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Russia accuses Australia of ‘Russophobic hysteria’ for blocking second embassy on security grounds

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:32 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Russia accused Australia of “Russophobic hysteria” for canceling the lease on the land where Moscow wanted to build its new embassy, which the Australian government judged to be a security risk because it was too close to Parliament House.Parliament passed emergency legislation blocking the lease Thursday after Russia won a Federal Court appeal last month against local Canberra authorities’ decision to do the same.The Russian Embassy responded on Friday by posting on social media a Russian news agency TASS report of Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov’s condemnation of Australia’s actions.“Australia, having canceled the lease agreement for the site for the construction of the new Russian Embassy building, diligently continues to move forward in the main stream of the authors of the Russophobic hysteria and tries to distinguish itself on this path,” Peskov is quoted as saying.“Another unfriendly display from Australia. We will take this into account and if t...

Teens with severe obesity are turning to surgery and new weight loss drugs, despite controversy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:32 GMT

John Simon III was a hungry baby, a “chunky” toddler and a chubby little boy, his mother said. But by age 14, his weight had soared to 430 pounds and was a life-threatening medical condition.Nine months after weight-loss surgery that removed a portion of his stomach, John has lost about 150 pounds, boosting his health — and his hopes for the future.“It was like a whole new start,” said John, who will start high school in California this fall. In Minnesota, Edward Kent was diagnosed with fatty liver disease. The 6-foot, 300-pound high school sophomore started using the obesity drug Wegovy in January — just a month after federal regulators approved it for children 12 and older — and has lost 40 pounds.“It’s a huge deal and it will affect him for the rest of his life,” said his mother, Dr. Barbara Van Eeckhout, an obstetrician-gynecologist. “This is about his health.”John and Edward are among a small but growing group of young teens turning to treatments like body-altering surgery and ...

Brown leads Dallas against Seattle after 21-point showing

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:32 GMT

Seattle Storm (2-6, 2-4 Western Conference) at Dallas Wings (5-5, 4-1 Western Conference)Arlington, Texas; Saturday, 2 p.m. EDTBOTTOM LINE: Dallas faces the Seattle Storm after Kalani Brown scored 21 points in the Dallas Wings’ 79-61 loss to the Los Angeles Sparks.Dallas went 8-10 in Western Conference play and 8-10 at home during the 2022-23 season. The Wings shot 43.5% from the field and 34.3% from 3-point range last season.Seattle finished 22-14 overall last season while going 10-8 in Western Conference play. The Storm averaged 82.5 points per game last season, 12.4 on free throws and 27.9 from 3-point range.INJURIES: Wings: Lou Lopez Senechal: out (knee), Diamond DeShields: out (knee).Storm: None listed.___The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.Source

Intel plans €4.6B microchips factory in Poland

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:32 GMT

Microchips manufacturer Intel on Friday announced a new investment in Poland worth €4.6 billion to ramp up its capacity in Europe for chip assembly and testing. The U.S.-based company has selected a site near Wrocław, in southwest Poland, for new factories slated to start running in 2027, Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger said in a statement. The firm announced last year that Poland was among the countries that would benefit from the company’s €33 billion investment plan across the bloc, alongside Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and France.The Wrocław plant — expected to create 2,000 jobs onsite — will work closely with Intel’s €17 billion state-of-the-art microchips production site in Magdeburg, Germany, which is also scheduled to go live in 2027. Ireland is also a major manufacturing hub for Intel in Europe.While workers at Intel’s factories in Germany and in Ireland will produce “wafers,” which serve as the base of a microchip, the new Polish plan...

Final day of search for missing migrants in Greece; hundreds feared dead

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:32 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s coast guard launched its third and final day of a search Friday in the area where a large fishing boat crammed with migrants sank, with hundreds of passengers missing and feared dead.The round-the-clock effort continued off the coast of southern Greece despite little hope of finding survivors or bodies after none have been found since Wednesday, when 78 bodies were recovered and 104 people were rescued.Most of the survivors were being moved Friday to migrant shelters near Athens from a storage hangar at the southern port of Kalamata, where relatives also gathered to look for loved ones.Nine people — all men from Egypt, ranging in age from 20 to 40 — have been arrested and detained on allegations of people smuggling and participating in a criminal enterprise. Twenty-seven of the survivors remain hospitalized, health officials said.Coast guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou, citing survivors’ accounts, said that passengers in the hold of the fishing boat includ...

