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Israel asks Lebanon to remove militant Hezbollah tent from tense border area

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:50 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — The commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed on the tense Lebanon-Israel border relayed Monday an Israeli request to remove a tent set up by the militant Hezbollah group in a disputed area.The commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, Maj. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro, met Monday in Beirut with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.Lebanon Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib said Lebanese leaders told the U.N. commander that Israel should withdraw its troops from the Lebanese part of the town of Ghajar that was captured by Israeli troops in 2006.Israel filed a complaint with the United Nations in June claiming that Hezbollah had set up tents several dozen meters (yards) inside of Israeli territory. It’s unclear what was inside the tents or what they were for. The area where the tents were erected in Chebaa Farms and the Kfar Chouba hills were captured by Israel from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and are part of...

Book Review: A fast-paced, tension-laden plot at heart of Reed Farrel Coleman’s ‘Sleepless City’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:50 GMT

“Sleepless City,” by Reed Farrel Coleman (Blackstone)Nick Ryan, the protagonist in a new series by veteran crime novelist Reed Farrel Coleman, begins his fictional life with a lot of baggage.Nick’s fellow New York City cops don’t trust him because his father once testified against a cabal of corrupt officers. Nick’s brother, a fellow cop, is on an alcohol-fueled path of self-destruction. And an old girlfriend Nick had never gotten over suddenly pops up in his life again, married now but raising a toddler that looks a lot like Nick. As if that weren’t enough, Nick’s mentor in the department is dead by his own hand, shooting himself after getting caught planting evidence on a pedophile who was about escape justice. Like his late mentor, Nick is willing to taking the law into his own hands when thinks the situation requires it. We learn this right off when he sets out to kill the pedophile.Meanwhile, a crooked financier has looted the police union pension fund, and a string of police s...

United Nations humanitarian chief says Sudan appears to be in a civil war ‘of the most brutal kind’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:50 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Sudan appears to be in a civil war “of the most brutal kind” and the world needs a new forum for talks in pursuit of a cease-fire, the United Nations humanitarian chief told The Associated Press on Monday.Martin Griffiths spoke as regional leaders met in neighboring Ethiopia following the breakdown of peace talks in Saudi Arabia in June. Egypt says it will host leaders from Sudan’s neighbors on Thursday in search of peace, with few details.“We don’t have a place, a forum, where the two parties are present … where we can broker the kind of basic agreements that we need to move supplies and people,” Griffiths said. He called Sudan the toughest place in the world for humanitarian workers in terms of access and warned that the crisis will only worsen as the fighting spreads to new areas.“We have to re-create the architecture that we had for a little while in Jeddah,” he said of the Saudi- and U.S.-mediated talks. He criticized those discussions as “very clunk...

Impasse at strikebound B.C. ports not broken by Saturday’s round of negotiations

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:50 GMT

VANCOUVER — Striking British Columbia dock workers and their employer held a round of bargaining over the weekend, the first since negotiations collapsed one week ago, but neither side is saying when, or if, more talks are planned.About 7,400 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada have been on strike since July 1, idling all cargo handling at the Port of Vancouver, Canada’s busiest harbour.Prince Rupert, the country’s third busiest port, and more than 28 others along the length of the B.C. coast are also behind picket lines.The BC Maritime Employers Association says in its latest statement, issued Saturday after the round of mediated talks, that it made an offer to address dock workers’ demands to expand union jurisdiction over regular maintenance work at terminals.Jurisdiction over maintenance, as well as improved wages and language to prevent contracting out and automation are key issues in the dispute.The union has not responded public...

Man is charged in Berlin with attempted arson attack on building housing Russian news agency staff

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:50 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A Russian citizen has been charged in Berlin with attempted homicide and attempted arson for placing an explosive or incendiary device last year in a building where employees of a Russian news agency lived, prosecutors in the German capital said Monday.The 55-year-old suspect, whose name was not released, is accused of placing the device in an opening at the building’s basement in late April 2022. It failed to ignite for reasons that are unclear and was discovered and defused days later.The suspect was arrested on Dec. 14. Before that, he was involved in public protests against the Russian government, including a protest camp outside the Russian Embassy in Berlin, prosecutors said in a statement. Shortly after Russia launched its war in Ukraine in February 2022, he posted on social media about the building that was later attacked and said that “war against us all” was being conducted from it.The man was “not uncontroversial” among Russian opposition activists, pr...

