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Biden shakes hands with Saudi’s bin Salman at G20 summit

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 23:36:24 GMT

Joe Biden publicly shook hands with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman at the G20 summit Saturday — after the president sustained a backlash last year for fist-bumping the crown prince, who U.S. intelligence believes ordered the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.The leaders’ latest interaction came in New Delhi, India, as they announced their respective countries’ participation in an international infrastructure and economic partnership to promote the new India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.“This is a game-changing regional investment,” Biden said at the event, as he thanked the world leaders flanking him. Biden is expected to meet with bin Salman during the G20 summit, which runs through Sunday.Khashoggi was an opinion journalist for the Post who often wrote columns critical of the Saudi government. In 2018, after entering Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, he was found dismembered. The CIA, under the Trump administration, rel...

Rescue operation to save American caver in Turkey is underway

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 23:36:24 GMT

(CNN) — A rescue operation has been launched to save American caver Mark Dickey, who is stranded hundreds of meters underground in southern Turkey.The operation began at 3.28 p.m. local time (8.28 a.m. ET) on Saturday, according to Turkey’s Caving Federation – a week after Dickey first became ill during an exploration mission.“Mark’s transport in a stretcher has started at 15:28 local time (GMT+3),” Turkey’s Caving Federation wrote on X, formerly Twitter.Bulent Genc, head of the caving federation, told CNN Thursday that the rescue could take days due to the fact that the cave is deep and narrow, but some experts say it could take up to two weeks.Dickey fell ill at the weekend with suspected gastrointestinal bleeding during a mission of the 1,276 meters-deep (4,186 feet) Morca Sinkhole in Morca Valley, near Anamur, southern Turkey, according to the Turkish Caving Federation.The European Cave Rescue Association (ECRA) received a call on September 2 saying that Dickey wa...

Massachusetts State Police trooper shoots, kills man in Hancock during 911 response

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 23:36:24 GMT

A state police trooper shot and killed an adult male in Hancock Saturday, authorities said.A state police spokesman said a trooper responded to a 911 call at a residence on Richmond Road in Hancock just before 7 a.m. During an interaction with an adult male, a trooper “discharged his service weapon,” law enforcement said.“The adult male sustained fatal injury,” the state police spokesman said.A state police spokesman said the investigation into the incident is being handled by the Berkshire County District Attorney’s Office.Additional information will come from that office, the state police spokesman said.This is a developing story.

Terrorism suspect who escaped from London prison is captured while riding a bike

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 23:36:24 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A former British soldier facing terrorism charges who snuck out of a London prison on a food delivery truck was captured Saturday, police said.Daniel Abed Khalife was nabbed while riding a bicycle along a canal path west of London after a four-day manhunt. Khalife escaped from the Wandsworth Prison kitchen Wednesday and got outside the gates by strapping himself to the bottom of a catering truck. Khalife, 21, was awaiting trial on charges of violating Britain’s Official Secrets Act by gathering information “that could be useful to an enemy” and planting fake bombs at a military base. He was discharged from the British army after his arrest earlier this year and denied the allegations. His trial is set for November.The breakout ignited a storm of criticism as political opponents linked the escape to years of financial austerity by the United Kingdom’s governing Conservative Party. The government said an independent investigation would determine how Khalife e...

Group of 20 countries agree to increase clean energy but reach no deal on phasing out fossil fuels

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 23:36:24 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — Group of 20 leaders agreed Saturday to triple renewable energy and try to increase the funds for climate change-related disasters but maintained the status quo with regards to phasing out carbon spewing coal. At a news conference shortly after the G20 leaders — whose countries also emit 80% of all planet-warming gases — announced the agreement, Amitabh Kant, a senior Indian government official leading some of the G20 negotiations, called it “probably the most vibrant, dynamic and ambitious document on climate action.”While most climate and energy experts were not as ebullient, they agreed that the G20 leaders had put out a strong message on climate action, even as the world is seeing increasingly frequent natural disasters such as extreme heat.Even at the last meeting of the G20 climate ministers before the summit, disagreements had remained. Global leaders and climate experts say the declaration had largely taken the conversation forward, setting the stage fo...

