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Federal effort to boost child care in three provinces off to ‘slow start’: report

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:16:22 GMT

An analysis by a public-policy group has found that federal funding meant to bring $10-a-day child care across Canada has stumbled with a “slow start” and “underwhelming results” in three provinces where data is available.The report by Cardus looking at the roll out of the programs in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick found that issues ranging from unspent funding to skilled labour shortages led to missed child care targets.The federal government signed separate, five-year funding agreements with provinces and territories in 2021, committing up to $30 billion in five years toward the establishment of $10-a-day child care.The Cardus report found that B.C. spent just 11 per cent of its federal funding from the initiative in its first year, while only nine per cent of the funding set aside for Indigenous child care was allocated. The report says similar issues arose in Saskatchewan, where a shortage of early-childhood educators limited the provinc...

Bernie Sanders to address NDP convention in pre-recorded video

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:16:22 GMT

HAMILTON — United States Sen. Bernie Sanders is throwing his support behind Canada’s New Democrats in a pre-recorded video the party aims to play at its policy convention on Friday.The former U.S. presidential candidate says in the seven-minute video that he’s a long-time fan of the NDP.He delivers a warning to party faithful about what he says are massive attacks on the foundations of democracy and rule of law around the world. He says that in his own country, millions of people are giving up on democracy and turning to autocracy to answer the crises of the day. Sanders says he believes the NDP can address such challenges in Canada, and they must expand a multi-racial, multi-generational movement that demands an economy and government that work for everyone.Sanders also calls for a quicker transition to green energy, citing this year’s Canadian wildfires. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 12, 2023. The Canadian Press

Man guilty of incel-inspired terror attack on Toronto spa employee apologizes to victims

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:16:22 GMT

A man who pleaded guilty to the incel-inspired murder of a Toronto massage parlour employee says he has changed in the three years since the terrorist attack and doesn’t hate women anymore. The man apologized in court today to the family and friends of 24-year-old Ashley Noelle Arzaga, who was killed in the February 2020 stabbing attack at a spa in north Toronto, as well as to a woman who was seriously injured.The man, who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act because he was 17 at the time of the attack, pleaded guilty last year to charges of murder and attempted murder.Justice Suhail Akhtar ruled in June that the attack amounted to an act of terrorism for its links to so-called “incel” ideology, short for the “involuntary celibate” fringe internet subculture dominated by men who blame women for their lack of sexual relations.The court heard the man planned to seek out women to violently attack with a 17-inch sword in order to p...

In many Indigenous cultures, a solar eclipse is more than a spectacle. It’s for honoring tradition

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:16:22 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — For a few hours, Krystal Curley and her Indigenous women’s work group took over a college auditorium to share traditional Navajo practices regarding this weekend’s highly anticipated solar eclipse. More than 50 people — young and old — showed up for the chance to either connect with or remember cultural protocol going back hundreds of years.They laid out books on Navajo astronomy and corn pollen used for blessings. A medicine man fielded questions from the majority Navajo, or Diné, audience on what to do when the moon partially shrouds the sun.Don’t: Look at the eclipse, eat, drink, sleep or engage in physical activity.Do: Sit at home and reflect or pray during what’s considered an intimate, celestial moment. “There’s so many things we’re not supposed to do as Diné people compared to other tribes, where it’s OK for them to look at the eclipse or be out or do things,” said Curley, executive director of nonprofit Indigenous Life Ways.The be...

2 charged in $5M high-end theft ring: Lyons police

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:16:22 GMT

LYONS, Ill. — Two men have been arrested and charged in a $5 million multi-state, high-end theft ring. Lyons police said it's been nicknamed "the motherload." A huge stash of high-end merchandise has been recovered from a national criminal enterprise — including more than $3 million worth of Nike shoes alone.This investigation started last month in Lyons with a break-in of a semi trailer in a storage yard. The suspects returned hours later, hooked up the trailer that was filled with toys, and took it to a warehouse on Chicago's West Side. Turns out the warehouse served as a showroom for stolen high-end goods in an interstate theft ring. The merchandise was being repackaged and sold to wholesalers.  Lyons police said it's their biggest recovery and this is only the tip of the iceberg.  One of two brothers pleads guilty in fatal shooting of Ella French Lyons police worked with multiple agencies on this investigation spanning across multiple states. BNSF railroad is also involved, as...

