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Audit: Maryland corrections department failed to follow overtime policies

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:03 GMT

Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Carolyn Scruggs. File photo by Bryan P. Sears.This content was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.State corrections officials failed to ensure compliance with overtime policies and in some cases could not provide documentation for hours worked.The findings are part of a 27-page review of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services released by the Office of Legislative Audits. The review covers the period of April 1, 2018 to June 21, 2022.All the findings in the report occurred during Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s second term.Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Carolyn J. Scruggs acknowledged the findings.“We appreciate the constructive findings and recommendations that were made as the result of this audit,” Scruggs wrote in a letter included in the audit report.In her...

Soaring labor costs at Southwest Airlines overshadow record revenue as summer travel revs up

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:03 GMT

DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines said second-quarter earnings dropped 10% to $683 million as labor costs soared, offsetting record revenue at the start of the peak summer travel season.The airline also warned Thursday that a key revenue ratio will drop and non-fuel costs will rise in the third quarter.The shares fell more than 8% at the opening bell on Wall Street.Southwest said that revenue for every seat flown one mile — a closely watched ratio in the airline business — fell 8.3% in the second quarter and will drop by between 3% and 7% in the third quarter, compared with the same periods last year. That outlook “will amplify concerns around slowing domestic air travel demand,” said Cowen airline analyst Helane Becker.A report earlier this week from Alaska Airlines fanned worries that demand for air travel — especially within the United States — might finally be cooling after recovering strongly from the pandemic. Southwest and Alaska both operate mostly domestic flights, and they ...

July has been so blistering hot, scientists already calculate that it’s the warmest month on record

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:03 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — July has been so hot thus far that scientists calculate that this month will be the hottest globally on record and likely the warmest human civilization has seen, even though there are several days left to sweat through.The World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service on Thursday proclaimed July’s heat is beyond record-smashing. They said Earth’s temperature has been temporarily passing over a key warming threshold: the internationally accepted goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).Temperatures were 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial times for a record 16 days this month, but the Paris climate accord aims to keep the 20- or 30-year global temperature average to 1.5 degrees. A few days of temporarily beating that threshold have happened before, but never in July.July has been so off-the-charts hot with heat waves blistering three continents – North America, Europe and Asia –...

UN weather agency says July is on track to be hottest month on record

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:03 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — UN weather agency says July is on track to be hottest month on record.Source

First Financial: Q2 Earnings Snapshot

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:03 GMT

RENTON, Wash. (AP) — RENTON, Wash. (AP) — First Financial Northwest Inc. (FFNW) on Thursday reported net income of $1.5 million in its second quarter.The bank, based in Renton, Washington, said it had earnings of 16 cents per share.The bank posted revenue of $20.5 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $11.1 million, which fell short of Street forecasts._____This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on FFNW at https://www.zacks.com/ap/FFNWSource

Bronny James, hijo de Lebron James, se recupera de un paro cardíaco que sufrió mientras jugaba baloncesto. Esto es lo que podría ocurrir después

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:03 GMT

(CNN) — En medio de una avalancha de apoyo por parte de aficionados, amigos y compañeros deportistas, expertos afirman que Bronny James y sus médicos pueden centrarse ahora en su camino específico hacia la recuperación después de que el hijo mayor de la estrella de la NBA LeBron James sufriera un paro cardíaco durante un entrenamiento de baloncesto este lunes en la Universidad del Sur de California (USC).Bronny, de 18 años, alumno de primer año del equipo de baloncesto de la USC, fue hospitalizado tras el incidente, y ahora se encuentra estable y fuera de cuidados intensivos.Hasta que no se sepa más sobre la causa del incidente y el estado de salud específico de James, los expertos dicen que es difícil trazar con exactitud cómo será su recuperación, pero el hecho de que fuera tratado inmediatamente y ya esté fuera de la unidad de cuidados intensivos es un buen augurio para su recuperación, según el Dr. Jonathan Drezner, quien se especializa en cardiología deportiva en el Centr...

DeSantis is defending new slavery teachings. Civil rights leaders see a pattern of ‘policy violence’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:03 GMT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Civil rights activists cheered when Ron DeSantis pardoned four Black men wrongfully convicted of rape as one of his first actions as Florida’s governor. But four years later, as DeSantis eyes the presidency, their hope that the Republican would be an ally on racial justice has long faded.Instead, African American leaders decry what they call a pattern of “policy violence” against people of color executed by the DeSantis administration that reached a low point after the recent release of an “anti-woke” public school curriculum on Black history. Specifically, Florida’s teachers are now required to instruct middle-school students that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”DeSantis has repeatedly defended the new language while insisting that his critics, who include Vice President Kamala Harris and at least one high-profile Republican congressman, are intentionally misinterpreting on...

Woman missing, presumed dead after yacht catches fire in Monroe County

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:03 GMT

MONROE COUNTY, Fla. (WSVN) — A woman has gone missing and was presumed dead by the local sheriff’s office after a yacht caught fire at a marina on Stock Island, an unincorporated community just before Key West. The 70-foot Viking yacht was fully engulfed in flames when Monroe County Fire Rescue crews arrived at the scene at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. The firefighters battled the intense blaze for approximately three hours in an attempt to contain and extinguish it.Officials said in the aftermath of the blaze, 51-year-old Linda Vella from St. Petersburg went missing. The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that the woman is presumed dead following the incident. Emergency response teams, including the Sheriff’s Office Dive Team and TowBoat U.S. crews, are still working to locate Linda. The fire also resulted in injuries to her husband, 58-year-old Michael Kenneth Robson and 21-year-old son Anthony Joseph Vella. They were both airlifted to a hospital i...

Germany faces 5 tough years, economy minister warns

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:03 GMT

Germany faces five difficult years of green industrial transition that “will put a burden” on people, Economy Minister Robert Habeck warned — while urging his government to approve fresh subsidies to safeguard the country’s industrial base.Reacting to a new report by the International Monetary Fund that projects Germany’s economy will shrink 0.3 percentage points this year, Habeck told German public broadcaster ARD on Wednesday evening, “The data certainly isn’t good.”Germany’s statistical office had already warned in May that the country entered into a recession, and that some of Germany’s biggest companies have begun to ditch the fatherland, triggering fears of deindustrialization.Habeck argued that this downturn could be explained by high energy prices, which Germany felt more intensely than other countries because it relied on cheap Russian gas. High interest rates are also slowing down investments and global trade, he added,...

‘Door is open’ for New Zealand to join AUKUS, top US diplomat says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:12:03 GMT

The “door is open” for New Zealand and other countries to join the security pact between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday.“On AUKUS as we continue to develop it … the door is very much open for New Zealand and other partners to engage as they see appropriate going forward,” Blinken told reporters in New Zealand. “We’ve long worked together on the most important national security issues, and so as we further develop AUKUS, as I said, the door is open to engagement.”AUKUS, an acronym for the current partners, is a trilateral security pact announced in 2021 focused on the Pacific region.The nations in March unveiled a new deal involving the sharing of nuclear submarine technology, which ultimately ends with London and Canberra creating advanced versions of the highly sensitive nuclear-powered submarine for their own navies.Blinken’s stop in New Zealand this week came amid the dedication of a new American...