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Africa Climate Summit links ‘unfair’ debt burden with calls to make continent’s green assets pay off

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Climate change is “relentlessly eating away” at Africa’s economic progress and it’s time to have a global conversation about a carbon tax on polluters, Kenya’s president declared Tuesday as the first Africa Climate Summit got underway. “Those who produce the garbage refuse to pay their bills,” President William Ruto, a host of the summit, said to an audience that included senior officials from China, the United States and the European Union — some of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases.The rapidly growing African continent of more than 1.3 billion people is losing 5% to 15% of its gross domestic product growth every year to the widespread impacts of climate change, according to Ruto. It’s a source of deep frustration in the resource-rich region that contributes by far the least to global warming.He and other leaders urged reforms to the global financial structures that have left African nations paying about five times more to borrow mon...

Pier collapses on University of Wisconsin campus. One hospitalized, 20 others slightly injured

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Part of a pier where dozens of University of Wisconsin students and others were celebrating Labor Day collapsed into a lake, leaving one person hospitalized and slightly injuring about 20 others, officials said.Video shot from Lake Mendota’s shoreline shows that a part of the metal pier just east of the Union Terrace stage on the Madison campus collapsed Monday afternoon, sending some people falling into the water.The Madison Fire Department said one person was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and five others were treated at the scene for minor injuries. UW-Madison Police Officer Jeff Kirchman told the Wisconsin State Journal that “20 or so” had minor injuries, in addition to the person who was hospitalized.“There were way too many kids on the piers. They were packed. There was no warning. All of a sudden it went down and people were in the water,” said Debra Drewek, a retired nurse who was taking pictures at the terrace when th...

Students head back to school as heat warnings blanket Central Canada

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

TORONTO — While Tuesday marked the first day of school for many students across the country, summer certainly didn’t feel like it was over as heat warnings blanketed much of Central Canada.One school board in Quebec closed all elementary and high schools on Tuesday due to the heat, while other districts in that province and Ontario said they would put measures in place to adapt to the high temperatures. Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville, speaking to reporters at a high school inauguration in Gatineau, said Tuesday that the high temperatures — expected to reach 33 Celsius Tuesday with a humidex of 41 — were exceptional.“I trust that teams in the schools will well manage the (heat) situation, I don’t have any doubt,” he said. The province intends to build 150 new schools in the coming years, but they won’t be air conditioned.“In newly built schools, we will install mechanical ventilation systems, which isn’t air conditio...

From rapper to reporter to politician: A profile of Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

WINNIPEG — Rap artist. Journalist. Economics student.Wab Kinew’s path as a young man, including several brushes with the law and some convictions, did not appear a likely path to politics.But as he entered his 30s, he decided political office might be where he could make a difference. One of the reasons he cites is what happened to the family of his wife, Lisa Monkman, whose mother was on social assistance in the 1980s and was given an opportunity for education and a career. A government program helped the family out of poverty. Monkman would follow up with her own education, go to medical school and become a physician.“The trajectory of their lives was changed for the better — through their own hard work, first and foremost, but they also had a few public policy interventions that were made at that time and helped,” Kinew recalled in an interview.“That’s something that speaks to me — education, economic improvement, people doing it themselves, but mayb...

Book Review: ‘Reading Jane: A Daughter’s Memoir,’ by Susannah Kennedy

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

“Reading Jane: A Daughter’s Memoir,” by Susannah Kennedy (Sibylline Press)When her mother Jane, a healthy 75-year-old, shockingly decides to take her own life, Susannah Kennedy is left reeling with innumerable questions. There are also 45 years worth of diaries that contain some answers and ultimately reveal some surprising secrets. This elegantly written memoir by Kennedy, a former newspaper reporter-turned-anthropologist, opens a window into the complicated relationships that can exist between mothers and daughters, especially when the mother is a narcissistic single parent.Jane is a charismatic woman who had a successful post-divorce career teaching in the inner city. She is widely liked and admired but has a fraught relationship with her daughter, Susannah, especially after the girl reaches puberty and becomes a rival for male attention. One of the constants in the pair’s lives are Jane’s diaries, each one marked by the year it was filled with her remarks...

