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‘Persona non grata:’ Canada expelling Chinese diplomat after threats to Tory MP

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:30 GMT

OTTAWA — The Liberal government is expelling Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei, whom Canada’s spy agency alleged was involved in a plot to intimidate Conservative MP Michael Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong.Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says in a statement that Canada has declared the Toronto-based diplomat as persona non grata, over what she calls “foreign interference in our internal affairs.”Joly, who warned last week that Beijing would retaliate if Ottawa did expel diplomats, says the decision followed “careful consideration of all factors at play.”She says that “defending our democracy is of the utmost importance,” after saying China could threaten the safety of Canadians and the prosperity of the country.The federal government has confirmed a report in the Globe and Mail that CSIS had information in 2021 that the Chinese government was looking at ways to intimidate Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong over his criticism of Beijing&...

Teachers earn $67K on average. Is push for raises too late?

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:30 GMT

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — As schools across the country struggle to find teachers to hire, more governors are pushing for pay increases, bonuses and other perks for the beleaguered profession — with some vowing to beat out other states competing for educators.Already in 2023, governors in Georgia and Arkansas have pushed through teacher pay increases. Ahead of Monday’s start of national Teacher Appreciation Week, others — both Republican and Democratic — have proposed doing the same to attract and retain educators.More than half of the states’ governors over the past year — 26 so far — have proposed boosting teacher compensation, according to groups that track it. The nonprofit Teacher Salary Project said it is the most it has seen in nearly two decades of tracking.“Today we have governors left and right from every political party and then some who are addressing this issue because they have to,” said founder and CEO Ninivé Caligari. “We’ve never seen what we are seeing right now. Neve...

Veteran ‘enamored’ with Hitler gets 4 years for Capitol riot

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:30 GMT

A military veteran who told an undercover FBI agent about his admiration for Adolf Hitler and discussed a plan to “wipe out” the nation’s Jewish population was sentenced on Monday to four years in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol.U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ordered Virginia resident Hatchet Speed to serve the four-year sentence after he completes a separate three-year prison term for a conviction on firearms offenses, court records show.The FBI recorded Speed’s conversations with the undercover agent more than a year after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. The agent posed as “a like-minded individual” while meeting with Speed at least three times in 2022. Speed, 41, was “deeply worried” about Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency and believed false claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump, the Republican incumbent, prosecutors wrote in a court filing. He told the undercover agent that he believes Jewish people control ...

TB screening planned for Nunavut hamlet battling outbreak since 2021

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:30 GMT

PANGNIRTUNG, Nunavut — The Nunavut government and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, a group representing Inuit in the territory, are holding a community-wide screening clinic for tuberculosis in Pangnirtung later this year. The screening is to begin in September and continue through November. A tuberculosis outbreak was declared in the hamlet in November 2021.As of late February, 39 people in the community had been diagnosed with active TB and 167 with latent TB.The last community-wide screening in the territory took place in Whale Cove in 2018.The federal government and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, a national advocacy group, have pledged to reduce active tuberculosis across Inuit communities by half by 2025 and eliminate it entirely by 2030. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2023. The Canadian Press

Maybe investors shouldn’t worry about Buffett’s successor

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:30 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Many investors worry about the future of Berkshire Hathaway after its legendary CEO Warren Buffett is gone, but most of the conglomerate’s companies have already made the transition to reporting to the man who will eventually replace the 92-year-old.Buffett himself and executives at Berkshire Hathaway companies like See’s Candy and Dairy Queen say they don’t have any qualms about Vice Chairman Greg Abel’s ability to lead the conglomerate. Abel already oversees all of Berkshire’s noninsurance businesses. So the main parts of the CEO job he’s not already doing are overseeing the insurance side of the company and deciding how to invest Berkshire’s nearly $131 billion in cash.Buffett reassured investors at Saturday’s annual meeting that he believes Abel is the right man for the job and that he does know how to allocate capital following the same model Buffett uses even if he’s not making those spending decisions no...

