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A top Russian general linked to the head of a rebellious mercenary group is reportedly dismissed

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:51:00 GMT

Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a former commander of Russia’s forces in Ukraine who was linked to the leader of a brief armed rebellion, has been dismissed as chief of the air force, Russian state media reported Wednesday after weeks of uncertainty about his fate.Surovikin has not been seen in public since June 23-24, when Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, sent his men to march toward Moscow. In a video released during the uprising, Surovikin — who was believed to have close ties to Prigozhin — had urged him to pull the mercenaries back.The Wagner uprising posed the most serious challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s 23-year rule and reports circulated that Surovikin had known about it in advance. Prigozhin called off the rebellion short of reaching Moscow after he said he wanted to avoid bloodshed.Surovikin’s absence has been one of several enduring mysteries surrounding the rebellion. During his absence, Russian media have speculated about Surovikin’s whe...

India becomes the fourth country to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:51:00 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — India on Wednesday landed a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole, an uncharted territory that scientists believe could hold vital reserves of frozen water and precious elements, as the country cements its growing prowess in space and technology.A lander with a rover inside touched down on the lunar surface at 6:04 ocal time, sparking cheers and applause among the space scientists watching in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru. After a failed attempt nearly four years ago, India made history by becoming the first country to touch down near the little-explored south pole region and joins the United States, the Soviet Union and China in achieving a moon landing.India’s successful landing comes just days after Russia’s Luna-25, which was aiming for the same lunar region, spun into an uncontrolled orbit and crashed. It would have been the first successful Russian lunar landing after a gap of 47 years. Russia’s head of the state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos ...

How sure is insurance in the climate era?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:51:00 GMT

In today’s Big Story Podcast, even before this summer of unprecedented weather, there were already a significant number of homes in Canada that are uninsurable for flood damage. And as the impact of the climate crisis creates more extreme and unpredictable weather, that number is likely to climb sharply. The insurance companies are in the risk-reward business, and if there’s too much risk, they’ll simply say, “Nope.”Kathryn Bakos is the director of Climate Finance and Science at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo.“Currently 10 per cent of the Canadian housing market is uninsurable for flood risk, my assumption is that will continue to grow as precipitation, major precipitation events, major flood events continue to increase in severity,” said Bakos.So what makes a home uninsurable? How rapidly is the risk-reward equation changing? How can we adapt our homes and buildings to mitigate the worst impacts of extreme weather...

Five high school students, from all over the country, have been named National Student Poets

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:51:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Five high school students from Florida to Utah have been selected as this year’s National Student Poets, a program founded more than a decade ago. Each winner represents a different region in the country, and brings their own distinctive background and perspective. The student poets, each of whom receive $5,000, will help oversee workshops, readings and other activities. Previous poets have appeared at the White House and Lincoln Center among other venues.Kallan McKinney is a queer and trans poet from Norman, Oklahoma, who uses writing to explore identity and communication. Gabriella Miranda, a rising high school senior in Salt Lake City, credits her passion for words to her visits to the library and the bedtime stories her family read to her. The high school student representing the Midwest, Shangri-La Houn of St. Louis, has a strong affinity for the natural world.Brooklyn resident Miles Hardingwood has read poetry throughout New York City and hopes his work w...

Stock market today: Wall Street quietly inches higher ahead of Fed Chair Powell’s speech

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:51:00 GMT

TOKYO — Wall Street inched higher Wednesday ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s highly anticipated speech later in the week. Futures for the Dow and S&P 500 each gained 0.2% before the bell. Powell is set to speak Friday at an event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the site of several major policy announcements by the Fed. “With the Jackson Hole event just around the corner, markets are understandably lacking some conviction given the interest rate implications which could stem from this eagerly awaited get-together of central bankers,” said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade. The Fed has already hiked its main interest rate to the highest level since 2001 in hopes of grinding high inflation down to a 2% target. High rates work by slowing the entire economy bluntly and hurting prices for investments.Inflation has come down considerably from its peak above 9% in the summer of 2022, but economists say getting the last percentage point of improvement may be th...

