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DEA chief faces probe into ‘swampy’ hires, no-bid contracts

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:32 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal watchdog is investigating whether the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration under chief Anne Milgram improperly awarded millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to hire her past associates, people familiar with the probe told The Associated Press.Among the contract spending under scrutiny by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General is $4.7 million for “strategic planning and communication” to hire people Milgram knew from her days as New Jersey’s attorney general and as a New York University law professor – at costs far exceeding pay for government officials. At least a dozen people have been hired under such contracts, including some in Milgram’s inner circle handling intelligence, data analytics, community outreach and public relations — work often requiring security clearances and traditionally done by DEA’s own 9,000-person workforce.Also under scrutiny is $1.4 million to a Washington law firm for a recent review of the DEA’s scandal-plagued...

Germany tries to reassure homeowners on heating overhaul

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:32 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — The German government sought Wednesday to reassure homeowners that plans to phase out gas or oil heating systems will provide generous transition periods and take into account hardship cases.Almost a third of the energy consumed in Germany goes toward heating and warm water, prompting the government to draft a bill that would require all new heating systems installed from next year to use at least 65% renewable energy. From 2045, all fossil fuel heatings would be banned as part of Germany’s target to become “climate neutral” by then.The proposal has drawn criticism from opposition parties who claim it will cost homeowners too much, but Housing Minister Klara Geywitz said the bill won’t force anyone to sell their home because they can’t afford the requirements.If approved by lawmakers, the bill would provide significant subsidies for those switching to greener heating systems — such as electric heat pumps — and the savings for homeowners who don’...

French publisher asks UK police to cease investigation

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:32 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A French publisher called on British police Wednesday to cease their investigation of an employee who it said was arrested on his way to the London Book Fair and questioned for hours about French President Emmanuel Macron’s government and his pension reforms that sparked months of protests.Ernest Moret, foreign rights manager at Editions La Fabrique, was freed Tuesday but had his phone and work computer seized by police and was told to return to the U.K. in four weeks, the publisher said. Circumstances over his arrest remained unclear two days after Moret was detained and questioned after arriving at St. Pancras railway station on Monday night from Paris.London’s Metropolitan Police wouldn’t name Moret or provide information about why he was stopped. But a police spokesperson said a 28-year-old man stopped at the train station when Moret arrived was interviewed by port officers under a law that allows them to question someone who may be involved in terroris...

Long after heyday, soda fountain pharmacies still got fizz

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:32 GMT

KENOVA, W.Va. (AP) — The jukebox plays Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” as Malli Jarrett and Nathaniel Fornash take turns at the Griffith & Feil Drug food counter preparing old-fashioned, soda-fountain phosphate drinks.Soda fountains like this were hugely popular a century ago. Often located in pharmacies, they were a gathering spot during Prohibition when bars shut down. But over the past half century, their numbers fizzled, relegating soda fountains to the scrapbooks of U.S. history. In West Virginia, Ric Griffith is keeping the tradition going. His 131-year-old business is a Norman Rockwell scene and time-travel tourism all wrapped into one.“When you had a soda fountain, people would stay longer, they’d sit down and they’d share stories,” Griffith said. “It would not become the place where you grabbed lunch. It was a place where you had an experience.”Griffith and his daughter, Heidi, are pharmacists whose pharmacy staff works in the back. Up front, the restaurant off...

Maradona’s medical team on trial in former great’s death

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:32 GMT

BUENOS AIRES (AP) — Eight health care professionals will stand trial in the death of soccer great Diego Maradona in 2020, an Argentine court has ruled.The date of the proceedings has yet to be set, but they are unlikely to begin before next year, the court said Tuesday.A medical board’s report previously given to prosecutors concluded that Maradona was in agony for more than 12 hours, did not receive adequate treatment and could still be alive if he had been properly hospitalized.Three judges from an appeals court in San Isidro, outside Buenos Aires, confirmed the charges brought by prosecutors of homicide by negligence against the members of Maradona’s medical team.Neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque and psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov are accused of failing in their care for Maradona. Maradona’s medical team also included psychologist Carlos Díaz, doctors Nancy Forlini and Pedro Di Spagna, nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni and nurses Ricardo Almirón and Dahiana Madrid.Maradona, who won t...

