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Hurricane Hilary grows off Mexico and could reach California as a very rare tropical storm

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:35:50 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Hilary grew rapidly to Category 4 strength off Mexico’s Pacific coast on Friday and could reach Southern California as the first tropical storm there in 84 years, causing “significant and rare impacts” including extensive flooding.The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Hilary had sustained winds near 145 mph (230 kph) at 4 a.m. and was expected to continue its rapid intensification through Friday before starting to weaken. It will nevertheless still be a hurricane when it approaches Mexico’s Baja California peninsula on Saturday night, and will approach Southern California on Sunday as a tropical storm.No tropical storm has made landfall in Southern California since Sept. 25, 1939, according to the National Weather Service. Early Friday, Hilary was centered about 400 miles (640 kilometers) south of Los Cabos on the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. It was moving west-northwest at 13 mph (20 kph), but was expected to turn gradually north through ...

China blasts US-Japan-South Korea summit, warns of ‘contradictions and increasing tensions’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:35:50 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — China is renewing its criticism of this weekend’s summit among the leaders of the U.S., Japan and South Korea, saying no country should “seek its own security at the expense of the security interests of others and of regional peace and stability.” “The international community has its own judgment as to who is creating contradictions and increasing tensions,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters at a daily briefing Friday. “Attempts to form various exclusive groups and cliques and to bring bloc confrontation into the Asia-Pacific region are unpopular and will definitely spark vigilance and opposition in the countries of the region,” Wang said. The summit at the the rustic Camp David presidential retreat seeks to further tighten security and economic ties between Japan and South Korea, two nations whose historically frosty relations have rapidly thawed over the last year as they share concerns about China’s assertiveness in the Pacific and North Kore...

The latest news on the wildfires in the Northwest Territories

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:35:50 GMT

YELLOWKNIFE — Thousands of people have fled the Northwest Territories’ capital and some neighbouring communities under the threat of encroaching wildfires. Here are the latest developments (all times are MT): 4:35 a.m. Officials in the Northwest Territories are forecasting a critical, challenging day in the effort to battle wildfires threatening Yellowknife.  They say northwest winds today and Saturday combined with minimal rain could mean the fire reaches the city limits by the weekend. Officials say they are doing “everything possible” to slow the growth of the fire.Airtankers continued to fly missions overnight to keep open the highway out of Yellowknife, as officials urge residents to leave the city by noon today.—This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 18, 2023. The Canadian Press

Italian police arrest Dutch man, 21, over the stabbing deaths of his father and a family friend

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:35:50 GMT

MILAN (AP) — Italian police on Friday arrested a 21-year-old Dutch man suspected in the stabbing death of his father and a family friend in the countryside near the French border. An official from the Carabinieri paramilitary police confirmed the arrest. Italian media said the suspect was found hiding in the woods near where the attack occurred in the Cuneo province of Piedmont. He has been transported to the city of Cuneo aboard an ambulance . According to Italian news reports, the 21-year-old suspect is believed to suffer from psychiatric problems. The family friend, who was also Dutch, was reportedly hosting the father and son for a visit at his home when the attack occurred.The motive for the stabbings wasn’t immediately clear.The Associated Press

Former Austrian leader charged with giving false evidence to an inquiry

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:35:50 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Austria’s former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has been charged with making false statements to a parliamentary inquiry into a scandal that brought down his first government, prosecutors said Friday.An indictment against Kurz, his former chief of staff, Bernhard Bonelli, and another unidentified person was filed at the state court in Vienna, the prosecutors’ office that investigates corruption cases said in a statement. The court said Kurz will go on trial on Oct. 18. The charges result from an investigation that was launched in 2021, when Kurz was still chancellor. It centers on his testimony to a parliamentary probe that focused on alleged corruption in his first government, a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party which collapsed in 2019.Kurz pulled the plug on that government after a video surfaced showing the vice chancellor and Freedom Party leader at the time, Heinz-Christian Strache, appearing to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.In the c...

