3 buildings evacuated in NYC after series of manhole explosions

No injuries were reported but elevated levels of carbon monoxide were detected after the fire.

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  • Mark Meadows on the future of the Republican Party

    Former Trump White House chief of staff weighs in on what's next for the GOP on 'Hannity'

  • No voice, no job: Protests over jailed rapper lay bare young Spaniards' frustrations

    Carrying a big speaker at protests that have rocked Barcelona since another rapper was jailed for glorifying terrorism and insulting royalty, Alex Reis hands the microphone attached to it to anyone who wants to make some noise. "I'm not here only for him, but for the right to express ourselves and because there's a lot of discontent about things that must change," said Reis, 25, referring to the nine-month sentence that Pablo Hasel began to serve last week. Hasel's case has galvanized a debate over freedom of expression in Spain, prompting the government to announce it would relax free speech laws that ban ridiculing of religious beliefs and insults against the monarchy as well as the glorification of armed separatist movements.

  • Marjorie Taylor Greene calls Liz Cheney ‘a fool’ for criticising Trump

    Controversial congresswoman previously said the Republican party belong to former president

  • McConnell to support Trump if party picks him as its 2024 nominee

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who excoriated former President Donald Trump over the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot less than two weeks ago, said on Thursday that he would "absolutely" vote for Trump if he became the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. McConnell, who Trump blasted last week as "a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack," said he expects to see an open contest for the Republican White House nomination in 2024 but showed no hesitation in backing Trump when asked whether he would vote for him as nominee.

  • Armenia PM warns of coup, as army demands he quit

    Armenia's prime minister is calling for his supporters to rally for him, and is warning of an attempted military coup, after the army demanded his resignation.Protests and counter-protests appeared in the capital shortly afterwards on Thursday (February 25).It's not immediately clear if if the army is willing to use force to make Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan resign, along with the rest of his administration, or whether it was just talk.But the leader has faced calls to quit for months over his handling of the devastating military conflict it fought with Azerbaijan last year, and the army in a written statement said, quote, "the serious mistakes in foreign policy have put the country on the brink of collapse."Thousands of people are believed to have died in the fighting with Azerbaijan, where ethnic Armenians lost huge areas of territory to Azeri forces.Thursday's development has also alarmed Russia, which has a military base in Armenia, and has peacekeepers watching the region.It's calling for calm and for Armenians to work within their constitution. Turkey, which supported Azerbaijan during the conflict, is also condemning the move.The Turkish government says coups are unacceptable, no matter where they take place.

  • Biden raises human rights in call with Saudi king as intelligence officials to release report on Khashoggi killing

    President Joe Biden has spoken with King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia ahead of the release of a report from US intelligence officials that is expected to reveal that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved and likely ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. A White House report of their phone call on Thursday did not disclose whether they discussed the findings in the report. The leaders “discussed regional security, including the renewed diplomatic efforts led by the United Nations and the United States to end the war in Yemen, and the US commitment to help Saudi Arabia defend its territory as it faces attacks from Iranian-aligned groups,” according to a readout of their call.

  • Tennessee: Vaccines stolen, given to children in 1 county

    Tennessee's top health officials revealed Friday that the state has requested federal law enforcement investigate alleged theft of coronavirus vaccine doses in the state's most populous county. Later Friday, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris announced that Dr. Alisa Haushalter, the director of the county health department, has resigned. The developments come after the state previously announced that roughly 2,400 COVID-19 vaccine doses had been wasted in Shelby County over the past month due to miscommunication and insufficient record-keeping inside the local health department.

  • Acting Capitol Police chief tells lawmakers militia groups seek to 'blow up the Capitol,' targeting Biden speech

    The acting chief said the continued threats made it "prudent" for the Capitol Police to maintain their increased level of security at the Capitol.

  • Students from Rep. Madison Cawthorn's college said he used 'fun drives' to corner women with sexual advances, report says

    Two former resident assistants told BuzzFeed News they warned women in their dorms not to go on drives with Cawthorn because "bad things happened."

  • Teen in hospital for sledding injury dies after dad died visiting her, Ohio mom says

    “Her daddy got to heaven just before she did.”

