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Poland agrees to let Ukrainian food shipments resume across its territory

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:44:12 GMT

Poland struck a compromise on Tuesday to resume the transit of Ukrainian farm products across its territory to other countries, de-escalating a row that blew up last weekend when Warsaw slapped a unilateral ban on all food imports.The Polish ban last Saturday came in response to protests by farmers hit by a supply glut that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and subsequent blockade of the Black Sea export route. Hungary and Slovakia quickly followed suit, while Bulgaria and Romania have been considering similar measures as well. “We managed to come up with mechanisms to ensure that not a single ton [of Ukrainian products] will stay in Poland, that the goods will be transported through Poland … further into Europe or to Polish ports on the Baltic Sea,” Agriculture Minister Robert Telus told a press conference after talks with Ukrainian officials in Warsaw. Telus said the transit restrictions would be lifted on Thursday night.The ...

How to affordably retire 10 years early

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:44:12 GMT

An online search for “early retirement” will yield millions of results, many of those about retirees who saved aggressively and exited the workforce before age 40.But most people have a more approachable target in mind: According to a new NerdWallet survey, Americans who aren’t yet retired but plan to retire say they plan to leave full-time work at age 57, on average. That still qualifies as early — it’s a decade before the full Social Security retirement age of 67 — but it’s achievable without making punishing cuts to your budget. Here are five steps you can take to hand in your notice 10 years early.1. Save moreThe earlier you want to retire, the more you need to save. For traditional retirement, experts generally recommend saving 10% to 15% of your pre-tax earnings. For example, let’s say you’re 22 and you make $40,000 a year. If you save 10% of your income, get a 6% average annual return on your investments and want to retire at age 67, you could leave the workforce with around ...

College baseball team makes a run for it after bus goes up in flames

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:44:12 GMT

A blown tire sparked a blaze on a bus transporting the Fisher College baseball team back home that sent the players and coaches running to safety faster than stealing a base.No injuries were reported in Sunday’s highway close call.Fisher College President Steve Rich and Fisher Falcons Head Baseball Coach Scott Dulin later thanked members of the White Marsh Volunteer Fire Department Station 20 in Baltimore County, Maryland for their quick response and hospitality.“The firefighters took care of our kids like they were family,” Dulin said. “We have to travel down there again in two weeks so my thought is to come back with some Fisher gear for the department which we will hand deliver to the firefighters as a show of thanks.”All 35 players and coaches got off the bus safely as flames spread throughout the vehicle.The team hung out with the firefighters at the station until a new bus could bring them home to the Boston campus.How the Fisher College bus looked after the fire w...

2 arrested in east end home invasion, 1 remains at large

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:44:12 GMT

Police have arrested two people and are seeking a third after an armed home invasion in the city’s east end.Police say it happened on March 20, 2023 and began when a female suspect befriended a male, going back to his apartment in the Elmer and Norway avenues area in The Beaches neighbourhood.Police say the woman eventually left, but returned with two men who were armed with a handgun and machete.The victim wisely fled the apartment.“A short time later, the three suspects fled the scene in a black sedan with dark tinted windows,” police said in a release.On April 16 two suspects, Draylon Taylor, 23, of Oshawa, and Sydney White, 22, of Ajax, were arrested and charged by Durham Regional Police officers.A third suspect remains at large.He’s described as a man in his 20s, around six foot two. On the day of the home invasion he was wearing a black jacket with a fur-lined hood, blue jeans, brown boots and orange gloves.Investigators say he was armed with a large ma...

Gunfire on Maine interstate injures 2; person in custody

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:44:12 GMT

YARMOUTH, Maine (AP) — Gunfire erupted Tuesday on heavily traveled Interstate 295 north of Maine’s largest city, injuring two people, one of them seriously, police said. One person was in custody.Witnesses told reporters they saw one person in handcuffs, and video showed a car with bullet holes in the windshield on a highway off-ramp. Police briefly ordered people in nearby neighborhoods to shelter in place, but authorities later announced there was no threat to the public.The gunfire erupted along the highway in Yarmouth, a community of 9,000 about 12 miles north of Portland, which I-295 connects to the state capital, Augusta.Two people were injured during the highway shooting, said Shannon Moss, a state police spokesperson. Traffic backed up on the interstate as police halted traffic, and state, county and local police canvassed the area, Moss said. Representatives for the Maine Department of Transportation said they closed the southbound side of I-295 in Yarmouth in late mo...

