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Michael Kovrig urges unity against hostage diplomacy, as Canada helps craft rules

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

OTTAWA — A Canadian man who was held in China for nearly three years is calling on governments around the world to co-ordinate sanctions and travel bans on states that arrest foreigners for political reasons.“Arbitrary detention creates small tears in the fabric of international law through which innocent people are dragged into darkness,” Michael Kovrig said Wednesday at a United Nations forum convened by the federal Liberal government.“Without co-ordinated advocacy, pressure and negotiation, the sad reality is that I might still be sitting in that cell right now. Many other people, too many, are still trapped in similar political nightmares.”Kovrig said support from Canadian consular officials and the public buoyed him during his detention in China, where he and fellow Canadian Michael Spavor were arrested in December 2018.China was widely viewed to have detained the men in retaliation for arrest of Chinese tech executive Meng Wanzhou days earlier at the Va...

Canada has supporting role to help Haiti, but ‘there is no solution from outside’: PM

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

NEW YORK — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would not say Thursday whether Canada will take part in a Kenya-led multinational security mission in Haiti that the United Nations is under mounting U.S. pressure to authorize. The question of how best to help dominated Trudeau’s final day at the UN General Assembly, where President Joe Biden pleaded Tuesday for urgent help for the violence and poverty-racked Caribbean nation. Media reports suggest a request for approval for a security mission could arrive at the UN Security Council as early as next week, but Trudeau assiduously avoided any hint that Canada would play a role.“Let’s be very clear that Canada is one of the countries — if not the country — that has been leaning in most substantively and standing up for the Haitian people,” he told a news conference. That includes an additional $80 million for the Haitian police on top of $100 million announced back in March, as well as sanctions against three more member...

Trump says he always had autoworkers’ backs. Union leaders say his first-term record shows otherwise

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — When former President Donald Trump visits Detroit next week, he’ll be looking to blunt criticisms from a United Auto Workers union leadership that has said a second term for him would be a “disaster” for workers.Trump will bypass the second Republican presidential debate on Sept. 27 to instead visit striking autoworkers in Michigan, where he has looked to position himself as an ally of blue-collar workers by promising to raise wages and protect jobs if elected to a second term.But union leaders say Trump’s record in the White House speaks for itself. Union leaders have said his first term was far from worker-friendly, citing unfavorable rulings from the nation’s top labor board and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as unfulfilled promises of automotive jobs. While the United Auto Workers union has withheld an endorsement in the 2024 presidential race, its leadership has repeatedly rebuffed Trump.Nevertheless, Trump plans to speak directly to a room of...

1 killed, multiple people hurt as bus carrying children crashes on New York highway

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

WAWAYANDA, N.Y. (AP) — A bus crashed on a New York highway and went down an embankment Thursday, killing one person and hurting multiple other people, police said. State police said the wreck happened on Interstate 84 in the town of Wawayanda, about 45 miles northwest of New York City.Video taken from news helicopters showed the bus lying on its side in trees and shrubs several yards off the road.Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus told WNBC-TV that there were around 45 people on the bus, mostly children. He said at at least 5 people were badly hurt. The crash happened around 1:20 p.m.The Associated Press

The former head of a Florida domestic abuse agency has been charged with fraud and grand theft

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The former head of a nonprofit domestic violence agency is charged with fraud and grand theft two years after she and the agency agreed to pay Florida $5 million to settle a civil lawsuit, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced Thursday.The Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued an arrest warrant for Tiffany Carr, the former CEO of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The state began investigating the agency after learning Carr received $7.5 million in compensation, much of it in paid time off, for the three years before she resigned in November 2019. The department also arrested former Chief Financial Officer Patricia Duarte. Both are charged with fraud, grand theft and official misconduct, all felonies. Carr and Duarte submitted false reports, billed the state for vacant positions and charged for services never provided, investigators said. The money was used for excessive bonus and leave payouts totaling $3.4 million for Car...

