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Former Sri Lankan president denies that suicide bombings were staged to enable his election

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:38:54 GMT

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Thursday denied allegations in a British television program that Islamic State-inspired extremists were used to carry out suicide bomb attacks in 2019 to create insecurity in the country and help him win election later that year.“To claim that a group of Islamic extremists launched suicide attacks in order to make me president is absurd,” Rajapaksa said in a public statement, his first since being ousted from power in July last year.He said the documentary on Britain’s Channel 4 television was “mostly an anti-Rajapaksa tirade.”In the program broadcast Tuesday, Channel 4 interviewed a man who said he arranged a meeting between a local Islamic State-inspired extremist group, National Thowheed Jamath, and a top state intelligence official loyal to Rajapaksa to formulate a plot to create instability and enable Rajapaksa to win the presidential election. Rajapaksa, a former senior defense official, was seen...

US applications for unemployment benefits fall to lowest level in 7 months

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:38:54 GMT

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week fell to the lowest level in seven months with labor market seemingly resistent to the higher interest rates put in to place, in part to cool hiring. U.S. applications for jobless claims fell by 13,000 to 216,000 for the week ending Sept. 2, the Labor Department reported Thursday.The four-week moving average of claims, which smooths out some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 8,500 to 229,250.Jobless claim applications are seen as representative of the number of layoffs in a given week.Overall, 1.68 million people were collecting unemployment benefits the week that ended August 26, about 40,000 fewer than the previous week.Matt Ott, The Associated Press

Stock market today: Wall Street futures, global markets decline on weak China export data

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:38:54 GMT

Wall Street is pointing toward a third straight day of losses and global markets are falling as well with more signs of an economic slowdown in China despite efforts by Beijing to turn it around. Futures for the S&P 500 slipped 0.4%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.1%. Nasdaq futures are off 0.8%.China said its exports fell 8.8% in August from a year earlier — a fourth straight monthly decline — while imports were down 7.3%. The declines were smaller than the double-digit drops in July, however, and were better than most forecasts. On Thursday, the U.S. releases data on weekly jobs numbers and an update on mortgage rates arrives midday. Toro, the lawnmower and snowblower maker, reports its latest financial results before the bell, while electronic signature company DocuSign reports after the bell.ChargePoint Holdings, the electric vehicle charging network, fell nearly 11% in premarket after it posted nearly double the loss Wall Street had projected.Artificial intel...

Precision Drilling to buy CWC Energy Services in deal valued at $141M

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:38:54 GMT

CALGARY — Precision Drilling Corp. has signed an agreement to acquire CWC Energy Services Corp. in a deal valued at about $141 million including shares, cash and assumed debt.Precision CEO Kevin Neveu says the deal expands the company’s service business in both Canada and the U.S. with high-quality rigs and field personnel. The acquisition will add 62 marketed service rigs and seven marketed drilling rigs in Canada as well as 11 marketed drilling rigs in the U.S., including seven AC triple rigs. Under the deal, which requires CWC shareholder and other approvals, Precision will pay a total of 947,909 Precision shares and about $14 million in cash while assuming CWC’s outstanding debt.The implied blended offer price works out to 19.7 cents per CWC share based on Precision’s closing price on Sept. 1.CWC shares closed at 20.5 cents on the TSX Venture Exchange on Wednesday.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 7, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:PD, TS...

Germany arrests 2 Syrians, one of them accused of war crimes related to a deadly attack in 2013

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:38:54 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Two Syrian men have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of membership in extremist groups, and one of them is suspected of involvement in a 2013 attack in eastern Syria in which more than 60 Shiite fighters and civilians were killed, prosecutors said Thursday.The suspects, identified only as Amer A. and Basel O. in line with German privacy rules, were arrested on Wednesday, the federal prosecutors’ office said. Both are accused of membership in a foreign terrorist organization — Liwa Jund al Rahman, or Brigade of the Soldiers of the Merciful God, an armed rebel group that prosecutors said Amer A. formed in February 2013 and led.Amer A. is also accused of committing war crimes by means of forced displacement and of membership in the Islamic State group.The war crimes charges relate to a June 2013 attack on Hatla, in Syria’s eastern Deir el-Zour province, that killed about 60 Shiite residents. At the time, the attack underlined the increasingly sectarian na...

