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Offshore drilling rig arrives in Lebanese waters ahead of work near the border with Israel

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:39:58 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — An offshore drilling rig arrived at its destination in the Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon’s coast and will start operations in the coming weeks to search for gas, cabinet ministers said Wednesday.The rig is expected to begin drilling this month in Lebanese waters near the border with Israel after the two countries reached a deal last year on their maritime border. Lebanon and Israel have formally been at war since Israel’s creation in 1948.Cash-strapped Lebanon hopes that future gas discoveries will help the small Mideast nation pull itself out of the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history.Caretaker Minister of Transport Ali Hamie wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the rig arrived Wednesday morning at the location where it is scheduled to begin work. The rig faces the southern port city of Tyre.“We hope that Lebanon will become an oil state,” Lebanon’s Energy Minister Walid Fayyad told reporters in Beirut, adding that the results...

5 French tourists and 1 Swiss arrested for the gang rape of a young British woman in Spain

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:39:58 GMT

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spanish Civil Guard police said Wednesday they have arrested five French tourists and one Swiss tourist for allegedly raping an 18-year-old British woman on the island of Mallorca. The rape allegedly happened early Monday in Magaluf, a tourist spot in the town of Calvià, a very popular party destination for young tourists. A judge in Palma, the main city in Mallorca, found there were video clips of the alleged rape on at least one of the suspects’ phones, police said.The police press office in Mallorca cited the alleged victim’s statement as saying she met the suspected rapists Monday night and later went to one of the hotel room of one of the suspects, where she was allegedly sexually assaulted by the six.Civil Guard showed up at the hotel after receiving a phone call from the hotel’s security staff who found the young woman crying in desperation. Police detained the suspects shortly after. All of them are over 20 years of age.The alleged victim ...

Federal grants will replace tunnels beneath roads that let water pass but not fish

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:39:58 GMT

The Biden administration on Wednesday announced nearly $200 million in federal infrastructure grants to upgrade tunnels that carry streams beneath roads but can be deadly to fish that get stuck trying to pass through.Many of these narrow passages known as culverts, often made from metal or concrete, were built in the 1950s and are blamed in part for declining populations of salmon and other fish that live in the ocean but return to freshwater streams to spawn.By extension, fisheries — including tribal-run operations in the Pacific Northwest — have experienced losses they blame in part on such barriers as culverts and dams.“We inherited a lot of structures that were built in a way that just did not properly contemplate the effect they were having on fish,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview with The Associated Press. “You don’t have to be a fish enthusiast or ecologist to care about this. It’s very important for the livelihoods, economies and way of lif...

Indonesia’s leader says it can join leading economies by 2045 if it continues educational reforms

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:39:58 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s president on Wednesday urged a continuation of his educational reforms to turn Southeast Asia’s largest economy into one of the world’s biggest by its hundredth anniversary in 2045.President Joko Widodo said in his annual state of the nation speech a day before Indonesia celebrates its 78th year of independence that it has a great chance of joining the globe’s top five economies with a per capital income of $25,000. Indonesia’s per capita income was $4,580 in 2022, according to the World Bank.Indonesia proclaimed its independence from Dutch colonial rule on Aug. 17, 1945. To achieve its goal of “2045 Golden Indonesia” will require a major reform of its education and vocational institutions, Widodo said.National elections are set for Feb. 14 and political speculation and gossip have been swirling ahead of the campaign, which begins in November. Campaigns are often marred by political smearing but are mostly peaceful.“We are now entering a p...

Edmunds: Tesla wins the EV charge plug format war

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:39:58 GMT

You’re probably familiar with previous technology format wars, whether it be VHS versus Betamax or Blu-ray versus HD DVD. Now another has quickly brewed in the way people plug in and charge their electric vehicles. It’s a battle of CCS versus NACS, and the winning format has a familiar backer: Tesla. Edmunds’ experts break down what EV owners need to know about the format changes.THE COMPETING FORMATSThe majority of electric vehicles, or EVs, currently have one of two types of plug styles to connect to public fast-charging stations. The first is called the Combined Charging System, or CCS. It’s used on nearly all EVs except Tesla vehicles. The other is the North American Charging Standard, or NACS. All Tesla vehicles have this style plug.These two formats currently coexist independently without much issue. If you own a Tesla, you’ll typically stop at a Tesla Supercharger station that has NACS. For other EVs, you’ll use third-party stations with the CCS-style plug.But in May, Ford ma...

