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Battenfeld: If Joe Biden quits, Kamala Harris will be no easy pushover

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:34 GMT

The forces are starting to align to push President Biden out of the way in 2024 – leaving understudy Kamala Harris as the next weak link on the Democratic chain.But despite Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton’s best efforts, it won’t be so easy to push Harris out.The historic prospect of the first woman president – of Black and South Asian descent no less – taking office should buttress the vice president as she seeks the party mantle in the Oval Office.If Biden is forced to leave the White House early, and that seems more and more likely as every day goes by, that will give Harris time to establish herself before the election and reestablish her credibility with voters.The VP is a good debater – smacking down Biden in 2020, which Jill Biden has never forgotten – and was smart enough to refuse Biden’s offer to be border czar, leaving the president to shoulder the burden of the nation’s immigration disaster.It’s true Harris right now is even more unpopular than Biden, but that could cha...

Orioles aren’t taking the greatest turnaround in MLB history for granted: ‘We have nothing to lose’

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:34 GMT

What the Orioles are doing this season would have been inconceivable two years ago. That’s because it’s never been done.In 2021, the rebuilding Orioles were in their fourth straight year of futility, and the product on the field wasn’t any better than when the reboot began. That club lost 110 games — more than 100 for the third time in four years — and it appeared, at the time, that Baltimore’s rebuild would be longer and more painful than originally hoped.Underneath those teams, though, was an infrastructure that stayed the course, a farm system ready to burst. After a surprising emergence out of the American League East’s cellar last year, they’ve soared to the top of the circuit this year.The Orioles’ win over the Houston Astros on Monday was their 94th of the season — 42 more than they had in 2021. The improvement is the greatest in MLB history over a two-year span.“I mean, if you asked me two years ago?” ma...

Stock market today: Global shares mixed ahead of Federal Reserve interest rate decision

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:34 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Global shares were mixed in cautious trading Tuesday ahead of the Federal Reserve’s upcoming decision on interest rates.France’s CAC 40 added 0.2% to 7,292.91 in early trading. Germany’s DAX fell nearly 0.1% to 15,716.61. Britain’s FTSE 100 was little changed, rising less than 0.1% to 7,659.91. The futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500were up less than 0.1%. The Fed is due to wrap up a two-day meeting on Wednesday. Japan’s central bank will meet Thursday-Friday amid speculation it might gradually begin to adjust its longstanding negative interest rate policy. Stocks have been see-sawing since early August on uncertainty about whether the Fed will finally end its hikes to interest rates. Higher rates have helped cool inflation from its peak last summer, but they also hurt prices for stocks and other investments while slowing the economy.Traders almost universally expect the Fed to keep rates steady at its meeting this we...

A Kenyan military helicopter has crashed near Somalia, and sources say all 8 on board have died

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:34 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A military helicopter crash in Kenya near the border with Somalia has killed at least eight people, officials said Tuesday.It was not immediately clear what caused the crash in the county of Lamu in coastal Kenya. Kenyan defense forces operate in the area to help deter al-Qaida-linked extremists from the al-Shahab group, based across the border in Somalia.The Department of Defense said the Air Force helicopter crashed while on night patrol. It said a board of inquiry has been sent to the scene.A defense and a police officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters, said all military personnel and crew on board the helicopter died.Kenyan troops are also in Somalia under the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia to help in fighting al-Shabab. The Kenyan forces deployed to Somalia in 2011, but there are now plans to withdraw the multinational forces as Somali troops take over responsibility for their countr...

Vatican considers child sexual abuse allegations against a former Australian bishop

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:34 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Vatican is considering the findings of a church investigation into “very serious and deeply distressing” child sexual abuse allegations against a former Australian bishop, a church leader said on Tuesday.Christopher Saunders, now 73, resigned in 2021 as bishop of Broome, an Outback diocese of northwest Australia larger than France but with a population of only 50,000, after police announced they had dropped a sex crime investigation. He had stood down a year earlier after media reported the allegations.The church investigation into Saunders began last year after the police investigation ended, said Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, the church’s most senior national leadership group.A report of the investigation, overseen by Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge, had been sent to the Vatican where the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith was continuing to investigate, Costelloe said.The Dicaster...

