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Rescuers retrieve hundreds of bodies in eastern Libya as 10,000 reported missing in deadly floods

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:18:40 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — Rescue teams struggled amid devastation in eastern Libya, retrieving hundreds of bodies from the rubble in a coastal city that has been inundated by devastating floods, a humanitarian agency said Tuesday. Authorities estimated that as many as 2,000 people are believed dead in the city of Derna alone.Mediterranean storm Daniel caused havoc and flash flooding in many towns in eastern Libya but the worst destruction was in Derna, where heavy rainfall and floods broke dams and washed away entire neighborhoods, authorities said.Tamer Ramadan, Libya envoy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said 10,000 people were missing after the unprecedented flooding. Speaking to reporters at a U.N. briefing in Geneva via videoconference from Tunisia, he said the death toll was “huge” and expected to reach into the thousands in the coming days. Speaking about the fallout from Friday’s devastating earthquake in Morocco, on the other side of North Afric...

Construction worker suffers life-altering injuries in hit-and-run on Hwy. 401

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:18:40 GMT

A construction worker has serious life-altering injuries after being struck by a vehicle on a GTA highway in the early morning hours.Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) say the worker was hit in a construction zone in the eastbound lanes of Highway 401 approaching Victoria Park Avenue around 3:30 a.m.Paramedics confirmed a man was rushed to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.The vehicle did not remain at the scene.Police say they are looking for a black Corvette that will likely have front-end damage.The eastbound 401 collectors lanes are closed from Highway 404 to Victoria Park.

Taiwan says China is bolstering coastline military bases facing the self-ruled island

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:18:40 GMT

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China is continuously bolstering its military bases along the coastline facing Taiwan, the self-ruled island’s Defense Ministry said in a report Tuesday, as Beijing steps up military activities around the territory it claims as its own. Taiwan said it will continue to monitor the Chinese activities around the island and bolster its defenses in response. Earlier on Tuesday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it had spotted 22 Chinese warplanes and 20 warships near the island over the previous 24 hours — part of military harassment by Beijing, which hasn’t ruled out force to reunite the island with the mainland. “This year, the Chinese Communist Party has aggressively expanded its armaments and continued to build various types of fighter jets and drones,” Maj. Gen. Huang Wen-Chi, the assistant deputy chief with the General Staff for Intelligence of Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, said during a news conference releasing the biennial report.“The information we h...

Putin says prosecution of Trump shows US political system is ‘rotten’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:18:40 GMT

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted Tuesday that the criminal cases against former U.S. President Donald Trump are political revenge that show the fundamental corruption of the United States.“As for the prosecution of Trump, for us what is happening in today’s conditions, in my opinion, is good because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others democracy,” Putin said at an Eastern Economic Forum gathering in Russia’s Pacific Coast city of Vladivostok.“Everything that is happening with Trump is the persecution of a political rival for political reasons. That’s what it is. And this is being done in front of the public of the United States and the whole world,” he said. Opinion polls indicate that Trump is by far the strongest contender to become the Republican Party’s candidate in the 2024 presidential election. During his four years in the White House, Trump repeatedly touted having...

Stock market today: Global shares mixed after Big Tech rally on Wall Street

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:18:40 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Global shares were mixed Tuesday following a Big Tech rally on Wall Street, as investors awaited an update on U.S. consumer prices set for later in the week. France’s CAC 40 slid 0.1% in early trading to 7,270.28, while Germany’s DAX shed 0.4% to 15,737.20. But Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.4% to 7,528.80. The future for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.2% and that for the S&P 500 was off 0.3%. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 surged 1.0% to finish at 32,776.37. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.2% to 7,206.90. South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.8% to 2,536.58. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.4% to 18,025.89, while the Shanghai Composite fell nearly 0.2% to 3,137.06. The Federal Reserve is weighing whether to keep raising interest rates steady in its effort to get inflation back to 2%. On Wednesday, the U.S. government will offer the latest monthly update on prices consumers are paying across the economy, and the forecast is th...

