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West African leaders will meet Thursday after Niger’s junta defies key deadline and shuts airspace

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:44:38 GMT

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Leaders of West Africa’s regional bloc said Monday that they would meet later this week to discuss next steps after Niger’s military junta defied a deadline to reinstate the country’s ousted president while its mutinous soldiers closed the country’s airspace and accused foreign powers of preparing an attack.The meeting was scheduled for Thursday in Abuja, the capital of neighboring Nigeria, according to a spokesman for the ECOWAS bloc.State television reported the junta’s latest actions Sunday night, hours before the deadline set by ECOWAS, which has warned of using military force if the democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum is not returned to power.A spokesman for the coup leaders, Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane, noted “the threat of intervention being prepared in a neighboring country,” and said Niger’s airspace will be closed until further notice. Any attempt to fly over the country will be met with “an energetic and immedi...

Palestinian teenager dies after he was shot by Israeli troops in the West Bank last week

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:44:38 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — A Palestinian teenager who was shot by Israeli troops last week after throwing a firebomb in the occupied West Bank died Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. It was the latest in a long string of violent incidents involving Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank in the last year and a half. It came after a bloody weekend in which a settler killed a Palestinian man and a Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli security guard in Tel Aviv.The Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported that Ramzi Hamed, 17, was shot near the West Bank settlement of Ofra, near his hometown of Silwad north of Ramallah.Fathi Hamed, the boy’s father, told The Associated Press that his son was shot by Israeli troops early last Wednesday after throwing firebombs at soldiers operating near Silwad.The Israeli military said “it appears” that Hamed had thrown the firebomb toward the settlement’s front gate. It provided security camera footage of what it said was the inci...

Two rivals claim to be in charge in Niger. One is detained and has been publicly silent for days

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:44:38 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Nearly two weeks have passed since the coup in Niger, and the two men making competing claims to power have gone quiet in recent days. One is the ousted president, who said last week he’s being held hostage and has been publicly silent since then. The other is the military junta leader who asserts he acted out of concern for the country’s security and has encouraged Nigeriens to defend it from any foreign intervention.Here’s a look at President Mohamed Bazoum and Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani as Niger’s junta defies a threat by the West African regional bloc to step in and use force if necessary:PRESIDENT MOHAMED BAZOUMAs neighbors in West Africa experienced multiple coups and kicked out the military forces of former colonizer France in recent months, Niger’s president came to be seen as a crucial partner of the West in the fight against groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State organization in what has become the global epicenter of extremism, the vast...

Worker injured as explosion at Texas paint plant sends fireballs into sky

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:44:38 GMT

GARLAND, Texas (AP) — A worker was injured early Monday when an explosion set a paint manufacturing plant in the Dallas suburbs ablaze and shot a series of fireballs into the night sky.A company spokesperson said the blast at the Sherwin-Williams plant in Garland happened around 1:15 a.m., and people who live and work nearby reported feeling buildings tremble as flames engulfed the industrial facility.“It felt pretty hard. Like the whole house shook,” Giovanny Gamboa, who felt the explosions from miles away, told KDFW-TV. “I felt the shake. I came and investigated myself. I didn’t expect it to be something this far away.”Firefighters extinguished the blaze in a few hours and the employee who was injured has been released from a hospital, Sherwin-Williams spokesperson Julie Young said in an email. She said all employee have been accounted for.Young said production has been suspended at the plant, which primarily makes industrial coatings and resins, but did not respond to a que...

Québec solidaire members pick byelection candidate, ignore calls to nominate a woman

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:44:38 GMT

QUEBEC — Members of the left-wing party Québec solidaire have chosenOlivier Bolduc to run in an upcoming provincial byelection, rebuffing suggestions from party leadership that a woman should be nominated.The party announced at a nomination meeting late Sunday that Bolduc, a court stenographer, would run in the Quebec City riding of Jean-Talon, which was left vacant by the departure of Coalition Avenir Québec legislature member Joelle Boutin last month.The choice came after The Canadian Press revealed the existence of an internal party communication that “strongly” suggested party members should choose a woman to run in the riding.The party’s interim president had also thrown his support behind Bolduc’s rival, accounting professor Christine Gilbert.While Gilbert positioned herself as a unifying candidate with strong financial knowledge, Bolduc stressed the experience he’s gained by running in four previous campaigns, including a second-place finish to B...

