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Kherson's unending nightmare: Occupation, shelling and floods

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:02 GMT

For Kherson resident Iryna Radetska, the catastrophic flooding of her city after the giant Kakhovka dam was destroyed is the latest chapter in more than a year of wartime suffering."They say a new love kills the old one. Maybe it's the same with tragedy," said 52-year-old Radetska, who is deputy head of a school in the southern Ukrainian city.Few places have felt the extent of suffering that Kherson has since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year. Few people bore the brunt of it harder than Radetska, who said she has survived imprisonment, beatings and rockets.The city, which had a peacetime population of 280,000, was occupied by Russian forces on March 2, 2022. It was liberated by Ukrainian troops in early November, but since then has been regularly shelled by Russian forces from the east side of the Dnipro River.In the latest setback, large areas of Kherson and villages nearby were submerged last week after the Kakhovka dam, 55 km (35 miles) upstream, was destroyed. Kyiv an...

UK unemployment rate edges down unexpectedly as number in work hits record high

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:02 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Official figures show that Britain’s unemployment rate has fallen unexpectedly as the number of people in work hit a record high and rose past its pre-pandemic level for the first time.The Office for National Statistics said Tuesday that the jobless rate fell to 3.8% in the three months to April, from 3.9% in the previous quarter. Most economists were expecting the rate to edge up to 4%.As the unemployment rate fell, the agency said, the country’s employment rate rose to 76% from 75.9%, with the number of people in work at an all-time high of 33.1 million.Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the agency, said the “biggest driver” in recent jobs growth is health and social care, followed by hospitality.The agency also found that wages rose sharply, a development that may cause concern at the Bank of England, which is widely expected to raise interest rates once again next week. Source

2023 NCAA College World Series Glance

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:02 GMT

At Charles Schwab FieldOmaha, Neb.All Times EDT(Double Elimination; x-if necessary)Bracket 1Friday, June 16Game 1 – TCU (42-22) vs. Oral Roberts (51-12), 2 p.m.Game 2 – Florida (50-15) vs. Virginia (50-13, 7 p.m.Sunday, June 18Game 3 – Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, 2 p.m.Game 4 – Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, 7 p.m.Tuesday, June 20Game 5 – Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 loser, TBD (loser eliminated)Wednesday, June 21Game 6 – Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, TBD (winner advances unless Game 7 needed)Thursday, June 22x-Game 7 – Game 3 vs. Game 4 winner, TBD (winner advances)Bracket 2Saturday, June 17Game 1 – Wake Forest (52-10) vs. Stanford (42-18), 2 p.m.Game 2 – LSU (48-15) vs. Tennessee (42-20), 7 p.m.Monday, June 19Game 3 – Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, 2 p.m.Game 4 – Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, 7 p.m.Tuesday, June 20Game 5 – Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 loser, TBD (loser eliminated)Wednesday, June 21Game 6 &#...

Turkey turns to quest for hosting soccer’s Euros after Champions League final

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:02 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Turkey’s quest to host the men’s European Championship is among the great unfulfilled goals in world soccer.Having newly re-elected state President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sit next to UEFA leader Aleksander Čeferin at the Champions League final in Istanbul on Saturday should only help before Turkey’s next two tournament bids are put to votes on Oct. 10.Turkey is up against the joint U.K.-Ireland bid to host Euro 2028 and is in a Euro 2032 duel with Italy. The 2032 edition is the likely target with a widespread belief 2028 is going to the British and Irish who switched from trying to be UEFA’s preferred candidate in the 2030 World Cup race.Voters for hosting the 24-team Euros tournaments will be members of the 20-strong UEFA executive committee who also sat with Erdoğan in the VIP section to see Manchester City beat Inter Milan on Saturday.“We absolutely would like to win the bid because we see that our country is always capable of organizing such big-scale events su...

El presidente de Irán se reúne con Maduro y acuerdan impulsar el comercio hasta los US$ 20.000 millones

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:02 GMT

(CNN) — El presidente de Irán, Ebrahim Raisi, llegó este lunes a Caracas, Venezuela, en la primera etapa de una gira por tres países de América Latina, donde se reunió con el presidente Nicolás Maduro en el Palacio de Miraflores, según mostraron imágenes en directo de la televisión estatal venezolana.Tras una reunión privada, los dos líderes anunciaron en una rueda de prensa televisada que habían firmado una serie de acuerdos bilaterales para ampliar la cooperación entre los países, así como la intención de aumentar el comercio bilateral hasta alcanzar los US$ 20.000 millones.Presidente de Irán realizará gira por Venezuela, Cuba y Nicaragua“El volumen de los intercambios comerciales entre Irán y Venezuela se incrementará a US$ 10.000 millones en la primera etapa, que puede elevarse a US$ 20.000 millones en la segunda fase”, dijo el presidente iraní Raisi en la rueda de prensa conjunta con Maduro.Más temprano este lunes, la agencia estatal de noticias iraní IRNA dij...

