By Andy Rose, CNN (CNN) — A Kansas youth baseball league will be able to replace a statue of Jackie Robinson that was stolen and destroyed last week after a flood of private donations – and a commitment by Major League Baseball. Pieces of the statue were found burned in a public trash container on
Continue ReadingBy JULIE CARR SMYTH Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A task force convened by Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine after a deadly school bus crash is recommending enhanced training for drivers and installing a host of new safety features. The group recommended leaving the issue of school bus seat belts to individual districts. DeWine’s
Continue ReadingBy WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — TikTok may look (or sound) a little different when you scroll through the app going forward. Earlier this week, Universal Music Group — which represents big-name artists like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and Drake — said that it would no longer allow its music on
Continue ReadingBy SYLVIE CORBET Associated Press PARIS (AP) — France’s two major farmers unions announced Thursday their decision to suspend protests and lift road blockades across the country, in a dramatic development shortly after the French prime minister unveiled a new set of measures they see as “tangible progress.” Farmers have been protesting for days across
Continue ReadingLONDON (AP) — A Conservative lawmaker says he will step down when an election is called later this year because of abuse and death threats. Mike Freer has linked the abuse to his support for Israel. Freer represents a London constituency which has a large Jewish population. He says he has received death threats from
Continue ReadingBy MELISSA RAYWORTH Associated Press Political polarization. Economic struggles. Inequity. Climate change. War. In a world like ours, you can hardly blame people for trying to cushion themselves. From weighted blankets to “cozy” murder mystery novels to restaurants based on childhood comfort foods, the appetite for comfortable things just keeps growing. Now some are seeking
Continue ReadingCHICAGO (AP) — More than 200 reporters, photographers and other staffers with the Chicago Tribune and six other newsrooms around the nation are on a 24-hour strike to protest years of “slow-walked” contract negotiations and to demand fair wages. Chicago Tribune Guild member Caroline Kubzansky says Thursday’s strike includes 76 members of the Chicago Tribune
Continue ReadingBy NINIEK KARMINI Associated Press JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s top security minister says that President Joko Widodo has accepted his resignation from the Cabinet amid heated political discourse before this month’s election. Mohammad Mahfud M.D. announced on Wednesday that he was resigning to focus on his vice presidential bid on Feb. 14. Mahfud is
Continue ReadingBy PAN PYLAS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — Just like the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England is edging toward cutting interest rates — though not quite yet. The United Kingdom’s central bank kept its main interest rate at a near 16-year high of 5.25% on Thursday and indicated that borrowing costs have probably
Continue ReadingPARIS (AP) — France’s prime minister has unveiled a new set of measures meant to address the concerns of farmers protesting for days across the country to denounce low wages, heavy regulation and unfair competition from abroad. Gabriel Attal’s speech on Thursday came as convoys with hundreds of angry farmers driving tractors created chaos outside
Continue ReadingBy Oren Liebermann and Haley Britzky, CNN (CNN) — US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday admitted he mishandled communication around his treatment for prostate cancer and apologized to his colleagues and the American public in his first news conference since returning to work. “I want to be crystal clear: We did not handle this
Continue ReadingBERLIN (AP) — Austrian prosecutors have appealed a court decision that a man who kept his daughter captive for 24 years and raped her thousands of times, fathering seven children with her, can be moved from psychiatric detention to a regular prison. The state court in Krems on Thursday confirmed a report that prosecutors have
Continue ReadingBy JAN M. OLSEN Associated Press COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Norway’s most powerful storm in more than three decades has ripped off roofs, heightened avalanche risks and left households without power. Hurricane-force winds brought gusts of up to 180 kilometers (112 miles) per hour to some parts of the country. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute said
Continue ReadingBy DASHA LITVINOVA Associated Press Imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny is urging Russians to show their protest of President Vladimir Putin during next month’s presidential balloting by voting at a specific time on election day. In a social media statement relayed from the Arctic penal colony where he is being held, Navalny argued that by
Continue ReadingBy MATT OTT AP Business Writer The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits rose last week to the highest level in 11 weeks, though layoffs remain at historically low levels. Applications for unemployment benefits climbed to 224,000 for the week ending Jan. 27, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department
Continue ReadingBy LORNE COOK and SAMUEL PETREQUIN Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — Leaders of the 27 European Union countries sealed a deal Thursday to provide Ukraine with 50 billion euros ($54 billion) in support for its war-ravaged economy after Hungary dropped weeks of threats to veto the measure. European Council President Charles Michel said the agreement
Continue ReadingBy ILLIA NOVIKOV Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine is claiming it used sea drones to sink a Russian corvette in the Black Sea during a nighttime attack. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency published a video on Thursday it said showed naval drones assaulting the Russian missile-armed cutter Ivanovets on Wednesday night, apparently sinking it.
Continue ReadingBy RAF CASERT Associated Press BRUSSELS (AP) — Farmers in convoys of tractors created chaos outside the European Union’s headquarters on Thursday, pelting police with firecrackers, eggs and beer bottles as they demanded leaders at an EU summit provide relief from rising prices and bureaucracy. With thick smoke from burning bales of hay hanging over
Continue ReadingBy NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press ROME (AP) — Street artist Maupal, whose cartoon-like depictions of Pope Francis as a “Super Pope” have graced buildings around the Vatican for a decade, got an official stamp of approval on Thursday when he appeared at a Vatican news conference. Maupal, in life Mauro Pallotta, designed a series of
Continue ReadingBy ZENEL ZHINIPOTOKU and LLAZAR SEMINI Associated Press PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — The European Union has called on Kosovo to postpone an effort to force ethnic Serbian-dominated areas to adopt the euro currency like in the rest of the country as rules that would block use of the Serbian dinar went into effect. Most of
Continue Reading