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Dear Abby: Boyfriend’s ultimatum – move in or move on

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:34 GMT

Dear Abby: My boyfriend of three years wants me to move in with him. He’s a great guy. He’s loving and affectionate, kind and caring. We want the same things for our kids and have quite a few things in common. We enjoy playing sports, and we’re both foodies. He checks a lot of my boxes, so I know I’m ready for marriage.We both have kids. He has a 10-year-old girl; I have a 4-year-old boy. He has asked me multiple times to move in with him, but I’d like to be engaged or married before doing so. He wants us to live together first because my relationship with his daughter hasn’t flourished. He’d also like to build a trusting relationship with my son, which I understand and find equally important.He says we must live together before he proposes to me because we need to work on our finances and careers, etc. He has now given me an ultimatum — either I move in, or he moves on. What am I to do? Am I asking for too much? — Coerced in Flo...

Tributes pour in for civil-rights leader Mel King, dead at 94

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:34 GMT

An outpouring of both sadness and gratitude met the news that longtime civil rights leader Mel King had died after decades of influencing politics, policy and people in his lifelong home city.King, a former state representative and mayoral candidate whose singular impact on Boston politics is difficult to sum up in any concise way, died Tuesday.The 94-year-old was still living in the same South End neighborhood where he grew up and spent his whole life aside from four years down south for college.In Boston particularly starting in the 1960s, the 6-foot-3-plus King would cast a long shadow over local and state politics for the next several decades. He was could be either a soft-voiced rabble-rouser or a larger-than-life statesman when the situation called for it.“He’d say, ‘You’ve gotta take it from the streets to the suites,'” onetime Boston Acting Mayor Kim Janey told the Herald on Wednesday.Janey, who said there’s a “direct line” bet...

Mother, son to celebrate 50th consecutive Padres home opener together

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:34 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Thursday will mark the 50th consecutive Padres home opener a San Diego mother and son will attend together. It's a tradition they didn't know they started, but has stood the test of time.The Padres joined Major League Baseball in 1969, and just a few years later, Carole Salazar and her son Vic started a tradition, which will hit a huge milestone at this year's opening day.“The streak started at Opening Day in 1974 and the Padres were under new ownership with Ray Kroc, there were 37,000 people at San Diego Stadium and we were among them," Vic said.They both agree the feeling and energy on opening day is magical.“Everyone has the same hopeful anticipation that this is the year, no matter how bad it was the previous year, and I just feel that every time," Carole said.“We've been through a lot of bad teams over the years, and the greatest thing about opening day is you have that hope that this is going to be the year," Vic said.The mother-son duo has made countless memories...

Harris enters the fray over democracy with visit to Tanzania

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:34 GMT

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AP) — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will step onto the front lines of the battle for democracy in Africa on Thursday, spending time in Tanzania as it makes fragile progress toward restoring its reputation as a more inclusive government.Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania’s first female president, has undone some of the country’s more oppressive policies, such as a ban on opposition rallies, even though she came to power as a member of the ruling party.She’s finishing out the term of President John Magufuli, who died in office and earned a reputation for stamping out dissent, arresting critics and forcing them into exile. Hard-liners have been uncomfortable with some of Hassan’s changes, however, which could cost her in the next election two years from now.Harris, the first woman to serve as U.S. vice president, will meet with Hassan on Thursday, a noteworthy show of support from Washington as the United States deepens its outreach to Africa.“There’s so much ex...

Asian stocks mixed after Wall St rally as bank fears ease

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:34 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mixed Thursday following a rally on Wall Street as worries over banks following the collapses of several lenders in recent weeks eased further. Forceful actions by regulators have helped to calm markets as investors have turned their focus to how central banks might adjust their interest rate policies to reflect persisting worries over how higher rates might affect lenders. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 shed 0.8% to 27,662.54. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.9% to 7,110.20. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.2% to 2,449.45. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.7% to 20,048.99, while the Shanghai Composite declined 0.2% to 3,232.39. “Fading concern about the banking sector is also supporting risk assets as the end of the month and quarter approaches,” Anderson Alves of ActivTrades said in a commentary. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 1.4% to 4,027.81, for its fourth gain in the last five days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1% ...

