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Security in Ecuador has come undone as drug cartels exploit the banana industry to ship cocaine

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:41 GMT

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Men walk through a lush plantation between Ecuador ’s balmy Pacific coast and its majestic Andes, lopping hundreds of bunches of green bananas from groaning plants twice their height. Workers haul the bunches to an assembly line, where the bananas are washed, weighed and plastered with stickers for European buyers. Owner Franklin Torres is monitoring all activity on a recent morning to make sure the fruit meets international beauty standards — and ever more important, is packed for shipment free of cocaine.Torres is hypervigilant because Ecuador is increasingly at the confluence of two global trades: bananas and cocaine.The South American country is the world’s largest exporter of bananas, shipping about 6.5 million metric tons (7.2 tons) a year by sea. It is also wedged between the world’s largest cocaine producers, Peru and Colombia, and drug traffickers find containers filled with bananas the perfect vehicle to smuggle their product.Drug traffickers’ inf...

In the pivotal South Carolina primary, Republican candidates search for a path against Donald Trump

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:41 GMT

ANDERSON, S.C. (AP) — A microphone in hand, Sen. Tim Scott left the podium at a recent barbecue event in South Carolina and made his way through tables draped in red, white and blue as attendees finished plates of pulled pork and baked beans. As he talked about his campaign, Scott passed Casey DeSantis, the first lady of Florida, who looked ahead at the empty stage from which she would soon speak. She was there in place of her husband, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was overseeing the response to Hurricane Idalia.Several hours earlier, former Gov. Nikki Haley packed an event hall about 130 miles to the northeast. An overflow crowd spilled out into the back hallways, with some people having to watch her remarks on a video monitor. The flurry of activity showed the priority these three campaigns are placing on South Carolina, where the Republican primary is traditionally the last chance for many White House hopefuls to break through before Super Tuesday. If former President Donald Tru...

Vice President Kamala Harris to face doubts and dysfunction at Southeast Asia summit

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:41 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will deepen her outreach to Southeast Asia this week at an international summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she’ll try to erase doubts about U.S. commitment to the region stirred by President Joe Biden’s absence. It’s Harris’ third trip to Southeast Asia and fourth to Asia overall, and she’s touched down in more countries there than any other continent. The repeat visits, in addition to meetings that she’s hosted in Washington, have positioned Harris as a key interlocutor for the administration as it tries to bolster a network of partnerships to counterbalance Chinese influence.This latest journey is another opportunity for Harris to burnish her foreign policy credentials as she prepares for a bruising campaign year. She’s already come under attack from Republican presidential candidates who say she’s unprepared to step up if Biden — the oldest U.S. president in history — can’t finish a second ...

Concert review: Greta Van Fleet attempts to recreate Led Zeppelin at Xcel Energy Center

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:41 GMT

Back in 1988, the song “Get it On” from a mysterious new band called Kingdom Come hit radio and it sounded so much like Led Zeppelin, some folks were convinced Robert Plant and Jimmy Page had kissed and made up.Alas, Kingdom Come turned out to be a bunch of Germans with bad perms. Once people realized how shameless they were in replicating Led Zeppelin’s sound, they quickly moved on. (I still vividly remember the audience booing them when they opened the Monsters of Rock tour that July at the Metrodome.)So when Greta Van Fleet came straight out of Michigan in 2017 with an even more blatant attempt to rewrite “Physical Graffiti,” I figured they’d enjoy a similar career path to the dumpster. Instead, the band of three brothers and their buddy on drums have not only been accepted, they’re actually popular. They drew about 13,000 surprisingly youthful fans to St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center Sunday night.Yes, vocalist Josh Kiszka has expanded a bit beyond his Plant ...

Messi has 2 assists in front of star-studded crowd in Los Angeles as Inter Miami beats LAFC 3-1

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:41 GMT

Lionel Messi had two assists in front of a star-studded crowd as Inter Miami defeated Los Angeles Football Club 3-1 Sunday night.Facundo Farías, Jordi Alba and Leonardo Campana scored for Miami, which is unbeaten in 11 matches across all competitions since Messi joined the club in mid-July.Ryan Hollingshead scored for LAFC, which has dropped its last two.Sunday's match though will be Messi's last with Miami for at least the next two weeks. The 36-year-old will be part of Argentina's World Cup qualifiers against Ecuador on Thursday and Bolivia five days laterMessi has 11 goals and eight assists for Miami, which is eight points out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with eight regular-season matches remaining.Miami’s visit to the defending MLS Cup champions was marked as one of the highlight games since Messi signed. It was viewed by 22,921 fans, a record for LAFC’s BMO Stadium.It also vaulted into one of the most-demanded tickets in MLS’ 27-year history.According to TickPick...

