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Minnesota Legislature puts final touches on $72B budget as Democrats celebrate successes

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:54 GMT

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota Legislature was putting the final touches on a $72 billion state budget Monday as Democrats celebrated enacting an ambitious agenda that ranged from protecting abortion rights, to providing more resources for education, to legalizing marijuana.The big tax bill of the session, which cleared its final test Sunday evening, included $3 billion in tax cuts, including modest one-time rebates from the state’s $17.5 billion budget surplus. But lawmakers also approved tax increases to provide ongoing funding for long-term initiatives like transportation improvements and a new paid family and medical leave program.Lawmakers faced an adjournment deadline of midnight on Monday night. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz called it “clearly the most successful legislative session” in many Minnesotans’ lifetimes.Democrats, who control both the House and Senate for the first time in eight years, regularly describe the legislation...

Rick Hummel, longtime St. Louis baseball writer known as ‘The Commish,’ dies at 77

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:54 GMT

Rick Hummel, who covered the Cardinals for five decades for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and who is enshrined in the writer’s wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, has died.The Post-Dispatch reported that Hummel — known as “The Commish” by friends, players, managers, even baseball commissioners — died Saturday after a short, unspecified illness. He was 77.Hummel was born in 1946 in Quincy, Illinois, and graduated from the University of Missouri in 1968. He was hired at the Post-Dispatch in 1971, joining the baseball beat two years later. He chronicled three Cardinals’ World Series championships, seven National League pennants and six MVP seasons.Hummel received the Baseball Writers’ Association of America Career Excellence Award in 2006, placed by his peers in the writers’ wing in Cooperstown. He said in his speech that the honor was “more than just a dream come true because I never could have dreamt this.”Sixteen years after that, Hummel wa...

Pakistan re-arrests Imran Khan’s key associate amid crackdown on his followers

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:54 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani authorities Monday arrested a key associate of former Prime Minister Imran Khan just hours after she was released from custody as authorities pressed on with a crackdown on Khan’s supporters. Shireen Mazari, who served as rights minister under Khan during his 2018-2022 term in office, was arrested last Thursday in the capital, Islamabad, on charges of inciting people to violence. She was released Monday on a court order but was again taken into custody hours later.Mazari has been a vocal critic of Pakistan’s military and the government of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who replaced Khan after his ouster in a no-confidence vote in Parliament in April 2022.Authorities began a crackdown after Khan supporters attacked public property and military installations following his arrest this month.Mazari’s daughter, Imaan Mazari, had petitioned a high court, arguing that her mother’s arrest was unlawful. She said the Lahore High Court ordered...

A firsthand account of life behind bars in Canadian women’s prisons

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:54 GMT

Movies and television shows have betrayed me, and probably you too at least when it comes to depicting life behind bars.For over a decade, I’ve been fascinated with and done a lot of reporting on Canada and Ontario’s correctional system.I’ve been in many provincial jails, and they look like jails, primarily dated, bars on some cells, metal doors with small windows and hatches, inmates in orange jumpers and t-shirts.But when it comes to women’s prisons where offenders are convicted of serious crimes and serving terms of two years or more, it looks more like a campus than a correctional centre.For six months, my crew and I spent considerable time in the Grand Valley Institution for Women (GVI) in Kitchener, ON and Alberta’s Edmonton Institution for Women (EIW) to film the latest episode of VeraCity: Prison Moms.I was expecting scenes from the TV show Orange is the New Black and the Australian show Wentworth, and instead, it felt like a rougher version of 90210 but with an all-female l...

Israeli defense chief says military has more than doubled strikes on Iranian targets in Syria

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:54 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s defense minister Monday said that Israel’s new government has greatly increased the number of strikes on Iranian targets since taking office late last year.Yoav Gallant did not provide an exact number of airstrikes. But the address, delivered at a security conference, marked rare public comments on Israeli military activity in Syria.“Since I took office, the number of Israeli strikes against the Iranians in Syria have doubled,” Gallant said. “As part of this campaign, we are working methodically to strike the Iranian intelligence capabilities in Syria,” he said. “These strikes inflict significant damage to the attempts by the Revolutionary Guard to establish a foothold a few kilometers from the Israeli border.”Gallant also accused Iran of converting civilian ships into military vessels armed with weapons such as drones, missiles and intelligence-gathering capabilities. He said Iran hopes to station these ships at long distances from ...

