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India’s opposition leader Rahul Gandhi condemns the Modi government over violence in Manipur

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:44:00 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s top opposition leader unleashed a strong condemnation Wednesday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for its failure to control bloodshed in a remote northeastern state that he said has been split in two.Rahul Gandhi told Parliament that the army should have been able to stop the bloodshed already. But despite the presence of troops in Manipur, the violence has festered for over three months. More than 150 people have died in Manipur and over 50,000 people have fled in fear since clashes erupted in early May.“The army can restore peace in a day. You are not using the army,” Gandhi said, and called for the firing of the state government run by Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Gandhi, who was reinstated as a lawmaker three days after the country’s top court halted his criminal defamation conviction for mocking the prime minister’s surname, was participating in a debate on a no-confidence motion moved by the opposition against the ...

EU leader visits flood-ravaged Slovenia to discuss help in rebuilding

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:44:00 GMT

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Slovenia on Wednesday to show solidarity and discuss how the EU can help its small member state which was ravaged by recent floods that killed at least six people and caused extensive damage.Von der Leyen met with Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob and visited a flood-hit region in the country.Slovenian officials have described last week’s floods as the worst natural disaster in the country’s 32-year history. Two-thirds of the Alpine state’s territory was affected and the damage could reach billions of euros (dollars), according to officials.Torrential rains caused rivers to overflow, flooding houses and fields, damaging bridges and roads, cutting off entire villages and leaving thousands without electricity and running water. Experts say extreme weather conditions are partly fueled by climate change. Parts of Europe have seen record heat and wildfires this summer.Golob has sai...

Gunmen attack police guarding polio team in northwest Pakistan and kill 1 officer

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:44:00 GMT

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen attacked police officers providing security for polio vaccination workers during a door-to-door campaign in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, killing one of them before fleeing the scene, police said.The attack occurred in Bannu district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on the third day of a weeklong anti-polio drive to vaccinate 2.7 million children in the province, according to Nasit Shah, a local police official.No one has claimed responsibility, but Pakistan’s anti-polio campaigns are regularly marked by violence.Pakistani militants often target polio teams and police assigned to protect them, falsely claiming that vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children. Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two remaining countries in the world where polio is endemic, and Pakistan has said it will continue anti-polio campaigns to ensure the eradication of polio.The Associated Press

Russian officials say 2 drones approaching Moscow were shot down overnight and blame Ukraine

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:44:00 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian air defenses shot down two drones aimed at Moscow overnight, officials said Wednesday, in what they described as Ukraine’s latest attempt to strike the Russian capital in an apparent campaign to unnerve Muscovites and take the war to Russia.The drones were intercepted on their approach to Moscow and there were no casualties, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. The Russian Defense Ministry described it as a “terrorist attack.”One of the drones came down in the Domodedovo district south of Moscow and the other fell near the Minsk highway, west of the city, according to Sobyanin. Domodedovo airport is one of Moscow’s busiest.It was not clear where the drones were launched from, and Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment. Ukraine usually neither confirms nor denies such attacks.Flights were briefly halted at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on July 30 and Aug. 1, when drones smashed into the Moscow City business district after being jammed by air defenses in tw...

Hip-hop and justice: Culture carries the spirit of protest, 50 years and counting

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:44:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — In the early days of hip-hop, plugging turntables into a light post and converting an outdoor basketball court into a discotheque may have seemed like a simple invitation to party.A closer look scene revealed the truth: Hip-hop was a response to social and economic injustice in disregarded neighborhoods, a showcase of joy, ingenuity and innovation despite a lack of wealth and resources.The music emanating from the DJ’s equipment might tell partiers to “move your feet,” and in the very next set, tell them to “fight the power.”Hip-hop has been an integral part of social and racial justice movements. It’s also been scrutinized by law enforcement and political groups because of their belief that hip-hop and its artists’ encourage violent criminality.Whether a warning, a demand or an affirmation, hip-hop culture and, especially, rap music have been mediums for holding the powerful accountable, for delivering lyrical indictments against systemic injustice. Hip-...