Getting used to the spotlight: A profile of Manitoba PC Leader Heather Stefanson

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

WINNIPEG — Despite her 23 years as a politician — and almost two as Manitoba’s first female premier — Heather Stefanson says she is still getting used to the public spotlight. She is more accustomed to working in the background.“I’m not someone that seeks attention. I like to get things done,” Stefanson said in an interview.“I’ve always been … a little bit of a behind-the-scenes kind of person. So I think that spotlight is not something I’m used to. It’s not something I seek out. And I think that has been challenging for me because it’s just not something that comes naturally to me.”Stefanson, 53, was seven years old when she got her first taste of politics. Her father ran for a seat in the legislature, finishing second to Liberal Lloyd Axworthy.She studied political science at university and later worked for Mila Mulroney, whose husband, Brian Mulroney, was prime minister at the time.While in Ottawa, she met her futu...

Who will become Manitoba’s next premier? A look at party leaders vying for the job

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

WINNIPEG — Manitoba’s provincial election has been called for Oct. 3. Here’s a look at the leaders of the province’s three parties that have seats in the legislature. Heather Stefanson, Progressive Conservative LeaderAge: 53. Born May 11, 1970. Pre-Politics: Political science degree from the University of Western Ontario. Worked as a special assistant in the Office of the Prime Minister under Brian Mulroney before returning to Manitoba in 1993 as an assistant to then-agriculture minister Charlie Mayer. Also worked as a financial planner at Wellington West Capital. Politics: Won a byelection in 2000 replacing former premier Gary Filmon as the member in Tuxedo. Has won her seat in every election since then. Under her predecessor, Brian Pallister, she held several roles and portfolios including deputy premier, minister of justice and attorney general, minister of families and health minister. Defeated former member of Parliament Shelly Glover in 2021 to become the fir...

Soccer player’s killing draws attention to struggles in one of Panama’s principal ports

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

COLON, Panama (AP) — The killing of a member of Panama’s national soccer team in the rough Caribbean city of Colon has focused a light on the high levels of violence residents suffer here despite having a bustling port and one of the world’s largest free-trade zones.While massive cargo ships enter and exit the Panama Canal here 50 miles north of the capital, Colon has wrestled for years with high levels of unemployment and crime. It has become fertile ground for gangs battling over control of drug trafficking routes.“The gang war is costing innocent lives,” said Rafael Cañas, an evangelical pastor who is also the city of Colon’s director of citizen security. “There are a lot of hitmen too because of the lack of jobs and opportunities.”Defender Gilberto Hernández, 26, was shot Sunday afternoon while hanging out with friends in front of the apartment building where his mother lives beside a Catholic church. Gunmen riding in a taxi opened fire on the group, killing Hernández and woundi...

Israel’s Supreme Court delays pivotal judicial overhaul hearing after attorney general opposes plan

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday delayed the first of three pivotal hearings on the legality of the judicial overhaul, spearheaded by the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu, after the country’s attorney general expressed staunch opposition to the plan.For the eight months since the coalition took power, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, a Netanyahu ally, has refused to convene the committee that selects the nation’s judges, leaving numerous judgeships open across the country. Lawyers for Attorney General Gail Baharav-Miara, will now argue against the justice minister’s counsel in court, a situation which experts said is highly exceptional. Levin, a key architect of the overhaul, seeks to change the makeup of the selection committee to give Netanyahu’s far-right ruling coalition the final say over the appointment of judges, part of a broader judicial overhaul proposed by Netanyahu’s government. Before the Court delayed the hearing f...

Israeli military kills 2 Palestinians in West Bank, a militant in an army raid and an alleged gunman

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant during an army raid in the West Bank on Tuesday, Palestinian health officials said, while elsewhere in the occupied territory a Palestinian gunman opened fire at Israeli soldiers, wounding one before being shot and killed. The events marked the latest violence to roil the territory during one of the most violent stretches of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in nearly two decades. Israel has pressed on with near-nightly raids in the West Bank while Palestinian militants have ramped up shooting attacks against Israelis.The early morning military raid into the Nur Shams refugee camp near the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem on Tuesday prompted a firefight between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants. The army said troops found and demolished an explosives stockpile. Residents shared videos of bulldozers ripping off all the asphalt on the camp’s main road.The army also said that soldiers came under attack from ar...