World
Sports News Roundup: Soccer-Costa Rica counting on veterans and World Cup experience in Qatar; Soccer-FIFA pleads with World Cup nations to ‘focus on football’ in Qatar and more | Sports-Games
Following is a abstract of present sports activities information briefs.
Soccer-Costa Rica relying on veterans and World Cup expertise in Qatar
Costa Rica have been the final workforce to qualify for the World Cup however the Central American facet will journey to Qatar hoping to keep away from making a swift exit like they did in Russia 4 years in the past. Taking part in of their sixth World Cup, Costa Rica are not minnows and Luis Fernando Suarez’s squad will probably be anticipated to do extra than simply make up the numbers within the 32-team event.
Soccer-FIFA pleads with World Cup nations to ‘concentrate on soccer’ in Qatar
FIFA have written to World Cup groups urging them to concentrate on soccer in Qatar and never let the game be dragged into ideological or political “battles”. The letter from FIFA president Gianni Infantino and the governing physique’s secretary normal Fatma Samoura follows numerous protests made by World Cup groups, on points starting from LGBTIQ rights to issues over the therapy of migrant employees.
Soccer-Veteran Navas nonetheless Costa Rica’s primary regardless of restricted recreation time
Costa Rica goalkeeper Keylor Navas’s preparations for the World Cup have been removed from ultimate with none appearances to date for Paris St Germain this season however the nationwide facet’s captain is the primary identify on coach Luis Fernando Suarez’s teamsheet. Navas has fallen down the pecking order at PSG after the arrival of Gianluigi Donnarumma whereas harm saved him out of the workforce when he was anticipated to take over from the Italy primary within the Champions League.
Beijing marathoners prep for historic race whereas retaining COVID at bay
In simply his working gear, cap and wind-resistant glasses, Beijinger Oscar Wu braced the morning chill to satisfy up with different members of his working membership for coaching forward of a landmark marathon within the Chinese language capital. Over 26,000 runners have registered to run the 42.195-km (26.2-mile) route on Nov. 6, in what could be the primary Beijing marathon in two years after being canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19.
Tennis-WTA launches program in bid to extend feminine coaches
The WTA has launched a program to help the progress of feminine coaches into skilled tennis and promote “profession pathways for girls.” None of the present prime 10 gamers within the ladies’s rankings make use of the companies of a feminine coach.
NHL roundup: Bruins prime Rangers for seventh straight win
Trent Frederic scored the tiebreaking aim 6:04 into the third interval because the visiting Boston Bruins continued their early-season surge with a 5-2 victory over the New York Rangers on Thursday evening. The Bruins improved their NHL-best document to 10-1-0 and gained their seventh straight. It’s Boston’s first seven-game profitable streak since profitable eight straight since early within the 2019-20 season and the primary time it opened with 10 wins in 11 video games.
NBA-Kyrie Irving apologizes after suspension, says he is preventing anti-Semitism
Brooklyn Nets star guard Kyrie Irving apologized late on Thursday for selling a movie he mentioned contained “false anti-Semitic statements,” simply hours after his workforce suspended him for not disavowing anti-Semitism. Irving has confronted heavy criticism since posting a hyperlink on Twitter final week to a 2018 commentary and defending the submit over the weekend. The seven-time All-Star has since deleted the Twitter submit.
Rugby-Fiji coach Cotter names three new caps to face Scotland
Fiji coach Vern Cotter is about at hand a debut to 3 gamers of their autumn worldwide towards his former facet Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday, together with 2020 Rugby Sevens Olympic gold medallist Sireli Maqala. Lock Ratu Leone Rotuisolia will earn a primary cap beginning within the second row, whereas utility again Maqala and prop Livai Native are anticipated to get a run from the bench.
Cricket-Little picks up hat-trick for Eire at T20 World Cup
Paceman Josh Little picked up Eire’s second hat-trick in T20 internationals when he grabbed a trio of New Zealand victims on the World Cup on Friday. Left-arm Little had Kane Williamson caught at deep backward sq. leg for 61, then James Neesham lbw for a duck within the nineteenth over at Adelaide Oval.
Baseball-Astros edge Phillies for 3-2 World Collection lead
Houston ace Justin Verlander lastly bought his first World Collection victory and rookie Jeremy Pena delivered two RBIs because the Astros emerged with a gritty 3-2 street victory over the Phillies on Thursday to maneuver one win away from a World Collection championship. After back-to-back wins in Philadelphia, the Astros now maintain a 3-2 lead because the sequence shifts again to Houston for Recreation Six on Saturday.
