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5 ideas for a Barbie dream vacation this summer

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

It’s the summer of Barbie. The movie release date is set for July 21, but the celebration of the iconic doll is going all season with pop-up exhibitions and hotel promotions.If you want to travel to your own Barbie dream world, here are the best Barbie-inspired trips you can take this summer:1. World of Barbie: Santa Monica, California(Photo by Meghan Coyle)The World of Barbie in Santa Monica, California, is a temporary exhibition that takes people into Barbie’s world, including a real-life version of her Dreamhouse, camper van, space shuttle and TV studio. There’s also a gallery portion with vintage Barbie dolls and cars on display. @inkwaves We’re living in a Barbie world #worldofbarbie ♬ Happy Summer – Vin Music The exhibit is mainly a giant photo opportunity, with some interactive activities for kids, like a ball pit, and even a salon with real stylists on certain days. If you want a unique souvenir, consider building your own custom Barbie set from scratch for an addit...

‘This is the existential crisis’: A push for climate change education

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

Alex Brown | (TNS) Stateline.orgWhen wildfires and smoke swept through Oregon in 2020, Lyra Johnson’s family made plans to evacuate their home near Portland. Johnson, then 14, was told she might have to quickly learn to drive — despite not having a license — in order to get her grandmother to safety.Thankfully, the danger passed before Johnson was forced to take the wheel, but she came face-to-face with the realities of climate change. Johnson, now 17 and a senior at Lake Oswego High School, was among the student leaders who urged Oregon lawmakers this year to require climate change education across all grade levels in Oregon schools.“It’s really important to integrate that when you’re young, so you have that knowledge and feel like you can make a difference, rather than having it thrown on you and feel like the world’s ending,” she said.Johnson serves as president of her school’s Green Team, a student sustainability group, and helped establish a composting program this year to redu...

Suspect abandons stolen vehicle near trolley tracks after pursuit

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

SAN DIEGO — A suspect led police on a pursuit Friday before abandoning a stolen vehicle near some trolley tracks, San Diego police said.According to police, the initial pursuit began around 10:40 a.m. when officers attempted to pull over a vehicle that was reported as stolen.The driver failed to yield to police and fled the scene, prompting the pursuit. Police did not clarify where the pursuit initially began. California grad student commutes to class by plane to save on rent At some point during the pursuit, the driver abandoned the vehicle next to the trolley tracks at 32nd street and Commercial Street in the Logan Heights neighborhood.The suspect, described as a man in his early 20s, fled the scene on foot after abandoning the vehicle, SDPD said.According to police, the man fled to a home located at 331 S Bancroft Street. As of 11:50 a.m., police were attempting to get the man to leave the home and surrender to police. It was not immediately clear if the man lived in the home o...

Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro is barred from running for office for 8 years

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

SAO PAULO (AP) — A panel of judges voted Friday to render far-right former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro ineligible to run for office again after concluding that he abused his power and cast unfounded doubts on the country’s electronic voting system.The decision forbids Bolsonaro from running until 2030, upending the 68-year-old’s political future and likely erasing any chance for him to regain power.Five judges on the nation’s highest electoral court agreed that Bolsonaro abused his authority by using government communication channels to promote his campaign and sowing doubts about the vote. Two judges voted against.“This decision will end Bolsonaro’s chances of being president again, and he knows it,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo. “After this, he will try to stay out of jail, elect some of his allies to keep his political capital, but it is very unlikely he will ever return to the presidency.”The case focused on...

The US is considering providing cluster munitions to Ukraine, says America’s top military officer

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is considering providing cluster munitions to Ukraine, the top American military officer said Friday.Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. has been thinking about providing the munitions “for a long time.” He noted that Russian troops are using them on the battlefield in Ukraine and that Ukrainian forces have received cluster bombs from other allies and have deployed the arms.Milley said at the National Press Club that discussions are continuing. “The Ukrainians have asked for it, other European countries have provided some of that, the Russians are using it,” Milley said. “There’s a decision making process ongoing.”He also dismissed concerns that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is going too slowly. Milley said he thought the initial campaign would take six weeks to 10 weeks. “It’s going to be very difficult. It’s going to be very long,” Milley said. “No one should have any illusions about any of that.” Clust...

