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China’s club for talking to Central Europe is dead, Czechs say

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:20:29 GMT

China’s exclusive club for engaging with Eastern and Central European countries is defunct, the Czech foreign minister told POLITICO on Tuesday.Jan Lipavský’s comments position the Czechs firmly in the camp of the U.S., dealing a potentially devastating blow to the 11-year-old so-called 14+1 initiative, which Beijing once hoped would revive relations with former Soviet states. Speaking after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Lipavský said: “I thanked the U.S. on their strategic leadership on China. I assured Secretary Blinken that we are ready to work with them within the European framework. The 14+1 has neither substance nor future.”Asked if Prague will formally withdraw, Lipavský added through a spokesman: “We are not an active member. We won’t speculate on any possible steps that we might choose to take.”According to a readout from the U.S. State Department, Blinken and Lipavský “discussed shared concerns about the Pe...

EPP pitches itself as farmers’ party ahead of 2024 European election

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:20:29 GMT

The center-right European People’s Party is pitching itself as the defender of farmers and rural interests ahead of next year’s European election, doubling down on its disapproval of EU green policies.The conservative group, the largest in the European Parliament, has been campaigning against two key Green Deal proposals: new rules on pesticides and nature restoration that they say threaten the EU’s long-term food security.The Sustainable Use of Pesticides Regulation aims to slash chemical pesticides use and risk by half by 2030, while the Nature Restoration Regulation calls for the EU to restore at least 20 percent of the bloc’s degraded areas by the end of the decade and all sites in need of restoration by 2050. The Commission’s objective is for both proposals to become law before the 2024 European election.The EPP argues that these goals are too steep and will put an unfair burden on farmers at a time when they’ve been asked to boost food production ...

Last of 4 escaped Mississippi detention center inmates captured

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:20:29 GMT

(CNN) — The last of four men who escaped from a Mississippi jail last month was taken into custody Thursday morning, according to an update from the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office.Escapee Corey Harrison was taken into custody by the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office and the US Marshals Fugitive Task Force at a residence in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, the update said.According to the sheriff’s office, a female acquaintance was also arrested and is facing charges stemming from the investigation surrounding the inmates’ escape.Corey Harrison was taken into custody at a residence in Crystal Springs, Mississippi. Credit: Hinds County Sheriff’s OfficeOne of four Mississippi jail escapees, Dylan Arrington, was found dead April 26 in a burned home in Carthage, Mississippi, the Hinds County sheriff said.Escapee Jerry Raynes was captured in Spring Valley, Texas, a day later.And authorities said Casey Grayson was found dead in New ...

Boston doctors performed brain surgery on a baby before she was born and now she’s thriving

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:20:29 GMT

(CNN) — A team of doctors in Boston successfully performed a novel fetal surgery to treat a rare brain condition known as vein of Galen malformation.Although in utero surgery — performed before a baby is born — has been used for other conditions, this ultrasound-guided procedure was among the first for this condition. Details of the procedure, which took place in March, were published in the journal Stroke on Thursday.The condition occurs when the blood vessel that carries blood from the brain to the heart, also known as the vein of Galen, doesn’t develop correctly. The malformation, known as VOGM, results in an overwhelming amount of blood stressing the vein and heart and can lead to a cascade of health problems.“Tremendous brain injuries and immediate heart failure after birth are the two big challenges,” Dr. Darren Orbach, a radiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and expert in treating VOGM, told CNN.Typically, infants are tr...

Frankfurt to Dubai in 90 minutes? Europe enters the hypersonic plane race

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:20:29 GMT

(CNN) — It’s now been two decades since the era of supersonic commercial flight ended with Concorde’s final touchdown in an airfield in southwest England.In recent years, numerous pretenders to the throne — supersonic, hypersonic, hydrogen-powered, with anti-boom technology — have been whizzing round, conceptually at least, but many of these projects promising seamless super-fast travel have instead stalled, sputtered out or hit delays.Now a European hypersonic startup is having a go, promising enticing journey times such as Frankfurt to Sydney in 4 hours 15, or Memphis to Dubai in 3 hours 30.The Destinus concept is hydrogen-powered flight at five times the speed of sound, cutting flight duration to less than a quarter of current commercial air travel.Headquartered in Switzerland with a team of around 120 staff spread out in Spain, France and Germany, Destinus was established in 2021 but has been hitting milestones fast. Its first two prototypes have ma...

