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Stock market today: Asian shares mixed as Japan business confidence rises and US shutdown is averted

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:53 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mostly higher in thin trading Monday with many markets closed for holidays. Markets in China are closed for a weeklong holiday. Markets in South Korea also were closed. Oil prices gained and U.S. futures were higher as the threat of a U.S. federal government shutdown receded after Congress approved a temporary funding bill late Saturday to keep federal agencies open until Nov. 17. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index advanced after a central bank survey showed business confidence on the rise. The Bank of Japan’s “tankan” quarterly survey measured business sentiment among major manufacturers at plus 9, up from plus 5 in June. Sentiment among major non-manufacturers rose four points to plus 27, in the sixth consecutive quarter of improvement and the most positive result in about three decades.In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index was up 0.7% at 32,098.40. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.2% to 7,037.90. Taiwan’s Taiex gained 1.2%, while the SET in Bangkok e...

Mexico’s rescue and drug-sniffing dogs start out at the army’s puppy kindergarten

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:53 GMT

SAN MIGUEL DE LOS JAGÜEYEZ, Mexico (AP) — In the middle of a military base outside Mexico City, an army colonel runs what he calls a kindergarten for dogs.Puppies that one day will become rescue dogs, or sniffer dogs for drugs or explosives, get their basic training here, at Mexico’s Army and Air Force Canine Production Center. The puppies are born and spend their first four months at the facility, before being sent to military units around the country for more specialized training.Founded in 1998, the center has in the past produced breeds such as German Shepherds and Rottweilers.Now, it exclusively breeds Belgian Malinois — about 300 of them a year.“It’s a very intelligent dog, it’s a dog with a lot of hardiness, very resistant to diseases,” said Col. Alejandro Camacho Ibarra, a veterinarian and the center’s director. It is the Mexican military’s only such production facility, and Camacho said it may be the largest in Latin America.The mainly green-and-white, one-story buildings l...

Few Americans say conservatives can speak freely on college campuses, AP-NORC/UChicago poll shows

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:53 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans view college campuses as far friendlier to liberals than to conservatives when it comes to free speech, with adults across the political spectrum seeing less tolerance for those on the right, according to a new poll.Overall, 47% of adults say liberals have “a lot” of freedom to express their views on college campuses, while just 20% said the same of conservatives, according to polling from the University of Chicago and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.Republicans perceive a stronger bias on campuses against conservatives, but Democrats see a difference too — about 4 in 10 Democrats say liberals can speak their minds freely on campuses, while about 3 in 10 Democrats say conservatives can do so.“If you’re a Republican or lean Republican, you’re unabashedly wrong, they shut you down,” said Rhonda Baker, 60, of Goldsboro, North Carolina, who voted for former President Donald Trump and has a son in college. “If they hold a rally, it...

California’s new mental health court rolls out to high expectations and uncertainty

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:53 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An alternative mental health court program designed to fast-track people with untreated schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders into housing and medical care — potentially without their consent — kicked off in seven California counties, including San Francisco, on Monday.Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom created the new civil court process, called “CARE Court,” as part of a massive push to address the homelessness crisis in California. Lawmakers approved it despite deep misgivings over insufficient housing and services, saying they needed to try something new to help those suffering in public from apparent psychotic breaks. Families of people diagnosed with severe mental illness rejoiced because the new law allows them to petition the court for treatment for their loved ones. Residents dismayed by the estimated 171,000 homeless people in California cheered at the possibility of getting them help and off the streets. Critics blasted the new program as ineffe...

Women’s voices and votes loom large as pope opens Vatican meeting on church’s future

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:53 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A few years ago, Pope Francis told the head of the main Vatican-backed Catholic women’s organization to be “brave” in pushing for change for women in the Catholic Church. Maria Lia Zervino took his advice and in 2021 wrote Francis a letter, then made it public, saying flat out that the Catholic Church owed a big debt to half of humanity and that women deserved to be at the table where church decisions are made, not as mere “ornaments” but as protagonists.Francis appears to have taken note, and this week will open a global gathering of Catholic bishops and laypeople discussing the future of the church, where women — their voices and their votes — are taking center stage for the first time.For Zervino, who worked alongside the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio when both held positions in the Argentine bishops’ conference, the gathering is a watershed moment for the church and quite possibly the most consequential thing Francis will have undertaken a...