Rick Hummel, esteemed St Louis-based baseball writer, dead at 77

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:54 GMT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Rick Hummel, an esteemed writer who covered the St. Louis Cardinals and Major League Baseball for five decades for the Post-Dispatch until his retirement last year, has died. He was 77.Hummel died in his sleep at his St. Louis-area home early Saturday after a short, aggressive illness, the Post-Dispatch said Monday.He was nicknamed “The Commish” for running an American Professional Baseball Association board game with colleagues, and the moniker became so widespread throughout baseball that even Commissioners Bud Selig and Rob Manfred called Hummel by the label.“The 51-year ride, except for a couple of broken windows, has been a smooth one,” Hummel wrote in a farewell column in the Post-Dispatch last November. “I got to cover countless Cardinals playoffs, including three World Series champions, 35 World Series and the past 42 All-Star games, starting and ending in Dodger Stadium. There was the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run chase of 1998 and `Whiteyball’ in ...

Autopsy finds ‘severe neglect’ to blame for man’s death in bedbug-infested jail cell

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:54 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — A man who died in a bedbug-infested cell in a Georgia jail’s psychiatric wing “died due to severe neglect,” according to an independent autopsy released Monday by lawyers for his family.Lashawn Thompson, 35, died in September, three months after he was booked into the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta. Public outrage over his death spread last month after a lawyer for his family, Michael Harper, released photos of Thompson’s face and body covered in insects.“Mr. Thompson was neglected to death,” says the autopsy report written by Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr., a former chief medical examiner in Washington, D.C., who is now a professor and chair of the pathology department at Howard University College of Medicine.The independent autopsy report lists the cause of death as “Complications due to Severe Neglect,” with “Untreated Decompensated Schizophrenia” identified as a contributing cause. A combination of dehydration, rapid weight loss and malnutrition, compl...

St. Sabina hosts gun buyback for Fr. Pfleger's 74th birthday

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:54 GMT

CHICAGO — Father Michael Pfleger’s 74th birthday is Monday and to celebrate, he wanted to get some guns off the streets.The gun buyback started around 9:00 a.m. goes until 3:00 p.m. and several people came with guns of all varieties for this buyback and have been greeted by Fr. Pfleger with a message on gun violence."You know, there’s a whole comprehensive array of what we need to do about Molins but one of the things we have to do is deal with guns," Fr. Pfleger said.Handguns get $100 cash assault Stone weapons get $200 in cash.The Chicago Police Department has those guns, collecting them, and hauling them away for destruction. “We’re supposed to step in together:” Fundraiser supports families of 4 high school seniors killed in car crash "It’s real personal for me. I lost my adopted son just two blocks from here. I buried so many other people. Purpose of her pain group is based here," Fr. Pfleger said.Fr. Pfleger, who has been a staple in the Auburn-Gresham community since the 1...

Another Chicago Bears player returns to get his college degree in 2023

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:54 GMT

SOUTH BEND — For a second time this offseason, a current member of the Chicago Bears has returned to school to finish what he started. A few weeks after quarterback Justin Fields went back to Ohio State to get his bachelor's degree, tight end Cole Kmet did the same on Sunday.The Lake Barrington native traveled to South Bend to graduate with a bachelor's degree in political science on Sunday from the University of Notre Dame. He took part in the ceremony at Notre Dame Stadium, where Kmet established himself as one of the best tight ends in the country from 2017 through 2019. He was also a member of Notre Dame's baseball team in 2018 and 2019.The former St. Viator High School standout would declare for the NFL Draft after his junior year with the Fighting Irish, and the Bears selected him in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft. "No longer a dropout," said Kmet on his Instagram post on Sunday.Kmet was able to graduate alongside his brother, Casey, who is an infielder for the Notre D...

Lego goes back to the '80s with a Pac-Man cabinet - and it has a hand crank

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:11:54 GMT

(NEXSTAR) - Lego is going back to the '80s with a new premium set that is a detailed recreation of the classic Pac-Man arcade game. The set marks the 43rd anniversary of the original game, which was originally released on May 22, 1980, by Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.While you can't actually play Pac-Man on it, the set features a hand crank that moves Pac-Man and the ghosts around the 'screen'. The set also contains large versions of Pac-Man and ghosts Blink and Clyde that rotate on a base showing both Pac-Man and the ghosts on the run.(LEGO)(LEGO)(LEGO)(LEGO)(LEGO)(LEGO)(LEGO)The set also features a light up coin-slot, and a small vignette of a female minifigure playing Pac-Man on an arcade, hidden inside of the cabinet.Lego designer Sven Franic described the set as "a one-of-a-kind Lego creation that captures the magic of the original game while adding a playful new twist and a couple of Easter eggs – in true video game style.” Lego releasing 3,981-piece ‘Batman Returns’ Batca...