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UK evacuates diplomats from Sudan; other countries also moving to withdraw staff

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 06:59:37 GMT

The U.K. said it has evacuated its embassy staff and their families from Sudan, while France and other countries were moving to withdraw diplomats on Sunday, amid continuing battles between rival military factions in the African country.The moves come after U.S. troops airlifted American embassy staff out of Khartoum over the weekend.A “complex and rapid evacuation” of British diplomats and their families from Sudan has been completed by the U.K. armed forces, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wrote on Twitter Sunday afternoon.France’s ministry of foreign affairs and its defense ministry said they are coordinating a “rapid evacuation operation for our diplomatic personnel and nationals in Sudan, in conjunction with all stakeholders and our European and allied partners.” The operation includes “nationals of these states” and European diplomatic personnel, the ministries said. U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement that Washington is “temporaril...

Frog fair in France fires fury of environmentalists

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 06:59:37 GMT

French people love to eat frogs — or so the stereotype goes. But one fair in the city of Vittel in eastern France has gone too far, environmentalists warn, with visitors being slated to consume some 7 metric tons of frog legs over one single weekend.The cause for concerns centers around how most of the frogs the thousands of visitors get to taste are imported from easterly locales, environmentalists said.“For this event alone, up to 350,000 frogs are caught, especially in Indonesia and Turkey, where frog populations are already in alarming decline,” Charlotte Nithart, of French nongovernmental organization Robin des Bois, said in a statement. “In the EU, such a nature looting coupled with such cruel killing methods would not be allowed, so the logical consequence must be to stop imports.”Sandra Altherr from the German group Pro Wildlife said in the same statement that it was an unnecessary practice. “Do the visitors know that for their snacks, frogs are amputated alive on the...

Driver rescued from car sliding down embankment in Falmouth

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 06:59:37 GMT

A car crash early Saturday morning in Falmouth left the vehicle in an unstable position, hanging partially over an embankment. The driver exited the car, but then slid about thirty feet further down the embankment, according to the Falmouth Fire Department.Crews were on the scene around 5:15 Saturday morning at Highland Circle in Hatchville and had to call in additional help to secure the vehicle. Once the car wouldn’t slide down, the driver was extracted and transported to the hospital with minor injuries.The Falmouth Police Department is investigating the cause of the crash.

Local researchers searching for the secret to a long life

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 06:59:37 GMT

The secret to a long life might be living in the cells of an exceptional group of people. That’s what researchers from Tufts and Boston University Medical Schools say after an extensive study of centenarians – or people who live to be 100 years old and beyond.“This is a rare population of individuals,” Dr. Tanya Karagiannis said.Karagiannis says her team’s work has shown that centenarians don’t just avoid disease as they age. “They have a greater exposure to infections and are able to maintain highly functional and robust immune responses,” Dr. Karagiannis said.The findings of the study support the team’s initial assumptions about centenarians and their immune cells, but their research hasn’t pinpointed why this is the case. “We don’t understand the reason behind this, but it supports the idea that centenarians have protective factors that help them recover from infections,” she said.Dr. Karagiannis says that this information could one day be crucia...

Police: Driver fled traffic stop, crashed into home in Townsend

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 06:59:37 GMT

A 46-year-old New Hampshire man is facing criminal charges after police say he was impaired behind the wheel when he fled a traffic stop and crashed into a home in Townsend on Saturday.An officer who tried to stop a speeding driver in a Buick Encore, later identified as Dennis Legere, of Mason, New Hampshire, around 5 a.m. said the driver sped away and later crashed into a home at 14 Elm St., according to police.Images from the scene showed fire crews repairing damage to the home.Legere was taken to the hospital to be treated for injuries sustained in the crash before being released to police.He was arrested on several charges and it was determined he was wanted by Leominster Police on unrelated charges. 

