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Dear Abby: Son’s casual wedding sets off Mom

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:11:23 GMT

Dear Abby: My son and his fiancee are getting married next month. They’re calling it an elopement, but although they have been telling everyone when and where the wedding is, they are not formally inviting anyone. I have come to terms with that. I realize the day is about them, not me. However, this is my only child, and I have always dreamed about being part of this milestone in his life.I’m sure this is his fiancee’s choice and he is just going along with what she wants, but it is hurting me terribly to not be there. They have also decided a reception in their honor will be held six months afterward. Who does this? Is this proper etiquette? — Broken-Hearted MotherDear Mother: The rigid rules of etiquette have loosened considerably in recent years. Many younger people prefer the casual over the formal. Please don’t lay the sole blame on your soon-to-be daughter-in-law without first discussing this with your son, because you may be shocked to learn this...

Earthquake in northwestern China kills at least 118 people in Gansu and Qinghai provinces

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:11:23 GMT

By KEN MORITSUGU (Associated Press)BEIJING (AP) — An overnight earthquake killed at least 118 people in a cold and mountainous region in northwestern China, the country’s state media reported Tuesday.Search and rescue operations were underway in Gansu and neighboring Qinghai provinces. The earthquake left more than 500 people injured, severely damaged houses and roads, and knocked out power and communication lines, according to media reports.The magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck near the boundary between the two provinces at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (six miles) just before midnight on Monday, the China Earthquake Networks Center said. The U.S. Geological Survey measured the magnitude at 5.9.By mid-morning, 105 people had been confirmed dead in Gansu and another 397 injured, including 16 in critical condition, Han Shujun, a spokesperson for the provincial emergency management department, said at a news conference. Thirteen others were killed and 182 injur...

Brunt of storm expected to hit later in week

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:11:23 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Southern California hasn't seen rain since Nov. 30 and many areas are behind on rainfall averages this time of year, but a soaker of a storm looks to fix that deficit soon.The first significant storm of the season is expected to bring widespread heavy rain, wind and thunderstorms to San Diego County during the second half of the week. More clouds and light, scattered rain are possible as early as Tuesday afternoon, but the highest impact day (heaviest rainfall, strongest winds) is expected Thursday and Thursday night.An area of low pressure hanging off of Vancouver Monday night will eventually drop south and stall off the coast of Southern California sometime Wednesday.Once the core of the system moves inland over northern Baja, it will bring us thunderstorms and heavier showers Wednesday night through Friday morning.Target area for the brunt of the conditions will be the L.A. basin, but we will still get significant impacts especially along the coast her...

Google to pay $700M in antitrust settlement reached with states before recent Play Store trial loss

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:11:23 GMT

Google has agreed to pay $700 million and make several other concessions to settle allegations that it had been stifling competition against its Android app store — the same issue that went to trial in a another case that could result in even bigger changes. Although Google struck the deal with state attorneys general in September, the settlement’s terms weren’t revealed until late Monday in documents filed in San Francisco federal court. The disclosure came a week after a federal court jury rebuked Google for deploying anticompetitive tactics in its Play Store for Android apps.The settlement with the states includes $630 million to compensate U.S. consumers funneled into a payment processing system that state attorneys general alleged drove up the prices for digital transactions within apps downloaded from the Play Store. That store caters to the Android software that powers most of the world’s smartphones.Like Apple does in its iPhone app store, Google collects c...

Hong Kong court begins Day 2 of activist publisher Jimmy Lai’s trial

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:11:23 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — The national security trial of Hong Kong’s famous activist publisher Jimmy Lai entered its second day Tuesday, with judges expected to rule by the end of the week on his lawyers’ bid to throw out a sedition charge that has been increasingly used to target dissidents. Lai, 76, was arrested in August 2020 during a crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement following massive protests in 2019. He faces a possible life sentence if convicted under a national security law imposed by Beijing. He was charged with colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring with others to put out seditious publications.His landmark trial — tied to the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily that Lai founded — is widely seen as a trial for press freedom and a test for judicial independence in the former British colony, which was promised to have its Western-style civil liberties remain intact for 50 years after returning to Chinese rule ...