  • Special report: Navalny's time in Germany

    Just over two weeks after being poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Siberia,Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny woke up from a drug-induced comaand began responding to the words of his wife Yulia.He had been evacuated here for emergency treatment - Berlin’s Charite hospital - and he was weak.He would later describe it as a period of appalling hallucinations.It was September 2020 – almost five months before his eventual return to Russia.Reuters spoke to more than a dozen people who visited Navalny or communicated with him during his time in Germany.These people gave insights into the funding of his political operations.They also recounted that he never wavered in his single-minded mission: to displace Vladimir Putin.In mid-October 2020, Navalny moved from Berlin at night, by helicopter to the village of Ibach in the Black Forest – set in a high valley.He, his wife and his son lived in an apartment guarded by armed police. That’s according to three people who visited him there.Here Navalny spent about two months to drive himself back to physical fitness with intense workouts.23-year-old Bjoern Leber became his personal trainer."He had a few problems with his co-ordination, well more than a few. At the beginning he had problems getting into the car and that was when I first realized it. So on our first fitness plans I focused in co-ordination and then strength. Because he had been lying for so long he barely had any strength and could only just manage five press ups and they were pretty shaky."The two men spent hours boxing, juggling and running in the apartment. They also used a counter-current swimming pool in the basement spa.When not exercising, Leber said Navalny worked on his MacBook, had physiotherapy, or went sightseeing."I taught him a bit of German and by the end he could count really well, from one to 20. Then I motivated him in German because he asked me to and he taught me a few Russian words. I can't remember much though. I asked him whether he thought going back to Russia was a good idea and at one point he said: If I don't try I will never know.”By early December, Navalny and his team were in Freiburg near the French border.It was here that he secretly began work on a feature length film with Putin as its target.'A Palace for Putin' would allege that Putin is the owner of a sprawling estate on Russia’s Black Sea coast.It was released on YouTube on January 19, two days after Navalny’s arrest, and has been watched at least 113 million times.The team filmed in various locations, including Dresden - outside the apartment Putin lived in in the 80s as a KGB agent.In Berlin - where Navalny visited the archives of the Stasi secret police to see Putin's identity card.And also at the Black Forest Studios – where staff were sworn to secrecy.The Kremlin has dismissed the report.[Russian President, Vladimir Putin] "I have not seen this movie, simply because of the lack of spare time. But I had a look at video-digest my assistant brought me. I want to answer your question straight away: nothing named there in the video as my property belongs to me or my close relatives, and never did. Never. " Some of Navalny’s supporters hoped he would stay out of Russia, at least for a while.Russian authorities dropped unambiguous hints that he would be jailed if he returned.But a German official confirmed to Reuters that Navalny made no request to stay.Navalny used Instagram to announce his planned return to Russia,writing “Russia is my country, Moscow is my city and I miss it.”Upon landing his arrest was swift.A couple of weeks later, a Moscow court jailed Navalny for nearly three years for parole violationsignoring a Western outcry over his treatment and nationwide protests that had attracted tens of thousands in the middle of winter.Some supporters wondered if he should have waited longer before returning.Those who got to know Navalny in Germany, meanwhile, are focused on his personal fate.Personal trainer Leber sent Navalny a text saying, "'Stay strong.'"But he only got one tick, the message wasn’t read.

  • FBI pinpoints a single suspect in the death of US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick

    Federal investigators zeroed in on the assailant after video footage showed the suspect attacking officers with bear spray, The Times reported.

  • She taught piano to kids in NC for years. Then her daughter accused her of sex crimes.

    This is the shocking story of the alleged sexual abuses that led to the January arrest of Sandra Hiler — aka Charlotte piano teacher Keiko Aloe — as told by her 21-year-old daughter.

