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Serving up a mystery

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:00 GMT

There’s a new wrinkle in Miss Marple-style sleuthing with AcornTV’s “Mrs. Sidhu Investigates” and that is an Indian auntie with a talent for snooping alongside high-end catering.“I always like to write something about community,” Suk Pannu, the series’ creator and writer of all four 90-minute episodes, said in a Zoom interview from London.Pannu sets “Mrs. Sidhu,” which begins Monday, in Slough, “An industrial town in a beautiful countryside. An underdog, immigrant town which is in the middle of one of the most beautiful areas of Britain,” the affluent Berkshires.Mrs. Sidhu is an ideal snoop, he noted, “Because Indian aunties can always get secrets out very quickly. I was really excited because I come from writing comedy, and a murder mystery is just a wonderful thing for me.”Mrs. Sidhu, a widow with a teenage son, is played by Meera Syal who was in the Pannu-scripted hit “The Kumars at No. 42.” Mrs. Sidhu may be delivering food to what’s often an unlikely crime scene but it is her i...

Editorial: The utter failure of money to improve education

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:00 GMT

Congress directed billions of dollars to the nation’s public schools to address pandemic-era learning loss. So far, there’s no evidence that this was a productive use of money.Across the nation, all but a few public school districts jumped at the “free” cash that federal lawmakers allocated to reverse the vast harm done by the failure of remote instruction. Students, particularly those most in need, suffered significantly.In 2022, The New York Times reported, “the National Assessment of Educational Progress released its latest assessment of 9-year-olds, showing the largest decline in reading in 32 years and the first decline in math scores since it started testing students in 1969.” ACT scores hit new lows, as did civics test results.The massive amount of new funding was unprecedented. “This is the biggest one-time infusion of federal dollars ever to come to schools,” Phyllis Jordan, the associate director of FutureEd, an education policy think tank, told the Times. “It’s just an as...

Dear Abby: Insufferable neighbor alienates do-gooder

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:00 GMT

Dear Abby: I have lived in my apartment for nine years. When I moved in, I met a woman who moved in about the same time. We became friendly, and I enjoyed talking to her at the pool and mailbox — until I got to know her better. She has alienated all the other neighbors and kids in the complex with her attitude. She butts into conversations and asks personal questions, despite claiming to “mind her business and keep to herself.”Abby, I was raised to be forgiving and understanding. I have reached out to her and taken her to the store and medical appointments, but then she freaks out, swears and demands that I speed up, take her to thrift stores, etc. She asks why I don’t take the freeway instead of surface streets with traffic lights.I finally quit taking her places, but now she has started walking into my apartment, sitting down and asking me questions. She also gets mad when she sees I went to the store without her. How do I politely, but firmly, tell her to ...

Callahan: Patriots offense fails to deliver again, puts season in danger

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:00 GMT

FOXBORO — The dam appeared to break Sunday with 8:45 left.Out of the dam flowed shock, disappointment, grief, frustration. All thanks to Raheem Mostert.Leading 17-10, Mostert burst through the middle of Bill Belichick’s defense and left waves of stadium silence in his wake on a 43-yard sprint to the end zone. The first defender to touch him was a teammate who patted him on the back as he reached the Dolphins’ sideline.Miami had seemingly broken a Patriots team that had already achieved the following: a fourth-quarter interception of Tua Tagovailoa, holding Tyreek Hill to 40 harmless yards and a blocked field goal.All the Pats needed was an adequate, maybe even below-average, showing from their offense to cement their first statement win of the post-Brady era. Mac Jones and Co. couldn’t deliver.Again.They did score two touchdowns, including one on the drive immediately after Mostert’s dagger. Great.Foxboro, MA – February 17: New England Patriots’ H...

In corrupt Libya, longtime warnings of the collapse of the Derna dams went unheeded

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:00 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — The warnings were clear but went unheeded.Experts had long said that floods posed a significant danger to two dams meant to protect nearly 90,000 people in the northeast of Libya. They repeatedly called for immediate maintenance to the two structures, located just uphill from the coastal city of Derna. But successive governments in the chaos-stricken North African nation did not react. “In the event of a big flood, the consequences will be disastrous for the residents of the valley and the city,” Abdelwanees Ashoor, a professor of civil engineering, wrote in a study published last November in the Sabha University Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences.The warnings came true in the early hours of Sept. 11, when residents of Derna woke up to loud explosions before floodwaters pounded the Mediterranean city. They found that two dams had broken, unleashing a wall of water two stories high that wreaked destruction and swept entire neighborhoods out to sea.The deluge proved dea...

