Rio's Christ turns pink for a cause
Rio's Christ statue lit in pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Sharon Reich reports.
Rio's Christ statue lit in pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Sharon Reich reports.
Pope Francis urged his priests Thursday to avoid “clerical hypocrisy” and treat their flocks with mercy as he delivered a lengthy set of marching orders to Rome-based priests at the start of a busy few days leading to Easter. A strong-looking Francis presided over a Holy Thursday Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica during which the oils for church services are blessed. The 87-year-old Francis, who has been hobbled by a long bout of respiratory problems this winter, appeared in good form for the morning Mass. He read aloud a long homily, after skipping his text at the last minute during Palm Sunday Mass last weekend.
The Disney v. DeSantis feud concludes and more news to know Thursday.
Athenians are choking in clouds of thick dust blown in from the Sahara along with unseasonably warm weather, weather forecasters and doctors warned on Thursday.The weather service said the dust clouds were expected to dissipate from Friday. mr/rlp/gil
Inflows into the nine recently launched exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to bitcoin have resumed their upward trajectory this week after the cryptocurrency's price bounced back from its dip last week. "The resumption in bitcoin's strong performance is sparking renewed interest in the ETFs," said Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, an analysis firm. The nine funds that made their debut in January pulled in nearly $1 billion in assets in the first two days of this week, according to data from BitMEX Research.
Home Depot will buy SRS Distribution, a materials provider for professionals, in a deal valued at approximately $18.25 billion. It is Home Depot's largest acquisition in its history and with it, it steps more aggressively into the fast growing professional builder and contactor business. SRS provides materials for professionals like roofers, landscapers and pool contractors.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal was in Poland on Thursday for talks with his counterpart Donald Tusk to address Polish and western European farmers’ demands that regulations be applied to the cheap Ukrainian food imports that they say are undercutting their livelihoods. Farmers in many countries have been staging vehement protests against the imports and tensions have grown between Kyiv and its staunch ally Warsaw over the tax-free inflow of Ukraine's farm produce. Tusk has suggested that Poland, a NATO member and European Union country bordering Ukraine, will seek quotas on the imports during the talks.
President Ferdinand Marcos said Thursday the Philippines will not be "cowed into silence" by Beijing after confrontations in the South China Sea that injured Filipino troops and damaged vessels.Beijing and Manila have a long history of maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea and there have been repeated confrontations between their vessels near disputed reefs in recent months.
Germany's main national postal carrier on Thursday stopped using domestic flights to transport letters after nearly 63 years, a move that reflects the declining significance of letter mail and allows it to improve its climate footprint. Deutsche Post said the last planes carrying letters between northern and southern Germany, operated by Lufthansa unit Eurowings and Tui Fly, flew overnight on the Stuttgart-Berlin, Hannover-Munich and Hannover-Stuttgart routes. The company said letters between those destinations will now be transported by road, allowing the company to reduce transport-related carbon dioxide emissions on the routes by over 80%.
Security measures in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv will be tightened after a spate of Russian ballistic missile attacks and threats of escalation, a city official said on Thursday. Russia staged concerted air strikes on Ukraine's energy system last week in what Moscow said was part of a series of "revenge" strikes in response to Kyiv's bombardment of Russian regions. Moscow has since increased its use of ballistic missiles, which are much faster than regular cruise missiles and harder to shoot down, to attack Ukrainian cities.
Over a decade, more than 1,000 people died after police subdued them through physical holds, stun guns, body blows and other means not intended to be lethal, an investigation led by The Associated Press found. Medical officials cited law enforcement as causing or contributing to about half of the deaths. In many others, significant police force went unmentioned and drugs or preexisting health problems were blamed instead.
Russia fired salvoes of drones and missiles overnight at southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, authorities said Thursday, injuring more than a dozen people as the Kremlin’s forces persevered with attritional attacks designed to wear down Ukrainian defenses. Air defense systems intercepted 26 out of 28 Shahed drones, Ukraine’s air force said. Russian forces also launched five missiles overnight, it said.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former billionaire cryptocurrency wunderkind, is set to be sentenced on Thursday over his conviction for stealing $8 billion from customers of the now-bankrupt FTX exchange he founded. Bankman-Fried, 32, faces the prospect of decades behind bars after a jury found him guilty in November on seven fraud and conspiracy counts. The hearing will mark the culmination of Bankman-Fried's downfall from an ultra-wealthy cryptocurrency entrepreneur and major political donor to U.S. authorities' biggest trophy to date in a crackdown on malfeasance in digital asset markets.
China on Thursday announced the lifting of punitive tariffs on Australian wine, in a sign that the precarious bilateral relationship could be improving despite setbacks.- Wine tariffs lifted - China's commerce ministry said on Thursday it was lifting punitive tariffs on imports of Australian wine, a move that Canberra's top politicians said would "benefit both Australian producers and Chinese consumers".
As a first-generation college student, Andrea Morquecho was looking forward to walking in the Latinx graduation ceremony at the University of Texas at Austin this spring.
After George Floyd was killed under a Minneapolis police officer’s knee, reporters at The Associated Press wanted to know how many other people died following encounters in which law enforcement used not firearms but other kinds of force that is not supposed to be fatal. The U.S. government is supposed to track these non-shooting deaths, but poor implementation and inconsistent reporting from local law enforcement agencies mean no one really knows the scope. A team of journalists led by the AP spent three years reporting on deaths after “less-lethal force.”
From vintage train rides costing almost $4,000 per person to hotel rooms listed at $1,600 a night, businesses in and around majestic Niagara Falls are preparing to cash in on the April 8 total solar eclipse - with around a million visitors expected. The dramatic waterfall, situated along the Canadian-U.S. border, is in the path of the eclipse, and many people are splurging on hotels and rentals in advance to experience the phenomenon at one of North America's natural wonders. The eclipse will be a busy time both on the Ontario side and the New York side of the waterfall, with numerous special activities planned.
A fourth chocolate -- "blond" -- has been slowly making inroads into French confectionary, but has failed to win official recognition and faces competition from a pink Swiss variety. - Swiss competition - Despite efforts, Valrhona has not managed to convince French lawmakers to reopen its legal definitions.
Carl Grant, a Vietnam veteran with dementia, wandered out of a hospital room to charge a cellphone he imagined he had. When he wouldn’t sit still, the police officer escorting Grant body-slammed him, ricocheting the patient’s head off the floor. Taylor Ware, a former Marine and aspiring college student, walked the grassy grounds of an interstate rest stop trying to shake the voices in his head.
Energy stocks are the biggest winners this month as oil prices push higher. It's a sign the market rally is broadening beyond just Big Tech.
For the first time since a judge ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can continue to oversee the Georgia 2020 election interference case against former President Donald Trump, the focus will return to the details of the sprawling case.