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Flooding, landslides as atmospheric river departs California

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:29:50 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California residents weary of a storm-soaked winter were hit Wednesday by parting shots from the season’s 11th atmospheric river, which flooded roadways, caused mudslides and toppled trees throughout the state.Hollywood stars splashed down a rain-soaked red carpet Tuesday at the premiere of “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” in Los Angeles, where rainfall totals are double the normal average.The film’s stars — including Zachary Levi, Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu and Rachel Zegler — tiptoed over the saturated rug as they unsuccessfully tried to stay dry.“My feet are wet,” said Zegler. “I’m a little bit bummed, I’m not gonna lie.”Water, mud and rocks were reported on many roads, along with potholes that disabled numerous cars. Flooding closed several miles of Pacific Coast Highway through Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles on the Orange County coast.The National Weather Service said the 23.99 inches (61 centimeters) of rain recorded so far this water year in do...

Israel says roadside bomb suspect may have come from Lebanon

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:29:50 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Israeli army said Wednesday that soldiers killed an armed man suspected of entering the country from Lebanon and blowing up a car, raising the risk of renewed tensions with Hezbollah.The security situation in Israel prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut in half his planned two-day visit to Germany this week, his office said. The incident unnerved Israelis, who questioned on social media and elsewhere how someone with explosives could travel dozens of kilometers inside Israel and set off a roadside bomb before being detected. The army said soldiers stopped a car carrying the bombing suspect at a checkpoint Monday shortly after a roadside explosion seriously injured a driver near Megiddo Junction in the country’s north. The suspect was wearing a suicide vest and had a rifle and a gun when he was stopped near the border with Lebanon. The army said it shot and killed the man and is questioning the driver.The army said the device exploded at a 90-d...

Conservative Texas judge weighs challenge to abortion pill

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:29:50 GMT

AMARILLO, Texas (AP) — A conservative federal judge in Texas heard arguments Wednesday from a Christian group seeking to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s more than 2-decade-old approval of an abortion medication, in a case that could threaten the most common form of abortion in the U.S.Lawyers for the group Alliance Defending Freedom asked Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk during the hearing in Amarillo, Texas, to issue an immediate order that would revoke or suspend the drug mifepristone’s approval. Such a step would be an unprecedented challenge to the FDA, which approved mifepristone in combination with a second pill as a safe and effective method for ending pregnancy in 2000.During a 90-minute presentation to the court, alliance attorney Erik Baptist told the judge that removing mifepristone from the market “would restore proper policing power to the states” — a reference to last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and left it to states to...

Newborn found dead in Iowa ditch; mom, granddad charged

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:29:50 GMT

The mother and grandfather of a newborn found dead in a ditch in Iowa have been charged with first-degree murder, and court documents say they told investigators the baby was still alive when they put him in a trash bag and abandoned him.Megan K. Staude, 25, of Norfolk, told police the child was born at home on Feb. 24, according to a police affidavit. She told authorities that she put him in a box and didn’t provide any care for two days before she and her father Rodney A. Staude, 64, put him in the bag.Rodney Staude also confessed and said he helped his daughter dispose of the bag in a ditch near Norwalk, according to the documents. Both the Staudes initially told police the baby died on the way to the hospital after it was born, authorities said. Megan Staude said she buried him in a cemetery in Cumming, Iowa, but authorities found no evidence of a fresh grave at the cemetery. Law enforcement officers received a tip from Megan Staude’s co-workers on March 8, leading to the ...

Montreal-born Adrien Morot on winning an Oscar with ‘The Whale’ star Brendan Fraser

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:29:50 GMT

LOS ANGELES — The Montreal-born makeup artist on “The Whale,” Adrien Morot, says his first Oscar wouldn’t mean as much if his friend Brendan Fraser didn’t come away with some hardware of his own. “If I would have won and Brendan didn’t, in some ways, I would have felt like I failed the movie,” Morot said Tuesday from his Los Angeles studio, who was back at work painting a pair of prosthetic hands and feet for another project.  “The makeup would have become a technicality — this is a movie with heart and it’s a movie about the performances of all the actors, the great direction of Darren Aronofsky, and sharing the Oscar with Brendan means the world.”Morot won best makeup and hairstyling at the Academy Awards ceremony Sunday night for his work on”The Whale,” alongside makeup artist Judy Chin and hairstylist Annemarie Bradley. Meanwhile Fraser, who was born in the U.S. to Canadian parents, earned a best actor win for his turn as Charlie, ...