Canadian accused in U.S. of stealing cash using sleight-of-hand techniques

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:18:40 GMT

A Canadian man has been indicted in a U.S. federal court in St. Louis after being accused of using sleight-of-hand methods to steal more than $64,000 from more than 40 Walmart stores across the U.S.Thirty-seven-year-old Mohsen Akbari was indicted August 16th on one count of wire fraud and one count of interstate transportation of stolen property.Akbari was arrested on September 5th and pleaded not guilty to the charges on Monday.Authorities allege Akbari entered the U.S. on March 1 from South Korea on a visitor visa and later visited several retail stores to steal cash through sleight-of-hand techniques between late March and July of this year.Authorities allege the suspect would make a small purchase and then claim that he and his family collect U.S. currency, typically $100 bills.  Akbari is accused of then asking the cashier to show him the bills so he could examine them, before secretly slipping some of them into his sleeve or pocket.The indictment alleges Akbari would deposit t...

Rhino kills a zookeeper and seriously injures another at an Austrian zoo

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:18:40 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A rhino at a zoo in Austria attacked and killed a zookeeper Tuesday morning and seriously injured another, police said.The fatal attack happened at the Hellbrunn zoo in the western Austrian city of Salzburg.Salzburg police said in a statement that during routine work in the rhino enclosure, a 33-year-old animal keeper was attacked by the animal “for reasons that are still unknown.”“The woman succumbed to her injuries at the scene of the accident,” police said. While trying to scare the animal away, another keeper, a 34-year-old man, was also attacked by the same rhino and seriously injured. He was taken to the hospital.The zoo said it would remain closed on Tuesday. The Associated Press

Norway’s conservative opposition wins local elections with nearly 26% of the votes

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:18:40 GMT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Norway’s center-right opposition party has won local elections in the Scandinavian country, putting the conservatives of former Prime Minister Erna Solberg ahead of the governing social democratic Labor Party locally for the first time since 1924.According to preliminary official figures released Tuesday with all votes counted, the conservative Hoeyre party received 25.9% of the votes in Monday’s elections, up nearly 6 percentage points from the last balloting in 2019 for local councils in Norway’s 356 municipalities and 11 counties. The Labor Party, headed by Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, which ousted Solberg in 2021 national elections, came in second in the local vote with 21.7% of the ballots, down 3.1 percentage points from 2019.Labor, which for decades was Norway’s largest party in local elections, had its worst results in nearly a century in Monday’s vote, making Hoeyre the largest party locally since 1924. It even surpasse...

Holocaust survivor Eva Fahidi-Pusztai, who warned of far-right populism in Europe, dies at age 97

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:18:40 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Eva Fahidi-Pusztai, a Holocaust survivor who spent the late years of her life warning of the re-emergence of far-right populism and discrimination against minorities across Europe, has died. She was 97.The International Auschwitz Committee said Fahidi-Pusztai died in Budapest on Monday. A cause of death was not given.“Auschwitz survivors all over the world bid farewell to their fellow sufferer, friend and companion with deep sadness, gratitude and respect,” the group said in a statement on its website.Fahidi-Pusztai was born in 1925 in Debrecen, Hungary, into an upper middle-class Jewish family. Her family converted to Catholicism in 1936, but that did not shield them from persecution.After the occupation of Hungary by the German Wehrmacht in early 1944, the family was forced to move to a ghetto.In June 1944, the Jewish population was rounded up in a brick factory and deported to the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp in several transports.Fahidi-Pusztai was...

Aaron Rodgers injures Achilles tendon in first series for the Jets

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:18:40 GMT

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — Aaron Rodgers' debut with the New York Jets lasted just four snaps.And now the four-time MVP and a shell-shocked fanbase will have to see how long he might be sidelined.Coach Robert Saleh said the team believes Rodgers injured his left Achilles tendon when he was sacked by Buffalo's Leonard Floyd and fell awkwardly on the leg during Monday night's 22-16 overtime win over the Bills.“Concerned with his Achilles. MRI is probably going to confirm what we think is going to happen, so prayers tonight. But it’s not good,” a somber Saleh said.Saleh said the 39-year-old Rodgers would have the MRI on Tuesday after X-rays during the game were negative. NFL Network reported Rodgers' left foot was in a black walking boot as he was carted to the X-ray room."Personally, I don’t hurt for me, I don’t hurt for our locker room,” Saleh said. “I hurt for Aaron and how much he has invested in all of this. I’m going to say a prayer. I’m still going to hold out hope. But m...