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Fellow Democrats urge Biden to withhold $320 million in military aid to Egypt over rights abuses

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nine senior Senate Democrats and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders urged the Biden administration Friday to withhold part of the United States’ annual military aid to Egypt for a third consecutive year, calling it important to keep up the pressure on President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on human rights abuses.More than 20 leading U.S. and international rights groups and think tanks separately made the same appeal, arguing that the U.S. practice of holding back some aid was leading el-Sissi to make “limited, albeit insufficient ” rights improvements in Egypt. About a quarter of a $1.3 billion appropriation is at issue. The request may be especially tough this year for President Joe Biden, who is focusing on keeping countries around the world, including Egypt, aligned behind Ukraine as it battles Russia’s globally destabilizing invasion. Neither the State Department nor the Egyptian Embassy in Washington immediately responded to requests for comment Friday.The l...

Mexican government statistics agency says it had to pay gangs to enter some towns to do census

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:00 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s government statistics agency has acknowledged it had to pay gangs to enter some towns to do census work last year. National Statistics Institute Assistant Director Susana Pérez Cadena told a congressional committee Thursday that workers also were forced to hire criminals in order to carry out some census interviews. One census taker was kidnapped while trying to do that work, Pérez Cadena said. She said the problem was worse in rural Mexico, and that the institute had to employ various methods to be able to operate in those regions.“There are a lot of different strategies, including in some cases, paying in order to enter,” she said. “Another very important one is hire people from the area who know the local inhabitants very well in the area being surveyed, and who are very well known to the locals as people are may be involved in crime.”In north-central Mexico, where drug turf wars and migration are problems, census workers found abandoned farming commun...

Plaintiff in abuse lawsuit supports call to halt federal funding for Calgary Stampede

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:00 GMT

CALGARY — One of the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against the Calgary Stampede says he agrees with a member of Parliament who wants the federal government to temporarily withdraw funding for the organization.A partial settlement was reached this week in the lawsuit that alleges the Stampede allowed a performance school staffer to sexually abuse boys. The settlement involves an admission of negligence and breach of duty, but it must still be approved by a judge. The Stampede would pay damages that are to be worked out later this summer.Phillip Heerema is serving a 10-year sentence for luring boys into sexual relationships when he worked for the Stampede’s Young Canadians School of Performing Arts. Heerema admitted to using his position with the group, which performs each year in the Calgary Stampede Grandstand Show, to lure and groom six boys into sexual relationships. The school is operated by the Calgary Stampede Foundation.The lawsuit’s three dozen plaintiffs a...

Teen says she ‘just prayed’ while saving girl in Michigan school shooting

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:00 GMT

PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A teenager recalled Friday how she helped save a girl who was severely wounded during a Michigan school shooting in 2021, telling a judge that she moved her to an empty classroom, applied pressure to stop the bleeding and prayed with her.“I asked her if she knew who God was. She said, ‘Not really,’” Heidi Allen, 17, recalled. “I think I’m supposed to be here right now,” she said, describing how she felt at the time. “Because there’s no other reason that I’m OK, that I’m in this hallway, completely untouched.”Heidi testified at a hearing to determine whether Ethan Crumbley, 17, will get a life prison sentence, or a shorter term with an opportunity for parole, for killing four students and wounding seven other people at Oxford High School.She said she recognized him as soon as he exited a bathroom and brandished a gun.“It fired,” Heidi recalled. “Everything kind of slowed down for me. It was all slow motion. I had covered my he...

Boots and dog tags Alan Alda wore on ‘M-A-S-H’ sell at auction for $125,000 that will go to charity

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:00 GMT

DALLAS (AP) — The combat boots and dog tags Alan Alda wore while playing the wisecracking surgeon Hawkeye on the beloved television series “M-A-S-H” sold at auction Friday for $125,000.Alda held onto the boots and dog tags for more than 40 years after the show ended but decided to sell them through Heritage Auctions in Dallas to raise money for his center dedicated to helping scientists and doctors communicate better.The buyer’s name wasn’t released.Alda, 87, said he wore the boots and dog tags for the 11-season run of the show about a Korean War medical unit. His character, Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, was a talented surgeon who helped ease the stress of working in a war zone with quips and practical jokes. The show’s final episode, which aired in 1983 and was written and directed by Alda, was the most watched TV show in U.S. history.The boots and dog tags, given to him by the costume department, “made an impression on me every day that we shot the show,” s...