The morgue at Gaza's biggest hospital is overflowing as Israeli attacks intensify

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:16:22 GMT

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The morgue at Gaza’s biggest hospital overflowed Thursday as bodies came in faster than relatives could claim them on the sixth day of Israel's heavy aerial bombardment on the territory of 2.3 million people.With scores of Palestinians killed each day in the Israeli onslaught after an unprecedented Hamas attack, medics in the besieged enclave said they ran out of places to put remains pulled from the latest strikes or recovered from under the ruins of demolished buildings.The morgue at Gaza City's Shifa hospital can only handle some 30 bodies at a time, and workers had to stack corpses three high outside the walk-in cooler and put dozens more, side by side, in the parking lot.“The body bags started and just kept coming and coming and now it’s a graveyard,” Abu Elias Shobaki, a nurse at Shifa, said of the parking lot. “I am emotionally, physically exhausted. I just have to stop myself from thinking about how much worse it will get.”Nearly a week after Ham...

5 officers shot in Minnesota, suspect not in custody: authorities

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:16:22 GMT

(NEXSTAR) – Five officers were shot and wounded Thursday morning near Princeton, Minnesota, authorities say. Hours later, the suspect was not in custody.None of the officers' injuries appeared to be life-threatening, the Associated Press reported. Robbinsdale Police Capt. John Elder told the outlet the officers were from several agencies, but didn't specify which. The Benton County Sheriff’s Office provided few details in its initial statement. The department said it was being assisted by several other public safety agencies on a “critical incident” unfolding in Glendorado Township, which is a few miles west of Princeton. It said there was no danger to the general public, although the public was being asked to avoid the area.Law enforcement and helicopters are seen near where officers say has been a "critical incident" on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023, near Princeton, Minn. Several law enforcement officers were shot and wounded Thursday morning in an incident near the east-central Minneso...

Connor Bedard's first goal with the Blackhawks has a family connection

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:16:22 GMT

BOSTON — It took less than four periods for Connor Bedard to get a very important first in the National Hockey League.By doing so against the Blackhawks' opponent on Wednesday night, he was able to share a special distinction with a family member, who was also a professional player for the Chicago organization. Bedard scored the first goal of his NHL career just 5:37 into the first period against the Bruins at TD Garden with a wrap-around shot that beat goalie Linus Ullmark for the score. This came after he registered a point in his NHL debut in a win over the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Tuesday. What makes scoring his first goal against the Bruins is the fact that a member of his family did the same with the Blackhawks decades earlier, which was pointed out by the public relations department of the NHL. James Bedard was a defenseman for the team for two seasons in Chicago in the 1949-1950 and 1950-1951 seasons. In those 22 games, he scored just one goal, and it came against Boston in...

WATCH: NASA launch sets sights on metal-rich asteroid, possible core of small planet

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:16:22 GMT

(NEXSTAR) — NASA's Psyche mission is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket Friday morning to start a nearly six-year mission to a "metal-rich" asteroid.The mission namesake is also the target: Asteroid 16 Psyche. While NASA has conducted a number of asteroid-related missions, including the recent return of its first asteroid samples, this will be the agency's first mission to an asteroid which they believe has more metal than rock or ice.While there won't be a return trip for the Psyche spacecraft, scientists hope to confirm a theory from afar. They hypothesize the asteroid, which is 173 miles in diameter at its widest point, could actually be the leftover core of a planetesimal, or very small planet. If confirmed, the study of 16 Psyche could offer a look at what might be Earth's own center and how our planet was created. Psyche mission: watch the most recent science and mission update brief As of Thursday at 2 p.m. EDT, the mission blog notes the Friday 10:19 a...

Oklahoma man clears his name of murder conviction using pandemic relief funds

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:16:22 GMT

GREENWOOD, Ark. (AP) — Ricky Dority spends most of his days playing with his grandchildren, feeding chickens and working in the yard where he lives with his son's family.It's a jarring change from where he was just several months ago, locked in a cell serving a life prison sentence at Oklahoma's Joseph Harp Correctional Center in a killing he said he didn't commit. After more than two decades behind bars, Dority had no chance of being released — until he used his pandemic relief funds to hire a dogged private investigator.The investigator and students at the Oklahoma Innocence Project at Oklahoma City University, which is dedicated to exonerating wrongful convictions in the state, found inconsistencies in the state's account of a 1997 cold-case killing, and Dority's conviction was vacated in June by a Sequoyah County judge.Now, the 65-year-old says he’s enjoying the 5-acre property in a quiet neighborhood of well-to-do homes in the rolling, forested hills of the Arkansas River Valle...