Federal judge sets May trial date for 5 former Memphis officers charged in Tyre Nichols beating

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A judge on Thursday set a May trial date for five former Memphis police officers who have pleaded not guilty to federal civil rights charges in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop.U.S. District Judge Mark S. Norris set a May 6 jury trial for Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin, Desmond Mills and Justin Smith during a hearing in federal court in Memphis. The former Memphis Police Department officers were indicted by a federal grand jury on Sept. 13 on charges of using excessive force and conspiring to lie about the Jan. 7 beating of Nichols as he cried out for his mother just steps from his Memphis home. Nichols, 29, died in a hospital three days after he was punched, kicked and hit with a baton in a pummeling that was caught on police video. His beating was one of several violent encounters between police and Black people that sparked protests and renewed debate about police brutality and police reform in the U.S. The five former o...

Haiti’s government to oversee canal project that prompted Dominican Republic to close all borders

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Haiti’s government on Thursday doubled down on the construction of a canal on Haitian soil that would divert water from a river it shares with the Dominican Republic, which in response last week shuttered land, air and sea borders between both countries. The Haitian government said on social media that the agriculture ministry is working with a group of Haitians building the canal so that it meets technical standards and ensure it would not negatively affect crops and people living in the nearby Maribaroux plain, which is under a drought.The canal “MUST BE BUILT,” the government said in a series of posts on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter.It added that “the ministry always remains available to sit with all sectors concerned in the construction of the canal for a better planning of the construction sites. Without forgetting that mobilization is the expression of solidarity and patriotism of a population that shows the world th...

Young Ukrainian hockey players await Quebec government OK to attend English school

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

MONTREAL — A half-dozen boys from Ukraine who played this year in Quebec City’s famed peewee hockey tournament have been sidelined since returning to the province to attend high school.The youngsters arrived in Quebec on Sept. 1 but so far have not been able to attend an English high school in the Quebec City area as planned because they don’t have provincial Education Department authorization.Sean Bérubé, a Quebec City businessman, helped arrange for the team of 11-and-12-year old Ukrainian refugees to play in the annual Quebec International Peewee Hockey Tournament in February.He says six of those children returned to study, but under Quebec’s language law they need special dispensation to attend school in English, and that process could only begin after they had arrived.Quebec’s Education Department says in a statement it is currently processing the requests, which takes about 10 days.The department says it has been dealing with a high volume of requests f...

Sophie Turner sues Joe Jonas, demands daughters return to England

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

(KTLA) -- Weeks after it was revealed Joe Jonas had filed for divorce from actress Sophie Turner, the fight doesn't seem to be over. People magazine reports the latest battle is over who will have custody of their young children and where they will live. According to the outlet, Turner has filed a lawsuit in a Manhattan, New York, court requesting they be returned to England. Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner release statement on divorce Court documents obtained by the magazine say that the "Game of Thrones" actress is calling for "the immediate return of children wrongfully removed or wrongfully retained." The documents claim this "wrongful retention" began around Sept. 20.She also alleges she and the singer agreed in late 2022 that England would be their "forever home." The documents say the couple sold their home in Miami and were in the process of buying a home in the English countryside in April. Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner attend the 2023 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika...

Zelenskyy delivers upbeat message to US lawmakers as some Republican support softens

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:14:49 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy worked to shore up U.S. support for Ukraine on a whirlwind visit to Washington on Thursday, delivering an upbeat message on the war's progress while facing new questions about the flow of American dollars that for 19 months has helped keep his troops in the fight against Russian forces.The Ukrainian leader received a far quieter reception than the hero's welcome he got last year, but also won generally favorable comments on the aid he says he needs to stave off defeat.Zelenskyy, in long-sleeve olive drab, came to the Capitol with a firm message in private talks with Republican and Democratic leaders. The Ukrainians have a solid war plan, and “they are winning,” lawmakers quoted him as assuring them, at a time that the world is watching Western support for Kyiv.Zelenskyy also spoke with military leaders at the Pentagon and was meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin greeted Zelenskyy at the Pe...