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What is it about Austin? Simply put, this ‘weird’ Texas city has it all

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:02:55 GMT

Patti Nickell | Tribune News Service (TNS)For a whale-watching cruise there’s Boston, for a dolphin-watching cruise, Miami, but for a bat-watching cruise, go to Austin, Texas.From late spring to early fall, 1.5 million freetail Mexican bats take off nightly from their hangout (literally) under the Congress Avenue Bridge in search of food.Onlookers line the bridge spanning Lady Bird Lake, but cruise boats dedicated to bat watching will get you closer to the action — too close and you may even leave with an unwanted souvenir in the form of bat poop.Weird? Maybe, but so is Austin. It has officially been so since 2000 when a local businessman called an Austin radio station to promote one-of-a-kind businesses.What resulted was an obsession with all things local and a slogan, “Keep Austin Weird.” (For those touting Portland as the slogan’s originator, that city’s claim to weirdness came in 2003. But it gets credit for knowing a good idea when it heard one.)Austin is on everyone’s radar th...

US imposes sanctions on Sudanese paramilitary leader for human rights abuses in monthslong conflict

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:02:55 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — The United States imposed sanctions Wednesday on Sudanese paramilitary commander Abdel-Rahim Hamdan Dagalo for acts of violence and human rights abuses committed by his troops in their monthslong conflict with Sudan’s army. The U.S. Treasury said in a statement that it had sanctioned Abdel-Rahim — a senior military commander and brother of Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who is the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces — accusing him of leading a group of soldiers responsible for “the massacre of civilians, ethnic killings, and use of sexual violence.”Sudan plunged into chaos almost five months ago when long-simmering tensions between the military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the RSF escalated into open warfare.According to Wednesday’s statement, the sanctions will block all U.S. property and entities owned by Abdel-Rahim. They are the first sanctions targeting an individual and made public by the U.S. since the conflict broke out. U.S. Secretary of...

Moroccan senate president delays historic trip to Israel due to illness and says he will return

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:02:55 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Morocco’s senate president has postponed a historic visit to Israel due to a medical emergency, the Israeli parliament announced Wednesday.The announcement came just a day before Enaam Mayara was scheduled to visit Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, on a trip aimed at cementing the fledgling ties between the two countries. Mayara was to be the first Moroccan official and one of the few Muslim leaders ever to set foot in the Knesset. The parliament had planned to greet him with a red carpet and a ceremonial guard of honor. Israel and Morocco fully normalized relations as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords, a series of diplomatic agreements between Israel and four Arab countries brokered by then-President Donald Trump. The Knesset issued a statement late Wednesday saying that Mayara had been hospitalized during a stop in neighboring Jordan. He was forced to reschedule his Israel trip and call off a visit earlier in the day to the Palestinian government in the ...

Lawyers claim cable TV and phone companies are also responsible in Maui fires

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:02:55 GMT

HONOLULU (AP) — After a visit to a warehouse where Hawaiian Electric Company is housing power poles and electrical equipment that may be key to the investigation of last month’s devastating fires on Maui, lawyers for Lahaina residents and business owners told a court Tuesday that cable TV and telephone companies share responsibility for the disaster because they allegedly overloaded and destabilized some of the poles.The lawyers said the cables were attached in a way that put too much tension on the poles, causing them to lean and break in the winds on Aug. 8 when flames burned down much of Lahaina, killing at least 115 people and destroying more than 2,000 structures. LippSmith LLP has filed a proposed class action against Hawaii’s electric utility and Maui County in state court in Hawaii. Attorney Graham LippSmith is now asking the court to add multiple telecommunications companies and public and private landowners to the original suit.“In a disaster of this magnitude, it ta...

A football coach who got job back after Supreme Court ruled he could pray on the field has resigned

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:02:55 GMT

BREMERTON, Wash. (AP) — A high school football coach in Washington state who won his job back after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled he could pray on the field resigned Wednesday after just one game back. Assistant Bremerton High School coach Joe Kennedy made the announcement on his website, citing several reasons, including that he needed to care for an ailing family member out of state. He had been living full-time in Florida before the football season started last Friday.“I believe I can best continue to advocate for constitutional freedom and religious liberty by working from outside the school system so that is what I will do,” Kennedy wrote. “I will continue to work to help people understand and embrace the historic ruling at the heart of our case.”In a statement, the Bremerton School District confirmed Kennedy had submitted his resignation. School officials declined to comment on his exit, saying they would not issue any further statements, as the resignation is a personnel matte...