Poland’s political parties reveal campaign programs before the Oct 15 general election

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 23:36:24 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s conservative governing party and the opposition showered potential voters with promises on Saturday as the country’s political parties revealed their campaign programs before the Oct. 15 parliamentary election. The nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, which took power in 2015, wants to win an unprecedented third term. The government’s tenure, however, has been marred with bitter clashes with the European Union over the government’s rule of law record and democratic backsliding. At a party convention, leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is Poland’s most powerful politician, made promises of new spending on social and military causes for the nation living in the shadow of Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine. The government has already largely increased the state budget deficit with spending on benefits for large families and retirees, its own voter base as well as on purchasing armament.The main opposition Ci...

UN atomic watchdog warns of threat to nuclear safety as fighting spikes near a plant in Ukraine

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 23:36:24 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The United Nations atomic watchdog warned of a potential threat to nuclear safety from a spike in fighting near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine, whose forces continued pressing their counteroffensive on Saturday.The International Atomic Energy Agency said its experts deployed at the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant reported hearing numerous explosions over the past week, in a possible indication of increased military activity in the region. There was no damage to the plant.“I remain deeply concerned about the possible dangers facing the plant at this time of heightened military tension in the region,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi warned in a statement issued late Friday. He noted that the IAEA team was informed that staff at the nuclear power plant had been reduced temporarily to minimum levels due to concerns of more military activity in the area.“Whatever happens in a conflict zone, wherever it may be, everybody w...

Prominent activist’s son convicted of storming Capitol and invading Senate floor in Jan. 6 riot

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 23:36:24 GMT

The son of a prominent conservative activist has been convicted of charges that he stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, bashed in a window, chased a police officer, invaded the Senate floor and helped a mob disrupt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.Leo Brent Bozell IV, 44, of Palmyra, Pennsylvania, was found guilty Friday of 10 charges, including five felony offenses, after a trial decided by a federal judge, according to the Justice Department.Bozell’s father is Brent Bozell III, who founded the Media Research Center, Parents Television Council and other conservative media organizations.U.S. District Judge John Bates heard testimony without a jury before convicting Bozell of charges including obstructing the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress convened to certify the Electoral College vote that Biden won over then-President Donald Trump, a Republican.Bozell was “a major contributor to the chaos, the destruction, and the obstruction at t...

Police seeking suspect in assault in Dundas Street West and Augusta Avenue area

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 23:36:24 GMT

Toronto police are seeking the public’s help locating a man wanted in an assault investigation.On July 6, police responded to reports at approximately 3:32 a.m. for an assault in the Dundas Street West and Augusta Avenue area.A man allegedly got into an altercation with a woman, and the man threatened a woman with a knife, pinned her down and started hitting her in the face.When the woman tried to fight back, he allegedly grabbed her neck and began choking her.The man has been identified as Mason Groskopf, 34, of no fixed address. A warrant for his arrest has been issued.Groskopf is described as having a slim build, short red hair and possibly a short beard.

Residents and authorities in Somalia say airstrike caused several casualties including children

Published Tue, 18 Feb 2025 23:36:24 GMT

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — An airstrike in a town in Somalia caused several casualties, including children, residents and authorities said, while three members of an al-Qaida-linked extremist group were killed.The U.S. military in a statement Friday said “unfortunately, civilians were injured and killed” in the vicinity of a military operation by Somali forces in El-Lahelay village on Wednesday.The U.S. said it evacuated injured civilians at the Somali government’s request but but that American forces had not conducted airstrikes or been at the scene of the operation.The U.S. Africa Command did not respond to questions including the number of civilians killed and injured. The U.S. for years has conducted airstrikes in support of Somali forces combating the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab group.“The claim being spread by al-Shabab that U.S. forces caused the unfortunate harm to civilians is false,” the statement said. The U.S. in the past has acknowledged killing civilians with airstrikes.A...