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Medway family trapped in Gaza manages to escape through border crossing with Egypt

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:00 GMT

A Medway family trapped in Gaza for about a month managed to depart the war zone this morning through a border crossing with Egypt, a family attorney said, ending what they have described as a harrowing experience.Attorney Sammy Nabulsi said Abood Okal, Wafaa Abuzayda, and their one-year-old son Yousef Okal, departed Gaza through the Rafah Crossing shortly after 5:30 a.m. local time and are in the process of being transported to Cairo by United States Consular Affairs.“The Okal family is overwhelmed with the love and support they have received from home and abroad, but they are also exhausted, physically and emotionally drained, and have a long journey ahead of them back to the United States,” Nabulsi said in a statement.The family was in Gaza for a two-week trip to visit Abuzayda’s parents when Hamas stormed into Israel and killed civilians in a terrorist attack that has since triggered an overwhelming military response from Israel, including relentless airstrikes and a ground inva...

Trudeau headed to D.C. for Western Hemisphere trade summit Friday at White House

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:00 GMT

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is headed to the U.S. capital for a summit meeting to talk about growing trade connections across the Western Hemisphere. Friday’s White House summit, hosted by President Joe Biden, will bring together the leaders of countries taking part in the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity. That’s what the Biden administration is calling its hemispheric trade framework, an effort to head off migratory challenges by fostering economic growth and trade in the Americas. The Prime Minister’s Office says leaders will also discuss attracting what it calls “responsible and sustainable investments” to strengthen supply chains. The partnership, known as APEP, comprises 12 countries, including Mexico, Chile, Barbados, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic. It’s not clear whether Biden and Trudeau will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one on the margins of the half-day su...

Lightspeed makes relocation easier as LGBTQ+ workers seek safety

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:00 GMT

When a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ laws swept across the U.S. over the summer, Lightspeed Commerce Inc. employees wasted no time asking the company’s executive ranks to help protect staff.President JD Saint-Martin recalls a June meeting held by the Montreal-based company’s pride group that inspired Lightspeed to consider whether its relocation policy should be amended. By then, 18 U.S. states had passed laws that limit or ban gender-affirming medical care for minors and sexual orientation education in schools. Canada has seen rallies and counter-protests this fall over policy changes about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools as provincial politicians zeroed in on pronoun changes for students under 16. “We’ve always had a relocation policy at Lightspeed, but our relocation policy was driven mostly for business reasons,” Saint-Martin said.“In the context of what’s happening in the trans community and beyond really, we started to think, w...

Rights groups report widespread war crimes across Africa’s Sahel region with communities under siege

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:00 GMT

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Security forces and armed groups are committing war crimes against civilians in Africa’s Sahel region, where extremists and rebels are increasingly fighting to exert dominance and control resources in communities, according to new reports from two rights groups.Civilians are increasingly being killed, abducted or abused, including in Burkina Faso, where jihadi groups have fought for many years, and Mali, where militants and ethnic rebels are expanding their reach, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said.The Amnesty report was released on Thursday, while the HRW one came out on Tuesday.Spread across the vast arid expanse south of the Sahara Desert, the Sahel region has been a hot spot for violent extremism, with armed groups often taking advantage of little or no government and security presence to target helpless communities.But the conflict has worsened in recent months and analysts blame the trend on the absence of institutional reforms, faile...

Defunding CBC would be ‘devastating’ to news in rural Canada: Catherine Tait

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:00 GMT

OTTAWA — The president of CBC and Radio-Canada defended the public broadcaster and its independence at a House of Commons committee this morning.Catherine Tait was called to testify at the heritage committee, where she faced questions from Conservative MPs about CBC’s reporting on the Israel-Hamas conflict.Tait told MPs in her opening remarks that the CBC is accountable to all Canadians and not to politicians, and that its journalists work independently of corporate management. Liberal MPs asked what would happen if the public broadcaster’s $1.4-billion budget was reduced, with Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre promising to pare down the budget for CBC’s English services while retaining coverage for linguistic minorities. Tait says that defunding the CBC would be devastating to its ability to fulfil its mandate to serve rural Canadians in particular.She also says losing the public broadcaster would be bad for Canadian democracy.This report by The Canadian Press was firs...