China’s biggest homebuilder reels as economy slows

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:41 GMT

When Country Garden, the biggest developer in China’s increasingly troubled real estate sector, published its annual report in April, the cover design exuded hope: a phoenix spreading its wings.The company said the image showed that China’s economy was “back on track” and that this year would see “growth soaring to new heights.”That was wishful thinking.Shortly after the report’s release, China’s nascent economic recovery lost steam and an already sluggish real estate market started to collapse. At Country Garden, presales of unfinished apartments, a crucial indicator of future revenue, plunged more than 50% in June and July, twice the rate of decline in the preceding five months.For the past three years, as dozens of major property developers defaulted after years of excessive borrowing, Country Garden was an outlier. But last month, it missed two interest payments — signaling that it, too, was at risk of financial collapse, with $187 billion in debt.Country Garden must come up wit...

Las primeras pruebas de laboratorio sugieren que la nueva variante de covid-19 puede ser menos contagiosa de lo que se temía

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:41 GMT

(CNN) — Científicos de todo el mundo están acelerando experimentos de laboratorio para tratar de comprender la variante BA.2.86 altamente mutada del virus que causa el covid-19. Los resultados que apenas comienzan a surgir ofrecen cierta tranquilidad, dicen los expertos.Dos grupos, uno en China y otro en Suecia, han informado públicamente sus resultados y se esperan más este lunes desde Estados Unidos. Hasta ahora, los primeros resultados pintan a BA.2.86 más como un tigre de papel que como la bestia amenazante que parecía ser al principio, aunque esa impresión podría cambiar a medida que lleguen más resultados.BA.2.86, también conocida con el sobrenombre de Pirola, captó la atención del mundo porque parece radicalmente diferente a cualquier otra variante del coronavirus que hayamos visto hasta ahora.Parece que todo el mundo tiene covid-19. He aquí por qué esta oleada es probablemente peor de lo que sugieren los datos oficialesEste nuevo linaje tiene más de 30 cambios en su pr...

Takeaways from AP’s reporting on efforts to restore endangered red wolves to the wild

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:41 GMT

ALLIGATOR RIVER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, N.C. (AP) — The red wolf’s journey from extinction in the wild to conservation poster child and back to the brink has been swift and stunning.The only wolf species unique to the United States, Canis rufus once roamed from Texas to Long Island, New York. Today, the last wild populations, totaling about two dozen animals, are clinging to existence on two federal wildlife refuges in eastern North Carolina.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing an updated recovery plan to ensure the species’ survival in the wild. But the plan counts on private landowners to tolerate the wolves, and history is not on the side of “America’s wolf.”Here are the key takeaways from the AP’s reporting:WHY WERE RED WOLVES DECLARED EXTINCT IN THE WILD?After generations of killings, habitat loss and pressure from human development, the red wolf was declared “threatened with extinction” under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966. With the signing of the...

Sudan’s top general heads to South Sudan for talks with its president on the war

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:41 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — Sudan’s top military general is headed to South Sudan to talk with its president on his second trip abroad since the war in his country started earlier this year.Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, chairman of the ruling Sovereign Council, will discuss the conflict in Sudan with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, according to a statement from the council.In April, simmering tensions between the military, led by Burhan, and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, exploded into open fighting in the capital and elsewhere.The conflict has turned Khartoum into an urban battlefield, with the RSF controlling vast swaths of the city. The military command, where Burhan has purportedly been stationed since April, has been one of the epicenters of the conflict.In his trip to Juba, Burhan is accompanied by acting Foreign Minister Ali al-Sadiq and Gen. Ahmed Ibrahim Mufadel, head of the General Intelligence Authority, and other military officers,...

Iga Swiatek’s US Open title defense and stay at No. 1 end with a loss to Jelena Ostapenko

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:11:41 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Iga Swiatek arrived at the U.S. Open as its reigning champion, as the winner at three of the past six Grand Slam tournaments and as the owner of the No. 1 ranking for nearly 1 1/2 years. None of that mattered on Sunday night against Jelena Ostapenko, whose powerful style disrupts Swiatek’s rhythm — and beats her every time.Swiatek’s title defense at Flushing Meadows ended in the fourth round with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 loss to 2017 French Open champion Ostapenko in the fourth round at Arthur Ashe Stadium. The result also means Swiatek’s stay at atop the WTA will end next week, when current No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka will rise to the top spot for the first time.“There are some sad emotions” about falling from No. 1, Swiatek acknowledged, while also saying of her reign atop women’s tennis: “It was pretty exhausting.”Not long after being assured of losing her grip on that perch, the 22-year-old from Poland already was thinking ahead to returning ...