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Florida disaster sales tax holiday set to take place ahead of hurricane season

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:41 GMT

Residents of Florida will have the chance to participate in a disaster sales tax holiday in preparation for hurricane season. Starting Saturday, and lasting until June 9, Florida residents will be able to purchase certain items at no extra tax charge. Items include batteries, flashlights, lanterns, tarps, and select portable generators. A second tax break holiday will take place between Aug. 26 to Sept. 8, before the peak of the stormy season.For more information, visit Miamidade.gov.

Eddie George’s prolific post-playing career makes a stop at Chicago Bears OTAs through a diversity coaching fellowship

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:41 GMT

Eddie George had no plans to coach football.The long hours turned off the former Tennessee Titans All-Pro running back. He loved having time to invest in his golf game. He was building his wealth management business and acting in movies, TV and plays, including starring on Broadway as Billy Flynn in “Chicago.”“Trying to win a HEGOT,” George said. “That’s Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, but Heisman’s on the front of it.”The 1995 Heisman Trophy winner at Ohio State laughed after he delivered the line like a pro from his seat in a Halas Hall conference room.George was taking a quick breather during a hectic three-week stretch with the Chicago Bears in the Bill Walsh diversity coaching fellowship, a program designed to give minority coaches experience at the NFL level. Florida State co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Randy Shannon, the former head coach at Miami, is also on hand at Bears organized team activities.Nine days into his ...

British Cycling publishes new transgender policy with ‘open’ and ‘female’ categories

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:41 GMT

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Riders who were born male will be prevented from racing in British Cycling’s elite female events under a new transgender and non-binary participation policy published by the governing body on Friday.New rules for competitive events, due to be implemented this year, will see racing split into “open” and “female” categories, with transgender women, transgender men, non-binary individuals and those whose sex was assigned male at birth eligible to compete in the open category.The female category will remain for those whose sex was assigned female at birth and for transgender men who are yet to begin hormone therapy.The current men’s category will be consolidated into the open category, in which those whose sex was assigned as female at birth can also compete if they so wish.There is still no set date for the new regulations to be implemented, with British Cycling saying only that it will be before the end of the year, allowing time for changes to technic...

99% of Ontario nursing homes now have air conditioning in residents’ rooms: minister

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:41 GMT

Nearly 99 per cent of nursing homes in Ontario now have air conditioning in residents’ rooms, almost a year after the province set a deadline for the requirement.Long-Term Care Minister Paul Calandra said only nine of the 625 nursing homes in Ontario remain without air conditioning in resident rooms.Three of those are expected to have units installed by the end of May, and three more are on track to have AC this summer. Two homes have electrical capacity issues but are being redeveloped and will eventually have AC. The government has granted exemptions to those eight homes and recently fined a ninth one.The province is now conducting an inspection blitz, as the warm weather arrives, to ensure homes are complying with legislation that mandates air conditioning in resident rooms.“It’s a shame that we actually had to put a program in place that air conditions the homes, but we’re there now, 99 per cent done, and just a couple more left to go,” Calandra tol...

Climate protesters face tear gas at oil major TotalEnergies shareholder meeting in Paris

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:41 GMT

PARIS (AP) — French police threw a security cordon around a shareholders’ meeting in Paris of oil major TotalEnergies on Friday, spraying tear gas and pushing back climate protesters who chanted, “Be gentle, police officers, we’re doing this for your kids!” Shareholders, some escorted into the meeting by police, ran a gauntlet of the peaceful, earnest and mostly young demonstrators, who waved signs attacking the climate record of the French energy giant that has reaped colossal profits from price surges that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Their signs declared, “The last pipeline before the end of the world” and “Listen to the scientists: No more fossil projects.”Protesters sat down in surrounding streets and linked arms to block access to the meeting in a famed Paris concert hall. Police officers carried some protesters to move them out of the way. They sprayed tear gas from canisters to force people back.It comes after climate protesters tried to rush...

