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Scotland bids farewell to its giant pandas that are returning to China after 12-year stay

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:56:05 GMT

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — Visitors to the Edinburgh Zoo had their final chance to see and bid farewell Thursday to a pair of popular giant pandas who are returning home to China after more than a decade in Scotland. Yang Guang and Tian Tian are leaving in early December after a 12-year stay. They have been a popular attraction since people lined the road outside the zoo to greet them when they arrived in 2011.They are the latest pandas to leave the West after exchange agreements have expired and not been renewed by China.The only U.S. zoo with pandas is in Atlanta and its agreement expires next year. Washington’s National Zoo sent its three pandas — Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub, Xiao Qi Ji — to China earlier in November. The black and white bears at the San Diego Zoo were sent home in 2019 and the remaining panda at the Memphis, Tennessee, zoo returned earlier this year. Veteran China-watchers have speculated that the People’s Republic is gradually pulling its bears from Amer...

Former UK Treasury chief Alistair Darling, who steered nation through a credit crunch, has died

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:56:05 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Alistair Darling, a central figure in the U.K.’s response to the 2008 financial crisis who later helped organize the campaign against Scottish independence, has died. He was 70.Darling had been treated for cancer, his family said in statement on Thursday. He served as Britain’s treasury chief under then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who praised him as a “popular and effective’’ government minister.Though Darling held a variety of posts during his 28 years in the House of Commons, he is likely to be remembered most for his work in steering the nation’s finances during the global credit crunch. The package of measures he implemented were credited with preventing an even more dramatic slide after the crisis threatened the nation’s banking system.“Alistair will be remembered as a statesman of unimpeachable integrity whose life was defined by a strong sense of social justice and who gained a global reputation for the assured competence and the exercise of considered judgment...

UN atomic chief backs nuclear power at COP28 as world reckons with proliferation

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:56:05 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The world wants more nuclear energy as a means to fight climate change and supply an ever-growing demand for electricity, part of a generational shift in thinking on atomic power, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said Thursday. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, made the comments in an interview with The Associated Press at the COP28 climate talks. He called the inclusion of nuclear power at the summit, where he said a major nuclear agreement was likely, showed just how far the formerly “taboo” subject had come decades after the disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. However, he acknowledged the challenge still posed for his agency in monitoring nuclear programs in countries, particularly in Iran after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. “This used to be easier when this international consensus was there and so Iran could see that this was not about polit...

Infrequent grand juries can mean long pretrial waits in jail in Mississippi, survey shows

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:56:05 GMT

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Most people in Mississippi’s county jails have been locked up at least three months while waiting to go on trial. Some have longer wait times because two-thirds of the counties only convene grand juries two or three times a year, according to a survey released Thursday by a group that tracks justice issues.Mississippi does not require consistency among the 82 counties about how often grand juries meet to consider indictments — the formal charging documents to send a case to trial.“If you get arrested in one of these counties where grand juries seldom meet, you can wind up in jail for months or even years just waiting to be indicted, and you will spend more time behind bars simply because of geographic misfortune,” said Cliff Johnson, an attorney who is director of the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law.Starting during the summer, law students and staff at the center spent several weeks issuing more...

CSIS whistleblowers faced hurdles seeking justice and telling their stories

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:56:05 GMT

VANCOUVER — Canadian Security Intelligence Service employees who say the agency’s British Columbia office is a toxic workplace have faced a series of hurdles in speaking out — including a law against identifying themselves or colleagues.The Canadian Press has published an investigation into claims by the covert officers, including two who say they were sexually assaulted by the same senior colleague while on duty.The officers say they went public after being hindered from seeking justice by institutional secrecy and a prohibition under the CSIS Act against identifying themselves or others as covert officers, which is punishable by up to five years in prison. But the same hurdles also represented a challenge to telling their story.The officers who say they were assaulted filed lawsuits against the federal government, using the assumed names Jane Doe and A.B.Jane Doe, whose lawsuit was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, says she knows the service may fire her for going public. “I...

