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Dear Abby: Thanks for the gift, DIL – I hate it

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:03 GMT

Dear Abby: My husband and I have been married for 18 years, so I know his family well. His mother and I have a cordial, but not warm, relationship that’s sometimes a lot of work. She has always been hard to shop for, but the last two times I’ve given her gifts (at Christmas and her last birthday), instead of a thank-you card, she actually returned the gifts with a note saying she’d never use them.Now I’m not sure what to do. It’s obvious we have different tastes. When I ask her what she’d like, she demurs and says something like, “I’m sure you’ll choose something nice.” If I don’t send her a gift, it’s sure to be taken as a rebuff. What are my other options? (For what it’s worth, my husband has been no help here and considers gifts to be wholly my territory.) — Clueless in OhioDear Clueless: It is a HUGE breach of etiquette to return gifts the way your mother-in-law has done. Now, if you must give he...

CDC warns of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever for those traveling to Mexico

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:03 GMT

KSWB -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with San Diego County public health officials, are cautioning travelers to northern Mexico and Baja California of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. San Diego health officials reported back in November that a San Diego resident had recently died from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, cautioning the public about the tickborne illness and travel to Baja California. San Diego resident dies from tick bite; health officials warn of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever In early December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) followed suit, issuing a Health Alert Network (HAN) Health Advisory to healthcare providers and the public of the outbreak of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in travelers to northern Mexico and Tecate, Mexico, including Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Nuevo León, among other areas in northern Mexico.The CDC reported in December, five people had been diagnosed with RMSF since July 2023; every...

Some Trump fake electors from 2020 haven’t faded away. They have roles in how the 2024 race is run

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:03 GMT

VIRGINIA CITY, Nev. (AP) — Nearly two years after he signed documents attempting to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 loss in Nevada, Jim Hindle thanked everyone gathered in a historic Nevada boomtown’s commission chambers and asked them to bear with him while he learned how to oversee elections in rural Storey County. Hindle was another replacement in what was a revolving door of county election officials across Nevada as the 2022 midterms approached. He had just unseated the interim clerk, who had stepped in after the prior clerk resigned.But Hindle’s tenure in the heavily Republican county is part of a trend across battleground states where fake electors have retained influence over elections heading into 2024. He is among six Republicans who were indicted this month by Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford for their alleged roles in attempting to overturn the election outcome in the swing state, which Democrat Joe Biden carried by more than 33,000 votes over the GO...

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, to lie in repose

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:03 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court and an unwavering voice of moderate conservatism for more than two decades, will lie in repose in the court’s Great Hall on Monday. O’Connor, an Arizona native, died Dec. 1 at age 93. Her casket will be carried up the steps in front of the court, passing under the iconic words engraved on the pediment, “Equal Justice Under Law,” and placed in the court’s Great Hall. C-SPAN will broadcast a private ceremony held before the hall is open to the public, allowing people to pay their respects afterward, from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.The last justice who lay in repose at the court was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second female justice. After her death in 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, mourners passed by her casket outside the building, on the portico at the top of the steps.Funeral services for O’Connor are set for Tuesday at Washington National Cathedral, wher...

What about Bob? Some NJ Democrats want Menendez to move on so they can fight for his Senate seat

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:03 GMT

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — For years in New Jersey, any Democrat weighing a run for statewide office had to grapple with an important question: What about Bob?It wasn’t a reference to the 1991 Bill Murray flick but to Bob Menendez, the incumbent U.S. senator whose political influence placed him atop the state Democratic Party food chain. He kept allies in line, helped anoint rising stars and had an important voice in determining the fate of both candidates and policy proposals. Even after a federal corruption indictment ended in a hung jury in 2017, Menendez continued to wield considerable power.The “What about Bob?” question is no less relevant now, though it has taken on new meaning. It still bears no connection to the movie, though it has cinematic qualities of its own. Menendez is facing federal charges that he secretly aided Egypt’s authoritarian government and tried to thwart a friend’s criminal prosecution in exchange for gold bars and cash. He and his wife, who was also char...

