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Germany backs China’s aid bank despite Canada’s concerns

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:55 GMT

Germany said it will continue supporting a Chinese state-backed development bank despite G7 partner Canada’s decision to freeze ties due to Beijing’s influence.After meeting China’s Vice-Premier He Lifeng in Frankfurt on Sunday, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner pledged to support the Beijing-based Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the world’s second-largest multilateral development bank, after the World Bank.The backing comes at a crucial time as Lindner’s Canadian counterpart, Chrystia Freeland, announced in June that all ties with the bank were to be frozen pending a government review over claims made by a former Canadian top executive at the bank, who reported widespread “communist dominance” within the institution since its foundation in 2016 — allegations that AIIB denies.Lindner indicated Berlin would “continue strengthening coordination” with Beijing on the AIIB, according to a German-Chinese joint state...

Student loan payments restart in October. Here’s what borrowers should know

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:55 GMT

Washington (CNN) — For the first time in more than three years, federal student loan borrowers will be required to pay their monthly student loan bills starting in October.The pandemic-related pause, which went into effect in March 2020, provided relief to nearly 44 million borrowers by freezing their accounts.After several extensions by both the Trump and Biden administrations, the pause has finally expired after Congress prohibited the president from extending it another time.Restarting payments all at once for so many borrowers will be an unprecedented task. Here’s what borrowers need to know:When do payments restart?For most borrowers, the first payment will be due sometime in October – but not everyone has the exact same due date.Borrowers can expect to receive their bill, listing their payment amount and due date, at least 21 days beforehand.Those who graduated in the spring do not have to make payments until the grace period expires, usually...

Local 6-year-old battling leukemia to take part in Jimmy Fund Walk year after diagnosis

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:55 GMT

6-year-old Ben Currier is a fighter. He was diagnosed with leukemia last September.“We just thought he had a cold, and we took him to the pediatrician’s and ultimately ended up at Children’s for additional lab work,” his mom Lisa Currier said. “He was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It sort of just came out of nowhere.”During some of the most intense treatment last fall, his family remembers one shining moment. When hundreds of people walked with a purpose for the Jimmy Fund, the Currier family went to the sky bridge between the Dana-Farber building and the Jimmy Fund Clinic, waving to the crowd below.“I think seeing the amount of support that’s behind pediatric cancers and how big of a community it really is gave us some really positive encouragement in a very vulnerable moment for our family,” said dad Blake Currier. “I think that we really had a goal at that point that we wanted to contribute because of the community that wa...

Drying out and warming up

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:55 GMT

Good morning! It’s a cool start with filtered skies. Today begins our drying and warming trend. Temperatures head near 80° this week! Rain stays away until next weekend.Luckily, today is a dry day, as ridging aloft builds into New England. Unfortunately, that weather setup is also allowing Canadian wildfire smoke to filter our skies. The smoke is aloft so it won’t impact our air quality, but still make for milky skies. High temperatures rebound to the upper 60s/low 70s inland. Temperatures will stay in the 60s on the coast with a northeasterly breeze this afternoon.The dry stretch continues through the work week. Look at those temperatures! See you at the beach on Tuesday, anyone?Today we turn the calendar page into October. Here’s what this month’s weather typically has in store for us. Today’s average high is 67°, sunrise is at 6:41 am and sunset at 6:26 pm. By the end of the month, our average high temperature falls into the upper 50s. Our mornings s...

Azerbaijan issues warrant for former separatist leader as UN mission arrives in Nagorno-Karabakh

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:55 GMT

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general issued an arrest warrant for ex-Nagorno-Karabakh leader Arayik Harutyunyan Sunday as the first United Nations mission to visit the region in three decades arrived in the former breakaway state.Harutyunyan led the breakaway region, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but was largely populated by ethnic Armenians, between May 2020 and last month, when the separatist government said it would dissolve itself by the end of the year after a three-decade bid for independence.Azerbaijani police arrested one of Harutyunyan’s former prime ministers, Ruben Vardanyan, on Wednesday as he tried to cross into Armenia along with tens of thousands of others who have fled following Baku’s 24-hour blitz last week to reclaim control of Nagorno-Karabakh.Harutyunyan and the enclave’s former military commander, Jalal Harutyunyan, are accused of firing missiles on Azerbaijan’s third-largest city, Ganja, during a 44-da...

