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Florida lawmakers to convene amidst censorship debate in schools

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:48:50 GMT

In the midst of a nationwide observance of National Banned Books Week, Florida lawmakers are set to convene Wednesday morning to tackle a pressing issue that has captured the nation’s attention – the rise of censorship in classrooms.The contentious debate over book banning in the Sunshine State has escalated since Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law new legislation governing what can be read in Florida’s schools.As Florida Democratic Party leaders gear up to address what they describe as a disturbing uptick in censorship within Florida schools, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz pointed out that Florida leads the nation in the removal of books from school libraries, with over 1,400 titles being taken off the shelves.Many of these removals have been attributed to Governor Ron DeSantis’ “Parental Rights in Education Law.” “We want parents to be armed with the ability to make sure their kids are in a safe environment,” said the Flor...

Paris bedbugs: It’s not a big deal, says French transport chief

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:48:50 GMT

There has been “no resurgence” of bedbugs on public transport in Paris and people should not “fall into psychosis or anxiety” about the little critters, French Transport Minister Clément Beaune said Wednesday.The tiny insects have been spotted on public transport in Paris and across France over the past few weeks, raising alarm among residents and public officials, who have asked the government to take action to fight this “scourge” ahead of the 2024 Olympics.But during a crisis meeting on Wednesday, Beaune said that all recent bedbug reports — 37 cases have been reported to railway firm SNCF and a dozen reported to Paris’ public transport operator RATP — have been checked and “zero are proven.”“There … may be cases in the coming weeks or in the coming months, as there are in all major cities and major metropolis,” Beaune said. “It is not a phenomenon that arose now.”Beaune said his department will strengthen protocols, produce quarter...

Ukraine’s accession would cost €186B, EU estimates

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:48:50 GMT

BRUSSELS — Integrating Ukraine into the European Union could mean some €186 billion in EU funds flowing to the country over seven years, according to an internal note of the Council of the EU seen by POLITICO. Enlarging the EU further to include six Balkan countries, as well as Georgia and Moldova, would impose a further burden of around €74 billion on the EU budget, the document added.Enlargement is set to be a main discussion point in a meeting of EU leaders later this week in the Spanish city of Granada. The European Union is preparing to open accession negotiations with Ukraine, with a formal announcement expected as soon as December.The Council document, first reported by the Financial Times, is the first official exercise of what future enlargement could mean for the EU budget. The note outlines opportunities, such as a larger internal market and more political clout on the global stage. But it also warns about “very significant challenges” on issues ranging f...

Rishi Sunak still thinks he can win. Try telling his Tory party

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:48:50 GMT

MANCHESTER, England — Against all the odds, Rishi Sunak thinks electoral victory is in his sights. His restive Conservative Party is going to take some convincing.Wrapping up his first Conservative conference as leader and U.K. prime minister on Wednesday, Sunak vowed to “tell it as it is” and “lead in a different way,” as he talked up having “the courage to change direction.” Pitching himself as a “radical” willing to challenge the status quo, he declared: “It is time for a change and we are it.”But in bars and restaurants around Manchester this week, MPs and activists say victory is a long shot — and they aren’t convinced Sunak has yet cooked up a recipe for success.“We’re not talking about what we can do for people’s lives — it feels like quite a cagey appeal right now,” a former Cabinet minister said of Sunak’s pitch, warning it felt more like a strategy for minimizing losses.Others are determined to keep hope alive. “Our voters are grump...

Rishi Sunak tries to distance himself from 13 years of the Tories in conference speech

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:48:50 GMT

LONDON — Rishi Sunak tried to pitch himself as the change candidate in his first address to the Conservative Party conference as prime minister — and distanced himself from 13 years of Tory government by scrapping a flagship policy backed by his predecessors.“I will tell it as it is,” Sunak told assembled Conservative activists. “I will lead in a different way, because that is the only way to create the sort of change in our politics and in our country that we all desperately want to see.”With the Conservatives facing the possibility of electoral oblivion at the hands of a Labour Party with a big polling lead, Sunak is trying to reverse his party’s fortunes by moving away from what he described as “30 years of a political system that incentivizes the easy decision, not the right one.”For Sunak, this means setting himself apart from the policies of previous prime ministers wearing both Labour and Tory stripes. In a move seen as part of this p...

