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Protests at UN climate talks, from cease-fire calls to detainees, see ‘shocking level of censorship’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:11 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Activists designated Saturday a day of protest at the COP28 summit in Dubai. But the rules of the game in the tightly controlled United Arab Emirates at the site supervised by the United Nations meant sharp restrictions on what demonstrators could say, where they could walk and what their signs could portray.At times, the controls bordered on the absurd. A small group of demonstrators protesting the detention of activists — one from Egypt and two from the UAE — were not allowed to hold up signs bearing their names. A late afternoon demonstration of around 500 people, the largest seen at the climate conference, couldn’t go beyond the U.N.-governed Blue Zone in this autocratic nation. And their calls for a cease-fire in the war in the Gaza Strip couldn’t actually name the states involved. “It is a shocking level of censorship in a space that had been guaranteed to have basic freedoms protected like freedom of expression, assembly and asso...

Howie Carr: Hunter Biden, the poster boy for ‘Democrat privilege’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:11 GMT

If there’s one principle that Dementia Joe Biden cares about more than any other, it’s that all Americans should pay their “fair share” of taxes.As he sternly tweeted last January: “We’re making corporations and the super-wealthy start to pay their fair share in taxes.”Because, you see, these tax-cheating rich bastards aren’t paying a damn thing, as he so often points out, as in June 2022:“They don’t pay a penny so if we had a minimum tax of 15 percent, a minimum 15 it doesn’t hurt them at all. They make a lot of money still and we could raise a lot of money to make sure that child care doesn’t cost you 1,400 bucks a month.”Because, see, some fathers refuse to pay child support to their children, especially the illegitimate ones they have with ex-strippers. These greedy hypocritical rich swine fly around in private jets to court appearances, and then have the nerve to tell the family-court judge they’re broke. But I digress…“I think you should be able to make a trillion dollars,” Jo...

‘Harvard Hates Jews’ plane flying over Army-Navy football game

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:11 GMT

It’s back, and this time for a much-larger crowd.A private plane hauling a giant Palestinian flag and the clear message “Harvard Hates Jews” was seen flying today over Gillette Stadium as tens of thousands of out-of-staters came to take in the Army-Navy football game there.The plane and its hard message was seen earlier this week, on Thursday, flying over Harvard University’s campus flanking either side of the Charles River in Cambridge and Allston.More than 50,000 tickets to the 124th edition of the Army-Navy football game, held today at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, were purchased by out-of-state fans, Gov. Maura Healey has announced, according to previous Herald reporting.Those fans, many thousands of whom are military veterans, service academy graduates and their families, were finally accommodated in nearby hotels and motels that had until recently been co-opted by the state to house migrants taking advantage of the statewide right-to-shelter law, the Herald has reported.The “Ha...

International bodies reject moves to block Guatemala president-elect from taking office

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:11 GMT

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — International and regional leaders have rejected the latest attempt by Guatemalan prosecutors to prevent progressive President-elect Bernardo Arévalo from taking office on Jan. 14.Prosecutors asked a court Friday to strip Arévalo of his legal immunity and alleged that minutes seized during a raid of electoral offices showed that results from the presidential runoff vote he won in August had irregularities and were therefore void. Arévalo said the prosecution was seeking to undermine his ability to govern. Guatemala’s high electoral court, the Organization of American States and officials from the United Nations, the British Foreign Office and the European Union echoed his sentiment. “Friday’s announcements, aimed at nullifying the outcome of the general elections and questioning the constitution and existence of the Movimiento Semilla party, are extremely disturbing,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement issued Saturday....

Some Seattle cancer center patients are receiving threatening emails after last month’s data breach

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:11 GMT

SEATTLE (AP) — Some patients of a Seattle-based cancer center received threatening emails following a data breach last month. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center officials said a Nov. 19 hack hit a portion of the health care system’s clinical network, possibly leaking patient data. This week, some former and current patients received threatening emails claiming names, Social Security numbers, medical history and other data of more than 800,000 patients had been compromised, The Seattle Times reported. Emails shared with the newspaper claimed the stolen data of recipients would be sold. Christina VerHeul, the center’s associate vice president of communications, said she couldn’t speculate how many people were affected but said an investigation is ongoing.After last month’s hack, the center took its clinical network offline, notified federal law enforcement and brought in a forensic security firm to investigate, she said. The center encouraged patients to keep a clos...

