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Olivia Chow vows to bring change to Toronto as she takes office

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:44 GMT

Olivia Chow encouraged residents to envision a more compassionate and affordable Toronto on Wednesday as she officially took office as mayor in a city facing major housing and financial challenges.The 66-year-old former NDP MP and past councillor – the first person of colour to lead Canada’s most populous city – drew on themes familiar to her election campaign as she made her first speech as mayor, casting Toronto as a resilient city primed for change.“Let’s build a Toronto that is more affordable, safe and caring, where everyone belongs,” Chow said to cheers and applause in a packed council chamber.“Together we can and today, we start.”Her remarks made overtures to the shortage of affordable housing and a transit system burdened by service cuts, while taking a jab at what she called the city’s “reluctant partners” in the provincial and federal governments for withholding a bailout of Toronto’s pandemic-ravaged finances.This year’...

Italy rail strike strands commuters and tourists in sweltering weather at height of tourism season

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:44 GMT

ROME (AP) — Commuters and tourists alike were stranded by a major train strike across Italy on a sweltering Thursday, with cancellations affecting even high-speed lines that are usually guaranteed during Italy’s frequent work stoppages.Transport Minister Matteo Salvini signed a decree ordering the two-day strike be cut in half, but even that truncated stoppage forced the cancellation of service up and down the peninsula on a weekday, at the height of Italy’s booming high tourist season. At Milan’s main rail station, for example, eight of 20 scheduled Trenitalia trains scheduled between 10:30-11:30 a.m. were canceled.State-run Trenitalia warned of the likelihood of a “significant impact” on service that would involve the partial or total cancellation of service on the high-speed Frecce lines, Intercity and regional trains, and cause delays after the official end of the strike. Private Italo listed the trains that it guaranteed would be operational on its website.Roberta R...

Google rolls out AI chatbot Bard to Europe and Brazil and adds more features

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:44 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Google said Thursday that it’s rolling out its AI-powered chatbot Bard across Europe and in Brazil, expanding its availability to hundreds of millions more users. The company also said it’s adding more features to Bard as it scrambles to keep up with rival Microsoft — which uses OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT service in its Bing search engine — in the race to capitalize on generative artificial intelligence technology that has captured worldwide attention. Google launched Bard in February, but its planned rollout last month in the European Union was delayed as regulators checked whether the service complied with the 27-nation bloc’s strict privacy rules. The company said it has “proactively engaged with experts, policymakers and privacy regulators.” The Irish Data Protection Commission, Google’s main EU privacy watchdog, said it sent the internet search giant a detailed list of questions seeking more information. As a result, Google hit pa...

Brawl erupts in Kosovo parliament during prime minister’s speech on defusing tensions with Serbs

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:44 GMT

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — A brawl erupted in the Kosovo parliament on Thursday after an opposition lawmaker threw water on Prime Minister Albin Kurti while he was speaking about government measures to defuse tensions with ethnic Serbs in the country’s north.Kosovo opposition parties have criticized Kurti’s policies in the north that have strained relations with key Western allies.The U.S. and European Union have pressured Kurti to help calm the situation after violence broke out in May after police-backed ethnic Albanian mayors took office following an election that the ethnic Serb majority in the area had widely boycotted.Dozens of people were injured in clashes between local Serbs and Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers, fueling fears of a conflict similar to the one in 1998-99 that killed more than 10,000 people.On Wednesday, Kurti announced he would reduce the number of special police officers stationed outside four municipal buildings in ethnic Serb-majority areas...

Amsterdam court says it needs more detail from Canada before sentencing man in cyberbullying case

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:44 GMT

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Judges in Amsterdam said Thursday they need more information from Canadian authorities as they consider the sentence of a Dutch man convicted in Canada last year of crimes, including extortion and harassment of Canadian teenager Amanda Todd.The ruling delayed legal moves to convert Aydin Coban’s 13-year Canadian sentence into a Dutch prison term in the notorious case of online extortion.Coban blackmailed the 15-year-old to expose herself in front of a webcam. She took her own life in 2012 after recounting her ordeal in a YouTube video watched by millions around the world.In a brief court hearing Thursday at which a new sentence was expected to be announced, a judge instead said that the panel at Amsterdam District Court needs clarification from Canada about the most likely date Coban would be released if he were to serve his sentence in a Canadian prison.“We have to take into account when he actually would have been released and Canadian authorities have given...