Lainey Wilson leads the 2023 Country Music Award nominations for the second year in a row

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:38:54 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It’s another landmark year for breakout country superstar Lainey Wilson, who tops the CMA Awards nominations for the second year in a row.Wilson was a first-time nominee in 2022, which means she’s made history in 2023 — becoming the first and only artist to top the nominations list in her first two appearances on the ballot.Last year, she claimed six nominations. This year, Wilson is up to nine, for album, song, music video, entertainer and female vocalist of the year, as well as two separate nominations in both the single of the year category (for “Heart Like a Truck” and her contributions to HARDY’s “wait in the truck”) and the musical event of the year category (once again for “wait in the truck” and her feature on Jelly Roll ‘s “Save Me.”)She now ties Merle Haggard and Miranda Lambert for scoring nine nominations in one year — just behind Alan Jackson, who set the record at 10 nods in 2002.Wilson is followed by first-time nominee ...

Russia attacks port area of Izmail for 4th time in a week as Blinken visits Ukraine

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:38:54 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked the Ukrainian port city of Izmail for the fourth time in five days, Ukrainian officials said Thursday, in what has become a sustained campaign to target Ukraine’s ability to export grain. The Danube River port area was attacked with Shahed drones aiming at civilian and port infrastructure, the governor of the Odesa region, Oleh Kiper said. A truck driver was wounded and grain silos were damaged, he said. Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors inspected the wreckage at the scene close to port infrastructure on Thursday, according to a statement from the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office. The Ukrainian military said it shot down 25 out of 33 drones launched by Russia overnight, most of them at the Odesa region, Ukraine’s agriculture export hub, as well as the northern Sumy region, the military said. Russia has escalated attacks on Ukraine’s grain export infrastructure since mid-July, when it exited a U.N.-backed deal that had allowed for the safe...

Hundreds of military promotions are on hold as a Republican senator demands end to abortion policy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:38:54 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top defense officials are accusing Republican Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville of jeopardizing America’s national security with his hold on roughly 300 military promotions, raising the stakes in a clash over abortion policy that shows no signs of easing. Tuberville brushed off the criticism, vowing he will not give in. “We’re going to be in a holding pattern for a long time,” he said, if the Pentagon refuses to end its policy of paying for travel when a servicemember goes out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care.It’s a classic Washington standoff with rippling effects across the country, placing the lives of servicemembers effectively on hold as they await what has traditionally been routine Senate approval for their promotions. Frustration mounting, the secretaries of the Navy, Air Force and Army wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post this week saying Tuberville’s efforts were not only unfair to the military leaders and their ...

Police comb the UK and put ports on alert for an escaped prison inmate awaiting terrorism trial

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:38:54 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A former British soldier awaiting trial on terror charges who appears to have escaped from a London prison by strapping himself to the underside of a food delivery truck remained at large Thursday as police stepped up security checks across the United Kingdom amid concerns he may try to flee the country.Opposition parties linked the escape to years of austerity while Britain’s Conservative government said an independent investigation will take place “in due course” into how Daniel Abed Khalife managed to slip out of the medium-security Wandsworth Prison. His escape has prompted extra security checks at major transport hubs, particularly at the Port of Dover, the main boat crossing from England to France.Britain’s justice secretary told lawmakers that “no stone must be left unturned in getting to the bottom of what happened” as he confirmed an “independent investigation into this incident.” Alex Chalk also said “urgent” reviews into prison categorization wou...

AI used to alter imagery or sounds in political ads will require prominent disclosure on Google

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:38:54 GMT

Google will soon require that political ads using artificial intelligence be accompanied by a prominent disclosure if imagery or sounds have being synthetically altered.Starting in November, just under a year before Election Day, Google said in an update to its political content policy that disclosure of AI to alter images must be clear and conspicuous and be located somewhere that users are likely to notice it.Though fake images, videos or audio clips are not new to political advertising, generative AI tools are making it easier to do, and more realistic. Some presidential campaigns in the 2024 race — including that of Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis — already are using the technology.The Republican National Committee in April released an entirely AI-generated ad meant to show the future of the United States if President Joe Biden is reelected. It employed fake but realistic photos showing boarded-up storefronts, armored military patrols in the streets, and waves of immigrants creati...