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Death toll climbs to 7 in Pennsylvania candy factory explosion as all missing individuals are accounted for, officials say

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:44:31 GMT

(CNN) — Two additional bodies have been found by search and rescue teams working to locate missing individuals after the explosion of an eastern Pennsylvania candy factory last week, raising the incident’s death toll to seven people, officials said Sunday.“We do believe them to be the remaining presumptive missing individuals,” Wayne Holben, Chief of the West Reading Police Department, said at a news conference.Now that all missing individuals have been accounted for, the focus will shift to an investigation of the explosion, West Reading Mayor Samantha Kaag said.The explosion erupted shortly before 5 p.m. Friday, leveling the R.M. Palmer Co. facility and stunning West Reading — a community of about 4,500 people that has been home to the chocolatier’s operation for more than six decades.Three buildings surrounding the factory will be condemned as a precaution, Kaag said. She explained that the buildings need to be assessed by structural ...

Healey appoints Phillip Eng to lead embattled MBTA

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:44:31 GMT

Gov. Maura Healey has named a new GM for the MBTA, appointing Phillip Eng, a former top executive at New York’s transit authority, to lead the embattled agency.“Phil Eng is the proven leader the MBTA needs to improve safety and reliability across the system and restore the public’s trust,” said Healey in the Monday morning announcement. “He understands that a functioning transportation system is essential to a functioning economy, and he has a track record of taking the reins of struggling public transit systems and dramatically improving service. He also takes a collaborative approach to his work and maintains open lines of communication with customers, workers, businesses, local officials and communities.”For his part, Eng acknowledged it’s time for a change at the T.“It’s time for a new way of doing business at the MBTA. As an engineer, a transportation professional for 40 years, and a commuter myself, I’m laser focused on finding innovative solutions to complex probl...

New Maryland provider opening in post-Roe ‘abortion desert’

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:44:31 GMT

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A new abortion provider is opening this year in Democratic-controlled Maryland — just across from deeply conservative West Virginia, where state lawmakers recently passed a near-total abortion ban.The Women’s Health Center of Maryland in Cumberland, roughly 5 miles (8 kilometers) from West Virginia, will open its doors in June — a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections — to provide abortions to patients across central Appalachia, a region clinic operators say is an “abortion desert.” “Hours in any direction, there are no other abortion providers here — it’s smack dab in the middle of an absolute abortion desert, and that’s by design,” said Katie Quiñonez, executive director of the Charleston-based Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, the state’s lone abortion clinic until it was forced to stop the procedures after legislators in September passed a ban with narrow exemptions.The Cumberland clinic will be...

Zelenskyy meets with UN atomic agency chief in Ukraine

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:44:31 GMT

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with U.N. atomic energy chief Rafael Mariano Grossi in southern Ukraine on Monday.The two discussed the precarious situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which has lost several of its power transmission cables during the conflict and on multiple occasions has had to switch to emergency diesel generators.Grossi, who is director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, plans to visit the plant, which is held by Russian forces, this week.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Two people were killed and 29 wounded Monday when Russian forces shelled the Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, in the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region, local officials said.Video footage of the aftermath showed damaged residential buildings, debris in the streets and vehicles on fire.Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as “terrorism....

Saudi Aramco to invest billions in Chinese petrochemicals

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:44:31 GMT

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant Aramco will invest billions of dollars in China’s downstream petrochemicals industry, including the construction of a new refinery, the company said in deals announced Sunday and Monday.The announcements came as the company posted a record profit of more than $160 billion in 2022 and as Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally, has developed closer ties with Beijing in recent years. Aramco will acquire a 10% interest in China’s Rongsheng Petrochemical Co. Ltd,, a purchase valued at $3.6 billion. Under a long-term sales agreement, Aramco will supply 480,000 barrels per day to Rongsheng affiliate Zhejiang Pettroleum and Chemical Co. Ltd., which owns and operates China’s largest refining and chemicals complex.“This announcement demonstrates Aramco’s long-term commitment to China and belief in the fundamentals of the Chinese petrochemicals sector,” Aramco executive vice president Mohammed Al Qahtani...

