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Smoke returns to GTA today with unsettled weather expected for Canada Day

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:59 GMT

Toronto is starting Friday with the worst air quality in the world ahead of long weekend that is expected to see plenty of unsettled weather.Environment Canada has issued another special air quality statement for most of Southern Ontario. The weather agency warns of high levels of air pollution due to smoke from northern wildfires.“Smoke plumes from forest fires over northeastern Ontario and Quebec has returned to the area resulting in deteriorated air quality once again,” reads the statement.There are showers and thunderstorms in the forecast for Friday, but CityNews 680 meteorologist Jill Taylor says the wet weather won’t do much in the way of clearing the haze. The smoke is expected to linger for most of the day, and possibly into Saturday.“This wildfire smoke could become even more widespread as we work through the morning,” says Taylor. “We’ve got some showers moving through this morning, then widespread smoke, and then the possible for...

Trump and DeSantis are among the 2024 GOP hopefuls set to appear at the Moms for Liberty gathering

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:59 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, are scheduled to speak Friday at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty, a two-year-old group that has fiercely opposed instruction related to race and gender identity in the nation’s classroom.The group, which has quickly become a force in conservative politics, advocates “parental rights” in education, but an anti-hate watchdog has labeled it “extremist” for allegedly harassing community members, advancing anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation and fighting to scrub diverse and inclusive material from lesson plans. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and DeSantis’ wife, Casey DeSantis, also are slated to address the group Friday at the downtown Philadelphia hotel hosting the conference. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are set to give remarks on Saturday.Their attendance underscores the influence o...

Haitians need aid and face ‘staggering levels’ of gender violence, UN children’s chief says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:59 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Close to half of Haiti’s people, 2.2 million adults and 3 million children, need humanitarian aid and thousands of youngsters face “staggering levels” of gender-based violence, the head of the U.N. children’s agency said Thursday.“Haitians and our team, they’re telling me it’s never been worse than it is now — unprecedented hunger and malnutrition, grinding poverty, a crippled economy, resurgence of cholera, and a massive insecurity that creates a deadly downward spiral of violence,” said Catherine Russell, the executive director of UNICEF.Russell said what was clear during her just-completed visit was that the police don’t have the capacity to secure the country and protect the population from violent gangs and “something needs to change.”“We have to, as an international community, say we can’t watch this country completely fall apart,” she said. “And so my job is to try to bring some attention to that problem and to make sure people understand how terri...

Paris Saint-Germain coach Christophe Galtier and his son detained in racism probe

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:59 GMT

Paris Saint-Germain coach Christophe Galtier and his son have been detained as part of an investigation into racism allegations at one of his former clubs, Nice prosecutor Xavier Bonhomme told The Associated Press.Galtier and his son, John Valovic-Galtier, were placed in custody for questioning on Friday morning, Bonhomme said without elaborating.Galtier, who is on his way out at PSG but still under contract, denied accusations that he made racist and anti-Muslim comments when he was in charge of French club Nice when the scandal broke earlier this year.RMC Sport and other French media published reports quoting a leaked email from former Nice director of football Julien Fournier to the club’s owners, in which he accused Galtier of saying there were too many Black and Muslim players in the squad.Galtier said he felt hurt “at the deepest level” of his humanity by the accusations and has taken legal action.Bonhomme said at the time a preliminary investigation had been opened into “disc...

Flooding in South Africa kills 7, and rescue crews are searching for another 7 missing people

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:59 GMT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Seven people have died and another seven are missing after days of heavy rainfall triggered floods in and around the South African city of Durban, local government authorities said Friday.Six people died in Durban and one in Port Sheptsone a beachside town about 120 kilometers (75 miles) to the south. Rescue teams are still searching for seven more people, the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government said.Authorities said they recovered the bodies of a woman in her 20s and a teenage girl in a canal in Durban to take the death toll to seven.Around 70 houses have been destroyed and more than 100 damaged in the wild weather. More than 150 people have been left homeless, the provincial government said. People were taking refuge in schools and other buildings, local officials said.Heavy rains and strong winds have battered South Africa’s east coast this week. The unusual weather also resulted in a type of tornado called a “landspout” ripping through one ar...

