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Jill Biden in UK for King Charles’ coronation, visits No. 10

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:14:16 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jill Biden has celebrated the athletic grit of wounded service members with Prince Harry, discussed the value of early childhood education with Princess Kate and sipped tea poured by Queen Elizabeth II. Now the first lady is back in London for another royal engagement. President Joe Biden has dispatched his wife to represent the United States at Saturday’s coronation of King Charles III, the late queen’s eldest son. No American president has ever attended a British coronation.While in London, she’s engaging in a bit of soft diplomacy before the big event. Her first stop in Friday’s drizzle was a familiar place: No. 10 Downing St., for her first meeting with Akshata Murty, the wife of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Murty greeted Biden with an embrace and a kiss on each cheek. “Welcome, welcome!” she said, before turning to shake hands with Finnegan Biden, one of the first lady’s granddaughters.Afterward, Jill Biden and Murty met at the Dow...

Stock market today: Apple juices a rally after a brutal week

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:14:16 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Apple is leading a rally Friday after Wall Street’s most influential stock reported a better profit than feared. Stocks of beaten-down banks are also leaping to recover a smidgen of their sharp losses from a brutal week.The S&P 500 was 1.4% higher in morning trading, though it’s still on pace for its worst week in nearly two months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 445 points, or 1.3%, at 33,572, as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 1.6% higher. Treasury yields were jumping in the bond market after a report showed hiring accelerated across the economy by much more than expected last month. The U.S. government’s jobs report also showed workers won bigger pay raises in April than expected. While that’s good news, particularly when many economists fear a recession may arrive this year, the data also raises worries inflation may stay high and push the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates higher. High interest rates have already...

Hundreds of pounds of pasta dumped near New Jersey stream

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:14:16 GMT

OLD BRIDGE, N.J. (AP) — Authorities in a central New Jersey town say they are no longer noodling over the mystery of how hundreds of pounds of pasta were dumped near a stream.Old Bridge Mayor Owen Henry said Friday that the spaghetti, noodles and macaroni was cleaned up last week by public works crews, shortly after officials learned about the oodles of noodles that quickly drew national attention when photos of the pasta were posted on social media.The estimated 500 pounds (225 kilogram) of pasta was apparently raw when it was dumped, but subsequent heavy rains softened the food and made the mounds look like they had been cooked, officials have said. It’s not believed the pasta had been at the site for long before it was discovered.Henry said the pasta did not cause any environmental damage or health issues and he considers the matter closed.“It certainly shouldn’t have ended up in the woods — putting in or near the stream bed was not the best idea — but I certainly hope our ...

Montreal cellist to perform at King Charles’ coronation concert

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:14:16 GMT

A cellist from Montreal will be performing at King Charles’ coronation concert at Windsor Castle over the weekend.Marion Portelance, 24, is now studying cello at the Royal College of Music in London, set to graduate in 2024.Remarkably, she will be performing on King Charles’s personal cello, which he played as a student at Cambridge University. He then donated it to the Royal College of Music as its patron.Portelance graduated from the Conservatoire de Montreal in 2022.RELATEDLisa LaFlamme to join CityNews for special coverage of the Coronation of King Charles IIIPrince Harry to attend father’s May 6 coronation without MeghanAstronaut Jeremy Hansen to carry Canada’s flag at crowning of King Charles in LondonShe will perform as part of a string quartet formed of Royal College of Music students on Sunday May 7. They’ll play a new arrangement of an iconic song from West Side Story with the Chorus of The Royal Opera and a visual backdrop on to Windsor Castle created by the R...

Germany to ease solar rules as new installations surge

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:14:16 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s energy minister announced plans Friday to ease bureaucratic hurdles for solar power as the country set a new record for photovoltaic installations during the first quarter.Europe’s biggest economy added 2.7 gigawatts of solar power capacity during the first three months of 2023, putting it on course to beat the target of 9 GW this year, compared with 7 GW in 2022.Energy Minister Robert Habeck said that he hoped Germany would for the first time install new PV capacity in the double-digits this year, an important milestone in the country’s effort to become carbon neutral by 2045. The government wants to have 215 GW of solar installed in Germany by 2030, more than tripling existing capacity in seven years.To achieve that increase, Habeck announced a series of measures that would cut red tape, including accelerating the planning and approval process for PV on buildings and on unbuilt land.While many of the changes concern minor bureaucratic issu...

