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Minneapolis OKs dawn Muslim prayer call, 1st for big US city

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:26 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (AP) — Minneapolis will allow broadcasts of the Muslim call to prayer at all hours, becoming the first major U.S. city to allow the announcement or “adhan” to be heard over speakers five times a day, year-round.The Minneapolis City Council unanimously agreed Thursday to amend the city’s noise ordinance, which had prevented dawn and late evening calls at certain times of the year due to noise restrictions, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. The vote came during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.“The Constitution doesn’t sleep at night,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, after the vote. He said the action in Minneapolis shows the world that a “nation founded on freedom of religion makes good on its promise.”Minneapolis has had a flourishing population of East African immigrants since at least the 1990s, and mosques now are common. Three of 13 members of the council identify as Mus...

Nadal to also miss Barcelona Open with nagging hip injury

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:26 GMT

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Rafael Nadal will miss the Barcelona Open, leaving him without another clay-court tournament to prepare for the French Open.The 22-time Grand Slam champion said Friday he had not fully recovered from a left hip flexor injury he picked up at the Australian Open in January. That knocked him out of the Indian Wells, Miami and Monte Carlo tournaments also.“Barcelona is a special tournament for me because it is my adopted club and because playing at home is always a unique feeling,” Nadal said in a message posted on Twitter. “I still don’t feel prepared and therefore will continue with my preparation process to get back to competing.”The 36-year-old Nadal has won the Barcelona Open a record 12 times. His last victory came in 2021.The French Open takes place from May 28-June 11.___AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports Source

Intentó abrir la puerta de salida emergencia: detienen a pasajero por causar pánico en un vuelo

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:26 GMT

Un pasajero fue acusado de atacar a una azafata e intentar abrir la puerta de salida de emergencia de un avión en un vuelo de Los Ángeles a Boston.El pasajero fue identificado como Francisco Severo Torres, de 33 años, quien iba a bordo de un vuelo de United Airlines el fin de semana pasado.Aproximadamente 45 minutos antes de aterrizar en el Aeropuerto Internacional Logan de Boston, los miembros de la tripulación fueron alertados de que la “puerta de emergencias” había sido manipulada, según la oficina del fiscal federal. Una azafata que inspeccionó la puerta notó que la manija se había movido hacia la posición de desbloqueo.El asistente, que no fue identificado, cerró la manija y avisó a sus compañeros de tripulación. Otro asistente notó que Torres había estado junto a la puerta antes y sospechaba que podría haberla manipulado, dijeron funcionarios federales. Ahorros para viajeros: Google Flights podría reembolsarte la diferencia si tu vuelo baja de precio ...

Optum business helps push UnitedHealth past 1Q expectations

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:26 GMT

UnitedHealth beat first-quarter forecasts and hiked its 2023 guidance for the first time, pushed in part by more growth from its Optum care segment.The health care giant said Friday that revenue jumped 25% from its Optum segment, which provides care and manages prescription drug benefits. Operating earnings from that part of the business also grew 19% to $3.7 billion. The Optum business runs a growing number of clinics and urgent care and surgery centers. UnitedHealth says it served 103 million people in the first quarter. Revenue per customer from that business jumped 34% compared to last year’s quarter. The insurer attributed that to its emphasis on value-based care. That involves basing doctor pay more on how a patient population does instead of delivering a fee for each service. Health care bill payers like the federal government have grown more interested in these arrangements as they try to keep people healthy and out of hospitals. CEO Andrew Witty told analysts on Frida...

Celtics hope for deep playoff run, but first face the Hawks

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:26 GMT

BOSTON (AP) — Joe Mazzulla has been navigating an opportunity he’s always wanted, but never expected to have this soon. Along the way, the Celtics coach hasn’t strayed too far from what put him in this position in the first place. “As big as this is, I still think it comes down to the most simple of the details,” Mazzulla said this week. “Just having a plan. Executing that plan.”It’s been the north star for him as he’s guided Boston this season back from the disorienting preseason jolt of seeing former coach Ime Udoka suspended. The Celtics are a 57-win team, finished second in the Eastern Conference and are again positioned to make another deep playoff run. A core led by All-Stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown views Saturday’s tip-off of their first-round playoff series with the Atlanta Hawks as the first step toward another shot at an NBA title.“We’ve essentially been waiting for this moment,” Tatum said. “The group is locked in. The group is focused.”Having to constantly he...