Vote no on Joe: Southern Republicans look to nationalize 2023 governors’ races by invoking Biden

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:53 GMT

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — President Joe Biden ‘s name won’t appear on the ballot anywhere in 2023, but you wouldn’t know it from the campaigns that Republican candidates for governor are running in Kentucky and Mississippi.GOP nominees in both states — Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and first-term Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves — are just as likely to mention the Democratic president as they are to name the person they face in the Nov. 7 general election.Tying candidates for governor to national political figures is a well-worn strategy but also reflects an era of deepening ideological divides, according to Carrie Archie Russell, an expert on southern politics at Vanderbilt University. She says forging such links, even when there’s no evidence of a strong connection, allows candidates to create a “mental shortcut for identifying individuals as ‘us’ or ‘them.’”In 2020, then-President Donald Trump won 62% of the vote in Kentucky and 58% in Mississipp...

The justices are taking the bench Monday at the Supreme Court for the first time since June

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:53 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The justices are taking the bench at the Supreme Court for the first time since late June. Their new term is beginning Monday with ethics concerns swirling around the court.The only case being argued Monday concerns the meaning of the word “and” in a federal law dealing with prison terms for low-level drug dealers. The length of thousands of sentences a year are at stake.The court also is expected to get rid of hundreds of appeals that accumulated over the summer.The term is shaping up as an important one for social media as the court continues to grapple with applying older laws and rulings to the digital age.Several cases also confront the court with the continuing push by conservatives to constrict federal regulatory agencies. On Tuesday, the court will hear a challenge that could disrupt the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.The court also is dealing with the fallout from major rulings a year ago that overturned Roe v. Wade and expanded gun rights. A gun cas...

Forced kiss claim leads to ‘helplessness’ for accuser who turned to Olympics abuse-fighting agency

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:53 GMT

DENVER (AP) — When former elite fencer Kirsten Hawkes reached out to her childhood coach for advice about starting her own fencing club, their meeting immediately turned awkward. It began, she said, with an unwanted kiss on the lips when the two met during a fencing tournament in Minneapolis last October. Then, as she and the coach were saying good-bye, he forcibly kissed her — “stuck his tongue in my mouth,” Hawkes told investigators.Hawkes filed a complaint against the then-assistant coach with the U.S. Paralympic team to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, whose mandate is to combat sex abuse in Olympic sports. But it didn’t take long for her to realize she was pitted against not just the coach, but one of the country’s top sports attorneys. “It just led to a sense of helplessness,” Hawkes, 36, told The Associated Press after her allegations against the 52-year-old coach were ultimately rejected. “It shouldn’t be an undue burden for a victim to come forward. But that’s how it en...

Rep. Matt Gaetz is threatening to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy. It won’t be easy.

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:53 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — “How would you be different as speaker, compared to Mr. Boehner?” a reporter asked then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in September 2015 as the California Republican pursued, and eventually gave up, his first attempt at the speakership. McCarthy laughed while standing next to outgoing Speaker John Boehner — who had just stepped down after facing a threat of removal — and joked that he was from a different generation and wouldn’t be as tan.Eight years later, McCarthy is finding that there are fewer differences between them as he faces a conservative revolt against his speakership.“If somebody wants to remove (me) because I want to be the adult in the room, go ahead and try,” McCarthy told reporters Saturday. And his critics, namely Rep. Matt Gaetz, plan to do just that. On Sunday, the far-right Republican from Florida threatened to use a procedural tool — called a motion to vacate — to try and strip McCarthy of his office as soon as this week after...

Early voting begins in New Zealand’s general election and in Australia for Indigenous ‘Voice’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:11:53 GMT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Early voting began on Monday in New Zealand for the nation’s Oct. 14 general election, with conservative contender Christopher Luxon casting his ballot. Early voting also began in some parts of Australia in a referendum that would enshrine in Australia’s constitution a mechanism for Indigenous people to advise Parliament on policies that affect their lives. In New Zealand, the campaign of Prime Minister Chris Hipkins faced a setback on Sunday when he tested positive for COVID-19. He said he would isolate for five days or until he returned a negative test, but planned to continue with some engagements over Zoom.Hipkins and his liberal Labour Party have been lagging behind the opposition National Party, led by Christopher Luxon, in opinion polls.. “After a rough night I woke up this morning feeling pretty unwell and just got this test result,” Hipkins wrote on Instagram, and said he’d work twice as hard when he got back out on the campaign tr...