Lithuania to temporarily close two checkpoints with Belarus amid tensions on border

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:39:58 GMT

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Lithuania on Wednesday decided to temporarily close two of its six checkpoints with Belarus later this week amid growing tensions with its eastern neighbor, an ally of Russia.The Lithuanian government has said that the crossings at Tverecius and Sumskas will be closed, and traffic will be diverted to the Medininkai border checkpoint, which is the largest of Lithuania’s six checkpoints.The decision came as Lithuanians grow increasingly worried about the presence of Russia-linked Wagner group mercenaries in Belarus.“The main goal is to temporarily suspend operations at these two points from Aug. 18,” Deputy Minister of Transport Agnė Vaiciukeviciūte said, adding that the move offered the possibility of directing officers performing border control checks to other points.Lithuania, a Baltic nation that declared its independence from the Soviet Union 33 years ago, is a democracy that belongs to NATO and the European Union. It has been a strong backer of Ukraine ...

Survivors of Maui fires face power cuts and poor cell service as teams work to find and ID the dead

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:39:58 GMT

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Survivors of deadly wildfires on Maui contended with intermittent power and unreliable cell service as they sought help rebuilding their lives. Experts, meanwhile, labored to find the dead and identify them.With the death toll already at 106, a mobile morgue unit with additional coroners arrived in Hawaii on Tuesday to help with the grim task of sorting through remains. The governor warned that a new storm could complicate the search and recovery.A week after a wildfire all but incinerated the historic town of Lahaina, communication on the island was still difficult. Some people walked periodically to a seawall, where phone connections were strongest, to make calls. Flying low off the coast, a single-prop airplane used a loudspeaker to blare information about where to get water and supplies.Thousands of people are staying in shelters, in hotel rooms and Airbnb units, or with friends. Around 2,000 homes and businesses still don’t have electricity, Maui County w...

Intel calls off $5.4b Tower deal after failing to obtain regulatory approvals

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:39:58 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — Intel will terminate a $5.4 billion deal to acquire Israeli chip manufacturer Tower Semiconductor after China failed to sign off on the deal amid rising tensions with the United States. It was a mutual decision between Intel and Tower, the companies said Wednesday. Intel said that the deal was terminated “due to the inability to obtain in a timely manner the regulatory approvals required under the merger agreement.”Intel Corp. will pay Tower a termination fee of $353 million, the U.S. semiconductor giant said.The deal required regulatory approval from several regulators worldwide including China, but Chinese regulators did not greenlight the deal by the Aug. 15 transaction deadline, even after Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger traveled to China last month in a bid to win them over.The scuttled deal between the two companies comes amid increasing U.S.-China tensions, particularly as the U.S. has tightened export controls and imposed restrictions aimed at crippling China’s ...

Czechs ratify defense treaty with US that makes it easier to deploy US troops in Czech territory

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:39:58 GMT

PRAGUE (AP) — The Czech Republic on Wednesday completed the ratification of a defense treaty with the United States that deepens military cooperation and makes it easier to deploy U.S. troops in Czech territory.Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s signature was the final step in the ratification process of the Defense Cooperation Agreement, which had been endorsed by both houses of Parliament in July and by President Petr Pavel on Aug 1.The document sets a legal framework for possible deployment of U.S. troops in the country at a time of Russian aggression against Ukraine.Czech Defense Minister Jana Cernochova signed the treaty together with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Washington, D.C. on May 23. The U.S. has similar agreements with 24 other NATO members, including Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria that form the eastern flank of the alliance.Any deployment of U.S. forces would still need approval by the Czech government and Par...

3 ways to stretch your dollar on a European vacation in 2023

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:39:58 GMT

European travel is — by some metrics — bigger this year than it was pre-pandemic. In the first six months of 2023, 43% more Americans flew to Europe compared to the same period in 2022 and 4% more than the same period in 2019. Those figures come from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration, or ITA, data.While bigger crowds generally mean higher prices, there’s another reason why travelers should brace for European travel to be expensive this year: inflation. Soaring inflation has, by some metrics, hit harder in Europe than in the U.S.The yearly rate of inflation in the U.S. rose 3% in June 2023, according to May consumer price index data. But in the European Union, the annual inflation rate rose 6.4% in June 2023, according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.So while you should expect European travel to be expensive and crowded this year, a few strategies can make a European vacation more affordable.1. SAVE MONEY BY LOOKING TO SECO...