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Colorado has gained back all restaurant workers it lost during COVID

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:12 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado has finally recovered from one of the most spotlighted issues it faced in the roughly two-year stretch of COVID pandemic problems - its food service workforce. When COVID restrictions were first put in place in the spring and summer of 2020, restaurants that were unable to seat customers lost employees by the millions nationwide. As the country lifted restrictions, restaurants and bars were faced with the lingering side effect of inflation. Does Colorado have more natural disasters than other states? Former workers refused to come back without wage increases to balance the rising cost of living. This partially contributed to food inflation as both restaurants and grocery stores passed increased wage costs onto customers. It's taken close to three years, but Colorado now has as many food and accommodations workers employed as it had the month before the pandemic broke.There were 289,200 food and accommodations workers in Colorado in February 2020. In April...

Commissioners set to vote on permanent name for Miami-Dade arena

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:12 GMT

Miami-Dade County is set to vote on the permanent name for the Miami-Dade Arena after negotiating for weeks with Kaseya US LLC, a business that creates and markets software. The final negotiations will take place on Tuesday morning and if the deal goes through, the new name, Kaseya Arena, will go into effect immediately for the next 17 years.The Kaseya Arena will continue to host the Miami Heat games and other events, and the new naming rights deal is expected to bring in significant revenue for the county. The home of the Miami Heat was temporarily named the Miami-Dade Arena after its previous sponsor, FTX, filed for bankruptcy in November. The cryptocurrency company’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of conspiracy and wire fraud and conspiring to violate US campaign finance laws by making political donations through straw donors.

Von der Leyen to speak with Zelenskyy ahead of China visit

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:12 GMT

BRUSSELS — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will speak to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of her visit to China later this week.Von der Leyen will hold a phone call with the Ukrainian president “in the context of her preparation for this trip [to China],” Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer confirmed at a media briefing Tuesday.In her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, slated for Thursday, von der Leyen is expected to broach the topic of China’s role in Russia’s war on Ukraine.In a speech last week, she rejected China’s peace proposal for Ukraine — which recognizes seized Ukrainian territory as Russian — as “simply not a viable plan” and expressed concerns that the country may be siding with Russia in the ongoing conflict.Today, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said: “[China’s] position on Russia’s atrocities and war crimes will determine the quality of our relationship.’’ Borrell also announced Tuesday ...

Finland is now officially a NATO member

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:12 GMT

BRUSSELS — Finland formally joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Tuesday, becoming its 31st member on the same day as NATO’s 74th anniversary. The country applied to join NATO last May in a foreign policy U-turn prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finland’s entry brings to the alliance a new 1,340-kilometer border with Russia — as well as its own significant military capabilities. Finland and Sweden initially planned to join the alliance together. But Turkey and Hungary dragged out the ratification process for the two countries, ultimately signing off on Finland’s bid last week but leaving Sweden hanging in the wind. On Tuesday this week, Turkey and Finland completed the final steps in the process, handing over accession documents to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Standing alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Blinken declare...

Police raid center-right party’s Brussels HQ

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:12 GMT

BRUSSELS — Belgian and German police on Tuesday raided the Brussels headquarters of the conservative European People’s Party, the largest group in the European Parliament, the party said in a statement.The police search “is connected to an ongoing inquiry in Thuringia, Germany,” the statement read.“The party is cooperating in full transparency with the authorities involved, providing all relevant information and documentation,” it added.When POLITICO visited Tuesday afternoon, no police activity was ongoing at EPP offices on Rue du Commerce in the European Quarter. Employees at a hotel across the street said they had not noticed anything unusual in the morning. German outlet Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk reported that the raid is connected to Mario Voigt — leader of the state parliament group in Thuringia for Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union — and his involvement in the EPP’s 2019 election campaign.The local CDU lawmaker was recruited to support the EPP’s dig...

