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Hurricane Norma has weakened slightly but remains a major storm off Mexico’s Pacific coast

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:00:24 GMT

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico (AP) — Hurricane Norma weakened slightly but remained a major storm Friday as it took aim at the twin resorts of Los Cabos at the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula.The U.S. National Hurricane Center said that Norma had 115 mph (185 kph) maximum sustained winds and was located about 265 miles (425 kilometers) south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas. The Category 3 storm was moving north-northwest at 7 mph (11 kph).Hotels in Los Cabos, which are largely frequented by foreign tourists, remained about three-quarters full and there has been no major move by visitors to leave, Baja California Sur state tourism secretary Maribel Collins said.The government posted 500 Marines to the resort to help with storm preparations, and municipal officials said that as many as 39 emergency shelters could be opened if needed.Norma was expected to starting hitting Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo by Saturday, and the local port was closed to navigation as a precaution.A ...

Estonia says damage to Finland pipeline was caused by people, but it’s unclear if it was deliberate

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:00:24 GMT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Damage to an undersea gas pipeline and telecom cable connecting Finland and Estonia was caused by people but it remains unclear who was behind it and whether it was deliberate, Estonian officials said Friday.Estonian and Finnish investigators are looking into vessels that were in the area at the time earlier this month, but it is “too soon to indicate a culprit” or say if the damage was “deliberate and designed to impair critical infrastructure,” the Estonian government said in a statement.Finnish and Estonian operators noticed an unusual drop in pressure in the Balticconnector pipeline on Oct. 8 and subsequently shut down the gas flow. Two days later, the Finnish government said there was damage both to the pipeline and the telecom cable between the two NATO countries. A repaired cable will hopefully be in place by next week, Estonia said Friday. The 77-kilometer-long (48-mile-long) Balticconnector pipeline runs across the Gulf of Finland from the Finnish...

REVIEW: Killers of the Flower Moon is heartbreaking and necessary viewing

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:00:24 GMT

Martin Scorsese is mostly known for his crime dramas. Whether the jovial nature of small-time crooks in Goodfellas, the expensive tastes of gambling tastemakers in Casino, or the lonely memories on display in the Irishman, it’s the genre that has come to define the patron saint of cinema. But they’re not the only films he makes. From the spiritual conflict seen in Silence, the high-society melodrama of the Age of Innocence, to the madcap comedy of After Hours, Scorsese has touched almost every genre. With his latest film he combines his passion for crime storytelling and exploration of spirituality with a true story that’s 100 years old.Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon, courtesy of Apple Original Films.Killers of the Flower Moon, like the Irishman, is about three and a half hours long. As it tells its expansive story about a community in crisis it never feels dull nor slow, it moves along at an appropriate pace. It’s about th...

Canada’s Christine Sinclair retiring from international soccer at end of the year

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:00:24 GMT

After leading Canada to gold at the Tokyo Olympics in August 2021, captain Christine Sinclair came to a realization.“After Tokyo, deep down inside, I knew I didn’t want to play in Paris,” she said, referencing the 2024 Olympics. “The way the Tokyo Olympics ended, you can’t beat it.“I wanted to give it one more shot for the World Cup, just because I really thought we could be successful there and we hadn’t been successful in a long time at World Cups.”It wasn’t to be. Canada came home early from Australia this summer, failing to make the knockout round in Sinclair’s sixth trip to the soccer showcase.It was not the ending she wanted. So Sinclair kept going, helping Canada qualify for the Paris Olympics last month in a 35-minute cameo off the bench in the second leg of the 4-1 aggregate win over Jamaica. But the 40-year-old from Burnaby, B.C., is now calling time on her Canada career, saying she will retire from international ...

Judge rules Alex Jones can’t use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying Sandy Hook families

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:00:24 GMT

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas judge has ruled that Infowars host Alex Jones cannot use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying more than $1.1 billion to families who sued over his conspiracy theories that the Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax. The decision is another significant defeat for Jones in the wake of juries in Texas and Connecticut punishing him over spreading falsehoods about the nation’s deadliest school shooting. U.S. District Judge Christopher Lopez of Houston issued the ruling Thursday.Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year and more recent financial documents submitted by his attorneys put his personal net worth around $14 million. But Lopez ruled that those protections do not apply over findings of “willful and malicious” conduct.“The families are pleased with the Court’s ruling that Jones’s malicious conduct will find no safe harbor in the bankruptcy court,” said Christopher Mattei, a Connecticut lawyer for the families. “As a result, Jone...

