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House GOP passes parents’ rights bill in clash over schools

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:42:49 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Friday narrowly passed legislation to press a midterm campaign promise to give parents greater say in what’s taught in public schools even as critics complained the “parents’ rights” bill would fuel a far-right movement that’s resulted in book bans, restrictions aimed at transgender students and raucous school board meetings across the country.Speaker Kevin McCarthy has made the bill, labeled the Parents’ Bill of Rights Act, a top priority during the early weeks of his tenure atop the House. It was an early test of unity for the chamber’s 222 Republicans, who have a thin majority and showed how the adoption of an open amendment process in the House — a concession McCarthy made to win hardline conservatives’ support for his speakership — holds the potential to send legislation down unpredictable twists and turns.Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., successfully added amendments that would require schools to report when transgender girls joi...

Poland honors citizens who helped Jews during Holocaust

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:42:49 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish President Andrzej Duda took part in nationwide observances Friday to honor Poles who risked — and often lost — their lives trying to save Jews from the Holocaust during the Nazi German occupation of Poland.Duda spoke at a memorial site in Markowa, a village in southeastern Poland where on March 24, 1944 Nazi forces shot and killed a farmer, his pregnant wife and their six children along with eight Jews the family was hiding at their farm. Pope Francis has declared the members of the Ulma family as martyrs. In Poland, they are a symbol of the bravery of the Poles who took the utmost risk while helping Jews during WWII.Speaking at the Markowa Museum of Poles Saving Jews During World War II, Duda noted there were many families in the region and across Poland who hid Jews, in many cases ensuring they survived.The names of the Ulmas and of other families engraved on plaques testify that there were many people who “behaved in a decent way, whose love of their ...

Amid massive demonstrations, Macron delays Charles’ visit

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:42:49 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:42:49 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:42:49 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:42:49 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:42:49 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:42:49 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:42:49 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 Wed, 25 Dec 2024 18:42:49 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 ...