Barrick sold one million ounces of gold and 101 million pounds of copper in Q2

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:44 GMT

TORONTO — Barrick Gold Corp. says it is on track to achieve its full-year copper and gold guidance after it sold one million ounces of gold and 101 million pounds of copper in the second quarter, based on its preliminary results.The sales came as preliminary second-quarter production figures totalled 1.01 million ounces of gold and 107 million pounds of copper. The mining giant says gold and copper production in 2023 is expected to increase, with the second half being higher than the first six months of the year.Barrick says the average market price for gold in the second quarter was US$1,976 per ounce while the average market price for copper was US$3.84 per pound. It says the company’s realized copper price is expected to be three to five per cent below the average market price for the quarter, primarily as a result of provisional pricing adjustments.Barrick is scheduled to report its full second-quarter results on Aug. 8.This report by The Canadian Press was first published July ...

Powerball jackpot climbs to $875 million for Saturday after no winner in latest drawing

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:44 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Powerball jackpot soared to an estimated $875 million after no winning ticket was sold for the latest drawing.No ticket for Wednesday’s $750 million jackpot matched the white balls 23, 35, 45, 66, 67 and red Powerball 20.The new jackpot for Saturday’s drawing is the third highest in the history of the game. Ticket buyers have a chance at either $875 million paid out in yearly increments or a $441.9 million one-time lump sum before taxes.The game’s abysmal odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to build big prizes that draw more players. The largest Powerball jackpot was $2.04 billion Powerball last November.The last time someone won the Powerball jackpot was April 19 for a top prize of nearly $253 million. Since then, no one has won the grand prize in the past 36 consecutive drawings.Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.The Associated Press

European court says suspension of Polish judge criticizing government was against EU law

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:44 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Europe’s top court ruled on Thursday that suspension in Poland of a judge who had criticized the government is against the EU’s law and he should be returned to the bench with full pay. The decision was the latest in a string of European Union decisions ordering Poland’s right-wing government to roll back changes to the judiciary that the EU says are in violation of the rule of law.Judge Igor Tuleya was suspended in 2020 and had his pay reduced by a judicial disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court, a body created and controlled by the government. The body had been also used against other judges who had defended judicial independence under the Law and Justice party government that has been in power since 2015. Tuleya had criticised the government’s actions and had turned to European courts for opinions on the disciplinary actions against him. The Polish disciplinary chamber has since been discontinued because the EU said it violated democrati...

EU rejects Myanmar’s diplomatic role and says it still doesn’t recognize generals

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:44 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The European Union’s top diplomat on Thursday expressed opposition to Myanmar’s upcoming role as the overseer of relations between the 27-nation bloc and Southeast Asian nations and reasserted its non-recognition of the strife-torn country’s military government.The comments marked the latest diplomatic fallout from the Myanmar army’s forcible seizure of power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government on Feb. 1, 2021 that plunged the country into deadly chaos.Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, raised the concern in a meeting with foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. The 10-nation ASEAN includes Myanmar and Indonesia, which leads the regional group this year.“We face a challenge related to the potential of Myanmar assuming the role of ASEAN coordinator for relations with the European Union,” Borrell told his ASEAN counterparts at the start of their meeting. ”We...

Thursday Forecast: Temps in upper 70s with slight rain, storm chance

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:44 GMT

CHICAGO — Thursday will be fairly quiet with some patchy fog to start the day and a mix of sun and clouds throughout the day. Highs will reach the mid to upper 70s this afternoon with light northwesterly winds. Interactive Radar: Track showers and storm here Our next chance of showers and storms moves in overnight will just a small chance of non-severe storms likely after midnight. Friday Forecast: Potential of showers and thunderstorms as well with highs into the mid 80s.Full forecast details and more at the WGN Weather Center blog