Russia pounds apartment block in Zelenskyy’s hometown, killing at least 6

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:02 GMT

Russia hit an apartment building in the industrial city of Kryvyi Rih, where Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was born, with three cruise missiles overnight. At least six people were killed.“More terrorist missiles, Russian killers continue their war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people,” Zelenskyy said on social media under a video showing rescuers searching for survivors in burning cars and buildings. “Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded. The rescue operation in Kryvyi Rih continues.”“A tragic night,” said Serhiy Lysak, governor of Ukriane’s sotheastern Dnipropetrovsk region. The missile strike hit two residential buildings. Local officials said six people were killed and 25 were wounded.“There are probably people under the rubble,” Lysak said. “Rescuers are looking for them.”Russia’s overnight attack came as Ukraine said Monday that it had liberated seven villages in the east...

Austrian man arrested in Afghanistan after traveling there in May

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:02 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — An Austrian man is being held in Afghanistan after he traveled to the country earlier this year, the Austrian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.The ministry confirmed in an emailed response to a query about the case that the man went to Afghanistan in May and was arrested there. It noted that Austria has long warned against travel to Afghanistan. It didn’t identify the man or give further details, citing data protection issues, but said that it has been “actively seeing a solution” since it became aware of the arrest and is in regular contact with his family.The Austrian daily Der Standard, which first reported on the case, said the man is a veteran far-right extremist in his 80s and was a co-founder of a minor far-right party that was banned in 1988, the National Democratic Party.It said that he has been in custody for a few weeks, since shortly after a far-right magazine published an article he wrote titled “Vacation with the Taliban” in which he gave a positive vi...

As a stolen silver sleuth, German curator returns heirlooms Jewish families lost in the Holocaust

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:02 GMT

MUNICH (AP) — Matthias Weniger put on a pair of white cloth gloves and carefully lifted a tarnished silver candleholder, looking for a yellowed sticker on the bottom of it.The candlestick is one of 111 silver objects at the Bavarian National Museum that the Nazis stole from Jews during the Third Reich in 1939. That’s when they ordered all German Jews to bring their personal silver objects to pawn shops across the Reich — one of many laws created to humiliate, punish and exclude the Jews.What started with anti-Jewish discrimination and persecution in 1933, after the Nazis were voted to power in Germany, led to the murder of six million European Jews in the Holocaust before World War II ended with Germany’s surrender in 1945.Weniger, who is a curator at the Munich museum and oversees its restitution efforts, has made it his mission to return as many of the silver objects as possible to the descendants of the original owners.“These silver objects handed in at the pawn shops...

South Sudan’s sluggish peace deal and unsteady road to elections

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:02 GMT

KOWACH, South Sudan (AP) — Martha Nyanguour didn’t have time to bury her husband, son or granddaughter when they were killed by gunfire in September. Instead, the 50-year-old paid her respects by throwing bits of grass over their bodies, grabbed her remaining children and fled.It had taken years for the mother of seven to muster the courage to return to South Sudan and trust its fragile peace deal ending a civil war. But weeks after she arrived in Atar town in Upper Nile state, fighting erupted between militias aligned with government and opposition forces.“I thought if there was peace I was supposed to go back to my land,” said Nyanguour, seated under a tree in Kowach village in Canal Pigi county where she now lives with thousands of other displaced people, five days’ walk through swamp water from her home village. “I thought maybe there would be peace in the future, but now, hearing gunshots daily, I think South Sudan will remain in war.”In 18 months, South Sudan is su...

Cases of check fraud escalate dramatically, with Americans warned not to mail checks if possible

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:02 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Check fraud is back in a big way, fueled by a rise in organized crime that is forcing small businesses and individuals to take additional safety measures or to avoid sending checks through the mail altogether.Banks issued roughly 680,000 reports of check fraud to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, also known as FinCEN, last year. That’s up from 350,000 reports in 2021. Meanwhile the U.S. Postal Inspection Service reported roughly 300,000 complaints of mail theft in 2021, more than double the prior year’s total.Early in the pandemic, government relief checks became an attractive target for criminals. The problem has only gotten worse and postal authorities and bank officials are warning Americans to avoid mailing checks if possible, or at least to use a secure mail drop such as inside the post office. Meanwhile, as the cases of fraud increase, victims are waiting longer to recover their stolen money.Check usage has been in decline for decades as Americans...