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Oil jumps on more Saudi, Russian cuts 

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:41 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to extend their oil production cuts through the end of this year, trimming 1.3 million barrels of crude daily out of the global market and boosting energy prices.The dual announcements from Riyadh and Moscow pushed benchmark Brent crude above $90 a barrel in trading Tuesday, a price unseen in the market since November.The countries’ moves could increase inflation and the cost for motorists at gasoline pumps. It also puts new pressure on Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the United States, as President Biden last year warned the kingdom there would be unspecified “consequences” for partnering with Russia on cuts as Moscow wages war on Ukraine.Saudi Arabia’s announcement, carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, said the country still would monitor the market and could take further action if necessary.“This additional voluntary cut comes to reinforce the precautionary efforts made by OP...

Tropical Depression 13 will likely become ‘powerful hurricane’ in record-warm waters, East Coast could be threatened

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:41 GMT

A new tropical depression has formed in the Atlantic Ocean, as forecasters expect that the system will become a “powerful hurricane” later this week and possibly impact the East Coast.Tropical Depression 13 has developed in the central Atlantic Ocean, and meteorologists on Tuesday said it will strengthen into a tropical storm and then Hurricane Lee.The East Coast, along with the Caribbean and Bermuda, could be threatened by the major hurricane.“Tropical Depression 13 forms in the Central Atlantic, forecast to become a powerful hurricane by the end of the week,” the National Hurricane Center posted on Tuesday.“The depression is forecast to become a major hurricane by this weekend and could bring impacts to the Leeward Islands by that time,” the forecasters added. “While it is too soon to determine the location and magnitude of these possible impacts, interests in this area should monitor the progress of the depression and updates to the forec...

Disney, Spectrum direct customers to other TV services as dispute keeping ESPN off air continues

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:41 GMT

By DAVID BAUDER (AP Media Writer)NEW YORK (AP) — Both sides of a dispute that has left nearly 15 million cable TV subscribers without ESPN or other networks affiliated with The Walt Disney Co. are directing customers to other services where they can watch television.The offers speak to the unusual nature of the business dispute between Disney and Charter Communications, and doesn’t auger a quick resolution.Charter is telling its Spectrum TV customers about a special deal being offered by the Fubo live television streaming service to get two months at discounts of 25% or 30%, depending on the plan.“I’ve covered carriage disputes for more years than I would like to remember, and I don’t recall a TV provider ever offering its customers a discount to another TV provider during a channel blackout,” wrote journalist Phillip Swann, who runs tvanswerman.com.Spectrum had no comment Tuesday on the offer’s implications.Disney, meanwhile, is also offeri...

US steps toward forcing recall of 52 million air bag inflators that can explode and hurl shrapnel

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:41 GMT

By TOM KRISHER (AP Auto Writer)DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government is taking a big step toward forcing a defiant Tennessee company to recall 52 million air bag inflators that could explode, hurl shrapnel and injure or kill people.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Tuesday said it has made an initial decision that the inflators made by ARC Automotive Inc., and under license by another company, are defective. The agency scheduled a public hearing for Oct. 5, a required step before deciding to seek a court-ordered recall.In May the agency asked ARC to recall the inflators, which it says are responsible for at least seven injuries and two deaths in the U.S. and Canada since 2009. But ARC has refused to issue a full-scale recall, setting the stage for the possible court fight.Messages were left Tuesday seeking comment from ARC. The company maintains that no safety defect exists, that NHTSA’s demand is based on a hypothesis rather than technical conclusions, ...

Biden awards Medal of Honor to Army helicopter pilot who rescued soldiers in a Vietnam firefight

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:41 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden awarded the Medal of Honor to Capt. Larry Taylor on Tuesday, honoring the Army pilot who risked his life during the Vietnam War by flying into heavy enemy fire to save four members of a reconnaissance team from almost certain death as they were about to be overrun. On the night of June 18, 1968, then-1st Lt. Taylor flew his Cobra attack helicopter to rescue the men after they had become surrounded by the enemy. “It was pitch black. No moon. No stars. No light beyond the glow of Lieutenant Taylor’s cockpit control, when he heard a whisper coming through his radio, ‘We’re surrounded,’” Biden said, adding, “Lieutenant Taylor knew the risks, but he was ready.” Taylor, a Tennessean who is now 81, recalled in an interview last week that he had to figure out how to get the men out, otherwise “they wouldn’t make it.”David Hill, one of the four Taylor saved that night, said his actions were what “we now call thinking outside the box.”Hill and...