Sen. McConnell says he plans to serve his full term as leader despite questions about his health

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:00 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly said he is “fine” since he froze up midsentence during a press conference on Wednesday. And now his office is trying to tamp down speculation that he might not fill out his term as leader because of his health.In a statement, his office said McConnell appreciates the continued support of his colleagues and “plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do.”The statement, first reported by Politico, comes after McConnell, 81, has suffered health problems in recent months. At his weekly press conference, he froze and stared vacantly for about 20 seconds before his GOP colleagues standing behind him grabbed his elbows and asked if he wanted to go back to his office. He later returned to the news conference and answered questions as if nothing had happened.When asked about the episode, he said he was “fine,” a statement he repeated in a hallway to reporters later that day. Neither McCo...

Offshore wind foes sue New Jersey and Danish turbine developer over tax break

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:00 GMT

OCEAN CITY, N.J. (AP) — Opponents of offshore wind projects are suing New Jersey and the Danish wind energy developer Orsted over a lucrative tax break the state approved for the company, saying it is illegal because the law was written to benefit only one entity.The lawsuit was filed Thursday by two residents’ groups that are opposed to offshore wind projects and three electricity customers from Ocean City who seek to overturn the law. They say it gives Orsted about $1 billion in tax relief for one of the two windmill projects it plans to build off the state’s southern coast.The state Legislature passed a bill allowing Orsted to keep federal tax credits that it was obligated to pass along to ratepayers. In applying for permission to build the project, called Ocean Wind I, Orsted had promised to return such credits to customers.Lawmakers who narrowly approved the bill said the aid was needed to help Orsted deal with inflation and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pan...

Travis Scott drops ‘Utopia,’ his first album since the Astroworld festival tragedy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Rapper Travis Scott has released “Utopia,” his first album in five years and his first major release since 10 people died at his 2021 Astroworld music festival.The star-studded 19-track “Utopia” features Beyoncé, SZA, Drake, Sampha, Young Thug, Playboi Carti, Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, Future, Bon Iver, James Blake, Kid Cudi, 21 Savage, and many more.The LP, Scott’s fourth full-length, was originally announced back in 2020 and follows 2018’s “Astroworld.” In November 2019, 10 people died as a result of compression asphyxia during a massive crowd surge during Scott’s Astroworld festival. A grand jury declined to file charges against Scott earlier this year.The first track from the album, the popetón -adjacent “K-pop”, was released on July 21 and features the Weeknd and Bad Bunny. The release spans genres — an eclectic mix of autotune ambient ballads (“My Eyes”), ferocious bars (“Looove”), futuristic trap (“Lost Forever,̶...

Europe’s banks could survive a drastic economic downturn, stress test shows

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:00 GMT

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Europe’s banking sector could withstand a severe economic downturn without depleting their financial buffers against losses, the European Central Bank said Friday.A survey of 98 large and medium-sized banks done by the ECB’s supervisory arm in conjunction with the European Banking Authority showed that even in the most adverse scenario — a fall of almost 10% in economic outpoint over three years — banks would still have enough capital to cover losses and then some. The stress test was not a pass-fail exercise for banks in the 20 countries that use the euro currency. Rather, results for individual banks will be used by banking regulators in determining how much capital they need to hold in reserve.Banks are crucial to the European economy because companies get most of their financing from them, instead of from financial markets — the opposite of the situation in the U.S. The ECB took over supervision of the biggest banks after the eurozone debt c...

IOC assures Ukraine fencer of Paris Games spot after DQ for not shaking hands with Russian opponent

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:00 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — The IOC assured Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan on Friday that she will have a place at the Paris Olympics next year after she was disqualified from a key ranking event for refusing to shake hands with a Russian she had beaten.In a letter to Kharlan, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said it would make a “unique exception” by allocating her an extra place to ensure she competes in Paris.“It is admirable how you are managing this incredibly difficult situation,” wrote Bach, who like Kharlan is a former Olympic champion in a fencing team event. Each Olympic sport has a strict quota for athletes within the IOC-imposed 10,500 overall total at the Summer Games in Paris.A protected entry for the 32-year-old Kharlan, a four-time Olympic medalist, has now been found after controversy over her disqualification at the world championships on Thursday marred the event at Milan, Italy.The incident between Kharlan and her Russian opponent — Anna Smirnova, who was c...