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Amid massive demonstrations, Macron delays Charles’ visit

Published Sat, 28 Dec 2024 14:02:59 GMT

PARIS (AP) — Ongoing unrest across France and calls for a new round of demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension plan persuaded officials to postpone a planned state visit next week by Britain’s King Charles III.Charles had been scheduled to arrive in France on Sunday to celebrate France and Britain’s renewed friendship. But the protests and strikes against Macron’s decision to raise France’s retirement age from 62 to 64 promised to impact his visit, with workers refusing to roll out the red carpet for the king’s arrival.Violence peaked during Thursday’s ninth union-organized nationwide marches. Over 450 protesters were arrested in Paris and beyond, as demonstrations nationwide drew more than a million people. There were scattered protest actions on Friday. Train traffic was slowed, rows of trucks blocked access to Marseille’s port for several hours and debris littered the streets of Paris.Macron has made the proposed pension chan...

Canada-U.S. deal on migration will limit safe options for asylum seekers: advocates

Published Sat, 28 Dec 2024 14:02:59 GMT

WASHINGTON — Immigration advocates say they are disappointed that Canada and the U.S. have agreed to restrict the flow of asylum seekers across their shared border.The deal to be announced today is described in U.S. documents as a “supplement” to the 2004 treaty known as the Safe Third Country Agreement. That treaty prevents asylum seekers from outside either country from crossing the Canada-U.S. border to make their claim — but until now, it only covered official points of entry. As of Saturday, the treaty will apply all along the nearly 9,000-kilometre border, including at popular unofficial crossings like Roxham Road in Quebec. Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, calls the new deal an “unfortunate development” for asylum seekers. Canada has also agreed to welcome an additional 15,000 migrants this year from across the Western Hemisphere as part of the new agreement. This report by The Canadian Press was ...

S&P/TSX composite down nearly 100 points, U.S. stock markets also retreat

Published Sat, 28 Dec 2024 14:02:59 GMT

TORONTO — Canada’s main stock index was down nearly 100 points in late-morning trading, weighed down by losses in the energy stocks as the price of oil moved lower, while U.S. stock markets also retreated.The S&P/TSX composite index was down 95.14 points at 19,364.78.In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 182.61 points at 31,922.64. The S&P 500 index was down 26.13 points at 3,922.59, while the Nasdaq composite was down 113.14 points at 11,674.26.The Canadian dollar traded for 72.54 cents US compared with 73.15 cents US on Thursday.The May crude contract was down US$1.76 at US$68.20 per barrel and the May natural gas contract was up four cents at US$2.32 per mmBTU.The April gold contract was up US$1.80 at US$1,997.70 an ounce and the May copper contract was down six cents at US$4.06 a pound.This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 24, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD=X)The Canadian Press

A sex trafficking case, a plea deal and a mother’s pain

Published Sat, 28 Dec 2024 14:02:59 GMT

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Irma Reyes changed clothes in the back seat of the pickup: skirt, tights, turtleneck, leather jacket. All black. She brushed her hair and pulled on heels as her husband drove their Chevy through predawn darkness toward a courthouse hundreds of miles from home.She wanted to look confident — poised but hellbent. The outfit was meant to let Texas prosecutors know just what kind of formidable mother they’d be crossing that morning.Weeks earlier, Reyes learned about the plea deal. State lawyers planned to let the two men charged with sex trafficking her daughter walk free.She’d barely been able to eat or brush her teeth since, her mind racing: Why are they doing this? Can I get the judge to stop it? Don’t they know my daughter matters?Reyes’ daughter was 16 in 2017, when men she knew only as “Rocky” and “Blue” kept her and another girl at a San Antonio motel where men paid to have sex with them. Now, the cases against Rakim Sharkey and Elijah Teel — the men polic...

Polish coal miners protest EU methane reduction regulations

Published Sat, 28 Dec 2024 14:02:59 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish coal miners angered by a European Union directive aiming to reduce methane emissions protested noisily Friday before the EU office in Warsaw saying it will deprive them of their jobs. Some 300 miners chanted “Thieves” and used smoke flares and sirens to draw attention to their protest in the downtown area of Poland’s capital. Traffic was temporarily closed in the area. Protesting miners from the Solidarity 80 union said recent climate recommendations for the 27-member EU that call for a significant reduction of methane, starting in 2027, would force most of the nation’s mines to close, with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.The majority of Poland’s mines have a high presence of methane gas that gets released in the coal extraction process. That also leads to serious mining accidents as methane becomes explosive when mixed in low proportions with oxygen. Located in the southern Silesia region, the coal mines are among Poland’s major employ...

