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Hamas frees two Israeli women, but not their husbands

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:58 GMT

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas on Monday released two elderly Israeli women held hostage in Gaza as the United States asked Israel to hold off on a ground assault to negotiate the release of more hostages.The two freed hostages, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz and 79-year-old Nurit Cooper, were taken out of Gaza at the Rafah crossing into Egypt, where they were put into ambulances, according to footage shown on Egyptian TV. The two women, along with their husbands, were snatched from their homes in the kibbutz of Nir Oz near the Gaza border during Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage into southern Israeli communities. Their husbands, ages 83 and 84, were not released.“While I cannot put into words the relief that she is now safe, I will remain focused on securing the release of my father and all those — some 200 innocent people — who remain hostages in Gaza,” Lifshitz’ daughter, Sharone Lifschitz, said in a statement.Lifschitz, an artist and academic in London who uses a different spelli...

Battenfeld: War and foreign policy become new flash point in 2024 White House campaign

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:58 GMT

With President Biden threatening to draw the U.S. into a wider Mideast war, suddenly foreign policy – an issue almost overlooked weeks before – has become a heated flash point in the 2024 White House campaign.Biden’s attempt to tie the Israel-Hamas conflict to support for Ukraine has drawn the ire of Republicans and presidential candidates looking to separate themselves from the crowded field. And the Democratic president’s strong stance for Israel is prompting blowback in his own party — potentially siphoning away badly-needed progressive voters.Some candidates and their super PACs are jumping into war footing, flooding the airwaves with new ads about the Israeli-Hamas war.“The shame of it all is that we wouldn’t be in this terrible position if Joe Biden hadn’t been so weak in Afghanistan, so slow in Ukraine, so pandering to Iran, and so absent from the border,” GOP presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said on X. “The world is on fire and Am...

Appeals panel questions why ‘presidential immunity’ argument wasn’t pursued years ago in Trump case

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:58 GMT

By LARRY NEUMEISTER (Associated Press)NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals panel wants to know why lawyers for former President Donald Trump didn’t try years ago to use a claim of absolute presidential immunity to shield him from a defamation lawsuit by a woman who accused him of sexual assault.A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan listened Monday as a lawyer for Trump argued that a lower-court judge was wrong to reject the defense after it was raised three years after columnist E. Jean Carroll first sued Trump.The lawsuit seeks to hold Trump liable for comments he made while president in 2019 after Carroll said publicly for the first time in a memoir that Trump sexually abused her in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store in 1996. Trump has adamantly denied ever encountering Carroll in the store or knowing her.The court did not immediately rule.Circuit judges Maria Araujo Kahn and Denny Chin questioned Trump attorney Mi...

5 killed, including a police officer, in western Mexico state of Michoacan

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:58 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Five people, including a police officer, were shot to death Monday in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, the office of the state’s attorney general posted on X, formerly Twitter.The attack, in which two other people were injured, was the latest in a wave of violence across a region where powerful cartels continue to wrestle for control.The bodies were found Monday morning on a highway in the township of Tacambaro after an attack targeting the mayor’s brother. The state prosecutor’s office did not say if the mayor’s brother was among the wounded.A video of the attack circulating on social media appeared to show heavy gunfire, followed by at least five armed men running to board a pickup truck.Despite the government sending more than 2,000 National Guard troops and military personnel last month, Michoacan remains one of the deadliest states in Mexico when it comes to homicides, according to the national security department.Several crimin...

Prince William to travel to Singapore for Earthshot Prize announcement on climate projects

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:58 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Prince William will travel to Singapore next month to name the winners of his Earthshot Prize, a global competition to find solutions to the challenges of climate change.William created the prize three years ago to encourage inventors and entrepreneurs to develop technologies to combat global warming and mitigate its impact on the environment.Singapore was chosen to host the latest annual awards ceremony because of its role as a “hub for innovation” in Southeast Asia, William’s office at Kensington Palace said in a statement. During his four-day trip to Singapore, the prince will meet with local groups to learn how they are working to protect and restore the planet.William will also attend the United for Wildlife global summit, featuring representatives of law enforcement agencies, conservation groups and corporations that are working to combat the trade in illegal wildlife products, which is estimated at $20 billion annually.The Earthshot Prize is named after the late...

