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Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro is barred from running for office for 8 years

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:39:59 GMT

SAO PAULO (AP) — A panel of judges voted Friday to render far-right former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro ineligible to run for office again after concluding that he abused his power and cast unfounded doubts on the country’s electronic voting system.The decision forbids Bolsonaro from running until 2030, upending the 68-year-old’s political future and likely erasing any chance for him to regain power.Five judges on the nation’s highest electoral court agreed that Bolsonaro abused his authority by using government communication channels to promote his campaign and sowing doubts about the vote. Two judges voted against.“This decision will end Bolsonaro’s chances of being president again, and he knows it,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo. “After this, he will try to stay out of jail, elect some of his allies to keep his political capital, but it is very unlikely he will ever return to the presidency.”The case focused on...

The US is considering providing cluster munitions to Ukraine, says America’s top military officer

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:39:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is considering providing cluster munitions to Ukraine, the top American military officer said Friday.Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. has been thinking about providing the munitions “for a long time.” He noted that Russian troops are using them on the battlefield in Ukraine and that Ukrainian forces have received cluster bombs from other allies and have deployed the arms.Milley said at the National Press Club that discussions are continuing. “The Ukrainians have asked for it, other European countries have provided some of that, the Russians are using it,” Milley said. “There’s a decision making process ongoing.”He also dismissed concerns that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is going too slowly. Milley said he thought the initial campaign would take six weeks to 10 weeks. “It’s going to be very difficult. It’s going to be very long,” Milley said. “No one should have any illusions about any of that.” Clust...

New Chinese Canadian Museum opens its doors in historic Vancouver Chinatown building

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:39:59 GMT

VANCOUVER — When the Chinese Exclusion Act came into effect in 1923, it didn’t just effectively halt Chinese immigration to Canada — it extinguished the family lines of thousands of labourers already here.Many were condemned to bachelorhood or cut off from loved ones in China, said Catherine Clement, curator of the inaugural exhibition for the Chinese Canadian Museum that opens to the public on Saturday in Vancouver’s Chinatown, on the 100th anniversary of the controversial law’s enactment.“They just withered here,” Clement said. “They had no descendants left to tell their stories. Nobody even remember they existed … they broke while they were here.”Some ended up in mental health institutions, including Coquitlam’s Essondale Hospital, said Clement, calling them “the face of exclusion.”Now their stories are being told at the exhibition, “The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act.”Executives at the Chinese...

Prosecutors in Rep. George Santos’ case say they gave his defense 80,000 pages of material

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:39:59 GMT

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — Prosecutors said Friday that they have turned over more than 80,000 pages of materials to U.S. Rep. George Santos ’ lawyers in the federal fraud and money laundering case against him. The documents weren’t publicly released, as is common during this stage of a case. The barely five-minute hearing at a Long Island courthouse focused on the case schedule, with the next court date set for Sept. 7. Santos didn’t speak in court, nor to journalists waiting outside. The New York Republican, known for fabricating key parts his life story, is free awaiting trial. Santos pleaded not guilty last month to charges that he duped donors, stole from his campaign, collected fraudulent unemployment benefits and lied to Congress about being a millionaire.Prosecutors have charged Santos with 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to Congress. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Taken together, the a...

Supreme Court directs Ohio’s top court to take another look at redistricting lawsuit

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:39:59 GMT

The Ohio Supreme Court will take yet another look at the legality of the state’s congressional districts after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday set aside a ruling striking down the districts and ordered further consideration of the case. The nation’s high court directed Ohio’s top court to reassess the case in light of its ruling Tuesday in a North Carolina redistricting case. Justices in that instance rejected an expansive version of the so-called independent state legislature theory, which holds that legislatures have absolute power in setting the rules of federal elections and cannot be overruled by state courts.But the high court said state courts still must act within “ordinary bounds” when reviewing laws governing federal elections. The Supreme Court’s brief order Friday was the fourth this month addressing redistricting conducted by states based on the 2020 census. Its other decisions dealt with Republican-drawn U.S. House districts in Alabama and Loui...

