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Performing arts center finally opens at ground zero after 2 decades of setbacks and changed plans

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:13:27 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — In a mammoth room behind translucent marble walls, workers are setting the stage for the World Trade Center’s newest addition.It isn’t another office tower, nor is it a monument, at least explicitly, to the memory of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It’s a theater complex.Envisioned two decades ago to add vibrancy and draw people to a place of devastation and mourning, the Perelman Performing Arts Center is finally arriving at a very different ground zero. The site is ringed by new skyscrapers and located in a neighborhood that has more residents than before the attacks. Annually, millions of visitors come to the memorial and museum.Still, organizers believe the arts space, also called “PAC NYC,” has an important role to play in one of the most sensitive, historic spaces in the United States.“The memorial is here for people to come and grieve and pay their respects. The museum is for people to learn, be aware and never forget,” says Khady Kamara, PAC NY...

Poland bank governor says large interest rate cut justified by falling inflation

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:13:27 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The governor of Poland’s central bank said Thursday that its large interest rate cut was justified despite high inflation because prices are stabilizing and the era of high inflation is ending. Adam Glapinski spoke a day after the bank’s monetary council announced that it was cutting interest rates by 75 basis points, a much larger reduction than had been expected.Critics of Poland’s populist authorities accused Glapinski and members of the bank’s monetary policy council of acting to help the governing party ahead of parliamentary elections next month with a large cut seen by economists as premature. Glapinski is an ally of the party, which is fighting for an unprecedented third term.The bank cut its reference rate from 6.75% to 6%, and other interest rates by the same amount.Poles have been suffering from sharply rising prices of food, rents and other goods. Inflation hit over 18% earlier this year and registered 10.1% in August.Glapinski declared ...

Kosovo’s president says investigators are dragging their feet over attacks on NATO peacekeepers

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:13:27 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — Kosovo’s president on Thursday accused investigators of dragging their feet over an inquiry into attacks on NATO peacekeepers earlier this year in which dozens of troops and police officers were injured, some of them seriously.President Vjosa Osmani also called on European Union officials to refrain from showing any favoritism in talks next week aimed at improving Kosovo’s tense relations with Serbia.“Those who attacked NATO on the 29th of May are clearly known to law enforcement agencies,” she told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels after talks with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Video footage, Osmani said, shows that some “are police officers who came all the way from Serbia.”“They have not been suspended from their jobs,” she said. “They’re not facing any consequences whatsoever.”The clashes happened after Serbs living in the north of Kosovo boycotted local elections there. When newly elected ethnic Albanian mayors began to move into their new offices...

Directors must navigate TIFF without their lead actors amid Hollywood strike

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:13:27 GMT

TORONTO — Promoting a film at the Toronto International Film Festival is inherently challenging, and even more difficult in the absence of lead actors for support during press engagements and on the red carpet.Many directors are grappling with this amid the ongoing strike by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which prevents actors from publicizing their studio projects. Filmmaker Atom Egoyan, who will premiere his opera-inspired feature “Seven Veils” at TIFF, said in a recent interview that he has complicated feelings about promoting the movie without its lead, Amanda Seyfried.  “She has put so much of herself in this film and it’s inconceivable that Amanda would not be here,” he said. The American actress has said that she is proud of the film but would not attend the TIFF premiere even though “Seven Veils,” an independent Canadian movie, received a “waiver” from SAG-AFTRA.“It doesn’t feel right to head t...

New questions for wind, solar in Alberta create more confusion for industry: advocate

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:13:27 GMT

EDMONTON — A renewable energy group says new requirements for wind and solar projects create further problems for a booming industry that government policy has already slowed.On Wednesday, the Alberta Utilities Commission released a series of information requests those proposing new projects will be required to answer.Jorden Dye of the Business Renewables Centre says some of those questions are reasonable and are already part of the approval process. But he says others seem arbitrary. He asks how regulators will judge whether a project imposes on a pristine viewscape.He says it’s not clear how much weight the new requirements will be given.Dye says the renewables industry is being singled out and that the six-month approval pause on new renewable projects imposed by the United Conservative government has already increased costs for developers. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 7, 2023. The Canadian Press

