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Pulitzer prize: AP’s Eranga, Rafiq Maqbool named finalists for coverage of Aragalaya

AP photographers Eranga Jayawardena and Rafiq Maqbool were named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography for images capturing anger over economic collapse in Sri Lanka.
The AP images from Sri Lanka captured the full range of human emotion with protesters pumping their fists in the air shouting anti-government slogans, and also shielding themselves from tear gas and water cannons.
Crowds of Sri Lankans storming the office of the Prime Minister, after the President fled the country, and others celebrating inside the President’s official residence, by jumping in the pool and using the gym equipment.
Eranga Jayawardena was born April 11, 1978, and brought up in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and has been a witness and a recorder through news photography of key natural, socio-political and entertainment events for more than 20 years of his life. Eranga, in 1996 started, taking up assignments, while still at school, for The Island and they mostly comprised of politically motivated ethnicity based violent events.
Rafiq Maqbool is a staff photographer for Associated Press and has been based in Mumbai, India, since 2009. For AP he has covered some of South Asia’s most troubled hotspots, including his homeland of Kashmir. He has extensively documented militancy and violence at its height, in the late 1990s, including the Kargil war between India and Pakistan, as well as the devastating earthquake of 2005 in the region.
The Associated Press has won two Pulitzer Prizes in journalism for its coverage of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, in the categories of public service and breaking news photography. The AP’s coverage of the siege of Mariupol was credited with saving thousands of lives. AL.com, based in Birmingham, Alabama, won Pulitzers for editorial writing and local news coverage. The New York Times also won for Ukraine coverage.
It and the Los Angeles Times won two Pulitzers. The Washington Post, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, Mississippi Today and Gimlet Media also won awards. The Pulitzers annually honour the best in journalism.
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Hundreds fired at aviation safety agency, union says
The Trump administration has begun firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, according to the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union, weeks after a fatal mid-air plane collision in Washington DC.
Several hundreds of the agency’s probationary workers – who have generally been in their positions for less than a year – received the news via email late on Friday night, a statement from PASS’s head, Alex Spero said.
It is a part of a cost-cutting drive, driven by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge)., that aims to drastically cut the federal workforce.
Spero called the firings “shameful” and said they “will increase the workload and place new responsibilities on a workforce that is already stretched thin”.
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The term of Acting President of the Court of Appeal Justice Mohammed Thahir Laffar extended

The term of Acting President of the Court of Appeal Justice Mohammed Thahir Laffar has been extended.
Accordingly, Justice Mohammed Thahir Laffar took his oath before President Anura Kumara Disanayake at the Presidential Secretariat on Monday (17). Secretary to the President Dr. Nandika Sanath Kumanayake was also present on this occasion.
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Colombo High Court serves indictments against SLPP Parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa

The Colombo High Court has served indictments against Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) Parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa.over alleged misappropriation of Rs. 70 million provided by Krrish Company for development of rugby in Sri Lanka.
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