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US traffic deaths drop slightly in 2022 but still a ‘crisis’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:27 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — The number of people killed on U.S. roadways decreased slightly last year, but government officials said the 42,795 people who died is still a national crisis.Estimates by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that the number of fatalities dropped 0.3% from the 42,939 killed in 2021. Traffic deaths declined slightly in the fourth quarter, the third straight quarterly drop.But they’re still close to 2021 numbers, which were the highest in 16 years.“We continue to face a national crisis of traffic deaths on our roadways, and everyone has a role to play in reversing the rise that we experienced in recent years,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose department includes NHTSA, said in a statement Thursday.The department has adopted a national safe systems strategy in an effort to reduce the deaths, including more than $800 million in grants to help communities with projects in high-crash areas, NHTSA said in a statement.Estimates from the agen...

SpaceX giant rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:27 GMT

By MARCIA DUNN (AP Aerospace Writer)SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas (AP) — SpaceX’s giant new rocket exploded minutes after blasting off Thursday on it first test flight and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.Elon Musk’s company was aiming to send the nearly 400-foot (120-meter) Starship rocket on a round-the-world trip from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. It carried no people or satellites.Images showed multiple engines weren’t working on the 33-engine rocket as it climbed from the launch pad, reaching as high as 24 miles (39 kilometers.)The flight plan had called for the booster to peel away from the spacecraft minutes after liftoff, but that didn’t happen. The rocket began to tumble and then exploded four minutes into the flight, plummeting into the gulf.After separating, the spacecraft was supposed to continue east and attempt to circle the world, before crashing into the Pacific near Hawaii.Throngs of spectators watched from South Padre Island, several miles away fro...

Mobile business in Chula Vista stolen, robbed

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:27 GMT

CHULA VISTA, Calif. -- A South Bay woman is sharing her story after someone stole her mobile business. She says someone destroyed her financially and hopes her story can raise awareness for others."I know it’s all material, but this is my business and it’s my heart and soul," said business over Cindy Macaranas. SDSU building reopens after Legionella pneumonia investigation She has run her island fashion business out of her truck since 2008. It all came to a sudden stop when Macaranas recently got a call from her son that the vehicle parked on Brandywine Road and Olympic Parkway in Chula Vista was gone. "He didn’t find it. He said mom the truck is gone. I was really worried, then thought maybe someone towed it, but I thought not on a Sunday," added Macaranas.The single mother of three told FOX 5 she filed a police report but before officers started their investigation, her truck was located by a friend the following day in National City.Thousands of dollars of merchandise she ...

Todd Haimes, who led a theater company to Broadway, dies

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:27 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Todd Haimes, who led the Roundabout Theatre Company from an off-off-Broadway company teetering on the edge of bankruptcy into a major theatrical force with works on five stages — including three Broadway theaters — and dozens of Tony Awards, has died. He was 66.Haimes, the artistic director and CEO of the nonprofit Roundabout, died in New York City on Wednesday due to complications from cancer, according to Matt Polk, his longtime friend and spokesperson.“Rest in peace, Mr. Haimes,” actor Mark Ruffalo, who starred in a Roundabout revival of “The Price” on Broadway in 2017, wrote on Twitter. “You were a wonderful and kind soul. Thank you for the chance to work at the Roundabout with you. You will be missed on Broadway, the theater world, and the world at large.” Broadway shows under Haimes’ 39-year tenure include “The Real Thing” with Ewan McGregor, “A Soldier’s Play” with David Alan Grier and “On the Twentieth Century” with Kristin Chenoweth. Other ...

Biden touts US efforts as oil overshadows climate summit

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:27 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden touted “unprecedented” climate efforts by his administration on Thursday in an annual White House summit that was overshadowed by Russia’s war in Ukraine and other immediate threats to the world’s short-term oil and gas supply.Biden used the Major Economies Forum, convened virtually, to announce that the U.S. hoped to give $500 million to Brazil over the next five years to help slow the destruction of the Amazon, one of the world’s vital natural reserves soaking up the climate-damaging fumes from oil, natural gas, coal and methane. The funding would require congressional approval. Climate leaders and scientists have sharply criticized the U.S. and many other nations, though, for responding to oil and gas shortages and greater supply concerns by ramping up oil and gas production and expansion plans, saying it is impossible to keep global warming to hoped-for limits while increasing drilling.Biden, a Democrat, pointed to climate ...

