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Meloni to return early from G7 due to deadly floods in Italy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:08 GMT

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is returning early from the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, as her country battles floods that have killed at least 14 people. The worst floods in 100 years in Italy have seen cities and towns in the the northern and eastern regions of Emilia Romagna and Le Marche submerged after around six months’ worth of rain fell in 48 hours. The devastation has precipitated Meloni’s early departure from the G7, Italian news agency ANSA and other media reported on Saturday. Italy’s Council of Ministers is set to meet Tuesday to discuss “the first urgent measures” to address the floods. In a tweet on Saturday, Meloni thanked the other leaders at the summit, saying that their closeness “is a tangible sign of our cohesion in difficult times.” Photographs captured Meloni showing her counterparts at the summit images of the floods. The floods have also opened questions about why billions of euros allocated for structural works to counter hydrogeolog...

Amid G7 diplomacy, Biden predicts a US debt limit deal will get done

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:08 GMT

HIROSHIMA, Japan — Amid a busy day of diplomacy at the G7 summit Saturday, President Joe Biden expressed cool confidence that the White House would eventually reach a deal with House Republicans and avoid a catastrophic default on the nation’s debt.Asked if he was worried about the talks hours after his press secretary seemed to indicate that talks had gone off the rails, Biden replied: “Not at all.”Noting that he’s been in the middle of similar negotiations many times over his career in politics, the president spoke about how talks “go in stages.” He appeared relaxed and expressed confidence that “we’ll be able to avoid a default and get something decent done.”Biden made the comments while in the midst of a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was set to host him and the leaders of India and Japan in Sydney next week. The president just days ago canceled that part of his trip so he could return home and deal with the budget impasse and the looming possibilit...

Brittney Griner embraces Vice President Kamala Harris as basketball star marks return to WNBA

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:08 GMT

(CNN) — Vice President Kamala Harris was among those celebrating the return of Brittney Griner to the WNBA on Friday, five months after the Phoenix Mercury star was released from a Russian penal colony.Griner received a standing ovation from the road crowd as she was introduced during the announcement of the starting lineups at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, but her team ultimately succumbed to a 94-71 defeat against the Los Angeles Sparks in their season opener.Harris met with players from both teams before the game and thanked them for their support while Griner was in Russian custody for almost 300 days last year.“I know that was rough and that was so difficult for you,” she told the locker room. “A team is a team, that’s family.”In return, Los Angeles star and players’ union president Nneka Ogwumike thanked Harris and the Biden administration for securing Griner’s release.Griner, 32, led the way for her team, scoring a game high 18 points on ...

Devers homers twice, drives in 4 as Red Sox beat staggering Padres 6-1

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:08 GMT

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Rafael Devers homered twice and drove in four runs to help the Boston Red Sox beat San Diego 6-1 Friday night to hand the staggering Padres their 10th loss in 12 games.Devers and his friend and former teammate, Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts, took the lineup cards out for the pregame exchange and hugged. Devers then circled the bases in front of Bogaerts in consecutive innings in his 14th career multi-homer game.Devers hit a solo shot to right so hard leading off the second that he stumbled back a few steps before starting his trot. He hit a three-run homer nearly to the base of the batter’s eye in straightaway center field with no outs in the five-run third for a 6-0 lead. He has 13 homers this season.Both came off lefty Blake Snell (1-6), who allowed six runs and five hits in four innings.Before the game, Bogaerts said he hoped Devers didn’t hit any homers because “he’s a dangerous guy. He’s truly one of a kind.”Devers proved his fr...

Justice Department wins lawsuit to end JetBlue and American Airlines alliance

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:08 GMT

New York (CNN) — American Airlines and JetBlue Airways have to break up their alliance on Northeast US flight routes, a US District Court judge ordered Friday.US District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled in favor of the the Justice Department, giving the Biden administration a victory in its years-long lawsuit against the airlines’ collaboration. The Justice Department filed the lawsuit in 2021, alleging the two companies raised prices and reduced choice for air passengers traveling to and from major cities in the Northeast, such as New York City and Boston.The airlines have 30 days to end their partnership, Sorokin ruled – just as the busy summer travel season kicks off.“It is abundantly clear to the Court that the defendants’ primary motivation in establishing the NEA was to strengthen their own competitive positions against Delta (and, to a lesser extent, United) in Boston and New York,” Sorokin wrote in the ruling Friday.The judge’s ruling Friday said that both airlines are a “...

