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Climate envoy John Kerry meets with Chinese officials amid US push to stabilize rocky relations

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:15:26 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — U.S. climate envoy John Kerry told China’s top diplomat on Tuesday that President Joe Biden’s administration is “very committed” to stabilizing relations between the world’s two biggest economies.On his second day of talks in Beijing, Kerry met with the ruling Communist Party’s head of foreign relations Wang Yi, telling him Biden hoped the two countries could “achieve efforts together that can make a significant difference to the world.”Ties between the countries have hit a historic low amid disputes over tariffs, access to technology, human rights and China’s threats against self-governing Taiwan.In his opening remarks, Wang said the sides had suffered from a lack of communication, but that China believes through renewed dialogue “we can find a proper solution to any problems.”“Sometimes, small problems can become big problems,” Wang said, adding that dialogue must be conducted on an “equal basis.”That was an apparent reference to U.S. criticism of China’s aggr...

Bilateral South Korea-US consulting group meets in response to North Korean nuclear threats

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:15:26 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A bilateral consulting group of South Korean and U.S. officials met Tuesday in Seoul to discuss strengthening their nations’ deterrence capabilities against North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats. The Nuclear Consultative Group was established as part of agreements Presidents Joe Biden and Yoon Suk Yeol made when they met in April.Seoul officials say the body is tasked with sharing information on nuclear and strategic weapons operation plans and discussing joint operations. The U.S. would retain operational control of U.S. nuclear weapons, and Washington officials say the group’s establishment and other steps announced in April were meant to ease South Korean worries about North Korean provocations while keeping Seoul from pursuing its own nuclear program.The group’s inaugural meeting “will serve as an important starting point to establish powerful, effective Korea-U.S. extended deterrence,” Yoon said during a televised Cabinet Council meeting, referr...

Wind-fanned wildfires force thousands to flee seaside resorts outside Greek capital

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:15:26 GMT

LOUTRAKI, Greece (AP) — Wildfires outside Athens forced thousands to flee seaside resorts, closed highways and gutted vacation homes Monday, as high winds pushed flames through hillside scrub and pine forests parched by days of extreme heat. Authorities issued evacuation orders for at least six seaside communities as two major wildfires edged closer to summer resort towns and gusts of wind hit 70 kph (45 mph). The army, police special forces and volunteer rescuers freed retirees from their homes, rescued horses from a stable, and helped monks flee a monastery threatened by the flames. Before nightfall, water-dropping planes and helicopters tackled the flames near Lagonisi, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the capital. The second large wildfire broke out in a wooded area near the resort town of Loutraki, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Athens, where a children’s summer camp and rehabilitation center for seniors were evacuated, local officials said.Fire Service s...

Stock market today: Asian shares extend losses after China reports lower growth than expected

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:15:26 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Shares were mostly lower Tuesday in Asia as optimism over a Wall Street rally was countered by worries about the Chinese economy. Shares edged higher in Tokyo but fell in most other regional markets. Hong Kong’s benchmark lost 2% as it reopened after a weather related closure on Monday. On Monday, China reported weaker economic growth for the spring than most economists had expected. Its recovery following the removal of anti-COVID restrictions has fallen short of forecasts. That has helped to limit inflation globally but it also is hindering a main engine of growth for the world economy. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.2% to 32,438.27. Markets in Tokyo also were closed Monday, for a holiday. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.5% to 7,264.90. South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.3% to 2,611.96. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gave up more than 400 points, falling to 19,008.06, while the Shanghai Composite dropped 0.4% to 3,196.86. On Wall Street, the S&P 500...

Israel’s president will meet with Biden as concerns over settlements, judicial overhaul continue

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:15:26 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday is hosting Israel’s figurehead president Isaac Herzog at the White House, as they seek to sustain ties despite U.S. concerns over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial plans to overhaul his country’s judicial system and ongoing settlement construction in the West Bank.Herzog’s visit comes a day after Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone and invited him to meet in the U.S. this fall, although the president expressed reservations about several of Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition’s policies. Netanyahu’s government is pushing forward with judicial changes that have sparked widespread protest in Israel and he also has authorized the construction of thousands of new housing units in the West Bank.Netanyahu and his allies, a collection of ultra-Orthodox and ultranationalist parties, say the plan is needed to rein in the powers of unelected judges. Opponents say the plan will destroy Israel’s fragile s...

