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Booker T. Washington monument, Appomattox superintendent got hooked on history at young age

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:37:00 GMT

HARDY, Va. (AP) — A lifelong love of history led Jim Bailey on the path of becoming a park ranger at some of the nation’s most historic parks. It also led him to his newest position as the superintendent of Booker T. Washington National Monument in Franklin County and Appomattox Court House.At 8, Bailey decided to study history. He said the interest grew out of the trips with his father to several historic battlefields as well as to reenactments.“I was hooked,” Bailey said. “I knew that is what I wanted to do.”That passion continued through his youth and into college at the University of Maryland Baltimore College, where he obtained a master’s degree in American history. It was there that he met a park recruiter who offered him his first opportunity in the National Park Service as a volunteer at Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine in Baltimore.Bailey accepted a full-time park ranger position at Fort McHenry a few years later. He remained at the position until 2016, du...

Denver weather: Breezy sunshine for Father’s Day

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:37:00 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — After a long rainy stretch, Denver’s weather will enter a pattern of warmer and drier conditions through next week.Weather today: Breezy sunshineToday will be dry and sunny so get outside and soak up the sunshine. Temperatures will warm to the mid-80s, which is right in line with normal for this time of year. And it will be breezy, coming out of the south around 15 - 25 mph.Looking ahead: More seasonal sunshineSunshine and warmer weather will stick around for Juneteenth on Monday and into Tuesday. On both days, high temperatures will climb to the upper 80s with gusty winds. Wednesday will be mostly sunny with a high in the mid-80s, followed by the chance for a few isolated storms.

Pakistan’s prime minister declares day of mourning for citizens who died in migrant boat sinking

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:37:00 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday declared a national day of mourning for citizens who died when the fishing trawler packed with migrants they were in sank off the Greek coast.As many as 750 men, women and children from Syria, Egypt, the Palestinian territories and Pakistan were on board the vessel, trying to reach relatives in Europe. The Greek coast guard has defended its response to the tragedy that left more than 500 migrants presumed drowned. The vessel sank on Wednesday.Sharif expressed his grief over the tragedy and said Monday would be observed as a day of mourning, with the national flag flying at half-staff.He previously said that Pakistan’s embassy in Athens has identified 12 nationals who were rescued by the coast guard. There was no official information on how many Pakistanis were onboard the vessel, how many survived or how many perished.Greek authorities have been criticized for their failure to act more quickly. They say the mig...

Miami’s Francis Suarez bucking history as he tries to become first sitting mayor elected president

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:37:00 GMT

In a 2024 Republican presidential field full of long-shot candidates, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez may be — on paper anyway — the longest long shot of all. No sitting mayor has ever been elected U.S. president, a job that historically has been won by governors, vice presidents, senators or Cabinet secretaries. Some former mayors have become commander in chief, but only after serving in higher-profile positions. None of that has deterred Suarez, who announced his campaign this past week by talking up his experience leading the city of about 450,000 residents. Being a two-term mayor of Miami, he said, has helped him understand and confront issues facing most Americans, such as crime and homelessness. In the video for his kickoff, Suarez went for a run past his childhood home and his high school and spoke of his record of cutting taxes and expanding Miami’s technology economy. “In Miami, we stopped waiting for Washington to lead,” Suarez said. The 45-year-old corporate and real est...

‘I didn’t have the energy to be upset’: Entrepreneurs struggle with parental leave

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:37:00 GMT

TORONTO — For as long as she has worked, Marie Chevrier Schwartz has paid into Canada’s Employment Insurance program. Yet when she eventually needed to collect the benefit, she was denied support.In 2021, the chief executive of Toronto-based brand promotions company Sampler had just given birth to her first child and, for the first time since founding her company eight years earlier, planned to take a break. She spent months co-ordinating with the board of directors and senior leadership about what responsibilities other staff would assume during her three months of maternity leave.But after Chevrier Schwartz applied for parental benefits, she found officials didn’t seem to trust that she had stopped working. In two interviews and an audit of her application, she said they questioned why her email signature and voicemail still said she was chief executive and whether she’d truly backed away. Chevrier Schwartz said she had been too caught up with her newborn to chan...

