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Bulgaria, Romania get official green light for partial entry into Schengen area

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:44 GMT

EU member countries reached agreement Saturday on removing air and maritime internal border controls with Bulgaria and Romania, but the two countries’ full entry into the bloc’s passport-free Schengen zone remains subject to further discussions.Controls at sea and air borders with Romania and Bulgaria will be lifted as of March 31, the Council of the EU, which represents EU countries, said in a statement on Saturday. “A further decision should be taken by the Council to establish a date for the lifting of checks at internal land borders,” according to the statement.The European Commission said talks on removing controls at land borders will continue in 2024. “A decision by the Council on this matter is expected to be taken within a reasonable time frame,” the EU executive said in a statement. Romania and Bulgaria, both EU members since 2007, were passed over for entry into Schengen when Croatia was admitted on January 1, 2023. The Schengen area, w...

MLB Notes: Ohtani’s greatness, Rangers title highlight baseball’s best of 2023

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:44 GMT

The year 2023 won’t be remembered fondly among Red Sox fans, but across baseball as a whole this was a banner season that saw the game take big steps forward after years of stagnation and strife.With the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockout fully in the rearview mirror, baseball turned its focus to the future and embraced long-overdue changes that helped reinvigorate the sport. The result was one of the most exciting seasons in recent memory.Now as the calendar turns to 2024, here are some of baseball’s biggest and most important highlights of the past year.Pitch clock changes the gameEvery year it seemed like the games kept getting longer. There were more pitching changes, more stoppages and every pitch felt like an interminable slog. With apologies to Rob Bradford, baseball was getting boring, and even the sport’s most ardent diehards had to admit something needed to change.Enter the pitch clock, which immediately helped set the game back o...

Taliban say security forces killed dozens of Tajiks, Pakistanis involved in attacks in Afghanistan

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:44 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Security forces in Afghanistan killed a number of Tajik and Pakistani nationals and arrested scores others involved in attacks against religious clerics, the public, and mosques, a senior Taliban official said Sunday. Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid, Taliban’s appointed defense minister, during a press conference in the capital, Kabul, said dozens of Tajiks and more than 20 Pakistanis were killed in the past 12 months “in operations by security forces.”He said scores of Tajiks and hundreds of Pakistanis involved in various incidents were also arrested during that period.Mujahid called on neighboring and regional countries to strictly monitor their borders.Tensions between Kabul and Islamabad spiked as hundreds of thousands of Afghans left Pakistan after authorities started pursuing foreigners they said were in the country illegally, going door-to-door to check migrants’ documentation, following an Oct.31 deadline.Mujahid also said there has been a 90% decrease in attacks by...

More Rohingya refugees arrive in Indonesia despite rejection from locals

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:44 GMT

MEDAN, Indonesia (AP) — Some 170 likely Rohingya refugees, mostly hungry and weak women and children, were found on a beach in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province after weeks at sea, officials said on Sunday.The group arrived on a beach at Kuala Besar, a fishing village in Langkat district, late Saturday, said the village head, Muhammad Amiruddin.Villagers who saw the group of Rohingya Muslims helped them with food and water as they waited for further instructions from immigration and local officials in North Sumatra province, he said.However, residents around the beach hesitated over having the refugees in their villages, Amiruddin said.“We helped them as they look very weak from hunger and dehydration,” Amiruddin said, “But many residents cannot accept them to live in our village because they will only bring problems later.”A mob of students on Wednesday attacked the basement of a local community hall in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, where 137 Rohingya were taking shelt...

Canada’s heated political conflict over carbon pricing will continue into 2024

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:44 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada’s price on pollution is supposed to help battle global warming, but as it nears its fifth anniversary, nothing in Canadian politics is hotter.Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has so successfully convinced Canadians the carbon price is to blame for inflation that he even earned begrudging respect for his “axe the tax” campaign from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.Of course, Trudeau doesn’t agree with Poilievre’s sentiment. But he has acknowledged the Tory leader’s message is working in an atmosphere where the cost of living is dominating the discussion around most dinner tables, as it has for months, if not years.Trudeau was even convinced to upend his signature climate policy in October, removing it from heating oil for three years following relentless pressure from his Atlantic caucus and a nosedive in polling support on the East Cost.There are some arguments for the move. Heating oil costs four times more than natural gas, so w...

