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Dear Abby: Hubby’s sneezes heard ’round the world

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:24:37 GMT

Dear Abby: My husband sneezes really loud and it’s kind of embarrassing. What should I do about this? I told him he should see a doctor because it happens a lot. — Married to a NoisemakerDear Married: People sneeze for various reasons, not all of them allergy-related. Your husband should discuss it with his doctor because the solution could be something simple. If he’s unwilling, then earplugs might be the simplest solution — for you — if you can grab them when he starts going “Aaaaa …” before the “choo” escapes.Dear Abby: I’m having a tough time with people who video chat and play videos on their cellphones. It’s always at a volume you can hear from 30 feet away, and it happens when I’m dining at a bar or sitting in a restaurant, etc. It’s distracting, intrusive and really annoying. It’s as if this behavior is now acceptable, when it’s not — at least to me.Any suggestions on confro...

UN warns its development goals for 2030 are in trouble and 575 million people will remain very poor

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:24:37 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — In a grim report, the U.N. warned Monday that at the current rate of global progress 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty and 84 million children won’t be going to school in 2030 – and it will take 286 years to reach equality between men and women.The report on progress in achieving 17 wide-ranging U.N. goals adopted by world leaders in 2015 to improve life for the world’s more than 7 billion people said that only 15% of some 140 specific targets that experts evaluated are on track to be reached by the end of the decade.Close to half the targets are moderately or severely off track, it said, and of those 30% have either seen no movement at all or regressed including key targets on poverty, hunger and climate.The ambitious goals for 2030 include ensuring that hunger is eradicated and nobody lives on less than $2.15 a day which is the extreme poverty line, providing every child with a quality primary and secondary school education, ach...

Search for children’s remains continues at former Native American boarding school in Nebraska

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:24:37 GMT

GENOA, Neb. (AP) — Amid a renewed push for answers, archeologists planned to resume digging Tuesday at the remote site of a former Native American boarding school in central Nebraska, searching for the remains of children who died there decades ago. The search for a hidden cemetery near the former Genoa Indian Industrial School in Nebraska gained renewed interest after the discovery of hundreds of children’s remains at Native American boarding school sites in the U.S. and Canada since 2021, said Dave Williams, the state’s archeologist who’s digging at the site with teammates this week.The team hadn’t found any remains by Monday afternoon, but the dig had only just begun.“Where is the cemetery and how many people are buried there? It’s the big question that’s hanging in the air,” said Alyce Tejral, a board member of the nearby Genoa U.S. Indian School Foundation Museum.Genoa was part of a national system of more than 400 Native American boarding schools ...

At least 1 killed as elevated road collapses in Bangkok

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:24:37 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — At least one person was killed after an elevated road being built in Thailand’s capital collapsed, and two others were listed as missing, with rescue crews unable to access the site Tuesday for fear of a further collapse, authorities said.Another 12 people were injured in the accident on Monday, according to the department of disaster prevention and mitigation.It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse of the road on the west side of Bangkok, but Governor Chadchart Sittipan said it had been severely damaged and remained inaccessible. The body of the one confirmed fatality has still not been recovered, he said, and rescue crews fear there might be more people trapped in the rubble of the elevated road, which has been under construction since 2020. Video footage of the moment of the collapse showed a blue metal structure that appeared to be used for holding the concrete slabs suddenly falling and bringing the whole structure down. People were seen screaming a...

Stock market today: Asian shares rise ahead of a US inflation update on hopes for easing rate hikes

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:24:37 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets followed Wall Street higher Tuesday ahead of an update on U.S. consumer prices that traders hope will show inflation is easing, reducing the need for more interest rate hikes.Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney advanced. Oil prices rose.Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index gained 0.2% on Monday following its second weekly decline in two months.Traders looked ahead to Wednesday’s update on U.S. consumer prices for signs of whether the Federal Reserve might decide inflation has cooled enough following a year of interest rate hikes. They hope the U.S. central bank will decide no more are needed, though Fed officials suggest as many as two more increases are possible this year.Forecasters expect inflation in June to fall to 3.1% from the previous month’s 4%. That still would be higher than the Fed’s 2% target but down sharply from last year’s peak above 9%.“They will have a hard time justifying further rate increase...

