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Halifax-area wildfire 100 per cent contained, but Shelburne fire still out of control

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:18 GMT

HALIFAX — A wildfire that tore through homes and businesses in the Halifax area is 100 per cent contained, but a historic fire in southwestern Nova Scotia remains out of control.The province’s natural resources department says the Tantallon fire northwest of the capital’s city’s downtown is now under control, meaning it is not expected to grow but is not yet out.The blaze broke out a week ago, forcing 16,000 people from their suburban homes and destroying some 200 structures, including 151 homes.In Shelburne County, however, the Barrington Lake wildfire — the largest in the province’s history — continues to burn out of control. The blaze covered 250 square kilometres as of this morning and has destroyed at least 50 homes and cottages.Canadian soldiers and firefighters from abroad are now on the ground helping the effort to extinguish the blazes that have been burning in several parts of Nova Scotia for the past week.This report from The Canadian P...

Four dead in Missouri after car crosses center line, strikes motorcyclists

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:18 GMT

AURORA, Mo. (AP) — Four people died and seven others were seriously injured when a car crossed the center line of a Missouri highway and struck five motorcycles.The accident happened Saturday afternoon on Missouri Route 39 near the southwestern Missouri town of Aurora. The Missouri State Highway Patrol said a Toyota Corolla crossed the center line of the two-lane highway and struck the motorcycles, ejecting the drivers and passengers on each motorcycle. One of the motorcycles caught fire.All four people killed were from Aurora. They were James Olmsted, 59; Kameron Hale, 28; Linda Anderson, 61; and a 17-year-old girl whose name was not released. The patrol said Olmstead and Hale were drivers of motorcycles; Anderson and the girl were passengers.The 51-year-old woman who was driving the Toyota was arrested on suspicion of impairment, the patrol told KYTV-TV. As of Sunday, no charges had been filed.The Associated Press

7 shot, 1 fatally, in Chicago when gunfire erupts amid remembrance for man killed in car crash

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:18 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — A 25-year-old woman was fatally shot and six other people were wounded early Sunday when gunfire erupted in Chicago during a remembrance for a man who died in a car crash, police said.A large group of people had gathered about 1 a.m. to mark four years since a man’s fatal crash when there was an altercation and shots rang out, said Deputy Chief Adnardo Gutierrez of the Chicago Police Department, WLS-TV reported.Seven people were wounded and one of them, a 25-year-old woman, was pronounced dead at a hospital, he said. The six other shooting victims were hospitalized, one in critical condition.“They were out there celebrating and then something happened and a verbal altercation occurred and somebody began shooting, or multiple people began shooting,” Gutierrez said at a Sunday briefing.He said it’s still under investigation how many people opened fire, but he said the gunshots were fired by a person or persons who were taking part in the remembrance.Gutierre...

US, Saudi Arabia urge Sudan’s warring parties to agree to a new cease-fire, fighting continues

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:18 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — Saudi Arabia and the United States urged Sudan’s warring parties Sunday to agree to and “effectively implement” a new cease-fire as fighting showed no signs of abating in the northeastern African nation.Sudan descended into chaos after fighting broke out in mid-April between the military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.For weeks, Saudi Arabia and the United States have been mediating between the warring parties. On May 21, both countries successfully brokered a temporary cease-fire agreement to help with the delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid to the war-torn country. Their efforts, however, were dealt a blow when the military announced on Wednesday it would no longer participate in the cease-fire talks held in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah.Following the military’s decision, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia said they were suspending the talks “as a result of repeated serious violation...

Guinea-Bissau votes to elect legislature more than a year after president dissolved parliament

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:18 GMT

BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau (AP) — Bissau-Guineans voted Sunday in a highly anticipated election to fill Guinea-Bissau’s national legislature, more than a year after the West African nation’s president dissolved parliament.Nearly 1 million voters were registered to elect more than 100 lawmakers from six parties with active seats in the National People’s Assembly, according to the Centre for Democracy and Development, an African human rights organization. Guinea-Bissau is a small nation that gained independence from Portugal nearly five decades ago. The country has endured continued political turmoil, including multiple coups, since then. President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, a former army general, took office after he was declared the winner of a December 2019 runoff election. He survived a February 2022 coup attempt when assailants armed with machine guns and AK-47s attacked the government palace.Since assuming office, Embalo has cracked down on civic freedoms, while government bod...