Biden heads west for a policy victory lap, drawing an implicit contrast with Trump

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:44:38 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is setting out Monday on a Western swing aimed at showcasing his work on conservation, clean energy and veterans’ benefits as he seeks to draw an implicit contrast between his administration’s accomplishments and former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles. Biden’s first stop will be the Grand Canyon, where he’s expected to announce plans for a new national monument to preserve more than 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) and limit uranium mining. After Arizona, he will travel to New Mexico and Utah.The Democratic president will be in Albuquerque on Wednesday and will talk about how fighting climate change has created new jobs, and he’ll visit Salt Lake City on Thursday to mark the first anniversary of the PACT Act, which provides new benefits to veterans who were exposed to toxic substances. He’ll also hold a reelection fundraiser in each city.Biden will use the three-night trip to “continue to highl...

Missouri man sentenced to prison for killing that went unsolved for decades

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:44:38 GMT

UNION, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, nearly four decades after a woman was strangled with her body dumped in the woods.Kirby R. King, now in his late 60s, pleaded guilty in June to involuntary manslaughter and felonious restraint in the 1987 death of 22-year-old Karla Jane Delcour. He was sentenced Thursday.Investigators believe Delcour was killed at a home in the eastern Missouri town of Union on June 21, 1987. Her body was found about four days later near neighboring St. Clair, where she was living. Her wrists and neck were bound by a cord.King was questioned in 1987 but not charged.The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office reopened the case in 2018 and King was arrested in 2019, initially charged with second-degree murder. Investigators have not said what new evidence led to his arrest and conviction.The Associated Press

Music Review: Neil Young caught in his 1970s prime with yet another ‘lost’ album, ‘Chrome Dreams’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:44:38 GMT

“Chrome Dreams,” Neil Young (Reprise Records)Neil Young is captured in his mid-1970s prime with “Chrome Dreams,” yet another “lost” — or “unreleased” — album officially seeing the light of day as Young originally envisioned nearly half a century ago.Young, 77, has been delving into his vast archive in recent years to release live albums and studio recordings that were previously slated for release, but for one reason or another never got out.The long-bootlegged collection of 12 songs, all recorded between 1974 and 1976 and first compiled for a release in 1977, gained legendary status as it sat in the vault. Young even managed to release a titular sequel, “Chrome Dreams II” in 2007, before he got around to putting out the original.It’s impossible 46 years later to know how “Chrome Dreams” would have altered the Neil Young career narrative had it been released when planned. Certainly, “Chrome Dreams” is a stunning collection, highlighted by beloved Young songs “Powderfinge...

Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky is handed an 8-year prison term for discrediting Russia’s army

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:44:38 GMT

A Moscow court sentenced Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky on Monday to eight years in prison, finding him guilty of deliberately spreading false information about Russia’s armed forces.Glukhovsky, who is not in Russia and who was tried in absentia, is best known for writing a science fiction series and is the latest artist to be handed a prison term in a relentless crackdown on dissent in Russia. On Friday, imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was convicted on charges of extremism and sentenced to 19 years in prison.Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, lawmakers passed a bill that imposes prison sentences of up to 15 years on those spreading “fake” information that goes against the Russian government’s narrative on the war.Glukhovsky was found guilty of posting texts and videos on his social media channels that accused Russian servicemen of committing crimes in Ukraine and that Russian prosecutors said were fake.In April 2022, when he was already outside Russia, Gluk...

How a big week helps Cubs' growing confidence

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:44:38 GMT

CHICAGO — If this week was meant to be a test for the Cubs, they've certainly passed it, and now they're right in the thick of a playoff chase in 2023. A pair of winning series against two of the better teams in the National League can do that, with the last three coming against the best in baseball. After taking two of three from the Reds at Wrigley Field earlier last week, the Cubs did the same against the Braves, including a 6-4 win on Sunday that ups their record to 58-54 on the year.That puts David Ross' team just a game-and-a-half behind the Brewers for first in the NL Central, the closest they've been since April 21 after a 13-0 win over the Dodgers at Wrigley Field. It puts the team in a position to win their first division championship since 2020, which is also the last time they qualified for the postseason. Not bad for a team that just two weeks ago was closer to selling than buying at the MLB trade deadline, when it appeared their playoff chances were remote. But trades...