrible May 6 afternoon, she turned to social media for answers, stumbling across videos showing the bodies of some of the eight who were slain. Desperately she texted her coworkers.“That’s where all of my information came from was what I saw on Twitter. And, you know, nobody was really releasing any information on what actually happened,” she says now, nearly two weeks later. The shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets this month has law information public information officers from around the country talking. Social media, they say, has accelerated everything. Now everyone can post images from their...

Why Ukraine’s spring offensive still hasn’t begun – with summer just weeks away

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:17:47 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — For months, Western allies have shipped billions of dollars worth of weapons systems and ammunition to Ukraine with an urgency to get the supplies to Kyiv in time for an anticipated spring counteroffensive. Now summer is just weeks away. While Russia and Ukraine are focused on an intense battle for Bakhmut, the Ukrainian spring offensive has yet to begin. Last week Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it’s been delayed because his country lacks enough Western weapons to succeed without suffering too many casualties. Weather and training are playing a role too, officials and defense experts say. Officials insist the counteroffensive is coming. Preliminary moves by Ukraine to set the conditions it wants for an attack have already begun, a U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.A look at the factors delaying the counteroffensive and the preparations both sides are making in anticipation of it starting soon.WEATHERA ...

Nebraska expected to pass combo bill on abortion, gender-affirming care for minors

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:17:47 GMT

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Conservative Nebraska lawmakers are expected to have just enough votes to pass a bill Friday that combines a ban on gender-affirming care for minors with a 12-week abortion ban.The mood in the Nebraska Capitol since the hybrid measure was advanced Tuesday by a single vote has been volatile. Lawmakers have traded insults and promises of retribution on the legislative floor and protesters have loudly voiced their displeasure even in the days after vote.Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh has led an effort to filibuster nearly every bill this session — even ones she supports — to protest the ban on gender-affirming care for minors. She has railed against conservatives who voted for the hybrid bill and warned that people, medical professionals and businesses will leave the state over it.Cavanaugh declared in early March that she would “burn the session to the ground over this bill,” and she and a handful of progressive allies have followed through since. They have introdu...

Guardsman Jack Teixeira, Pentagon leak suspect, due back in court as judge weighs detention

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:17:47 GMT

A judge is poised to decide Friday whether a Massachusetts Air National Guard member accused of leaking highly classified military documents will remain behind bars while he awaits trial. Jack Teixeira is due back in federal court in Worcester, Massachusetts, where a magistrate judge is expected to hear arguments on prosecutors’ request to keep the 21-year-old locked up before issuing his ruling. Teixeira, who faces charges under the Espionage Act, is accused of sharing secret military documents about Russia’s war in Ukraine and other top national security issues in a chat room on Discord, a social media platform that started as a hangout for gamers.Prosecutors said in court papers filed this week that Teixeira was caught by superiors months before his April arrest taking notes on classified information or viewing intelligence not related to his job. He was twice admonished by superiors in September and October, and again observed in February viewing information “that was not ...

Push for transit, walkable communities growing across US

Published Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:17:47 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — On the weekend in March when Brittany Glover would have turned 34, her mother stood on the same busy road in Atlanta where her daughter died six months earlier.Glover, a flight attendant with a passion for clothes, was coming from an entertainment venue during the early morning of Sept. 19, 2022. She had lived in Atlanta for only 48 hours when she was hit by a driver while crossing Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway, which elected officials and activists call one of the most dangerous streets in the city. The driver fled and hasn’t been identified.“Brittany didn’t have to die,” her mother Valerie Handy-Carey said, surrounded by friends and supporters as speeding cars whizzed by. Atlanta, she said, needs to do more to protect pedestrians and cyclists.She’s far from alone in her call to action.With pedestrian deaths in the U.S. at their highest in four decades, citizens across the nation are urging lawmakers to break from transportation spending focused on c...