At least nine people have died after harsh winter weather struck the United States, including eight people in Kentucky as a result of heavy rains.
The state’s governor, Andy Beshear, said on Sunday that hundreds of people stranded by flooding had to be rescued.
Beshear said many of the deaths, including those of a mother and a seven-year-old child, were caused by cars getting stuck in high water.
“So folks, stay off the roads right now and stay alive,” he said.
“This is the search-and-rescue phase, and I am very proud of all the Kentuckians that are out there responding, putting their lives on the line.”
Beshear said the storms have knocked out power to about 39,000 homes, but he warned that harsh winds in some areas could increase outages.
Elsewhere, the Northern Plains faced life-threatening cold, and tornado watches were issued for parts of Georgia and Florida.
In Kentucky, Hart County Coroner Tony Roberts said earlier that the mother and child were swept away on Saturday night in the Bonnieville community.
In southeastern Kentucky, a 73-year-old man was found dead in floodwaters in Clay County, County Emergency Management Deputy Director Revelle Berry said.
Parts of Kentucky and Tennessee received up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain during the weekend storms, said Bob Oravec, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service.
“The effects will continue for a while; a lot of swollen streams and a lot of flooding going on,” Oravec said on Sunday.
In Atlanta, Georgia, a person was killed when an “extremely large tree” fell on a home early Sunday, according to Atlanta Fire Rescue Captain Scott Powell.
Meanwhile, heavy snowfall was expected in parts of New England and northern New York.
Meteorologists said the US was about to get its 10th and coldest polar vortex stretching event this season, with the northern Rockies and northern Plains first in line.
The Israeli military forced an 80-year-old Palestinian man to act as a human shield in Gaza by tying an explosive cord around his neck and threatening to have his head blown off, an investigation by the Israeli outlet The Hottest Place in Hell has found.
A senior officer from the army’s Nahal Brigade tied the explosive cord around the man’s neck before he was ordered to scout houses. After eight hours, soldiers ordered the man to flee with his wife from their home in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood in May, said +972 magazine, which reported the piece in partnership with The Hottest Place in Hell.
But when another Israeli battalion spotted the elderly couple on the street, they were shot dead on the spot, according to Israeli soldiers present at the scene.
The Israeli soldiers had initially encountered the couple in their home. They told Arabic-speaking soldiers that they were unable to flee to southern Gaza due to mobility difficulties.
But even in his condition, the soldiers forced the unnamed 80-year-old to walk ahead of them with his cane, while his wife was detained in their house.
A soldier told the investigation that the commander had decided to use the Palestinian couple as “mosquitoes”, referring to a procedure where the Israeli army forces Palestinian civilians to serve as human shields to protect the Israeli forces from being shot or blown up.
“He entered each house before us so that if there were [explosives] or a militant inside, he would [take the hit] instead of us,” one soldier said.
“He was told that if he did anything wrong or didn’t follow orders, the soldier behind him would pull the cord, and his head would be torn from his body.”
The man was forced to act as a human shield for eight hours, before he was ordered, along with his wife, to walk towards the so-called “humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza.
But the soldiers did not care to tell nearby Israeli divisions that the couple was going to pass through the area, according to the testimonies.
“After 100 metres, the other battalion saw them and immediately shot them,” a soldier said. “They died like that, in the street.”
Al Jazeera has reached out to the Israeli army for comment on the reported incident.
Israeli forces’ use of Palestinian civilians as human shields has been extensively reported on, despite it being forbidden under international law.
In August, the Israeli daily Haaretz published an expose revealing that Israeli troops had abducted Palestinian civilians, dressed them in military uniforms, attached cameras to their bodies, and sent them into underground tunnels as well as buildings in order to shield Israeli troops.
“[I]t’s hard to recognise them. They’re usually wearing Israeli army uniforms, many of them are in their 20s, and they’re always with Israeli soldiers of various ranks,” the Haaretz article said. But if you look more closely, “you see that most of them are wearing sneakers, not army boots. And their hands are cuffed behind their backs and their faces are full of fear”.
In the occupied West Bank in June, Israeli forces tied a wounded Palestinian man to the hood of their military jeep, in an apparent use of a human shield.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ special rapporteur to the occupied Palestinian territory, slammed the incident, calling it “human shielding in action”.
And in January 2024, Palestinian shop owner Bahaa el-Din Abu Ras, 36, recounted how Israeli soldiers used him as a human shield for nearly two hours in Dura, in the occupied West Bank.
Author Pankaj Mishra argues that Israel’s war on Gaza has dealt a fatal blow to morality and international law.
Western ideals of morality and international law have been dealt a fatal blow by Israel’s war on Gaza, argues author Pankaj Mishra.
Mishra, whose latest book is The World After Gaza: A History, tells host Steve Clemons that US and Israeli leaders are normalising the idea of mass expulsion of the two million Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip and may eventually succeed in carrying it out as the world watches.
