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US announces new $2.1 billion package of military aid to Ukraine

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:50 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon announced Friday that it will provide an additional $2.1 billion in long-term weapons aid for Ukraine. The new assistance package will include funding for more Patriot missile battery munitions, Hawk air defense systems and missiles, and small Puma drones that can be launched by hand.The latest infusion of funding, one of the larger packages the U.S. has provided, comes as there are signs that Ukraine is beginning — or about to begin — the much anticipated counteroffensive to try to take back territory that has been seized by Russia. Unlike the U.S. equipment, weapons and ammunition that are more frequently sent from Pentagon stocks and delivered quickly to Ukraine, this money would be provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and is meant to be spent over the coming months or even years to ensure Ukraine’s future security needs.In a statement, the Pentagon said the package shows America’s continued commitment “to both Ukraine’s c...

Stock market today: Wall Street edges higher; Big Tech climbs

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:50 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose modestly in morning trading on Wall Street Friday and are on track to close out a relatively quiet week higher.The S&P 500 rose 0.4% and is headed for a fourth straight week of gains. Slightly more stocks rose in the index than fell. Big technology companies were doing much of the heavy lifting.The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 94 points, or 0.3%, to 33,928 as of 10:59 a.m. Eastern. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.5%.European markets were lower and Asian markets closed higher overnight.Trading has been listless throughout the week amid a lack of any big market moving reports or news. The benchmark S&P index still gained enough ground by Thursday to close 20% above its October low, entering a new bull market.Technology stocks, which have been responsible for much of Wall Street’s gains, helped lead the way on Friday. Microsoft rose 0.7% and chipmaker Nvidia rose 2%. The S&P 500 gives more weight to many Big Tech companies because of thei...

Chief suspect in Natalee Holloway disappearance pleads not guilty to extortion charges

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:50 GMT

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges that he attempted to extort money from the missing teen’s mother.Van der Sloot was extradited to the United States on Thursday from Peru, where he is serving a 28-year prison sentence after confessing to killing a Peruvian woman. He was arraigned before a federal judge in Birmingham, not far from the suburb where Holloway grew up, in his first court appearance in the case.U.S. prosecutors say that in 2010, van der Sloot reached out to Beth Holloway, seeking $250,000 to disclose the location of the young woman’s body. A grand jury indicted him that year.Natalee’s mother watched the proceeding from the third row of the courtroom.“For 18 years, I have lived with the unbearable pain of Natalee’s loss,” Beth Holloway said in a statement Thursday. “Each day has been filled with unanswered questions and a longing for justice that ...

Former Marjory Stoneman Douglas students testify in trial of former school resource officer

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:50 GMT

More former Marjory Stoneman Douglas students took the stand to testify in the trial of a former school resource officer who is accused of failing to protect students during the 2018 school shooting. Scot Peterson’s trial entered its third day, Friday.The former deputy is being charged with not confronting the gunman at the school. Peterson took cover outside the 1200 building where the massacre occurred. He remained there for 45 minutes.On Friday, jurors heard from survivors who hid in classrooms as they waited for help.“Really scared and kind of wondering when help was going to arrive,” Arman Borghei said. “How long where you in that classroom,” said an attorney.“Felt like forever, maybe like an hour and a half, close to two hours,” Borghei said.On Thursday, jurors heard from Anthony Burges, who was 15 years old at the time. He was shot five times.He called his family from the hallway floor to say goodbye.“Why did you call your dad?&...

Exclusive: Donald Trump admits on tape he didn’t declassify ‘secret information’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:50 GMT

(CNN) — Former President Donald Trump acknowledged on tape in a 2021 meeting that he had retained “secret” military information that he had not declassified, according to a transcript of the audio recording obtained by CNN.“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump says, according to the transcript.CNN obtained the transcript of a portion of the meeting where Trump is discussing a classified Pentagon document about attacking Iran. In the audio recording, which CNN previously reported was obtained by prosecutors, Trump says that he did not declassify the document he’s referencing, according to the transcript.Trump was indicted Thursday on seven counts in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the mishandling of classified documents. Details from the indictment have not been made public, so it unknown whether any of the seven counts refer to the recorded 2021 meeting. Still, the tape is significant because it shows that Tru...