A ‘predator’ at CSIS: Officers allege rape, harassment and a toxic workplace culture

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:56:05 GMT

VANCOUVER — A rookie surveillance officer with Canada’s spy agency and another officer decades her senior were tracking a person in British Columbia in the summer of 2019 when they lost sight of their target.She said the senior officer later blamed a communications failure due to a radio dead zone.But the woman said the real reason was her colleague was raping her, having broken off surveillance to drive to a parkade where the alleged attack took place in their Canadian Security Intelligence Service vehicle.The man, who was supposed to be her mentor and coach, treated his “own needs as more important than doing the job,” she said in an interview.She said she was raped by her colleague nine times while at work in CSIS surveillance vehicles between July 2019 and February 2020. A second officer said she too was sexually assaulted as a rookie by the same officer in surveillance vehicles during covert missions, despite warnings from the first to their bosses that he sho...

Hungary will not agree to starting EU membership talks with Ukraine, minister says

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:56:05 GMT

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary will not support any European Union proposal to begin talks on making Ukraine a member of the bloc, a government minister said Thursday.Gergely Gulyas, the chief of staff to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, said at a news conference in Budapest that it was premature to begin formal talks with Kyiv on the war-ravaged country joining the EU, and that Hungary would not consent to opening the discussions when EU leaders meet in mid-December. “We are dealing with a completely premature proposal,” Gulyas said, adding that Hungary “cannot contribute to a common decision” on inviting Ukraine to begin the process of joining the bloc. Earlier this month, the EU’s executive arm recommended allowing Ukraine to open membership talks once it addresses governance issues that include corruption, lobbying concerns, and restrictions that might prevent national minorities from studying and reading in their own languages.But unanimity among all EU memb...

Applications for jobless benefits up modestly, but continuing claims reach highest level in 2 years

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:56:05 GMT

Slightly more Americans filed for jobless claims last week, but the overall number of people in the U.S. collecting unemployment benefits rose to its highest level in two years.Applications for unemployment benefits rose by 7,000 to 218,000 for the week ending Nov. 25, the Labor Department reported Thursday. However, 1.93 million people were collecting unemployment benefits the week that ended Nov. 18, about 86,000 more than the previous week and the most in two years. Continuing claims have risen in nine of the past 10 weeks.Jobless claim applications are seen as representative of the number of layoffs in a given week.Analysts say the continuing claims are rising because many of those who are already unemployed may now be having a harder time finding new work.And while the labor market remains strong, some softness is beginning to show.Hiring has slowed from the breakneck pace of 2021 and 2022 when the economy rebounded from the COVID-19 recession. Employers added a record 606,000 ...

Russia’s foreign minister faces Western critics at security meeting and walks out after speech

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:56:05 GMT

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov faced Western critics while attending international security talks Thursday in Northern Macedonia, where he blamed “NATO’s reckless expansion to the East” for war returning to Europe.Lavrov arrived in Skopje to attend meetings hosted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The diplomats of several OSCE member nations, including Ukraine, boycotted the event due to Lavrov’s planned attendance amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Russian foreign minister spoke for 15 minutes before walking out of the meetings. He blamed what he described as Western tolerance of the “ruling neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv” for the war that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.“The very existence of Russians and their decisive contribution to the history of Ukraine are denied,” Lavrov said. “There are plenty of facts. The OSCE and its relevant institutions are silent.”Russian President Vladimi...

6 people, including firefighter injured after West Chicago apartment building fire

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:56:05 GMT

CHICAGO -- A fire in an apartment complex in West Chicago sent a firefighter and six other people to the hospital. The fire happened near the 800 Block of Burr Oak Circle around 1 a.m. The Fire Chief said the injuries are minor and the firefighter is being treated for exhaustion. When will thousands of students get bus service? CPS has few answers A report said some people jumped from the second and third floors to escape. Families who live in the building are now displaced. Fire crews are still trying to figure out what caused the fire. WGN is actively investigating the incident and will update as more information is provided.