The money-spinning Indian Premier League will begin on March 22 with holders Kolkata Knight Riders to host Royal Challengers Bengaluru, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced.
Kolkata’s iconic Eden Gardens will be the venue for the opener and the final on May 25, with 74 matches to be played across 13 venues in the 18th edition of the hugely popular Twenty20 (T20) tournament, the BCCI announced on Sunday.
Ten teams will compete for the title as the world’s top cricketers, with Indian star Virat Kohli, Australia’s Pat Cummins and Jos Buttler of England all joining their respective teams in India’s searing heat.
The IPL auction for this edition shattered records as Indian wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant became the most expensive player when he was sold for a record $3.2m to Lucknow Super Giants, who later made him captain.
Shreyas Iyer, a title-winning skipper with Kolkata last season, was picked by Punjab Kings for 267.5 million rupees ($3.1m) as the second-most-expensive buy.
The IPL has generated billions in revenue since its inception in 2008, turning the BCC into one of the richest governing bodies in sport.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has fully endorsed Israel’s war aims in the Gaza Strip, saying Hamas “must be eradicated” and throwing the future of the shaky ceasefire into further doubt.
Rubio met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in West Jerusalem on Sunday at the start of a regional tour, where he is likely to face pushback from Arab leaders over US President Donald Trump’s proposal to displace the Palestinian population from the Gaza Strip and redevelop it under United States ownership, a plan that human rights organisations have called ethnic cleansing.
“The president has also been very bold, not the same tired ideas of the past but something new,” Rubio told reporters.
Netanyahu welcomed the plan, also referring to it as “bold”, and said he and Trump have a “common strategy” for Gaza’s future.
Echoing Trump, he said “the gates of hell would be open” if Hamas does not release dozens of remaining captives abducted in its October 7, 2023 attack that preceded the war.
The leaders’ remarks came just two weeks before the first phase of the ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 61,700 Palestinians, is set to end. The second phase – in which Hamas is to release dozens of remaining captives in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting truce and the withdrawal of Israeli forces – has yet to be negotiated.
Rubio said Hamas “cannot continue as a military or government force”.
“As long as it stands as a force that can govern or as a force that can administer or as a force that can threaten by use of violence, peace becomes impossible,” Rubio said. “It must be eradicated.”
Such language could complicate efforts to continue talks with Hamas, which, despite suffering heavy losses in the war, remains intact and in control of Gaza.
The US Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said on Sunday that talks on the second phase of the ceasefire would continue this week, after he had “very productive and constructive” calls with Netanyahu, as well as Egypt’s director of intelligence and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.
“[We spoke about] the sequencing of phase two, setting forth positions on both sides, so we can understand… where we are today, and then continuing talks this week at a local to be determined so that we can figure out how we get to the end of phase two successfully,” Witkoff said.
Netanyahu’s office confirmed on Sunday that an Israeli negotiating team would fly to Cairo on Monday for more talks on the Gaza ceasefire agreement and its implementation.
Former US diplomat Nabeel Khoury said Rubio has broken with the traditional setup for US diplomats to first meet with the Israeli government and then the Palestinian Authority, which has some control in the occupied West Bank.
“Rubio is not doing that. So this is sidetracking the Palestinian Authority despite all the conveniences and all the cooperation and collaboration it has given the Israeli government,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The next stop after Israel is going to be Riyadh and possibly the United Arab Emirates,” Khoury added, arguing that this fits into “Trump’s vision … which is rebuilding Gaza minus the Palestinian population”.
Osama Hamdan, a senior spokesperson for Hamas, told Al Jazeera that Israeli plans to force Palestinians out of Gaza are not new and have been voiced before, including during the first and the second Intifadas.
Trump “has no clue about the resistance of the Palestinians. He has no clue about how the Palestinians are connected to their homeland”, Hamdan said, noting “It’s not real estate. It’s a homeland.”
He added that every time Israeli officials have talked about the “elimination” of Hamas, the group has only become “stronger”.
With Trump, ‘we will finish the job’
Following the meeting with Rubio, Netanyahu said Israel and the US are both determined to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its “aggression” in the Middle East.
“Behind every terrorist group, behind every act of violence, behind every destabilising activity, behind everything that threatens peace and stability for the millions of people that call this region home is Iran,” Rubio said.
Netanyahu said Israel had dealt a “mighty blow” to Iran over the past 16 months since the start of the war in Gaza against Hamas and said that with the support of Trump “I have no doubt we can and will finish the job”.
He said Israel had weakened the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah and had hit hundreds of targets in Syria to prevent a new Iranian-backed front from opening up against Israel.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it carried out an air strike early on Sunday on people who approached its forces in southern Gaza.
