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Wildfire smoke drives traditional summer camp activities indoors

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:44:47 GMT

By MARK SCOLFORO (Associated Press)The Canadian wildfires that have shrouded much of the nation in smoky haze are making it much harder for American kids to enjoy one of the staples of summer camp: fresh country air.As a result, many camps in the Midwest and the East have been moving activities indoors, seeking advice from medical professionals and hoping the air quality improves soon so campers can get back to hiking, playing tetherball and waging games of capture the flag.“There’s certainly a concern, considering that we take children from the cities,” Mark Zides, chairman of the Pennsylvania Camp Association, said Thursday. “Coming up to the mountains for the summer is what summer camp is all about.”YMCA Camp Kon-O-Kwee Spencer in western Pennsylvania closed its outdoor pool Wednesday and sent home a few campers with health problems, said Karla Schell, associate executive director of the camp about 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Pittsburgh. The camp is hosting 244 children in ...

An inflation gauge tracked by the Federal Reserve falls to its lowest point in 2 years

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:44:47 GMT

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER (AP Economics Writer)WASHINGTON (AP) — An inflation index that is closely monitored by the Federal Reserve tumbled last month to its lowest level since April 2021, pulled down by lower gas prices and slower-rising food costs.At the same time, consumers barely increased their spending last month, boosting it just 0.1%, after a solid 0.6% gain in April.The inflation index showed that prices rose 3.8% in May from 12 months earlier, down sharply from a 4.4% year-over-year surge in April. And from April to May, prices ticked up just 0.1%.Still, last month’s progress in easing overall inflation was tempered by an elevated reading of “core” prices, a category that excludes volatile food and energy costs. That underscored the Fed’s belief that it will need to keep raising interest rates to conquer high inflation.Core prices rose 4.6% in May from a year earlier, down slightly from the annual increase of 4.7% in April. It was the fifth straight month that the core figur...

Former Chicago Bulls general manager Gar Forman lists Buffalo Grove home for $775,000

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:44:47 GMT

Former Chicago Bulls general manager Gar Forman and his wife, Leslie, have their five-bedroom, 4,011-square-foot house in Buffalo Grove for sale for $775,000.A California native, Forman, 63, joined the Bulls as a scout in 1998 and worked his way up through the administration until he became the team’s general manager in 2009. He led the Bulls to the playoffs in seven of his 10 years as general manager, but he was ousted from the team in April 2020 during a season that was halted for a time by the COVID-19 and that was marked by poor performance. Upon Forman’s firing, Tribune sports columnist Paul Sullivan wrote that “the Bulls don’t shoot, rebound, defend or handle the ball well, and they can’t even compete in the vastly inferior Eastern Conference, where a sub-.500 team can make the playoffs.”Forman most recently has been a special advisor to the New Orleans Pelicans.In Buffalo Grove, the Formans paid $536,000 in 2003 to buy the house from former...

The world’s tallest flagpole. A tiny Maine town. An idea meant to unite people is dividing them

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:44:47 GMT

COLUMBIA FALLS, Maine (AP) — Lobster boat engines rumble to life in quiet coves. Lumberjacks trudge deep into the woods. Farmers tend expanses of wild blueberries. Maine’s Down East region is where the sunlight first kisses a U.S. state’s soil each day, where the vast wilderness and ocean meet in one of the last places on the East Coast unspoiled by development.Which makes it a striking backdrop to one family’s bold vision for the region: a flagpole jutting upward from the woodlands toward spacious skies — the tallest one ever, reaching higher than the Empire State Building. And atop it? A massive American flag bigger than a football field, visible from miles away on a clear day.To promoters, the $1 billion project, funded in part by donations, would unite people of all political stripes and remind them of shared values in an era of national polarization. Here’s how Morrill Worcester, founder of Worcester Wreath, tells it: “We want to bring Americans together, remi...

Executives urge Europe to rethink its world-leading AI rules

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:44:47 GMT

LONDON (AP) — More than 150 company executives are urging the European Union to rethink the world’s most comprehensive rules for artificial intelligence, saying Friday that upcoming regulations will make it harder for companies in Europe to compete with rivals overseas, especially when it comes to the technology behind systems like ChatGPT.Officials at companies from French planemaker Airbus and carmaker Renault to Dutch beer giant Heineken signed an open letter to EU leaders saying the 27-nation bloc’s groundbreaking legislation may put shackles on the development of generative AI. That technology gives popular AI chatbots like ChatGPT the power to generate text, images, video and audio that resemble human work.“Such regulation could lead to highly innovative companies moving their activities abroad ” and investors withdrawing their money from AI development in Europe, the letter said. “The result would be a critical productivity gap between the two sides of the A...