The architect of Detroit’s bankruptcy filing 10 years ago says it was the best fix for a broken city

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:15:26 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — Detroit’s newly hired emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, stood before reporters in March 2013 and issued a warning to city creditors, unions, vendors and others: “Don’t make me go to bankruptcy court. You won’t enjoy it.”On July 18, 2013, the restructuring expert did just that, making Detroit the largest city in the U.S. to file for bankruptcy.What followed was months of negotiations, federal court hearings and an unlikely coming together of foundations to keep city-owned artwork from being sold to help pay off the debt.“Bankruptcy is a miserable process,” Orr, 65, told The Associated Press earlier this month, ahead of the 10th anniversary of the filing. “It puts everybody outside of their ordinary course, their common spaces.”Detroit was determined by a state-appointed review team to be in severe financial distress in 2012. Soon after, then-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder hired Orr — an attorney with the international law firm Jones Day — to take on the ...

Trump’s classified documents case set for first pretrial conference hearing before Judge Cannon

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:15:26 GMT

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida judge who issued a court ruling last year that critics said was unduly favorable to Donald Trump is set to preside Tuesday over the first pretrial conference in his landmark criminal case concerning the mishandling of classified documents.Prosecutors and defense lawyers are scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to discuss the rules and procedures that will govern how classified evidence is used in the case. It’s a routine subject for any prosecution that concerns classified information, but it’s notable because it will be Cannon’s first time hearing arguments in the case since the former president’s indictment last month.At issue during Tuesday’s arguments is a 1980 law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act. That statute governs how classified information is handled by the parties in a criminal prosecution. It’s meant to balance a defendant’s right to access evidence that prosecutors inten...

Archaeologists in Louisiana save artifacts dating back 12,000 years from natural disasters, looters

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:15:26 GMT

VERNON PARISH, La. (AP) — Long buried under the woods of west central Louisiana, stone tools, spearpoints and other evidence of people living in the area as long as 12,000 years ago have become more exposed and vulnerable, due to hurricanes, flooding and looters. This summer, archaeologists have been gingerly digging up the ground at the Vernon Parish site in the Kisatchie National Forest. They have been sifting through dirt to unearth and preserve the evidence of prehistoric occupation of the area.“The site appears to have been continuously occupied throughout prehistory, as evidenced by a wide range of stone tools and pottery dating to each Native American cultural era up to European contact,” the U.S. Forest Service said in an news release. The site was found by surveyors in 2003, according to the Forest Service. After hurricanes Laura and Delta uprooted trees, disturbing and exposing some of the artifacts, Kisatchie National Forest officials used hurricane relief money to begin ...

House Republicans propose planting a trillion trees as they move away from climate change denial

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:15:26 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Speaker Kevin McCarthy visited a natural gas drilling site in northeast Ohio to promote House Republicans’ plan to sharply increase domestic production of energy from fossil fuels last month, the signs of rising global temperatures could not be ignored. Smoke from Canadian wildfires hung in the air.When the speaker was asked about climate change and forest fires, he was ready with a response: Plant a trillion trees.The idea — simple yet massively ambitious — revealed recent Republican thinking on how to address climate change. The party is no longer denying that global warming exists, yet is searching for a response to sweltering summers, weather disasters and rising sea levels that doesn’t involve abandoning their enthusiastic support for American-produced energy from burning oil, coal and gas.“We need to manage our forests better so our environment can be stronger,” McCarthy said, adding, “Let’s replace Russian natural gas with American...

Twins’ Sonny Gray loses control, lead in fifth inning of 7-6 loss to Mariners

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:15:26 GMT

SEATTLE — After sweeping the A’s over the weekend in Oakland, the Twins had a chance to win their fourth consecutive game for the second time this season, and first since April 11-14, on Monday at T-Mobile Park.The Mariners had other ideas.Twins starter Sonny Gray started the fifth inning with a 2-0 lead and just 45 pitches on his scorecard. But the right-hander lost his command, walking two batters and hitting another, as Seattle scored four before holding on for a 7-6 victory in front of 25,770.With Cleveland’s 11-0 victory at Pittsburgh, the Twins’ lead in the American League Central was trimmed to 1½ games.The Twins made it interesting in the ninth against right-hander Ty Adcock, who started the night with an 0.69 earned-run average. Edouard Julien hit a one-out single and, after Byron Buxton’s third strikeout, Donovan Solano singled to right to bring up Max Kepler.Kepler hammered a drive into the right-field bleachers to cut the Twins’ deficit to 7-6. But Paul Sewald relieved a...