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Biden wants an extra $4 billion for disaster relief, bringing total request to $16 billion

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:51 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House will seek an additional $4 billion to address natural disasters as part of its supplemental funding request — a sign that wildfires, flooding and hurricanes that have intensified during a period of climate change are imposing ever higher costs on U.S. taxpayers.The Biden administration had initially requested $12 billion in extra funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund, which helps with rescue and relief efforts. But a policy analyst in the Office of Management and Budget, Shelby Wagenseller, said that the fires in Hawaii and Louisiana as well as flooding in Vermont and Hurricane Idalia striking Florida and other Southeastern states mean that a total of $16 billion is needed.As recently as Tuesday, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell had stressed that $12 billion would be enough to meet the agency’s needs through the end of the fiscal year this month.Criswell told reporters at a White House briefing that...

US will regulate nursing home staffing for first time, but proposal lower than many advocates hoped

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:51 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The federal government will, for the first time, dictate staffing levels at nursing homes, the Biden administration said Friday, responding to systemic problems bared by mass COVID-19 deaths.While such regulation has been sought for decades by allies of older adults and those with disabilities, the proposed threshold is far lower than many advocates had hoped. It seemed destined to draw ire from the nursing home industry as well, which opposes staffing minimums as unfunded mandates.With criticism expected, a promise made with fanfare in President Joe Biden’s 2022 State of the Union speech had its details revealed as many Americans turned away from the news for a holiday weekend.“Establishing minimum staffing standards for nursing homes will improve resident safety,” Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “When facilities are understaffed, residents suffer.”The proposed rules, which now enter a public comment period and would take years more to fully tak...

Swiss glacier watcher warns recent heat wave threatens severe melt again this year after record 2022

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:51 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — A top glacier watcher has warned that a warm early summer combined with a heat wave last week may have caused severe glacier melt in Switzerland, threatening to make 2023 its second-worst year for ice loss after a record thaw last year.Matthias Huss of the GLAMOS glacier monitoring center said full data won’t be in until late September and a precipitous drop in temperatures and high-altitude snowfall in recent days could help stem any more damage. But early signs based on readings from five sites and modeling results across Switzerland suggest considerable damage may already be done.“We can definitely say that we had very high melting in Switzerland and in Europe in general because the temperatures, they were extremely high for a long time — a more than one week heat wave,” Huss said in an interview this week.Swiss meteorologists reported last week that the zero-degree Celsius level had risen to its highest altitude since recordings on it in Switzerland began nea...

2 French-Moroccan men on water scooters killed by Algerian forces, according to Moroccan media

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:51 GMT

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Two French-Moroccan men were killed by Algerian forces after they strayed across Morocco’s maritime border with Algeria on water scooters, according to Moroccan media reports.The border has long been closed because of deep tensions between the two North African neighbors, linked to the disputed territory of Western Sahara among other issues. Deadly run-ins on the maritime border are rare.Algerian police and coast guard officials did not respond to requests for comment Friday on the reported killings Tuesday. The French Foreign Ministry did not immediately comment.Mohamed Kissi told Moroccan news website 360.ma that he, his brother Bilal and two friends were on vacation and riding personal watercraft off the coast of the Moroccan town of Saaidia when night began to fall. “We were low on gas for the water scooters and were drifting. In the darkness, we found ourselves in Algerian waters,” he told 360.ma.He said a speedboat carrying armed forces with the word R...

Regulators may change how they classify marijuana. Here's what that would mean

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:51 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The news lit up the world of weed: U.S. health regulators are suggesting that the federal government loosen restrictions on marijuana.Specifically, the federal Health and Human Services Department has recommended taking marijuana out of a category of drugs deemed to have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” The agency advised moving pot from that “Schedule I” group to the less tightly regulated “Schedule III.”So what does that mean, and what are the implications? Read on.FIRST OF ALL, WHAT HAS ACTUALLY CHANGED? WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?Technically, nothing yet. Any decision on reclassifying — or “rescheduling,” in government lingo — is up to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which says it will take up the issue. The review process is lengthy and involves taking public comment.Still, the HHS recommendation is “paradigm-shifting, and it’s very exciting,” said Vince Sliwoski, a Portland, Oregon-based cannabis and psychedelics attorney who...