New Chinese Canadian Museum opens its doors in historic Vancouver Chinatown building

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

VANCOUVER — When the Chinese Exclusion Act came into effect in 1923, it didn’t just effectively halt Chinese immigration to Canada — it extinguished the family lines of thousands of labourers already here.Many were condemned to bachelorhood or cut off from loved ones in China, said Catherine Clement, curator of the inaugural exhibition for the Chinese Canadian Museum that opens to the public on Saturday in Vancouver’s Chinatown, on the 100th anniversary of the controversial law’s enactment.“They just withered here,” Clement said. “They had no descendants left to tell their stories. Nobody even remember they existed … they broke while they were here.”Some ended up in mental health institutions, including Coquitlam’s Essondale Hospital, said Clement, calling them “the face of exclusion.”Now their stories are being told at the exhibition, “The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act.”Executives at the Chinese...

Prosecutors in Rep. George Santos’ case say they gave his defense 80,000 pages of material

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — Prosecutors said Friday that they have turned over more than 80,000 pages of materials to U.S. Rep. George Santos ’ lawyers in the federal fraud and money laundering case against him. The documents weren’t publicly released, as is common during this stage of a case. The barely five-minute hearing at a Long Island courthouse focused on the case schedule, with the next court date set for Sept. 7. Santos didn’t speak in court, nor to journalists waiting outside. The New York Republican, known for fabricating key parts his life story, is free awaiting trial. Santos pleaded not guilty last month to charges that he duped donors, stole from his campaign, collected fraudulent unemployment benefits and lied to Congress about being a millionaire.Prosecutors have charged Santos with 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to Congress. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Taken together, the a...

Supreme Court directs Ohio’s top court to take another look at redistricting lawsuit

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

The Ohio Supreme Court will take yet another look at the legality of the state’s congressional districts after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday set aside a ruling striking down the districts and ordered further consideration of the case. The nation’s high court directed Ohio’s top court to reassess the case in light of its ruling Tuesday in a North Carolina redistricting case. Justices in that instance rejected an expansive version of the so-called independent state legislature theory, which holds that legislatures have absolute power in setting the rules of federal elections and cannot be overruled by state courts.But the high court said state courts still must act within “ordinary bounds” when reviewing laws governing federal elections. The Supreme Court’s brief order Friday was the fourth this month addressing redistricting conducted by states based on the 2020 census. Its other decisions dealt with Republican-drawn U.S. House districts in Alabama and Loui...

Have best-before dates hit their expiration? Feds consider recommendation

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

We could see a change in policy around best-before dates in Canada in an effort to reduce food waste.It’s one of a dozen recommendations made by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food, the intent of which is to address rising food costs.The report, Grocery Affordability: Examining Rising Food Costs in Canada, was presented to the House on June 13. The report cited record-level acceleration of food prices through the Consumer Price Index, and record profits from grocery retailers in recent years.One recommendation made was by Lori Nikkel, who serves as CEO of Canada’s largest food rescue organization, Second Harvest. She writes in the report that best-before dates on packages are “wildly misunderstood.”“They are not expiry dates. They refer to a product’s peak freshness. While Canadians struggle to put food on the table, they are also convinced that best-before dates are about safety and will throw away perfectly good food t...

Supreme Court won’t hear challenge to Jim Crow-era Mississippi bans blocking some felons from voting

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday that it will not stop Mississippi from removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies — a practice that originated in the Jim Crow era with the intent of stopping Black men from influencing elections.The court declined to reconsider a 2022 decision by the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said Mississippi had remedied the discriminatory intent of the original provisions in the state constitution by altering the list of disenfranchising crimes.In a dissent Friday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the authors of the Mississippi Constitution in 1890 made clear that they intended to exclude Black people by removing voting rights for felony convictions in crimes they thought Black people were more likely to commit, including forgery, arson and bigamy. The list of disenfranchising crimes was “adopted for an illicit discriminatory purpose,” Brown Jackson wrote in the dissent joined by Justi...