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Édgar Barrera is the producer behind your favorite hits – and the Latin Grammys’ top nominee

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:54 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Édgar Barrera is one of the most in-demand people in music. He’s worked with everyone from Madonna and Shakira to Peso Pluma and Karol G. He has one Grammy and 18 Latin Grammys already to his name, and is the top nominee at Thursday’s 2023 Latin Grammys ceremony. Unlike most of his contemporaries dominating the music industry, though, Barrera is a producer and songwriter first, recently receiving a songwriter of the year nod for the Grammys in February.“Being an artist who is a public figure and things like that doesn’t really catch my attention,” he told The Associated Press in Spanish during a video call from Miami earlier this year. “I don’t like that prominence or anything like that. Being hidden behind, writing the songs, producing, doing what I like to do, what I know how to do, that is enough, and I don’t need the mark of being the artist, of being named.”Yet named he is — 13 times at this year’s Latin Grammys, held in Seville, Spain, incl...

Russian woman goes on trial in a cafe bombing that killed a prominent military blogger

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:54 GMT

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — A woman went on trial Wednesday in the bombing at a St. Petersburg cafe that killed a prominent Russian military blogger after he was given a bust of himself that later exploded.Darya Trepova, 26, is charged with carrying out a terrorist attack, illegal trafficking of explosive devices and forging documents in the April 2 blast at the cafe in which Vladlen Tatarsky was killed and 52 others were injured.She was arrested shortly after the bombing and faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted, according to Russian news reports. Tatarsky, 40, was an ardent supporter of the Kremlin’s military action in Ukraine and filed regular reports on the fighting from the front lines.Trepova was seen on video presenting Tatarsky with the bust moments before the blast at the riverside cafe in the historic heart of Russia’s second-largest city where he was leading a discussion.Russian media have reported that Trepova told investigators she was asked to deliver the...

Ukraine says it now has a foothold on the eastern bank of Dnieper River near Kherson

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:54 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A top Ukrainian official said its troops have established a beachhead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River near Kherson, an important advance in bridging one of Russia’s most significant strategic barriers in the war.Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s office, provided no details but confirmed the development that has been widely discussed in military forums over the past month. “Against all odds, Ukraine’s defense forces have gained a foothold on the left bank of the Dnieper,” Yermak told the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, in a speech Monday.Ever since Russian forces left the city of Kherson and the territory around it in November 2022, the only area they controlled on the west bank of the Dnieper, the river became a natural dividing line along the southern battlefront, preventing Ukrainian troops from advancing further into the Kherson region and towards Russian-annexed Crimea.The barrier also allowed Russia to conce...

Suspected German anti-government extremist convicted of shooting at police

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:54 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A suspected anti-government extremist was convicted of attempted murder in Germany on Wednesday for firing at police who had come to search his home for an unauthorized weapon.The Stuttgart state court sentenced the 55-year-old German citizen, whose name it didn’t release, to 14 1/2 years in prison. He was convicted of several counts of attempted murder, along with attacking and resisting officers and bodily harm.The court said the defendant had for years been writing letters to authorities that were typical of the Reich Citizens scene, which rejects the legitimacy of Germany’s postwar constitution and has similarities to the Sovereign Citizens and QAnon movements in the United States.In 2021, he moved to a farm in Boxberg in southwestern Germany, where he lived along with others with similar views in an isolated community. He showed signs of increasing radicalization. Earlier that year, his weapons license was revoked, and he didn’t respond to demands that...

Dolly Parton’s new album is a detour from country music – could R&B be next?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:54 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Last year, Dolly Parton was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — against her wishes. Now, almost exactly a year later, she’s releasing her first rock ‘n’ roll album, appropriately titled “Rockstar,” on Friday.In 2022, Parton shared a statement announcing that she didn’t feel she had “earned” the right to be nominated, but the Hall inducted her anyway. “I just didn’t think that I had done enough in the rock world to be considered, to be put in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame when there were so many great rock artists that are not even in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” Parton told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “They were going to put me in anyway, so I just accepted it gracefully. But I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to have to earn my keep,’” she says. Parton once thought she’d record a “Linda Ronstadt-type rock album,” but had felt she was getting too old. This presented a fresh opportunity. “I jumped on that like a...