That’s a wrap: Bryant Gumbel and HBO’s ‘Real Sports’ air their last episode after 29 years

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:03 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — For the last few years of its life, HBO’s “Real Sports” taped its episodes on the same Manhattan block where CBS’ “60 Minutes” resides. They shared a sensibility along with a neighborhood.But while “60 Minutes” rolls along in its sixth decade, the monthly sports magazine helmed by Bryant Gumbel is calling it quits in its 29th year. The final, 90-minute episode premieres Tuesday at 10 p.m. Eastern.Sports was a lens through which the magazine looked at all manner of issues, winning awards for pieces on corruption at the International Olympic Committee, labor abuses as Qatar prepared for the World Cup, concussions in sports and children forced to be jockeys for camel races in the Middle East.“Real Sports” told some inspirational stories, like Mary Carillo’s profile of the Hoyts, a father who ran marathons pushing the wheelchair of his cerebral palsy-afflicted son, and flashed humor.Who won or lost? There were other guys for that.“I’m OK,” Gumbel ...

How the White House got involved in the border talks on Capitol Hill — with Ukraine aid at stake

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:03 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House chief of staff Jeff Zients recently heard from a powerful Democratic senator that steep levels of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border had become, in a word, untenable. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, had signed onto a statement denouncing “reports of harmful changes to our asylum system” that were being proposed as part of a border deal on Capitol Hill. Yet Durbin, a veteran of numerous immigration battles, had also received concerning briefings from border officials and seen firsthand how the rising number of asylum-seekers had overwhelmed resources in his Midwestern state. So when Zients dialed Durbin one weekend this month for a temperature check on the ongoing border talks, the senator was candid.“I told him I thought the current situation is unsustainable, and the Democrats need to be part of the solution,” Durbin said. President Joe Biden’s top aide signaled the White House felt the same way, stressing to Durbin that “we have ...

A gloomy mood hangs over Ukraine’s soldiers as war with Russia grinds on

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:03 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A gloomy mood hangs over Ukraine’s soldiers nearly two years after Russia invaded their country.Despite a disappointing counteroffensive this summer and signs of wavering financial support from allies, Ukrainian soldiers say they remain fiercely determined to win. But as winter approaches, they worry that Russia is better equipped for battle and are frustrated about being on the defensive again in a grueling war. Some doubt the judgment of their leaders.Discontent among Ukrainian soldiers — once extremely rare and expressed only in private — is now more common and out in the open.In the southern city of Kherson, where Ukraine is staging attacks against well-armed Russian troops on the other side of the Dnieper River, soldiers are asking why these difficult amphibious operations were not launched months ago in warmer weather.“I don’t understand,” said a commander of the 11th National Guard Brigade’s anti-drone unit who is known on the battlefield as Boxer. ...

In Israel’s killing of 3 hostages, some see the same excessive force directed at Palestinians

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:03 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israelis were left stunned and speechless when three hostages held by Hamas were killed by Israeli forces in the middle of an active war zone after they waved a white flag and screamed out in Hebrew to show they did not pose a threat.For some, the incident was a shocking example of the ugliness of war, where a complex and dangerous battlefield is safe for no one. But for critics, the incident underscores what they say is the excessively violent conduct of Israel’s security apparatus against Palestinians. Except in this case, it cut short the lives of three Israelis trying desperately to save themselves.“It’s heartbreaking but it’s not surprising,” said Roy Yellin, director of public outreach with the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. “We have documented over the years countless incidents of people who clearly surrendered and who were still shot.”Yellin said the killings violated basic military ethics and international law that prohibit shooting at pe...

Cathy Zielske will show you how to make a card — but don’t expect her to send you one for Christmas

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:03 GMT

It’s noon on Wednesday, and Cathy Zielske is live from St. Paul.The 57-year-old YouTube personality is about to show people from Madrid to Massachusetts how to create a handmade card featuring a champagne flute, but first she has some housekeeping to address:“Hey everyone, it’s Cathy Zielske, welcome back to my channel and my studio and welcome to my weekly livestream, ‘Cathy Makes a Card,'” she said. “We’re going to get into it today because I have some plans — and then I’ll tell you the story about losing my bra and why that’s a problem.”The finished card that Cathy Zielske made from her home studio in St. Paul on Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, as part of her weekly livestream, “Cathy Makes a Card.” (Courtesy of Cathy Zielske /CZ Design)(It was a problem, she told her followers later, because the Pioneer Press was coming to photograph her after the livestream.)Zielske’s signature sense of humor, the way...