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Venezuela’s Maduro blasts ‘provocation’ as UK sends warship to Guyana

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:48 GMT

LONDON — Venezuela lashed out at “an act of hostile provocation” after the United Kingdom deployed a navy patrol ship to Guyana amid a simmering border dispute.The U.K. announced this week that its HMS Trent vessel had been dispatched to Guyana in what it described as a show of support for the ex-British colony, which neighbors Venezuela.President Nicolás Maduro’s regime held a referendum earlier this month seeking public backing for proposals to claim sovereignty over the vast oil- and mineral-rich Essequibo region, which is controlled by Guyana but long contested by Venezuela.Maduro said in a televised address Thursday night that his country’s armed forces would now kick off their own military exercises, calling it “a joint action of a defensive nature in response to the provocation and threat of the U.K. against peace and the sovereignty of our country.”Britain’s Ministry of Defense did not explicitly mention Venezuela when announcing the deployment earlier this week.It said only...

Russia bombs cities across Ukraine in ‘massive’ overnight assault

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:48 GMT

Russia launched an attack on several cities in Ukraine in a “massive” assault overnight Thursday, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens across the country.Missiles and drones reportedly struck the capital, Kyiv, as well the cities of Kharkiv, Lviv, Odessa, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia. Millions across the country received air raid alerts instructing them to seek shelter.About a thousand kilometres separate Lviv in the country’s west and Kharkiv in the east.“We haven’t seen so much red on our monitors for a long time,” Ukraine’s Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said, adding that Russia used a combination of hypersonic, cruise and ballistic missiles to strike targets across the country.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that Russia had fired approximately 110 missiles at Ukraine, “most of which were shot down.”In Kyiv, an apartment building, metro station and warehouse were damaged, killing at least one person and injurin...

Haley seeks to clarify Civil War comments as backlash mounts

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:48 GMT

Berlin, New Hampshire (CNN) — Nikki Haley on Thursday sought to clarify her comments about the Civil War one day after a voter in New Hampshire called her out for not mentioning slavery as a cause of the war.“I mean, of course the Civil War was about slavery,” Haley told radio host Jack Heath Thursday morning.“But what’s the lesson in all of that?” she continued. “That we need to make sure that every person has freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do and be anything they want to be without anyone or government getting in the way. That was the goal of what that was at. Yes, I know it was about slavery. I’m from the South, of course I know it’s about slavery.”Her comments come amid intense backlash inside and outside the GOP after Haley told a New Hampshire town hall crowd that the Civil War was about government interfering in people’s freedoms.“I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people cou...

Russia unleashes what may be one of the biggest aerial barrages against Ukraine, Zelenskyy says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:48 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched about 110 missiles as well as drones against Ukrainian targets during the night Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday, killing at least seven civilians in what appeared to be one of the biggest aerial barrages of the 22-month war.Most of the incoming missiles and drones were shot down during the roughly 18-hour onslaught, according to Zelenskyy. However, scores of people were injured and an unknown number of people were buried under rubble, Ukrainian officials said. Among the buildings damaged across Ukraine were a maternity hospital, apartment blocks and schools.Zelenskyy said the Kremlin’s forces used a wide variety of weapons, including ballistic and cruise missiles.“Today, Russia used nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal,” Zelenskyy said on sopcial media platform X, formerly Twitter.Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said Russia “apparently launched everything they have” in the attack.If Zelenskyy’s count is conf...

Baker Portrait Hangs With Others On Lobby Walls

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:48 GMT

Members of the public can finally get a look at the $29,000 oil-on-canvas memorialization of Gov. Charlie Baker’s eight years in the corner office.Baker’s official portrait, unveiled at a private soiree Dec. 21 in the State House library, was up on the wall this week in the lobby of the executive suite for all to see.With display space in the lobby reserved for the 12 most recent governors, that means 1950s Gov. Christian Herter has finally moved out of the suite, with Gov. Foster Furcolo on deck to head out whenever Gov. Maura Healey’s picture goes on the wall. Gov. Deval Patrick slid down a space to make way for Baker to occupy a spot closest to the door.Ed Lyons, a Baker supporter known for writing about Massachusetts politics on social media, celebrated “unique” details of the portrait this week in a series of posts on X — such as the Swampscott Republican’s purple necktie, both a color of bipartisanship and of Alzheimer’s disease ...

