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Maine looks to pay funeral costs for families of mass shooting victims

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:37 GMT

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s government is going to cover the cost of funerals for families who lost loved ones in the deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history, the office of Gov. Janet Mills said Wednesday.An Army reservist opened fire inside a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, the second largest city in the state, on Oct. 25. The shootings killed 18 people, wounded 13 and sent the city into a lockdown until the man’s body was discovered two days later. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot.Funerals for victims of the shootings began late last week. The administration “is working to ensure that the families of victims do not have to bear any financial costs for the funerals of their loved ones,” said Ben Goodman, a spokesperson for the Democratic governor.The state is getting the money from a victim’s compensation program run through the attorney general’s office, and supplementing it with money from the governor’s contingent account, Go...

Quebec mayor, 23, resigns mid-mandate because of burnout from managing forest fires

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:37 GMT

CHAPAIS, Que. — One of Quebec’s youngest mayors says she is stepping down because she is suffering burnout from last summer’s historic wildfire season.Isabelle Lessard was acclaimed in 2021 as mayor of Chapais, Que., a town of just over 1,500 people, located 400 kilometres northwest of Quebec City.Lessard says her resignation is effective Nov. 17, about halfway through her mandate.The 23-year-old had been off the job since mid-September, after shepherding Chapais through one of the worst forest fire seasons on record.In an interview with The Canadian Press, Lessard says she feels unable to complete her term and is at risk of developing post-traumatic stress syndrome.Lessard says that before going on leave, she was sleeping poorly and felt constantly stressed.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2023.The Canadian Press

Democrats see abortion wins as a springboard for 2024 as GOP struggles to find a winning message

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:37 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters threw their support behind abortion rights in Ohio, Virginia and elsewhere as Democrats look to springboard off those wins by using the issue to drive turnout and shape next year’s races for the White House, Congress and other elections.Ohio offered the clearest snapshot on Tuesday of the issue’s salience more than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ended the nationwide right to abortion. Voters in the increasingly Republican-leaning state resoundingly approved an amendment to the state constitution to protect access to abortion services.Democrats also harnessed the issue in Virginia, riding it to retake control of the Legislature, and in Kentucky, giving Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear a second term after he made abortion rights central to his campaign in the deeply Republican state.Election night was an energizing moment for Democrats hoping abortion rights will pull voters to the polls in the 2024 presidential election. The campaigning and results for the a...

Caravan of 3,000 migrants blocks highway in southern Mexico

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:37 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — About 3,000 migrants from Central America, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti on Wednesday blocked traffic on one of Mexico’s main southern highways to demand transit or exit visas to reach the U.S. border.The caravan of migrants set out on foot from the city of Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border, on Oct. 30, walking north toward the U.S.The contingent, including many women and children, later stopped walking at Huixtla, another town in the southern state of Chiapas, where they tried to get temporary travel documents to cross Mexico.On Wednesday, the migrants blocked highway inspection booths just outside Huixtla.Activist Irineo Mújica, one of the organizers of the march, said the blockade would continue, because migrants are afraid of criminals, smugglers and extortionists who could prey on them if they continue walking. Many migrants would also prefer to take buses, but are often prevented from doing so if they don’t have papers.“We know we are causing dis...

AI transformative for finance but not ready for prime time: RBC’s McKay

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:37 GMT

RBC chief executive Dave McKay says artificial intelligence is already showing its potential in transforming the financial sector even if it’s not quite “ready for prime time.”Speaking at a University of Waterloo tech conference in Toronto, McKay says AI still has too many errors and “hallucinations” or nonsense answers, to rely on it in banking services.The bank however does seen huge potential in everything from writing code to helping sales staff navigate complex financial products.He says banks will have to train algorithms in-house to control the data and to make sure the systems are trustworthy and accurate.McKay says AI is already proving its potential with systems such as Aiden, the bank’s AI-powered trading platform, that has outperformed human traders by 30 per cent.He said that like climate change, AI is creating fear and anxiety as it begins to transform society and people don’t feel in control, but that it’s a matter of en...

