Netherlands tops Cuba 4-2; Panama beats Taiwan 12-5 at WBC
The 20-team World Baseball Classic got underway after a six-year absence with Panama defeating Taiwan 12-5 for its first win in tournament history and the Netherlands beating Cuba 4-2 in the opening Group A game as Didi Gregorius drove in the tying run and scored the go-ahead run.
Venezuelans halted in Panama by US policy change return home
With dashed dreams and empty hands, hundreds of Venezuelan migrants are stranded in Panama’s capital looking for a way home after surviving the crossing of the Darien Gap only to find that a United States policy change had closed the border to them.
Will the U.S. men blow their chance for a World Cup spot, like they did for the 2018 event?
Nearly five years after the United States men’s national soccer team famously blew a spot in the 2018 World Cup by losing to a vastly inferior Trinidad and Tobago squad in October of 2017 in the final game of qualifying, the moment of redemption has finally arrived for the Americans.
Experts examine bottom of big ship that was stuck in Suez
Experts have boarded Ever Given container ship that had blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week before it was dislodged. A canal pilot says engineers are inspecting the Ever Given for damage and trying to determine why it ran aground. Two senior canal officials said the vessel's bulbous bow had suffered slight to medium damage. AdEver Given will not be allowed to leave the canal until the end of the investigation, Rabei added. Some broke into tears, many hugged each other as the vessel’s bow was rooted out from the eastern side of the canal.
With ship now freed, a probe into Suez Canal blockage begins
Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship, is seen in Egypt's Great Bitter Lake Tuesday, March 30, 2021. Experts have boarded Ever Given container ship that had blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week before it was dislodged. A canal pilot says engineers are inspecting the Ever Given for damage and trying to determine why it ran aground. Global legal firm Clyde and Co. said the Ever Given's owner likely would pay Egypt's canal authority for the assistance already rendered to the vessel. He stood before a sign that said: "Welcome to the Suez Canal: Egypt's lifeline of peace, prosperity and development."
2 tugboats deploy to Egypt's Suez Canal as shippers avoid it
This satellite image from Maxar Technologies shows the cargo ship MV Ever Given stuck in the Suez Canal near Suez, Egypt, Saturday, March 27, 2021. Authorities are preparing to make new attempts to free the giant container vessel stuck in Egypt's Suez Canal for a fifth day and reopen a crucial east-west waterway for global shipping. The Dutch-flagged Alp Guard, a specialist tugboat, arrived at the location Sunday, according to the stuck ship's technical management company, Bernard Schulte Shipmanagement. Excavators dug Sunday on the eastern wall of the Suez Canal, hoping to free the bulbous bow of the Ever Given that plowed into the embankment, satellite photos showed. Dozens of others still listed their destination as the canal, though shippers increasingly appear to be avoiding the passage.
No timeline given for extracting wedged ship from Suez Canal
This satellite image from Maxar Technologies shows the cargo ship MV Ever Given stuck in the Suez Canal near Suez, Egypt, Friday, March 26, 2021. Meanwhile, the head of the Suez Canal Authority said strong winds were “not the only cause” for the Ever Given running aground on Tuesday, appearing to push back against conflicting assessments offered by others. A Dutch salvage firm is attempting to refloat the vessel with tugboats and dredgers, taking advantage of high tides. AdSome 9,000 tons of ballast water had been already removed from the vessel, the canal chairman said. The Suez Canal Authority organized the first media trip Saturday to the site where the vessel was stuck.
EXPLAINER: What we know about a ship blocking the Suez Canal
This photo released by the Suez Canal Authority on Thursday, March 25, 2021, shows Lt. Gen. Ossama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority, investigating the situation with the Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship, after it become wedged across the Suez Canal and blocking traffic in the vital waterway. Over its 150-year history, Egypt's Suez Canal has seen wars and crises — but nothing quite like the stranding of the Ever Given. The vessel entered the canal from the Red Sea on Tuesday morning and ran aground 45 minutes later. While the supersize of ships can increase their risk of running aground in the Suez Canal, boats just as big buffeted by winds just as strong have passed through the waterway without incident before. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi poured $8.2 billion into a lavish expansion of the canal that was unveiled in 2015.
The Latest: Gov. hopes to up number of Texans getting shots
Brian Kemp said all Georgians 16 and older will be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Greg Abbott said Thursday that he’s hoping to increase the number of Texans getting COVID-19 vaccines after seeing a drop in people showing up for the shot. That’s a big jump from the roughly 1.8 million doses a week the state is currently getting. ___PHOENIX — Arizona on Thursday reported 138 confirmed coronavirus cases, the smallest daily increase reported in more than six months. The U.K. says its vaccination program has given at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to more than half the adult population.