Clinton Global Initiative will launch network to provide new humanitarian aid to Ukrainians

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The Clinton Global Initiative will announce the launch of the CGI Ukraine Action Network, as well as numerous financial pledges, to support nonprofits working in the country, as the annual conference opens in New York on Monday morning.The CGI Ukraine Action Network is the result of a collaboration between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Olena Zelenska, first lady of Ukraine, that began last year. The new organization, which will be formally announced Tuesday, is designed to mobilize existing CGI partners, as well as new leaders from around the world, to create and finance new commitments for Ukrainians, according to CGI. Numerous monetary commitments for Ukraine are also set to be announced Tuesday,Continuing support is part of the Clinton Global Initiative, or CGI, theme of “Keep Going” this year, as Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton and Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton say they will convene political, business and philanthro...

Trial of 3 Washington officers charged with murder, manslaughter in death of Black man set to begin

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:00 GMT

SEATTLE (AP) — Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the trial of three Tacoma, Washington, police officers charged in the death of a 33-year-old Black man who was tackled, punched, shocked with a Taser and held face-down on a sidewalk in March 2020, just two months before George Floyd met a similar fate.Officers Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins have been charged with second-degree murder, and Timothy Rankine with first-degree manslaughter, in the death of Manuel “Manny” Ellis. All three officers are white. They pleaded not guilty. Opening statements are expected to start Oct. 2 in Pierce County Superior Court in Tacoma. The trial is expected to run four days each week until December.Ellis purchased a box of doughnuts and some water at a convenience store at about 11:21 p.m. that Tuesday night and walked across the street, where he encountered Burbank and Collins sitting in a patrol car, according to a probable cause statement filed by the Washington Attorney General...

Centuries after Native American remains were dug up, a new law returns them for reburial in Illinois

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:00 GMT

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — For centuries, Europeans carving up the prairie to suit their own idea of settlement dug up the graves of Native Americans as they conquered lands and pushed tribes to the West. Now, Native Americans whose ancestors’ remains ended up held for study in sterile, nondescript boxes on shelves in educational facilities or displayed in cultural locales hope a new Illinois law will speed their recovery for proper reburial in their homeland. “I always have a bit of unease because I know if I’m going to a university or to a museum … that chances are pretty high that we’ve got some ancestors sitting in a basement or in a closet somewhere,” said Raphael Wahwassuck, tribal preservation officer for the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in Mayetta, Kansas. “I hope that this (law) will help ease those concerns, knowing that we are working on correcting that and taking care of our ancestors to put them in a good resting place.”Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed The...

Stock market today:

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:00 GMT

Shares fell Monday in Asia, with Hong Kong’s benchmark pulled lower by property stocks following reports that police had detained staff at the wealth management business of troubled real estate developer China Evergrande.U.S. futures edged higher and oil prices advanced.Tokyo’s markets were closed for a national holiday. On Friday, China’s national financial regulator announced it had approved the takeover of the group’s life insurance arm by a new state-owned entity. On Saturday, police in the southern city of Shenzhen, where Evergrande is based, announced the arrests of some staff of its wealth management business. Defaults on debts in the property sector since 2021 have resulted in half-finished apartment buildings, disgruntled homebuyers and fears the industry’s troubles might further slow the world’s second-largest economy and shake global financial markets. Evergrande’s Hong Kong traded shares were up 1.6% after plunging early in the session. Country Garden, ...

Republican legislatures flex muscles to maintain power in two closely divided states

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:00 GMT

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) — In 2020, North Carolina seemed the model of an evenly-divided swing state. Then-President Donald Trump barely won, beating Democrat Joe Biden by just over a percentage point. Meanwhile, the state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, won reelection by a relatively comfortable 5 points.Even last year, as Republicans won two seats on the state Supreme Court, North Carolina’s congressional delegation split evenly between Democrats and the GOP. But it’s the Republican Party that is making the decisions in the state, thanks to recent seat gains in the legislature and aggressive stances from GOP lawmakers. It has passed voting changes over Democrats’ objections and this week could vote to wrest power from the governor over how the state’s elections are run.In both cases, Republicans are expected to override the governor’s veto thanks to their legislative supermajorities. Those major changes will come on the heels of similar p...