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Olaf Scholz calls for migration deal as EU lawmakers take German leadership to task

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:52 GMT

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday urged EU partners to work “with all our strength” on completing a reform of the bloc’s migration rules before next year’s European election, while also calling for a swift conclusion of new trade deals.Speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on the occasion of Europe Day on May 9, Scholz lauded a recent agreement that lawmakers had reached, which revises the EU’s asylum and migration pact. He “urgently” advocated that all EU institutions now reach a joint agreement before the European Parliament’s election in spring next year. This would also open up economic opportunities for EU countries, Germany’s chancellor added.“We can take advantage of one thing even more than before: In many parts of Europe, we now urgently need workers, also from third countries,” Scholz said. Scholz’s remarks come against the backdrop of a growing influx of irregular migrants into the ...

Demolition to begin at site of Newburyport chemical plant explosion

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:52 GMT

Crews are expected to demolish part of a chemical plant in Newburyport that exploded last week, killing one person, officials said on Monday. Emergency crews were first called to the Seqens plant on Opportunity Way around 12:45 a.m. Thursday, where officials said firefighters spent roughly one hour battling heavy fire conditions after the blast. Five workers were in the building at the time of the explosion. Of them, four were taken to a local hospital and released after treatment, according to local officials. The body of the fifth worker, identified as 62-year-old Jack O’Keefe, was found hours later.Surveillance video from nearby cameras captured the explosion, showing a massive, bright fireball that launched flames and debris high into the air. SKY7-HD later flew over the scene, revealing a torn apart complex with pieces of roof materiel, pipes and metal scraps piled on one another.RELATED: OSHA cited company for violations before Newburyport explosion, officials sayCrews ha...

Iconic Christmas Tree Shops store at Sagamore Bridge to close as part of bankruptcy filings

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:52 GMT

The iconic Christmas Tree Shops store at the Sagamore Bridge on Route 6 will close as part of bankruptcy filings.The store, known for its windmill out front, is one of two Massachusetts locations that will close, including the Falmouth store. The Middleborough-based company filed for Chapter 11 on Friday. The company started as a holiday shop on Cape Cod in the 1950s. At the time of its filing, Christmas Tree Shops had 82 locations nationwide.

Seven people remain hospitalized after fatal crash outside Texas migrant shelter

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:52 GMT

(CNN) — Seven people remain hospitalized in Brownsville, Texas, as a candlelight vigil is planned Tuesday in another Texas border town for the eight others who were killed when a vehicle plowed into a group of people at a bus stop over the weekend.While the victims have not yet been publicly identified, authorities say several immigrants were among those killed when a Land Rover hit the group in Brownsville on Sunday, across the street from the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center, a non-profit homeless shelter helping to house migrants in the border town, authorities say.The director of the Ozanam Center, Victor Maldonado, described those killed and injured as asylum seekers.“They came seeking refuge. They were staying at our shelter because they arrived in this country with very little,” he said.During the Tuesday evening vigil in El Paso, advocates and community members are expected to mourn the lives lost and call “for the humanization of...

Luis Severino hopes to spend ‘rest of my life’ with Yankees despite rehab frustrations

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:52 GMT

Luis Severino has never been shy about how he feels.The Yankees’ oft-injured starter often mixes a direct approach and dry sense of humor when answering questions, especially when they’re about his rehab timelines. That blunt honesty makes Severino a strong quote — and believable when he states that he wants to spend his entire career in pinstripes.“This is the only team that I know,” Severino, an impending free agent, told the Daily News. “I would love to be here the rest of my life.”The right-hander said that Monday, a day after he expressed frustration over how, in his opinion, the Yankees have slow-played his recovery from a low-grade lat strain suffered at the end of spring training. He hoped the injury would only cause him to miss three or four starts.On Sunday, Severino said it was “unnecessary” for him to throw a simulated game last Friday before beginning a rehab assignment this week, and he made several one-liners that ...

