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In a rare action against Israel, US says extremist West Bank settlers will be barred from America

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:54 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — n a rare punitive move against Israel, the State Department said Tuesday it will impose travel bans on extremist Jewish settlers implicated in a rash of recent attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the step after warning Israel last week that President Joe Biden’s administration would be taking action over the attacks. Blinken did not announce individual visa bans, but officials said those would be coming this week and could affect dozens of settlers and their families. “We have underscored to the Israeli government the need to do more to hold accountable extremist settlers who have committed violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank,” Blinken said in a statement. “As President Biden has repeatedly said, those attacks are unacceptable.”“Today, the State Department is implementing a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security ...

North Carolina Rep. McHenry, who led House through speaker stalemate, won’t seek reelection in 2024

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:54 GMT

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, who presided temporarily over the U.S. House for three intense weeks while Republicans struggled to elect a permanent speaker after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster, announced Tuesday that he won’t seek reelection to his seat next year. McHenry, who was first elected to the House in 2004 at age 29, unveiled his surprise decision as candidate filing started this week in North Carolina. He currently represents the 10th District covering several counties north and west of Charlotte entering the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He had announced his reelection campaign in late October, just two days after the completion of another congressional redistricting by the Republican-controlled legislature that kept the reconfigured 10th District on the GOP side of the ledger in the November 2024 election. That announcement also came two days after U.S. House Republicans ultimately got behind Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana to bec...

Officials in Quebec investigating after two deaths in Montreal-area hospital ER

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:54 GMT

CHÂTEAUGUAY, Que. — Quebec health officials are investigating after two people died in a hospital emergency room in the Montreal suburb of Châteauguay last week.The local health authority confirmed today it has launched a probe into the deaths at Anna-Laberge hospital but refused to give details.It says the Quebec coroner’s office is also investigating.The authority says the two people died during a period of high traffic and “very high” wait times in its facilities.It adds that officials are meeting with the Health Department to find ways to reduce pressure on the health-care network.The office of Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé says he visited the Anna-Laberge Hospital on Sunday to get a sense of the situation.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2023.The Canadian Press

Music Review: Neil Young’s ‘Before and After’ offers one continuous stream of rarities

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:54 GMT

Leave it to Neil Young to give streaming songs a whole new meaning with a new album, “Before and After,” out Friday.Young delivers reinventions of 13 deep tracks as one continuous piece of mostly acoustic music, with no breaks, over 48 minutes. The tracks appear to have been recorded on Young’s solo 2019 live tour but are presented here as a single piece of music with no audience applause.The technique creates a new, cohesive narrative by weaving together songs from disparate points over a 54-year span. It also puts the songs in a new light, placing the 78-year-old Young’s voice with all of its aging, aching beauty front and center. Anyone hoping to hear Young jamming out new transitions from one song to the next, a la the Grateful Dead, will be disappointed. Instead, a guitar strum here or a harmonica note there keeps the musical ball in the air.“I’m the Ocean,” originally recorded with Pearl Jam on “Mirror Ball” in 1995, is dramatically reworked and sets the mood as th...

Apple-Podcasts-2023 Show of the Year

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:54 GMT

Top Show of the YearWiser Than Me with Julia Louis-DreyfusThe Associated Press

Air Force identifies the eight US crew lost in Osprey crash in Japan

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:54 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Air Force Special Operations Command said Tuesday it has identified the eight service members lost when their Osprey crashed off the coast of Japan last week and was now focused on recovering all of their bodies and the aircraft debris. The CV-22B Osprey crashed on Nov. 29 during a training mission. Ospreys have had a number of crashes, including in Japan, where they are used at U.S. and Japanese military bases, and the latest accident has rekindled safety concerns.On Monday, the Air Force said six of the eight crew members’ remains had been located. Three of those have been recovered. The two lost crew members were unlikely to have survived and the search for their remains was continuing, the Air Force said Tuesday. “The depth of sorrow is immeasurable,” Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, who heads Air Force Special Operations Command, said in a statement announcing the names of the crew. “The honorable service of these eight airmen to this great nation ...

Argentina’s President-elect Milei replies to Musk’s interest: ‘We need to talk, Elon’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:54 GMT

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of the social network X, shared a video Tuesday in which Argentina’s President-elect Javier Milei says equality should never come before freedom, in a sign of how some notable conservatives are closely watching the incoming libertarian head of state.“We need to talk, Elon,” Milei replied on X, formerly Twitter. This is not the first time that Musk, the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, has expressed support for Milei on social media. “Prosperity is about to come to Argentina,” Musk wrote when Milei won the election runoff on Nov. 19.In the interview excerpt that Musk posted, Milei spoke against efforts to make societies more equal, saying it is far more important for people to be free.“There’s a sublime phrase by Milton Friedman that I find to be outstanding, which is that when you prioritize equality over freedom, you end up achieving neither. But when you prioritize freedom over equality, you achieve many of b...

Deputy fired and arrested after video shows him punch man he chased in South Carolina

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:54 GMT

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Body camera video of a sheriff’s deputy who was fired and arrested in South Carolina shows him repeatedly punching a man in the head after a car chase. The man is knocked briefly unconscious, and the officer asks after handcuffing him if he enjoyed his nap.Charleston County deputy James “Hank” Carter III pursued the man in his cruiser for nearly 10 minutes at high speed. The chase continued on foot until the man tripped. He’s seen kneeling with his hands at his side when Carter reaches him in the recording, which was released late Monday.Carter ordered the man to get down with an expletive and almost simultaneously punches him at least eight times in the head. He handcuffs the man who doesn’t move, then lifts him to his feet and asks “you enjoy that little nap?”Carter, 39, is white and the 32-year-old man is Black. Twice after getting him in handcuffs, Carter tells another officer “there’s your boy.”Carter was charged last week with misc...

Canada considering options to get extended family of Canadians out of Gaza

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:54 GMT

OTTAWA — Immigration Minister Marc Miller says he is considering options to get the extended family members of Canadians out of the embattled Gaza Strip.Most Canadians with extended family members in Gaza have been told their family doesn’t qualify to come to Canada, leaving them helpless.The NDP caucus wrote an open letter to the government asking for special immigration visas that would allow Canadians can get their parents, siblings and adult children to safety. Miller says the government has tried to be flexible in cases where family configurations don’t match the strict definition laid out in the Immigration Act.That definition only includes spouses, children and common-law partners of Canadian citizens and permanent residents.Miller says the problem is that a Canadian visa isn’t enough to get people out of the Gaza Strip and into Egypt, and for now, the government remains focused on getting people across that border.This report by The Canadian Press was first...

A bedbug hoax is targeting foreign visitors in Athens. Now the Greek police have been called in

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:15:54 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s health ministry is seeking police help against hoaxers who tried to scare foreign tourists out of some Athens short-term rental apartments by inventing a bedbug crisis.A ministry statement Tuesday said the posters stuck up outside apartment buildings in the city center, festooned with fake ministry and Athens municipality logos, were “absolutely false.”The posters, addressed to “dear visitors” in misspelled English, claimed health authorities had ordered local “private guesthouses” evacuated “to protect the public health of permanent Greek tenants.”Citing a nonexistent bedbug infestation, they threatened visitors with a 500-euro fine ($540) for failure to leave their accomodation, and politely wished them a pleasant stay in Greece.In addition to a cost-of-living crisis, Athens and other parts of Greece face housing problems largely caused by the proliferation of short-term rental apartments — mainly for foreign visitors. That has helped fuel a su...