Teen indicted on first-degree murder charges for deaths of New Hampshire mother and her two young children

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:48:50 GMT

A teenage murder suspect has been indicted in New Hampshire for the 2022 murders of a Northfield woman and her two young children.The Office of the New Hampshire Attorney General announced that Eric Sweeney, 17, was indicted on three counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of his sister-in-law, Kassandra Sweeney, 25, and his nephews, Benjamin Sweeney, 4, and Mason Sweeney, 1.The three victims were found dead at their Northfield home back on Aug. 3, 2022, with a medical examiner later determining each had suffered a single gunshot wound. Shortly afterwards, police went on to arrest and charge a juvenile suspect.In addition to first-degree murder, Eric Sweeney was also indicted on a count of falsifying physical evidence that involved a handgun.“[The count] alleges that Eric Sweeney, knowing that an investigation was about to be instituted, did alter, destroy, conceal, or remove a Taurus .40 caliber handgun, with the purpose of impairing its availability in sa...

Stock market today: Wall Street steadies after selloff as a relaxing bond market offers some oxygen

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:48:50 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is holding steadier Wednesday after the bond market relaxed its vise a bit on the stock market.The S&P 500 was 0.4% higher in early trading, coming off a 1.4% tumble that had sent it to its lowest level in four months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 51 points, or 0.2%, a day after wiping out its gains for the year so far. The Nasdaq composite was 0.7% higher, as of 9:40 a.m. Eastern time.Stocks have struggled since the end of July as Treasury yields in the bond market soar to their highest levels in more than a decade. The high yields undercut stock prices by pulling investment dollars away from stocks and into bonds. They also crimp corporate profits by making borrowing more expensive.The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which is the centerpiece of the bond market, pulled back from its highest level since 2007, down to 4.74% from 4.80% late Tuesday. Shorter- and longer-term yields also eased to offer more oxygen to the stock market.Yields fell ...

Turkey warns it will strike Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria after a suicide bombing in Ankara

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:48:50 GMT

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s foreign minister warned on Wednesday that Kurdish militants behind a suicide bombing in the Turkish capital face robust retaliation against their group’s positions in Syria and Iraq.The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack outside the Interior Ministry in Ankara in which one attacker blew himself up and another would-be bomber was killed in a shootout with police. Two police were wounded in the attack.Turkish warplanes already have conducted two airstrikes against suspected Kurdish militant sites in northern Iraq following the attack, which came as Parliament prepared to reopen after a long summer recess. Meanwhile, dozens of people with suspected links to the Kurdish militants have been detained in a series of raids across Turkey.Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said during a news conference that Turkish intelligence officials have established that the two assailants arrived from Syria where they had ...

She influenced decades of design with blingy, colorful textiles. A new exhibit pays tribute

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:48:50 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Weaver and designer Dorothy Liebes helped define the look and feel of 20th century luxury, from first-class airline seats to movie backdrops, hotel suites to bathing suits, metallic wallpaper to car upholstery.She was a name, but unlike so many of the leading architects and designers with whom she worked, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Dreyfuss and Donald Desky, her fame has dimmed since her death in 1972.An eye-popping exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum takes a giant step toward changing that, revealing the breadth and impact of Liebes’ work through dozens of textiles, fashion pieces, furniture, documents and photos.Liebes was a master of color, texture, marketing and bling for decades, starting in the 1930s. “She pioneered a new role for the textile designer as a partner to industry,” says Susan Brown, the museum’s associate curator and acting head of textiles, who co-organized the exhibit with Alexa Griffith Winton, manager of ...

Sunak plans to raise the legal smoking age in England each year until it applies to whole population

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:48:50 GMT

LONDON (AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday proposed raising the legal age that people in England can buy cigarettes by one year, every year until it applies to the whole population. The planned change will mean that “a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette,” Sunak said.The proposed law change will make it an offense for anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009 to be sold tobacco products. That could almost completely phase out smoking in young people as soon as 2040, the government said. If Parliament approves the proposal, the legal change would only apply in England — not in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.The current legal smoking age in England is from age 18.Setting out his plans at the annual Conservative Party conference, Sunak said he wanted to “stop teenagers taking up cigarettes in the first place.”“People take up cigarettes when they’re young. Four in five smokers have started by the time they’re 20,” he said. “Later, the va...