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Senate passes GOP bill overturning student loan cancellation, teeing it up for Biden veto

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:54:41 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican measure overturning President Joe Biden’s student loan cancellation plan passed the Senate on Thursday and now awaits an expected veto.The vote was 52-46, with support from Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana as well as Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent. The resolution was approved last week by the GOP-controlled House by a 218-203 vote.Biden has pledged to keep in place his commitment to cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loans for 43 million people. The legislation adds to Republican criticism of the plan, which was halted in November in response to lawsuits from conservative opponents.The Supreme Court heard arguments in February in a challenge to Biden’s move, with the conservative majority seemingly ready to sink the plan. A decision is expected in the coming weeks.“The president’s student loan schemes do not ‘forgive’ debt, they just shift the burden from those who chose to take out l...

Champions League final referee under UEFA scrutiny for alleged links to far-right leader in Poland

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:54:41 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — An anti-racism group called on soccer’s top referee Thursday to distance himself from a far-right politician in Poland, and UEFA said it wanted “urgent clarification” just nine days before the Champions League final.“A further announcement will be made (Friday), after reviewing all the evidence,” UEFA said.Szymon Marciniak was picked last week by UEFA to referee the biggest game in club soccer between Manchester City and Inter Milan on June 10. He also handled the Argentina-France World Cup final for FIFA this season.The Never Again group in Warsaw said Marciniak “reportedly promoted and participated in a recent event organized by a Polish far-right leader Slawomir Mentzen.”’We are shocked and appalled by Marciniak’s public association with Mentzen and his brand of toxic far-right politics,” Never Again co-founder Rafal Pankowski said in a statement. “It is incompatible with the basic values of fair play such as equality and respect.”Mentzen is a leader of the populist...

Airbnb sues New York City over restrictions on short-term rentals

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:54:41 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Airbnb sued New York City on Thursday over an ordinance that the company says imposes arbitrary restrictions that would greatly reduce the local supply of short-term rentals.The 2022 ordinance, which the city plans to begin enforcing next month, would require owners to register with the mayor’s office, disclose who else lives in the property, and promise to comply with zoning, construction and maintenance ordinances.Airbnb said called the restrictions “extreme and oppressive” and a de facto ban against short-term rentals that left the company no choice but to sue.“Taken together, these features of the registration scheme appear intended to drive the short-term rental trade out of New York City once and for all,” Airbnb said. The company said the mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement “failed to consider reasonable alternatives.”The mayor’s office did not respond immediately to a request for comment.San Francisco-based Airbnb filed the lawsuit in state court in M...

Canadian Press NewsAlert: Suncor cutting 1,500 jobs

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:54:41 GMT

Suncor Energy Inc. says it is cutting 1,500 jobs by the end of the year in an effort to reduce costs and improve the company’s lagging performance. The Calgary-based energy company says employees were informed in an email this afternoon.More coming.The Canadian Press

California lawmakers advance bill to cool down outside areas at schools

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:54:41 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — As California grapples with how to deal with heat waves made more intense by climate change, schools in the state may soon have to come up with plans for cooling down outside play areas by planting more trees and replacing surfaces like asphalt that swelter on hot days.The state Senate passed the legislation that would require public and charter schools and districts to strategize on how to introduce more shade on campus, plant gardens and replace surfaces that hold on to a lot of heat with alternatives such as grass and wood chips. They have a 2027 deadline to start implementing their plans.“We needed this a long time ago,” said state Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat representing the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County. “We are making up for the decades of delay that we’re in right now.”Only a handful of state senators voted against the bill. It would still need approval in the state Assembly.The bill is a starting point that will set schools...