Judging from the level of complaints, air travel is getting worse

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:37 GMT

Air travel is getting worse, judging from the number of consumer complaints.Consumer complaints about airlines nearly doubled in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year and kept soaring in April and May, the U.S. Transportation Department said Wednesday.Those are the latest figures from the government. The Transportation Department said information about complaints has been delayed because there are so many of them to process.The department said it received 24,965 complaints about airline service in the first three months of the year, up 88% from the first quarter of 2022. Consumers filed another 6,712 complaints in April, up 32% from a year earlier, and 6,465 in May, an increase of 49%.The Transportation Department said that disability-related complaints, such as delaying or damaging wheelchairs, are also up from last year. There were 636 such complaints in the first quarter, nearly double the 380 filed during the same period of 2022. The agency ...

BoC on standby to raise rates further, summary reveals hawkish tone to deliberations

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:37 GMT

OTTAWA — Further interest rate hikes from the Bank of Canada are very much still on the table as its governing council remains split on whether rates may need to rise further. The central bank today released its summary of deliberations detailing the discussions governing council members had in the lead-up to its Oct. 25 rate decision.The summary says some members believed it’s more likely than not that interest rates will need to go higher to get inflation back to target levels. But other members thought its key rate is now high enough to bring inflation down, so long as the central bank maintains it at that level for long enough. While the Bank of Canada ultimately decided to exert patience by holding its key rate steady at five per cent, members of the governing council agreed to revisit whether rates need to rise further. The central bank remains concerned that inflation is not falling fast enough, despite the economy responding to higher interest rates.This report by The ...

Book Review: Alice McDermott’s ‘Absolution’ captures America with Vietnam War in the background

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:37 GMT

Living in Western diplomatic privilege with cooks and maids and drivers, the women in the new novel “Absolution” spend their days attending luncheons, lectures and cocktail parties as the Vietnam War rumbles in the background. It’s 1963 Saigon, but the wives of ambitious American attorneys and engineers are focused on writing clever letters with French phrases to be slipped into light blue airmail envelopes and the daily dressing rituals that include girdles, stockings and white dress shields fastened with tiny gold safety pins. Alice McDermott’s ninth novel perfectly captures the manner and mood of that era and the constricted lives that women led as “helpmeets” for their husbands. McDermott won the National Book Award for her novel “Charming Billy.”In “Absolution,” Irish American newlywed Tricia is just 23, proud of her handsome engineer husband who is on loan to the Navy and hoping they can quickly start a family during their time in southeast Asia. Tricia soon meets ...

Think scam calls are bad now? Experts warn growing use of AI will make problem worse

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:37 GMT

TORONTO — A company that specializes in detecting spam phone calls says it expects generative artificial intelligence to drastically change the way call recipients are targeted, including the potential for scammers to tailor their attacks to specific people.Jonathan Nelson, director of product management for Seattle-based Hiya, says Canadian telecommunications companies and their customers should be wary of a likely influx in calls that use AI to fool the caller within the coming years.This could include speech augmentation to remove a scammer’s accent, automation to replace the role of a human scammer with that of a robot and technology that can frequently alter spam call scripts, making them less recognizable to the recipient.He also warns of voice cloning technology being paired with automation to mimic a human, making them sound identical to a specific person that the call recipient knows.Nelson spoke to Canadian telecommunications industry stakeholders Wednesday on the fi...

Swifties to find out if they’ve won Vancouver’s ticket lottery

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:37 GMT

Taylor Swift fans are about to find out if their wildest dreams are going to come true, as the results of Ticketmaster’s Vancouver lottery are released Wednesday.Demand for Swift’s ‘The Era’s’ tour is so big that a lottery system has been used for most of her shows. Hopeful attendees have to register for a code, which is required to purchase tickets.Swift has three concerts scheduled for Vancouver — all in December 2024. The dates come on the heels of previously announced five shows in Toronto.Ticketmaster says it uses the code system to “ensure more tickets get into the hands of concertgoers.”“Verified Fan requires registration to help filter out buyers looking to resell tickets, and instead get them to fans who want to attend the show,” the ticket service said.But Ticketmaster might end up the anti-hero, as it explains that not everyone who registered may be able to buy tickets.“Tickets will be sold on a first-come,...