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Aurora food bank flooded with desperate refugees

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:31 GMT

AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) — It can only be described as a heartbreaking sight. Hundreds waited for hours in the August heat hoping for a single bag of food.“It is very hard not to cry," said Amanda Blaurock, executive director of the Village Exchange Center. The center, which provides food and vaccines for refugees, usually sees about 150 people on distribution days. But that number has grown to more than 500 over the past few weeks. FOX31 spoke with one recipient, who said through an English translator: "Sometimes our husbands stay without work. God bless this organization for all the help they do." Denver buys Central Park motel to convert into housing for homeless Because of overcrowding at the nonprofit organization and multi-faith worship space, security guards with roots in Colombia and Afghanistan are now on hand to maintain the peace and help everyone get what they need before supplies run out. "They are trying to get in, they’re hot, they’re hungry. It has caused a lot of aggr...

I-70 reopens after mudslide near Glenwood Springs

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:31 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — Interstate 70 was closed on Wednesday after a mudslide dumped onto the road.I-70 was closed in both directions between Dotsero and West Glenwood, or mile point 116-131. I-70 closed through Glenwood Springs? Here’s how to detour Garfield County's 911 Center posted about the mudslide just before 6 p.m. Cameras from the Colorado Department of Transportation show mud covering the roadway at milepost 120.85, near the Grizzly Creek Rest Area.A mudslide closed Interstate 70 near Glenwood Springs on Aug. 16, 2023. (Credit: Colorado Department of Transportation)Mudslides remain a risk along that stretch of I-70, where the Grizzly Creek burn scar remains. Unfortunately, a closure of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon may add hours to your journey. See how to detour here.While mudslides closed the interstate for weeks in July 2021, there was “very little flooding” last summer, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation. Travel officials expect even fewer closures in the...

Bodycam video shows Miami Beach Police officers responding to yacht after man allegedly pulled out gun, threatened to shoot

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:31 GMT

First there was a holiday weekend party on a megayacht off Miami Beach. Then the police showed up, after there was trouble on board.Officer-worn body camera video obtained by 7News captured the tense moments when Miami Beach Police units responded to the 116-foot Rex yacht off Miami Beach, May 27.“The suspect with the gun is on the Rex boat,” someone is heard saying on police radio,“Clearing the deck. If we have to take this shot from the water here,” an officer is heard saying in the bodycam video.“He said he’d shoot everybody on the boat,” another officer is heard saying in the bodycam video.“He’d said he wanted to shoot us all, and shoot the boat, too,” the boat’s owner is heard saying in the bodycam video.According to a police report, there was an “irate” man on board who pulled a gun and yelled, “I’m going to make holes in this boat and take everyone down with me, and I’m going to sh...

Poland’s ruling party throws the opposition a referendum curveball

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:31 GMT

WARSAW — Anyone in favor of accepting illegal migrants, lowering border defenses, selling off state companies and making people work longer before they retire?If that’s the case, they should vote for Poland’s opposition parties and not the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is putting those four questions to a referendum that will be held on the same day as the October 15 parliamentary election.The referendum questions are set to be approved Thursday by the lower house of parliament, where PiS holds a narrow majority.The questions and the way they’re phrased are not serious legislative ideas. Rather they’re designed to cause problems for PiS’s main rival in the election, the center-right Civic Platform (PO) and its leader Donald Tusk, in an election in which the ruling nationalists are trying to win an unprecedented third term.The idea is for the questions to whip up public support. The referendum is also treated separately from the election unde...

Spain’s Sánchez faces moment of truth as fresh elections loom

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:31 GMT

Spanish lawmakers are set to decide if the country will be governed by a fragile left-wing coalition led by current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — or if voters will be sent back to the ballot box for another election. After last month’s general election resulted in no overall winner, Sánchez will face a vital first test on Thursday as he seeks to find a way to remain in power. Although he has apparently succeeded in winning the support of a vast array of leftist and separatist parties, the socialist politician still doesn’t have the numbers needed to form a government: He requires at least a few MPs belonging to the Catalan independence Junts party to back his candidacy in parliament if he is to remain in office.That’s bad news for Sánchez, because Junts’ de facto leader, the self-exiled former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, is demanding the socialists make seemingly impossible concessions in exchange for his party’s support.If JuntsR...

