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Xi Jinping: China’s ‘friendship’ with Russia ‘growing day by day’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:32 GMT

Beijing’s “friendship” with Moscow is “growing day by day,” China’s President Xi Jinping said ahead of his three-day trip to Russia, which kicked off Monday. In an op-ed, published in Russian in Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Sunday evening, Xi said he was traveling to Moscow to strengthen “friendship, cooperation and peace” and create “new prospects for Sino-Russia relations.” He continued: “Our two sides are implementing the concept of friendship passed down from generation to generation, and this traditional friendship is growing day by day.”Notably, though, the English-language version of Xi’s op-ed published by China’s state-run People’s Daily doesn’t mention the effusive “day-by-day” line, and more demurely says: “Our two sides have acted on the vision of lasting friendship and steadily strengthened our traditional friendship.”In his own synchronized opinion piece pub...

MBTA lifts global speed restriction on Green Line as repairs continue on some tracks

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:32 GMT

The global speed restriction on the Green Line was lifted Sunday and replaced with targeted block restrictions, the MBTA announced as crews continue to repair some areas of the track.Transit officials say block speed restrictions remain in place on about 18 percent of the Green Line track. MBTA test trains have confirmed that all speed signs on the Green Line are in place to safely implement these restrictions. “Block speed restriction is a length of track that may include multiple defects that need to be investigated or mitigated,” the MBTA said in a statement. “As each defect is validated and corrected as needed, the length of the block speed restriction will be reduced until the block is fully removed.”The agency is urging riders to continue to plan ahead and be prepared for delays.The MBTA first announced global speed restrictions on Red, Orange, Blue and Green Lines March 9. The Green Line is the last to lift the restriction.

MBTA: Shuttle buses to replace Red Line trains between Braintree and North Quincy

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:32 GMT

The MBTA says shuttle buses will replace all Red Line trains between Braintree and North Quincy stations starting Monday. The shuttle buses will start running after 9 a.m. and continue until the end of service. The T says this change will be in place through Thursday. https://twitter.com/MBTA/status/1637438776854351873

China’s leader Xi in Moscow for meeting with Putin

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:32 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow on Monday on a three-day visit that offers a strong political boost for Russian President Vladimir Putin as fighting in Ukraine grinds on.China and Russia have described Xi’s trip as part of efforts to further deepen their “no-limits friendship.”The Kremlin has welcomed China’s peace plan for Ukraine and said it would be discussed talks between Putin and Xi that will begin over dinner on Monday.Beijing has called for a cease-fire, but Washington strongly rejected the idea as the effective ratification of the Kremlin’s battlefield gains.Xi’s trip to Russia comes after the International Criminal Court on Friday issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest on war crimes charges. The Kremlin, which doesn’t recognize the authority of the ICC, has rejected its move as “legally null and void.”China’s foreign ministry on Monday called on the ICC to “respect the jurisdictional immunity” of a head of state and “avoid politicization and do...

Owner of Boston-area pizza chain to appear in court on federal charge of forced labor

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:32 GMT

The owner of a pizza chain with multiple Boston-area locations is set to appear in court Monday on a federal forced labor charge amid accusations that he abused an employee and threatened to report the employee’s immigration status, according to the the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.Stavros Papantoniadis, 47, of Westwood owns Stash’s Pizza with locations in Dorchester and Roslindale. Homeland Security investigators said Papantoniadis targeted employees who lacked immigration status.Officials said one unnamed victim, who worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week at the restaurant in Dorchester was afraid of Papantoniadis and once cried when he was kicked in the groin.Investigators said Papantoniadis also knocked the man’s teeth out.“Victim 1 missed a day of work. The next day, Papantoniadis pushed him and caused him to fall to the floor. Papantoniadis then called Victim 1 an ‘[Expletive] Muslim,’” court paperwork said of one incident.While Papanto...

