Sin categoría

European Open cut to 54 holes over Covid-19 travel fears

AFP/Editor

Next week’s European Open in Hamburg has been cut to 54 holes after host country Germany placed the United Kingdom on its travel red list, officials said Thursday.

The European Tour has also moved the event to run from Saturday to Monday, rather than the usual Thursday start, to ensure those players and staff who are at the event in Denmark this week will not have to quarantine.

The German government tightened restrictions on travel for British citizens earlier this week after designating the UK as a virus variant area of concern.

“The tournament was originally scheduled to begin on Thursday, June 3, and be played over 72 holes, but the late change has been made after the German government’s decision last week to place the United Kingdom on its travel ‘red list’,” a European Tour statement explained.

20260224_estafa_mh_728x90

“This has meant almost a third of the scheduled 156-player field, along with a similar number of caddies and a significant number of European Tour Productions and European Tour staff, would have been unable to enter Germany without observing a mandatory quarantine period if they had not been outside the UK for a minimum of 10 days.

“Moving the starting date of the European Open back two days to Saturday, June 5, allows the vast majority of those people affected to spend that requisite time outside of the UK both during and after this week’s tournament in Denmark, before crossing the border into Germany next Friday.”

Major champions Martin Kaymer and Henrik Stenson are among the big names due to compete in Hamburg.

Sin categoría

FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Arrested in Mexico and Deported to U.S.

Authorities in Mexico announced Thursday that Samuel Ramírez Jr., a U.S. citizen accused of murdering two women and listed among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the northern state of Sinaloa.

Ramírez Jr., 33, was detained Tuesday in Culiacán just 1 hour and 13 minutes after being added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Ten Most Wanted list, the agency said in a statement.

The suspect, who was born in California, has already been deported to the U.S. state of Washington, where he faces charges related to the fatal shooting of two women at a bar in Federal Way in May 2023.

A court issued an arrest warrant for Ramírez in November last year, and the FBI initially offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his capture, later increasing the amount to up to $1 million.

“To protect individuals’ privacy and ensure continued cooperation from the public, the FBI does not confirm the identity of those who provide information,” the agency said in its statement.

20260224_estafa_mh_728x90

Sin categoría

UN experts warn Nicaragua runs vast transnational network to monitor exiled dissidents

Nicaragua maintains an “extensive” transnational network to monitor and intimidate opposition figures living in exile, affecting “hundreds of thousands” of people, the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua warned on Tuesday.

In a statement, the experts said their report “details an extensive transnational architecture of surveillance and intelligence used to monitor, intimidate and attack the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans living abroad.”

The report, which will be presented on March 16 to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, states that the structure maintained by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo includes the army, the police, migration authorities and diplomatic missions.

According to the statement, “the government has arbitrarily stripped 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality, left thousands more exiled in a situation of de facto statelessness, and prevented many from returning to Nicaragua.”

Sin categoría

Trump: ‘We Think It’s True’ Amid Claims Iran’s Supreme Leader Was Killed

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believes multiple reports claiming the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the U.S. and Israeli offensive against the Islamic Republic are likely true, though he stopped short of confirming the news.

“We have a feeling that the information is correct,” he said, according to NBC News. “I don’t want to say anything definitive until I see it, but we think that’s the case. And many of their leaders have disappeared,” he added.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were “many indications” that Khamenei had died in an attack on his residential compound.