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South Africa surprise with Reinach at 9 to face France star Dupont in Rugby World Cup quarters

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 19:42:56 GMT

PARIS (AP) — South Africa surprised by choosing Cobus Reinach at scrumhalf ahead of regular Faf de Klerk in the Rugby World Cup quarterfinal against France, pitting him against the repaired Antoine Dupont.Dupont has recovered from a broken right cheekbone just over three weeks ago to be selected on Friday, four days after being allowed to resume full contact training. Reinach will partner Manie Libbok, who retained his place as first-choice flyhalf for the defending champion Springboks despite 2019 World Cup winner Handre Pollard’s call-up to the squad.Pollard, de Klerk and Willie le Roux are the three backs on the bench as South Africa went with a traditional 5-3 split in the reserves.Reinach has scored four tries at the tournament but his job on Sunday may largely revolve around keeping Dupont in check.Dupont sustained the facial fracture against Namibia and the French have their tactical genius back. He is the only change to the side which crushed Italy 60-7 last week and r...

Record Heat to Free-Falling Temps this Weekend

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 19:42:56 GMT

The rest of this week is all about the heat, with Miami breaking a record high on Thursday and the record could again be broken today there and in Fort Lauderdale.With highs in the low to mid 90s this Friday paired with high humidity, that will drive up feels-like temperatures into the triple digits. A Heat Advisory is in effect for Miami-Dade County as a result.In terms of weather conditions, the day will feature faded sunshine due to thin, mid to upper level clouds remaining overhead. Some passing showers and thunderstorms will be possible this afternoon, especially across our northern areas due to a weak front draped across central Florida.That front will shift farther south tomorrow, increasing rain chances across mainland South Florida. Saturday will not be a washout but there will be the possibility for seeing anytime storms through the daytime hours.With the added clouds and storms, that should hold temps down into the low 90s compared to the mid 90s today.Temperatures will r...

French teacher stabbed to death in knife attack at school

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 19:42:56 GMT

PARIS — A teacher has been killed and several people wounded in a knife attack Friday at a school in the northern French city of Arras, local media report. The French interior minister has confirmed a police operation was ongoing and that the attacker has been arrested.According to several media reports, the attack took place inside the Gambetta high school at 11 a.m. on Friday. The attacker is reportedly of Chechen origin who is on the French police register for radicalized individuals. He is said to have shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack.French President Emmanuel Macron is heading to the scene according to the Elysée Palace, as well as Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and Education Minister Gabriel Attal.The anti-terrorist branch of the prosecutor’s office is in charge of the investigation into the attack.The attack comes three years after another attack against a school in the Paris suburbs where a teacher was beheaded by a Chechen extremist.France has b...

Callahan: The Patriots defense can help the offense with this one fix

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 19:42:56 GMT

Let’s leave the dead horse alone for a minute.Mac Jones, his beleaguered offensive line, all the ugly stats that capture the most heinous offense in the league.How the Patriots have scored points in two games and gone 34 straight drives without a touchdown.All of it.Does Bill Belichick’s defense deserve a free pass? Because that defense ranks dead last in the one category it can’t afford to: turnovers.And the Patriots know it.“Definitely,” Pats safety Jabrill Peppers said Thursday of needing to create more takeaways. “We haven’t gotten enough.”The Patriots defense is responsible for a league-low two turnovers this season: Peppers’ forced fumble in the season opener against Philadelphia and Christian Gonzalez’s interception in Week 2 versus Miami. Both of those takeaways gifted the offense a chance to launch fourth-quarter comebacks. Jones and Co. failed, and since then has been responsible for a near loss (15-10 at the Jets...

Parties running in Poland’s Sunday parliamentary election hold final campaign rallies

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 19:42:56 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Party leaders competing in Poland’s upcoming key parliamentary elections are holding their final campaign rallies Friday in hopes of attracting new voters as opinion polls suggest a close race. The election Sunday will decide whether the ruling conservative, Euro-skeptic Law and Justice party will win a third straight term or whether the liberal, pro-European Civic Coalition and its partners will take power seeking to improve Poland’s democratic standards and international standing. Law and Justice leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is Poland’s de-facto ruler, is meeting voters in southeastern Poland, where his party has a small edge over the opposition, and his closing rally is to be held in the picturesque town of Sandomierz, the location of a popular TV series “The Reverend Mateusz,” about an investigative priest. Though his hometown is Warsaw, Kaczynski is running from the southern city of Kielce, where he can count on much larger backing than in the cap...