Victor Oladipo injury a sobering moment for Heat amid surprise playoff lead vs. Bucks

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 06:59:37 GMT

Buildings don’t go silent when the home team is winning by 25 late in the fourth quarter. Teammates aren’t cursing and burying heads in towels when they are about to take a 2-1 lead in an NBA best-of-seven opening-round playoff series over the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed.That’s how you knew that something was wrong, very wrong, when Miami Heat guard Victor Oladipo crumpled to the court with 3:56 left in Saturday night’s 121-99 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks at Kaseya Center.His career derailed numerous times since he ruptured a quadriceps tendon in his right knee while with the Indiana Pacers in January 2019, Oladipo was assisted off the court with the help of teammates and training staff with what appeared to be a significant knee injury.It was a sobering moment on what should have been a celebratory night.“It’s tough, man,” said guard Duncan Robinson, visibly shaken by the injury. “Obviously it’s a mix of emotions, ...

Column: A marquee pitching matchup Sunday at Wrigley Field, Patrick Wisdom versus ‘Kong’ and other baseball thoughts

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 06:59:37 GMT

A smorgasbord of baseball for a lazy Sunday on the couch.Marquee mattersIf you grew up watching Bob Gibson and Fergie Jenkins duel at Wrigley Field, you should love watching Los Angeles Dodgers star Clayton Kershaw face off Sunday afternoon against the Chicago Cubs’ Marcus Stroman.Kershaw won his 200th game Tuesday and has one of the top winning percentages in major-league history. Stroman has allowed only two earned runs over 24 innings in four starts for a 0.75 ERA.Marquee matchups such as Stroman-Kershaw are what MLB needs but doesn’t know how to market.When Kerry Wood faced Roger Clemens on June 7, 2003, the Wrigley Field marquee simply read “Wood vs. Clemens” instead of Cubs vs. Yankees. That was the definition of a marquee matchup.The juicy Stroman-Kershaw matchup is what MLB should be marketing instead of promoting the success of the new pitch clock like it saved the game.“It’s always good to see marquee starters go head-to-head,” Dod...

Howie Carr: They don’t make mobsters like Zip Connolly anymore

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 06:59:37 GMT

John “Zip” Connolly is apparently one of those hoodlums who cares what his obituary says about him after he’s dead and gone.At age 82, the infamous ex-FBI agent seems obsessed with clearing at least one indelible stain off his remarkably squalid (even by Boston G-man standards) underworld career.He’d prefer not to have “Mob hitman” in the first sentence of his death notice. There’s not much he can do about the racketeering conviction, or all his tawdry connections to the Bulger Crime Family.But “Mob hitman” is a bit much.Sadly, Zip has failed yet again to remove “assassin” from his c.v., after a pathetically feeble attempt in Florida to clear his name.A state appeals court in Florida this month denied Zip “post-conviction relief” from his second-degree murder conviction. He was found guilty of setting up the 1982 gangland hit on a Boston businessman who was preparing to testify against Zip and his serial-killing, cocaine-dealing gangland bosses, Whitey Bulger and Stevie Flemmi.Zip r...

‘People are suffering’: Food stamp woes worsen Alaska hunger

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 06:59:37 GMT

EAGLE RIVER, Alaska (AP) — Thousands of Alaskans who depend on government assistance have waited months for food stamp benefits, exacerbating a long-standing hunger crisis worsened by the pandemic, inflation and the remnants of a typhoon that wiped out stockpiles of fish and fishing equipment. The backlog, which began last August, is especially concerning in a state where communities in far-flung areas, including Alaska Native villages, are often not connected by roads. They must have food shipped in by barge or airplane, making the cost of even basic goods exorbitant. Around 13% of the state’s roughly 735,000 residents received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — or SNAP — in July, before the troubles began. “People are struggling and having to make choices of getting food or getting heating fuel,” said Daisy Lockwood Katcheak, city administrator in Stebbins, an Alaska Native village of 634 people, more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage. ...

GOP lawmakers push for state control of St. Louis police

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 06:59:37 GMT

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Ten years after gaining local control of its police for the first time since the Civil War, the city of St. Louis has more murders than ever before — and Missouri’s Republican lawmakers are again pressuring for a state takeover of the police force. The debate over policing power in St. Louis — a racially diverse, heavily Democratic city long vexed by violent crime — carries political and racial overtones like those that have roiled other cities and states this year. But data suggest neither state nor local control may make much difference when it comes to stemming homicides.“Lots of things matter a whole lot more, like widespread social unrest, the economy crashing, that sort of thing,” said Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who analyzed the city’s crime statistics.With violent crime troubling many large cities, Republicans nationwide have pushed a tough-on-crime agenda that would make it harder for the ...