UNICEF calls for better protection for Sudan’s children trapped in ‘unrelenting nightmare’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:32 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — The conflict in Sudan has killed over 330 children and left 13 million more in dire need of humanitarian assistance, UNICEF said Friday, calling on the country’s warring factions to better protect vulnerable young people.For two months, Sudan’s military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamden Dagalo, have been locked in a deadly power struggle. The fighting has killed more than 958 civilians, according to Sudan’s Doctors’ Syndicate, which only tracks civilian casualties. The true death toll is likely much higher.“Children are trapped in an unrelenting nightmare, bearing the heaviest burden of a violent crisis they had no hand in creating – caught in the crossfire, injured, abused, displaced and subjected to disease and malnutrition,” said Mandeep O’Brien, UNICEF’s Representative in Sudan, in a report issued Friday.According to the United Nations’ latest figures, the eight...

Germany marks 70th anniversary of uprising against Communist dictatorship in east

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:32 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s parliament on Friday commemorated the 70th anniversary of a popular uprising in the Communist east that was brutally crushed by its Soviet-backed dictatorship.Worsening economic conditions and political repression in East Germany had prompted months of protests, starting in rural areas, that culminated in a call on June 16, 1953, for a general strike.The following day more than half a million people took to the streets across East Germany, including the capital, Berlin. About 50 people were killed and thousands were arrested by Communist secret police with the help of Soviet troops. Dozens of Soviet soldiers who refused to shoot protesters were executed.The East German regime branded the uprising a “fascist putsch” instigated by the West, a claim for which there was no evidence.It was the first revolt against Soviet rule in eastern Europe. Others would follow in Hungary and what was then Czechoslovakia.“The uprising of June 17 was not only directed agai...

African leaders set to meet with presidents of Ukraine, Russia in bid to end war

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:32 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa arrived in Ukraine on Friday as part of a delegation of African leaders and senior officials seeking ways to end Kyiv’s 15-month war with Russia.Ramaphosa’s press service said that he was met by a Ukrainian special envoy and South Africa’s ambassador at a rail station near Bucha, the Kyiv suburb where bodies of civilians lay scattered in the streets following Russian forces’ withdrawal last spring. The Bucha visit was symbolically significant, as its name has come to stand for the barbarity of Moscow’s military since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The brutal Russian occupation of Bucha left hundreds of civilians dead in the streets and in mass graves.The African delegation also includes senior officials from Zambia, Senegal, Uganda, Egypt, the Republic of the Congo and the Comoro Islands. Ramaphosa said last month that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin ...

In The News for June 16 : Manitoba grieving after deadly highway crash kills 15

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:32 GMT

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of June 16 …What we are watching in Canada …Residents in Dauphin, Man., are anxiously waiting for word on the identities of 15 people killed in a fiery bus crash.Mounties say the group of mostly seniors was heading to a casino when the bus they were on crashed with a semi-trailer near the town of Carberry, west of Winnipeg.Ten people were also sent to various hospitals.RCMP say they are working as fast as possible to identify the victims and get information to their families.They say those on the bus were from Dauphin and the nearby area.Dauphin Mayor David Bosiak says everyone in the city of about 8,600 knows someone who was on the bus, and there’s a collective feeling of shock.The drivers of the bus and truck are among the survivors.RCMP Supt. Rob Lasson says it appears the bus was crossing the Trans-Canada H...

Some Chinese Canadians embrace ‘white people food’ movement, others are baffled

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:06:32 GMT

VANCOUVER — Cheese sticks and a bagel. A boiled egg with raw broccoli. A fat ball of burrata cheese sitting atop a pile of green grapes.Welcome to the divisive world of “white people food,” a movement that has exploded in popularity among Chinese Canadian communities, both as an internet hashtag and lifestyle philosophy.At its core are depictions of simple — some might say depressing — meals. Plain, often raw, and devoid of sauces and flourish, the meals are a source of bafflement for some but inspiration for others. It echoes the recent Chinese social movement to “lie down flat.” A rejection of the relentless pace of the so-called 996 lifestyle, working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, that was once seen as an essential ingredient of Chinese success.University of British Columbia sociology professor Amy Hanser said the “white people food” movement symbolizes a mindset shift among younger Chinese, and a counter to a life of long toil.“It’s not a...