Iowa Legislature will take up 6-week abortion ban during special session Tuesday

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:24:37 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s Legislature convenes Tuesday in a special session focused exclusively on abortion restrictions, where Republican lawmakers will work to push through a new ban on abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy.The day will be a marathon of committee hearings and floor debates in both chambers, with votes likely to extend late into the night. Demonstrators for and against the bill are expected to rally at the capitol building throughout the day.Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered the rare session after the state Supreme Court declined to reinstate a law she signed in 2018 that is practically identical to the one being proposed Tuesday. Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.“Iowans know we will defend life and have grown our majority,” Speaker of the Iowa House Pat Grassley said in a statement.The current draft, like the 2018 law, would prohibit abortion once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of ...

Rescuers brace for more rain as relentless storms flood Northeast, Vermont hit hard

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:24:37 GMT

ANDOVER, Vt. (AP) — Swift water rescue teams and local officials across Vermont braced for more precipitation and flooding Tuesday after persistent heavy rains drenched the state and other parts of the Northeast, unleashing fast-moving waters that washed out roads, trapped residents in their homes and disrupted travel. One person was killed in New York as she tried to leave her inundated house.There have been no reports of injuries or deaths related to the flooding in Vermont, according to emergency officials. But dozens of roads were closed, including many along the spine of the Green Mountains. And the National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings and advisories for much of the state from the Massachusetts line north to the Canadian border.The U.S Army Corps of Engineers said late Monday they expected two dams to release water overnight, causing “severe flooding” downstream likely to affect multiple towns.Rescue crews from North Carolina, Michigan and Connecticut were among...

Ukrainian minister says he fears Russia has ‘no red lines’ to prevent attacks on nuclear plant

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:24:37 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The catastrophic collapse of a dam in southern Ukraine has made Kyiv worried that Russia might stage an attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant to foment panic and quell Ukrainian advances on the frontline, Ukraine’s energy minister said Monday.Herman Halushchenko said the destruction of the dam while under Russian control in the Kherson region proved “there are no red lines” for Moscow. He said it warrants the level of alarm Ukraine’s leadership has been raising in recent weeks of an alleged Russian ploy to attack the nuclear plant in a possible false flag operation.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged last week, citing intelligence reports, that Russian troops placed “objects resembling explosives” atop several power units to “simulate” an attack. Drone and satellite images obtained by the Associated Press showed unidentified white objects on the roof of the plant’s fourth power unit, but Ukrainian leaders have so far been unable to provide further...

A grand jury being seated Tuesday could decide whether Trump is charged over Georgia’s 2020 election

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:24:37 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — A grand jury being seated Tuesday in Atlanta will likely consider whether criminal charges are appropriate for former President Donald Trump or his Republican allies for their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating since shortly after Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in early 2021 and suggested the state’s top elections official could help him “find 11,780 votes,” just enough needed to beat Democrat Joe Biden.The 2 1/2-year investigation expanded to include an examination of a slate of Republican fake electors, phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the weeks after the 2020 election and unfounded allegations of widespread election fraud made to state lawmakers.Willis, a Democrat, is expected to present her case before one of two new grand juries being seated Tuesday. She has previously suggested that any indictments would likely come in Au...

Test scores show American students slipping further behind despite recovery efforts

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 19:24:37 GMT

Students across the U.S. fell further behind academically last school year despite extensive efforts to help them recover from pandemic learning setbacks, according to an analysis of test scores released Tuesday.The research by NWEA, a nonprofit group that administers standardized tests, lands as the 2024 deadline approaches quickly for schools to spend the last of the $190 billion in federal pandemic relief money. There are ways schools can take better advantage of their limited resources and time to boost learning, said Chase Nordengren, the group’s lead researcher for instructional strategies. He said schools could group students based on their needs and provide targeted instruction, for example, adjusting groups as individuals progress. “We’ve been trying to send the message that this is a multiyear, if not decades-long recovery period and is going to require some fundamental rethinking of the ways that not only we educate students but we think about how students are group...