Northern Ireland’s DUP resists pressure to end govt boycott

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:32 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Northern Ireland’s politicians have got the message. Some of them don’t like it. Unionist lawmakers have bristled as, with a united voice, leaders of the U.K., the EU and two U.S. presidents urged them to restore the mothballed Belfast government and reap the reward of more economic investment in Northern Ireland.“There can be no prosperity without peace, and there can be no peace without prosperity,” U.S. trade envoy Joe Kennedy III told a conference in Belfast on Wednesday.It was the latest in a series of messages pressing the Democratic Unionist Party to end a political crisis that is clouding 25th anniversary commemorations for the 1998 Good Friday peace accord that ended three decades of sectarian bloodshed known as “The Troubles.”The semi-autonomous Belfast government has been suspended since the DUP — which wants to keep Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom — walked out more than a year ago to protest a post-Brexit customs border between Northern Ireland ...

Mississauga to vote today on whether to lift ban on legal cannabis stores

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:32 GMT

Mississauga city council will vote Wednesday on whether to end the city’s ban on legal cannabis stores.The city was one of dozens of municipalities to bar retail cannabis stores from their communities when legalization came into effect in 2018.There’s now growing concern over the increase in illegal pot shops. The city continues to be disproportionately served by the illegal market compared to communities that opted in, according to data from the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS), the province’s wholesaler for legal retailers.A staff report recommends ending the ban, but at last weeks general committee meeting about half of councillors who spoke about the issue were not in support of the city lifting the ban. Those who voted against say they’re concerned about the placement of stores and claim residents have not been given enough time to offer input.Mayor Bonnie Crombie said she had originally been concerned that municipalities have no real control over where legal cann...

Arizona boy hospitalized twice before death in state care

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:32 GMT

A 9-year-old boy who died last year while in the care of Arizona’s child welfare agency was hospitalized twice for a life-threatening diabetes complication in the weeks leading up to his death, according to an autopsy report released this month.The state took Jakob Blodgett into its custody on Dec. 9 after his father, Richard Blodgett, was arrested on suspicion of drug possession. Before the end of the year, Jakob was dead.The Maricopa County medical examiner’s report listed the boy’s cause of death as complications of Type 1 diabetes, including the serious complication known as ketoacidosis. The manner of death was listed as natural.Blodgett, 47, has said his son was diagnosed with diabetes as a toddler, meaning his body couldn’t produce enough insulin to survive.Blodgett, who already had a drug case pending when he was arrested, remains in custody in Holbrook, about three hours outside of Phoenix. In a message sent Monday night from the facility, he said he has been st...

Maine shooter had conviction prohibiting gun possession

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:32 GMT

BOWDOIN, Maine (AP) — A Maine man who police say killed four people in a home and then shot three others randomly on a busy highway had a criminal history that should have prevented him from legally possessing a gun, according to state records.The shootings in Maine began in the small town of Bowdoin, where four people were killed Tuesday. Then a chaotic scene developed in which shots were fired at vehicles on an interstate highway over 20 miles away in the community of Yarmouth, police said. Three people were shot there, and one remained in critical condition Wednesday.“This is an active investigation with a lot of moving parts,” Shannon Moss, state police spokesperson, said Wednesday.The gunman, identified as Joseph Eaton, 34, of Bowdoin, was charged with four counts of murder but was not immediately charged in the highway shootings, she said. He was jailed while awaiting a court appearance. It was unclear if he had an attorney to speak on his behalf, a jail official s...

Stock market today: Wall Street slips, erasing gain for week

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:14:32 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is slipping Wednesday following mixed earnings reports from big U.S. companies and another signal that inflation remains painfully hot around the world.The S&P 500 was 0.5% lower in early trading, threatening to erase the gain it’s built so far this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 141 points, or 0.4%, at 33,835, as of 9:45 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% lower. The Nasdaq was lagging the market as high-growth and tech stocks had some of the market’s sharper losses. They were hurt in part by higher yields in the bond market, which rose after a report showed U.K. inflation remained above 10% for a seventh straight month. Central banks around the world have been raising rates at a furious pace for more than a year, and the wide expectation is for the Federal Reserve to raise short-term U.S. rates again at its meeting next month. High rates can stifle inflation, but only by slowing the entire economy, raising the ris...