Turkey reportedly detains 32 IS militants and foils possible attacks on synagogues and churches

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:48 GMT

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish security forces have detained 32 people suspected of links to the Islamic State extremist group who were allegedly planning to carry out attacks on synagogues and churches as well as the Iraqi Embassy, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported Friday.The suspects, including three alleged senior IS militants, were detained in raids carried out at dawn in nine provinces across Turkey, Anadolu Agency reported, citing unnamed security sources.They were detained in a joint operation by the country’s intelligence agency and police, the agency said.The arrests come a week after police rounded up 304 suspected IS militants in simultaneous raids across Turkey in what appeared to be a security sweep leading up to the New Year festivities.The Islamic State group has carried out a string of deadly attacks in Turkey, including a shooting at an Istanbul night club on Jan. 1, 2017, that killed 39 people during New Year celebrations.The Associated Press

North Korea’s new reactor at nuke site likely to be formally operational next summer, Seoul says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:48 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A light-water reactor at North Korea’s main nuclear complex will likely be formally operational by next summer, South Korea’s defense minister said, amid suspicions that the North may use it as a new source of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.Concerns about North Korea’s nuclear program deepened recently as the U.N. atomic agency and foreign experts said they’ve detected signs indicating that North Korea had begun operating its light-water reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said last week that his agency had observed increased levels of activity at and near the reactor and since mid-October, a strong water outflow from its cooling system. He said the reactor is “a cause for concern” because it can produce plutonium — one of the two key ingredients used to manufacture nuclear weapons, along with highly enriched uranium.The South Korean Defense Ministry said Friday that Defense Minister Shin Wonsik told local repo...

An avalanche killed 2 skiers on Mont Blanc. A hiker in the French Alps also died in a fall

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:48 GMT

PARIS (AP) — An avalanche on Mont Blanc swept two skiers to their deaths and left another injured, while a hiker was killed on another slope in the French Alps, according to local authorities.The avalanche Thursday swept through an off-piste area of the Saint-Gervais-les-Bains ski resort at an altitude of 2,300 meters (7,545 feet), the administration for the Haute-Savoie region said in a statement.Dozens of mountain rescuers set out to search for skiers trapped, finding a man and a women dead and one person injured, and rescuing five others, the administration said.An investigation was opened into the cause of the avalanche.Saint-Gervais Mayor Jean-Marc Peillex said the weather conditions were too unstable for such risky outings.“It rained, it snowed, it was warm. There are enough marked paths to ski on,’’ he told BFM television. ‘’It’s terrible what happened. A family is decimated, and we are very sad in Saint-Gervais.’’To the north, a 31-year-old hiker was found dead after falling...

In the news today: Palestinians streaming into Rafah as Israeli offensive widens

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:48 GMT

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed on what you need to know today…Tens of thousands of Palestinians stream into Rafah as Israel expands its offensiveThe Israeli-Hamas war has already driven around 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people from their homes, leveling the northern part of the territory and heightening fears about a similar fate for the south as Israel’s air and ground offensive widened Friday.Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have streamed into the town of Rafah in the southernmost end of Gaza in recent days, according to the United Nations, crowding into an already overwhelmed area of the embattled territory.More than 20,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead.Canada to offer humanitarian visas to those fl...

Displaced Palestinians flood a southern Gaza town as Israel expands its offensive in the center

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:48 GMT

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have streamed into the overwhelmed town of Rafah in the southernmost end of Gaza in recent days, according to the United Nations, as Israeli forces on Friday continued to blast through dense areas in the center of the strip, killing dozens of people.Israel’s unprecedented air and ground offensive against Hamas has displaced some 85% of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million residents, sending swells of people seeking shelter in Israeli-designated safe areas that the military has nevertheless also bombed. That has left Palestinians with a harrowing sense that nowhere is safe in the tiny enclave.Israel’s widening campaign, which has already flattened much of northern Gaza, is now focused on built-up areas in central Gaza, where Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the urban refugee camps of Bureij, Nuseirat and Maghazi, leveling buildings, residents said.But fighting is raging across many areas of Gaza. It has not abated in...