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Key Russian bridge to Crimea is struck again as Putin vows response to attack that killed 2

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:48 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia — An attack before dawn Monday damaged a bridge linking Russia to Moscow-annexed Crimea that is a key supply route for Kremlin forces in the war with Ukraine, forcing the span’s temporary closure for a second time in less than a year. Two people were killed and their daughter was injured. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered increased security at the 19-kilometer (12-mile) Kerch Bridge, repeating a call he made in October 2022 when the span was severely damaged by an explosion that Moscow also blamed on Kyiv.He also promised “there will be a response from Russia, of course.”“What happened is another terrorist act of the Kyiv regime,” Putin said at a televised meeting with officials. “It is a crime that is pointless from the military point of view, it bears no significance because the Crimean bridge hasn’t been used for military means in a long time, and it is brutal, because blameless civilians were injured and killed.”Vehicle traffic on the bridge came to...

From Brazil’s Amazon to bossa nova and beyond, prolific pianist João Donato dies at 88

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:48 GMT

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian composer and pianist João Donato, who helped lay the groundwork for bossa nova but throughout his career defied confinement to any single genre, died Monday. He was 88.His death was announced on his verified Instagram account. Local media reported that he had been hospitalized and intubated with pneumonia.Donato was prolific and inventive, collaborating with top artists at home and abroad, including Chet Baker, João Gilberto, Sergio Mendes, Tito Puente, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and countless others.“Today we lost one of our greatest and most creative composers,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wrote on Twitter. “João Donato saw music in everything. He innovated, he passed through samba, bossa nova, jazz, forro and in the mixture of rhythm built something unique. He kept creating and innovating until the end.”Donato was born in the Amazonian state of Acre on Brazil’s western border, far from the cultural hubs of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paul...

Ontario man dead, woman critical after gondola crash at Quebec’s Mont Tremblant

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:48 GMT

MONT-TREMBLANT, Que. — The man killed and the woman seriously injured over the weekend at Quebec’s Mont Tremblant resort were from Ontario, police said Monday.The two were ejected from a gondola climbing Mont-Tremblant when their cable car struck a drilling machine around 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, Quebec provincial police Sgt. Audrey-Anne Bilodeau said. A man in his 50s was declared dead in hospital on Sunday and a woman in her 50s was in critical condition in a Montreal hospital Monday. Bilodeau said it’s still unclear why a drilling machine was operating near a moving gondola.“There was a collision between this drill and one of the gondolas in which these two Ontarians in their 50s were occupants,” Bilodeau said. “Investigators will try to determine the circumstances surrounding this event.” Representatives from the Mont Tremblant resort, located 105 kilometres northwest of Montreal, and police said the drill belonged to a third party and the incide...

Dozens of followers of Pakistan’s Imran Khan quit his party and launch their own ahead of elections

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:48 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — In a major blow to Pakistan’s former prime minister and top opposition leader Imran Khan, dozens of his followers quit his party on Monday to launch their own ahead of parliamentary elections expected later this year.The dramatic development — described as a “political rebellion” within Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party — came two months after violent protests shook the country in early May. Khan’s followers, angered over his arrest in connection with a graft case, rioted for days, attacking public and military installations. The deadly violence subsided only after Khan was released on an order from Pakistan’s Supreme Court. In the weeks that followed, several top members of Khan’s circle abandoned him, disagreeing with his campaign against the administration of his successor, current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.But in an unprecedented move Monday, 57 of Khan’s party members — most of them former lawmakers and other well-known politicia...

Cardinal says the pope’s visit to Mongolia’s tiny Catholic community will show his dedication

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:48 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The young cardinal in charge of Mongolia’s tiny Catholic community said Monday that Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to a country with just 1,450 Catholics is evidence of his willingness to travel to the farthest corners of the globe to minister to even a handful of the faithful.Italian Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, who has been a missionary in Mongolia for two decades, spoke to reporters after delivering a speech on how Catholic missionaries “whisper” the Gospel there in hopes of spreading the faith, simply and quietly and in one-on-one relationships.“When you whisper, you whisper to an individual or a few people, you cannot whisper to many people at the same time because they simply will not hear you,” he said. “And I think this visit will also somehow manifest the attention that the (pope) has for every individual, every person who embarks in this journey of faith.”Francis’ Aug. 31-Sept. 4 visit will take him to a country sandwiched between China and Russia at a...

