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UK blocks Microsoft’s Activision deal over competition fears

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:23:35 GMT

British regulators have blocked Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard over worries that it would stifle competition in the cloud gaming market. The Competition and Markets Authority said in its final report Wednesday that “the only effective remedy” to the significant loss of competition that the deal would result in “is to prohibit the Merger.”The all-cash deal was set to be the biggest in the history of the tech industry. But it faces stiff opposition from rival Sony and is also being scrutinized by regulators in the U.S. and Europe over fears that it would give Microsoft control of popular game franchises like Call of Duty.Microsoft said it was disappointed and signaled it wasn’t ready to give up. “We remain fully committed to this acquisition and will appeal,” President Brad Smith said in a statement. He said the U.K. watchdog’s decision “rejects a pragmatic path to address competition concerns” and discourages tech inno...

Pope allows women to vote at upcoming bishops’ meeting

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:23:35 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has decided to give women the right to vote at an upcoming meeting of bishops, an unprecedented change that reflects his hopes to give women greater decision-making responsibilities and laypeople more say in the life of the Catholic Church.Francis approved changes to the norms governing the Synod of Bishops, a Vatican body that gathers the world’s bishops together for periodic meetings.The Vatican on Wednesday published the modifications he approved, which emphasize his vision for the lay faithful taking on a greater role in church affairs that have long been left to clerics, bishops and cardinals.For decades, women have demanded the right to vote at synods, the next of which is scheduled for October.Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized the church, popes have summoned the world’s bishops to Rome for a few weeks at a time to debate particular topics.At the end of the meetings, the bishops vote on specific proposals...

China’s Xi talks with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy by phone

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:23:35 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping talked Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by phone, state media reported, in a long-awaited move after Beijing said it wanted to act as peace mediator in Russia’s war against Ukraine.No details of the phone call were immediately released.China has tried to appear neutral in the war but refused to criticize Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.Xi’s government released a peace proposal in February and called for a cease-fire and peace talks.Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a joint statement before the February 2020 invasion saying their governments had a “no limits friendship.” The Associated Press

Pakistan army says 2 troops, 2 militants killed in shootout

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:23:35 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — An army operation in Pakistan’s northwest targeting militants triggered a firefight that left two soldiers and two insurgents dead, the military said Wednesday.The firefight happened in Tirah, a former militant stronghold in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, the military said in a statement. It provided no details about the slain insurgents.The raid came a day after the military announced it had expanded operations against militants across the country, especially in the northwestern former tribal regions that once served as a base for the Pakistani Taliban. The group has waged an insurgency over the past 15 years.The Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, are a separate organization but allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021. The takeover emboldened the TTP, which has stepped up attacks in recent months. The Associated Press

Jailed Kremlin foe Navalny says he may face life sentence

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:23:35 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Wednesday that he was facing new extremism and terrorism charges that could land him in prison for life as authorities set the stage for a new trial against the Kremlin’s leading critic.Navalny said by video link from prison during the hearing that the extremism charges could land him in prison for 30 years. He added that an investigator had told him that he also would face a separate military court trial on terrorism charges that could potentially carry a life sentence.His top ally said that investigators were trying to link the terrorism charges against Navalny to a bombing that killed a well-known Russian military blogger earlier this month.Navalny, 46, who exposed official corruption and organized massive anti-Kremlin protests, was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. He initially received a 2 1/2-year prison sente...

Indigenous Brazilian soccer players eye Women’s World Cup

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:23:35 GMT

PERUIBE, Brazil (AP) — This year’s Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand is a world away from Indigenous Brazilian leader Guaciane da Silva Gomes, who lives in the isolated village of Tapirema in southern Sao Paulo state. She and her teammates, however, can still dream about it.Gomes and her friends, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, play soccer on a dusty field between a lake and palm trees in the city of Peruibe, 138 kilometers (86 miles) south of Sao Paulo. When she finds only a handful of other female players available, she joins the men and tackles just as hard to keep her passion running high. A passion she believes will grow with the Women’s World Cup.“I will definitely find the time and place to watch, learn some techniques, watch the best of the best,” Gomes said last weekend after playing at the first Indigenous Games of Peruibe. “What they do there also inspires us here. We are all seeking visibility.”Brazil’s Indigenous women often lead thei...

US, Filipino forces show firepower at sea amid China tension

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:23:35 GMT

SAN ANTONIO, Philippines (AP) — American and Filipino forces sank a ship with a barrage of high-precision rockets, airstrikes and artillery fire in their largest war drills on Wednesday in Philippine waters facing the disputed South China Sea which are likely to antagonize China.President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. watched the American show of firepower from an observation tower in the coastal town of San Antonio in northwestern Zambales province, the latest indication of his strong backing of the Philippines’ treaty alliance with the U.S. Marcos has ordered his military to shift its focus to external defense from decades-long domestic anti-insurgency battles as China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea become a top concern. The shift in the Philippine defense focus is in sync with the Biden administration’s aim of reinforcing an arc of alliances in the Indo-Pacific region to better counter China.China has angered the Philippines by repeatedly harassing its navy...

Chernobyl anniversary rouses specter of Ukraine nuke threat

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:23:35 GMT

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday used the 37th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster to repeat his warnings about the potential threat of a new atomic catastrophe in Ukraine amid his country’s war with Russia.Zelenskyy drew a parallel between the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on April 26, 1986, to Moscow’s brief seizure of the plant and its radiation-contaminated exclusion zone following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.“Last year, the occupier not only seized the (Chernobyl) nuclear power plant, but also endangered the entire world again,” Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post in English.Russian forces were stationed at the Chernobyl plant between February and March last year, before it was recaptured by Ukrainian troops. Zelenskyy said Kyiv has since then reestablished prewar security measures and scientific activities within the zone. But he cautioned that future moves from Moscow could endanger global nuclear safety.“Ukraine and the world have pa...

Downtown construction work on Lake Shore to impact drivers for two weeks

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:23:35 GMT

An already painfully slow rush hour drive through downtown Toronto is about to get even slower.Gas pipeline replacement work will shut down a portion of Lake Shore Boulevard near Rogers Centre starting Wednesday morning, coinciding with a large number of Toronto sports fans flocking to the area over the next couple of days.The work by Enbridge Gas will close two westbound lanes of Lake Shore approaching Rees Street from 7 a.m. Wednesday to 5 a.m. Saturday.The lane closures come just in time for a Wednesday afternoon baseball game at Rogers Centre between the Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago White Sox. The area is expected to again see higher than usual levels of traffic volume on Thursday night when the Toronto Maple Leafs play Game 5 of their first-round playoff series.The city says there will be traffic agents deployed to the area during construction who will monitor congestion. City staff will then implement any “necessary signal timing modifications required to reduce delays ...

German court: naked landlord doesn’t justify lower rent

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:23:35 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — A German court said Wednesday that a landlord sunbathing naked in the courtyard of his building wasn’t a reason for his tenants to reduce their rental payments.The case involved a building in an upmarket residential district of Frankfurt, which included an office floor, rented by a human resources company. The company withheld rent because it objected, among other things, to the landlord’s naked sunbathing. In response, the landlord sued.The Frankfurt state court rejected the company’s reasoning, finding that “the usability of the rented property was not impaired by the plaintiff sunning himself naked in the courtyard.”It said in a statement that it couldn’t see an “inadmissible, deliberately improper effect on the property.”Judges were ruling on an appeal against a lower court decision that went in the landlord’s favor, and the tenant had only limited success overall. They found that the tenant had been entitled to reduce rental payments ...