Shipping losses mount from cargo vessel stuck in Suez Canal
This satellite image from Cnes2021, Distribution Airbus DS, shows the cargo ship MV Ever Given stuck in the Suez Canal near Suez, Egypt, Thursday, March 25, 2021. (Cnes2021, Distribution Airbus DS via AP)ISMAILIA – Dredgers, tugboats and even a backhoe failed to free a giant cargo ship wedged in Egypt’s Suez Canal on Thursday. The Suez Canal Authority said one idea the team discussed was scraping the bottom of the canal around the ship. “BSM’s continuing priorities are to safely re-float the vessel and for marine traffic in the Suez Canal to resume,” it said without providing timeframe. Opened in 1869, the Suez Canal is a crucial link for oil, natural gas and cargo.
Migration through Panama resumes after pandemic lockdown
Haitian migrants cross the Tuquesa river after a trip on foot through the jungle to Bajo Chiquito, Darien province, Panama, Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021. But on Jan. 29, Panama announced it was reopening its land borders, setting off a surge of migration through the dense jungle covering the Colombia-Panama border. They started to walk into the jungle in Colombia on Friday, emerging in Panama five days later. He then took a bus to Colombia near the Panama border, joined other Haitian migrants and crossed the jungle into Panama in three days. Unlike Saenz, Olly said it took his family two weeks to cross the Darien jungle.
The Latest: NHL postpones its 34th game - Flyers-Capitals
The league has postponed Tuesday night’s Flyers-Capitals game in Washington because of COVID-19-related issues with Philadelphia. It’s the 34th game postponed so far this season, which is roughly a quarter of the way through. Krueger allowed the team to reveal he tested positive. Ad___Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington has tested positive for the coronavirus and has withdrawn from the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Three staff members and one management official have also tested positive at the club.
Amid travel break, pope cheers Lisbon youth jamboree plans
The next World Youth Day will be held inPortugal in 2023. (Vincenzo Pinto/Pool via AP)VATICAN CITY – With no papal travels abroad this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Pope Francis is cheering efforts for a youth jamboree, traditionally attended by pontiffs, in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2023. Francis on Sunday presided over a handover ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica involving young people gearing up for the next World Youth Day, which draws huge crowds of Catholics from around the globe. When Francis attended the last such event in Panama in 2019, organizers announced that the next jamboree would be held in Lisbon in 2022. Francis applauded after youths from Panama symbolically slid across the basilica's floor a towering wooden cross to counterparts from Portugal as part of preparations for Lisbon.
Gioacchini, Soto score 2 goals each as US routs Panama 6-2
Nicholas Gioacchini and Sebastian Soto each scored their first two international goals in a 6-2 exhibition rout of Panama on Monday night at Wiener Neustadt, Austria, the second of two matches for the Americans that followed a 10-month pandemic break. Gio Reyna got his first goal three days after his 18th birthday, the third-youngest player to score in modern era. Sebastian Lletget also got a goal in a physical, open match against a CONCACAF rival that reached the 2018 World Cup over the Americans. By the time qualifying comes we'll be ready to compete.”José Fajardo scored his first two goals for Panama. The U.S. has used 90 players since the October 2017 defeat at Trinidad and Tobago that eliminated the Americans from the 2018 World Cup, including 52 debuting.
Guatemala searches, Eta regains storm status, heads to Cuba
Members of search and recovery teams search for survivors in the debris of a massive, rain-fueled landslide in the village of Queja, in Guatemala, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020, in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Eta. The storm was expected to hit Cuba by early Sunday, and approach the Florida Keys and south Florida late Sunday or Monday. Tropical storm warnings were issued for central Cuba, southern Florida and the Florida Keys. South Florida started emptying ports and a small number of shelters opened in Miami and the Florida Keys for residents in mobile homes and low lying areas. The storms’ threat comes as many streets across South Florida have been inundated by heavy rains and unusual King Tides.
Guatemala digs through landslide where 100 believed buried
A barefooted woman makes her way around debris brought on by a landslide on a road blocking traffic, in the aftermath of Hurricane Eta, in Purulha, northern Guatemala Friday, Nov. 6, 2020. In a news conference, President Alejandro Giammattei said he believed there were at least 100 dead there in San Cristobal Verapaz, but noted that was still unconfirmed. Her home in La Lima, a San Pedro Sula suburb, is 150 feet from the roiling Chamelecon river and only a short way from the international airport’s runway. It said rescues were happening Friday in San Pedro Sula and La Lima, but the need was great and resources limited. The U.S. State Department said in a statement Friday that four U.S. helicopters from the Soto Cano Air Base near Tegucigalpa had flown to San Pedro Sula to participate in rescue operations.