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Vegas Golden Knights and fans enjoy parade and rally celebrating 1st NHL championship

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:50:39 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Thousands of Vegas Golden Knights fans lined the Las Vegas Strip on Saturday for a Stanley Cup victory parade and a rally in front of the team’s home arena to mark the city’s first NHL championship.For the team that played its first game as an expansion franchise in October 2017 and for tourists in hotel rooms with windows overlooking the parade route in 2023, the event bore echoes of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history five years ago. Guests in high-rises with views of the strip were awakened by security guards asking to check around windows for guns or other weapons.The motorcade route proceeded from an area near Flamingo Road about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) to Tropicana Avenue before a fan rally at Toshiba Plaza and the Park District in front of T-Mobile Arena.Las Vegas police said they prepared for upwards of 100,000 people to cram street-level viewing areas along Las Vegas Boulevard for the celebration that planners compared with annual...

Giants’ 15-0 rout of slumping LA matches worst home shutout loss in Dodgers’ history

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:50:39 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — J.D. Davis took batting practice five hours ahead of game time, landing balls in the center field net. He did it again when it counted.LaMonte Wade Jr. hit a three-run homer, Davis added a pinch-hit grand slam, and the San Francisco Giants routed the slumping Los Angeles Dodgers 15-0 on Saturday night for their season-high sixth straight victory.It was the Giants’ largest margin of victory over their NL West rival since a 19-3 victory on Sept. 14, 2013. It also matches the worst home shutout loss in Dodgers history, which came in 1898 against Pittsburgh when the team was based in Brooklyn.With the loss, the Dodgers dropped a home series to the Giants for the first time since losing three of four in July 2021. “It’s huge to get a series win versus LA and get a chance for a sweep,” winning pitcher and former Dodger Alex Wood said. Wade and Davis drove in five runs apiece, while Brandon Crawford had four of the Giants’ 17 hits.San Francisco did most...

Earthquakes, Timbers play to scoreless draw

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:50:39 GMT

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Daniel de Sousa Brito finished with four saves for San Jose, David Bingham saved two shots for Portland and the Earthquakes and Timbers played to a scoreless draw on Saturday night.San Jose (7-5-6) remains unbeaten at home this season through nine matches with a 6-0-3 record. Portland (5-7-6), which was trying to win back-to-back matches for the first time this season, is 4-6-6 all-time at San Jose. The Timbers have yet to host San Jose this season. The Earthquakes are 0-12-4 all-time in Portland.Daniel was shaken up in a head-to-head collision with teammate Tanner Beason with about 10 minutes remaining in regulation. Daniel finished the match after a 5-minute delay and was in goal when Dairon Asprilla’s shot bounced off the post in the second minute of stoppage time.San Jose is off to its best start at home since 2002 when the Earthquakes opened with eight straight victories.Portland held Jeremy Ebobisse in check. Ebobisse has scored 25 goals for San J...

Philippine ferry catches fire at sea, all 120 people aboard rescued

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:50:39 GMT

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — All 120 passengers and crew members aboard a Philippine ferry that caught fire at sea on Sunday were rescued safely and the fire was extinguished, the coast guard said.The M/V Esperanza Star caught fire at dawn while traveling from Siquijor province to Bohol province in the central Philippines with 65 passengers and 55 crewmembers, the coast guard said. It added that it deployed two vessels for rescue and to help put out the flames, which raged for more than five hours.Photos and video released by the coast guard show flames and black smoke billowing from two decks at one end of the ferry. Coast guard personnel onboard another vessel used a water cannon to put out the fire while a fishing boat and one other vessel can be seen nearby.“All those who were onboard the ferry are safe,” Joy Gumatay, coast guard spokeswoman, said in a statement but gave no further details. She added that the survivors were brought to the port city of Tagbilaran in Bohol province ...

Man found shot to death in North Hills

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:50:39 GMT

A suspect remains at large after a man was found shot to death in the North Hills area on Saturday.Los Angeles police responded to the scene near Parthenia Place and Burnet Avenue around 4:20 p.m.Arriving officers found a man in his 40s lying on the road with multiple gunshot wounds. Despite lifesaving measures, he was pronounced dead at the scene.A suspect remains at large after a man was found shot to death in the North Hills neighborhood on June 17, 2023. (Citizen)A suspect remains at large after a man was found shot to death in the North Hills neighborhood on June 17, 2023. (KTLA)A suspect remains at large after a man was found shot to death in the North Hills neighborhood on June 17, 2023. (KTLA)A suspect remains at large after a man was found shot to death in the North Hills neighborhood on June 17, 2023. (KTLA)A suspect remains at large after a man was found shot to death in the North Hills neighborhood on June 17, 2023. (KTLA)The suspect is described as a Hispanic man last s...