Off-duty St. Louis officer accused of shooting at trick-or-treating event no longer employed

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:58 GMT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — An off-duty St. Louis County officer accused of displaying his badge and firing into the air at a trick-or-treating event no longer is employed at the agency, a police spokesperson confirmed Monday. Matthew McCulloch was no longer working at the department as of Thursday, St. Louis County Police officer Adrian Washington said in an email. He had been on unpaid administrative leave. Washington declined to comment on whether McCulloch was fired or quit, describing it as a personnel matter.McCulloch is charged with child endangerment, unlawful use of a weapon, armed criminal action and making a terrorist threat during a school-sponsored trunk-or-treating event attended by hundreds of parents and children Oct. 15 in the St. Louis suburb of Kirkwood. Police said McCulloch told multiple attendees that “you are all going to die,” according to the probable cause statement.After a man responded by pushing McCulloch to the ground, police said McCulloch lifted his shirt to sho...

Hundreds of photos from the collection of Elton John and David Furnish will go on display in London

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:58 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Photos of iconic celebrities and historic moments from the collection of Elton John and David Furnish will go on display at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum next year.The museum said Tuesday that the exhibition, titled “Fragile Beauty,” will include 300 images by more than 140 photographers, including Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, William Eggleston, Zanele Muholi and Ai Weiwei.The images, many of which have never been on public display, will be on show from May 18, 2024, until Jan. 5, 2025.The exhibition will include portraits of stars including Marilyn Monroe, Miles Davis and Chet Baker, and photojournalism from historic moments including the Black civil rights movement of the 1960s, 1980s AIDS activism and the Sept. 11 attack.The works cover the period from the 1950s to the present. The exhibition follows a show of earlier, black-and-white photographs from the collection held at London’s Tate Modern in 2016.John began collecting photographs afte...

8 officers involved in Jayland Walker’s shooting death are back on active duty, officials say

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:58 GMT

AKRON, Ohio (AP) — The eight Ohio police officers who fired scores of shots that killed Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man, after a car and foot chase last year are back on active duty, officials said.Akron Capt. Michael Miller, in a statement, cited a state investigation and an Ohio grand jury’s decision against indicting any officers in the June 2022 shooting death of Walker. As a result, he said, “all eight officers are back on full-time, active duty.” Miller also said the department’s internal probe of the shooting is going through a final legal review and is expected to be released at the end of November.Walker family attorney Bobby DiCello told WKYC-TV that the family is “saddened by the way in which they continue to be ignored” by the city of Akron, whose leaders, he said, have “never once reached out to discuss the employment of the eight officers or explain why the officers are being reinstated.” Police said officers tried to pull over Walker’s car fo...

At least 16 people killed when a boat caught fire in western Congo, as attacks rise in the east

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:58 GMT

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — At least 16 people were killed Monday when a boat caught fire on the Congo River, local officials said.The boat was carrying fuel and was on its way to the city of Mbandaka from the eastern part of the capital, Kinshasa, said Papy Epiana, the provincial deputy. At least 11 people were rescued and it’s unclear if more are missing. The accident comes two days after a boat capsized also on the Congo River, killing at least 40 people.Boat accidents are common on the Congo River and on the nation’s lakes because of the prevalent use of makeshift boats that are often overloaded. The majority of the population in the country’s northwest use the rivers to travel because of a lack of good roads and because it is less expensive.The accidents in the country’s west come amid rising insecurity in the conflict-riddled east. At least 30 people were killed and their homes burned Sunday night in Rutshuru Territory in North Kivu province, according to local authorit...

Cuomo could have run again for NY governor, but declined for family reasons, former top aide writes

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:01:58 GMT

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment, discussed running to reclaim the office in 2022 but decided against it because he didn’t want to subject his daughters to another campaign, one of his top aides says in a book being released Tuesday.“We had a vendor lined up to print petitions and had assembled a volunteer army and a paid canvass operation that was set to go,” the Democrat’s former chief aide, Melissa DeRosa, writes in her political memoir, “What’s Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics and Crisis.” Such a run would have pitted Cuomo against his successor and former lieutenant governor, fellow Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul. DeRosa said Cuomo “could not stomach” how state government was being run after his resignation. But despite support from relatives and aides willing to come out with “guns blazing,” she wrote, Cuomo considered how a run would impact his three daughter...