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Whitford: Work requirements for food stamps … work

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:31 GMT

Because I fear that America is sinking into the mire of national debt and government dependency, I testified in favor of work requirements for the food stamp program at a Senate hearing on the Farm Bill in April.Few offered similar arguments, and most gave impassioned speeches about the need to grow welfare programs. To the latter, I’d like to extend an invitation to Missouri, which instituted work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) on food stamps in 2016.The outcomes of Missouri’s work requirement efforts saw 85% of ABAWDs move from welfare to work, and statewide food insecurity dropped from 14.2% to 12%. I was encouraged to learn that the “Limit, Save, Grow” debt ceiling bill debated in Congress in the spring included a provision to raise the welfare work requirement age for ABAWDs from 50 to 56 years of age while limiting the ability of states to waive those requirements.Unfortunately, the bill failed.More Americans returning to work equals less gover...

South Korea searches for missing people as death toll from downpours reaches 41

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:31 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Rescuers searched Tuesday for about 10 people still missing in landslides and floods caused by more than a week of torrential rains in South Korea, as the country’s military dispatched more than 10,000 troops to support rescue works.The downpours pounding South Korea since July 9 have left 41 people dead, nine missing and 35 others injured. The rainfall has also forced about 12,780 people to evacuate and left about 28,600 households without power.During a Cabinet Council meeting Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered officials to mobilize all available resources to rescue any possible additional survivors, assist victims and conduct recovery works.Yoon said the government plans to designate major rain-stricken areas as special disaster zones to help speed up the recovery.The Defense Ministry separately said it was sending equipment and 11,000 soldiers on Tuesday to support government efforts to find the missing people and restore damages.Much of the sever...

High anxiety over Ukraine war sets in at EU-LatAm summit that was supposed to be a love-in

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:31 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — High anxiety set in on the closing day of a summit between European Union and Latin American leaders that was supposed to be a love-in but turned into a diplomatic fracas over the war in Ukraine. Ambassadors worked through much of the night and into Tuesday morning to find even the blandest text to condemn Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, with talks hung up over the reservations of some Central and South American nations like Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. “It would be a shame that we are not able to to say that there is Russian aggression in Ukraine. It’s a fact. And I’m not here to rewrite history,” an exasperated Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said. The long-anticipated summit, eight years after the previous one, descended into a standoff over who would blink first over an issue that a vast majority of the 60 nations attending had already agreed on in several votes at the United Nations and other international institutions.While the 27-nation EU wanted...

Israeli protesters block highways in ‘day of disruption’ against Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plan

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:31 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli protesters blocked highways and gathered outside Tel Aviv’s stock exchange and military headquarters on Tuesday in the latest countrywide demonstration against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned judicial overhaul. The latest “day of disruption” came as longtime allies of the prime minister pushed a contentious piece of legislation through a parliamentary committee ahead of a vote expected next week. Additional protests are planned throughout the day.Demonstrators, many of them military reservists, created human chains and blocked one of the entrances to the Kirya, Israel’s military headquarters in central Tel Aviv. Outside the Tel Aviv stock exchange, demonstrators ignited smoke bombs, drummed and chanted, and held up signs reading “save our startup nation” and “dictatorship will kill the economy.” Others demonstrated outside the headquarters of the Histadrut, Israel’s largest labor union, demanding the organization ca...

Capelin feed Newfoundland’s puffins and whales, and some worry they’re in trouble

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:31 GMT

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Marine scientists and conservationists are calling on officials to pause Newfoundland and Labrador’s commercial capelin fishery.The tiny shimmering fish are an important staple in the diets of the whales and puffins that dazzle tourists and residents each summer off the province’s coastlines. Leaving the struggling capelin stock alone to rebuild would only serve the province’s hallmark ocean ecosystem, said marine behavioural ecologist Bill Montevecchi, who is a professor at Memorial University in St. John’s.“From an ecosystem point of view, it’s going to feed the seabirds, it’s going to feed the seals, it’s going to feed the whales,” he said in a recent interview. “To me, leaving capelin in the ocean is really an investment.”Capelin are small forage fish from the smelt family; they look like brighter sardines, roughly the length of an adult hand. They arrive in Newfoundland and Labrador’...