Polish child who fell overboard from ferry and mother who jumped in afterward are dead

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:59 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A 7-year-old child who fell overboard from a passenger ferry in the Baltic Sea and the child’s mother, who jumped into the water after her child, are both dead, a Polish police official said Friday.Police spokesperson Mariusz Ciarka told the TVN24 broadcaster that it was impossible to save the lives of the two, both of whom were Polish citizens.The tragedy occurred Thursday when the child fell into the water and the mother decided to jump in after her child, Swedish Maritime Administration spokesperson Jonas Franzen told The Associated Press. He said the child fell from a height of about 20 meters (65 feet).The mother and child were transported separately by helicopter to a hospital in Karlskrona.Anders Olsson, who was on the rescue helicopter that pulled the woman from the sea, told Swedish radio on Friday that she was “not responsive” and first aid was administered to her.Ships and helicopters from Sweden and from NATO units that were in the area assisted in ...

Prosecutor says Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey is a ‘sexual bully’ who preys on other men

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:59 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey gets a thrill by preying on other men, a prosecutor told jurors during his sexual assault trial Friday in a London courtroom.Spacey is “a man who does not respect personal boundaries or space, a man who it would seem delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable — a sexual bully, ” Prosecutor Christine Agnew said in her opening statement. “His preferred method of assault is, it appears, to grab aggressively other men in the crotch.”The four men who have accused Spacey of sexual assault did not know each other, but all “had the misfortune to attract” his attention, she said. Spacey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges including sexual assault, indecent assault and causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.The charges involve men now in their 30s or 40s and date from 2001 to 2013. That covers most of the decade when Spacey lived in Britain and served as artistic director of the ...

Venus Williams will begin her 24th Wimbledon appearance against Elina Svitolina

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:59 GMT

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams will begin her 24th appearance at the tournament against 2019 semifinalist Elina Svitolina, while Friday’s draw put two-time titlist Andy Murray up against wild-card entry Ryan Peniston in an all-British first-round matchup.Williams, who is 43 and has played just five matches this season, and Svitolina, who returned to the tour in April after taking time off to have a baby, both were given wild cards by the All England Club.Whoever wins that contest could face No. 28 seed Elise Mertens in the second round, followed perhaps by a matchup against No. 7 Coco Gauff, the American who was just 15 when she began her Grand Slam career by eliminating Williams at Wimbledon in 2019.Williams won Wimbledon in 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2008, to go along with two U.S. Open trophies.Audible gasps filled the All England Club’s main interview room where the draw was being conducted when Murray — who has twice undergone ...

Stop the press: Vienna newspaper Wiener Zeitung ends daily print edition after 320 years

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:59 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — One of the world’s oldest newspapers, the Vienna-based Wiener Zeitung, ended its daily print run Friday after more than three centuries.First published under the name Wiennerisches Diarium, the paper set out to provide a sober account of the news “without any oratory or poetic gloss” when it was launched on Aug. 8, 1703.“320 years, 12 presidents, 10 emperors, 2 republics, 1 newspaper,” the print edition’s final front page read.The Wiener Zeitung, which is owned by the Austrian government but editorially independent, suffered a sharp decrease in revenue after a recent law dropped a requirement for companies to pay to publish changes to the commercial registry in the print edition.The newspaper, which is considered a quality publication with a wide range of articles covering domestic and foreign news, culture and business, was forced to cut 63 jobs and reduce its editorial staff by almost two-thirds to 20.It will continue to operate online and plans a monthly...

Families of tens of thousands missing in Syria draw some hope from new UN push to find loved ones

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:59 GMT

IDLIB, Syria (AP) — In her small apartment in opposition-held Idlib in northwest Syria, Umm Mohammed is depressed and lethargic. But when her phone rings or someone knocks on the door she becomes suddenly alert. Maybe, finally, her husband has come back.In 2013, Syrian soldiers broke into the couple’s home in Damascus as they were having breakfast, she said. She and her husband had previously taken part in anti-government protests.“They beat him up in front of my young daughter” and then took him away, said Umm Mohammed, or “mother of Mohammed,” the name of her oldest son. She did not want to give her own full name for fear the authorities would harm her husband if he is still alive.The only news she has received about him since that day came in 2015, when someone claimed to have seen him in the Syrian military intelligence’s 248 Branch prison — which former detainees and human rights groups have called a torture center.“When someone is martyred, they’re buried and you know they’re ...