Dutch business envoy to Ukraine quits over book comments

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:27 GMT

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A veteran diplomat who was appointed less than three weeks ago to promote Dutch involvement in the reconstruction of Ukraine has quit over remarks he made — reportedly about Russia — in a new book, the government announced Thursday.The Dutch foreign ministry said that Ron van Dartel would step down with immediate effect. Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Liesje Schreinemacher “respects the decision and has accepted his resignation,” the ministry said in a statement.Van Dartel, a former Dutch ambassador to Serbia, Poland and Russia, quit over comments he made to the author of a new book. Dutch broadcaster RTL reported that they include him saying “Ukrainians are also Russians. We must not forget that. That is the reality.”The ministry said Van Dartel’s comments were made before his appointment earlier this month, but only published after he took up his new role.Van Dartel “has realized that he can no longer function credibly with the...

North Dakota governor signs law limiting trans health care

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:27 GMT

North Dakota’s Republican Gov. Doug Burgum signed a bill into law that restricts transgender health care in the state, immediately making it a crime to give gender-affirming care to people younger than 18.Gender-affirming care for minors has been available in the U.S. for more than a decade and is endorsed by major medical associations, but it has increasingly come under attack in many conservative legislatures, including North Dakota’s, where lawmakers have passed at least three anti-trans bills this year. The measure that Burgum signed Wednesday received veto-proof support from GOP lawmakers — though some Republicans did vote against it, alongside all Democrats.The new law takes immediate effect and allows prosecutors to charge a health care provider with a felony — up to 10 years in prison and $20,000 in fines — for performing sex reassignment surgery on a minor.It also enables prosecutors to charge a provider with a misdemeanor — up to 360 days in prison and $3,000 in fine...

Former Wisconsin parole board chair charged with felony

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:27 GMT

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The former chair of the Wisconsin Parole Commission who until this week was also an alderman in Racine has been charged with a felony, accused of using his capacity as a public official for private interests.John Tate II was charged Tuesday with one count of “private interest in a public contract while working in a public capacity” in Racine County, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. According to the complaint, Tate unlawfully negotiated terms of his employment for Racine’s new violence interruption coordinator position, after approving the creation of the job as president of the Common Council. Prosecutors argue that Tate’s applying for the job, and negotiating terms of his employment agreement, “acted on behalf of his own pecuniary interest.”Tate initially announced that he would resign as an alderman to begin as violence interruption coordinator in mid-November. However, he didn’t resign until his term finished Monday after he said he had been a...

Sudan army demands rivals’ surrender, threatening cease-fire

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:27 GMT

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Sudan’s military ruled out negotiations with a rival paramilitary force on Thursday, saying it would only accept its surrender as the two sides continued to battle in central Khartoum and other parts of the country, threatening to wreck the latest attempt at a cease-fire. The military’s statement raised the likelihood of a renewed surge in the nearly week-long violence that has pushed Sudan’s population to the breaking point. Alarm has grown that the country’s medical system was on the verge of collapse, with many hospitals forced to shut down and others running out of supplies. The 24-hour cease-fire, declared Wednesday evening, had brought only marginal calm to parts of the capital of Khartoum, but many residents took advantage to flee the homes where they have been trapped for days. “Massive numbers” of people, mostly women and children, were leaving in search of safer areas, said Atiya Abdulla Atiya, secretary of the Doctors’ Syndic...

The federal government promised to plant 2 billion trees by 2030. It’s nowhere close.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:55:27 GMT

OTTAWA — Two years ago, Canada embarked on an odyssey to plant two billion trees in just 10 years. An audit of the program so far says that unless things drastically change, it won’t even get one-tenth of those trees in the ground in time. The audit was one of five reports issued Thursday by Environment Commissioner Jerry DeMarco, who said he cannot stress enough how important it is for the government to live up to its commitment on trees.“There is no solution to climate change and terrestrial biodiversity loss that does not include forests,” DeMarco’s report said.The Liberals first made the massive tree-planting promise during the 2019 federal election campaign, as part of their overall strategy to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by mid-century.They followed through a year later, earmarking $3.2 billion for tree planting in the 2020 fall economic statement.DeMarco’s office looked at how things went over the first two years. He concluded ...