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North Macedonia: 3 migrants and suspected smuggler injured

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:19:26 GMT

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — Three migrants and a suspected smuggler were seriously injured in North Macedonia when a car that police were pursuing overturned early Sunday, authorities said. Police said the car was carrying 11 migrants, five from Pakistan, three from India and three from Afghanistan, when it overturned on a highway near the town of Veles. Officers chased the car after it failed to stop at a police signal, according to a police statement. Police identified the suspected smuggler as a 27-year-old Macedonian national. He and three of the passengers were taken to a hospital, but their injuries were not considered life-threatening, and the Macedonian man was later arrested, the statement said. The other migrants, who were believed to have entered the country from Greece, were transferred to a shelter in the southern border town of Gevgelija pending deportation back to Greece. Migration along what is known as Europe’s Balkan route has picked up since travel restri...

Yellen: No federal bailout for collapsed Silicon Valley Bank

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:19:26 GMT

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that the federal government would not bail out Silicon Valley Bank, but is working to help depositors who are concerned about their money.The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures deposits up to $250,000, but many of the companies and wealthy people who used the bank — known for its relationships with technology startups and venture capital — had more than that amount in their account. There are fears that some workers across the country won’t receive their paychecks. Yellen, in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” provided few details on the government’s next steps. But she emphasized that the situation was much different from the financial crisis almost 15 years ago, which led to bank bailouts to protect the industry. “We’re not going to do that again,” she said. “But we are concerned about depositors, and we’re focused on trying to meet their needs.”With Wall Street ratt...

US calls Iran’s prisoner swap claim a ‘cruel lie’

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:19:26 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s top diplomat claimed Sunday that a prisoner swap was near with the U.S., though he offered no evidence to support his assertion. The U.S. immediately dismissed his comments as a “cruel lie.”Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has made similar comments in the past about possible deals with the U.S. on frozen assets abroad and other issues that never came to fruition. Some of those remarks have appeared aimed at shoring up domestic support amid the mass protests challenging Iran’s theocracy and supporting the country’s troubled rial currency.However, in an interview Sunday with Iranian state television, Amirabdollahian claimed that Iran had “reached an agreement in recent days regarding the exchange of prisoners between Iran and the United States.”“If everything goes well on the American’s side, I think we will see the exchange of prisoners in the short term,” he added. He alleged a document between Iran and the ...

As atmospheric river exits, another awaits to hit California

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:19:26 GMT

WATSONVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Wet, miserable weather continued across huge swaths of California on Sunday as an atmospheric river that caused major flooding flowed eastward and makes way for another onslaught of rain and snow that could yet again pummel the beleaguered region as soon as Monday night.The National Weather Service said the next torrent could exacerbate the severe flooding that overwhelmed the area in the past few days, including a levee failure that prompted widespread evacuations Saturday in farming communities near the state’s Central Coast.Across Monterey County, more than 8,500 people were under evacuation orders and warnings Saturday, including roughly 1,700 residents — many of them Latino farmworkers — from the unincorporated community of Pajaro.The next weather system does not appear to be as powerful as the last one, but weather officials nevertheless cautioned that “considerable flooding” could occur in lower elevations from additional rain and snowmelt tha...

Sunday rain, snow showers across Chicagoland area

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:19:26 GMT

Sunday: Overcast with snow/rain showers. Getting a bit breezy in the afternoon. SSE/SSW 10-20 mph. High: 37 Interactive Radar: Track showers and storm here Sunday night is looking cloudy with a few snow showers & breezy. 1" or less accumulation. W 10-20 mph with a low of 29. We are expecting snow showers Monday and colder weather. WNW 15-25, G30 mph with high of 32.Full forecast details at the WGN Weather CenterWe might have seen some snow but the current ice on the Great Lakes even less this week with only 8.8% surface coverage. Hardly any in Lake MI at all, none on the #Chicago shore where water temps are at 39 degrees.Extended outlook calls for some sunnier days for Tuesday and Wednesday with highs getting on Tuesday into the mid to upper 30s-- and Wednesday into the upper 40s with increasing clouds late in the day. Rain returns on Thursday with some mild temps in the mid to low 50s. Temps crash on Friday with rain/snow showers and temps falling into the 30s in the afternoo...

