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‘Very, very false’: Dutch minister quashes Beijing view on Ukraine at top security forum

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 14:25:10 GMT

SINGAPORE — China put European patience to the test on Saturday, with a seasoned Chinese diplomat attributing Russia’s war on Ukraine to a failed security architecture in Europe. It fell to Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren to challenge that very Chinese interpretation.“I was actually a little bit surprised to hear it,” Ollongren told POLITICO in an interview moments after she made an impromptu rebuttal of ex-ambassador Cui Tiankai on a panel at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. “It’s very, very false.”Cui, a former envoy to the U.S. and unofficially an adviser to the Chinese delegation at this top Asian security forum, told the event on Saturday that Europe had showed little success in ensuring the Continent’s security, and suggested that the other nations at the forum should take a lesson from China and Asia instead.“We used to look to Europe, for their experience in regional integration. But nowadays, maybe people in Europe ...

Soggy weekend weather

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 14:25:10 GMT

After a noisy Friday night, with showers and storms for most, soggy weather is expected to stick around as the cold front from last night stalls off the coast. Although the weekend will not be a washout, there will be showers and mist around from time to time, and temperatures will stay in the 50s. A few showers are likely this again late Saturday, but the best chance for rain will be Sunday afternoon into Monday morning as a coastal low pressure system approaches New England.

Natalee Holloway case suspect Joran van der Sloot is being moved to another Peruvian prison ahead of transfer to US, officials say

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 14:25:10 GMT

(CNN) — Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, was being moved to a different prison in Peru early Saturday, officials said – a step in what is expected be his eventual temporary transfer to face charges in the United States.Van der Sloot was being moved from a maximum security prison in southern Peru to a prison in the capital, Lima, according to officials with knowledge of the facts who spoke to CNN en Español journalists.Earlier, a source told CNN en Español that the process of temporarily transferring van der Sloot from Peru to the United States would begin Friday night.Van der Sloot is set to be transferred to the US to face extortion and fraud charges related to an alleged plot to extort Holloway’s family after her disappearance, Peruvian officials have said. How long the transfer process would take is not yet known, officials told CNN en Español journalists.Maximo Altez, van der Sloot’s attorney, r...

Mike Lupica: Nikola Jokic leading the Nuggets into NBA Finals is all-time great basketball story

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 14:25:10 GMT

In this age when unselfish superstars like LeBron James and Steph Curry have won eight NBA titles between them, here comes Nikola Jokic, the best all-around player in the sport, who might win one of his own. If Jokic does that, he becomes one of the great pro basketball stories of all time. He is already the most complete big man since the young Bill Walton, as complete a big man as the sport has known.Jokic is that good. That doesn’t mean he and the Nuggets are a lock to win the title because they got an easy Game 1 off the Heat. Just appreciate what you are watching as you watch these NBA Finals, because he is the best all-around player we have right now, better than LeBron and better than Steph and better than Durant and Joel Embiid. Good for Embiid winning the MVP award, by the way. But come on: Nobody is more valuable to his team than Jokic is to the Nuggets.He comes to this moment from being the 41st pick in the 2014 NBA draft. Nobody ever drafted that low ever won two M...

Luis Severino and his velocity lack in clunker vs. Dodgers: ‘I was missing a lot of pitches’

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 14:25:10 GMT

LOS ANGELES — With Clayton Kershaw and Luis Severino on the hill, the Yankees’ series opener against the Dodgers had the pieces in place for a pitching duel. But only Kershaw delivered on his end of the bargain as the Dodgers won, 8-4.Severino faced adversity from the jump, as Mookie Betts greeted the right-hander to Dodger Stadium with a leadoff home run. The blast — one of two for Betts in the game — set the tone for a six-run first for Los Angeles, which also received a two-run homer from Max Muncy.Former Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez added a solo shot in the third. All in all, Severino totaled four innings, nine hits, seven earned runs, three home runs, one walk, two strikeouts and a whopping 13 hard-hit balls over 83 pitches in his third start of the season.“I was missing a lot of pitches,” Severino said afterward. “Missed to Mookie Betts, a pitch inside. And this is a good team. They got good hitters, and I had to minimize those mistak...

