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UN expert advising IOC gives views on Russians at Olympics

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:09 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Russian athletes who have actively served in the military invasion of Ukraine should be allowed to return to international sports if they did not take part in war crimes, according to a United Nations expert advising the International Olympic Committee.The U.N. special rapporteur for cultural rights, Alexandra Xanthaki, said late Sunday only Russian military members implicated in “allegations of war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity or propaganda for war” should be denied neutral status to compete in international sports ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics.Xanthaki angered Ukrainian athletes who took part in an IOC-hosted call to consult them ahead of an Olympic announcement due Tuesday to update guidance for sports bodies 16 months before the opening of the Paris Games.Ukrainian government and sports officials want the IOC to ban all Russians from the 2024 Games and claim most of the country’s recent Olympic medalists were affiliated with the military.Xanthaki wr...

Amid higher risk, Fairfax Co. firefighters receive early cancer screening

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:09 GMT

As if trying to extinguish a raging inferno wasn’t dangerous enough, firefighters face life-threatening risks even after the blaze is knocked down.Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department Capt. Barry Maham is living proof, two years after he was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.Firefighters face a 9% increased risk of cancer, according to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and more than 14% higher than the general public, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Fairfax County’s fire department is offering free early cancer screenings to all of its members.More Fairfax County NewsMore Virginia NewsBattalion Chief Brian Edmonston said all current firefighters and those who retired within the last five years are eligible for the ultrasound scans after a $450,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.The diagnostic screening includes an echocardiogram, carotid Doppler, abdominal aorta, thyroid, live, gall bladder, sple...

$1M to help with ‘vital’ Chesapeake Bay improvement

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:09 GMT

BISHOPS HEAD, MARYLAND — NOVEMBER 12: In this aerial view, Crab Point reaches out into the water where the Honga River empties into the Chesapeake Bay on Nov. 12, 2022 near Bishops Head, Maryland. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)The Chesapeake Bay Trust nonprofit based in Annapolis, Maryland, will receive over $1 million in funding from the federal government to strengthen tidal wetland restoration, public education and bolster green infrastructure projects.In a news release Friday, U.S. Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin and Congressman John Sarbanes announced that $1,129,063 in federal funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will go toward local projects to restore, preserve and protect the Chesapeake Bay.More Local NewsMore Maryland News“The health of the Chesapeake Bay is vital to the health of our communities and our regional economy,” said Van Hollen.“We fought to pass the infrastructure modernization law — and within it to boost resource...

Germany’s rebuilding hurt by Havertz, Schlotterbeck absences

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:09 GMT

COLOGNE, Germany (AP) — Germany coach Hansi Flick’s quest to rebuild has been hampered once again, this time by injuries to Kai Havertz and Nico Schlotterbeck.Flick had been hoping to establish some continuity among his key players to create a strong foundation for more important games to come, but Havertz and Schlotterbeck have dropped out of the squad for Tuesday’s friendly against Belgium after playing in the 2-0 win over Peru on Saturday.Schlotterbeck has muscular problems in his left thigh. West Ham defender Thilo Kehrer came on for the Borussia Dortmund defender toward the end of the game against Peru and is likely to start against Belgium in Cologne. AC Milan defender Malick Thiaw is the only other potential option in Flick’s squad.The Germany coach did not call up Real Madrid defender Antonio Rüdiger or Dortmund center back Niklas Süle for the two friendlies, while Southampton defender Armel Bella-Kotchap is out with a shoulder injury.Havertz, who is out with a cold, had pla...

MBTA riders concerned about safety after weekend stabbing at Jackson Square station

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:09 GMT

MBTA riders are concerned about safety on public transit following a stabbing at the Jackson Square MBTA station in Jamaica Plain late Saturday night.Officers responding to a reported stabbing around 9 p.m. found a man suffering from apparent stab wounds and assisted in transporting him to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.Many T riders were caught off guard after hearing about Saturday’s incident and are now saying they have concerns about crime, especially at night. “I only come here when the train comes, so I’m not here more than five minutes,” one rider told 7NEWS. “There’s a little bit of connotation to not come past a certain time,” she added. No suspects have been arrested as of Monday morning, according to police.

