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Hamas and Israel exchange more hostages for prisoners on fifth day of temporary cease-fire

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:10 GMT

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas released 12 hostages and Israel released 30 Palestinian prisoners on Tuesday, the fifth day of a fragile cease-fire that has enabled humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza and that mediators hope to extend even as Israel pledges to resume the war.Israel said 10 of its citizens and two Thai nationals freed by Hamas returned to Israel. Soon after, Israel released the Palestinian prisoners. The truce is due to end after one more exchange Wednesday night.CIA director William Burns and David Barnea, who heads Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, were in Qatar, a key mediator with Hamas, to discuss extending the cease-fire and releasing more hostages, a diplomat said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. A U.S. official confirmed Burns was in Qatar, speaking anonymously because the director’s travel plans are not publicized for security reasons.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit the region this week, also ...

Police: Mother killed in Daytona Beach arson murder was found with 100 stab wounds

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:10 GMT

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (WESH) — The 30-year-old mother found dead in Daytona Beach after a house fire was stabbed 100 times, an arrest affidavit shows.On Nov. 21, the Daytona Beach Police Department responded to a house fire on Beville Road around 11:47 p.m. According to the affidavit, the apartment was fully engulfed with flames and large plumes of black smoke were emitting from the windows and doors.When fire rescue entered the building, they were able to locate three young children. A 10-month-old baby was pronounced dead at the Halifax Medical Center, and the other two children were transported to Shands Children’s Hospital in Gainesville.Den’Jah Moore, who was pronounced dead on-scene, was found to be suffering from approximately 100 knife wounds in addition to severe burns, the affidavit reads.Officials also noted in the affidavit that all four burners on the kitchen stove were turned on and had large amounts of miscellaneous burnt paper and a box located on top.Th...

Gripping short film ‘Hammer’ starring Eric Roberts delivers chills in just 14 minutes

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:10 GMT

In the spine-tingling short film ‘Hammer,’ directed by Orlando Cicilia III, the story revolves around Bill, portrayed by actor Eric Roberts, who comes home to surprise his wife only to be met with an unexpected twist.Orlando Cicilia III: “Hammer is the unfortunate story of Bill, played by Eric [Roberts], who comes home to surprise his wife and ends up with a surprise of his own.”Bill is portrayed by actor Eric Roberts, who says it didn’t take too much for him to nail the character.Eric Roberts: “When I play these kind of really extreme people, I don’t become them. I pretend to be them. It’s just fun and games. I don’t have to put myself through a whole psychological evolution to play them.”The film is kind of brief.It’s only 14 minutes long and it was shot in one take but there are plenty of scares to go around.Orlando Cicilia III: “It’s a horror thriller, smack you in the mouth kind of suspenseful movie t...

Racists behind Dublin riot could attack immigrants and politicians, government warned

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:10 GMT

DUBLIN — The emboldened racists who ravaged downtown Dublin will end up assaulting racial minorities and politicians if the government doesn’t shut down their extremist organizations and social media groups, Ireland’s justice minister was warned Tuesday as she rejected calls to resign.Helen McEntee promised extra powers, equipment and discretion for police to use force to avoid any repeat of Thursday’s unprecedented rioting, which was sparked by the stabbing of three children and an afterschool teacher outside a primary school in the heart of the capital. A 5-year-old girl and the teacher remain hospitalized, the child in critical condition.After right-wing bloggers identified the attacker as an Algerian, extremists using such noms de guerre as “kill all immigrants” quickly rallied supporters via WhatsApp groups to confront and overwhelm Ireland’s lightly-armed and ill-prepared police force. Hours of clashes ended with 60 officers injured, at least 48 suspected rioters arrested, a l...

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:10 GMT

Winston Churchill. Martin Luther King Jr. Nelson Mandela. Every once in a while, a leader comes along and single-handedly changes the course of history, not through the might of their army or the strength of their economy, but through the power of their words. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is such a leader.From his defiant “We are here” video filmed in the first days of the war outside his presidential office on Bankova Street and his iconic “I need ammunition, not a ride” quip delivered in response to a U.S. offer to evacuate, to the tailor-made screeds he has given in parliaments around Europe and the world, Zelenskyy inspired Ukrainians to continue resisting Russia’s attempted full-scale invasion, and cajoled, shamed and begged nations into helping them do so. Those rhetorical efforts have paid off, with Western allies delivering financial aid and an increasing quantity of sophisticated weaponry — from tanks to fighter jets — to Ukraine’s defiantly resolute forces. So e...

