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Australian PM Albanese stresses need for diplomacy, guardrails in dealing with China

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:05:03 GMT

SINGAPORE (AP) — As tensions grow between the United States and China in the Asia-Pacific, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told a gathering of top defense officials Friday that open channels of communication are critical for preserving peace, while also advocating effective deterrence.Albanese, who has been expanding Australia’s military power in response to China’s growing military assertiveness in the South China Sea, the South Pacific and the East China Sea, said he has also been working to stabilize the country’s diplomatic relations with China. “We recognize there are fundamental differences in our two nations’ systems of government, our values and our world views,” he said in his keynote address to the annual Shangri-La dialogue. “But we begin from the principle that whatever the issue, whether we agree or disagree, it is always better and it is always more effective if we deal direct.” Both U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and China’s new de...

Wegmans to close Natick, Massachusetts store because of slow business

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:05:03 GMT

NATICK, Mass. (AP) — The Wegmans supermarket chain is closing one of its largest and most unusual stores because it has not attracted enough business, the company said.The Natick, Massachusetts store will close on an undetermined date this summer, the Rochester, New York-based company said in a statement on Thursday.“Making these decisions is never easy. However, we do it for the long-term benefit of our people, our customers, and our communities,” Brien MacKendrick, the regional human resources director, said in the statement. “Unfortunately, with this nontraditional location we are unable to attract enough customers for our business model to work.”The 134,000-square-foot (12,450-square-meter) store opened in 2018 in a space within the Natick Mall once occupied by a JCPenney department store. It was the supermarket chain’s first two-level store within a major mall.The store also had a full-service Mexican restaurant, until it closed in 2019.The store has 365 employees and all...

Jay Roach goes into the desert with Patricia Arquette for quirky, noirish Apple series

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:05:03 GMT

Filmmaker Jay Roach usually has a moment of panic and doubt before production starts on a project. It’s something Sydney Pollack, who was a mentor of his, once assured him was normal. He’d also read something similar about Mike Nichols in Mark Harris’s biography. Good company to be in, sure, but still not the greatest feeling to be thinking “I’ve made a horrible mistake and how can I get out of this?”But for his latest endeavor, “ High Desert,” his first foray into episodic television, he didn’t have that. Currently five episodes into its eight-episode run on Apple TV+, “High Desert” stars Patricia Arquette as a hustler named Peggy Newman, an ex-addict and dealer scraping by in the Southern California desert, working as a saloon girl in an Old West themed park. Her husband (Matt Dillon) is in jail. Her mother (Bernadette Peters) has recently died. And more strait-laced siblings (Christine Taylor, Keir O’Donnell) are looking to sell the home she lives in. In an attempt to make some e...

Bicyclist, 56, hit by car in Hoffman Estates

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:05:03 GMT

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — A 56-year-old bicyclist was hit by a car in Hoffman Estates Thursday. According to a police report the crash took place at the intersection of Golf Road and Gannon Drive. The bicyclist was crossing the westbound lanes of Route 58, east of Gannon Drive when they were struck by the car. Child in serious condition after dog attack in Ottawa The bicyclist, who is a Schaumburg resident was transported to Luteran General Hospital in critical condition. No citations or arrests have been made at this time and the driver of the vehicle stayed on scene and is fully cooperating with the investigation.

Going electric: Volkswagen revamping iconic bus

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:05:03 GMT

HERNDON, Va. — Volkswagen is launching an electric version of its iconic Microbus.The new bus is called the three-row ID. Buzz and has a rear motor that will produce 282 horsepower.“The zero-direct emission ID. Buzz is the spiritual reincarnation of the Microbus, reimagined for our electric future,” said Pablo Di Si, President and CEO of Volkswagen of America, Inc. “It is practical, sustainable, and packaged in an unmistakably fun way that is classic Volkswagen. With its launch, the Bus will once again become our brand hero in America.”The new electric motor of the ID. Buzz increases the top speed to an electronically limited 99 mph.Visit here for more information.

CPD: Woman located after heading to North Side store

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:05:03 GMT

CHICAGO — A 28-year-old woman has been located after she was headed to a store, CPD said.

Judge sentences American Airlines passenger who spat on passenger, assaulted crew member before deploying emergency slide

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:05:03 GMT

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — A former American Airlines passenger has been sentenced after prosecutors say she assaulted two people on an airplane and deployed its emergency slide. Cynthia McKnight, 24, was a passenger on an American Airlines flight scheduled to depart from Buffalo Niagara International Airport in Upstate New York on April 19, 2022. Prosecutors said McKnight, from Rochester, New York, walked to the front of the cabin while the plane preparing to depart, where she got into a "verbal altercation" with a traveler.She also spat on a third passenger, prosecutors said. Southwest pilot gets locked out of plane, needs to climb through cockpit window “The plane was preparing to actually take off and the pilot was forced to return based on this passenger’s unruly behavior,” said Niagara Falls Transit Authority Chief of Police Brian Patterson at the time. “There was an attempt to calm her down and that attempt failed, at which point she then opened the emergency exit door.”Furth...

Leander Police: Liquor store employee shoots alleged thief, who later dies from gunshot wounds

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:05:03 GMT

LEANDER, Texas (KXAN) -- A person is dead after an employee fired a gun at them during an alleged theft at Leander Liquors Wednesday night, according to the Leander Police Department. Around 9 p.m. Wednesday, the Leander Police Department responded to an emergency call of a theft at Leander Liquors, which is located at 2403 S. Hwy 183 in Leander. According to Leander PD, when officers arrived, they were told three people had taken liquor bottles from the store without paying, and the store clerk fired a gun at them. Shortly after the theft call in Leander, the Cedar Park Police Department responded to a report of a person suffering from gunshot wounds near 1701 N. Bell Boulevard in Cedar Park, which is about a mile and a half away from the liquor store. Leander officers arrived at the scene and confirmed the person suffering from gunshot wounds matched the description of one of the people involved in the alleged theft, Leander PD said in a release.He was identified by Leander police...

Ramsey County top prosecutor appointed to national policing board

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:05:03 GMT

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi’s recent appointment to the National Policing Institute board appears historic — he’s the first elected prosecutor to serve in the role and the first to join while actively serving as a prosecutor.Other board members include people in leadership roles in law enforcement, criminology scholars and public and private sector leaders.Previously called the National Police Foundation, the institute is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization.“They’ve always been in the space of trying to be forward-thinking around the future of policing,” said Choi, Ramsey County’s top prosecutor since 2011.He said he’s looking forward to taking part in national conversations about addressing violent crime, police staffing challenges and police-community relations.“I’m not, so to speak, a ‘defunder,'” Choi said. “I believe that police are a part of our community and what people have bee...

Ettinger accepts ‘public service’ salary as UMN interim president as Gabel leaves with $160,000

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:05:03 GMT

The University of Minnesota’s outgoing president is leaving next week with an extra $160,000, and the new guy is taking a discount to fill in for a year.The Board of Regents on Friday approved both a separation agreement with Joan Gabel and an employment contract for Jeff Ettinger that includes a $400,000 salary.Gabel’s current contract, inked in December 2021, called for a $160,000 retirement contribution if she was still on the job on June 30. When she announced in April she was hired as the University of Pittsburgh’s next chancellor, she said she didn’t know when her last day here would be.Regents later negotiated a departure date of June 9, which “will allow for a more expedient transition to the interim president,” according to materials for Friday’s meeting.Gabel also agreed to leave Eastcliff, the St. Paul mansion that houses the U’s president, no later than June 27, which is two months earlier than her contract allows. That will open up the house for Gov. Tim Walz, who was e...