Attorney General Garland keeps poker face as firestorm erupts after Trump charges

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:37:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — On his first day as attorney general, Merrick Garland pledged a return to what he called the “norms” of the Justice Department and said he would work to eliminate the perception of political interference. But in the two years since he took office, the former federal judge has found himself in the middle of a political firestorm of historic proportions.The case against Donald Trump — the first former president to face federal criminal charges — brought a crush of protesters to the Miami courthouse last week, as well as a torrent of social media broadsides from Trump and an onslaught of criticism from Republicans. The decision to charge Trump, who is running for president again, is perhaps the most consequential in the history of the Justice Department. The ultimate call on that came from Garland, whose demeanor leans to the mild.Even the day when prosecutors informed Trump about the charges was outwardly quiet in the halls of the stately Justice Department headquart...

Sunday Forecast: High mid 80s, increasing clouds

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:37:00 GMT

Sunday: Increasing clouds and slight chance of a PM shower. SE 5-10 mph. Air quality is Moderate for Chicago but considered Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups in Indiana and southern MI. High mid 80s, cooler lakeside.Sunday Night: Cloudy skies and a slight chance of a shower. E 5-10 mph. Low: 67Monday: Slight chance of an early showers/sprinkle then partly sunny. E 10-15 mph. Highs mid 80s, cooler lakesideChicago Weather | Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center's Forecast (wgntv.com)Extended outlook calls for a pattern of dry weather for the rest of the week is expected with hazy sunshine from Canadian wildfire smoke. Temps creep up toward 90 the end of the week-- but each day looks about 5 to 10 degrees cooler by the lake. Next weekend partly sunny & warm a chance of showers both days and temps in the mid 80s. 

Who founded Father's Day? A renegade, great-granddaughter says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:37:00 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — You could call her the mother of Father’s Day.The late Sonora Smart Dodd launched the celebration of dads in 1910 in her hometown of Spokane, Washington. As a result, she is the one responsible for those annual gifts that run the gamut from embarrassingly silly-looking neckties to kids’ finger paintings crafted with so much love by those tiny hands that they can bring a tear to the eye of even the most stoic father.It’s a tradition Dodd decided to start as she sat in a Spokane church on Mother’s Day 1909, listening to a sermon about — what else? — Mother’s Day.“And it bugged her,” Dodd’s great-granddaughter, Betsy Roddy, told The Associated Press in 2017. “She thought, ’Well, why isn’t there a Father’s Day?”Dodd and her five younger brothers, after all, had been raised by their father after their mother died in childbirth in 1898. ‘Jeopardy!’ fans stunned after Lord’s Prayer question stumps all 3 contestants William Jackson Smart became a farmer after fighting i...

How car owners can cope with owing more than it's worth

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:37:00 GMT

(NerdWallet) - When Atlanta resident Morgan Nichole Scott financed a used Infiniti QX60 in late summer 2020, car prices were starting to skyrocket. But the single, working mother of four couldn’t delay the purchase because her old car had stopped running.Fast-forward to March 2023, when used-car prices had declined from record highs. Scott visited a dealership wanting to trade in the now-refinanced car and encountered obstacles because of negative equity, or owing more on her loan than the car was worth.Scott says the dealership wouldn’t take her car as a trade-in unless she paid the negative equity. Alternatively, the salesperson said she could keep her current car and get a new $62,000 loan for a 2023 Infiniti QX60. That would mean she’d continue to pay a $400 monthly car payment and add to it a $1,300 payment for the new car — bringing her total to $1,700 a month.“I was very clear that I didn’t want a mortgage payment for a car payment,” says Scott. “I was looking at the paperwor...

Noah Feldman: When does this Supreme Court care about precedent? Ask Kavanaugh

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:37:00 GMT

When the Supreme Court ruled last week that an Alabama redistricting map violated the Voting Rights Act — thus declining to strike down some remaining parts of the VRA — headlines branded the decision a “surprise” and “unexpected.” In particular, some commentators expressed astonishment at the emphasis the majority placed on respect for judicial precedent, or stare decisis. Why would a majority of the justices, some of whom previously gutted other parts of the VRA, and who have overturned decades precedent on issues from abortion to guns to religion, hold back here?The answer is straightforward, at least according to Justice Brett Kavanaugh — who provided the decisive fifth vote to uphold precedent in the voting case, but who voted to overturn nearly 50 years of precedent on abortion last year. Since Kavanaugh is now this court’s closest thing to a swing justice, it behooves us to listen carefully to what he has to say on the subject.A...