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Coal mine accident kills 3 in northern China’s Shanxi province, a major coal-producing region

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:52 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — An accident in a coal mine in northern China’s Shanxi province left three people dead, state broadcaster CCTV reported Thursday.Four people were cleaning a bunker used to store coal when the accident occurred on Wednesday. It was unclear what caused the accident. Rescue workers were able to save one person, but the three others died after resuscitation efforts failed, the report said.The accident occurred at Huajin Coking Coal Company in Shanxi, a major coal-producing region.China has been working to improve mine safety to combat accidents, which happen with some frequency. A coal mine explosion killed 11 people in Shanxi in August, and a coal mine fire in southern China’s Guizhou province killed 16 people in September.Last month, a major fire at a coal mining company building in Shanxi killed 26 people and injured dozens of others, but the blaze was not in the mine itself.The Associated Press

Amazon rift: Five things to know about the dispute between an Indigenous chief and Belgian filmmaker

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:52 GMT

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The renowned chief from the Amazon rainforest and the Belgian filmmaker appeared to be close friends at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Far from the flashing cameras, however, their decades-long partnership was nearing its end.With his feathered crown and wooden lip plate, Chief Raoni of the Kayapo tribe is instantly recognizable the world over. He has met with presidents, royals and celebrities to raise funds for Brazil’s Indigenous peoples and to protect their lands. Almost always in the background was a less familiar face, that of Jean-Pierre Dutilleux, whose documentary about Raoni was a 1979 Oscar nominee. In the years since, he has acted as Raoni’s gatekeeper abroad and brokered meetings with leaders and luminaries. But many Kayapo and others who crossed Dutilleux’s path harbored growing suspicions about him. The Associated Press interviewed dozens of people over nearly a year — including both Raoni and Dutilleux — to provide an inside...

US judge to weigh cattle industry request to halt Colorado wolf reintroduction

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:52 GMT

A federal judge is set to consider on Thursday a request by Colorado’s cattle industry to block the impending reintroduction of gray wolves to the state under a voter-approved initiative.State wildlife officials plan to capture up to 10 wolves from Oregon and begin releasing them in Colorado by Dec. 31 as they race to meet a deadline imposed under a 2020 ballot proposal that passed by a narrow margin. The animals would be among the first gray wolves in Colorado in decades.The Gunnison County Stockgrowers’ Association and Colorado Cattlemen’s Association filed a lawsuit Monday to halt the releases. They claim the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to adequately review Colorado’s plan to release up to 50 wolves onto state and private land over the next several years.Judge Regina M. Rodriguez scheduled a 10 a.m. hearing at the federal courthouse in Denver to hear arguments in the case.Gray wolves were exterminated across most of the U.S. by the 1930s under government-spo...

The Republican leading the probe of Hunter Biden has his own shell company and complicated friends

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:52 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. James Comer boasts of being one of the largest landholders near his rural Kentucky hometown, and he has meticulously documented nearly all of his holdings on congressional financial disclosure documents – roughly 1,600 acres in all.But there are six acres that he bought in 2015 and co-owns with a longtime campaign contributor that he has treated differently, transferring his ownership to Farm Team Properties, a shell company he co-owns with his wife.Interviews and records reviewed by The Associated Press provide new insights into the financial deal, which risks undercutting the force of some of Comer’s central arguments in his impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden. In particular, Comer has attacked some Biden family members, including the president’s son Hunter, over their use of “shell companies” that appear designed to obscure millions of dollars in earnings they received from shadowy middlemen and foreign interests.Such companies typically exist only o...

Anxiety and resignation in Argentina after Milei’s economic shock measures

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:52 GMT

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Julia González wonders how she will afford the three bus rides and train trip to her job in downtown Buenos Aires. Lucía Pergolesi regrets her best friend has been fired from her job in a government ministry. Hilario Laffite admits he will have to increase prices in the shop where he works.These are some of the faces of anxiety that Argentines are dealing with after President Javier Milei’s administration announced economic shock measures aimed at tackling the country severe crisis, including a sharp devaluation of the peso by 50%, cuts to subsidies and the closure of some ministries. Milei himself has warned people that these steps will cause some pain, but he insists they are needed to curb triple-digit inflation and have sustainable economic growth in the future. But concern is evident among people, even with those who support the self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” who took office as president Sunday.Julia González, 35, is a Paraguayan national who ...