Via Rail ramps up service, returning it to pre-pandemic levels

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:13:27 GMT

MONTREAL — Via Rail is increasing service in Ontario, returning the passenger railway to levels not seen since before the COVID-19 pandemic.The Crown corporation says it is reintroducing two round trips between Toronto and Ottawa and one round trip between London and Toronto, starting in late October.The ramp-up comes three-and-a-half years after the pandemic brought some operations to a screeching halt, when Via Rail suspended its cross-Canada routes and temporarily laid off more than 1,000 workers.Chief executive Mario Péloquin says the railway aims to strike a balance between meeting passengers’ travel needs and deploying its limited resources.Last quarter, operating losses before government funding hit $120 million, and the organization has not turned a full-year profit since 2017.Greg Gormick, who heads On Track Consulting, says the expanded service announced Thursday will resemble Via’s timetable prior to COVID-19, enabled by crew training and new train deliveries from S...

Trapped US explorer thanks authorities for saving his life in emotional video from Turkish cave

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:13:27 GMT

ISTANBUL (AP) — In his first emotional video deep down a Turkish cave, a trapped U.S. explorer has thanked authorities for saving his life. “I was very close to the edge,” said Mark Dickey in the video dated Sept. 6 that was made available to The Associated Press by Turkish authorities on Thursday. Rescue experts from across Europe have converged on the cave in southern Turkey to save Dickey who became trapped around 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) below the surface after suffering stomach bleeding. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.ISTANBUL (AP) — Rescue experts from across Europe converged on a cave in Turkey on Thursday, launching an operation to save an American researcher who became trapped around 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) below the surface after suffering gastrointestinal bleeding.Experienced caver Mark Dickey, 40, suddenly became ill during an expedition in the Morca cave in southern Turkey’s Taurus Mountains, the European Association of Cave Re...

Mexican Supreme Court’s abortion decision expands access to millions, stands in contrast to US

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:13:27 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The decision by Mexico’s Supreme Court to invalidate all federal criminal penalties for abortion opened access for millions of people in the sprawling public health system a year after the court’s U.S. counterpart went in the opposite direction.Under Mexico’s legal system, however, the ruling did not invalidate all criminal penalties for abortion, which remained on the books Thursday in 20 of Mexico’s 32 states.Those differences help explain why Wednesday’s ruling, while a dramatic change in this predominantly Catholic nation, was not Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling guaranteeing women’s access to abortion. The ruling does mean that government health providers will not need to worry about federal penalties for abortion, because the court ruled that they were an unconstitutional violation of women’s human rights.Millions of Mexican women receive health-care services from the national government, granting the ruling...

Slave descendants on Georgia island face losing protections that helped them keep their land

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:13:27 GMT

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Descendants of enslaved people who populate a tiny island community are once again fighting local officials who have proposed eliminating protections that for decades helped shield the Gullah-Geechee residents from high taxes and pressure to sell their land to developers.Residents of Hogg Hummock say they were stunned last month when McIntosh County commissioners unveiled a proposal to cast aside zoning ordinances that limit homes to modest sizes in the enclave of 30 to 50 Black residents on Sapelo Island off the coast of Georgia.The rules were enacted in 1994 for the sole purpose of protecting one of the South’s few remaining communities of people known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia, whose ancestors worked island slave plantations. Their isolation from the mainland meant they retained much of their African roots and traditions.Residents say losing zoning protections would drive out Hogg Hummock residents by attracting wealthy transplants eager to build...

Parking enforcement officer’s vehicle T-boned in downtown crash

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:13:27 GMT

A parking enforcement officer suffered minor injuries in a crash with another vehicle in downtown Toronto on Thursday afternoon.Police say the officer was inside their car when it was T-boned by another vehicle.The officer was taken to hospital.Police say the circumstances surrounding the crash aren’t yet clear.Roads in the area were briefly closed but have since reopened.A parking enforcement vehicle was involved in a crash with another vehicle in downtown Toronto on Sept. 7, 2023. CITYNEWS/Hugues Cormier