Japan’s central bank keeps its negative interest rate unchanged, says it’s watching wage trends

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:11:23 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — The Bank of Japan kept its longstanding easy credit policy unchanged on Tuesday, saying it will watch price and wage trends before raising its negative benchmark interest rate. The BOJ policy decision was widely expected. But investors and analysts believe the central bank is tip-toeing toward a shift due to price increases that have left inflation above its 2% target. The U.S. dollar gained against the Japanese yen and stock prices surged after Tuesday’s decision. The benchmark rate of negative 0.1% is meant to encourage banks to lend more and businesses and consumers to borrow more to spur the economy, the world’s third-largest. The central bank also has purchased trillions of dollars worth of government bonds and other assets as part of its strategy of injecting more cash to spur growth as the Japanese population shrinks and grows older.Inflation has risen in Japan but at a much slower pace than in the U.S. and other major economies, most recently at about 3%...

How many students are still missing from American schools? Here’s what the data says

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:11:23 GMT

Since the pandemic first upended American education, an estimated 50,000 students are still missing from any kind of U.S. school. That’s according to an Associated Press analysis of public, private and homeschool enrollment as of fall 2022, and U.S. Census data in 22 states, plus Washington, D.C.The reasons students left during the pandemic are varied, and still not fully understood. Some experienced homelessness, lost interest or motivation, or struggled with mental health. Some needed to work or assume adult responsibilities. Some fell behind in online school and didn’t see the point of re-engaging. The number of missing students has fallen from fall 2021, when over 230,000 students were still unaccounted for in an analysis by AP, Big Local News and Stanford University economist Thomas Dee. Slowly, many students returned to some form of schooling, or aged out of the system. The decline in missing students is a hopeful sign the education system is moving toward recovery. Still, not...

Thousands of lights at Chicago Botanic Garden illuminate tunnels, lilies and art

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:11:23 GMT

GLENCOE, Ill. (AP) — Chicago Botanic Garden is dazzling patrons and visitors from around the world with their fifth annual holiday display of light and music: Lightscape. Clusters of multigenerational households push strollers, carry children and walk arm in arm with older relatives as they navigate the 1.3-mile (2.1-kilometer) experience in the village of Glencoe, near Chicago. More than 22 light installations by various local and international artists light a path through established gardens that snake around the Great Basin in the core of the garden’s 385 acres. Highlights of the experience include passing through the “Electric Ribbon Tunnel” created by Culture Creative; “Sea of Light,” created by UK artist Ithaca, which has 4,800 individually controlled balls of LED light; “Lilies,” by UK artist Jigantics, with 22 illuminated 5-foot (1.5-meter) lilies that float in and around the darkness of the Great Basin; and “Laser Lake,” projecting a rainbow of light dancing across th...

California set to become 2nd state to OK rules for turning wastewater into drinking water

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:11:23 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — After a toilet is flushed in California, the water can end up in a lot of places: An ice skating rink in Ontario, ski slopes around Lake Tahoe, farmland in the Central Valley.And — coming soon — your kitchen faucet.California regulators on Tuesday are set to vote on new rules to let water agencies recycle wastewater and put it right back into the pipes that carry drinking water to homes, schools and businesses.It’s a big step for a state that has struggled for decades to have a reliable source of drinking water for its more than 39 million residents. And it signals a shift in public opinion on a subject that as recently as two decades ago prompted backlash that scuttled similar projects.Since then, California has been through multiple extreme droughts, including the most recent one that scientists say was the driest three-year period on record and left the state’s reservoirs at dangerously low levels.“Water is so precious in California. It is im...

Elf Bar and other e-cigarette makers dodged US customs and taxes after China’s ban on vaping flavors

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:11:23 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — In only two years, a small, colorful vaping device called Elf Bar has become the most popular disposable e-cigarette in the world, generating billions in sales and quickly emerging as the overwhelming favorite of underage U.S. teens who vape.Last week, U.S. authorities publicly announced the first seizure of some of the company’s products, part of an operation confiscating 1.4 million illegal, flavored e-cigarettes from China. Officials pegged the value of the items at $18 million, including brands other than Elf Bar.But the makers of Elf Bar and other Chinese e-cigarettes have imported products worth hundreds of millions of dollars while repeatedly dodging customs and avoiding taxes and import fees, according to public records and court documents reviewed by The Associated Press.Records show the makers of disposable vapes routinely mislabel their shipments as “battery chargers,” “flashlights” and other items, hampering efforts to block products that are driving te...