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Poor water quality halts Paris Olympics swimming test event in the Seine

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:43 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Paris Olympics organizers and other officials canceled a paratriathlon swimming test event Saturday in the Seine River because of new concerns about water quality.The competition was transformed into a duathlon instead, involving just running and biking. The cancellation is a fresh blow both to organizers of the 2024 Summer Games and to the city’s ambitions to reopen the iconic river to public swimming after next year’s Olympics.Swimmers took to the Seine in competition on Thursday and Friday, but results of water quality tests showed “significant discrepancies” in the hours leading up to Saturday’s events, organizers said in a statement.It said officials from World Triathlon, the Paris Olympics, Paris City Hall and the Paris region jointly decided to cancel Saturday’s events “as a measure of precaution, to not put the health and safety of the athletes in danger.”A previous test event had to be canceled earlier his month because heavy rain had caused overflows of untrea...

El huracán Hilary provoca una advertencia histórica de tormenta tropical para California mientras el suroeste se prepara para lluvias peligrosas e inundaciones

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:43 GMT

(CNN) — Los residentes del suroeste se preparan para fuertes lluvias e inundaciones potencialmente catastróficas, ya que se espera que el huracán Hilary azote la región como una tormenta tropical rara a partir de este domingo y hasta la próxima semana.Hilary sigue siendo un huracán de categoría 4 mientras avanza hacia la costa de la península de Baja California en México con vientos sostenidos de 209 km/h, según el Centro Nacional de Huracanes. Se espera que su núcleo pase cerca de la península este sábado por la noche y luego se debilite hasta convertirse en una tormenta tropical a medida que cruza hacia EE.UU. y el sur de California.La amenaza ha desencadenado la primera advertencia de tormenta tropical de California que se extiende desde la frontera sur del estado hasta el norte de Los Ángeles.Trayectoria del huracán Hilary en vivo: dónde está en tiempo real y a dónde se dirigeSe pronostica que el suroeste verá fuertes lluvias hasta principios de la próxima semana, con las ...

Michigan becomes latest state to open up Baby Cafe, a community support for mothers

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:43 GMT

LANSING, Mich. (WSVN) – Mothers across the U.S. are getting a new way to access breastfeeding support thanks to a quickly growing national non-profit organization. The most recent location opened its doors in Michigan last week.Welcoming a new life into the world can come with a lot of new challenges.“There’s different obstacles that moms go through, so we know that it takes a village. It takes community support,” said Laurel McCamman, a supervisor at Maternal Child Health. And now that support is available after the grand opening of Baby Cafe near Lansing, Michigan. Their meetings come with food, a variety of educational topics and a monthly party.“And our babies get to play and socialize together, and just support for breastfeeding,” said Morgan Smith, a mother who attended Baby Cafe. “I would want a new mom to know, that our group is here to support her and help with all phases of like a baby, you know, there are new moms that are here an...

‘Zoo Pals’ plates return after almost 10 years of being discontinued

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:43 GMT

Household company Hefty is bringing back an old-time favorite — Zoo Pals plates.The plates were a lunchtime staple back in the 2000s and early 2010s but were discontinued in 2014.The 10 colorful fun characters that serve as disposable plates will be sold exclusively online.They are available in packs of 20 and 15.

Trader Joe’s crackers recalled because they might contain metal

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:43 GMT

New York (CNN) — Trader Joe’s is recalling a type of cracker because the crackers might contain metal, marking the second significant recall the budget grocer has made in recent weeks because of foreign objects in their food.The company announced a recall Thursday for its multigrain crackers with sunflower and flax seeds due to possible metal contamination.“Best if used by” dates on the back of the recalled boxes are from March 1, 2024 to March 5, 2024.“No injuries have been reported to date, and all potentially affected product has been removed from sale and destroyed,” the company said in a statement.Affected customers are told to discard the boxes or return them to a Trader Joe’s for a full refund.Trader Joe’s recently issued a recall for two types of cookies because they might contain rocks.