Russia acknowledges Vatican peace initiative, says no steps yet for a mission to Moscow

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:41 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Russia on Friday indicated that it views Pope Francis’ Ukraine peace initiative positively, but stressed that there are no immediate plans for a Vatican mission to Moscow.The statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry to the state RIA Novosti agency was the first public acknowledgment by Moscow of the pope’s move. It followed the Vatican’s weekend announcement that a veteran of the Catholic Church’s peace mediation initiatives, Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, had been tapped by Francis as his envoy.“We acknowledge the Holy See’s sincere desire to promote the peace process,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said, according to RIA Novosti. “At the same time, no practical steps have been taken by the Vatican side to organize the trip to Moscow.”Zuppi told reporters Thursday that the scope of the mission was to “help ease the tensions of the conflict” in hopes it could contribute to “paths of peace.” He drew a parallel to his efforts in the 1990s, alongside the Rom...

What to know about Texas’ extraordinary move to impeach GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:41 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — After years of legal and ethical scandals swirling around Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state’s GOP-controlled House of Representatives has moved toward an impeachment vote that could quickly throw him from office.The extraordinary and rarely-used maneuver comes in the final days of the state’s legislative session and sets up a bruising political fight. It pits Paxton, who has aligned himself closely with former President Donald Trump and the state’s hard-right conservatives, against House Republican leadership, who appear to have suddenly had enough of the allegations of wrongdoing that have long dogged Texas’ top lawyer.Paxton has said the charges are based on “hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims.”Here is how the impeachment process works in Texas, and how the 60-year-old Republican came to face the prospect of becoming just the third official to be impeached in the state’s nearly 200-year history:THE PROCESSUnder the Texas ...

Russia says Ukraine attacks border regions; Moscow’s forces strike Dnipro clinic

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:41 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine came under attack from Ukrainian artillery fire, mortar shells and drones Friday, authorities said, hours after two drones struck a Russian city in a region next to the annexed Crimea Peninsula.The Kremlin’s forces, meanwhile, struck a clinic in Dnipro, in central Ukraine, killing a 69-year-old passerby and wounding 23 other people, including two children, Ukrainian officials said. Also, a Russian S-300 missile hit a dam in the Karlivka district of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, placing nearby settlements under threat of severe flooding.The Belgorod town of Graivoron, about seven kilometers (more than four miles) from the Ukrainian border, was under fire for several hours, with four houses, a store, a car, a gas pipeline and a power line damaged, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported.Closer to the border, a recreation center, a shop and an uninhabited house sustained damage in the village of Glotovo. There were...

Court says Hugh Grant’s lawsuit alleging illegal snooping by The Sun tabloid can go to trial

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:41 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A London court on Friday rejected an attempt by the publisher of The Sun tabloid to throw out a lawsuit by actor Hugh Grant alleging that journalists and investigators it hired illegally snooped on him. Justice Timothy Fancourt said a trial in January will have to determine whether The Sun had carried out unlawful information gathering that included tapping his landline and bugging his car and breaking into his home. News Group Newspapers, which owns The Sun, had argued that Grant didn’t bring his claims within a six-year time limit. The judge dismissed Grant’s phone hacking claims on time limitation grounds, but said the case could proceed on the other allegations.“It was only on seeing invoices disclosed … in 2021 that Mr. Grant believed that private investigators (PIs) had been instructed by The Sun to target him in various ways, particularly in 2011,” Fancourt wrote.The case was argued during a hearing last month that also included phone hac...

Teck Resources promotes Ian Anderson to chief commercial officer

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:41 GMT

VANCOUVER — Teck Resources Ltd. has promoted Ian Anderson to the post of chief commercial officer as the company continues work on a plan to separate its base metal and steelmaking coal operations.Anderson assumed the role effective May 16, succeeding Réal Foley, who is expected to help with the transition until his retirement in late November.Anderson was most recently Teck’s vice-president, logistics.The Vancouver-based mining company also announced that André Stark has been appointed vice-president, marketing and logistics for base metals, while Michael O’Shaughnessy has been appointed vice-president, marketing and logistics for coal.Teck cancelled a key shareholder vote last month after it became apparent it did not have enough support for its proposal to spin out its steelmaking coal businesses into a separate company. Instead, the company has said it will pursue what it is says will be “a simpler and more direct separation.” Swiss company Glencore, which made an un...