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Vice President Harris among scheduled speakers at memorial for Dianne Feinstein in San Francisco

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:15:33 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will be among those delivering remarks at Thursday’s memorial for the late U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, where she served as the city’s first female mayor.The service will mark the end of two days of events in the city that launched Feinstein’s political career. On Wednesday, mourners streamed into City Hall to pay their respects, honoring Feinstein as fearless, smart and the glue who kept the city together after two shocking political assassinations.“She wasn’t afraid to do a man’s job. She wasn’t afraid to be a senator. She wasn’t afraid to go after what she wanted,” said Lawanda Carter, 48, of San Francisco. “And that’s encouragement for us women now to have courage.” Carter was among the scores of everyday San Franciscans and political leaders alike who brought flowers, bowed their heads or clasped their hands in prayer as they stood before Feinstein’s...

Powerball jackpot up to $1.4 billion after no one matches all the numbers and hits it rich

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:15:33 GMT

PINEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — The Powerball jackpot climbed to an estimated $1.4 billion after no players matched all six numbers and hit it rich Wednesday night.The winning numbers announced were: 9, 35, 54, 63, 64 and the Powerball 1.Players will next have a shot at the Powerball jackpot Saturday night in hopes of ending an 11-week stretch without a big winner. No matter how large the prize grows the odds stay the same — and they’re terrible.It’s those odds of 1 in 292.2 million that make the jackpot so hard to win and that result in such giant prizes for the lucky player or players who manage to pick the game’s six winning numbers. The latest Powerball jackpot is the world’s seventh-largest lottery prize. The last time someone won the top prize was July 19.GAME DETAILSIn most states, Powerball tickets cost $2 and buyers can chose their own numbers and single Powerball or leave that task to a computer. Powerball drawings are held three times a week at 10:59 p.m. EDT on Mondays, Wednesday...

Typhoon Koinu makes landfall in southern Taiwan, causing 190 injuries but no deaths

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:15:33 GMT

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Typhoon Koinu swept southern Taiwan on Thursday, injuring 190 people but causing no deaths as it brought intense winds and rainstorms to the island, leading to school and office closures.Koinu, which means “puppy” in Japanese, made landfall in Cape Eluanbi, the southernmost tip of Taiwan, early Thursday and is expected to weaken as it continues to move west toward Guangdong and Fujian provinces in southern China.The typhoon brought unexpectedly strong winds as it approached Taiwan, with a gust of 343 kph (213 mph) recorded Wednesday night on the outlying Orchid Island. On Thursday morning, Koinu packed maximum sustained winds of 162 kph (101 mph) with gusts of 198 kph (123 mph), according to the weather bureau.Cities across the island canceled work and classes, including the major southern port city of Kaohsiung. The capital, Taipei, was operating as normal and the rain had stopped as of Thursday morning.Taiwan’s fire department reported 190 injuries, most of t...

Israeli arms quietly helped Azerbaijan retake Nagorno-Karabakh, to the dismay of region’s Armenians

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:15:33 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel has quietly helped fuel Azerbaijan’s campaign to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh, supplying powerful weapons to Azerbaijan ahead of its lightening offensive last month that brought the ethnic Armenian enclave back under its control, officials and experts say.Just weeks before Azerbaijan launched its 24-hour assault on Sept. 19, Azerbaijani military cargo planes repeatedly flew between a southern Israeli airbase and an airfield near Nagorno-Karabakh, according to flight tracking data and Armenian diplomats, even as Western governments were urging peace talks. The flights rattled Armenian officials in Yerevan, long wary of the strategic alliance between Israel and Azerbaijan, and shined a light on Israel’s national interests in the restive region south of the Caucasus Mountains. “For us, it is a major concern that Israeli weapons have been firing at our people,” Arman Akopian, Armenia’s ambassador to Israel, told The Associated Press. In a flurry of diplomati...

An atheist in northern Nigeria was arrested. Then the attacks against the others worsened

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:15:33 GMT

When the megaphone called out for the daily Islamic prayers, the nonbeliever grabbed his prayer beads and ambled through the streets to join others at the mosque in Kano, northern Nigeria’s largest city. Formerly a Muslim, he now identifies as an atheist but remains closeted, performing religious obligations only as a cover.“To survive as an atheist, you cannot act like one,” said the man, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity over fears for his safety. He said he narrowly escaped being killed by a mob in 2015 after some people found out he had forsaken Islam.“If I ever come out in northern Nigeria to say I am an atheist, it will be an automatic death sentence,” said the man, a business owner in his 30s.In parts of the world, the religiously unaffiliated are on the rise, and can safely and publicly be a “none” — someone who identifies as an atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. In countries like Nigeria, the situation is starkly different.Nonbelievers in ...