2 dead after crash between semi and vehicle on SH 71

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:31 GMT

GARFIELD, Texas (KXAN) – The Department of Public Safety is investigating a crash between a semi-truck and a vehicle that killed two people on State Highway 71 late Monday night. DPS said westbound lanes of 71 were shut down and did not give a time when the lanes would reopen. According to Austin-Travis County EMS, the crash happened around 11 p.m. in the westbound lanes of 71 near Albert Brown Drive in Garfield in Eastern Travis County.ATCEMS said paramedics, Travis County Fire Rescue and the Austin Fire Department responded to the crash. A total of 3 patients were involved, according to ATCEMS. It said 2 adults died at the scene after being taken out of their vehicle and paramedics tried to resuscitate them. A third person refused EMS transport, according to ATCEMS.

Will Colorado voters support property tax, TABOR measure? It’s a “toss up,” pollster says

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:31 GMT

Colorado voters appear to favor a far-reaching ballot initiative aimed at property taxes, education funding, and TABOR tax refunds but, a recent poll found, they could be swayed.Voters will decide on Proposition HH this November. If it passes, it would change how property tax is calculated — potentially saving property owners hundreds of dollars a year they’d owe otherwise, though overall property taxes would likely still increase — while also upping how much money the state can keep under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, for the next decade.Its other provisions include an expansion of the homestead exemption, and set aside money for the state education fund and a rental assistance program. It would also trigger a one-year flattening of TABOR refunds for the next year, sending lower-income Coloradans about an extra $160 or more by cutting into higher-income Coloradans’ refunds, according to state forecasts.Most voters — nearly two-thirds, ...

Crimea Bridge: Why it is important and what happened to it

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:31 GMT

Traffic on the road-and-rail bridge linking Russia and the Crimean peninsula was stopped early on Monday (17 July) due to an "emergency situation," the Russian-backed head of Crimea's administration, Sergei Aksyonov said.The RBC-Ukraine news agency reported that explosions were heard on the bridge, with Russian military bloggers reporting two strikes. The bridge is a crucial supply route for Russian forces in Ukraine.Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.In October, the bridge was damaged in a powerful blast, with Russian officials saying the explosion was caused by a truck that blew up while crossing the bridge, killing three people.President Vladimir Putin has branded the October blast a "terrorist attack" orchestrated by Ukrainian security services and ordered a wave of retaliatory strikes on Ukrainian cities including the capital Kyiv afterwards.Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy months later claimed only indir...

Four-bedroom home in Palo Alto sells for $3.2 million

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:31 GMT

3530 Arbutus Avenue – Google Street ViewThe spacious property located in the 3500 block of Arbutus Avenue in Palo Alto was sold on June 27, 2023 for $3,200,000, or $1,441 per square foot. The house, built in 1957, has an interior space of 2,221 square feet. This single-story house offers a roomy layout with four bedrooms and two baths. The home’s outer structure has built-up roofing. Inside, there is a fireplace. Additionally, the house includes a two-car garage, offering generous space for vehicles and storage requirements. Nestled on a generous 8,034-square-foot lot, the property provides abundant outdoor space including a pool.Additional houses have recently changed hands nearby:On Lupine Avenue, Palo Alto, in April 2023, a 1,412-square-foot home was sold for $3,100,000, a price per square foot of $2,195. The home has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.In April 2023, a 2,548-square-foot home on Arbutus Avenue in Palo Alto sold for $4,150,000, a price per square foot of $1,629. The home h...

Russian missiles damage Odesa port, Ukraine says

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:31 GMT

The port of Odesa, one of the main export points for Ukrainian grain on the Black Sea, was hit by a barrage of six Russian Kalibr cruise missiles overnight, Kyiv said Tuesday — hours after Moscow pulled out of a U.N.-backed deal designed to allow Ukraine to continue feeding the world.Ukrainian air defense shot down all the Russian rockets, but “the fragments of the downed missiles and the blast wave damaged port infrastructure and several private homes” in Odesa, Ukraine’s Operational Command South said in a statement. One person was injured.Twenty-one Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones were shot down by air defense forces over the Odesa region, the statement said. Russia also targeted other areas in Ukraine’s south, including Mykolaiv, where an industrial facility was hit, according to the statement.The barrage came after the strategic Kerch bridge that connects occupied Crimea with Russia was struck in the early hours of Monday morning, with Moscow saying the c...