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Powerful Pacific tempest clobbers storm-battered California

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:52 GMT

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — A strong late-season Pacific storm that brought damaging winds and more rain and snow to saturated California has been blamed for two deaths and forecasters said additional flooding was possible Wednesday in parts of the state.Tuesday’s storm blasted the San Francisco Bay Area with powerful gusts and downpours, pounded Sacramento — the state capital — with intense hail and set rainfall records in Southern California.The storm was gradually tapering off in California from north to south as the expansive system pushed inland across the Southwest, the Four Corners region and the central and southern Rockies, the National Weather Service said. On Tuesday, some residents of north-central Arizona were told to prepare to evacuate because of rising water levels in rivers and basins.The wind and rain mayhem from San Francisco Bay south to Monterey Bay on Tuesday was caused by an extraordinary drop in barometric pressure over the eastern Pacific that meteorolog...

MPPs call out Michael Ford for ‘racist’ remarks toward Toronto youth

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:52 GMT

MPP Michael Ford is being asked to rescind a comment he made about youth in Toronto, with some opposition critics labelling the minister’s words as “hurtful” and “racist.”NDP leader Marit Stiles took to Twitter on Wednesday morning and asked Ford to take back the remarks that were printed in a newsletter he issued to his constituents.In the newsletter, Ford highlights community group Frontlines and the charitable work they do with youth in the city. A photo depicts Ford, MPP for York – South Weston, shaking hands with a young Black person.Stiles’ tweet highlights a line where Ford says the group “will assist (youth) in the future to integrate into society,” clearly taking issue with the presumption that youth would need to be integrated into society.“Words matter,” reads Stiles’ tweet. “This kind of language about our neighbours isn’t okay.”She goes on to ask Ford to rescind his comments.Words ...

Five still missing as search continues at site of fatal fire in Old Montreal

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:52 GMT

MONTREAL — Firefighters and police are continuing to search for at least five missing people at the site of a fatal fire in Old Montreal while the investigation continues.While the plan had been to dismantle the upper floors of the three-storey building starting the week, authorities have put that plan on hold while focusing on a more “methodical” search using a crane, specialized camera equipment and drones.Insp. David Shane of the Montreal police told a briefing today that searchers are targeting areas based on the probable location of the missing people at the time of the fire Thursday.That’s how the recovery team was able to remove the body of a second victim on Tuesday evening, but police did not provide further details about the victim pending identification by the coroner’s office.Martin Guilbault, a Montreal fire operations chief, says some parts of the building are more collapsed than others, making it more difficult to determine what lies beneath th...

S&P/TSX composite up as energy stocks rise, U.S. stock markets mixed ahead of Fed

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:52 GMT

TORONTO — Strength in the energy stocks helped Canada’s main stock index climb higher in late-morning trading, while U.S. stock markets were mixed ahead of the latest interest rate decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve.The S&P/TSX composite index was up 69.58 points at 19,724.50.In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 23.65 points at 32,536.95. The S&P 500 index was up 1.79 points at 4,004.66, while the Nasdaq composite was up 19.50 points at 11,879.61.The Canadian dollar traded for 72.92 cents US compared with 72.96 cents US on Tuesday.The May crude contract was up 48 cents at US$70.15 per barrel and the April natural gas contract was down 10 cents at US$2.25 per mmBTU.The April gold contract was up US$13.00 at US$1,954.10 an ounce and the May copper contract was up five cents at US$4.04 a pound.This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 22, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD=X)The Canadian Press

Writers’ Trust launches new $75K international prize for non-fiction

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:52 GMT

TORONTO — The Writers’ Trust of Canada has announced a new $75,000 prize for international authors who have penned non-fiction works.The Weston International Award will honour a non-Canadian author’s body of work. It will be a companion award to the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, which is awarded annually to a Canadian author for a single work of non-fiction.The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation is also padding that prize’s purse, taking it from $60,000 to $75,000. To be eligible for the international award, authors must have published at least three non-fiction books that are widely available in English. A non-publicized long list will be chosen by a three-person international advisory committee, and a five-person Canadian jury will whittle it down to a single winner.The award will be handed out this year on June 20, and the winner will travel to Toronto in September to deliver a talk on the importance of non-fiction.This report by The Canadia...