(With inputs from businesses.)
World
The Year in Pictures 2024: Far From Ordinary
When shots were fired at a campaign rally for former President Donald J. Trump on a July evening in Butler, Pa., the veteran New York Times photographer Doug Mills was just a few feet from him. As the Secret Service rushed toward Mr. Trump, Mr. Mills’s heart pounded when he realized what was happening.
Then instinct took over. Mr. Mills kept taking pictures, at an extremely fast shutter speed of one eight-thousandth of a second, capturing an image that illustrates the magnitude of that moment: Mr. Trump, his face streaked with blood, his fist raised in defiance.
This year was made up of such extraordinary moments. And Times photographers captured them in extraordinary images. The Year in Pictures brings you the most powerful, evocative and history-making of those images — and allows you to see the biggest stories of 2024 through our photographers’ eyes.
The presidential campaign — full of twists and turns — provided some of our most memorable photos. Kenny Holston captured a shaky President Biden struggling to find his footing in what turned out to be his only debate of the 2024 election. Erin Schaff conveyed the exhilaration surrounding Vice President Kamala Harris in the short sprint of her campaign. And Todd Heisler brought home the excitement of an 8-year-old girl in pigtails, Ms. Harris’s great-niece, who watched with pride as Ms. Harris accepted her party’s nomination for president.
Yet even as the American political campaign intensified, wars ground on overseas, creating new dangers and obstacles for our photojournalists determined to document the fighting. The war between Hamas and Israel escalated into a regional conflict, and our photographers depicted the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, the families forced to flee their homes and the neighborhoods reduced to rubble.
When Israeli forces recovered the bodies of six hostages in Gaza, our photographers revealed the pain of the captives’ families as they cried out at their loved ones’ funerals after 11 months of anguished waiting. And last month, Samar Abu Elouf, a Palestinian photographer for The Times, delivered some of the most indelible images of the year: a series of portraits of Gazans horribly injured in the war, including children who had lost arms, legs or eyes.
Children were also central to the work of Lynsey Addario, a veteran photographer who has been chronicling the war in Ukraine since Russia first invaded in 2022. Ms. Addario’s images tell the stories of young Ukrainians with cancer whose treatment was disrupted by the war, often with devastating results. One, a 5-year-old girl whose chemotherapy was upended by the Russian invasion, ultimately lost her life.
Our photographers embrace their calling of bearing witness to history, showing readers the atrocities and the suffering that might otherwise be overlooked. But they also see their mission more broadly, and aim to depict the richness and color of life by regularly bringing us pictures that delight and surprise.
Take the photo by Hiroko Masuike from the ticker-tape parade in October for the New York Liberty women’s basketball team. The young fans pictured radiate a kind of awe-struck joy, screaming to the players by name. Or the photographs that show the sense of wonder on the faces of people at Niagara Falls as they bask in the magic of a solar eclipse in April.
We hope you can spend some time with these pictures, and take in our photographers’ reflections on them. This collection of images is a way to remember the year, but it is also, we hope, an opportunity to better understand their craft and their devotion to producing the world’s best photojournalism.
Curation
Tanner Curtis, Jeffrey Henson Scales
Interviews
Dionne Searcey
Editing
Natasha King
Digital Design
Matt Ruby
Print Design
Mary Jane Callister, Felicia Vasquez
Production
Peter Blair, Eric Dyer, Wendy Lu, Nancy Ramsey, Jessica Schnall, Hannah Wulkan
Additional Production
Anna Diamond
New York Times Director of Photography
Meaghan Looram
World
French high court upholds ex-president's corruption conviction
France’s highest court has upheld an appeal court decision which had found former President Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of corruption and influence peddling while he was the country’s head of state.
Sarkozy, 69, faces a year in prison, but is expected to ask to be detained at home with an electronic bracelet — as is the case for any sentence of two years or less.
He was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling by both a Paris court in 2021 and an appeals court in 2023 for trying to bribe a magistrate in exchange for information about a legal case in which he was implicated.
“The convictions and sentences are therefore final,” a Court of Cassation statement on Wednesday said.
FRANCE’S MACRON NAMES CENTRIST ALLY BAYROU AS NEXT PRIME MINISTER
Sarkozy, who was France’s president from 2007 to 2012, retired from public life in 2017 though still plays an influential role in French conservative politics. He was among the guests who attended the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral earlier this month.