Fearing ostracism or worse, many nonbelievers hide their views in the Middle East and North Africa

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:15:33 GMT

There’s the Tunisian woman who fasts during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, though not for God. The Iraqi woman who, until recently, wore a hijab. And a man whose Egyptian identity card still identifies him as “Muslim.”Such are the ways that some of the religiously unaffiliated, or “nones” — people who are agnostics, atheists or nothing in particular — negotiate their existence in the Middle East and North Africa, or MENA, where religion is often ingrained in life’s very fabric.Aware that rejecting religion can have repercussions, many conceal that part of themselves. Declaring disbelief may spur social stigma, ostracism by loved ones or even unleash the wrath of authorities, especially if going public is coupled with real or perceived attacks on religion or God.“I have a double life all the time,” said the 27-year-old Tunisian woman. “It’s better than having conflict every day.”Many nonbelievers seek community, ideas or pockets of digital defiance on the internet even though onl...

In the pope’s homeland, more Argentines are seeking spiritual answers beyond the church

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:15:33 GMT

CAPILLA DEL MONTE, Argentina (AP) — In the pope’s homeland, there’s a woman who believes in angels and calls them aliens. Another who proudly identifies as a witch.And a spiritual guru so turned off by the Vatican’s opulence that he left the church to help others connect spiritually outside organized religion.All three are former Catholics who have joined many other Argentines in the growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated. Known as the “nones,” they identify as atheists, agnostics, spiritual but not religious, or simply, nothing in particular.Pablo Robles says a better label for him would be “all,” since he has a rich spiritual life outside religion.Robles grew up Catholic but became disenchanted while visiting the Vatican in 2000. At a papal Mass, he listened to a sermon on humility — and found himself questioning how the church’s vast wealth conflicted with that message.“I was next to a gold column larger than my apartment,” Robles said. “It just unsettled me so much that I...

Nearly 80% of Italians say they are Catholic. But few regularly go to church

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:15:33 GMT

ISOLA DEL GRAN SASSO, Italy (AP) — Two children scribbled petitions to St. Gabriele dell’Addolorata in the sanctuary where the young saint is venerated in this central Italian mountain village. Andrea, 6, asked for blessings for his family and pets, while Sofia, 9, offered thanksgiving for winning a dance competition.Their parents bring them here often, and consider themselves better Catholics than many — but they rarely if ever go to Mass and don’t receive Communion because they are not married, thus shunning two sacraments the Catholic Church considers foundational.“I practice where I want,” said the mother, Carmela Forino. “One has to believe in something, right? You do what you feel in your heart. You can’t require me to go to Mass on Sundays.” That’s the paradox in this country long considered the cradle of the Catholic faith. Elsewhere in deeply secular Western Europe, the “nones” — those rejecting organized religion — are growing fast.In Italy, however, most retain a nominal ...

America’s nonreligious are a growing, diverse phenomenon. They really don’t like organized religion

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:15:33 GMT

Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy “the beauty of the morning on the beach,” he recalled. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church.” Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades. “Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals, harming “innocent human beings,” in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.As Dulak rejects being part of a religious flock, he has plenty of company. He is a “none” — no, not that kind of nun. The kind that checks “none” when pollsters ask “What’s your religion?”The decades-long rise of the nones — a diverse, hard-to-summarize group — is one of the most talked about phenomena in U.S. religion. The nones are reshaping America’s religious landscape as we know it...

In secular Japan, what draws so many to temples and shrines? Stamp collecting and tradition

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:15:33 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Almost weekly Momo Nomura makes time to visit Shinto shrines. She performs the prescribed rituals — cleansing her hands, ringing a bell, bowing and clapping. But her main purpose is getting a Goshuin, a stamp with elegant calligraphy that shrines provide for a fee to certify the visit.She loves the stamps, which she began collecting during the pandemic. One with blue hydrangeas got her started.“Because of the Goshuin, shrines have become closer to me, but I don’t consider this a religious activity,” Nomura said after getting her stamp and taking selfies at Sakura Jingu, a western Tokyo shrine established in 1882 as a minority Shinto sect focused on traditional values.Nomura, who posts about her hobby on social media as Goshuin Girl, says she enjoys the stamp designs, and shrine visits allow a moment of reflection and a change of pace from her busy life as a graphic designer and entrepreneur. Differences of religious sects are not an issue, she says.“It’s a mindfulness k...