Massive wildfire in southwestern Nova Scotia has coastal town of Shelburne on edge

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:54:41 GMT

The largest wildfire ever recorded in Nova Scotia continued to grow Thursday as an adjacent fire in the province’s southwest corner kept the coastal town of Shelburne on edge.In all, there were four wildfires in the province burning out of control on Thursday, including the massive Barrington Lake fire in Shelburne County, which grew to more than 20 square kilometres despite a constant bombardment of water and fire retardant from a fleet of water bombers and air tankers.But a much smaller fire that started Wednesday received immediate attention after it prompted evacuations south of Shelburne, which is home to 1,300 people. Within hours, the local Roseway Hospital was evacuated and residents started preparing to leave.“It jumped up pretty quick with the high winds, low (humidity) and high temperatures,” Dave Rockwood, a spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources, told a briefing Thursday. “We are hitting it very hard and fast.”The two fires have ...

California bill requiring Big Tech to pay for news gains momentum

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:54:41 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California bill that would force Big Tech companies to pay media outlets for posting and using their news content cleared another critical hurdle Thursday. The measure is among hundreds of bills that passed in the state Senate and Assembly this week before Friday — the last day a bill can pass out of its original chamber and get a chance to become law later this year.The bill, which passed the Assembly floor with bipartisan support, would require companies such as Google and Meta to share with California media companies their advertising revenue stemming from the news and other reported content. The amount would be determined through an arbitration process. The bill would also require at least 70% of the shared revenue go toward journalists’ salaries. Such payments would help local media organizations survive after many have seen their advertising revenues nosedive in the digital era, said the bill’s author, Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wic...

New Mexico sues manufacturers of ‘forever chemicals’ amid health concerns

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:54:41 GMT

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s attorney general and its Environment Department filed suit Thursday against the manufacturers of so-called “forever chemicals,” commonly referred to as PFAS, seeking monetary damages to defray the costs of environmental monitoring and cleanups that they say are inevitable.Attorney General Raúl Torrez said that 21 companies named in the lawsuit have contributed to environmental contamination in New Mexico through their production and distribution of the chemicals, despite knowing for decades that the compounds pose significant risk to human health.“We have to step forward and try to protect our community … to hold corporations accountable who have for too long placed their bottom line and placed quarterly profits ahead of the interests of our community, over our natural environment and over public health,” Torrez said at a news conference Thursday in Albuquerque.PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been linked...

Sotheby’s buys modernist Breuer building from Whitney Museum, will move NYC galleries there

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:54:41 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The auction house Sotheby’s will buy the modernist Marcel Breuer-designed building that housed New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art for nearly 50 years, Sotheby’s announced Thursday. Sotheby’s will start moving its New York sale room and galleries to the Breuer building on Madison Avenue in 2024 and will open to the public the following year, the auction house announced.“We are honored to acquire and write the next chapter of such an iconic and well-known New York architectural landmark,” Sotheby’s Chief Executive Officer Charles F. Stewart said in a statement. The cantilevered Madison Avenue building designed by the Hungarian-born Breuer opened in 1966 as the third home of the Whitney, which had been founded in 1930 to showcase American art. The five-story granite and concrete structure is considered an important example of the architectural style known as brutalism.The building was leased to the Metropolitan Museum of Art fo...

Oath Keeper who guarded Roger Stone before Jan. 6 attack gets more than 4 years in prison

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:54:41 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A member of the far-right Oath Keepers extremist group who was part of a security detail for former President Donald Trump ‘s longtime adviser Roger Stone before storming the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Thursday to more than four years in prison. Roberto Minuta, who was seen on video guarding Stone hours before the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, was among six Oath Keeper members convicted by jurors of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a violent plot to stop the transfer of power from Trump to President Joe Biden after the 2020 election. Also on Thursday, an Arizona man was sentenced to three years behind bars followed by one year of home confinement for his role in the same plot. Edward Vallejo, a U.S. Army veteran from Phoenix, oversaw a “Quick Reaction Force” at a Virginia hotel that was prepared to deploy an arsenal of weapons into Washington if needed, authorities say.Vallejo and Minuta were both convicted in January of seditious conspiracy, the...