Swedish lawmakers vote to endorse country joining NATO

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:52 GMT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Swedish lawmakers overwhelmingly voted Wednesday in favor of Sweden joining NATO, signing off on the country’s membership along with the required legislation. The 349-seat Riksdagen, or parliament, authorized Sweden’s accession to NATO on a 269-37 vote, with 43 lawmakers absent. It was the last required domestic hurdle to the country becoming part of the 30-member Western military alliance. Six of the eight parties represented in parliament were in favor of NATO membership, and the vote that followed a nearly seven-hour debate was seen as a formality.“Membership in NATO is the best way to safeguard Sweden’s security,” Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said during the deliberations. He called it “a historical event” and “one of the most important security policy decisions ever for our country.”Both Sweden and neighboring applied to join NATO in May 2022, abandoning decades of non-alignment in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Two NATO countrie...

Man wanted in series of violent assaults in North York

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:52 GMT

Toronto police are searching for a 42-year-old man wanted in a series of violent assaults in North York over a three-month period. Police say they were first called to an apartment building in the area of Jane Street and Falstaff Avenue on Christmas Day last year after a man allegedly broke down a door using a sledgehammer and assaulted the victim in the apartment. The man allegedly contacted the victim on March 11, 2023, threatening to kill them. He then went to the victim’s home and damaged their car. Over a week later, on March 20, police were once again called to the same address after the man allegedly showed up at the victim’s home and once again damaged their car. Police say Reginald Cuff is facing over 20 charges including assault with a weapon, threatening death and criminal harassment. Cuff is described as being five-foot-six, 160 pounds with a medium build, a black goatee and long black hair usually worn in shoulder-length dreadlocks. Anyone with information o...

Andrew Tate to remain in Romanian detention for 30 more days

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:52 GMT

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A Romanian court on Wednesday ruled for the fourth time to extend by 30 days the preventative arrest of Andrew Tate, the divisive social media influencer who is held on suspicion of organized crime and human trafficking, an official said.Tate, 36, a British-U.S. citizen who has 5.4 million Twitter followers, was initially detained in late December in Romania’s capital Bucharest, along with his brother Tristan and two Romanian women. None of the four has yet been formally indicted.Ramona Bolla, a spokesperson for Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, said that a judge at the Bucharest Tribunal agreed on Wednesday to a request by prosecutors to keep all four detained while investigations continue. They can be held for a maximum of 180 days without being formally indicted.Wednesday’s ruling comes after a Bucharest court last week rejected a bail request from Andrew Tate, who is expected to appeal Wednesday’s extension, as he has done against the...

Brazil assassination plot targeted in massive police raid

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:52 GMT

SAO PAULO (AP) — Federal police raided locations in several states Wednesday to crack down on a crime gang accused of plotting assassinations and kidnappings of public officials including a former judge who presided over Brazil’s biggest corruption case.About 120 agents carried out 24 search and seizure warrants and 11 arrest warrants in the states of Sao Paulo, Parana, Mato Grosso do Sul and Rondonia, police said in a statement, which did not name the suspects or their intended targets.A Federal Police official confirmed that one of the targets was Sen. Sérgio Moro, who as a judge presided over the Carwash bribery and money laundering case that opened in 2014 and eventually ensnared current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.Moro said on Twitter he had been targeted for retaliation by one of Brazil’s most notorious drug trafficking gangs, known as the First Capital Command. He thanked the police f...

‘Deeply troubling’: UN rights chief on Uganda anti-gay bill

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:49:52 GMT

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The United Nations rights chief is urging Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to block an anti-LGBTQ bill that prescribes harsh penalties for some homosexual offenses, including death and life imprisonment.“The passing of this discriminatory bill – probably among the worst of its kind in the world – is a deeply troubling development,” Volker Turk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement Wednesday. Uganda’s legislature passed the bill late Tuesday in a protracted plenary session during which last-minute changes were made to the legislation that originally included penalties of up to 10 years in jail for homosexual offenses. In the version passed by lawmakers the offense of “aggravated homosexuality” now carries the death penalty. Aggravated homosexuality applies in cases of sex relations involving those infected with HIV as well as minors and other categories of vulnerable people. According to the bill, a suspect convicted of “attem...