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Decline in local news outlets is accelerating despite efforts to help

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:55 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The decline of local news in the United States is speeding up despite attention paid to the issue, to the point where the nation has lost one-third of its newspapers and two-thirds of its newspaper journalists since 2005.An average of 2.5 newspapers closed each week in 2023 compared to two a week the previous year, a reflection of an ever-worsening advertising climate, according to a Northwestern University study issued Thursday. Most are weekly publications, in areas with few or no other sources for news.“My concern is that the acceleration that we’re seeing is only going to worsen,” said Tim Franklin, who heads the local news initiative at Northwestern’s Medill journalism school.At its current pace, the country will hit 3,000 newspapers closed in two decades sometime next year, with just under 6,000 remaining, the report said. At the same time, 43,000 newspaper journalists lost jobs, most of them at daily publications, with the advertising market collap...

ASEAN defense chiefs call for immediate truce, aid corridor in Israel-Hamas war

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:55 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Southeast Asian defense ministers expressed “profound concern” on Thursday over the loss of civilian lives in the Israel-Hamas war and called for an immediate truce and creation of a humanitarian corridor to deliver aid. In a statement on the conflict, the defense ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also supported the start of peace negotiations aimed at achieving a “two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders.”The ministers “expressed profound dismay at the reported attacks and loss of innocent civilian lives in the conflict, along with the destruction of civilian infrastructure,” it said.They issued the statement after meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, with eight “dialogue partners,” including the United States, China and Russia.A separate chairman’s statement issued by Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto called for an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities and urged...

Ken Squier, a longtime NASCAR announcer and broadcaster, dies at 88

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:55 GMT

WATERBURY, Vt. (AP) — Ken Squier, a longtime NASCAR announcer and broadcaster, has died. He was 88.Squier died Wednesday night in Waterbury, Vermont, according to the management of the local WDEV radio, which he owned.“Though he never sat behind the wheel of a stock car, Ken Squier contributed to the growth of NASCAR as much as any competitor,” Jim France, chairman and CEO of NASCAR, said in a statement. “Ken was a superb storyteller and his unmistakable voice is the soundtrack to many of NASCAR’s greatest moments.”Squier opened Thunder Road speedway in his home state of Vermont in Barre in 1960. Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a stock car racer, called Squier “a true Vermont legend and dear friend to me and so many others.”Much will be made of “the NASCAR Hall of Famer’s extraordinary contributions to racing — from his time in the booth at CBS, where he coined the phrase ‘The Great American Race’, to his founding of the ‘Nation’s Site of Excitement’ at Thunder Road,” the gover...

Poverty is killing the Amazon rainforest. Treating soil and farmers better can help save what’s left

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:55 GMT

TEKOHAW, Brazil (AP) — At dawn in this small Amazonian village in Brazil’s Para state, flocks of noisy green parrots soar overhead as children run and play between wooden homes, kicking up sandy soil — in places white and bare as a beach.The ground reveals one of the paradoxes of the rainforest. Renowned for its beauty and biodiversity, the life-giving nutrients of the forest are mostly stored in the trees and other plants, not the soil.When the forest is cleared — for a cattle ranch, soybean field or even a small cluster of village homes — the combination of scorching Amazonian sun and intense rainfall combine to leach scarce nutrients from the soil in just a few years, leaving behind surprisingly barren ground. This impoverished dirt makes it difficult to sustain agriculture in one place.And in a region with some of the highest poverty levels in Brazil, people with few options have often just abandoned degraded fields and cleared more forest — hastening the cycle of deforest...

Pastoralists have raised livestock in harsh climates for millennia. What can they teach us today?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:55 GMT

SUKHBAATAR, Mongolia (AP) — The moon glowed in the predawn Mongolia sky as Agvaantogtokh and his family prepared for another big move. On horseback, he rode to a well with nearly a thousand sheep and goats. Occasionally, he and his wife, Nurmaa, stopped to help struggling young ones, weak after a harsh winter.Thousands of miles away in Senegal, Amadou Altine Ndiaye’s family led livestock through a sparse African savannah. Horses and donkeys pulled a four-cart caravan along dirt paths in sweltering heat. Cattle followed. The family believed the next village would be richer with vegetation. “I was born into pastoralism, and since then I’ve known only that,” said Ndiaye, 48, a member of the Muslim Fulani ethnic group who learned the ways of herding alongside his elders. “It’s a source of pride.”More than 50 million people in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere practice this way of life. As nomadic pastoralists, they keep domestic animals and move with them to seek fresh pasture...

