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US calls Iran’s prisoner swap claim a ‘cruel lie’

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:37 GMT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s top diplomat claimed Sunday that a prisoner swap was near with the U.S., though he offered no evidence to support his assertion. The U.S. immediately dismissed his comments as a “cruel lie.”Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has made similar comments in the past about possible deals with the U.S. on frozen assets abroad and other issues that never came to fruition. Some of those remarks have appeared aimed at shoring up domestic support amid the mass protests challenging Iran’s theocracy and supporting the country’s troubled rial currency.However, in an interview Sunday with Iranian state television, Amirabdollahian claimed that Iran had “reached an agreement in recent days regarding the exchange of prisoners between Iran and the United States.”“If everything goes well on the American’s side, I think we will see the exchange of prisoners in the short term,” he added. He alleged a document between Iran and the ...

As atmospheric river exits, another awaits to hit California

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:37 GMT

WATSONVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Wet, miserable weather continued across huge swaths of California on Sunday as an atmospheric river that caused major flooding flowed eastward and makes way for another onslaught of rain and snow that could yet again pummel the beleaguered region as soon as Monday night.The National Weather Service said the next torrent could exacerbate the severe flooding that overwhelmed the area in the past few days, including a levee failure that prompted widespread evacuations Saturday in farming communities near the state’s Central Coast.Across Monterey County, more than 8,500 people were under evacuation orders and warnings Saturday, including roughly 1,700 residents — many of them Latino farmworkers — from the unincorporated community of Pajaro.The next weather system does not appear to be as powerful as the last one, but weather officials nevertheless cautioned that “considerable flooding” could occur in lower elevations from additional rain and snowmelt tha...

Sunday rain, snow showers across Chicagoland area

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:37 GMT

Sunday: Overcast with snow/rain showers. Getting a bit breezy in the afternoon. SSE/SSW 10-20 mph. High: 37 Interactive Radar: Track showers and storm here Sunday night is looking cloudy with a few snow showers & breezy. 1" or less accumulation. W 10-20 mph with a low of 29. We are expecting snow showers Monday and colder weather. WNW 15-25, G30 mph with high of 32.Full forecast details at the WGN Weather CenterWe might have seen some snow but the current ice on the Great Lakes even less this week with only 8.8% surface coverage. Hardly any in Lake MI at all, none on the #Chicago shore where water temps are at 39 degrees.Extended outlook calls for some sunnier days for Tuesday and Wednesday with highs getting on Tuesday into the mid to upper 30s-- and Wednesday into the upper 40s with increasing clouds late in the day. Rain returns on Thursday with some mild temps in the mid to low 50s. Temps crash on Friday with rain/snow showers and temps falling into the 30s in the afternoo...

New study on monkeys using stone tools raises questions about evolution

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:37 GMT

(The Hill) – Monkeys in modern-day Thai forests create stone artifacts uncannily similar to those crafted by early humans — challenging the established narrative of human cultural evolution. A new study published on Friday in Science Advances suggests the possibility that a critical hallmark of human tool use happened by accident — potentially blurring the line between tool use by early humans and our primate relatives. The Thai monkeys produced stone artifacts “indistinguishable from what we see at the beginning of the [human] archeological record — what we see as the onset of being human,” said Lydia Luncz of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, a co-author on the study. The monkeys — long-tailed macaques — seem to have made their artifacts by accident, not by design. But in many ways, that only makes the finding more disruptive. Tool use in nonhuman primates is nothing new. Long-tailed macaques — the s...

Academy Awards: Why the Oscar statuette is worth only $1

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:37 GMT

(NEXSTAR) – As far as the Academy Awards are concerned, the Oscar statuette is worth roughly the same as a small bag of Funyuns.The 95th Academy Awards are scheduled to take place on March 12, and although the 2023 ceremony will be a bit different than those in recent years (e.g., there will be one host instead of three or none, and Will Smith will be nowhere in attendance), one thing that won’t change much is the Oscar statuette itself. Cast in bronze and finished with gold plating, the award is among the most coveted in the film industry — and the Academy values it at just $1.Of course, the Oscar itself is much more costly to produce. But in the interest in protecting each statuette as an award of merit — rather than a collector’s item to be bought and sold — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) requires that each winner agree to strict rules. One such rule prohibits the recipients or their heirs from selling or disposing of the statuette without first offering ...

