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Academy of Country Music Awards ready to party with Dolly Parton, Garth Brooks as hosts

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:08:59 GMT

FRISCO, Texas (AP) — It’ll be a new experience for Garth Brooks when he steps onto the stage Thursday at the Academy of Country Music Awards — it’s his first time hosting an awards show.Co-host Dolly Parton will be there to help him out if he needs it — not that either showed any worry in a recent interview. “We’ve got a script that will go by just for guidance and time for the show, but I doubt very seriously that we’ll stick to it too close,” Parton said.“It’s fun for me as a fan because I’ve always loved this woman from distance, but we’ve never got to work like this before. So trust me, … whether the show goes on the air or not, I’m having the best time on the planet,” Brooks said.Singer-songwriter HARDY enters Thursday’s show as the leading nominee, up for seven trophies including two in the song of the year category. One of the songs he’s up for is “Wait in the Truck,” his duet with Lainey Wilson, who is second leading nominee. He’s also a n...

Figuring out Texas: From guns to immigration, here’s how one state’s challenges echo the country’s

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:08:59 GMT

HOUSTON (AP) — Thirteen people dead in two mass shootings. Eight immigrants killed when an SUV slams into a crowded bus stop. The likely approval of legislation that would let the Republican governor overturn elections in the most populous county, a Democratic stronghold. All in the past two weeks.These issues and the forces behind them — anger and guns, immigration turmoil, deep political divisions about what democracy means — are playing out across American life in various ways. But in Texas, with its immense size and a population that grows by more than 1,000 people a day, the stage is far bigger — and often louder.It’s enough to make even the proudest Texan wrestle with how he sees the state. “This is out of control right now,” said Jay Leeson, an illustrator and cartoonist who lives in Lubbock, a city in the Texas High Plains. He describes himself as a “conservative West Texan” whose kids “know how to handle guns, know how to ride horses, know how to do all the Texas thin...

As public health emergency ends, pandemic-era support programs have already been fading away

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:08:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The formal end of the national Public Health Emergency on Thursday is largely a symbolic and psychological step, representing the country’s formal emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic. But behind the scenes, several core aspects of America’s pandemic-era emergency safety net are also coming to a close, from extra food assistance to automatic re-enrollment in Medicaid. While these measures were always designed to be temporary, their expiration is inevitably producing hardship and confusion.“People are starting to get their jobs back, but it’s still not all the way back and everything is more expensive than before the pandemic,” said Radha Muthiah, president of the Capital Area Food Bank. “The people we serve always seem to be playing catch-up.”Safety net programs gave Americans a lifeline during the height of the pandemic. The child tax credit was increased,unemployment benefits and food assistance were expanded, and a federal moratorium on eviction kept peopl...

5.4 magnitude earthquake near Tokyo causes minor injuries, damage

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:08:59 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — An earthquake shook Japan’s capital, Tokyo, and surrounding areas on Thursday, injuring several people and causing minor damage, officials and media said.The quake had a 5.4 magnitude and its epicenter was in Chiba prefecture, southeast of Tokyo, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. No tsunami warning was issued.Four people were hurt, including a man who was hit by a falling ceiling light, according to Japan’s Kyodo news agency, and some rail service was canceled or delayed.Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone nations, and a massive 2011 quake and subsequent tsunami killed thousands and caused a cataclysmic meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.The Associated Press

House GOP points to migration surge as lawmakers advance asylum restrictions, border wall

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:08:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are seeking Thursday to pass a sweeping bill to build more border wall and impose new restrictions on asylum seekers, creating a hardline counter to President Joe Biden’s policies just as migrants are amassing along the border with the end of pandemic restrictions.The bill has virtually no chance of becoming law. Democrats, who have a narrow hold on the Senate, have decried the aggressive measures in the bill as “cruel” and “anti-immigrant,” and Biden has already promised he would veto it.But the House GOP pointedly scheduled the vote for the same day as the expiration of Title 42, a public health emergency rule that allowed border authorities to quickly return many migrants who crossed the border illegally. Biden has conceded that the U.S.-Mexico border will be “chaotic for a while” as migrants weigh whether to cross and U.S. officials use a new set of policies that aim to clamp down on illegal immigration while offering more legal pa...

