Strong mid-March sunshine will bring milder temperatures on Wednesday.
How’s the weather looking for your Wednesday morning? Get your latest Maine’s Total Weather video forecast from Meteorologist Roger Griswold.
The top executives of more than three dozen Michigan-based companies, including General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co, on Tuesday issued a joint statement opposing Republican-backed legislation to restrict voting. The move appeared to be pre-emptive, after Georgia companies such as Coca-Cola Co and Delta Air Lines Inc endured public backlash for failing to take a stronger stance before that state enacted a raft of voting limits last month. "Government must avoid actions that reduce participation in elections - particularly among historically disenfranchised communities," the statement, which bore the names of 37 top executives, read in part.
Leaked recording from RNC fundraiser reveals ‘uproarious’ laughter from sponsors for ridicule of former first lady
‘We can’t afford nor do we desire to afford to ignore what we saw,’ says Kinston Mayor Pro Tem Felicia Solomon about footage
When hotel director Calvin Lucock and restaurant owner Unn Tove Saetran said goodbye to one of the last groups of migrants staying in one of the seaside resorts they manage in Spain’s Canary Islands, the British-Norwegian couple didn’t know when they would have guests again. The Spanish government — struggling to accommodate 23,000 people who disembarked on the islands in 2020 — contracted hundreds of hotel rooms left empty due to the coronavirus travel restrictions. The deal not only helped migrants and asylum-seekers have a place to sleep, it also allowed Lucock to keep most of his hotel staff employed.
‘Our system doesn’t serve kids like Daunte,’ Courteney Ross says
The US has for the first time designated China as its number one threat, with the intelligence community revealing on Wednesday that it is opening investigations into Beijing “every 10 hours”. Spy agency leaders told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that China is an "unparalleled priority”, citing the country’s regional aggression and cyber capabilities. “I don't think there is any country that presents a more severe threat to our innovation, our economic security and our democratic ideas,” Christopher Wray, FBI director, said in his testimony. “And the tools in their toolbox to influence our businesses, our academic institutions, our governments at all levels are deep and wide and persistent. “We have now over 2,000 investigations that tie back to the Chinese government,” he added. “I can assure the committee that's not because our folks don't have anything to do with their time."
During a memorial service at the US Capitol Rotunda for Officer William Evans, President Joe Biden picked up a toy dropped by the officer’s daughter, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told his family that while “no words are adequate” to address their loss, “we hope it’s a comfort to you that so many now know about your dad and know he’s a hero”. “And that the President of the United States is picking up one of your distractions.” Officer Evans was killed outside the Capitol on 2 April after a driver struck two officers before slamming into a security barrier outside the Capitol, then exited the car with a knife, according to police.
W.G. Galen Weston, the entrepreneur who built an Atlantic-spanning business network that made him one of the richest Canadians, has died. He was 80. Weston died on Monday “peacefully at home after a long illness faced with courage and dignity,” the Weston family said in a statement. “In our business and in his life he built a legacy of extraordinary accomplishment and joy,” his son, Galen G. Weston, chief executive officer of George Weston Limited, said. His daughter, Alannah Weston, the chairman of Selfridges Group, added: “The luxury retail industry has lost a great visionary.” A friend of Prince Charles and lover of polo and art, Weston oversaw and expanded a high-end family retail empire that includes Selfridges, Canada’s Holt Renfrew, Brown Thomas in Ireland and de Bijenkorf of the Netherlands. Through George Weston Ltd., the company named for his grandfather, the family holds the biggest stake in Canada’s largest food retailer, Loblaw Cos. Willard Gordon Galen Weston was born in Buckinghamshire, England, on Oct. 29, 1940, the youngest of nine children in a prominent family. His father, Willard Garfield Weston, had helped expand the family’s bakery company into a multinational food empire, and served as a member of Parliament during World War II. One brother, Garry H. Weston, who died in 2002, was one of the richest people in Britain, and chairman of Associated British Foods Plc. In 1962, Weston graduated from the University of Western Ontario and moved to Ireland where he met Hilary Frayne, an Irish fashion model; they