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Scholz calls for a broad pact to slash bureaucracy and modernize Germany

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:24 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Germany’s opposition and regional governments on Wednesday to help slash a “thicket of bureaucracy” that slows down Europe’s biggest economy, as his government grapples with poor poll ratings and a reputation for internal strife half way through its term.Scholz told lawmakers that his governing coalition has begun making Germany less complicated and bureaucratic, for example by introducing flat-rate tickets for regional public transport and by building the country’s first liquefied natural gas terminals within months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But he appealed to highly decentralized Germany’s 16 state governments, local officials and the opposition to join in a “pact for Germany that makes our country faster, more modern and more secure.” That would include doing more to streamline notoriously lengthy planning processes, move forward the country’s famously slow digitization and speed the building of...

Sri Lanka parliament debates the health minister’s fate over reports of lack of drugs, hospital care

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:24 GMT

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan lawmakers began a debate on the fate of country’s health minister on Wednesday, seeking to remove him over his alleged failure to secure enough essential drugs and laboratory equipment that some say resulted in preventable deaths in hospitals. Sri Lanka provides free health service through state-run hospitals but they have suffered from a shortage of medicines and health workers, especially doctors, as a result of an economic crisis after the government suspended repayment of foreign loans. Opposition lawmakers said in a no-confidence motion that a failure by Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella to fulfil his responsibilities has ruined the health sector and that “people have to pay the price of his irresponsible conduct with their lives,.”Rambukwella has previously rejected the allegations against him.Several patients have died or suffered impairments including blindness during treatment at state-run hospitals in recent months under circum...

China’s premier is on a charm offensive as ASEAN summit protests Beijing’s aggression at sea

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:24 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — In talks with Southeast Asian leaders Wednesday in the Indonesian capital, Chinese Premier Li Qiang underscored his country’s importance as the world’s second-biggest economy and as the top trading partner of the region.Countering renewed alarm over Beijing’s aggression in the disputed South China Sea, Li cited China’s long history of friendship with Southeast Asia, including joint efforts to confront the coronavirus pandemic and how both sides have settled differences through dialogue.“As long as we keep to the right path, no matter what storm may come, China-ASEAN cooperation will be as firm as ever and press ahead against all odds,” Li said. “We have preserved peace and tranquility in East Asia in a world fraught with turbulence and change.”But rival claimant states in the South China Sea, which belong to the 10-nation bloc of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have protested China’s aggressive moves to fortify its vast territorial c...

It’s official. Meteorologists say this summer’s swelter was a global record breaker for high heat

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:24 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Earth has sweltered through its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization.Last month was not only the hottest August scientists ever recorded by far with modern equipment, it was also the second hottest month measured, behind only July 2023, WMO and the European climate service Copernicus announced Wednesday.August was about 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial averages, which is the warming threshold that the world is trying not to pass. But the 1.5 C threshold is over decades — not just one month — so scientists do not consider that brief passage that significant.The world’s oceans — more than 70% of the Earth’s surface — were the hottest ever recorded, nearly 21 degrees Celsius (69.8 degrees Fahrenheit), and have set high temperature marks for three consecutive months, the WMO and Cope...

The death toll from fierce storms and flooding in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria rises to 8

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:24 GMT

ISTANBUL (AP) — The death toll from severe rainstorms that lashed parts of Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria increased to eight Wednesday after rescue teams located the body of a missing vacation who was swept away by flood waters that raged through a campsite in northwest Turkey.A flash flood at the campsite near the border with Bulgaria carried away bungalow homes. Hundreds of homes and workplaces in several neighborhoods in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, also were inundated during Tuesday’s storms.At least five people died, three at the campsite and two in Istanbu, authorities said. Rescuers were still searching for three people reported missing at the campsite.The victims in Istanbul included a 32-year-old Guinean citizen who was trapped inside his ground-floor apartment in the low-income Kucukcekmece district, Turkish broadcaster HaberTurk TV reported.The surging flood waters affected more than 1,750 homes and businesses in the city, according to the Istanbul governor’s offic...