Supreme Court ruling clears air on random breathalyzers on private property: CCLA

Published Sat, 28 Dec 2024 14:02:59 GMT

A video showing Barrie police arriving at a home and ordering a man to provide a breath sample last weekend raised a slew of questions about individual rights and just how much authority police can actually wield when it comes to making such intrusive demands.In that case, police were acting on a call from a concerned citizen who suspected impaired driving after seeing a vehicle swerving in and out of traffic. That call seemingly gave police the wiggle room to seek the breath test.In 2018, new tougher impaired driving laws went into effect across the country that give police wider scope to demand breath tests — in some cases, up to two hours after a person has been driving.But some feared police could begin arbitrarily demanding such tests at homes and private properties across the country.A Supreme Court ruling on Thursday has now made it clear that police do not have the authority to do so.“The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed police do not have the authority to conduct...

Toronto opted for speed over people in clearing encampments last summer: Ombudsman

Published Sat, 28 Dec 2024 14:02:59 GMT

A final report by Toronto’s Ombudsman says the City showed “significant unfairness” when it set about to clear several encampments in the summer of 2021.Ombudsman Kwame Addo says while many City staff care about people experiencing homelessness, the City chose speed over people and failed to live up to its stated commitments to fairness and a human rights-based approach to housing.“Encampments and supporting the people living in them are complex,” Addo says in his final report released Friday. “But the City owes a particularly high duty of fairness to these residents.”Homeless encampments began popping up across Toronto in March 2020 as hundreds fled shelters for fear of contracting COVID-19.By late 2020, there were more than 50 encampments across Toronto, documents obtained by activists through freedom-of-information laws, showed.The City, along with police officers, cleared out encampments at multiple parks in July 2021 including at Lampor...

Trump lawyer in court after being forced before grand jury

Published Sat, 28 Dec 2024 14:02:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for Donald Trump was back in court Friday after being ordered to answer questions before a grand jury investigating the possible mishandling of classified documents at the former president’s Florida estate.M. Evan Corcoran entered federal court in the District of Columbia early Friday morning, one week after a federal judge ruled in favor of the Justice Department in forcing Corcoran to answer additional questions before a grand jury that has been hearing testimony for months. He did not make any comments as he arrived at the building.The interest by prosecutors in Corcoran’s testimony underscores the legal peril confronting Trump, making clear the department’s continued focus on whether Trump obstructed government efforts to recover hundreds of classified documents taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his term. A search warrant affidavit released last August showed that investigators were examining potential violations ...

Kentucky governor vetoes sweeping GOP transgender measure

Published Sat, 28 Dec 2024 14:02:59 GMT

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky’s Democratic governor issued an election-year veto Friday of a Republican bill aimed at regulating the lives of transgender youths that includes banning access to gender-affirming health care and restricting the bathrooms they can use.The bill also bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools and allows teachers to refuse to refer to transgender students by the pronouns they use. It easily passed the GOP-led legislature with veto-proof margins, and lawmakers will reconvene next week for the final two days of this year’s session, when they could vote to override the veto. Gov. Andy Beshear said in a written veto message that the bill allows “too much government interference in personal healthcare issues and rips away the freedom of parents to make medial decisions for their children.”In his message, he warned that the bill’s repercussions would include an increase in youth suicides. The governor said, “My faith ...

Man bit off part of Las Vegas police officer's ear during bus standoff, documents say

Published Sat, 28 Dec 2024 14:02:59 GMT

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – A man accused of barricading himself inside a bus on Monday reportedly bit off part of a Las Vegas officer's ear as police attempted to take him into custody, documents said.Allyn McFarland, 29, faces several charges including battery, mistreatment of a police animal and mayhem, records showed.Bus driver and officers injured on Blue Diamond and Durango Drive on March 20, 2023 Bus driver and officers injured on Blue Diamond and Durango Drive on March 20, 2023 Bus driver and officers injured on Blue Diamond and Durango Drive on March 20, 2023 Bus driver and officers injured on Blue Diamond and Durango Drive on March 20, 2023 Bus driver and officers injured on Blue Diamond and Durango Drive on March 20, 2023 (KLAS photos)On Monday, March 20, around 6:45 p.m., police received a call about a man refusing to exit the bus. Nearly half of parents with adult children still pay their bills The caller, a private security officer, said the man, later identified as McFarlan...