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NATO sees no change in Russia’s nuclear posture despite Belarus leader’s claims

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:11:39 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO sees no sign that Russia has changed its nuclear posture, the head of the military alliance said Thursday, after President Alexander Lukashenko claimed that Belarus has already received some tactical nuclear weapons from Moscow.In an interview on state television on Tuesday, Lukashenko brashly warned that he wouldn’t hesitate to order their use if Belarus faced an act of aggression. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the weapons will be deployed to Belarus next month and will remain under Moscow’s exclusive control.“We are, of course, closely monitoring what Russia is doing. So far, we haven’t seen any changes in the nuclear posture that requires any changes in our posture,” Stoltenberg told reporters before chairing a meeting of NATO defense ministers at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.NATO’s secretive nuclear defense planning group is set to meet on Friday. The meeting has long been planned and is not a reaction to recent developments, but the a...

South Korea says North Korea has launched ballistic missile toward sea

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:11:39 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea says North Korea has fired a ballistic missile off its east coast.South Korea’s military says the North Korean launch occurred Thursday evening but gave no further details.The launch came after North Korea’s military vowed an unspecified response after South Korean and U.S. troops finished five rounds of large-scale live-fire drills near the Koreas’ heavily fortified border earlier Thursday.The Associated Press

UN atomic watchdog chief visits Ukraine nuclear plant threatened by war with Russia

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:11:39 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog visited Europe’s largest atomic power plant Thursday in southern Ukraine, where a recent dam burst and the start of a counteroffensive in the war by Kyiv’s forces have heightened safety risks.The visit was announced by Ukraine’s national nuclear energy company, Energoatom, in a Telegram post.Rafael Mariano Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency chief, met Tuesday in Kyiv with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss concerns about the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.The IAEA has repeatedly expressed alarm about the facility, which is one of the 10 biggest in the world, amid fears of a potential nuclear catastrophe. The agency has officials stationed at the plant, which is still run by its Ukrainian staff.The plant has repeatedly been caught in the crossfire since Russia launched its war on Ukraine in February 2022 and seized the facility shortly after. Last week, the destructi...

SIU investigating after man critically injured in interaction with Toronto police

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:11:39 GMT

The province’s Special Investigations Unit is investigating after a man was sent to hospital with life-threatening injuries following an interaction with police in downtown Toronto.Officers were called to the area of Jarvis and Richmond streets around 3 a.m. on Wednesday for reports of a person in crisis.Few details are known about what happened when officers arrived. Paramedics confirm a man was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.Photos from the scene show broken glass, pillows and other debris scattered on the street and sidewalk.The Special Investigations Unit is investigating after Toronto police responded to a call on Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto on June 15, 2023. CITYNEWS/Bertram DandyThere is a large police presence in the area,Jarvis is closed in both directions from Richmond to Adelaide Street for the investigation.The SIU is called in to investigate any police interaction resulting in death, serious injury, sexual assault and/or the discharge of a ...

Suspect in mass shooting at Colorado gay nightclub expected to take plea deal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:11:39 GMT

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The suspect in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub is expected to strike a plea deal to state murder and hate charges that would ensure at least a life sentence for the attack that killed five people and wounded 17, several survivors told The Associated Press. Word of a possible legal resolution of last year’s Club Q massacre follows a series of jailhouse phone calls from the suspect to the AP expressing remorse and the intention to face the consequences at the next scheduled court hearing this month.“I have to take responsibility for what happened,” 23-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich said in their first public comments about the case. Federal and state authorities and defense attorneys declined to comment on a possible plea deal. But Colorado law requires victims to be notified of such deals, and several people who lost loved ones or were wounded in the attack told the AP that state prosecutors have given them advance word that Aldrich w...