David Grann and Siddhartha Mukherjee are among contenders for a prestigious nonfiction prize

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:24 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Books about the perilous state of our world, our food and our relationship with technology are in the running for Britain’s leading nonfiction book award, the Baillie Gifford Prize.The 13-book longlist announced Wednesday includes John Vaillant’s look at the reality of climate change, “Fire Weather”; Chris van Tulleken’s dietary warning “Ultra Processed People”; and “Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity” by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson.Best-selling American author David Grann is nominated for the stirring seafaring yarn “The Wager,” while physician-writer Siddhartha Mukherjee is in the running with “The Song of the Cell.”British journalist Hannah Barnes is on the list for “Time to Think,” which charts the demise of Britain’s controversial Tavistock gender clinic for children.Other contenders examine key moments in history, including Tania Branigan’s look at China’s Cultural Revolution, “Red Memory,” and Katja Hoyer’s portrai...

In the news today: Trudeau at ASEAN summit, evacuation order lifting in Yellowknife

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:24 GMT

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed on what you need to know today…Indo-Pacific countries see a partner in CanadaPrime Minister Justin Trudeau has wrapped up five meetings with Indo-Pacific leaders on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit.Trudeau met with the leaders of Malaysia, Vietnam, Korea, Philippines and Australia. During these talks, the leaders expressed a desire to partner up with Canada through trade, immigration, and to utilize its know-how when dealing with their transition to green energy.Evacuation order set to lift in YellowknifeThousands of vehicles are expected to travel to Yellowknife in the coming days as a three-week evacuation order is set to lift at noon today. Territorial officials have said the migration home will go forward unless there are significant changes to fire and highway conditions. More than 20,000 people were forced to flee by road and air when the order came into force on Aug. 16 due to an enc...

Kim Jong Un may travel to Russia to meet Putin again. Will he take a plane or the train?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:24 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s possible trip to Russia might be like his first one in 2019 — a rattling, 20-hour ride aboard a green-and-yellow armored train that is a quirky symbol of his family’s dynastic leadership.In what would be his first foreign travel since the start of the pandemic, United States officials say Kim may visit Russia this month for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, possibly to advance talks on North Korean arms sales to refill Russian reserves drained by its war on Ukraine.According to U.S. reports, a potential venue for their meeting is the eastern city of Vladivostok, the site of their first meeting in April 2019, where Putin is expected to attend the annual Eastern Economic Forum that takes place on the campus of the Far Eastern Federal University from Sunday to Wednesday.How Kim, the 39-year-old authoritarian leader, would get there is a focus of media attention. While Kim has used planes more frequently than his...

In ‘Backspot,’ director D.W. Waterson wants you to see the ‘grit and dirt’ of cheer

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:24 GMT

TORONTO — D.W. Waterson wasn’t a cheerleader — but they did perform as one.The director, whose first feature “Backspot” is set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, said they used to wear the uniform while DJing and playing drums on stage.“I just loved the idea of being the cheer captain of an audience,” they said by video call ahead of the fest. “That uniform really brings something out in people.”But when it came to making a film about cheer, Waterson said they were more interested in the athleticism than the esthetics. “Backspot” tells the story of Riley, played by Canadian actress Devery Jacobs, who along with her girlfriend Amanda makes an elite cheer team led by an exacting coach, portrayed by Evan Rachel Wood. Growing up in the early 2000s, Waterson said they were immersed in a veritable Eden of cheerleading media. From TV shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to the movies “Br...

‘Freedom Convoy’ to hear from Ottawa police as trial enters its second day

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:20:24 GMT

OTTAWA — A court in Ottawa is expected to hear from additional members of city’s police service today on the second day of the trial of two key ‘Freedom Convoy’ organizers.The 16-day hearing began Tuesday with a Crown prosecutor presenting the case against Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, who are jointly charged with mischief, counselling others to commit mischief, intimidation and obstructing police. Prosecutor Tim Radcliffe told the court in his opening statement that the pair’s political views against COVID-19 health orders are not on trial, but rather the means by which they tried to bring those orders to an end. The court viewed a 12-minute video compilation of footage shot by police body cameras as well as drones that captured the honking and atmosphere as hundreds of protesters blocked downtown Ottawa streets for three weeks in the winter of 2022.It was the first of many videos the Crown anticipates showing in court including some videos taken by Lich and...