Auschwitz march held ahead of 80th Warsaw ghetto anniversary

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:44:12 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Thousands of people assembled Tuesday at the former site of Auschwitz for the March of the Living, a yearly Holocaust remembrance march that falls this year on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.Participants in the event included Holocaust survivors who lived through the agony of Auschwitz or one of the other death camps where Nazi Germany sought to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe, and came close to doing so.Some attendees, including people from Israel and the United States, came face to face for the first time with something that has long been part of their psyche: the watchtowers, remains of gas chambers and the huge piles of shoes, suitcases and other objects that the victims brought with them on their final journey.German forces established Auschwitz after they invaded and occupied Poland during World War II, and killed more than 1.1 million people there, most of them Jews but also Poles, Roma, Soviet p...

Supreme Court: New Jersey can quit mob-busting port agency

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:44:12 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court says New Jersey can withdraw from a commission created decades ago with New York to combat the mob’s influence at their joint port.The high court ruled unanimously Tuesday that the Garden State doesn’t need New York’s consent to withdraw from the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. The commission was created in 1953 when organized crime had infiltrated the port and was demanding payments from workers and shippers through extortion and violence.New Jersey lawmakers have said that changes in the industry, including the development of container shipping, have lessened the influence of organized crime at the port and reduced the need for the commission. The state says the commission has become “an impediment to economic growth.”“We hold that New Jersey may unilaterally withdraw from the Waterfront Commission Compact notwithstanding New York’s opposition,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court.The two-member commission — wi...

Former NFL defensive end Chris Smith dead at 31

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:44:12 GMT

CLEVELAND (AP) — Former NFL defensive end Chris Smith, who was touched by tragedy while he played for the Cleveland Browns, has died. He was 31.Smith’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, and the Browns confirmed his passing on Tuesday. The cause of death was not immediately known.“Rest in Peace Chris,” Rosenhaus wrote on Twitter. “Condolences to all his family, friends and loved ones. We will miss you.”Smith played for the XFL’s Seattle Sea Dragons this season. He previously spent eight seasons in the NFL with Jacksonville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Las Vegas and Houston.While Smith was with the Browns in 2019, his girlfriend, Petara Cordero, was killed when she was hit by a car after she exited the vehicle he was driving. Cordero was standing on the road’s shoulder when the vehicle driven by a 47-year-old woman smashed into the passenger side of Smith’s car.“Chris was one of the kindest players and people that I’ve ever met,” Browns All-Pro defensive end Myles Garrett said. “He was willing ...

Indiana Senate approves handgun training fund for teachers

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:44:12 GMT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana state Senators advanced a bill Tuesday that would make state funding available for teachers seeking firearms training, a move critics have said could increase the number of guns in school to the detriment of students.The 42-8 vote comes after this past weekend’s three-day National Rifle Association convention in Indianapolis, which fell on the second anniversary of a mass shooting in the city at a FedEx facility that killed nine people.The House bill first advanced in February, amid teachers’ objections that having additional guns in schools would worsen school safety. On Tuesday, two Democrats joined all Republican state Senators in voting for the bill.Supporters have said the 40 hours of optional training would help teachers learn how to defend themselves and students if needed, especially in situations with an active shooter. State law currently allows school districts to permit teachers to be armed, but no training is mandated. The propose...

Abortion foes urge justices to allow limits on abortion drug

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:44:12 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for anti-abortion doctors on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to allow restrictions to take effect on a drug used in the most common method of abortion in the United States, while a lawsuit continues.The justices are weighing a request from the Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, makers of the drug mifepristone, to keep on hold lower-court rulings restricting mifepristone’s use. The high court is expected to act in the fast-moving case from Texas by late Wednesday.Alliance Defending Freedom, representing doctors and medical groups in a challenge to Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug, argued in a court filing that the FDA “has stripped away every meaningful and necessary safeguard on chemical abortion, demonstrating callous disregard for women’s well-being, unborn life, and statutory limits.” The legal brief by the anti-abortion doctors called particular attention to what it termed “mail-order abortion,...