Giorgia Meloni

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:10 GMT

Giorgia Meloni’s ascendancy to the Italian premiership last year sent a shiver down the spines of centrists across the Continent and beyond. Brussels braced for a member of a post-fascist party getting a seat (and a vote) at its top tables, bolstering the ranks of the EU’s problem children. Kyiv prepared for Italy to break from the pack and seek to soften support for Ukraine and wind back Russia sanctions. But a year after becoming the leader of the EU’s third-largest economy, Meloni has defied expectations — and built a significant (if cautious) fan club.Meloni has moved to implement constitutional reforms that would significantly boost prime ministerial powers. And she still throws plenty of red meat to her far-right base: She has banned raves, rails against immigration, ordered local authorities to stop registering same-sex couples as parents, criminalized surrogacy, and introduced a series of policies that were supposed to improve the lot of low-earning women (though there are q...

Elvira Nabiullina

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:10 GMT

Elvira Nabiullina is the top technocrat keeping Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine humming. During the decade she’s sat at the helm of Russia’s central bank, Nabiullina’s hawkish monetary policies have repeatedly saved the ruble and kept the country’s economy afloat. In the process, Putin’s banker, once considered a moderating influence and now his silent enabler, has managed to stave off the effects of unprecedented Western sanctions designed to drain the Kremlin’s coffers, prolonging the war on Ukraine.Nabiullina’s rise was an unlikely one — she is the daughter of blue-collar ethnic Tatars from Ufa, a city in Russia’s Republic of Bashkortostan, more than 1,000 kilometers from Moscow. But from humble beginnings, she became the first woman to run a central bank of a G8 country. She famously saved the Russian economy back in 2014, after Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimea, deftly hiking interest rates and introducing reforms. With the ruble tanking and inflation soaring, Nabiu...

Netanyahu: Don’t accuse me of boosting Hamas with Qatari money

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:10 GMT

Paul Ronzheimer is the deputy editor-in-chief of BILD and a senior journalist reporting for Axel Springer, the parent company of POLITICO.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vehemently denied accusations he allowed Qatar to fund and strengthen the militant group Hamas in order to divide Palestinians into rival political camps, slamming the claims as “ridiculous.”Netanyahu’s opponents in Israel argue his government spent years actively boosting Hamas in Gaza by allowing Qatar to channel hundreds of millions of dollars to the coastal enclave in a risky game of “divide-and-rule,” that was meant to play the Islamist militants from Hamas off against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. “It’s a big lie that I wanted to build [up] Hamas. Ridiculous,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Axel Springer, POLITICO’s parent company. “You don’t go to war three times with Hamas or do major military operations if you want to build up Hamas.”Former Prime M...

Man arrested in Malden in connection with deadly shooting in Manchester, NH

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:10 GMT

A 31-year-old man was arrested in Malden Tuesday in connection with a deadly shooting in Manchester, New Hampshire earlier this month, officials said. New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella and Manchester Police Chief Allen Aldenberg announced the arrest of Giovanne Morris in a joint statement. The arrest, in turn, came 10 days after officials said 42-year-old Carlos Rodriguez was shot near the intersection of Lowell Street and Chestnut Street on Nov. 18 Officials said Manchester police first responded to the area around 1:15 a.m. on Nov. 18 for a report of a motor vehicle accident. Authorities were then called back to the area roughly 45 minutes later for a reported shooting.Officers found Rodriguez injured at the scene and he later died, according to Formella and Aldenberg. An investigation got underway after this shooting. On Tuesday, officials said Morris, a former Manchester resident, was taken into custody in Malden on weapons charges. He was schedule...

Over 1,000 pieces of stolen mail recovered after police pursuit and arrests in Newton/Brookline area

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:10 GMT

A load of stolen mail was recovered by officials earlier this week after what started as a motor vehicle stop in Newton ended with a foot pursuit in Brookline.The Newton Police Department said it was early Monday morning when officers first learned police in Wellesley were pursuing a vehicle allegedly involved in mail theft in the area.According to the department, a Newton officer later saw the suspected vehicle on Route 9 at 4 a.m., leading to a motor vehicle stop around Hammond Pond Parkway.It was during the stop that police said the vehicle fled “at a high rate of speed towards Brookline,” according to the Newton PD Facebook page.“A short time later, the same NPD officer located the suspect vehicle crashed on Newton St. in Brookline,” the department said.A foot pursuit followed the discovery, and after an investigation, police said two adult males, Yasser Teixeira Mendonca of New York and Dahshein Karon Perry of Mass., were arrested on a charge of Receivin...