Court documents: FBI used Discord billing information to identify Mass. Air National Guardsman as suspect in leak case

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:26 GMT

BOSTON (AP) — Court documents: FBI used Discord billing information to identify Mass. Air National Guardsman as suspect in leak case.Source

Man sentenced to life without parole for murdering girlfriend

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:26 GMT

ADAMS COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) -- The 17th Judicial District Attorney's Office announced that a man who murdered his girlfriend in 2021 has been sentenced.Jeffrey Aschenbrenner, 34, was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Thursday. Employees forced to evacuate Coors canning facility after acid spill Aschenbrenner murdered his girlfriend, 43-year-old Monica Medina, on Nov. 27, 2021.What happened on the day of the murder?The district attorney's office said that Medina was in the process of moving out of the home that she shared with Aschenbrenner. Medina's father helped her pack her belongings into his truck.After that, Medina and her father drove separately in her Audi and Mercedes to a gas station near her house.Medina's father left her Mercedes at the gas station and rode back to her home in her Audi.When they got back to the home, Aschenbrenner was waiting for them across the street from where Medina's father's truck was parked. Aschenbrenner then fired three shots, the d...

FLL airport reopens as South Florida floods slowly recede

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:26 GMT

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — One of Florida’s busiest airports reopened Friday morning, two days after an unprecedented deluge left planes and travelers stranded and turned Fort Lauderdale’s streets into rivers.Officials at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport completed final inspections after sunrise Friday and resumed operations at 9 a.m.In a tweet Friday morning, airport officials advised travelers to check with their airlines on updated flight schedules before going to the airport.The airport shut down Wednesday evening as a storm dumped more than 2 feet (60 centimeters) of rain.“Nature has been unkind to us,” Broward County Mayor Lamar Fisher said during a news conference Thursday afternoon at the airport.A flood warning was expiring, but the National Weather Service warned motorists that water-covered roads could still be a hazard.All across Fort Lauderdale, residents and business owners cleaned up. While it started raining on Monday in South Florida, mu...

US charges 28 members of Sinaloa cartel, sons of El Chapo

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:26 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday charged 28 members of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, including sons of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in a sprawling fentanyl-trafficking investigation.Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the charges Friday alongside Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram and other top federal prosecutors. The charges were filed against cartel leaders, as well alleged chemical suppliers, lab managers, fentanyl traffickers, security leaders, financiers and weapons traffickers.The indictments announced Friday charge three of Guzman’s sons — Ovidio Guzmán López, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Sálazar — who are known as the Chapitos, or little Chapos, and who have earned a reputation as the more violent and aggressive faction of the cartel.Only Guzmán López is in custody, in Mexico.The indictments also charge Chinese and Guatemalan citizens accused of supplying precursor chemicals required t...

Venezuela arrests U.S. fugitive as part of oil graft purge

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:47:26 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — Authorities in Venezuela have brought corruption charges against a businessman who is a fugitive in a separate U.S. money laundering case targeting a top ally of the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.Alvaro Pulido, wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffed, was among a group of seven Venezuelan officials and businessmen escorted by a masked security agent on their way to an initial judicial hearing in Caracas in images shared Friday by Venezuela’s government.The men were taken into custody as part of a sprawling investigation into corruption in the state-run oil company PDVSA focused on the payment of massive bribes in exchange for lucrative contracts to move tankers of Venezuelan crude sanctioned by the U.S.Pulido stands out among the more than 50 alleged schemers already arrested because of his relationship to Alex Saab.The two Colombians were long-time business partners who made a fortune selling food and other items to Venezuela’s socialist gover...