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Macron calls crisis talks after another night of violence across France, with more than 800 arrested

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:13:59 GMT

PARIS — The French government is scrambling to find a way to curb the violence that has taken place across the country for three nights in a row following the death of a teenager who was shot dead by police.President Emmanuel Macron is chairing a government crisis meeting Friday, the second one this week. He was in Brussels Thursday and Friday morning for a European Council summit but left to attend the ministerial meeting at 1 p.m.The president was “kept fully informed of events” while in Brussels, one of his advisers told Playbook Paris. There has been unrest across France after a 17-year-old was killed by police in a Paris suburb, with protesters targeting public buildings, transport systems, and shops with projectiles and Molotov cocktails. Riots have erupted in large cities such as Paris, Lyon, Lille, Marseille and Bordeaux, as well as smaller towns such as Roubaix. For local authorities, law enforcement, and young people in the impoverished banlieues, the shadow of the 20...

Boris Johnson ally quits ‘apathetic’ UK government, sparks row with Sunak

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:13:59 GMT

LONDON — Minister Zac Goldsmith quit the British government Friday with a stinging attack on Rishi Sunak’s environmental record.But his exit comes a day after MPs took him to task for sticking up for Boris Johnson — and it’s already kicked off a bitter row with No.10 Downing Street.In a highly-critical letter to the U.K. leader, the environment minister — who once ran for London mayor and was placed in the House of Lords by Johnson — said “this government’s apathy in the face of the greatest challenge we have faced makes continuing in my current role untenable.”The dramatic exit comes after Goldsmith, a longstanding environmentalist, was criticized by a cross-party committee for his recent role in backing Johnson.The privileges committee argued Thursday that allies of the former prime minister, including Goldsmith, had been part of a “coordinated campaign to interfere with” its work investigating Johnson’s conduct.Goldsmith was critici...

Prosecutor says Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey is ‘a sexual bully’ who preys on men

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:13:59 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey gets a thrill by preying on other men, a prosecutor told jurors during his sexual assault trial Friday in a London courtroom.Spacey is “a man who does not respect personal boundaries or space, a man who it would seem delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable — a sexual bully,” Prosecutor Christine Agnew said in her opening statement. “His preferred method of assault is, it appears, to grab aggressively other men in the crotch.”The four men who have accused Spacey of sexual assault did not know each other, but all “had the misfortune to attract” his attention, she said.Spacey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges including sexual assault, indecent assault and causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.Defense lawyer Patrick Gibbs said Spacey denied all allegations of nonconsensual activity and told jurors to ask themselves as they listened to the evidence what — if ...

Jury deliberations set to continue in trial of man accused of killing Weymouth police officer, bystander

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:13:59 GMT

Jury deliberations are set to continue Friday in the trial of a man accused of killing a Weymouth police officer and an innocent bystander in 2018.During final arguments Wednesday, prosecutors, gripping the gun they say accused killer Emanuel Lopes used to murder Weymouth police Sgt. Michael Chesna and Vera Adams, describe how Lopes first struck Chesna in the head.“He takes this rock and he throws it, and where does it land? It lands on Sgt. Chesna’s head,” prosecutor Greg Connor told the jury in closing arguments. With Chesna’s heartbroken family listening to the impassioned closing arguments, prosecutors told jurors how Lopes grabbed the officer’s gun and opened fire. “He stood over Sgt. Chesna in a defensive posture and with two hands … he shot Sgt. Chesna eight times,” Connor said.Lopes’s attorney painted a very different story of a man wrestling with mental illness for years.“This case is not about sympathy for Mr. Lopes, it’s just about understanding what happened th...

Could DeMar DeRozan or Zach LaVine be traded? 4 questions for the Chicago Bulls before NBA free agency begins.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:13:59 GMT

The Chicago Bulls enter the most crucial step of their offseason Friday as free agency opens across the NBA, placing the front office in a position to finally address issues plaguing the last two seasons.This should be a clear-cut offseason for the Bulls. This team’s needs are obvious: a point guard and a bolstered 3-point offense. But the same was true last summer, when the Bulls attempted to address identical problems by signing Andre Drummond and Goran Dragic, moving zero players in the process.Executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas echoed the same promises from last summer after the team traded in to make a second-round pick in the NBA draft.“We’re going to address the shooting, address the lead position,” Karnišovas said last week. “We’re gonna address it. Once free agency starts, I’m sure (more) information will come out and we’ll see what we have but there’s a lot of work to do....

