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Erdoğan gives civil servants 45 percent pay rise in Turkey’s tight election race

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:52:52 GMT

ISTANBUL — In a sign President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan realizes he needs to pull out all the stops before Turkey’s too-close-to-call election in five days, he announced a 45 percent pay hike for hundreds of thousands of civil servants on Tuesday. The decision affects more than 700,000 public workers, who will now be paid a minimum monthly wage of 15,000 Turkish lira (€700).The announcement is seen as a move to attract voters in a tight election race dominated by the economy. Erdoğan’s economic policies, once one of his main selling points, are unpopular, largely due to high inflation and a tumbling lira. “Within the framework of this collective bargaining agreement, we are raising wages by 45 percent, including the welfare share, thus increasing the minimum wage of public workers to 15,000 lira,” Erdogan said in the capital Ankara.Erdoğan signaled the government would also raise the wages and pensions of civil servants.The announcement was a ...

Belgium violated serial killer’s rights, European rights court rules

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:52:52 GMT

Belgium violated the rights of a man who is currently jailed for several murders committed in the 1970s and has been consistently denied early release since then, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Tuesday.Freddy Horion, born in 1947, has been detained since 1979 for murdering a family of five, while having previously been found guilty of another murder, according to the court’s ruling.He was sentenced to death by a Belgian court in 1981 — a sentence which was later commuted to life imprisonment.Horion is now in a “predicament” as he has “no realistic prospect of release,” which is a violation of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights on torture and inhuman treatment, the ECHR said Tuesday.Horion has been eligible for early release since 1993. In the following decades, he filed dozens of requests, which were all denied on the grounds that he was still a danger to society. In March 2017, a group of psychiatric experts found tha...

Pushkin fan accused of aiding Russian strikes says maps were just about mushrooms

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:52:52 GMT

KYIV — It sounds like a story out of a surrealist Russian novel — but according to Ukrainian prosecutors, the danger was very real indeed. They allege that Oleksandr Kostornyy, the 72-year-old head of the “Aleksandr Pushkin’s Russian Society” NGO, provided Russia a map with the locations of Ukrainian servicemen ahead of a deadly missile strike last year. His defense: He was just showing a friend where to pick mushrooms. In videos from courtroom appearances, Kostornyy — who stands accused of treason — can be seen wearing a beige jacket over a black turtleneck, with a mustache and regal bearing right out of Tolstoy. Prosecutors claim that on March 4, 2022, Kostornyy sent a person in Russia-occupied Crimea a map showing the location of the International Peacekeeping and Security Center — a facility used to train and house Ukrainian forces and foreign volunteers near Lviv.  Nine days later, Russians shelled the site, also known as the Yavoriv training groun...

EU lawmakers back tougher rules on methane emissions

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:52:52 GMT

BRUSSELS — The European Parliament on Tuesday voted for stricter measures to reduce emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, dodging a last-minute rebellion. The legislation, proposed by the European Commission in December 2021, applies only to the energy sector, responsible for about a fifth of the bloc’s methane emissions. Lawmakers defeated an effort by a clutch of conservative MEPs to weaken the Parliament’s stance. A comfortable majority — 499 in favor, 79 against and 55 abstentions — backed a compromise text amending the Commission’s proposal with tighter rules for monitoring emissions, as well as more stringent leak detection and repair (LDAR) requirements to tackle leaky fossil fuel infrastructure. The Parliament also asked the Commission to come up with a framework to ensure exporting countries have to abide by similar rules. The regulation is a crucial part of Europe’s climate efforts: Swift action is key to reining in the warming effe...

Women should start screening for breast cancer at age 40 instead of 50, health task force says in draft recommendation

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:52:52 GMT

(CNN) — The US Preventive Services Task Force is proposing that all women at average risk of breast cancer start screening at age 40 to reduce their risk of dying from the disease, according to a new draft recommendation statement.It’s an update to the 2016 recommendation, in which the task force recommended that biennial mammograms, which are x-rays of the breasts, start at age 50 and that the decision for women to screen in their 40s “should be an individual one.”Some groups, such as the American Cancer Society, already have been recommending for women to start mammograms in their 40s.“Our new task force recommendation is recommending that women start screening with mammography for breast cancer at age 40 and screen every other year until age 74,” said USPSTF Vice Chair Dr. Wanda Nicholson, a senior associate dean and professor at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health.The USPS...