married in 1966. With financial help from his grandmother, according to a 2014 article in the Irish Times, he bought a grocery store, building it into the Power Supermarkets chain, and then began acquiring clothing stores. At his father’s request, Weston returned to Canada in the early 1970s, taking the helm of Loblaw Cos., which he is credited with saving from near-bankruptcy and subsequently turning into the country’s largest grocer. Weston, who had two children, continued to make business a family affair. His son Galen G. Weston became executive chairman of Loblaw in 2006, and CEO at George Weston Ltd. in 2017 – the fourth generation to lead the business. His daughter Alannah Weston has also served as a director on George Weston’s board, as well as deputy chairman of Selfridges Group Ltd., which Weston acquired in 2003 and under which the family’s other luxury department stores are held. Weston had a net worth of $10.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His wealth sometimes came at a cost. In 1983, police tipped off Weston and his family about a planned kidnapping attempt at their estate in Ireland. During a police ambush, several members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army were reportedly shot and captured. Despite his prominence in society circles on both sides of the Atlantic, the incident led Westin to keep a low media profile throughout much of the rest of his life. He has continued to lease the historic Fort Belvedere in Windsor Great Park in southeast England, a 17th-century “folly” where Edward VIII abdicated. In 1989, Weston and his wife founded Windsor, a wealthy resort community in Vero Beach, Florida, helping design the lay-out of the community, golf course and polo field. A 2013 article in Toronto Life described the enclave as a “plutocrats’ playground,” where a tight-knit group of jet-setters convene in a not-quite-retirement community to “play polo, hit the links, plan corporate takeovers and party.” The Westons also maintained ties to Toronto, keeping a house in the tony Forest Hill neighbourhood where members of the royal family sometimes stayed when they visited Canada. The couple worked in philanthropy, and Hilary Weston served as lieutenant-governor of Ontario – the Queen’s representative in the province – from 1997 to 2002. “He and Hilary were an incredible team,” Nixon said. “He did so much for his country.”
Bottom 10 states were almost exclusively states in the South and Midwest
President Joe Biden said Wednesday he will withdraw remaining U.S. troops from the "forever war” in Afghanistan, declaring that the Sept. 11 terror attacks of 20 years ago cannot justify American forces still dying in the nation's longest war. The U.S. cannot continue to pour resources into an intractable war and expect different results, Biden said.
Killing of 20-year-old Black man has sparked protests and unrest in Minnesota city
‘Oh my gosh, what is that in the sky? Woah! Okay. Big piece of flash in the sky just then’
Rusten Sheskey will not face any discipline for the shooting of Black man that sparked 2020 Kenosha riots
Days before attack, law enforcement officials were warned Stop the Steal campaign could attract ‘white supremacists, militia members’ and other violent groups
"We empathize with the pain that Black mothers, fathers, and children are feeling after yet another senseless tragedy," Obama said.
And there's a new plan to end America's longest war.
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An aggressive Israeli settlement spree during the Trump era pushed deeper than ever into the occupied West Bank — territory the Palestinians seek for a state — with over 9,000 homes built and thousands more in the pipeline, an AP investigation showed. If left unchallenged by the Biden administration, the construction boom could make fading hopes for an internationally backed two-state solution — Palestine alongside Israel — even more elusive. Satellite images and data obtained by The Associated Press document for the first time the full impact of the policies of then-President Donald Trump, who abandoned decades-long U.S. opposition to the settlements and proposed a Mideast plan that would have allowed Israel to keep them all — even those deep inside the West Bank.
BEIJING (Reuters) -China's special climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, will meet with his U.S. counterpart John Kerry in Shanghai this week and exchange views on a key United Nations climate conference, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday. High-level talks in Alaska last month, the first since U.S. President Joe Biden took office, yielded no breakthrough. Kerry, who Biden selected to represent the United States in international climate talks, will seek to find common ground on climate change with Xie, whom he has been acquainted with for years.
US political developments, as they happen