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EU court slashes daily fine against Poland to €500K in rule-of-law dispute

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:24:27 GMT

The EU’s top court has halved a daily fine it imposed against Poland over controversial judicial reforms in 2021, which the Polish government appealed.The fine has been reduced from €1 million per day to €500,000, the Court of Justice of the EU vice president said in a statement on Friday.In October 2021, the top court had started fining Poland €1 million per day for ignoring a ruling ordering it to suspend its judicial reforms and restore the independence of judges.The Polish authorities had asked the court to suspend the fine last November, arguing it had implemented reforms to comply with the previous ruling.In the Friday statement, the court’s Vice President Lars Bay Larsen said the “measures adopted by Poland are not sufficient to ensure the execution of all the provisional measures” the court had requested.Although Bay Larsen recognized that Poland did implement some changes, others — like a Polish Supreme Court decision allowing for...

‘What?!’ Orbán throws cold water on Ukraine’s NATO hopes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:24:27 GMT

Hungary’s troubled relationship with neighboring Ukraine spiraled again Friday as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán dismissed the country’s NATO dreams with a one-word tweet. “What?!” the prime minister exclaimed in a Twitter post responding to a POLITICO article on NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s declaration in Kyiv on Thursday that “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.”Relations between Budapest and Kyiv are tense. Hungary spent years blocking high-level NATO sessions with Ukrainian officials, ostensibly over concerns about the rights of Hungarian speakers in western Ukraine. And despite condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion, Hungary has refused to send weapons to aid its neighbor. Senior Hungarian officials, meanwhile, continue to regularly visit Moscow and maintain close ties to the Kremlin. At the same time, Hungary joining Turkey in blocking Sweden’s NATO bid has frustrated Western capitals. NATO allies — including Hungary — decided back in 2008 that...

3 things to watch on the Chicago White Sox’s 6-game road trip, including Saturday’s stellar pitching matchup

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:24:27 GMT

The upcoming schedule does not provide much relief for the Chicago White Sox, who have limped to a 7-12 start.First is the Tampa Bay Rays, who at 16-3 have the best record in baseball. Their season-opening winning streak ended at 13 on April 14 with a 6-3 loss to Toronto. The Blue Jays, who took two of three in that series, are 11-8 and trail the Rays by five games in the loaded American League East.The Rays and Blue Jays are up next for the Sox.“It’s definitely a challenge,” Sox manager Pedro Grifol said after Wednesday’s 5-2 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. “But we’ve got to play baseball. It doesn’t matter who we are playingagainst. A Major League Baseball game is a Major League Baseball game. We just have to go out there and prepare and compete.”The six-game trip begins Friday with the first of three against the Rays at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla.“They’re good teams but we’ve faced other good teams,&...

30,000 baby chicks stolen from southern Ontario farm: OPP

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:24:27 GMT

Police are investigating after thousands of baby chicks went missing in southwestern Ontario.Provincial police say 30,000 baby chicks were stolen from a farm in South Huron.According to police, the total value of the stolen birds is $42,000.Investigators are appealing to the public for any information.#HuronOPP is investigating the recent theft of 30,000 baby chicks stolen from a farm in @SouthHuron. Total value of loss is $42,000. If you have any info that would assist #OPP, please contact 1-888-310-1122, 1-800-222-TIPS, or leave a web tip at https://t.co/gccvAfLdZB. ^cs. pic.twitter.com/x3NSyGfnlS— OPP West Region (@OPP_WR) April 21, 2023

Dame Edna actor Barry Humphries stable in Sydney hospital

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:24:27 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Tony Award-winning comedian Barry Humphries, renowned for his garish stage persona Dame Edna Everage, a condescending and imperfectly veiled snob whose evolving character has delighted audiences over seven decades, is in a Sydney hospital with complications following hip surgery.St. Vincent’s Hospital described the 89-year-old’s condition on Friday as stable and rejected media reports that he had become unresponsive.Humphries was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday following hip replacement surgery last month. The surgery was conducted after a fall in February. His publicist, Wendy Day, said Humphries’ condition was unchanged since Thursday and he was resting.Seven Network entertainment reporter Peter Ford said three of Humphries’ four children have traveled to their father’s hospital bedside, two from London.“His children were told in the beginning of the week it would be advisable if they wanted to come see him to do so … and they are all there right n...