Expel George Santos? GOP leaders aren’t ready to take that step

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:08:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Protecting a narrow, four-vote majority, Republican leaders in the House are making clear that they intend to let the legal process play out with New York Rep. George Santos before they take steps to force his resignation or expel him.The freshman congressman was accused Wednesday by federal prosecutors of embezzling money from his campaign, falsely receiving unemployment funds and lying to Congress about his finances and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Santos pleaded not guilty.Republican leaders, who for months have faced mounting questions about Santos after most of his campaign biography was exposed as a lie, were unmoved and brushed aside calls — including from some colleagues — that they take immediate action to push Santos out of Congress.“In America, there’s a presumption of innocence. But they’re serious charges. He’s going to have to go through the legal process,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Scalise was seconde...

Free speech, racial equity battles play out on Wisconsin campuses

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:08:59 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The fight over racial equity and free speech on Wisconsin college campuses is intensifying, mirroring a national battle as Republicans work to close campus diversity offices and demand students and faculty treat conservative speakers with respect.In just the past two weeks, the state’s top Republican announced a push to defund the University of Wisconsin System’s diversity efforts — a move the Democratic governor lambasted as ridiculous. A student from UW-Madison posted racial slurs online, triggering bitter protests but no announced discipline. And a state medical college canceled a diversity symposium featuring Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson out of concerns the discussion would be too disruptive, resulting in cries of bias from conservatives.Amid that backdrop, Republican legislative leaders are set to hold a hearing Thursday with only invited speakers to discuss “how the lack of free speech and intellectual diversity on college campuses affects the quality ...

National Arts Centre hopeful for uninterrupted new season after years of disruption

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:08:59 GMT

TORONTO — The National Arts Centre has revealed its first full slate of new programming since 2019, betting that years of disruptions are no more.NAC’s executive director of communications Annabelle Cloutier says the upcoming orchestra, popular music, dance and theatre programs reflect a new optimism following four seasons of uncertainty.Highlights of the 2023/2024 lineup include the Newfoundland-set Sept. 11 musical “Come From Away” from Aug. 14 to Sept. 1, 2024, and Robert Lepage’s “Le projet Riopelle” from Dec. 14 to 16, 2023, billed as an exploration of the work and life of artist Jean Paul Riopelle. COVID-19 cases continued to upend shows as recently as March when the page-to-stage adaptation of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s book “Fall On Your Knees” had to scrap seven Ottawa shows due to infections among actors and crew.During the season before that, truck convoy protests that seized downtown Ottawa forced NAC to close Jan. 28 to Feb. 19, 2022, and Cloutier says that resulted in the c...

Colorado legislative session reinforces once-purple state’s Democratic shift

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:08:59 GMT

DENVER (AP) — As Colorado House lawmakers churned through final votes during the last night of this year’s session, Republicans stood up and marched out of the chamber before the Democratic speaker could gavel it to a close — a defiant act meant to show how sidelined and silenced they felt. The political theater this week was the culmination of a 120-day session that proved to be the latest illustration of the leftward shift in what was long a battleground state, leaving Republicans scrambling to adjust to their unfamiliarly weak position and surfacing internal rifts among Democrats over just how progressive Colorado should be. The shift has been partly driven by migration to Colorado and the transformation of white, college-educated voters — a disproportionate share of the state’s electorate — into Democratic supporters during the Trump era. The last Republican presidential candidate that Colorado voters backed was George W. Bush in 2004. The current governor, both U.S....

ASEAN leader acknowledges no progress toward ending Myanmar’s deadly civil strife

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:08:59 GMT

LABUAN BAJO, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian President Joko Widodo somberly acknowledged to fellow Southeast Asian leaders Thursday that no progress has been made to end the civil strife gripping Myanmar and renewed a call for an end to the violence, including a recent airstrike a rights group called an “apparent war crime.”“I have to be honest,” Widodo told fellow leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on the final day of their two-day summit in the Indonesian harbor town of Labuan Bajo. “There has been no significant progress in the implementation of the five-point consensus.”ASEAN’s chairperson this year, Widodo was referring to a peace plan forged by the 10-nation bloc with Myanmar’s top general in 2021 that called for an immediate end to the violence and dialogue among contending parties to be brokered through an ASEAN special envoy.Myanmar’s military-led government refused to take steps to enforce the plan, prompting ASEAN leaders to exclude the co...