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Bridge: Nov. 11, 2023

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:57 GMT

When several thousand bridge players congregate for 11 days, strange things can happen. Expert Mark Aquino reported today’s deal from the Summer NABC. He was North.West’s opening bid showed a strong hand, not necessarily clubs. Aquino’s 1NT showed length in both minors. He often would have held a weaker hand, but if South bid diamonds, Aquino planned to bid clubs next to suggest strength. When South gritted his teeth and bid two clubs, Aquino thought his side might have a game – probably at notrump – if South held anything at all. So Aquino jumped to three spades.STOPPERWell, South’s Q-9-8 of spades looked like a stopper, so he did what he thought he was supposed to do: He bid 3NT. All passed. West led the jack of spades, and South won, let the ten of clubs ride and claimed nine tricks. They scored it up as plus 600 and went on to the next deal.If you think something is wrong with this picture, you’re right. West’s opening lead was perhaps unwise but definitely illegal. South bid 3N...

Ask Amy: I told the bride she was free to exclude me, but I’m hurt by how she did it

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:57 GMT

Dear Amy: I’d like your input regarding a family drama.Related ArticlesAdvice | Ask Amy: We ended up with a near-stranger’s dog, and it feels very wrong to me Advice | Ask Amy: I want flower gremlins at my wedding, and my family is furious Advice | Ask Amy: I’m devastated by the wedding snub, and my husband doesn’t have my back Advice | Ask Amy: My sneaky co-workers are stressing me out Advice | Ask Amy: I wake up to a startling noise from my dear old neighbor My sister and I have not been speaking to each other for quite a while. My niece (her daughter) is getting married, and I reached out to this niece, saying that if it would cause unhappiness between her and her mother by inviting me to the wedding, I would understand if she chose not to issue the invitation to me.Well, I just found out from family members that I am not being invited, however my niece didn’t call and let me k...

Anti-Defamation League Maps Jewish Peace Rallies with Antisemitic Attacks

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:57 GMT

On October 27, several thousand Jews and their allies shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour in New York City, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. Organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, the activists at the peaceful sit-in wore black T-shirts that read “Not In Our Name.” “It’s the largest sit-in protest the city has seen in over two decades,” Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman said. About 400 people were arrested, including rabbis. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jewish Voice for Peace (@jewishvoiceforpeace)The Anti-Defamation League has classified the event — and dozens of other protests led by Jewish groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow — as “anti-Israel,” according to an analysis by The Intercept, and added them to their database documenting rising antisemitism across the U.S.“We’re seeing a genuine rise in antisemitic attacks and white nationalist, white supremacist, antisemitic hate and violence,” Eva Borgwardt, ...

Sunny but Warm Veterans Day

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:57 GMT

Happy Veterans Day! Thank you to those who have served or currently serve, and the weather is looking great this Saturday to honor our veterans!Similar as yesterday, lots of sunshine is in the forecast along with warm, humid and mostly dry conditions. High temperatures will be in the mid to upper 80s, which could near records, especially in Miami.Sunday will be a similar day with highs well above average with just a few more clouds around.Increasing clouds will be the story early next week as a weather system begins to enter the picture from the Gulf Coast and Southeastern US. This will create more of a hazy and filtered look to our skies on Monday. Conditions on Monday should still be warm and mostly dry, but rain chances start to rise on Tuesday.That is courtesy of a very weak front forecast to reach South Florida on Tuesday, leading to the possibility for scattered showers and thunderstorms.Wednesday has the highest potential to be the wettest and stormiest day with scattered to ...

Lawmakers, countries clinch deal on 2024 EU budget

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:57 GMT

Negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of the EU struck a deal late Friday on the bloc’s budget for next year. Under the agreement, the budget includes commitments of €189.4 billion for 2024. EU lawmakers said they secured additional funding, on top of the European Commission’s draft budget, for some of the Parliament’s priorities, such as humanitarian aid, the bloc’s R&D program Horizon Europe and the Erasmus exchange program. Spain, current holder of the rotating Council Presidency, stressed that there is “enough financial leeway to respond to unforeseen circumstances.” The budget will help to address “the most urgent consequences of the crisis in the Middle East in the countries concerned, as well as in Europe and its neighborhood,” the Commission said in a statement on the deal. While there is a deal on the EU’s 2024 budget, talks are still ongoing for a review of the EU’s longer-term budget, the m...