New study on monkeys using stone tools raises questions about evolution

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:19:26 GMT

(The Hill) – Monkeys in modern-day Thai forests create stone artifacts uncannily similar to those crafted by early humans — challenging the established narrative of human cultural evolution. A new study published on Friday in Science Advances suggests the possibility that a critical hallmark of human tool use happened by accident — potentially blurring the line between tool use by early humans and our primate relatives. The Thai monkeys produced stone artifacts “indistinguishable from what we see at the beginning of the [human] archeological record — what we see as the onset of being human,” said Lydia Luncz of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, a co-author on the study. The monkeys — long-tailed macaques — seem to have made their artifacts by accident, not by design. But in many ways, that only makes the finding more disruptive. Tool use in nonhuman primates is nothing new. Long-tailed macaques — the s...

Academy Awards: Why the Oscar statuette is worth only $1

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:19:26 GMT

(NEXSTAR) – As far as the Academy Awards are concerned, the Oscar statuette is worth roughly the same as a small bag of Funyuns.The 95th Academy Awards are scheduled to take place on March 12, and although the 2023 ceremony will be a bit different than those in recent years (e.g., there will be one host instead of three or none, and Will Smith will be nowhere in attendance), one thing that won’t change much is the Oscar statuette itself. Cast in bronze and finished with gold plating, the award is among the most coveted in the film industry — and the Academy values it at just $1.Of course, the Oscar itself is much more costly to produce. But in the interest in protecting each statuette as an award of merit — rather than a collector’s item to be bought and sold — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) requires that each winner agree to strict rules. One such rule prohibits the recipients or their heirs from selling or disposing of the statuette without first offering ...

Where have all the girls gone?

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:19:26 GMT

Writer and director of the play "Mia Where have all the young girls gone?" Mary Bonnet joins WGN to discuss women's issues ranging from unresolved cases to minority cases that are often left behind.Bonnet's vision for the play was to showcase the struggle of the growing concern of missing women and girls.Love the WGN Morning News? We love you, too. And you can have all the hijinks delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign up and subscribe to our WGN Morning News newsletter.

Spring break: What to know about Mexico's 'do not travel' warnings

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:19:26 GMT

(NEXSTAR) - March is here, which means many Americans are planning spring break trips. Ahead of the busy travel season, the U.S. Department of State is warning about visiting certain vacation hotspots, especially in Mexico. Last month, the State Department issued a Level 4 "do not travel" warning for many parts of Mexico. As of March 9, many of those warnings remain in place. That includes the Guerrero state due to crime, and five states due to crime and kidnapping: Colima, Michoacan, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas (where two Americans were killed earlier this month), and Zacatecas. Can you bring marijuana on a plane through a TSA checkpoint? The State Department advises tourists to “reconsider travel,” a Level 3 warning, to seven more states: Baja California, Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos and Sonora. If you are traveling to popular tourist spots like Cancun or the Riviera Maya (listed as top destinations for 2023 by AAA), the government urges you to “exercise increased c...

Chris Tomasson: Legendary Vikings coach Bud Grant was humble, honest and not that impressed by celebrity

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:19:26 GMT

Bud Grant met six U.S. presidents, was invited once to a reception for Queen Elizabeth II and to a training session for Muhammad Ali.Through it all, Grant never seemed all that impressed with celebrity, including his own. He became instantly recognizable as the iconic coach of the Vikings but was perhaps most happy far from the limelight, hanging out at his cabin in northern Wisconsin, sitting in a deer stand and being out with his loyal hunting dog.Chris TomassonGrant, who coached the Vikings from 1967-83 and in 1985 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1994, died Saturday at age 95. I had the good fortune of talking to him in person and on the phone a number of times.I remember calling Grant after Ali died in June 2016 and asking about the time he met the legendary boxer when he was training for a 1967 fight in Houston. I figured he might have nothing but praise for the three-time heavyweight champion, but that wasn’t the case.“I didn’t like his boasting: ‘I’m th...