Boston police issue ‘Missing Person Alert’ for 16-year-old girl last seen on May 5

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:52:52 GMT

The Boston Police Department is asking for the public’s help in locating a 16-year-old girl who was last seen in Roxbury on May 5.Authorities said Zariah Joseph was last sighted at about 4:30 p.m. on Friday in the area of 120 Humboldt Ave, and was believed to be wearing a pink crop top, grey spandex shorts and black crocs at the time.According to the police department, the teen might be in the area of either Stoneham or Melrose, and may also be trying to travel toward Lawrence.Anyone with information on Zariah’s location is asked to call either 911 or Boston PD’s B-2 Detectives at 617-343-4275.Those who wish to share info anonymously can do so via the department’s CrimeStoppers Tip Line AT 1-800 (494)-TIPS or by texting the word ‘TIP’ to CRIME (27463).

Jury starts deliberations in suit accusing Trump of rape

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:52:52 GMT

By LARRY NEUMEISTER (Associated Press)NEW YORK (AP) — A jury in New York City began deliberating Tuesday in the lawsuit brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll, who alleges that Donald Trump raped her in a luxury Manhattan department store in 1996.U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan read instructions on the law to the nine-person jury for about an hour before the panel began discussing Carroll’s allegations of battery and defamation.If they believe Carroll, jurors can award compensatory and punitive damages. Trump, who did not attend the trial, has insisted he never sexually assaulted Carroll or even knew her.Kaplan told jurors that the first question on the verdict form will be to decide whether they think there is more than a 50% chance that Trump raped Carroll inside a store’s dressing room. If they answer yes, they will then decide whether compensatory and punitive damages should be awarded.Otherwise, the judge instructed, they will decide whether Carroll had prov...

Stefan Bondy: 4 things the Knicks must reverse to pull off a miracle against the Heat

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:52:52 GMT

MIAMI — Listen, stranger things have happened. It’s sports. Human error is heavily involved. Teams have risen from playoff ashes to recover from 3-1 deficits.Although the Knicks haven’t shown much in the way of chutzpah during this series, they’re still technically just one road victory away from recapturing home court advantage.But before ideas of miracles can be muttered, there are a few problems the Knicks need to figure out.“Every shot we take is contested,” Derrick Rose told the Daily News. “And it’s vice versa for them.”That’s the simplified version from a player, a veteran of 52 playoff games, who has witnessed this entire series from the Knicks bench.Left unsaid are the layered reasons why it’s been so difficult for the Knicks to score and defend.So here are four that best explain why the Knicks trail 3-1 to the Heat. It also can be read as four things Tom Thibodeau’s squad needs to reverse for an improb...

Nathaniel Hackett on taking Jets’ OC job: ‘It just looked like a great staff, a great group of men’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:52:52 GMT

After being fired last December, Nathaniel Hackett could have sat at home or on a sunny beach drinking Mai Tais and collecting checks from the Broncos.But Hackett was motivated to return to coaching as the Jets’ offensive coordinator a month later for several reasons.“Being with a guy like Robert [Saleh], somebody that I’ve known and other guys that I’ve known on this staff that I knew, [Aaron] Whitecotton, Ron Middleton, to be able to have [Zach] Azzanni join us, Todd Downing, so many different guys — it just looked like a great staff, a great group of men.“But Robert, he’s the guy that I respected for so long after working with him and now what he has done in his career. I have some great memories from when my dad [Paul Hackett] was here. Back then, with Chad Pennington, Curtis Martin, Kevin Mawae and that crew winning the division, those were some great times.“I think all those things added up and I think it made it right for me and...

Man who caught 2 Navy ships nearly colliding ordered to take cameras down

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:52:52 GMT

SAN DIEGO - The man whose livestream caught two Navy ships nearly colliding in the San Diego Bay has been ordered to take the cameras down. The Navy Criminal Investigative Service says the camera's livestream shows military activity in the area, but the camera owner says he has the right to film. “It might be the San Diego Web Cam today, but if you don't stand up and call foul, we don’t know what's it going to be tomorrow," said Barry Bahrami who runs a group called San Diego Web Cam which provides livestreams across the city. It was Bahrami's video that showed the near collision of two Navy ships at the San Diego Bay back in November. The incident is also commonly referred to as "Warship Chicken" which now stands at the center of a new controversy. "Now we have government censorship simply out of spite because we showed something they didn’t like," said Bahrami. He said the National Park Service has removed two of his cameras at Cabrillo National Monument per the Navy's request, ci...