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We should monitor all Russians living in the West, Czech leader says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:04 GMT

Czech President Petr Pavel says Russian citizens living abroad should be put under “strict surveillance” by intelligence services in their host countries.“All Russians living in Western countries should be monitored much more than in the past because they are citizens of a nation that leads an aggressive war,” Pavel said in an interview with Radio Free Europe released Thursday.“I can be sorry for these people, but at the same time when we look back, when the Second World War started, all the Japanese population living in the United States were under a strict monitoring regime as well,” said the Czech president. “That’s simply a cost of war.”Asked what he implied by “monitoring,” Pavel said he meant “being under the scrutiny of the security services.”During World War II, about 120,000 people of Japanese descent — most of whom were American citizens, and half of them children — were forcibly put in internmen...

Key EU nature restoration vote put on hold

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:04 GMT

STRASBOURG — The European Parliament’s environment committee Thursday ran out of time to agree its position on contentious new EU rules aimed at boosting nature restoration across the bloc.MEPs will finish voting on the text at their next ENVI Committee meeting, currently scheduled to take place on June 26 or 27 in Brussels.The meeting started with a blow to the conservative European People’s Party, whose bid to reject the legislative proposal outright did not get a majority — the vote was tied with 44 in favor and 44 against — and was dismissed as a result. Lawmakers proceeded to vote on the compromise amendments drafted by lead MEP César Luena from the Socialists & Democrats, as well as on individuals amendments filed by other MEPs.Committee chair Pascal Canfin was forced to put the lengthy process on hold at 11:45 a.m., the official end-time of the committee meeting, and ask political groups to agree to delay a separate plenary vote schedule to start at ...

‘Big bat in the middle of the order’: Eloy Jiménez collects 2 hits in return for the Chicago White Sox

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:04 GMT

Eloy Jiménez fouled a pitch off his left leg during a fifth-inning at-bat in Game 1 of a doubleheader last week against the New York Yankees.Jiménez remained in the game, hitting the go-ahead two-run homer in his next at-bat.“It was hurting but I had to do what I had to do,” he said before Wednesday’s game at Dodger Stadium.Jiménez played Game 2 last week, but exited in the ninth inning with lower leg discomfort after running slowly to first while trying to beat out a double play. The throw to first was wild and Jiménez reached second, and he was checked on by the training staff before leaving the game.“I started feeling it when I was moving around,” Jiménez said. “It wasn’t really bad. But as soon as I got cold — I was hitting, sitting down, hitting, sitting down — I started getting tighter and tighter and then it was hurting.“It was something with my heel. I don’t know how to describe it. It...

Two-time Oscar winner Glenda Jackson, who mixed acting with politics, dies at 87

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:04 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Glenda Jackson, a two-time Academy Award-winning performer who had a second career in politics as a British lawmaker before an acclaimed late-life return to stage and screen, has died at 87.Jackson’s agent Lionel Larner said she died Thursday at her home in London after a short illness. He said she had recently completed filming “‘The Great Escaper,” in which co-starred with Michael Caine.Born in 1936 in Birkhenhead, northwest England, Jackson trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She became one of the biggest British stars of the 1960s and 70s, and won two Academy Awards, for “Women in Love” in 1971 and “A Touch of Class” in 1974.She then went into politics, winning election to Parliament in 1992. She spent 23 years as a Labour Party lawmaker, serving as a minister for transport in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s first government in 1997.She came to be at odds with Blair over the 2003 invasion of Iraq. She said Blair’s decision to enter...

Stock market today: Wall Street drifts lower as Fed holds rates steady but hints of hikes ahead

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:04 GMT

TOKYO — Wall Street is pointing lower after the U.S. Federal Reserve left its benchmark borrowing rate unchanged for the first time in more than a year, but issued projections of as many as two additional quarter-point rate hikes before 2023 is over.Futures for the Dow Jones Industrials fell 0.2% before the opening bell Thursday and the S&P 500 slipped 0.4%.In standing pat on rates, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the economy will have more time to absorb past hikes, adding, “ideally by taking a little more time, we won’t go well past the level where we need to go.” However, signaling clearly that they do not think the U.S. has escaped the gravitational pull of inflation, Fed policymakers issued projections Wednesday showing they envision as many as two additional quarter-point rate hikes before the year ends. That’s a more aggressive stance than the single rate hike that most had expected.“It is too early to say that Powell is winning the fight against inflation,” said Rusla...