Dutch king and queen are confronted by angry protesters on visit to a slavery museum in South Africa

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:00:24 GMT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Angry protesters in Cape Town confronted the king and queen of the Netherlands on Friday as they visited a museum that traces part of their country’s 150-year involvement in slavery in South Africa.King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima were leaving the Slave Lodge building in central Cape Town when a small group of protesters representing South Africa’s First Nations groups — the earliest inhabitants of the region around Cape Town — surrounded the royal couple and shouted slogans about Dutch colonizers stealing land from their ancestors.The king and queen were put into a car by security personnel and quickly driven away as some of the protesters, who were wearing traditional animal-skin dress, jostled with police.The Dutch colonized the southwestern part of South Africa in 1652 through the Dutch East India trading company. They controlled the Dutch Cape Colony for more than 150 years before British occupation. Modern-day South Africa...

Ukraine displays recovered artifacts it says were stolen by Russians

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:00:24 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine has recovered 14 archaeological items allegedly stolen by a Russian man who was stopped at a U.S. airport on suspicion of illegally importing artifacts, Ukrainian officials said Friday.Ukraine’s acting Minister of Culture Rostyslav Karandieiev said the man stole the artifacts from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory and then tried to transport them into the U.S. At a news conference in Kyiv Friday, Karandieiev showed some of the artifacts to journalists, along with the documentation that Ukraine received. The recovered items include various types of weaponry, such as axes of different sizes, and date back to periods ranging from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages. One of the oldest is a polished Neolithic axe, dating from approximately 5,000-3,000 years BCE, said Karandieiev. “It’s safe to say that Ukraine has received a new shipment of weaponry. The only catch is that this weaponry is incredibly ancient,” Karandieiev said with a smile during the pu...

Russia extends detention of a US journalist detained for failing to register as a foreign agent

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:00:24 GMT

A Russian-American journalist was ordered Friday to be detained for another three days on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent, Russian media reported.Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, appeared in court in the central Russian city of Kazan, according to the state news agency Tass.She is the second U.S. journalist detained in Russia this year, after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on espionage charges in March.Photos published by independent Russian news website Mediazona showed Kurmasheva, who works for RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir service, inside a defendant’s cage in the courtroom, wearing a coat with a hood and a face mask.The state-run news website Tatar-Inform said Kurmasheva faces charges of failing to register as a “foreign agent” and was collecting information on Russian military activities. It said she could receive up to five years in prison.Kurmasheva was accused of reporting ...

Statistics Canada says retail sales down 0.1% at $66.1 billion in August

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:00:24 GMT

OTTAWA — Statistics Canada says retail sales fell 0.1 per cent to $66.1 billion in August as sales at new and used car dealers fell for the month.The agency also says its early estimates suggest retail sales were unchanged in September, though it cautioned the reading would be revised.For August, sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers fell 0.9 per cent as sales at new car dealers dropped 1.1 per cent and used car dealers declined 0.5 per cent.Statistics Canada says core retail sales — which exclude gasoline stations and fuel vendors and motor vehicle and parts dealers — fell 0.3 per cent in August.Sales at food and beverage retailers fell 1.2 per cent, while sales at sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, book and miscellaneous retailers dropped 1.1 per cent.In volume terms, overall retail sales fell 0.7 per cent in August.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2023.The Canadian Press

Woman critical, 11 displaced following Oak Park apartment fire

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 16:00:24 GMT

OAK PARK, Ill. — A woman is in critical condition and 11 residents were displaced following an apartment fire early Friday morning in Oak Park.The fire department responded to a call of a porch fire just before 3 a.m. at a 33-unit apartment building in the 200 block of South Maple.The fire was contained to multiple back porches and the staircases.A 69-year-old woman was found inside one of the units. She was transported in critical condition to Loyola Medical Center for smoke inhalation.A firefighter also sustained a minor hand injury. Authorities called the American Red Cross to assist 11 residents that were displaced. Group accused of stealing, selling $2M worth of scrap intended for Northwest Indiana steel mill An investigation is underway, Oak Park fire said.