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Blinken meets Wang Yi in Indonesia. But the region remains wary of the US-China rivalry

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:37:26 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met China’s top diplomat Friday to discuss thorny issues as part of efforts to nurture talks on the sidelines of regional diplomatic meetings in Indonesia, whose president called on rival powers to avoid turning the region into a “competition arena.”Blinken stressed the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and raised concerns by Washington and its allies over China’s actions in his late-Thursday meeting with Wang Yi, who heads the ruling Communist Party’s Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, U.S. officials said.“The meeting was part of ongoing efforts to maintain open channels of communication to clarify U.S. interests across a wide range of issues and to responsibly manage competition by reducing the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.“This is what the wo...

Hundreds of thousands face disruption at London’s Gatwick Airport this summer after strike vote

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:37:26 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of British vacationers face potential disruption to their travel plans at the start of the school summer holidays, after almost 1,000 workers at London’s Gatwick Airport voted to strike in a dispute over pay.The Unite union said Friday that members, including baggage handlers and check-in staff, who are employed by four private contractors will walk out for four days from July 28 and again for a subsequent four-day stretch from Aug. 4.The union said the action will “inevitably” cause disruption to flights at the height of the summer holiday season after the school year has ended. The airlines affected are British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair, TUI, WestJet and Wizz Air.Gatwick, which is just south of the U.K. capital, is London’s second-busiest airport behind Heathrow, with a particular focus during the summer to Europe’s beach resorts in the Mediterranean.A total of 4,410 flights are scheduled to depart Gatwick across all the strike...

South Africa deploys army over burning of trucks, braces for unrest over ex-president’s court case

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:37:26 GMT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa deployed the army in four of its provinces Friday after at least 21 trucks carrying goods were set on fire in various parts of the country over the past week. The move came amid concerns of more unrest over a court decision that could send former president Jacob Zuma back to jail, although authorities have denied they are connected.The deployment of soldiers to support police in some parts of the country came a day after South Africa’s apex Constitutional Court ruled that Zuma’s release on medical parole in 2021 was invalid. The Department of Corrections has not said if it will order Zuma back to jail to serve the remainder of a 15-month prison sentence, but his initial jailing two years ago sparked a week of violent protests that left more than 350 people dead in some of the worst violence South Africa had experienced in 30 years.Police said they had no evidence that the torching of trucks was connected to the 2021 unrest or Z...

Dutch court convicts a man who fatally shot 3 people of murder, sentences him to life imprisonment

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:37:26 GMT

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch court on Friday convicted a man of killing two people at an activity farm for people with mental and psychological disabilities and earlier fatally shooting a man to test his weapon. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders and two attempted murders.The defendant, identified only as John S. under Dutch privacy rules, fatally shot a female worker and a 16-year-old girl at the farm in Alblasserdam near the port city of Rotterdam on May 6, 2022. He shot and seriously wounded two other people at the farm.The man had once been thrown out of the farm after he had a relationship with a person there. He also was convicted of threatening the person, who wasn’t identified by the court.Two days earlier, he fatally shot a man at a shoe repair shop in the nearby town of Vlissingen to test the Glock pistol he had bought, prosecutors said.“The violence and cold-bloodedness are terrifying,” Rotterdam District Court said in a written verdict. ...

Weekend need to know: Honda Indy, BIG on Bloor, Caribbean Carnival events

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:37:26 GMT

Major events are back in Toronto this weekend, like the Honda Indy, BIG on Bloor, and more cultural festivals taking over different parts of the city.The Blue Jays return to action following the All-Star break with a weekend homestand at Rogers Centre, and there will be concerts each night at Budweiser Stage.There is a scheduled subway closure on a part of Line 1.Road closures are in place for the Honda Indy, alongside an emergency closure on the Dufferin Street Bridge. Scroll below for those details.Here’s what’s on this weekend:Top eventsHonda Indy TorontoRacing returns to Exhibition Place this weekend for the Honda Indy.There will be 12 races taking the green flag over three days, with the big race happening on Sunday.The weekend-long event features world-class racing, international food, beer gardens, live entertainment, and family-friendly activities.Races run from Friday to Sunday on the streets surrounding Exhibition Place.WATCH CityNews reporter Brandon Rowe chat...