Across Latin America, migrant blaze families left reeling

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:34 GMT

SAN MARTIN JILOTEPEQUE, Guatemala (AP) — The last Ana Marina López heard of her husband, the 51-year-old Guatemalan migrant told his family that he was being detained by Mexican immigration agents at the U.S.-Mexico border.That was two days before a fire in an immigration detention center in Ciudad Juárez claimed the lives of at least 39 migrants and left more than two dozen injured. Then his name appeared on a government list of the fire victims, but not specifying whether he was among the dead or the hospitalized. That has left López and her daughter back in their small western Guatemalan town clinging to hope that he may be alive. And they aren’t the only ones. As images of the devastating blaze consume news broadcasts and social media, families scattered across the Americas are reeling in agony as they await news of their loved ones. The pain and uncertainty felt by families underscores how the effects of migration ripple far beyond the individuals who embark on the perilo...

Australia makes biggest carbon polluters curb emissions

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:34 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australian Parliament created landmark new laws Thursday that will make the nation’s biggest greenhouse gas polluters reduce their emissions or pay for carbon credits.The center-left Labor Party administration said the so-called Safeguard Mechanism reforms are essential to Australia reaching its target of reducing its emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade. Set to take effect July 1, the reforms create a ceiling on the nation’s emissions and force Australia’s 215 most polluting facilities to reduce their emissions by 4.9% a year or reach the target with carbon credits. The laws create Australia’s first price on carbon since a former Labor government created a carbon tax in 2012. A conservative government repealed that tax in 2014 and has since rejected any climate policies that would make polluters pay.The bills passed the Senate on Thursday by a vote of 32 to 26, with Labor senators supported by the minor Greens party and unaligne...

Manhattan claws back people as urban counties stem outflow

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:34 GMT

Turns out the pandemic hasn’t permanently dissuaded people — especially immigrants — from seeking their fortunes amid Manhattan’s gritty streets and neon lights.The county that encompasses Manhattan added more than 17,000 residents in the year ending last July after losing almost 111,000 people in the previous 12-month period, according to population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The earlier decline was among the worst urban population losses from the COVID-19 outbreak.New York County was among several large, urban U.S. counties that either gained residents or stemmed the rate of declines between July 2021 and July 2022 compared with a year earlier.The reversal in population losses was particularly notable in King County, Washington, home to Seattle; as well as in large Sunbelt counties such as Dallas County, Texas; and two South Florida counties, Miami-Dade and Broward. The locations all had something in common: international immigration led the...

Pakistan militants kill 4 police officers, hurt 6 in attacks

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:34 GMT

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Taliban militants killed four police officers by targeting a police vehicle with a roadside bomb and wounded six in an attack on a police station in northwest Pakistan early Thursday, police and the insurgents said.The bomb killed four officers in a police vehicle carrying reinforcements sent to respond to the attack on a police station in Lakki Marwat, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. Six officers were wounded in the attack at the police station. Local police officer Ashfaq Khan said a search was underway for the militant suspects who attacked the police station in Lakki Marwat and later targeted the police vehicle with a bomb.The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks. The group know as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP is separate but allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban. There has been an uptick in attacks in Pakistan after the Pakistani Taliban ended a cease-fire with the government of Pakistan.TTP has been e...

AP News in Brief at 12:19 a.m. EDT

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:10:34 GMT

Ukraine by rail: Inside Zelenskyy’s efforts to buoy a nationZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — The caravan of unmarked vehicles tears across the muddy grass next to the playground. On the merry-go-round, the children stop swinging and spinning. The curious — parents and other residents of this southeastern town — gather around. Car doors swing open, and heavily armed security guards in battlefield fatigues spill out.And just like that, he is among them: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wartime leader and his country’s chief morale officer.This week, Zelenskyy shuttled across the country on a 48-hour train trip to rally soldiers who are battling Russian forces — and, just as important, to buoy the communities often caught in the crossfire. Here, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the front lines, Zelenskyy came to see for himself the destruction from a Russian attack that damaged dozens of apartments one week ago. The violence hit just steps from the playground and mer...