As Ukraine counteroffensive gets bogged down, it’s back to the drawing board

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:31 GMT

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.Expectations for Ukraine’s counteroffensive were too high from the start.And as it now closes in on its third month, with no sign of a truly significant dynamic-changing breakthrough, it feels as though we’re back in a slog, a war of attrition that risks stretching the patience of impatient allies — something the Kremlin is no doubt hoping for.Or, as American military strategist Edward Luttwak noted this week, “The Ukraine war has entered its ‘grin & bear it’ period as it fights a Great Power that tried & failed to conquer it in a week last February, and which is now organized for protracted war.”Ukrainian officials blame their counterparts in allied governments for much of the overoptimism surrounding the counteroffensive — as well as an overenthusiastic Western media that mistakes wishful thinking for clear-eyed analysis all too often, conjuring up the idea of demoralized, badly led Russian soldiers quickly turning tail. T...

What’s life like for a spy once unmasked?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:31 GMT

What fate awaits a spy whose cover has been blown?Some spies are just too important to be left by their handlers to rot in a foreign jail after they’ve been captured, and they are traded in a spy swap. Other times spy catchers are reluctant to consider a trade because the betrayal has been so great a long jail sentence seems deserving.And then there are the expendables — so low-ranking their handlers don’t care what happens to them once they’re blown and too insignificant to consider for a spy swap.With spying back in the headlines after three Bulgarian nationals were charged in the U.K. amid an investigation into a suspected Russian espionage ring, POLITICO looks at how past culprits have fared once unmasked. Life of glamorFor Maria Butina (aka Anna Chapman), the former Russian sleeper agent, whose flame-colored hair captivated the American and British tabloid press, life after spying has been lucrative and a whirl of fashion shows, television and business opportunities. Chapm...

Garrett Whitlock implodes in eighth as Red Sox fall to Nationals 6-2

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:31 GMT

It was shaping up to be another dramatic, come-from-behind kind of night for the Red Sox.Shut down through the first seven innings by Washington Nationals starter MacKenzie Gore, the Red Sox rallied to tie the game in the top of the eighth on a two-run home run by Pablo Reyes. With Garrett Whitlock coming on in the eighth and the bullpen pitching as well as any in baseball, it felt like only a matter of time before the Red Sox could complete the comeback.Then, as quickly as the Red Sox got back into the game, the Nationals flipped the script.Whitlock imploded in the bottom of the eighth, allowing four runs on back-to-back homers before he’d even recorded an out. Keibert Ruiz delivered the haymaker with the go-ahead three-run home run, and Stone Garrett tacked on the exclamation mark with a solo shot to cap off Washington’s 6-2 win.More worrisome than the results, Whitlock’s velocity was also notably down, a troubling sign given that the righty only just came off th...

Stock market today: Asia follows Wall Street lower after Fed’s notes dent hopes of rate hikes ending

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:31 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Asian stocks followed Wall Street lower Thursday after notes from a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting dented hopes interest rate hikes are finished.Hong Kong and Tokyo lost more than 1%. Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney also retreated. Oil prices declined.Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 lost 0.8% on Wednesday after minutes from the Fed’s latest meeting suggested board members are unsure what to do after raising their key lending rate to a two-decade high. Traders had hoped they would decide inflation was under control and last month’s rate hike was the last.Fed officials face a “tough balancing act” between “the risk of an inadvertent over-tightening of policy against the cost of an insufficient one,” said Tan Boon Heng of Mizuho Bank in a report.The Shanghai Composite Index sank 0.4% to 3,136.17 and the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo retreated 1.2% to 31,379.24. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 1.6% to 18,018.20 after being down more than 2% in early trading.The Kospi...

Judge declines to approve Hyundai/Kia class action settlement, noting weak proposed remedies

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:31 GMT

A federal judge on Wednesday declined to approve a proposed settlement in a class-action lawsuit prompted by a surge in Hyundai and Kia vehicle thefts, saying it fails to provide “fair and adequate” relief to vehicle owners. The proposed settlement, announced in May, could be valued at $200 million and covers about 9 million 2011-2022 model year Hyundai and Kia vehicles in the U.S., the companies said at the time. These cars are not equipped with push-button ignitions and immobilizing anti-theft devices. That has allowed thieves to easily steal them using just a screwdriver and a USB cord, creating a recent rash of auto thefts across the country.The proposed settlement would offer vehicle owners cash payments for theft-related damage and a voluntary recall to update theft-protection software. But U.S. District Judge James Selna raised concerns about the process for calculating payments and the adequacy of the software update in preventing future thefts.The two automakers announced t...