US strike kills senior ISIS leader in Syria, US Central Command says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:12 GMT

(CNN) — A US strike in Syria has killed a senior ISIS leader who planned attacks into Europe, United States Central Command said in a statement.The strike, carried out on Monday, was a “unilateral” US operation that killed Khalid ‘Aydd Ahmad al-Jabouri, CENTCOM said in the statement posted to Twitter.Al-Jabouri was a senior ISIS figure who “was responsible for planning ISIS attacks into Europe and developed the leadership structure for ISIS,” CENTCOM said.No civilians were killed or injured in the strike, according to CENTCOM.“ISIS continues to represent a threat to the region and beyond,” CENTCOM commander, Gen. Erik Kurilla, said in the statement. “Though degraded, the group remains able to conduct operations within the region with a desire to strike beyond the Middle East.”Al-Jabouri’s death will “temporarily disrupt the organization’s ability to plot external attacks,” the statement said.The US s...

Boat takes on water at dock in Chelsea

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:12 GMT

A boat was taking on water at a dock in Chelsea Tuesday morning. Fire crews were called to the scene around 7 a.m. and divers were sent into the water to make sure no one was on board.The 40-inch boat was cleared shortly after and only gave off a little fuel, as it was already set to go to a scrap yard and stripped of a lot of its parts. The scene has been handed back to the marina, which will be removing the boat at some point.No additional information has been released.

Police searching for driver in fatal West Bridgewater hit-and-run

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:12 GMT

Police are searching for the driver in a fatal hit-and-run crash on Route 24 in West Bridgewater Monday night.The crash happened around 9:30 p.m. on the northbound side of the road. Police said a preliminary investigation indicates that a Toyota Scion and a Honda Accord were driving along Route 24 when the Toyota changed lanes and made contact with the Honda. The impact projected the Honda into the median, where it came into contact with a concrete barrier. Police said the Toyota fled the scene.As the Honda was stationary in the left travel lane, a Ford Maverick pickup struck its rear, causing it to become fully engulfed in flames, police said. The West Bridgewater Fire Department knocked down the car fire. The operator of the Honda, identified as 46-year-old Erpharo Gilbert of Raynham, was pronounced dead at the scene.The operator of the Ford, a 23-year-old Brockton man, was not injured. All three northbound lanes on Route 24 were shut down for about four hours and have since reope...

Finland joins NATO in major blow to Russia over Ukraine war

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:12 GMT

By LORNE COOK and MATTHEW LEE (Associated Press)BRUSSELS (AP) — Finland joined the NATO military alliance Tuesday, dealing a major blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a historic realignment of Europe’s post-Cold War security landscape triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.The Nordic country’s membership doubles Russia’s border with the world’s biggest security alliance. Finland had adopted neutrality after its defeat by the Soviets in World War II, but its leaders signaled they wanted to join NATO just months after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine sent a shiver of fear through its neighbors.In praising Finland’s membership, U.S. President Joe Biden noted it came on the 74th anniversary of the signing of NATO’s founding treaty on April 4, 1949.“When Putin launched his brutal war of aggression against the people of Ukraine, he thought he could divide Europe and NATO. He was wrong,” Biden said. “Today, we...

Thanks to sister’s gift, Michael King pitches to his own beat

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:12 GMT

As Michael King stepped to the mound Saturday, he did so to a familiar sound.King, pitching in a major league game for the first time since July 22 after a stress fracture in his right elbow ended his breakout 2022 campaign, showed some rust. The right-hander allowed two earned runs over 1.2 innings in the Yankees’ 7-5 loss to the Giants, but simply returning to the bump qualified as an accomplishment after King’s freak injury a season ago.Doing so also gave the 27-year-old a chance to reintroduce his warm-up song, “Messin’ with the King,” to the Yankee Stadium crowd. The tune, a rap written by his recording artist sister, Olivia, has been welcoming King to the hill since his junior season at Boston College with these opening lines:I step to the mound and I put on my crown,I royally put them down after you hear this sound,Even the crowd knows you in for it now…“I love the lyrics,” King told the Daily News of the track, which features O...