Driver dead after head-on, rollover semi crash in Lake Bluff

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:55 GMT

UNINCORPORATED LAKE BLUFF -- A driver is dead after a head-on, rollover crash involving a semi-truck took place in Lake Bluff Saturday night. Police said a 36-year-old man from Wadsworth, Illinois, was driving a Toyota near Route 43 and Muir Avenue when for an unknown reason, the man drifted the vehicle into the northbound lanes of traffic. Man killed after hit and run in Logan Sqaure The driver of a semi, a 21-year-old man, was driving southbound on the road and was unable to avoid collision, crashing into the Toyota head on. Both vehicles rolled following the crash. Police said the driver of the Toyota was pronounced dead on the scene and the driver of the truck was uninjured. An autopsy report is being scheduled and the crash remains under investigation.

Is this the week that the Bears end their losing streak?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:55 GMT

CHICAGO — There may be no time better for the Bears to bring their 11-month losing streak to an end than Sunday at Soldier Field.That's because they're facing a team that's had as many problems as they have early in the 2023 season. At noon, the Bears will take the field against the 0-3 Broncos in a match-up of two teams that have had little luck over the first three weeks of the season. Each team comes into the game after a very difficult Week 3 contest - and it may have been even worse for Denver.While the 41-10 loss for Matt Eberflus' team to the Chiefs was bad, the Broncos surrendered 70 points in a 50-point defeat to the Dolphins in Miami Gardens, becoming the first NFL team to allow that many points since 1966. Something's got to give, right? Right now the Bears are attempting to pick themselves up as positive vibes from the preseason have turned rancor for the team and fans from a team that looks like it's digressed. Each of their losses has been by double digits this season,...

Jimmy Carter turns 99 at home as tributes come from around the world

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:55 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter has always been a man of discipline and habit. But the former president will break routine Sunday, putting off his practice of quietly watching church services online to instead celebrate his 99th birthday with his wife, Rosalynn, and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Plains.The gathering will take place in the same one-story structure where the Carters lived before he was first elected to the Georgia Senate in 1962. It comes amid tributes from around the world. But for Carter's family, it’s an opportunity to honor a personal legacy.“The remarkable piece to me and I think to my family is that while my grandparents have accomplished so much, they have really remained the same sort of South Georgia couple that lives in a 600-person village where they were born,” said grandson Jason Carter, who chairs the board at The Carter Center, which his grandparents founded in 1982 after leaving the White House a year ear...

Powerball: Jackpot rises to $1.04 billion after another drawing without a big winner

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:55 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Powerball jackpot climbed to an estimated $1.04 billion after no players hit it big Saturday night, continuing a stretch of lottery futility lasting for more than two months.The numbers drawn were: 19, 30, 37, 44, 46 and red Powerball 22.The jackpot for the next drawing Monday night remains the world’s ninth-largest lottery prize of all time.The $1.04 billion jackpot is for a sole winner who opts for payment through an annuity, doled out over 30 years. Winners almost always take the cash option, which for Monday’s drawing would be an estimated $478.2 million. Is it possible to increase your Powerball jackpot odds? Those winnings would be subject to federal taxes, while many states also tax lottery prizes.The jackpot has grown so large because there have been 30 consecutive drawings without a big winner, dating back to July 19. Powerball’s terrible odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to generate big jackpots, with prizes beco...

Northern lights could become intense over the next 18 months: Here's why

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:10:55 GMT

(NewsNation) — Sunspot observations, a key predictor of the northern lights, have dramatically increased since 2022. Scientists say that if the trend continues, the next 18 months will bring the strongest northern lights in decades.The northern lights will be more viewable, and more often, from more places on Earth in the next 18 months than they have been in the past 20 years and are expected to be in the next decade, scientists told NBC News. The Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel, an international scientific group sponsored by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, forecasted below-average sunspot activity for the coming year, with 110 to 115 sunspots at its peak. However, updated models from multiple scientists show sunspots peaking as high as 235. NASA’s first asteroid samples land on Earth after release from spacecraft Solar activity is expected to steadily increase until fall 2024, when the likelihood of viewing the northern lights is highest, according ...