Tennessee soccer coach is charged with child rape after restaurant workers find photos on his phone

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:50 GMT

FRANKLIN, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee soccer coach is accused of drugging and raping at least 10 boys after photos and videos of the children were discovered on his cell phone, police said.Police were contacted by a local restaurant on June 22 after staff found a cell phone left behind by a customer. Workers looked through it to try to determine the owner and found “unconscionable videos and pictures of children,” according to a news release Sunday from the Franklin Police Department. Camilo Hurtado Campos was arrested the following day and charged with rape of a child and sexual exploitation of a minor. Detectives have since found hundreds of videos and pictures on the phone; they say Campos recorded himself raping unconscious boys between approximately 9 and 17 years old.Police have identified two of the victims and are working to identify the others. Because the children in the videos were unconscious, they might not realize they are victims, police said. Campos lived in the Frankli...

S&P/TSX composite down as telecom and utility stocks pull back, U.S. stocks mixed

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:50 GMT

TORONTO — Canada’s main stock index was lower in late-morning trading, weighed down by losses in the telecom and utility stocks, while U.S. stock markets were mixed to start the trading week.The S&P/TSX composite index was down 24.93 points at 19,806.11.In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 102.31 points at 33,837.19. The S&P 500 index was down 1.52 points at 4,397.43, while the Nasdaq composite was down 19.29 points at 13,641.43.The Canadian dollar traded for 75.28 cents US compared with 75.23 cents US on Friday.The August crude oil contract was up seven cents at US$73.93 per barrel and the August natural gas contract was up 10 cents at US$2.68 per mmBTU.The August gold contract was down US$3.60 at US$1,928.90 an ounce and the September copper contract was up less than a penny at US$3.78 a pound.This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 10, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD=X)The Canadian Press

12 homes torn apart by landslide on Southern California’s Palos Verdes Peninsula

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:50 GMT

ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, Calif. (AP) — A dozen homes torn apart by earth movement on Southern California’s Palos Verdes Peninsula during the weekend were likely to fall into an adjacent canyon, an official said.The homes in the Los Angeles County city of Rolling Hills Estates were hastily evacuated by firefighters on Saturday when cracks began appearing in structures and the ground. Walls and roofs began to fail as the land continued to slide, the county Fire Department showed in video released on social media. Significant land movement overnight completely destroyed the homes, Janice Hahn, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said in a social media post Sunday.“To think that these homes were intact, you know, yesterday afternoon, and today you can hear the creaking, the cracking, the crumbling,” Hahn told a news conference Sunday. “They’re going to fall.”The city was collaborating with county agencies and the Red Cross to support displaced residents, Mayor Brit...

Former allies Serbia and Montenegro agree to patch up strained relations

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:50 GMT

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — The presidents of Serbia and Montenegro agreed Monday to try to patch up strained relations between the historic Balkan allies. The two countries had formed a joint state until Montenegro split in 2006 following a referendum on independence. The former allies grew further apart after Montenegro recognized the 2008 declaration of independence by Serbia’s former province of Kosovo. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Montenegro’s new President Jakov Milatovic said after a meeting in Belgrade that they will work to improve political ties to match their countries’ economic cooperation. Milatovic’s visit to Belgrade was the first by a Montenegrin president in years. Naming new ambassadors to Belgrade and Podgorica following a diplomatic row in 2020 will be among the first moves, the two officials said.“It is our responsibility to truly improve relations and not to disturb them, as has been the case often in the past,” said Milatovic. “We...

Ruling expected Tuesday in runner Caster Semenya’s human rights appeal against sex eligibility rules

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:31:50 GMT

The European Court of Human Rights is expected to deliver what could be the final word Tuesday in Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya’s yearslong legal challenge against rules that force her and other female athletes to lower their natural hormone levels through medical intervention to be allowed to compete in women’s track and field races.The testosterone limits have effectively put a stop to Semenya’s career by barring her from running in her favored 800 meters event — where she is a two-time Olympic champion and three-time world champion — since 2019.The South African athlete has refused to follow the rules and take medication to artificially lower her testosterone. She says the regulations enforced by the sport’s governing body, World Athletics, are discriminatory and violate her right to freely compete in women’s sports despite her being legally identified as female at birth and identifying as female her entire life.Semenya has also pointed out ...