Native American group to digitize 20,000 archival pages linked to Quaker-run Indian boarding schools

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:51:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A coalition advocating for Native American people impacted by an oppressive system of boarding schools for Native youths plans to digitize 20,000 archival pages related to schools in that system that were operated by the Quakers.The Quakers and other faith groups — including Episcopalians, Methodists and Catholics — have in recent years either begun or increased efforts to research and atone for their prior roles in the boarding school system that Native children were forced to attend, and that cut them off from their families, tribes and traditions.For decades, documents related to Quaker-operated Indian boarding schools have been largely unstudied, as they exist in remote and dispersed collections with limited access, said leaders of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. Now, the coalition, also known as NABS, will make them available to scholars and nonspecialists by housing digital records on a public database.The records will provide a ...

Russia and Ukraine trade drone attacks as Kyiv claims it took out a key S-400 missile defense system

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:51:00 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine traded drone attacks early Wednesday, officials said, with Kyiv apparently targeting Moscow again and the Kremlin’s forces launching another bombardment of Ukrainian grain storage depots in what have recently become signature tactics in the almost 18-month war.Later Wednesday, the Ukrainian intelligence agency claimed it had destroyed a key Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile defense system in occupied Crimea. If confirmed, it would be another embarrassing blow for Russia, as Ukraine increasingly targets Moscow’s assets far behind the front line in southern and eastern Ukraine.The agency, known by its acronym GUR, claimed on its official Telegram channel that Russia has a “limited number” of the sophisticated systems and that the loss “is a painful blow.” Moscow officials made no immediate comment.The long-range S-400 missiles are capable of striking enemy aircraft and are regarded as one of the best such systems available. They h...

Facebook’s parent company Meta and moderators suing it for $1.6 billion in Kenya agree to mediation

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:51:00 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Meta, Facebook’s parent company, and 184 of its content moderators who were based in Kenya agreed Wednesday on a mediation attempt to settle out of court.Last year, the moderators — from several African countries — filed a lawsuit against the social media giant and its outsourcing firm, Sama, seeking $1.6 billion in compensation, alleging poor working conditions, including insufficient mental health support and low pay.The Employment and Labor Relations court said they have 21 days to reach a settlement and that former Kenyan chief justice, Willy Mutunga, and labor commissioner, Hellen Apiyo would co-mediate the dispute.The moderators were employed via Sama, a San Francisco subcontractor that describes itself as an ethical AI company, to work in its hub in the capital, Nairobi. Their job entailed screening user content in 12 African languages and removing any uploads deemed to breach Facebook’s community standards and terms of service. Some of the moderat...

Minnesota names first Black chief justice of state Supreme Court, Natalie Hudson

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:51:00 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Gov. Tim Walz on Wednesday promoted Natalie Hudson to be chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, making her the first Black person to lead it.Hudson was appointed associate justice in 2015 by then-Gov. Mark Dayton, after serving as a judge on the Minnesota Court of Appeals for 13 years. She’ll lead the high court when current Chief Justice Lorie Gildea retires in October.“Justice Hudson is one of our state’s most experienced jurists. She has a strong reputation as a leader and consensus builder,” Walz said in a statement. “I am confident that she will advance a vision that promotes fairness and upholds the dignity of all Minnesotans.”“This is a tremendous responsibility that I approach with humility and resolve, seeking to continue the work of my predecessors in administering one of the best state court systems in the nation, and always seeking to deliver the most accessible, highest-quality court services for the citizens of Minnesota,” Hudson said in...

Taliban prevents scores of Afghan women from studying abroad, scholarship group says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:51:00 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban have prevented scores of female Afghan students from traveling to the United Arab Emirates for education, according to the chairman of a group that offered them scholarships.“I am unable to express the disappointment I feel now as the Afghan female students, whom I had provided an educational scholarship … were unfortunately unable to reach Dubai airport,” Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor, chairman of the Al Habtoor group, said Wednesday on X, formerly known as Twitter. Al Habtoor said he had provided an opportunity for the women to study in collaboration with the University of Dubai. But despite securing “university admissions, accommodations, transportation, health insurance, and an array of comprehensive services aimed at ensuring the utmost comfort and safety for the female students, our aspirations were crushed.”Although the Taliban promised a more moderate rule than during their previous period in power in the 1990s, they have imposed harsh measures s...