Have best-before dates hit their expiration? Feds consider recommendation

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:39:59 GMT

We could see a change in policy around best-before dates in Canada in an effort to reduce food waste.It’s one of a dozen recommendations made by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food, the intent of which is to address rising food costs.The report, Grocery Affordability: Examining Rising Food Costs in Canada, was presented to the House on June 13. The report cited record-level acceleration of food prices through the Consumer Price Index, and record profits from grocery retailers in recent years.One recommendation made was by Lori Nikkel, who serves as CEO of Canada’s largest food rescue organization, Second Harvest. She writes in the report that best-before dates on packages are “wildly misunderstood.”“They are not expiry dates. They refer to a product’s peak freshness. While Canadians struggle to put food on the table, they are also convinced that best-before dates are about safety and will throw away perfectly good food t...

Supreme Court won’t hear challenge to Jim Crow-era Mississippi bans blocking some felons from voting

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:39:59 GMT

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday that it will not stop Mississippi from removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies — a practice that originated in the Jim Crow era with the intent of stopping Black men from influencing elections.The court declined to reconsider a 2022 decision by the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said Mississippi had remedied the discriminatory intent of the original provisions in the state constitution by altering the list of disenfranchising crimes.In a dissent Friday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the authors of the Mississippi Constitution in 1890 made clear that they intended to exclude Black people by removing voting rights for felony convictions in crimes they thought Black people were more likely to commit, including forgery, arson and bigamy. The list of disenfranchising crimes was “adopted for an illicit discriminatory purpose,” Brown Jackson wrote in the dissent joined by Justi...

U.S.-based remote vehicle operator gives timeline of Titan recovery off Newfoundland

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:39:59 GMT

EAST AURORA, N.Y. — The owner of the remotely operated vehicle that recovered pieces of the Titan submersible says it found the wreck on the ocean floor soon after arriving at the search site on June 22.Ed Cassano, CEO of Pelagic Research Services, says its ROV Odysseus 6K had the capability to dive to the wreck of the Titanic and that another ROV descended into the water to search but never made it out.Cassano says the ROV from another vessel, the Deep Energy, dived beyond its capabilities and was lost.He says a 24-hour recovery operation to find the Titan submersible ran from June 22 until Tuesday of this week.Cassano says his crew returned to St. John’s on Wednesday on board the Canadian Ship Horizon Arctic with the pieces of Titan wreckage that it found on the ocean floor.The Titan imploded during its June 18 descent to the Titanic wreck site, almost four kilometres below the surface of the sea, resulting in the deaths of all five passengers and crew.This report by The Canadian ...

Wildfires leading to smog warnings, poor air quality in Ontario, Quebec

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:39:59 GMT

MONTREAL — Evacuation orders were being lifted on Friday for Quebec residents directly affected by wildfires, but the blazes were still causing poor air quality across much of the province.Quebec’s Public Security Department said that almost all of the 2,300 people evacuated from their homes would be able to return no later than Saturday because rainfall during the past week has decreased the forest fire threat.In the northern town of Lebel-sur-Quévillon, home to more than 2,000 people, essential workers began returning on Thursday, with a full return scheduled for Saturday.“We’re looking forward to seeing you tomorrow,” Mayor Guy Lafrenière said in a video message on Friday.The western edge of a massive fire burning east of the town is under control, he said. “To give you an idea of the size of the fire, it measures 107 kilometres wide by 97 kilometres long.” The town’s website says the fire is 24 times the size of the city of Montreal. Fou...

Yukon still waiting for federal support to build flooding mitigation infrastructure

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:39:59 GMT

WHITEHORSE — The Yukon government says the territory is “patiently waiting” for federal support for building mitigation infrastructure after severe flooding in the Klondike Valley this spring.Premier Ranj Pillai says the territory has launched an $8-million financial assistance program for the flood’s victims as the Yukon moves from emergency response to recovery support.The program will provide up to $250,000 for eligible residential damages and losses, rising to $500,000 for agricultural and small business applicants.Pillai says recent meetings among Canadian premiers, as well as ministers responsible for infrastructure, have confirmed climate resilience to be a major focus of new funding plans that may emerge from the federal government this fall.The Yukon has focused on creating flood mapping to identify high-risk areas, as well as assessing where mitigation measures should be put into place.Officials say an “unusual” ice dam situation caused the Kl...