The Gaza Interior Ministry said the strike killed three of its policemen while they were securing the entry of aid trucks near Rafah, on the Egyptian border.
Hamas said that the attack was a “serious violation” of the ceasefire and accused Netanyahu of trying to sabotage the deal.
Hamdan told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu and his government’s actions suggest “the ceasefire is in jeopardy”, but Hamas will do its best to continue with the agreement.
The International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Champions Trophy returns after an eight-year hiatus, with Pakistan hosting the tournament from February 19 to March 9.
The tournament will be the ICC’s only men’s limited-overs competition in 2025, with eight teams vying to lift the trophy and adorn the winners’ white blazers.
Here’s Al Jazeera’s ultimate guide to the tournament:
What’s the Champions Trophy and why is it so important for Pakistan?
The championship, originally named the ICC Knockout, was conceived as an elite tournament among cricket’s Test-playing nations and devised to fill the four-year gap between the ICC’s 50-over World Cup and help expand the game globally.
The inaugural edition was held in Bangladesh in 1998 and won by South Africa.
With the introduction of the ICC T20 World Cup in 2007 and the ICC World Test Championship in 2019, the Champions Trophy was discontinued after the 2017 edition, which was hosted by England and won by Pakistan.
As the tournament makes its comeback for the ninth edition, the holders are hosting Pakistan’s biggest international sport event in 29 years.
The South Asian nation last hosted an ICC event in 1996, and the March 2009 gun attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team’s bus in Lahore caused the cancelation or disruption of professional cricket tours in Pakistan for years to come.
For Pakistan, hosting a successful international tournament can help change the country’s perceptions, cricket experts told Al Jazeera.
Pakistan will host their first ICC tournament since 1996 [File: Akhtar Soomro/Reuters]
Which teams are participating in the Champions Trophy 2025 and what’s the format?
Hosts Pakistan and the top seven ODI teams from the 2023 Cricket World Cup group qualified for the Champions Trophy. The tournament has been divided into a simple group-stage and knockout-stage format.
The 2025 edition sees high-flying limited-overs side Afghanistan make their tournament debut.
Following their round-robin fixtures, the top two teams from each group will qualify for the semifinals.
Group A: Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, New Zealand
Group B: Australia, South Africa, Afghanistan, England
Afghanistan are gearing up for their maiden #ChampionsTrophy outing ???? pic.twitter.com/LSYyv71XuM
When is the opening match and when is the Champions Trophy final?
Pakistan will host New Zealand in the tournament opener at Karachi’s National Stadium on Thursday, February 19.
The final is scheduled for March 9, with the venue subject to India’s qualification for the match.
Group stage matches will be held from February 19 to March 2 and the semifinals will be played on March 4 and 5.
The tournament’s full match schedule is available here.
Why aren’t India playing their matches in Pakistan?
Up until a few weeks before the opening fixture, the tournament’s schedule hinged on India’s refusal – ostensibly based on their government’s directions – to travel to Pakistan and the host nation’s reluctance to move their neighbour’s matches to a neutral venue.
The months-long standoff was resolved when the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) begrudgingly accepted a tit-for-tat hybrid model for the tournament, wherein India would play its Champions Trophy matches at a neutral venue and Pakistan would do the same for any upcoming ICC events hosted by India.
The ICC and the PCB then agreed to move India’s three group matches and one semifinal to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The final is set to be hosted at Pakistan’s cricket headquarters in Lahore but could move to Dubai should India qualify for it.
India and Pakistan met in the final of the last edition of the ICC Champions Trophy in 2017 [File: Paul Childs/Action Images via Reuters]
Where will the Champions Trophy matches be played?
Pakistan selected Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi as its three host cities for the tournament. Dubai was added to the list as a neutral venue in December 2024.
National Stadium, Karachi: One of the oldest and most famous cricket grounds in Pakistan, the National Stadium has hosted hundreds of iconic Tests and limited-overs matches since its opening in 1955. The 30,000-capacity venue in Pakistan’s largest and most populous city has undergone major refurbishment for the Champions Trophy and will host the tournament’s opening match.
Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore: The headquarters of the PCB and Pakistan’s National Cricket Academy, Gaddafi Stadium is steeped in history and has hosted the final of the ICC Cricket World Cup in 1996, when Sri Lanka lifted the trophy in front of a rapturous crowd. Located in the city known as the beating heart of Pakistan, the 34,000-capacity venue will host three group matches, the second semifinal and the final – subject to India’s qualification.
Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium: Despite its relatively smaller size and capacity of 18,000, the Pindi Stadium is famous for always being packed to the rafters for most international fixtures – whether Test matches or limited-overs games. The venue’s location in the Pakistani capital Islamabad’s twin city makes it easily accessible for fans. It will host three group matches, including Pakistan’s fixture against Bangladesh on February 27.