Macron: Meta, Google ‘don’t deliver’ on handling of hate speech

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:57 GMT

French President Emmanuel Macron has criticized tech companies’ handling of hate speech on their platforms. In an interview with the BBC, Macron took on Meta and Google specifically, saying that they “simply don’t deliver” on their engagements around content moderation on their platforms. Macron made the remarks in the wake of the Christchurch Call Summit, an initiative involving world leaders and tech companies that was launched after the online live-streaming of a terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019. The aim is to stop the spread of terrorist and violent content online. Meta and Google didn’t send representatives to Friday’s Christchurch Call gathering in Paris, which Macron said shows that “they don’t want to play anymore.” Other companies, such as X, Amazon, Microsoft and OpenAI had representatives there. Many platforms also don’t have sufficient moderators capable of handling the French langua...

Germany’s Scholz backs Calviño for EIB top job

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:57 GMT

MÁLAGA, Spain — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave his backing to Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Nadia Calviño to take over the running of the European Investment Bank next year.“I worked together with Nadia Calviño intensely when I was the finance minister of Germany and it’s my perspective that she would be a very good president of the EIB,” Scholz said Saturday at a meeting of top European Socialist leaders in Spain. Germany’s public support to Calviño is a blow to the other major contender Margrethe Vestager, the Danish executive vice president of the European Commissioner who took unpaid leave from her EU job in order to run for the EIB position. There are also candidates from Italy, Poland and Sweden.A decision must be taken by the end of the year when current EIB President Werner Hoyer will leave.The EU bank hands out billions of euros a year for major infrastructure projects and is expected to play a crucial role in the rebuilding of Ukraine....

Celtics’ Payton Pritchard pushes through early-season struggles to reach breakthrough

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:57 GMT

The Celtics bet on Payton Pritchard this summer. After a frustrating third season in which his role diminished, he was promised a bigger one with the Marcus Smart trade. The Celtics backed it up with a contract extension.But even after a strong preseason, the early returns weren’t positive. Pritchard went on a cold spell to start the season. In a five-game stretch, he went scoreless in four of them. In the other, he scored 15 but all of them came in the fourth quarter of a blowout win over the Pacers. On Friday, he admitted that doubt started to creep in.“I think it started messing with me mentally a little bit,” Pritchard said. “But then I went back to what made me a great shooter in the first place. So I just dialed it back into that. It’s just kind of just a mental game. It starts to kind of affect you, start second-guessing shots. At the end of the day, you put in too much work. So I just believe in myself.”That work and that belief carried Pritchard through a trying seaso...

Pope forcibly removes leading US conservative, Texas bishop Strickland

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:57 GMT

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday forcibly removed from office the bishop of Tyler, Texas, a conservative active on social media who has been a fierce critic of the pontiff and some of his priorities.A one-line statement from the Vatican said Francis had “relieved” Bishop Joseph Strickland of the pastoral governance of Tyler and appointed the bishop of Austin as the temporary administrator.Strickland has emerged as a critic of Francis, accusing him in a tweet earlier this year of “undermining the deposit of faith,” and particularly his recent meeting on the future of the Catholic Church. The Vatican earlier this year sent in investigators to look into his governance of the diocese, amid reports he was making doctrinally unorthodox claims.The Vatican has not released the findings of the investigation, and Strickland had insisted he wouldn’t resign voluntarily. He has said in media interviews he he was given a mandate to serve by the late Pope Benedict XVI.The Associated Press

A missile strike targets Kyiv as Russian train carriages derail due to ‘unauthorized interference’

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:57 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces targeted Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, as part of an overnight bombardment felt across the country, local officials said Saturday, while drones that Russian officials blamed on the Ukrainian military targeted areas around Moscow and the region of Smolensk.A ballistic missile was shot down as it approached the Ukrainian capital, said Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. He said that no one was injured.The Ukrainian air force later confirmed an Iskander-M missile ballistic missile was used in the attack, the first attempted missile strike on Kyiv in almost two months. The missile was destroyed by the country’s Patriot air defense system.Ukraine’s air defense systems actively repelled attacks in Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, and Kirovohrad regions. The country’s air force said Russian troops launched 31 Shahed-136/131 drones, of which 19 were shot down.The strike in the Odesa region damaged the cityR...