Sudan begins a cease-fire ahead of a pledging conference to raise funds for humanitarian assistance

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:50:39 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — Sudan’s warring parties began a cease-fire Sunday morning after two months of fighting pushed the African nation into chaos.Residents in the capital, Khartoum, and its neighboring city of Omdurman reported “relative calm” in the first hours of the cease-fire Sunday morning, after fierce clashes were reported the previous day.The three-day truce came ahead of a pledging conference the U.N. and other nations will organize Monday to raise funds to cover Sudan’s humanitarian needs.The U.N. says it received less than 16% of the $2.57 billion required to help those in need in Sudan in 2023. Another $470 million more are needed to support refugees in the Horn of Africa region, it said.The United States and Saudi Arabia, announced the cease-fire agreement Saturday. Both led concerted international diplomatic efforts to stop the war over the past two months.The U.S. and Saudi Arabia said in a joint statement that the military and its rival paramilitary group, the Rapid Sup...

Blinken kicks off meetings in Beijing on high-stakes mission to cool soaring US-China tensions

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:50:39 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday kicked off two days of high-stakes diplomatic talks in Beijing aimed at trying to cool exploding U.S.-China tensions that have set many around the world on edge. Blinken opened his program by meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang for an extended discussion to be followed by a working dinner. He’ll have additional talks with Qin, as well as China’s top diplomat Wang Yi and possibly President Xi Jinping, on Monday.Neither Blinken nor Qin made any substantive comments to reporters as they began the meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.Despite Blinken’s presence in the Chinese capital, prospects for any significant breakthroughs are slim, as already strained ties have grown increasingly fraught in recent years. Animosity and recriminations have steadily escalated over a series of disagreements that have implications for global security and stability.Blinken is the highest-level American official t...

Sierra Leone gears up for presidential election amid economic crisis, looming protests

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:50:39 GMT

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — With mounting frustration due to an ailing economy, rising unemployment and looming deadly protests, Sierra Leoneans are heading to the polls on Saturday, June 24, to select their next president.Thirteen people are vying for the top job in the west African country. But experts say it’s likely to be a two-horse race between incumbent President Julius Maada Bio — elected in 2018 and fighting for his second term — and Samura Kamara, the head of the All People’s Congress Party, Sierra Leon’s main opposition camp.The winner needs 55% of the vote to clinch victory in the first round or it goes into a runoff within two weeks. More than three million people are registered to vote in the coming week. This would mark the country’s fifth presidential election since the end of a brutal 11-year civil war — more than two decades ago — which left tens of thousands dead and destroyed the country’s economy. Sierra Leone had witnessed two pe...

Belarus crackdown targets not just political activists but also their lawyers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:50:39 GMT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — For nearly three years, a harsh crackdown on dissent in Belarus by its authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko has filled the country’s penal colonies with thousands of political prisoners, with new arrests reported daily.At the same time, a government campaign has gotten rid of many independent lawyers, making it increasingly difficult for the detainees to mount any kind of legal defense.Siarhej Zikratski is among those lawyers forced to leave Belarus under the threat of arrest. More than 500 of his colleagues have been stripped of their law licenses and quit the profession since 2020, and many of them have moved abroad after facing reprisals at home. Some even ended up in prison.Zikratski says Belarus has effectively run out of independent lawyers to represent the many political prisoners in the country of 9.5 million people, a situation he calls “catastrophic.”Lawyers are reluctant to take on “politically motivated cases, and even those who a...

Swiss vote on climate bill as Alpine nation’s iconic glaciers succumb to warming

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:50:39 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Swiss voters are going to the polls Sunday to decide on a bill aimed at introducing new climate measures to sharply curb the rich Alpine nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.The referendum was sparked by a campaign by scientists and environmentalists to save Switzerland’s iconic glaciers, which are melting away at an alarming rate. Campaigners initially proposed even more ambitious measures but later backed a government plan that requires Switzerland to achieve “net zero” emissions by 2050. It also sets aside more than 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.357 billion) to help wean companies and homeowners off fossil fuels.The nationalist Swiss People’s Party, which demanded a popular vote on the bill, claims the proposed measures will cause electricity prices to rise.Backers of the plan argue that Switzerland will be hard-hit by global warming and is already seeing the effects of rising temperatures on its famous glaciers.Swiss glaciers experienced record melting ...