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Biden plans 4 fundraisers in San Francisco area as he revs up his 2024 campaign

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:28 GMT

By JOSH BOAK and ZEKE MILLER (Associated Press)WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden ramps up his reelection effort this week with four fundraisers in the San Francisco area, as his campaign builds up its coffers and lays strategic foundations for 2024.In the back half of June, Biden’s campaign will have more than 20 fundraisers involving the president, Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, according to a person involved in Biden’s travel plans who insisted on anonymity to discuss the schedule.More than half of the fundraisers are with the Democratic president, who will also be traveling to New York, Maryland and Illinois. Biden hit the themes of his campaign at a Friday fundraising event in Connecticut, saying his goal is to do more to tell voters about his legislative accomplishments with infrastructure, computer chip production and programs for responding to climate change, among other policies.“There̵...

Glenview pediatric patient serves Chicago Cubs as honorary bat girl: ‘One of the best days of our life’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:28 GMT

Last February, 10-year-old Mary Ahern fell seriously ill. The Glenview fourth grader was rushed to urgent care and then Advocate Children’s Hospital in Park Ridge, where she was diagnosed with life-threatening diabetic ketoacidosis and Type 1 diabetes.After four long nights in the PICU, Ahern was released from the hospital and embarked on a lifelong journey of learning to manage and live with a serious medical condition. Type 1 diabetes patients have a pancreas which makes little to no insulin, which can cause high or low blood sugar readings that can damage to the body and cause the more serious complications associated with the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“We had no idea and just overnight, we found out she was diabetic and it just kind of changes everything,” Anne Ahern, Mary’s mother, said. “It’s a disease that’s manageable but that you have to manage all day, every day.”In the last four mon...

Study highlights pregnancy-related deaths, domestic violence link

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:28 GMT

Roughly a third of pregnancy-associated deaths in Connecticut involved individuals who had experienced intimate partner violence at some point during their lives, according to a study released Wednesday by the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence that sheds new light on missed opportunities for intervention.The first-of-its-kind analysis of Connecticut maternal mortality data from 2015 to 2021 determined that among the 102 deaths that occurred during pregnancy or within one year after the end of pregnancy, 33 of the deceased had experienced intimate partner violence or IPV.Of those who died, eight endured abuse during pregnancy, nine encountered the abuse postpartum, and five faced abuse during both periods — yet the CCADV found that only one of these 22 individuals was referred to domestic violence services, despite the fact that 64% of the women screened positive for IPV in health care settings, some as many as five times.CCADV Director of Health Professional Outreach A...

Native women’s association says high school students should be taught about genocide

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:28 GMT

OTTAWA — The Native Women’s Association of Canada says the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples should be part of Canadian high school curriculums, and the organization has developed a graphic guide to help teach students about it.The group’s CEO Lynne Groulx says she sees a lack of political will when it comes to implementing the 231 calls for justice that came out of the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. She says in the four years since those calls were made, only two of them have been implemented.The group developed an easy-to-read graphic booklet in the hopes it would spur politicians into action and better educate the next generation of Canadians.The organization says it plans to send the booklet to each member of Parliament as well as to provincial ministers of education.The author of the booklet, lawyer Fannie Lafontaine, says many don’t recognize the treatment of Indigenous populations as a genocide because they assoc...

Offshore wind foes in New Jersey gathering force legally and politically

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:28 GMT

OCEAN CITY, N.J. (AP) — Opponents of offshore wind energy projects in New Jersey are gathering force legally and politically as they seek to snuff out the nascent industry.Within the last week, three residents groups sued New Jersey over a key approval of its first planned wind farm; the research arm of Congress agreed to investigate the impact of offshore wind on the environment and other areas; and lawmakers in two counties most heavily impacted by wind farms stepped up their efforts to block the projects.Save Long Beach Island, Defend Brigantine Beach, and Protect Our Coast NJ filed an appeal Friday in state Superior Court of New Jersey’s determination that the Ocean Wind I project is consistent with state coastal management rules.The project is New Jersey’s first, and a U.S. subsidiary of Danish wind developer Orsted could begin construction this year if remaining approvals are obtained. The appeal follows a decision by the investigative arm of Congress, the Congress...