North Korea appears to be cracking opening its sealed border with dispatch of sports delegation

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:35:50 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — North Korea appears to have cracked open its borders in the first significant way since they were shut at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, with the impoverished nation sending a large group of taekwondo athletes and officials through Beijing to an international competition.The group of around 80 men and women wearing white track suits with the North Korean flag on the front were in the departure hall of Beijing’s international airport. They reportedly arrived Wednesday or Thursday. The group was expected to take an Air Astana flight to Kazakhstan to compete in the International Taekwon-do Federation World Championships, according to Japanese and South Korean media. The competition is being held in Astana through Aug. 30.North Korea has very limited air connections at the best of times, and international travel all but ended when it closed its borders to prevent the spread of COVID-19. How badly North Koreans were affected by the illness is unknown. Mo...

Firefighters battle through the night to halt wildfire in Spain’s popular tourist island of Tenerife

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:35:50 GMT

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Canary Islands (AP) — Firefighters battled overnight to try to bring under control the worst wildfire in decades on the Spanish Canary Island of Tenerife, a major tourist destination, officials said Friday. The fire in the north of the island, which started late Tuesday, has forced the evacuation or confinement of nearly 8,000 people in eight municipalities.Television images and videos posted on social media showed the flames coming down the hill close to houses in small neighborhoods and a massive cloud of smoke rising from the area.The fire is located up in a pine wooded mountain area with several municipalities on its flanks, including Arafo and Candelaria to the east, and La Orotava to the west.Army captain Rafael San José told Spanish National Television that some progress had been made overnight in stopping the fire’s spread but that rising temperatures during the day would increase difficulties.The Canary Islands have been in drought for most of ...

Rosalynn Carter marks 96th birthday at home with former president, butterflies and ice cream

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:35:50 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Rosalynn Carter will celebrate her 96th birthday at home Friday with her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, and other family members, while the surrounding community of Plains, Georgia, honors the former first lady's years of public health advocacy.The latest milestone comes as Rosalynn Carter navigates dementia and the former president, now 98, continues to receive hospice care. Yet they remain together in the same small town where they were born, married and that anchored Jimmy Carter's victorious 1976 presidential campaign.Rosalynn will have a quiet birthday celebration, according to The Carter Center, the human rights organization the pair opened in Atlanta after losing his 1980 reelection bid. She plans to eat cupcakes and peanut butter ice cream, nodding to the couple’s experience as Georgia peanut farmers, which became part of their political branding.She also will release butterflies in the Carters' garden; her love of butterflies...

Trump calls off planned 'news conference' to push election fraud claims

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:35:50 GMT

(The Hill) - Former President Donald Trump on Thursday canceled a planned news conference for next week in which he said he would share claims of election fraud in Georgia in the 2020 election, the same types of claims that led to his indictment in the state earlier this week.Trump wrote on Truth Social that his lawyers indicated they would rather he compile his claims about election fraud in the state into "formal Legal Filings as we fight to dismiss this disgraceful Indictment.""Therefore, the News Conference is no longer necessary!" Trump wrote.The former president on Tuesday posted on Truth Social that he would hold an event at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club next Monday to present a report that he said would lay out claims of election fraud in Georgia.Some of Trump's legal advisers had reportedly raised concerns that the former president's planned news conference could further complicate his case, however. Trump has in recent weeks grown more vocal in claiming the 2020 election...

Maui's emergency services chief resigns after criticism for not activating sirens during fire

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:35:50 GMT

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — The head of the Maui Emergency Management Agency resigned abruptly Thursday, a day after saying he had no regrets about not using sirens to warn residents of wildfires that devastated the historic seaside community of Lahaina and killed at least 111 people.That decision from the agency directed by Administrator Herman Andaya, coupled with water shortages that hampered firefighters and an escape route that became clogged with vehicles, has brought intense criticism from many residents. The lack of sirens has emerged as a potential misstep, and The Associated Press reported that it was part of a series of communication issues that added to the chaos. Lahaina fire fatalities remain at 111 Mayor Richard Bissen accepted Andaya's resignation effective immediately, the County of Maui announced on Facebook. Andaya cited unspecified health reasons, with no further details provided.“Given the gravity of the crisis we are facing, my team and I will be placing someone i...