Statistics Canada reports manufacturing and wholesale sales up in September

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:54 GMT

OTTAWA — Statistics Canada reported manufacturing sales rose 0.4 per cent to $72.8 billion in September, as higher prices helped sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector move higher.The agency says sales were up in 10 of 21 subsectors, as the petroleum and coal products group gained 6.3 per cent, the wood subsector rose 2.9 per cent and the machinery group added 1.3 per cent. The gains were partially offset by a 1.8 per cent drop in sales of chemicals and a 2.6 per cent decline in motor vehicle parts.Total manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.6 per cent in September, indicating a lower volume of goods sold. In a separate report, Statistics Canada says wholesale sales, excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain, rose 0.4 per cent to $83.1 billion in September. The increase came as wholesale sales were higher in four of the seven subsectors, led by a 2.2 per cent increase in the motor vehicle and motor vehicle par...

Taiwan’s participation at APEC forum offers a rare chance to break China’s bonds

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:54 GMT

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan will take part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco this week, a rare opportunity for the self-governing island democracy of 23 million people and its high-tech economy to break the diplomatic embargo on it imposed by authoritarian China.Taiwan’s chief delegate will be a civilian rather than a government figure or head of state, under an unwritten rule that satisfies China’s contention that members of the organization participate as economic entities rather than state players.For the seventh time, Taiwan will be represented by Morris Chang, the 92-year-old founder of the world-leading Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Chang is known as the godfather of the industry that has put Taiwan in the top ranks of high-tech manufacturing and personal electronic devices. Taiwan has participated in APEC since 1991 under the name Chinese Taipei. It began taking part just two years after the group’s inception and the sa...

Magnitude 3.6 earthquake rattles parts of northern Illinois, USGS and police say

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:54 GMT

STANDARD, Ill. (AP) — A magnitude 3.6 earthquake rattled parts of northern Illinois early Wednesday, awakening some residents and spurring reports to 911 about homes shaking, the U.S. Geological Survey and police said.The small earthquake was detected about 4:41 a.m. local time and was centered about sixth-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) south-southeast of Standard, Illinois, the federal agency said.The town is located about 100 miles (161 kilometers) southwest of downtown Chicago.The temblor occurred about 2.9 miles (4.6 kilometers) below the Earth’s surface, the USGS said.Local police agencies said they had received no reports of damage due to the earthquake.Administrative Lt. Doug Bernabei with the Peru Police Department, located several miles north of Standard, said he was up making coffee when his house shook. Suspecting it might be a quake, he turned on his police radio and heard numerous calls coming into 911 dispatch from residents.“We received voluminous amounts of 911...

Energy Department tries to boost US battery industry with another $3.5 billion in funding

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:54 GMT

The Energy Department is making a push to strengthen the U.S. battery supply chain, announcing up to $3.5 billion for companies that produce batteries and the critical minerals that go into them.Batteries are seen as an important climate solution because they can power cars, which are a major cause of climate change when they burn gasoline. They are also a solution when they store clean electricity made from solar panels or wind turbines, allowing gas or coal power plants that cause climate change to turn off. Lithium ion is currently the dominant battery type both for electric vehicles and clean electricity storage. The DOE wants to strengthen the supply because even though there is plenty of work underway to develop alternatives, it estimates demand for lithium batteries will increase up to ten times by 2030.The Biden-Harris administration has a goal of lowering the pollution that causes climate change to zero by 2050 and for half of all new cars sales to be electric in 2030. Some...

EU turns to the rest of the world in hopes that hard-to-fill-jobs will finally find a match

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:54 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — Contrary to the vision of a “Fortress Europe” to keep illegal migrants out, the European Union on Wednesday proposed to lower the drawbridge for targeted labor migration where the 27 nations can no longer find a local talent pool to fill essential jobs. With the proposal, the EU is seeking to walk a tightrope between populists and extremists, who condemn almost any kind of migration into the bloc, and businesses, from local to multinationals, who increasingly cannot find locals to fill jobs in the EU’s quickly aging job market. From construction to health care and the high-tech experts needed for the EU green transition, the local talent pool in the bloc of 450 million people has increasingly proved insufficient.And instead of forcing talent from across the globe to seek entry into the lucrative EU labor market via the illegal and dangerous migration route where the EU is increasingly restrictive, Wednesday’s plans call for a safe and legal way. “This pac...