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China exports decline slower than expected in August as weak demand keeps economy under pressure

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:21:31 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — China’s exports declined at a slower pace in August, even as the world’s second-biggest economy remains under pressure from weaker demand both domestically and abroad.Exports for August slumped 8.8% from the same time last year, totaling $284.87 billion, and were slower than the 14.5% last month, according to customs data Thursday.Imports slid 7.3% from a year ago to $216.51 billion, but beat consensus estimates of a 9% decline.China’s trade surplus contracted 13.2% to $68.36 billion, lower than the $80.6 billion in July.Chinese leaders have in recent months rolled out several policy measures to shore up the economy after a post-COVID rebound fizzled earlier than expected.China’s central banks have eased borrowing rules, relaxing borrowing rules and lowering mortgage rates for first-time home buyers as well as implementing some tax relief measures for small businesses.However, authorities have yet to announce large-scale stimulus spending or tax cuts.Demand for Chin...

Mexico is likely to have its first female president after top parties choose 2 women as candidates

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:21:31 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — With the selection of former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum as the candidate of the country’s ruling party in next June’s election, Mexico will for the first time have time two women from its main political movements competing for the presidency.Sheinbaum, as well as the opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, have insisted that Mexico is ready to be led by a woman, but it will not be an easy path.On Wednesday night, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party announced that Sheinbaum had defeated five internal party rivals – all men. López Obrador has put women in important positions in his Cabinet and been a mentor for Sheinbaum, even while being accused at times of male chauvinism.Mexico still has famously intense “machismo” or male chauvinism, expressed in its most extreme form in a high rate of femicides, but also daily in hundreds of more subtle ways.Mexico has a strong “macho vote,” said Gloria Alcocer Olmos, director of the electoral magazine “V...

‘That ’70s Show’ actor Danny Masterson could get decades in prison at sentencing for 2 rapes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:21:31 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “That ’70s Show” star Danny Masterson could get as much as 30 years to life in prison at his sentencing Thursday for the rapes of two women two decades ago. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo is set to sentence the 47-year-old actor after ruling on a defense motion for a new trial that she’s very likely to reject, and after hearing impact statements from the victims.A jury of seven women and five men found Masterson guilty of two counts on May 31 after seven days of deliberations. Both attacks took place in Masterson’s Hollywood-area home in 2003, when he was at the height of his fame on the Fox network sitcom “That ’70s Show.”The jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on a third count, an allegation that Masterson also raped a longtime girlfriend.The verdict came in a second trial after a jury failed to reach verdicts on three counts of forcible rape in December and a mistrial was declared.Prosecutors alleged that Masterson used his prominence...

What are biofuels and why is it so confusing whether they are a source of clean energy or not?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:21:31 GMT

BENGALURU, India (AP) — India, the current president of the Group of 20 industrialized and developing nations, has proposed a global biofuel alliance that seeks to accelerate the development of sustainable biofuels to support the global energy transition.The alliance is likely to get an official announcement at the G-20 summit that opens this week in New Delhi, and it’s expected that more than 15 countries will sign up to be part of the alliance.The United States, Canada and Brazil are among a few of the countries expected to join India in such an alliance.WHAT ARE BIOFUELS? Any fuel produced from agricultural produce or organic waste is a biofuel.Humans have used biofuels since time immemorial — for example, burning wood and manure for cooking, heating and light.They’ve gained popularity in recent decades for their potential to deliver cleaner energy than some other sources.Biofuels are categorized based on their source, with each category known as a “generation.” First...

Everyone’s talking about the Global South. But what is it?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:21:31 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi says his country is “becoming the voice of the Global South,” and that at the upcoming Group of 20 meetings being held in New Delhi, that voice will be heard. At the August summit of the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — current chair South Africa declared its goal was to “advance the agenda of the Global South.” And ahead of this May’s summit of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies in Hiroshima, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stressed that the guest nations he had invited reflected the importance of the Global South. The United Nations, the World Bank, U.S. President Joe Biden — everyone seems to be talking about the Global South these days. But what, exactly, is it? What constitutes the Global South? Despite how it sounds, it’s not really a geographical term. Many countries included in the Global South are in the northern hemisphere, such as India, China and all of those i...