South African president cleared of wrongdoing in scandal over $580,000 in cash stolen from his farm

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:44:47 GMT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was cleared of wrongdoing Friday by a public watchdog over a scandal involving the theft of more than half a million dollars in U.S. currency that had been stashed in a sofa at his game farm.Acting Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka, whose office holds politicans to account, said Ramaphosa did not violate the ethics code for members of South Africa’s executive over the incident, which happened in 2020 but was only revealed publicly last year.The scandal was seen as the biggest callenge to Ramaphosa’s reputation and his leadership of Africa’s most developed economy. There is still an ongoing criminal investigation into the incident. Ramaphosa said $580,000 in cash was stolen. Gcaleka said it was not part of her investigation to confirm how much money was involved and didn’t give a figure.Ramaphosa, 70, was accused of not reporting the theft properly to police in an attempt to cover up the existence of t...

A week after an armed rebellion rattled Russia, key details about it are still shrouded in mystery

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:44:47 GMT

Did mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin have inside help from the military and political elite in his armed rebellion that rattled Russia?A week after the mutiny raised the most daunting challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s rule in over two decades, key details about the uprising are still unknown.Uncertainty also swirls around the fate of Prigozhin and his Wagner private military forces, along with the deal they got from the Kremlin, and what the future holds for the Russian defense minister they tried to oust.Finally, and perhaps the biggest unknown: Can Putin shore up the weaknesses revealed by the events of last weekend?DID PRIGOZHIN HAVE INSIDE HELP?Many observers argue that Prigozhin wouldn’t have been able to take over military facilities in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don so easily on June 24 and mount his rapid march toward Moscow without collusion with some members of the military brass.Thousands of members of his private army drove nearly 1,000 kilometers (about 620 m...

Elián González 2 decades on: From a focus of international tug-of-war to a member of Cuba’s congress

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:44:47 GMT

HAVANA (AP) — Elián González has the same big, expressive eyes he did 23 years ago when an international custody battle transformed him into the face of the long-strained relations between Cuba and the United States.Now 29, González is stepping into Cuban politics. He recently entered his country’s congress with hopes of helping his people at a time of record emigration and heightened tension between the two seaside neighbors.“From Cuba, we can do a lot so that we have a more solid country, and I owe it to Cubans,” he said during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press. “That is what I’m going to try to do from my position, from this place in congress — to contribute to making Cuba a better country.”González has given only a handful of interviews since he was unwittingly thrust into the geopolitical spotlight as a boy. In 1999, at just 5 years old, he and his mother were aboard a boat of Cuban migrants headed toward Florida when the boat capsized in the Florida Straits. His...

Finland’s economics minister steps down from government over alleged ties to extreme right wing

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:44:47 GMT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The economic affairs minister in Finland’s new four-party center-right governing coalition, resigned Friday after 10 days in the job for his alleged ties to the extreme right wing, Finnish media said.A member of the populist, anti-immigration Finns Party, Vilhelm Junnila stepped down in part for a speech in connection with a far-right memorial in the western city of Turku in 2019, Finland broadcaster YLE said.He also reportedly has made a reference to Adolf Hitler. He has allegedly joked about his candidate number in the 2019 parliamentary elections — which was randomly assigned as 88 — jokingly saying it represented two H’s. The eighth letter in the alphabet is H, and 88 is a numerical code for “Heil Hitler.”Junnila has apologized and distanced himself for his remarks and jokes, saying in a Facebook post that he never had any ties or affiliation with extreme elements.On Friday, he resigned.“I see that it is impossible for me to continue as a ministe...

French president urges parents to keep teens at home to quell rioting spreading across France

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:44:47 GMT

NANTERRE, France (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron is urging parents to keep teenagers at home to quell rioting spreading across France and says social media are fueling copycat violence. After a second crisis meeting with senior ministers, Macron said Friday that social media are playing a “considerable role” in the spreading unrest triggered by the deadly police shooting of a 17-year-old. He said he wants social media such as Snapchat and TikTok to remove sensitive content and said that violence is being organized online. Of young rioters, he said: “We sometimes have the feeling that some of them are living in the streets the video games that have intoxicated them.”THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.NANTERRE, France (AP) — Protesters erected barricades, lit fires and shot fireworks at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons in French streets overnight as tensions grew over the deadly police shooting of a 17-year-old that has shocke...