At least 7 people die as severe rainstorms trigger flooding in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:41 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Fierce rainstorms battered neighboring Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria on Tuesday, triggering flooding that caused at least seven deaths, including two holidaymakers swept away by a torrent that raged through a campsite in northwestern Turkey.Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said four other people were missing after the flash flood swept over the campsite in Kirklareli province, near the border with Bulgaria. He said about 12 vacationers were at the site when the waters hit.Search teams had located two bodies, he said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “The search and rescue efforts for the missing (four) continue uninterrupted,” he added.Television footage showed rescuers carrying a young girl and an adult to safety from waters reaching waist-high in some areas. The rains also damaged and forced the closure of a main road, HaberTurk television reported.In Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, heavy rain flooded streets and homes in ...

Trump plans to attend the Iowa-Iowa State football game in the leadoff 2024 GOP voting state

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:41 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Former President Donald Trump plans to attend Saturday’s football game between Iowa State University and the University of Iowa, his campaign said.The game, hosted this year by the Iowa State Cyclones in Ames, is the marquee sporting event in the state, which is scheduled to host the leadoff Republican presidential nominating caucuses in January. The visit will mark Trump’s sixth trip to the state this year. Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who is among a dozen challengers to Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination, also plans to attend the Iowa State-Iowa game, his campaign said. With about four months before the caucuses, Trump leads his rivals in Iowa by wide margins in recent polls, despite facing four criminal indictments. Two of the indictments allege that he acted illegally to try to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.Trump is the heavy favorite in early caucus polls, with 42% of likely Iowa Republican caucus participants ...

Swiss parliamentary panel urges expulsions of Russian, other spies who threaten national security

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:41 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — A Swiss parliamentary commission voted Tuesday to urge the government to systematically expel Russian and other spies who threaten Switzerland’s security through illegal intelligence activities. The foreign affairs commission of the lower house of parliament passed the motion by 11 votes to 9, with one abstention. It amounts to a procedural step that would require broader authorization by the Swiss executive branch to take effect.It comes as the Swiss legislature grappled with a flurry of Russia-related matters as its latest session gets under way. Switzerland has faced criticism from both Moscow and the West about its self-professed neutrality in international affairs against the backdrop of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s more than 18-month war against Ukraine.The United States and some other Western countries are frustrated over Switzerland’s refusal to allow European partners to ship Swiss-made weaponry to Ukraine, among other complaints. Switz...

New York police agree to reform protest tactics in settlement over 2020 response

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:41 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s police department has agreed to establish new policies intended to safeguard the rights of protesters as part of a legal settlement stemming from its response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020.The 44-page agreement, filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, requires the nation’s largest police department to deploy fewer officers to most public protests. It would end the NYPD’s practice of trapping and arresting large groups of demonstrators, a controversial tactic known as kettling.The proposed changes must still be approved by a federal judge. But the agreement signals a likely resolution in the lawsuit filed by New York State Attorney General Letitia James in 2021, which detailed a pattern of civil rights violations committed by police as protests swept through the city following George Floyd’s death in May 2020.“Too often peaceful protesters have been met with force that has harmed innocent New Yorkers simply trying to exercise their...

‘A very long wait’: Yellowknife prepares for people to return home

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:58:41 GMT

The shelves have been filled with food at the Yellowknife Co-op and the grocery store is preparing for tens of thousands of people to return as an evacuation order is scheduled to be lifted Wednesday.“I’m glad that tomorrow it will finally be over and people will be able to return to beautiful Yellowknife,” said Justin Nelson, the grocery store’s general manager.Lifting the order remains contingent on fire and highway conditions, but N.W.T. wildfire information officer Mike Westwick said Monday that no challenges are expected for Highway 1 for the next few days.Tuesday’s cool fall air was welcomed in the territorial capital as familiar faces of essential workers started to stream back into Yellowknife to ensure that the city would be prepared for the return of residents.Yellowknife city manager Sheila Bassi-Kellett said workers in grocery stores, pharmacies, home-heating providers, and even some taxi drivers and day-care providers, had already started t...