Wrongfully convicted former Lowell resident gets $13M settlement

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:20:29 GMT

LOWELL — Victor Rosario can finally move on.Rosario, 65, a former Lowell resident who spent 32 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of starting a fire that killed eight people, will receive a $13 million settlement from the city.The Lowell City Council voted to settle the civil rights lawsuit Rosario brought against the city just two weeks before the case was set to be heard in federal court.Rosario’s attorney, Mark Loevy-Reyes, said the settlement brings a conclusion to all of the case’s proceedings.“I feel free,” Rosario said on Wednesday. “I feel like justice has been done. I feel like now I can take care of my family.”Rosario was 24 years old when he was convicted of starting the fire on Decatur Street in Lowell in 1982. The blaze killed five children and three adults.While his attorneys said Rosario tried to help the victims escape the flames, investigators identified him as a suspect.According to Loevy-Reyes, investigators fabricated evidence and hid evidence that...

Regional bank shares sink in sign crisis not yet over

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:20:29 GMT

By KEN SWEET and MICHELLE CHAPMAN (AP Business Writer)NEW YORK (AP) — Uncertainty continues to pummel the banking industry, despite assurances from financial regulators and bankers such as Jamie Dimon that the worst of the recent crisis is over and the banking system remains strong. Shares of smaller regional lender PacWest Bank plunged nearly 50% Thursday after the company confirmed reports that it was considering “strategic options,” that may include the possible sale of the company. PacWest, based in Los Angeles, said in a statement that it wasn’t experiencing any out-of-the-ordinary deposit withdrawals and still plans on selling off some assets to free up cash on its balance sheet. With $44 billion in assets, PacWest is roughly one-fifth the size of the three regional banks that failed over the past two months — Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank. The bank experienced significant deposit outflows after Silicon Valley Bank fa...

Democrats pressure GOP on debt limit, spending cuts

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:20:29 GMT

By KEVIN FREKING (Associated Press)WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats are pressuring Republicans on the debt ceiling impasse with a hearing Thursday focused on what they say are the the painful reductions in government services Americans would suffer if a bill recently passed by the House were to become law.No one expects that the House bill, which would importantly increase the nation’s borrowing authority as well as cutting spending, will reach President Joe Biden’s desk. The Democratic Senate won’t let it.Many Republicans admitted so when passing the measure. But they said action by the House was necessary to get Biden to the negotiating table with Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy. A meeting at the White House with congressional leaders of both parties is set for next week.Despite the legislation’s certain demise, Democrats are eager to tie Republicans, particularly in swing districts and states, to various provisions in the bill. Those include one ...

As oil boom transforms Guyana, a scramble for spoils

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:20:29 GMT

ANN’S GROVE, Guyana (AP) — Villagers in this tiny coastal community lined up on the soggy grass, leaned into the microphone and shared their grievances as someone in the crowd yelled, “Speak the truth!” And so they did. One by one, they asked for a library, streetlights, school buses, homes, a grocery store, reliable electricity, wider roads and better bridges. “Please help us,” said Evadne Pellew-Fomundam — a 70-year-old who lives in Ann’s Grove, one of Guyana’s poorest communities — to the country’s prime minister and other officials who organized the meeting to hear people’s concerns and boost their party’s image ahead of municipal elections.The list of needs is long in this South American country of 791,000 people that is poised to become the world’s fourth-largest offshore oil producer, placing it ahead of Qatar, the United States, Mexico and Norway. The oil boom will generate billions of dollars for this largely impoverished nation. It’s also certain to...

Attacks across Pakistan, including school shooting, kill 14

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:20:29 GMT

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen stormed a school in Pakistan’s volatile northwest on Thursday, killing seven teachers and gunning down another teacher from the school in a separate attack. Earlier in the day, a shootout with militants elsewhere in the region killed six Pakistani soldiers. The violence underscores the challenges the government of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif is facing amid a surge in militant attacks across the country in recent months. In Kurram, a district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan, a group of gunmen stormed a government school where students were taking exams. The seven killed teachers were members of Pakistan’s minority Shiite community, which is frequently targeted by militants. Another teacher from the same school, a Sunni Muslim, was gunned down on the road in a separate attack earlier in the day in Kurram, according to local police official Abbas Ali. No one immediately claimed responsibility for th...