Judge says Trump's Georgia trial will be livestreamed, televised

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:51 GMT

(The Hill) - Court proceedings in the election interference case against former President Trump and 18 co-defendants in Fulton County, Ga., will be televised and livestreamed, a judge ruled Thursday.Judge Scott McAfee, the judge overseeing the case, said all hearings and trials will be broadcast on the Fulton County Court YouTube channel, according to multiple outlets. He also said pool coverage for broadcast news media will be allowed.Trump and his co-defendants are charged in a sprawling racketeering case related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. The case could be the only one against Trump the public is able to witness.He also faces two federal indictments — one related to the mishandling of classified information and another also related to 2020 election interference — but federal courtrooms generally do not allow cameras. The former president also faces charges in Manhattan related to hush money payments before the 2016 election.However, if any...

Residents find homes gone, towns devastated after Idalia

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:51 GMT

HORSESHOE BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Hurricanes and tropical storms are nothing new in the South, but the sheer magnitude of damage from Idalia shocked Desmond Roberson as he toured what as left of his Georgia neighborhood.Roberson took a drive through Valdosta on Thursday with a friend to check out damage after the storm, which first hit Florida as a hurricane and then weakened into a tropical storm as it made its way north, ripped through the town of 55,000. Threat of electrical fires lingers in homes flooded by Hurricane Idalia On one street, he said, a tree had fallen on nearly every house. Roads remained blocked by tree trunks and downed power lines, and traffic lights were still blacked out at major intersections.“It’s a maze,” Roberson said. “I had to turn around three times, just because roads were blocked off.”The storm had 90 mph (145 kph) winds when it made a direct hit on Valdosta on Wednesday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said.“We’re fortunate this storm was a narrow one, and it w...

Readers and writers: Three bestselling Minnesota authors don’t disappoint with new fiction

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:51 GMT

September is starting with a bang, book-wise: Three bestselling, award-winning Minnesota writers are launching new fiction with local readings.Trust us when we tell you they are at the top of their game.“The River We Remember”: by William Kent Krueger (Atria, $28.99)She thought about everything that had happened in Black Earth County, all the death associated with the Alabaster, and she understood that there had been no interest in the river, either good or evil. If the river did possess spirit, as the Sioux believed, then that spirit seemed to Charlie so vast that it was probably blind to all the small things that occurred along its course. If the spirit was aware that she dangled her feet in its current, it gave no sign of caring. And Jimmy Quinn and Hannah Klein and Noah Bluestone’s great-great-grandfather and the nameless white woman whose life, legend said, had been lost on Inkpadua Bend, none of this mattered to the spirit of the Alabaster. What mattered was ...

Q&A: Doing the State Fair with local artist Adam Turman

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:51 GMT

When Adam Turman was in middle school, he a won a contest to have his art printed on T-shirts.Candles with artist Adam Turman’s designs line shelves at his Grandstand booth at the Minnesota State Fair on Aug. 31, 2023. Turman licenses his designs to a third-party merchandiser, which allows him to spend his time making art, rather than managing logistics, he said. (Jared Kaufman / Pioneer Press)The experience stuck with him, he said — of a bunch of people he might not know personally appreciating and interacting with something he created. Now a prolific painter and pop artist with a massive booth on the second floor of the State Fair Grandstand, Turman has turned that animating feeling into a full career.“I love to make things that many people can share in,” Turman said Thursday at his Fair shop. “I want to make people happy with the work I do. (That) they walk away with some sort of a smile or joy they get out of it.”Turman has been attending the State Fair since he was a teen...

After theft of St. Paul man’s wheelchair and vehicle, donations mean he’ll get a wheelchair-accessible van

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:51 GMT

After his wheelchair and vehicle were stolen in St. Paul, a 26-year-old continues to be thankful for the community support he’s received.Contributions to a GoFundMe and funds from the local O’Neill Foundation of Hope will allow Kyle Schultz to get a wheelchair-accessible van, his mother said Thursday. The foundation also purchased a new electric wheelchair for Schultz, who has ALS, immediately after it was stolen.“I’m just so grateful for everyone that has made this happen,” Schultz said.Kyle Schultz and his dog, Deuce. (Courtesy of the family)Home surveillance video showed an unidentified person prying open a door of Schultz’s 2012 Chevrolet Tahoe to steal it from his driveway in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood the morning of July 10. The SUV was found abandoned the next day in the city’s North End with all four tires removed, as well as the mirrors, grill and headlights missing.Police collected evidence from the vehicle, including a fingerprint, w...