Officials declare Halifax-area wildfire largely contained as rain brings relief

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 14:25:10 GMT

HALIFAX — A Halifax-area wildfire that forced thousands of residents from their homes over the past week is 85 per cent contained and no longer spreading, officials said Saturday morning.David Steeves, a technician of forest resources with Nova Scotia’s Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, told reporters the fire was sitting at 9.5 square kilometres and is unlikely to grow due to a combination of firefighting efforts and long-awaited rain. “We are moving from a state of out of control to a state of being held,” he said. “And basically what that means is that, with the current resources that we have on site and with the suppression efforts that have taken place, the fire is not likely to spread.”Steeves said a number of areas of concern remain and crews continue to closely monitor hot spots around the fire’s perimeter. He warned the blaze was far from out and embers could still hide deep in places where the rain doesn’t penetrate, ...

Fears rise for civilian safety as Ukraine investigates locked air-raid shelters

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 14:25:10 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Concerns around civilian safety spiked in Ukraine on Saturday, as officials announced that an inspection had found nearly a quarter of the country’s air-raid shelters locked or unusable, just days after a woman in Kyiv allegedly died waiting outside a shuttered shelter during a Russian missile barrage. The Ukrainian interior ministry said through its press service Saturday that of the “over 4,800” shelters it had inspected, 252 were locked and a further 893 “unfit for use.”That same day, the Kyiv regional prosecutor’s office reported that four people were detained in a criminal probe into the 33-year-old’s death on Thursday outside the locked shelter. The prosecutor’s office said that one person, a security guard who had failed to unlock the doors, remained under arrest, while three others, including a local official, had been put under house arrest.According to the prosecutor’s office, the suspects face up to eight years in prison for official negligence that l...

Inside Russia’s penal colonies: A look at life for political prisoners caught in Putin’s crackdowns

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 14:25:10 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When Alexei Navalny turns 47 on Sunday, he’ll wake up in a bare concrete cell with hardly any natural light.He won’t be able to see or talk to any of his loved ones. Phone calls and visits are banned for those in “punishment isolation” cells, a 2-by-3-meter (6 1/2-by-10-foot) space. Guards usually blast patriotic songs and speeches by President Vladimir Putin at him.“Guess who is the champion of listening to Putin’s speeches? Who listens to them for hours and falls asleep to them?” Navalny said recently in a typically sardonic social media post via his attorneys from Penal Colony No. 6 in the Vladimir region east of Moscow.He is serving a nine-year term due to end in 2030 on charges widely seen as trumped up, and is facing another trial on new charges that could keep him locked up for another two decades. Rallies have been called for Sunday in Russia to support him.Navalny has become Russia’s most famous political prisoner — and not just because o...

Weekend Gardening with Tim Joyce: Transplanting, invasive garlic mustard and more

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 14:25:10 GMT

Check out today's weekend gardening with Tim Joyce for tips on transplanting, invasive garlic mustard and more.Love the WGN Morning News? We love you, too. And you can have all the hijinks delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign up and subscribe to our WGN Morning News newsletter.

Hundreds dead in India train crash, the nation's worst rail disaster in decades

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 14:25:10 GMT

BALASORE, India (AP) — Rescuers found no more survivors in the overturned and mangled wreckage of two passenger trains that derailed in eastern India, killing more than 280 people and injuring hundreds in one of the country's deadliest rail crashes in decades, officials said Saturday.Chaotic scenes erupted after the derailment on Friday night about 220 kilometers (137 miles) southwest of Kolkata, as rescuers climbed atop the wrecked trains to break open doors and windows using cutting torches.The death toll rose steadily throughout the night. Scores of bodies, covered by white sheets, lay on the ground near the tracks while locals and rescuers raced to free the hundreds of people trapped in the rail cars under the twisted metal and broken glass. Army soldiers and air force helicopters joined the effort.An Associated Press photographer saw bodies still entangled in a badly mangled coach, as rescuers struggled to retrieve them working under the oppressive heat with temperatures reachi...