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Egypt pardons jailed activists, including two prominent rights defenders, official reports say

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:24 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s president has pardoned two prominent rights activists, including one with ties to Italy who was sentenced this week, the country’s state-run news agency reported Wednesday.Among those pardoned by President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi was rights activist Patrick George Zaki, who was a post-graduate student in Italy and who was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday over an opinion article he wrote in 2019, the MENA news agency said.Zaki’s case has echoed in Italy, where many were reminded after the sentencing this week of the tragic fate of Italian student Giulio Regeni who was abducted and killed in Cairo in 2016. Also pardoned was Mohammed el-Baker, a rights lawyer, who was arrested in September 2019, the agency reported. El-Baker was sentenced to four years in prison late in 2021 over charges of disseminating false news, misuse of social media and joining a terrorist group.The report said the two were among a group pardoned on Wednesday but did no...

Israeli president seeks to reassure Congress on his country’s democracy, U.S. ties

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:24 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog sought to reassure U.S. allies Wednesday on the state of Israel’s democracy and the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship, in a speech to Congress acknowledging “intense and painful debate” at home over actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline government.Herzog, whose post in Israel is largely symbolic, became the second Israeli president, after his father, Chaim Herzog, to address Congress. While his speech officially marked modern Israel’s celebration of its 75th year, he also indirectly addressed deep unease in the Biden administration and among Democratic lawmakers over the Netanyahu government’s controversial overhaul of Israel’s judicial system, expanded Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, and other matters.The divide was reflected in the audience of House and Senate members Wednesday. While lawmakers in attendance repeatedly rose to their feet in thundering applause of Herzog&#...

Northwestern’s ‘rampant’ hazing was ‘devastating’ for athletes of color, ex-football players say

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:24 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said his law firm and other attorneys have received reports of hazing within Northwestern University’s baseball and softball programs, in addition to growing complaints of hazing within the school’s football program, which players described as rampant and devastating.At Wednesday news conference, Crump and Chicago attorney Steven Levin said they have not filed a lawsuit yet on behalf of any athletes but represent 15 people and have been in touch with dozens of former athletes. Crump said the majority of those are football players.Warren Miles Long, a running back on Northwestern’s football team starting in 2013, said players were put into a culture where sexual violence and hazing was “rampant.” He said new recruits had no sense of whether it was normal or limited to Northwestern.Former Northwestern quarterback Lloyd Yates is among more than 15 men and women who have retained Crump and the Chicago-based Levin & Perconti law to seek ...

Movie Review: A bomb and its fallout in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:24 GMT

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” is a kinetic thing of dark, imposing beauty that quakes with the disquieting tremors of a forever rupture in the course of human history.“Oppenheimer,” a feverish three-hour immersion in the life of Manhattan Project mastermind J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), is poised between the shock and aftershock of the terrible revelation, as one character calls it, of a divine power.There are times in Nolan’s latest opus that flames fill the frame and visions of subatomic particles flitter across the screen — montages of Oppenheimer’s own churning visions. But for all the immensity of “Oppenheimer,” this is Nolan’s most human-scaled film — and one of his greatest achievements.It’s told principally in close-ups, which, even in the towering detail of IMAX 70mm, can’t resolve the vast paradoxes of Oppenheimer. He was said to be a magnetic man with piercing blue eyes (Murphy has those in spades) who became the father of the atomic bomb but, in speaking ag...

Russia strikes Ukraine’s critical port facilities in Odesa after halting grain deal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:24 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed intense drone and missile attacks overnight Wednesday, damaging critical port infrastructure in southern Ukraine, including grain and oil terminals, and wounding at least 12 people, officials said.The bombardment crippled significant parts of export facilities in Odesa and nearby Chornomorsk and destroyed 60,000 tons of grain, according to Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry.It came days after President Vladimir Putin pulled Russia out of its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that enabled Ukraine’s exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger. It also followed a vow by Putin to retaliate against Kyiv for an attack Monday on the crucial Kerch Bridge linking Russia with the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin illegally annexed in 2014.The Agriculture Ministry, citing experts, estimated it would take a year to restore the damaged facilities. The destroyed grain was supposed to have been loaded onto a vessel ...