Historic investment in urban trees underway across the U.S.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:24:27 GMT

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — While Ameen Taylor feels fortunate he has a cooling tree cover in the front and back yards of his Detroit home, he knows it’s a different story for many residents of his hometown where neighborhoods often have little to no shade.“To me, 70 degrees is fair weather, but when you’re walking somewhere or you’re around a neighborhood that don’t have trees, it will feel like it’s like 87, 90 degrees. That’s what it feel like,” said Taylor. “You’re exposed to more sun than you are shade.”Like many cities in the U.S., parts of Detroit are packed with large amounts of impervious surfaces and heat-absorbing infrastructure like roads and bridges. Coupled with low levels of cooling tree cover, or canopy, it can make them dangerously hotter than the suburbs. Such an inequity of tree cover is behind the historic $1.5 billion in President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that’s set aside for the federal Forest Service Urban and Community Forestry P...

Russia’s air force accidentally bombs own city of Belgorod

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:24:27 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s military acknowledged that a bomb accidentally dropped by one of its warplanes caused a powerful blast in a Russian city not far from Ukraine’s border, injuring two and scaring local residents.Belgorod, a city of 340,000 located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the Russia-Ukraine border, has faced regular drone attacks during Russia’s current military operation in Ukraine. Russian authorities blamed the earlier strikes on the Ukrainian military, which refrained from directly claiming responsibility for the attacks.The explosion late Thursday was far more powerful than anything Belgorod residents had experienced before. Witnesses reported a low hissing sound followed by a blast that made nearby apartment buildings tremble and shattered their windows.It left a 20-meter (66-foot) -wide crater in the middle of a tree-lined boulevard flanked by apartments, damaged several cars and threw one vehicle onto a store roof. Two people were injured,...

Child among 10 family members killed in S. Africa shooting

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:24:27 GMT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Ten members of the same family, seven of them female and at least one of them a child, were killed in a mass shooting at a house in South Africa, police said Friday.A male suspect was killed in a shootout with police hours after and two men were arrested. A fourth suspect escaped but his identity is known and he is being sought, Police Minister Bheki Cele said.According to initial reports, the family was ambushed by gunmen at the home in the city of Pietermaritzburg in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, police said. The shooting happened Thursday night or early Friday morning.Police initially announced that the victims were seven women and three men but Cele said at least one child, a 13-year-old, was among the dead. The oldest victim of the mass shooting was 65, Cele said. He didn’t confirm the gender of the teenager who was killed and gave no other details on the ages of the other victims.Cele, who was at the scene, said police confronted four men on a s...

Once-a-week nightmare: US mass killings on a record pace

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:24:27 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023, replaying the horror on a loop roughly once a week so far this year.The carnage has taken 88 lives in 17 mass killings over 111 days. Each time, the killers wielded firearms.Children at a Nashville grade school, gunned down on an ordinary Monday. Farmworkers in Northern California, sprayed with bullets over a workplace grudge. Dancers at a ballroom outside Los Angeles, massacred as they celebrated the Lunar New Year.In just the last week, four partygoers were slain and 32 injured in Dadeville, Alabama, when bullets rained down on a Sweet 16 celebration. And a man just released from prison fatally shot four people, including his parents, in Bowdoin, Maine, before opening fire on motorists traveling a busy interstate highway. “Nobody should be shocked,” said Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was one of 17 people killed at a Parkland, Florida, high school in 2018. “I visit my daughter in a c...

4 million apply for tickets for Paris Olympics in lottery

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:24:27 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Four million applications were received for an online lottery where winners get to buy tickets for next year’s Paris Olympics, the local organizing committee said Friday.They hope to sell 1.3 million tickets for the 2024 Games as a result of the latest draw.Applications ended Thursday evening and winners will know early next month if they have been successful. They can start buying from May 11 and have a 48-hour timeslot to do so. They’ll be told 48 hours beforehand when their slot is.Figures on which countries the 4 million lottery applications came from, and whether more men or women applied, were not available. The five countries who bought the most tickets, and other statistics, will be made known after the sale has finished in June.By then, organizers expect that about half of the 10 million tickets for the Paris Games will have been sold.A total of 3.2 million tickets were sold from the first phase of sales, featuring packages, with the top buyers coming fro...