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Exploding wild pig population on western Canadian prairie threatens to invade northern US states

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:14:30 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — An exploding population of hard-to-eradicate “super pigs” in Canada is threatening to spill south of the border, and northern states like Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana are taking steps to stop the invasion. In Canada, the wild pigs roaming Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba pose a new threat. They are often crossbreeds that combine the survival skills of wild Eurasian boar with the size and high fertility of domestic swine to create a “super pig” that’s spreading out of control. Ryan Brook, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan and one of Canada’s leading authorities on the problem, calls feral swine, “the most invasive animal on the planet” and “an ecological train wreck.”Pigs are not native to North America. While they’ve roamed parts of the continent for centuries, Canada’s problem dates back only to the 1980s when it encouraged farmers to raise wild boar, Brook said. The market collapsed after peaking in 2001 and som...

Police say 2 dead and 5 wounded in Philadelphia shooting that may be drug-related

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:14:30 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A shooting in Philadelphia killed two men and wounded five others Tuesday night and police said the violence may have been drug-related.Reports of shots being fired sent police to Fairhill Street in North Philadelphia at about 8:30 p.m., where they found four wounded men on the ground, interim Police Commissioner John Stanford told reporters.All were taken to a hospital, where two were pronounced dead, Stanford said.Three other wounded men walked into three hospitals but there was no immediate word on their conditions.The men ranged in age from about 19 to 32 or 33, Stanford said.At least 70 shots were fired, Stanford said.Four handguns and a long gun along with narcotics were found at the scene, and investigators believe several shooters were involved, he said.The Associated Press

Yes, France is part of the European Union’s heart and soul. Just don’t touch its Camembert cheese

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:14:30 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has long known that the way to France’s heart is through its stomach. So, don’t touch the Camembert — never, ever.On Wednesday, legislators at the European Parliament will vote to make sure it doesn’t happen.In one of the many legal proposals on streamlining and optimizing waste management throughout the 27-nation bloc, some French cheese producers sniffed out something and turned it into a culinary stink.They claimed that the proposal would make it illegal for Camembert to be cradled into the wooden packaging for its final weeks of ripening and, eventually, sale. The round box is as essentially Camembert as its onctuous texture and pungent smell.Suddenly, there was a frenzied flutter that something fundamentally French would fall foul of the Brussels bureaucrats — derisively known by many as Eurocrats — who are all too often blamed for flaws real and false.“It is a matter of common sense. Don’t touch our Camemberts!” said Jean-Pa...

Maui wildfire survivors camp on the beach to push mayor to convert vacation rentals into housing

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:14:30 GMT

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — A group of Lahaina wildfire survivors is vowing to camp on a popular resort beach until the mayor uses his emergency powers to shut down unpermitted vacation rentals and make the properties available for residents in desperate need of housing. Organizers with the group Lahaina Strong are focusing on 2,500 vacation rental properties they’ve identified in West Maui that don’t have the usual county permits to be rented out for less than 30 days at a time. For years their owners have legally rented the units to travelers anyway because the county granted them an exemption from the standard rules. Lahaina Strong says the mayor should use his emergency powers to suspend this exemption. “I’m kind of at the point where I’m like ‘too bad, so sad,’” said organizer Jordan Ruidas. “We never knew our town was going to burn down and our people need housing,” The group says they are staying on Kaanapali Beach, exercising their Native Hawaiian rights t...

At Black Lives Matter house, families are welcomed into space of freedom and healing

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:14:30 GMT

STUDIO CITY, California (AP) — Some of the mystery and controversy shrouding a sprawling Los Angeles-area property owned by a national Black Lives Matter nonprofit have dissipated for dozens of families grieving a loved one killed by police.The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation Inc., which was widely criticized last year for purchasing a $6 million compound with donations that followed racial justice protests in 2020, hosted the families for a dinner at the home this fall. The event coincided with an annual conference in southern California, where hundreds who are affected by police violence meet to find support in their journeys to healing, accountability and justice.More than 150 dinner guests, including some who previously accused the foundation of using their loved ones’ names to raise tens of millions of dollars over the last decade, were not just fed and sent on their way. They were given tours of the gated property that has six bedrooms and bathrooms, a swimming po...