More than 1 million people are dropped from Medicaid as states start a post-pandemic purge of rolls

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:28 GMT

More than 1 million people have been dropped from Medicaid in the past couple months as some states moved swiftly to halt health care coverage following the end of the coronavirus pandemic. Most got dropped for not filling out paperwork.Though the eligibility review is required by the federal government, President’s Joe Biden’s administration isn’t too pleased at how efficiently some other states are accomplishing the task. “Pushing through things and rushing it will lead to eligible people — kids and families — losing coverage for some period of time,” Daniel Tsai, a top federal Medicaid official recently told reporters.Already, about 1.5 million people have been removed from Medicaid in more than two dozen states that started the process in April or May, according to publicly available reports and data obtained by The Associated Press. Florida has dropped several hundred thousand people, by far the most among states. The drop rate also has been particularly high in other states. F...

New Jersey casinos, tracks and partners won $471M in May, up 9.4%, but in-person winnings still lag

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:28 GMT

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey’s casinos, horse tracks that take sports bets and the online partners of both types of gambling won nearly $471 million in May, up 9.4% from a year earlier according to figures released Monday by state gambling regulators.But the amount of money won from in-person gamblers, which the casinos consider to be their key metric, was down 2.4% from a year ago, to $227.3 million.And only three of the nine casinos — Borgata, Hard Rock and Ocean — won more money from in-person gamblers this May than they did in May 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic hit.Jane Bokunewicz, director of the Lloyd Levenson Institute at Stockton University, which studies the Atlantic City gambling market, said that although overall in-person gambling revenue was down in May, it was still higher than it was in May 2019.“This is the continuation of a return to pre-pandemic levels, but not the amount of growth many may have hoped to see from this sector,” she said. “Traditional...

Police seek suspect in subway assault, indecent act directed at teen girl

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:28 GMT

Toronto police are looking for help identifying a man accused of assaulting a teen girl and performing an indecent act at Wilson Subway station last week.Police were called to the station on Monday at around 5:04 p.m. after reports that a man approached a 14-year-old girl and attempted to grab her face on a southbound Yonge-University train.Police say the man “then committed indecent acts and gestures.”The man exited the tain at Yorkdale Station.He’s described as 50 to 60 years old around five foot nine to five foot ten with a thin build.Police say he’s bald, had a dark coloured eye and wearing a black jacket, black pants and black shoes and appeared to be gesturing “sign language.”Police are seeking this man in connection to an alleged assault on a teen girl at Wilson Station on Monday, June, 12, 2023. Toronto police

Mexico’s president appoints young woman to top Cabinet post

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:28 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president announced Monday the appointment of a 35-year-old lawyer as interior secretary, considered the country’s top Cabinet post. Luisa María Alcalde previously served as secretary of labor. In that post, she oversaw the implementation of reforms meant to ensure fair and transparent voting procedures and free organizing in Mexico’s corruption-riddled union sector.Alcalde will become the second woman to be interior secretary, which is the Mexican government’s top domestic affairs position.Early in his administration, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador named Olga Sánchez Cordero to the post, but she left to return to the Senate. Alcalde was appointed to replace Adán Augusto López, who resigned as interior secretary last week in order to compete in the primary race for the 2024 presidential nomination of López Obrador’s Morena party.The Morena party required all primary candidates to resign their official posts by last week, to avoid the ap...

Singer Bebe Rexha says she’s OK after being hit in the face on stage by thrown phone

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:28 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Pop star Bebe Rexha was hit in the face and injured by a cellphone hurled from the audience at a hometown show in New York City Sunday night, and a man was arrested, police said. The Grammy-nominated, multiplatinum-selling singer-songwriter was taken to a hospital after the phone hit her, police said. A bruise and a bandage were visible above her left eye in social media posts she made Monday.“I’m good, yeah, I’m feelin’ alright,” she sang in a TikTok video, taking a line from “I’m Good (Blue),” her recent hit with DJ David Guetta. Rexha, 33, was on stage at Pier 17, a rooftop venue in Manhattan, when the phone was thrown, police said. Video posted on social media showed the phone ricocheting off the artist’s head, and then Rexha grabbing her face and sinking to her knees. A 27-year-old New Jersey man was awaiting arraignment Monday after being arrested on an assault charge. There was no immediate information on whether he had a lawyer w...