Ministers to deliver update as Quebec forest fires continue to burn

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:18 GMT

MONTREAL — Quebec cabinet ministers are expected to deliver an update this morning on the wildfires raging across far-flung parts of the province, as Canadian Armed Forces members prepare to help fight the threat.About 2,000 residents of Lebel-sur-Quévillon, about 620 kilometres northwest of Montreal, received a mandatory evacuation notice on Friday evening due to forest fires nearby.Mayor Guy Lafrenière said Saturday the fire continued to threaten the municipality even though its spread had slowed overnight, as fire prevention teams dug trenches in the smoke-clouded area to protect it.The evacuation followed relocation orders Friday for some 6,500 residents in parts of the North Shore community of Sept-Îles and the nearby Innu community of Mani-Utenam.Sept-Îles Mayor Steeve Beaupré said Saturday no new evacuations were planned, but residents of one sector remained on alert.Quebec forest fire prevention organization SOPFEU reported Saturday there are 134 active fires in the province...

Vigilantes in Haiti strike back at gangsters with brutal street justice

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:18 GMT

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Old cars, used tires and barbed wire block off the biggest neighborhood in the capital of Haiti.Gun-toting gangsters have been robbing, raping and murdering the innocent. Weak or corrupt police and officials have done little, or worse.Now, the people are taking action and a wave of brutal vigilante justice is roiling Haiti, concentrated in this capital of about 1 million. The vigilantes close off neighborhoods. They stone and often chop the limbs of suspected gangsters, behead them and set them afire, sometimes while they are still alive.Vigilantes have killed at least 164 people since the movement dubbed “bwa kale” began in April, according to the United Nations. The name means “peeled wood” in Haitian Creole and insinuates male dominance and power in street slang. “If you’re not from here, we’re going to kill you,” said Leo, a community leader who granted the AP access to the Turgeau neighborhood so that journalists could see how the neighborhood is re...

19 killed in southwest China landslide covering mine worker dormitory

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:18 GMT

A landslide tore through a mining company’s worker dormitory early Sunday morning in southwestern China, killing 19 people, authorities said. The disaster struck in a mountainous rural district of Sichuan province’s Leshan county, where rains have been falling constantly for weeks. More than 180 people were mobilized to help find those buried under the debris in an operation that wrapped up on Sunday afternoon. Those killed were all apparently workers with the Jinkaiyuan mining company, according to state broadcaster CCTV. With its humid, rainy climate, southwestern China is prone to landslides, especially in areas where there has been large-scale shifting of land due to farming, deforestation, engineering projects and mining operations. The Associated Press

Summer interest rate hike likely given recent momentum, economists say

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:18 GMT

Momentum in the Canadian economy is spurring speculation that a rate hike is on the way, but economists don’t expect the Bank of Canada to pull the trigger this week.The central bank will be making its next interest rate decision on Wednesday, just one week after new data showed the Canadian economy is still growing – despite interest rates sitting at the highest levels since 2007.Statistics Canada recently reported real gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 3.1 per cent during the first quarter. The figure beat out what forecasters had pencilled in for the first three months of the year.Meanwhile, the federal agency’s preliminary estimate for April suggests the economy expanded once again.Even the housing market, which was the first to be hit by rising interest rates, appears to have levelled off as prices rise again.Economists say the momentum is putting the Bank of Canada in a tough spot: the central bank has argued that a slowdown is necessary to...

Trader Joe's explains why it discontinues items more often than other grocery stores

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:18 GMT

(NEXSTAR) – If you had known it was the last time you'd see the feta salad dressing or the chocolate-filled Joe-Joe's on the shelves, you might have taken an extra bottle or box. But the disappointment of a discontinued item at Trader Joe's often takes you by surprise, when it's too late to do much about it. Fans of the grocery chain are familiar with the stores' constantly rotating repertoire of snacks, ingredients and frozen meals. But new items typically mean the company has to give something the boot, and sometimes it's your preferred ice cream flavor that takes the hit. The No. 1 reason items are discontinued, the company explained in a 2022 episode of the Inside Trader Joe's podcast, is low sales volume. You'd think that would be the case for any grocery store, but it happens more often at Trader Joe's for a few reasons. Trader Joe’s addresses ‘conspiratorial theories’ about its small parking lots First off, the stores tend to be smaller than their competitors. "We just phy...