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Ottawa not pressing Ukraine for wartime election, urges allies to keep unity for Kyiv

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:34 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada does not plan to press Ukraine to hold a wartime election, focusing instead on broader democratic efforts.A senior bureaucrat overseeing Europe for Global Affairs Canada told a Senate committee that Ottawa is supporting efforts to weed out corruption and engage civil society.Alexandre Lévêque said Ottawa would not raise the issue if Kyiv opts against holding a vote, noting that “democracy is about a lot more than just going to vote.”Canadians have had an outsized role in monitoring Ukraine’s elections since its independence in 1991.The country’s constitution calls for a vote next spring, but also says one can’t be held during martial law.During his visit to Ottawa last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it’s logistically complicated to hold a vote when Russia is occupying entire regions and could bomb people gathering in polling centres.Lévêque added that Canadian officials “are watching and are concerned” ab...

NFI Group signs contract with Houston for up to 210 clean-diesel transit buses

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:34 GMT

WINNIPEG — NFI Group Inc. says it has signed a deal with the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority for up to 210 buses.Financial terms of the deal were not immediately available.NFI says the agreement includes 160 Xcelsior clean-diesel transit buses with options to purchase up to 50 additional buses. The company says the purchase will be added to its backlog in the third quarter for firm and option orders.The Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority provides transportation services to Houston, most of Harris County and 14 smaller, surrounding cities.The new buses will replace end-of-life vehicles in its fleet.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 5, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:NFI)The Canadian Press

Fired Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald to sue school for $130M for wrongful termination

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:34 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — Former Northwestern University football coach Pat Fitzgerald is suing the school for $130 million, saying his alma mater wrongfully fired him in the wake of a hazing and abuse scandal that has engulfed the athletic department.The announcement by Chicago-based attorneys Dan K. Webb and Matthew R. Carter on Thursday comes nearly three months after Fitzgerald was suspended and then fired after 17 years. Attorney Webb said that Fitzgerald would also be seeking additional money for “infliction of emotional distress,” future lost income and punitive damages.“If there was ever a coach at Northwestern University who should have not been terminated, it’s Coach Fitzgerald,” Webb said. The 48-year-old Fitzgerald was suspended for two weeks on July 7 following an investigation by attorney Maggie Hickey of law firm ArentFox Schiff. That probe did not find “sufficient” evidence that the coaching staff knew about ongoing hazing, but concluded there were “significant opportunit...

Army identifies soldiers killed when their transport vehicle flipped on way to Alaska training site

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:34 GMT

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (AP) — U.S. Army officials have identified two soldiers killed when their large transport vehicle crashed while heading to a training area in interior Alaska.There were among 17 soldiers on board the vehicle that flipped when the driver lost control on a dirt road leading to the Yukon Training Area near the community of Salcha, or about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Fairbanks, officials said earlier. Twelve other soldiers were injured.The two soldiers killed were Spcs. Jeremy Daniel Evans and Brian Joshua Snowden, the Army said in a statement late Wednesday.Both were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Combat Team with the 11th Airborne Division.Evans, 23, arrived in Alaska in January 2021 after completing training at Fort Moore in Georgia. The Knoxville, Tennessee, native joined the Army in July 2020.Snowden, 22, also joined the Army in July 2020 and trained at Fort Moore. Snowden, a Lonedell, Missouri, ...

Federal judges select new congressional districts in Alabama to boost Black voting power

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:34 GMT

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Federal judges selected new congressional lines for Alabama to give the Deep South state a second district where Black voters comprise a substantial portion of the electorate. The judges ordered on Thursday the state to use the new lines in the 2024 elections. The three-judge panel stepped in to oversee the drawing of a new map after ruling that Alabama lawmakers flouted their instruction to fix a Voting Rights Act violation and create a second majority-Black district or something “quite close to it.”The three-judge panel selected one of three plans proposed by a court-appointed expert that alters the bounds of Congressional District 2, now represented by Republican Rep. Barry Moore, in southeast Alabama, who is white. The district will now stretch westward across the state. Black voters will go from comprising less than one-third of the voting-age population to nearly 50%.The Supreme Court in June upheld a three-judge panel’s finding that Alabama’s pri...