Sarkozy, in a statement posted on X, said “I will assume my responsibilities and face all the consequences.”
He added: “I have no intention of complaining. But I am not prepared to accept the profound injustice done to me.”
Sarkozy said he will seek to bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights, and hopes those proceedings will result in “France being condemned.”
He reiterated his “full innocence.”
“My determination is total in this case as in all others,” he concluded.
Sarkozy’s lawyer, Patrice Spinosi, said his client “will comply” with the ruling. This means the former president will have to wear an electronic bracelet, Spinosi said.
It is the first time in France’s modern history that a former president has been convicted and sentenced to a prison term for actions during his term.
Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was found guilty in 2011 of misuse of public money during his time as Paris mayor and was given a two-year suspended prison sentence.
Sarkozy has been involved in several other legal cases. He has denied any wrongdoing.
He faces another trial next month in Paris over accusations he took millions of dollars from then-Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to illegally finance his successful 2007 campaign.
The corruption case that led to Wednesday’s ruling focused on phone conversations that took place in February 2014.
At the time, investigative judges had launched an inquiry into the financing of Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign. During the inquiry, they discovered that Sarkozy and his lawyer, Thierry Herzog, were communicating via secret mobile phones registered to the alias “Paul Bismuth.”
Wiretapped conversations on those phones led prosecutors to suspect Sarkozy and Herzog of promising magistrate Gilbert Azibert a job in Monaco in exchange for leaking information about another legal case involving Sarkozy. Azibert never got the post and legal proceedings against Sarkozy have been dropped in the case he was seeking information about.
Prosecutors had concluded, however, that the proposal still constitutes corruption under French law, even if the promise wasn’t fulfilled. Sarkozy vigorously denied any malicious intention in his offer to help Azibert.
Azibert and Herzog have also been found guilty in the case.
World
EU ministers water down proposal on child sexual abuse
A proposal on combatting child sexual abuse has been watered down by some EU justice ministers, with others expressing their regret at certain elements of the proposal being removed entirely.
With the development of new technologies, sexual abuse of children has seen a rise in Europe.
The EU is therefore looking to update its directive on combatting the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children, which dates back to 2011.
However, the EU Commission’s initial proposal has been watered down by the justice ministers of several EU countries. Seven Member States, which include Belgium, Finland and Ireland, expressed their regret at the removal of certain parts of the proposal.
“We deeply regret that the majority of Member States were unable to support a more ambitious approach aimed at ensuring that children who have reached the age of sexual consent receive the strongest and most comprehensive legal protection possible against unwanted sexual acts,” they wrote in a press release.
Key issues remained unaddressed
Isaline Wittorski, EU regional coordinator at child rights organisation ECPAT International, is particularly concerned regarding Member States’ opposition to the extension of the limitation period for pursuing child sexual abuse cases.
She also regrets that “grooming” – the process by which an adult intentionally approaches minors and manipulates them for sexual purposes – for children who have reached the age of sexual consent was not addressed by the Council.
“The Member States expressly refused to recognise in the text that a child in a state of shock or intoxication cannot be considered to have consented to sexual abuse”, she adds.
Harmonisation of penalties
The Commission’s proposal aims to harmonise the definition of sexual violence against minors and penalties within the EU.
It will also update criminal law in order to criminalise the rape of children broadcast live on the internet, as well as the possession and exchange of paedophile manuals and child abuse deepfakes.
MEPs, for their part, should support a more ambitious directive. Birgit Sippel, a German MEP (S&D), is calling for longer limitation periods.
“Many children who have been abused take years or even decades before they dare to go to court or to a police station. So this is a very important step that is missing from the current directive,” the MEP told Euronews.
“Unfortunately, what I see is that the Council is watering down almost everything that could improve the current directive. It will therefore be very important for the EU Parliament to maintain a very strong position and force the Council to go further and not limit itself to the current directive,” she added.
The proposal’s text can still be amended. After a vote by MEPs, negotiations will take place between the EU Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament.
It is estimated that one in five children in Europe is a victim of some form of sexual violence.
In 2022 alone, there were 1.5 million reports of child sexual abuse in the EU.
Ministers also failed to reach agreement on another regulatory text aimed at combatting the sexual abuse of children online, which aims to force platforms to detect and remove content depicting sexual violence against minors. This proposal caused a clash between children’s rights defenders and privacy protection lobbies.
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