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Pope announces World Youth Day to return to Asia in 2027, urges young people ‘not to be afraid’

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:33:38 GMT

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Pope Francis told young people on Sunday the Catholic Church needs them and urged them to follow their dreams as he wrapped up World Youth Day in Portugal with a massive open-air Mass and an announcement that the next edition would be held in Asia for the first time in three decades.News that Seoul, South Korea would host World Youth Day in 2027 was a reflection of the continent’s increasing importance to the Catholic Church, given the church is young and growing there whereas it is withering in traditionally Christian lands in Europe. Francis made the announcement at the end of a Mass before an estimated 1.5 million pilgrims, many of whom camped out overnight on the Lisbon field so they could be in place for the grand finale of the Catholic festival. Joining them were some 700 bishops and 10,000 priests, the Vatican said.Francis largely stuck to script Sunday but again skipped much of his prepared homily, continuing the improvisation that has character...

Train derailment kills at least 15, injures 50 in southern Pakistan, officials say

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:33:38 GMT

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — At least 15 passengers killed and 50 more injured when a train derailed near the Pakistani town of Nawabshah in southern Sindh province, officials said Sunday.The Hazara Express was on its way from Karachi to Rawalpindi when ten cars derailed near the Sarhari railway station off Nawabshah, said senior railway officer Mahmoodur Rehman Lakho. Lakho is in charge of railways in the accident area. Lakho said rescue crews took injured passengers to the nearby Peoples Hospital in Nawabshah. Mohsin Sayal, another senior railway officer, said train traffic has been suspended on the main railway line as repair trains have been dispatched to the scene. Sayal said alternative travel arrangements and medical care will be made available for the train’s passengers. Train crashes often occurred on poorly maintained railways tracks in Pakistan where colonial-era communications and signal systems haven’t been modernized and safety standards are poor. The Associated...

Overnight airstrikes kill three in Ukraine as Moscow airport halts flights after foiled drone attack

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:33:38 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Three people have died during a night of air strikes and intense shelling across Ukraine, officials said Sunday, while Moscow’s second-largest airport briefly suspended flights following a foiled drone attack near the Russian capital.Two people were killed and four more were injured following a Russian air strike in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, said the head of the local regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a guided bomb had hit a blood transfusion center in the area’s Kupyan district late on August 5.“This war crime alone says everything about Russian aggression,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. “Defeating terrorists is a matter of honor for everyone who values life.”A woman in her eighties was also killed by Ukrainian shelling in Russian-held Donetsk, the city’s Moscow-appointed mayor Alexei Kulemzin said Sunday. Moscow’s Vnukovo airport located 15 kilometers (nine miles) southwest of the Russi...

Liberals lag on invitation to join global group that crafts vaccines for world’s poor

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:33:38 GMT

OTTAWA — The federal Liberal government has spent three years deliberating on an invitation to join a global body that designs vaccinations to protect the world’s poorest from preventable diseases.Documents reviewed by The Canadian Press show South Korea has been encouraging Canada to join the International Vaccine Institute, an agency based in Seoul that the United Nations helped launch in 1997.The agency conducts research on vaccines for diseases given less attention by pharmaceutical companies, and looks at how to tweak immunizations to make them work better in conditions such as rural parts of poor countries. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the institute has been focused on helping developing countries gain the capacity to manufacture vaccines.“The only way we tackle infectious diseases, which are global, is to have global partnerships,” said Paul Hodgson, operations director with the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, ...

'Eternally grateful': City of Kyle's mayor praises firefighters, others as Oak Grove Fire progress halted

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:33:38 GMT

HAYS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — City of Kyle Mayor Travis Mitchell wants everyone to go hug a firefighter after the forward progress of a wildfire was halted shortly before 9 a.m. Saturday in Hays County.As the Oak Grove Fire burned down a home and forced evacuations of approximately 30 others in an area near Kyle and San Marcos, Mitchell said the teamwork of fire departments from all corners of the Austin area was exemplary and on-point to get the fire's momentum stopped. RELATED: Churches in San Marcos, Wimberley open doors for Oak Grove Fire evacuees "This has been a massive, multi-jurisdictional response," he said. "There are so many different crews responding. It's all hands on deck. We've seen it through the years in Hays County and other areas. Whenever something like this happens, folks come in from all over and respond immediately with no concern for their own personal schedules, interest or safety."In an update just before midnight Saturday, the Texas A&M Forest Service ...

