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Germany’s Lindner signals government to suspend debt brake for 2023

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:58:22 GMT

BERLIN — German Finance Minister Christian Lindner announced Thursday that he will propose a draft supplementary budget for 2023, signaling that the government will seek to suspend the country’s debt brake in the aftermath of a constitutional court ruling that has plunged the country into a severe political and budgetary crisis.“There is now new legal clarity on how we have to deal with special assets and emergency loans,” Lindner said in a short statement to reporters. “We will now put expenditure, particularly for the electricity and gas price brakes, on a constitutionally secure footing.”Germany’s constitutional court ruled last week that a government plan to repurpose €60 billion left over from an emergency COVID-19 fund to finance the ruling coalition’s green agenda was unconstitutional. But the ruling also has far wider implications that limit the government’s ability to draw from a variety of special funds created to circumvent ...

EU to deploy more guards to bolster Finland’s border control efforts

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:58:22 GMT

EU border agency Frontex said Thursday it plans to deploy 50 border guard officers and other staff, along with equipment such as patrol cars, to bolster Finland’s border control activities amid accusations that Russia is stoking an immigrant influx on its eastern border.The EU move follows the Finnish government’s decision to close all eastern border crossing points with Russia except Raja-Jooseppi from Friday night until December 23. The Finnish tabloid newspaper Iltalehti reported the situation on the eastern border has not improved and that there are signs that the crisis could escalate further, citing Prime Minister Petteri Orpo.“This significant reinforcement is expected to be on the ground as soon as next week,” Frontex said in a statement. Frontex currently has 10 officers on the Finnish borders.“Frontex’s support to Finland goes beyond logistics; it’s a demonstration of the European Union’s unified stand against hybrid challenges affecting one of its member...

Investigators believe New York man and his wife were killed in vehicle that exploded at US-Canada bridge, sources say. Here’s what we know

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:58:22 GMT

(CNN) — Investigators believe a New York man and his wife were the two people killed in a car that crashed and exploded at a US-Canada border crossing near Niagara Falls on Wednesday, law enforcement sources say, and the FBI sees no link to terrorism.Alarms were raised from New York to Washington, DC, late Wednesday morning after the incident on the US side of the Rainbow Bridge crossing. Investigators believe the couple was traveling in a Bentley at high speed when it struck a curb at the checkpoint, then hit a guardrail that sent the vehicle airborne and into a screening area before it exploded, according to the sources.Despite initial concerns of a terror attack, the FBI has not found any connection to terrorism and no explosives were found at the scene, the agency’s Buffalo field office announced Wednesday night. The case is being turned over to local police as a traffic investigation.“I want to be very, very clear to Americans and New Yorkers: At this t...

Israel-Hamas truce and hostage release will begin on Friday, Qatar says

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:58:22 GMT

(CNN) — A four-day truce between Israel and Hamas will begin on Friday morning, with civilian hostages and Palestinian prisoners to be released later in the afternoon, Qatar announced Thursday, hours after the deal was originally meant to take effect.The pause in fighting will start at 7 a.m. local time (midnight ET), with 13 women and children hostages to be freed at 4 p.m., according to a spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry, Majed Al-Ansari.The list of hostages who are expected to be released has been handed to the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, Al-Ansari said, adding that the communications and talks between all mediating parties continued until Thursday morning.The Mossad will also hand over a list of Palestinian prisoners expected to be released to the Qataris, he added. “Whenever we have both lists confirmed this is when we can begin with the process of getting people out,” the spokesperson said.Responding to a question from CNN, Al-Ansari said he co...

Holiday sales expected to grow 1% in Mass. as national shopping could hit 6-year record

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:58:22 GMT

Holiday sales at small businesses in Massachusetts during the five-day shopping streak starting Black Friday are expected to grow marginally compared to the total haul of purchases seen last November and December, according to the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.A 1% increase in local holiday shopping comes as the National Retail Federation predicted some 182 million people are planning to shop in-store and online from Thanksgiving day through Cyber Monday, the highest estimate since the organization started tracking data in 2017.Retailers Association of Massachusetts President Jon Hurst said local projections, which come from a survey of the group’s 4,000 members, are not “one of the more optimistic” outlooks.“For all intents and purposes, it’s flat,” Hurst told the Herald Wednesday. “Consumer confidence is down a little bit right now, a reflection of the continued effects of inflation and also of … interest rates. But it’s funny, because over the years, sometimes what...