Weekend need to know: Waterfront Marathon, Halloween events; GO Transit/road closures

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 19:42:56 GMT

Several events are going on this weekend including the annual Toronto Waterfront Marathon, Friday the 13th Port Dover motorcycle party, and local Halloween-themed events.There are no scheduled subway closures this weekend, but there are GO Transit updates for the Lakeshore East and Stouffville lines. Road closures are also in place for events and construction.Here’s what to do this weekend:Top eventsToronto Waterfront MarathonOver 25,000 runners, walkers, wheelers, and supporters will take to the streets of Toronto for the annual TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon.The event is a Boston marathon qualifier and Olympic qualifier.The marathon takes place on Sunday, and includes full and half marathons, as well as a 5-kilometre run/walk.The race is also part of an initiative that has raised more than $50 million for charities supporting causes including cancer research, Indigenous health, 2SLGBTQI youth, and more.The marathon and half marathon start line location is at University Aven...

Pakistan says suspects behind this week’s killing of an anti-India militant have been arrested

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 19:42:56 GMT

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan said Friday that police arrested several suspects behind this week’s killing of a member of an outlawed anti-India militant group in an attack inside a mosque.The arrests took place in multiple raids over the past two days, said Usman Anwar, the police chief in eastern Punjab province where a pair of gunmen walked into a mosque in the city of Daska on Wednesday. They opened fire at the worshippers, killing Shahid Latif, a member of an outlawed anti-India militant group and two others before fleeing the scene.Latif was a close aide to Masood Azhar, the founder of the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but local police said it appeared that Latif was intentionally targeted.Anwar said a hostile spy agency of a foreign country was behind the attack and that authorities would soon reveal more details. Jaish-e-Mohammad has been blamed by neighboring India for multiple past attacks on its soil, in...

On his first foreign trip this year, Putin calls for ex-Soviet states to expand influence

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 19:42:56 GMT

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on his first trip abroad since being indicted by the International Criminal Court in March, on Friday called on an alliance of former Soviet states to expand relations with non-Western countries.In an address to the Commonwealth of Independent States summit in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Putin also defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an attempt to prevent war and blamed the United States as an integral cause of the current war between Israel and Hamas fighters. His comments did not break ground but the trip was significant as his first venture outside Russia and the occupied territories of Ukraine after the ICC indictment for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. The indictment would oblige any country that is party to the ICC to arrest him on their soil.The CIS consists of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Armenia. Tajikistan has acceded to the ICC; Armenia, which recently approved joining t...

A teacher dies and 2 people are wounded in a stabbing in a French school. Terrorism is suspected

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 19:42:56 GMT

PARIS (AP) — A man armed with a knife killed a teacher and wounded two others on Friday at a high school in northern France, an attack being investigated as potential terrorism.Antiterror prosecutors said they were leading the investigation into the attack at the Gambetta high school in the city of Arras, some 115 miles (185 kilometers) north of Paris.Sliman Hamzi, a police officer who was one of the first on the scene said the suspected attacker, a former student at the school, shouted “Allahu Akbar” — God is great in Arabic.Hamzi said he was alerted by another officer who was passing in front of the high school and called in. He “was shouting ‘someone is attacking with a knife,’” Hamzi saidHamzi said he rushed to the school and saw the victim who died lying on the ground outside the school and the attacker being taken away. “Colleagues arrived quickly but unfortunately couldn’t save the victim,” Hamzi said.Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that the suspected attacker had been...

The Supreme Court avoided disaster when a chunk of marble fell in a courtyard used by the justices

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 19:42:56 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court avoided a catastrophic accident last year when a piece of marble at least 2 feet long crashed to the ground in an interior courtyard used by the justices and their aides, according to several court employees.The incident, which the court still fails to acknowledge publicly, took place in the tense spring of 2022, as the court already was dealing with death threats and other security concerns and the justices were putting the final touches on their stunning decision overturning Roe v. Wade.Justice Elena Kagan and her law clerks had been in the courtyard earlier in the day, the employees said. No one was injured when the marble fell, the employees said. The piece was easily big enough to have seriously injured someone, they said. It was much larger than the basketball-sized chunk that fell near the court’s front entrance in 2005.The weight of the marble that fell is unknown, but the Georgia marble used in the court’s four interior courty...