Biden’s plan would raise salaries for Head Start teachers but could leave fewer spots for kids

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:14:30 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new plan from the Biden administration could significantly increase salaries for thousands of low-paid early childhood teachers caring for the country’s poorest children but might force some centers to reduce their enrollment.The Health and Human Services agency’s proposed federal rule would require Head Start programs, which are struggling nationwide with staffing shortages, to raise teachers’ salaries to put them on par with local public schoolteachers, and to beef up benefits. The requirement could raise wages by as much as $10,000 for Head Start teachers over the next seven years, the agency estimates. “Early educators make poverty wages in many places,” said Anna Markowitz, a University of California Los Angeles professor who has studied Head Start turnover and wages. “There are real consequences to these low wages.” She said “it’s unfortunate we had to wait for the turnover to become a major crisis.” Head Start teachers, ...

Nearly half of Americans think the US is spending too much on Ukraine aid, an AP-NORC poll says

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:14:30 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — As lawmakers in Washington weigh sending billions more in federal support to Kyiv to help fight off Russian aggression, close to half of the U.S. public thinks the country is spending too much on aid to Ukraine, according to polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.Those sentiments, driven primarily by Republicans, help explain the hardening opposition among conservative GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill who are rebuffing efforts from President Joe Biden to approve a new tranche of Ukraine aid, arguing that the money would be better spent for domestic priorities.Yet opposition to aid is down slightly from where it was a month ago in another AP-NORC poll. Now, 45% say the U.S. government is spending too much on aid to Ukraine in the war against Russia, compared with 52% in October. That shift appears to come mostly from Republicans: 59% now say too much is spent on Ukraine aid, but that’s down from 69% in October.Nonetheless, the Republi...

JFK assassination remembered 60 years later by surviving witnesses to history, including AP reporter

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:14:30 GMT

DALLAS (AP) — Just minutes after President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot as his motorcade rolled through downtown Dallas, Associated Press reporter Peggy Simpson rushed to the scene and immediately attached herself to the police officers who had converged on the building from which a sniper’s bullets had been fired.“I was sort of under their armpit,” Simpson said, noting that every time she was able to get any information from them, she would rush to a pay phone to call her editors, and then “go back to the cops.” Simpson, now 84, is among the last surviving witnesses who are sharing their stories as the nation marks the 60th anniversary of the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination on Wednesday. “A tangible link to the past is going to be lost when the last voices from that time period are gone,” said Stephen Fagin, curator at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which tells the story of the assassination from the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald’s snip...

Meet the influential women behind Argentina’s President-elect Javier Milei

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:14:30 GMT

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — When right-wing populist Javier Milei became Argentina’s president-elect, he dedicated his victory to “The boss,” the nickname he uses for his enigmatic sister, Karina Milei. She is the most important of a trio of influential women surrounding the fiery outsider who shot to the presidency of South America’s second-largest economy.Karina Milei, who barely speaks in public, was tasked with introducing her brother Sunday night after he won a presidential runoff election with 55.7% of the vote, the highest percentage in a general election since the return of democracy in 1983.“Without her, none of this would have been possible,” Milei told the crowd that chanted “Olé, olé, boss, boss.”Milei enjoyed a meteoric rise to the presidency, making the leap from television commentator to lawmaker two years ago. Lacking a group of well-known political advisers, he has surrounded himself with a group of women who are set to be key players in his administration....

Lake Elmo city administrator fired at end of council meeting; a member resigns in protest

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 19:14:30 GMT

A Lake Elmo City Council member resigned in protest after Lake Elmo City Administrator Kristina Handt was terminated at the end of Tuesday night’s council meeting.Kristina Handt is the city administrator of Lake Elmo. (Courtesy photo)Handt had been city administrator in Lake Elmo since March 2016. Prior to that, she was city administrator in Scandia and village administrator in Luck, Wis.A motion by Council Member Jeff Holtz not to renew Handt’s contract, which is set to expire on Nov. 30, was seconded by Council Member Matt Hirn. Mayor Charles Cadenhead also voted for the measure.Council Member Lisa McGinn, who resigned in protest, was the lone “no” vote; Council Member Katrina Beckstrom was absent.Handt had recently expressed concerns about the site of a new Lake Elmo Elementary School because of issues regarding access to city water. Lake Elmo, the fastest-growing city in Minnesota, is dealing with a multitude of water issues, including PFAS contamination and restrictions on pump...