Cuban migrants fly into Key West airport on motorized hang glider

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:09 GMT

(CNN) — Two migrants from Cuba landed at Key West International Airport in Florida on Saturday via a motorized hang glider, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.The pair landed at about 10:30 a.m. local time, and were not seriously injured, the sheriff’s office announced on its website.Both men were turned over to the custody of the US Border Patrol.“There were no interruptions in service and operations continue as normal,” Richard Strickland, director of airports at Key West International Airport, said in a statement.Florida has experienced an influx of migrants from Cuba in the past months, many of them making treacherous journeys by sea. In January, the Coast Guard returned 273 migrants off the Florida coast to Cuba. In September, the Coast Guard told CNN that they had intercepted more migrants from Cuba in the past year than it had since the 1990s.While Cubans have been migrating to the United States for decades, immig...

Twitter: Parts of its source code leaked online

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:09 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Some parts of Twitter’s source code — the fundamental computer code on which the social network runs — were leaked online, the social media company said in a legal filing on Sunday that was first reported by The New York Times.According to the legal document, filed with the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, Twitter had asked GitHub, an internet hosting service for software development, to take down the code where it was posted. The platform complied and said the content had been disabled, according to the filing. Twitter also asked the court to identify the alleged infringer or infringers who posted Twitter’s source code on systems operated by GitHub without Twitter’s authorization.Twitter, based in San Francisco, noted in the filing that the postings infringe copyrights held by Twitter.The leak creates more challenges for billionaire Elon Musk, who bought Twitter last October for $44 billion and took the company private. Sin...

Venice hunts for ‘idiot’ who jumped off three-story building into canal

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:09 GMT

(CNN) — Italian authorities are searching for a man who jumped off a three-story building into a canal in Venice on Thursday.Calling the man an “idiot”, Venice’s Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said in a Twitter post that he would give the man a “certificate of stupidity and a lot of kicks” for the act, which has gone viral on social media.The mayor also added a video of the dive on his account, saying that the man and his accomplice who took the video will be arrested. In the video, the person, wearing only boxer shorts, can be seen jumping from a building rooftop into a canal, landing on his belly.“We are trying to identify him, to report him, him and his buddy below who made the stupid video for social media,” Brugnaro said.The mayor also said he sent police to the building to determine how the man was able to enter the private residential building and how he was able to get to the rooftop.“He risked his life in that ...

Elizabeth Warren announces third senate bid in new campaign ad

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:09 GMT

The state’s senior senator will seek a third term, her campaign has announced with a new ad.“Elizabeth doesn’t f— around,” a man says early in the campaign ad.U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, is once again asking Massachusetts voters to send her back to Washington for another six-year term, telling them twelve years into her service there is still much work to do.“I first ran for Senate because I saw how the system is rigged for the rich and powerful and against everyone else. I won because Massachusetts voters know it, too. And now I’m running for Senate again because there’s a lot more we’ve got to do,” Warren says in the ad.Born in Oklahoma, the former Harvard Law professor was a vocal critic of unregulated banking and big business long before her 2012 election victory against Republican Sen. Scott Brown sent her to congress.Her decision to seek the presidency in 2016 didn’t seem to hamper her subsequent 2018 reelect...

Lucas: Trump’s war on Stormy could cost him

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:16:09 GMT

Politics aside, if Donald Trump should be arrested for anything it should be for calling a woman “horseface.”What kind of a man says that?Especially if he had an affair with her, and paying her hush money, as it is alleged Donald Trump did with adult film star Stormy Daniels, a charge he denies, but which everybody else believes.Whatever happened to wham, bam, thank you, mam?Trump of course would not be the first president, ex-president or president to be to have cheated on his wife.But he is the first chief executive, as insulter-in-chief, to publicly go after or disparage the physical appearance of his alleged sex partner.Notorious womanizer Bill Clinton left that sort of thing to Hillary.Stormy Daniels is not the first woman Trump has ridiculed for her appearance.He did that back in 2016 when he insulted Carly Fiorina, the former  Hewlett-Packard executive who was a Republican candidate for president.“Look at her,” Trump told Rolling Stone back then. “Would anyone vot...