Cenovus Energy reports Q3 profit up from year ago

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:00 GMT

CALGARY — Cenovus Energy Inc. reported a third-quarter profit of $1.86 billion, up from $1.61 billion in the same quarter last year.The company says the profit amounted to 97 cents per diluted share, up from 81 cents per diluted share a year earlier.Revenue totalled $14.58 billion, down from $17.47 billion in the same quarter last year.Total upstream production for the quarter amounted to 797,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up from 777,900 a year earlier.Total downstream throughput totalled 664,300 barrels per day compared with 533,500 a year ago.Cenovus also announced the appointment of former Shell Canada president and country chair Michael Crothers and former Husky Energy executive James Girgulis to the company’s board of directors, effective immediately.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 2, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:CVE)The Canadian Press

Cover crops help the climate and environment but most farmers say no. Many fear losing money

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:00 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Called cover crops, they top the list of tasks U.S. farmers are told will build healthy soil, help the environment and fight climate change.Yet after years of incentives and encouragement, Midwest farmers planted cover crops on only about 7% of their land in 2021. That percentage has increased over the years but remains small in part because even as farmers receive extra payments and can see numerous benefits from cover crops, they remain wary. Many worry the practice will hurt their bottom line — and a study last year indicates they could be right.Researchers who used satellite data to examine over 90,000 fields in six Corn Belt states found cover crops can reduce yields of cash crops — the bushels per acre. The smaller the yield, the less money farmers make.“I don’t want to abandon it, but as far as just going whole-hog with planting cover crops, that’s a tough thing for me to do,” said Illinois farmer Doug Downs, who plants cover crops only on a sliver of ...

Cutting back on spending and waste, one stitch at a time

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:00 GMT

TORONTO — Mending clothes was a regular part of growing up for Anna-Marie Janzen, who started to learn the craft at age three from her grandmother.“That was just kind of like, of course, that’s what you do, put it in the mending pile,” she said. “It’s just another part of taking care of your clothes.”  The rise of cheap clothing has made the practice far less common, but people like Janzen are working to revive interest to reduce waste, and potentially save money as well.She launched her Winnipeg-based repair business Reclaim Mending about seven years ago, retreating from the sometimes-nebulous world of office work to the tangible satisfaction of a repair well done.“You spent some time on something and now it’s fixed … that is immensely satisfying for me.”Her many years of practice have made her deft with repairs that are hard to see. She’s helped save everything from T-shirts to winter coats that people don’t want to say goodbye to, whether it’s for sentimental, e...

Parkland Corp. delivers strong quarter in wake of activist investor push

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:00 GMT

CALGARY — Less than 12 months after an activist investor critiqued its performance, fuel retailer Parkland Corp. has doubled its third quarter profit and announced it will exceed its previously announced earnings guidance for 2023.On a conference call with analysts Thursday, CEO Bob Espey hailed the Calgary-based company’s third-quarter financial results, which saw Parkland report net earnings of $230 million, up from $105 million in the same period of 2022.On an adjusted basis, Parkland earned $231 million, nearly five times its third-quarter 2022 adjusted earnings.Espey attributed the results to favourable market conditions and the company’s ongoing efforts to optimize its assets and operations. “Collectively (these results) demonstrate the quality of the business we created,” he said.“We’re doing exactly what we said we would do.”Parkland has made a number of changes to its business since last March, when U.S.-based activist investor Engi...

Foreign interference inquiry work underway, commissioner says

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:00 GMT

Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, the commissioner of the public inquiry into foreign interference, says her work is underway and will share more information about its process on Nov. 10.More to come