Women battle misogyny to send hip-hop spinning in a new direction

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:44:00 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Rasheeda Frost’s decades-long relationship with hip-hop started in 1981. She was a curious, energetic kindergartener — eager to touch and explore anything put in front of her.Rasheeda remembered her mother presenting her with a huge, white box — it was a record player that she would continuously spin, not knowing what its purpose was. Then, she said, her mom gave her a record with a colorful cornucopia printed in the middle: The Sugarhill Gang. “She must’ve just known hip-hop was embedded in me at such a young age,” the MTV “Love and Hip-Hop: Atlanta” reality star said.The then 5-year-old would dance until she couldn’t anymore. “I played that record until I tore it up and scratched up the record.”Frost fell in love with hip-hop. Lyrics, music videos, and magazine covers display a genre that is male-centered and male-dominated. Despite this challenge, Frost took her passion a step further and joined the ranks of female rappers and emcees who battled misogynoir, sexism,...

Niger’s military junta digs in with cabinet appointments and rejects talks

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:44:00 GMT

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — The military junta that seized power in Niger two weeks ago has appointed new cabinet ministers and barred most international meditators from the country as it works to entrench itself in power.The junta’s leaders named a new prime minister Monday, in what analysts described as an attempt to show that they’re serious about governing the West Africa country.They refused to admit mediation teams that were meant to arrive Tuesday, sent by the United Nations, the African Union, and West African regional bloc ECOWAS. The junta cited “evident reasons of security in this atmosphere of menace,” according to a letter seen by The Associated Press. ECOWAS had threatened to use military force if the junta didn’t reinstate the elected president, Mohamed Bazoum by Sunday, a deadline that the junta ignored and which passed without action from ECOWAS. The military leaders chose civilian economist Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine as prime minister. Zeine is a former mi...

How hip-hop went from being shunned by big business to multimillion-dollar collabs

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:44:00 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The signs of hip-hop’s influence are everywhere — from Pharrell Williams becoming Louis Vuitton’s men’s creative director to billion-dollar brands like Dr. Dre’s Beats headphones and retail mainstays like Diddy’s Sean John and Jay-Z’s Rocawear. It didn’t start out that way. The music genre germinated 50 years ago as an escape from the poverty and violence of New York City’s most distressed borough, the Bronx, where few wanted to invest in its businesses or its people. Out of that adversity blossomed an authentic style of expression, one that connected with the city’s underserved Black and Latino teens and young adults, and filtered through to graffiti, dance and fashion. As hip-hop spread throughout New York, so did a culture.“Hip-hop goes beyond the music,” said C. Keith Harrison, a professor and founding director for the University of Central Florida’s Business of Hip-Hop Innovation & Creative Industries certificate program. “Hip-hop always kn...

Eritrea’s repressive government criticizes exiles who attack overseas festivals as ‘asylum scum’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:44:00 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Flaming cars, violent clashes, dozens of people detained. As one of the world’s most repressive countries marks 30 years of independence, festivals held by Eritrea’s diaspora in Europe and North America have been attacked by exiles whom the regime dismisses as “asylum scum.”People who fled the Horn of Africa nation say the violence against festivals in Germany, Sweden and Canada are protests against a repressive government that’s been described as the “North Korea of Africa.” Some allege that proceeds from festivals might support the government.Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Eritrea over the years, many setting off into the deserts of Sudan and then North Africa in attempts to reach Europe. President Isaias Afwerki, 77, has led Eritrea since it won independence from Ethiopia in a long guerrilla war. There have been no elections. There’s no free press. Exit visas are required. Many young people are forced into military service with no end ...

Perseid meteor shower to peak over Austin this weekend

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:44:00 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) - One of the year's biggest meteor showers will providing a show for those celebrating Pride downtown this Saturday night. The Perseid meteor shower occurs every July and August. This year, the celestial event will occur on Saturday, August 12th, wrapping up on the morning of August 13th."Most of the things that we see in the form of meteors in the Earth's atmosphere are basically sand sized to small, small pebbles size," said Anita Cochran, Assistant Director at the University of Texas' McDonald Observatory.During the peak of the meteor shower, 90-to-100 meteors can be spotted every hour, said Lara Eakins, Senior Program Coordinator at UT's Department of Astronomy."Generally speaking, you kind of want to face yourself sort of northeast, because that's where the meteors will appear to come from," Eakins said. She also recommends going to see the meteor shower after midnight. Meteor showers over Texas; how these light shows dazzle every year What is the Perseid Meteor...