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Dear Abby: Dreading the holiday newsletter bragfest

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

Dear Abby: Is there any way to end the “holiday newsletter”? Every Christmas, I get one from a particular family member, which invariably includes a list of their glowing accomplishments, expensive trips, etc., accompanied by lots of photos. Nobody else in our family sends these kinds of letters, and I don’t know how they feel about receiving it. Last December, I couldn’t even read it because it made me so depressed.My siblings and I are all in our 60s and 70s and spread out across the U.S. We have diverse lifestyles, incomes, etc. Most of us can’t afford the kind of vacations this sibling writes about. Many of us also have personal, painful things going on in our lives, which we don’t really want to discuss.Is it better to just not read the newsletter? I don’t believe this sibling means to be insensitive, and I don’t think I could ever bring the subject up for discussion. I just know I’m already dreading December’s letter....

Pedestrian killed after struck by vehicle on I-5: CHP

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- A pedestrian was killed after being struck by a vehicle on the northbound Interstate 5 near Old Town Saturday night, according to California Highway Patrol.The collision was reported to authorities just before 8:30 p.m. According to CHP logs, the pedestrian was walking on the freeway in the No. 1 lane in between the Old Town Avenue exit and the Moore Street on-ramp when they were struck by the vehicle.The pedestrian was declared dead at the scene. Their identity has not been disclosed by authorities.The two right lanes were blocked as a result of the collision, Caltrans said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Traffic was slowed through the area, although no SigAlert was issued.No additional details about the collision were immediately available.This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Gaza’s desperate civilians search for food, water and safety, as warnings of Israeli offensive mount

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza’s 2.3 million civilians faced a deepening struggle for food, water and safety Sunday and braced for a looming invasion a week after Hamas militants launched a deadly assault on Israel. While hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents sought to heed Israel’s order to evacuate roughly the northern half of the territory, others huddled at hospitals in the north.Israeli forces, supported by a growing deployment of U.S. warships in the region, positioned themselves along Gaza’s border and drilled for what Israel said would be a campaign by air, land and sea to dismantle the militant group. In Israel, pathologists and others at a military base worked through the Jewish Sabbath to identify the more than 1,300 Israelis and others killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault. The Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday that over 2,200 people have been killed in the territory, including 724 children and 458 women. Israel dropped leaflets over Gaza City in the north and...

6.3 magnitude earthquake hits western Afghanistan, USGS says

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck western Afghanistan on Sunday, the US Geological Survey said, more than a week after strong quakes and aftershocks killed thousands of people and flattened entire villages.The Associated Press

Noted Iranian film director and his wife found stabbed to death in their home, state media report

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Noted Iranian film director Dariush Mehrjui and his wife were stabbed to death in their home by an unknown assailant, state media reported Sunday.The official IRNA news agency quoted Hossein Fazeli, a judiciary official, as saying that Mehrjhi and his wife, Vahideh Mohammadifar, were discovered dead with knife wounds in their necks.Fazeli said the director’s daughter, Mona Mehrjui, found the bodies when she went to visit her father Saturday night at the home in a suburb about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the capital, Tehran.The report said authorities were investigating and gave no speculation on a motive, though the wife had complained about a knife threat on social media in recent weeks.Mehrjui , 83, was known as cofounder of Iran’s film new wave in the early 1970s that mainly focused on realism. He received many awards, including a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival in 1998 and a Golden Seashell at the San Sebastián Internationa...

The Israel-Hamas war has roiled US campuses. Students on each side say colleges aren’t doing enough

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

America’s colleges aspire to be places where ideas meet and common ground emerges. As the death toll rises in the Israel-Hamas war, they have become seats of anguish.Many Jewish students and their allies, some with family and friends in Israel, have demanded bold reckonings and strong condemnation after the attacks by Hamas militants, who stormed from the blockaded Gaza Strip into nearby Israeli towns, killing and abducting civilians and soldiers.Meanwhile, some Muslim students have joined with allies to call for a recognition of decades of suffering by Palestinians in Gaza, plus condemnation of the response by Israel. After the Hamas attack, Israel launched a total blockade of Gaza; airstrikes have flattened buildings and homes, killing civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate. On many campuses, these students agree on one thing: Their colleges, which are increasingly staking out positions of neutrality, have not done enough to support them.College officials, already...

Australia looks for new ways to lift Indigenous living standards after referendum loss

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia will look for new ways to lift Indigenous living standards after voters soundly rejected a proposal to create a new advocacy committee, the deputy prime minister said on Sunday.Every state and mainland territory apart from Australian Capital Territory voted against a proposal to enshrine in the constitution an Indigenous Voice to Parliament to advocate on behalf of the nation’s most disadvantaged ethnic minority.Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said his government remained committed to improving Indigenous welfare to close the eight-year gap in average life expectancies between Indigenous Australians and the wider community.“In terms of exactly what the precise steps forward are from here is a matter that we need to take some time to work through and I think people can understand that,” Marles told Australian Broadcasting Corp.“Coming out of this referendum there is a greater call for action on closing the gap,” Marles added.Indigenous Voice ...

Schools near a Maui wildfire burn zone are reopening. Parents wrestle with whether to send kids back

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Children take their places at folding tables on a church patio several miles from where their school burned down. Plastic tubs hold brand new textbooks quickly shipped from a publisher. Recess is on the resort golf course across the street.The wind-driven wildfire that leveled the historic Maui town of Lahaina this summer displaced many pupils not just from their homes, but from their schools, forcing their families and education officials to scramble to find other ways to teach them.Now, more than two months after the Aug. 8 wildfire killed at least 98 people, the three public schools that survived are set to reopen this week, posing an emotional crossroads for traumatized children and their families as they decide whether to go back to those campuses or continue at the other schools that took them in.Some parents said they won’t send their children back because they worry the fire left toxins behind, despite assurances from education officials that the campu...

Azerbaijanis who fled a separatist region decades ago ache to return, but it could be a long wait

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — As a young man starting out as a dentist, Nazim Valiyev was forced to flee his home as ethnic violence roiled a separatist region inside Azerbaijan. More than three decades later, with his medical career over after a stroke, the 60-year-old hopes he can return there, now that it is back under Azerbaijani control.It could still be years, however, before he realizes his dream.Valiyev is among the estimated 700,000 Azerbaijanis who fled or were forced out of the region they call Karabakh amid violence that flared beginning in 1988 and then grew into an outright war.That conflict ended in 1994, with the territory under the control of ethnic Armenian forces supported by their neighboring country. A subsequent war in 2020 returned control of much of the area to Azerbaijan, and a lightning offensive last month forced the Armenian separatists to relinquish the rest of the region known elsewhere as Nagorno-Karabakh.Within days of the capitulation, ethnic Armenians str...

Ecuadorians electing new president, choosing between an heir to a banana empire and an attorney

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:50 GMT

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Frightened by unprecedented violence on the streets and within prisons, Ecuadorians have a universal demand for the president they will choose Sunday — safety.The runoff election in the South American country pits an heir to a banana empire, Daniel Noboa, and an attorney, Luisa González. Both have limited governing experience and will undoubtedly have their work cut out.The election comes as more Ecuadorians become victims of drug-related violence that erupted roughly three years ago and intensified in August, when a presidential candidate was assassinated in broad daylight. People continuously watch their backs and limit how often they leave home. The uneasiness even pushed Noboa to add a bulletproof vest to his daily outfit.Whoever wins with a simple majority of votes will govern for only 15 months, until May 2025, which is what remains of the presidency of Guillermo Lasso. He cut his term short when he dissolved the country’s National Assembly in May as ...