Bank failures, Fed oversight and response sends Elizabeth Warren on TV tirade

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:32 GMT

The Bay State’s senior senator made the full Sunday talk show rounds this weekend, telling every news station that would listen how fed up she is with the leadership of the nation’s central bank amid the collapse of several financial institutions.“What happened is exactly what we should have predicted,” U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren told CBS’s Margaret Brennan.“This whole tranche of banks has been under regulated for five years now,” she said.Warren was speaking about 10 days after it became apparent that California based Silicon Valley Bank would fail amid a modern day, social media driven banking run. A second lender, New York based Signature Bank, would fail days later.The collapse of both institutions represent, according to Reuters, the second and third largest banking failures in U.S. history, behind only the 2008 folding of Washington Mutual.Warren, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, is proposing that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s $250,000 worth of account p...

Lucas: ‘Dispute’ or war? DeSantis should go to Ukraine and find out

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:32 GMT

Ron DeSantis should go to Ukraine.That way he could meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and determine if the terrible war between Russia and Ukraine was indeed “a territorial dispute” not vital to U.S interests, or an outright brutal war of aggression by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.Everybody else has gone to Ukraine, from President Joe Biden to actor Ben Stiller. So why not DeSantis?And Zelenskyy, in the name of equity, fairness and drama, could turn on the Kiev air raid sirens the way he did during Biden’s recent visit.DeSantis, the popular GOP alternative to Donald Trump, caused a stir among GOP supporters of continued military aid to Ukraine, when he said the U.S. had more important issues to deal with.He said, “While the U.S. has many vital national interests—securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural and military power of the Chinese Communist Par...

French gov’t fights to survive with 2 no-confidence motions

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:32 GMT

PARIS (AP) — France’s government is fighting for its survival Monday against no-confidence motions filed by lawmakers who are furious that President Emmanuel Macron used special constitutional powers to force through an unpopular bill raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 without giving them a vote.National Assembly lawmakers are set to vote in the afternoon on two no-confidence motions, one from the far-right National Rally and the other, more threatening one from a small group that has gathered support across the left.The Senate, dominated by conservatives who back the retirement plan, passed the legislation last week.The no-confidence motions each need the backing of 287 lawmakers in the National Assembly, the lower chamber, to pass.Although the motions appear unlikely to succeed, the climate of protest that Macron’s pension reforms has sparked in parliament and on the streets means the outcome of voting in the National Assembly is not guaranteed. No such motion has succeeded ...

Pakistani police arrest scores more Imran Khan supporters

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:32 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani police on Monday arrested scores more supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan for attacking officers over the weekend outside an Islamabad court where the ousted premier was to appear on graft charges, officials said. The arrests were the latest amid legal cases facing Khan, now opposition leader, since his ouster in a no-confidence vote in Parliament last April. The standoff between the 70-year-old former cricket player turned Islamist politician, and the government of his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, has turned increasingly violent. Monday’s arrests bring the total number of Khan’s followers detained in Islamabad to 198 since Saturday, when 59 were arrested in the Pakistani capital. Khan’s followers threw fire bombs and hurled rocks at the officers as riot police wielded batons and fired tear gas. More than than 50 officers were injured and a police checkpoint, several cars and motorcycles were torched. Also on Saturday, p...

Activists demand EU halts ‘green’ funds for Spain ski resort

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:32 GMT

MADRID (AP) — Spanish environmental groups on Monday called on the European Union to open an inquiry into the approval of 26.4 million euros ($28.1 million) of “green” economic recovery funds to join two ski resorts in the rapidly warming Pyrenees mountain range. Five Spanish groups sent a delegation to Brussels for meetings this week with European Union lawmakers and officials to urge greater scrutiny of a project they say will cause irreversible damage to the glacial valley of Canal Roya in the Aragon region.The EU’s 724 billion-euro ($763-billion) COVID-19 recovery program is supposed to support member states to “build a greener, more digital and more resilient future,” with stringent rules on impacting biodiversity, water use and carbon emissions.The activists argue the union of the resorts of Astún-Candanchú and Formigal with an 8-kilometer-long cable car link violates these conditions. The plan was approved by Spain’s tourism ministry in December.“This is a space of enor...