Pope visits children’s cancer ward in sign he may soon be discharged from hospital

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:11:39 GMT

ROME (AP) — The Vatican on Thursday released the first images of Pope Francis since his June 7 abdominal surgery, showing him in his wheelchair visiting the children’s cancer ward in a sign he is getting ready to be discharged soon from the hospital.Francis appeared in good health in the images, in which he is seen in the corridor of the pediatric oncology ward of Rome’s Gemelli hospital, meeting with children, their parents and medical staff. In one photo, he is shown elsewhere speaking with a couple in a private room, the man in a wheelchair.The Vatican said on Wednesday that Francis was expected to be released from Gemelli “in the coming days.” When he was hospitalized in 2021, Francis paid a visit to the children’s cancer ward the day before he left and returned to the Vatican.The 86-year-old pope was admitted to Gemelli hospital on June 7 for surgery to repair a hernia in his abdominal wall and remove intestinal scar tissue that had caused intestinal blockages. Fran...

MLB teams welcome LGBTQ+ fans with Pride Nights, but wait continues for 1st out active player

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:11:39 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — When it comes to baseball and LGBTQ+ inclusivity, Billy Bean often flashes back to his playing days.Ending his career without telling his parents about his life as a closeted gay ballplayer. Shielding his secret from teammates like Brad Ausmus and Torey Lovullo. The regret of not sharing his “full self,” he says.It’s a message Bean has delivered in clubhouses, and it resonates with today’s ballplayers — hyper-focused on staying in the majors, and being a good teammate. It’s also the lens through which Bean views baseball’s ongoing LGBTQ+ issues.“There’s some parts of my job where I feel like some days I just, you know, I’m floating,” said Bean, a senior vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion with Major League Baseball. “Then there’s other days when I see some pushback, I’m reminded that we have 8,000 human beings connected to the sport as an athlete in one way or another, and you’re not going to always have 100% of those people agre...

U.S. Open a source of uncertainty on and off the course

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:11:39 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Uncertainty off the course. Uncertainty on it. The U.S. Open was set to tee off into uncharted territory Thursday, with the golf world perplexed by the recent shakeup-makeup between Saudi golf interests and the PGA Tour and 156 of the sport’s best players taking on a course hardly anyone has seen. Pretty much every question heading into the 123rd playing of America’s national championship dealt with one or the other of those issues. Los Angeles Country Club is a beautiful mystery, the first course in LA to host the Open in 75 years. It’s known for its runway-wide fairways — they average 43 yards across — but many of those expanses are heavily canted, built to reject tee shots into the healthy, spongy Bermuda rough or into the native, scrub-dotted and unpredictable sandscapes called barrancas that wind through this urban oasis.There is a reachable par 4 — the sixth hole — that will, at times, play shorter than the downhill par-3 seventh. ThereR...

Landmark home built before Great Chicago Fire damaged in fire

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:11:39 GMT

CHICAGO — Fire crews battled a fire at one of the oldest homes in Chicago early Thursday morning. The fire started around 1 a.m. on the top floor of the Seth P. Warner House in the 600 block of North Central. The two people inside the home were able to make it out safely and no other injuries were reported.The 150-year-old home was damaged in the fire. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Diver opens OnlyFans account to pay for Olympics training

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:11:39 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — As a prominent 10-meter diver, Diego Balleza is used to wearing small swimsuits that show off his body. Now, desperate because of a lack of financial resources ahead of next year's Paris Olympics, the Mexican is making a leap to a different platform in which he also wears few clothes: OnlyFans.Balleza is one of several Mexican athletes who have been affected by a dispute between World Aquatics and Ana Guevara, the head of Mexico's national sports commission that, since January, has stopped providing monthly payments for aquatics athletes. World Aquatics suspended the president of the Mexican federation, Kiril Todorov, and appointed a commission to take charge while new elections were held.Todorov was suspended for the failure of the Mexican Swimming Federation to comply with the governing body's good governance standards. But Guevara refused to recognize the commission even though the Court of Arbitration for Sport confirmed the change.Guevara, a runner who won a ...