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Ticker: McDonalds prepared for layoffs; Starbucks fires union activist

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:40:21 GMT

McDonald’s has closed its U.S. offices through Wednesday and told its corporate staff to work remotely as it prepares to announce a round of layoffs.In a memo to workers posted on the website TheLayoff.com, the Chicago-based burger giant said it wanted to “ensure the comfort and confidentiality of our people during the notification period” and would hold all notification meetings virtually. It told international corporate staff to follow guidance in their particular regions.The company said in the memo that the layoffs are intended to make McDonald’s more efficient.“We have a clear opportunity ahead of us to get faster and more effective at solving problems for our customers and people and to globally scale our successful market innovations at speed,” the company said.Starbucks fires union activistStarbucks has fired one of the workers who helped kick off a unionization effort at the company.Lexi Rizzo was an eight-year Starbucks employee and shift supervisor. She ...

Review: In ‘A Thousand and One,’ a mother fights for her son in a changing New York

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:40:21 GMT

Michael Phillips | Chicago TribuneThe title of writer and director A.V. Rockwell’s gripping drama “A Thousand and One” is nailed to a Harlem apartment door: 10-01. The hyphen fell off a long time ago.Behind that door, with a fast-gentrifying city encroaching from the outside, lives Inez, formerly incarcerated, now living with her son, Terry. But freedom is relative, always. Over the course of a decade, Inez’s life as a mother, a wife and a keeper of a secret makes for a narrative fraught with danger and potential loss. “A Thousand and One,” this year’s top jury prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival, puts you through it, but with real feeling, real stakes and an authentic vision guided by a fiercely commanding performance by Teyana Taylor as Inez.We first see her behind bars on Rikers Island, doing a fellow inmate’s hair — Inez is a hairdresser — and then outside, on her own. She has what one character calls a petty-thief rap sheet “as long a … sidewalk.”The year is 1994. ...

Trump lands in NYC ahead of arraignment in Stormy Daniels hush money probe: LIVE UPDATES

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:40:21 GMT

Leonard Greene | New York Daily NewsAll eyes are on New York City today where former President Donald Trump returns Monday ahead of a scheduled historic criminal indictment related to allegations he arranged for hush money to be paid to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.Never before has a former president faced criminal charges — and never before has the Big Apple braced for the kinds of protests that could accompany his arrival and court appearance. Stay tuned here for live updates:4:17 p.m. ETThe former president’s motorcade arrived at Trump Tower. He waved twice to gathered media as he entered from E. 56th St.Former US President Donald Trump (L) waves as he arrives at Trump Tower in New York on April 3, 2023. (Photo by ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images)3:50 p.m. ETTrump’s motorcade leaves LaGuardia Airport en route to Manhattan and his Trump Tower residence. Supporters and protesters await his arrival behind barricades.3:35 p.m. ETTrump’s private plane touched down ...

Ricochet, San Diego’s surfing therapy dog, dies at 15

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:40:21 GMT

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Ricochet, the beloved Golden Retriever who found her calling as a therapy dog when she learned to surf, has died in Southern California. The 15-year-old canine helped countless veterans and kids during more than a decade providing therapy in the waves off San Diego, according to her owner Judy Fridono. The dog, who died Friday, was diagnosed with liver cancer last August, she said. Ricochet was trained to be a service animal, but the energetic pup was more fond of chasing birds than assisting with household chores, Fridono said.The canine’s mission became clear in 2009, when she got on a surfboard with quadriplegic surfer Patrick Ivison. A viral video of their ride got more than 6 million views.“That day she hopped on the board with Patrick, she was reborn,” Fridono said in a 2012 interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune. “She kept running back to the water with her tail wagging like she could finally tell me, ‘This is what I want to do.’”For the rest of her...

Security official in Argentina punched, kicked at protest

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:40:21 GMT

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Protesting bus drivers punched, kicked and threw rocks at the top law enforcement official of Buenos Aires province Monday, unleashing a level of violence rarely seen in the demonstrations that are common around Argentina’s capital.The protesters were angry about a fellow bus driver who was slain during a holdup in the city early Monday at age 65, just weeks from retirement. They were blocking a highway outside the capital to demand a crackdown on crime when Berni arrived by helicopter to address them.As TV cameras followed him, Berni approached the protesters, who began shouting insults. Suddenly, protesters attacked with punches, kicks and rocks as the minister tried to block the blows. Visibly injured and bleeding, Berni was backed against a wall where several police officers and even some demonstrators tried to protect him.“I’m here facing the consequences,” the minister said, while protesters yelled “liar” because they said he had failed to adequa...