Statistics Canada says country posts $718M merchandise trade surplus for August

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:34 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada’s merchandise trade balance shifted to a surplus in August, helped by strong growth in exports of unwrought gold and crude oil, Statistics Canada said.The agency said Thursday that Canada posted a trade surplus of $718 million in August compared with a revised deficit of $437 million in July.BMO economist Shelly Kaushik said it was the first surplus since April.“Energy prices propelled a modest surplus in Canada’s merchandise trade account,” Kaushik wrote in a report.“But, stronger-than-expected volumes suggest merchandise trade could add to third quarter growth. Even so, the economy is expected to slow meaningfully in the second half of the year.”The merchandise trade surplus came as total exports rose 5.7 per cent to $64.6 billion. Exports of metal and non-metallic mineral products rose 29.1 per cent in August to a record $8.5 billion, boosted by exports of gold to the United States. Meanwhile, higher prices helped lift energy product ...

Biden memo directs US agencies to restore ‘healthy and abundant’ salmon runs in the Northwest

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:34 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a move that conservationists and tribes called a potential breakthrough, President Joe Biden has directed federal agencies to use all available authorities and resources to restore “healthy and abundant” salmon runs in the Columbia River Basin.Biden’s order stops short of calling for removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Lower Snake River in Washington state, an action that tribes and conservation groups have long urged to save threatened fish populations. But it directs a host of federal agencies to do all they can to restore salmon and honor U.S. treaty obligations with Pacific Northwest tribes.“Wild salmon, steelhead and other native fish populations in the Columbia River Basin are essential to the culture, economy, religion and way of life of tribal nations and indigenous peoples,” Biden said in the six-page presidential memo released last week.Actions since 1855, including the federal government’s construction and operation of dams, have cha...

Woman, 18, charged in fatal stabbing of 16-year-old girl in Loop

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:34 GMT

CHICAGO — A woman has been charged in the fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old girl in the Loop.Egypt Otis, 18, faces one felony count of first-degree murder in the death of Heaven Taylor. According to Chicago police, the stabbing happened on the 0-100 block of West Van Buren Street just before 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.Police said Taylor was in a physical altercation with Otis, who then took out a knife and stabbed Taylor twice in the chest — then fled the scene.Heaven Taylor, 16 (Family photo)Taylor was transported to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in critical condition, where she was pronounced dead a short time later. Police said Otis was arrested Wednesday after being identified as the offender who fatally stabbed Taylor, and she was charged accordingly. 16-year-old girl stabbed to death following altercation in Loop Otis is scheduled to attend a detention hearing Thursday.       

3 in custody after CPD squad car struck by gunfire on South Side

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:34 GMT

CHICAGO — Three people are in custody after a Chicago police squad vehicle was hit with gunfire on the city's South Side.Police said officers responded to a ShotShotter alert around 8:50 p.m. Wednesday in the 4700 block of South Elizabeth.Upon arrival, officers heard multiple gunshots coming from an unknown direction. According to police, one of the rounds penetrated through the windshield of a responding officers' vehicle.Officers on scene saw people running southbound from the scene and into a residence in the 4800 block of South Elizabeth.Police said three people were detained. 17-year-old boy shot and killed in Round Lake Beach One officer was transported to a nearby hospital for minor lacerations from shattered glass and is in good condition.According to police, officers did not discharge their weapons.The shooting is under investigation by Area One detectives.

Wildlife biologist 'hit' by lightning while filming YouTube video in Florida

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:24:34 GMT

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A wildlife expert visiting the Florida Everglades to shoot a promotional video had a close encounter he was not expecting.Biologist and TV host Forrest Galante, who has made appearances on the Discovery Channel, was recording a video while standing knee-deep in the swamps of the Florida Everglades when a bolt of lightning struck right next to him."Out of nowhere, boom!" Galante recalled in an interview posted to his YouTube channel."I got hit," he said seconds after scrambling out of the water. "I felt it. I got hit. It hurt.""I realized only on reviewing the footage that I just had a lightning bolt hit 15 feet behind me that has gone shooting up my legs, into my waist, into my heart, and into my mouth, actually," Galante added. ‘The Dead Zone’: I-4 named one of the most haunted roads in America He noted he didn't see the flash of lightning because he was facing away from it, but he said his legs seized up."I'm literally paralyzed for just a fraction of a se...