Ticker: 32,000 Jeep Wrangler hybrids recalled; Unemployment claims drop by 24,000

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:58:22 GMT

Automaker Stellantis on announced a recall of more than 32,000 of its hybrid Jeep Wrangler SUVs because they pose a potential fire risk.As part of what the company described as a routine review of customer information, Stellantis determined that eight of the hybrid Wranglers had caught fire while they were turned off and parked. Six of the vehicles were being charged when the fires started. The company said it doesn’t believe anyone was hurt in the fires.The recall covers 2021-2024 models of the Jeep Wrangler 4xe SUVs. All other Wrangler models have been deemed safe by Stellantis, which maintains its U.S. headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan.The SUVs affected by the recall can still be driven until they are fixed, but Stellantis is recommending they be parked away from buildings and not be charged until they can be repaired. The fixes involve either resetting or updating the software, or replacing the vehicle’s battery pack.Stellantis plans to contact the owners of the...

FBI ends investigation of car wreck at Niagara Falls bridge, no indication of terrorism

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:58:22 GMT

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — The FBI has ended its investigation of a fiery car wreck that killed two people at a border checkpoint in Niagara Falls after finding no evidence that it was a terror attack, easing a tense period of high tensions as Americans headed into the Thanksgiving holiday. The FBI’s decision late Wednesday came several hours after the vehicle raced through an intersection, hit a median and was launched through the air before slamming into a line of booths and exploding at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls. Local police are now handling the case as a traffic investigation. “A search of the scene revealed no explosive materials, and no terrorism nexus was identified,” the FBI’s Buffalo office said in a statement. “The matter has been turned over to the Niagara Falls Police Department as a traffic investigation.”A spokesman for the City of Niagara Falls said the investigation has been taken over by the Niagara Falls Police Department’s Crash Manage...

IEA report warns oil and gas companies against banking on carbon capture

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:58:22 GMT

CALGARY — A new report from the International Energy Agency warns that oil and gas companies shouldn’t bank on carbon capture and storage to help them maintain their status quo on a warming planet.Carbon capture and storage refers to the use of technology to sequester harmful greenhouse gas emissions from industrial processes and store them safely underground.In Canada, carbon capture and storage is a key piece of the oil and gas sector’s decarbonization goals.Oilsands companies, for example, have banded together to propose a $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage project in northern Alberta that they say will help them reach net-zero emissions from production by 2050.But the latest report from the IEA says deploying carbon capture won’t give the oil and gas industry the ability to continue increasing fossil fuel production in the future.The IEA says limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius would require 32 billion tonnes of emissions to be se...

3 children and a woman injured in Ireland in a suspected stabbing. A person was taken into custody

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:58:22 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Three young children and a woman were injured Thursday in Dublin’s city center in what Irish police have termed “a serious public order incident.”A man also suffered injuries during the violence, which took place outside a school shortly after 1:30 p.m. Citing witnesses at the scene, Irish media said some of the casualties were hospitalized with suspected stab wounds. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar expressed his shock and said a suspect had been detained.Police said one of the children, a girl, and a woman have sustained serious injuries. A man and the two other children sustained less serious injuries.They added that they were “following a definite line of inquiry” and weren’t looking for anyone else in connection with the violence.Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee said she was “deeply shocked” by the “appalling attack on three innocent children and a woman.”The Associated Press

Amazon and NFL hoping to establish a tradition with the first Black Friday game

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:58:22 GMT

It is not a stretch to say the Black Friday game between the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets is Amazon’s Super Bowl.Not only does it mean an additional game on Prime Video that Amazon hopes to make into a yearly tradition, but it comes on the busiest shopping day of the year.“When we talked with the NFL, this is a perfect marriage. Black Friday is a huge event for us every year. We’re really putting everything behind this,” Prime Video Vice President Jay Marine said.Hans Schroeder, the executive vice president of NFL Media, said the league had been exploring the possibility of adding a game on Black Friday for a while. The Thanksgiving Day tripleheader has been among the most-watched games during the regular season for the past two years.Adding a Black Friday game gives the NFL another day to take over. Combine it with it airing on Amazon, and it was a match made in football and commerce heaven.“It’s an opportunity for us to continue to innovate with Amazon. I think some of what th...