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I’m no lame duck, Macron says, vowing to stop Le Pen’s rise

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:16:59 GMT

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron hit back Wednesday against speculation he has become a lame-duck president paving the way for the far right to come to power, a day after his flagship immigration bill was voted through — with the support of the far-right National Rally.Macron’s government has been in crisis since his coalition splintered over a bill that was deemed too right-wing by many centrist lawmakers, raising critical questions as to whether he can still govern effectively. In his first interview since Monday’s vote, the French president denied any long-term damage, even while National Rally leader Marine Le Pen celebrated and cast the toughened bill as an “ideological victory” for her camp. My majority “hasn’t shrunk,” the French president said on the France 5 TV channel. “I respect the women and men who abstained or voted against the bill, but has one of them left our coalition? Has one of them said I’m breaking a...

Aaron Rodgers writes off this season as ‘lost year,’ but quarterback says he feels ‘I can play more years’ in NFL

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:16:59 GMT

(CNN) — Superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who ruptured his left Achilles tendon just four snaps into his New York Jets career, has written off this season as a “lost year,” though he feels he can “play more years” in the NFL.After spending 18 seasons with the Green Bay Packers, Rodgers was traded to the Jets in the offseason earlier this year.His debut was highly anticipated, but Rodgers only saw 94 seconds of game time as he suffered the significant injury in the Jets’ season opener against the Buffalo Bills when he was sacked by edge rusher Leonard Floyd, only four plays in.Four-time MVP Rodgers had surgery the week of his injury in September, and it was reported that he was making spectacular progress in his recovery and that a return was possible if the Jets were to make the playoffs.Speculation only intensified when the 40-year-old was cleared to return to practice in November, only 11 weeks after the injury.However, with the Jets now officially out ...

Massachusetts airman killed in Osprey crash remembered as a leader and friend to many

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:16:59 GMT

DALTON, Mass. (AP) — A U.S. Air Force staff sergeant from Massachusetts who was one of eight service members lost when a CV-22 Osprey crashed off the coast of Japan was remembered at his funeral on Wednesday as outstanding and a leader and a friend to many.Jake Galliher, 24, of Pittsfield, was a husband and dad, a brother and son, with bright plans for the future, said the Rev. Christopher Malatesta at the service at the St, Agnes Parish in Dalton.“The Air Force has core values. Jake had those values. Integrity first, service before self, excellence in all that we do,” Malatesta said. “The Air Force has defined in Jake what most of us already knew: He was outstanding and spectacular. He was fun and loveable. He was truly honorable.”Galliher’s remains were the first to be found after the Osprey went down Nov. 29 during a training mission just off Yakushima Island in southwestern Japan. A week later, the U.S. military grounded all its Osprey V-22 aircraft aft...

Quiet Weather Ahead

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:16:59 GMT

Not much to talk about today in the blog aside from the cold air moving in the next couple of days. Winter officially arrives tomorrow evening and it will feel it the next couple of days. Tomorrow morning temperatures will be in the 20s but with a breeze overnight and tomorrow it will feel like the teens tomorrow morning. A winter’s chill.Tomorrow will feature almost wall to wall sunshine with temperatures in the 30s. But with the breeze will feel like the 20s. Friday is the colder day but with less wind it may actually feel nicer than Thursday. Friday morning will also be cold with temperatures falling to the teens.The cold doesn’t hang around long and we’re already warming up through the the weekend and that will set up a pretty mild Christmas Day.

Southwest, pilots reach tentative agreement for contract worth $12 billion

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:16:59 GMT

(CNN) — After three years of negotiating, Southwest Airlines and the union representing the airline’s pilots reached a tentative agreement on a new contract on Wednesday.“We know that the last few years have been difficult for our pilots as well as our customers, but we believe that this TA rewards our pilots as well as improving reliability for our passengers,” said Southwest Airlines Pilots Association President Casey Murray in a statement.The SWAPA union’s 25-member board approved the deal Wednesday after union leadership reached an initial agreement in principle with Southwest earlier this week.But the deal isn’t guaranteed to go to contract: the union’s nearly 11,000 members can vote on whether or not to approve the contract until January 22.A spokesperson for SWAPA told CNN the contract is worth $12 billion. Reuters first reported the contract’s dollar amount.The agreement runs through December 2028 and “provides significant gains in compensation, with pay ...