Hollywood readies for a season with stars on the sidelines

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:02:55 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood is at a standstill. Actors and screenwriters are months into a dual strike. Film sets are dark. But the movies are still coming — or, at least, most of them. Even if that means some potentially solitary red-carpet walks.“I’m hoping I’m not promoting the movie by myself,” says Nia DaCosta, director of the upcoming Marvel movie “The Marvels” (Nov. 10). “No one’s there to see me, either. They’re going to be like, ‘Where’s Brie Larson?’”Though the ongoing actors and screenwriters strikes are casting a pall over the fall movie season and prompting some films to postpone, a parade of awards contenders and autumn blockbusters are on the way, nevertheless.The fall has long been the preferred domain of filmmakers and auteurs, but this year that’s doubly so. With cast members largely prevented from promotion duties, directors — whether helming an Oscar shoo-in or superhero blockbuster — are carrying the load, albeit very reluctantly.“I think we’re now in a new ...

SafeSport Center ‘in potential crisis’ according to panel’s survey of Olympic system

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:02:55 GMT

A wide-ranging survey into the state of the U.S. Olympic system leveled criticism at the U.S. Center for SafeSport, with a draft report concluding that feedback collected about the 6-year-old agency “paints a picture of a center in potential crisis.”SafeSport Center CEO Ju’Riese Colon was among the Olympic leaders who testified Wednesday at a hearing held by the Congressionally appointed Commission on the State of the U.S. Olympics and Paralympics that produced the survey — a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press — that will be used to craft recommendations for possible changes to the Olympic system.Colon painted an overall positive picture of the Denver-based center that Congress formed in 2017 to deal with abuse allegations in Olympic sports. She pointed to the 1,900 people who have been sanctioned and listed on the center’s disciplinary database. “And we have pioneered a shift to a safer sports culture over the last six years,” she said at the hearing in Washington.H...

Pennsylvania inmate escaped by climbing up a wall and over razor wire, prison official says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:02:55 GMT

WEST CHESTER, Pa. (AP) — Convicted murderer Danelo Cavalcante was able to escape a prison yard in suburban Pennsylvania last week by climbing up a wall and over razor wire, officials said at a news conference Wednesday.Howard Holland, the acting warden of the prison, said there was a guard in an observation tower who has since been put on administrative leave. Two suburban Philadelphia school districts remained shuttered and one of the nation’s premier botanical gardens was closed Wednesday as authorities worked to flush out the fugitive.Cavalcante, 34, has been spotted five times since he escaped Thursday from the Chester County Prison. The most recent sighting came Monday night at Longwood Gardens, where trail surveillance video captured him walking through the area with a duffel bag, backpack and hooded sweatshirt he apparently stole while on the run. That sighting led officials to move the search area farther south on Tuesday after they determined that Cavalcante had likely slip...

Bryant Gumbel’s ‘Real Sports,’ HBO’s longest-running show, will end after 29 seasons

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:02:55 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Bryant Gumbel’s “Real Sports” newsmagazine on HBO will end its run after 29 seasons on the air, the network said on Wednesday.The show has been like a “60 Minutes” of sports, taking a look at social and economic issues beyond the games, and has won 37 Sports Emmy Awards. Gumbel, 74, won a lifetime achievement award at the Sports Emmys earlier this year.During one season for which “Real Sports” won a Peabody Award, some of its stories included looks into football head injuries and athletes who came out as gay, as well as investigations into the hazing death of a college drum major and a deadly plane crash involving a pro hockey team in Russia.“We’ve had the opportunity to to tell complex stories about race, gender, class, opportunity and so much more,” Gumbel said. “Being able to do so at HBO for almost three decades has been very gratifying. I’m proud of the imprint we’ve made, so I’m ready to turn the page. Although goodbyes are never e...

Freddie Mercury bangle sets record for rock star jewelry in auction of his prized possessions

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:02:55 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A Victorian-style silver snake bangle Freddie Mercury wore with an ivory satin catsuit in the “Bohemian Rhapsody” video sold Wednesday for the highest price ever paid at auction for a piece of jewelry owned by a rock star as the late Queen front man’s most prized possessions were sold, Sotheby’s said.The bracelet went for 698,500 pounds ($881,000) — 100 times its estimated low price — as the singer and songwriter’s flamboyant stage costumes, handwritten drafts to hits such as “We are the Champions” and the baby grand piano he composed Queen’s greatest hits on went up for sale.The item broke a record set when John Lennon’s leather and bead talisman sold for 295,000 pounds ($368,000) in 2008, Sotheby’s said.The auction opened with the sale of the graffiti-tagged door to the garden of Mercury’s home rapidly blowing past the high estimate of 25,000 pounds ($31,250) projected before the sale. The green door covered in hand-painted love notes fr...