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Toronto named Canada’s ‘rattiest’ city for second year in a row

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:59 GMT

Toronto has been named the ‘rattiest’ city in Canada, again.Orkin, the pest control company, released its annual list of Canadian cities with rodent issues (see rankings below) and Ontario’s capital topped the list for the second consecutive year. The company says the six has a higher population of the pests than any other place in the country.Mississauga and Scarborough were the only other GTA cities that cracked the top 10. The GTHA is well-represented in the top 25 with Brampton, Etobicoke, North York, Hamilton and Oshawa all making the list. Ottawa and Sudbury were the only other Ontario representatives.The company says the rankings are based on the number of commercial and residential rodent calls that Orkin received from the start of August 2022 through to the end of July 2023. It includes calls for both rats and mice.The top 10 rattiest cities in Canada in 2023:TorontoVancouverBurnabyKelownaMississaugaRichmondVictoriaOttawaScarboroughMonctonVancouver dropped to number two in ...

Kids return to school, plan to trick-or-treat as Maine communities start to heal from mass shooting

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:59 GMT

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Children returned to school Tuesday and planned to go trick-or-treating in the evening after spending days locked in their homes following the deadliest mass shooting in Maine’s history.At Lewiston High School, hundreds of students returned to a facility which days earlier was transformed into a law enforcement command post with three helicopters utilizing the athletic fields and 300 vehicles filling the parking lot.Inside, students were petting three therapy dogs, and were signing a large banner that said “Lewiston Strong,” the community’s new motto.Calista Karas, a 16-year-old senior, said students have a lot to process. She said she was frightened sheltering at home and unable to immediately reach her mother, who was at work, when the shootings happened.“You know, I just couldn’t believe something like this would happen here, to us,” Karas said. “And I know that sounds like detached, kind of like, ‘Oh, we wouldn’t be affected.’ But you never think it’...

Former Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner and four others appointed to rep N.B., N.S. in Senate

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:59 GMT

OTTAWA — Former Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner, who was most recently Canada’s consul general in Boston, has been named a senator for Nova Scotia.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office announced that Cuzner and four others have been appointed to represent Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in the Senate.Cuzner was first elected to the House of Commons in 2000 and retired as the member of Parliament for his Cape Breton riding in 2019.The selection process Trudeau brought in early in his tenure sees an independent advisory board provide candidate recommendations to the prime minister before new senators are formally appointed by the Governor General.Three new senators for New Brunswick include Joan Kingston, a nurse and former Liberal member of that province’s legislative assembly; John McNair, a lawyer and public servant; and Krista Ross, a business and non-profit leader.Réjean Aucoin, a lawyer and francophone leader, is joining Cuzner as a new senator for Nova Scotia. This re...

Crown expected to cross-examine Peter Nygard in his sexual assault trial

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:59 GMT

Former fashion mogul Peter Nygard is expected to be cross-examined by the Crown today at his sexual assault trial in Toronto.Nygard, the founder of a now-defunct international women’s clothing company, is accused of using his position in the fashion industry to lure women and girls.The 82-year-old has pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement in alleged incidents ranging from the 1980s to mid-2000s.Multiple complainants in the trial have alleged they were taken to Nygard’s Toronto headquarters under pretences ranging from tours to job interviews, with encounters ending in a top-floor bedroom suite where they allege they were sexually assaulted. Related: Nygard lured victims to bedroom suite at Toronto headquarters, Crown alleges Complainant at Nygard trial says shame, fear for career prevented her coming forward Ex-fashion mogul Peter Nygard testifying at his sexual assault trial ...

Gallaudet has a history of technological innovation with wide applications. The latest is a helmet

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shelby Bean could not help but feel a bit jealous.As a deaf football player for four years at Gallaudet, he called defensive plays with American Sign Language and dealt with other obstacles hearing opponents never need to worry about. Now an assistant coach, he was on the sideline earlier this season for a milestone at a school accustomed to them: The debut of new technolody that allows plays to be displayed visually inside quarterback Brandon Washington’s helmet — a welcomed step that happened to coincide with the team’s first win of the season.“We go through a lot of challenges,” Bean said. “And we try our best to level the playing field in any way possible.”Gallaudet has been trying to level the playing field for the Deaf and hard of hearing community for more than a century. The helmet, developed with AT&T 129 years after quarterback Paul Hubbard invented the football huddle, is just the latest example of how the private school has been an incub...