Slovakia’s technocrat government loses mandatory confidence vote, to stay till September snap vote

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:04 GMT

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) — Slovakia’s new government of technocrats lost a mandatory confidence vote in Parliament on Thursday, just a month after taking office.President Zuzana Caputova, who swore in the 15-member Cabinet led by Prime Minister Ludovit Odor on May 15, now has to dismiss it. At the same time, the president will ask the government to stay in office with limited powers till a new government is formed following the Sept. 30 early election, Caputova’s office later said. The technocrat Cabinet was created with the aim to lead the country to that election, for which a date was set back in January. Of the 136 lawmakers who were present in the 150-seat Parliament, the government was defeated in a 34-43 vote.Slovakia has been without a proper government since last December, when the coalition government led by Prime Minister Eduard Heger was ousted in a no-confidence vote called by the opposition, following months of political crisis.Caputova initially asked Heger to l...

Recovering Pope visits children’s cancer ward before Friday discharge from hospital

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:04 GMT

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis visited the children’s cancer ward of Rome’s Gemelli hospital on the eve of his expected discharge following abdominal surgery, the Vatican said Thursday.The Vatican released the first images of Francis since his June 7 hospitalization, showing him in his wheelchair in the corridor of the pediatric oncology ward, meeting with children, their parents and medical staff. In one photo, he is shown elsewhere speaking with a couple in a private room, the man in a wheelchair.The Vatican said Francis also met with with the staff and administration of the hospital and said doctors confirmed he would be discharged Friday morning.The 86-year-old pope was admitted to Gemelli hospital on June 7 for surgery to repair a hernia in his abdominal wall and remove intestinal scar tissue that had caused blockages. It was his third hospitalization at Gemelli as pope, and confirmed a trend that he visits young cancer patients the day before he is discharged.Francis in ...

Toronto approves several new bike lanes as some mayoral candidates vow to stop installation

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:04 GMT

Toronto city council has approved several kilometres of new bike lanes despite a number of mayoral candidates saying they would stop the installation if elected.The plan approved on Wednesday includes the installation of close to 8.6 kilometres of new bikeways, including along a stretch of Bloor Street West from Runnymede Road to just east of Kipling Avenue.Ex-Toronto police chief and mayoral candidate Mark Saunders has pledge to deprioritize the Bloor Street West bike lane expansion if he were to be elected. Saunders has also said he would remove bike lanes on University Avenue, reverse the decision to make the Yonge Street bike lanes permanent, and immediately suspend all bike lane expansions.Former MP Olivia Chow remains the frontrunner in the race for mayor with less than two weeks to go until the byelection. Chow, an avid cyclist herself, has said bike lanes are a vital addition to the city’s transportation network.Coun. Stephen Holyday argues that many residents in the w...

Donor nations scramble to find billions of dollars of funding for Syrian aid

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:04 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — Donor nations from across the globe were scrambling Thursday to find billions of dollars to extend their aid commitment to millions of Syrians who have been battered by hunger, poverty, civil war and a massive earthquake. Amid pressing needs across the globe from Ukraine to Sudan, the annual donor conference hosted by the European Union in Brussels has even more political overtones as Syrian President Bashar Assad is slowly carving his way back from being an international pariah to the regional mainstream. Finding hard cash, though, remains key. “My appeal is simple: Help us help the Syrian people. We are asking for $11.1 billion, our largest appeal worldwide,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres said. “We have no time to spare.” Funding from the conference will help provide aid to Syrians in the war-torn country and to some 5.7 million Syrian refugees living in neighboring countries, particularly Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.But for nations hit by economic difficu...

SIU investigating after man critically injured in apparent fall at downtown hotel

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:04 GMT

The province’s Special Investigations Unit is investigating after a man was sent to hospital with life-threatening injuries following an interaction with police at downtown Toronto hotel.Officers were called to the Holiday Inn Express in the area of Jarvis and Richmond streets around 3 a.m. on Wednesday for reports of a person in crisis.Paramedics confirm a man was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries. A source tells CityNews the man sustained his injuries in an apparent fall.Photos from the scene show broken glass, pillows and other debris scattered on the street and sidewalk. A third floor window of the hotel appears to be smashed.The Special Investigations Unit is investigating after Toronto police responded to a call on Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto on June 15, 2023. CITYNEWS/Bertram DandyThere remains a large police presence in the area,Jarvis is closed in both directions from Richmond to Adelaide Street for the investigation.The SIU is called in to invest...