Review of U2 at the Sphere in Las Vegas: This was the right band to open this brain-bending venue

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:16:59 GMT

Bob Gendron | Chicago TribuneLAS VEGAS — Even better than the real thing? In the case of U2 at the Sphere in Las Vegas, which completed the band’s 2023 residency dates Saturday in advance of a late January return, that all depends on perspective. Given the extraordinary immersion on offer during the thrilling 130-minute journey, getting a fix on what is actual versus what seems imagined can be complicated.It’s wiser to surrender to the awe-inspiring surroundings.Brilliant in conception and passionate in execution, “U2: UV Achtung Baby Live at the Sphere” explodes with possibility and suspends disbelief. Constructed for an approximate cost of $2.3 billion, the Sphere is the world’s largest spherical building and designed to overwhelm. Both its interior and exterior “exosphere” are covered with LEDs and inside, the dome is covered with a 16K LED screen, a wraparound engineering feat that stretches back, around and over most attendees’ heads. Some 168,000 speakers use spatial audio in ...

Norwegian Cruise Line’s latest ship caters to Gen-X crowd

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:16:59 GMT

Norwegian Cruise Line’s newest ship Norwegian Viva has some serious Gen-X appeal.Cruise lines have juggled the tastes of mixed generations on board for decades, but contemporary lines like NCL cater to the latest generation making vacation decisions, and a good chunk of that clientele call themselves children of the 80s.So while the structure of Norwegian Viva, a sister ship to Norwegian Prima, and the second of six planned vessels that look to redefine NCL’s fleet, is somewhat generation-agnostic, the entertainment programming is definitely geared toward those who find themselves in their 40s and 50s.“Beetlejuice: The Musical” is the marquee show on board Norwegian Cruise Line’s new ship Norwegian Viva, which arrived to Miami on Nov. 28, 2023 to begin its first Caribbean sailing season. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)That includes the marquee stage show “Beetlejuice,” a visually intense musical version of the Broadway hit, although condensed down to 90 minutes.The stage sho...

Alex Cora on Red Sox quiet offseason: ‘It isn’t for lack of effort’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:16:59 GMT

Usually by this point in the winter the Red Sox have already gotten most of their shopping done, and the majority of the big free agents will have found new teams. So far this offseason that hasn’t happened, and many Red Sox fans are growing restless waiting for the club to make a move.Yet while it looks on the surface like the Red Sox haven’t done anything, manager Alex Cora insists a lot has been going on behind the scenes.Speaking to WEEI’s Rob Bradford on the Baseball Isn’t Boring Podcast, Cora addressed the slow pace of the offseason and provided his perspective on why things have played out the way they have.“We’re working. (Craig Breslow) is working, the group is working, it just hasn’t happened, yet,” Cora said. “But it hasn’t happened (business-wide). These two guys have dominated the game, Ohtani dominated the whole Winter Meetings, Yamamoto is doing the same thing right now, and in this case I believe it’s ...

How to track Santa on Christmas Eve

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:16:59 GMT

There’s no one busier on Christmas Eve than Santa Claus, and one organization has been tracking his exceptional gift-giving abilities for more than 60 years.This modern tradition actually started in 1955, “when a young child accidentally dialed the unlisted phone number of the (Continental Air Defense Command) Operations Center upon seeing an newspaper advertisement telling kids to call Santa,” according to the bi-national organization North American Aerospace Defense Command.The director of operations at the time, Col. Harry Shoup, “answered the phone and instructed his staff to check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole,” the organization says on its website. And so the tracking of Mr. Claus began.It continued when NORAD formed and replaced CONAD in 1958. Since then, NORAD says it has “has dutifully reported Santa’s location on Dec. 24 to millions of children and families across the globe.”Relat...

'Fat Leonard,' a fugitive now returning to the US, was behind one of the military's biggest scandals

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:16:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Returning convicted defense contractor Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis to U.S. custody as part of the Venezuelan prisoner swap on Wednesday is the latest twist in a decade-long salacious saga and bribery scheme that swept up dozens of American Navy officers.One of the biggest bribery investigations in U.S. military history led to the conviction and sentencing of nearly two dozen Navy officials, defense contractors and others on various fraud and corruption charges. And it was punctuated by Francis' daring escape last year, when he fled from house arrest at his San Diego home to South America.An enigmatic figure who was 6-foot-3 and weighed 350 pounds at one time, Francis owned and operated his family’s ship servicing business, Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. or GDMA, which supplied food, water and fuel to vessels. The Malaysian defense contractor was a key contact for U.S. Navy ships at ports across Asia for more than two decades. During that time he w...