Dubai International Cricket Stadium, UAE: In the 16 years since its inauguration, the venue has established itself as Pakistan and the ICC’s go-to “neutral” venue for international tournaments. With its modern “ring of fire” lighting and compact design, the venue is set to become a cauldron when India play their three group games, including the all-important match against Pakistan. Dubai will also host the first semifinal on March 4 and the final on March 9, should India qualify.
Labourers work to finalise an enclosure at the Gaddafi Stadium before the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 [File: KM Chaudary/AP Photo]
When and where is the India vs Pakistan group match?
While the marquee fixture was originally scheduled for Lahore on March 2, the match was moved to Sunday, February 23, in Dubai following an impasse and eventual agreement between both nations.
Due to the suspension of bilateral tours between the South Asian rivals, the teams play each other only during the ICC tournaments, making this match the only India vs Pakistan men’s fixture in 2025.
Temperatures will run high on and off the field as fans from both nations and around the world are expected to pack the venue, and players will look to seize the opportunity to gain bragging rights in one of the most eagerly-awaited sports fixtures of the year.
The first ball will be bowled at 09:00 GMT, but Al Jazeera’s live build-up to the match will begin at 04:00 GMT.
Which teams are favourites to win the Champions Trophy?
Al Jazeera’s top picks for the title are:
Pakistan: The defending champions are favourites not only as hosts but also based on their recent run of good form in the ODI format. Mohammad Rizwan’s side would like nothing less than to win an ICC title at home – a feat they haven’t achieved in two previous attempts.
India: The ICC’s top-ranked ODI team enter the Champions Trophy on the back of a 3-0 drubbing of England and with the T20 world title in the bag. The tournament may well serve as the farewell to ODI cricket for some of India’s biggest icons, including captain Rohit Sharma and star batter Virat Kohli.
New Zealand: The unassuming Blackcaps have snuck their way to the top quarter of ICC’s ODI rankings following a tri-nation series win in Pakistan and will look to win their second Champions Trophy title since 2000.
Who are the top players to watch?
The top five players picked by Al Jazeera are:
Babar Azam (Pakistan)
Shubman Gill (India)
Jos Buttler (England)
Glenn Maxwell (Australia)
Shaheen Shah Afridi (Pakistan)
Which top players will miss the tournament?
Australia’s World Cup-winning captain Pat Cummins and India’s world-leading pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah are the biggest names missing from their respective teams’ rosters.
Here’s Al Jazeera’s guide to the full squads.
Journalists and officials gather around the ICC Champions Trophy, on display during a ceremony at the Arbab Niaz Cricket Stadium in Peshawar, Pakistan, on February 6, 2025 [Abdul Majeed/AFP]
What’s the prize money for the Champions Trophy?
The ICC has dramatically increased the total prize for the tournament to $6.9m, a 53 percent increase from the last edition.
Here’s a breakdown of the total:
Champions: $2.24m
Runners-up: $1.12m
Losing semifinalists: $560,000
Fifth and sixth position: $350,000
Seventh and eighth position: $140,000
Who are the past winners?
Among this edition’s participants, both Australia and India have won the tournament twice, while Bangladesh and England are yet to win the title.
1998: South Africa
2000: New Zealand
2002: India and Sri Lanka (joint winners)
2004: West Indies
2006: Australia
2009: Australia
2013: India
2017: Pakistan
Are there any special rules, playing conditions or reserve days for the Champions Trophy?
The game’s standard rules and regulations for an ODI match apply to all fixtures.
Should a match end in a tie, the winner will be determined through a super over – an additional over per side that serves as an eliminator based on the team winning the one-over contest.
The points system will see the winning team bag two points, while a no result will see both sides walk away with one point apiece.
The semifinal spots will be allocated to the top two teams from each group based on their points. Should there be a tie on points, the team with the most wins will qualify and if that results in a tie, the team with the higher net run rate will make the cut.
Both the semifinals and the final have been allocated reserve days.
Delighted cricket fans show their tickets for the ICC Champions Trophy in Lahore, Pakistan [File: Arif Ali/AFP]
How can fans buy tickets for the Champions Trophy?
Tickets for the tournament have been released on a phase-by-phase basis by the ICC on its official online ticket platform and vendors across Pakistan.
Tickets for the final will be made available for purchase after the conclusion of the first semifinal in Dubai, as the venue will be confirmed based on India’s fate in the tournament.
How to follow and stream the Champions Trophy matches?
The tournament will be streamed by a number of official TV, digital and radio broadcasters across various regions.
Al Jazeera Sport will provide live pre-match build-up, as well as text and photo commentary stream for the pick of the group-stage matches and all three knockout games.
What is cricket and how is it played?
It’s a simple game of bat and ball, involving 11 players in each team but the rules can get a little complicated. Al Jazeera breaks it down for you here.