Ethics panel says it found ‘substantial evidence’ of lawbreaking by Republican Rep. George Santos

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:55 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Ethics panel said Thursday it has found “substantial evidence” of lawbreaking by Republican Rep. George Santos of New York and has referred its findings to the Justice Department.The committee said that Santos’ conduct warrants public condemnation, is beneath the dignity of the office, and has brought severe discredit upon the House.Santos has maintained his innocence and refused to resign despite calls from many of his colleagues to do so.The panel said Santos knowingly caused his campaign committee to file false or incomplete reports with the Federal Election Commission; used campaign funds for personal purposes; and engaged in violations of the Ethics in Government Act as it relates to financial disclosure statements filed with the House.The ethics panel’s report also detailed Santos’ lack of cooperation with its investigation and how he “evaded” straightforward requests for information.The information that he did provide, according to the commit...

Canada’s CPKC Women’s Open once again named LPGA Tour’s tournament of year

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:55 GMT

The CPKC Women’s Open has won the LPGA Tour’s highest tournament honour for the second consecutive year.The event, hosted Aug. 24-27 at Vancouver’s Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club, was named the back-to-back winner of tour’s tournament of the Year at the LPGA’s annual year-end tournament awards Wednesday night.“We really have a secret sauce,” tournament director Ryan Paul told The Canadian Press at the CME Group Tour Championship, the final event of the LPGA Tour season. “It’s really an incredible golf tournament. You’ve got the best players in the world a rope-line away from you, but outside the ropes there are so many great things that you can see and do.”The Canadian tournament also won for best sponsor activation and best volunteer appreciation at the ceremony hosted at Tiburon Golf Club.The sponsor nod was a culmination of the tournament’s partner programming like the Brooke Brigade fan zone. Unique for this year — and specially recognized — was a junior clinic at...

EU calls on China to stop building coal plants and contribute to a climate fund for poor nations

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:55 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — The European Union’s top climate official said Thursday that China should stop building new coal-fired power plants and contribute to a global fund to help poor countries affected by climate change.Wopke Hoekstra, the EU climate commissioner, raised both issues in what he called intensive and open conversations with his Chinese counterparts ahead of U.N. climate talks opening in Dubai at the end of this month.Europe and the U.S. have been arguing that wealthier emerging economies such as China and Saudi Arabia should also give money to the fund. Hoekstra said that what is true for the European Union and North America should be true for any country in a position of economic and geopolitical strength.“And that means driving down emissions and doing your fair share in covering the bill for those who cannot,” he said.Given the magnitude of the problem, “every single country with the ability to pay and the ability to contribute should contribute,” he said.A statement...

Eating less meat would be good for the Earth. Small nudges can change behavior

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:55 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Preston Cabral eats meat nearly every day at home, but his favorite meals at school are served on “Meatless Mondays” and “Vegan Fridays.”“Today I ate chips, tangerines and this thing that looked like chili but without the meat — just beans,” the 12-year-old said after lunch on a Friday at I.S. 318 Eugenio Maria De Hostos.The Monday and Friday lunches have inspired Preston’s family to make more vegetarian meals at home, sparking what experts say is a healthy shift for them — and for the planet.Programs like these are among the few proven to work for one of the thorniest problems of the 21st century: How to get people to eat less meat.___EDITORS’ NOTE — This story is part of The Protein Problem, an AP series that examines the question: Can we feed this growing world without starving the planet?___A new poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that most U.S. adults said they eat meat at least several times each week. Abo...

52-year-old man shot in Logan Square

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:55 GMT

CHICAGO — A man was seriously wounded during a shooting in Logan Square on Wednesday.Officers were dispatched to the 2300 block of North Kimball at around 4:30 p.m. on the report of a person shot.Police discovered a 52-year-old man at the scene suffering from a gunshot wound.The man was transported in serious condition.No one is in custody. Anyone with information can leave an anonymous tip at cpdtip.com.