German leader confident that surging far-right party will shrink again before next election

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:37:26 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed optimism Friday that support for a far-right party which has been surging in the polls lately will shrink to previous levels again by the time of the next national election in 2025.The far-right Alternative for Germany party received 10.3% of the vote in the last national election in 2021 — a slight decline from 2017, when it got 12.6% in the wake of the European migration crisis. Recent polls have shown support for the party, known by its German acronym AfD, at around 20% and ahead of Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats. “I’m quite confident that AfD won’t perform much differently at the next federal election than it did at the last,” Scholz told reporters at his annual summer news conference in Berlin.The 65-year-old said his strategy to achieve this is to pursue policies “that give citizens enough reasons to believe in a good future” — including by showing that the country is in control of its borders...

Crowds cheer as India launches a lander and rover to explore the moon’s south pole

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:37:26 GMT

SRIHARIKOTA, India (AP) — An Indian spacecraft blazed its way to the far side of the moon Friday in a follow-up mission to its failed effort nearly four years ago to land a rover softly on the lunar surface, the country’s space agency said.Chandrayaan-3, the word for “moon craft” in Sanskrit, took off from a launch pad in Sriharikota in southern India with an orbiter, a lander and a rover, in a demonstration of India’s emerging space technology. The spacecraft is set to embark on a journey lasting slightly over a month before landing on the moon’s surface later in August.Applause and cheers swept through mission control at Satish Dhawan Space Center, where the Indian Space Research Organization’s engineers and scientists celebrated as they monitored the launch of the spacecraft. Thousands of Indians cheered outside the mission control center and waved the national flag as they watched the spacecraft rise into the sky.“Congratulations India. Chandrayaan-3 has started its journey towa...

Actors to begin picketing alongside writers in fight over Hollywood's future

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:37:26 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Striking screen actors will begin picketing alongside writers in New York and Los Angeles on Friday in what has become the biggest Hollywood labor fight in decades.The double-barreled strike will shut down the small number of productions that continued shooting in the two months since screenwriters stopped working.Many actors made a show of solidarity on the writers' picket lines, including Fran Drescher, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists president and former star of “The Nanny.” The union's 65,000-member actors' branch will now formally join them as fellow strikers.The two guilds have similar issues with studios and streaming services. They are concerned about contracts keeping up with inflation, residual payments in the streaming era and putting up guardrails against the use of artificial intelligence mimicking their work on film and television shows. Arizona Republican’s ‘colored people’ remar...

Grim milestone: US sets new record for the deadliest six months of mass killings

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:37:26 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Slain at the hands of strangers or gunned down by loved ones. Massacred in small towns, in big cities, inside their own homes or outside in broad daylight. This year's unrelenting bloodshed across the U.S. has led to the grimmest of milestones: The deadliest six months of mass killings recorded since at least 2006.From Jan. 1 to June 30, the nation endured 28 mass killings, all but one of which involved guns. The death toll rose just about every week, a constant cycle of violence and grief.Six months. 181 days. 28 mass killings. 140 victims. One country. Arizona Congressman's ‘colored people’ remark draws floor rebuke “What a ghastly milestone," said Brent Leatherwood, whose three children were in class at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27 when a former student killed three children and three adults. “You never think your family would be a part of a statistic like that.”Leatherwood, a prominent Republican in a state that&n...

MoPac Service road to be closed for hours after ruptured gas line, APD says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:37:26 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) – Austin Police told KXAN Friday morning that a portion of the northbound Mopac Service Road in Southwest Austin would be closed "for hours" as crews work to repair a ruptured gas line.According to APD, a construction crew hit the gas line off the Service Road between Ben Garza Road and U.S. 290. The call was reported as a hazmat call to Austin Fire just after 2 a.m. APD said crews are focused on the northbound Service Road in front of the Marquis at Barton Trails. Police have the service road of Northbound Mopac closed from Ben Garza Road almost to Highway 290. Police are also blocking the northbound Mopac exit for Southwest Parkway and the Highway 290 service road. As of 5 a.m. drivers will have to enter the main lanes of northbound Mopac near William Cannon Dr.Earlier, police told KXAN people had reported the smell of gas in the area. KXAN has reached out to Austin Fire and Texas Gas Service for more information and will update when we get more.