Prototype program aims to keep Minnesotans employed during health setbacks

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:33:38 GMT

ROCHESTER, Minn. — When Ginger LaVan was preparing herself for right-side total hip replacement last year, she already had experience with getting health accommodations through her employer, Charter Communications.“When you’re in an office setting like that, particularly after surgery, it’s important to be able to get a doctor’s note for any kind of desk modifications you need,” said LaVan, who works in customer service support. “I had eye surgery a couple of years ago, so I basically wear sunglasses at work all day because the LED lights are so bright — it’s difficult for me to see.”This time around, LaVan would spend three months away from work while she recovered from her surgery. While LaVan said her employer was supportive, she got extra help through Minnesota’s Retaining Employment and Talent After Injury/Illness Network, a fledgling state program known as MN RETAIN.The program’s overarching purpose is to help Minneso...

Readers and Writers: Novels set in Pakistan and St. Paul

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:33:38 GMT

Novels based in Pakistan and St. Paul are today’s summer reading picks.“Under the Tamarind Tree’: by Nigar Alam (Putnam, $27)“Under the Tamarind Tree” by Nigar Alam (Courtesy photo)“Now Rozeena knew, like everyone else, that over the next many months at least fifteen million people — Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs — were displaced. People fled their homes and crossed the border in both directions. Muslims ran to Pakistan for safety, and Hindus and Sikhs ran to India for safety. This movement and exchange of population, one of the largest mass migrations in human history, hadn’t been part of the plan, but it had been necessary for survival … Up to a million people died.” — from “Under the Tamarind Tree”Minnesotan Nigar Alam’s thought-provoking debut novel is about families, friendship, secrets, a long love never consummated, women who want to be independent, and generational trauma carried by those ...

Literary pick for week of August 6

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:33:38 GMT

Those two happy guys who are little kids’ favorite collaborations- – David LaRochelle and Mike Wohnoutka — are back with “See the Ghost,” third in their beginning reader series that began in 2021 with “See the Cat: Three Stories About a Dog,” winner of the prestigious American Library Association’s Theodor Seuss Award, followed by “See the Dog: Three Stories About a Cat.”Written by LaRochelle and illustrated by Wohnoutka, these goofy books are meta-fiction, meaning characters “break the fourth wall,” speaking directly to the reader. The book itself becomes a character and the other characters can control the actions. (Not that this stuff matters to kids who just want a funny story.)“See the Ghost” (Candlewick Press, $9.99), is subtitled “Three Stories About Things You Cannot See” and it again features Max the dog and Baby Cakes, mischievous cat.In the first story the ghost is afraid he...

One Book/One Minnesota book club pick: ‘In the Night of Memory’

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:33:38 GMT

“In the Night of Memory” by Linda LeGarde Grover is the new title in the One Book/One Minnesota’s statewide book club that invites Minnesotans to read a common title and come together virtually to enjoy, reflect, and discuss. This 11th title is announced by Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, acting as the Minnesota Center for the Book, in partnership with State Library Services.LeGarde Grover is professor emeritus of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth and a member of the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe. Her previous award-winning books include “The Road Back to Sweetgrass, “The Dance Boots,” “The Sky Watched: Poems of Ojibwe Lives” and “Onigamiising: Seasons of an Ojibwe Year” (Minnesota Book Award).“In the Night of Memory” (University of Minnesota Press)  is about a woman who surrenders her daughters to the county and disappears, becoming one more missing Native woman. But she is also ...

Ask Amy: Atheist worries about “thoughts and prayers”

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:33:38 GMT

Dear Amy: I am an atheist and am keeping my spiritual beliefs close to my heart as they would offend most family members and friends who all, to various degrees, identify as believers (Christians or otherwise).When a friend or a family member goes through seriously rough times or health issues (divorce, cancer etc.), and also in case of a friends’ or family member’s loved one’s passing, I still offer up the expected “thoughts and prayers,” as they don’t know that I’m an atheist.I think it is the right sentiment to express support and comfort.Yet every time I write or verbally express “thoughts and prayers,” I feel like a fraud. It feels completely empty to me.In cards, I have expressed “My heart goes out to you,” “You are in my heart and in my thoughts,” “I feel your pain and wished I could lift it,” etc., and these were heartfelt sentiments.Unfortunately, for me these sentiments just do not seem to have t...