Ed Sheeran to perform ‘Subtract’ album on Apple Music Live

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:14:16 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ed Sheeran will put his new album on full display with the help of Apple Music.The music streaming service announced Friday that Sheeran will kick off the second season of Apple Music Live on May 10. The British pop star performed his fifth studio album “Subtract” for the first time at Eventim Apollo in London.Sheeran hit the stage in a pre-recorded show alongside a 12-piece band that includes The National’s Aaron Dessner, who produced “Subtract,” which releases Friday. The four-time Grammy winner’s performance of his 14-track album will also be streamed on Apple TV+.The announcement comes a day after a New York jury found that Sheeran didn’t copy Marvin Gaye’s classic 1970s tune “Let’s Get It On” to create his hit song “Thinking Out Loud.” After the verdict, he joked that he won’t have to follow through on his threat to quit music.“I’m delighted to share my ‘Subtract’ album show with you,” Sheeran said in a statement Friday. “I was really nervous on the day...

Shopify layoff comes as some say it’s taking longer for people to find jobs

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:14:16 GMT

TORONTO — Shopify Inc.’s layoff this week will add a slew of new workers to the job-hunting pool at a time when experts say candidates are taking longer to find their next gig.April Hicke says she’s seeing tech workers in Toronto spend six months between jobs, while those in Calgary are waiting nine months.Whereas workers were jumping to roles that would pay them $60,000 to $100,000 more at the height of the pandemic, the co-founder of women’s tech and hiring collective Toast now sees some taking pay cuts of 10 to 20 per cent.However, Hicke and Future Skills Centre director of research Tricia Williams agree that tech workers are still in high demand in Canada.Williams believes the addition of newly-laid off Shopify employees won’t change the labour landscape that much, though she says many of these workers will find tech-related jobs at other industries.Shopify’s layoff announced Thursday ensnared 20 per cent of the e-commerce software company’s w...

‘It’s been tough’: Students frustrated by GO Transit bus route changes

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:14:16 GMT

Abida Suboor’s commute to campus has been tougher in the last few weeks.The graduate student uses GO Transit to get from her home in Milton to the University of Guelph but changes to her typical bus route have meant she’s had to shift her routine or endure a journey that takes more than double the time.“It’s been tough, to say the least,” said the 24-year-old. “I share a vehicle with my family. That’s a reason why having …a route that I could really depend on mattered to me.”Suboor is among the students in the Greater Toronto Area and surrounding regions who’ve been affected by changes GO Transit operator Metrolinx made to some routes last month.Among the changes was the elimination of a direct bus route between Milton and Toronto’s Union Station, a key transit hub. Metrolinx also increased service on certain busy routes between Toronto and Kitchener but scrapped some train services and replaced them with buses.Suboor...

Warrants issued for parents after Northwest Indiana infant dies from 'massive' brain injury

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:14:16 GMT

EAST CHICAGO, Ind. — Warrants have been issued for a couple after authorities determined an infant died last summer due to a "massive" brain hemorrhage in Northwest Indiana.On July 7, 2022, Eric Rangel III, a 2-month-old, was pronounced dead at St. Catherine's Hospital in East Chicago. During the autopsy the following day, a doctor ruled his death a homicide with a cause of death determined to be a massive head injury.When officers arrived at the scene July 7 in the 3600 block of Parrish Avenue in East Chicago, father Eric Rangel Jr., told police shortly after feeding his son, the infant began to cough and had difficulty breathing, according to court documents.Documents state Rangel Jr. told police the baby then went limp as he walked his son to the front of the home. He woke up his partner and mother of the boy, Sandra Sosa, and 911 was called.Back at the hospital the following day — the doctor who performed the autopsy told authorities Rangel III that a "massive" subdural/subarach...

Suspect arrested in Serbia's second mass shooting in 2 days

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:14:16 GMT

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A gunman apparently firing at random killed eight people and wounded 14 in two villages in Serbia, authorities said, shaking a nation still in the throes of grief over a mass shooting a day earlier. Police arrested a suspect Friday after an all-night manhunt.Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called the shootings late Thursday an attack on the whole nation — and said the person arrested wore a T-shirt with a pro-Nazi slogan on it but did not shed light on the motive.The slayings came a day after a 13-year-old boy used his father’s guns to kill eight fellow students and a guard at a school in Belgrade, the capital.The back-to-back bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation scarred by wars, but unused to mass murders. Though Serbia is awash with weapons left over from the conflicts of the 1990s, the last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.Public figures, politicians and experts app...