South Carolina jury convicts inmate in first trial involving deadly prison riots

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:11 GMT

BISHOPVILLE, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina jurors have found an inmate guilty of charges connected to the death of a fellow inmate during the deadliest U.S. prison riot of the past quarter-century.The Lee County jury deliberated less than an hour on Friday before finding Michael Juan “Flame” Smith guilty of assault and battery by mob, weapon possession and conspiracy for his role in the 2018 violence. Trial Judge Ferrell Cothran Jr. gave Smith a 45-year sentence, although one five-year term issued will run concurrently with the other time, news outlets reported.Seven prisoners were killed and 22 seriously injured in the riot at the maximum-security Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, located about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Columbia. One inmate described bodies “literally stacked on top of each other, like some macabre woodpile.”Dozens of inmates have been indicted on charges related to the riots that occurred across three dormitories, and a string of defendants began pl...

Police fatally shoot man who officers say charged them with knives in West Texas

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:11 GMT

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — Officers investigating a domestic disturbance fatally shot a man who they said ran at them with knives in West Texas, police said Saturday. Manuel Guillen, 34, died at a hospital following the shooting in Lubbock Friday night, police spokesperson Amber Edwards said.Edwards said the officers were responding to a report that Guillen had assaulted and threatened his mother at a home on the city’s north side. The mother escaped the home before the officers arrived.A police sergeant who arrived at the scene told the officers to leave because Guillen was in the home alone and no longer a threat to his family, Edwards said. They were about to depart when Guillen crawled out of a window carrying two knives, she said. Officers commanded him to stop but opened fire when he kept heading in their direction.“He continued to charge at the officers and they employed deadly force,” Edwards said. It was not clear why the officers did not try to arrest Guillen for th...

Joly hosts Mideast ministers in Ottawa to discuss Israel-Hamas war

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:11 GMT

OTTAWA — A group of foreign ministers from the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia and Turkey is in Ottawa today for a quietly planned meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly to discuss attempts to end the Israel-Hamas war.Joly is working with her Middle Eastern counterparts to see how countries such as Canada can help efforts to secure peace for Palestinians and Israelis, after Hamas militants launched a deadly rampage in Israel on Oct. 7.The delegation calls itself the Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit and it normally includes Jordan, though Joly’s office says that country needed to send its foreign minister on other business.The group is not a joint peace project with Israel, and says its leaders aim to speak on behalf of Arab and Muslim people following Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in response to the Hamas attack.This is the first visit of Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister to Canada since a diplomatic chill over human rights issues in 2018, when Riyadh...

The State Department approves the sale of tank ammunition to Israel in a deal that bypasses Congress

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:11 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Going around Congress, the Biden administration said Saturday it has approved the emergency sale to Israel of nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth more than $106 million as Israel intensifies its military operations in the southern Gaza Strip.The move comes as President Joe Biden’s request for a nearly $106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other national security is languishing in Congress, caught up in a debate over U.S. immigration policy and border security. Some Democratic lawmakers have spoken of making the proposed $14.3 billion in American assistance to its Mideast ally contingent on concrete steps by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza during the war with Hamas.The State Department said it had notified Congress of the sale late Friday after Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale” of the munitions in the U.S. national...

Israel presses on with bombarding Gaza, including areas it has called safe zones for Palestinians

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:39:11 GMT

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli warplanes struck parts of the Gaza Strip in relentless bombardment Saturday, hitting some of the dwindling bits of land that Israel had described as safe zones when telling Palestinians in the south to evacuate.Frustration was growing with the United States after it vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, despite wide support, and approved the emergency sale of tank ammunition worth more than $100 million to Israel.Gaza residents “are being told to move like human pinballs — ricocheting between ever-smaller slivers of the south, without any of the basics for survival," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the council before the vote.Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt are effectively sealed, leaving 2.3 million Palestinians with no option other than to seek refuge within the territory 25 miles (40 kilometers) long by about 7 miles (11 kilometers) wide.A day after Israel conf...