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Paid family leave approved in Maine’s last-minute budget negotiations, awaits vote

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:57 GMT

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — The Maine Legislature’s budget-writing committee has reached a bipartisan compromise on the remaining $800 million to $900 million in spending in the upcoming budget, providing startup funding for paid family leave, investing more in child care and providing tax cuts for retirees.The Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee began voting after midnight and didn’t wrap up until nearly 4 a.m. Wednesday. The panel adopted the plan on an 11-1 vote.It’s unclear when the full Legislature will take up the spending proposal, which follows approval of a nearly $10 billion essential services budget along party lines in March to prevent a state government shutdown. It’s possible the Maine Senate won’t reconvene until next week, after the Fourth of July holiday.The proposal includes startup costs for a paid family leave program that both chambers support, along with additional spending for child care workers and to boost a child care affo...

Short Lived Improvements

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:57 GMT

The weather word of today is “better”. Everything with the forecast is better today, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. We’re still not talking about one of those straight sunshine, low humidity, comfortable temperature days. But what we do have on tap is better than anything else we’ve had this week. And just about all of those improvements can be tied back to the humidity. As our slow moving storm exits, it’s wrapping in drier air.You’ll notice the drop in humidity today but it’s not great. We’re basically falling from the “near-tropical” stuff to plain muggy air. The drier air is actually being wrapped in at higher levels of the atmosphere. The graphs below are a basic representation of what are called “soundings”. They look at all levels of the atmosphere and give us plenty of data off the surface. Two of those are temperature and dew point. Dew point of course the humidity.To get clouds and rai...

From the ‘nastiest’ breaking balls to freezing fastballs, every Orioles pitcher details the best pitch of his career

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:57 GMT

Kyle Gibson has thrown 26,340 pitches in his major league career. It’s a difficult task for the Orioles right-hander to select his favorite among them.“That’s pretty tough,” the 35-year-old said.The Baltimore Sun posed what seemed to be a simple question to every member of the Orioles’ pitching staff: “What do consider the best pitch you’ve thrown as a major leaguer?” An 11-year veteran on a team loaded with players in the early stages of their careers, Gibson was a rarity in being unable to come up with an answer.Although some required a bit of thought in choosing theirs, each other Baltimore pitcher was able to select at least one offering, generally choosing a pitch that generated a positive result. Left-hander Cole Irvin was an exception in that regard; beyond a spring training changeup a few years ago that he said earned a nod of approval from future Hall of Fame slugger Miguel Cabrera, the first pitches that came to Irvin’s...

Healey admin can’t say how much Ireland trip will cost, will be partly taxpayer funded

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:57 GMT

The Healey administration cannot yet say how much her mid-work week trip to Ireland will cost taxpayers, but her days on the Emerald Isle represent the continuation of a relationship between the states worth nearly half the Commonwealth’s annual budget, according to the Irish Foreign Minister.In closing out a visit heavy with reminiscence of former President John F. Kennedy’s own historic diplomatic stop there 60 years ago, Gov. Maura Healey called her first overseas trip since taking office in January “remarkable” in a speech given alongside Tánaiste Micheál Martin, the country’s deputy leader and former prime minister, U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Claire Cronin, and the former president’s nephew.The trade association between Ireland and the Bay State is currently worth about $27 billion per year, according to Martin, a “fantastic relationship, particularly in the life sciences.”“A strong relationship in the technology to digital world, too. It’s all down to talent and to...

France will deploy 40,000 police officers to quell violence that followed deadly police shooting

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:57 GMT

NANTERRE, France (AP) — France will deploy 40,000 police officers overnight to quell violence that engulfed cities and towns in the wake of a deadly police shooting, France’s interior minister said Thursday.Scores of police officers have been injured, according to ministers.The justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti, gave a figure of 130 police officers injured. “All this has to stop,” the minister declared. He gave no details about the types and seriousness of the injuries. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who oversees the police, later gave a higher figure of 170 injured. He said none of the injuries were life-threatening.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.NANTERRE, France (AP) — A French police officer who shot and killed a 17-year-old driver will be investigated for voluntary homicide, following two days of fires and violent protests, prosecutors said Thursday. Overnight, protesters set cars and public buildings ablaze in Paris suburbs and un...