Police: Missouri woman charged in child drug deaths

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:40:21 GMT

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri woman who was caring for a toddler that died with fentanyl and another drug in her system is facing criminal charges, and authorities say the woman may be responsible for the drug-related deaths of three other children.Mary Curtis, 30, of Jennings, was jailed on $1 million cash-only bond. St. Louis County prosecutors on Thursday charged her with endangering the welfare of a child, in the death of 17-month-old Brailey Stevenson. Police did not disclose Curtis’ relationship with the child.Curtis was watching Brailey in her home on March 20, when Brailey went to sleep on the floor, according to police. Curtis took the child to another home and called police. The child was pronounced dead at a hospital. A toxicology report found lethal levels of fentanyl and xylazine in her system, police said. The National Institute on Drug Abuse describes xylazine as a non-opioid veterinary tranquilizer not approved for human use that has been linked to an increasi...

Congressman: US support for aid to Ukraine is ‘overwhelming’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:40:21 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee said Monday that there is “overwhelming” support in the United States to continue supplying aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, despite vocal opposition from a hard-right faction of his own Republican Party.Rep. Michael Turner of Ohio, the Republican chairman of the committee, which serves as the House’s main body for overseeing American intelligence organizations, spoke alongside three other GOP congressmen during a brief visit to Kyiv.“There are those on the left and on the right who question continued support or the amount of support. That will certainly be part of the debate,” Turner said. “But overwhelmingly, there is support for continuing aid to Ukraine, so that they can continue to fight against this aggression of Russia.”The trip to the Ukrainian capital was the latest effort from top-ranking Republicans in the House, who are laying the groundwork for continued U.S. assistance but facing op...

Abortion clinic ban in Utah challenged by lawsuit

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:40:21 GMT

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Planned Parenthood and ACLU of Utah filed a lawsuit Monday challenging a new Utah law that would ban abortion clinics in the deeply conservative state.The law signed by Republican Gov. Spencer Cox last month would take effect May 3, at which time abortion clinics will not be able to apply to be licensed. It institutes a full ban Jan. 1, 2024. In addition to banning abortion clinics from operating, the law also clarifies the definition of abortion to address liability concerns about how exceptions are worded in state law — a provision Cox called a compromise.Planned Parenthood — which runs three of the four abortion clinics — said Monday afternoon that their interpretation that the law had conflicting provisions would compel them to stop providing abortions at their clinics as of May 3 unless the clinic licensing law was put on hold by the courts.Utah lawmakers have previously said they no longer think the state needs a specific licensing scheme for abortion cli...

First Nations police services say Ottawa’s underfunding amounts to discrimination

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:40:21 GMT

OTTAWA — The association representing all 36 stand-alone First Nations police services in Canada is backing a human rights complaint alleging Ottawa’s “deliberate” underfunding of policing in their communities amounts to discrimination. Jerel Swamp, who leads the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association, says after discussing the complaint launched by the Indigenous Police Chiefs of Ontario — of which he is also a member — the association’s national executive decided to add its support. It also plans to seek intervener status. He said despite assurances from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government that it would enact change and declare Indigenous policing an essential service, nothing has been done.“What we feel is that all First Nation communities in Canada deserve the same public safety and security as every other Canadian takes for granted,” Swamp said in an interview Monday. The complaint filed last week by the nine First Na...

A duo once more, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon come up for ‘Air’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:40:21 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — While Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were writing “The Last Duel,” their first screenplay together since their 1997 breakthrough, “Good Will Hunting,” they noticed that something in their winding and usually separate careers had been missing. “I remember my wife said to me one day: ‘I haven’t heard you laugh like that in 15 years,’” says Damon. “We came out of that experience going: Why aren’t we doing this more often? And getting into your 50s you just go: If we don’t make it a priority, it’s just not going to happen.” Now, more than 25 years after they set out to make it in Hollywood — so entwined that they once shared a bank account — Affleck and Damon are once again a team. Affleck directs and Damon stars in “Air,” the new film about Nike’s courting of Michael Jordan that opens in theaters Wednesday. That film, an Apple TV+ original being released theatrically by MGM, is only part of their new collaboration. It’s the first release from their new production company, A...