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Authorities in Chile have declared a state of emergency and overnight curfew after a sweeping blackout stranded commuters, knocked out traffic lights, paralyzed countless businesses and left millions of people in the South American country without electricity.

The National Electrical Coordinator, Chile’s grid operator, said a disruption had occurred in a high-voltage transmission line that carries power from the Atacama Desert of northern Chile to the capital of Santiago in the country’s central valley.

It did not say what actually caused the disruption that pushed much of the country’s power grid into shutdown, from the northernmost Chilean port of Arica to the southern Los Lagos agricultural region.

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Michelle Trachtenberg, the actress who rose to fame as a precocious child star in “Harriet the Spy” and went on to have memorable roles on TV shows including “Gossip Girl,” has died, according to the New York City police. She was 39.

Police responded to a 911 call on Wednesday just after 8 a.m. local time and found a woman unconscious and unresponsive inside a Manhattan apartment. She was later identified as Trachtenberg, according to an NYPD spokesperson.

EMS responded to the location and pronounced the victim deceased.

“Criminality is not suspected,” the NYPD said in a statement, adding that the investigation remains ongoing. Trachtenberg’s official cause of death will come from the Medical Examiner’s office.

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“The Holy Father's clinical condition remains critical but stable. There have been no acute respiratory episodes, and hemodynamic parameters continue to be stable.

In the evening, he underwent a scheduled CT scan to radiologically monitor the bilateral pneumonia. The prognosis remains cautious.

In the morning, after receiving the Eucharist, he resumed work activities.”

This Tuesday evening update on Pope Francis’ health was published by the Holy See Press Office on 25 February 2025.

Twice-daily statements have kept the faithful informed as regards the Pope’s health since he was admitted to the Agostino Gemelli Hospital in Rome on Friday, 14 February following a bout of bronchitis.

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Health

Norovirus sickens nearly 80 passengers on cruise ship that left from Florida

By Kerry Breen

February 26, 2025 / 1:40 PM EST / CBS News

Dozens of passengers aboard a cruise ship that left from Florida have been sickened with norovirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Vessel Sanitation Program.

Holland America Line's Eurodam left Port Everglades, Florida, on Feb. 19, according to the tracking site cruisemapper.com. The cruise is scheduled to last 10 days and make multiple stops throughout the Caribbean before returning to Florida on March 1. 

Seventy-nine passengers and nine crew members have reported feeling ill, according to the Vessel Sanitation Program, which said 2,057 passengers and 834 crew members are aboard the 12-deck vessel. 

The predominant symptoms reported are diarrhea and vomiting, the Vessel Sanitation Program said. The ship's crew increased cleaning and disinfection procedures, isolated ill passengers and crew members, and collected stool specimens for testing, the program said. The crew will stay in contact with the Vessel Sanitation Program to consult on sanitation procedures and report any additional illnesses. 

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President Donald Trump said that he plans to offer a “gold card” visa with a path to citizenship for $5 million, replacing a 35-year-old visa for investors.

“They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think it’s going to be extremely successful,” Trump said Tuesday in the Oval Office.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the Trump Gold Card would replace EB-5 visas in two weeks. EB-5s were created by Congress in 1990 to generate foreign investment and are available to people who spend about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people.

Lutnick said the gold card — actually a green card, or permanent legal residency — would raise the price of admission for investors and do away with fraud and “nonsense” that he said characterize the EB-5 program. Like other green cards, it would include a path to citizenship.

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The White House said Tuesday that its officials “will determine” which news outlets can regularly cover President Donald Trump up close — a sharp break from a century of tradition in which a pool of independently chosen news organizations go where the chief executive does and hold him accountable on behalf of regular Americans.

The move, coupled with the government’s arguments this week in a federal lawsuit over access filed by The Associated Press, represented an unprecedented seizing of control over coverage of the American presidency by any administration. Free speech advocates expressed alarm over what it could mean for democracy. And three wire services that reach billions of people around the world said Wednesday that the change would harm the dissemination of reliable information about the nation’s chief executive.

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