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Chicago-St. Louis Amtrak travel getting upgraded from current 90 mph to 110 mph

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — Amtrak travel between Chicago and St. Louis is about to get 15 minutes quicker thanks to a high-speed rail project allowing trains to reach speeds of 110 mph (177 kph), Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday.The higher speeds take effect June 26 and will reduce the duration of the trip from the current five hours and 13 minutes. Trips from St. Louis to Chicago are a few minutes shorter, according to Amtrak timetables.Existing maximum speeds on the route are 90 mph (144.8 kph). In addition to increasing speeds, the $1.96 billion project also provided safety improvements at 212 grade crossings, Pritzker said.“The railway has always been a vital component of our state’s infrastructure, but today we are taking a major step in modernizing rail services,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said. Funding for the project includes $1.66 billion in federal funding, primarily through an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant awarded that year, and $300 million in state and non-federal funds. The...

McCarthy and conservatives reach a truce to allow House to move forward on bills

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appeared Monday to have resolved, for now, an impasse with some of the more conservative members of his caucus who had brought the chamber to a standstill last week.McCarthy met with nearly a dozen lawmakers in his office in an effort to quell a revolt and jumpstart various priorities that had stalled last week amid the GOP infighting. He called it a productive meeting where “everybody’s attitude was, ‘How do we find where we all work together?’” McCarthy promised more meetings with last week’s holdouts and a focus on reducing federal spending in the weeks ahead.“We’ve got a lot more victories for the American people we want to fight for, and we’re only able to achieve it if we stick together,” he told reporters.Last week, barely a dozen Republicans, mainly members of the House Freedom Caucus, shuttered House business in protest of McCarthy’s leadership. Votes on a pair of pro-gas stove bills important to GOP activists...

Hundreds of tribal members, mostly Navajo, living on Phoenix streets amid fake sober home crackdown

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — Navajo law enforcement teams made contact with several hundred Native Americans from various tribes who are living on the streets in the metro Phoenix area, after the state cracked down on Medicaid fraud and suspended unlicensed sober living homes, Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch said Monday. Teams that included Navajo police officers reported making contact with more than 270 Native Americans, the majority of them Navajo, Branch said.Many tribal members accepted offers to stay in motel rooms or other temporary housing for a few days before moving to legitimate facilities, while others agreed to return home to their reservations, Branch said. The teams worked with local police agencies and Community Bridges, Inc., a nonprofit that provides services for people with addictions.“Unfortunately, many of our relatives when they came out of these facilities didn’t have cell phones,” Branch said, adding that Navajo police officers allowed the people they fou...

Movie review: Ezra Miller speeds back to the future in ‘The Flash,’ fueled by calories and cameos

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature,” went a famous ’70s commercial catchphrase. But we learn in “The Flash” — the much awaited, long gestated new DC Studios offering — that it’s Father Time one musn’t cross. Because trying to change the past can really mess you up when you get back to the future and realize you’ve inadvertently changed that, too.But of course, we already knew that. We learned it from Marty McFly, immortalized by Eric Stoltz in “Back to the Future.”Relax! Of course it was Michael J. Fox, though Stoltz was initially cast in the role. But in “The Flash,” Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) realizes just how badly he’s messed up the space-time continuum when he arrives back from changing the past — just one teensy little thing, really — and learns that in his current world, Fox never replaced Stoltz. “I’ve destroyed the universe,” he frets in a laugh-out-loud moment.If only the whole film, directed by Andy Muschietti and written by Christina Hodson, felt this breezily cle...