UN says intense diplomacy under way to end 8-year Yemen war

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:29:50 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. special envoy for Yemen said Wednesday that intense diplomatic efforts are underway to end the eight-year war in Yemen. He cited new regional and international momentum, including the recent restoration of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, who back rivals in the conflict.Hans Grundberg told the U.N. Security Council there has also been “a step change in the scope and depth of the discussions,” and he urged Yemen’s internationally recognized government and Houthi rebels “to seize the opportunities” created by the new momentum. He singled out continuing efforts by Saudi Arabia and Oman.Grundberg also indicated progress in talks on a prisoner exchange between the Saudi-backed government and Iran-backed Houthis that are co-chaired by the U.N. and the International Committee of the Red Cross. He urged the parties “to finalize the details of the current phase they have agreed on, including the implementation plan.”U.N. Assistant Secretary-...

Cyclone Freddy wanes after battering Malawi, Mozambique

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:29:50 GMT

BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) — After killing hundreds and displacing thousands as it barreled through Mozambique and Malawi since late last week, Cyclone Freddy has dissipated over land, although flooding remains a threat in both countries, a regional monitoring center said late Wednesday.The cyclone has killed at least 225 people in Malawi’s southern region including Blantyre, the country’s financial hub, according to local authorities. Another 88,000 people are displaced. In neighboring Mozambique, officials say at least 20 people have died since the storm made landfall in the port town of Quelimane on Saturday night. Over 45,000 people are still holed up in shelters, with about 1,300 square kilometers (800 square miles) still under water, according to the EU’s Copernicus satellite system.“There are many casualties — either wounded, missing, or dead and the numbers will only increase in the coming days,” said Guilherme Botelho, the emergency project coordinator in...

Blinken says Ethiopia must do more on Tigray peace deal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:29:50 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia needs to make more progress implementing a peace agreement with its northern Tigray region before relations with the U.S. are normalized, visiting Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.Speaking in Addis Ababa, Blinken said Ethiopia must ensure “there are no ongoing gross violations of human rights” and establish an “inclusive and credible” transitional justice process after the two-year Tigray conflict.“Then our own ability to move forward on our engagement with Ethiopia, to include economic engagement, will also move forward,” Blinken said after meeting with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and others.Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the Tigray conflict before the peace agreement was signed in November. Communications, banking and other basic services in the region of more than 5 million people were cut off and recently began to resume.Out of concern for massacres, gang rapes and other abuses committed by all sides in the fighting, t...

Garcetti’s India envoy nomination passes Senate test vote

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:29:50 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appeared headed for confirmation Wednesday as the next U.S. ambassador to India, 20 months after he was initially selected for the post and amid fallout from a sexual harassment scandal involving a onetime top adviser.The nomination cleared a key test vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate, 52-42, with a final vote expected late Wednesday. The session began with uncertain prospects for Garcetti, a two-term, progressive Democrat first nominated to the prominent diplomatic post by President Joe Biden in July 2021. With several Democratic defections, Garcetti’s fate rested with enlisting Republicans in a chamber often divided along partisan line. He secured seven GOP votes to advance the nomination to a final vote. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said, “I met with him personally. He clearly has an enormous amount of expertise about India. India’s been two years without an ambassador, and that is far too long. And I...

Judge weighing abortion pill is favorite of conservatives

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:29:50 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Texas judge hearing a case that could throw into jeopardy access to the nation’s most common method of abortion is a former attorney for a Christian legal group who critics say is being sought out by conservative litigants because they believe he’ll be sympathetic to their causes.U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who’s considering a lawsuit aimed at putting a nationwide halt to use of the drug mifepristone, was appointed by President Donald Trump and confirmed in 2019 over fierce opposition by Democrats over his history opposing LGBTQ rights. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone in the body and is used with the drug misoprostol to end pregnancy within the first 10 weeks.Kacsmaryk is hearing arguments in the case on Wednesday, days after he took the unusual step of telling attorneys during a status conference not to publicize the hearing because the case has prompted death threats and protests and he believed “ less advertisemen t of this ...