From London, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif blames ex-army chief for his 2017 ouster

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:34 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is claiming that the country’s former powerful military and spy chiefs orchestrated his ouster in 2017, when he was forced to step down after being convicted of corruption. Sharif spoke on Monday to leaders of his Pakistan Muslim League party via a video link from London, where he has been living in self-imposed exile since 2019. At the time — and though convicted on corruption charges, which he has always denied — Sharif was permitted to leave Pakistan for medical treatment abroad by the government of Imran Khan, who succeeded him as prime minister. After Sharif later failed to return, a court declared him a fugitive from justice. Sharif’s party said on Tuesday he will return next month ahead of parliamentary elections. After Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022, Sharif’s younger brother Shehbaz Sharif served as a prime minister until August, when he stepped down to allow an interim government to run da...

US defense chief urges nations to dig deep and give Ukraine more much-needed air defense systems

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:34 GMT

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urged allied defense leaders Tuesday to “dig deep” and provide more air defense systems for Ukraine, to help the country block increasing barrages of Russian missiles. But while the allies said they will discuss how they can best help Ukraine’s counteroffensive, they appeared no closer to commitments on the longer-range missiles that Kyiv’s leaders insist they need.“Air defense is saving lives,” Austin said as he opened the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein air base in Germany. “So I urge this group to continue to dig deep on ground-based air defense for Ukraine. We must continue to push hard to provide Ukraine with air-defense systems and interceptors.”The group is made up of the defense and military leaders from more than 50 nations and is the main forum for raising contributions of weapons, other equipment and training for Kyiv’s war effort. It meets about once a month, in pe...

Spain to allow lawmakers to speak Catalan, Basque and Galician languages in Parliament for 1st time

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:34 GMT

MADRID (AP) — Spain’s Parliament is set to allow its national legislators to use the country’s minority languages of Catalan, Basque and Galician in national Parliament for the first time on Tuesday.The reform of the linguistic policy of Spain’s lower chamber was a demand of Catalan separatist parties to support the appointment of a Socialist as the new Parliamentary Speaker last month following inconclusive national elections in July.The right to speak languages other than Spanish in the national Parliament is a long-held objective of smaller parties from the regions in Spain’s north that have bilingual populations.The Parliament will provide simultaneous translation with earpieces for the 350 members of the chamber.The conservative opposition was against the reform, saying it would make debating more difficult.Spain’s government is also trying to have Catalan, Basque and Galician recognized as languages that can be used in the European Union.This support of Spain’s minority ...

Libyan leader says flooded city has been divided to create buffers in case of disease outbreaks

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:34 GMT

DERNA, Libya (AP) — The prime minister of Libyan’s eastern administration said Tuesday that authorities have divided the flood-stricken city of Derna into four sections to create buffers in case of disease outbreaks, a day after thousands of angry protesters demanded the city’s rapid reconstruction.Last week, two dams collapsed during Mediterranean storm Daniel, sending a wall of water gushing through Derna. Government officials and aid agencies have given death tolls ranging from about 4,000 to 11,000.“Now the affected areas are completely isolated, the armed forces and the government have begun creating a buffer out of fear of the spread of diseases or epidemics,” Prime Minister Ossama Hamad said in a telephone interview with Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV. No further details were given.On Monday, the United Nations warned that a disease outbreak could create “a second devastating crisis.” Libyan protesters gathered in central Derna on Monday in the first mass d...

A bus coach crashes in Austria, killing a woman and injuring 20 others

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:34 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A bus coach traveling through Austria on Tuesday went off the road and crashed on its side, killing a woman and injuring 20 other passengers, Austria’s APA agency reported.The accident took place near the village of Micheldorf in Carinthia state in central Austria. The coach was on its way from Berlin via Linz in Austria to Trieste in northern Italy, Austrian broadcaster ORF reported.Passengers on the double-decker bus included citizens from Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Italy and Ukraine, APA reported.Most of the injured were taken to a hospital in Friesach, and one seriously injured was transferred to a hospital in Klagenfurt.According to the Red Cross, the bus probably hit a concrete guardrail and overturned, APA reported.The Associated Press