This year’s Hajj was held in sweltering heat, and for those serving pilgrims there was little relief

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:13:59 GMT

MINA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — As hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims walked in the footsteps of the prophets beneath a sweltering sun, contracted cleaners in lime-green jumpsuits held out matching plastic bags to collect their empty water bottles.It takes tens of thousands of cleaners, security personnel, medics and others to make the annual Hajj pilgrimage possible for 1.8 million faithful from around the world. As the Hajj concludes on Friday, the workers will begin a massive, weeklong cleanup effort.For the cleaners, who are migrant workers, it’s a much-needed source of income. But this year it was particularly trying, as temperatures regularly hovered around 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Farhrenheit) during the five-day pilgrimage, most of which is held outdoors with little if any shade.“This job is not easy,” said a 26-year-old trash collector as he took a quick break to splash water on his face before rushing back to his position as another wave of pilgrims approached...

Hydro One reaches tentative agreement with Power Workers’ Union

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:13:59 GMT

TORONTO — Hydro One Inc. says it has reached tentative agreements covering two contracts with the Power Workers’ Union, which represents the company’s front-line workers.Details of the proposed settlements were not immediately available.The power utility says the main agreement covers front-line staff, while the customer service operations collective agreement includes staff in customer facing roles.Union members will vote on the tentative agreements by the end of July. Once ratified, the new contracts will run until Sept. 30, 2025.Hydro One is Ontario’s largest electricity transmission and distribution provider. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June  30, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:H)The Canadian Press

Weekend need to know: Canada Day, last performance of Harry Potter; road closures

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:13:59 GMT

The Canada Day long weekend is here and the city is hosting several events all day on Saturday, alongside annual firework displays. Toronto police have put out a safety plan for this weekend in hopes of avoiding violent behaviour.The city and several groups are also reminding people that July 1 is not a day of celebration for everyone, particularly for some First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples.A holiday long weekend also means certain businesses and services will be closed. Click here for a list of what’s open and closed for the weekend.Luckily, there are no scheduled subway closures this weekend, but there are ongoing road closures. Scroll below for those details.Here’s what to do this weekend:Reflecting on Canada’s historyAlthough the city and many others will be recognizing July 1 as Canada Day, the date is not a day of celebration for everyone.Several groups along with the city of Toronto say they encourage people to reflect on the country’s history when it c...

Boris Johnson ally quits UK government with a blast at Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:13:59 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A British environment minister who is close to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson quit on Friday, accusing the current government of apathy toward climate issues.Zac Goldsmith said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was “simply uninterested” in the environment.“This government’s apathy in the face of the greatest challenge we have faced makes continuing in my current role untenable,” he wrote in a resignation letter released on social media.He said Britain has “visibly stepped off the world stage and withdrawn our leadership on climate and nature.”Goldsmith, Sunak and Johnson are all members of the governing Conservative Party.Goldsmith, 48, is a long-time conservationist who was appointed to Parliament’s unelected House of Lords by Johnson before Johnson resigned almost a year ago amid ethics scandals.Goldsmith’s resignation comes the day after he was among eight allies of the former prime minister criticized by lawmakers for trying to undermine a committee investigating whe...

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen had been a huge Facebook fan. Now he’s threatening to ban it

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:13:59 GMT

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia’s long-serving, tough-talking leader, Hun Sen, on Friday said he is considering banning Facebook in his country, largely because he is fed up with the abuse he receives on it from his political enemies abroad.Pulling the plug on Facebook for millions of Cambodian users would be the last stage in a lightning estrangement this past week between the 70-year-old prime minister and the social media platform. He had been an enthusiastic user, posting family snapshots alongside dire warnings to his foes, and recently livestreaming his many, sometimes hours-long speeches.On Wednesday, he suddenly announced he will no longer upload to Facebook and will instead use Telegram to get his message across. Telegram is a popular messaging app that also has a blogging tool called “channels.”Hun Sen said he was making the switch because Telegram is more effective and makes it easier to communicate when he is traveling to countries that ban Facebook use — such as Ch...