Wolves, deer and elk all have Minnesota cattle producers on edge going into 2024

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:44 GMT

Several cattle producers and leaders at the Minnesota Cattle Industry Convention in Alexandria this month spoke about the increase in worrisome dealings with wild animals, including wolves, deer and the potential for a new introduction of elk.Gray wolves are just one of many topics of discussion among Minnesota cattle producers preparing for the year ahead in 2024. (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)Cattle producers in northern and central Minnesota are increasingly dealing with unwelcome interactions with wolves on their property bringing concerns of cattle losses.“Man, it’s awful. And it’s the same thing, some guys, you just get sick of it. You lose 10 calves, you lose your profitability,” said Jake Thompson, president of the Minnesota State Cattlemen’s Association, of the reports of wolves on cattle operations.The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources estimated the state’s wolf population at 2,691 from about 500 packs in 2022.“We have major issues in...

Skywatch: Bring in 2024 in a stellar way

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:44 GMT

I hope you had a great Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year. I hope you enjoyed the full moon this past week. At least for me it really adds to the holiday magic, especially if you can enjoy it in a forested countryside. I love seeing moonlight bathing the tops of evergreen trees.As we say goodbye to 2023 and usher in 2024, the moon is on the wane, making it easier to appreciate the bright winter stars and constellations, especially in and around the mighty constellation Orion rising in the early evening eastern sky. The brightest of the stars in the winter sky right now is actually the mighty planet Jupiter. With even a small telescope or a nice pair of binoculars, you can easily resolve the disk of the planet that’s so large over a thousand Earths could fit inside this giant ball of mainly hydrogen gas. You might even spot some of Jupiter’s cloud bands of methane, ammonia and other gases. You’ll surely see up to four of Jupiter’s largest moons, resembling ...

Here are 9 stellar Minnesota-based mysteries published in 2023

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:44 GMT

It’s been a stellar year for Minnesota mystery writers. So many good thrillers from good writers were published that it was impossible to get to all of them. Before we end the year, here’s a roundup of some Minnesota-based mysteries you have to put on your 2024 TBR list. (There’s also one set in Wisconsin.)“Death in the Wolf Moon”: by Jennifer LeClair (Fog Harbor Press, $18.99)(Courtesy of Fog Harbor Press)LeClair, who also writes the Windjammer series, brings back Chief Deputy Claude Renard, first introduced in “Death in the Blood Moon,” He grew up on the Ojibwe reservation on East Portage Bay and “the vast and ancient heart of Gichi-gami beats within him.” The Northern Arts Folk School is holding is annual coffin-making class. When one of the students is found dead in his unfinished coffin, Renard investigates and finds that the victim, relatively new to Grand Marais, has already made enemies. Why did the victim have a history ...

After 42 years, Gammelgården Museum’s ‘memory carer’ is stepping down — but not away

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:44 GMT

Only a few months before retiring as director of the Gammelgården Museum in Scandia, Lynne Blomstrand Moratzka accepted a momentous gift to the museum: a dala painting by Swedish folk-art painter Birgitta Hedengren.One of Moratzka’s responsibilities is to evaluate possible donations to the museum’s collection. She knew its value immediately. “It’s the most fabulous piece,” she said. “It will absolutely knock your socks off.”The story of how Hedengren’s painting, “The Queen of Sheba Comes to the Court of King Solomon,” ended up at Gammelgården is a saga that began in 1984.That’s when Hedengren came to Minnesota from Sweden with famed Swedish artist Bengt Engman to work on the dining-room frieze at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis.“While she was here, she stayed with her cousin for room and board and whatnot,” Moratzka said. “In gratitude, she gave her this painting when she left, and the family has had it ever since.”After Hedengren’s cousin died, her husband called Mora...

Four St. Paul City Council members say goodbye. Here’s what makes them proud.

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:44 GMT

It was 2011, and Amy Brendmoen — then a marketing director for the Children’s Home Society & Family Services in St. Paul — had her sights set on joining the St. Paul City Council. Her well-organized campaign unseated two-term council member Lee Helgen by less than a percentage point — 50.18% to 49.2% — a total of 36 votes.Even more bruising battles and unexpected challenges lay ahead, including a pandemic, racially tinged riots following the May 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, tough debate over rent control, a $15 minimum wage and more than one election fight.The council would also help the city navigate construction of the Green Line light rail, CHS Field, Allianz Field, Highland Bridge and the North End Community Center, among other key projects that unfolded during her tenure.After 12 years in the trenches of City Hall politics, including six years as council president, Brendmoen chose not to run for re-election this year, opening the ...