  • Biden Fires a Warning Shot at Iran

    After only a month in power, President Biden has used lethal military force in reaction to Iranian-sponsored attacks on Americans in Iraq. The strike, said to be by F-15 jets, apparently attacked buildings owned by Iraqi Shiite militia groups along the Iraqi-Syrian border. It’s worth pausing to note that those Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite groups and not the government of Iraq control that part of the border. In other words, Iran and its proxies control a route from Iraq through Syria to Lebanon, where the largest Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, is situated. The borders have been erased. The Biden strike is a message to Iran, a warning shot against continuing attacks by the militias Tehran backs. According to press reports, Biden was presented with a range of options and chose one of the softest — a limited strike inside Syria rather than Iraq. There is a logic to this choice. First, U.S. attacks inside Iraq would likely complicate life for Prime Minister Kadhimi, whom we are generally supporting, and spur the forces hostile to any U.S. presence — not least the Iranian-allied militias — to demand that all U.S. forces be expelled. Second, should further Iranian-sponsored attacks require Biden to hit Iranian-backed forces again, this limited strike allows him to say he tried patience and restraint and they failed. But the strike inside Syria and at Iranian proxies may also send messages Biden does not intend: that the United States will never hit Tehran’s proxies inside Iraq and that it will never hit Iran. If that’s what the Iranian regime infers, they will have the militias strike again and again; they will not be deterred because they will see the attacks as nearly cost-free. The law of averages suggests that sooner or later these continued attacks will kill Americans. That’s when the president will face the need to punish Iran and truly establish deterrence; merely attacking its proxies will be inadequate. One of the key functions of the Shiite militias in Iraq is to allow Iran to attack U.S. forces while, by absorbing any penalty, keeping Iran safe. If there are a series of attacks, harming Americans and eventually killing one or more, the kind of limited response from the United States that we saw this past week will not be enough. That does not mean World War III and it does not mean American bombers over Tehran, but it does mean that Biden must contemplate striking Iranian assets rather than expendable proxy groups. Meanwhile, there was zero progress on the nuclear-negotiations front this past week. On the contrary, Iran did not agree to attend the EU-sponsored talks that the United States has agreed to attend, it limited International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors’ access to Iran, and it threatened to enrich uranium to 60 percent. Nuclear power requires enrichment to no more than 5 percent; the only use for uranium enriched to 60 percent is in preparing a nuclear weapon. The very least that can be said about President Biden’s second month in power is that we are seeing any dreams of a quick return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, also known as the JCPOA, and a quick resolution to U.S.-Iranian confrontations dissolve before our eyes. The president’s refusal, thus far, to lift any sanctions and his willingness to use force against Iranian proxies suggest a more realistic assessment of Iran than many feared. No doubt there will be many deep discussions, even debates, within the administration over what the next move should be. The administration’s willingness to return to the JCPOA if Iran went back into compliance with it has not moved the Islamic Republic an inch. Similarly, the administration’s reversal of the designation of the Houthis in Yemen as a terrorist group, and its decision to halt the sale of “offensive” weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen, were met with zero flexibility by the Houthis — who have carried out additional terrorist attacks since the policy changes. Down the road the administration faces an even greater challenge than what to do about attacks on Americans in Iraq. President Biden has already decided that they will be met with force, and one must assume that if the attacks continue and escalate, the counter-attacks will as well. But what about Iran’s expulsion of nuclear inspectors, which violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the “Additional Protocol” to the JCPOA (that allowed snap inspections)? What about enrichment to 60 percent, if that indeed occurs? How far down the road toward building a nuclear weapon will the administration be willing to let Iran go? That’s a hypothetical question today, but if Iran keeps going it will soon be keeping U.S. officials up at night. Biden is the fifth American president in a row, by my count, to say Iran would never be permitted to build a nuclear weapon. Unless Iran changes course he could be the first to have to prove it.

  • Residents of an Indian slum thought they were getting vaccinated like everyone else but were unknowingly part of a clinical trial

    After a white van advertised COVID-19 vaccines to a central-Indian slum, many of its residents feel duped after finding out they were in a trial.

  • Ted Cruz rants about comedians, late-night TV, and mask-wearing before shouting at people to 'just have fun' in wild CPAC speech

    "Orlando is awesome. It's not as nice as Cancún, but it's nice," Cruz said, referring to the scandal he sparked by leaving Texas for Mexico.

  • Ben Affleck says his divorce from Jennifer Garner and other 'life experience' shaped him into a better actor

    In a new interview as part of The Hollywood Reporter's Actor Roundtable series, Affleck spoke about Garner and the three kids they share.

  • Ted Cruz's colleagues mocked him by putting memes of his Cancun trip in the Senate gym locker room: 'Bienvenido de Nuevo, Ted!'

    Those who turned up to the Senate gym Wednesday morning were welcomed by color printouts of Cruz's Cancun trip that read "Bienvenido de Nuevo, Ted!"

  • Prince Harry knew he and Meghan Markle had something 'pretty special' by their second date. Here's a complete timeline of their relationship.

    The couple's royal love story began in 2016 when they were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend.

  • Florida mom discovers infant son missing after daycare gives him to stranger

    A Florida daycare is under fire after giving a 7-month-old baby away to a stranger. When Trinity McCoggle arrived at the Orient Road Child Development Center on January 25 to pick up her 7-month-old son, Adonis, she was left distraught when told her baby had been accidentally given to someone assumed to be the child’s parent, ABC2 News reports. Describing what happened, McCoggle said the daycare worker “went to the back to get him, and when she came back, she said, He’s not here.”