Tunisia’s Islamist party leader is sentenced to 15 months in prison for supporting terrorism

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:59 GMT

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — The leader of Tunisia’s moderate Islamist party was sentenced to 15 months in prison for supporting terrorism and inciting hatred in the North African country, once seen as a model for democracy in the Arab world but increasingly authoritarian in recent years. The Court of Appeal in the capital, Tunis, pronounced the sentence late Monday against the Ennahdha leader Rached Ghannouchi, a former speaker of parliament and a vocal opponent of President Kais Saied. Saied has cracked down on critics and political rivals while consolidating power and ruling largely by decree in the past two years. Ghannouchi, 82, is the founder and long-time leader of the Islamist party. He served as speaker of the Ennahdha-led parliament until Saied took all powers into his own hands in July 2021, suspending parliament. Ghannouchi, who has maintained that Saied’s actions amounted to a coup, was arrested in April amid growing social tensions and deepening economic troubles in Tunisia. ...

Finland convicts 3 far-right men for plotting racially motivated attacks using 3D printed weapons

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:59 GMT

HELSINKI (AP) — Three Finnish men who embraced neo-Nazi ideology were found guilty Tuesday of committing crimes with terrorist intent including plotting attacks against migrants, critical infrastructure, and their perceived political opponents.The Paijat-Hame District Court sentenced the main suspect, Viljam Lauri Antero Nyman, to three years and four months in prison on charges of aggravated firearms offences committed with terrorist intent as well as training to commit a terrorist act.Nyman, 29, was also convicted of a narcotics charge.His two accomplices received a sentence of one year and nine months in prison and a suspended prison sentence of seven months, respectively. They were charged with terrorism-related crimes of manufacture of firearms and training to use them, among other things.Public broadcaster YLE said the case marked the first terrorism conviction in Finland that is linked to far-right ideology.The crimes took place between 2021 and 2023.Finnish prosecutors told ...

Hong Kong leader John Lee will miss an APEC meeting in San Francisco due to ‘scheduling issues’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:59 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong leader John Lee will not attend an upcoming economic conference in the U.S. due to “scheduling issues” despite an earlier appeal to be invited as per convention, following reports that he would be barred from the gathering due to U.S. sanctions.In a statement Tuesday, the Hong Kong government said that it had received an invitation this month to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Economic Leaders’ Meeting taking place Nov. 15 to 17 in San Francisco, but that Lee would not be able to attend in person due to issues with scheduling.Instead, Hong Kong’s financial minister Paul Chan will attend as a representative of Hong Kong on Lee’s behalf.In July, China demanded that the United States invite Lee to the APEC meeting following a report from The Washington Post that Lee, who was under U.S. sanctions for his role in a political crackdown in Hong Kong, would not be invited. Lee himself had appealed to the U.S. to act in accordance with conventio...

Thousands of Bangladesh’s garment factory workers protest demanding better wages

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:59 GMT

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Thousands of garment factory workers took to the streets of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, and the industrial district of Gazipur on Tuesday to demand better wages. Bangladesh is the second largest garment-producing country in the world after China with its nearly 3,500 factories where some 4 million workers are employed — most are women — according to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, or BGMEA. The workers get 8,300 takas, or $75, as monthly minimum wage and they often need to work overtime to make ends meet, labor unions and workers say. Protests erupted over the weekend after BGMEA offered to increase the monthly minimum wage by 25% to reach $90, instead of the $208 demanded by the workers.While Bangladesh has been maintaining stable annual economic growth for years, rising inflation has become a major challenge. Gazipur district, which houses thousands of factories, saw thousands of protesters on the streets with some throwing...

Remains of a person missing since devastating floods in 2021 have been found in Germany

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:59 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Remains of a person missing since devastating summer floods in western Germany more than two years ago were found near the mouth of the small Ahr river, police said Tuesday.People collecting garbage in an area where the Ahr flows into the Rhine in the town of Sinzig found several bones and bone fragments on Oct 15. Investigators carried out a DNA test that police said determined the remains were those of a person who had been missing since the floods. They didn’t give any details on the person, citing the need to protect their relatives.More than 230 people died in Germany and neighboring Belgium in the floods on July 14, 2021. The hardest-hit area was the Ahr valley, a wine-growing region south of Cologne where more than 130 people died when heavy rain turned the Ahr river and streams into torrents that swept away houses, roads and bridges.The remains found this month belonged to one of two people who were still missing.The Associated Press