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper tests positive for COVID-19 and will work remotely

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:48 GMT

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he’ll keep to a lower public profile this week after testing positive for COVID-19 on Monday. In a tweet, the Democratic governor described the case as mild and that he was feeling fine. “I’m working remotely for the rest of the week and ready to be back out and about by the weekend,” Cooper said.Cooper, 66, attended the National Governors Association annual meeting in Atlantic City, New Jersey, last week. The meeting ended Friday and he returned to Raleigh, Cooper spokesperson Jordan Monaghan said in a text. Cooper also tested positive for COVID-19 in June 2022. He also initially described that as a mild case. The Associated Press

Endangered North Atlantic right whale spotted entangled in Gulf of St. Lawrence

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:48 GMT

FREDERICTON — Fisheries and Oceans Canada says a North Atlantic right whale entangled in fishing gear has been seen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence off New Brunswick.The department says the entangled animal, which is one of an estimated 340 remaining in the world, was spotted by a research vessel Saturday, east of Lamèque, N.B.It says the whale is a 13-year-old male known as EG 4042, and it appeared to be carrying a long trailing line with no visible buoys.The department says a marine mammal response team is standing by to help but was hampered by weather Sunday.The type of gear and its origin are not known, but those details could be established once it is removed from the animal and further investigation is conducted.Two right whale deaths have been reported in U.S. waters this year — a 20-year-old male that was hit by a ship and a calf that showed no signs of vessel collision or entanglement.This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 17, 2023.The Canadian Press

Watchdog calls for House committee to uninvite RFK Jr. after his comments are blasted as antisemitic

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:48 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A Democratic watchdog group has called for a U.S. House committee to rescind an invitation to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after the Democratic presidential candidate was filmed falsely suggesting COVID-19 could have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.Kyle Herrig, executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project, sent a letter to Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, asking him to disinvite Kennedy from a hearing scheduled for Thursday after the candidate’s comments at a New York City dinner last week prompted widespread accusations of antisemitism and racism.In the filmed remarks first published by The New York Post, Kennedy said “there is an argument” that COVID-19 “is ethnically targeted” and that it “attacks certain races disproportionately.”“COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most ...

A heat wave in southern Europe generates health warnings for residents and tourists

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:48 GMT

ROME (AP) — Italian health officials intensified heat warnings Monday as southern Europe began a brutally hot week with temperatures expected to top 40 degrees Celsius — or 104 degrees Fahrenheit — on a continent already sizzling under the sun and overburdened by tourists.Countries with borders on the Mediterranean Sea weren’t alone in suffering. Authorities in North Macedonia extended a heat alert for the next 10 days with predicted temperatures topping 43 C (109 F), while Kosovo also issued heat warnings. “Never in my life have I experienced heat like this before in Pristina,” Artan Kelani, a 22-year-old student, said in Kosovo’s capital, where it reached 34.4 C (94 F) Monday and was expected to get hotter starting Wednesday.The Italian Ministry of Health urged regions to beef up house-call services so older people don’t have to go out if they need medical care and to set up dedicated heat stations at hospitals to treat emergency cases. Rome braced for temperatures as ...

Killing of opposition leader in Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region is under investigation

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:48 GMT

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Moldova’s national police force has opened a homicide investigation after an opposition leader in the Russia-backed breakaway region of Transnistria was found fatally shot at his home, authorities said Monday. The police force said it was taking “all appropriate investigative measures regarding the crime of murder” in the violent death of Oleg Khorzhan, 47, the leader of the Transnistrian Communist Party. Moldovan authorities did not say when he was slain or provide details about possible evidence recovered from Khorzhan’s home in a town near Transnistria’s de facto capital, Tiraspol.Moldova’s Reintegration Policies Bureau said in a separate statement Monday that it has proposed launching a separate independent investigation under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s mission to the country, which borders Ukraine and Romania. The bureau strongly condemned “criminal actions that threaten people’s lives” an...