How’s the weather up there? It’ll be harder for Alaska to tell as a longtime program goes off air

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:57 GMT

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Before Morris Nashoanak heads out for days in search of bearded seals, beluga whales or salmon, he catches the weather on TV.But it’s not the weather segment from a local TV station — there isn’t one. Instead, it’s a program designed for those living in rural and largely roadless Alaska, with separate forecasts for mariners, aviators and residents to help decide whether they can safely hunt, fish or fly.“Alaska Weather” has been must-see TV for 47 years in a state where extreme weather dictates everyday life. But the daily program, the only weather show produced by the National Weather Service, will have its last on-air broadcast Friday, with business considerations ending its distribution to public television stations in Juneau and Fairbanks.From then on, it will be available only on YouTube. That’s prompted fears that some of the state’s most vulnerable residents — those in far-flung Indigenous communities where internet servi...

Greece’s left-wing opposition leader, Alexis Tsipras, stepping down after crushing election defeat

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:57 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s left-wing opposition leader, Alexis Tsipras, announced his decision Thursday to step down after a crushing election defeat.Tsipras, 48, served as Greece’s prime minister from 2015 to 2019 during politically tumultuous years as the country struggled to remain in the euro zone and end a series of international bailouts.In Sunday’s general election, Tsipras’ left-wing Syriza party received just under 18% percent of the vote while the winning New Democracy party topped 40%. Tsipras is expected to stay on as leader until his successor is elected by the party membership. The Associated Press

North American trade pact on 3rd anniversary: Optimism is rising for US and Mexican workers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:57 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — To President Donald Trump, America’s trade relationship with Mexico was intolerable. He seethed over the U.S. trade deficit and the shuttered factories in America’s heartland. “No longer,’’ he vowed six years ago, “are we going to allow other countries to break the rules, to steal our jobs and drain our wealth.”So Trump pressured Mexico and Canada to replace their mutual pact with one more to his liking. After a couple of years of negotiations, he got what he wanted. Out was the North American Free Trade Agreement. In was the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.The USMCA, which Trump hailed as “the fairest, most balanced and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed,” will reach its third anniversary Saturday.The trade pact hasn’t proved to be the economic bonanza Trump boasted it would be. It couldn’t have been, given that trade makes up less than a third of America’s $26 trillion economy.Yet while the the deal’s overall impact has been...

$115M in federal grants will give a boost to smaller meat processors in 17 states

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:57 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Smaller meat and poultry operators in 17 states will receive $115 million in grants, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Thursday.The USDA grants are the latest in a series of awards the Biden administration has made that are intended to increase meat and poultry processing, benefiting farmers and providing more job opportunities in largely rural areas.“While American farmers and ranchers have been responding to the demand to produce more, their communities have struggled to see their share of the benefits,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement ahead of a meeting Thursday morning in Des Moines with producers and business owners. The participants were expected to talk with Vilsack about ways to strengthen and market farm and food businesses.The funding includes 10 awards to recipients in 12 states totaling $77 million through a program that finances the start-up or expansion of meat and poultry processing plants. The awards include $1...

Essence Festival of Culture 2023 kicks off in New Orleans

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:49:57 GMT

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Nearly 30 years ago, creators of Essence Magazine came to New Orleans to celebrate the publication’s 25th anniversary with a salute to Black women highlighting culture, empowerment conversations with the nation’s thought leaders and, of course, music.The Essence Music Festival has since morphed into the Essence Festival of Culture, which, in its 29th year, kicks off Thursday and goes through July 3 across various venues in downtown New Orleans. The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center will hold most of the free workshops, vendor exhibits and celebrity meet-and-greets. Blocks away, the Superdome will host nightly ticketed performances by artists including headliners Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott and Megan Thee Stallion as the festival commemorates 50 years of hip-hop.Hakeem Holmes, a New Orleans native and newly appointed vice president of the festival, describes the festival as a “crown jewel of Black culture” that “plays a pivotal role in the amplification...