Texas lawmaker resigns ahead of misconduct expulsion vote

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:30 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Republican Texas state lawmaker resigned Monday ahead of an expected vote to expel him after an investigation found he had inappropriate sexual conduct with a 19-year-old intern. Rep. Bryan Slaton, 45, had faced mounting calls from the state Republican party and conservative groups to resign after the House investigation determined last week that he gave the intern and another young staffer alcohol at his home, had sex with the intern after she was intoxicated, and later showed her a threatening email but said everything would be fine if the incident was kept quiet. Slaton also asked a fellow lawmaker to keep his behavior secret, the House General Investigating Committee report noted. The chairman of the investigating panel, Rep. Andrew Murr, said he still plans to call for a vote to expel Slaton because he remains an officer of the state until a successor is elected and sworn in.Slaton’s resignation letter did not address the allegations, which his atto...

Barbara Kingsolver, Hernan Diaz share fiction Pulitzer Prize

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:30 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The Pulitzer Prize for fiction was awarded Monday to two class-conscious novels: “Demon Copperhead,” Barbara Kingsolver’s modern recasting of the Dickens classic “David Copperfield,” and Hernan Diaz’s “Trust,” an innovative narrative of wealth and deceit set in 1920s New York. Beverly Gage’s “G-Man,” her widely acclaimed book on longtime FBI leader J. Edgar Hoover, was given the Pulitzer for biography. “ His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, won for general nonfiction. Sanaz Toossi’s play “English” won for drama and Jefferson Cowie’s “Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power” was honored for history. The Pulitzer board hailed “English” as “a quietly powerful play about four Iranian adults preparing for an English language exam in a storefront school near Tehran, where family separations and travel restrictions drive them to learn a ne...

AP and Alabama’s AL.com win 2 Pulitzer Prizes each

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:30 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press won two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism Monday, in public service and breaking news photography, for coverage of the Ukraine War that included startling images of Russia’s siege of Mariupol.The New York Times was also honored with an international reporting award for its coverage of Russian killings in the Ukranian town of Bucha. Additional Pulitzers were given for work surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion standard, the government’s policy of child separation at the border, and welfare spending in Mississippi.AL.com, of Birmingham, Alabama, won two Pulitzers, in local reporting and commentary. The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and the Washington Post also won two awards each.For its public service award, the Pulitzers cited the work of AP’s videojournalist Mstyslav Chernov, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka, video producer Vasilisa Stepanenko and reporter Lori Hinnant. For nearly three weeks, AP h...

In West Virginia, police exhume body of suspect in 1975 murder of Montreal teenager

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:30 GMT

MONTREAL — Police in a Montreal suburb confirmed Monday they have identified a suspect in a murder that has gone unsolved since a 16-year-old girl disappeared after setting out one evening to meet friends nearly 50 years ago.DNA evidence that surfaced in June led cold-case investigators to suspect Franklin Maywood Romine in the 1975 rape and killing of Sharron Prior. The body of Romine, who died in 1982, was exhumed from a West Virginia cemetery last week and is undergoing DNA testing.Sgt. Francis Charette of the Longueuil, Que., police force said investigators have found other clues linking Romine to the crime. “Mr. Romine was present in Canada, more specifically, in Montreal, in 1975 at the time of the events,” Charette said in an interview Monday. “Mr. Romine also lived near the scene of the abduction and had knowledge of the place where the body of Ms. Prior was discovered following the murder.”Romine, who died in Montreal but was buried in his home state...

Lori Lightfoot bids farewell as Chicago Mayoral tenure comes to a close

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:58:30 GMT

CHICAGO — Mayor Lori Lightfoot is expected to give a farewell speech to the city Monday as Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson prepares to officially take office on May 15.Lightfoot is set to deliver her remarks at 3 p.m. from the Broader Urban Involvement & Leadership Development, or BUILD, headquarters in Chicago's Austin neighborhood. The organization is a "nationally respected gang intervention, violence prevention, and youth development organization," according to their website.This will be one of the final public events of her time as mayor, which began in 2019 when she became the first openly gay, Black female mayor of the City of Chicago. Though Lightfoot ran for reelection, she lost her bid for a second term when she failed to get enough votes to make it into the city's April 2023 run-off election. Denied reelection, what’s ousted Lightfoot’s legacy? Johnson's inauguration will take place next Monday at Credit Union 1 Arena, making him Chicago's 57th mayor.WGN plans to livest...