Few US adults would be satisfied with a possible Biden-Trump rematch in 2024, AP-NORC poll shows

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:52 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s the presidential election no one is really jazzed about. Relatively few Americans are excited about a potential rematch of the 2020 election between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, although more Republicans would be satisfied to have Trump as their nominee than Democrats would be with Biden as their standard-bearer, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That palpable apathy from voters comes even as both Biden and Trump are facing relatively few obstacles in their paths to lock down their respective parties’ nominations next year. Biden has amassed broad support from Democratic officials as a handful of mostly token primary challengers have struggled to spark momentum. And despite 91 indictments across four criminal cases — including some centered on his attempts to overturn his electoral loss to Biden in 2020 — Trump’s grip on GOP primary voters shows no signs of loosening a month be...

A judge may rule on Wyoming’s abortion laws, including the first explicit US ban on abortion pills

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:52 GMT

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A judge in Wyoming will decide as soon as Thursday whether to strike down, affirm or hold a trial over the state’s abortion bans, including its first-in-the-nation explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy. Any decision on the bans during or after a pretrial conference before Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens in Jackson likely would be appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Both sides have asked Owens to issue a ruling without holding a bench trial that is scheduled to begin April 15.So far, Owens has shown sympathy for arguments that the bans violate women’s rights under the state constitution. Three times over the past year and a half, the judge has blocked the laws from taking effect while they were disputed in court.One of the laws bans abortion except to protect to a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other state...

Earliest version of Mickey Mouse set to become public domain in 2024, along with Minnie, Tigger

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:52 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — M-I-C-K-E-Y will soon belong to you and me.With several asterisks, qualification and caveats, Mickey Mouse in his earliest form will be the leader of the band of characters, films and books that will become public domain as the year turns to 2024.In a moment many close observers thought might never come, at least one version of the quintessential piece of intellectual property and perhaps the most iconic character in American pop culture will be free from Disney’s copyright as his first screen release, the 1928 short “Steamboat Willie,” featuring both Mickey and Minnie Mouse, becomes available for public use.“This is it. This is Mickey Mouse. This is exciting because it’s kind of symbolic,” said Jennifer Jenkins, a professor of law and director of Duke’s Center for the Study of Public Domain, who writes an annual Jan. 1 column for “Public Domain Day.” ”I kind of feel like the pipe on the steamboat, like expelling smoke. It’s so exciting.”U....

How the deep friendship between an Amazon chief and Belgian filmmaker devolved into accusations

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:52 GMT

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — It was considered to be among the world’s most productive partnerships between an Indigenous chief and a Westerner.For five decades, the Amazonian tribal leader and Belgian film director enlisted presidents and royals, even Pope Francis, to improve the lives of Brazil’s Indigenous peoples and protect their lands. The pair befriended celebrities and movie stars. Sting, the musical legend, was one of their greatest champions.Just a few months ago, their bond seemed as strong as ever. Chief Raoni Metuktire, sporting his iconic lip plate and an emerald feathered crown, and tuxedo-clad filmmaker Jean-Pierre Dutilleux were at the Cannes Film Festival to promote the Belgian’s latest documentary: “Raoni: An Unusual Friendship.” Standing on the red carpet, amid a flurry of camera flashes, the two clasped hands, as if old friends.Behind the scenes, however, the relationship was nearing its end. Not long after returning to Brazil in May, the chief of the Kayapo severed ti...

Guyana and Venezuela leaders to meet face-to-face as region pushes to defuse territorial dispute

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:52 GMT

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — The leaders of Guyana and Venezuela headed for a tense meeting Thursday as regional nations sought to defuse a long-standing territorial dispute that has escalated with Venezuelans voting in a referendum to claim two-thirds of their smaller neighbor.Pushed by regional partners, Guyanan President Irfaan Ali and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro agreed to meet at the Argyle International airport on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent. The prime ministers of Barbados, Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago said they also would attend.The meeting is aimed at easing the tensions that have flared over Essequibo, a vast border region rich in oil and minerals that represents much of Guyana’s territory but that Venezuela claims as its own.Venezuela’s president followed the referendum by ordering his state-owned companies to explore and exploit the oil, gas and mines in Essequibo. And both sides have put their militaries on alert.It was unclear if the sessi...