USF is building a $340M on-campus football stadium despite concerns academics are being left behind

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:21:31 GMT

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — When the University of South Florida kicked off its first football season in 1997, the program’s offices were headquartered in a glorified trailer on campus known as the “Ponderosa.” Back then, the Bulls played their games miles away in Tampa Stadium, affectionately called the “Sombrero” for its curved shape.That stadium is long gone and since 1998 USF has played at cavernous Raymond James Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and host of three Super Bowls. They’ve drawn some big crowds for major opponents but often struggle to fill even half the 75,000 seats. The school also has no control over such revenue streams as parking and concessions.Everything will change in 2026, when USF opens a $340 million, 35,000-seat stadium of its own on the eastern edge of the Tampa campus, university officials say. It’ll be easier for students to access, become a focal point for alumni and school benefactors, improve football recruitment and pos...

Chinese Premier Li Qianq takes a test ride on Indonesia’s new high-speed railway

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:21:31 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Chinese Premier Li Qiang took a test ride Wednesday on Southeast Asia’s first high-speed railway, which connects two Indonesian cities as part of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.Li is visiting Jakarta for two days of talks with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations and other countries.The $7.3 billion rail project, funded largely by China, connects Jakarta and Bandung, the heavily populated capital of West Java province. It is to begin commercial operations on Oct. 1 and will cut travel time between the two cities from the current three hours to about 40 minutes.Li rode the train from Halim station in eastern Jakarta to the next station in West Java’s Karawang city, a 40-kilometer (25-mile) distance that took about 11 minutes. He was accompanied by Indonesian officials including the coordinating minister for maritime and investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan.“This is clear proof of modern, high-quality cooperation between the tw...

India’s rising geopolitical clout will be tested as it hosts the G20 summit

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:21:31 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — Ahead of India’s hosting of the G20 summit of leading economies, its prime minister invited 125 mostly developing countries to a virtual meeting in January to signal New Delhi’s intention to be their champion on the world stage.As the leaders logged onto Zoom, Prime Minister Narendra Modi listed major challenges he said could be better addressed if developing countries had a bigger share in the emerging global order: the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, terrorism, the war in Ukraine.“The world is in a state of crisis,” Modi said. “Most of the global challenges have not been created by the Global South. But they affect us more.”India has pledged to amplify the voice of the so-called Global South — a wide of expanse of mostly developing countries, many of them former colonies, in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Oceania and the Caribbean. That pledge will be put to the test this week when world leaders arrive in New Delhi for this year’s G20 summit, whi...

Hundreds of military promotions are on hold as Republican senator demands end to abortion policy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:21:31 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top defense officials are accusing Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville of jeopardizing America’s national security with his hold on roughly 300 military promotions, raising the stakes in a clash over abortion policy that shows no signs of easing. Tuberville brushed off the criticism, vowing he will not give in. “We’re going to be in a holding pattern for a long time,” he said, if the Pentagon refuses to end its policy of paying for travel when a service member goes out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care.It’s a classic Washington standoff with rippling effects across the country, placing the lives of servicemembers effectively on hold as they await what has traditionally been routine Senate approval for their promotions. Frustration mounting, the secretaries of the Navy, Air Force and Army wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post this week saying Tuberville’s efforts were not only unfair to the military leaders and their families b...

The Catholic Church defended human rights during Chile’s dictatorship. An archive tells the story

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:21:31 GMT

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Lined up like soldiers guarding a nation’s treasures, dozens of shelves preserve an archive that gives account of a painful episode in Chile’s history: 47,000 instances of human rights violations during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.The documents were gathered between 1976 and 1992 by workers of the Vicariate of Solidarity, a human rights organization founded by Chilean Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez. Led by social workers, lawyers, archivists and physicians, it provided support to those harmed by the regime.“The archive gives an account of how the repression occurred,” said María Paz Vergara, executive secretary at the foundation created to preserve the documents after the Vicariate was closed.The protection that Silva Henríquez provided for Pinochet’s victims had no precedent in Latin America. In neighboring Argentina, where the military also took power in the 1970s, the Catholic Church distanced itself from the general public and remained close ...