Myanmar violence, sea feud are tough challenges for ASEAN

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:52 GMT

LABUAN BAJO, Indonesia (AP) — Alarm over Myanmar’s still-unfolding deadly civil strife, including an armed attack on an aid convoy, and China’s aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea are expected to challenge Southeast Asian leaders’ commitments to non-interference and consensus decision-making as they meet in Indonesia this week.Top diplomats of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations convened Tuesday in the resort town of Labuan Bajo to finalize the agenda ahead of the two-day summit of the 10-nation bloc’s heads of state.The United States and China are not part of the twice-yearly summit, but their escalating rivalry looms large over the high-profile Asian gathering. Beijing has warned that U.S. efforts to strengthen security alliances and intensify combat-readiness drills with Asian allies would endanger regional stability.Founded during the Cold War in 1967, ASEAN has avoided getting entangled in major-power competition as a bloc. But its diverse members ar...

Rights group accuses Myanmar of using fuel-air explosive

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:52 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military used an “enhanced-blast” munition known as a fuel-air explosive in an airstrike that killed more than 160 people, including many children, at a ceremony held last month by opponents of army rule, a major human rights monitoring group charged in a report Tuesday.Human Rights Watch accused the military of dropping the weapon, also known as a thermobaric or vacuum bomb, on a crowd that had gathered for the opening of a local office of the country’s resistance movement outside Pazigyi village in Myanmar’s central Sagaing Region on the morning of April 11. The area is about 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city.The attack caused “indiscriminate and disproportionate civilian casualties in violation of international humanitarian law, and was an apparent war crime,” said the New York-based group.Thermobaric weapons consist of a fuel container and two separate explosive charges, with the first detonating t...

Sudan’s death toll rises as warring sides continue talks

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:52 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — The death toll from the ongoing clashes in Sudan has risen to 604 people, including civilians, the U.N. health agency said on Tuesday. The new figures come as representatives of the warring parties are holding talks in Saudi Arabia.More than 5,100 people were also wounded in connection with the fighting, World Health Organization spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told reporters. On Monday, the Sudanese Doctors’ Syndicate, which tracks only civilian casualties, said that the fatalities had reached 487.The conflict started on April 15, after months of escalating tensions between the military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and a rival paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. The fighting has turned urban areas into battlefields and displaced nearly 700,000 people on top of the 3.7 million who had already been internally displaced within the country before the conflict began, according to the U.N. migration agency.On...

In The News for May 9: China expels Canadian diplomat in tit-for-tat retaliation

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:52 GMT

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of May 9 …What we are watching in Canada …China has declared a Canadian diplomat as “persona non grata” in retaliation for Ottawa’s expulsion of a Chinese consular official who Canada’s spy agency alleged was involved in a plot to intimidate Conservative MP Michael Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong.On Tuesday, China’s Foreign Ministry posted a statement on its English website saying China was deploying a “reciprocal countermeasure to Canada’s unscrupulous move,” which it said it “strongly condemns and firmly opposes.”The statement said Jennifer Lynn Lalonde, consul of the Consulate General of Canada in Shanghai, has been asked to leave before May 13, and that China reserves the right to further react.On Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly issued...

George Weston reports Q1 profit up from year ago, raises quarterly dividend

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:52 GMT

TORONTO — George Weston Ltd. raised its dividend as it reported its first-quarter profit and revenue rose compared with a year ago.The company, which holds large stakes in Loblaw Companies Ltd. and Choice Properties Real Estate Investment Trust, says it will increase its quarterly dividend to 71.3 cents per share from 66 cents per share.The increased payment came as George Weston says it earned a profit attributable to common shareholders of $426 million or $3.01 per diluted share for the 12-week period ended March 25.The result was up from a profit of $363 million or $2.45 per diluted share in the same quarter a year earlier.Revenue for the quarter totalled $13.13 billion, up from $12.41 billion in the same quarter last year.On an adjusted basis, George Weston says it earned $1.99 per diluted share, up from an adjusted profit of $1.90 per diluted share a year earlier.This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 9, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:WN, TSX:L, TSX:CHP.U...