Boston police investigating after several windows shattered at TD Garden

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:50 GMT

Police in Boston are investigating after several windows at TD Garden were shattered Friday morning.Officials said the department was first alerted around 10:35 a.m. after receiving a report of shots being fired by the sports arena. Multiple police cruisers could be seen in the area of Causeway Street as officers responded and located several, damaged glass windows on the side of the Garden facing I-93.Boston police said their department’s crime lab and analysts were on scene but that a preliminary investigation found no evidence of anything penetrating the windows.7NEWS sources said that as of midday, the damage to the windows appeared to have been caused by a BB gun, rather than actual bullets from a firearm.Police are hoping surveillance video from nearby cameras yield more evidence as their investigation continues.

The US and Canada saw dangerous smoke this week. It’s a routine peril for many developing countries

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:50 GMT

By SUMAN NAISHADHAM (Associated Press)WASHINGTON (AP) — Thick, smoky air from Canadian wildfires made for days of misery in New York City and across the U.S. Northeast this week. But for much of the rest of the world, breathing dangerously polluted air is an inescapable fact of life — and death.Almost the entire world breathes air that exceeds the World Health Organization’s air-quality limits at least occasionally. The danger grows worse when that bad air is more persistent than the nightmarish shroud that hit the U.S. — usually in developing or newly industrialized nations. That’s where most of the 4.2 million deaths blamed on outdoor air pollution occurred in 2019, the UN’s health agency reported.“Air pollution has no boundaries, and it is high time everyone comes together to fight it,” said Bhavreen Kandhari, the co-founder of Warrior Moms in India, a network of mothers pushing for clean air and climate action in a nation with some...

The best days to fly around the Fourth of July in 2023

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:50 GMT

If Memorial Day 2023 was any indication, travelers should brace for big Fourth of July crowds at airports. On the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened roughly 2.7 million people at U.S. airports, the highest checkpoint volume thus far in 2023.And summer travel is only just getting started. In 2019, the Friday before Memorial Day was the third-busiest day at U.S. airports for the entire year, losing only to the Sunday after Thanksgiving and the Sunday after July Fourth. This may indicate that airports could be even busier around Independence Day than Memorial Day weekend.Making Fourth of July travel predictions is tricky this year because the holiday falls midweek, on a Tuesday. Some folks may take Monday off to enjoy a long weekend, while others may save their vacation time for a different holiday.With that in mind, here’s some guidance around booking July Fourth weekend air travel and how you might be able to avoid the crowds (an...

Accused rapist Gary Zerola’s case is now in the hands of Suffolk Superior jury

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:50 GMT

The fate of former prosecutor Gary Zerola, charged with raping a 23-year-old woman in 2016, is in the hands of the Suffolk Superior Court jury pool composed of eight women and six men — two of whom are alternates.Zerola, 51, is charged with two counts of rape, which the prosecution has said occurred at around 7 a.m. on Nov. 10, 2016, on a couch in an apartment on Myrtle Street in Beacon Hill, which is owned by a friend of Zerola’s who did not testify in the trial.Defense attorney Joseph Krowski Jr. made his thunderous closing argument first on Friday, the last day of the trial which began on Tuesday, in which he repeatedly said that his client’s accuser is a “liar” and called the allegations of rape “effing absurd.”“You know she’s lying when you see her lips moving,” Krowski said of the alleged victim in the case. “If you’re telling the truth it’s easy to get your story straight. But when you lie it’s so much harder because you’re trying to remember the lies you told in the past.”Th...

International reinforcements arrive in Quebec as wildfires stabilize

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:33:50 GMT

MONTREAL — The arrival of firefighters from France and New Brunswick is expected to bolster efforts to contain and control the large number of fires burning across Quebec in what’s expected to be a marathon wildfire season, officials said Friday. Maïté Blanchette Vézina, the province’s minister of forests and natural resources, said the situation in the province remains critical but is improving.The province’s forest fire prevention agency — SOPFEU — says the arrival of fresh forces on the ground is a sign “the sprint phase has ended and we’re now in the marathon phase,” she told a Quebec City briefing.Blanchette Vézina said the efforts in the coming days will permit firefighters to contain and begin extinguishing some of the approximately 140 fires that remained active across the province as of Friday morning, including some that have been allowed to burn freely due to a lack of personnel. She said the improved situation is also allowing the prov...