Banks lead stock gains after First Citizens buys SVB assets

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:44:31 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are rising on Wall Street Monday as battered bank stocks show more strength, at least for now. The S&P 500 was 0.6% higher in early trading Monday. The Dow and the Nasdaq composite also rose. Markets have been in turmoil following the second-and third-largest U.S. bank failures in history earlier this month. Investors have been hunting for what banks could be next to fall as the system creaks under the pressure of much higher interest rates. First Citizens’ stock soared after saying it would buy most of Silicon Valley Bank, whose failure sparked the industry’s furor earlier this month. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.U.S. futures shot higher early Monday, with bank stocks mostly gaining after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said it had agreed to the sale of troubled Silicon Valley Bank to North Carolina-based First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 each climbed 0....

Report: Queen Elizabeth II asked Germany for pricey horses

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:44:31 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Two horses fit for a queen, please.That’s what Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II had asked for as a gift during her state visit to Germany in 1978, weekly Der Spiegel reported Monday.The expensive present raised eyebrows among German bureaucrats at the time, who noted that the cost of the Holsteiner and Gray horses was more than for any other offering made to a visiting head of state since the end of World War II.Nevertheless, Germany’s then-President Walter Scheel approved the gift in the interests of good bilateral relations, Der Spiegel reported citing previously confidential archive papers.The magazine reported that the papers also noted the late monarch’s aperitif preferences — gin and tonic — and dislike of helicopters.Records showed that the British embassy had concerns about possible protests if Elizabeth visited Dresden during her trip in 1992. In the end she did attend a church service and was largely welcomed by locals in the city that was...

Israeli diplomats in Canada join strike against Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:44:31 GMT

OTTAWA — Israeli diplomats in Canada have joined a strike against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary.Israeli Embassy spokesman Eli Lipshitz confirmed that mission in Ottawa is closed in accordance with a decision by Israel’s largest trade union, Histadrut.The consulates in Toronto and Montreal are also closed and on strike.“In accordance with the decision of the labour union (in) Israel, that civil servants are unionized under, all missions abroad are currently on strike and are closed,” Lipshitz said in a statement.Histadrut spokesman Yaniv Levy says missions are providing only emergency services.Workers from across a range of fields went on strike Monday in a bid to ramp up pressure on Netanyahu to scrap the overhaul plan.The planned overhaul has plunged Israel into one of its worst domestic crises. Departing flights from the country’s main international airport have been grounded, universities have shut their...

Humza Yousaf elected as Scottish National Party’s new leader

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:44:31 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Scotland’s governing Scottish National Party elected Humza Yousaf as its new leader on Monday after a bruising five-week contest that exposed deep fractures within the pro-independence movement.The 37-year-old son of South Asian immigrants is set to become the first person of color to serve as Scotland’s first minister.Yousaf, who currently is Scotland’s health minister, beat two other Scottish lawmakers in a contest to replace First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. She unexpectedly stepped down last month after eight years as leader of the party and of Scotland’s semi-autonomous government.Yousaf, who is due to be confirmed as first minister by Scottish lawmakers on Tuesday, faces the challenge of uniting the SNP and reenergizing its campaign for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom.“Just as I will lead the SNP in the interests of all party members, not just those who voted for me, so I will lead Scotland in the interests of all our citizens whatever your political ...

Celebrity birthdays for the week of April 2-8

Published Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:44:31 GMT

Celebrity birthdays for the week of April 2-8:April 2: Actor Linda Hunt is 78. Actor Sam Anderson (“Lost,” ″ER,” ″Perfect Strangers”) is 76. Singer Emmylou Harris is 76. Actor Pamela Reed is 74. Drummer Dave Robinson of The Cars is 74. Country singer Buddy Jewell is 62. Actor Christopher Meloni (“Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”) is 62. Singer Keren Woodward of Bananarama is 62. Country singer Billy Dean is 61. Actor Clark Gregg (“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” ″The New Adventures of Old Christine”) is 61. Actor Jana Marie Hupp (“Ed”) is 59. Guitarist Greg Camp (Smash Mouth) is 56. Guitarist Tony Fredianelli (Third Eye Blind) is 54. Actor Roselyn Sanchez (TV’s “Grand Hotel,” ″Without a Trace”) is 50. Actor Pedro Pascal (“Game of Thrones”) is 48. Actor Adam Rodriguez (“Criminal Minds,” ″CSI: Miami”) is 48. Actor Michael Fassbender (“Shame,” ″Inglourious Basterds”) is 46. Keyboardist Jesse Carmichael of Maroon 5 is 44. Actor Bethany Joy Lenz (formerly Galeotti) (“One Tree Hill”...