Where have all the girls gone?

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:37 GMT

Writer and director of the play "Mia Where have all the young girls gone?" Mary Bonnet joins WGN to discuss women's issues ranging from unresolved cases to minority cases that are often left behind.Bonnet's vision for the play was to showcase the struggle of the growing concern of missing women and girls.Love the WGN Morning News? We love you, too. And you can have all the hijinks delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign up and subscribe to our WGN Morning News newsletter.

Spring break: What to know about Mexico's 'do not travel' warnings

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:37 GMT

(NEXSTAR) - March is here, which means many Americans are planning spring break trips. Ahead of the busy travel season, the U.S. Department of State is warning about visiting certain vacation hotspots, especially in Mexico. Last month, the State Department issued a Level 4 "do not travel" warning for many parts of Mexico. As of March 9, many of those warnings remain in place. That includes the Guerrero state due to crime, and five states due to crime and kidnapping: Colima, Michoacan, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas (where two Americans were killed earlier this month), and Zacatecas. Can you bring marijuana on a plane through a TSA checkpoint? The State Department advises tourists to “reconsider travel,” a Level 3 warning, to seven more states: Baja California, Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos and Sonora. If you are traveling to popular tourist spots like Cancun or the Riviera Maya (listed as top destinations for 2023 by AAA), the government urges you to “exercise increased c...

Chris Tomasson: Legendary Vikings coach Bud Grant was humble, honest and not that impressed by celebrity

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:37 GMT

Bud Grant met six U.S. presidents, was invited once to a reception for Queen Elizabeth II and to a training session for Muhammad Ali.Through it all, Grant never seemed all that impressed with celebrity, including his own. He became instantly recognizable as the iconic coach of the Vikings but was perhaps most happy far from the limelight, hanging out at his cabin in northern Wisconsin, sitting in a deer stand and being out with his loyal hunting dog.Chris TomassonGrant, who coached the Vikings from 1967-83 and in 1985 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1994, died Saturday at age 95. I had the good fortune of talking to him in person and on the phone a number of times.I remember calling Grant after Ali died in June 2016 and asking about the time he met the legendary boxer when he was training for a 1967 fight in Houston. I figured he might have nothing but praise for the three-time heavyweight champion, but that wasn’t the case.“I didn’t like his boasting: ‘I’m th...

Snow emergency declared in Catskill

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:37 GMT

CATSKILL, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- A snow emergency has been declared in Catskill, and a parking plan for snow removal will be initiated at 8 p.m. on Monday. All cars should be parked on the odd side of the street from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., then should be parked on the even side of village streets from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Get all of the latest news, weather, sports, and entertainment delivered right to your inbox! Cars should continue to switch sides of the street every 12 hours until the snow emergency has been canceled. Police say parking enforcement will remain in effect until all the snow is removed from village streets.Effective Monday, from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m., there will also be no parking on Main Street from Greene Street to Summit Avenue each evening to ensure that Main Street is one of the first streets to be cleared of snow. Residents who usually park on Main Street should use the municipal parking lots. Traffic stop leads to gun, drug arrest for Albany duo Any car violating the regu...

Hat tips to top performers in the 2023 Colorado state basketball tournament

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:37 GMT

With the conclusion of the 2023 CHSAA state basketball tournament, here’s hat tips to top performers in Class 4A, 5A and 6A over the past couple weekends at the Denver Coliseum.Rudy Carey. The Colorado basketball coaching GOAT glitzed his resume on Saturday as Denver East boat-raced Fossil Ridge in the Class 6A title. A few months after breaking Dick Katte’s all-time CHSAA wins mark, Carey made history again, with his record 10th state title. With the record book on lock, will the 69-year-old come back for more next winter? He’s at 897 career wins. Maybe Carey wants 900 wins. Maybe he sticks around to put the record wayyy out of reach at 1,000, and perhaps another title or two…East’s primetime Angel. Speaking of Denver East, not many folks outside of East Colfax had the Angels running the table to the 6A title this year, even if they had won 22 straight games coming into the tournament. But it was clear at the Denver Coliseum that senior D’Aundre ...