Pat Sajak announces ‘Wheel of Fortune’ retirement

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

Pat Sajak is taking one last spin on “Wheel of Fortune,” announcing Monday that its upcoming season will be his last as host.Sajak announced his retirement from the venerable game show in a tweet.Well, the time has come. I’ve decided that our 41st season, which begins in September, will be my last. It’s been a wonderful ride, and I’ll have more to say in the coming months. Many thanks to you all. (If nothing else, it’ll keep the clickbait sites busy!)— Pat Sajak (@PatOnWheel) June 12, 2023“Well, the time has come. I’ve decided that our 41st season, which begins in September, will be my last. It’s been a wonderful ride, and I’ll have more to say in the coming months. Many thanks to you all,” the tweet said.Sajak, 76, has presided over the game show, which features contestants guessing letters to try to fill out words and phrases to win money and prizes, since 1981. He took over duties from Chuck Woolery, who was the show’s first h...

Relatives fight for custody of kids who survived plane crash and weeks in Amazon jungle

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A custody battle has broken out among relatives of four Indigenous children who survived a plane crash and 40 harrowing days alone in the Amazon rainforest in an extraordinary showing of youthful resilience that captivated people around the world. The siblings, ranging in age from 1 to 13, remained hospitalized Monday and were expected to stay there for several more days, a period that Colombia’s child protection agency is using to interview family members to determine who should care for them after their mother died in the May 1 crash.Astrid Cáceres, head of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, said in an interview with BLU radio that a caseworker was assigned to the children at the request of their maternal grandparents, who are vying for custody with the father of the two youngest.“We are going to talk, investigate, learn a little about the situation,” Cáceres said, adding that the agency has not ruled out that they and their mother may have ex...

Teens, 16, charged in armed pharmacy robberies, third suspect wanted

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

Toronto police have arrested two teenage boys in connection with multiple armed pharmacy robberies, while a third suspect remains wanted.Investigators responded to two robbery calls in Rexdale, the first in the Islington Avenue and Elmhurst Avenue area and the second in the Martin Grove Road and Albion Road area, on June 7 and June 9.It’s alleged that three male suspects travelling in a stolen vehicle attended a pharmacy, and two of the males entered the store while wearing face masks.Police said one suspect was armed with a large knife and demanded cash and narcotics. They then fled in the stolen vehicle.After the second robbery, authorities located the stolen vehicle with the three suspects still inside. Two youths were arrested, and a third suspect fled on foot.Officers recovered some of the stolen cash, medications and other items.On Monday, police said a 16-year-old boy from Toronto was charged with two counts of robbery with an offensive weapon, two counts of disguise wi...

Amid fight over Covenant school shooting records, medical examiner releases autopsy report

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The former student who shot through the doors of a Nashville Christian elementary school in March and killed three children and three adults died from gunshot wounds to the head, torso and other parts of the body, an autopsy report released Monday showed.The autopsy said the manner of death of 28-year-old Audrey Hale was homicide. The report — released by the medical examiner in Davidson County, which encompasses Nashville — said Hale not only had gunshot wounds but also blunt force trauma throughout the body. Hale opened fire at the Covenant School on March 27 before being shot to death by officers. The release of the report comes as a growing collection of groups are embroiled in a complex legal battle over the release of Hale’s writings and other documents in the police investigation. The Tennessean newspaper, a state senator, a law enforcement nonprofit and a gun-rights organization are advocating for the release in the records.Meanwhile, a group of Coven...

Almanac for June 13, 2023

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

‘A lot of sleepless nights’: 6 moms, first class of all women, graduate from St. Paul’s EMS Academy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:40:00 GMT

Tyquana McChriston’s 4-year-old son hugged her after she graduated from the St. Paul fire department’s EMS Academy Monday.“Thank you,” Michael Lane III told his mother. She’s on a journey to become a firefighter and the boy said he wanted to thank her for that.McChriston was among six who graduated from the latest EMS Academy. Since the program started in 2009, it was the first class of all women. All are also mothers. The class started with 18 women and the six who made it through the academy are all Black.The EMS Academy is a program for low-income adults who are St. Paul and Ramsey County residents; the academy recruits women and people of color, who are typically underrepresented in emergency medicine and firefighting. Becoming an emergency medical technician is a steppingstone to the St. Paul fire department because all of the city’s firefighters are required to be EMT-certified.Training to become an EMT is difficult enough, and Monday’...