Broadcom’s $69 billion VMware purchase wins UK competition watchdog’s approval

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:24 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Computer chip and software maker Broadcom’s $69 billion plan to buy cloud technology company VMware cleared another hurdle Wednesday after Britain’s competition regulator gave the deal provisional clearance.The Competition and Markets Authority said its investigation found the deal “would not substantially reduce competition” in the supply of hardware components for computer servers in the U.K. The deal also would be unlikely to harm innovation, the regulator said. Thousands of British businesses and public bodies, including major banks, big retailers, telecom operators and government departments, rely on Broadcom gear and VMware software, the regulator said. Both companies are based in California. The CMA, which said it’s the biggest transaction it has ever investigated, will now seek feedback before issuing its final report Sept. 12. Broadcom is paying $61 billion in cash and stock for VMware and taking on $8 billion of its debt. The European Commission, ...

‘Too much foot-dragging’ over stadium lease deal with Baltimore Orioles, Maryland official says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:24 GMT

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A Maryland official on a powerful state board said Wednesday there’s “too much foot-dragging” between the Maryland Stadium Authority and the Baltimore Orioles to renew the team’s lease at Camden Yards, and he urged the parties to “get this damn thing done.”Treasurer Dereck Davis, who is one of three members of the Maryland Board of Public Works, expressed his concerns at the end of a board meeting. The treasurer pointed out that negotiations between the state and the team aren’t over something as involved as building a new stadium, and he questioned what’s taking so long. “If there’s something going on, we need to know,” Davis said. “There’s too much foot-dragging on this, and what I’ve learned in 30 years is the longer nothing’s been said, the longer it takes. I’m saying this for the explicit purpose so it gets out there, and folks have to start answering what’s taking so long.”The baseball team’s lease is set to expire at the end of th...

Woman killed, 2 critical — including suspect— after South Side shooting

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:24 GMT

CHICAGO — A woman is dead following a South Side shooting and two others are critically injured, including the suspect who suffered a self-inflicted wound.The shooting happened just before 9 a.m. Wednesday in the 7600 block of South Michigan Avenue in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. Police said a 32-year-old and 53-year-old woman were inside a residence when the 32-year-old woman got into a verbal altercation with a 34-year-old man.According to police, the man pulled out a gun and fired shots in the 32-year-old's direction, striking both women multiple times in the abdomen.The man then sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, police said. Man dies from punching window of suburban bar after getting kicked out Both women were transported in critical condition to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where the 32-year-old was pronounced dead.The man was also transported to U of C and is in critical condition.No further information has been provided at this ...

'Fought for her life': Mother of missing Alabama woman says daughter was abducted

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:24 GMT

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Carlee Russell's mother indicated that she has reason to believe her daughter was abducted during the two days she went missing last week, telling a correspondent on the "Today" show that Russell "fought for her life" during the ordeal.Russell, 25, had gone missing on July 13, after calling police to report a toddler on the side of the Alabama interstate. She then phoned a family member, telling them she planned to check on the child.But the call got disconnected, and police officers arrived minutes later to find only Russell's car, phone, purse and wig at the scene.Russell ultimately returned home "on foot" two nights later, and was transported to a local hospital for evaluation and treatment, police said. Timeline: Carlee Russell's disappearance, return Officials with the Hoover Police Department have not commented on Russell's whereabouts during her disappearance, citing an ongoing investigation. But her parents previously told Nexstar's WIAT they...

Tracking the Tropics: New hurricane model uses supercomputers to predict hurricanes faster than ever

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:24 GMT

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A revolutionary weather model that accurately predicted the rapid intensification of Hurricane Ian will assume the position as the National Hurricane Center's premier hurricane forecasting model.The NHC said its new "Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System," or HAFS for short, went operational on June 27 alongside older models for the 2023 hurricane season. The system is the first new major forecast model to use NOAA’s updated weather and climate supercomputers.BackgroundAn experimental version of HAFS which ran from 2019 to 2022 showed a 10-15% improvement in track predictions compared to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s existing hurricane models."HAFS provides more accurate, higher-resolution forecast information both over land and ocean," NOAA said.HAFS can zoom in with a resolution of 1.2 miles on areas of a hurricane that are key to improving wind intensity and rain forecasts, the NHC said.During the 2022 hurricane season, the NHC said H...