Author: Press Room

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency on Saturday as crews battled growing brush fires on Long Island.The first fire started around 1 p.m. in Center Moriches in Suffolk County before it spread and led to additional fires in East Moriches, Eastport and Westhampton. The fires in Center Moriches, East Moriches and Eastport have been extinguished, while the fire in Westhampton is 50% contained.The governor’s state of emergency is for Suffolk County.The state National Guard has four helicopters dropping water and a C-130 aircraft is supporting aerial monitoring, the governor’s office said. Numerous state agencies are providing…

A surge of deadly violence in Syria highlights the need to ensure “darker forces” don’t take over the struggling country and worsen conditions inside it, Canada’s new special envoy there says. Omar Alghabra, named Special Envoy for Syria last month, made the remarks during an appearance on The West Block with host Mercedes Stevenson.Alghabra is the Liberal member of Parliament for Mississauga Centre. As a special envoy for Syria, he reports to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly.Alghabra said the retreat of Russian and Iranian-backed militants after the Assad regime fell, and clashes between the competing…

Thousands of supporters have greeted Nepal’s former king in the capital Kathmandu and demanded his abolished monarchy be reinstated and Hinduism brought back as a state religion.An estimated 10,000 supporters of Gyanendra Shah blocked the main entrance to Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport as he arrived from a tour of western Nepal.”Vacate the royal palace for the king. Come back king, save the country. Long live our beloved king. We want monarchy,” the crowds chanted.Passengers were forced to walk to and from the airport.Hundreds of riot police blocked the protesters from entering the airport and there was no violence.Massive street protests…

Following a report in The New York Times about a White House meeting where Elon Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had clashed in front of President Trump, it was up to “Saturday Night Live” to imagine how they might make peace — and to let us listen in on their inner monologues.This week’s “S.N.L.” broadcast, for which Lady Gaga was both the host and the musical guest, began with a voice-over that described the conflict between Musk and Rubio as a stain on “an otherwise remarkably cool and smooth start to the Trump presidency.”Inside the Oval Office stood…

John Mulaney is a comedy superstar finding the funny in the familiar.  At 42, he already has five highly-rated specials to his name … three primetime Emmys … and a reputation as one of the best stand-up guys in the game.”Now, I don’t know if you’ve been following the news but I’ve been keeping my ears open, and it seems like everyone everywhere is super-mad about everything all the time.”But for his new job, the stand-up is sitting down. Mulaney is hosting a talk show on Netflix, complete with a couch and celebrity guests. And the whole thing is live,…

KATHMANDU: Nepal’s former king Gyanendra Shah was welcomed back to Kathmandu on Sunday (Mar 9) by thousands of supporters who have been staging pro-monarchy demonstrations in the Himalayan republic. The Hindu-majority nation became a secular republic in 2008 after parliament abolished the monarchy as part of a peace deal that ended a decade-long civil war in which more than 16,000 people were killed. However, support for the restoration of the monarchy and a Hindu state has grown amid dissatisfaction over political instability, corruption and slow economic development. Shah’s supporters cheered and waved Nepal’s flag, chanting “Come king, save the nation” as…

It might have seemed like one of the weirder headlines of 2024: Microsoft is paying $1.6 billion to restart Three Mile Island. That’s the nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania whose reactor #2 had a partial meltdown in 1979. There were no injuries, and nobody died, but it set the nuclear industry back years. Only two new plants have been started since that accident.”This is hallowed ground in the nuclear industry,” said Joe Dominguez, the CEO of Constellation Energy, which owns about half of America’s 54 nuclear plants (including Three Mile Island). “This is a place where we learned and got…

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 passenger plane taxis along the tarmac at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia on December 13, 2024.Daniel Slim | Afp | Getty ImagesSouthwest Airlines said Monday that it is cutting about 15% of corporate jobs, or about 1,750 people, a move its CEO called “unprecedented” as the company scrambles to cut costs.The company said it expects savings from the cuts of $210 million this year and about $300 million in 2026. The layoffs will be mostly done by the end of the second quarter and include some senior leadership roles, CEO…

Two friends from Alberta, both with strong careers overseas and similar backgrounds, are vying to replace Justin Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party and of Canada just as the country faces a generational crisis because of the Trump administration’s tariffs and sovereignty threats.Some 400,000 Liberal Party members were eligible to cast ballots in their party’s important leadership race to decide who will succeed Mr. Trudeau and mark a new era in Canadian politics. Whoever wins will have to call a general election, which must be held by October, but could take place sooner.The results of the election will be…

Secret Service personnel shot early Sunday a man who brandished a firearm leading to an “armed confrontation” near the White House, Secret Service said in a statement. The man was taken to a local hospital and his condition is unknown, the Secret Service said.According to the Secret Service, they were notified of a man with “suicidal intentions” who may be traveling from Indiana. Around midnight, they encountered the man’s parked vehicle near the White House and they spotted an individual matching the description on foot, the Secret Service said.As officers approached, the man allegedly brandished a firearm and an “armed confrontation”…