Many transgender health bills came from a handful of far-right interest groups, AP finds

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:08 GMT

Aaron and Lacey Jennen’s roots in Arkansas run deep. They’ve spent their entire lives there, attended the flagship state university, and are raising a family. So they’re heartbroken at the prospect of perhaps having to move to one of an ever-dwindling number of states where gender-affirming health care for their transgender teenage daughter, Sabrina, is not threatened.“We were like, ‘OK, if we can just get Sabrina to 18 … we can put all this horrible stuff behind us,’” Aaron Jennen said, “and unfortunately that’s not been the case, as you’ve seen a proliferation of anti-trans legislation here in Arkansas and across the country.”At least 17 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, though judges have temporarily blocked their enforcement in some, including Arkansas. An Associated Press analysis found that often those bills sprang not from grassroots or constituent demand, but from the pens of a handful of con...

Biden aims to reassure world on US debt standoff as he consults with Indo-Pacific leaders

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:08 GMT

HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) — President Joe Biden tried to reassure world leaders on Saturday that the United States would not default as he consulted with the heads of Australia, Japan and India in a meeting of the so-called Quad partnership that had been hastily rescheduled because of the debt limit standoff back in Washington.Hoping to avert an outcome that would rattle the global economy and prove to be a boon to Beijing, Biden opened his third day in Japan at the annual Group of Seven meeting of the world’s most powerful democracies with a briefing from his staff on the latest fits and starts in talks over how to raise the federal debt limit. The president also squeezed in meetings aimed at challenging China’s buildout across the Indo-Pacific. The Quad members originally had planned to meet in Sydney next week, but got together instead on the sidelines of the G7 so Biden could return to Washington earlier on Sunday in hopes of finalizing a deal to increase the U.S. borrowing limit be...

Deportation order over bogus college admission letter could set precedent: lawyers

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:08 GMT

TORONTO — An Edmonton woman is facing deportation from Canada this month after a college admission letter that secured her entry into the country five years ago turned out to be fake. Even though Karamjeet Kaur, 25, proved not to know the letter was fraudulent, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada has ruled that she be deported by May 29.That decision will likely have implications for possibly hundreds of other international students in Canada who reportedly received similar fake admission letters from the same education agent in India — a situation that shows lack of accountability by border and immigration authorities, according to lawyers and activists who spoke with The Canadian Press.Kaur, whose poor, rural Indian family spent their life savings so she could be the first among them to study and work abroad, now works as a supervisor for a company in Edmonton.She’s married to a Canadian citizen, frequently volunteers, has a work permit valid until November and...

Will Biden’s hard-hat environmentalism bridge the divide on clean energy future?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:08 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — When John Podesta left his job as an adviser to President Barack Obama nearly a decade ago, he was confident that hundreds of miles of new power transmission lines were coming to the Southwest, expanding the reach of clean energy throughout the region.So Podesta was shocked to learn last year, as he reentered the federal government to work on climate issues for President Joe Biden, that the lines had never been built. They still hadn’t even received final regulatory approval.“These things get stuck and they don’t get unstuck,” Podesta said in an interview with The Associated Press.Podesta is now the point person for untangling one of Biden’s most vexing challenges as he pursues ambitious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. If the president cannot streamline the permitting process for power plants, transmission lines and other projects, the country is unlikely to have the infrastructure needed for a future powered by carbon-free electricity. The issu...

Oklahoma prisons locked down following unspecified incident in northeastern Oklahoma

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:36:08 GMT

HOMINY, Okla. (AP) — The Oklahoma Department of Corrections has locked down all prisons statewide and canceled all visitations following an unspecified “incident” at a medium security prison in northeastern Oklahoma.“A statewide lockdown was implemented after an incident occurred at the Dick Conner Correctional Center in Hominy,” about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Tulsa, according to a statement Friday night.Department spokesperson Kay Thompson said in an email Saturday that the incident is still under investigation and did not elaborate on the event.The Dick Conner Correctional Center also has a minimum security prison on its grounds and houses about 1,200 inmates, according to the Department of Corrections website.In September 2021, prisons statewide were locked down following what authorities said were gang-related attacks that injured several inmates at six of the department’s 21 prisons, including the Dick Conner Correctional Center.The Associated Press