These children’s beds are being recalled due to strangulation and death risks, consumer watchdog says

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:43 GMT

(CNN) — Parents may want to check their children’s rooms for a recalled bed with hazards that could potentially kill, according to a product safety commission.Around 7,450 Zipadee Kids convertible house bed frames and Montessori floor beds, manufactured by Ohio-based Bell Station Interiors – which does business as Zipadee Kids – were recalled for a “serious entrapment hazard” that can lead to strangulation or death in children, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a federal agency.The entrapment risk comes from the spacing of the beds’ spindles, according to a Thursday news release from the CPSC. The bed’s design “allows a child’s torso to slip through the rail opening but will not allow their head to pass, posing entrapment and strangulation hazards that could result in death,” the release said.At least two children have been entrapped in the bed rails, including a 21-month-old boy and a 4-year-old girl. The boy was not injured and the girl sustained ...

Trump’s lies tested limits of the bully pulpit. His right to say them is at core of criminal defense

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:43 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama, mindful of the urgent power of a president’s words, liked to say he was guarded with his language because anything he said could send troops marching or markets tumbling.His successor, Donald Trump, showed no such restraint.Now Trump is facing dozens of criminal charges in four separate indictments, two ofthem anchored in the Republican’s lie that he did not lose the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden. And Trump’s propensity for falsehoods and his right to utter them are at the core of his legal defense.Though the U.S. presidency is vested with many overt powers, one of the most important is implicit — the power of rhetoric. It is used often as a call to action, to rally Americans for a mission abroad, to comfort a grieving public after tragedy or to sacrifice for a greater good. “Scholars like me who study presidential rhetoric, presidential communication, they call it essentially a second Constitution,” said Jennifer ...

Officials commemorate 20th anniversary of deadly attack on UN headquarters in Iraq

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:43 GMT

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi and United Nations officials on Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of a deadly attack on the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad. The Aug. 19, 2003, truck bomb attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, which housed the U.N. headquarters in Iraq at the time, killed 22 U.N. staff including the head, Sergio Vieira de Mello, a rising U.N. star. It was the deadliest attack against U.N. staff in its history.The attack came in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled the dictator, Saddam Hussein, but unleashed an insurgency and years of brutal civil war in the country.At the commemoration ceremony held Saturday at the site of the attack, which has since been converted into a rehabilitation center for people struggling with addiction, the head of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said that the “wounds created by the 2003 attack – and the violence that came after it – run deep” and “may never fully heal.”But Hennis-Plasschaert pointed...

One of the Egyptian activists behind the 2011 uprising freed from prison after presidential pardon

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:43 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — One of the Egyptian activists behind the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak walked free from prion Saturday following a presidential pardon after spending nearly 10 years behind bars.Authorities released prominent activist Ahmed Douma from a prison complex outside Cairo where he was serving a 15-year sentence after being convicted of taking part in clashes between protesters and security forces in the Egyptian capital in December 2011, according to rights lawyer Khaled Ali.“Douma is free,” Ali wrote on Facebook. He posted a photo showing the activist along with former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi outside the Badr prison complex.The nearly weeklong clashes that left some 40 people dead erupted after mostly young activists took to the streets to protest the post-Mubarak political transition overseen by the military. The riot involved a fire that gutted parts of a library housing rare manuscripts and books. Other government buildings, inclu...

Heritage Minister urges Meta to end ‘reckless’ news block as thousands flee wildfires

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:55:43 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada’s Heritage Minister is calling on Meta to allow people to share news articles on Facebook and Instagram as thousands flee wildfires that have devoured homes in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories.Pascale St-Onge says Meta’s decision to continue blocking Canadian news articles on its two massive platforms is “reckless.”In a Friday post to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, she said those threatened by the out-of-control fires need more access to news about what’s happening.St-Onge is calling on Meta to reinstate news sharing immediately, “for the safety of Canadians facing this emergency.”British Columbia and Northwest Territories have declared states of emergencies as raging forest fires encroach on cities including West Kelowna, B.C., and the territorial capital of Yellowknife.Meta blocked Canadian news on its social media sites earlier this month in response to federal legislation requiring s...